Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
SPITZER & ASSOCIATES
in private practice, Eliot Spitzer (BIH) will handle sex-related cases
— Good to see a change of pace from all the Hillary/Obama cold openings that the show had been doing lately. Also great to see Bill play the lead in a cold opening, which feels very rare in these early seasons of his SNL tenure.
— I like the voice Bill’s doing here. 12 years after this Eliot Spitzer scandal, I now no longer have any recollection of what Spitzer’s voice sounds like, but I recall finding Bill’s vocal impression of him to be spot-on when this originally aired.
— A good laugh from the “1-800-T-A-W-D-R-Y” phone number.
— Without even saying a single word in this entire cold opening, Kristen is still doing such great work conveying the anger of her role as Spitzer’s wife.
— I absolutely HOWLED at Bill-as-Spitzer’s initially-calm-then-suddenly-loudly-angry delivery of “You, by the side of the road, wrapped in PLASTIC!!!!!”
— Lots of pretty funny lines regarding the sex-related cases Spitzer and his law firm will take on.
— Good little touch with how, after Bill-as-Spitzer’s “Live from New York…”, instead of SNL immediately cutting to the opening montage like usual, the camera precedes the opening montage by panning over to a silent Kristen-as-Spitzer’s-wife’s frowny face, keeping up the theme of her having a cold, unhappy demeanor throughout this cold opening.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
to combat his crude big-screen image, host sings about how he is fancy
— OH, GOD. A musical monologue for the second consecutive episode? Come on, SNL.
— I do like Jonah’s “fancy dance”, at least.
— A fairly funny cutaway to Amy as Jonah’s Grandma Nancy.
— An unintentional laugh from Jonah’s line flub when he tells us, through song, to “kliss” his classy ass.
STARS: **
MACGRUBER
competency questions bring about a crisis of confidence for MacGruber
— Feels pretty nice to see a MacGruber short right after the monologue for once.
— Due to Maya Rudolph’s then-recent departure from the show, the regular character played by her in these MacGruber shorts has been replaced with a new soon-to-be regular character played by Kristen.
— A pretty good laugh from the obligatory end-of-sketch explosion happening right at the turn where MacGruber suddenly starts to ask, in a worried, sincere voice, “You really think I’m not good at my jo–”.
STARS: ***½
WHAT’S YOUR SITUATION?
emcee (host) thinks game show is a singles bar
— Not too sure about this premise.
— I like Casey’s delivery of “Because….I….love my husband….?” when unhappily asked by a sleazy Jonah why she’s married.
— Jonah is at least executing this fairly well, surprisingly.
— I don’t know why, but in a weird way, this sketch feels to me kinda like a poor man’s precursor to the following season’s superior I’m Gonna Have Sex With Your Wife game show sketch with Bradley Cooper, despite that sketch having pretty much a completely different concept than the one this sketch has.
— I spoke a bit too soon in my compliment of Jonah’s performance, as his timing seemed kinda off at the end.
— At least this overall sketch was pretty short, but that may have been part of the problem, as it kinda feels like they didn’t really explore this concept enough. Then again, I’m not sure what else they could’ve done with this concept.
STARS: **
SIX YEAR OLD
precocious 6 year-old Adam (host) treats Benihana like a Borscht Belt gig
— The debut of what would go on to be a staple of most Jonah Hill-hosted episodes (I think his 2016 episode has been the only one without this sketch, as of 2020).
— Solid concept of Jonah playing a very precocious six-year-old who talks like a Borscht Belt comedian.
— Jonah is strong here, and his performance is a lot of fun. I’m also loving his endless amount of wisecracks.
— Overall, a great debut. We’ll see how I’ll feel about the subsequent installments of this sketch. I remember being so increasingly frustrated that those installments take place in the EXACT SAME Benihana location that this first installment took place in. So lazy. There are so many promising locations you can place Jonah’s character in. Why use the Benihana setting EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME?
STARS: ****
MACGRUBER
MacGruber’s paranoia over backstabbers results in abdication
— A very funny shot at the end of the opening title sequence, with MacGruber walking past the camera while rudely giving everyone the finger.
