March 15, 2003 – Salma Hayek / Christina Aguilera (S28 E15)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESS CONFERENCE
George W. Bush (CHP) fields softball questions barely related to Iraq

— At least SNL is finally using Parnell’s President Bush impression in something other than a straight-to-camera address to the nation, especially given how terrible the last one was.
— A lot of funny examples we’re seeing of “tough” and “hard-hitting” journalists, such as one being from Pineapple Growers Trade Association Weekly.
— It doesn’t feel right seeing Rachel taking over Ana Gasteyer’s Helen Thomas impression.
— Funny how Bush’s men are doing away with Rachel’s Helen Thomas in various ways, including chloroform over the mouth and a dart to the neck.
— An overall pretty fun cold opening, and it shows that Parnell’s Bush impression can be somewhat entertaining when he’s given fun material and characters to play off of, instead of snooze-worthy “tell, don’t show” address-to-the-nation cold openings that have him as the only person.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
’80s band comprising male castmembers & Edward Norton [real] bugs host

— Some funny visuals of the cast dressed in cheesy 80s outfits.
— Not much to this monologue, but the 80s musical number constantly being performed is funny enough.
— Pretty nice to see an Edward Norton cameo, knowing in retrospect what a strong and underrated host he would be 10 years later.
STARS: ***

TOP O’ THE MORNING
Latina (host) & beau William toast St. Patrick’s Day

— A pretty good laugh from the viper on the jukebox who always plays “Crocodile Rock”.
— Darrell is coming off miscast and VERY awkward during his brief appearance. And once again, I’m sensing a very dour undertone that plagues a lot of Darrell’s performances from the second half of his SNL tenure. He looks like he does NOT want to be there.
— Salma’s angry, violent rampage at the end is decent, though she’s no Rachel Dratch when it comes to tiny, seemingly-delicate women tearing apart a set in a season 28 sketch.
— Overall, I continue to not care too much for these Top O’ The Morning sketches as a whole, despite some laughs here and there.
STARS: **½

TV FUNHOUSE
“Are You Hot?” by RBS- Lorenzo Lamas [real] assesses cartoon characters

— Oh, geez, remember this ridiculous, god-awful ABC reality show? Hard to believe something like that really existed.
— Funny concept of classic cartoon characters being who Lorenzo Lamas judges.
— I’m enjoying the fast pacing of this.
— A good laugh from Lamas telling Droopy, in regards to his jowls, “Man, you need to Botox the (*bleep*) out of those.”
— Some of these cartoon character inclusions are not quite as funny as others.
— I love Lamas saying “Now at least I understand why you have a hot wife” after seeing how big Barney Rubble’s “package” is.
STARS: ***½

VERSACE OSCAR FASHION PREVIEW
musical guest picks up a dress

— So far, some mildly funny things, but ehhh. I feel these Versace sketches have been starting to lose their luster these past two installments, even though I’m finding Maya’s portrayal of Versace to still be reliable for some laughs.
— These Versace sketches need to realize that the word “bitch” stops being funny when it’s thrown around so frequently in such a short time frame.
— Dean FINALLY gets to play Michael Jackson.
— Hmm. You know, I hate to say it, but from what I’m currently seeing, Dean’s MJ ain’t all that great. Dean is spot-on when doing the high-pitched MJ melodic shouts, but when he speaks normally in a tender lower voice, he sounds nothing like MJ. Nothing. The strange thing is, I recall Dean sounding very accurate when imitating MJ’s tender speaking voice in the Michael Jackson In A Tree sketch from earlier this season (in which Dean played one of three Michael Jackson alien clones). I now wonder if it only came off accurate in that sketch compared to the utterly baffling take on MJ that Amy was doing. But when you see Dean’s MJ impression on its own… yeah, it’s not living up to all the hype that this impression had among online SNL fans at the time.
— A huge laugh from the reveal of what Maya’s Versace is wearing under her dress (the last above screencap for this sketch).
STARS: **½

BOX
while stuck in a cardboard box, (WLF) confronts his cheating wife (host)

— Another delightfully oddball Will Forte piece. The premise alone is great, and the execution only makes it even better.
— Will’s attempts to get out of the box are very funny.
— Great visual of Will’s head sticking out of the box hole.
— I love Will’s sleazy “You know, uh… I’m naked in here” reveal to Salma, which puts her off right after they just had a tender moment together.
— I’m getting so many laughs from the ridiculous shoutfest between Will and Jimmy, with them constantly using the word “flip” in place of the f-word.
— Jimmy is giving a great supporting performance, and he’s hilarious going absolutely over the top when repeatedly punching the box with such fiery passion.
— Overall, another masterpiece of a Will Forte sketch, ONCE AGAIN this season. Does Will have the strongest first season that a featured player has ever had on SNL? I’d argue he does. He’s been averaging at least one fantastic, brilliant, absurdist piece on almost a weekly basis in this first season of his. No wonder SNL ends up bending the rules and promoting him to a repertory player after only one season instead of two.
STARS: *****

VOTE FRIDA
host badmouths Chicago while supporting Frida’s bid for Academy Awards

— Some laughs from Salma’s flimsy reasons to vote for Frida over Chicago.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Beautiful”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Jimmy & Tina Yelling At America- JIF & TIF think USA needs self-criticism

