September 29, 2001 – Reese Witherspoon / Alicia Keys (S27 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

9/11 TRIBUTE
in the wake of terrorism, Rudolph Giuliani [real] encourages perseverance

Paul Simon [real] performs “The Boxer” amidst NYC police & firemen

— Well, here we go, folks. A very important piece of SNL history.
— When this episode originally aired, I remember it felt very odd and jarring to see an SNL season begin in such a serious, dour manner, but I fully understood how necessary and crucial it was for SNL to immediately address the then-recent 9/11 in such a manner.
— Very inspiring words from Rudy Giuliani here.
— A great choice to have an unannounced Paul Simon performance during this cold opening. I recall there being confusion among online SNL fans at the time over what Paul’s song “The Boxer” has to do with 9/11, but I can see the connection, and this performance is beautiful, made even moreso by the occasional pan shots of the NYC firemen and police.
— Lorne: “Can we be funny?” Rudy: “Why start now?” That legendary exchange was not only the ice-breaking laugh that SNL needed during these trying times, but it was the ice-breaking laugh that New York and the nation as a whole needed, and let people know that things are going to be okay.
— Probably the most meaningful delivery of “Live from New York…” in SNL history. Great enthusiasm from both Rudy and the audience during it. Speaking of which, reruns of this cold opening oddly re-dub the “it’s Saturday Night” portion of Rudy’s LFNY with a more monotone-sounding utterance from him. I cannot for the life of me figure out why SNL would do that.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)

OPENING MONTAGE
— Same montage from the preceding season.
— A shot from the preceding season’s montage of the New York City skyline with the World Trade Center visible (the first screencap below) has been digitally altered to remove the two towers (the second screencap below).

— A new shot has been added early in the montage showing an American flag (screencap below).

— Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph have all been promoted from featured players to repertory players.
— When the shot of the newly-promoted Tina Fey comes up after Will Ferrell’s shot, Don Pardo accidentally announces Tina as “Ana Gasteyer”, apparently being so accustomed to always announcing Ana’s name immediately after Will’s for the last 5 years. When the shot of Tina is then followed by Ana’s shot, Don attempts to cover for his flub by announcing Ana as “Ana Gasteyer with Tina Fey”.
— Speaking of Ana Gasteyer, the shot of her from the preceding season’s opening montage (the first screencap below) has now been changed to a new shot (the second screencap below).

— Boy, it feels sad seeing Chris Parnell removed from the opening montage.
— Dean Edwards, Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, and Jeff Richards have all been added to the cast tonight.

MONOLOGUE
host tells a joke about a polar bear cub’s identity crisis

 

— I remember an SNL reviewer back at this time saying Reese Witherspoon had such an “I have to follow THAT?!?” look on her face early on in this monologue. Yeah, I can see that on her face. I feel for her.
— A good opening message from Reese about how they’ll (her and SNL) be giving it their all tonight, despite the circumstances.
— Hoo, boy. That “because I’m freezing my balls off” punchline was… well, not worth such a long, long set-up. Even Reese herself seems to agree, judging from her facial expressions afterwards. Reportedly, the punchline to Reese’s joke was originally going to be an uncensored “because I’m fucking freezing”, as SNL’s brave attempt to show that New York is back up and running. Lorne had planned in advance to pay the FCC fines and everything, but Reese put the kibosh on the whole idea, because she didn’t feel comfortable with saying the f-word on live TV, knowing how many young fans she had. I’m not 100% sure if any of that story is true, but if it is, that would explain the lame “because I’m freezing my balls off” punchline we were left with.
STARS: **½ (I’m being somewhat kind)

PREPARATION H
skateboarders sell hemorrhoid relief to youth culture

— Much like I said about Maya’s debut when I reviewed her very first episode, it feels so odd seeing Seth Meyers at this point of my SNL project, and lets me know that I’m slowly getting closer and closer to SNL’s modern-day era. And, man, Seth looks so young here.
— A good way to get all of the new male featured players in this youth-oriented commercial spoof.
— A fairly good comically out-of-place product to aim at early 2000s youth culture, and the visual style of this is a spot-on spoof of “x-treme” youth-oriented ads from this era, also reminding me of the visual style of another SNL spoof of “x-treme” youth-oriented ads: season 24’s KCF Shredders, which also heavily showcased THAT season’s new featured players: Jimmy, Horatio, and… (*sniffle*) Chris Parnell.
— Jesus Christ, did we need to see Kattan’s bare butt? Sure it was blurred out, but even through the blurring, we could still see WAY more of Kattan’s asscrack than I ever needed to see.
STARS: ***

