Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BRIEFING
George W. Bush (WIF) misidentifies Middle East leaders’ names in briefing
— This ends up being the final appearance of Will’s George W. Bush during Will’s tenure as a cast member (obviously not counting the times Will would later play Bush when hosting or cameoing). Due to that, it’s bittersweet watching this particular cold opening in retrospect, especially when being aware of the huge struggle that SNL’s going to have in regards to getting a new Bush impersonator.
— A big laugh from Will’s Bush calling Hussein Of Jordan’s wife Queen Amidala.
— Bush, after being surprised to hear there’s two Abdullahs: “Is this some kind of a test?” Dick Cheney: “I ask myself that every day.”
— Pretty simple “Bush is dumb” premise, but it’s being executed well. Again, knowing that this is Will’s final Bush appearance during his SNL tenure, the simplicity and straightforwardness of this cold opening is strangely kinda charming in a way, though at the same time, it would’ve been nice if SNL ended Will’s run as Bush by going all out on an epic, special cold opening and saved it for Will’s final episode the following week.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host shows clip of earlier SNL appearance; HOS pretends to be Spider-Man
— A nice part with Kirsten Dunst pointing out that she once appeared on SNL as a child extra in a Dana-Carvey-as-Bush-Sr. cold opening from 1988, which we’re then shown a clip of. Feels like it was just yesterday when I reviewed that cold opening.
— Pretty funny use of the old Spider-Man theme song when an upside-down Horatio in a Spider-Man costume makes his entrance.
— A laugh from Horatio’s Spider-Man explaining his weight gain by claiming he was stung by 1,000 bees.
— Yikes, when Kirsten is supposed to pull down only the mouth part of Horatio’s Spider-Man mask, she accidentally pulls off the ENTIRE mask, which kinda blows the bit, as Kirsten’s not supposed to realize it’s Horatio under that mask until much later in the monologue. After accidentally removing Horatio’s entire mask, Kirsten awkwardly attempts to put the mask back on him, to no avail.
— Double-yikes, now this monologue has gone even further off the rails. When Horatio asks for a bucket to vomit in, a crew member is supposed to hand him one, which Horatio was then supposed to put his head inside while vomiting sound effects are played. However, for some inexplicable reason, no bucket is handed to Horatio, forcing him to hesitantly skip the vomiting part, and he and Kirsten just awkwardly go on with the monologue. Geez, what the hell is going ON???
— When Horatio attempts to kiss Kirsten, she responds “You just puked, I’m not gonna kiss you!”, a line that makes absolutely NO sense, given that Horatio never got to do the vomiting bit. This line of Kirsten’s receives uncomfortable silence from the studio audience, who were probably just as confused over that line as I remember being when watching this episode live.
— Now Horatio reveals to Kirsten, “It’s me, Horatio”, as if he had just taken off his mask to reveal his identity, which, again, makes NO sense to SNL’s studio audience and home viewers, considering Horatio’s mask had ALREADY been long removed by accident. Jesus Christ, this monologue is a mess.
— SNL would later replace this monologue with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, for obvious reasons.
STARS: *½
CLEAR RESULTS
(ANG) gets reassurance in third trimester
— A lot of laughs from Ana’s voice-over constantly questioning if she’s pregnant of not, when we can see that she clearly is very pregnant.
— A good reveal that this is a pregnancy test commercial.
— An overall solid way for SNL to get mileage out of Ana’s real-life pregnancy, and ends up being one of her last great SNL moments.
STARS: ****
LAST CALL WITH CARSON DALY
derivative (host) sings & plays piano
— Kirsten’s playing a solid combo of Alicia Keys and some other young female singers from this time period.
— Funny part with Kirsten’s character explaining she used to go out with Bob Saget, spoofing Alanis Morissette’s relationship with Dave Coulier.
— I love Jimmy-as-Carson-Daly’s line about having a side job mixing paint at Home Depot.
STARS: ***½
TV FUNHOUSE
“Bambi 2002” by RBS- unfocused Disney sequel sullies memory of original
— A huge laugh from one of the announced Disney movies being a porno titled “Pokahotass”.
