NBC hasn't confirmed or denied the news yet, but The Comic's Comic announced it yesterday, based on the assurances of "knowledgable folk," and Rachel Sklar, writing at Mediaite, says, "in our experience, SNL official releases tend to lag quite a bit behind comedy-circle gossip."

Sklar notes that the addition of Slate and Pedrad "brings the [male to female] ratio to 4:3 – perhaps the best for women in SNL's 35-year history," which is exciting, indeed.* Two new women, two years in a row? It's almost like someone finally convinced the powers that be that women are funny, not just a necessary evil. (The people behind this year's New York Comedy Festival are apparently still working through their thoughts on the matter.) And those someones, it's safe to assume, were Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Following their departure, writes Sklar, "Kristen Wiig took the mantle of female MVP, clocking by far the most screen time of any cast member last season," which also sounds like progress — until you click over to the source of that statistic and read the fine print: Michaela Watkins, Abby Elliott, and Amy Poehler all worked only a partial season, so the only other woman who was there the whole time was Casey Wilson. Who got less screen time than every man on the show except Seth Myers, who only does Weekend Update, and Darrell Hammond, who's been there for 105 years, had a recurring role on Damages as well, and is rumored to be leaving SNL this year. The only other people on screen less than Wilson? Watkins, Elliott, and Poehler. With all due respect to Wiig's fabulousness, it's not that hard to be the most visible person on the show when you're the only fucking woman they're using.

I probably shouldn't be so curmudgeonly, but I'm old enough — about exactly as old as SNL, actually — that I've been reading about the exciting new additions to the SNL cast for over two decades, and it really doesn't seem like much has changed. The cycle goes: 1) Hey look, a new woman! (And/or, hey look, a new person of color!**) 2) Hey look, the new women (and/or POC) are constantly marginalized. But maybe that's just because they're new? When they have more seniority, it will balance out...? 3) Hey look, SNL is still fundamentally a pale-skinned sausagefest! Come on, SNL, we know you can do better! 4) Hey look, a new woman and/or person of color! Now things are gonna get better!

So I'm cautiously optimistic about the estrogen increase at best. On the upside, everyone writing about Pedrad and Slate seems to think they're both hilarious. That's change I can believe in.

*A Mediaite commenter points out that season 5, which featured a 50/50 split in the repertory cast — Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Bill Murray, Garrett Morris and Harry Shearer — was even better. Except for how the rest of the cast was made up of 9 men.

**I am psyched about the fact that Pedrad is, as far as I know, the first Iranian-American cast member they've ever had. But I also can't help noticing that a whole lot of the POC they've hired in the last 10 years have read white or close to it.

New Blood At SNL: Jenny Slate and Nasim Pedrad Up The Chick Quotient As Latest Cast Members [Mediaite]
Saturday Night Live Hires! Jenny Slate and Nasim Pedrad Join The SNL cast [The Comic's Comic]
SNL Season 34: By The Numbers [New York Magazine]

Bee defended Palin, asking Stewart to leave her family alone, revising the definition of resignation to accommodate world views other than the myopic ones of liberal East Coast dictionary writers, explaining the rules of maverick basketball and breaking the latest Palin resignation news. I mean, her family understands that "you can't suckle from the teat of a shooting star."

MSNBC:

“Legally Blonde” scribes Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith try desperately to rekindle the magic of that earlier triumph-of-the-bimbo classic, but “House Bunny” lacks the pop of a smart comedy. Characters completely change at random, misunderstandings are inflated to catastrophic levels, and the sputtering narrative has that feel of a movie that’s been extensively re-edited past the point of all coherence.

No surprise, then, that the director behind this mishmash is one Fred Wolf, who made his behind-the-camera debut with “Strange Wilderness,” which remains as of this writing the very worst film of 2008. There was nowhere to go but up from there, granted, but “House Bunny” doesn’t make the case that this man should be allowed within 25 yards of a movie camera. Watch the trailer on YouTube, and you’re done.

