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Where is the mp3 for this segment?
[[FYI there is no audio for this segment - it was a call-in that we didn't have time for, but we are doing it on today (Weds) show. Best,
-BL Show-]]

To alert its blind audience how it was being mocked, SNL could have supplied a PBS-like video description, which itself could have been funny. Regarding that upside-down chart, blind professionals take great care to avoid such bloopers. As a blind lawyer, I'd check out a courtroom before appearing there so I could move around confidently. And the abortive handshake? Reasonable sighted people make sure hands meet. So what exactly was SNL satirizing? Preconceptions of how blind and sighted people function around each other? We blind people need to get used to it. After all, satire is an ironic sign of growing acceptance. And we make fun of ourselves, if mainly to combat embarrassment when we fall short. But as capable blind people like David Paterson keep rising to prominence, SNL's stereotype will look very retro. It already does.

I'm not blind. The sketch reminded me of an old SNL sketch. It involved Stevie Wonder playing tennis. Yes, the real Stevie Wonder. Watching the Patterson sketch was a lot like hearing a Helen Keller joke for the first time. It's initially shocking that one says such things, and then funny. Also, it turned Amy Poehler's potentially sentimental farewell into a very funny piece.

Like the governor, I'm partly blind, but I can see well enough to watch TV. I keep a blog about being partly blind and posted my opinion there: http://notnotblind.blogspot.com. Thanks to everyone who has posted comments in support of the Governor, who is neither feeble-minded nor disoriented in real life. It's tough enough to get a job without stuff like this on the air.

In our school district, we have several blind and sight impaired students who fit right in (as they should) with everyone else. The other children help them without being overbearing and do not tell jokes at their expense.

SNL has not been funny for a very, very long time. This "skit" reflects much more on their writers (and management!) than it does on Governor Patterson.

As a white, conservative New York Republican (and a WNYC supporter, I might add), I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Governor Paterson’s focus on cutting spending rather than raising taxes. In viewing the Saturday Night Live sketch (http://www.hulu.com/watch/48719/saturday-night-live-update-gov-paterson), I was pretty shocked. First, it’s not funny, which is supposed to be SNL’s raison d'etre. Second, it’s not even close to accurate. The man myself is very articulate and engaging. Third, the sketch is just mean-spirited and pointless. Most people who don’t live in or near the state of New York don’t even know who Paterson is. What I found most offensive was the morons in the audience cackling like medieval serfs in merry ol’ England witnessing a public execution when the “Laugh Now, You F&@king Idiots” sign was flashing above the stage. I guess there’s a reason why SNL has to give tickets away for free. No one with any class or intelligence would pay to see such crap, in person or on television. (I hope liberal WNYC listeners take note of this when SNL and other radical leftists in the media blast Republicans mercilessly.)

The skit wasn't funny, cool, hip, edgy, or subversive.

It was disgusting

SNL took the low road with the blind jokes, but they nailed Paterson's borscht belt humor. He would make a helluva bar mitzvah MC.

I was laughing but uncomfortable mostly because I was trying to imagine his assistants explaining to him what the sketch was about and how SNL had made fun of him. Awkward? I guess that depends on how well the guy can laugh at himself even though he can't see himself. hmmm.

It was FUNNY! It def felt like the gold old days of SNL with Eddie and others. In 10 years when we look back at this skit, it will be a high light.

The best comedy is the kind that see no color no disability no religion and no financial stats!!!

I think the purpose of the skit was a quiet way to voice disapproval from the left of the governor. He is not proposing the RICH tax increase. Personally, I feel it may be a low blow, but, heck, right now rich people are not in good stead with many-they have not payed their fair share in a long time. Now that a few have screwed America out of it's world standing, I think the overall feeling for them is LET THEM FACE THE MUSIC. Or a skit-and another- and another-Hey SNL, how about a weekly I DON'T PAY THE TAXES I SHOULD CAYMAN ISLANDS SWISS BANK ACCOUNT LOOPHOLE SKITS??? Thank you, Rush, Sean, and the others from the Ministry of Propaganda.

Not having seen it it would not be fair for me comment. Sounded funny.

I had to write SNL about a tear ago because it seemed every other joke was a gay joke. They may have run out of gay jokes so now they have the blind to pick on. What's next? Retarded children?

