Month: February 2020

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February 10, 2001 – Jennifer Lopez (S26 E11)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

BACKSTAGE
while TRM fills in as George W. Bush, WIF can’t get over host’s booty

 

— For the first time all season, we get a non-political cold opening… well, sort of. You’ll see what I mean a little later in this opening (if you can’t already tell from the above screencaps).
— Will apologizing to Jennifer Lopez for wanting to get his hands on her “juicy” behind is referencing a sketch that Will and Jennifer did at the end of an SNL Primetime Extra special from earlier that week. Primetime Extra was a two-week experiment in early February 2001, in which NBC aired a 20-minute live SNL episode on Thursday nights after a “Supersized” 40-minute episode of Friends, in an attempt to compete against CBS’s monster hit Survivor. Primetime Extra was basically the precursor to the “Weekend Update Thursday” specials that SNL has been doing on occasional years since 2008, only the Primetime Extra specials were less focused on Weekend Update and featured various sketches, including a Celebrity Jeopardy sketch at one point that I believe has become rather obscure compared to the Celebrity Jeopardy sketches that aired in regular SNL episodes.
— Tracy filling in for Will as Bush is hilarious, and I like how Tracy’s attempting an actual Bush impression.
— Some good laughs from Will waxing poetic about Jennifer’s behind.
— Jennifer is pretty bland as the straight man here.
— I love Tracy-as-Bush’s “How’s that for a tax plan?” bit.
— Lorne has just now made a passing mention of the XFL, which is interesting, as an XFL game infamously delayed this episode 45 minutes(!), which, IIRC, forced SNL to go ahead and start doing the episode anyway while the XFL game was still on, and then broadcasting the episode on a tape delay, without Jennifer or any of the cast knowing. This whole incident would end up causing a rift between Lorne and Vince McMahon. On the night of the original airing of this episode, I remember 16-year-old me sitting by my TV waiting and waiting very impatiently for the XFL game to end (though I was a little antsy that night to begin with, as my mother was at the hospital giving birth to my sister that same night). This episode was delayed so long that I remember being worried we would get another Rosanna Arquette situation (for those who don’t get what I mean by that, read my review of the Disclaimer sketch from the beginning of this episode).
— Another parallel this episode has to the Rosanna Arquette episode: the cold opening of both episodes involve 1) a cast member or recurring character hitting on the female host in her dressing room, 2) the female host wearing a robe, and 3) Lorne stepping in, initially putting an end to the cast member/recurring character’s hitting on the host, before changing his mind and having his own kinda sleazy turn towards the host.
— Not only do we get a rare Tracy Morgan “Live From New York”, but it’s an altered LFNY, with Tracy delivering it as “Live from New York, it’s Jennifer Lopez’s booty!” I’m always a sucker for the times that SNL alters their LFNYs.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
puzzled by diva reputation, host reveals Versace dress worn at Grammys

— (*OVER-ANALYZATION ALERT*) This is something I’ve always noticed about this monologue ever since it originally aired, and I wanted to get it off of my chest: something odd seemed to happen at the very beginning when Jennifer made her entrance. Immediately after opening the entrance door, Jennifer frantically turned her head back into the room she was in and appeared to say something unhappily to someone in there (the stage manager), then she has an uneasy, half-hearted smile on her face as she walks her way to the front of the stage. After the theme music and audience applause die down, a now-genuinely-smiling Jennifer shakes her head with her hand on her forehead in a stressed-out manner, and begins her monologue by saying “It’s too much, I wasn’t ready”, apparently referring to what went wrong right before she made her entrance. I’m guessing what happened was Jennifer was forced by the stage manager behind the stage entrance door to go out onstage when she didn’t feel quite ready yet, and then got upset by that. Wow. Looks like a certain someone doesn’t get the concept of a live TV show.
— A predictable and lazy premise of Jennifer immediately contradicting her “I’m not a diva” claims by doing diva-like actions. It’s not coming off too funny here.
— Aaaaaand there’s the iconic green Grammy’s dress. It was at least well-hidden under that robe before the big reveal.
— Overall, blah.
STARS: **


CRACKLIN’ OAT FLAKES
Rerun from 11/11/00


MANGO
Mango & host develop a rivalry after he becomes a recording star

— Parnell is hilarious in his small role at the beginning.
— After getting multiple sketches cut earlier this season, Mango makes his first on-air appearance of the entire season. The long break we got from Mango was nice while it lasted.
— I’m not sure, but I think this is the first time a Mango sketch was done in an episode with a female host.
— Darrell looks kinda out of place and awkward in the small non-impression role he’s playing here.
— Horatio makes his ONLY appearance of the entire night in a very small, 15-second appearance as one of Mango’s backup singers. The way he seems to DELIBERATELY exit this scene as slow as humanly possible is probably his way of milking what he knows is his only appearance of the night. I find that slow exit of his both kinda funny and kinda obnoxious and unprofessional.
— I got a laugh from Mango telling Jennifer “Bring it on, J.Ho!”
— Not sure we need such a lengthy parody of Madonna’s “Music” music video.
— Jennifer’s Mango-esque “Can you…” spiritual questions are making me chuckle.
— Wow, a pretty wild fight between Mango and Jennifer.
— Pretty funny random cutaway to real stock footage of Lorne in the Divas Live audience. It’s hard for me to imagine Lorne attending something like Divas Live, so I’m guessing that stock footage of him is from some other award show.
— Overall, while I still wasn’t too crazy about this, I found it a little more enjoyable than some Mango sketches. Maybe the long on-air hiatus did Mango some good.
STARS: **½


MTV CRIBS
Gemini’s Twin & new member (host) present their low-rent apartment

— A nice change of pace for Gemini’s Twin.
— Jennifer’s character being named Lady Speedstick is pretty funny.
— At the beginning of Gemini’s Twin’s apartment tour, I like the reveal that this small-looking room we’re seeing is their ENTIRE apartment.
— Jennifer doesn’t have anywhere near as good a chemistry with Maya and Ana as Charlize Theron and Lucy Liu had in previous Gemini’s Twin sketches. Jennifer seems out of place paired with Maya and Ana here, like she’s performing in a vacuum.
— Overall, once again, I just know I’m soon gonna get bored of these Gemini’s Twin sketches, but it hasn’t happened yet, especially since the Cribs setting in tonight’s installment provided some pretty good comedic potential.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
“Ray Of Light” by RBS- Ray Lewis witnesses famous Disney cartoon murders

— A huge laugh from the “Trent Dilfer sucks” message in the opening text crawl.
— A hilarious way to spoof the Ray Lewis controversy, by superimposing him into classic Disney movies.
— After witnessing Bambi’s mother getting shot, I love Ray Lewis saying “Oh, snap! I didn’t see nothin’!”, and then immediately hopping into a limo and speeding off.
— A very funny ending shot of Lewis singing “I didn’t kill no mother(*bleep*)in’ liiiooooon” while standing on top of a cliff.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Play”


WEEKEND UPDATE
TIF gabs with Cast Away star Wilson The Volleyball (WIF); Tom Hanks cameo

nervous 4th grader Rasheed Jenkins (JEM) gives Black History Month speech

— I thought it was unusual that Update was one of only two Jimmy Fallon appearances in the last episode, but that’s nothing compared to tonight, in which Update is Jimmy’s ONLY appearance. This kinda feels like a glimpse into an alternate universe in which Jimmy is one of those Update anchors who only does Update and seldom appears in sketches.
— Funny idea to have a commentary from Wilson The Volleyball from Cast Away being sleazily voiced by Will.
— A big laugh from Wilson The Volleyball’s blunt “Hanks is a dick.”
— Wilson bragging about his nub is pretty funny.
— Hi, Mustached Tom Hanks!
— Bye, Mustached Tom Hanks! Really, SNL? You brought Tom Freakin’ Hanks on for two seconds to do NOTHING, except take Wilson The Volleyball away? A waste of a Tom Hanks cameo, especially since this is his first SNL appearance in what, at the time, felt like a long time, and also ends up being his last SNL appearance for a long time.
— In his next joke after the Hanks cameo, I like Jimmy stopping mid-joke to ad-lib “I’m really gonna follow this”, referring to what a tough act it is to follow a Tom Hanks cameo.
— Tina’s long-winded joke, in which she does a fast-paced rundown of non-Baywatch shows that contain big fake boobs, is fantastic. One of Tina’s all-time best Update jokes. Also, seeing some of those shows being mentioned really takes me back.
— Tina is on fire with a lot of her jokes tonight. Jimmy, on the other hand, is quite a step behind her.
— Great to see Jerry with his own solo Update commentary.
— Jerry is doing such a spot-on imitation of a child. So many funny little things he’s doing throughout this commentary, and his freaking out when crying is hilarious. This is reminiscent of a great Will Ferrell sketch that I covered in season 24, in which Will played a businessman devolving into childlike crying and temper tantrums while giving an office presentation.
— Jerry’s commentary would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. One of the noticeable differences is that when Tracy tells Jimmy, in regards to the mother of Jerry’s character, “She’s in my dressin’ room, Jim!”, the audience responds well, whereas in the live version, that line strangely receives almost NO laughs.
— Speaking of Jerry’s commentary being replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, Jimmy and Tina’s subsequent sign-off is also replaced with the dress version, in which Jimmy and Tina comedically sign off as “Jim” Fallon and “Tin” Fey, presumably referencing Tracy calling Jimmy “Jim” a few moments prior. The live version of this Update, on the other hand, has Jimmy and Tina signing off with their normal names.
STARS: ***½


FLY GIRLS
Fly Girls (JEM), (TRM), (RAD) want to work with host again

— I like how this sketch is a callback to Jennifer’s early career as an In Living Color Fly Girl, which is something that I always forget.
— Where the heck is Maya in this sketch? Do we really need both Tracy AND Jerry in drag, when SNL actually has a black female cast member?
— Tracy’s character, when asked which one of the Wayans Brothers has fathered one of her children: “All I know is, it’s not Marlon.”
— When the characters are reading from a movie script, I love Tracy’s staccato, urban-sounding delivery of “Where he been hi-din’ it at?”
— Much like the cold opening, Jennifer is a bland straight man here. And why has she been playing herself in so many sketches tonight so far? Last time I checked, she DOES have an acting career in addition to a singing career.
— An okay Fly Girls dance number at the end. At least you can tell Jennifer is having a lot of fun during it.
STARS: **½


MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE VALENTINE
the Valentine soundtrack contains many songs by bands with oddball names

— Meh, I’m not getting any laughs from this ENDLESS listing off of “comedic” and “far-fetched” fake band names. These odd and ironic fake band names seem too realistic to be taken as a spoof, though that may be the point, since there are some real names (e.g. Fiona Apple, Marilyn Manson) mixed in among the fake ones. Either way, I’m not laughing.
— The way this commercial keeps faking us out by following a long listing-off of names with “and many more…”, only for them to actually list off each of the “and many more” names, is starting to feel awfully reminiscent of a sketch that SNL already did before. Maybe I’m thinking of that terrible Super Sports Tour sketch from the season 20 premiere (a sketch which just consists of a “comically” long listing-off of the names of baseball players who will be appearing on a sports cruise), as well as the fairly funny “Reunion of Later Hosts” sketch from season 23’s Greg Kinnear episode.
— Okay, I finally got a laugh, from one of the fake band names being the lengthy address “5445 North Park Drive Community Vigilence & Restoration Committee”.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Love Don’t Cost A Thing”


GOOD MORNING BRONX
borough residents broadcast the local news

— Geez, and I thought the last sketch was too reminiscent of a season 20 sketch. Now we get “Good Morning Bronx”. Really, SNL? So now we’re doing knock-offs of lame recurring season 20 sketches? Good Morning Brooklyn, anyone?
— Ehh, I’m being harsh with my above statement. Despite the similar titles, this sketch so far seems to be different enough from Good Morning Brooklyn.
— These last two episodes, the usually-underused Jerry Minor has suddenly been receiving a huge upswing in airtime. He’s been particularly prominent throughout tonight’s episode, and I am so happy for him. Sad that this boost in airtime doesn’t end up lasting for him, though.
— Rachel is very funny in her segment.
— Dominican Lou! This is surprisingly the first time in YEARS that Tracy has played him, and also ends up being the last. Very funny to see him suddenly appearing in this sketch.
— Jennifer: “You are not gonna mess up my chances of being the Puerto Rican Connie Chung!”
— Overall, this sketch was basically to urban stereotypes what season 20’s Good Morning Brooklyn was to white New York stereotypes, but I found this sketch more entertaining, especially when Dominican Lou showed up.
STARS: ***


THE BABY AND THE GERMAN INTELLECTUAL
by Adam McKay- innocence vexes

— Will’s mad German character ranting to the baby chewing on a potato chip bag is giving me lots of laughs. Will is absolutely perfect for this role.
— I love the “On the count of three, you will grow up!” bit.
— I see during the ending credits that the baby was played by Lily Rose McKay, who I assume is a daughter of Adam McKay’s. Obviously not the same McKay daughter that would later star with Will in the famous 2007 online short film, The Landlord, as the daughter in that film is much too young to have even been born yet in 2001.
STARS: ****


NURSING HOME
oblivious Jeannie Darcy does inappropriate material at a nursing home gig

— I’ve been starting to forget during these last few episodes that Molly is even still in the cast. She’s been appearing less and less as we get closer and closer to her mid-season departure.
— Jeannie Darcy, easily the most solid new Molly Shannon character in a long time, officially becomes recurring.
— I like the detail of Jeannie Darcy having two assistants carry in a fake brick wall background to set up behind her, to give off the illusion that she’s onstage at a comedy club.
— Some good laughs from all of the cutaways to the nursing home patients during Darcy’s jokes, especially the cutaway to someone’s IV bag bubbling.
— Wow, there’s Jerry in yet ANOTHER appearance tonight, though this is the type of silent, non-comedic bit role that he usually gets stuck with.
— Great part with one nursing home patient dying and being carried out of the room as Darcy obliviously continues on with her stand-up material.
— I love the cutaway to a crying Ana during Darcy’s comedy material on vibrators.
— Oh, god, there’s Molly’s obligatory character break. Dammit, Molly, I was really enjoying this sketch. Why do you have to break in practically every damn sketch towards the end of your SNL tenure?
— Molly at least recovers well from her breaking in this sketch, and goes back to doing a solid job as this character.
STARS: ****


WADE BLASINGAME
Another rerun tonight, this time from 12/09/00


NEWS FROM THE FRONT
at a WWII USO show, (host) damages morale by singing pro-German songs

 

— I like Steve Higgins’ old-timey newsreel voice-over in the opening portion of this sketch.
— Interesting how this is the second sketch tonight teaming up Jennifer, Maya, and Ana as a singing trio, with both sketches set in a completely different time period from each other. Makes sense, though, considering the singing abilities of all three ladies.
— Parnell got a good laugh out of me with his delivery of “Get a load of those gams!”
— Some pretty good laughs from the singers’ cheerful songs being pro-German and detailing the fate that awaits the soldiers, much to the gradual unhappiness and anger of the soldiers.
— Boy, the extra sitting to Kattan’s right (seen in the lower left corner of the second, fourth, and sixth above screencaps for this sketch) is making INSANELY over-the-top facial expressions all throughout this sketch. Haha, what a ham.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very average episode, maybe even slightly below average. There were a few strong segments, but most of the show had an unmemorable feel, even some of the decent sketches. Jennifer Lopez was a pretty weak host. While I got a few laughs from her, she was mostly forgettable as a host, and I couldn’t help but notice some off-putting moments from her, such as her aforementioned reaction when seemingly forced onstage at the beginning of her monologue, her lack of any chemistry with her scene partners in the Gemini’s Twin sketch, and her lack of any interactions with the cast during the goodnights (at least in the half of the goodnights that I saw before they got cut off).


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Mena Suvari)
a very slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Sean Hayes hosts. It’s also the last show for Molly Shannon.

Posted on

January 20, 2001 – Mena Suvari / Lenny Kravitz (S26 E10)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
self-satisfied Bill Clinton (DAH) says “suck on it” on inauguration night

— We have officially arrived at a new presidency during SNL’s timeline. That’s become a tradition for me to say in my reviews whenever I cover the first presidential cold opening of a president’s first term, as seen with the preceding two presidencies here and here.
— I like Darrell’s Clinton going on about how he’s going to enjoy being a citizen now that his presidency is over.
— Some good laughs from Clinton’s don’t-give-a-fuck “Suck on it” message.
— For the second week in a row, Will’s Bush impression steals a cold opening with a walk-on.
— Funny bit with Bush showing off his Billy Big Mouth Talking Bass, and mentioning that somebody sold it to him for a thousand dollars.
— For some reason, the camera shakes right before Darrell-as-Clinton says “Live from New York…”.
— Speaking of the “Live from New York…”, Darrell’s Clinton sets it up by claiming he’ll be saying it for the last time. That would end up being far from true, as after tonight’s episode, SNL would go on to do quite a number of Clinton cold openings that have Darrell saying LFNY as him, including a cold opening a mere month from now.
— Overall, ehhh. For what was a farewell to the Clinton presidency, a presidency that SNL has gotten a lot of comedy gold out of, this cold opening was kind of a letdown. It wasn’t weak, just unmemorable. How do you NOT end Darrell’s hugely popular run as President Clinton with an epic cold opening?
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— Don Pardo accidentally announces Jerry Minor as “Jimmy Minor”. This would later be fixed in reruns.


