Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
OBAMA’S BUSINESS RULINGS
Barack Obama (FRA) passes judgment on product category winners & losers
— The idea of breaking down which brand of certain products will get a government subsidy and which won’t has some promise, but Fred’s weak and dull Obama impression isn’t the best way to execute it. I guess it’s still better than just having Fred’s Obama deliver a direct-to-camera speech, like he does in most of these presidential address cold openings.
— I’m getting some small chuckles from some of the products given or not given a subsidy, but no big laughs from me.
STARS: **
MONOLOGUE
audience members prefer Paul Blart, Mall Cop & pre-weightloss host
— I got a laugh from Seth Rogen’s meta bit about how the second time you host, SNL gets lazy and has you take questions from the audience.
— Some funny lines making fun of how there were two mall cop movies around this time (Paul Blart and Observe & Report).
— Pretty solid bits with Bill as a pizza deliveryman and Bobby as a heavyset Seth Rogen lookalike.
STARS: ***
THE FAST & THE BI-CURIOUS
rival drivers (host) & (ANS) exude gayness
— Meh, a very dumb premise for a Fast And The Furious parody.
— Overall, nothing about this commercial worked for me. Not the lame homoerotic humor, not Abby’s grossed-out facial reactions, nothing.
STARS: *
SAVE THE FUNNIES
Dick Tracy (JAS) & other funny pages denizens want to save newspapers
— A variation of the fantastic Save Broadway sketch from earlier this season, right down to having Jason play the character holding the meeting.
— As someone who was OBSESSED with Archie comics when he was a kid, I love the inclusion of Bill and Abby as Archie and Veronica.
— Judging from Kenan’s look in the background, he looks like he’s playing the same character he played in the Save Broadway sketch. He’s wearing the exact same wig and clothes.
— Bobby has played a cat in both the Save Broadway sketch and this.
— Just like last time in the Broadway sketch, we get a bit with Jason being told “That’s racist”.
— Also similar to last time, immediately after Jason claims he’s not racist, he automatically mistakes Kenan for being from a black comic strip (which I guess is why Kenan is dressed the same way he was in the Save Broadway sketch). I feel like I should be annoyed by this particular gag reprisal, but the fact that this has become a running gag actually tickles me.
— Feels a little odd but interesting seeing Andy’s Cathy in this sketch and not on Weekend Update.
— I’m not familiar with the Far Side comic strip, but the cutaway to Paula Pell made me laugh.
— (*groan*) Here we have yet another display of Fred’s classic Asian stereotype routine.
— What a lousy ending with Fred.
— Overall, very mixed feelings from me. This pales badly in comparison to the classic Save Broadway sketch from earlier this season, but I still got a decent amount of laughs throughout this. If I hadn’t seen the Save Broadway sketch, I probably would’ve had a little more appreciation for this Save The Funnies sketch as its own entity. Still a horrible ending in this sketch, though.
STARS: ***
LA RIVISTA DELLA TELEVISIONE CON VINNY VEDECCI
Vinny Vedecci thinks host is a Bear Man
— Cue the obligatory “Vinny Vedecci starts the interview by speaking to the interviewee in Italian, the confused interviewee explains they don’t speak Italian, leading to Vedecci getting into an argument with Fred’s character”. It’s a shame this otherwise fun recurring sketch always has to open with such a formulaic beginning. However, they did add something a little new to that formulaic beginning tonight, with Fred’s character immediately taking off his glasses when Rogen says a man with glasses was the one who told him the interview would be done in English.
— Funny conceit with Rogen being known as the Bear Man in Italy. And when Vedecci is running down the Italian titles of Rogen’s movies, I like the meta bit with Vedecci saying Superbad’s Italian title is “Bearman And A Very, Very Handsome Gentleman” as we’re shown a photo of Rogen and Bill Hader’s Superbad characters.
— Another funny instance of Bill, as Vedecci, doing an impression of the interviewee.