WAKE UP WAKEFIELD!
Randy Goldman’s (JIF) girlfriend (host) is a guest

— Hmm, interesting how the lead-off sketch of the season stars two newly-promoted former featured players, showing how much confidence SNL has in Maya and Rachel.
— Amy Poehler makes her very first SNL appearance in a silent, almost indistinguishable role as one of several students making goofy faces in the viewer window (she’s the one sticking out her tongue in the fourth above screencap for this sketch), which ends up being Amy’s ONLY appearance all night. Yeesh. After so much online hype behind Amy’s hiring that summer, I recall this poor usage of her in tonight’s season premiere causing concern among some online SNL fans, worried that this was a sign that Amy’s SNL tenure would turn out to be comparable to that of Mark McKinney, who, like Amy, joined SNL as an already-established and revered sketch comedy veteran, and would sadly end up having his talent largely underused and squandered by SNL. Funny to think back in retrospect on this concern from SNL fans, considering the direction we now know that Amy’s SNL tenure would end up going.
— Geez, for the second segment in a row tonight, we get a guy showing part of his bare buttcrack to the camera, only this time, it’s NOT blurred out. Are all of these buttcrack flashes tonight another attempt from SNL to show that New York is back up and running? What’s more, I believe that’s newbie Jeff Richards who’s uncensored buttcrack we’re seeing in this sketch. If that’s indeed him, this has got to be one of the more… uh, unique ways for a cast member to make their live debut on SNL.
— As usual, I’m getting a kick out of Horatio’s teacher character, especially his corny delivery of “Don’t be a playa-hata. Be an inter-mural sports participata!”
— A funny and memorable part with Maya’s Megan passionately breaking out into a portion of the song “Truly Madly Deeply” in front of the viewer window that Jimmy’s Randy Goldman and Reese’s character are making out on the other side of.
STARS: ***½

THE LITTLE MERMAID
(WIF) is put off by Ariel’s (host) fish genitalia

— Seeing Will at the beginning of this sketch just gave me a sad reminder that this is his final season, which is even sadder when you’re aware in retrospect how much SNL ends up struggling without him the first few seasons after his departure.
— For some reason, I kinda like hearing the awkward light audience laughter during the some portions of Reese and Will’s non-comedic singing early on.
— Pretty funny turn with Reese’s Little Mermaid singing about the “increased flow of mucous in my fish genitalia”, throwing Will for a loop.
— When talking about how her legs turn human once she’s on land, I got a good laugh from Reese’s “But believe you me, the hoo-hah is all mackerel!” Something about that line sounds very Tina Fey-esque to me, which makes me wonder if she wrote this sketch, though I think I automatically assume that ALL vagina jokes from this SNL era are from Tina, knowing her comedic style and her various vagina euphemisms used throughout her Weekend Update tenure.
— Another instance tonight of all the new male featured players being paired together, this time as yellow-faced singing fish superimposed onto the screen. Stuff like this made it kinda hard for me (and many other online SNL fans at the time) to tell the difference between Seth Meyers and Jeff Richards back when this episode originally aired.
— A pretty funny and endearing visual of Rachel happily dancing around in a silly crab costume.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Fallin'”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Jesse Jackson (DAH) explains circumstances of proposed Taliban meeting

TIF & JIF lend drama to Maine’s decision to extend moose-hunting season

TIF encourages viewers to call 877-870-4278 & donate to Twin Towers Fund

— Surprisingly, they’re still using Chris Parnell’s old voice-over intro for Weekend Update. That wouldn’t last too long this season, though.
— A new brief shot of Tina wearing glasses has been inserted into the Update title sequence (screencap below), which doesn’t fit the rest of the Update title sequence, as plenty of shots of Tina sans glasses still remain.

— After donning the same hairstyle for his first three seasons, we now have Jimmy’s first of what will be MANY questionable hairstyles for the remainder of his SNL tenure. His hairstyle tonight is particularly tragic.
— Feels kinda sad seeing Darrell’s Jesse Jackson impression without Jerry Minor’s Al Sharpton by his side anymore, even though I’m certainly aware that Darrell previously did plenty of solo Jesse Jackson commentaries on Update years before Jerry even joined the cast. Jerry’s Sharpton added a fun change of pace to these, though.
— A lot of laughs from Darrell-as-Jackson’s detailing of the Taliban contacting him by phone.
— Darrell-as-Jackson’s “Come, Mr. Taliban, tally me banana” bit is hilarious.
— Tina’s IMMEDIATELY apologetic reaction after doing a mean-spirited joke about Janet Reno shows a huge difference between her and Norm Macdonald’s Update approach, as Norm did this same type of mean-spirited joke about Janet Reno on a regular basis during his Update days, and he never so much as batted an eye afterwards.
— Right when he’s supposed to do the next joke, Jimmy actually STOPS Update to a halt just to make several ad-libs about how terrible his hair looks as he glances at himself in the monitor and plays with his hair. I wonder if it’s moments like this that people who can’t stand Jimmy Fallon point to as an example of why he supposedly was a lousy cast member. (I’m not saying I agree, though I certainly have my own gripes with some of Jimmy’s habits on SNL.)
— The random moose-hunting conversation between Jimmy and Tina is a good, fun bit, like Jimmy and Tina’s side segments usually are. I also like how they end this one by saying “Aaaaaaaand scene” in unison.
— Jimmy and Tina end tonight’s Update on a classy note by letting us know how to reach the Twin Towers Fund if we’d like to help in the New York relief effort.
— Overall, considering the always-topical Weekend Update must’ve been one of the most difficult portions of the show for SNL to handle in this first post-9/11 episode, they handled it well and did a fine job.
STARS: ***½

