Why can't Mark Wahlberg take a joke?
Posted: Friday, October 17, 2008 10:01 AM by Kurt Schlosser
Filed Under:
TV, Celebrities
"Saturday Night Live" has been making plenty of news in recent weeks, thanks mainly to the high interest in the show's political sketches -- namely Tina Fey's spot-on impersonation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
But a seemingly random sketch ("Barky Bark and the Donkey Bunch" -- ha!) by cast member Andy Samberg that consisted of the comic impersonating actor Mark Wahlberg talking to an assortment of real animals is generating some buzz of its own. This isn't because the Oct. 4 sketch is particularly relevant or comically brilliant. The buzz is coming from Wahlberg's apparent inability to accept being the butt of a joke.
Reuters |
Mark Wahlberg: No joy in Max Payne.
|
In a recent interview with the New York Post, the "Max Payne" star says he wasn't amused by Samberg's skit.
"'Saturday Night Live' hasn't been funny for a long time," Wahlberg said. "They've asked me to do the show a ton of times. I used to watch it when Eddie Murphy was there and Joe Piscopo and Bill Murray. I don't even know who's on the show now."
Fair enough. He's got a new movie coming out and he's a little tweaked at being mocked on a national TV show that has recently seen a huge uptick in viewers. But Thursday night Wahlberg was on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and the host brought up the animal sketch again. The two watched a clip, the audience laughed and then Wahlberg launched into a expletive-filled rant about how he was seriously going to fly to New York and punch Samberg in the face.
How many years has "Saturday Night Live" been making fun of ... everyone? It would seem to me that at this point if you're a public figure and haven't been the subject of a sketch on "SNL," that should be your concern. Wahlberg acts like he's playing a character in one of his action movies and he takes the lamest possible approach to dealing with the diss -- he doesn't laugh it off. Now he's undoubtedly drawing more attention to Internet clips of the sketch itself and to his own silly reaction on talk shows.
So what do you think? Was the original "Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals" sketch even funny? Have you lost a little respect for Mark Wahlberg -- or did you ever have any anyway? How should celebs deal with being parodied -- is there any choice but to laugh it off?
Oh, and by the way, if Wahlberg's entire reaction turns out to be a farce and is his way of generating his own buzz for his new movie, it'll have been his best work in years.
UPDATE: Hey, maybe Wahlberg does indeed have a sense of humor! Access Hollywood is reporting that he'll make an appearnace on "SNL" this weekend.
