Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE APPRENTICE
host fires JIF a la The Apprentice; George Ross & Carolyn Kepcher cameos
— Geez, we get Trump appearing right out of the gate tonight, without me even getting to enjoy the first few minutes before he inevitably takes over the show. Boy, this is going to be a LOOOOOOONNNNNG episode, isn’t it?
— I will say that Trump looks “normal” here compared to how he looks today.
— I got a good laugh from George (Trump’s male assistant/board member/whatever) responding “I thought it sucked!” when asked how he felt about dress rehearsal.
— I did get one laugh from Trump just now (I’ll keep count of how many laughs I’ll get from him tonight, which I highly doubt will come anywhere close to approaching the double digits) when he points to Jimmy and says, in regards to Jimmy’s performance at dress rehearsal, “This idiot was laughing the whole time”, which is made even funnier by the camera then cutting to a close-up of Jimmy stifling his laughter as usual.
— Finesse: “First of all, nobody’s firing me, because there’s only four black people on NBC: me, Kenan, Kwame, and Whoopi.” Funny line, but I doubt a lot of people watching this cold opening years later have any idea who Kwame is (a then-current contestant on The Apprentice) nor are aware that Whoopi Goldberg had a short-lived NBC sitcom at the time. Wasn’t Tracy Morgan’s short-lived NBC sitcom still on its last legs around this point? Finesse should’ve included him as a fifth black person on NBC.
— A very funny Frasier promo shown during a mid-sketch fake commercial break. Reminds me of that brilliant “Last Chance Tuesdays” promo that SNL did in the middle of a Bachelor sketch from the preceding season’s Eric McCormack episode. I wonder if both mid-sketch promos were written by the same person.
— Good walk-on from Lorne.
— Lorne, while on a firing spree: “Finesse, go get Parnell.” Ooh, I do NOT like that implication that Lorne’s about to fire Parnell. Sure, it’s only a comedic line in this sketch, but come on, SNL. You already fired the man once before (very undeservedly so), and making a “humorous” passing mention in a sketch of firing him again just feels cruel.
— I like how this Apprentice parody is even going to the extent of showing Jimmy’s “exit interview” in the back of a taxi after SNL fires him.
— A few awkward pauses from Trump here and there throughout this cold opening.
STARS: ***
OPENING MONTAGE
— A Cartoon By Robert Smigel is credited in this montage, but no cartoon ends up airing tonight, as the show presumably runs long. The cartoon was going to be about tonight’s host, Donald Trump.
MONOLOGUE
host’s stand-in DAH practices “You’re Fired”; Jeff Zucker (JIF) pitches
— Oh, god. Cue the shameless Trump bragfest about how “great” he is and how The Apprentice is currently the #1 show on TV. This smug bragfest is fucking TORTURE to sit through.
— Darrell appearing as a Trump stand-in alongside the real Trump isn’t saving this monologue like I want it to, though it’s a gag that SNL would later repeat in Trump’s season 41 monologue, only with Taran Killam added in as a third Trump.
— Blah, the fake NBC shows Jimmy’s Jeff Zucker is plugging are all over-relying on hacky gay jokes, which is sadly typical for this SNL era.
— Overall, not a single laugh from me during this entire monologue.
STARS: *
FEAR FACTOR JUNIOR
Joe Rogan (FRA) traumatizes youngsters on reality TV
— Very funny concept of little kids cruelly being made to perform the type of stunts adults typically perform on Fear Factor.
— Fred is great as Joe Rogan.
— In a scene where one kid is told his parents will get a divorce if he doesn’t complete his challenge, one of his parents is played by future cast member Rob Riggle (screencap below).
STARS: ****
LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
host unabashedly promotes himself
— Solid bit with Amy’s Kelly Ripa currently taping various shows on different cameras.
— WTF? Gelman played by Dratch??? While I’m happy not to have to see YET ANOTHER Chris Kattan cameo this season (then again, just wait until the following episode…), having Rachel take over the Gelman impression is just… odd. And not funny. SNL needs to just drop the Gelman parts of these sketches. They’ve never been anything but a whole bunch of hacky, lazy-ass gay jokes that, as I said earlier, are way too overused in this SNL era.
