Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
OBAMA REMEMBERS
amidst economic woe, Barack Obama (FRA) brings up happy pre-term memories
— We have officially arrived at a new presidency during SNL’s timeline.
— (*groan*) This is going to be a looooooong four years with Fred as SNL’s resident Obama impersonator during Obama’s first term.
— I kinda like the conceit of Fred’s Obama occasionally turning to a side camera and fondly reminiscing about his big inauguration, and I feel it’s one of the very few times that Fred’s Obama portrayal has ever showed any hint of a personality.
— A pretty good laugh from the “Read Other Side” writing being on both sides of the page given to Obama by the now-former President Bush.
— We get a sudden and random interruption from Jason’s always-funny Joe Biden, which, like I said in my review of the cold opening from this season’s Paul Rudd episode, seems to be an admission from SNL that they’re far more confident in Jason’s portrayal of Biden than they are in Fred’s portrayal of Obama.
— I like how Fred’s Obama follows Jason-as-Biden’s exit by telling us, in regards to his vice presidential pick, a deadpan “I couldn’t pick Hillary. I just couldn’t.”
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Steve Martin’s getting his usual laughs from his trademark Steve Martin-y humor, even if there hasn’t been anything noteworthy here so far.
— The clapter-inducing Bush-bashing bit, albeit brief, feels a little out of place for a Steve Martin comedy monologue.
STARS: ***½
CHEWABLE PAMPERS
Chewable Pampers short-circuit the food cycle in an eco-friendly manner
— I find the concept of this mildly chuckleworthy for a quick cheap laugh, but I can’t ignore the similarities this has to the Earthies commercial from the season 17 Jeff Daniels episode. Maybe the similarities are just a coincidence.
— Aside from Gas Right and North American Savings, has every single pre-taped commercial so far this season featured Kristen in the lead role? It sure feels like it. Not only that, but in all the Wiig-starring commercials this season, Jason seems to always play her glasses-wearing husband.
— After watching this whole thing just now, this feels like a slightly funnier variation of the aforementioned Earthies, but a much-less-funnier sister commercial to Litter Critters.
STARS: **½
SUPERBOWL NIGHT OUT
Neil, Jean, fellow uptight co-worker (host) view the Superbowl on Ecstasy
— Great to see the return of these introverted co-workers characters for the first time in two seasons. This ends up being their final appearance.
— Something about the dopey, hokey delivery Steve’s using here isn’t working for me, especially in comparison to most of the other hosts who’ve appeared in these sketches.
— A big laugh from Kristen’s innocent reaction to Bill’s crude “Why don’t you sit on my face?” suggestion.
— Funny bit regarding Ecstasy in a plastic bag labeled “Mints”.
— The sudden turn with the introverted co-workers having a conversation about what raunchy things they’re going to do later is paling in comparison to the ones from the previous installments of this sketch. However, I did laugh out loud at Will’s mention of a “three-story denim vagina” just now.
STARS: ***½
LASER CATS! 4 EVER
host abets extension of the feline sci-fi franchise
— Our annual Laser Cats edition of the season. Always a treat to see the yearly appearance of this short.
— I like Lorne’s silent “Aww, dammit”-type facial reaction when realizing he’s about to be shown yet another Laser Cats video.
— Steve’s out-of-place executive producer credit photo was pretty funny.
— I love the little bit with Bill moving around individual words on an invisible screen to put together a message that was sent to him and Andy.
— Some amusing background sightings of cameramen and average joes accidentally entering the shot.
— Cool reveal with Bill and Andy’s respective half-necklace.
STARS: ****
ISSUES
Clarence Jernigan’s (KET) guests are insufficiently body-aware
— Oddly enough, SNL already had a fictional talk show sketch titled Issues – a recurring one, in fact, involving Jim Breuer and that night’s SNL host playing potheads interviewing a professional played by Ana Gasteyer.
— A cheap initial laugh from Steve entering the sketch with womanly breasts.
— This is basically Kenan Reacts: The Sketch. The famous “Kenan Reacts” routine is funny in small doses, but not when an entire four-minute sketch is centered around it. None of the other comedic aspects of this sketch are doing all that much for me, either.
STARS: **
MADOFF INVITES
Bernie Madoff (FRA) can’t get anybody to come to his Superbowl party
— Ugh, the return of Fred’s Bernie Madoff impression, after that awful Weekend Update commentary he did in the preceding episode.
— Did Fred change the voice of his Madoff impression? In this sketch, Fred’s basically doing his “smug middle-aged Jewish guy” stock voice that he’s used in certain other roles, but I remember him using a drastically different and more generic voice for Madoff in the preceding episode.
— Where the fuck is the joke in this sketch? I’m currently about halfway through this sketch, and I have yet to get so much as a single CHUCKLE from the endless amount of phone calls Fred’s Madoff is making. Absolutely nothing is happening in this sketch. Why am I supposed to be entertained by a sketch centered around Madoff making non-comedic, uninteresting phone calls to people he’s swindled in the past? And, I highly doubt this, but if this is supposed to be some kind of half-baked attempt at the type of slice-of-life sketches that the original SNL era usually nailed so well, then all I can say about the execution of this attempt is: OOF.
