By: Tony Scott
Journalist and host of MSNBC's "Hardball" Chris Matthews entertained an enthusiastic crowd of students, alumni and parents this past Saturday. As one of the marquee events of this year's Meliora Weekend, Matthews' speech nearly filled the Palestra to capacity.

Matthews began his speech with a few jokes, alluding to Darrell Hammond's parodies of the "Hardball" program on "Saturday Night Live" and providing a lighter view of his infamous interview with former Georgia Senator Zell Miller.

TV Squad Sun, 23 Oct 2005 6:12 PM PDT
Filed under: Music/Variety , Comedy , NBC , OpEd , Late Night , Saturday Night Live Last night's episode of Saturday Night Live was alright (Catherine Zeta-Jones; Franz Ferdinand). Catherine did a little musical number during her opening monologue about how they can't take her Oscar away even if she screws up -- which she almost did when she ripped off her dress to reveal a skimpy ...

I remember there was one sketch about an on-location reporter (Catherine) looking worse and worse because supplies like make-up and tweezers weren't getting to her. It lasted a little too long and just ran off the joke of "look at the Hollywood goddess getting butt-ugly! HA!" Darrell Hammond played the news anchor (Aaron Brown?... I can't remember. He played an anchor twice.) and, seriously, SNL's neglecting this man. Hammond's an amazing player and yet they keep throwing him in as anchors or one-line waiters. I'll spare you the rest of this rant.

"SNL's" Darrell Hammond is still an amazingly gifted impersonator who can mimic anyone from Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney to Aaron Brown, but the writing is rarely as clever as his performance.

Darrell Hammond, October 8th.