Associated Press:

It's essentially a female remake of Revenge of the Nerds, with a script from Legally Blonde writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith. Faris functions as a descendant from a long line of supposedly dumb blondes, but she's so unafraid of going for the big, goofy laugh that she makes this familiar role her own.

USA Today:

The movie gently mocks the Playboy ethos while portraying Hugh Hefner as a defanged old softie and Faris is often charming. She has one hilarious trick that shows how far she will go for a laugh — in a good way.

While Faris' comic fearlessness is a major asset, the movie tries to soften its edges with an obvious message —"be yourself" — that comes across as heartfelt and sincere as a centerfold's list of turn-ons.

The Hollywood Reporter:

It might wear its derivative, "Legally Blonde"-meets-"Mean Girls" trappings like a rhinestone thong, but strip away the second-hand attire, and "The House Bunny" still manages to stand on its own two skyscraper heels thanks to the comic force of nature that is Anna Faris.

Variety:

It's a little stroke of genius: Make a female-empowerment movie and cast it with Playboy Bunnies. Elevated via a strong script by "Legally Blonde" scribes Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz, "The House Bunny" is a blissfully broad comedy that should catapult Anna Faris into a singular kind of stardom — she's funny, she's sexy, and her movie distinguishes itself grandly from a mostly gore-and-groin-fixated summer comedy season. Titles are sometimes dumped in mid- to late August, but good buzz could help this Fred Wolf-directed laffer break out beyond its young-femme target audience.

The New York Times:

All hail Anna Faris, fake bimbo par excellence, master of the birdbrained double take, our reigning queen of intelligent stupidity. On the sneaker-clad heels of “Smiley Face,” an inspired stoner farce from 2007, come the plastic stiletto shenanigans of “The House Bunny,” a breezy, ditzy comedy about the misadventures of a Playboy bunny exiled from the chinchilla cocoon of Hugh Hefner’s mansion.

The Village Voice:

Directed with little distinction by SNL vet Fred Wolf, The House Bunny operates on a skin-deep level and offers up the predictable inner-beauty message: As Faris turns her fugly charges into superficially gorgeous, judgmental twits, she finds her own slutty charms at a loss to woo the smart, dorky-cute man of her dreams (Colin Hanks). The screenwriting team of Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith are rather shamelessly aping their own Legally Blonde here, but they’ve given Faris some great ditzy one-liners and a few slapstick pratfalls worthy of Olympic gold. The movie basically exists on one plane, while Faris is on another—that exclusive aerie occupied by Judy Holliday, Carole Lombard, Lucille Ball and a few other blissfully original comedy goddesses.

Slate:

I don't want to even think about what all this means as a feminist allegory. Like Grease and The Breakfast Club, The House Bunny all but announces that lip gloss and tarty outfits pave the way to female self-actualization. And unlike those movies, it doesn't make the makeover process look particularly fun (though I did love a mascara-tutorial scene in which Shelley lectures the girls, "Remember, the eyes are the nipples of the face"). The Zetas—played by an odd lineup of newcomers that includes American Idol contestant Katharine McPhee and Rumer Willis, Bruce and Demi's daughter—go from stereotyped losers to stereotyped hotties with logic-defying speed (and making McPhee's character visibly pregnant without providing any back story is a tad disconcerting). But there's real pathos to a scene in which Shelley trots out all her porn-based seduction tricks on a date, only to discover that she's grossed out her man and made a fool of herself. The House Bunny can go only so far in satirizing the Playboy empire though, since it's clearly been approved by Hefner (who plays himself in scenes that take place inside the real mansion). But its founding premise—that the laws of soft porn translate poorly to the real world—is as close to a female empowerment message as you can expect in a movie like this.

'The House Bunny' opens today in wide release.

Related: Interview with Anna Faris in T Magazine [NYT]