MONOLOGUE
host has American Beauty-style rose petal fantasies about castmembers

— Feels like been a while since we’ve had this type of backstage monologue.
— Odd how Will is randomly wearing his Spartan Cheerleaders costume at THIS point of his SNL tenure.
— Speaking of retired recurring characters, we now see Molly in her Mary Katherine Gallagher costume during one of the American Beauty-esque fantasy sequences.
— A one-note monologue, though I’m getting a laugh from Lorne’s American Beauty-esque fantasy sequence about Tracy.
STARS: **½


GATORADE LOVE BUCKET
douse celebrants with the Gatorade Love Bucket during off-field events

— A fairly funny premise.
— The scene with Jimmy and Horatio dousing Gatorate all over an old lady and her birthday cake gave me a good laugh.
— Speaking of Jimmy, here’s a screencap of a funny, kinda-freakish-looking closeup of him in this commercial:

— Overall, this commercial was fine, but nothing memorable.
STARS: ***


AIRPORT SECURITY
attitudinal airport security guard Jackie (MAR) heeds bum metal detector

— Maya: “(in a sassy manner) If ya put up a fight, ya ain’t gettin’ on the flight.” That line just made me groan.
— I loved Parnell’s sudden outburst of “DAMMIT!” when the metal detector goes off as he walks through it.
— Oh, god, and now Maya keeps repeating the aforementioned groan-worthy “If ya put up a fight, ya ain’t gettin’ on the flight” line from earlier.
— A hilarious bit with Tracy responding to Parnell’s “I’m not gonna be searched by this man” line with “That’s right, you gonna be searched by THIS man!” as a big intimidating security guard grabs Parnell. Tracy refers to the big guard as Dante, which is interesting, as the guard is played by the same extra who played a character also named Dante in those sketches from the preceding season in which Tracy played a criminal’s mother trying to prove her son’s innocence in court.
— I remember when this sketch originally aired, it was the first time that Jerry Minor had ever made me laugh, as I stated in my original review of this episode back in 2001. I would later go on to gain a much bigger appreciation for Jerry after becoming familiar with his non-SNL work, and I now am able to recognize that he actually did some funny things on SNL prior to this sketch. Not only that, but I don’t even find his character in this sketch all that funny anymore. His character just seems like a lazy gay stereotype.
— Overall, a few laughs, but this was mostly a pretty weak sketch. Before this point, I’ve been enjoying just about all of Maya’s performances so far in this SNL project of mine, but this was the first sketch of hers that left me a little cold.
— This sketch had no business being placed as the lead-off sketch of the night. SNL themselves would apparently agree later on, as the NBC rerun of this episode would move this sketch to a MUCH later spot, somewhere near the end of the episode, IIRC. That NBC rerun also shows the dress rehearsal version of this sketch.
STARS: **


JANET RENO’S DANCE PARTY
Janet Reno [real] crashes final episode

— This sketch makes its return after a long three-and-a-half-year hiatus for one final edition, to mark Janet Reno leaving office with the rest of the Clinton administration.
— Will-as-Janet-Reno’s dancing seems less frantic than usual, and thus, less funny than usual.
— Uh, why is Will’s Reno dancing to songs that are NOT “My Sharona” throughout this sketch? I thought it was established in previous installments that she refuses to dance to any other song besides “My Sharona”.
— Just like old times, we get a walk-on from Darrell’s Clinton, continuing the story arc of Reno’s crush on Clinton.
— I like the slow-motion montage of clips from previous Janet Reno’s Dance Party sketches, though it’s also sadly emphasizing how much tonight’s installment isn’t measuring up to previous installments.
— A pretty good laugh from Will-as-Reno’s onion reveal after she’s initially seen crying after the aforementioned clip show montage.
— Now the real Janet Reno appears, humorously crashing through a wall just like Will’s impression of her.
— Overall, the fun cameo from the real Reno gave this sketch a bit of a boost, but prior to that, this sketch felt kinda off. It didn’t have the same spark that the previous Janet Reno’s Dance Party sketches had. An underwhelming way for this recurring sketch to go out.
STARS: ***


RAP STREET
Aaron Carter (host) is commended for his G-rated rhymes

 

— This sketch becomes recurring, though this already ends up being the final installment.
— One of the sponsors mentioned at the beginning is “Flaco and Teddy’s Quality Breakdancing Mats”. This seems to be a callback to a sketch from the preceding season’s Freddie Prinze Jr. episode, where two characters named Flacko and Teddy did an ad selling Martin Luther King Day Trees.
— I like how there’s a bit of a change-up to the song that Horatio and Jerry’s characters usually sing.
— Horatio’s fake mustache is noticeably starting to peel off.
— Ha, and Horatio has now begun struggling to keep a straight face after noticing his peeling-off mustache. This is early enough in Horatio’s SNL tenure that I’m not annoyed by his character breaks in this sketch, as it hasn’t become a frequent thing in his performances yet, plus there’s thankfully no Jimmy Fallon in this sketch.
— Very funny ad-libs and gestures from Horatio as he tries to both fix his mustache and deliver his lines while looking casual.
— Ha, quite a sight of Mena as Aaron Carter. Perfect casting there.
— Another funny ad-libbed moment, this time from Horatio and Jerry after Jerry refers to a CD as a “CBD”. A lot of fun ad-libs throughout this sketch.
— Overall, a pretty big improvement over the first installment of this sketch. The lack of Tom Green will do that, but there were some genuinely good moments here, mostly from the unscripted stuff.
STARS: ***½


TV FUNHOUSE
“X-Presidents” by RBS- wannabe member Bill Clinton saves the inauguration

— Our first TV Funhouse in quite a while. The last one was that… (*shudder*) Sex And The Country debacle from the Tom Green episode. After a cartoon like THAT, Smigel has nowhere else to go but up.
— A very funny nonsensical opening speech from President Bush, just being a word salad of famous terms from real Bush speeches (e.g. “compassionate”, “not a divider”, “fuzzy math”).
— Seeing a Janet Reno’s Dance Party sketch and an X-Presidents cartoon in the same episode kinda makes me feel like I’m reviewing season 22 again.
— Reagan’s various bitter, foul-mouthed comments early on in this cartoon are cracking me up.
— I love how the no-longer-president Bill Clinton is joining the X-Presidents. His costume is priceless.
— I like how the villain is a monster made out of uncounted votes from the then-recent 2000 election.
— Funny gag with Katherine Harris being revealed to have been Tom Delay in disguise all along.
— Clinton, when approaching the villain: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, but I will (*bleep*) you up.”
— A nice change-up to the usual 1970s-esque band numbers at the end of these X-Presidents cartoons, with tonight’s band number being a Boyz II Men takeoff led by Clinton.
STARS: ****


WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE
movie features (TRM)’s love for comatose (host)

— A funny and pretty solid premise for Tracy.
— Feels a little odd seeing Will’s normal real hair throughout tonight’s sketches, for the first in a long time (though he can be seen with his normal real hair in the goodnights of the last episode). He spent the first half of this season hiding his real hair by wearing wigs in sketches all the time because he was filming the movie Zoolander, which required him to grow his real hair out and dye it an odd light blond color.
— Pretty funny reveal of Mena being in a coma after it’s established that Tracy is supposedly in a relationship with her.
— Good part with Tracy telling a comatose Mena that if she loves him, let her hand fall when he lets go of it, which is made even funnier by a mock-dramatic close-up of Will intensely awaiting the result of this.
— When Mena asks for Edgar after waking up from her coma, I love Tracy responding “Whoa whoa whoa! Who’s Edgar, bitch?!?”
STARS: ***½


WEEKEND UPDATE
TIF delivers subversive Spanish message to rich Republicans’ housekeepers

JIF & TIF engage in boy-band gossip about the 7 Texas prison escapees

federal appointee Jacob Silj is sensitive to being discriminated against

Al Sharpton (JEM) & Jesse Jackson (DAH) croon about latter’s love child

— I’m not sure, but this might be the first Update where Jimmy got to deliver the first joke.
— Speaking of Jimmy, this is surprisingly his only live appearance all night.
— A lot of laughs from Tina’s Spanish message to all of the republicans’ housekeepers who were left at home during Bush’s various inaugural balls this week.
— The punchline of Jimmy’s Jesse Jackson joke being Jackson not being able to think of a word that rhymes with “broken condom” sounds awfully familiar. Was there an Update from an earlier era that used a very similar punchline to a Jesse Jackson joke? Perhaps a Norm Macdonald Update?
— Another use of a drop-down screen behind Jimmy and Tina. Them treating a group of Texas prison escapees like a boy band is cute, but not all that funny to me.
— The side segment with Jimmy imitating President Bush’s bad imitation of Ricky Martin’s dancing at Bush’s inauguration seems kinda pointless.
— Feels a little odd seeing Jacob Silj appearing in a non-Colin Quinn Weekend Update.
— Jacob Silj, in regards to him and other voice immodulation sufferers: “We’re loud, we’re proud, get used to it!”
— The portion of the Silj commentary with us hearing his inner thoughts is kinda funny. At least it’s taking this Jacob Silj commentary into new territory that wasn’t already covered in previous Jacob Silj appearances.
— Tina: “On a humorous note, in front of 5,000 witnesses this week, a circus performer who was trying to shoot an apple off of his wife’s head with a crossbow hit her under the eye and pierced her skull. (*laughs heartily*) Jimmy?”
— Wow, a lot of jokes tonight are getting a fairly tepid audience reaction.
— Darrell and Jerry’s Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton impressions have returned after only a few episodes, with the big news earlier this week of Jackson fathering a lovechild.
— A pretty big night for Jerry Minor, who’s been getting far more airtime and far more comedic roles in tonight’s episode than he usually gets. It’s about time.
— Speaking of Jerry’s boost in airtime tonight, I like how his Sharpton is heavily dominating tonight’s Jackson/Sharpton Update commentary, unlike the last one, where Jerry’s Sharpton was more just a supporting role while Darrell’s Jackson was doing most of the talking.
— Okay, this Jackson/Sharpton commentary is going on a little too long for my likes, but I am enjoying Sharpton’s singing of Outkast’s “Sorry Ms. Jackson” and Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie” during Jackson’s apology message.
— An awkward but unintentionally funny ending of tonight’s Update, with Tina first missing her cue to sign off (or maybe she was expecting Jimmy to sign off first), then proceeding to screw up her sign-off by mistakenly saying “I’m Jimmy Fal–” before correcting herself.
— Overall, some good highlights, but tonight’s Update as a whole felt a little off. The first below average Update of the Fallon/Fey era. Man, what’s going on with tonight’s episode in general?
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Again”


VERONICA & CO.
panelists include boyfriend (WIF) & young model (host)

— Oh, god. I definitely didn’t need to see this sketch become recurring. Mercifully, this ends up being the final installment.
— Hmm, I see they added a new opening credits sequence for this sketch.
— I love the look of Ana’s character in this.
— At least we get the return of Parnell as the Times Square Robot guy, who provided most of my only laughs in the first installment of this sketch.
— I like Ana’s seedy line about how Mena’s foreign child model character is a natural, as she’s “already starving”.
— Surprisingly, not even Will is managing to save this sketch much for me.
— Okay, Will finally got a laugh from me, when he inappropriately asked Mena’s child model character “So if you’re 12 in Serbia, how old does that make you here?”
STARS: **


AUDITION
Kyle & Sean DeMarco win over musical guest with their take on his songs

— Oh, god, the second recurring sketch in a row tonight that I strongly dislike. Tonight’s already-meh episode has REALLY fallen off of a cliff in the post-Update half.
— Man, Kattan is so annoying as this character, especially whenever he gets angry at the musical guests and their assistant.
— Jesus Christ at the DeMarco Brothers’ raunchy “American Woman” interpretation. I actually remember finding that portion of this sketch hilarious when this originally aired, but watching it two decades later, it just comes off desperate to me, and suffers from the “let’s make something homoerotic for a cheap laugh” crutch that this SNL era is way too guilty of relying on (though wait until we get to the 2003-2005 years if you wanna see SNL go REALLY overboard with the “let’s make something homoerotic or flat-out gay for a cheap laugh” crutch).
— I do kinda like the ending with Lenny Kravitz dumping Mena’s character, but maybe I’m just desperate to find SOMETHING to like in this sketch.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Mr. Cab Driver”

— The show has apparently run long, as after only two minutes of this musical performance, SNL abruptly cuts to a Mena Suvari bumper photo and then a commercial break, before Kravitz has even finished performing.


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A subpar episode. A lot of the show had a forgettable feel, and even usually-reliable things like an early-era Fallon/Fey Update, a Bill Clinton cold opening, and a Janet Reno’s Dance Party sketch weren’t quite up to snuff tonight. The post-Update half of the show was particularly weak, with no redeeming sketches to be found.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Charlie Sheen)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Jennifer Lopez

Posted on

January 13, 2001 – Charlie Sheen / Nelly Furtado (S26 E9)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

VICE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
de facto president Dick Cheney (DAH) checks his pulse & talks to the rich

— The first appearance of Darrell’s Dick Cheney impression in a regular SNL episode. His impression actually debuted in an SNL “Presidential Bash 2000” special from earlier this season.
— Darrell sure seems to like using a “laugh for a few seconds, then suddenly put on a serious face” mannerism in his impressions. It’s a famous part of his Bill Clinton impression, but he’s also done it several times as Al Gore and he’s done it just now as Cheney.
— Will is stealing the sketch in his walk-on as Bush.
— This early portrayal of Cheney from Darrell seems more animated than the Cheney portrayal that we would later become familiar with seeing Darrell do.
— When this cold opening originally aired, I remember being confused over who Parnell was supposed to be playing, as I wasn’t familiar with Karl Rove at the time.
— After Cheney’s heart monitor begins flatlining, I got some laughs from Parnell’s Karl Rove casually informing Cheney that he has died, then nonchalantly injecting Cheney with something to bring him back to life, even singing to himself while doing it.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
audience members question host about his not-so-proud past

 

— As always in these questions-from-the-audience monologues, Paula Pell gets some really good laughs.
— Tracy’s walk-on is hilarious. I’d like to think this is intended as a continuation of a joke established in Val Kilmer’s monologue earlier this season, where it was said that Tracy usually sells weed to the audience during the show.
— The Men At Work bit with Charlie Sheen refunding Steve Higgins’ money is great.
— The ending bit with Charlie unintentionally pointing out similarities that he has to George W. Bush when detailing why he could never be president is decent, if a little predictable and corny.
STARS: ***½


FOX
Herpes Island, Temptation Trailer, The Cannibal are new FOX reality shows

— Hilarious twist in the island reality show trailer, with one of the 10 women having a venereal disease, and the male contestants being eager to be the first one to catch it.
— The incestuous Temptation Trailer ad is very funny. Is Darrell playing his obscure Skeeter character in that? He’s wearing the same wig and is doing a redneck voice.
— I love the tilted zoom-in that the camera does on Parnell’s seedy facial expression in the Cannibal trailer (screencap below).

— Priceless ending to the Cannibal trailer.
— An overall very funny parody of FOX reality shows from this time.
STARS: ****


IRON CHEF
American bachelor (host) & Morimoto (HOS) cook shark heads

in breast cancer PSA, Emeril Lagasse (CHP) says “check for lumps; bam!”

