April 3, 2020 – The 'One SNL a Day' Project

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

JIMMY CARTER IN CUBA
Fidel Castro (WIF) recaps embarrassments of Jimmy Carter’s (DAH) tenure

— (*sigh*) Well, here we go. Will Ferrell’s final episode. Of all the cast members I’ve reviewed and become attached to during this SNL project of mine so far, Will’s gonna be one of the hardest for me to let go. And knowing what the following three seasons are going to be like without Will makes his departure that much more difficult to take.
— A solid Jimmy Carter voice from Darrell, and his make-up and facial expressions are amusing me.
— Some laughs from Will’s Fidel Castro bringing up infamous and embarrassing things from Carter’s presidency. It’s especially funny how Castro is harping so much on Carter’s rabbit attack.
— Solid delivery from Maya as Castro’s translator.
— Maya delivers her very first “Live from New York…”. Odd how they’re having her deliver it with the about-to-depart Will, though, not to mention how Will only gets to deliver it in Spanish here. You’d figure they’d have Will deliver a solo LFNY for his final episode.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
TRM alerts host to the existence of dressing room security cameras

— The concept of a monologue showing live scenes from backstage security cameras reminds me of John Goodman’s season 21 monologue.
— I love Ana and Darrell being shown having an argument about him possibly being the father of the baby she’s pregnant with.
— I absolutely LOVE the footage of the featured players (Dean, Jeff, and Seth) contemplating which SNL veterans besides Will are possibly leaving. Reminds me so much of how online SNL boards always heavily speculate which cast members may possibly be leaving whenever we head towards the end of a season. I also like the part with Dean, Jeff, and Seth giving a “Yeah, right”-type of laugh at the possibility of Tracy leaving.
— Lots of other funny security camera footage, including Jimmy secretly peeing in Lorne’s coffee pot, and Will spraypainting an obscene goodbye message on the wall.
STARS: ****

CELEBRITY JEOPARDY
Dave Matthews (JIF) & Bjork (host); Alex Trebek cameo

— Our final edition of Celebrity Jeopardy, until the sketch would occasionally be resurrected in some of Will’s future hosting stints and SNL’s 40th Anniversary Special. I certainly hope tonight’s installment is better than the underwhelming one from earlier this season.
— Great line from Darrell’s Sean Connery about cutting an album of filthy limericks just so he’d be eligible for the rock-and-roll edition of Celebrity Jeopardy. I also love the filthy limerick he demonstrates, before Will’s Alex Trebek prevents us from hearing the particularly dirty part.
— Good to see Jimmy back in a Celebrity Jeopardy sketch, after skipping the one from earlier this season. He’s doing a spot-on Dave Matthews impression.
— I like the voice and bizarre ramblings that Winona’s doing as Bjork.
— Alex Trebek, to Bjork: “Are you Icelandic or retarded?” Meh, that’s just a lazy variation of the “Are you English or retarded?” line that Will’s Trebek delivered to Molly Shannon’s Minnie Driver in a previous Celebrity Jeopardy.
— Dave Matthews being accompanied by a violin-playing Boyd Tinsley during one answer is pretty funny. Tinsley is played by Dean here, but at dress rehearsal, Tracy played him.
— I love Trebek cutting off one of Bjork’s long ramblings with “Aaaaaaaand SHUT IT.”
— Brief screen glitches have now begun occasionally showing up during this sketch (example below).

This isn’t a local station error; these screen glitches are actually from SNL’s end. SNL’s control room was experiencing “power burps”. I remember this was confirmed on the SNL newsgroup (alt.tv.snl) by a mysterious SNL insider who occasionally posted under the name “He Who Knows” (and, yes, he was a reliable source for inside SNL info). Reportedly, people at SNL were upset that these screen glitches were occurring on the big Will Ferrell farewell episode.
— Oh, I had forgotten until now that the real Alex Trebek walks on at the end of this, to help officially conclude the series of Celebrity Jeopardy sketches.
— A nice and meta way for the sketch to end.
— Overall, definitely a step up from the Celebrity Jeopardy installment from earlier this season, but still falls quite short of measuring up to a typical classic installment. It’s a bit of a shame that this very reliable recurring sketch started kinda fizzling out towards the end of its original run, but that was probably inevitable. Despite that, this has still always been a funny recurring sketch, even in its lesser installments.
STARS: ****