— This overall short, and the general conceit of tonight’s MacGruber shorts, was better than I had remembered it, but still don’t quite measure up to typical strong MacGruber shorts.
— Strangely, tonight’s SNL episode ends up not showing the third part of tonight’s MacGruber runner. It would be put online shortly after the original airing of this episode. From what my admittedly-fuzzy memory of it recalls, it involved Bill as some kind of therapist/trainer helping a very unconfident, practically-catatonic MacGruber in one of those control rooms that MacGruber and his assistants are always locked in, and the short ended with MacGruber aimlessly and repeatedly banging the leg of a chair onto a table before the obligatory end-of-sketch explosion.
STARS: ***½
THE SUZE ORMAN SHOW
financial questions receive thrifty responses from Suze Orman (KRW)
— The debut of Kristen’s Suze Orman impression. Wow, I had completely forgotten about this recurring Suze Orman sketch until now.
— Kristen’s portrayal of Orman is very funny, and her delivery of every single line she has is making them fun.
— I like the interplay between Kristen’s Orman and Jonah’s character.
STARS: ***½
ANDY’S DAD
ANS is distressed to learn that his dad (JID) is going out with host
— I remember finding this short to be a laugh riot when it originally aired in 2008, but the crass, cheap homoerotic premise doesn’t seem like the type of thing that will hold up quite as well in today’s age. Then again, Lonely Island has proven that they can make good shorts out of crass, cheap homoerotic premises and have it still hold up well today (e.g. Roy Rules, Iran So Far).
— A very interesting use of Jim Downey.
— Aaaaaand there goes the obligatory cheap, unnecessary, hacky attempt at a laugh with a man-on-man kiss (which I previously praised Lonely Island for refraining from doing in the aforementioned Iran So Far short). However, I do love how the kiss is immediately followed by a cutaway to a close-up of Andy with a VERY stern, frozen expression on his face (the sixth above screencap for this Digital Short).
— A big laugh from how Jonah lowering his head while laughing with Jim Downey turns into Jonah lowering his head further and going down on Jim below the camera view.
— Aside from the aforementioned kiss, I’m actually enjoying this short. Yet another example of Lonely Island executing a potentially-dodgy homoerotic premise well.
— Bill caps this short off well with his hilarious ending line, “We’ve been f(*bleep*)in’!”, followed by the screen doing a freeze-frame on him smiling at the camera while a random “Created by Lorne Michaels” credit is displayed onscreen.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Touch My Body”
WEEKEND UPDATE
incredulous SEM & AMP say “Really!?!” to Eliot Spitzer’s whoring
TRM’s electoral assessment- “black is the new president, bitch”
— Ha, the photo of Eliot Spitzer making a goofy-looking ashamed, disgraced face (the first above screencap for this Update) was shown a lot in the news and online back at this time, and used to always crack me up back then.
— Good ad-lib from Seth after Amy flubbed her Brita joke.
— Good to see Seth and Amy doing a “Really?!?” on the Spitzer scandal. This should be good.
— An overall pretty solid edition of “Really?!?”, even if it trailed off for me a little towards the end, though not even that was anything bad.
— Ha, not only does Colin Jost make his way into yet another comical Update photo, but we get to see him with what appears to be a natural beard! (the third-to-last above screencap for this Weekend Update)
— Tracy Morgan cameo!
— Tracy seems to have facially aged a lot in such a short amount of time since his last cameo prior to this, in the preceding season’s Alec Baldwin episode.
— As usual, Tracy is killing it here. He has an endless number of funny remarks. He’s even getting laughs from some of his non-verbal actions.
— Tracy brings up the “Bitch is the new black” declaration Tina Fey memorably made on Update three episodes prior, and has this epic rebuttal to it: “Bitch may be the new black…..but black is the new president, bitch.” Classic line.
STARS: ***½
TARGET
Target Lady advises daft fellow employee (host) on how to woo co-worker
— (*groan*)
— Well, at least we got a fairly long break from Target Lady, as her last appearance prior to this was in February 2007.
