March 12, 2005 – David Spade / Jack Johnson (S30 E14)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

STEWART RELEASE
Martha Stewart (DAS) addresses her employees after getting out of prison

— Right out of the gate, it’s good to see the underused Rob Riggle get a bit of a laugh from the audience just from his smug news anchor-type smile after signing on at the beginning of this.
— The banter between Rob and Amy is making me laugh.
— Ha, strangely fitting casting of David Spade as Martha Stewart. By the way, it’s good to see David on SNL again, especially during trying times like season 30.
— I love how David is playing Martha in a very David Spade way. It’s working here.
— David-as-Martha’s reaction to Maya sneaking up on her made me laugh a lot.
— This is surprisingly David’s first time ever delivering a solo “Live from New York…”. He previously said it (well, just the “night” part of the phrase) in unison with the rest of the cast and Steve Martin in the legendary Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight cold opening.
— Pretty good opening overall. Right out of the gate, I’m sensing a much better and more fun vibe in tonight’s episode than I got from the entire Hilary Swank suckfest of an episode that preceded this.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
DAS answers audience questions about his role in Capital One commercials

— David reveals that an SNL “Best Of” special for himself will be airing later in the year and he humorously says he’s only hosting tonight because SNL is two sketches short for his “Best Of”.
— 15 years after this episode, I now strangely no longer have any memory of David’s Capital One ads from this period.
— I can’t help but feel this monologue is a waste of David (why not just let him do stand-up?), but it’s still funny enough.
— The questions-from-the-audience monologue from both Topher Grace’s episode and tonight’s episode makes me realize how fun and likable a lot of this season’s writers come off when appearing onscreen, especially John Lutz, Liz Cackowski, J.B. Smoove, and, of course, Jason Sudeikis (the latter of whom actually isn’t in tonight’s monologue, unfortunately). How can a season with fun writers like this have such poor writing?
— SNL writer Matt Piedmont looks eerily like Dana Carvey here (the second-to-last above screencap for this monologue).
— Paula Pell’s bit was an odd way of setting up David saying the usual “We got a great show, (insert musical guest here) is here, stick around– etc.”, but it strangely kinda worked for me.
STARS: ***

ART DEALERS
(DAS) & (RAD) are weirded out by hospitality overtures of Nuni & Nuni

— Like last time, some fun visuals of the Nunis’ eccentric furniture and the like.
— Some of the repeated bits from the first Nuni sketch, such as the Nunis clarifying to their visitors how to differentiate the pronunciation of their respective name, are ALREADY starting to get a little old for me, but haven’t completely worn out their welcome for me yet. By the third installment of this sketch later this season, however, I’m sure I’ll have officially gotten tired of it.
— Chris is always funny as the shy butler in these sketches.
— I love Chris entering the room wearing multiple bras while asking “Who wants milk?”
— David’s a good straight man here, as no surprise.
STARS: ***

ABC
new TV dramas Deaf Judge (SEM) & Idiot Doctor (DAS) follow Blind Justice

— The Deaf Judge bit started out okay, but the second scene with him didn’t do much for me.
— I love David’s performance as “Idiot Doctor”, though his scene ended weakly.
STARS: **½

STUNT DOUBLE
stuntwoman (AMP) stands in for DAS on the set of a Vin Diesel (HOS) movie

— A funny eventual reveal that it’s Vin Diesel who Horatio is playing.
— I’ve always liked this sketch so much that I won’t let Horatio’s obligatory instance of cracking up at himself right now taint my review of this.
— Vin Diesel: “I do all my own stunts.” David: “(in a disinterested manner while walking away from Vin) Yeah, great. Who does your acting?”
— David: “Zippety-do-dah, mother-humpers!”
— A fun and very amusing sketch so far.
— I particularly love the ridiculous part with Amy gleefully and girlishly swinging on a wrecking ball while saying things like “Wheeee! I’m David Spaaaade!”
— Vin Diesel: “You know, on The Chronicles Of Riddick, I fought fire monsters.” David: “Yeah, I know, Vin. We all read about that in Who Cares Magazine.” This sketch has some great snarky one-liners that fit David’s style so well that you’d think he wrote this sketch himself.
— Solid ending.
STARS: ****½

WOOMBA
— Rerun from 12/18/04.
— Weird hearing Tina’s ending line about “the little pink robot that cleans your noonie” in the same episode that a Nuni sketch appeared in.