— The bad American dubbing of the Japanese people is pretty funny.
— I like Darrell’s performance as the “famous murderer”.
— I’m pretty sure I made this same observation about Jimmy in one or two earlier reviews, but his facial expressions in this sketch are reminding me so much of Mike Myers, for some reason (and no, not because Jimmy’s playing an Asian stereotype, as Mike played his endless myriad of Asian stereotype roles in a different way from Jimmy).
— A hilarious mid-sketch “Food Networks Cares” breast cancer PSA, with Parnell (playing dual roles in this sketch) as Emeril Lagasse saying “Ladies, kick it up a notch, check for lumps, BAM!”
— Parnell’s Japanese character: “It made me feel American, like I was a man with blue eyes kissing a girl with a big ass.”
STARS: ***½


ERIC DICKERSON’S NFL PRE GAME SPECIAL
Dennis Miller (JIF) orates

— Tracy’s incoherent, rambly Eric Dickerson impression was hilarious as a small supporting role in the Monday Night Football sketch from this season’s premiere, but was it really a good idea to spin him off into a lead role in his own sketch? This seems like a pretty thin celebrity impression to center an entire sketch around.
— Like last time in the Monday Night Football sketch, I’m getting laughs from the running gag with Will’s Dan Fouts always stating the obvious in his football reports. Is/was the real Dan Fouts really like that?
— Nice seeing Charlie reprise his Major League character.
— Tracy’s singing and dancing of the song “Wild Thing” is pretty funny.
— Charlie, to Eric Dickerson, after witnessing his oddness: “Eric, you wore a helmet when you played, didn’t you?”
— Jimmy’s Dennis Miller impression has improved a bit from the Monday Night Football sketch in the season premiere, but that’s still not saying much. He still has a problem where his Dennis Miller voice keeps trailing off towards the end of his zingers. I do, however, feel that the makeup people have improved in making Jimmy look more like Dennis. His wig here is much better than the one he wore last time.
— Overall, a little better than I was expecting, but I still prefer Tracy’s Eric Dickerson impression in a small supporting role than in a lead role.
STARS: ***


DR. KING ASSEMBLY
at an MLK Day assembly, Marty & Bobbi perform a civil rights medley

 

— Jerry seems like he’s just playing a weak knock-off of Tim Meadows’ teacher character from some earlier Culps sketches. SNL continues to waste Jerry Minor’s talents in poor roles.
— I love Marty Culp’s line about once calling his wife “Cottage Cheese Ass” as an insult.
— A pretty good Martin Luther King-themed song medley from the Culps, though this isn’t one of my favorite Culps song medleys. I do love their take on DMX’s “Party Up” (the “Ya’ll gon’ make me lose my mind” song).
— Overall, while this was still good, it felt a little forgettable for Culps standards.
STARS: ***


WEEKEND UPDATE
Katherine Harris (ANG) responds to critics with in-kind appearance jabs

JIF reviews concert atmosphere surrounding Bill Clinton’s farewell tour

in a terrible re-enactment, Prince Charles (CHK) falls from his horse

Marta Mercado (MAR) was more maid than houseguest to Linda Chavez

— Yikes, a lighthearted joke about “suspected terrorist” Osama Bin Laden, where the punchline is him blowing something up as a gift. This is only half a year before… well, you know.
— It feels a little rare to see Ana doing an Update commentary at this point of her tenure.
— Ana’s Katherine Harris impression isn’t as comically exaggerated as it used to be, and I’m not finding it quite as funny here.
— Jimmy’s music concert-esque review of Bill Clinton’s farewell tour is pretty funny, especially the part about how everybody at the concert was doing the bent penis wave.
— Kattan’s “Terrible Re-enactment” feature officially becomes recurring. I found this one particularly funny in how gleefully stupid it was, complete with a stick horse toy.
— Maya’s overall commentary was okay, if a little unnoteworthy.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I’m Like A Bird”


SOAP OPERA SHOOT
on the set of The Young & The Restless, Patsy Marsh (MOS) overacts

— Oh, god. Almost IMMEDIATELY in this sketch, we get Molly busting into the scene as a “new” hammy, obnoxious character that I can already tell will just be a tired variation of other hammy, obnoxious characters that Molly has already played. I am in for a LONG sketch.
— What kind of accent is Molly even going for here? It keeps coming and going all throughout the sketch. (*sigh*) I swear, SNL is just giving Molly free rein to do whatever she wants to do on the air at this late stage of her SNL tenure.
— Thank god Molly leaving SNL a few episodes from now prevents this character from eventually becoming recurring.
— I am getting laughs from Parnell’s dry, dramatic delivery of the line “I’ve heard enough” whenever they’re filming the scene.
— Another laugh from Parnell, with him disclosing the fact that he was banned from wearing his signature beret, as Charlie is complaining about the hat that Molly’s character is wearing during filming.
— Hmm, a twist with Charlie suddenly liking a take that Molly’s character has ruined, just because she flashed her bra. So I take it that Charlie’s been playing himself in this sketch all along?
— Funny ending with Will.
STARS: **


BIG BABY
(RAD) is surprised to give birth to 37 year-old Ted Brogan (WIF)

— Hilarious concept of Rachel somehow giving birth to a full-grown man.
— We find out that the name of Will’s character is Ted Brogan, which is the same name of the minor league character that Will played in the Baseball Dreams sketch from season 23’s Helen Hunt episode. They seem to be two completely different characters, though.
— The audience actually groans when Charlie cuts off the fake umbilical cord attached to Will. When the camera shows Rachel and Kattan immediately after that, Rachel has her hand over her mouth in shocked disgust, which seems genuine.
— Very funny how established we find out Ted Brogan’s life already is, when he just came out of the womb.
— Odd blooper towards the end, with Will mistakenly beginning to exit the sketch a little too early, before realizing it’s not time yet.
— I like the goofy quizzical look on Rachel’s face when shrugging her shoulders at the very end of this sketch (screencap below).

STARS: ****


T.G.I. FRIDAY’S
T.G.I. Friday’s (WIF) obnoxious waiter son (CHK) has job security

— Oh, god. Much like with Molly in the Soap Opera Shoot sketch a little earlier, this sketch almost IMMEDIATELY has Kattan busting into the scene as a very hammy, obnoxious, loud, annoying character that lets me know that I’m in for a LONG sketch.
— Good lord, this sketch is rough so far. I don’t usually hate Kattan at this point of his tenure as much as some people do (it’s not until seasons 27 and 28 where I officially entered “I cannot STAND Chris Kattan” territory, at least back when those seasons originally aired, and that was mainly because I felt he overstayed his welcome on the show, much like Molly in seasons 25 and 26), but my god, he seems like he’s playing a bad caricature of himself in this sketch. His performance is exaggerated to the tenth power, in all the worst ways. I remember when this episode originally aired, I actually found that Kattan’s performance in this sketch had a “So bad, it’s good”-type of quality. During this current viewing, however, I’m just finding his performance “So bad”.
— Some laughs from the running gag with the odd food combos in T.G.I.Friday’s menu items. There was a similar running gag in the previous T.G.I.Friday’s sketch that SNL did a few season earlier, where Mary Katherine Gallagher was a waiter at the restaurant. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a T.G.I.Friday’s myself, but I take it from these two sketches that the restaurant is known for serving odd food combos.
— A good bizarre turn with it being revealed that T.G.I.Friday is actually a real person, who’s full name is Thaddeus Garfield Ignatius Friday. And who better to play a bizarre character with a name like that than Will Ferrell?
— Will is absolutely saving this sketch with his INSANELY exaggerated, drawn-out, over-the-top performance. Unlike Kattan (or Molly, for that matter), Will turning his hamminess up to a full eleven during a sketch never fails to crack me up. Not sure why Will doing that works for me while Kattan and Molly don’t, but it just does.
— I remember this being pointed out by someone on an SNL board shortly after this episode originally aired, but this sketch contains what may be the closest that Parnell would ever come to breaking character in his entire SNL tenure. At one point in this sketch when Will is in the middle of doing his hammy performance, the camera cuts to Parnell and Charlie watching Will, and Parnell briefly has a slight smile on his face that doesn’t seem to be in character (screencap below), and then the smile soon fades, possibly because he realizes he’s onscreen.

Hard to tell if that slight smile was Parnell breaking character or not. If it was, then it makes sense that it was caused by Will Ferrell. I’m telling you, Will could make ANY performer break character. He’s even made consummate professional Ana Gasteyer crack up in a Terrence Maddox sketch once.
STARS: **


THE PERVERT
by Adam McKay- fellow creeps shun (Patrick McCartney)

— Adam McKay’s first SNL short film in half a year. These films also have a new name this season: “An SNL Digital Short by Adam McKay”. I bet there’s a misconception among quite a number of SNL fans that it wasn’t until The Lonely Island’s SNL shorts later this decade that SNL started using the name “Digital Shorts”.
— As always, Horatio is really in his element in these Adam McKay films.
— A very funny premise of the main pervert (played by UCB performer Patrick McCartney) getting off on the Cream Of Wheat chef (or “Cream Of Wheet” as it’s spelled here, presumably for legal reasons).
— The fantasy sequence with Jerry as the Cream of Wheat chef is slaying me.
— This film is hilariously fucked-up so far. I’ve been laughing almost non-stop throughout this.
— I love even the visual quality of this film.
— Horatio’s story about a pervert from 1983 getting caught shoving Skeletors up his “friggin’ A” is a riot.
— I got a big laugh from Adam McKay’s exaggerated delivery of the line “Get outta here, ya… PERVERT!!!”
— During the ending credits, why is Jerry’s last name misspelled “Meiner” (screencap below)? Is that an intentional inside joke?

STARS: ****½


CLASSIC VAUDEVILLE
host & Heidi Fleiss (RAD) do a prostitution-themed Who’s On First variant

— A very funny and dirty “Who’s on first?” parody, spoofing Charlie’s past with hookers, which once again shows tonight what a great sport Charlie is.
— I remember when I first reviewed this episode back when it originally aired in 2001 (the review is unfortunately not available anymore, as I lost it), I was a total prude and absolutely trashed the hell out of this sketch, because, as someone who has always (to this day in 2020) been a huge fan of classic comedy teams from the 1930s/40s/50s like Abbott & Costello, The Marx Brothers, and, of course, The Three Stooges, I was very offended by the fact that SNL was altering a legendary and, in my eyes at the time, sacred Abbott & Costello routine to make crude sex jokes. Luckily, I’ve lightened the hell up since those days, and can now sit back and laugh my ass off at this sketch.
— Spot-on Vaudeville-esque delivery from Charlie and Rachel, and they’re perfectly executing this very funny material. And I can’t help but find Rachel adorable in this sketch.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, but, aside from the FOX reality shows commercial, the only strong stuff was in the post-Update half. However, that post-Update half also had some awful hammy Shannon/Kattan showcases. Charlie Sheen was a pretty fun host, especially in how he got a lot of mileage out of poking fun at his image and his past.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lucy Liu)
a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Mena Suvari

Posted on

December 16, 2000 – Lucy Liu / Jay-Z (S26 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

CHI-CHI’S
at Chi-Chi’s, George W. Bush (WIF) & Al Gore (DAH) attempt reconciliation

— This is SNL’s first Bush/Gore sketch after a winner of this insane, drawn-out election was finally announced earlier that week: Bush.
— I like how this Bush/Gore sketch is set in a Chi-Chi’s, of all places. This shows how fun and loose SNL’s Bush/Gore sketches this election season have become. I remember saying in my old review that I originally did of this episode back in 2000, “Next thing you’ll know, they’ll put these two at Chuck E. Cheese’s.” Even all these years later, I can still picture a sketch like that.
— Bush: “Hey, maybe I’ll start a war. Wars are like executions, supersized!” Uh, hoo, boy.
— A lot of laughs during Bush and Gore’s entire conversation.
— Bush’s hot peppers prank on Gore is very funny.
— Funny ending with Bush faking Gore out after agreeing to say “Live from New York…” in unison with him.
— Overall, a solid end to the Bush/Gore sketches of this election season.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
host embraced female Asian stereotypes during her week at SNL

— Lucy Liu is coming off likable early on in this monologue.
— Tracy’s getting some good laughs from the bit with Lucy giving him a back massage.
— They’re going through just about every Asian stereotype imaginable, but this seems to be all in good fun, and I’m finding that this monologue is coming off funny enough in its execution, even if it’s something that might be considered problematic by today’s standards.
— A particularly funny bit with Lucy presenting a cooked cocker spaniel. I especially like Horatio’s “Mmm! That’s good dog!” line.
STARS: ***


PRICELINE.COM
the tech stock plunge hurt priceline.com spokesman William Shatner (DAH)

— Oh, no. Did we need the return of this mediocre bit from the preceding season’s Julianna Margulies episode?
— Same problems as last time. Darrell’s William Shatner impression is surprisingly weak, and the idea of spoofing Shatner’s Priceline ads is flawed, as those Priceline ads themselves are tongue-in-cheek.
— Tonight’s Priceline sketch is even worse than the last one. I’m not even sure where the laughs in this one are supposed to be coming from. I’d argue that the real Priceline commercials are actually funnier than this so-called spoof.
STARS: *


TRL
Gemini’s Twin added (host) because she has a minivan

— Gemini’s Twin officially become recurring.
— Like last time, I’m getting some good laughs from the music video shown tonight.
— Lucy is very funny in this sketch, even more so than Charlize Theron was in the first installment of this sketch.
— Overall, not bad, but I can tell I’m gonna eventually get tired of these Gemini’s Twin sketches, especially since they seem to be following the same formula.
STARS: ***


CELEBRITY JEOPARDY
Robin Williams (JIF) & Catherine Zeta-Jones (host) fail

— I love Will-as-Alex-Trebek’s failed attempt to speed past his intro of Darrell’s Sean Connery so he can quickly move on to the reading of the categories without Connery getting in his usual wisecracks at him.
— Jimmy displays another spot-on and hilarious impression in a Celebrity Jeopardy sketch, this time doing Robin Williams. He’s slaying me throughout this sketch, and so is Will-as-Trebek’s reactions to him.
— There’s our obligatory classic category mix-up of tonight’s Celebrity Jeopardy edition, this time with Connery reading “An album cover” as “Anal bum cover”.
— Very funny how for Final Jeopardy, Trebek tells the contestants to each ask their own question and then answer it. SNL keeps topping themselves with the ridiculous lengths they’ll have Will’s Trebek go to give the contestants an easy-to-answer Final Jeopardy question.
— We can see an unintentional glimpse of Jimmy’s real hand hidden in his sleeve when he’s holding a fake hand that has a pen sticking through it.
— Priceless Final Jeopardy answer from Connery, with us seeing half of a drawing of Trebek and a horse having sex with each other.
— Interestingly, this is the second sketch tonight to end with Darrell playfully slapping the side of Will’s head. The cold opening was the first sketch that happened in, when Will was saying “Live From New York…”.
STARS: *****


PRETTY LIVING
joyologist Helen’s new fling is a female lumberjack (host)

— WHY, GOD, WHY?!? And this is the second damn time that SNL has immediately followed my absolute favorite recurring sketch of this era, Celebrity Jeopardy, with my absolute least favorite recurring sketch of this era, Pretty Living. Season 24’s Ben Stiller episode is the first time this happened.
— On an up note, this mercifully ends up being the final Pretty Living sketch. Hallelujah!
— A change of pace with Helen Madden’s love interest being a female this time, but that’s still not making this sketch any more interesting.
— Helen Madden’s self-love mistletoe is kinda funny, I admit.
— Overall, good fucking riddance to this unbearable recurring sketch. It was rough reviewing these when covering these last few seasons, but, like a trouper, I made it through.
STARS: *½


JARRET’S ROOM
dorm-based webcast is a window into youth culture

— This soon-to-be-recurring sketch makes its debut.
— Horatio’s stoner character, Gobi, is pretty funny so far. Time will tell if I’ll eventually get tired of this character when reviewing this series of Jarret’s Room sketches.
— When Lucy points out that Jarret’s Room’s only fan is in Iceland, I got a good laugh from Jarret saying “Aw, yeah! Shoutout to Yaorg!”
— Pretty funny walk-on from Parnell.
— This sketch has taken kind of a dull turn in the second half.
— Overall, a fairly meh debut for this sketch. While there was kind of a charm to this sketch’s accurate portrayal of late 90s/early 2000s youth culture (and as a teen of that era myself, this sketch kinda brought me back), nothing was too noteworthy in this, and as I said earlier, portions of this came off kinda dull. IIRC, there would be some fun installments of this sketch to later come in the following season when they do some much-needed tweaking to the sketch and also add in new characters played by some of that season’s new featured players (Seth Meyers, Jeff Richards).
STARS: **½


WEEKEND UPDATE
modern trappings sidetrack James Madison’s (RAD) electoral college spiel
JIF & TIF change Baby New Year’s (CHK) diaper
JIF plays guitar & sings pop-inspired songs about Christmas presents

— A very Jimmy Fallon-dominated episode so far tonight. He’s been all over this show.
— Odd casting of Rachel as James Madison, but it’s working in the silly nature of this general commentary.
— I love the goofy mesmerized facial expression that Rachel’s James Madison makes when repeatedly clicking a pen in fascination (the fifth above screencap for this Weekend Update).
— Some of Jimmy and Tina’s jokes are receiving a somewhat tepid audience reaction tonight.
— Another silly and odd bit in tonight’s Update, with Kattan as Baby New Year. A fairly fun and goofy segment. Lots of silliness in tonight’s Update in general, once again showing how much things have changed in this new Update era compared to the stiffness and straightforwardness of the Colin Quinn era of Update.
— A piece of confetti from the Baby New Year segment has gotten stuck in Jimmy’s hair, and humorously remains there for the remainder of this Update, unbeknownst to him.
— Hmm, Jimmy has found a way to continue doing his traditional Update guitar songs even after becoming an Update anchor.
— Didn’t care for first few songs in Jimmy’s song medley tonight, but I like him now doing a parody of U2’s performances from the last episode, right down to running around the audience and repeatedly shoving his open mouth at the camera, ala Bono.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)”


TRIMMING THE TREE
angel (MOS) & other Christmas ornaments worry about making it to the tree

— A cutesy sketch that feels a little unusual for SNL, but I’m kinda enjoying this.
— Sad that this is the only big thing Parnell is getting to do in this entire episode, and it’s just a boring dad role where he doesn’t get anything comedic to do or say. After Parnell dominated the last episode with probably the most airtime of his entire SNL tenure, I see SNL has gone back to their usual habit of underusing Parnell and typecasting him in thankless small-ish roles.
— I love Horatio as the California Raisin.
— Funny bit with Maya as a space heater instruction manual.
— Some awkward timing issues throughout this sketch from the use of two child actors and a dog, but it’s forgivable.
— Overall, a pretty charming sketch.
STARS: ***


