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
I think I remember “Hide and Seek” more NOW for being sampled by Jason Derulo.
I like this episode a lot–Dear Sister is a classic, but there are some other funny things. The buying beer sketch is good, fun, silly humor, well played by all the participants (even though almost none of them look like they are underage).
I also remember all of the Dear Sister parodies on YouTube–I think my favorite was the ending to The Departed.
For a Prince show sketch, this one isn’t that bad–I agree that Amy’s dancing at the end is one of the best “end of sketch dancing” performances in a Prince show sketch. I am surprised this is the last time she appears as Nancy Grace.
Dear Sister is also one of my favorite digital shorts, as well as one of my favorite SNL sketches of all time. It fulfills that one rule of good parody: it works if you don’t get the reference, but it’s even funnier if you do. Along with Natalie’s Rap it was one of the first SNL sketches I ever saw and it completely blew my mind. I was still really young then (and not a viewer of SNL or sketch comedy at all) and I had never seen a comedy sketch that strange.
The “Hide and Seek” music cue fascinated me too. I didn’t know it was a real song but I had heard it in Dear Sister, all the parodies and edits, the original scene from The OC but without context, people animating characters singing it on the Flipnote Hatena video site (anyone who owned a Nintendo DS in the late 2000s probably remembers that) and Jason Derulo sampling it in “Whatcha Say.” I was so confused as to what that song was or where it came from, and it made Dear Sister all the more bizarre (and epic, for some reason I can’t fully put into words.)
I already said this in your Jack Black ‘05 review, but it’s still a bit surreal just how much of a gamechanger The Lonely Island was for SNL. The amount of people at school I heard quoting those, all the parodies of them, how fresh and cool they felt—you NEVER see SNL be that much of a trendsetter anymore, especially to schoolchildren. The last time a non-fan talked to me about SNL in person was just to lament about how lame one of the cold opens was…
Dear Sister came out when I was high school and it was surreal to hear my classmates talking about it. I had started watching pre-Lonely Island, so knowing that other people my age were watching SNL was mindblowing. Easily one of the best they ever did.
Knife Saleman is one of the rare Forte sketches or projectile bleeding sketches that doesn’t do much for me. Not a bad performance by Forte, but the concept isn’t that great and that ending seems so rushed and unfinished
A behind the scenes interview with Shia (it’s just him talking, no one else there beyond a glimpse at the promos).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSFaqx7l8wo
The promos would suggest a Target Lady sketch was cut. (he actually would have been a good fit for those sketches)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPm3zT2fae8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxgkTvZonrE
Colin Jost talking about a Shia-starring sketch called Monkey Business that made it to dress (whether it was in this episode or his S33 episode isn’t said).
This episode is all over the place tonally, which makes it more interesting, if not very cohesive.
More than any other Lonely Island piece, Dear Sister is the one that keeps on giving – it went viral, in huge numbers, on Twitter last year, with some not even knowing where it was from, then popped up again earlier this year during that period when Bill was briefly dating Rachel Bilson (of the OC).
Lonely Island material, and it’s attempts to move forward and try new things (especially in those first few years), stands as a real contrast to some other parts of the episode – the cold open wheeling out Darrell’s Jesse Jackson yet again (with Darrell losing control of the impression near the end, which had never happened before), and the sofa king sketch, which could have been fun if they hadn’t gone for lazy racist stereotypes and makeup. Yet another example of the “Fred (and Maya) can play any race = comedy gold” crutch that has dated so much of this period so badly.
Shia has a great deal of energy and a unique presence as host – if his future didn’t hang over the episode like a Lohan-shaped cloud, I’d enjoy his presence more. In another world he probably would have been a five-timer by now.
Amy’s really turned a corner in her sketch work through this season, with detailed and offbeat performances that make what could seem thin on paper (like the Nancy Grace appearance here) come alive. The only downside is it shows up just how phoned-in and false her Update work can be.
I knew of the New Jersey couple and the Maine couple but not the Connecticut couple. It has about as much tie to Connecticut as it does to Pluto, but if they wanted an excuse to have Bill try out his “toff” voice for the third or fourth time, it was at least in somewhat good fun. The awful groaner about how he had a little bit of Princeton in him amused me in spite of myself. In contrast, while Darrell’s performance was probably an attempt at something more original (as Imus) the material was nowhere to be found. I assume they were wary of having him say something that would actually be bigoted and controversial, so they just half-assed. What was the point? At least the Anna Nicole Smith regurgitation had one or two more committed ideas.
I love Will Forte but I couldn’t finish that knife sketch. People cutting themselves up is one of those that I just can’t deal with (I know it’s not real) – it’s the reason I could only watch Dan Aykroyd’s beloved Julia Child sketch one time. One of the few Forte pieces I feel that way about. I should say this is just my own issue and I’m not criticizing the show for having this type of material.
The underage beer buying sketch is a slow charmer – I had to have a rewatch to get involved, but once I did I truly enjoyed it. Bill passing as under 21 was a suspension of disbelief though.
I was more fascinated than amused by the Maya backstage sketch (I did laugh when she threw the food at the crew member). It is, as you said, so out of the norm for SNL by this point, I wonder if they let Maya have this because they knew she was seriously thinking of leaving and wanted to give her some good memories.
Oddly enough the Jessica Simpson and John Mayer bit, while good for some mild smiles thanks to Bill, ends up paling in comparison to reality, through no fault of the show’s own, by the interview a few years later where he claims she was “sexual napalm.”
Mustache Rides is an underrated gem of dumb humor. The sequence at the end with the vibrating mustache, Seth’s smile into the camera, Bill’s look of awe and restrained euphoria, etc. all make this stand out.
Like John said, a solid but scattered show. “Dear Sister” was another classic Digital Short. My favorite “Prince Show” moment was when Nancy Grace/Amy references “Party All the Time” as a Prince song. The knife sketch was a rare Forte clunker, and I think Mayer/Simpson was supposed to be a runner. As for Shia, I thought Daniel Clowes did a better job three years earlier. 😉
I’ve been catching up on 30 Rock on Netflix and I gotta suspect that a lot of Jenna Maroney is based on Maya Rudolph…especially from the way she plays ‘Israel’s on SNL and the constant breaking into song.
I mainly remember the first “Sofa King” sketch mainly because of how it sounds when put together when saying it fast…
This is the last show I did standby for. Memories.
Bill Hader (in his 92nd street Y convo w/ John Mulaney) said that John Mayer approached him at some point about the “Intimate Moment with John & Jessica” sketch, saying they actually watched it and the idea that they had nothing to talk about made them pretty bummed out, so he was like “well, now you have something to talk about!”
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Peyton Manning, as of September 10, 2021)
about the same