Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE PAPAL DEBATE
Cardinals & Al Sharpton (KET) campaign to become Pontiff in papal debate
— Hmm. Considering this season’s terrible track record with political debate sketches, I can’t say I have high expectations for THIS, even if it’s just a papal debate and not an actual presidential one.
— Why in the world is Kenan doing a facepalm in the opening group shot of his Al Sharpton and all the cardinals together (the second above screencap for this cold opening)? Kenan’s facepalm doesn’t appear to be in character (his Al Sharpton has no shame in randomly being included in this papal debate), and I don’t think Kenan’s even aware that he’s onscreen during this part of the sketch. Is something bothering Kenan in real life that we don’t know about?
— Yeesh, a big gaffe almost right out of the damn gate in this cold opening when Darrell’s Tim Russert introduces Kenan’s Sharpton: instead of cutting to Kenan’s Sharpton, the camera oddly cuts to one of the grizzled old cardinals and displays his name on the bottom of the screen, then awkwardly and slowly pans over to Kenan’s Al Sharpton sitting next to him. Oops. What happened there? Did Darrell accidentally introduce Kenan’s Sharpton too early, forgetting to introduce the old cardinal who the camera cut to before awkwardly panning over to Kenan?
— A decent opening spiel from Kenan’s Sharpton.
— Blah. All the cutaways to grizzled old cardinals just sitting silently whenever they’re asked a debate question are way too overdone in this cold opening and are not funny.
— After Fred’s old cardinal character gives Darrell’s Russert the finger when asking him “Have you ever seen one of THESE?”, I strangely loved Seth’s (as Fred’s translator) very monotone, cornily-delivered “I’ll bet you have. Yeah, I’ll just bet you have.”
— (*groan*) And now they’re overdoing the hell out of both Fred giving people the finger and teen girls in the fake audience cheering wildly for Will’s young cardinal character. Ugh, this cold opening is DEATH.
— Okay, I admit to getting a laugh just now from Fred holding up his index, middle, and ring fingers together and asking Darrell’s Russert to “read between the lines”.
— Given the fact that he has no lines and has nothing to do here, why is Parnell even in this? It makes no sense, given the fact that the other old cardinals who, like his character, are just silently sitting there the entire time in a grizzled, unresponsive manner, are all played by extras or, in one case, a crew member (SNL’s lighting designer Phil Hymes).
— Jesus Christ, end this cold opening already! This is going on too long for something with such a small cycle of tedious gags.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
host claims that, like female cast members, she was a dork in high school
— Rachel randomly sneaking into the background and laughing awkwardly at Cameron Diaz’s lines is fairly funny.
— Ugh, Maya’s 227 joke was hacky as fuck.
— Only some of the obviously-fake high school photos are making me laugh. I got the biggest laugh from Amy’s particularly horrifying photo.
— Aside from the unibrow and light mustache, Tina’s fake high school photo (the third-to-last above screencap for this monologue) actually resembles a real-life driver’s license photo of hers that I remember her once showing on a talk show (my memory of that photo may be faulty, though, as I haven’t seen it in years).
— Something bugged me about Amy’s overly-cutesy delivery of “Oh my god, do not let Justin see that!” (referring to Cameron’s then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, which may have been intentional foreshadowing of a certain cameo we’re getting later tonight). Same reason her cutesy delivery on Weekend Update this season always bugs me. I still can’t believe this is the same Amy Poehler from the brilliant Upright Citizens Brigade sketch comedy show on Comedy Central. That daring show would look down on the cutesiness and audience-pandering that Amy’s been doubling down on during this season of SNL.
STARS: **½
EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION
wife’s (host) illness is a boon for (CHP)
— An interesting time capsule of how annoyingly prevalent the constantly-shirtless and constantly-yelling-through-a-bullhorn Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was back in this era. Seth’s portrayal of him here is pretty funny.
— Some good laughs from Chris always downplaying how terminally ill Cameron is, and refusing to tell her what exactly her ailment is.
— Chris’ performance is fun in this sketch. A dad role that Chris actually gets to cut loose in, for once. For some reason, I can imagine Beck Bennett playing this role if this sketch had been performed in more modern times instead of in 2005.