— Geez, this sketch is so hollow-feeling and quiet that, just now, you can even hear off-camera footsteps from somewhere in SNL’s studio.
STARS: *
STEVE AND THE LADIES
the crush CAW, KRW, MIW, ABE have on host inspires them to sing about him
— Ooh, a backstage sketch. At this point of SNL’s run, it feels rare and refreshing to see a backstage sketch anymore, and it’s very fitting that they’re doing one with Steve Martin.
— So nice to see the underused Casey Wilson getting so much focus as herself and interacting with the host as himself.
— Feels kinda odd but interesting seeing all of the then-current female cast members paired together as themselves in this manner. However, something also feels a little sad about that in hindsight, knowing the future that awaits Casey, Abby, and Michaela’s respective SNL tenures, and how they’d never overcome Kristen’s dominance. And it feels disheartening to realize that if this sketch had instead appeared even just half a year later, 50% of the female lineup in the sketch would’ve been completely different from the one in tonight’s version.
— I got a good laugh from Casey’s comically exaggerated ending note when she and the other female cast members were singing in harmony.
— Nice ending.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I’m Yours”
WEEKEND UPDATE
unrepentant Rod Blagojevich (JAS) is on the way out but is still feisty
Angelina Jolie (ABE) asks SEM if the Octomom might have any extra babies
David Paterson (FRA) badmouths upstate New York & all of New Jersey
— Good to see a Weekend Update commentary from Jason’s short-lived-but-fun Rod Blagojevich impression.
— I’m really liking Seth’s deadpan interplay with Jason’s Blagojevich.
— A predictable but funny ending to Jason-as-Blagojevich’s poem, with what inappropriate word he’s about to use to rhyme “Blagojeviches” with.
— A reminder of when Octomom was all over the news around this time.
— A very sudden appearance from Abby as Angelina Jolie right in the middle of Seth’s Octomom joke.
— Great make-up and facial prosthetics on Abby. Her resemblance to Jolie is downright uncanny.
— An overall brief but funny Angelina Jolie bit with Abby.
— The return of Fred’s very polarizing David Paterson impression.
— I fully admit that Fred’s Paterson is cracking me up even more tonight than he did in his prior appearance. Fred’s portrayal of and dialogue as Paterson simply work for me, what can I say? And his line, “I haven’t heard so many people screaming at me since I TOOK THAT ARCHERY CLASS!”, has stuck with me over the years.
— Hmm, this Paterson commentary is going on awfully long.
— We get a variation of the “a blind Fred Armisen wanders around in front of the camera after his Update commentary is over, interrupting an Update anchor’s joke” routine, with Fred’s Paterson following his Update commentary by slowly sliding his chair in the wrong direction behind Seth, interrupting Seth’s joke. Unlike the “wandering around in front of the camera” routine, which is obviously scripted, I almost wonder if this chair gag is an ad-lib on Fred’s part, but probably not.
STARS: ***
MAKE-UP COUNTER
make-up salesman’s (host) dumb wife Trina (KRW) bothers him while he works
— I laughed at the reveal early on that Casey’s trying on all this fancy make-up just for a Dunkin Donuts interview she’s about to go to.
— OH MOTHERFUCKING NO. We get the debut of Kristen’s character Trina, a.k.a. the “Thomaaaasss!” lady, a character I and a number of others consider to be the absolute bane of Kristen’s repertoire of recurring characters (which is certainly saying something), and THE #1 quintessential example of how poorly-written, one-note, and irritating a lot of Kristen’s recurring characters tend to be.
— Ugghhhhhhh. Two minutes into this sketch, and it is soooooo unbelievably bad so far. If you told me Kristen was thrown out there with literally NO written material at all, I’d believe you 100%, as that would explain so much about her performance in this sketch. (I’d believe you if you told me that was also the case with Kristen’s character in the Quiz Bowl sketch from this season’s Michael Phelps episode.) This Trina character is just a whole bunch of NOTHINGNESS. Very bad and annoying nothingness at that. Feels like a very amateurish, poorly-written imitation of a typical one-note Mo Collins recurring character from MADtv. (Funnily enough, Mo Collins did have a MADtv recurring character named Trina, though she was nothing like Kristen’s Trina.)
— It’s shocking to me that something THIS underwritten made it on the air. Besides Kristen’s (polarizing) big farewell piece from the end of her final episode as a cast member, you probably can’t find a bigger example of the extreme favoritism Lorne showed towards Kristen than the fact that this Trina sketch made it on the air, because there’s no fucking way I can see a character THIS slight, THIS material-less, and THIS painfully unfunny making it on the air if it starred a less popular performer.