— Good bit with the bottle of Pellegrino in a bear trap.
STARS: ***½
LIKE A BOSS
insecure bigshot ANS describes his supervisory doings
— When this Digital Short originally aired, I felt it was both below par and too been-there-done-that for Lonely Island standards, and I was then kinda surprised to see the huge popularity it ended up taking on, leading me to deem this short vastly overrated. However, I will go into this short with an open mind in my current viewing, in hopes that I’ll gain a higher opinion of it.
— Good style to this Digital Short’s conceit, and some really funny visuals throughout, such as Andy taking a dump on the desk of the co-worker who rejected him.
— Overall, while I couldn’t find much to say during this, I found this short to be MUCH better than I originally deemed it. I’m glad to have come around on it. However, it’s definitely still not a classic to me. Lonely Island has funnier and more epic music video Digital Shorts than this.
STARS: ****
PHONE VOICES
(ANS), (BIH), (host) employ funny voices when talking on their cellphones
— I love the premise to this. This feels like a simplistic but effective premise that would’ve appeared in an earlier SNL era. Kind of a timeless feel to this type of sketch (ignoring the technology involving the cellphone usage).
— This sketch is a blast with the various phone voices Bill, Andy, and Rogen are using. Bill’s voices are particularly great. Such a fun display of Bill’s knack for doing fantastic cartoonish voices.
— Fred makes yet another bad walk-on at the end of a sketch. For me, he’s hurt the great momentum of this sketch.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Lisztomania”
WEEKEND UPDATE
SEM critiques the gift exchange between Barack Obama & Queen Elizabeth
bargaining Rod Blagojevich (JAS) wants to be an undercover governor
Barack Obama’s visit to Europe has inspired some Jean K. Jean riffs
Angelina Jolie (ABE) outmaneuvers fellow baby-seeker Madonna (KRW)
— Wow, a very strong run-on delivery from Meyers during his Obama Gift Exchange rant. This biting rant feels more like something from the current-era Weekend Updates with Colin Jost and Michael Che, as it doesn’t follow the usual “simple set-up, simple punchline” formula of Meyers’ Update jokes.
— I didn’t remember Jason’s Rod Blagojevich impression lasting THIS long. I thought his final appearance was in January of this season.
— Are Meyers and Jason just trying to amuse themselves with the seemingly ad-libbed bit with Meyers making various guesses on what Jason-as-Blagojevich’s undercover name might be? This feels too “inside joke-y” for my likes, plus the names that Meyers is guessing just aren’t that funny.
— Despite a decent start, this overall Blagojevich commentary did not do it for me.
— I think this is Jean K. Jean’s first Update appearance where he’s sitting next to Meyers instead of Amy Poehler, for obvious reasons.
— The usual with Jean K. Jean, overall. Some laughs, and Kenan’s typical charm carries the bit and makes it fun. I will say, though, that I could really do without those dance breaks in his commentaries.
— This Madonna commentary from Kristen is a good way to work in the usual walk-on from Abby as Angelina Jolie, and to keep those walk-ons of hers from getting too old. I like how Kristen’s Madonna and Abby’s Angelina are in a competition with each other on where they adopt their babies from.
— Great line from Abby’s Angelina about her Russian baby being a baby inside a baby inside a baby.
STARS: ***
CORPORATE MEETING
(host)’s dub of Grease soundtrack onto corporate CD has co-workers fuming
— During the first playing of the “You’re The One That I Want” song, I like the camera constantly cutting back and forth between Rogen’s ashamed face and Fred’s very tense staredown of him.
— Odd structure to this sketch, but the various tense close-ups of everyone are a funny contrast to the upbeat “You’re The One That I Want” song playing. Bill’s tense close-up is particularly funny.
— I like how, after one of the times he’s played a portion of “You’re The One That I Want”, Fred angrily says to Rogen “I mean…Lee!”, then stares him down again for a few seconds before just playing another portion of “You’re The One That I Want”.
