Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS
jilted Joe Lieberman (CHP) & coy Hillary Clinton (AMP) campaign
— Amy’s Hillary Clinton impression makes its debut. I had forgotten until now that the first few years Amy plays Hillary, she wears that ridiculous prosthetic big nose. It baffled me back then, and it baffles me now. Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a big or distinctive-looking nose, so why make Amy’s Hillary look like she has one? It’s like when SNL pointlessly had Chris wear a prosthetic nose the first time he played George W. Bush.
— Boy, Darrell’s Chris Matthews is going particularly heavy on the comical analogies, much to this sketch’s detriment. The analogies ain’t that funny for this cold opening to be relying so heavily on.
— Pretty funny bit with Amy’s Hillary simultaneously denying that she’ll run for president and teasing that she will, though I swear SNL used this joke with another politician either before or after tonight’s episode.
— Kenan in a dress.
— A funny comment from Kenan’s Carol Moseley Braun about female black Jewish ninjas.
— Ugh, this was around the time where comedies overused the gag of un-hip white people talking in “fo shizzle” speak. That has not aged well, in my opinion.
— Overall, these Hardball sketches seem to be running out of steam lately. The preceding season, these Hardball sketches consistently knocked it out of the park. This season, on the other hand, Hardball sketches have been just average so far.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
ambivalent toward SNL, Gollum (CHK) plugs sitcom co-starring host
— Chris Kattan makes his SECOND cameo in just the first half of this season alone, after leaving the cast at the end of the preceding season. Is he on his way to becoming to this season what Jon Lovitz was to season 16? At least Lovitz was someone you didn’t mind seeing back, plus SNL would make self-deprecating jokes about Lovitz’s constant cameos.
— At least Kattan’s Gollum impression is always pretty fun.
— Instead of having Kattan do a self-deprecating joke about his constant cameos, SNL goes the opposite direction by having Kattan’s Gollum claim “The show’s been sucking wind ever since Chris Kattan left!”, though I know it’s just a tongue-in-cheek line.
— I love the cheesy Gollum/Frodo sitcom opening credits and theme song, being a spot-on amalgamation of the credits and themes from many classic sitcoms.
STARS: ***
BOYS CHOIR
high-voiced school choir rivals (host), (JIF), (WLF) test their range
— It feels odd in retrospect seeing Kenan play this type of utility role so early in his SNL tenure. He doesn’t yet have the solid leadership skills that he has nowadays. In this sketch, I’m not finding him very believable as a school teacher. He looks more like his Nickelodeon-era kid self wearing a big fake mustache to play a grown-up.
— Of the three guys, Will’s falsetto voice is by far the funniest. The other two guys’ falsettos aren’t making me laugh much, though the interplay between all three guys is fairly entertaining.
— Jimmy: “Suck my vocal chord, Manville.”
— Funny bit with Jimmy and Will repeatedly punching Elijah Wood in groin to get his deepening voice back to its former higher pitch.
— This sketch would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, in which Jimmy breaks hard and laughs his way through several portions of the sketch.
STARS: ***
QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY
makeover updates Santa’s (HOS) look
— The guys are fine in their portrayal of the Queer Eye guys, but I’m not finding myself laughing much here.
— At least Jimmy and Horatio managed to get through a scene together without fucking anything up, for once.
— The Queer Eye guys are right: Rachel does look adorable as Mrs. Claus.
— A laugh from the little boy telling the made-over Santa that he looks like Kathy Bates.
STARS: **
TV FUNHOUSE
by RBS- George W. Bush garb tracks photo op milieu
— Believe it or not, this is the first TV Funhouse since all the way back in the first episode of this season. Ever since TV Funhouse debuted in season 22, I don’t think there’s ever been THIS long of a gap between cartoons up until this point. So I take it Smigel’s been busy this season working on and plugging his Triumph The Insult Comic Dog CD?