COMMITMENT MEDLEY
Marty & Bobbi perform a medley at a lesbian commitment ceremony

— Feels pretty nice to see the always-reliable Culps during trying times like this.
— I’m getting some laughs from Marty and Bobbi Mohan-Culps’ details of their own bi-curious experiences from the past.
— As usual, a fun song medley from the Culps tonight. I particularly like their lesbian-related variation of “Mr. Roboto”.
STARS: ***½

CELEBRITY JEOPARDY
Chris Tucker (DEE), Anne Heche (host), Sean Connery (DAH)

— What’s going on tonight? The fairly-new and not-yet-established recurring sketch Wake Up Wakefield gets to lead off tonight’s season premiere, but actual established and long-time popular recurring sketches like The Culps and Celebrity Jeopardy get buried after Update??? Perhaps this is an early sign of a changing of the guard at SNL this season. After all, this DOES end up being Will and Ana’s final season.
— Dean Edwards gets his very first big role. It shows quite a lot of confidence on SNL’s part to let a newbie on his first night play a contestant in the prestigious Celebrity Jeopardy recurring sketch.
— A pretty good laugh from Reese’s Anne Heche delivering her intro statement in made-up space language.
— A decent Chris Tucker impression from Dean, though the material he’s been given in this sketch is pretty one-note and nothing special. By the way, word has it that Jerry Minor, the cast member who’s spot Dean has been hired to basically fill in, also had a Chris Tucker impression in his back pocket, but I’ve never seen it (and he certainly never did it on SNL).
— And there’s our obligatory classic category mix-up of tonight’s Celebrity Jeopardy sketch, with Darrell’s Connery misreading “horsemen” as “whore semen”. It’s quite a stretch for me to refer that particular mix-up as “classic”, though. I recall some online SNL fans at the time saying it was kinda sad and desperate on SNL’s part that Darrell’s Connery actually had to resort to WALKING UP TO THE BOARD and POINTING OUT where he saw “hor” and “semen” in the word “horsemen”. Unfortunately, I have to agree about how sad and desperate that came off, even if I still got some chuckles from it.
— A funny list shown of people that Anne Heche has slept with (the fourth-to-last above screencap for this sketch, though the visual quality makes it hard to read). It’s noteworthy that Chris Kattan is one of the people on that list. An also somewhat noteworthy entry on that list is “The Cream Of Wheat Guy”, which brings to mind that Pervert short film that the recently-departed Adam McKay did the preceding season. I’d like to think that SNL is subtly referencing that here, but that might be a stretch. It’s probably just inherently comedic to reference “The Cream Of Wheat Guy” in certain contexts, especially sexual ones.
— The surprising display of camaraderie between Trebek and Connery right now is an interesting change, even when you KNOW that Connery is just setting Trebek up.
— Overall… (*sigh*) I hate to say it, but it’s finally happened, folks: an average Celebrity Jeopardy sketch. This installment, while still funny, paled BADLY in comparison to the preceding Celebrity Jeopardy sketches. This installment felt lacking in parts, kinda empty, and was overall unmemorable. It’s understandable, given the difficulties the writers faced this week, but I wish they waited until a better week a little later into this season to do a Celebrity Jeopardy sketch.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “A Woman’s Worth”

GASSY BABY
newborn baby’s nonstop farts & burps distress parents (WIF) & (host)

