CNN’s John King and FNC’s Bill Hemmer need to step up their “Magic Wall” game — Fred Armisen is ready to compete.
If you missed “Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday” last night, you didn’t see the introduction of the “Mega-Pixel Giant Touch Map” used on Weekend Update. It looked similar to CNN and FNC’s wall, so we asked one of the creators of both touch screen’s, Perceptive Pixel’s Jeff Han.
It was one of theirs, and he was there last night. “They contacted us and its hard to say no when they ask you to do something collaborative for that,” Han tells TVNewser. “The crowd reaction was a lot of fun there, especially in rehearsal.”
So did Armisen have to train to get as good as his competitors on CNN and FNC? “It takes no training at all, that’s why its useful for broadcast,” Han said. “It took him no effort to just go up there and start using it. I think he was surprised by how easy it was.”
But using it for comedy purposes means seeing things never before used by CNN and FNC. And it won’t be the last time you’ll see a screen in a new setting. “You’ll see it again in other comedic situations,” Han said, without giving away where.
> Update: The SNL appearance of the “Magic Wall” was done in cooperation with CNN (which is why it looked so similar).
Click continued to see the Weekend Update clip (the “Magic Wall” part begins about 1:15 in)…