MURDER IN THE MAKE BELIEVE BALLROOM
more rap from Robert Goulet (WIF)

— Nice to see Will’s Robert Goulet impression become recurring, though as far as sketches with him advertising a rap album of his while sitting in a convertible out in the woods go, they’ll never top the first installment.
— Goulet’s rapport with Jay-Z and the other rappers is pretty funny.
— Are Jay-Z and the other rappers genuinely stoned out of their minds during this sketch? They are so out of it during this sketch, and I’m fairly sure that’s not acting.
— I remember when this originally aired, I was very thrown off by Will’s singing of the lyric “Who the fluck want one, babyyyyyy”, as I seriously wondered if he used the actual f-word or just “fluck”. I couldn’t tell. I would soon find out that it was “fluck”, but even listening to it now, 20 years later, I still think it sounds VERY close to the f-word.
— Speaking of expletives not allowed on SNL, Jay-Z actually does utter one shortly after Will’s f-bomb fake-out. Jay-Z pretends(?) to accidentally spill some ashes from his joint onto himself, and then deliberately(?) mutters an audible “shit” in response. I didn’t even catch that when this episode originally aired (I was probably too busy STILL asking myself in shock “Did Will just say the f-word on live TV?!?!?!”), but Will certainly caught it, as he briefly turns his head towards Jay-Z and laughs out of character while delivering the next line. I’m currently watching the rerun version of this episode, however, which mutes out Jay-Z’s s-bomb.
— Ha, the big-horned sheep returns!
— I love Goulet saying “Hey, fellas, you curled his horns” when the one of the rappers lets the big-horned sheep have a toke from a joint.
— Overall, this was funny, but doesn’t come close to holding a candle to the classic first Goulet sketch.
STARS: ***½


SEASON’S GREETINGS
interloper interrupts message of season’s greetings by JIF & TIF

— Uh, okay. A very brief segment overall, but I got a pretty good laugh from the random guy joining in on Jimmy and Tina’s holiday message, only for Jimmy to respond “Who the (bleep) are you?!?”
STARS: not even sure if this very brief segment warrants a rating, but if it does, I’ll give it ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Is That Your Chick”


SEASON’S GREETINGS (not to be confused with the earlier sketch tonight of the exact same title)
HOS, CHK, TRM, JIF once again perform a happy Christmas ditty

— Jimmy continues to absolutely dominate tonight’s episode. You’d think he was tonight’s host instead of Lucy Liu, especially since Lucy has strangely been M.I.A. since the Trimming The Tree sketch from almost 20 minutes ago (not counting her intro to Jay-Z’s second musical performance).
— The Sanz/Fallon/Kattan/Morgan Christmas song routine officially becomes recurring after debuting only ONE EPISODE AGO. It’s a good thing I love these songs, and thus, I can’t complain nowadays about seeing this back so insanely soon. I certainly do remember complaining about the very early return of this sketch in my original 2000 review of this episode, though, and I said stuff like “SNL is running out of ideas”.
— Nothing else to say here, but overall, this was fun as always. I’ll always be a sucker for these sketches, even if I prefer some of the later versions where there are interesting set-ups to the song or there are variations of the holiday theme.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very average episode. There were enough highlights to make this a passable episode, but this is the most forgettable episode of the season so far. There was also an awful lot of reliance on recurring sketches. I think Jarret’s Room (not yet recurring at this point) and Trimming The Tree were the ONLY original sketches all night.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Val Kilmer)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
We enter the year 2001, with host Charlie Sheen

Posted on

December 9, 2000 – Val Kilmer / U2 (S26 E7)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESS CONFERENCE
Al Gore (DAH) seeks election redress via personal injury lawyer (CHK)

— Ha, there goes Darrell’s Gore doing his usual gloating over winning the popular vote.
— Kattan is funny in his performance as Gore’s attorney.
— When listing off Gore’s “injuries”, I particularly like Kattan mentioning that the election drama has caused Gore to appear stiff and awkward on TV.
— Another funny line from Kattan, about him being approached by Gore after Gore saw his ad on the Montel Williams Show.
— Pretty funny Joe Lieberman impression from Parnell, though I prefer the Lieberman impressions that Dana Carvey and Hugh Fink demonstrated earlier this season.
— Overall, a pretty good opening, even if it felt pretty forgettable compared to the epic election-related cold openings that SNL has been knocking it out of the park with around this time.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host gets the It’s A Wonderful Life treatment from angel Clarence (DAH)

 

— Fun premise of this monologue being an It’s A Wonderful Life take-off.
— I like how we’re seeing glimpses of sketches that we’ll be getting later tonight.
— When Val expresses surprise at hearing that Parnell would’ve become a big movie star, I love Parnell’s response: “Is that so hard to believe, Val? Jackass. (*shoves Val while walking away*)”
— After the aforementioned part with Parnell, we get this funny exchange between Val and Clarence the angel: “You said they couldn’t hear me or see me.” “(laughing) I never said that.” True, he never said it.
— Yet another funny on-air dig about Tracy not being in any sketches in an episode, this time with the added joke that he usually sells weed to the audience during the show.
— Funny visual of a crying Kattan in his Mango costume as Val is informed that a Mango sketch got cut after dress rehearsal. This is actually a very meta and last-minute addition to this monologue, as there really was a Mango sketch that got cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal. After dominating the preceding season, Mango’s been having a very rough go this season, as ALL of his sketches have been getting cut after dress rehearsal so far. Ha, can’t say I have any complaints about that. I’d like to think that all of Mango’s sketches getting cut so far this season is payback for how inundated us poor viewers were with Mango sketches in the preceding season (YMMV).
— I like the fourth-wall-breaking ending with Darrell removing his Clarence wig and telling Val that he’s getting ready for the next sketch.
STARS: ****


WADE BLASINGAME
attorney Wade Blasingame (WIF) sues dogs that do what comes naturally

— The visuals of a briefs-clad Parnell performing uncouth dog actions are absolutely priceless.
— Rachel’s terrified facial expression when being humped on the ground by Parnell is very funny.
— Such a hilarious premise for this commercial, and Will is, of course, perfect as the attorney.
— I love hearing the audience’s groaning at the claim “23 Dogs Exterminated”.
— Fantastic testimonial from Tracy, particularly him discreetly disclosing to us “Wade told me that for $50, he’d KILL a dog.”
— When the camera shows Will and Parnell sitting next to each other, I love the close-up of a silent Parnell with a smug and almost disgusted look on his face.
— SNL would re-air this commercial years later in a Will Ferrell-hosted episode from 2009. I remember it being fun and fascinating to see this early 2000s era’s cast again in a repeated commercial shown in a new episode from a completely different era. (Darrell was the only person who was part of both this 2000 cast and the 2009 cast.)
STARS: *****


BEHIND THE MUSIC
in Heaven, Jim Morrison (host) forms a supergroup

— Great concept of a rock-and-roll supergroup in heaven, and a nice way to have Val reprise his movie portrayal of Jim Morrison.
— Tracy is particularly funny as Louis Armstrong.
— Hilarious bit with Will-as-Jesus doing a testimonial, especially the classic moment of him expressing the line “Oh my dad!” in place of “Oh my god!”
— Voice-Over: “’But offstage, things were falling apart’ is a registered trademark of VH1 and Behind The Music.”
— I love that this sketch is getting even more odd now with the addition of Amelia Earhart as Jim Morrison’s girlfriend.
— Very funny ending with the reincarnated band performing.
STARS: ****½


PALM BEACH
psephologic drama swamps George W. Bush (WIF) & Al Gore (DAH)

— This season offers up yet another epic Bush/Gore sketch parodying the Florida recounts fiasco. Turning the election drama into a soap opera TV show is a brilliant concept. Simply fantastic.
— Ana’s mere facial expressions as Katherine Harris continue to be hilarious, as does her impression of Harris in general.
— Good casting of Val as Jeb Bush. I can see a pretty strong resemblance between them.
— I love Will-as-Bush’s reaction to finding out that the presidency lasts four years instead of one day.
— Katherine Harris: “Al, I thought you were dead.” Al Gore: “I’m Al Gore. I just appear that way.”
— Jeb Bush, on his brother, George: “The more people that learned about his disability, the more popular he became. Kinda like Tom Arnold.”
— Nice inclusion of Parnell’s Tom Brokaw.
— Ha, during the dramatic close-ups of each person, we get the sudden return of Will’s spot-on imitation of a cat, last seen in the Vince Vaughn episode from season 24.
— During the aforementioned sequence with dramatic close-ups of each person, Darrell, during his close-up, gets distracted by Will’s cat routine behind him and starts cracking up.
STARS: *****


VERONICA & CO.
supermodel Veronica (MOS) leads unfocused panel discussion

— At the very beginning of this sketch, Molly misses her cue to start speaking and actually looks off-camera at someone and, while giggling like crazy, silently asks if it’s time for her to start the sketch. My god. Molly sure has been kind of a mess these last two seasons of hers. Her gaffe at the beginning of this sketch would later be removed from reruns with a rather noticeable edit.
— Molly apparently liked playing Gisele Bundchen in the VH1 Fashion Awards sketch earlier this season so much that she decided to create a character out of it. Her “new” character in this sketch is just a recycled version of her Bundchen impression, right down to wearing the same wig and doing the same voice. Can’t say this is something I really needed.
— Several minutes into the sketch, Parnell gives me my first real laughs of the whole thing, with his funny and very impressive robot dance.
— When Parnell’s character is suffering a horrific allergic reaction to what he just ate, I do admit to liking Molly’s line about how they have a doctor in the house, Val, after it’s been established that Val isn’t a real doctor.
— Overall, this sketch wasn’t quite as terrible as I had remembered (IIRC, I absolutely trashed these Veronica & Co. sketches in my original 2000-2001 reviews from when this season originally aired), but I still didn’t care for this, and I still look at it as a sign of how downhill Molly has gone in her later years on SNL. I’m not looking forward to seeing a second installment of this sketch later this season.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Beautiful Day”


WEEKEND UPDATE
I Have An Opinion- JIF is proud to say “I like election turmoil”
lyrical rhetoric carries Jesse Jackson (DAH) & Al Sharpton (JEM) away

   

— Right out of the gate in tonight’s Update, we get a rare use of a news screen behind Jimmy and Tina, as they break down all of the batshit insane election recount news from the last 24 hours. Solid segment.
— Jimmy’s “I Have An Opinion” segment was okay, I guess. I liked it more for his performance than for what he was actually saying, as none of his dialogue was particularly noteworthy.
— Darrell’s Jesse Jackson returns, this time being paired with Jerry as Al Sharpton. Good to see Jerry actually getting something comedic to do.
— Sharpton’s interjections during Jackson’s speech are hilarious, especially him breaking out into a New Edition song. Jerry’s portrayal of Sharpton is adding a fresh new feel to the typical Darrell-as-Jesse-Jackson Update commentaries.
— I like how towards the end of the Jackson/Sharpton commentary, it gets to the ridiculous point where they’re both preaching/singing different things simultaneously.
STARS: ***½


ICEMAN: THE LATER YEARS
easily-excited commercial jet pilot Iceman (host) is living in the past

— A great way of having Val reprise his Iceman character from Top Gun, and this is a fun setting for him.
— I like the detail of Iceman balding on the top of his hair.
— After one of Iceman’s many utterances of “You guys are dangerous!”, I absolutely love Parnell’s great delivery of “Tom, I’m gonna ask you to stop saying that.”
— I’m enjoying the structure to this sketch, presenting it as various little scenes with interstitial musical shots of airplanes and airports played in between.
STARS: ****


SEASON’S GREETINGS
HOS, CHK, TRM, JIF perform a happy Christmas ditty

— Ah, yes! Here we get the debut of a soon-to-be-recurring famous Sanz/Fallon/Kattan/Morgan Christmas song routine that has long been a favorite of mine.
— So much fun watching the initial edition of this song.
— I love how Tracy’s only contribution to the song is just running in place the entire time with a dead-serious look on his face.
— Even Jimmy being his usual giggly mess of a self works in the fun, charming, and endearing nature of this sketch.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Elevation”

— An incredible turn mid-song with Bono leaping off of the stage and, while still singing, traveling all around the studio and doing lots of interesting little things along the way, including singing a Doors lyric to Val. I remember in my viewing of this episode when it originally aired, this mid-song turn from Bono surprised and excited the hell out of me, especially because at the time, I had never seen a musical performance where the musical guest traveled around the studio to this extent before.


DOING VOICES
Margaret Healey finds a kindred spirit in accent-loving blind date (host)

— I kinda liked the first installment of this sketch, but this is definitely not something I needed to see become recurring. Pretty random too, to bring this forgotten sketch back after two seasons.
— Will has some great unhappy, deadpan one-liners in reaction to the voices routine that everyone around him is doing.
— Holy hell. A genuine big blooper where Parnell, playing a waiter, accidentally SPILLS an entire tray of drinks he’s carrying, some of which spills on poor Ana’s back. Yikes! Ana, ever the consummate pro, doesn’t even let it phase her.
— Overall, meh. Aside from Will’s unhappy lines, I didn’t care for this. Another weak Molly Shannon sketch tonight. Parnell’s gaffe with the tray of drinks provided my biggest laugh, and that wasn’t even in the script.
STARS: **


RECORDING SESSION
horn-playing brothers (CHP) & (WIF) do Burt Bacharach (host) session-work

— Has anyone else noticed that Ana and especially Parnell have been appearing in practically EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight? This level of airtime is rare for Parnell, and as someone who has always felt that Parnell is criminally underrated and underused, I’m very happy for him receiving this huge boost in airtime tonight. Probably the most airtime he’s ever received in a single episode during his entire SNL tenure.
— I’ve noticed throughout Parnell’s tenure that whenever he has a lead role in a sketch, he often partners up with another cast member to play a pair of brothers. Unlike the Bloater and DeMarco Brothers, the Tyson Brothers in this sketch never end up becoming recurring, though I’m not sure if they were even intended to.
— Val is cracking me up in his funny performance as Burt Bacharach.
— Quite an odd and slow-paced sketch, but it’s definitely working for me, especially the funny silent actions and gestures from Will and Parnell throughout this very long instrumental. There’s some hints of an Andy Kaufman-style approach to this sketch, especially in how it tests the audience’s patience. Take notes, Tom Green. This is how to successfully pull off Andy Kaufman humor.
— I love the angry sudden back-and-forth argument between the Tyson Brothers, especially Will’s character repeatedly screaming “SHUT UP!” in an increasingly high-pitched voice.
— Burt Bacharach, to Ana’s character: “Debbie, they are brilliant.” Ana: “It’s Brenda.” Burt Bacharach: “No, it’s Debbie.”
STARS: ****


CORN CHIP NAIL TIPS
Rerun from 10/7/00


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode, and the return to form that this season needed after that Tom Green fiasco. Many great sketches all throughout tonight’s episode, two segments that received a perfect five-star rating from me, and musical guest U2 delivered an all-time memorable and epic number in their second performance.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tom Green)
a colossal step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Lucy Liu hosts the Christmas episode

Posted on

November 18, 2000 – Tom Green / David Gray (S26 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

DECISION 2000
Al Gore (DAH) puts George W. Bush’s (WIF) acceptance speech on hold

— Second episode in a row to start with Parnell’s Tom Brokaw, even using the exact same greenscreen background of an electoral map behind him.
— I love the constant fake-outs with the “live” breaking Tom Brokaw reports suddenly being interrupted by supposedly “real” live Brokaw reports.
— A hilarious opening shot of Will’s Bush, just silently staring intensely into the camera for a long time, before realizing that he’s supposed to be speaking into it.
— A big laugh from Bush accidentally reading the wrong speech he pulled out of his pocket, which states “Daddy, help me. I never thought I’d win this thing and I want out.”
— Great audience applause for Darrell’s entrance as Gore, showing how hugely popular his and Will’s Gore and Bush impressions have become during this election season.
— I love Gore revealing that his supreme court justices are also ninjas, which the justices demonstrate by suddenly striking a karate pose, freaking out Bush.
— Ah, just now, the distinctive voice of Tom Davis is heard from off-camera, as Gore’s aide. Tom Davis has returned to SNL this week as a guest writer for tonight’s episode. Hearing his voice again is welcome to the ears.
— Great turn with Bush and Gore breaking out into a duet of “I Got You, Babe”. SNL is having so much fun with these Bush/Gore sketches during this Florida recount fiasco. At this point, SNL can do no wrong with these.
— During the “I Got You, Babe” duet, I particularly love Bush’s lyric that ends with “that ballot confused the Jeeewwwwsss”.
STARS: ****½


MONOLOGUE
host & Drew Barrymore [real] say they’ll wed at the end of the show

 

