The end of the hottest night clubs in New York. (NBC(

Perhaps Semisonic said it best: "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

This weekend marked the 38th season finale of Saturday Night Live, arguably one of the best runs the NBC variety show has seen in recent years. This is thanks in large part to fresh featured members like Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon as well as the new repertory cast of Taran Killam, Vanessa Bayer, Bobby Moynihan, and Nasim Pedrad. These relatively young comedians were able to fill the hole made last season by the departures of heavy-hitters Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg and Abby Elliott, and gave the show, in the words of Bill Hader, "a new sensibility."

"There’s a joy in seeing a new move from somebody and going, ‘Oh, she can do that,'" Mr. Hader told The New York Times last week.

But the Ben Affleck/Kanye West-hosted finale was also bittersweet, with several major players--including Fred Armisen, Weekend Update's Seth Meyers (who was also the show's head writer) and Bill Hader--taking their final bows, leaving the cast virtually unrecognizable from two years ago. (This will especially be true if Jason Sudeikis just makes up his mind already and leaves during the summer.)

Despite the fact that SNL doesn't usually make a big deal about a player leaving the cast, last year's tribute to Wiig seems to have upped the ante for their own farewells. Here is how each member said goodbye.

Seth Meyers and Bill Hader: Stefon and Seth Get Married

Fred Armisen: Top of the Pops

Though the sketch wasn't the funniest of the night, it was, like Wiig's, a heartfelt goodbye in song, with Armisen ending on the lines, "It’s been all right / I’ve had a lovely night with you."

Bill Hader leaving SNL. (NBC)

If we had to think of a fourth person to leave, we'd probably guess Keenan Thompson, whose perpetually youthful appearance belies the fact that the 35-year-old has been working on the NBC variety sketch show for a decade now.

We just weren't expecting today's news that our favorite male performer (okay fine, tied for first with Taran Killam,) Bill Hader would be announcing his departure. Why, Stefon, why???

According to Dave Itzkoff's New York Times' story this morning, the "official" reason was that Mr. Hader wanted to move his family to L.A. to support his wife, Maggie Carey's, burgeoning film career. But he was also "motivated partly by seeing friends like Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig leave last season." Which is kind of a loaded answer, because it makes it sound like Hader wanted to leave for awhile and just finally worked up the courage after being inspired by the beautiful send-off Lorne gave Kristen Wiig last season.

Though if he thinks he's getting that teary farewell dance that Wiig received, he needs to readjust his expectations.

“That was a very strong and spontaneous reaction to the depth of feeling that was there for Kristen,” Mr. Michaels said. “It either comes out spontaneously because it makes sense and it represents the way people feel, or not. It won’t be the same thing this year, obviously. We’ll see.”

We know we'll be crying, especially after losing characters like Alan Alda:

Stefon:

And of course, the UPS guy:

Karl Rove is great at impressions (Buzzfeed)

Case in point: who knew that Karl Rove, former political strategist to President George W. Bush, was so good* at impressions? During today's live interview with Politico's Mike Allen, Mr. Rove did his best Ragin' Cajun voice, which could give Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader's James Carville routine a run for its money.

Karl Rove as Carville, whom he is besties with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MovOe-bSpiU#!

Very subtle. "Bleh bleh bleh! Ableh bleh bleh!" It sounds like a middle schooler's impression of the teacher who just gave them detention for blowing spitballs at nerds.

Bill Hader:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-HQvutGFsQ

It might be more accurate, but come on, you know Mr. Rove nailed it. Maybe he can break his contract at Fox and start doing work for Lorne Michaels.

*Terrible

With the reopening of the Algonquin Hotel, we must consider who will be chosen for the honor of one of the 11 seats in the Algonquin Round Table. 

Started as a practical joke in 1919 by publicist John Peter Toohey to mock  Alexander Woollcott, the Round Table soon became as legendary as the Bloomsberry Set, except American and meaner. The social satirists and cultural trendesetters included Dorothy Parker, Franklin Pierce Adams,  Robert Benchley, Heywood Broun, his wife Ruth Hale, Marc Connelly, George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, and Robert E. Sherwood.