UNCLE MIKE & UNCLE DANNY
bride’s (host) two dads (WIF) & (CHP) sing at her wedding reception

— Yet another example of a gay stereotype sketch that I found hilarious at the time, but now find that this type of humor comes off tired and doesn’t hold up well.
— I absolutely love the way Will intensely and exaggeratedly sings the lyric “There’ll be no distance between us”.
— Horatio being brought in as an interpretive dancer is fairly funny.
— The constant cutaways to Kattan and Rachel’s put-off facial reactions to the singing are getting very old.
— Screen glitches have begun showing up again.
— It’s hard to tell, but at the end of this sketch, it looks like Horatio accidentally trips and begins falling down when walking off the platform as the camera fades to black.
STARS: **

BEAROLOGIST
bear researcher (WIF) is double-crossed in a plot to kill his wife (ANG)

— After getting cut from the live show many times this season, this sketch has finally made it on the air, most likely as a favor to Will for his final episode.
— I love Ana’s accent as Will’s wife, as well as the unexplained detail of her wearing a neck brace.
— Hilarious part with the bear following orders to kill Ana, but doing so by unexpectedly picking up a gun and shooting her. However, due to Ana’s very pregnant state, we don’t get to see her reacting to the gunshot by doing a great jump in the air, which she was previously seen doing in a rehearsal of this sketch shown in a behind-the-scenes SNL documentary that A&E did on this season’s Gwyneth Paltrow episode.
— Will’s frustration over the bear shooting his wife instead of strangling her is great.
— Will, to the cop: “I swear, a TV-watching bear killed my wife!”
— Excellent twist ending with the bear turning out to be the brother of Will’s character, disguised in a bear costume.
— Seth: “14 years in a bear suit FINALLY paid off!”
— Brilliant sketch overall, and Will’s final classic sketch during his tenure as a cast member.
STARS: *****

BOTOX
the stroke-victim look is only a needle of poison to the face away

— SNL’s very first mention of the Botox craze going on at the time.
— A lot of funny lines from the ladies touting the wonders of Botox. I especially like Winona’s “It’s like a little stroke you shoot into your head with a needle.”
— A great ending shot of the ladies all drooling while speaking out of the corner of their mouths.
— This ends up being the only segment all night that Will doesn’t appear in (not counting Moby’s musical performances).
STARS: ****

GIRL NEXT DOOR
one-legged Amber & other contestants compete to be a Playboy centerfold

— Great line from Maya about flashing her “ebony beav”, and how she’ll be flashing it for Harriet Tubman.
— Amy’s one-legged Amber character has now become recurring.
— I love Maya saying “This is MY underground railroad” while gesturing towards her crotch.
— Like the previous sketch featuring this character, Amber is getting laughs from me with her bragging about undesirable things about herself. I worry that I’m eventually going to get sick of this character, but so far, she’s been funny in her two sketches that have aired up to this point. It also helps that tonight’s sketch has a lot of other funny characters surrounding Amber.
— Maya continues to kill in this sketch, with yet another great line, in which she tells one-legged Amber “Shut up, pogo stick!”
— I like Ana’s overdramatic delivery when revealing the winner.
STARS: ***½

WEEKEND UPDATE
childless TIF, RAD, AMP, MAR are sick of biological clock reminders