— We IMMEDIATELY start off with typical Tom Green antics, with him wandering off into the audience and rubbing the heads and faces of some audience members in the floor seats, one old man in particular. Are those audience members plants?
— Oh, god, now Tom truly goes FULL-ON Tom Green, by exaggeratedly sucking and licking all over his father’s face.
— After a painfully staged “surprise” conversation between Tom and Drew Barrymore, Tom breaks the fourth wall and tells us that this was “just a skit”, but also that he and Drew will be getting married on SNL at the end of this episode. I remember that the prospect of a live genuine wedding happening on SNL felt pretty exciting when I watched this episode live, but knowing now what this supposed live “wedding” ACTUALLY turned out to be, ehhh….
STARS: **


MAGIC MOUTH
Rerun from 10/21/00


BALD EAGLES
bald eagle (WIF) searches for her baby (host) in the Studio 8H balcony

— I remember an SNL review from this time in 2000 pointing out how Jimmy, in this sketch, appeared to be doing an impression of Steve Martin in the famous “What The Hell Is That?” sketch that Steve and Bill Murray did together in 1979. Jimmy’s character in this sketch is even named Steve. I wonder if all of these similarities are intentional or just a coincidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re intentional, as Jimmy has always said that he’s a big SNL nerd, and I’ve always heard that he has a Steve Martin impression that he supposedly once did in an interview on, I think, Oprah around 1999. On a similar note, I also remember another SNL review pointing out that in the infamous Gary’s Fish Tanks sketch from a few seasons later (a notoriously bad sketch with Jimmy and Horatio playing fish tank repairman who constantly say wisecracks that end with “ova heah”), Jimmy seemed like he was doing an impression of Christopher Guest’s character voice from the “I Hate When That Happens” recurring sketch that Christopher did with Billy Crystal in season 10.
— Tom and Will walking around in eagle costumes, cawing and screaming endlessly. Boy, this is just plain dumb.
— Now this sketch has carried over into the studio audience. While this is pretty unique for SNL and must be a blast for the studio audience, I can’t say I’m laughing here and this feels like a waste of my time.
— Interesting how the two giggliest members of this season’s cast, Molly and Jimmy, are cast in a role where they have to pretty much keep a straight face while basically providing commentary on the crazy stuff that Tom and Will are doing in the audience. Casting Molly and Jimmy in a role like this seems like a recipe for disaster, but surprisingly, they’re both actually perfectly keeping their composure and are playing it straight during their commentary throughout this sketch.
— Now Tom’s going all Mr. Peepers by spitting chewed food bits at audience members. Blah. It’s tiresome enough when Mr. Peepers does it.
— In true typical juvenile Tom Green fashion, this sketch ends on a shot of Tom and Will tongue-kissing each other. Oh, gosh, how “hilarious”.
STARS: *½


RAP STREET
Grand Master Rap & Kid Shazaam approve of (host)’s rhymes

— These two characters from an Update commentary in the season premiere officially become recurring, now being placed in their own talk show sketch, an always-lazy resort for SNL characters and celebrity impressions.
— Nice to see Jerry actually appearing in a sketch in the first half of an episode for once. Aside from Rob Lowe’s monologue in the season premiere, I’m pretty sure that all of the appearances that Jerry has made on SNL in his tenure so far have been in sketches buried towards the end of the show. Damn.
— Horatio and Jerry continue to make me laugh as these characters.
— (*sigh*) Once again tonight, Tom Green plays a typical Tom Green-ish character. And boy, I’m noticing throughout tonight’s episode that Tom sure loves repeating words and phrases over and over and over and over again, which is literally ALL he’s doing during his song in this sketch (e.g. “I’m a good boy, I’m a good boy, I’m a good boy”, “I’m a nice boy, I’m a nice, nice boy”, “UNDIES! UNDIES! FUNNY UNDIES!”).
— I like Maya’s Dido-esque interlude in Tom’s rap, complete with an intentionally bad English/Australian accent.
— I do like Tom’s legitimate rap with Horatio and Jerry at the end of this sketch. The spastic Running Man dance that Tom does afterwards is something that I remember seeing him once do during a man-on-the-street segment on his MTV show, back when I watched that show religiously as a teenage fan of Tom’s.
STARS: **½


LORNE AND TOM IN A TUB
stonefaced LOM thinks host’s duck hijinks are funny

— The bizarre theme song of this sketch is in the same vein as the theme song of a cut dress rehearsal sketch, Scene On An Airplane, from the preceding season’s Tobey Maguire episode. Scene On An Airplane is a hilarious, dark, and insane Will Ferrell sketch that was later shown in either his second or third “Best Of” special. By the way, the singer of this Lorne And Tom In A Tub theme song strangely sounds kinda like Darrell. Is that him? If so, it’s a very unconventional use of him. I can’t remember if the similar Scene On An Airplane theme song is also sung by the same person.
— Is SNL fucking kidding me with this sketch? And I thought Tom played very Tom Green-ish characters in previous sketches tonight. It’s hard to get a more Tom Green-ish performance than what we’re getting here.
— Lorne’s deadpan throughout this sketch is funny, as is the punchline of him simply telling Tom “That’s funny”, but that does not excuse me having my eardrums abused and my I.Q. lowered by listening to Tom annoyingly scream “ducky” over and over in an obnoxious voice for a full minute. Lorne’s funny punchline was not worth sitting through THAT.
— Two additional Lorne And Tom In A Tub sketches were cut after dress rehearsal, but would later be shown in reruns of this episode. And believe it or not, they’re, in my opinion, somehow even less funny than this first Lorne And Tom In A Tub sketch that I’m currently reviewing. While they thankfully don’t have Tom annoyingly repeating “ducky” endlessly, they’re unfunnily bizarre, pointless, come off as failed attempts at random humor, and don’t have the benefit of containing a visual of a deadpan Lorne sipping on a juicebox.
STARS: *½


HARDBALL
Chris Matthews (DAH) lets Katherine Harris (ANG) gloat

— The debut of both Hardball and Darrell’s Chris Matthews impression.
— Right out of the gate, Darrell’s Chris Matthews impression is spot-on and funny.
— Chris Matthews, in the middle of an already-loud spiel of his: “Excuse me one second, I’m gonna raise the volume of my voice!”
— Chris Matthews, quoting something that we’re told someone has once said to Katherine Harris: “Hey, lady, shut that surgically-altered trap of yours!”
— Ana’s mere look as Katherine Harris is hilarious, and she’s backing it up with a solid performance.
— Parnell constantly getting cut off is pretty funny.
— Overall, a solid Hardball debut, but these sketches would later get even better when the writing for them gets more developed.
STARS: ****


TV FUNHOUSE
“Fun With Real Audio” by RBS- bestiality reigns on Sex & The Country

— This Sex And The Country cartoon was cut after dress rehearsal in the season premiere.
— Boy, as if tonight’s overall episode doesn’t have enough tasteless, low-brow, or questionable humor, most of it performed by Tom Green, and some of which we’ll see later in this episode, we now get a fucking bestiality spoof of Sex And The City. Now, look – I usually always admire how Robert Smigel is never afraid to push the boundaries with his TV Funhouse cartoons, but goddamn. Really, Smigel? We’re doing THIS?
— So far, this cartoon is just plain disturbing and gross, and not in a funny way, either.
— Overall, for the first time ever in this SNL project of mine, I went through an entire TV Funhouse cartoon without laughing a single time. But cringing and groaning? Well, let’s just say I did that plenty of times here.
— After this episode’s original airing, SNL would receive quite a number of complaints about this cartoon, leading to this cartoon being removed from reruns and replaced with the Mr. T cartoon that aired a few episodes earlier when Charlize Theron hosted. The really odd thing about this replacement, at least in the April 2001 NBC rerun, is that they inexplicably left in the Charlize Theron bumper photo that preceded this TV Funhouse! I kid you not, folks. They didn’t bother to replace Charlize’s photo with Tom Green’s. I can only imagine how many viewers that night were confused as hell by that.
STARS: *


DOG SHOW
wizard’s (host) pig squeals & casts a spell of invisibility

— Is it really a wise idea to place a sketch featuring animals IMMEDIATELY after a bestiality cartoon? So many bad decisions in tonight’s episode in general.
— This ends up being the final Dog Show installment. And, boy, what an infamous installment this ends up being.
— Why did Molly drop character and use her normal voice when snarkily telling Will’s character that he’s gay?
— Ugh, and there’s the tired, old “Maybe I am… and maybe I am” joke.
— Jesus Christ at Tom’s pig’s loud and endless squealing. And I thought my eardrums were abused earlier tonight in the Lorne And Tom In A Tub sketch. The pig’s endless squealing is going to haunt my nightmares after this viewing.
— Yet ANOTHER display tonight of Tom Green’s annoying love of repeating the same words over and over and over and over again, with him in this sketch endlessly repeating things lines like “Oooh, I’m a wizaaaarrrrd” and “I’m a doggy”. The man is like a hyperactive 4-year-old.
— Nobody can pay attention to the performers’ dialogue with the pig loudly squealing over everyone. Also, all of the performers keep awkwardly hesitating before talking during the squealing. What a disaster. This sketch has gone off the rails in the worst way.
— Now Tom has taken to holding the squealing pig by Mr. Bojangles’ ears, terrifying the hell out of the dog. Dammit, Tom, leave poor Mr. Bojangles alone.
— And now, tonight’s Dog Show installment mercifully ends. My god. I fucking hated the hell out of this entire thing.
STARS: *


WEEKEND UPDATE
hack stand-up comic Jeannie Darcy (MOS) says “Don’t get me started!”
Gwyneth Paltrow [real] corroborates JIF’s self-centered gossip report

— Molly attempts a new character in this late stage of her SNL tenure, one that refreshingly feels original for a Molly Shannon character.
— I’ve been criticizing Molly a lot in these later seasons of hers, but she’s doing a solid job as this new character, Jeannie Darcy. Darcy’s intentionally bad jokes are providing good amusement. This feels like a precursor to future cast member Fred Armisen’s myriad of intentionally bad stand-up comedian characters on Update.
— I like Tina’s deadpan “Leave me out of this, please” when Jeannie Darcy asks her if she can relate to a certain joke.
— Funny reaction from Jimmy when there’s a delay with the hand movement sound effects during his Hollywood Report segment.
— A Gwyneth Paltrow cameo.
— Not sure what to say about the random lovey-dovey interaction between Jimmy and Gwyneth in Gwyneth’s brief cameo. It didn’t do anything for me, and kinda felt like a waste of Gwyneth, who’s proven to be a solid performer on SNL in the past.
— Much like a few Updates ago, Jimmy botches another joke. I don’t understand why he hesitated in his set-up before the Linda Tripp photo was shown during the punchline. He ruined a decent joke there.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Babylon”


OPRAH
Dr. Phil McGraw (WIF) dispenses nonsensical marriage counsel

— Maya’s Oprah impression makes its debut. Her Oprah voice sounds a little different here from how I remember it sounding in later appearances.
— As Maya is speaking straight to the camera while setting up the appearance of Tom and Ana’s characters, why are Tom and Ana making their entrance in the wrong place, by walking RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA, completely blocking Maya and forcing her to actually have to lean to the side to get her face onscreen? Man, tonight’s episode is such a mess that even a true pro like Ana Gasteyer is making amateurish gaffes that she usually never would.
— Funny Dr. Phil impression from Will.
— At least we get Tom FINALLY playing a non-Tom Green-ish character tonight.
— I got a pretty good laugh from Tom’s puzzled facial reaction to an absurd analogy that Will’s Dr. Phil has just made to him. You know, Tom Green can certainly be funny when he’s reined in, such as how he is in more recent years, but he has been anything but reined in for most of tonight’s episode.
— Oh, god, right after I give credit to Tom for reining himself in during this sketch, he suddenly resorts to his typical yelling and repeating-the-same-words-over-and-over shtick. Goddammit, he almost made it through a full sketch successfully playing against type.
— Overall, Will’s Dr. Phil had a lot of funny asinine analogies throughout this sketch, but most of the other portions of this sketch didn’t do much for me.
STARS: **½


STORYTELLERS
Air Supply vocalists (CHK) & (WIF) reminisce & make out

— Geez, Kattan is JUST NOW making his first appearance of the night. I didn’t even realize that he had yet to appear tonight until this sketch.
— Will: “As we told you before when you didn’t recognize us, we are Air Supply.”
— The bad Thanksgiving-themed variation of the song “All Out Of Love” that Will and Kattan are singing is pretty funny.
— Aaaaaand this sketch is immediately soured by it ending with Will and Kattan kissing each other for an unnecessary cheap laugh. THAT’S the big gag that this whole sketch was leading up to? Oof.
— Oh, and by the way, this is the THIRD time in these last two seasons alone where Will and Kattan kissed each other in a sketch as a cheap punchline. What’s more, it’s also the third cheap man-kissing-another-man gag in TONIGHT’S EPISODE alone, after the monologue where Tom licked and sucked his father’s face, and the ending of the Bald Eagles sketch where Tom and Will tongue-kissed each other. Could tonight’s episode be any more low-brow?
— If you’ve ever read or will ever read the original review I did of this sketch back in 2000 when I was a reviewer who covered new SNL episodes when they originally aired, there’s something in it that I sincerely apologize for. A few days ago, I was skimming through my original review of this episode to remind myself of what to expect when I had to cover this episode again, and I found myself cringing at how homophobic my original review of this Storytellers sketch comes off, with me dismissing the sketch as “gay crap” and deeming Will and Kattan kissing each other to be “just sick”. I usually cringe nowadays at my old reviews from 2000-2001 in general, as I was a new and young reviewer back then and, understandably, those reviews come off poor and unpolished, plus my opinion of so many sketches that I reviewed back then have changed drastically in more recent years, but it’s the homophobic attitude in my original review of the Storytellers sketch that has me feeling particularly ashamed nowadays. Please understand that I’ve never had anything against gay people; I was just a typical immature 16-year-old when I wrote that review, and like most teenage boys, you say dumb shit, especially back in the days before our more politically correct and socially aware current era. My apologies, everyone. By the way, almost as embarrassing as those homophobic comments of mine was me suggesting in that same sketch review that the only way to “fix” this sketch would’ve been to have Tom Green interrupt Will and Kattan’s song to sing “The Bum Bum Song”, of all things. Jesus Christ. That’s yet another example of my teenage immaturity showing in that review. (For those who don’t know what “The Bum Bum Song” is and are curious, click here).
STARS: **


ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK
(host) & (WIF) rock around the clock, jump, break the clock

— This sketch opens on Tom in the middle of talking to someone who’s off-camera (an audience member, perhaps?), then realizing that the show is back from commercial and asking “Oh, are we on the air?” Something tells me this “gaffe” was something that Tom intentionally slipped into the show. Either way, SNL would alter this in reruns by removing the initial shot of Tom talking to an off-camera person, but inexplicably leaving his “Oh, are we on the air?” comment intact, which makes no sense in the edited context.
— I don’t know if it’s just acting, but man, Will looks MISERABLE at the beginning of his walk-on in this piece. You’d think he was forced at gunpoint to appear in this sketch. And wow, he has appeared in a big role in literally almost EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight. Is SNL heavily featuring Will in every Tom Green sketch tonight because they think he’s the cast member who’s comedic style is the closest to Tom’s? Heh, sorry, SNL, but HELL NO. Will Ferrell, even at his most over-the-top and unleashed, is far more nuanced than Tom Green. And it hurts to see Will being dragged down to Tom’s level by participating with him in senseless, unfunny stuff like this and the Bald Eagles sketch.
— What the hell is this sketch going for? What am I watching?!?
— You can see an accidental glimpse of some kind of choreographer directing Tom to knock over the clock (as seen in the second-to-last above screencap for this sketch).
— What the hell happened to the end of this sketch? Tom stops the music to a halt and yells “Stop jumping!”, the screen then suddenly cuts to an SNL bumper photo of Tom while we hear him still going on, yelling “We broke the clock!”, and then the show suddenly cuts to a commercial break, with no audience applause, no punchline, NOTHING. WTF?!? Is the show running long and they had to cut this sketch short? Or was the sketch written this way, as some kind of poor man’s attempt at Andy Kaufman-style mindfuckery? You know, back as a teenager in 2000, I was one of quite a number of people guilty of hailing Tom Green as a new-age Andy Kaufman. Kaufman was a comedy idol of mine at this time in 2000, and I remember really buying into the hype that some people were selling about Tom Green being a Kaufman-type performance art genius. I would come to the realization a little later in life that those people were DEAD WRONG with that comparison. Let’s just say that out of Tom Green and Andy Kaufman, only one of those two still remains my comedy idol today, while the other just has me shaking my head when looking back on how hilarious I used to find his shtick.
STARS: *