— A lot of very funny and inappropriate out-of-place situations for Bambi to be placed in.
— David Spade voice cameo!
— And… OH, NO. A fucking Jared Fogel voice cameo?!?!? Goddammit, I thought the only Jared Fogel SNL cameo I ever had to worry about covering is in the Michael Phelps episode from much later in this decade. I had completely forgotten about his animated appearance and voice cameo in this cartoon.
— Solid TV Funhouse as a whole.
STARS: ****
DEMILON
Demilon keeps senior citizens controllable by counteracting memory drugs
— Kind of a touchy subject, trying to get laughs out of Alzheimer’s.
— I did get a laugh from Rachel’s old lady character happily saying “I’m having lunch with Eleanor Roosevelt… and Yogi Bear!”
— An overall surprisingly short sketch, and, other than one laugh, was nothing special at all.
STARS: **
BACKGROUND ACTORS
extras’ (WIF), (AMP), (host) antics steal attention from serious scene
— Will and Amy’s extremely exaggerated, unnatural background acting is providing good laughs.
— Kirsten eventually getting into the act is pretty funny as well.
— Good understated frustration from Maya and Kattan’s actor characters, who are trying to keep the scene going despite the background antics.
— There’s one brief point where Maya looked like she was about to come very close to helplessly busting out laughing in reaction to the faces that Will, Amy, and Kirsten are making right next to her, but she’s doing a good job of pulling through and keeping a straight face.
— Great anger from Parnell towards the terrible background actors.
STARS: ***½
JARRET’S ROOM
(host) & (AMP) are the stars of a copycat webcam show
— Somewhat interesting with us being shown Kirsten and Amy starring in a rip-off version of Jarret’s Room.
— I like the mirror bit that Gobi’s doing with Amy as his female counterpart.
— An overall somewhat fun Jarret’s Room installment, and a step up from the disappointing last installment with Britney Spears.
— Where was Jeff as his usual Jarret’s Room character? In fact, Jeff ends up not appearing in ANY sketches tonight (same goes for Tracy, by the way), though he’s certainly there in the SNL studio, as he can be seen in this episode’s later goodnights.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Without Me”
WEEKEND UPDATE
socialites Nicky (host) & Paris (MAR) Hilton visit Weekend Update
in a terrible re-enactment, Queen Elizabeth (CHK) sees a streaker (CHK)
CHP performs a rap about his gangsta life & relationship with host
— I see that, after experimenting with many different hairstyles this season, Jimmy has returned to the trademark hairstyle he had in his first three seasons.
— (*groan*) We get our very first display of SNL’s inexplicable fascination with the Hilton Sisters, long before the sisters even became universally known to most people. Back in these days, I used to blame Tina for this annoying obsession of SNL’s (especially around seasons 29 and 30, where I had A LOT of issues with Tina), as she seemed to have a fascination for Paris Hilton and trash like Paris who were around in this era.
— And the Hilton Sisters segment is now already over, with no semblance of a premise to be found anywhere. What exactly was the point of that short segment?
— Oh, no. Another freakin’ Terrible Reenactment from Kattan. Man, between the Hilton Sisters bit and now this, the guests in tonight’s Update are starting to destroy me.
— Ah, here comes Parnell to give the guest side of tonight’s Update some much-needed stability.
— Even though Parnell suddenly breaking out into another Update rap no longer has that great element of surprise that his first Update rap did, his rap tonight is still a pure blast to watch. Plus, there’s something funny about knowing that Eminem is in the building during tonight’s Parnell rap.
— An overall absolutely fantastic rap from Parnell once again.
— A second appearance from Kirsten in tonight’s Update, this time as herself? At least her refuting all of the things Parnell rapped about her is taking this into a different direction from Parnell’s original Update rap.
STARS: ***
KOURNIKOVA VS. PENTHOUSE
trial of Anna Kournikova (host) vs. Penthouse takes on a Laugh-In flavor
— Kirsten’s accent and broken English as Anna Kournikova are both funny, especially her mentions of her “boobings tips”.