Neil Diamond (WIF) & friends sing “Cherry, Cherry”; Neil Diamond cameo

— Jimmy’s Luciano Pavarotti joke received a very bizarre-sounding laugh from a male audience member, which Tina physically acknowledged by shooting a funny look towards that audience member’s direction.
— Very funny rant from Tina so far, regarding the pressure put on women to have children. Some funny lines during Tina’s rant include “Either your cooter works or it doesn’t” and “I was an ugly baby. I looked like a cross between that chick from the Indigo Girls and… the other chick from the Indigo Girls.”
— I like Tina now getting the rest of the non-Gasteyer female cast members involved in her baby rant, and they’re all adding to the humor here.
— Tina, Rachel, Maya, and Amy talking about how unenthusiastic they are to have babies is even funnier in retrospect, knowing that they’re all moms today. (Actually, I’m not 100% sure about Rachel. Is she a mom? Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.)
— A good laugh from Will’s Neil Diamond mistaking this for being a Cheers reunion.
— Ah, now Will’s Diamond brings out “the 2002 Weekend Update All-Stars”: Gay Hitler, Geraldo Rivera, Drunk Girl, aaaaaand… the real Neil Diamond, the latter being our second cameo tonight from a celebrity who Will has famously impersonated over the years. SNL is really going all out tonight for Will’s last show.
— The real Neil Diamond didn’t appear during this episode’s dress rehearsal, which would explain why he looks kinda lost and under-rehearsed during his singing here.
— A nice way to end this season of Update.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “We Are All Made Of Stars”

LOVERS
in hotel hot tub, Roger & Virginia re-encounter Dave & win over (host)

— I would normally question why they’re doing ANOTHER Luvahs sketch so soon, just two episodes after we last saw them with Alec Baldwin, but they’re obviously only doing this sketch tonight for closure before Will leaves.
— Some pretty funny vocalizations from Roger when he and Virginia recognize Jimmy’s character, Dave, from the Luvahs sketch from this season’s Drew Barrymore episode.
— Roger’s odd way of always pronouncing “hot tub” as “hah-TAHB” finally gets called out.
— There’s our final go-around of Will’s usual attempts to crack Jimmy up. I remember some of the news articles about Will’s departure from SNL asked “Now that Ferrell’s gone, who’s gonna make Jimmy Fallon laugh during every sketch?” They clearly forgot about Horatio, who’s traditional attempts to crack Jimmy up would unfortunately go into overdrive starting in the following season (and be far less forgiving than Will’s traditional attempts to crack Jimmy up), to the degree that people today now remember Horatio as the resident “Fallon breaker” and forget that Will was heavily associated with that role before Horatio was.
— Jimmy’s character, when feeling somebody underwater touching him in a certain area: “Who’s hand is on my cul-de-sac right now?”
— This sketch is getting awfully muddied. This has become a cacophonous mess of everybody squirting food into each other’s mouths while Jimmy repeatedly cracks up as he delivers a long rant about something that I can’t even pay attention to, and other nonsense. The audience isn’t laughing during this incoherent mess, and neither am I.
— A twist on the traditional, played-out “Ow my back” endings of these Luvahs sketches, but this twist still didn’t work for me.
— Overall, a poor way for The Luvahs to go out (not counting their future appearance in the following season’s Christopher Walken episode that Will cameos in). Despite that, I’m proud to say that doing this SNL project of mine has made me come around on The Luvahs, after hating them with a fiery passion back when their sketches originally aired.
STARS: **

MANGO
while out with host & musical guest, Mango is arrested for shoplifting

— Oh, dear god. Mango. Thankfully, this ends up being the last Mango sketch ever. (And no, Kattan’s unfortunately not leaving with Will. Kattan probably just got sick of doing Mango sketches and decided to officially stop after this season.)
— Mango’s initial appearance here is welcomed by absolute DEAD SILENCE from the audience. That speaks volumes of how played-out and horribly past his prime Mango is by this point.
— Moby’s “I heart Eminem” shirt is presumably his response to being dissed by Eminem in the preceding episode, when Eminem performed “Without Me”.
— A very weak way of spoofing Winona’s shoplifting scandal.
— I could do without the overlong and unfunny photo montage of Mango’s mugshots, though they’re probably only showing this to give Kattan time to change into his prison outfit for the next portion of this sketch.
— Mango and Winona having a wild make-out/sex session with each other on the opposite sides of a pane of glass is kinda funny, but I think I’m just desperate to find SOMETHING to laugh at in this sketch.
— Terrible ending.
— Much like the final Mr. Peepers sketch from a little earlier this season, tonight’s overall Mango sketch was a pathetic last gasp of a dying recurring sketch. Good riddance to Mango.
STARS: *½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “South Side”

— SNL abruptly cuts this musical performance off mid-progress, presumably because the show is starting to run long and they want to leave enough time for the special piece that follows this musical performance.

