May 10, 2003 – Adrien Brody / Sean Paul, Wayne Wonder (S28 E19)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

AMERICAN IDOL
commercials & teases stretch out announcement of finalist

— Refreshing to see a non-political cold opening, especially given how bad and redundant a lot of the political cold openings have been in the second half of this season.
— I forgot that Ryan Seacrest used to have hair like that and used to dress like that in these early seasons of American Idol. The hairstyle and clothes that Jimmy is donning as Seacrest here are pretty much an embodiment of the early 2000s.
— Isn’t Kimberly Locke, the American Idol contestant who Rachel is playing, black? If so, why in the world is Rachel playing her? Where the heck is Maya?
— Ah, there’s Maya, playing R&B singer Mya, fittingly enough.
— Kattan’s wonky eyes as Clay Aiken are funny.
— A pretty funny running gag with Jimmy’s Seacrest badly stretching out the big reveal of the finalist by constantly throwing to commercial, and how the one commercial that plays every single time is a Mya-starring Coca-Cola commercial. What keeps this from being a typical annoying one-joke sketch is the fact that the repetitiveness of this cold opening is based so much in reality.
— Is Maya performing the Coca-Cola commercial live each time? Well, I guess so, because if it was pre-taped, then she would’ve been available to rightfully play Kimberly Locke, instead of SNL resorting to having Rachel pull a Mary Gross by donning slightly tanned make-up to play a black woman.
— Some laughs from Amy and Parnell’s impressions of Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell.
— Boy, between the extremely heavy amounts of fat make-up that Tracy and Dean are both wearing as Ruben Studdard and Randy Jackson, respectively, SNL’s prosthetics department is working overtime tonight.
— Good “Live from New York…” fake-out with Jimmy’s Seacrest.
STARS: ***

MONOLOGUE
host kisses MAR & HOS; his mom [real] urges him to cut the apron strings

— An interesting deviation from usual monologues, with Adrien starting this off by IMMEDIATELY walking offstage as soon as the theme music ends, going over to Maya and kissing her, then kissing a random audience member (SNL writer Emily Spivey), then kissing Horatio, which is all spoofing Adrien’s famous kiss with Halle Berry at that year’s Oscars. I’d enjoy this bit more (well, not the tired man-on-man kissing gag involving Horatio) if I wasn’t aware of what a bad host Adrien is going to be tonight.
— An okay bit with Adrien’s mother.
— Another Oscars spoof, with Adrien’s message to his mother starting to get cut off by music.
— Overall, this monologue wasn’t anything great, but it was harmless enough, especially given what’s to come from Adrien later tonight.
STARS: **½

MOM JEANS
Mom Jeans are made for women ready to embrace a post-childbirth physique

— A very well-known, frequently-aired, and fondly-remembered SNL commercial.
— The SNL women are fantastic here as middle-aged moms embracing and showing off their blah-looking motherly jeans.
— I love the displeased look on Parnell’s face when his wife, played by Rachel, walks up to him in her motherly outfit.
— Excellent execution of this very relatable concept.
— Announcer: “Give her something that says, I’m not a woman anymore…I’m a mom.”
— Of all the female-oriented commercials in this era that center around the Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph female cast, this has got to be what I personally feel is the best. Well, the best out of all the ones I can remember right now, at least. I used to always think this era had tons of those Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph female-oriented commercials, but now that I’m thinking of it, I can only think of two other ones: the preceding season’s Kotex Classic (which is fantastic, but not quite five-star-worthy, in my opinion) and the yet-to-air-by-this-point Woomba (which is funny, but I’ve always felt in the past was kinda overrated). Are there any I’m forgetting? If not, I wonder why it feels like this era had much more of those Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph female-oriented commercials than it actually did.
STARS: *****