WEDDING
host is jilted at the altar as his parents [real] look on

— Well, here we are. The “big wedding” that we were promised earlier tonight.
— Tracy makes his only appearance of the night in this wedding (and is barely even visible, being buried in the back of the stage), meaning he was in no actual sketches tonight. Just when I thought his airtime was finally getting better this season, his airtime has really taken a hit these last two episodes.
— Aaaaaand the bride, Drew Barrymore, fails to show up for the wedding, leading to the cast and guests to slowly start walking off in disappointment, one-by-one.
— Now the ending credits are rolling? Wait, THAT’S the end of the show??? We’re closing tonight’s episode with the credits rolling as Tom is seen alone on the home base stage screaming in “comical” anguish and relying on his favorite habit of repeating the same damn words over and over and over and over again??? Listen, I’m all for SNL breaking format, especially in more recent decades like this where format-breaking is very rare, but this? Ehhh…
— Our final image before the goodnights get cut off prematurely is an overhead shot of Tom Green curling up in the fetal position on the floor while screaming and crying. Something about that visual is a strangely fitting way to end this clusterfuck of an episode.
— Gee, thanks, SNL, for getting viewers’ hopes up for a possible groundbreaking live wedding on your show, only for the payoff to be… THIS. Again, if this was Tom’s attempt at an Andy Kaufman-style way of messing with the audience’s heads, then oof.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— (*sigh*) Well, I knew this would be an odd one to review. I was reeeaaaaallllly hoping I wouldn’t be so salty towards this episode in my review, as I wanted to appreciate and be fascinated by this episode’s uniqueness, oddness, chance-taking, and format-breaking, but alas, it was not to be. Reviewing this episode just now has unleashed saltiness in me not seen this consistently in a single episode review of mine since I covered the absolute worst episodes of season 20. While I’m not sure yet if I feel that this episode as a whole is as bad as the worst of season 20, I most definitely did not enjoy this episode. Viewing this episode just now made me so goddamn frustrated, caused especially by Tom Green being as Tom Green as Tom Green can possibly be for NINETY MINUTES, the show’s poor attempts at shocking, edgy, and tasteless humor (and not just in Tom Green sketches – I’m lookin’ at YOU, Smigel), and the show’s poor attempts at random humor. Some of the worst sketches of SNL’s late 90s/early 00s era were in tonight’s episode alone. SNL’s experiment of doing an “SNL/The Tom Green Show” hybrid was a failure. I do at least give credit to SNL for trying something completely different, but this particular case was a misguided effort.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Calista Flockhart)
one of the biggest step downs humanly possible


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Val Kilmer / U2

Posted on

November 11, 2000 – Calista Flockhart / Ricky Martin (S26 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE PRESIDENTIAL COUPLE
odd couple George W. Bush (WIF) & Al Gore (DAH) will share the presidency

— SNL does their very first parody of the historic Florida recounts fiasco that prevented us that week from finding out the winner of the 2000 presidential election. SNL will be making comedy gold out of these recounts during these next two months.
— I remember when this cold opening originally aired, I didn’t understand why Will’s Bush was wearing a small band-aid on his face, especially since it’s never addressed here. I wondered if maybe something happened to Will himself, until I saw him in later sketches tonight without a band-aid. I didn’t find out until the Weekend Update from later in this episode that the real Bush sported a small band-aid on his face that week.
— Bush: “We don’t want to be dividers. We want to be unificators.”
— Fantastic turn with Bush and Gore mutually deciding that they’ll both be president.
— An absolutely hilarious Odd Couple-esque opening credits sequence for this dual presidency. Classic.
— I love Bush and Gore demonstrating the use of rock-paper-scissors to settle their disputes.
— We get our very first instance of Darrell’s Gore famously complaining about someone being “snippy”, which was based on a complaint from the real Gore at the time.
STARS: *****


MONOLOGUE
host gives constructive criticism to Ally McBeal (RAD)

— Good sudden entrance from Rachel’s Ally McBeal impression.
— There is a somewhat uncanny resemblance between Calista Flockhart and Rachel whenever Rachel makes those Ally McBeal facial expressions. This reminds me of Rachel playing Christina Ricci’s twin in Ricci’s monologue from the preceding season.
— Calista makes a self-deprecating dig at all of the criticisms of her own thinness, by telling Rachel’s McBeal “For god’s sake, eat a burger!”
— Solid part with Rachel and Calista both saying the same rant in unison. Perfect timing there on both Rachel and Calista’s parts, so much so, that I remember it kinda creeped out then-teenage me at the time, but then again, teenage me also always found it creepy when twins speak in unison.
STARS: ***½


CRACKLIN’ OAT FLAKES
(WIF) raves after eating MDMA-containing Cracklin’ Oat Flakes

 

— Hilarious turn with Crackin’ Oat Flakes containing ecstasy of all things. Great image of the Cat In The Hat-dressed raver on the cereal box too.
— All of the crazy actions from Will on ecstasy are absolutely priceless. This is such a perfect Will Ferrell-y commercial that it’s hard to imagine anyone else selling this as well as he is.
— A great rave-type commercial jingle, and lots of great screen effects all throughout this commercial.
— Ha, what in the world is that stuff that Will can be seen insanely smearing all over his face during one brief part?
STARS: *****


GORE RALLY
at a Democratic rally, Marty & Bobbi perform a political medley

— A good topical setting for The Culps.
— Calista’s intro is quite longer than the usual intros that hosts give to The Culps, but Calista’s entire bit is solid.
— Good energetic applause from the audience when The Culps make their entrance tonight.
— Some great laughs from Marty Culp describing his after-effects of being blasted back by an amplifier earlier in the day.
— Tonight’s Culps song medley is coming off even more fun than usual, with how it’s relating to the elections. I particularly love the Culps’ take on the song “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”, a take which has really stuck in my memory over the years.
— Overall, one of the best Culps sketches.
STARS: ****


NICK BURNS, YOUR COMPANY’S COMPUTER GUY
a fellow tech support worker (host) gives Nick Burns his first kiss

— Ah, a good change of pace for a Nick Burns sketch.
— This ends up being the ONLY Nick Burns sketch that appears in this entire season, which I suppose is good news for those of you who don’t like these sketches. I think I’m in the minority, but I personally have never had much of a problem with these sketches, except that some installments of them can feel a little too same-y, though that’s certainly not the case in tonight’s installment.
— Some pretty good laughs from the nerdy insider tech jokes between Nick and his friends.
— I like Kattan doing a variation of his usual “I don’t like that guy” line from the beginning of each of these Nick Burns sketches, by telling Nick and his friends “I don’t like you guys” before dashing out of the office.
— Parnell’s screenname being Sexyman48 is pretty funny.
— Jimmy’s been making quite a lot of PlayStation 2 mentions on SNL lately.
— I like how we’re actually getting some character development with Nick Burns in this sketch, which feels rare for recurring characters in recent decades like this.
— Nice twist at the end with having Calista say Nick Burns’ usual ending line “And by the way… you’re welcoooome!” after their kiss.
STARS: ***½


VICE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Al Gore (DAH) wants his constituency to be able to revote

— Great to see another Gore sketch tonight addressing the Florida recounts.
— I love Darrell’s Gore going on about how “complicated” and “confusing” the ballots are.
— Plenty of laughs from Gore’s examples of the difficult time that some old people had in figuring out the ballots, especially the mention of one old couple eating their ballots.
— A hilarious line mentioning that the African-American and elderly Jewish residents will be given ballots printed in English, Hebrew, and Ebonics.
— Overall, a fantastic political piece, with perfect writing and an excellent Darrell Hammond performance. Tonight’s episode is on an absolute roll with all of this election-related satire.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “She Bangs”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Bill Clinton (DAH) & Janet Reno (WIF) react to presidential uncertainty
in a terrible re-enactment, the Queen Mother (CHK) breaks her collarbone
Cameron Diaz (host), Drew Barrymore (RAD), Lucy Liu (MAR) excite JIF

— Ah, you KNOW there’s gonna be lots of good riffing on the Florida recounts here.
— Great to see yet another Darrell-as-Bill-Clinton commentary on Update, which usually always kill.
— I love Darrell’s Clinton questioning “Do we really need a president?”
— Great turn in the Clinton commentary, with Will’s always-hilarious Janet Reno impression suddenly interrupting. Will plays her so rarely by this point.
— Janet Reno: “I’ve held barbecues in Texas before, and I’ll be more than happy to go there and spark up another!” A fantastic reference to the whole Branch Davidians/Waco incident from 1993.
— Some unintentional laughs from Will’s real-life difficulty in saying the word “outsmart”.
— We get our very first edition of Kattan’s “Terrible Re-Enactments”, a silly quick gag that worked for me tonight. Goofy bits like this show how much fun SNL has been having with this new era of Weekend Update. I can never in a million years imagine something like “Terrible Re-Enactments” appearing in the Colin Quinn era of Update.
— I like the cutaway to an unhappy Tina telling Jimmy to focus when he’s being too distracted by the Charlie’s Angels actresses’ lovey-dovey interactions with each other.
— After the Charlie’s Angels commentary, the camera mistakenly cuts to Tina while displaying a graphic of a news picture next to her, as if it’s her turn to tell the next joke, but Tina then humorously tells the cameraman “The other dude”, which is followed by the camera cutting to a taken-aback Jimmy, who then does the next joke.
STARS: ****


THE CROCODILE HUNTER
Steve (CHK) & Terri (host) Irwin are attacked

— Yeah, not sure we needed to see this sketch return, as I wasn’t crazy about it when I reviewed the first installment in the preceding season. I do remember finding these sketches pretty hilarious when I was a teenager, though. My original review of tonight’s episode that I wrote back in 2000 is unfortunately lost, but I’m assuming that then-teenage me gave this sketch a fairly high rating back then in my review.
— Back when this episode originally aired, I remember someone on an online SNL board pointing out that Calista, in this sketch, looked strangely like Amanda Bynes, who, at the time, was still just a teenager and appearing in Nickelodeon shows. Calista could almost pass for a teenager herself in tonight’s episode, by the way. She has a very youthful face.
— I see that unlike the first Crocodile Hunter sketch, the bloody injuries are happening to Steve Irwin’s wife Terri instead of Steve himself. Still not very funny, though.
— In an interview years later, Jerry Minor shared a story about how the African characters that he and Tracy play in this sketch were originally written to look like very stereotypical, spear-carrying jungle natives, complete with a bone sticking through their respective nose. Jesus Christ, this really shows how bad SNL’s white writers typically are at writing for black performers. (Damon Wayans has a similar story about how he once refused to perform in a “Master Thespian in Africa” sketch in season 11, because they wanted him to dress in a similarly offensive way that Jerry and Tracy were originally written to be dressed in this Crocodile Hunter sketch.) During the table read, when seeing the ridiculousness of how his and Tracy’s characters were written to look, Jerry spoke up and suggested that his and Tracy’s African characters instead be dressed as military officials, to make their characters really come off threatening. SNL ended up going with that idea.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
after ejecting a faux Ricky Martin (CHK), musical guest performs “Loaded”

— An interesting out-of-the-ordinary fake-out at the beginning of this musical performance, with it being revealed that the Ricky Martin we’re seeing is actually just Kattan impersonating him, before the real Ricky shows up. I love when SNL breaks format like this, especially in more recent decades like the one that this episode comes from, as format-breaking has become such a rarity on SNL in recent decades (then again, the very next episode, hosted by a certain unique someone who I will name at the very end of this review, will be having A LOT of format-breaking, for better or worse).
— Interesting how tonight’s host and musical guest have BOTH been impersonated by a cast member while standing right next to them, at separate parts of this episode.


LADIES & COCKTAILS
middle-aged barflies’ (MOS) & (host) advances creep out (JEM) & (JIF)

— Geez, is this the first time we’re seeing Molly ALL NIGHT??? I’m telling you people, as this season progresses, Molly has gradually been coming off more and more out of place as a veteran in this cast. Again, I ask, why couldn’t she have left with Cheri?
— I can already tell I’m not going to care much for this “new” character of Molly’s. It’s feeling like Molly is just treading old territory here.
— A pretty good laugh from Will’s sleazy character saying he’s gonna go and shake the dew off of his “lily”.
— I do admit that some of Molly and Calista’s dirty, gross one-liners to Jimmy and Jerry are making me laugh, but I’m still not crazy about some of this sketch.
— I’m still waiting for SNL to start letting Jerry show his strengths as a performer. So far in his tenure, aside from the old-school rappers bit in the season premiere, SNL has been wasting him in nothing but generic, dull roles, including this sketch.
— Spit-takes tend to come off hacky at times, but I’m not gonna lie – Jimmy and Jerry’s double spit-take just now made me laugh out loud.
— Will is stealing this sketch in his occasional walk-ons.
— The very funny visual of Will pouring powder down the front of his pants results in Molly breaking as usual. It seems to be almost impossible for Molly by this late stage of her SNL tenure to make it through a single sketch without cracking up out of character.
STARS: **½


CBS SPORTS
Dan Rather (DAH) uses loony expressions while projecting NBA winners

— This sketch is already starting off hilarious with some priceless analogies from Darrell’s Dan Rather.
— A great way of making fun of CBS jumping the gun with that year’s election results.
— This election season in general has been giving Darrell what has got to be his best airtime of his entire SNL tenure, and tonight’s episode in particular just may be his single greatest night on SNL.
— Dan Rather, on Utah’s excitement over the Jazz being the next NBA champions: “It’s gotta be New Years Eve, 4th of July, and your first handjob all rolled into one.”
— Even Darrell-as-Rather’s ending sign-off was hilarious, with his Soul Train reference.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

— Horatio, who wasn’t in ANY sketches at all tonight, can be seen in these goodnights dressed as Babar The Elephant. The reason he’s in this costume is because a sketch was going to air in which, IIRC, Babar The Elephant tried to vote in the presidential elections (my memory of the description for this cut sketch is fuzzy, as I last read it way back in the early 2000s from, I believe, an online SNL fan who went to this episode’s dress rehearsal), which would’ve made this yet ANOTHER election-related sketch in tonight’s episode. This sketch was going to be Horatio’s first and only appearance all night, but the show ran long and the sketch had to get cut at the last minute. Man, so far this season, Horatio has been having a rough go in terms of airtime. The show has barely been doing anything with him.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode. Lots of highly-rated sketches, THREE of which received a perfect five star-rating, and lots of fantastic material centered on the historic Florida recounts. I remember feeling that this episode’s very topical nature with the heavy focus on the Florida recounts was really fun at the time, but it’s also fun in retrospect, twenty years later, as it provides a fascinating time capsule of what a confusing, crazy time this was for the nation.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Charlize Theron)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Tom Green. Hoo, boy. Needless to say, this is going to be quite an odd episode to review.

Posted on

November 4, 2000 – Charlize Theron / Paul Simon (S26 E4)

NOTE: As I mentioned at the end of my last review, this Charlize Theron episode is a very special episode for me as an SNL reviewer, as it’s the very first episode I ever did a review of, back when I regularly reviewed new SNL episodes right after they aired, for 14 long consecutive seasons. My original review of this episode is here, though only a few portions of it still exist, as I unfortunately lost most of it. Anyway, if you’d like, feel free to compare and contrast the linked review to the review I’m about to do below.

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A GLIMPSE OF OUR POSSIBLE FUTURE
swamped president George W. Bush (WIF)

— I love the beginning, with Will-as-Bush’s off-camera whining about how he doesn’t want to go on camera, as an angry aide (voiced by Parnell) is urging him to do it.
— Speaking of Will-as-Bush’s whining, his particular whine of the line “I don’t wanna go out, it’s too haaaaaarrrrrddd!” feels like a precursor to the whiny Bush impression that future cast member Will Forte would later do on a regular basis.
— In hindsight, this cold opening feels a little eerily reminiscent of a certain infamous event that would later happen under Bush’s presidency the following September 11th, so much so, that Comedy Central’s 60-minute version of this episode would remove this cold opening, and that’s noteworthy, as Comedy Central’s 60-minute SNL episodes usually NEVER removed cold openings from seasons 25 and 26. By the way, here’s something even eerier about this cold opening’s similarities to 9/11, on a more personal note: on the night of September 10, 2001, I randomly chose to rewatch this cold opening on a VHS tape that I had recorded this episode on back when it originally aired. After rewatching this cold opening, I remember Will-as-Bush’s line “That big tit building’s on fire again!” was stuck in my head the whole rest of that night. Well, fast-forward to the fateful next day, September 11, 2001, and hoo, boy, when I saw all the tragic breaking news on TV, there was one point where I couldn’t help but be reminded of the SNL cold opening that I had just watched the preceding night, and I was particularly reminded of the immortal (to me) line “That big tit building’s on fire again!”, and then I felt strangely both kinda guilty and prescient.
— Hilarious reveal that all of these disasters happened a mere two weeks into Bush’s presidency.
— The line about Bush having killed vice president Dick Cheney in a hunting accident? Hoooooly hell, talk about prescient, even if it was actually Cheney who would end up being the cause of the real-life hunting accident years later.
— Funny ending with an ostrich.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
TRM commiserates with host upon learning she’s an African-American

— When Charlize addresses an “audience member” played by Tracy as “sir”, I love Tracy responding “I’m not a sir, I’m Tracy Morgan, I’m on the show.”
— Tracy pointing out how Charlize is technically African-American is great.
— Tracy is a riot in this monologue, just being his natural self. He and Charlize have a nice chemistry too. This monologue feels like it’s in a similar vein to the backstage sketches that Tracy did with Garth Brooks and Jamie Foxx in the preceding season, but I can see why they instead put this one in the monologue spot tonight.
STARS: ****


TRL
Gemini’s Twin (ANG) & (MAR) added (host) for looks

 