HOLDING CELL
overmatched (DAS) tries making (ROR) his bitch in a suburban holding cell

— Fun characterization from David here.
— A good way to get mileage out of the huge size difference between David and Rob.
— Despite the one-note homoerotic premise, which is YET ANOTHER example of this season’s bad hyperfocus on hacky gay humor, David’s performance is making this sketch work. Even his mere physical mannerisms each time he slowly walks over towards Rob is adding a lot to the humor.
— Wow, that ending was awful. How was Rob just saying “Well… thank god that’s over with” supposed to be a way to end a sketch? A possible explanation for the shoddiness of this ending is the fact that this was apparently a last-minute change to this sketch. Reruns of this episode would replace this sketch with the dress rehearsal version, which has a completely different ending. Unfortunately, I can’t remember that ending too well. I think it might have Kenan and Rachel’s security guard characters proceeding to put the moves on Rob’s character after David spent the whole sketch doing that exact same thing. Hmm, not sure that’s any better than the awful ending from the live version.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing”

WEEKEND UPDATE
AMP recounts feud between 50 Cent & The Game in her Hip-Hop Breakdown

Jorge Rodriguez lists problems he encountered while preparing his taxes

— Oh my fucking god. After doing her weekly joke about Michael Jackson being a pedophile (she ain’t no Norm Macdonald when it comes to that type of joke, I’ll just say that), Tina actually CONGRATULATES herself on her “witty” punchline. Ugh. That’s the return of a terrible habit she previously had for a short while towards the end of season 28, and I was hoping she left it there.
— At least tonight’s audience didn’t keep interrupting Amy by laughing when she merely says “Fiddy Cent”, unlike the last time she did a joke where she says that name.
— Hmm, “Amy Poehler’s Hip-Hop Breakdown”? I can’t help but be VERY wary of this segment, but I’ll give it a shot and see how it goes.
— Aaaaaaaaaand, as no surprise to anyone who knows how I feel about the Fey/Poehler era of Update, it turns out that I hated the “Amy Poehler’s Hip-Hop Breakdown” segment. I at least tried to go into it with an open mind, but it just turned out to be a typical display of unfunny Fey/Poehler self-indulgence, and also felt like a variation of an unfunny Update segment Tina and Amy did earlier this season where they act out an incident with 50 Cent on a plane with a terrorist.
— OH, NO. Not the return of Horatio’s tepid Jorge Rodriguez character from the preceding season’s Lindsay Lohan episode. Geez, the return of this character is so half-assed that even the graphic of his name on the bottom of the screen accidentally misspelled his last name (screencap below).

— Feels kinda odd seeing Jorge Rodriguez not playing off of Jimmy Fallon like he did last time he appeared.
— Ugh, like last time, there goes Jorge Rodriguez’s endless listing off of an endless number of things. How the hell is this supposed to be funny?
— I hate myself for actually laughing at Horatio’s way of comically over-pronouncing the “p” in “receipts”.
— Amy’s exasperation during Jorge’s endless listing off of things mirrors my attitude during this commentary.
— And there goes the exact same turn in the last Jorge Rodriguez commentary, where he reveals “I’m looking for Pepe. Anyone seen him?”
— Feels weird in retrospect seeing a cyberbullying mention as early as 2005. I thought the term “cyberbullying” didn’t exist until around 2010. Maybe 2010 was just when cyberbullying incidents started becoming more widespread and more talked-about.
— When this episode originally aired, I remember being disappointed that we ended up getting no Hollywood Minute commentary from David. Am I remembering correctly that it was eventually revealed that a Hollywood Minute commentary actually got cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal?
STARS: **

SEAN PENN’S CELEBRITY ROAST
Sean Penn’s (SEM) humorlessness dooms his roast of Clint Eastwood (DAH)

— Oh, back when this season originally aired, I recall this being a particularly popular sketch among a lot of online SNL fans (myself included), who considered this one of the better sketches of this troubled season. Since this sketch is a parody of such a topical incident with Sean Penn at that year’s Oscars, I’m curious to see if this sketch will still hold up after all these years.
— The depressing punchline to the “A man so black….” joke that Seth’s Sean Penn tells about Bernie Mac is absolutely hilarious.
— I see what Kenan’s going for with his Bernie Mac impression, but ehhh, I’ve seen much better imitations of Mac’s voice. Kenan’s impression is passable enough for this sketch, though.
— Seth’s doing a solid imitation of Penn’s extremely dour, humorless demeanor from that year’s Oscars.
— Fred’s George Carlin impression is slaying me.
— I remember it being pointed out that the prosthetic nose David’s wearing as Owen Wilson has actually been designed to look like a realistic penis, complete with a penis head and a dorsal vein (screencap below, though you might have to enlarge even the full-sized version of it to see the details of the nose better).

