Cultural Impact
Thanks to "Lazy Sunday"'s initial iTunes success, Apple announced they had licensed several archived Saturday Night Live sketches to offer for download in January 2006. The success of "Lazy Sunday" encouraged Michaels to trust the troupe more and push their material onto the show. The viral success of the video is widely credited as having been the tipping-point for YouTube's success, as it spawned dozens of response videos. These included a West Coast response by actor Mark Feuerstein, an English response by comedian Sam Baron, an Australian response about lawn bowls, as well as Lazy Muncie (which defended the honor of the Midwest) and Lazy Ramadi by two US Army SSGs based in Ramadi, Iraq.
In "The Merger", an episode of the television series The Office, Michael Scott makes an orientation film called "Lazy Scranton" for the Stamford employees who were transferred to Scranton. Starring Michael and Dwight, the video uses the same music, rap style, and camera effects used in the "Lazy Sunday" video.
In the feature film Epic Movie, the character Captain Jack Swallows (a reference to Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise) breaks out in a rap called "Lazy Pirate Day"; the song is reminiscent of "Lazy Sunday" both visually and musically. Swallows is played by Darrell Hammond, a long-time performer on Saturday Night Live.
Read more about this topic: Lazy Sunday
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or impact:
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)