Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
Saturday Night Live accused of stealing sketch from the Groundlings
http://www.avclub.com/article/saturd...-ground-210132
As pointed out by Groundlings members Kimberly Condict and Vanessa Ragland, “River Sisters” bears a significant resemblance to their own “Rollin’,” which they’ve performed for several weeks as part of the Sunday Company. The sketch features a similarly styled Condict and Ragland as Tina Turner impersonators in a similarly trashy casino. As they sing their rendition of “Proud Mary,” each takes turns reflecting on the hard road that’s led them to this ignoble gig amid cracks about the crab buffet. Their reverie is interrupted by the emcee, who demands that they pick it up.
A source close to the show has replied via email, saying, “It’s a common idea since Tina Turner is such an iconic figure. The similarities represent parallel thinking in the comedy world.”
Meanwhile, Defamer alerts to us a Facebook post from Groundlings teacher Ian Gary, where he suggests that the show has a history of lifting material from the troupe—and everyone else just dismissing it:
"Over the years I have seen MANY, MANY sketches flat out stolen from my friends by Saturday Night Live. Nearly verbatim. Word for word... And everyone in our community goes “Oh man. That sucks.” and nobody says anything because I guess SNL is still some dream for some people or they don’t want to get involved, or a million other reasonable things that stop people from standing up for each other when things are blatantly wrong".
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I know Lovitz and Hartman both took their Groundlings characters and ideas with them to use on SNL. I'm sure others have too. Farley and Bill Murray took Second City characters to SNL. Martin Short did SCTV's Ed Grimley on SNL. I wonder if this is one of those cases?