— I absolutely howled at the cutaway to Seth’s Penn staring at the camera with an EXTREMELY un-amused, deadpan facial expression (the ninth above screencap for this sketch) after Darrell’s Clint Eastwood does a spit-take in reaction to a dirty joke from David’s Owen Wilson.
— I love Rob-as-Larry-The-Cable-Guy’s delivery of “For cryin’ out loud, you were Spicoli!”
— Seth-as-Sean-Penn’s sign-off towards viewers: “Goodnight… and how DARE you?”
— Overall, it turns out this sketch definitely still holds up for me, and I definitely still consider this one of the better sketches of this troubled season.
STARS: ****½

UPS GUY
UPS guy (DAS) is shot down after asking receptionist (RAD) out on a date

— I really like the structure to this sketch, as well as the slow build-up throughout this. There’s an old-school-SNL feel to this that I like. Doesn’t feel like a typical season 30 sketch at all (which actually can be said about a lot of tonight’s sketches).
— David getting increasingly unsettling in his flirtations with Rachel with each passing day is great.
— I like the subversion right now, with the “Saturday” scene unexpectedly turning out to just be a cleaning lady (Maya) vacuuming Rachel’s currently-unoccupied office, and how the “Sunday” scene features various cleaning ladies partying in Rachel’s still-unoccupied office.
— An SNL crew member’s voice keeps being heard during the scene transitions throughout this sketch (I heard her distinctly say “Stand by” at one point), especially right after the scene of Maya’s cleaning lady character vacuuming the office.
— I love Rachel aggravatedly revealing to David that her name is actually Mary, after he’s been calling her Erica all throughout this sketch.
— I get the feeling a lot of people don’t care for the ending with the building explosion being represented by a tiny model building, but I really liked it. Then again, I’m often a sucker for whenever SNL uses cheap-looking tiny model toys to represent something happening to a building or house (e.g. the Tales Of The Runaway Boulder sketch from season 15’s Robert Wagner episode).
STARS: ****½

JINGLE SINGERS
repertoire of married singers (DAS) & (MAR) comprises commercial jingles

— Oh, no. This looks to be a specific type of “Maya Rudolph Singing Sketch” that I recall SNL doing a lot around this point of the season, and I recall HATING back when they originally aired. (I remember saying to myself back in 2005 that Maya Rudolph Singing Sketches were to this troubled season what Chris Farley Yelling Sketches were to the troubled season 20.) They’re usually James Anderson-written sketches in which Maya plays a washed-up lounge singer-type of character, sometimes a lounge singer-type duo with her and the host. (That being said, I’m not 100% sure if Anderson wrote the particular sketch that I’m currently reviewing, but it’d put money on it that he did. He would also later write a lounge singer duo sketch with Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm in 2010, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s written a lounge singer sketch for Cecily Strong in more recent years.)
— The name of Maya’s character in this sketch, C.C., is awfully similar to the name of her character, T.T., in that The Best Of T.T. & Mario sketch from just a few episodes prior, which also just so happened to be a James Anderson-written(I think) Maya Rudolph Singing Sketch. I actually like that sketch, though.
— Blah, I don’t care AT ALL for the comedic conceit of this sketch, with Maya and David’s songs being old commercial jingles of theirs.
— Maya’s “funny” singing in this is annoying to me. I’m starting to think I was correct when I said in my last episode review that we’ve officially entered the point of this season where I recall Maya’s frequent singing in sketches starting to hurt the show.
— Overall, not a single laugh from me during this sketch. Leave it to a damn Maya Rudolph Singing Sketch to break the streak of solid sketches in tonight’s episode.
STARS: *

BEAR CITY
by T. Sean Shannon- an anthropomorphic ursine uses the toilet

— Good gag, especially the funny visual of the non-handicapped bear desperately trying to hide when a handicapped bear is peeking into the handicapped stall that the non-handicapped bear is using.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & G. Love [real] perform “Mudfootball”

DIRTBALL AND BURNOUT CONVENTION
redneck (DAS) touts the attractions of the Dirtball & Burnout Convention

— Yet another great role for David tonight, basically playing a variation of Joe Dirt. Some places claim David is playing Joe Dirt in this sketch, but the name of David’s character is never said in the sketch, and the hair is kinda different from Joe Dirt’s hair.
— I love all the redneck convention events David is touting.
— Surprisingly, this is Tina’s FOURTH appearance tonight. Hell, FIFTH if you count the Woomba rerun. Either way, this has got to be an all-time record for most appearances she’s made in a single episode during her tenure as a cast member.
— Such a fun sketch, and a great way to work in almost the entire cast. Even Horatio’s typically-hammy antics made me smile.
— Darrell’s Skeeter character makes another random appearance!
— A funny gaffe where Darrell’s not able to open the beer bottle top like he’s supposed to, then he ad-libs an amused “Some other time!” towards the camera.
STARS: ****

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode, a lot of strong sketches (some of which are the best of this season), and David Spade’s mere presence seemed to inject this ailing season with a lot of much-needed fun and energy. Not only is this episode a huge turnaround from the dreadful Hilary Swank episode that preceded this, but it’s a breath of fresh air for this season in general. Easily one of the best episodes of this season, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up with the highest rating average out of all my reviews this season, though the Paul Giamatti episode has gotta be up there too.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Hilary Swank)
a huge step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Ashton Kutcher