— The usual fun chemistry from Darrell and Amy, including a big character break from Darrell when Amy keeps grabbing onto him at one point.
— Ugh, cue YET ANOTHER shameless Trump bragfest tonight, with the added “bonus” of Darrell’s Regis kissing his ass over how amazing he is. Fucking kill me.
— Double ugh at Trump’s sleazy-ass comments about Amy-as-Kelly-Ripa’s body.
— Overall, despite the usual fun from Darrell and Amy in these Regis & Kelly sketches, all the awful Trump stuff killed this sketch dead. The Gelman crap with Rachel only helped to make things even worse.
STARS: *½
VIP SEATS
Star Jones (KET) corrals host & claims to know who will be The Apprentice
— Kenan In A Dress alert.
— Between Kenan in yet another drag role, Trump being Trump, and lots of hacky and lazy-ass fat jokes about Star Jones, there is NOTHING to like here so far.
— Okay, Kenan got a great laugh from me at the very end of this sketch, with him suddenly grabbing an NBC page by the arm and telling her, in a deep, loud, intimidating voice, “GIMME A PELLEGRINO!” That was reminiscent of a very famous SNL moment with Chris Farley in a Gap Girls sketch (“LAY OFF ME, I’M STARVING!”).
STARS: *½
DONALD TRUMP’S HOUSE OF WINGS
David Crosby (HOS) endorses host’s chicken eatery
— Another in the series of “non-actor host does a commercial promoting their fictional restaurant” sketches.
— I remember when I watched this episode back when it originally aired in 2004, I disliked the musical numbers of this sketch (I couldn’t stand these “non-actor host does a commercial promoting their fictional restaurant” sketches back then) while loving Trump’s goofy dancing and facial expressions during said musical numbers. Cut to 16 years later, I now feel the exact opposite about this sketch, where I like the musical numbers but can’t even muster up so much as a chuckle at Trump’s goofy dancing and facial expressions during the musical numbers.
— Why the hell does Trump sound like he’s yelling all of his lines, as if he thinks he’s not mic’ed?
— An actual funny walk-on from Horatio as David Crosby.
— At the end of this sketch, they actually reference the previous two “non-actor host does a commercial promoting their fictional restaurant” sketches in a map at the end (screencap below), which was a nice touch.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest, Ben Harper & Jack Johnson [real] perform “Pressure Drop”
WEEKEND TRUMP DATE
newscast’s garishness makes TIF uncomfortable
— Hmm, interesting deviation from the usual Weekend Update.
— Jimmy and Tina end up immediately giving up on this idea, and decide to go back to the regular Weekend Update. Ehh, probably for the best, as this revamped Update was starting to come off too Trump-centric for my likes. Still, this was an interesting brief bit, as I’m always a sucker for when SNL breaks format.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment, but then again, I’m stretching things by counting this as a separate segment from the regular Weekend Update)
WEEKEND UPDATE
many objects hit indignant Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth (MAR) on the head
— Feels kinda fitting seeing an Update joke about Jason Patric during an SNL episode with a difficult, notorious host, considering the infamy Patric has as an SNL host himself (though as far as I know, Patric wasn’t difficult behind the scenes at the show).
— Jimmy is far more amused at this a-whole-bunch-of-things-falling-on-Omarosa’s-head bit than either I or the audience are (though the audience is fairly amused). This bit is just plain stupid and annoying to me. I’m aware of the Apprentice incident it’s spoofing and I remember a lot of online SNL fans in 2004 loving this spoof, but the spoof is unfunny to me, is going on WAAAAYYYY too long, and is encouraging lots of bad mugging from Maya.
STARS: **½
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
update of The Prince & The Pauper has Donald Trump (DAH) & janitor (host)
— Another sketch tonight pairing Darrell’s Trump with the real deal, this time with the real Trump playing a mustached janitor.