— Some good dark humor from all the vague hints of Cameron’s illness, and Cameron’s increasingly rattled reactions to that.
— Very weak ending with all the listing-offs of Extreme Makeover spin-offs and YET ANOTHER tired display of crying from the guy who Fred is playing.
STARS: ***½
TV FUNHOUSE
by RBS- glasses make Michael Jackson see Webster while dating Tara Reid
— Believe it or not, this is the first TV Funhouse since way back in December of this season. That’s a FOUR MONTH GAP. This has got to be the longest gap between TV Funhouse cartoons on SNL up to this point in SNL’s timeline.
— Our final installment of TV Funhouse’s Hanna-Barbera-esque Michael Jackson series of cartoons. Interesting how these MJ cartoons have only had three installments total, yet they spanned over NINE years, from 1996-2005.
— Funny gag with a little boy being placed on a windowsill like a hot pie, and Michael Jackson then floating in the air towards the boy when he gets a whiff.
— For some reason, the voice for Michael Jackson’s long-white-haired lawyer reminds me of Lorne.
— Not caring for the gag with MJ vomiting for an extended amount of time after hearing he has to date an adult female.
— Great bit about special glasses that make celebrities’ significant other look like what they find most attractive.
— MJ’s idea of Webster at his peak being 1983 B.P. (Before Pubes) was so wrong, but so funny. A lot of people nowadays are going to groan and cringe at all of these now-dated Michael Jackson pedophile jokes, but I’m not bothered when those jokes are actually done/delivered well in my view, such as in this TV Funhouse and in Norm Macdonald’s old Weekend Updates, and NOT in Tina’s Update jokes from this season.
— I love MJ repeatedly babbling “mama-say-mama-sa-mama-coosa” when he’s going through a nervous breakdown.
— I got a good laugh from the ending where, after Webster puts on what he thinks are the special glasses (the aforementioned ones that make people appear more attractive to you) and happily says the glasses make MJ now look like a hot chick, MJ’s lawyer tells the other characters “I don’t have the heart to tell him those are regular eyeglasses.”
STARS: ****
THE BARRY GIBB TALK SHOW
Robin Gibb (Justin Timberlake) & Ann Coulter (Drew Barrymore) on liberals
— Wow, what’s going on? Not only does this one-off Barry Gibb Talk Show sketch from the preceding season return out of freakin’ NOWHERE, but with it, we get cameos from Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake, AND Drew Barrymore. All of these cameos seem very random at first (especially Drew), until you remember that, as I mentioned earlier, Justin and Cameron were an item at this time. Jimmy and Drew, on the other hand, are apparently just there because their movie, Fever Pitch is opening around this time. (Ha, remember the short-lived time when Jimmy was convinced that he could have a successful post-SNL career as a movie star? I highly doubt that he, in 2005, saw “late night talk show host” as his true post-SNL calling. Hell, I doubt ANYONE in 2005 saw that as Jimmy’s true post-SNL calling, though I do recall him previously getting some critical acclaim for his guest-hosting of Letterman back in 2003.)
— Feels odd in retrospect to see Horatio playing Governor Bill Richardson this early. Horatio would later make a cameo appearance on SNL as Richardson during the 2007 presidential primaries, when Richardson was in the race. At that time, I had assumed that was the first time Horatio ever played Richardson, and I figured the only reason he cameoed that night to play Richardson was because of the strong resemblance he and Richardson have to each other. I guess I had forgotten about this Barry Gibb Talk Show sketch, though in my defense, I hadn’t yet known who Richardson was back in 2005.
— As much as I loved the first installment of this sketch, this does not work for me as a recurring sketch. This sketch is DEFINITELY near the top of my “Should’ve stayed a one-off” list.
— Not sure Drew Barrymore’s take on Ann Coulter is working for me. Even though Coulter is certainly always ripe for mockery, Drew’s impression of her is too goofy and cartoonish for my likes, as if Drew is acting on a kids show on Nickelodeon or something.
— There goes Justin Timberlake’s obligatory breaking during one of Jimmy-as-Barry-Gibb’s high-pitched rants.
