Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
SECRET LOCATION
from Afghanistan, army-of-one Dick Cheney (DAH) tells how he’ll win war
— A good way for SNL to address Dick Cheney’s mysterious disappearance from the public during the 9/11 craziness going on at the time.
— Great reveal from Darrell’s Cheney of him being a one-man Northern Alliance.
— Another good reveal, this time of Cheney having a bionic ticker for his heart.
— I love the maniacal laughing face that Darrell keeps doing as Cheney throughout this.
— A very funny “The beard’s goin’!” message from Cheney to Osama Bin Laden.
— Overall, much like the Bush cold opening in the last episode, this was a solid balance of both comedy and patriotism that the nation needed.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
host overcame her fears of terrorism to do SNL; Tom Green cameo
— An interesting anecdote from Drew detailing the timeline of her constantly changing mood towards hosting SNL so soon after 9/11, especially when she talks about the panic that had happened at the show earlier this week with anthrax being discovered in 30 Rock, which led to Drew initially walking out on the show and contemplating dropping out as this week’s host. Man, I remember what a crazy week that was for SNL. There were so many articles and discussions online about what the hell is going to happen to that weekend’s SNL episode. Nobody knew what desperate measures SNL might have to take under both the anthrax situation and the Drew-walking-out-on-the-show situation. At one point, there were sources that said SNL may have to resort to doing that weekend’s episode without a studio audience… and I’ll be honest, I remember part of me actually got kinda eager and excited when hearing that, as it made me very curious to witness what a live SNL episode would be like with no studio audience. (Actually, that just might end up happening soon in SNL’s current season, considering a certain pandemic we’re now dealing with.)
— Very nice how Drew is commending the bravery of both herself and the studio audience for being here tonight.
— All I’ll say about Tom Green’s cameo is that, if SNL had to put him in tonight’s episode, then giving him a brief, wordless appearance in a harmless cutaway to the audience was the right way to go.
— An overall simple and (mostly) non-comedic monologue, but one that was also heartfelt, endearing, and actually kinda important, given the circumstances. This also kinda felt like a monologue that I can see appearing in SNL’s early eras (the 70s and early-to-mid 80s), back in the days before it was a requirement for monologues to have a big comedic conceit.
— Not sure if this is true, but I recall once hearing that the dress rehearsal version of this monologue was completely different and did have a comedic conceit, with Will appearing as a bizarre white-haired character.
STARS: ***½
CROSSING OVER WITH JOHN EDWARD
John Edward’s (WIF) cold readings have low success rate
— I remember how excited I was at the time for SNL to finally spoof this John Edward show, as I used to occasionally watch his show at the time for some unintentional laughs and found the show ripe for parody.
— Between her opening montage photos, the monologue, and now this sketch (plus some of the SNL bumper photos of her we’ll be seeing later tonight), Drew’s been going for quite an androgynous look tonight.
— Will-as-John-Edward’s constant terrible psychic guesses are providing some good laughs.
— I like Edward now starting to get hostile when he thinks Maya and Drew are starting to doubt him.
— John Edward, when realizing that a psychic guess he has just made is way off: “No, no, no, I take it back. That was dumb.”
— I love the way Maya delivered the line “This is incredible” with very understated excitement.
STARS: ***½
LOVERS
in hotel hot tub, Roger & Virginia entice Dave (JIF) to be (host)’s lover
— I love Will-as-Roger’s way of pronouncing “hot tub” as “hah-TAHB”, which would go on to be a memorable trademark of The Luvahs.
— What’s with the bubbling under the water just now, shortly after Drew entered the “hah-TAHB”? Did Drew or one of the other performers… uh, break wind underwater? Jimmy and Drew’s sudden smirking right now would have you think so.
— This sketch has slowly been devolving into a gigglefit from EVERYONE, and not just the perpetually-giggly Jimmy. It also seems that Will is now trying to instigate further giggling from his scene partners by repeatedly going “Uhhh…” in a lost way while Rachel is speaking.