— When this sketch originally aired in 2004, I remember how funny I found Trump’s line where he makes fun of his own hair (“My hair’s supposed to look like this – I’m a janitor”), but, much like his goofy dancing in the House Of Wings sketch earlier tonight, I now find myself not even being able to so much as chuckle at the line now. The Trump-makes-me-laugh-tonight count remains a measly 1.
— A very dull sketch so far.
— A pretty funny meta bit with Maya as the narrator intentionally and awkwardly vamping to give Darrell and Trump time to switch costumes off-camera.
STARS: *½
FATHERS AND SONS
(host)’s son (SEM) envies bond between (JIF) & dad (HOS)
— The first (and only) time all night where Trump plays a character that has nothing to do with himself, though of course, he plays this role like himself anyway.
— Trump’s delivery is killing any potential humor during the tense father & son exchanges between him and Seth.
— Oh, no. Another Fallon & Sanz pairing.
— Aaaaaaaand there goes our obligatory Fallon & Sanz breaking. What the holy fuck are they even laughing at here? Unlike most of their other character breaks, nothing appeared to provoke their character break in this sketch. Are they aware of how much this sketch has been falling flat, and are intentionally breaking to “save” the sketch (which is basically the premise of the “That’s When You Break” digital short SNL would later do, which I think even shows a clip from this sketch during one of the “And here’s another one from Fallon & Sanz” lyrics)?
— Jesus Christ, even for a Fallon & Sanz character-breaking moment, they are laughing PARTICULARLY hard in this, and it’s completely taken over the rest of this sketch. Jimmy and Horatio both pretty much just gave up on this sketch, and are laughing so hard that their faces are turning red, almost to the degree where they look like they’re going to die laughing. It sure would be nice of them to let us in on what the hell they’re laughing so hard at.
— As much as I hate to compare myself to Trump in any way, his demeanor during the endless Fallon/Sanz gigglefest, in which he’s aloofly staring off-camera with a bored, miserable look on his face while resting his fingers on his temple and looks like he’s thinking to himself “Ohhh, these two giggling idiots…”, mirrors EXACTLY how I look during this sketch.
— Seth at least makes a funny ad-lib just now, during the endless Fallon/Sanz gigglefest when both performers are supposed to be crying: “They’re so sad, they’re happy.” I remember a fellow SNL reviewer from back at this time in 2004 having a theory that Seth had that ad-libbed line prepared in his head way in advance, because he probably knew Jimmy and Horatio would break during their crying scene.
— While Jimmy and Horatio are still in the middle of their endless laughing, Horatio takes the time to point to something on a newspaper on the table in front of him (screencap below), which then makes both him and Jimmy laugh EVEN HARDER.
Now I can’t help but wonder what in the world Horatio pointed to on that newspaper, and why it contributed to him and Jimmy laughing non-stop like jackass hyenas on acid.
STARS: *
9/11 HEARINGS
prophetic Richard Clarke (DAH) testifies to his myriad unheeded warnings
— (*sigh*) I’m three minutes into this, and this sketch has been droning on and on with typical dull and unfunny 2000s-era-Jim-Downey-written dialogue that gets little-to-no reaction from neither the audience nor me.
— Are these VERY sporadic cutaways to stock footage of real senators at a hearing even supposed to be funny? SNL’s not even fully committing to this aspect of the sketch, like they usually do in State Of The Union sketches.
— Oh, god, now this is just getting desperate and juvenile, with Darrell’s Richard Clarke claiming Dick Cheney “touched me inappropriately”. Just plain dumb.
— Poor Chris Parnell is JUST NOW making his first and only appearance of the whole night here, and he’s just playing a small, bland, forgettable straight role that’s a complete waste of him. This only makes that joking implication earlier tonight about Lorne firing Chris a second time come off even more unfortunate. Chris’ airtime has gotten pretty damn bad these past few episodes, with him being stuck in featured player-level roles like the “Are we goin’ to the Baywatch?” guy who only gets shown from the back in the Gigli sketch from the Ben Affleck episode.
