November 13, 2004 – Liam Neeson / Modest Mouse (S30 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

CONGRATULATORY CALL
victorious George W. Bush (WLF) covets John Kerry’s (SEM) carefree life

— Already a laugh right from the very beginning of this, with the funny way Will’s President Bush says “Thanks, Ashley” to his secretary, pronouncing “Ashley” in a smug, laid-back manner (“Ash-lehhh”). It’s so many little things like that which make Will’s Bush impression enjoyable.
— I continue to not care for Maya’s take on Teresa Heinz-Kerry, but at least she didn’t break out into a random, unnecessary song this time.
— A mildly amusing surprise appearance from Darrell’s Al Gore.
— What’s with the occasional awkward long pauses between Will and Seth’s lines to each other?
— Overall, this was pretty meh, and kinda dead at some points. Completely forgettable as a whole.
STARS: **

MONOLOGUE
castmembers echo host’s vow not to allow stereotypes into the show

— A big laugh from when, immediately after declaring he won’t be playing any unflattering stereotypical black roles, a smiley Finesse continues with “…and that’s why this is the only time you’ll see me on the show tonight.” I like that self-deprecating dig at how utterly TERRIBLE Finesse’s airtime has been so far this season. Aside from the Queen Latifah episode, he’s gotten absolutely NOTHING to do this season so far (and even with the Latifah episode, it’s obvious that the only reason Finesse was used so much that night is because a black woman was hosting). He appeared as a freakin’ background extra with no lines in a Tony Blair press conference sketch from the Jude Law episode, and was completely absent from the other two episodes this season (Ben Affleck and Kate Winslet). This is Dean Edwards levels of under-utilization.
— Horatio’s brief appearance as himself here ends up being his ONLY appearance all night. Hallelujah to that. And he was actually tolerable here, playing it straight and low-key.
— Yikes, Liam Neeson’s delivery of that Tiger Woods joke was pretty awful, causing it to receive a very uncomfortably tepid audience reaction.
— Always feels weird at this point of Darrell’s run to see him play himself. He seems a little looser here than he typically comes off when playing himself.
— Judging from how he’s dressed, the nameless Native American character that Fred appears very briefly as seems to actually be Fred’s Billy Smith character, the Native American stand-up comedian character Fred has done on Weekend Update.
— Always fun to spot a Jason Sudeikis sighting in his pre-cast member days where he was an SNL writer (the second-to-last screencap for this monologue). We’ll be seeing him pop up as an extra in quite a number of sketches and monologues this season before SNL adds him to the cast in the homestretch of this season.
— Speaking of SNL writers who are always a welcome sight, John Lutz is always particularly funny whenever he plays a character who gets randomly insulted by someone, like he does in this monologue.
STARS: ***

PRE-WEDDING NIGHT
on the eve of her wedding, Star Jones (KET) takes phone calls

— OH, GOD. I mentioned in my review of the Paparazzi sketch from the preceding season’s Jennifer Aniston episode that the particularly heavy and annoying focus this 2003-2005 period of SNL does on pop culture and celebrity gossip reaches a nadir when they eventually place a sketch about freakin’ Star Jones’ wedding, of all things, as the big lead-off sketch of an episode. Well, here we are at that episode.
— It is kinda refreshing, though, to see the underused Kenan and VERY underused Finesse both starring in the lead-off sketch of an episode.
— Kenan-as-Star-Jones’ deep-voiced angry outburst when the phone first rings seems to be a follow-up to the Chris-Farley-esque deep-voiced outburst Kenan’s Star Jones had at the end of a sketch from the preceding season’s Donald Trump episode.
— Feels odd seeing Maya’s Liza Minnelli impression without Chris Kattan’s David Gest. She also, for some reason, seems to be speaking in a much froggier-sounding voice than she did in her previous Liza Minnelli appearances. It’s quite annoying.
— Rachel’s Barbara Walters, on the other hand, is an impression that always works for me.
— WTF? Liam Neeson as Sean Connery?!? Isn’t Darrell still in the building tonight?
— Seeing a Barbara Walters and Sean Connery portrayal as part of a split-screen sex-related late night phone conversation with Star Jones reminds me of the cold opening from the season 24 Ray Romano episode, where, at one point, we see a split-screen phone sex conversation between Cheri Oteri’s Barbara Walters and Darrell’s Sean Connery.
— Okay, they are overdoing THE HELL out of Kenan’s deep-voiced angry outbursts every time the phone rings. It stopped being funny after the first time. They seem to be relying heavily on it to mask the lack of any actual funny material during the scenes with Star and her closeted husband.
— Another SNL writer who’s always a welcome sight: J.B. Smoove!
— Damn, it turns out that not even J.B. Smoove can save this weak sketch. His scene sadly fell flat. This sketch is a bust.
STARS: *½