— Some laughs from President Bush’s outfits ridiculously relating to where he’s giving his speech.
— The ape-humping scene is cheap but funny, and reminds me of the typical humor from early Fun With Real Audio cartoons.
STARS: ***
WAKE UP WAKEFIELD!
Megan falls for Sheldon’s trumpeter friend (host)
— This recurring sketch makes its first appearance of the season, and, believe it or not, ends up being the last appearance until much later in March 2006, where it makes its final appearance.
— Interesting change having the SNL host play a member of Wake Up Wakefield’s house band, Jazz Times Ten.
— As usual, funny lines from Sheldon all throughout this.
— As much as Horatio’s typical hamminess has been driving me mad this season, it still works for me as his teacher character in these Wake Up Wakefield sketches.
— When Elijah’s character and Megan are flirting with each other, I like Sheldon constantly saying “No. This isn’t happening. No”, even though I don’t quite understand why he’s saying that.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”
WEEKEND UPDATE
unintelligible lyrics of John Mayer’s (JIF) holiday song lack clarity
Whitney Houston (MAR) & daughter Bobbi (KET) do “Little Drummer Boy” duet
— That awful Kabbalah joke is our obligatory cringey Tina Fey joke of the week.
— Interesting change of pace for Update, with Jimmy doing a segment as John Mayer on a set separate from the Update set.
— The whole “blah blah blah” thing with Jimmy’s John Mayer? Ehhh. In past viewings of this episode, I’ve gone back-and-forth between finding this bit stupidly funny and finding it just plain stupid. I found it to be the latter during my current viewing. Didn’t make me laugh.
— I think I spoke to soon about our obligatory cringey Tina Fey joke of the week, because what the holy fuck was her whole over-the-top rant about Iraq contracts going for just now? (*sigh*) Tina continues to go badly downhill these past two seasons and lose so much of her spark, while Jimmy continues to get better and better and also develop a solid habit of delivering deadpan, blunt Norm Macdonald-type jokes that work.
— I really like the “I guess we’re gonna have this baby” side bit between Jimmy and Tina. At least Tina is still always reliable when doing this type of side bit with Jimmy, which I’m going to miss after this season, as this is Jimmy’s final season.
— Kenan in a dress. Fucking TWICE tonight.
— Odd how Kenan is lip-syncing to actual audio of the real Bobbi Kristina Brown singing, when you would expect SNL to just have Kenan himself sing in a high-pitched voice.
— This Bobbi Kristina/Whitney/Bobby segment isn’t doing much for me.
STARS: **½
VERSACE EGG NOG
Boy George (host) likes Donatella Versace’s (MAR) designer egg nog
— I like Maya-as-Versace’s little scream when she gets stuck in the chimney at the beginning.
— Funny visual of Elijah’s Boy George in that makeup.
— Unlike his teacher character in the Wake Up Wakefield sketches, Horatio’s typical hamminess DOESN’T work for me when he plays Rosie O’Donnell.
— Fucking ugh. There goes ANOTHER display of Horatio’s horrible habit of awkwardly pausing before delivering some lines. (*sigh*) For fuck’s sake, Horatio. Why do you always DO that?!?
— So many cheap attempts at laughs in this sketch. Blah. Very little of this is working for me. These Versace sketches have really fallen off lately. I can’t remember the last good one. I think the Versace Pockets one from the first episode of the preceding season was the last one I liked.
STARS: **
HOWARD DEAN FOR AMERICA
Al Gore’s (DAH) anti-Bush extremism chagrins endorsee Howard Dean (JER)
— Always good to see Darrell’s Al Gore impression.
— A very slow-paced sketch. The hyperbole from Darrell’s Gore regarding how awful of a president George W. Bush is has some laughs, but this sketch is DRAGGING. Yet another example of how boring, dull, and overly talky Jim Downey’s political writing has become these past two seasons.