— A fun random turn with a sudden Laugh-In dance sequence, complete with go-go music, party lighting, and camera zoom-ins-and-outs.
— A hilarious portion of the sketch with Seth as an average joe testifying how violated he was by finding out that pictures he masturbated to were NOT of Anna Kournikova. This is made even funnier by Ana’s professional voice-over detailing this ridiculous testimony.
— A great laugh from Parnell’s failed attempt to trigger yet another Laugh-In sequence.
— Will is completely stealing this sketch, doing a perfectly Will Ferrell-esque take on Bob Guccione. Again, there’s a bittersweet feel, when you realize this is going to be one of our very last opportunities to ever see Will steal a sketch during his tenure as a cast member.
— Darrell’s awkward dancing at the end is cracking me up.
— Very fun sketch overall.
STARS: ****
WAKE UP WAKEFIELD!
Megan & Sheldon at (host)’s slumber party
— A very nice change of pace, having tonight’s Wake Up Wakefield be set at a slumber party. Seeing talk shows and the like changing things up by taking place inside somebody’s house is something that’s become quite common to see today, considering the current situation going on in the world.
— I like the comically unsettling line about Sheldon’s parents needing to “work stuff out” at home.
— The addition of Tina, Amy, Kirsten, and Ana’s characters is really adding to the adolescent atmosphere that these Wake Up Wakefield sketches always go for. Kirsten is particularly funny here as her adolescent character.
— A very funny line with Amy’s rumor about how Kirsten once “put a frozen hot dog in her nooners”.
— This is the SECOND sketch tonight in which Jimmy and Kirsten make out with each other.
— Cute ending with the girls ganging up on Sheldon to tickle him.
STARS: ***½
AUDITION
Kyle & Sean DeMarco & cousin (host) audition to tour with musical guest
— Dean is making the most of his obligatory sole appearance of the night.
— Boy, Eminem’s delivery here is terrible. He takes practically half a minute just to deliver single lines. What’s with all the damn pausing from him?
— Ugh, our inevitable post-Parnell’s-rehiring return of these insufferable DeMarco Brothers. Thankfully, however, this ends up being their final on-air appearance. SNL was going to do a DeMarco Brothers sketch the following season with musical guest Avril Lavigne (in the Jeff Gordon episode), and the sketch even survived dress rehearsal cuts and was going to go on the air somewhere around the 10-to-1 slot, but it ended up getting cut at the last minute because Lavigne reportedly claimed to be having throat problems after her second musical performance (I remember some online SNL fans at the time had a theory that Lavigne faked her alleged throat problems as an excuse to get out of a lame sketch).
— I love Parnell warning Kattan, in regards to Eminem, “He is fixing to pop a cap in our fannies.”
— Another surprisingly funny line, with Kattan responding to Eminem’s homophobic insult to the DeMarco Brothers by telling him “Eminem, quite frankly, I don’t care where you melt.”
— Yet ANOTHER surprisingly funny line, with Parnell warning Kattan, again in regards to Eminem, “He is a gangbanger! He will gangbang us!” You know, it’s too bad the dance portions of this sketch are so painfully unfunny and unwatchable, and Eminem’s delivery is so terrible and sluggish, because there is some good dialogue among the DeMarcos here.
— An awful and drawn-out ending.
STARS: **
MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
shooting horses in chapter 852
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode. Despite a couple of misfires (including a pretty disastrous monologue), the overall show had a lot of enjoyable sketches and a fun vibe for most of the night. Speaking of fun, Kirsten Dunst impressed me with how fun she was as a host. I wouldn’t have minded if she had hosted a second time in this era.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Alec Baldwin)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Season 27 comes to an end, with host Winona Ryder. It’s also the last show for Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer.
I haven’t seen the sketch with Eminem, but to theorise, I believe this may be the period where he was first getting addicted to sleeping pills, which could explain his bad delivery? I’ve not actually heard his delivery so I can’t say for sure
2002? Yeah, that seems about right.
