Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
CHINA PRESS CONFERENCE
Hu Jintao (WLF) expects to be screwed by debtor Barack Obama (FRA)
— Some funny sarcastic comments from Will as Hu Jintao, translated into English by Nasim.
— The out-of-nowhere sardonic “I like to be kissed when SOMEONE IS DOING SEX TO ME!!!” bit cracked me up, especially with how unexpected it was.
— Blah, now they’re overdoing the hell out of the “DOING SEX TO ME!!!” outbursts.
— Boy, this cold opening is going on freakin’ FOREVER, with increasingly less laughs along the way. Any of the goodwill I had towards it earlier on has been long forgotten and tarnished by this point.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
host performs “Make ‘Em Laugh” from Singin’ In The Rain
— Joseph Gordon-Levitt, regarding plans for his monologue: “I figured, why not open with a big number?” Normally, that would have me groaning out loud, but I’m aware in hindsight what an epic monologue this turns out to be.
— I like the running bit with Joseph’s “If you haven’t seen it, your girlfriend/grandma has” whenever he mentions a movie.
— We’re early on into Joseph’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” performance, and it’s already coming off very solid and committed.
— When Joseph asks Bobby if he can believe SNL is letting him perform “Make ‘Em Laugh”, I love Bobby’s sarcastic “No, I can’t believe it” response. I’d like to think that’s a self-deprecating dig at SNL’s over-reliance on musical monologues.
— Very funny running gag with the slaps/punches Bobby randomly gives Joseph.
— Joseph’s already-great “Make ‘Em Laugh” performance is now getting full-on amazing, as he’s doing a whole bunch of great physical actions during it.
— Now he’s doing VERY impressive backflips off of walls, on live TV! I remember how absolutely shocked and impressed I was by this when this originally aired, and I’m still impressed today.
— Love the way the performance ended.
— An absolutely fantastic overall monologue, and with this one piece alone, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has proven he will be miles better of a host than the infamous preceding host – January Jones.
STARS: *****
PALIN 2012
Democrats’ recut 2012 trailer gives vision of disastrous Palin presidency
— A surprising return of the “An SNL Trailer Re-Cut” segment, several years after the Apocalypto one. This ends up being the final one.
— Funny idea to mix a hypothetical future Sarah Palin presidency with apocalyptic footage from the movie 2012. This is being executed well.
— “From the mind of Keith Olbermann…”
— Hilarious reveal of Glenn Beck being vice president.
STARS: ***½
SECRET WORD
actress Mindy Grayson (KRW) is useless on classic game show
— The debut of a sketch I’ve always despised.
— Part of Kristen’s opening line is a delighted “LOOK AT ME!!!”, a line that perfectly sums up so many of the badly-written attention-starved characters Kristen’s been given over the years of her SNL tenure. Only three seconds into the debut of this particular Secret Word character of Kristen’s, and I already hate the character.
— Given how underused Will has been in this final season of his, it feels sad seeing him relegated to playing a boring straight man to a bad Kristen Wiig character.
— A very weak and one-note gag with Kristen’s character always immediately revealing the exact same secret word (drape) she’s supposed to give hints of.
— I like Bill’s goofy-voiced aggravated delivery of “D’ohhhhh boyyyyy”.
— Another funny line from Bill, with him hesitantly and passive aggressively telling Kristen’s character, “I’ll…tell ya…when…to start”, after she tries to start one of the rounds herself. Bill’s providing my only real laughs of this sketch, though I do like Joseph’s characterization of his Latin crooner character.
STARS: *½
TWO WORLDS COLLIDE FT. REBA MCENTIRE
ANS loves man pretending to be Reba McEntire (KET)
— Yet ANOTHER highly-acclaimed and well-remembered music video from Lonely Island, who have been on a hot streak with these music videos lately.
— The idea of Kenan, of all people, randomly playing Reba McEntire is fucking priceless.
— I guess I could say my usual “Kenan In A Dress alert”, but at least this short is putting the Kenan In A Dress trope to good use. This is also putting Kenan’s penchant for bug-eyed mugging to good use, given the fact that he’s imitating Reba here.