YOU CALL THIS A HOUSE DO YA?
squalid Irish home receives a makeover

— I remember when this episode originally aired, the RTE 2 station identification at the beginning of this sketch made me initially think SNL was strangely going to attempt a Top O’ The Morning sketch WITHOUT Jimmy Fallon, given the fact that those Top O’ The Morning sketches always opened with the exact same RTE 2 station identification, right down to the exact same quivery Irish-accented voice-over from Steve Higgins. This turns out to be a new Irish TV show sketch starring Seth.
— I like the idea of this sketch’s concept, and it’s a decent way to parody the craze of home makeover shows from this time period.
— The fast-motion renovation scene is hilarious.
— I’m enjoying the wild ending fight in the background between Liam and Rob while Seth is wrapping up the show.
STARS: ***½

DR. PORKENHEIMER’S BONER JUICE
— Rerun from 10/2/04.
— The ending from the original airing of this commercial, in which we see Rob “pitching a tent” under the bedsheets while Amy says to the camera “My guy? Yeah, he’s happy with his boner”, has been completely re-edited to now show Amy saying that line while Rob is simply standing behind her with his arm lovingly around her.

In other words, the original ending bit with Rob “pitching a tent” has been replaced with a much tamer and non-comedic bit. Did somebody at NBC complain about the “pitching a tent” visual being too risque?

PARROT
(host)’s date with Phoebe (RAD) is disrupted by her large parrot (FRA)

— I remember absolutely LOVING this sketch back in 2004 when it originally aired, back in the days when Fred could do no wrong for me.
— Fred is so spot-on and funny in his imitation of a parrot.
— Even the bird poop ending made me laugh.
— Overall, a pretty fun sketch, but to be honest, I don’t find this anywhere NEAR as classic as I used to. The writing for this sketch seemed pretty thin after a while, but Fred’s performance made this sketch work.
STARS: ***½

WAKE UP SAN DIEGO
theme music entrances presenters (host) & (MAR)

— There goes Maya doing that lean-all-the-way-back-in-a-staccato-manner dance move in YET ANOTHER sketch. I lost count of the number of sketches she’s done it in over the years, but the point I want to make is, it was only funny to me the first time, in that MTV Spring Break sketch from season 27.
— I got a minor laugh from Maya’s casual passing mention of having been through an identity theft and kidnapping.
— Blah, I see where this sketch is going (Maya and Liam constantly getting up and dancing to EVERY instrumental that plays on the show), and I don’t like it. This feels like the type of Maya Rudolph/James Anderson collaboration piece that I typically never like. (If I’m correct about Anderson being the writer behind this sketch, then I bet if he had done this sketch nowadays, he would’ve had Cecily Strong in Maya’s role. And I typically dislike the collaboration pieces Cecily often does with Anderson as well.)
— Much like the constant dancing, Maya and Liam constantly asking Chris as the stage manager what song just played is also not working for me. I did kinda get a laugh, though, from one of Chris’ answers, about one of the instrumentals being from a Starbucks CD.
— Overall, this sketch got almost no laughs from me.
STARS: *½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Float On”

