Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE
evasive George W. Bush (JAS) lets Chuck Schumer-on-tape [real] start show
— At least this is a President Bush press conference that has him interacting with reporters instead of delivering a barely-funny straight-to-camera speech once again.
— Jason-as-Bush’s random nicknames for the reporters are increasingly funny.
— This cold opening is dying for me during the back-and-forth between Jason’s Bush and Maya, and the audience apparently agrees with me, judging from their silence.
— Meh at the bit with the brainteasers book.
— Even the nicknames bit that I praised earlier in this cold opening has now gotten old.
— Kristen’s list of demands has some funny lines, and is being well-delivered by her.
— Jesus Christ, this cold opening has been going on for eight minutes. EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES, PEOPLE! That is absolutely ridiculous for something that contains material as scant and weak as this. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: Jim Downey is given WAY too much free rein during these past-his-prime years of his SNL run. Lorne needs to realize that this is long past the days where Downey’s political writing was always reliable.
— An extremely random pre-taped Chuck Schumer cameo, just there to say “Live from New York…”.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
host cheers Sanjaya Malakar (ANS) with “Something To Talk About” duet
— The return of Andy’s topical Sanjaya impression.
— Meh, a musical monologue.
— Some fairly interesting and impressively-fast hair changes from Andy all throughout the song. Not sure how they’re pulling those changes off so quickly. Unfortunately, that’s the only semi-interesting thing going on during this song.
STARS: *½
LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
Ivanka Trump (host) plugs away
— Wow, they haven’t done this sketch in years. The last time it appeared was when Donald Trump hosted (*shudder*) back in season 29. This also ends up being the final Regis & Kelly sketch that has Darrell and Amy. There would later be at least one Regis & Kelly installment with different performers playing the roles.
— Funny cutaway to Fred as Howie Mandel on standby in case Regis can’t go on with the show. And at least this means SNL refrained from having Chris Kattan do another cameo as Gelman, or resort to giving the Gelman role to a current cast member (I still can’t believe they stuck Rachel Dratch with that role last time this sketch appeared.)
— Speaking of Donald Trump, it feels kinda odd in retrospect seeing Scarlett debut her Ivanka Trump impression 10 years before it would become a regular role she’d play on SNL.
— Amy’s crying as Kelly Ripa right now actually looks very convincing.
— Okay, the cutaways to Fred’s Mandel are way too frequent. It ain’t funny anymore.
STARS: ***
PROM DRESS SHOPPING
Virginiaca helps stepdaughter (host) shop for hootchie-worthy prom dress
— Ugh, another Virginiaca sketch. And she’s now getting recognition applause from the audience?
— I once again ask: how many white stepdaughters does this character have?
— Once again, I can find nothing to really say during this sketch, except it’s the usual insufferable Virginiaca tripe.
STARS: *
ROY RULES!
ANS has more than a mancrush on his brother-in-law
— Interesting seeing Lonely Island take on 70s/80s heavy metal for once instead of the music genres they typically cover.
— Good use of SNL writer Bryan Tucker.
— The “24/7 69” lyric was very funny.
— I love the random, brief key change in the song, with Andy comically singing in a tender manner while playing piano.
STARS: ***½
MIKE’S MARBLEOPOLIS
Chandelier Galaxy scion Lexi (host) touts classiness of marble columns
— The second installment of this series of sketches, becoming a staple of Scarlett Johansson’s early episodes.
— Fred’s distinct, exaggerated, New York-accented delivery of “Maww-ble cahh-lums” is probably his funniest pronunciation of the product being sold out of all of the installments in this recurring sketch.
STARS: ***½
WIIX NEWS
Michelle Dison’s lesbian leanings resurface during interview with (host)
— The real-life TV station name used in the first installment of this sketch earlier this season, WVIR, has been changed to an apparently fictional TV station name in tonight’s installment: WIIX, which is apparently a play on Kristen’s real-life last name. Presumably, the reason for the change in station names is because WVIR is a Virginia station, and the infamous Virginia Tech school shooting had happened just a few days before this episode, and thus, SNL apparently felt it would’ve been in poor taste to use Virginia’s TV station name during this tragic time.
— It’s mentioned that Kristen’s Michelle Dison character is returning from a leave of absence she had taken for about 6 months, which I assume is continuity from the end of the first installment of this sketch, as that installment aired about 6-7 months prior to this.
— Between the Roy Rules short and Kristen’s bi-curious tendencies in this sketch, there seems to be a bit of a theme going on in tonight’s episode.
— I love Scarlett’s taken-aback delivery of “I…I don’t know what’s going on” when bombarded with a whole bunch of friendly-but-way-too-forward offers from an awkwardly flirtatious Michelle Dison.
— The random cat attack ending felt very inferior compared to the bird poop ending from the first installment of this sketch.