— I love Kenan’s goofy redneck-voiced singing, and it’s a funny contrast to Andy’s typical hardcore rapping.
— When this originally aired, back in the days when I couldn’t stand Kenan and viewed him as one of the weakest links of this cast, I was impressed by him in this short and felt it was by far one of the better things he had ever done on SNL. Looking back on this short years later, especially after I’ve softened a lot on Kenan and gained a lot of respect for him, I now view this short as a continuation of Kenan’s growth arc that officially started with the What Up With That debut earlier this season.
— Kenan throughout this short: “Ahhhh’m Reba!”
— Even the juvenile and crude conceit with “Reba” secretly being a man is absolutely working for me in this context.
STARS: ****½
THE MELLOW SHOW WITH JACK JOHNSON
Ozzy Osbourne (Dave Matthews) now likes to take it easy
— The somewhat surprising return of a one-off sketch from two seasons prior.
— Kinda interesting now having Bill’s Dave Matthews be the co-host of tonight’s Mellow Show installment, after he was just a guest in the previous installment.
— I like the random statements of mellow-centric things Andy’s Jack Johnson says into the camera (e.g. “Ultimate frisbee”) as a non-sequitur. I can’t remember if he did the same thing in the first installment of this sketch.
— Andy and Bill giving each other a foot-five, ala a high-five, was hilarious. You can also tell Andy is holding back a laugh afterwards.
— Pretty good Jason Mraz impression from Joseph.
— A fairly memorable Ozzy Osbourne impression from the real Dave Matthews.
— Our obligatory tongue-in-cheek bit with Dave Matthews, while in character as Ozzy, insulting Bill’s Dave Matthews. I don’t mind the sometimes-groanworthy “celebrity confronts a cast member impersonating them” trope as much when the celebrity is playing another celebrity, such as here.
STARS: ***
WHAT UP WITH THAT?
panelists spectate; Al Gore & Mindy Kaling cameos
— I see SNL ain’t wasting any time, as they’ve brought back What Up With That a mere THREE EPISODES after its debut.
— This is following the exact same same formula as the first installment of this sketch, but it’s certainly still loads of fun.
— Awww, yeah! Here comes Jason and his red tracksuited dancing!
— I love Andy suddenly jumping into the scene as a dancing hip-hop clown. His dancing is very funny.
— Absolutely hilarious inclusion of Bobby as a tap-dancing Jake “The Snake” Roberts.
— The camera hasn’t been showing Jason’s epic dancing quite as much as usual tonight.
— Kenan’s final lyric about having “the egg burp” is cracking me up.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “You & Me”
WEEKEND UPDATE
to effect environmental change, Al Gore [real] will start acting crazy
— Another appearance tonight from Al Gore, who’s always fun on SNL.
— A good laugh from Gore bluntly revealing his backup plan: “I’m gonna start acting crazy.”
— I like Gore’s various insane-but-oddly-clever ideas.
— Great sarcastic comment from Gore about his “excitement” over having a bully pulpit on a fourth-place network.
— I really like Seth’s delivery of his George W. Bush joke.
— Wow, an actual fairly short Update with only one guest commentary! Feels incredibly rare to see a one-guest Update in the solo Seth Meyers era of Update. Wish it happened far more often.
STARS: ***½
DYSFUNCTIONAL THANKSGIVING DINNER
family tensions have everyone on-edge at contentious Thanksgiving dinner
— Oh, no, what are you doing, SNL?!? The Dysfunctional Christmas Dinner sketch from the preceding season’s Hugh Laurie episode was a near-classic the first time, but it has no business being made into a recurring sketch. It’s not at all something that’ll work nearly as well in a rehash. On top of that, you’re going to re-cast Abby into the general role that the recently-fired Casey Wilson played in the first installment, an installment of which Casey HERSELF co-wrote (with Kristen), by the way? Really, SNL?
— When I first reviewed this sketch in my original 2009 review of this episode (link here), I went into a HUGE rant, where my point was basically “What was the point of SNL firing Casey Wilson and Michaela Watkins if the show’s going to continue doing sketches Casey and Michaela were prominent in, and re-casting roles of theirs?” I was also upset over SNL’s decision to continue doing the Casey Wilson-co-written Dysfunctional Christmas Dinner sketch AFTER Casey’s firing, as it seemed like a slap in the face to her.