— The debut of the Gemini’s Twin sketches.
— Funny music video shown of Gemini’s Twin early in the sketch.
— In Charlize’s second hosting stint 14 years later (which was coincidentally the second-to-last episode I reviewed during my aforementioned 14-year original run as a reviewer of new SNL episodes), she talks about this Gemini’s Twin sketch in her monologue and points out that the writers had to work around her inability to sing by having her resort to just throwing in brief one-liners after Maya and Ana’s harmonizing.
— Charlize’s performance here is cracking me up.
— This Gemini’s Twins group is a good parody of Destiny’s Child.
— Overall, while I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy this as a recurring sketch, this debut was pretty good.
STARS: ***


A GLIMPSE OF OUR POSSIBLE FUTURE
professorial president Al Gore (DAH)

— I like how this is a runner tonight, going through each of the presidential candidates.
— Darrell-as-Al-Gore’s teacher-esque treatment towards the nation is very funny, especially him chastising the nation for their performance in last week’s pop quiz (“Idaho, I’m lookin’ in your directiiiioooonnn…”).
— An interesting use of pre-tape and a body double to make it look like Darrell is playing both Gore and Bill Clinton in this sketch, but there’s an awful lot of awkward timing issues here. There’s some delays before they cut to Darrell as pre-taped Clinton, and the body double playing live Clinton is way off on his cues, as he keeps doing certain actions too early or too late.
STARS: ***½


MARLA AND CODY’S BLAIR WITCH TOUR!
Azrael & Circe take Marla (host) & Cody’s (HOS) Blair Witch Tour

— Funny sudden reveal of Kattan and Molly’s Goth Talk characters. This is a refreshing use of them, and ends up being their final appearance.
— I’m really liking Charlize’s characterization here.
— A big laugh from Azrael Abyss fearfully answering “Yes” when Charlize asks him and Circe Nightshade the rhetorical question of if either of them were ever caught in a parking lot while the shop teacher went down on them.
— Great bit with Azrael’s “I’m so scared” close-up turning out to be him struggling to pee in the woods.
— Horatio is funny as the alleged Blair Witch.
STARS: ***½


TV FUNHOUSE
“The All New Adventures of Mr. T” by RBS- actors’ strike leads to ad gig

— Good to see this back.
— The picket sign holder’s odd way of walking when approaching Mr. T’s van is strangely amusing to me.
— I like the random involvement of actor Michael Gross.
— Some good laughs from the mere fact that Mr. T is fighting just to be a Maxi-Pad commercial.
STARS: ****


THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH
jealous Joe DiMaggio (JIF) guards wife Marilyn Monroe (host) on the set

— Darrell’s foreign-accented line about Marilyn Monroe’s wonderful “crotchenboxen” was very funny.
— Oh, god. There’s the obligatory breaking from Jimmy, for no apparent reason.
— A very funny reveal that Horatio’s character, who’s squeezing Marilyn Monroe’s breasts as if to get them ready for the scene that’s about to be filmed, doesn’t even work here.
— Funny ending line from Parnell’s voice-over braggingly saying, in regards to Joe DiMaggio, “He had sex with Marilyn Monroe, and you didn’t”, which is humorously followed by a long, rapidly-scrolled list of people who did have sex with Marilyn. I caught some interesting names in there, including some SNL-related ones. (For anyone curious, below are screencaps of the list)

STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hurricane Eye”


WEEKEND UPDATE
RAD’s attempt to spring a surprise wedding on JIF meets with failure
TIF explains the electoral college & the potential order of succession
lone Jewish SNL writer Hugh Fink [real] talks about Joe Lieberman

— Interesting commentary with Rachel as herself in a wedding dress, proposing to Jimmy.
— A pretty good laugh from Jimmy telling Rachel that he can’t marry her because he just got PlayStation 2, which, as he says, is “very time-consuming”.
— Solid side segment from Tina explaining the convoluted process of how the president is elected.
— Yikes, Jimmy botched the Renovations joke HORRIBLY, which is something that usually comes to mind whenever I think about how green Jimmy sometimes tended to come off in his first season as Update anchorperson. However, he immediately saves himself in his botched Renovations joke tonight with a great ad-lib, where he says a mock-surprised “Oh, we’re gonna do it live this week?!?” Right before that ad-lib, I also like Tina’s hand reaching into the shot of Jimmy to comically rub his face (the sixth above screencap for this Weekend Update) after he botched the joke.
— Jimmy’s critique of GQ’s picks for Men of the Year is pretty funny.
— Man, Jimmy is STILL botching jokes. Pretty rough night for him.
— SNL seems to be letting a lot of their writers do Update commentaries as themselves lately, between Kevin Brennan in the back half of the preceding season, Adam McKay in the last episode, and now Hugh Fink tonight.
— I love Fink making fun of the last names of his fellow SNL writers (e.g. McNicholas, Herlihy, Shannon).
— Fink’s impression of Joe Lieberman is cracking me up.
— An overall solid commentary from Fink. I wish this led to him doing more Update commentaries, but alas, this ends up being his only one.
STARS: ***


BEDTIME STORIES
sex therapy patient (host) is turned on by Mr. Peepers

— It’s gradually feeling more and more odd lately to see Molly still on the show this season. It doesn’t feel out of the ordinary when I see her playing her recurring characters like Circe Nightshade or her Delicious Dish character, but when I see her playing non-recurring characters like in this sketch, it gives me a weird feel of “Oh, Molly’s still in the cast this season? I forgot.”
— Meh, a Mr. Peepers sketch.
— Charlize is a real good sport to participate in all of these crazy things that Mr. Peepers is having her do while she’s blindfolded, but it sure is disgusting to watch.
— When starting to hump Mr. Peepers in a doggy style position, Charlize accidentally pulls Kattan’s wig off (the last above screencap for this sketch). Surprisingly, this blooper isn’t all that noticeable and doesn’t affect the sketch (unlike a similar wig blooper with Brendan Fraser in a Xena sketch), probably due to all the craziness and raunchiness happening in the scene right now. Eventually, after failing in his attempt to put the wig back on his head, Kattan just casually throws the wig aside during the wild three-way humping session between Mr. Peepers, Molly, and Charlize.
— Overall, while still not all that great, I found this a little more tolerable than a lot of Mr. Peepers sketches, partly due to Charlize’s great commitment, and partly due to the crazy ending.
STARS: **½


A GLIMPSE OF OUR POSSIBLE FUTURE
fantastic president Ralph Nader (JIF)

— Hilarious idea of doing an “A Glimpse of Our Possible Future” scenario with the no-chance-of-realistically-winning Ralph Nader. I absolutely love the screaming laugh from a guy in SNL’s audience upon hearing the Ralph Nader reveal at the beginning of this.
— I remember when this episode originally aired, I missed the beginning of this sketch, but even when I came into this sketch mid-progress and saw Jimmy, I could immediately tell he was playing Ralph Nader. Jimmy’s doing a good impression of him, right down to imitating his twitchy eye.
— I like the hints that Nader’s presidency would only happen when pigs fly and when hell freezes over. When I first saw this sketch when it originally aired, then-teenage me didn’t “get” the joke of two shivering devils in scarves (played by Parnell and SNL writer Scott Wainio) throwing snowballs at each other, until I soon saw it explained on an online SNL forum that the joke is implying that hell has frozen over. I also remember having a difficult time figuring out who was playing the non-Parnell devil, as I wasn’t all that familiar with Scott Wainio at the time, plus the red face paint made it even harder to identify him in this sketch.
STARS: ****


AUDITION
musical guest watches Kyle & Sean DeMarco interpret his songs via dance

— Geez, TWO Chris Kattan recurring sketches in a row tonight? (Not counting the Nader mini-sketch in between.) Ehhh….
— Always nice to see Paul Simon appear in a sketch. I just wish it was something better than THIS sketch.
— I will say that I am kinda liking the DeMarco Brothers’ interpretation of “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”.
— Okay, these song interpretations are quickly getting old.
— I’ve had nothing but good things to say about Charlize’s performances so far tonight, but geez, she’s kinda awful in this sketch. She’s overacting badly.
— Okay, the DeMarco Brothers are kinda winning me back over with their pretty funny interpretation of “Slip Sliding Away”.
— Overall, blah. SNL should’ve given this recurring sketch an early retirement after the tolerable Britney Spears installment.
STARS: **


THE COCONUT BANGERS BALL: IT’S A RAP!
Robert Goulet (WIF) covers rap songs on album

— Yes! The debut of Will’s Robert Goulet impression!
— A hilarious concept of Robert Goulet singing famous rap songs in a crooner style.
— Haha, holy hell at Will’s Goulet casually dropping the n-word when singing lyrics from “The Thong Song”. It took serious balls for Will to do that on the air.
— I howled at Will’s intense delivery of the lyric “Throw your hands in the air if you think YOU’RE A PLAYA!!!”
— Ha, Will gets away with another n-word drop during another song.
— Will-as-Goulet’s whole interaction with the big-horned sheep is pure comedy gold, especially the staring contest.
— Overall, my god, this sketch was so damn funny, even moreso than I had remembered all these years. Absolutely perfect. A Will Ferrell classic.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Old”


BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Buena Vista Social Club members get friendly with audience member (host)

— You can tell that this sketch is being rushed, as it fades in on Parnell already mid-sentence, as if SNL told him right before the show came back on air to hurry up and start speaking so they can try to squeeze in this sketch, due to the show starting to run long. Paul Simon’s preceding musical performance also felt unusually short (it was seriously only about two minutes long), and I wonder if he was also told to rush, or if that’s just the normal length of the song.
— Man, this is Jerry Minor’s FIRST (and only) appearance all night. So far in his SNL tenure, he sadly hasn’t been getting many opportunities to show his strengths as a performer.
— Some laughs from the Latin singers’ dirty lyrics that Will is casually translating.
— Tracy’s delivery here is cracking me up.
— I love Will translating the Latin singers’ lyric about getting rid of the dumbass with a red tie, only for Will to then angrily realize “Hey, I’m the only dumbass here with a red tie!”
— Uh-oh, looks like SNL is unsuccessful in their attempt to squeeze in this entire sketch before the show runs out of time, as the ending of this sketch abruptly gets cuts off by a commercial break. I can’t remember if SNL would later show the full ending of this sketch in reruns or not, but I don’t think they do.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode, and had some strong sketches here and there, as well as one classic (The Coconut Bangers Ball), though there were unfortunately two subpar Chris Kattan recurring character pieces mixed into the second half of the show. Aside from her performance in the DeMarco Brothers sketch, Charlize Theron was a pretty solid host, better than I would’ve expected her to be.
— On a personal note, reviewing this episode just now has brought back so many nice memories of when I wrote my very first SNL review ever. It’s going to feel odd but exciting re-reviewing these next few seasons, especially now that I’m much older and more mature than the teenage version of me who originally reviewed these seasons back in the early 2000s.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Dana Carvey)
a slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Calista Flockhart

Posted on

October 21, 2000 – Dana Carvey / The Wallflowers (S26 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
undecided voters question debaters Al Gore (DAH) & George W. Bush (WIF)

— Parnell’s facial prosthetics as Jim Lehrer seem to get doughier and goofier-looking with each passing debate sketch.
— I can’t help but think that the woman seated behind Kattan (seen in the fourth screencap above) looks like a female Rob Schneider.
— I like Parnell-as-Jim-Lehrer’s sighing, head-shaking reactions to dumb things being said throughout this debate.
— Great to see Dana’s obligatory Bush Sr. appearance in this debate sketch.
— As always, Dana’s Bush is getting lots of laughs here. I even love how towards the end of his first spiel, he says “So to sum up…”, which was a regular thing Dana’s Bush always said towards the end of his address-to-the-nation sketches from the late 80s/early 90s.
— Ha, there goes Darrell’s Gore bringing up his famous lockbox again.
— I love Bush Sr. and his aides now flimsily disguising themselves as undecided Latino voters.
— Now Bush disguises as his wife Barbara, which is also funny.
STARS: ****


OPENING MONTAGE
— Much like in the season premiere’s opening montage two episodes earlier, we get a credit for A Cartoon By Robert Smigel that ends up not even airing tonight, presumably due to the show running long.


MONOLOGUE
DAC does stand-up about presidential candidates’ mannerisms

— As always, Dana is making fantastic ad-libs towards the audience’s reactions at the beginning of this monologue.
— I absolutely love Dana doing Bush and Gore impressions, making me wonder what it would’ve been like if the Bush/Gore elections had occurred during Dana’s tenure as a cast member.
— Some interesting out-of-the-ordinary camera angles throughout this monologue, such as all the close-ups of Dana’s face when demonstrating various impressions, and shots of the audience whenever they applaud Dana’s impressions.
— I love how Dana’s now doing a Joe Lieberman impression.
— Dana’s Johnnie Cochran/Monopoly bit is great.
STARS: ****


MAGIC MOUTH
Magic Mouth ass-appliance converts flatulence into erudite conversation

— For a low-brow fart joke, this actually isn’t bad at all. A pretty funny ridiculous device to hide your farts. I especially like the device’s obvious mechanical voice that people are somehow supposed to believe is your own voice.
— Will: “Magic Mouth – it’s like having a professor up your butt.”
STARS: ***


THE DELICIOUS DISH
Margaret Jo & Terry welcome a teacher (DAC) besieged by gang activity

— This always-solid recurring sketch has been appearing so scarcely by this point.
— I like Molly’s stern, humorless delivery of “There’s nothing cartoonish about my religious beliefs.”
— I like seeing Dana appear in a Delicious Dish, as it feels interesting seeing a former cast member appearing in a newer recurring sketch from a current era, when it’s usually the other way around in episodes hosted by former cast members (as we’ll see in a certain popular returning Dana Carvey recurring sketch right after this).
— The high-pitched, soft-spoken voice that Dana’s using here sounds kinda familiar, as if I heard him previously use it in a sketch that I reviewed back when I covered Dana’s years as a cast member. I can’t put my finger on which sketch I’m thinking of. Perhaps it’s the Jason Priestley ice skating cold opening, where Dana played Scott Hamilton?
— Dana going on about the urban juvenile gang who terrorizes his neighborhood is very funny, especially when he starts getting worked up when talking about how he’s going to get even with the gang.
STARS: ****


CHURCH CHAT
Hillary Clinton (ANG), Anne Heche (CHK), Eminem (CHP)

— Always great to see this sketch return.
— A hilarious Indian analogy that Church Lady makes in regards to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s relationship, especially the line about Bill getting his “peace pipe” smoked.
— Kattan reprises his Anne Heche impression for the first time since way back in season 22 when he played her opposite Mark McKinney as Ellen DeGeneres, just to show you how long ago it was.
— I love Church Lady’s dig at Heche’s infamous wandering incident.
— The “Taco or wiener?” part of the Church Lady/Anne Heche interview has always stuck in my memory since this originally aired.
— Church Lady’s facial reaction to a profanity-filled clip being played of an Eminem song is priceless.
— Great ending with Church Lady doing a “The Real Slim Shady”-esque number, complete with Church Lady lookalikes surrounding her.
STARS: ****


HUNTING
George (DAC) seeks gravitas in George W. (WIF) Bush during a hunting trip

— I love that we get two appearances tonight from Dana and Will’s Bushes, this one being more in a similar vein to the cold opening that Dana and Will did as the Bushes in the preceding season’s Christopher Walken episode. Will’s Bush impression has really improved since then.
— I like that we get a return of the Bush-Sr.-slapping-Bush-Jr. gag from the last Bushes sketch with Will and Dana.
— A good dark bit with Bush Sr. contemplating shooting his son.
— SNL would later replace this sketch in reruns with the dress rehearsal version, which has a memorable blooper in which Dana fake-slaps Will at a much earlier point in the sketch than he was supposed to, causing Will to react by moving his head upward in a comically confused manner, before ad-libbing a line to Dana, in character: “You tried to hit me?”, which Dana responds to, in character, with “Thought I saw a fly there.” Then later in the sketch when Dana fake-slaps Will when he’s supposed to, Dana ad-libs in character, in a stern manner, “Now that time, it wasn’t a fly!”
STARS: ****


BAHA MEN
going to commercial, Baha Men [real] perform “Who Let The Dogs Out”

— Um… ooooookay.
— At least this shows that SNL is still trying different things with their format this many decades into their run.