Who today could live up to such an illustrious group of names? We took a stab at our own 11: tell us who you would have in your own literary draft in the comments.

Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig (NBC)

This is an inexplicable trend of the live comedy show in recent years: One of the funniest sketches this season was "The Californians," a soap opera about navigating the drive up to Malibu. Bill Hader's struggle to keep it together during the bit made it an instant classic and spawned a thousand GIFs. (Unlike his predecessor Jimmy Fallon, Mr. Hader's struggle not to crack up on stage makes any sketch 1,000 times funnier.) But even better than the version that actually made it to air was the dress version of 'The Californians,' which Hulu offers with several other scenes from past seasons that either never aired or just weren't as funny when they did.

We understand the idea of having "web extras" as supplemental material, but not at the expensive of the actual show. Why bother tuning in when the funny stuff is only going to be online? Below, we compare and contrast these un-aired clips with the version that made it on TV...as well as some bits that never got off the Internet.

"The Californians" (dress version):

"The Californians" (aired version):


'Mozart' with Justin Timberlake (never aired):

'What's Up With That?' with Mike Tyson (dress):

'What's Up With That?' (aired):


'Grady Wilson' with Will Ferrell (never aired):

'Band Reunion at the Wedding' with Dave Grohl and Ashton Kutcher (dress):

'Band Reunion at the Wedding' (aired):

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein (Getty Images)

First, a little bit of back story: The night before The Observer was to go to the screening party for the sequel season of Portlandia, the IFC comedy show starring Saturday Night Live fixture Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein, an Irishman stepped on our lighter in a bar. In exchange for the gaffe, the gentleman offered us a fist-sized piece of homemade organic chocolate truffle, wrapped in decorative foil. How sweet!

As we dashed our way to the Museum of Natural History last night in order to see what could possibly top the catchphrase "Put a Bird On It," we split the giant confection with a fellow famished coworker. Which would have all been fine, if we hadn't made the completely understandable mistake of confusing "chocolate truffles" for "chocolate-covered mushrooms." No, not truffle mushrooms. The other kind. (In hindsight, putting actual truffle mushrooms into chocolate doesn't make any sense either.)

We guess that's why your parents warned you never to take organic candy from strangers. Ooh look, there's Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig! Are those two glowing, or is just the hallucinogens kicking in?

Portlandia as a show works by playing on conventions of hipster culture. While the first season took on broad subjects like eco-freaks, obsessive crafters (Put a ___ on it!), and outraged feminist retailers, the episodes screened for next season were more niche in their targets. Andy Samberg played a cocktail creationist torn between the life of an artisan mixologist and that of a SoCal bartender, while Ms. Wiig's amazing cameo as a feline band's Misery-inspired super-fan reminded us why we never let the Keyboard Cat take creative control of our musical group.

It should be mentioned, our coats just felt really good, sitting in that theater. So soft!

The opening scene in Portlandia's second season tried to recreate its success with the "Put a Bird on It" catchphrase. Unfortunately the new slogan "We can pickle that!" felt like a Mad-Libbing of last season's hit formula instead of fresh material.

Midway through the show, we realized we were sitting so close to Friday Night Lights/American Horror Story's gorgeous and talented Connie Britton that we had to physically restrain ourselves from touching her hair. But we really wanted to? She has great hair. To be fair, we had on our Red Wolf Spirit Hood, which at the time we believed rendered us invisible. Or invincible. (One of the two.) Jeff Goldblum, sitting three feet away, had a really deep purple chakra. Lorne Michael's chakra, visible two rows over, was pewter and had a slight Canadian accent.

After the screening, guests were ushered up to a Portlandia-themed bar room, which featured a lot of colors, pickle jars, anxiety emotions, a giant children's parachute, and a two-to-one celebrity/non-famous person ratio.