BRIAN FELLOW’S SAFARI PLANET
hairless cat & toucan are anthropomorphized

— This recurring sketch makes its final appearance during Tracy’s tenure as a cast member (not counting the appearances it would make during Tracy’s various cameos the following season, nor the appearances it would make in Tracy’s future hosting stints). I wonder why they didn’t save this for Tracy’s final episode the following week, as it was already widely known at the time of tonight’s episode that Tracy is leaving. Maybe because they already had it planned to do a final installment of Astronaut Jones for Tracy’s farewell the following week (which they indeed end up doing). But why not do both Astronaut Jones and Brian Fellow in Tracy’s final episode? At least it would’ve given Tracy more to do that night, as he is sadly almost non-existent in that episode.
— Brian Fellow’s disgust over what cats look like without their fur is funny.
— I like the new occasional gag in these latest Brian Fellow sketches, with Brian with sometimes saying an uncharacteristically intelligent, wordy, and informative statement about an animal.
— A very funny thought bubble of an unhappy Brian Fellow getting his head shaved by a hairless cat. The awkward, uncomfortable look on Brian’s face is what makes it especially funny.
— Overall, this sketch was fine as usual, but I wish SNL did something more special for what they knew at the time would be the final Brian Fellow installment during Tracy’s tenure. They just treated tonight’s Brian Fellow sketch as a typical installment.
STARS: ***½

SELF-INVOLVED GUY
(RAD)’s date’s (CHK) apartment reveals him to be a self-involved weirdo

— Okay, we’ve finally arrived at this sketch. If you’ve remembered, in my review of the Conceited Guy sketch from the Corbin Bernsen episode way back in season 15, I pointed out that SNL would later do a rip-off of that sketch in the Adrien Brody episode, and I mentioned that I have a theory that the Adrien Brody sketch was written by “a certain long-time SNL writer who’s received quite a number of accusations of stealing material over the years”, and I promised to reveal the name of the writer in question when I eventually cover the Adrien Brody episode. Well, all these months later, here we are at the Adrien Brody episode, folks. The mysterious writer I mentioned is James Anderson. I don’t know for certain that he wrote this sketch, nor do I know for certain if he indeed ripped it off from the Corbin Bernsen sketch, but various factors lead me to think so. In addition to the aforementioned public accusations that have been made by various people of Anderson stealing material over the years (the biggest and most controversial example being the River Cruise sketch from the Sarah Silverman episode in season 40), NBC had aired the Corbin Bernsen episode in their “Classic SNL” slot (which was a slot from 1998-2006 in which NBC would air a full 90-minute version of an old SNL episode after the regular 11:30 p.m. showing of a new SNL episode) just a few weeks before the Adrien Brody episode originally aired, and on a night that SNL didn’t have a new episode (though I’m not 100% certain about that last part). It’s possible that James Anderson or whoever it was that wrote tonight’s Self-Involved Guy sketch caught that then-recent “Classic SNL” airing of the Corbin Bernsen episode, and became…uh…“inspired” (and I obviously use that word loosely) after seeing Bernsen’s Conceited Guy sketch. Again, I am in no way saying that any of my accusations here are certain, as I have absolutely no official proof. It’s just a theory of mine.
— I like Rachel’s scream when seeing Kattan’s ridiculous, huge face photo on the wall.
— I admit that the huge face photo of Kattan is actually funnier-looking than the huge face photo of Corbin Bernsen from the original Conceited Guy sketch, but ehhh. This sketch is still leaving a bad taste in my mouth from how much of a rip-off it appears to be.
— At least Kattan’s character having a “man-servant” is an original aspect of this sketch and not another thing that’s seemingly stolen from the Corbin Bernsen sketch, but I am not caring for Adrien’s characterization of the “man-servant” AT ALL here. He’s just coming off annoying. Also, something about his character, particularly the somewhat homoerotic undertones, further prove my point that this is most likely a James Anderson-written sketch.
— The gag of Kattan turning on the stereo and the voice heard singing from it turning out to be Kattan himself seems like a gag that was used in a previous (or later) sketch, but it’s not the Corbin Bernsen sketch. (In fact, in my afore-linked review of the Bernsen sketch, I even said at one point, “When Jan [Hooks] turned Corbin’s stereo on, I expected the music that played from it to be sung by Corbin, but I turned out to be wrong. I feel like that joke DID appear in an SNL sketch, though I can’t remember which one.” It’s possible that I was actually thinking of this very sketch with Adrien Brody when saying I can’t remember which sketch that joke was used in, but I dunno. I swear there’s another SNL sketch I saw that uses that joke. I don’t think it’s the “Everyone’s A Critic” digital short that Andy Samberg would later co-star in with Paul Rudd, even though a variation of the joke does appear there.)
— I love Rachel’s yell of “Damn you, Match.com!” before making her exit.
STARS: **

LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
trip winner (host) amputated his arm

— Kattan has been EVERYWHERE tonight so far.
— Unlike the previous two installments of this sketch, I’m not finding myself laughing much here.
— We at least get a nice display of Darrell and Amy’s usual charming chemistry at the end, as Amy is seemingly ad-libbing her repeated friendly punching of Darrell’s arm, but overall, this was a subpar installment of this sketch.
STARS: **

TV FUNHOUSE
“Saddam & Osama” by RBS- wanted duo evades USA forces in kids show

— Hilarious concept of a Saddam And Osama foreign animated series.
— Bush being portrayed as literally an ape is priceless.
— As usual for a solid TV Funhouse, we’re getting so many fast-paced funny gags on a non-stop basis.
— A very funny commercial break, especially the Rocks toy commercial.
— Great detail during the fake ending credits, with Sean Penn being the only American name among the writers’ credits shown in Iraqi language.
STARS: ****½

MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
rastaman (host) introduces Sean Paul

— Hooooo, boy. Welp, we’ve arrived at the most notorious part of this episode, and a notorious SNL moment in general.
— Jesus Christ, this Rastafarian routine is some hacky-ass shit.
— I can hardly understand what the hell is being said, and what little I can understand is cringeworthingly unfunny. For example, just now, he seriously said “Re-speck. You know, my wrist-speck, my neck-speck, my knee-speck, my ankle-speck.” The man seriously said that, folks. I…I…I have no words in response to that.
— There is no end to this. Why the hell is this going on and on? I would laugh my ass off if SNL would finally throw their hands in the air and just cut this fool off halfway through his ridiculous rastaman routine.
— Aaaaaaand to top everything off, Adrien ends this by proceeding to mistakenly announce Sean Paul as “Sean John”. My god. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot make this stuff up.
— Okay, now that this mess is (mercifully) over, I need to address the two famous rumors about it, one being that this was an unplanned moment that Adrien sprung on the show without getting Lorne’s approval, and the other being that this would lead to Adrien getting banned from SNL. The whole “so-and-so is banned from SNL” rumor about quite a number of hosts and musical guests is such B.S., so much so, that I won’t even dignify it by talking about it. But I will talk about the rumor regarding this being an unplanned moment. If this truly was unplanned, then I can certainly understand why it would upset Lorne. However, if this was unplanned, then how did Adrien manage to sneak into his Rastafarian costume (and keep in mind that SNL has a whole wardrobe crew that gets the host quickly in and out of costume between segments) and arrive onstage to do his Sean Paul intro, with NOBODY stopping him at any point before the show came back on air? Also, something that really makes the rumor about this being an unplanned moment come off dubious is the fact that, when SNL would later re-air this episode, Adrien’s rastaman bit would be replaced with the dress rehearsal version, in which he does the same bit, but there are a few minor differences in what he says and how he says it. So if he did this bit in dress rehearsal, how exactly was it “unplanned” in the live show? Is it possible that, after Adrien did the bit at dress rehearsal, Lorne saw how cringeworthy and overlong the bit was, and informed Adrien between dress rehearsal and the live show that, while he can still wear his Rastafarian costume during his Sean Paul intro in the live show, he’s going to have to trim the intro down to simply just saying “Ladies and gentlemen, Sean Paul” in a Jamaican accent, and in turn, Adrien, fed up with how SNL kept turning down his “hilarious” ideas all week (which Tina would talk about in an interview years later), ended up defying Lorne’s orders by going on the air and doing the entire rastaman bit that he was told not to do in the live show, resulting in a very pissed-off Lorne? That’s my personal theory. (After all, isn’t that also the story behind what happened with Martin Lawrence’s notorious monologue? That after dress rehearsal, Martin was told to do less-raunchy comedy material for the live monologue, but Martin went on the air and did the same raunchy material that he did at dress rehearsal?) Either way, this Adrien Brody/rastaman bit is a moment that would go on to live in SNL infamy. SNL themselves would even make fun of it at least once, with a passing mention of it during the following season’s Andy Roddick episode. I feel like there may have been another time that SNL made fun of it, but nothing’s coming to mind right now.