— Jimmy is at least still giving this performance his all, like in the first installment of this sketch.
— All throughout this sketch, you can hear tons of wild teen girl screams for Jimmy and Justin (which is ironically the exact kind of thing SNL was mocking in the Papal Debate cold opening earlier tonight whenever Will’s young cardinal character was shown). All of the teen girl screams throughout this Barry Gibb sketch are giving me bad flashbacks to the infamous Josh Hartnett episode from season 27.
STARS: **
HOTEL
new manager (CHP) wants to improve the rating of a seedy one-star hotel
— Cameron is overacting here, and it’s kinda grating.
— Ugh at Fred’s predictable line about him also being a prostitute.
— Cameron has been flubbing quite a lot of lines throughout tonight’s episode.
— Didn’t care for the turn at the end with Darrell’s wealthy character.
— The meta Don Pardo-announced “Accommodations for guests of Saturday Night Live are provided by…” ending seems to be an intentional throwback to the days when SNL would regularly show a Don Pardo-announced “Accommodations for most guests of Saturday Night Live are provided by…” promo towards the end of every episode. (They stopped doing those promos somewhere around the mid-90s, I think.)
— Overall, did not care at all for this sketch as a whole. Almost no laughs from me.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams”
WEEKEND UPDATE
newlyweds Prince Charles (SEM) & Camilla Parker Bowles (FRA) try to kiss
TIF’s ex JIF exercises visitation rights in Dramatic Weekend Update Play
— Amy’s corny-ass Al Gore joke was groanworthy.
— OH FUCKING NO. The return of Seth and Fred’s Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, which you might recall I absolute despised the last time they appeared on Update. Oh, and as an added “bonus”, we get Rob Riggle being wasted in yet another poor non-speaking role.
— Hmm, Rob turns out to have some lines after all.
— For once, this SNL era actually shows restraint from doing YET ANOTHER man-on-man kiss for a cheap, unnecessary laugh, by comically faking us out when it seemed like Seth and Fred were indeed going to kiss each other here. I somewhat give credit to SNL for this restraint, but I still didn’t care AT ALL for tonight’s overall Charles/Camilla commentary.
— Hey, a Fey/Poehler-era Update joke that actually really works for me, with their meta sphincter-bleaching/Happy Birthday bit to Rachel Dratch. I loved that.
— Oof. Of course, right after Tina and Amy’s actually-funny meta joke about Rachel, Amy IMMEDIATELY follows it up with a particularly awful joke. Ugh.
— Man, tonight’s terrible Update jokes are destroying me.
— Hmm, we’re getting an “A Dramatic Weekend Update Play” segment.
— This is only the second-ever instance of the Update tradition of a tree frog joke always getting interrupted by something.
— A very fun mock-dramatic play with Jimmy tensely returning to the Update set as if he’s Tina’s ex-husband making a visit.
— I love the reveal that Jimmy and Tina have a son together. Also, great detail with the son having Jimmy’s trademark messy hair and Tina’s trademark glasses.
— A huge laugh from the son angrily telling Jimmy “I hate Taxi!”
— Now we get a very funny reveal of the son’s name being Lorne. Am I correct in remembering that the series of shorts SNL would later do with Kyle Mooney and Leslie Jones in a relationship with each other would ALSO have their son named Lorne, or am I remembering wrong?
— This overall “A Dramatic Weekend Update Play” segment was EASILY one of the better things to come out of this dreary season of Update, and bumps my rating for tonight’s otherwise-awful Update up a full star.
STARS: **½
WOO! THE MUSICAL
Woo! The Musical features scenes of collegians’ spring break experiences
— Blah, I do not care for this premise.
— Bad timing with the blurring on Cameron when she flashes her chest, as the blurring first shows up too late, mistakenly letting us see that Cameron’s wearing a flesh-colored bra, then the blurring oddly stays onscreen after Cameron runs out of the scene (which I get the feeling she wasn’t supposed to do, thus explaining why the blurring stayed onscreen). This is actually the second time tonight where SNL was late on their cue to blur something out, as the first of many instances of Fred giving someone the finger in the Papal Debate cold opening was blurred out too late, accidentally revealing that Fred is actually just holding up his index finger. These blur gaffes are yet another example of how so many things about this season of SNL feel so sloppy and are such a mess.
