Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
IRAQ PRESS CONFERENCE
Prime Minister al-Maliki (FRA) indicates Iraq is even worse than it seems
— It certainly feels quite odd seeing Will standing across from Jason’s President Bush, considering Jason had recently started replacing Will in that role.
— Oh, god, a translator cold opening? I see Jim Downey strikes once again.
— Yeah, Downey’s dry comedic style is all over Will’s dialogue. This is the type of dryness that worked in spades back in Downey’s prime, but in these later, past-his-prime years of Downey’s tenure, especially in damn translator cold openings, that dry style is often a slog to get through, despite some occasional genuine laughs in tonight’s cold opening, like the flashlights line, and the line about a mouse bomb blowing a guy’s toe off.
STARS: **
MONOLOGUE
floundering Michael Richards (BIH) wants to share SNL gig with host
— The SNL nerd in me has to nitpick how, when talking about his Party Of Five co-stars, Matthew Fox claims Jennifer Love Hewitt hosted before Scott Wolf, when it was actually the other way around.
— I like the dark turn with Matthew detailing the downward spiral he went through just from being the odd man out in terms of Party Of Five stars hosting while that show was still on.
— To nitpick even further, Matthew’s technically not even the odd man out in terms of Party Of Five stars hosting. Lacey Chabert, anyone? Maybe they’re not counting her because of how young she was during Party Of Five’s run (though it’s not like SNL hasn’t had children or especially teens host over the years).
— Pretty fun bit with Matthew’s mention of other members of sitcom ensembles who were the odd man out in terms of hosting SNL.
— A killer impression of Michael-Richards-as-Kramer from Bill, on the heels of Michael Richards’ notorious Laugh Factory incident. I remember Bill later disclosing in an interview that he didn’t even have a Kramer impression in his back pocket before the week of this episode. When this monologue was being concocted, an SNL writer (or someone in the show’s staff) just pointed at Bill and told him “You’re Kramer”, presumably because of Bill’s knack for great celebrity impressions, and the writer was adamant about keeping Bill in the role even after Bill explained he doesn’t have a Kramer impression. Bill then had to study Kramer in a whole bunch of Seinfeld clips in order to get the impression down by that weekend. The fact that he only had a few days to put this Kramer impression together makes it all the more impressive how much he’s nailing it here.
STARS: ***½
SALE MART
overworked & underpaid Sale Mart employees pass savings along to customers
— A big laugh from Kenan’s messed-up teeth.
— This is over already?!? This felt too short, and I had been looking forward to seeing this go further with the humor.
STARS: **½
NANCY GRACE
(KET) & (host) refuse to play the victimization game
— The stock theme music that I mentioned in my review of the previous Nancy Grace sketch this season has been replaced with new music tonight. Odd.
— Kenan’s playing a better political talking head straight man here than he played in the O’Reilly Factor sketch from the preceding episode.
— A clever bit with Amy-as-Nancy-Grace’s whole spiel about how, if Michael Richards sued himself, the case would be called Kramer vs. Kramer.
— A good laugh from Amy-as-Grace’s “The only n-word I would call you is ‘nice’” line to Kenan, as well as Kenan’s reaction to that.
— I like the bit with Amy’s Grace acting out how she would’ve reacted to the O.J. Simpson special if she had watched it.
— The “This pen feels lighter” running bit is a weak variation of the “This chair has been moved” running bit from the first Nancy Grace sketch this season.
— The pacing is badly sluggish during Amy-as-Grace’s interview of Matthew’s character. It’s hurting the momentum of this sketch for me.
STARS: ***
DEEP HOUSE DISH
new sidekick T’Shane (ANS) digs (MAR), (host), (AMP)
— Oh, no. SNL has decided to keep these Deep House Dish sketches going even after Rachel Dratch’s departure.
— A fake-out with an “in memoriam” screen being shown for Rachel’s Tiara Zee character (at least I now know she was born the same year I was: 1984), leading us to initially assume SNL killed her off, only for it to be revealed that she’s just dead to Kenan’s character.
— Andy gets the “honors” of being the new Deep House Dish co-host. All this means is we now get to hear an endless, annoying amount of “Ooh-wee, T-Shane!”s instead of “Ooh-wee, Tiara!”s. Oh, gee, what a huge change-up. At least, unlike Tiara and her alleged boring-ness, T-Shane gets called out by Kenan’s character on differing things each time, not that that’s much funnier.