— Speaking of underappreciated cast members getting screwed in this episode, the great Will Forte is NOWHERE to be seen in this entire episode. A real bummer.
— This sketch is BRUTAL. Just end this already, and tell Jim Downey to get back the sense of humor he used to consistently have.
STARS: *
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest, Bootsy Collins & The Roots [real] perform “Funky Kingston”
APPRENTICE BAND
band comprising host & Apprentice co-stars rehearses “She’s Got Class”
— A second Apprentice sketch tonight? Well, at least SNL’s getting their money’s worth out of that set tonight.
— Oh, no. I do not like the looks of where this is headed, with musical instruments being revealed behind a hidden wall in the Apprentice office.
— Ugh, in typical Trump fashion, he breaks the fourth wall in an unscripted manner by smugly milking audience applause from his obvious miming of somebody else’s keyboard playing.
— No, no, no! What is this sketch throwing at me? Trump and his two Apprentice assistants/board members/whatever playing instruments and, ahem, “singing”? What did I do to deserve sitting through this? This feels like some self-indulgent bullshit that Trump probably fought to get on the air.
— What is this sketch even going for? This clearly isn’t a funny sketch. If it is trying to be funny, it’s failing. If it’s trying to be a slice-of-life sketch, it’s failing. If it’s trying to be just a fun AND entertaining musical number, it’s doubly failing.
— This feels like a precursor to a PARTICULARLY wretched and widely hated sketch from Trump’s second hosting stint years later in 2015, where he plays a laser harp instrument in a band.
— Now Maya joins in on the musical number, singing in an extremely goofy, exaggerated voice. Jesus Christ, just end this episode already. I’ve had more than enough.
STARS: *
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— (*sigh*) Well, that was… just as rough to get through as I was afraid it would be. I know Donald Trump’s 2015 episode is far more controversial and is widely considered by many SNL fans to be an absolute disaster, but my god, in terms of episode quality, tonight’s episode has to be right behind that 2015 episode. While this episode may have been controversy-free at the time, it does not hold up well AT ALL nowadays, for obvious reasons. Even if I look at Trump through pure, non-judgmental eyes, he was comedy poison in this episode (as I said earlier, my only laugh from him all night came from his “This idiot was laughing the whole time” line in the cold opening), basically sleepwalking through the episode with an unlikable, arrogant demeanor while having SNL stroke his ego for almost the entire 90 minutes. Absolutely unwatchable. And it wasn’t even just the Trump-centric stuff in this episode that I hated. As the interminable and boring 9/11 Hearings sketch, the idiotic and endless Fallon/Sanz breaking in the Fathers And Sons sketch, and the overlong and dumb Omarosa bit on Weekend Update all showed, this episode had quite a number of non-Trump stuff for me to get frustrated by. There were only TWO segments all night that I gave a passing rating to (the cold opening and Fear Factor Junior). Other than that, this episode has got to have one of the top 10 lowest rating averages of this entire SNL project of mine.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ben Affleck)
one of the biggest step downs imaginable
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Janet Jackson
During a later Apprentice episode, Trump had the gall/mismemory to claim he “wore a chicken suit during Saturday Night Live,” which is…a very inaccurate interpretation of the House of Wings sketch (I know, Donald Trump not being truthful…shocking).
Oh, there was an interview between Jimmy and Horatio where they explained why they were laughing so hard during Fathers and Sons, but I can’t find it at all. I don’t remember the exact details but—as is already obvious in the sketch—something about the newspaper prop was some weird in-joke between Horatio and Jimmy, which is why he pointed at it. Just another example of their unprofessional attitude whenever they’re together. Reminds me of Farley and Sandler in S20.
It’s an awful episode and awful host, but I can’t help but be amused at the irony of having Toots, Ben Harper, and Jack Johnson, some of the most mellow musicians around, paired together with Trump yelling his lines and being an obnoxious braggart.
I think you can make the case that Fallon and Sanz were worse than Farley and Sandler.
