Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
WINGS OF HOPE
Jesse Jackson (DAH) & Al Sharpton (KET) offer racist rehab for Don Imus
— Darrell makes his first appearance in THREE EPISODES.
— Pretty funny one-liners from Kenan’s Al Sharpton throughout this.
— Aaaaaaand there goes Darrell’s obligatory extended silent mugging & ticcing sequence as Jesse Jackson.
— I’m enjoying the detailing of the racism rehabilitation Don Imus will receive in Jackson and Sharpton’s rehab center.
— I love Darrell-as-Jackson’s mock inspirational speech about blacks and whites coming together.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
backstage, host can’t get cast members to share his SNL excitement
— Funny to think this is apparently at a time before Shia LaBeouf had much name recognition, as he opens this monologue with a self-deprecating “To those of you who know who I am…..hi, mom, hi, dad.”
— Great scene with Kenan panickedly trying to hide his smoking when a gleeful Shia approaches him. I also love Shia pointing out the Disney/Nickelodeon child star similarities between himself and Kenan. I think this is the very first mention an SNL episode has ever made about Kenan’s Nickelodeon past, but I may be forgetting something from prior episodes.
— Interesting use of Darrell.
— Pretty fun backstage interactions between Shia and individual cast and crew members.
— The gag with Lorne not knowing Kristen’s name certainly comes off ironic in retrospect, considering the huge favoritism Lorne would end up showing towards Kristen later in her SNL tenure.
— A very odd camera gaffe happens at the end when Shia is wrapping up the monologue. Someone apparently turned the camera switch off by accident, causing an odd camera jerk motion, followed by a few seconds of a black screen, before the camera switch is turned back on. Yikes! I’m pretty sure this is a first in SNL history of a camera accidentally being turned off mid-sketch.
STARS: ***½
THE HATHAWAY MOUSTACHE RIDE COMPANY
Hathaway Company visionary (Alec Baldwin) institutes free moustache rides
— Random Alec Baldwin cameo!
— The opening setting of this, with the 1880s business meeting, reminds me of the original Grayson Moorehead commercials from season 21. Plus, not only does Darrell play one of the old-timey businessmen at the table in both Grayson Moorehead and this mustache rides commercial, but he even has a very similar look in both (side-by-side comparison).
— Funny dignified execution of a raunchy premise, and Alec’s typical dry delivery is perfect for this.
— A non-Weekend Update appearance from Seth!
— Great visual of Will’s vibrating mustache.
STARS: ***½
PRINCE SHOW
Tobey Maguire (host) & Nancy Grace (AMP) drop by
— (*groan*) This tired, formulaic recurring sketch again. This thankfully ends up being the final installment of this.
— Shia’s not attempting much of an imitation of Tobey Maguire’s voice, but his dialogue is pretty amusing.
— This is actually a fun use of Amy’s Nancy Grace impression (also making its final appearance). I love her whole spiel about how much of a Prince fan she and her girlfriends were back in the day.
— Great wild dancing from Amy at the end.
STARS: **
BUYING BEER
underage (host), (ANS), (BIH), (WLF) stage elaborate ruses to buy beer
— Good detail with Andy’s lopsided fake mustache, adding to his and Shia’s character’s unconvincing attempt to come off as adults of legal drinking age.
— I love the increasingly elaborate, convoluted attempts from Andy, Shia, and Bill to buy beer without showing I.D., especially with Will unconvincingly staging a robbery and allegedly stealing Bill’s I.D.
— I enjoyed the surprise reveal at the end.
STARS: ****
THE DAKOTA FANNING SHOW
Dakota Fanning’s (AMP) sister Elle (musical guest) is a rival
— Two celebrity-hosted talk show sketches not only in the same episode, but both in the pre-Weekend Update half of the show?
— Like the last time this sketch appeared, we get some fantastic slow burn reactions from Kenan’s Reggie in response to Amy-as-Dakota-Fanning’s backhanded remarks to him.
— A pretty good laugh from Amy’s Dakota asking the Sprouse Twins “Why???” when they tell her they’re playing with toys.
— It wasn’t necessary to repeat the bit from the first installment of this sketch with Kristen’s snack-providing character humbly responding “You can call me mom” when Amy’s Dakota tells her “Thank you , Catherine.” That joke doesn’t work as well when you use it a second time.
— A hilarious part with Kenan muttering a very bitter “Yeah, I’ll put a cap somewhere, all right” after Amy’s Dakota tells him “Reggie, you better put on your thinking cap!”
— Overall, this was good, but not as strong as the first installment of this sketch.
STARS: ***½
DEAR SISTER
(BIH), (ANS), (host), (KRW) off each other a la The O.C.
— Ah, a legendary Digital Short and one of my all-time favorites.
— When this originally aired, not only was I one of quite a number of SNL fans who wasn’t aware of the fact that it was spoofing a scene from the show The O.C. (though that didn’t hurt my enjoyment of this short AT ALL), but I remember being simultaneously weirded-out and intrigued by the Imogen Heap “Hide And Seek” song played in this short, combined with how that song first played right after the baffling and inexplicable part with Andy shooting Bill out of nowhere while Bill was talking about his sister. I didn’t know during the live airing that “Hide And Seek” was a real, non-SNL song, so I assumed it was another original Lonely Island musical creation, and I wondered if that was someone in the cast singing it.