— In my current review, I’ll try to judge this sketch with a less-bitter mindset, but I still can’t help but feel it will pale badly in comparison to the almost-untouchable Dysfunctional Christmas Dinner sketch.
— Kristen has the ability to get laughs just from simply sipping a drink and eating from her fork in a subtly-tense manner.
— So far, despite some laughs I’m getting, this has been such a carbon copy of the original Dysfunctional Christmas Dinner sketch. The “Sit down, Judith!” running bit in particular is not working as well as last time, and it feels like they’re relying a little too heavily on it this time.
— Now they’re even copying the bit where the tense family suddenly unites by singing together. Doesn’t even make much sense to me in this Thanksgiving-related context, whereas the family singing together on Christmas was far more fitting.
— Overall, while I admit this rehashed sketch was not quite as worthless as I previously made it out to be in my afore-linked 2009 review, I still didn’t enjoy the sketch much. Too much unnecessary and inferior copying of the first installment of this sketch.
STARS: **
WOMAN TO WOMAN
insensitive sub Rodger Brush (FRA) is ill-suited adviser
— The debut of these Rodger Brush sketches starring Fred.
— Back in the original era, SNL had a Gilda Radner-starring recurring talk show sketch with this same title (Woman To Woman).
— A fairly funny reveal of Fred as a bald, overweight, brash-looking man sitting in for the female host of this tender female-oriented advice show.
— Ugh, only two minutes into this sketch, and I’ve already gotten extremely sick of the redundant running bit with Fred asking the female guests to speak louder.
— The joke of Fred’s bad, generic advice to the guests is another thing in this sketch that’s getting old fast.
— Though he has no comedic lines, Joseph’s performance is very solid.
— Overall, ugh. Not a good sketch at all, and I dread having to cover subsequent installments of this sketch.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Shake Me Like A Monkey”
SAY ANYTHING
Lloyd Dobler’s (host) “In Your Eyes” boombox strategy bemuses (JAS)
— Between the spoof of the movie 2012 earlier tonight and now a Say Anything spoof, John Cusack’s filmography is getting a real workout in tonight’s episode.
— When Jason initially walks on and sees Joseph standing in a bold, still position while holding up a boombox, I got a big laugh from Jason just responding to that with a hesitant-but-accepting “Alright…” and then immediately exiting the shot.
— Interesting concept for a Say Anything spoof, and I like this idea of Jason as a random character interrupting an iconic movie scene. (Now that I write that, it almost sounds like something that could’ve been made into a solid recurring sketch, with Jason interrupting an iconic scene from a different movie each time.) This is a great showcase for Jason’s general performance style.
— A funny “This kid loves cassettes” comment from Jason when Joseph takes a break from holding up a boombox to speak into a tape recorder.
— The “Genesis is back together!” ending was hilarious.
— Overall, a strong Jason Sudeikis showcase.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mixed episode. To me, this episode feels better than it actually is, due to how solid, fun, energetic, and likable of a host Joseph Gordon-Levitt was, and how he had a monologue for the ages. He was EXACTLY the type of host SNL needed after January Jones’ horribly-received hosting stint. However, when I think back on the quality of tonight’s episode itself, I’m recalling quite a number of things I didn’t like. We also got the debuts of two awful recurring sketches: Secret Word and Rodger Brush (no surprise that one of them stars Kristen Wiig and the other one stars Fred Armisen, because, as I’ve mentioned in a somewhat recent review, a number of online SNL fans seem to consider those two performers to be the usual culprits of the worst sketches from these 2009-2012 years), two sketches that we’ll be seeing too often within these next few seasons. However, tonight had some pretty good things and a few VERY strong pieces, balancing this out to an overall fairly-watchable-though-shaky episode.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Monologue
Two Worlds Collide ft. Reba McEntire
What Up With That?
Say Anything
Palin 2012
Weekend Update
The Mellow Show with Jack Johnson
Dysfunctional Thanksgiving Dinner
China Press Conference
Woman To Woman
Secret Word
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (January Jones)
a definite step up (needless to say)
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Blake Lively