— Not caring for Jonah in this sketch. He’s trying too hard to play “quirky” and “twitchy”, and it’s coming off too forced.
— Seeing all those boxes of Nilla Wafers in Will’s shopping basket makes me hungry as hell. I haven’t had Nilla Wafers in ages.
STARS: **
NBC SPECIAL REPORT
Brian Williams (WLF) presents evidence proving John McCain (DAH) is old
— Hmm, something seems off about Will’s Brian Williams voice tonight. It’s not as spot-on as it was in the previous appearance Will’s Brian Williams impression made. He’s lacking the dry cadence of Williams’ voice that he nailed last time. Tonight, he just sounds like Will Forte talking in a slow voice.
— A pretty funny formal, professional announcement from Will’s Williams that “John McCain is, in fact, old.”
— The debut of Darrell’s John McCain impression.
— Just like I remember finding it to be, Darrell’s McCain impression is fine, but boring. I know that McCain himself is not exactly an exciting man to impersonate, but I’ve seen some actual funny McCain impressions from other comedians. Darrell’s take on McCain is just adequate, but nothing more. The idea of his boring McCain impression being paired with Fred’s awful (not to mention also-boring) Obama impression in the following season’s presidential debate sketches has me worried for how those sketches are going to turn out. Actually, I have only one Obama/McCain debate sketch to review anyway, as two of the three Obama/McCain debate sketches appear in Weekend Update Thursday specials.
— This is the second consecutive episode in which Fred has barely appeared in any sketches. I remember how, back at this time in 2008, I took Fred’s sudden huge drop in airtime as a sign that SNL was very hesitant to use him in sketches after the backlash he and SNL received for his then-new Obama impression. (For anyone wondering how strong that backlash was, well, you’re obviously aware that it wasn’t strong enough to get SNL to yank Fred out of the Obama role back at this time.)
— This sketch is basically just a parade of stereotypical jokes about old people, but it’s working decently enough, especially the bit with Fred and Amy questioning McCain.
STARS: ***
CLANCY T. BACHLERATT AND JACKIE SNAD SING SONGS ABOUT SPACESHIPS, TODDLERS, MODEL T. CARS & JARS OF BEER
Clancy T. Bachleratt (WLF) & Jackie Snad (KRW) do what the title above says
— Oh, I recall this being a fantastic bizarre Forte/Wiig sketch.
— Very funny reveal of the album title, seen above as the title of this sketch in my review. (There’s no way I’m typing all those words a second time.)
— Will and Kristen’s absurd toddler/beer jars/spaceship/Model T-related songs are absolutely PRICELESS.
— Wow, Jonah’s doing a great Horatio Sanz impression! Seriously, what’s going on with him? Why is he laughing his way through this entire sketch, for no apparent reason? (He’d later do the same thing in a J-Pop America Funtime Now sketch in his second hosting stint.) Did he…uh…take a little toke in his dressing room right before this sketch or something?
— The new National Anthem song at the end is particularly hilarious, made even funnier by Will’s insane facial expressions.
STARS: *****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & T-Pain [real] perform “Migrate”
FACE TO FACE
upon meeting in real life, (CAW) finds that (host) is an online liar
Sadly, this sketch is strangely missing from the copy I’m currently watching of this episode. Too bad, as it features Casey Wilson in a fairly rare co-starring role. If you’re curious to see my thoughts on this sketch, read it here in the original 2008 review I did back when this episode originally aired (the sketch is titled “Online Dating” in my review). And a screencap can be seen here on SNL Archives’ page for this sketch, if you’re curious what this sketch looks like, given how mysterious and seemingly-forgotten the sketch is, and the fact that I can’t find an online video of it to link to.
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode. Even though only about two or three things stood out to me as strong, most of the sketches were enjoyable, and there wasn’t much that dragged this episode down.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Amy Adams)
about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Christopher Walken returns for his seventh and final (as of 2020) hosting stint