— Maya makes her very first appearance in a Deep House Dish installment (the previous installments were all when she happened to be absent from SNL for maternal reasons), which seems very fitting, as she was born to play singers in these Deep House Dish sketches, and James Anderson (the writer of these sketches) always seems to love writing musical numbers for Maya.
— I like Matthew just dropping his mic and walking off the stage in an aloof, badass manner at the end of his musical performance.
— Amy continues her streak of appearing as a different singer in every single Deep House Dish up to this point.
— Amy’s Cologne For Christmas song at least has a very catchy beat, I admit.
STARS: **
“LOST” THEORIES
in an elevator, Lost fans (FRA), (AMP), (MAR), (KET), (ANS) accost host
— I love Fred’s little smirk when he recognizes Matthew.
— Fred is always good at getting laughs out of roles like this.
— A lot of entertaining and relatable realism in this sketch so far (realism that the cast is pulling off so well), and a good spoof of the Lost craze among people. Even though I’ve never been a Lost viewer myself, I can still follow and enjoy what this sketch is going for, because having to deal with people following the craze for hot TV shows is always relatable, regardless of what show it is.
— I love Andy just smugly saying “Purgatory” as soon as he recognizes Matthew.
— A laugh from Maya casually deciding to lie down on the elevator floor when she’s embarrassed to find out Matthew is married with two children.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Kickapoo”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Jesse Jackson (DAH) & Al Sharpton (KET) propose “Kramer” as new N-word
Aunt Linda is perplexed & perturbed by Borat, Casino Royale, Apocalypto
AMP editorializes against recent trend of ladies’ uncovered naughty bits
Whitney Houston (MAR) is flummoxed by a crank phone call
— This is the first Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton joint Update commentary since the days when Jerry Minor regularly played Sharpton in these commentaries. I prefer Jerry’s take.
— Jackson and Sharpton deciding “Kramer” is the new n-word is pretty funny.
— Geez, Aunt Linda has become recurring ALREADY, after debuting only two episodes prior? I found this character decent in her debut, but this doesn’t seem like it will have legs as a recurring bit.
— Yep, just as I was worried, Aunt Linda’s routine is suffering diminishing returns tonight. I’m especially tired of her ratings system gimmick, which is increasingly coming off more corny than genuinely funny.
— Oh, I have good memories of this straight-to-camera editorial Amy’s doing about the then-current trend of young female celebrities “flashing beav” in public. I recall this being one of Amy’s better pieces from her Update tenure.
— Yep, Amy’s editorial is just as solid as I had remembered. I particularly love her comment about how she remembers the days when a “lady garden” was as big as a slice of New York pizza before turning into an upside-down John Waters mustache. I can’t help but feel like this is material that Tina Fey would’ve delivered back in her prime years of Weekend Update (2000-2002), but Amy is performing it well in her own right, and it’s a refreshing change of pace from her usual Update persona.
— Our first Maya-as-Whitney-Houston Update commentary this season, which I recall going on to appear awfully frequently season, much like Aunt Linda.
— The concept of Maya’s Whitney reacting to a prank phone call is pretty funny, but blah, Maya’s execution of it is far more annoying than funny to me.
STARS: ***
MOUNTAIN MAN
AMP, KRW, MAR, Emily Spivey [real] twist script to make host kiss them
— I’m enjoying the exaggerated goofiness of this sketch so far, especially Amy and Kristen’s accents.
— Oh, I’m liking the fourth-wall break with Kristen’s “discreet” directions to Matthew on how to kiss her in this sketch.
— Ah, now this sketch has FULLY broken the fourth wall, with it being acknowledged that this sketch has been “re-written” to have Matthew do and say a whole bunch of sexual things towards Amy and Kristen. I’m loving this meta turn. Feels kinda like it’s in the tradition of those great fourth-wall-breaking Killer Bees sketches from the original SNL era.
— A very funny brief cutaway to SNL writer Emily Spivey, right after we’re told she wrote herself into the scene.
— Oh, now this has gotten even greater with Maya entering as Lorne, which also proves that just about every SNL cast member can do a spot-on Lorne impression.
