Release
The short had its premiere on the December 17, 2005 episode of Saturday Night Live and received a positive response. "It played really well, and we were just super happy about that," said Samberg. When the video first aired, the comedy troupe and Samberg were basically unknown to even the show's most devout fans. "It captures a certain scrappiness about the show. There's an unpolished realness to it that I think people can instantly relate to," said Saturday Night Live veteran Amy Poehler.
By the following morning, the video was a national cultural sensation. Schaffer and Taccone also were contacted by friends who heard the track played on radio stations and in bars. "Lazy Sunday" inspired a line of T-shirts, released during the initial boom of popularity in the weeks after its release.
The short was initially available after its broadcast through the iTunes Store (then known as the iTunes Music Store), made free for subscribers. Additionally, it was posted to several web sites and shared via e-mail. The video was viewed more than five million times on YouTube before NBC Universal asked the site to remove it, along with several other copyrighted NBC video clips, in February 2006. NBC later placed the short on its SNL site and Hulu.
Read more about this topic: Lazy Sunday
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“If I were to be taken hostage, I would not plead for release nor would I want my government to be blackmailed. I think certain government officials, industrialists and celebrated persons should make it clear they are prepared to be sacrificed if taken hostage. If that were done, what gain would there be for terrorists in taking hostages?”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
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“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)