If it's possible to be a little offended, I was a little offended. I love SNL most of the time but that particular skit I didn't find very funny. They do lots of unfunny stuff and they do some very funny stuff. You know, hit and miss.

HILARIOUS! especially moving in front of the camera a la John McCain. hahaah
Being offended by blind Patterson jokes is like being offended about Clinton fat and sex jokes it's too be expected and hilarious
SNL is so unfunny these days we take the laughs where we can get 'em

What bothered me about the skit wasn't making fun of Gov. Paterson's blindness (even though that is generally in bad taste). What bugged me was the suggestion that he is unqualified - and, by implication, incompetent. The more clips I hear of Gov. Paterson in action, the more impressed I am with the way he handles himself - AND the legislators - in the face of a really difficult situation that he didn't sign up for.

I thought the skit was not funny. And, when are they going to cancel this stupid show?
All the good times of this show are long gone. I think The daily Show and especially the Colbert report have taken the torch on political satire. Saturday night live has turned into a complete wash-up of sell-outs.

The clip was indeed, written terribly (with an exception made for the very old-school "southern border" zing) completely devoid of the sort of insight I usually expect from political humor, and poorly acted.
I wondered briefly if there was some sort of meta-joke going on by constructing an entire skit about a blind guy around a sight gag, but at the halfway point (when he gave up any pretense of impersonation and started making eye contact with the camera) I realized that it was just a lazily written and poorly conceived parody.

I wasn't so much offended as just really confused. I laughed when I first saw Fred Armisen imitate Gov. Paterson's eyes. (I didn't think a sighted person could manipulate their eyes in that way.) But the rest of the skit reminded me more of the town hall presidential debate--the one where Obama and McCain can be seen wandering around the stage and in front of the teleprompter--than it did anything I've seen of Paterson. With that in mind, I think the skit tanked.

Was I offended?

I was deeply offended and I laughed a lot too.

I was recently told by the eye doctor that I am blind under NYS regulations, but have sight with corrective lenses.

I watched the sketch online and thought it was funny. And while I think Paterson has a thick skin, and probably enjoyed some of the sketch, I do think that he had to make a statement to protect other people with disabilities.

Humor, as long as it isn't patently cruel, can target painful social subjects (nationality, handicaps, gender issues come to mind), release tensions, and can even heal somewhat with shared laughter. Political Correctness has replaced laughter with grievance. So much the worse for all of us.

I've been a big fan of SNL's for many, many years and I remember they've always had a knack for pushing the envelope -- case in point, Samurai Optometrist where Belushi's splitting of a turtle's shell to make a custom pair of eye glass frames received a lot of backlash from animal rights groups. However, poking fun at the NY Governor at the expense of blind folks who are continually fighting against an image of being imbeciles as portrayed on the skit was tasteless and maybe the shows sponsors should re-visit why on one hand they are benevolent in terms of charitable contributions to the blind while on the other sponsoring SNL's who is clearly contradictory to any support for blind people.

To cynical to ever be offended, but the sketch showed how little they actually know about Gov. Paterson. Their jokes were mostly limited to his blindness, and how he looks. They could have stood in anyone with any disability and it would have been equally dull witted and unfunny. They seem desperate to hold onto the attention brought to them by Tina Fey.

I was offended (or maybe I knew I should have been offended) but I couldn't stop laughing. They definitely took the low road and it wasn't genius comedy but, again, I could not stop laughing.

Maybe I'm just a jerk.

This show, which was a gem in the early days, has become so devoid of talent on all levels that this is the only way they can stimulate a response from their comatose audience (of which I am not a member). Tina Fey possibly excepted from this critique, though even she's not really a match for the great ones of bygone days (Chevy Chase, Belushi, Murray, Laraine Newman, et al).

Anyone recall Eddie Murphy's Stevie Wonder playing tennis sketch?

The SNL impression was cheap and immature. They portrayed Paterson as limited and bumbling because of his blindness, when in fact he has admirably overcome it.

I am not blind, but my mother has been legally blind nearly blind all her life (for all of my life). I thought the bit on SNL was hilarious. It was clearly over the top.
PS. The only other funny part of the episode: Kanye West's "singing."

How is a blind person offended by sketch comedy exactly?

It's all political satire.

SNL is almost never funny. I'm offended that the writers still get paid for that dreck

Ah, it brought me back to the Saturday Night Live of yore!

You know, the lame, unwatchable one?