While Fred Armisen posed for photos with his mother, we asked if the actor felt like his show resonated as much to the East Coast, Williamsburg audience as it did with Oregonian hipsters. Did he see them as sister cities, or was the location of the show crucial to its humor?

"Portland's got a lot of sister cities," Mr. Armisen replied in his surprising dulcet voice, while behind him the wall began melting distractingly. "Williamsburg, Tokyo, Austin...that culture can be found in so many places now." The pandemic of 20-something liberal arts majors in large cities whose tastes run towards raw foods, hypocritical eco-snobbery, and a fanatic disdain of anything "mainstream" could explain the show success: to date, it's had the highest ratings of any show on the network.

Making our way to the back bar area where the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live were spending the evening, we were in high spirits. We were the spirit god Red Fox! No, you can't touch our hat! It's a hood! It has powers!

We found SNL writer and Law & Order enthusiast John Mulaney chatting with a small group about his love for American Horror Story. His lady friend was clearly a supporter of West Dillon High, with a shirt reading "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose." Ms. Britton herself was nowhere to be found, though we did spot new cast members Vanessa Bayer, Taran Killam, and Paul Brittain all trying to look old enough to drink. We managed to tackle Mr. Killam; telling him how much we loved his recent cameo as a deranged glee teacher on Community, which lead to a short discussion with the actor on the NBC show's brilliance and unfortunate hiatus, before Ms. Bayer rescued him from an evening of chit-chat with an accidentally intoxicated reporter.

"Tell her how much you love her Miley Cyrus impression," a nearby friend elbowed us. Come on, we weren't that stoned.

While Mr. Hader and Ms. Wiig were early arrivals on the scene, looking glamorous, costar Jason Sudeikis showed up around midnight in what appeared to be sweatpants and a backpack. Coming from the gym, perhaps? Kristen Schaal, Seth Meyers, Dave Hill, Heather Lawless, Todd Barry, Kumail Nanjiani, Jack McBrayer, Jon Glaser, and David Cross rounded out the comedic social network. A heated debate between ourselves and our + 1 over the name of that Nicolas Cage film directed by one of the other Coppolas resulted in Mr. Cross leaning in and asking, "Are you having this conversation for my benefit?" (Totally! How did he guess?**)  There may have been some incisive commentary to parse from that exchange, regarding the parallels between celebrity and hipster narcissism, but we didn't feel like chasing the analogy once it took corporeal form as a misshapen bunny and hopped to the exit. We decided to follow our hallucination's pragmatic work-night vibe and put a bird on our evening before last call.

As for our tiny coworker with whom we shared our candy? We hadn't heard from her in the last three hours; as far as we know, she's still camped out somewhere in the museum, living out our childhood fantasy from The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. If she doesn't show up by tomorrow, we'll assume she's decided to live in the museum and off the grid for good. That would just be so Portlandia of her!

**The movie, by the way, was Deadfall.

"I still walk closer to the curb because I'm sure that's going to happen," the 26-year-old novelist SNL writer said over iced coffee last week.

For Mr. Rich, whose writing is often inflected with an impending sense of doom — God makes completely irrational decisions, Dracula poses as the Red Cross — New York has always been a scary place. In his own assessment, living here has instilled an intensely neurotic style in all his writing.

"Just the sheer population makes it a scary place and with a city this packed with people there are sure to be a few murderers on your block," Mr. Rich deadpanned.

John Mulaney, an SNL writer with whom Mr. Rich writes frequently, said that these jokes are typical of Mr. Rich.

"I think nothing makes him laugh more than freaking out and panicking," Mr. Mulaney said.

Mr. Rich's illustrious origins are well documented. His father is Frank Rich, the Times columnist, and his brother Nathaniel is an editor at The Paris Review. His first book of jokes came out mere months after graduating Harvard — he has since published a second humor book — and he's working on the screenplay for his recently optioned novel Elliot Allagash, which was published in May. News of the film deal provoked an angry rant on Gawker, but Mr. Rich said he has "sympathy and respect" for his haters.