WEEKEND UPDATE
John Ashcroft (DAH) rues failure to implement more unconstitutional ideas

TIF & AMP use Barbie dolls to re-create Tara Reid’s wardrobe malfunction

college student (SEM) makes excuses for missing presidential election

TIF & AMP perform their critically-panned song “The Party’s Cancelled”

deaf comic Ritchie B’s (FRA) interpreter (KET) nixes jokes about blacks

— Darrell’s John Ashcroft impression hasn’t appeared in years. Hell, Will Ferrell was still on the show regularly playing Bush the last time Darrell’s Ashcroft appeared, just to show you how long it’s been.
— Darrell’s Ashcroft commentary started slow, but his list of ideas is getting funnier the more absurd it’s getting.
— Uh-oh. We get our first of a few instances throughout the Fey/Poehler era in which Tina and Amy both use freakin’ Barbie dolls to re-enact an entire news story, which irked some online SNL fans during these years, including myself. My complaint about these Fey/Poehler Barbie bits, besides the fact that I don’t find them remotely funny, is that they seem too “inside” for my likes, as if they’re just an excuse for Tina and Amy to freely and childishly goof around with each other on the air with the use of Barbie dolls under the guise of a news story re-enactment, and try to amuse themselves more than the audience, even though, yes, the audience seems to be enjoying tonight’s Barbie piece, and yes, I’m well aware there are viewers who would enjoy this too. This type of stuff just isn’t for me, though, and I know I am not alone.
— Seth attempts a new character.
— As I mentioned in my review of Seth’s Update commentary as himself from the season 28 Nia Vardalos episode, his Update character in tonight’s episode feels like a variation of an Update commentary Will Ferrell once did as a fratboy giving his thoughts on the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, only Seth isn’t as good at pulling off this type of character as Ferrell was. As I also mentioned in the afore-linked review, Seth’s Update commentary from that episode briefly mentions a quarterback at his old high school named Doug Stradley, which happens to be the name of the fratboy character Seth is playing in tonight’s Update commentary.
— Yikes, a lot of Tina and Amy’s jokes tonight are fucking awful, even moreso than usual. That Special Olympics Robbery joke from Amy just now was particularly lame.
— Oh, geez. ANOTHER side segment with Tina and Amy tonight, with them now breaking out into a party song. Ugh, this bit is awful, pointless, and, much like the Barbie dolls bit, too self-indulgent for my likes.
— Fred debuts his newest of many Update stand-up comedian characters.
— I wonder if Fred’s sign language throughout this commentary is real. Probably not, but he’s doing such a great job of making it look real. Kinda like how Bill Hader can make his Italian gibberish in the Vinny Vedecci sketches sound real.
— Kenan’s taken-aback reaction to Fred’s racist joke about Adam and Eve not being black is very funny.
— This character from Fred is great, and Kenan is a perfect foil here.
— Overall, this was the second episode in a row with an unusually long and jam-packed Update. I remember around the time tonight’s episode originally aired, an online SNL fan who, much like me, didn’t like the Fey/Poehler era of Update, had a theory that SNL themselves weren’t happy with the way the Fey/Poehler Updates had been going this season so far, and this online SNL fan’s evidence of that was the fact that SNL started “frontloading” episodes around this time (“frontloading” meaning when a majority of the sketches in an episode are placed in the pre-Update half, causing Update to be buried in a later timeslot than usual) and also started padding Update with a large and lengthy amount of guest commentaries in an apparent attempt to mask the awfulness of Tina and Amy’s jokes (this is the same method Dick Ebersol previously used in the second half of season 7 to mask how terrible the anchors’ jokes were on Update, or SNL Newsbreak as it was called that season). As much as I’d like to think that people at SNL were indeed of the opinion that the new Fey/Poehler era of Update was really not working and needed some serious help, I highly doubt it. I’m sure Lorne was fully aware that the media and general SNL audience were eating up the Fey/Poehler Update duo. I seem to be in a small minority of SNL fans who feel that the Fey/Poehler era of Update is terrible.
STARS: **