Man, reading these reviews, I’m reminded how much I hated pop culture during this whole era. And I agree with you about blaming Tina for bringing a lot of it into SNL. I really do think she brought more bad than she did good into the show. I don’t think I’d ever want to rewatch most of these episodes anymore.
The heavy pop culture elements make this era of the show seem more dated to me than most of what came before (or since) – sometimes it works, but it often feels like desperation for relevance, especially some of the host choices over the next few seasons. And I agree that this wasn’t exactly a great period for pop culture to begin with.
Huh, I thought the Alzheimer’s sketch had Matthew McConaughey in it.
I remember watching and taping this one when it aired live. Wish I’d kept the tape, as I have no memory of the monologue clusterfuck.
If I remember right, there was some mild controversy attached to Demilon. I’d say Rachel’s performance keeps the touchy premise afloat.
“Background Actors” loses some cred now that I know it was done funnier on The New Show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veesvqMKzFc
Tina and by extension SNL sure had a fascination for low-hanging fruit of this era. Really, why *did* we care about the Hiltons?
I remember being surprised and delighted by the Laugh-In twist. Lorne, of course, wrote for the show, but I wonder if the sketch was also a stealth way of paying tribute to NBC’s 75th anniversary. Probably not, but I’m gonna keep my conspiracy theory.
Watching this one live, the error sin the monologue were cringe-worthy, but a very fun cringe-worthy. It makes live TV exciting to watch. This episode reran the following November as it was common in this era to rerun shows from the previous season in a November slot.
The Hilton stuff will be an interesting discussion as we get further into the early to mid aughts. Pre-TMZ, you could argue it was the height of paparazzi culture. Perez Hilton was a household name. People were OBSESSED with the rise and fall of Britney, Lindsay, and Paris. I think Tina did a good job of tapping into how they permeated pop culture at the time.
All the cartoons in Saturday TV Funhouse’s unofficial Disney-trailer tetralogy are at least very good, but “Bambi 2002” is the one that received a proper sequel (2006’s “Journey to the Disney Vault”, which referenced the then-new Bambi II). It’s nice to see Syncro-Vox in a TV Funhouse cartoon, as that’s usually in Late Night with Conan O’Brien’s wheelhouse.
Also, I’d like to know where Saturday TV Funhouse got that Akira clip. It’s not as blatant as “Kobayashi” (which packs as many Dragon Ball Z clips and character re-draws as it can get away with), but given the hype surrounding the 2001 Pioneer dub, it was still surprising to see it in a Smigel parody.
Saw this show in the studio when I was 16, the only time I’ve ever been to a live taping. My aunt knew Ana Gasteyer, Cheri Oteri, and one of the talent coordinators, so she scored me tickets when I visited NYC for the first time. Tracy Morgan was sadly shut out of this show, but he said hey to me in the halls upstairs while going to our seats.
I remember seeing a mostly folded-up set with a banner saying something about “Cheer Championships” and wondered if they were going to attempt a Cheri Oteri-less Spartan sketch, or if it was going to be a “Bring It On” spoof, but whatever it was, got cut. I was already reading about dress rehearsal cuts online, but this really sparked my obsession with dress vs live, which I indulged full-force 10 years later, when I started attending dress rehearsals. Unfortunately, I never found out the dress cuts from this episode.
Before the show, Jiminy Fallon mentioned it’s Will’s second-to-last show and sang a few more-cute-than-funny guitar songs to make the girls in the crowd wet and squeal (including my aunt). Jimmy had plenty of good moments on the show, but I’m not into his hehe-I’m-charming routine. I was always annoyed that every young female host had to have a sketch or more where they were kissy/giggly/huggy-buggy with Jimmy, and all 4 of Jimbo’s appearances this show had him flirty with Kirsten (Carson, Jarret, Hiltons, Wakefield).
I always watched the show waiting for a TV Funhouse cartoon. (I would even walk out of the room during the montage so I wouldn’t know if one was announced, just so it could be a surprise — these little things made SNL an exciting experience to watch on TV to this nutty teenager.) In studio, I was the first to whoop when the dog tore the bumper, setting off several other hoots and hollers in the crowd that you can hear on TV. Tickles me to this day that I got the crowd cheering for TV Funhouse. And “Bambi 2002” is one of the classics.