"I think that's not even the biggest travesty," he said of his perceived nepotism. "The biggest travesty is that anybody gets to write jokes for a living. It's a ridiculous profession and I feel like it should probably be against the law for everyone not just the children of successful journalists."

When Mr. Rich walked into the Brooklyn Heights restaurant where we met him, he could have been mistaken for a student on the way home from school, wearing a loose red polo shirt and carrying a backpack. Later on, three children began to make faces at him through the restaurant's window. 

"Hey kids!" he said smiling at them, admiring a small black toy carried by one of them. "I feel like toys are cooler now."

Youth has been a fertile source of material for Mr. Rich. Elliot Allagash is set at a fictional New York private school not unlike Mr. Rich's alma mater Dalton, and SNL cast member Bill Hader, 32, pointed out that if an SNL sketch ever involves a fairytale, Mr. Rich had a hand in it.

For the record, the school in the book is not Dalton. "I thought it would be more Dalton-y but it's not," said one of Mr. Rich's former teachers.

“I always write out of a sense of fear and doom,” Mr. Rich said. Obviously New York provides him with ample material there, as does being Jewish and reading about God's smiting in the Torah when he was younger. "The Old Testament God is just a hilarious comedy character," he said. 

WHENEVER MR. HADER visits Brooklyn Heights Mr. Rich gives him and his wife the "hard pitch" on the neighborhood.

"[He] takes us on a long walk and... knows the all the little interesting anecdotes about each building like, 'that's where Norman Mailer wrote whatever book,' 'that's where Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's. He lived on the garden level,'" Mr. Hader said.

Mr. Rich does most of his writing in his own Brooklyn Heights apartment, by the window. He and Mr. Hader worked on their horror comedy screenplay for Judd Apatow in that apartment. When Mr. Rich and Mr. Hader write they take breaks at the local deli Lassen & Hennigs where Mr. Rich orders a Knickerbocker — a sandwich with fried chicken, bacon, cheddar and mayo on a buttered roll — which he said he eats about three times a week. SNL head writer Seth Meyers said via email that watching Mr. Rich wait for his sandwich at the Second Avenue Deli on rewrite day is a "true joy."

Mr. Rich is aware that he draws on his unique angle on New York in his novel.

"It's certainly not McInerney's or Bret Easton Ellis' New York," he said. "It's more about the idea of New York." In this way, he thinks Elliot Allagash's New York is like the London of P.G. Wodehouse, or Arthur Conan Doyle.

Simon is "fairly fanatical about the city, its history, its lore," according to his father, who told us that his sons' recommendations for New York reading have led him to books he may not have otherwise discovered.

Simon's brother Nathaniel wrote: "All three of us are obsessed with New York lore, with the city in previous eras, its forgotten and hidden aspects, its purest expressions of urban insanity. But we share other obsessions too: hot sauces, the Mets, Sichuan food."

Comedy was one of Simon's personal obsessions. As a kid, he would around 30 Rockefeller Plaza, now his work place, to catch glimpses of the Late Night with Conan O'Brien writers and would pass by the Your Show of Shows writers' room near Carnegie Hall just to marvel at the "holy moly" — his words — quality of it.

Now, though, Mr. Rich seems content with the "holy moly" of Brooklyn Heights.

"There's a plaque on a brownstone near here that claims that the curveball was invented in Brooklyn Heights," Mr. Rich told us. "Like, the pitch. And that alone is reason enough to live in this neighborhood."

"He was probably burned for being a warlock," he added, referring to the inventor. "What a terrifying thing to make a ball curve."

Don’t be confused by what you see on Fandango: there are actually a bunch of movies possibly worth seeing this weekend. September starts to come out of the doldrums today with four films hitting theaters, and, as usual, there is something for everyone. As we do every Friday, here’s a handy guide to the new releases.