— Will and Fred’s scene is YET ANOTHER display of season 30 homoerotic humor for cheap, unnecessary laughs. Way to waste my two favorite cast members of this season, SNL. At least this ended up being tonight’s SECOND instance of SNL faking us out of a man-on-man kiss, with Will and Fred leaning in for a kiss, then refraining. Weird how both man-on-man kiss fake-outs tonight involved Fred.
— And there goes season 30’s obligatory weekly instance of Maya singing.
— The running bit throughout this sketch with the newspaper critic “reviews” never actually critiquing the play was pretty funny at first, but got old after a while.
STARS: *½
SOFA WAREHOUSE
deliverymen (KET) & (FIM) try to dissuade (host) from buying a sofa bed
— Not sure if this is intentional, but this sketch kinda feels to me like a follow-up of sorts to the Martin Luther King Day sketch from this season’s Topher Grace episode, as both sketches have Kenan and Finesse paired together as co-workers who refuse to do their job. I wonder if SNL indeed intended these to be the same characters.
— Like the aforementioned MLK Day sketch, Kenan and Finesse make a fun duo here, and there are some laughs from all the ways they try to convince Cameron why she shouldn’t buy the sofa bed.
— Cameron flubs YET ANOTHER line tonight.
— Ugh, Cameron’s delivery of her angry rant is terrible, as she is, once again tonight, overacting badly. Between this and her fairly constant line flubs, she’s almost single-handedly hurting this otherwise funny sketch for me.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Holiday”
SPY GLASS
Desperate Housewives correspondent (host) joins in the pun
— Never realized before how catchy this recurring sketch’s opening theme music is. I picked too late to start getting into that theme music, though, as this ends up being the final Spy Glass sketch.
— Even for this sketch’s standards, Amy seems to be making her already-established character a little TOO cutesy in tonight’s installment, with the way she followed her Nick Lachey/Jessica Simpson news item by making cartoonish “OOOOooooOOOH!” sounds into the camera, which she never did in previous installments of this sketch, while mugging the camera more than usual. That just further proves a point I made earlier in this episode review when I complained about how Amy’s been doubling down on the annoying cutesiness and audience-pandering this season.
— As always, some really solid bad puns delivered expertly by Seth.
— Yeah, Amy is continuing to make those overly-cutesy, cartoonish “OOOOooooOOOH!”-type sounds all throughout tonight’s Spy Glass installment. I’m not caring for that new addition to this recurring sketch, even if it does fit the tone of Amy’s character.
— Wow, the audience is absolutely DEAD during Cameron’s entire scene.
— Horatio’s British Gene Shalit usually works for me in these Spy Glass sketches, but even for Shalit standards, Horatio’s going a little TOO over-the-top in tonight’s installment for my likes.
— Glad to see that my recollection of special guest Jimmy Fallon reprising his British Pat O’Brien role in tonight’s Spy Glass sketch was incorrect. Given the fact that the Pat O’Brien phone sex scandal was happening around this time (which is actually mentioned very briefly in passing during this sketch), I’m kinda surprised (though pleasantly so) they refrained from doing anything with Jimmy’s British Pat O’Brien in this sketch.
— Overall, despite a few things I liked, this Spy Glass installment as a whole felt kinda off, and was a disappointing way for this usually-good recurring sketch to go out.
STARS: **½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— (*sigh*) Yet another weak season 30 episode. There were a few good things, but, like the preceding episode, barely any of the good things stood out as particularly strong, and there were way too many lowlights scattered all throughout the show. Cameron Diaz was also disappointing in this hosting stint of hers. She had always been known to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm in her previous hosting stints, which is usually at least charming, but her energy and enthusiasm tonight crossed over into bad overacting territory, which annoyed me, as did her constant line-flubbing. You’d hardly guess she was a three-time hosting veteran by this point.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ashton Kutcher)
about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Tom Brady