La Revista Di La Television Con Vinny Vedecci

La Rivista Della Televisione Con Vinny Vedecci is a recurring sketch in the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live AbOUT an Italian talk show featuring the host Vinny Vedecci, stunt coordinator Gino and the technical director of the show, Franco portrayed by Bill Hader, Will Forte and Fred Armisen respectively.

The Show

The show regularly starts with the bizarre opening credits which then introduce the show's host Vinny Vedecci. Vinny proceeds to introduce the episode's guest (whoever is the host of SNL's episode in which this sketch appears) and starts talking with him, however since the host Vinny only talks in Italian (actually the language spoken by Vinny Vedecci is a hybrid between Italian, Spanish, Greek and invented words), the guest can't understand anything he says, leading Vinny to start arguing with his technical director Franco, screaming at him even though Franco is seen backstage eating spaghetti. Normally Vinny plays a clip of the guest's movie or TV show in the Italian dub, however there is something wrong with the clip which makes it differ a lot from the english version, for example in the case of guest Julia Louis-Dreyfus a clip from Seinfeld is shown and Elaine's Italian voice dub is done by a man. In some episodes, puppets enter the show for no reason and start annoying the guest, in the case of guest Zach Braff a puppet spews human vomit all over him. After the puppets leave, sometimes people in costumes enter and start dancing around for no reason, prompting the guest to leave and Vinny to end the show.

The show doesn't always circle around actual TV shows, in an episode featuring Jon Bon Jovi as a guest Vinny tells Jon that his music (his song Blaze Of Glory) is used as a commercial jingle for the Blaze: my first cigarette a cigarette for children company which Jon Bon Jovi is disgusted at and sues at the end of the episode for using his music without permission.

In Shia LaBeouf's sketch, Vinny mistakes Shia's role in the film Transformers for Shia being a transvestite. Then he asks Shia why he was arrested in Los Angeles, when Shia reveals he was arrested for smoking in a no-smoking zone, Vinny (and several other members of the staff like Franco, Gino, Franco's assistant, an unnamed cameraman, Lorne Michaels as a rich Texan, two unnamed costume designers and two unnamed transvestites) try to hide the many cigarettes they were smoking. Finally, when Shia says that Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes, Vinny asks Gino to release a tanker full of snakes on top of Shia, this, however fails, since Gino releases the snakes too late, when the show is ending, causing the snakes to fall on Vinny.

Vinny appears in two episodes in Season 34, featuring hosts John Malkovich and Seth Rogen. In these, the lack of a common language and the misconstructions stemming from it are once again emminent (for example, Vinny continually refers to Rogen as "Bear Man"). However, the puppets and dancers are gone. Instead, Vinny does an impression of how they talk (Hader has done impressions of Malkovich and Rogen on other SNL episodes). Also, a new character is introduced—that of Vinny's young son (Bobby Moynihan), who comes out to ask the guests a preposterous question and cries when they are unable to answer (Vinny quiets the cries with wine and cigarettes).

The Characters

  • Vinny Vedecci: (Bill Hader), the shows host, he always wears a white shirt with a white jacket, white pants, white socks, white shoes and black tie. He is always smoking a cigarette and has a thick Italian accent, he can barely speak English, but has perfect impersonations of people.
  • Franco the technical director: (Fred Armisen), he is the show's technical director. Whenever something goes wrong in the show (normally the guest not understanding what Vinny says), Vinny starts arguing with Franco, who is shown backstage always eating spaghetti with Gino (Will Forte). He wears the exact same clothes as Vinny only completely in black, and often wears horn-rimmed glasses.
  • Gino the stunt coordinator: (Will Forte), He, as his name implies, is the stunt coordinator of the show, who releases the puppets in Zach Braf's sketch, a man in a gorilla suit in Julia Louis-Dreyfus' sketch, the "steel horse" in Jon Bon Jovi's sketch, dropping a tanker full of snakes onto the stage in Shia LaBeouf's sketch, and setting a bear trap in Seth Rogen's sketch. It's revealed in Shia LaBeouf's sketch that Gino is Franco the technical director's brother.
  • Vinny's Son: (Bobby Moynihan) He is Vinny's "little boy", and to date has appeared on two sketches, sporting a sailor suit both times. Both times he has come out to ask the guest a ridiculous question (such as how Seth Rogen became Bear Man), and both times the guest has been unable to answer, leading to a fit of crying quieted by Vinny giving him wine and cigarettes.

Episodes featuring this sketch

  • March 17, 2007 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus/Snow Patrol.
  • May 19, 2007 - Zach Braff/Maroon 5.
  • October 13, 2007 - Jon Bon Jovi/Foo Fighters.
  • May 10, 2008 - Shia LaBeouf/My Morning Jacket
  • December 6, 2008 - John Malkovich/T.I.
  • April 4, 2009 - Seth Rogen/Phoenix