Jennifer’s Body

What’s the story: Here’s a movie we should probably be more excited about. From writer Diablo Cody comes a horror-comedy-satire about a high school queen bee (the vapid Megan Fox) who gets possessed by the devil and has to feast on teenage boys to survive. Honest to blog! Unfortunately, the reviews have been spotty, with most questioning director Karyn Kusama’s decision to make the final half of the film so straightforward. Whatever, we’ll probably still see it, just to watch Adam Brody (Seth Cohen for life!) trade in his Penguin polo shirts for guyliner as the lead singer of a Panic At the Disco!-like band.

Who should see it: Juno.

The Informant!

What’s the story: Now this is a movie we’re legitimately excited about! Steven Soderbergh takes Mark Whitacre’s real life account of being a whistle blower for the F.B.I. and turns it into an absurdist comedy starring Matt Damon (who gained 30 pounds for the role). The trailer for this thing is laugh-out-loud funny—only those made of stone wouldn’t laugh at Mr. Damon calling himself “0014” because he’s “twice as good as 007”—and reviews have been on the good side of positive. The Informant! looks like the type of populist film that Mr. Soderbergh does best. If only he would have been allowed to do something similar with Moneyball.

Who should see it: Amy Pascal.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

What’s the story: Based on the popular children’s book, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs tells the story of a town where all food falls from the heavens like rain (hence the title). As is usually the case with animated films, Meatballs has a pretty talented and hilarious vocal cast. Among them: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Andy Samberg, Will Forte, Neil Patrick Harris, James Caan and… Mr. T? We wonder if he’ll get the opportunity to talk about staying in school. Fingers crossed!

Who should see it:Sam Champion.

Love Happens

What’s the story: Does Hollywood have a bottomless pit of generic romantic comedies to foist upon us, the beleaguered audience? You know, don’t answer that. Love Happens (even the title doesn’t try) follows a widower-turned-self-help-guru (Aaron Eckhart) who finds love in the form of Jennifer Aniston’s florist. Not even Judy Greer—in the typical “Judy Greer role”—can make us want to see this thing. That being said, it can’t possibly be as bad as All About Steve.

Who should see it: Brad Pitt.

Michael Cera was not at Gen Art's premiere of Paper Heart, Charlyne Yi’s new docu-narrative, but he was still the center of attention. Ms. Yi, best known for her few lines as the well-meaning stoner in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, dates Michael Cera in the film and has been rumored o have just broken up with him after a real-life relationship.

Ms. Yi walked the short red carpet in wet brown suede shoes and a red cardigan sweater. After posing for pictures, she picked up the olive-drab Army backpack she had left with a publicist after posing for pictures. 

Ms. Yi told reporters that she had never dated Michael Cera. “Gossipers!” she yelped. “You are all gossipers!” Well, why did she pick him to play her onscreen boyfriend in the first place? “Martin Lawrence passed,” she quipped. Touché!

On a scale of 1 to 10, how sick is director Nick Jasenovec of talking about the Yi/Cera romance? “How about 11?” he said.

Paper Heart is a film about learning to believe in love. How disillusioned were the premiere’s stars about love when they were 14? “I was horrible!” Bill Hader, of assorted Apatow fame, said. “I was horrible with women forever.” Jess Weixler, the star of 2007’s Teeth, a horror film about a woman with a set of teeth in her vagina, was similarly disenchanted because “they make princesses look like brides and that’s not true. Princesses and brides are not one thing!” Times have changed for Ms. Weixler, who had her arm around her boyfriend’s waist as she spoke to the Transom. “I spent the summer in Italy away from my boyfriend yet I stayed true to him. That’s a great little romance story!”

When Ms. Yi finally finishes answering the same Michael Cera question over and over, she plans to write a comic book. Ms. Yi, who incidentally claimed that, “she’s never been high in her life,” told the Transom that the graphic novel will have a “post-apocalyptic theme where this girl is going to save the world. It came to me in a dream.”