\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIf the ritualistic scenes during the \u201cBirthday at Friendly\u2019s\u201d sketch on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d looked familiar, your eyes didn\u2019t deceive you.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe big skull, red cloaks, chalice and chanting were inspired by Steven Spielberg\u2019s 1984 film \u201cIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA lot of that was brought in,\u201d says Emmy-nominated production designer Keith Raywood. He is nominated alongside his colleagues Akira \u201cLeo\u201d Yoshimura and N. Joseph DeTullio.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe idea started with the writers, says DeTullio. \u201cThe idea was someone was claiming it was their birthday when it wasn\u2019t, and they got into trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHost and musical guest Lady Gaga played one of the sketch\u2019s many creepy wait staff. Appearing alongside her were Heidi Gardner, Mikey Day, Bowen Yang, Andrew Dismukes, Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim and Sarah Sherman. In the sketch, things get dark when the staff learn that a patron has been lying about their birthday.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe set required more than usual. \u201cThey aren\u2019t as detailed or as involved,\u201d says DeTullio. They needed specialty props, including a cage and skull. It also needed the other departments, such as hair, makeup and costume to work closely together.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA propmaker was required for the turntable wheel. It was a riff on \u2018Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.\u2019 The way we get the show done is we have to split up responsibilities,\u201d Raywood says. \u201cJoe\u2019s building in the shop, Lee is taking care of what\u2019s going on in the studio, and I\u2019ve got prop guys making things. We divide and conquer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDeTullio adds that Raywood had the red leather booths made for the sketch. The art department also made signage and had photographs made for the wall art. \u201cWe did research and looked at what Friendly\u2019s would look like.\u201d He adds that with everyone working on their own sections, there\u2019s a danger in the last minute. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s not even shared between departments until we see it Saturday, and we say, \u2018This is wrong. Maybe we should change the color or the fabric.\u2019 But, it is very organic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThe team had slightly more time for the sets of the \u201cSaturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special,\u201d for which they are also nominated. Conversations for the special started back in June 2024 for what the show would look like.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tSNL50: THE ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL \u2013<\/span> \n\tYoshimura says the musical ode to New York City was Colin Jost\u2019s idea. \u201cIt\u2019s fairly broad,\u201d Yoshimura laughs. \u201cWe tried to talk to him about the various scenes, and how we would accommodate those scenes?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOne idea Jost had was for a high-end restaurant like Delmonico\u2019s. The other was a scene from \u201cThe Little Shop of Horrors.\u201d And lastly, was to recreate Times Square in the 1970s.<\/p>\n \n\tDeTullio explains, \u201cThis would move through certain areas of New York. It started in Times Square, and there were other scenes in between, and some happened in the audience on home base.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe challenge was that the studio was filled with 200 extra seats for the special. \u201cMoving scenery around is very challenging for those specials. Leo was the one who came up with the classic rotating pieces, so they had three sides to them, and it just allowed us to change that set very quickly and still in a theatrical way.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA video wall helped the team go from scene to scene. \u201cThose early Times Square moments were captured on the video wall,\u201d reveals Yosihmura.<\/p>\n \n\tHe adds, \u201cThe one thing I loved about the end, was that in the chaos of all of this, it all ended up on home base, our signature look, and has been our signature look for many years. To have 50 or so actors in different costumes standing there celebrating New York is something very special and very appropriate for \u2018SNL 50.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If the ritualistic scenes during the \u201cBirthday at Friendly\u2019s\u201d sketch on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d looked familiar, your eyes didn\u2019t deceive you. The big skull, red cloaks, chalice and chanting were inspired by Steven Spielberg\u2019s 1984 film \u201cIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.\u201d \u201cA lot of that was brought in,\u201d says Emmy-nominated production designer Keith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[9573,6202,10502,5012,3584,10501,3306],"class_list":{"0":"post-17397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-birthday","9":"tag-doom","10":"tag-friendlys","11":"tag-inspired","12":"tag-sketch","13":"tag-snls","14":"tag-temple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTheo Wargo\/NBC<\/p>\n