I’ve seen a few comments about in the current cast Kate and Aidy have the same vibe now. They can’t seem to get through a sketch without getting each other to break. Lots of goofing around (not saying they are at the same level as Fallon and .Sanz but it’s noticeable)
When they were on the show, Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo also laughed during many of their sketches but never to the levels of Fallon-Sanz!
The thing with Sanz and Farley is they were pretty obnoxious all over the show by their last years, not just with partners. Aidy and Kate aren’t as bad, but they’re a twofer, because not only do they get very muggy and break together, but many of their sketches are also very self-indulgently written and feel like the audience is barely even involved. Still, I think they manage (especially Aidy) to have their moments when they are working separately. Sanz in particular was not managing that by this point.
I don’t even think it’s a contest that Fallon and Sanz were worse than Farley and Sandler. Farley and Sandler weren’t even as bad as Armisen and Hader and yeah, Murphy and Piscopo were pretty indulgent too. Bryant and McKinnon are getting there too, but I think, to contradict John, their pieces are built around generally stronger writing – I think their piece from the season premiere and a couple of their SNL At Home sketches were some of the season’s strongest.
Kate in general is getting worse about breaking (she actually brings down that Daniel Craig movie trivia sketch). But we’ll get to all of that in time, I suppose.
Another Thing about Aidy And Kate is that when They Break out Laughing, That Stops The Sketch completely ! I don’ t Remember whether Horatio And Jimmy Stop The Sketch Completely OR Not ! I Don’t Remember Joe and Eddie Break Out Laughing !
Fred Armisen and James Anderson wrote Apprentice Band.
I remember hearing that Trump refused to do anything that would involve him wearing a wig in a sketch; it’s likely because his combover takes so much time and effort to construct. I’m also guessing the person who wrote the Trump promo taping sketches in season 30 must have based it on their experiences working on this show.
I believe Anderson also co-wrote the laser harp sketch from the ’15 episode (with Kent Sublette).
Heh, so between this and Deion Sanders, it’s two for two on “biggest step down imaginable”s. I will say Deion was the better host, as his huge ego at least provided some unintentional hilarity AND eventually waned off as he got older. Unlike Trump who just gets worse and worse and has made this episode especially hard to watch in hindsight. The ego boosting in this one is just sad.
Don’t forget the Tom Green episode; only there, it’s “The biggest Step down Humanly Possible”
Yeah, at least with this episode, you could say something like, “well, he’s just some dude who has a TV show, whatever.” I think I laughed more during his second hosting gig, but the very poor decision to feature a current political candidate who DID NOT have a sense of humor about himself hosting just casts a pall over that episode.
I’m not even going to look at my old review (I think I gave this two out of five) because holy crap, this episode hasn’t aged well at all. Toots & The Maytals (promoting an all-star disc of their old songs, rerecorded) and “Fear Factor Jr.” were far and away the highlights. It was all downhill the moment Carolyn muffed that “that’s what she said.”
No Forte. (All I took away from it then. All I take away from it now…)
It’s hard to say which of Donald’s two episodes is more of a vanity piece. On the one hand, we have the latter one, TAKING PLACE DURING AN ONGOING PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. On the other hand, we have not only Donald self-promoting, but NBC to a degree (did we really need pieces about the network bigwig and a reality show contestants?) and also SNL (yes, let’s trot out our marquee comedy duo and the political satire we’re known for, never minding that both were well past expiration). Such an off-putting episode.
All I remember from this ep is Donald Trump’s House of Wings, mainly because I recognized the music from The Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (For My Love)”. I thought The Donald’s delivery was okay and his “dancing” was partly amusing. But I’d rather hear that jingle again than watch Trump talk for any occasion…
This was so incredibly painful to watch, then and now. His self-aggrandizing and basking in the applause for doing nothing eerily foreshadows his rally schtick in current times. At the time, I remember being angrier at NBC for pushing him down our throats because of his shitty reality show. Re-watching the 2015 episode may be too traumatic..
