Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Alec Baldwin Appears on SNL, Destroys American Airlines

The rift between Alec Baldwin and American Airlines is, by now, well-known. For those not familiar with the situation, Baldwin refused to turn off his smartphone while waiting to taking off during an American Airlines flight. He was eventually removed from the flight and took a later AA flight to his destination, but not before some ugly back and forth between him and the powers that be at the airline. Given that just about everyone who flies has had a bad experience at an airport or during a flight, it’s hard to fathom that anyone is really going to side with the airline on this one.

Of course, Baldwin didn’t waste the opportunity to get in yet more digs at the airline when he appeared on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. This proves, of course, that a celebrity with an audience can get across a message a lot better than a corporation with a PR team, a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, etc.

During Baldwin’s appearance on SNL, he appeared during the "Weekend Update" segment with Seth Meyers, where he played the role of "Captain Steve Rogers," an American Airlines pilot. During that sketch, Baldwin (as the AA pilot) apologized to Alec Baldwin for his problems with American Airlines, with an incredulous Meyers standing by and questioning him. When Seth intimated that cell phones interfere with the plane’s communications systems, Baldwin launched into a diatribe that just about everyone in the world must have been thinking at some point during a flight.

Here it is in full: "You don’t believe that do, you Seth? Would you really get on an air plane that flew 30,000 feet in the air if you thought one Kindle switch could take it down? Come on! It’s just a cruel joke perpetrated by the airline industry. And, we would have gotten way with it, but Alec Baldwin was just too smart for us. He really is something, Seth!" Hilarious stuff…of course, Baldwin’s words, said in semi-jest, probably ring true for most people. Good luck getting sympathy on this one AA….good luck, indeed.

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