— As I said in a previous review, Kristen would later disclose in an interview that she herself couldn’t stand this Trina character, and would eventually ask the writer of these sketches, Kent Sublette, to stop writing them (as well as another Wiig recurring sketch Sublette wrote, but I can’t remember which). To me, that speaks volumes, and is one of the reasons I eventually stopped putting the main blame on Kristen herself for the bad sketches she’s given too often in the second half of her SNL tenure. In more recent years, I’ve grown to truly appreciate Kristen’s many talents and strengths as an actress and SNL cast member, but when she, in her SNL tenure, performs D.O.A. crap too often, combined with how frustrating it can get in this second half of her tenure seeing SNL over-utilize and, at times, mis-utilize her at the expense of some of her talented castmates, it can be easy to forget how damn good Kristen generally is.
— When Steve asks Casey to please not tell anybody about the absurdity she just witnessed from Trina, I like Casey’s delivery of her response: “I feel like I will. Just being honest.” With that and the amusing Dunkin Donuts throwaway line that I mentioned earlier, Casey has provided my only two laughs in this entire sketch, but not even those two laughs are enough to make up for how mind-numbingly bad the rest of this sketch is.
— Steve’s ending line, after Trina has left: “Wow. That’s the best I’ve ever seen her.” Such a lame punchline. However, the second (and, thankfully, final) installment of this sketch with Gerard Butler next season has a somehow even dumber punchline.
— Overall, I personally feel this was, no exaggeration, one of the worst SNL sketches I have EVER seen. This was so bad that, back when it originally aired, even the staunchest Kristen Wiig defenders hated it. Speaking of the reception this sketch got back when it originally aired, I remember how, between the debut of Gilly in the preceding episode and the debut of Trina in tonight’s episode, not to mention certain other bad (to me back then, at least) characters Kristen had done shortly before this point, I finally reached my official boiling point towards Kristen back then and became harshly anti-Wiig for the remainder of her SNL tenure, which, in turn, would cause me to be unfairly dismissive towards a lot of the actual good things Kristen would do during that stretch of her tenure. In more recent years, I’ve softened on my stance on Kristen, and, as I said above, I’ve gained a lot of respect and appreciation for her talents and strengths as an SNL cast member, and thus, in regards to the downsides of her SNL tenure, I now put the blame more on the writing she was given and the way SNL tended to mis-utilize her talents at times. But no matter how much my newfound respect for Kristen may continue to rise, nothing in a million years will ever make me tolerate the absolute worst recurring characters of her repertoire, least of all Trina.
STARS: *
STEVE MARTIN: “LATE FOR SCHOOL”
accompanied by his band, host plays banjo & sings “Late For School”
— Hmm, a very interesting change of pace for this SNL era. I like how this segment feels like a throwback to early SNL eras. In fact, this definitely feels like a segment Steve would’ve done on the show back in the 70s.
— I like the way the home base stage is decorated during this, especially the gate in the background. That gate would later re-appear on SNL’s home base stage during the famous Goodnight Saigon sketch with Will Ferrell at the end of this season.
— A catchy simplistic melody to this song.
— Interesting how, at the end, after the performance has concluded and the audience is applauding, Steve and his band then proceed to play the show to commercial. Even more interestingly, Jason Mraz did the same thing at the end of his first musical performance earlier tonight. Must be a theme in tonight’s episode.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
FOREFATHERS OF THE GAME
old-time quarterback Billy The Gun (host) carried a firearm on the field
— I’m loving the format of this, and it’s being executed very well. I also love how accurate it is in recreating the typical atmosphere and look of this type of documentary/profile on an old-time football player.
— Most of the performers look very amusing in their grizzled-old-man makeup and facial expressions. I especially love Bobby’s facial expressions here.
— The name of Will’s character, Jack Snad (a funny name in itself, especially when seeing a graphic of it displayed below Will’s amusing grizzled-old-man facial expressions), makes me wonder if this sketch was written by whoever writes Kristen and Will’s Jackie Snad/Clancy T. Bachleratt sketches (country singers who sing about stuff like spaceships/toddlers/Model-T cars/jars of beer).
— Great use of Steve, which is more than I can say for some of the other sketches tonight.
— Bill’s delivery is particularly excellent in this sketch.
— An overall fun and very strong piece.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Colbie Caillat [real] perform “Lucky”
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Not as weak an episode as I had remembered. Aside from two horrible sketches (one starring Fred Armisen and one starring Kristen Wiig, which sadly seems fitting, as some online SNL fans seem to consider those two performers to be the usual culprits of the worst sketches from the 2009-2012 years), there wasn’t much for me to hate in this episode, and there were a few strong highlights. However, this still felt a little underwhelming for a Steve Martin-hosted episode. And given the fact that this ends up being his final hosting stint (as of 2020), this wasn’t the most deserving way for an SNL hosting legend like him to go out. If he had to retire from hosting, I feel that his pretty solid and special-feeling season 31 episode would’ve been a better note to end on. Either way, I at least now have the honor of saying I’ve reviewed every single Steve Martin episode of SNL ever. For whatever that’s worth, that feels like a special accomplishment for me in the context of this SNL project of mine.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Forefathers Of The Game
Steve and the Ladies
Laser Cats! 4 Ever
Superbowl Night Out
Monologue
Weekend Update
Obama Remembers
Chewable Pampers
Issues
Madoff Invites
Make-Up Counter
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Rosario Dawson)
a mild step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Bradley Cooper