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Sean Paul performs “Get Busy”

WEEKEND UPDATE
drooling mutant Q*terplx (RAD) was left out of the X-Men movie sequel

Elton John (HOS) reworks his greatest hits for upcoming vampire musical

— A cringeworthy opening joke from Tina.
— The running gag with Rachel’s deformed baby character continues. I always find this character’s appearances worth a quick laugh.
— When about to set up Horatio’s Elton John commentary, Jimmy starts by flat-out asking towards the camera “We’re still doing this?”, as if he expected the Elton John commentary to have been cut after dress rehearsal, then he proceeds to go through his introduction of the Elton commentary quite hesitantly. Oh, god, this is already making me uneasy for the Fallon/Sanz jackassery that awaits me.
— Well, I’m glad Jimmy and Horatio are having fun during this Elton John commentary, cuz I sure ain’t.
— Okay, I did finally get ONE laugh just now, from Horatio ad-libbing the line “I put it on pause” after Jimmy calls him out on pressing the keys on his (fake) piano keyboard when there’s not even any music playing right now.
— Boy, this Fallon/Sanz bit is awful, and is going on and on. Lorne gives these two performers WAY too much free rein to waste airtime with their loose, inside-y antics, and it’s especially unneeded tonight, right after Adrien Brody ALREADY wasted airtime by going on and on with that rastaman fiasco.
— Tonight’s weekly end-of-Update walk-on from SNL writer Eric Slovin has him dressed as…nobody. He’s actually nowhere to be seen here. At the end of the Updates from the second half of this season, Slovin usually interrupts Jimmy’s trademark pencil-throw by taking Jimmy’s pencil away from him while dressed as a different type of character each week. Tonight, however, Jimmy just does his trademark pencil-throw with no interruptions from anybody. I guess Slovin’s running gag is officially over. Too bad, because I’ve always found it very fun.
STARS: **½

LENSMASTERS
at Lensmasters, (host) & (CHK) suggest high-concept glasses for (AMP)

— Kattan’s big night continues. It’s obvious that the reason SNL is using him so heavily tonight, after he barely did anything the last few episodes, is because he officially announced earlier this week that he’s leaving at the end of this season.
— A groan from me almost INSTANTLY at the beginning of this sketch, when seeing that Kattan is playing YET ANOTHER gay stereotype. Thank God this is Kattan’s second-to-last episode. I can’t take any more gay stereotype roles from him in his SNL tenure.
— Oh, god, now we get Adrien also playing a gay stereotype, complete with a lisp. I am in for one terrible sketch, aren’t I? Between Adrien’s rastaman bit, the Fallon/Sanz mess on Weekend Update, and now this, tonight’s episode is starting to become torturous for me to watch.
— Three minutes into this sketch, I finally got ONE laugh, from the “cyclops” glasses that are put on Amy.
STARS: *½

DANCE CLASS
ballroom dance instructor (host) coaches Vasquez, Gabe, Ruth, A.J.

— Jesus Christ, yet ANOTHER bad, over-the-top, hammy foreign accent from Adrien tonight??? I’m telling you, tonight’s episode is starting to destroy me.
— At least it’s great to see Fred’s Gabe character back, though Fred’s delivery as this character seems a little more exaggerated this time. I enjoyed the slightly-more toned-down delivery he used the last time this group of characters appeared.
— Some funny lines from the group of students throughout this sketch (even Horatio’s iffy Vasquez character), but it takes a lot for me to look past Adrien’s awful, hammy performance.
STARS: **½

MUSICAL GUEST INTRO

— Thankfully, Adrien does THIS intro in a normal, straightforward manner (yet he somehow manages to deliver even that kinda awkwardly). I have to point out the shirt he’s wearing, though, which has a blurry photo of himself. It’s the same shirt that Maya wore in the Wake Up Wakefield sketch from two episodes prior (side-by-side comparison below). Interesting callback.