— Oh, no. I recall this being a fairly notorious sketch from this season.
— Yep, and there it goes: the endless farting from the baby has officially begun. (*sigh*)
— It’s a bad sign when the audience has ALREADY stopped laughing at the non-stop farts only 30 seconds into the sketch. And this sketch is supposed to go on for God knows how many more minutes.
— And now we get the addition of endless burping to accompany the baby’s endless farting, as if that’s going to make this any funnier. (*sighs deeper*)
— Kattan’s appearance as the doctor is the first sketch tonight that I’ve noticed the lack of Chris Parnell (not counting the opening montage). This seems like the exact type of role Parnell would’ve been cast in had he still been on the show.
— And now the baby’s endless farting and burping is accompanied by endless projectile peeing. (*sighs even deeper*) Look, I’ve been cutting the writers some much-needed slack throughout this episode review, understanding what a difficult time they must’ve had this week, but geez, they’re putting something like THIS on the air? Really? I recall lots of SNL reviewers at the time saying this sketch was akin to a typical bad, juvenile sketch from season 20, though I’d like to think that even season 20 would scoff at this sketch, though that may be giving that season too much credit. Hell, if that season did this sketch, they’d probably have the baby projectile vomiting instead of farting, burping, or projectile peeing.
— It hurts seeing a reliable sketch-saving pro like Will failing to save this D.O.A. sketch. Only a truly bad sketch like this could make Will Ferrell look unfunny. I should probably be glad that Chris Parnell isn’t around to also get his talents wasted in this embarrassing sketch.
— Hmm, a very strange but somewhat interesting mid-sketch interlude with the coffee discussion between Will and Kattan, complete with wholesome background music being played. While this portion of the sketch is hard to figure and isn’t exactly making me laugh, I kinda appreciate what it’s going for, mostly just for giving us a (temporary) break from the unfunny juvenile humor of this sketch. I remember when this sketch originally aired, I felt that the dialogue in Will and Kattan’s coffee discussion seemed improvised, a hunch that would later be heightened when NBC would air the dress rehearsal version of this sketch in reruns, which contains different dialogue during Will and Kattan’s coffee discussion, IIRC (I haven’t seen the rerun version of this sketch in ages, so my recollection may be faulty).
— Tracy makes his first and only appearance of the night, and immediately provides my ONLY laughs of this entire sketch with his perfectly Tracy Morgan-esque reaction to the farting/burping/peeing baby.
STARS: *½

DONATELLA VERSACE FOR THE CHILDREN
Donatella Versace (MAR) & fashionistas sing kids songs

 

— The debut of Maya’s Donatella Versace impression, which would go on to be one of Maya’s signature roles on SNL.
— Maya continues to have the impressive ability to convincingly look like any given ethnicity she plays (Italian this time) via the simple use of a wig.
— Maya’s Versace voice sounds kinda different in this debut than how it would go on to regularly sound, but it could just be that it’s been a LONG time since I’ve last watched any of her Versace sketches.
— For a newbie in his first episode, Dean Edwards has actually been getting quite a lot of airtime tonight, which is particularly surprising in retrospect, knowing how EXTREMELY underused he would infamously go on to regularly be throughout his short-lived SNL tenure. (In fact, in the very next episode, he doesn’t make ANY appearances, which already lets us know what to expect from his SNL tenure.) It’s funny how tonight’s episode makes it seem like, out of the four newbies, Dean is going to be the most prominent face while Amy’s going to be extremely under-utilized and treated like a glorified extra, only for things to turn out THE EXACT OPPOSITE between Dean and Amy.
— There goes the first yell of “GET OOOOUUUUTT!”, which would go on to the signature catchphrase of Maya’s Versace impression.
— Boy, this one guy in the audience has a very loud, noticeable cackling laugh (“Hhhhhhhaaa ha ha ha!”) being heard all throughout this sketch. His voice stands out over the rest of the audience so much that it sounds like he’s mic’ed.
— A fairly fun format to this sketch, but I dunno, I’m not finding myself laughing all that much, though Maya is performing well.
— Okay, I am getting some amusement out of the randomness of Versace’s conversation with “Mr. Pantyhose Leg”, a pantyhose sock puppet.
STARS: **½

SIDE NOTE: I like the unique touch of how the final bumper photo of Reese has a signed message written by her (screencap below), which would go on to become a tradition for the final bumper photo shown of hosts in this season’s episodes (with the Kirsten Dunst episode being the only exception, I believe).

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Hard to judge this episode on the same level of a normal episode, knowing the unprecedented circumstances and difficulties SNL was dealing with. I commend SNL for going out there and trying, and I’m satisfied with what we ended up with as a whole. It was far from a strong episode, in my opinion; in fact, there wasn’t a single segment I gave a rating over three-and-a-half stars to (though if I rated individual Weekend Update commentaries, Darrell Hammond’s Jesse Jackson commentary would get four stars), and the post-Weekend Update half was largely underwhelming. But again, under the difficult circumstances, SNL still tried, they still provided laughs, they provided an important cold opening for the ages, and overall, the finished product of their efforts was palatable. For all of these reasons, I’ll forgive even the biggest missteps of the night (*coughGassyBabycough*).

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2000-01)
N/A, because, again, it’s hard to judge this episode on the same level of a normal episode

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Seann William Scott