STARS: **
THE RIALTO GRANDE
Buddy Mills consoles young comic with abandonment issues (host)
— Much like Tracy Morgan getting to do a Brian Fellow sketch when cameoing in the preceding episode, I see SNL is trying to make Kattan feel at home tonight by bringing back these Rialto Grande sketches. You really start to get the feeling that Tracy and Kattan never even left the show. This also continues this season’s experimental theme of treating certain special guests as an uncredited co-host. Kinda reminds me of how, in late season 11 and early-mid season 12, certain special guests like Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Christopher Durang, and Paulina Porizkova would appear in almost as many sketches as the host.
— Kattan seems to have added a new aspect to his Buddy Mills character, where he’s doing lots of sudden vocal pitch changes during his talk with Elijah right now. It’s kinda working for me, but I can see it annoying some people.
— Like I usually say, Fred-as-Mackey’s delayed rimshot occurring during an emotional, teary-eyed breakdown from the character played by the host never fails to slay me EVERY. DAMN. TIME.
— This ends up being the last time we ever see this recurring sketch. Interesting how every single installment of this sketch appeared in the calendar year 2003.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Look What You’ve Done”
GOODNIGHTS
host, CHK, castmembers end the show from Rockefeller Center skating rink
— Ice skating goodnights!
— Much like the original ice skating goodnights from season 2’s Candice Bergen episode, Elijah, Kattan, and the cast are dressed in old-timey costumes from (I think) A Christmas Carol.
— I feel bad for laughing at a wobbly Kattan falling flat on the ice IMMEDIATELY after finally stabilizing himself on his skates. Hope he didn’t hurt himself, as that looked like a pretty nasty fall.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A fairly disappointing Christmas episode. Almost nothing in it was memorable, quite a number of segments were weak, and the only sketch I found strong was just the return of a former cast member’s recurring sketch where the same basic thing happens in every single installment, even though it always works (Rialto Grande).
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Al Sharpton)
a mild step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
We enter the year 2004, with host Jennifer Aniston
It’s so weird to relive these episodes through these posts. This was around the time (starting around 2000) that I began watching on a fairly regular basis…but certain things pop out at me that I remember vividly and other things I completely forget.
Like this episode, I remember the cold opening, Whitney Houston during Update, and the Buddy Mills bit but forget the other big role Kenan had as the choir director and practically everything else I forgot and can’t even remember.
I DO remember finding it weird how Kattan kept coming back and that’s even having knowledge of Lovitz coming back repeatedly…but like you said, Lovitz was just a better consistent cast member.
As for Kenan, it is so weird to see him in this era and I just recall how crazy it was to see him on here after watching Kenan and Kel as a kid. Nowadays, he truly is such a dependable player who can actually make some of the worst material bearable but he certainly was more erratic back then.
Lovitz had also left reluctantly, thanks to Lorne not letting him have time off for a movie, whereas Kattan had stayed a few years longer than he’d initially planned – I guess once you are there that long it can be hard to go (and in some cases, people never really leave even when they go [looking at you, Fred…]).
“It’s so weird to relive these episodes through these posts. This was around the time (starting around 2000) that I began watching on a fairly regular basis…but certain things pop out at me that I remember vividly and other things I completely forget.”
–I feel the exact same way. I only missed two episodes in this era (SMG/Faith Hill and Snoop Dogg/Avril) both were never reran on NBC. These reviews bring back a lot of memories.
I mainly remember Megan licking on those pics…
I was about to say Jeff Richards was the first of two cast members to leave right after the skating goodnights but then read that he still has two episodes to go. I didn’t realize he stayed as long into this season as he did.
Elijah Wood is one of those hosts who probably would have been more suited to hosting several years later (and he does cameo in a Digital Short).