— As much as the performers are breaking throughout this sketch, the dress rehearsal version of this sketch that’s shown in reruns actually features EVEN HARDER breaking, to the degree that the performers have a seriously hard time continuing on with the sketch. On a similar note, Will’s famous cut-after-dress-rehearsal Old Prospector sketch comes from this episode’s dress rehearsal, and that sketch also features a VERY heavy amount of breaking from everyone. I chalk up all these instances of performers breaking particularly hard during this episode’s dress rehearsal and live show to the fact that SNL lost a day of rehearsals due to the anthrax mess.
— Will-as-Roger’s line “Below the surface, there is a frenzy of activity” was very funny.
— As Jimmy is making his exit from the “hah-TAHB”, Will jokingly places his hand on Jimmy’s butt.
— (*groan*) Why do these Luvahs sketches always have to end with Roger complaining to Virginia about his back when they’re starting to make love?
STARS: ***
WILLY WONKA COLLECTOR’S EDITION
DVD of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory has outtakes & cast commentary
— Another early display of a fantastic celebrity impression from Jeff, this time nailing Gene Wilder’s performance as Willy Wonka.
— The EXTREMELY brief clip of Horatio and Drew ends up being Horatio’s ONLY appearance all night, and it was just a pre-taped clip, plus Horatio didn’t even speak or do anything in the clip but just stand there. He ends up being far from the only cast member who gets shafted tonight, as we’ll see as this episode progresses.
— Hilarious scene with Maya as Nelly Furtado performing an Oompah Loompah song.
— Pretty fun small portion of this sketch showing some never-before-seen Willy Wonka celebrity screen tests (an idea that almost sounds like it could be a full sketch in itself, in the same vein of screen test sketches that SNL has done for classic movies like Star Wars, Back To The Future, etc.). Dean’s Sidney Poitier impression especially has me laughing out loud. This is the first time we’ve seen Dean in a while, by the way, making his first appearance since his first episode.
— Tracy’s ONLY role in tonight’s entire episode isn’t even a physical appearance; it’s just a voice-over heard at the end of this commercial, in which he says, in an amused, jovial manner, “Ha ha ha! Order the Willy Wonka Collector’s Edition today!” I admit that voice-over made me laugh for some reason (Tracy is just so damn naturally funny, even in voice-over form), but considering the fact that Will did the voice-over for most of this sketch, it makes no sense why Tracy was suddenly thrown in as the closing voice-over. Did SNL throw him into this sketch at the last minute during the live show because they felt bad that all of his appearances got cut after dress rehearsal?
STARS: ***½
TV FUNHOUSE
“NBC Fall Retooling Preview” by RBS- instant ratings guide Emeril genres
— Our first TV Funhouse to air in this season, three episodes in.
— Some laughs from the NBC execs’ constant desperate retooling of Emeril Lagasse’s troubled sitcom.
— Hmm, all of a sudden, this has started devolving into a string of cheap homoerotic gags, a lazy resort.
— Ha, Gary Condit. I forgot about that scandal until now. That Gary Condit scandal was inescapable on the news until 9/11 came along.
— While I’ve been enjoying this cartoon, it’s going on rather long and some parts are kinda dragging for me.
— I love one of the NBC exec’s monotone cheer of “Woo.” at the end when seeing how Emeril’s ratings have finally achieved success.
STARS: ***
FIRST LIBERTY SAVINGS BANK LIQUIDATION SALE
(WIF) announces currency liquidation sale
— Will’s performance is okay, but the material here isn’t exactly the greatest, and not even Will can enhance it much with his usual sketch-saving abilities.
— More lazy gay-related humor tonight, with Will’s ending line “Oh, and I’m gay. (sarcastically) SORRY, DAD!” I admit that I do kinda like Will’s delivery of that line, though.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sexual Revolution”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Gay Hitler (CHK) makes a brief flamboyant appearance
COQ gives his thoughts on the war against terrorism
Gay Hitler returns as Neil Diamond (WIF) performs “Heartlight”
— After leaving the recently-fired Chris Parnell’s old Weekend Update voice-over intro intact in the first two episodes of this season, SNL has now replaced it with a new voice-over from Amy.