STARS: ****½
HISTORY BUFF
home from college, math whiz (ANS) comes out to history buff father (WLF)
— Yet another episode this season where Will barely appears in any sketches. Again, I have to ask, is he busy filming a movie?
— I love Will’s character’s habit of quickly spouting off the birth and/or death dates of historical figures he casually brings up.
— Will’s screaming, glass-shattering outburst when Andy reveals he’s a math whiz is classic Forte.
— Kristen’s over-dramatic, horrified reactions to Andy coming out as a math whiz are great, as is how this then turns into Andy and Will both trying to one-up each other by angrily spouting off random math/history facts to each other.
— I like how Matthew’s random entrance as the professor of the history of math is upping the absurdity of this already-delightfully-absurd sketch.
— Will’s tearful reveal that he never learned to count is absolutely priceless.
— When the family wonders “Who was that strange man?” after Matthew’s character has randomly disappeared, I got a big laugh from Will’s line “I don’t know…..but he stole our television.”
— An overall perfectly executed sketch, and one of my all-time favorite oddball Will Forte sketches.
STARS: *****
THE FIRST CHOCOLATE
dramatized theory blames chocolate for downfall of Mayan civilization
— Given the subject matter of the sketch that preceded this, it’s unintentionally funny how this is a History Channel sketch.
— The premise itself is only mildly funny, but Fred is performing this simplistic material really well. Matthew is pretty good here too. The execution of this sketch is giving it a real charm that’s fun.
— Bill’s whole bit was fantastic.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Metal”; The Metal (Jason Reed) smites genres
— Oh, this is incredible with how most of the SNL cast is getting involved in this performance, with each cast member representing a different genre of music trying to take down heavy metal. One of the most fun and out-of-the-ordinary musical performances in SNL history.
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A fairly solid episode, bolstered by the very strong post-Weekend Update half, which started off with a fantastic one-two punch of the Mountain Man and History Buff sketches, then gave us the charming First Chocolate sketch, and then finished off the show with an absolutely epic cast-involved Tenacious D musical performance.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ludacris)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Annette Bening
I absolutely love this episode. It’s my favorite of the season, and one of my favorites of this ‘06-‘09 era as a whole. Mountain Man, History Buff, and First Chocolate perfectly encapsulate the strengths of Kristen, Will, and Fred respectively. Will’s performance in History Buff is so damn funny, and one of the biggest laughs I’ve gotten out of SNL. The meta breakdown of Mountain Man and the Tenacious D performances almost give it a bit of a ‘70s vibe, back when they’d play around like that more. I also like that Matthew Fox is utilized well, yet it’s very much an episode more for the cast. And the Michael Richards throughline, while unfortunate in its context, is fun since we get to see Bill’s Kramer. I don’t think he ever did it much afterwards.
It’s a shame that the awful cold open and Deep House Dish prevent it from being perfect. It’s another indication of how Jim Downey and James Anderson tend to drag down this era, sadly.
Damn, I had forgotten how great this episode is–the first half is kind of a slog, but the second half is brilliant. The history buff sketch is one of those things that feels like this era’s cast’s spin on the type of silly, fun sketches the late 80s cast so excelled at–sadly, you generally had to wait until the second half of a lot of SNL episodes to get these sketches.
I’m honestly surprised Maya was never in a Deep House Dish sketch until now–it seemed like the sketches were written for her!
The baby, tragically, also never hosted from Party of Five. I would have enjoyed a joke imagining a fictional episode in which the musical guests were Baby from Party of Five and Blackstreet or something ridiculous like that.
I believe Matthew is the only cast member from Lost, though, to host, not that I would have guessed many of them would have (I suppose Evangeline Lilly has a shot at some point).
Lilly is (or was…) going to do a movie with Sudeikis – that is the closest, I guess.
We’re at that point now where fewer and fewer names from big TV shows seem to host. Only one from Lost, one from Desperate Housewives, none from Heroes even though Heroes was a “hot” show in its first season.
I have wondered at times if Fox was a replacement host, as Lost by this point was past its peak (as that elevator sketch mildly skewering the show suggested) and he’s a pretty boilerplate host rather than someone they hype up.
Speaking of Lost, the Lost Wiki’s page for the elevator sketch suggests it was Seth’s idea (the link to [Fred’s blog, presumably] doesn’t work anymore).