WEEKEND UPDATE
Anna Nicole Smith (MOS) outlines her university’s gold-digging curriculum
opinion-gauger Adam McKay [real] comes off as a dangerous stranger
Robert DeNiro [real] responds to JIF’s review of Meet The Parents

— Parnell’s now doing the voice-over intro for Update, after the voice-over intro in the previous two Updates this season were done by a male with an unidentifiable voice.
— Tina’s doing tonight’s Update without her glasses, which I remember being an odd sight even at the time, considering the only two Updates that we had seen Tina do prior to this had her with glasses, but it ESPECIALLY comes off as an odd sight when re-watching this nowadays, after being so familiar with Tina doing Update with glasses for SIX SEASONS.
— I like Jimmy’s various jokes about a bulge that Al Gore is sporting in a picture.
— Molly doing a very typically Molly Shannon-esque “impression” of Anna Nicole Smith. Blah. I found this “impression” of hers a lot more tolerable in pre-taped form in that great Fanatic piece from the preceding season’s Ben Affleck episode. In tonight’s live Update commentary, all that Molly’s Anna Nicole impression is making me do is wonder two things to myself: 1) why couldn’t Molly have left with Cheri, and 2) exactly how many more episodes do I have left until Molly mercifully leaves mid-season? It’s been pretty rough watching her go downhill these last few seasons.
— Tina’s whole rant about French whores is great, and I remember made me wonder back when this originally aired if Tina was the writer behind the great Old French Whore sketch from season 23’s Garth Brooks episode. As we know now, she indeed was.
— Interesting sudden use of a drop-down news screen behind Jimmy and Tina.
— SNL writer Adam McKay gets his own remote segment.
— Good remote segment from McKay so far, especially him trying to lure kids into his van.
— UCB’s Matt Walsh makes a funny appearance as an angry parent kicking McKay’s ass.
— Adam McKay, to Matt Walsh, regarding the kids: “I just want them to go in my van so I can film them talking about Bush!”
— A Robert DeNiro cameo, back when Robert DeNiro appearances on SNL still had a level of excitement.
— More interesting camera angles tonight, with the odd tight close-ups of Jimmy and DeNiro, respectively, at the beginning of DeNiro’s cameo (the last two above screencaps for this Weekend Update). SNL’s been doing a lot of experimenting with camera angles in tonight’s episode.
— I like Tina saying “You are on your own” when Jimmy asks her for help during DeNiro’s tense grilling of him.
— This DeNiro commentary is a prototypical example of how corny and tired a lot of SNL’s “a celebrity walks on and confronts a cast member who impersonates them” trope tends to be. There have been some examples where that trope actually worked well and provided good entertainment, but I can’t say this is one of them, in my opinion. Jimmy is coming off pretty charming in his reactions, though, especially after DeNiro signs off for him by saying “And I’m Jimmy Fallon” in a hokey, high-pitched voice. Am I remembering correctly that on Jimmy’s very first episode as host of Late Night, he and that night’s first guest, DeNiro, did a comedy bit that seemed to be based on this Update cameo of his, in which Jimmy and DeNiro read scripted lines as each other, with Jimmy doing his typical DeNiro impression and DeNiro using the same hokey, high-pitched voice that he imitated Jimmy with in tonight’s Update?
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sleepwalker”


VH1 VOGUE FASHION AWARDS
stars celebrate style superlatives

— Yikes, poor Jerry Minor, flubbing his first line in this sketch when trying to say the name Cuba Gooding Jr. SNL would later replace this portion of the sketch in reruns with the dress rehearsal version.
— Maya’s Macy Gray impression is spot-on and funny.
— I like Kattan’s take on Dylan McDermott, especially him asking us to stare at his “package”.
— Tracy as a loud Samuel L. Jackson is cracking me up.
— A lot of then-recent SNL hosts and musical guests are being impersonated in this sketch: Cuba Gooding Jr., Macy Gray, Dylan McDermott, Sting…
— Rachel is hilarious in her impression of Cheb Mami during the Sting performance.
— A spot-on Sting impression from Jimmy.
— I can’t really judge the accuracy of Dana’s impression of Survivor’s Rudy Boesch, as I’ve never been a Survivor watcher, though I remember seeing a clip or two of Rudy back then on other shows. Dana’s performance is making me laugh here, though, plus I like the Super Fans-esque Chicago accent he’s using, which makes me wonder what it would’ve been like if Dana had played one of the Super Fans back when he was a cast member.
STARS: ***


PET CHICKEN SHOP
Ching Change receives financing for his Broadway play about chickens

 

— OH. NO.
— Why, why, why did Dana have to bring back this wretched character tonight? I don’t need to be reminded of how miserable it was for me to review these sketches back when I covered Dana’s first few seasons as a cast member.
— A cue card has made an accidental onscreen cameo just now (screencap below), which is somehow more interesting than the sketch itself is.

— This feels like Horatio’s first appearance all night. Man, his airtime has been pretty terrible so far this season.
— Horatio’s incredibly hammy, over-the-top performance is cracking me up in spite of myself. Dana can be seen cracking up at him at one point too.
— Oh, no, and now to make this already-awful Ching Change sketch even worse, we get that “Tomorrow” song from Annie that I despise with a fiery passion.
— The change of pace towards the end, showing a Broadway play starring chickens, is kinda funny, I admit.
— Aaaaaand my goodwill from the above Broadway chicken play bit immediately gets soured by Dana breaking out into that “Tomorrow” song AGAIN, as if hearing that song once in this sketch wasn’t bad enough.
— This has the dishonor of being the first sketch all season that I’m giving a rating under three stars to, though it’s certainly impressive that this season made it this long without having a sketch rated 1-2 stars by me.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hand Me Down”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— As expected, a solid episode with Dana Carvey as a host, though the episode’s quality gradually trailed off a little in the post-Update half. The first half of the show, minus the Magic Mouth commercial (which was still good), had an impressive long string of sketches that got a 4-star rating from me. Season 26 continues to do very well so far.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kate Hudson)
a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Charlize Theron. This is a very special episode for me, as it’s the very first episode I ever did a review of, back when I regularly did reviews of new SNL episodes right after they aired, for 14 long years. (Those reviews are archived at this site.)

Posted on

October 14, 2000 – Kate Hudson / Radiohead (S26 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
in second debate, Al Gore (DAH) & George W. Bush (WIF) find common ground

— Here’s one of two lesser-known Bush/Gore debate sketches in this election season, after the very well-known first Bush/Gore debate sketch.
— Interesting how this debate is starting already in progress, without the usual beginning.
— I love the split-screen shot of Will’s Bush and Darrell’s Gore agreeing with each other in an over-the-top manner.
— A lot of laughs from Bush braggingly listing off names of important Nigerian leaders. Will’s delivery of these Nigerian names is priceless.
— I like the little part with Gore desperately assuring us that his cough during Bush’s talking wasn’t a sigh.
— Jim Lehrer: “The two of you have either been highly coached (*cut to a shot of Bush nervously shifting his eyes in a suspicious manner*) or highly medicated (*cut to a shot of Gore smiling in an dopey manner*).”
— Funny turn with Lehrer tuning into the Cardinals/Mets game on FOX.
— Another very funny bragging line from Bush, flawlessly saying the tongue-twister “The sixth sheik’s sixth sheep is sick.”
— An overall much shorter debate sketch than the one in the preceding episode, and while tonight’s was not a classic like that one was, it was still great.
STARS: ****


OPENING MONTAGE
— After debuting in the last episode, Jerry Minor has been temporarily removed from tonight’s opening montage, despite the fact that we’ll be seeing him appear as himself with the rest of the cast in a sketch at the end of this episode. More on that later.


MONOLOGUE
lesser-known Laugh-In scions help host get back to her roots

— Feels like it’s been quite a long while since I’ve last seen Rachel, as she was completely absent in the last two episodes.
— Funny line from Rachel about being the product of a sexual encounter between Ruth Buzzi and both of the Smothers Brothers.
— The cast is funny and spot-on as Laugh-In cast members’ similarly-traited kids. Ana is especially making me laugh as Jo-Anne Worley’s daughter.
— When this episode originally aired, I remember a lot of this monologue going over my head, considering I was a 16-year-old at the time who was too young to be all that familiar with Laugh-In. In my adult years since then, I’ve seen several highlight reels and look-backs of that show, which helps me “get” this monologue a lot more now.
— Very fun Laugh In-style ending with the camera zoom-ins, lighting, and a bikini-clad Kate Hudson having a painted-on “Radiohead is here” on her torso.
STARS: ***½


HOME FROM COLLEGE
coed’s (host) televised Spring Break wildness embarrasses her parents

— A good laugh from Will and Molly’s shock over seeing Kate in a Girls Gone Wild commercial.
— I like the family getting a call from grandma, who saw the commercial too.
— A pretty one-note premise, but they’re keeping this funny enough in the execution. I wouldn’t have put this sketch in the lead-off spot of tonight’s episode, though.
— After a second raunchy video of Kate is seen on TV, I love Will angrily saying “Son of a bitch, I can’t believe it!” Will exclaiming “Son of a bitch!” is always reliable for a laugh, as the Erectile Dysfunction sketch from the preceding season’s Julianna Margulies episode has shown.
— An upset Will telling Kate “Oh, great, you said my name” after seeing Kate’s Cops clip is pretty funny.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
“X-Presidents” by RBS- two-party rule repels threat from independents

— This is the first X Presidents cartoon in quite a long time.
— The incoherent speech that Bush Jr. gives is hilarious.
— Good turn with the X Presidents’ kids and Liberty the dog being added to the Bush/Gore debate.
— A good laugh from both Amy Carter and Ron Reagan Jr. being transformed into Britney Spears singing “Oops!…I Did It Again”.
— Another good turn, with the reveal of the X Presidents’ villains being The Independents.
— After Bill Clinton tells the X Presidents that he’ll be joining them soon, I love Ronald Reagan bitterly responding “Over my fu(bleep)in’ dead body.”
— The Jackson 5-esque musical number at the end is a riot.
STARS: ****


INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO
Drew Barrymore (host) recalls magical career

— Always great to see this recurring sketch.
— An absolutely spot-on and funny Drew Barrymore impression from Kate.
— Very funny part with Will’s James Lipton falling backwards out of his chair while doing his usual head-thrown-back laugh.
— Drew Barrymore, when asked what profession would she not like to participate in: “Um… I wouldn’t want to burn monkeys.”
— I like Lipton’s “Son of a bee sting, ow!” when Barrymore shakes his sore hand (which is sore from falling backwards out of his chair earlier).
STARS: ****


SULLY’S HOME
Sully loves that his sister (host) is dating Nomar Garciaparra [real]

— SNL gets in their very first Survivor mention, which I recall some SNL fans were anticipating when this SNL season began, as Survivor was the huge breakout show of that summer.
— Interesting seeing Sully’s sister.
— As usual, Horatio steals this Boston Teens sketch with his Frankie character.
— Nomar Garciaparra makes his inevitable Boston Teens cameo.
— I love Denise requesting that Nomar autograph her boob, and asking him to use a “Shahpie” for his autograph.
— Nomar’s delivery surprisingly isn’t bad for a non-actor, and he’s coming off pretty natural here. Better than some athletes who have hosted SNL.
— Good double entendre from Nomar about giving Kate some “souvenir balls”.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The National Anthem”


WEEKEND UPDATE
JIF uses foreign footage to show that NYC is nuts for the Subway Series
JIF’s Meet The Parents review consists of aping BES & Robert DeNiro
Bill Clinton (DAH) doesn’t think much of the presidential candidates

 

— Geez, what in the world happened to Tina’s hair? She makes Jimmy’s traditionally messy hairstyle look neat by comparison.
— They’re still having Tina throw to Jimmy after the first joke, by having Tina ask “Jimmy?” and Jimmy respond “Thank you, Tina” before delivering the next joke. It came off particularly awkward tonight, and I can see why they’d eventually drop it.
— Jimmy’s side segment on the Subway Series was kinda funny.
— Wow, a lot of side segments tonight with Tina and especially Jimmy, almost making you wonder if Update has done away with guest correspondents. At the beginning of Jimmy’s “Movie Review” side segment, he even ad-libs a self-aware “I’m all OVER this tonight, huh?” I like how SNL is having a lot of fun with Update this season. While these frequent side segments with Jimmy and Tina have been hit-and-miss so far, the fun atmosphere kinda makes up for when they miss.
— Jimmy’s Meet The Parents review mostly consisting of him doing a DeNiro impression while just saying “You’re gonna meet meeee” has really stuck in my memory over the years.
— Ah, now we get an actual guest commentator tonight, Darrell’s President Clinton, who usually kills on Update.
— I’m enjoying Darrell’s Clinton making fun of Gore and Bush. Kinda funny seeing Darrell as Clinton doing a half-assed Gore impression, considering Darrell himself does a spot-on Gore impression.
— Overall, Darrell knocks it out the park with yet another great Clinton commentary on Update.
STARS: ***½


WOODROW
Woodrow brings host to the sewer to pitch his movie script idea

— The first installment of this sketch was a Tracy Morgan masterpiece, but I’m not sure that we needed a second installment.
— I love the odd “Your liver has a brain tumor” line in Woodrow’s movie script.
— Like last time, we get a nonsensical song that Woodrow wrote. I’m not finding this one as funny or as memorable as the song from the first sketch, but I’m still laughing, especially at the lyric mentioning “tiny mouse tits”.
— After getting kissed on the lips by Kate, I love Woodrow saying with a smile “You just made me piss my pants.”
— Overall, this sketch lacked the magic and freshness of the first Woodrow installment, but this was still very solid, and, like last time, did a great job of mixing humor with tender sentimentality. Tracy is very underrated at pulling off pathos.
STARS: ****


MEET THE PRESS
Tim Russert (DAH) gives Hillary Clinton (ANG) a hard time

— A good laugh from Darrell-as-Tim-Russert’s altered Hillary Clinton quote using ellipses to make it seem like Hillary stated “I don’t trust Jewish people”.
— I remember when this episode originally aired, I missed the beginning of this sketch to get a snack from the kitchen. When I came back and this sketch was already in progress, I honestly thought Jimmy was playing Martin Short instead of Rick Lazio. To me, Jimmy resembled Martin Short in that wig and prosthetic nose, plus he was making a goofy comical facial expression. Not to mention that Jimmy seems to like doing impressions of former SNL cast members. However, I remember being confused over why Jimmy was using a froggy voice in this sketch if he was playing Martin Short. It wasn’t until after the show when, as I played back the VHS tape that I recorded this episode on, I saw the portion of this sketch that I missed and found out that Jimmy was playing Rick Lazio.
— Funny bit with Russert doing a freeze-frame focusing on Hillary’s fat butt when she leans forward in a video shown of her.
— Hilarious visual of Jimmy’s Lazio having milk coming out of his nose while laughing.
— A then-rare instance of breaking from Darrell, as he uncontrollably cracks up while signing off at the end of the sketch.
STARS: ***½


RABUN TO SHURI
Japanese sitcom mirrors Laverne & Shirley

— Cute concept of a Japanese version of Laverne & Shirley.
— Nice shoutout to SNL’s Akira Yoshimura in the production credits.
— I remember when this originally aired, a few online SNL fans, including myself, felt that Maya with that wig and high-pitched Asian accent was oddly very reminiscent of MADtv’s Ms. Swan. I don’t see the similarities as much now, probably because of Maya eventually going on to play various Asian roles on SNL using that same voice, causing me to get used to hearing it.
— Speaking of MADtv, much like this sketch, MADtv also seemed to have a thing for doing foreign versions of classic TV shows. I recall them doing Spanish take-offs of All In The Family and Happy Days, and maybe some others.
— A hilarious mid-show Japanese commercial featuring, at one point, a cockroach turning into some kind of snack.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Idioteque”


VOTE SOBER 2000
castmembers deliver a PSA against voting while intoxicated

— An interesting change of pace for this era, having the entire cast deliver a message as themselves on the home base stage.
— During the original airing of this episode, a lot of local NBC affiliates, including the one that the copy I’m currently reviewing of this episode was recorded from, came in late on this sketch when it was already in progress. It abruptly opened on an odd close-up of Molly not saying anything while Tracy is heard speaking. Molly then starts breaking when realizing the camera is mistakenly still on her instead of Tracy (the first above screencap for this sketch).
— We see that Will’s hair looks VERY different than usual, with it being grown out and dyed a very light blond. The reason that his hair looks like this is because he’s filming the movie Zoolander at this time. For anyone who ever thought that his hair was a wig in that movie, nope, he seriously grew his real hair out and dyed it blond just for that movie. His hair will be like this for the entirety of the first half of this season, but, aside from this sketch, the only time we’ll be seeing it onscreen is during the goodnights, as he’ll otherwise be hiding his hair by wearing wigs all the time, even when playing himself (such as in the big “wedding” from the end of the notorious Tom Green episode a little later this season).
— I like the line about drunk voters making “Kung Fu Fighting” the country’s official anthem.
— There’s Jerry Minor. It makes no sense that he wasn’t credited in tonight’s opening montage if they knew he was going to appear in this full-cast piece. Was he thrown into this sketch at the last minute or something? Any viewers back in 2000 who watched this episode live but didn’t see the preceding week’s season premiere would’ve been completely lost when seeing Jerry among the cast in this sketch. I can just imagine them asking themselves “Who the heck is THAT?!?”
— Very funny bit about an “SNL 25th Anniversary Book of Mixed Drinks”, especially Horatio Sanz’s Big Pail Of Everclear.
— Speaking of Horatio, why is he not in this sketch? He’s the only cast member missing from this, I believe. By the way, it feels like he’s barely done anything this season so far.
— Tina still has the messed-up hair from Update. Again, I ask, what in the world happened to her hair?
— Nice touch how after this sketch ends, the cast moves aside as the camera zooms behind them to show the SNL Band playing the show to commercial.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty solid episode. Nothing much else to say, other than that, like the season premiere, there weren’t any segments tonight that I found weak, making this season 2-for-2 in episodes that I found to be pretty much flawless. Season 26 is off to a very good start so far.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Rob Lowe)
a slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Dana Carvey