— The debut of Gay Hitler. Blah. I just see this as yet another typical, lazy Chris Kattan gay role, not to mention even more cheap gay-related humor tonight.
— A Colin Quinn cameo! I also love how Tina introduces him as “the New York-iest New Yorker I know”.
— I may have had quite a lot of issues with Colin when I covered his stint as an Update anchor, but Update guest commentaries like this where he’s allowed to just rant about a particular story in the news in his usual stand-up style are where he’s really in his element. I love him in this venue.
— A particularly funny line from Colin when talking about the announcement of a Dr. Dre music video attacking Osama Bin Laden: “What are the odds that video rhymes ‘Osama’ and ‘yo mama’ at one point?”
— The return of Will’s Neil Diamond impression! Believe it or not, this is the first time we’re seeing this epic impression of Will’s since the classic Storytellers sketch this impression made its debut in four seasons prior.
— Fun ending to this Neil Diamond commentary, with the song he performs. Even Gay Hitler eventually joining Diamond has a lot of goodwill from me. At one point, Will hilariously ad-libs “Don’t do it, Gay Hitler!”, which sends Jimmy and Tina into hysterics in the background.
STARS: ***½
ACTION TALK SHOW WITH KLAUS VONBRAUNMAN
Klaus VonBraunMan (CHK) welcomes action actress (host)
— Geez, I can tell even from the opening title sequence that this new Chris Kattan sketch is going to be AWFUL.
— The voice Chris is using sounds like a variation of his Jean-Claude Van Damme voice from Jackie Chan’s season 25 monologue.
— The cutaways to a deadpan Dean Edwards doing a lethargic German accent are making me laugh.
— As I expected, this sketch is just plain bad so far. Even Dean’s deadpan occasional interjections have stopped being funny after a while.
— A ho-hum use of Seth Meyers right now, making his only appearance of the night.
— We finally get a genuine funny part of this sketch, with Drew’s character mentioning how challenging it was for her to learn an Australian accent for her movie, after we had just seen a clip from the movie, in which Drew didn’t use an Australian accent at all.
— Overall, all I have to say is, THANK GOD this awful talk show sketch never became recurring, even though I’m sure SNL originally intended for it to.
— I cannot stress enough this season how beyond his expiration date Chris clearly is by this point of his SNL tenure. It’s getting sad to watch him this season.
STARS: *½
WUUB PRIME TIME THEATER
while airing King Kong, TV station replaces World Trade Center finale
— During the opening King Kong movie clip, I got a big laugh from Jeff Bridges’ utterance of “World Trade Center” being very sloppily re-dubbed to “Chrysler Building” by another man’s monotone voice.
— Unconventional use of Darrell in this role. This role kinda feels to me like something that the recently-fired Chris Parnell would play had he still been in the cast at this point.
— Not quite sure what this sketch is going for so far. Well, I guess I kinda “get” what it’s going for, but it’s not doing anything for me.
— The reveal of Darrell and Drew’s “actor” characters actually being the network’s news anchors didn’t really work for me.
— Okay, I got a decent laugh just now from Cheers and Superman stock footage being randomly inserted into the re-done King Kong ending.
— Something about Darrell’s intentionally cheesy, stilted delivery throughout this sketch is starting to work for me.
— Will’s over-exaggerated “heart attack” is pretty funny.
— Drew’s exaggerated, stilted, stretched-out scream of “Kong” results in Darrell busting out laughing, which in turn leads to Drew herself busting out laughing, to the degree that both of them end up basically giving up on the sketch, forcing the ending credits to be abruptly cued up. Given the fact that bad, sloppy, low-budget acting was an intentional theme of this sketch, but also given the fact that there’s been a lot of GENUINE sloppy breaking among the performers in some of tonight’s sketches, it’s hard to tell if Darrell and Drew’s laughing breakdown at the end of this sketch was part of the script or not. I’m leaning towards the former, but Darrell and Drew did make it look awfully real. At least if Chris Parnell had indeed played Darrell’s role like I mentioned earlier, then we’d KNOW that his and Drew’s laughing in this sketch was scripted, because Parnell ain’t one to break so easily.