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Wayne Wonder performs “No Letting Go”

VELVET PRODUCTIONS
(host), (CHP), (WLF) struggle to title gay porno version of The Pianist

— We get Will finally making his first appearance of the night, in the 10-to-1 sketch. Damn. It almost feels like Parnell is making his first appearance of the night here too, as his only prior roles tonight were two very brief ones. And, wow, I just now realized that Seth is COMPLETELY absent tonight. That doesn’t bother me as much, though, as Seth is nowhere close to being one of my favorites of this cast like Will and Parnell are.
— Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Now Adrien is doing ANOTHER lispy, effeminate voice, which seems to be almost as much of a comedy crutch for him as his bad, over-the-top foreign accents are. Please just end tonight’s episode already, before Adrien makes me officially lose my mind.
— I got a big laugh from Parnell’s suggestion that the gay porno version of the movie Sweet Home Alabama be titled Sweet Home Alan’s Butthole.
— Another good laugh, this time from Will suggesting the gay porno version of Gladiator be titled Glad He Ate Him.
— Meh, the big turn with the guys having difficulty titling a gay porno version of the simple The Pianist isn’t doing much for me. It would be funny as a quick gag, but I don’t like how it’s taken over the entire second half of this sketch. I had been enjoying where the sketch was going before then, even though it was just a set up for this.
— The further this sketch goes on, the further it becomes undeniable that Adrien’s lispy, effeminate voice is completely unnecessary for this sketch, and detracts too much from the humor of his dialogue for me. In fact, there’s no reason he has to speak in ANY kind of character voice in this particular sketch, especially with Parnell and Will both using their normal voices.
— What the hell was with that twist ending? Awful.
STARS: **½

GOODNIGHTS

— God, Adrien even manages to annoy me HERE, with his shameless attempt to act “black” and cool around Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder, and then taking the time to halt the proceedings just so he can awkwardly shoehorn in an even more shameless plug for his next movie.

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— In a word: blah. In case you couldn’t tell by all of my complaining throughout the review, I did NOT enjoy this episode. I found a lot of it to be a slog to get through, and there was a ridiculously small number of segments that I found to be outright good. Though he was far from the only problem, a big reason for my dislike of this episode was definitely Adrien Brody. Man, where do I even BEGIN with him? You know how, when Nia Vardalos hosted earlier this season, she displayed a variety of characterizations, comedic voices, and silly foreign accents, and was able to pull all of that off well, considering she has an improv background? Well, Adrien Brody pretty much attempted the exact same approach as Vardalos, but ended up falling flat on his face, considering he doesn’t have an improv background. He tried so hard to prove he can pull off sketch comedy, but he ended up coming off unfunny, obnoxious, and showoff-y, especially with the heavy over-reliance on bad foreign accents and effeminate, lispy voices. And don’t even get me started again on that notorious rastaman fiasco during his Sean Paul intro. Adrien was fine when playing normal roles, I’ll give him that. I had no problem with him in the monologue, Brian Fellow, or Regis & Kelly sketches. But in everything else, in which he tried to be the “funny” one? Oof. Adding to the unlikability of him as a host are behind-the-scenes horror stories that Tina Fey would later disclose about how he was a chore to deal with. (By the way, between Robert DeNiro, Matthew McConaughey, and Adrien Brody, this season has had quite a lot of hosts who were a nightmare for the SNL cast and crew to deal with behind the scenes. It makes sense that DeNiro, McConaughey, and Brody also ended up being awful hosts onscreen as well.)

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ashton Kutcher)
a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Season 28 comes to an end, with host Dan Aykroyd. It’s also the final episode for Chris Kattan, Tracy Morgan, and Dean Edwards.