Fericito’s wife & comedy partner Lupe (host) says JIF & TIF should marry

punk wannabe Avril Lavigne (AMP) is mad for no particular reason

Gollum (CHK) is of two minds when it comes to making Oscar picks

JIF plays guitar & sings pop-inspired songs about St. Patrick’s Day

— At least Jimmy gets to deliver the opening joke tonight, after how horrible the Tina-delivered opening joke of the last few Updates were.
— Ugh, even with Jimmy doing the opening joke of tonight’s Update, the first joke that Tina does right afterwards has a lousy and hacky gay punchline, for no good reason.
— The whole “Jimmy and Tina Yelling at America” segment is great, and is the funniest that the struggling Tina has been on Update in quite a long time.
— I’m glad there’s been a lengthy gap between Fericito’s last appearance and tonight’s.
— Salma is a nice addiction as Fericito’s new comedy sidekick and wife.
— Amy’s skewering of Avril Lavigne is very over-the-top and exaggerated, but it’s definitely cracking me up.
— At occasional points during the Avril Lavigne commentary, Jimmy can be seen mouthing Amy’s lines.
— I probably already said this in a recent episode review, but I’ve been loving Jimmy’s newfound deadpan delivery of certain snarky jokes lately, like his great Wheat Thins joke tonight.
— Kattan’s Gollum impression is solid, making this yet another surprisingly good thing Kattan’s doing in the second half of this final season of his. He debuted this Gollum impression two months prior, in SNL’s “Weekend Update Halftime Special”.
— Yet ANOTHER Update feature tonight, with Jimmy doing his annual guitar songs routine. This is a jam-packed Update. Am I watching a Brian Doyle-Murray-anchored SNL Newsbreak from season 7? Well, no, because unlike SNL Newsbreak, tonight’s Weekend Update is actually funny. (And that’s saying something, given that it’s starting to become increasingly rarer for me to like Fallon/Fey Updates this season.)
— I like Jimmy’s imitation of John Mayer’s facial expressions when doing a St. Patrick’s Day-themed variation of “Your Body Is A Wonderland”.
— As I said previous times, I’m always a sucker for when Jimmy parodies a musical guest’s song just minutes after said musical guest performed that very song on the SNL stage, and we get a case of that here with Jimmy parodying Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful”. I love how, at one point during that parody, Jimmy even imitates Christina’s habit of singing occasional notes in a soulfully growly manner.
— Overall, this is one of Jimmy’s better guitar song medleys.
— Tonight’s weekly end-of-Update walk-on from SNL writer Eric Slovin has him entering in baggy, urban clothes, taking Jimmy’s pencil, and then standing in a cool arms-crossed pose while watching Jimmy’s ongoing rap parody of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”.
STARS: ***½

SEDUCTION CLASS
(host) teaches seduction to Vasquez, Gabe (FRA), Ruth (RAD), A.J. (TRM)

— The first of a few sketches that use this group of characters in an adult education setting. Also interesting how one of the members of this group is the already-existing recurring character Vasquez Gomez-Vasquez.
— I remember when this originally aired, it took me until Fred started speaking that I realized that was Fred and not Kattan. Something about Fred’s wig along with his facial expressions as this character made him resemble Kattan to me from a distance.
— Even as just a supporting character, Vasquez is still not doing much for me.
— I love Rachel’s line about how she’s very sexually active, “but I’d like to share that with another person”.
— Fred’s Gabe character is absolutely hilarious, and he’s running away with this entire sketch.
STARS: ***

VOTE FRIDA
host suggests that, unlike Frida, Chicago has links to terrorism

— Salma’s desperate attempts to make the movie Chicago look bad are getting funnier, with her now linking Chicago with terrorism.
STARS: ***½

KING KONG
director’s cut of original King Kong movie has the ape getting a hand job

— The “Channel 5 Late Night Movie” framing of this sketch was also used in the Radioactive Bear sketch from earlier this season.
— I love Tracy’s delivery of “What the hell?!?” when King Kong’s erect penis has broken into Tracy’s living room through the window.
— Some good laughs from Salma and Tracy’s unintentional jerking-off of King Kong’s dong.
— Jimmy and Horatio are mostly playing it straight and aren’t hijacking this with their typical jackassery, but Jimmy still keeps occasionally smirking out of character at some of Horatio’s lines for no apparent reason, and they both occasionally make awkward pauses between their lines.
— A particularly hilarious part with Tracy looking out the window and mistaking King Kong’s testicles for two fuzzy bean bag chairs.
— SNL seems to be really struggling lately in finding ways to use Darrell. His only two appearances tonight both had him just making a very brief walk-on in a non-celebrity role (one of which he pulled off VERY awkwardly, as mentioned earlier in my review of the Top O’ The Morning sketch), even if he is well-cast in this King Kong sketch as the “Twas beauty killed the beast” guy from the real King Kong movie.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Fighter”

VOTE FRIDA
host interrupts Chicago rebuttal to plug Frida once more

— A laugh from this ad clarifying that Richard Gere is a Buddhist, not a rapist.
— The punchline at the end was funny enough, but I found this to be a bit of a step down from the direction these ads were going in.
STARS: ***

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty consistent quality to this episode. Not much stood out as bad, not much stood out as great. An overall decent episode.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Queen Latifah)
a slight step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Bernie Mac