— (*sigh*) Yet another episode this season in which Darrell is relegated to making an awkward walk-on in a non-impression role, just to give him something to do. Have I made it clear enough in my recent reviews how sad I find it to watch Darrell in this final season of his?
— The ending with Darrell was so bad. Poor endings to otherwise good sketches seems to be a theme in tonight’s episode.
— In dress rehearsal, Darrell played John Travolta in this sketch (presumably because of the Grease connection with the use of “You’re The One That I Want”) instead of the random character he plays in the live version. Not sure if him as Travolta would’ve made this ending any better. I despise his Travolta impression.
STARS: ***
MILESTONE HIGH
(ANS)’s tutoring fails because dumb (host) is not a jock
— Funny reveal of Rogen not even being on the basketball team, and just being some random idiot who doesn’t even know anything about basketball.
— That’s it? The sketch is already over? Felt like this sketch should’ve more to it after the aforementioned reveal.
STARS: **½
CLANCY T. BACHLERATT AND JACKIE SNAD SING EASTER SONGS ABOUT SPACESHIPS, TODDLERS, MODEL T. CARS & JARS OF BEER
Clancy T. Bachleratt & Jackie Snad do what the title above says
— A follow-up to the fantastic Clancy T. Bachleratt/Jackie Snad sketch from the preceding season.
— I’m surprised to see this is using the same song topics (spaceships, toddlers, Model-T cars, and jars of beer) as the first Bachleratt/Snad sketch. I thought I recall all the follow-ups to the first Bachleratt/Snad sketch (includng a cut-after-dress-rehearsal one from the following season’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt episode, which was put up online as an “Online Exclusive” after the episode’s original airing) having song topics with different oddball combinations.
— I’m still getting a lot of laughs from this, even if this isn’t hitting quite as hard for me as the first installment of this sketch did.
— At least Rogen isn’t laughing his way through this sketch like an idiot, the way Jonah Hill inexplicably did in the first installment of this sketch.
— Like last time, we get fantastic insane facial expressions from Will during his and Kristen’s New National Anthem song at the end.
— I love how, at the end of the final song, Will and Kristen’s over-the-top musical vocalizations continue for a while AFTER the background music has stopped. Their vocalizations during this part sound kinda like old-fashioned native chanting you’d see in a movie or something.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “1901”
MUPPET BUS
Nipsey Russell (KET) stops Muppets in Electric Mayhem bus for hit & run
— Another Seth Rogen-involved Muppets sketch, after the more-charming-than-intentionally-funny one from Rogen’s first episode. I like how tonight’s Muppets sketch has much more of a comedic conceit and an actual point, and I also appreciate how it’s involving much more of the cast than the first one did.
— Funny to see Will dressed in a Kermit costume after the legendary Kermit hand puppet sketch Will did with Justin Timberlake years prior.
— I love the “boom boom, sniff sniff” bit, with Bill-as-Animal having dynamite and a bag of cocaine on him.
— After Andy’s Swedish Chef slaps a freaking-out Kristen-as-Beaker, I got a pretty good laugh from Swedish Chef telling Beaker a stern “Smorgy…….bork!”
— Amusing inclusion of Kenan as Nipsey Russell, and it’s very funny how he suddenly gets shot in the middle of one of his typical poems.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
musical guest performs “Too Young”
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode. In the past, I had always felt this episode was very forgettable. After reviewing the episode just now, I’ve found that I actually like a lot of the content in it, though I still have that lingering “good but forgettable” feel. Not sure why.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Phone Voices
Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad Sing Easter Songs about Spaceships, Toddlers, Model T. Cars & Jars of Beer
Like A Boss
Muppet Bus
La Rivista Della Televisione con Vinny Vedecci
Monologue
Corporate Meeting
Weekend Update
Save The Funnies
Milestone High
Obama’s Business Rulings
The Fast & The Bi-Curious
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tracy Morgan)
a mild step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Zac Efron