WILL’S FINAL SHOW
on WIF’s final show, all cast members but TRM have fond memories of him

— Kinda meaningful in retrospect that Ana is the first person who speaks in this Will Ferrell tribute, considering she would end up leaving with Will, but neither SNL nor Ana herself knew it at the time. She had publicly announced before the end of this season that she plans on returning the following season. I guess having motherly duties after giving birth to her baby over the summer gave her second thoughts about staying on SNL, and she would publicly announce sometime before the following season started that she’s not returning. A shame she never got the opportunity to say goodbye on the air.
— When Darrell begins stating, in regards to Will, “I came into this place with him…”, he takes a pause before continuing “…and I’m gonna miss him.” I remember when this originally aired, my heart kinda jumped when I seriously thought for a second that Darrell was going to follow “I came into this place with him…” with “…and I’m gonna leave this place with him.” If he did say that, though, I guess that would’ve kinda taken away from this being Will’s farewell piece, not to mention it would’ve probably made some people feel bad for Darrell that his departure is being so overshadowed by Will’s. In retrospect, though, this clearly should’ve been the point where Darrell left. For the remaining seven(!) years of his SNL tenure, his relevancy on the show sadly drops off more and more with each passing season, and he gradually comes off more and more unenthusiastic in his performances, to the degree that I remember sometimes actually being kinda bothered watching this man who visibly didn’t seem to give a shit anymore about being on SNL.
— Very nice how we’re seeing testimonials about Will from every repertory player except Amy (who I guess is excluded from this because she’s only worked with Will for one season… less than one season, really, when you factor in the three episodes that Will missed this season). You can really see just how much love and respect the cast genuinely has for Will.
— Very interesting and bold how Parnell is openly addressing his firing and eventual rehiring, and how Will made that rehiring happen.
— Up to this point in SNL’s run, this is by far the biggest deal SNL has ever made on the air about a beloved cast member leaving. I remember how unusual and unprecedented it felt at the time seeing this. I think the only future example that would compare to the huge deal SNL’s making about Will’s departure is Kristen Wiig’s farewell piece 10 years later.
— Tracy, as soon as the camera cuts to him: “*I* got a story.” Oh, you know THIS is gonna be good.
— So many hilarious lines from Tracy dishing dirt on Will, despite 30% of Tracy’s dialogue here being an unintelligible garblefest.
— Ha, speaking of how some of Tracy’s dialogue here is an unintelligible garblefest, am I hearing him constantly mispronounce Will’s last name as “fuh-REL”?
— Reportedly, in the dress rehearsal version of this piece, among the many terrible things Tracy accused Will of included “He made sure all of Dean’s sketches got cut!” A hilariously meta reference to Dean’s extreme lack of airtime, but unfortunately, that line didn’t make it to the live version, which, in a way, further proves Tracy’s point. Something else that unintentionally makes that line of Tracy’s even funnier is the aforementioned fact that Dean replaced Tracy as Boyd Tinsley in the live version of the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch earlier tonight.
— Ah, and here’s the man of the hour, Will. Pretty funny how he’s confirming all of the awful things Tracy said about him.
— Very sweet ending between Will and Tracy.
STARS: N/A (not sure if this is a rateable segment)

GOODNIGHTS

— SNL continues to go the whole nine yards for Will’s final episode, by flashing a “BYE WILL” light above the stage door, and a hand being shown holding up a “We’ll miss you, Will – the crew” sign in front of the camera.
— Man, seeing Maya in tears when hugging Will is really getting to me.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good season finale, though there was a drop-off with the first few post-Weekend Update sketches. This was also a satisfying Will Ferrell farewell episode, with the show getting pretty much all the mileage out of him that they possibly could for one last time, having him appear in a whopping ten sketches(!), which I believe holds the all-time record for most appearances by a cast member in a single episode.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kirsten Dunst)
about the same

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