Fox was likely promoting a movie he did called “We Are Marshall” around the time he hosted SNL.
Nowadays, he doesn’t seem to act anymore. He hasn’t done much after Lost ended.
I’ll join the chorus: Fox/D had a so-so first half, but the second half is a reminder of why I enjoyed this particular cast. I only gave this episode a 4/10 on TV.com, but if I could, I’d up this to a 6/10 just on the strength of the elevator sketch and everything onward. (I also lamented that Bill Hader couldn’t carry a sketch if he tried; that did not age well.)
To answer the unanswered question, Will was shooting “Brothers Solomon” with Will Arnett in the Summer and Fall of ’06.
Sale Mart appears to have been filmed at an A&P Supermarket. The exterior architecture is unmistakable.
Mountain Man continued the trend of the “female cast hits on handsome male host” trope that lasted for years and years on the show but it really worked with the meta, outside the box approach.
Next up is the Benning show that I remember not being well received especially the local morning talk show sketch. But again haven’t seen it in years so we’ll see
I remember Bill in an interview (probably Conan?) saying the hook he found for getting the Kramer/Richards voice was repeating in that voice “Hey… thats a nice suit!” random thing thats always been stuck in my head.
I’ve said this before about Deep House Dish and I’ll be saying it again – the songs are almost always worth the watch. The rest is a dirge. The non-singing portion does improve without Rachel (sorry, Rachel). Andy is just funnier in the idiot part. This one is OK (I do wonder if Matthew had some genuine mike issues) but the one coming up with Jake Gylenhaal is probably the best (however many more we have of these).
Something I LOVE in the history/match sketch is that at the end when “Just the Two of Us” plays, rather than the music being ignored as we pull away, Kristen, Andy and Will shout “THREE!” every time the “two” comes on. It’s a shame the music rights make this sketch unlikely to be seen again.
Fox is a good blank slate host, which is more difficult than it seems. It’s kind of funny seeing him as the object of desire in various sketches because at the time there were vocal Lost fans who insisted his character was a horrible drag and Sawyer was their big hunk. He plays that aspect pretty well here though, without overdoing it.
I can’t take Aunt Linda either, but there was one line I enjoyed (when she calls Apocalypto “a pot of stinko”). Amy’s commentary about panties is great, and what makes it even better is Seth’s closing line of “Keep up the good work, ladies.” By this point they already had the balance between Amy and Seth just right.
The Mayan sketch bugs me for some reason (I think I’m just not that into the “terrible thing happened for mundane comic reason” types), but the rest of the back half is very good and helps make up for the overfamiliar/shaky first half and dead cold open.
I absolutely adore the cast (aside from Seth, sadly) joining in on Tenacious D’s second performance. Such pure fun and excitement and the unpredictable – I wish we got more of that in modern years.
I like the Sale Mart promo, mostly because it’s such a pointed takedown of the predatory, destructive megastore, and doesn’t feel as aimless as some other pre-tapes around this time.
Promo for the episode:
Lost? Party of 5? I don’t know these shows you speak of, I only know Mr. Fox from his amazing performance in Bone Tomahawk. Also, this just goes to show how great it would’ve been if we had gotten a few more SNL appearances from Jack Black over the years. Not many people are perfect as both a musical guest AND host but he is able to pull it off.
I think I barely remember the monologue and Mountain Men and Andy’s replacing Rachel on Deep House Dish. I certainly remember Matthew Fox hosting and perhaps the second Tenacious D performance…
The promo that John posted alludes to Matthew Fox being nominated for People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2005 & 2006. There’s a second promo that I can’t find online that also heavily features Tenacious D, very unusual to see the musical guest so heavily involved in the promos.
Regarding Maya’s Lorne impression, in an interview with Conan, I think it was Dana Carvey, but it might have been Will Ferrell or Bill Hader who said “Everybody around the office does Lorne. The cast, the writers, even some of the crew. Some are better than others but just about everyone has a Lorne impression.”
Probably the most famous Lorne impression is Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.
I was looking at some old fan reviews around the time of John C Reilly’s episode, and they listed this episode as intending to be hosted by Sacha Baren Cohen, with Fergie as MG. They listed the 12/9 episode as being hosted by Cameron Diaz. Do any of you who were watching at the time remember these as the upcoming hosts?