For all intents and purposes, Affleck’s was the last solid episode of this otherwise disjointed season, and the next season’s only going to get worse until Hader and Sudeikis join the cast the year after.
Ah, here’s the interview of Horatio talking about Fathers and Sons and why he pointed at the newspaper.
I watched Apprentice and Fear Factor (Joe Rogan now being yet another person I would happily never have to hear anything about again) around this time, but I never did see this episode. Thank you for reviewing this crap as I sure have no interest in seeing it. I’m glad to see Forte was shut out this week as it means I didn’t miss anything from him.
I did not realize SNL had a Jeff Zucker impression at this time. I don’t really have a high horse to get on about SNL “selling out,” because most of the time I don’t care (and you could say anything past the first 2-3 seasons fits that category anyway), but this coziness is a world away from Lorne’s cold war with Fred Silverman. I found Zucker offputting even at the time, with the greedy, short term decisions that did long term harm to NBC; compared to his Trump-pushing efforts, that now seems harmless…
I guess I can’t really say I’m surprised Trump would host at this time – The Apprentice was a huge hit (even if that was very short-lived) – but the whole show being taken over by Trump and The Apprentice, to the point of even briefly changing Update, doesn’t really suggest much faith on NBC’s part in SNL’s own strength at this point.
Someone probably already mentioned this, but that House of Wings sketch went viral a few years ago.
Maya looks nothing like Omarosa, but I suppose this was better than putting Finesse in a dress yet again.
At this point in NBC’s history, Trump has the hot hand. I’d blame SNL for placating Trump here, yet a) Trump is an inveterate shill, and b) NBC starts to lean more heavily on Lorne Michaels by this time, so I think it’s SNL swallowing the cyanide pill for the network’s benefit. The hack writing doesn’t help.
Why NBC felt The Apprentice would continue Must See TV’s dominance of Thursday nights was delusion at its finest. MSTV by 2004 is a combination of aging shows, high-profile failures (hi, Coupling), and shilling Survivor-in-the-boardroom to levels that make ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?-flogging look restrained. It gets worse the next season when Martha Stewart hosts a spin-off despite the fallout from the ImClone stock trading case. Add stopgap moves like replacing Friends with Joey, and NBC begins its wonderful drop to the number-four US broadcast network. Great ratings. The best.
Shockingly, this is NOT the lowest-ranked episode. With a 3.7, it comes in just above season 20’s Paul Reiser (2.9), Sarah Jessica Parker (3.4), and Deion Sanders (3.7), but well below the very high standards set by George Foreman (4.1).
One episode that DID go all-in on a host’s TV persona, but was successful, was Garry Shandling in season 12. That one averaged a very good 6.8 and had several near-classic sketches. I’ll leave it at that.
Obviously it’s a terrible episode with a terrible host/person and all that – no big surprise there – but I do want to go to bat a bit for the Apprentice Band Sketch, which while obviously not particularly great or impressive, had a kernel of an idea that I really appreciate. The idea of The Apprentice being a ploy for Trump et al to kickstart their own Archiesesque band is kind of weird and goofy in a way that tickles me. Maybe I’m just tickled by sketches spoofing band dynamics (Kids In The Hall Had a few winners). With a less utterly charmless host, I think it could have worked.
I’m not going to defend this episode and I’m certainly not going to defend its host. But let’s not get crazy: The episode’s batting average is about at the same level as several others in this tepid season. And Horatio as David Crosby is hysterical.
It’s bad, that’s been said numerous times by everyone in the comments but it could’ve been so much better. Prime example of what could’ve been is from the George Steinbrenner episode. He was not the most loved man in NY and even George had a few sketches that poked fun at how people felt about him. You get none of that here. There’s a glimmer in the janitor sketch but it doesn’t go far enough. The whole ep just comes off as a skeevy mess.
Rest in peace, Toots.
https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/09/toots-hibbert-death/
R.I.P. Toots. Your music will live on.
Good riddance to the worst president / SNL host of all time.
After watching this season and finding the averages of each episode for the season in my viewings, this episode coincidentally tied with Baldwin’s.