— The escalation to this is fantastic, and it especially starts getting really fun when Shia is the one to suddenly get shot when entering the room while laughing lightheartedly. After all these years, even though I know this entire short beat-for-beat, line-for-line, I still get no end of enjoyment from watching it. And that “Hide And Seek” song still intrigues me; it’s so oddly catchy and haunting.
— I’m loving how watching this short right now is taking me right back to the late 2000s, reminding me not only of how frequently I watched this short back in those days, but also how frequently I watched amusing YouTube videos where people gave the Dear Sister treatment to TV/movie clips in which someone gets shot or similar.
— A particularly hilarious part with Kristen repeatedly getting shot while the same “Mmm, whatcha saaaaayyyyyyy” part of the “Hide And Seek” song plays over and over. Also a great little touch with how Shia is seen pointing his gun in increasingly intimidating, gun expert-like positions each time the camera cuts to him during that sequence.
— Excellent ending with the two cops shooting each other after reading the letter, while different parts of “Hide And Seek” play simultaneously.
STARS: *****
SOFA KING
Mattress King proprietors say their new enterprise is Sofa King great
— A sketch sorta in the vein of polarizing dirty wordplay sketches from the early 2000s like Colonel Angus and Cork Soakers.
— Funny bit with a graphic of couch photos being displayed over Maya’s face, forcing her to eventually have to awkwardly lean to the side to get her face back onscreen.
— The performers are doing a good job walking the fine line between making their foreign-accented sayings of “Sofa King” make you realize what dirty phrase it sounds like, but not saying it in a way that makes it sound like they’re directly saying the ACTUAL dirty phrase.
— The humor of this wordplay is only mildly funny at best. For me, the performances are making the material better than it is.
— Bill’s quivery mannerisms are very funny. Also, this is yet another Bill Hader performance that reminds me so much of Dan Aykroyd, especially the way Bill is smiling.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Girlfriend”
WEEKEND UPDATE
MAR interviews Anna Nicole Smith paternity loser Howard K. Stern (ANS)
same-sex couple from Connecticut (FRA) & (BIH) is swishy-WASPy
after apologizing, Don Imus (DAH) causes more problems for himself
— An interesting sports-esque set-up to the Howard K. Stern commentary, and I like the dry way the commentary itself is being executed.
— Meh, we didn’t need a variation of the Same-Sex New Jersey Couple, with this now being a Connecticut same-sex couple, played by the same two cast members.
— Bill’s extended cartoonish snooty laughing sequence as his rich snob character has me practically on the floor, even if he’s overdoing it. I feel like a hypocrite for laughing at this and complaining about Darrell’s extended mugging & ticcing sequence as Jesse Jackson earlier in this episode (and especially in the Jackson/Sharpton Update commentary from the then-recent Forest Whitaker episode), but maybe Bill is just better at pulling that kind of thing off than Darrell is. Also, Bill seems to be relying heavily on the cartoonish snooty laughing to make up for the lack of actual funny written material.
— Speaking of Darrell, he’s been getting surprisingly decent airtime in his first episode back after being M.I.A. in the last two episodes prior to this.
— Darrell’s Don Imus voice is making me laugh, but the comedic conceit of his commentary itself is very lame.
STARS: ***
KNIFE SALESMEN
salesman (WLF) cuts off thumb in attempt to sell Mrs. Ginsu (KRW) a knife
— Solid salesman delivery from Will during his sales pitch to Kristen.
— The ridiculous “Am not” “Are too” argument between Will and Kristen is pretty funny.
— A huge laugh from Will nonchalantly cutting through his own finger, much to Kristen and Shia’s horror.
— A projectile bleeding sketch in the tradition of stuff like Dan Aykroyd’s Julia Child sketch.
— No idea what to think about that dog attack ending.
— Overall, some good laughs here, but for an oddball Will Forte sketch, this wasn’t one of his best, nor was it one of the more memorable projectile bleeding sketches.
STARS: ***
AN INTIMATE MOMENT WITH JOHN MAYER & JESSICA SIMPSON
for John Mayer (BIH) & Jessica Simpson (KRW), musical spasms are intimacy
— I love the mere look on Kristen’s face as Jessica Simpson.
— Funny imitation from Bill of John Mayer’s trademark guitar-playing faces.
— Kristen’s musical vocalizations as Jessica is priceless.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Can Do Better”
SHIA & MAYA
in her dressing room, MAR attempts to seduce host
— A very funny sudden escalation early on, after Maya and Shia’s friendly opening conversation.
— Feels rare at this point of SNL’s run to see a sketch like this with a cast member playing themselves, not counting monologues.
— Maya’s performance is incredibly silly and over-the-top, but it’s definitely working for me here (it’s somehow helped by the fact that she’s playing herself), and the jokes are coming at us a mile a minute.
— I like the turn with Shia’s mock dramatic monologue to Maya.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A fairly solid episode. Very little to dislike here, and this contained one of my all-time favorite pieces (Dear Sister).
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Peyton Manning)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Scarlett Johansson