APPALACHIAN EMERGENCY ROOM
bumpkins explain origins of medical crises

— I recall hearing that the Ben Affleck episode from earlier this season attempted a variation of Appalachian Emergency Room, called Appalachian Police Station, but it got cut after dress rehearsal.
— Wow, not even Amy’s usual hilarious delivery of her exit line got much laughs from tonight’s audience. I’d like to think the preceding terrible Weekend Update killed the energy of tonight’s audience, but again, I know that’s not true.
— Ha, I absolutely LOVE Rob’s look as a redneck. He’s also doing a great redneck voice to go along with it.
— Hmm, much like Amy’s exit line earlier in this sketch, the ending of Rob and Liam’s scene surprisingly received complete silence from the audience.
— What’s with Seth flubbing his greeting to Chris’ character?
— Wow, it turns out the audience is absolutely dead during this ENTIRE sketch. There is little-to-no reaction from them during ALL of this sketch’s gags (“Rightfully so”, I’m sure any of you readers who don’t like these sketches are thinking to yourselves), which is unusual compared to how responsive SNL’s audiences were in previous Appalachian Emergency Room installments. Maybe tonight’s Weekend Update really did kill the crowd’s energy after all.
— Okay, Chris’ car alarm trick (where he manages to activate his car’s alarm with the car keys stuck up his rectum by just simply moving his body in a certain way) woke the dead audience up for a moment.
— Overall, I usually like Appalachian Emergency Room, but tonight’s installment felt off, and not just because of the dead audience.
STARS: **

DRUG-SNIFFING DOG
stoner (host) tries to persuade cop (CHP) to loan him a drug-sniffing dog

— Given the tidbit I just shared about a cut-after-dress Appalachian Emergency Room variation that was set at a police station, it’s funny how the sketch that immediately follows tonight’s Appalachian Emergency Room sketch is a sketch that takes place at a police station.
— I already like this premise, with Liam’s harebrained scheme to borrow a police station’s drug-sniffing dog to find his lost weed at home.
— So many funny lines from Liam in his various absurd made-up stories, especially the one about his son not wanting any cops at their house because he watched footage of the Rodney King beating on A&E.
— In the past (as seen here in the original 2004 review I did for this episode back when it first aired), I felt that Liam’s wooden-ness dragged this sketch down, but I can appreciate his very low-key energy more now, even though I can’t help but kinda wonder if another host would’ve brought a little more to Liam’s role in this sketch.
— Chris, as always, is absolutely perfect as a deadpan straight man.
— Wow, it feels like Kenan has appeared in almost EVERY single sketch tonight. I’m pretty happy for him, after how very underused he was in the first three episodes of this season.
— The little kid running around the characters seated on the couch reminds me of Amy’s Kaitlin character whenever she runs around in circles repeatedly shouting “Rick!”
— Good ending.
— Overall, not only was this a solid sketch and not only was there something about it that felt refreshingly different for this SNL period, but this will probably end up standing out as one of the best sketches of this overall weak season.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ocean Breathes Salty”

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— This episode was a bit on the forgettable side, despite a solid 10-to-1 sketch, a fairly fun Irish home makeover sketch, and two memorable and well-liked-among-SNL-fans-back-in-2004 Fred Armisen pieces (Parrot, deaf comedian). There was just too much typical season 30 badness surrounding those positive aspects of this episode. I hate to say it, but my god, this young season is now 0-for-5 so far in episodes that I like. This is insane. In all 30 seasons I’ve covered so far in this SNL project of mine, I have never dealt with a season starting off with THIS long of a losing streak until now.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kate Winslet)
a mild step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Luke Wilson / U2