I was vibin’ so much from the studio that I honestly didn’t realize the monologue fuck-up until watching it on tape. Also, I did love Kattan’s Terrible Re-Enactment bit, mainly because it was a hoot to watch him rip his clothes off and dash back across the camera. Overall, the live show is certainly a fun experience, but dress rehearsal is way better.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience. Can’t imagine what it’s like to be there.
This season featured a healthy run of strong-first-time hosts (and Josh Hartnett) who’d never host (or freaking cameo) again. Shame, as the majority were deserving of a Five Timers status by now.
Here’s some pointless minutiae/conspiracy theory… I was re-reading the Hill/Weingrad “Saturday Night” book around this time. I believe there’s some mention in there of how NBC — during the original cast era — was too cheap to even give writers televisions in their offices. Also, around the time of this episode, I spent a week at the offices of the Letterman show. I noticed that every office had a TV, and got pretty much every cable channel. When this episode aired, with three talk show parodies and a spoof on news coverage, I remembering thinking “wow, why is everything just a take-off on television? Are they turning into ‘The Groove Tube’?” Reading this review makes me even more confident that they were running on fumes this week: aside from the TV spoofs and the regular parts of an SNL (political cold open, TV Funhouse, WU, commercials, etc) there are exactly TWO actual sketches… weak recurring characters (DeMarco brothers) and Extras. And that was copied from The New Show (as Francis Stanko pointed out, too). Pretty sad. I recall Winona Ryder’s show being pretty good, so perhaps they were saving their best stuff for her, and for Will’s farewell.
Looks like I deleted the two lines that explained the entire point of my post…after noticing all the channels available to the Letterman writers, I figured SNL’s writers must have finally gotten similar access, even if they worked in a different building for a different network. And that’s why there were suddenly so many unnecessary TV parodies in each SNL episode; they were easy to latch onto at 2am. Just my guess.
Didn’t they have TVs in the offices by the end of the original era? recall hearing about 30 Rock’s closed-circuit system in 1980 and recall writer Pamela Norris saying she practically moved into her office in 1980-81 and one of the perks was there was a TV there
Good points; I think it was the explosion in the number of cable channels that they could get which piqued my curiosity/theory. Of course, I have no idea what the closed circuit system offered around 1980, or how good their antenna reception would be, or if they had gotten wired for cable much earlier. This was just my thought process in the spring of ‘02 after seeing this episode. And on a related note, I seem to recall a whole run of episodes that were little more than a mess of awful TV parodies around 2011. Will be interesting to see if I notice the same thing when Stooge gets to that era.
These are the dress sketches from Jamie Klein’s review of the episode:
CHEESE GAME-chris parnell & amy poehler.commercial. Has been on the air before.
JOYFUL KINGDOM-ana gasteyer, chris parnell, kirsten dunst, jimmy fallon & tracy morgan. Chris was a pastor & so was Ana. Tracy was the choir director. Kirsten & Jimmy needed prayers.
BASE TAN W/DRUNK GIRL-kirsten dunst, amy poehler & jeff richards. Kirsten & Amy are sunburned to where it hurts. Jeff AKA drunk girl comes in and makes them hurt more by hugging them.
C-SPAN-chris parnell & chris kattan. Boring. If you ever watched C-SPAN you wouldn’t remember this sketch either.
SPIRIT CHAIN-rachel dratch, amy poehler, kirsten dunst, maya rudolph, seth meyers, & will ferrell. Will is telling a story about cheerleaders not breaking the spirit chain.
KEVIN & RICHIES COMIC BOOK ZONE-horatio sanz, seth meyers, & kirsten dunst. Talking about comics & Spiderman.
Spirit Chain must have been the cheerleader set that FeaturingEmilyPrager saw when they were at the studio at the time of this show.
Wow, thanks Bobby! I used to read most of Jamie’s dress reports, but somehow missed this one.