— Overall, this was basically just a re-write of the first installment of this sketch. It still worked for me, mostly due to Kristen’s good execution of the material, but this installment paled in comparison to the first installment.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Earth Intruders”
WEEKEND UPDATE
incredulous SEM & AMP say “Really!?!” to Alberto Gonzales’ amnesia
for Earth Day, WLF sings about the wonderful planet we live on
— Two big changes of pace right out of the gate in this Update: Amy’s hairstyle, and Seth getting to deliver the opening joke for, I believe, the first time ever.
— Boy, Bryan Tucker is getting lots of face time tonight (the third above screencap for this Weekend Update).
— Good to see the “Really?!?” segment from earlier this season return.
— Much like the last “Really?!?” prior to this, we get some more great barbs from Seth and Amy, though these aren’t as memorable as the ones from the Michael Vick-themed “Really?!?” from earlier this season.
— Yes! Another Will Forte Update song!
— Like Will’s last Update song prior to this, he gets assistance from a guitar-playing Fred.
— Very funny lyrics from Will about what bad things he does towards the planet.
— Pretty funny turn in Will’s song with him now singing the praises of the movie Battlefield Earth.
— Pretty nice hearing the audience get involved in clapping the beat of Will’s song.
STARS: ***
KUATOS
male (ANS) & female (host) Kuatos gross out dinner guests (FRA) & (AMP)
— This is now the THIRD recurring sketch tonight that debuted in this season’s Jaime Pressly episode. (The other two being Virginiaca and Michelle Dison.) I remember when tonight’s episode originally aired, I worriedly asked myself during this Kuato sketch, “What next? The return of that godforsaken Big Wigs sketch?”
— Not sure we needed to see a second installment of this Kuato thing. I still don’t know what to make of the first installment of it.
— Scarlett as a female Kuato? Meh.
— So far, I don’t think I’ve laughed a single time during this sketch yet.
— Fred: “I do NOT like where this is going.” That makes two of us, knowing in retrospect what this sketch is leading up to.
— Aaaaand there it goes. Why has this sketch suddenly turned into Rookie Cop 2.0, with the chain reaction of vomiting? The original Rookie Cop sketch is actually a guilty pleasure of mine, as fully disclosed in my review of it, but I certainly didn’t need this Kuato sketch to turn into some kind of pale version of it.
— Ugh, as if the parade of vomiting wasn’t bad enough, now SNL throws another appearance from Darrell’s fucking Ahnuld impression at us to close out this mess.
STARS: *
NEWS MAKERS WITH JANE PAULEY
Jane Pauley (KRW) interviews stars of viral online videos
— Shortly into the small scene with Fred as the dancing little person, I got a laugh from Kristen’s Jane Pauley just saying “Aaaaaand let’s just end the interview there.” Speaking of which, according to Fred in a blog he had on NBC.com’s SNL site back around 2007/2008, the dress rehearsal version of this sketch had MULTIPLE cutaways to him as the dancing little person all throughout the sketch. Fred was bummed to learn after dress rehearsal that SNL was cutting down the number of his scenes in this sketch to just one. I think SNL did us a favor with that decision.
— I love Kristen’s Jane Pauley questioning the bad puns she’s reading off the teleprompter.
— Boy, I haven’t seen that Grape-Stomping Lady video in ages.
— Another blast from the past, with Will’s spoof of the Star Wars Kid video that was popular back in this era.
STARS: ***
TV FUNHOUSE
“Torboto” by RBS- at Guantanamo Bay, torturing robot does the dirty work
— Damn, that is a great theme song.
— A spoof of the old Anime series Gigantor, which I’m not all that familiar with, though I’m at least familiar enough with its animation to know that this spoof is doing a spot-on imitation of that animation.
— The Amish part was pretty funny.
— All of the torture the robot is doing to the prisoners feels like a poor man’s version of the Shazzang cartoon from the Will Ferrell-hosted season 30 episode.
— I don’t get the cat/tree/reassignment thing Torboto did at the end of this.
— Overall, I’m pretty meh on this. Aside from the classic Maraka cartoon, Robert Smigel hasn’t had a good track record lately as we head towards the end of his TV Funhouse run on SNL.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Wanderlust”
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An off episode, and the first episode I disliked in what feels like a long time (which at least shows how well this season had been going). Among the problems of this episode: none of the sketches stood out to me as strong (the highest rating I gave out was just a mere three-and-a-half stars, though I may soon change the Roy Rules rating to four stars, as I’m having a hard time deciding which rating I personally feel it deserves), there was a lot of unnecessary rehashing of about 30% of the sketches from the not-all-that-great Jaime Pressly episode, some of the non-recurring stuff was also weak, and the overall show had a very forgettable feel. Not a particularly awful episode, but mediocre for this season’s standards.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Shia LaBeouf)
a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Molly Shannon