A bit sad at the Fountains of Wayne mention…
Much like Oprah, Whitney Houston should have been off limits after Debra Wilson’s portrayal on Mad TV. Debra had been doing this bit for years, at a time when the material was actually funny. By late 2003, the idea of Whitney as some kind of national laughingstock was, frankly, sad, and a bit cheap. It didn’t help that Maya rarely does a particularly good impression of her. Somehow we would keep getting these for nearly a decade, only stopping because of Whitney’s death. I’ll go through these again, eventually, but I don’t think I ever laughed at any of them.
All of Maya’s impressions tend to sort of blend together in my mind. I did enjoy the GEICO commercial parody at the time, though, featuring her Whitney impression.
Re: the cold open. Are you thinking of last season’s Meet the Press sketch, when John McCain would insist he wouldn’t make another run for president but Tim Russert keeps pestering the subject?
“Re: the cold open. Are you thinking of last season’s Meet the Press sketch, when John McCain would insist he wouldn’t make another run for president but Tim Russert keeps pestering the subject?”
No, it’s a sketch where a politician coyly kept simultaneously denying and admitting that they’re going to run for president. My memory is vague, so maybe it was a different subject besides running for president.
The only other thing I can think of is that Larry King sketch where Ross Perot would keep popping up on the monitor to announce he’s running, then he’s out again, and back and forth. But I’m sure that’s not what you’re thinking of either.
Unless it’s Jan Hooks I could do without cast members who rode out their whole contract constantly coming back. Even in the present day it feels like Fred Armisen just lives in 8H or something.
I dunno, whenever a cast member comes back to anchor a sketch but they’re not hosting, it almost feels like a lack of confidence in the material they have for the regular cast.
Armisen is the band leader on Late Night with Seth Meyers, which is taped at 8G.
Fred must just really love the SNL experience, making this many appearances 7 years after leaving when he has a busy career.
In seasons like 03-04 I end up seeing the cameo parade as more of a realization something wasn’t working. There are less in 04-05, and the show gets even worse, so I guess it’s a be careful what you wish for scenario.
What year does SNL start going cameo-crazy with their episodes? I can actually pinpoint a certain sketch that I personally believe is to blame: “Goodnight Saigon” from Darrell Hammond’s final episode. While it’s a great sketch and all, it is an unfortunate harbinger of present-day SNL’s random guest star bookings. Thankfully, we have a long ways to go before we reach that episode, so I’ll save my full thoughts for then.
Jared, I disagree. Pinpointing when the frequent-cameo problem became problematic is tricky but I’m confident it occurred post “Goodnight Saigon”. The overload of cameos from the Ferrell-hosted finale in 09 I think positively impacts the overall episode and make it feel grand and event like. The cameos don’t deter the quality of the show nor take-away from the cast.
Yet, by the time we reach the Fey-hosted finale from 18 we’re at the nadir of the cameo problem (God, whose idea was it to have fucking Robert DeNiro be the resident Robert Mueller?). Fey’s monologue is especially troublesome in that episode: the problem is mentioned and laughed off as a joke (Fred) and nothing changes.
I think the decision to hand Alec that Trump gig is the moment the problem became problematic; at least not right away, but once Lorne starts handing impressions of the administration out to friends of the show the problem is set. And like Ruby said “ it almost feels like a lack of confidence in the material they have for the regular cast.”
Forget what I said earlier about the Saigon sketch, RoseArt hit the nail on the head. Alec Baldwin taking over as Trump is the exact moment this problem started to get worse.
Season 43 had guest stars in every single episode, a first for the show. And as the casting choices get more bizarre (again, who thought DeNiro would make a good Mueller?), the desperation gets more obvious. Matt Damon’s awful Brett Kavanaugh impression (which debuted in a 13 MINUTE-LONG SKETCH) is the moment that I personally started to get annoyed by the cameos.