Would it be possible to send me all the dress info for any seasons you have? Or post them in the respective episodes? I am planning on sharing my dress experiences once Stooge gets to those episodes, starting with the Mick Jagger season 37 finale. (I’ve been to 22 shows from 2012-2017, hopefully more someday). I know it’s a ton of info, but I’d be forever grateful. E-mail is cronic5586@hotmail.com if you wanna send it my way; I’m more than happy to post known dress cuts in the proper episode, i know that takes a lot of time. Thanks either way! Much appreciated
How Many Shows did you attend in 2012-2017 did you go to
Dress Rehearsal count so far
~ May 19 2012 – Mick Jagger & friends
~ Sep 15 2012 – Seth MacFarlane / Frank Ocean
~ Oct 13 2012 – Christina Applegate / Passion Pit
~ Nov 10 2012 – Anne Hathaway / Rihanna
~ Dec 15 2012 – Martin Short / Paul McCartney
~ March 2 2013 – Kevin Hart / Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
~ April 6 2013 – Melissa McCarthy / Phoenix
~ May 4 2013 – Zach Galifianakis / Of Monsters And Men
~ May 18 2013 – Ben Affleck / Kanye West
~ Dec 14 2013 – John Goodman / Kings Of Leon (*)
~ March 29 2014 – Louis C.K. / Sam Smith
~ May 10 2014 – Charlize Theron / The Black Keys
~ May 17 2014 – Andy Samberg / St. Vincent
~ Sep 27 2014 – Chris Pratt / Ariana Grande
~ Oct 4 2014 – Sarah Silverman / Maroon 5
~ Oct 25 2014 – Jim Carrey / Iggy Azalea
~ Nov 1 2014 – Chris Rock / Prince
~ April 4 2015 – Michael Keaton / Carly Rae Jepsen
~ April 11 2015 – Taraji P. Henson / Mumford & Sons
~ May 16 2015 – Louis C.K. / Rihanna
~ April 16 2016 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus / Nick Jonas
~ May 14 2016 – Drake
~ Dec 10 2016 – John Cena / Maren Morris
~ Nov 4 2017 – Larry David / Miley Cyrus
Ha I can’t count, it’s 24 shows instead of 22. I still live in NYC and have meant to go to more since 2017, but I had a lot more free Fridays/Saturdays back then. Once coronababy dies, I’m determined to get more dresses (teehee).
(*) 229 reviews early, but I’ll always be miffed that the John Goodman ep in 2013 would have been much more highly-regarded if Lorne had made better decisions after dress. He cut 2 solid sketches (Breakaway Chair Room & novelty football players) and most criminally, WILL FORTE from two pieces: Update song and a Good Neighbor film. Still stings boooo hoooooooo
What Was In The John Cena one
Surprisingly, most of the sketches in Cena dress made it to TV. Only 2 full sketches were cut:
~ Alien Attack – space ship captain (Cena) easily surrenders to alien threat (Moynihan)
~ Christmas MCs – 3 white rappers (Mooney, Cena, Day) perform Christmas carols at a female prison.
Can you send the other cut sketches to my email address at sedlaksteven29@gmail.com
Will do, Steven! Always happy to share SNL info. Might be a day or so, since there’s a lot to send. Peace::!!
For true SNL minutiae fans, here is an interview that Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus gave to HuffPo to promote Downhill almost two months ago. It contains a photo of this episode’s dress rehearsal cold open with Bush wearing a Texas Rangers hat. The body language and Ferrell looking right at the camera seem to indicate that the photo was taken right when Ferrell is saying “Live From New York, It’s Saturday Night!”
Fun fact: Spider-Man (and it’s two sequels) were written by Alvin Sargent, Herb Sargent’s brother.
Another great episode you gave me context on! So much if these sketches don’t show in reruns because of music and are hard to find online. Your description helps me gets the feel of the sketch and what I’m “missing” lol
I liked Dunst’s performance as the typical singer-songwriter if the early 00s, when we drifted away from bubblegum pop and more toward those who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. When they mentioned the words “alley” and “cat” in the song title I knew that she would play “Alley Cat,” did anyone else recognize that song?
please share Eminem stories from SNL appearances till date .
2022.