— Overall, this sketch started picking up near the end (sometime after the fake commercial break in the sketch), but this sketch as a whole is still hard for me to figure, and had a flat feel (even if that was the intention) that bored me.
STARS: **½
WHOLE LATTE LOVE
(WIF) heckles ex-girlfriend (host) & her new lover (MAR) at coffeehouse
— Something very odd regarding Drew’s wig and clothes in this sketch: when SNL aired a Halloween compilation special a few weeks after the original airing of tonight’s episode, one of the sketches shown was a cut-after-dress-rehearsal sketch from tonight’s Barrymore episode, titled “The Morning After The Night Of The Living Dead”, which was a Night Of The Living Dead spoof with zombies having drunken-type hangovers the morning after a night of eating human’s brains. In that sketch, there’s a short scene with Drew playing Will’s wife/girlfriend/whatever (I can’t remember what). Drew’s wig and clothes in that scene are THE EXACT SAME wig and clothes that she wears in the live version of the Whole Latte Love sketch that I’m currently reviewing. As if that’s not odd enough, during NBC’s later re-airing of tonight’s Drew Barrymore episode, the dress rehearsal version of this Whole Latte Love sketch was shown, in which Drew is dressed completely differently, having a more “butch” look that stereotypically fits her character rather than the traditionally feminine wig and clothes she wears in both the live version of this sketch and in the cut-after-dress “The Morning After The Night Of The Living Dead” sketch. So what the hell happened during the live version of this Whole Latte Love sketch? Was SNL originally all set to do the Living Dead sketch on the air and even got Drew into costume for it, but then decided at LITERALLY the last minute to cut the sketch and instead do the Whole Latte Love sketch, but Drew didn’t have enough time to change out of her Living Dead costume before the show came back from commercial break? That’s the only theory I can come up with that makes any kind of sense.
— My god, this is Ana’s FIRST and ONLY appearance all night, and it’s just a somewhat minor role. Are you kidding me, SNL? Come to think of it, Ana’s airtime has been severely reduced in general this season so far, which, as I said in the last review, is a sign that she’s on her way out. Also, between Horatio and Tracy both being pretty much absent tonight, Ana making her only appearance of the night in a somewhat minor role in the final sketch, and a lot of the remaining cast members appearing in no more than one or two sketches, what has happened to the cast tonight? Very lopsided airtime among them, with Will starring or co-starring in almost EVERY SINGLE SKETCH while almost all of his castmates are left with little to nothing. It’s giving the show kind of a weird empty feeling.
— Will’s role in this sketch is really weak, and a complete waste of his talents. His usual ability to save iffy sketches is NOT on display here, which is the second sketch tonight I’ve noted that in.
— Maya’s doing a good job keeping a perfectly straight face while getting paper thrown at her by Will.
— Maya and Drew are getting some laughs from me with their dialogue. However, the Will Ferrell portions of this sketch are hurting this… which, by the way, is a sentence I never thought I’d say in my life. As I said in a review from earlier this season, it takes truly bad writing to make Will Ferrell look unfunny.
— Rachel and Ana’s characters kinda feel like a feminist-themed hybrid of Cinder Calhoun and the Bloater Brothers. There’s some laughs from their portions of this sketch, but I just hate the fact that this is the ONLY thing that such a valuable veteran of Ana’s caliber has been relegated to doing tonight.
— I didn’t care for the ending with Drew getting back together with Will.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sweet Baby”
MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
world-ruling dinosaurs in chapter 315
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— I understand that this was another difficult week for SNL, with all of the anthrax mess that happened, but, meh, I was not crazy about this episode as a whole. The first 1/3 of the episode started off pretty well, but the show lost quite a lot of steam afterwards and never fully recovered. Aside from a fun Weekend Update, I didn’t get much enjoyment from ANYTHING that aired after the TV Funhouse cartoon ended, and the show especially hit almost rock bottom with that awful Action Talk Show sketch. Also, as I said earlier in the review, the odd lack of airtime for most of the cast kinda gave this show a weirdly empty feel.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Seann William Scott)
a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
John Goodman