Gotta agree. Baldwin-as-Trump was the gamble thst didn’t pay off, especially when Darrell had a very serviceable impression already on hand. It was taken for granted that Kate-as-Hillary was going to be president all this time, so Baldwin was clearly there for the ratings boost? Hasn’t he even said that he hates having to keep coming back to do the impression? After that, it’s just been an exercise of bringing in all the most-vocal anti-Trump celebrities in as some sort of therapy relief. I’m honestly surprised they haven’t cast Meryl Streep as someone yet. But it’s gotten so prevalent, when I do see an actual cast member in a sketch, I find myself asking, “Wait, who’s this?”
Matt’s Kavanaugh is one of the few celeb impressions I liked (Ben Stiller’s last go-round as Michael Cohen was another).
If we’re wondering what started where, I’d say this really started with John Goodman’s many cameos as Linda Tripp – it’s just that they were not as suffocating, and Goodman also had fun (much more than he did in the rest of his SNL appearances, seemingly), whereas Baldwin, whom I’ve never cared much for anyway, admittedly, does a terrible job and sucks all the air out of the room.
I never thought Darrell’s Trump was all that good either, so I’m not sure I’d have a different opinion if he was back. I thought some of his were horribly written, especially one in 2016 where he appeared with Fey-as-Palin and the sketch seemed to suggest he was the sane voice to the audience to her ramblings. Mainly I just don’t find these well-written or worth sitting through. They are 10 minute slogs, as are the sketches without him.
I do think 2017 is when the press and/or fan expectation began for celebs to show up, because that would send a message (this is around the time of the equally dubious “let’s have women play men because that will send Trump over the edge” SNL trend that has led to a series of shaky Kate impressions and that moment where Rosie O’Donnell virtual cosplayed as Steve Bannon to try to get on). I think people are a bit more over this now, but then I see celebs trying to get Patton Oswalt on as Barr, and I see the big response to Brad Pitt as Fauci (although Fauci did at least ask for that), and I know we’re never out of the woods. The most befuddling moment may have been Matthew Broderick returning after 20 years to mumble through some Ferris Bueller lines.
The two At Home episodes have shown just how good this cast is, even with some celeb cameos; hopefully that will persuade Lorne and co to move more into relying on the cast next season (the ones who stay, anyway).
The great response to Melissa McCarthy‘s Sean Spicer and Larry David’s Bernie encouraged the problem further.
Larry David gets far more attention playing Bernie Sanders in the modern cast than he does during his mid-1980s stint as SNL writer. Granted, David’s in the minority of Fridays cast-members transitioning to SNL, yet his not quite fitting into the Ebersol mold is the start of the snowball effect that eventually leads to Bernie. The Seinfeld Chronicles builds a fairly sturdy bridge for SNL, even if it takes until Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ hosting stints for the show to truly cross it.
Ugh !! Jet! Nothing but a poor man’s The Strokes!
Another so-so show. I liked the Falsettos sketch, in spite of the odd casting of Kenan. To me, the worst part of the show was Jet, an Australian band that was criticized for being derivative in the same ways Greta Van Fleet is now (and rightfully so).
Tina being cast as Sarah Palin and Betty White hosting are important dates in this discussion. Both of them were perpetrated by Facebook and both are examples of things that have gotten out of hand; stunt casting, and a glut of cameos.
Now see, I completely disagree that Kenan was miscast in the boys choir sketch. I think he did a great job. It also should be noted that in the rerun, he goes from donning a mustache in the beginning to just seconds later donning a beard. If you watch the children’s choir in the background, you get a good chuckle. Especially the part where Elijah’s character goes for the high note and you can physically see the young boy go to change his glasses from being regular to broken.
And oh yes, let’s use the dress rehearsal version in reruns where Fallon cracks up and ruins the sketch pretty much like he did his entire tenure on SNL. It’s no secret to most people here and to the SNL fan community that I was never the biggest fan of Jimmy Fallon. I think SNL could’ve done without his casting.
How do I watch this episode in full? I went to Peacock but they cut nearly all the content from Elijah’s sketches. They left just the introduction and egg nog sketch.