Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER
Yemeni President Saleh (FRA) is an uncertain USA ally
— Not caring for this at all so far. It doesn’t help that Fred’s general foreigner routine is so tired to me by this point.
— I do at least like Bill’s goofiness when he’s joining in on Fred’s mockery of Will.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
host sizes up audience members & requests KET do his impression of him
— As expected, Charles Barkley is getting lots of laughs just being his usual deadpan, monotone, blunt self.
— Funny brief involvement of Lorne.
— Very funny comment from Charles, saying the ratio of black people to white people who hosted SNL the preceding season is equal to that who saw the movie It’s Complicated.
— A good laugh from Charles calling one audience member (SNL writer Jessi Klein) “pretty in a kind of Jewish way” and “a freaky white girl”.
— I love how loose the format of this monologue feels. Perfect for Charles Barkley’s style.
— Charles, when wrapping up the monologue: “We got a great show tonight. Some of it is great, some of it we’re gonna do anyway.” Gotta love that trademark Charles Barkley honesty.
STARS: ****
THOMAS PEEPERS INSURANCE
attentive agents will look through your windows
— Very funny part with Bill’s spokesperson character suddenly going from speaking to the camera in a professional manner to suddenly running away and swearing when he hears something nearby.
— Strong conceit to this commercial, and a very solid use of Bill.
— Funny suggestive-looking shot of the reflection of Kristen unclogging a drain in front of Bill looking through the window right in front of her.
STARS: ****
REEL QUOTES
game show contestants (host) & (KRW) bungle movie dialogue
— A laugh from Kristen’s first long-winded wrong answer.
— The “You can’t handle my privates” bit is absolutely hilarious.
— All of Charles’ wrong answers and bizarre reasoning are very funny.
— Ugh, the running gag with Kristen’s long-winded answers has gotten really old. I’d love this sketch much more if it focused on just Bill and Charles’ characters.
— Charles’ explanation of what his Blockbuster job is was stupid enough to work.
— I love the speed round part.
— Bill genuinely fails in his attempt to angrily tear up the index card. I remember how this, along with some other things around this time, made some online SNL fans speculate if something was wrong with Bill’s health.
— I like the awkwardness of Bill and Charles just standing there waiting for the buzzer after Bill’s character has given up on the show.
— Bill, during his sign-off: “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.” Charles: “You shouldn’t be lookin’ at kids, Reg.”
— Overall, as bad as the Wiig portions of this sketch were, everything else about it was strong enough for me to give this a high rating.
STARS: ****
MACGRUBER
black employee Darrell (host) doesn’t appreciate MacGruber’s racist joke
— So many laughs from MacGruber telling Charles “black slang” versions of everything he’s saying to Vicky.
— The horrible racist punchline of MacGruber’s joke, and how the very end of it gets cut off by the obligatory end-of-MacGruber-short explosion, is probably one of the hardest I’ve ever laughed at a MacGruber short, which is certainly saying something.
STARS: *****
SKI RETREAT
at a ski lodge, Shana alternately entices & repulses her male co-workers
— This sketch has officially become recurring.
— Odd coincidence: the first two Shana sketches have been performed with hosts who are hosting for the first time since way back in season 19 (John Malkovich, Charles Barkley). When I noticed this coincidence back when this episode originally aired, I remember jokingly speculating that the next Shana sketch would be when another hasn’t-hosted-since-season-19 male celebrity hosts, but I couldn’t come up with many haven’t-hosted-since-season-19 male celebrities who were still relevant enough to host in 2010. I think Patrick Stewart was the only one I could come up with. The streak of SNL only doing Shana sketches with season 19 hosts would end up being broken anyway, as the only remaining Shana sketches after tonight’s episode are done with hosts Bryan Cranston and Ben Stiller.
— Jenny has taken over the “ignored girl” role that Casey Wilson played in the first installment of this sketch. Much like both the Hoda Kotb and Janice (from the Muppets) roles, this “ignored girl” role seems to be yet another “cursed” role in this SNL era, as Jenny would end up suffering the same fate Casey suffered, in that she would get fired before the next Shana sketch appears. Abby would eventually break this curse, as she plays the “ignored girl” role in the next two Shana sketches.
— This reprisal isn’t working quite as well for me as the original installment of this sketch did, and this sketch has some really unfortunate habits that are way too prevalent in this SNL era (e.g. showing off Kristen Wiig, the camera doing constant cutaways to weirded-out facial reactions of straight man characters, a lowly female featured player playing a neglected character), but Kristen’s still managing to make this character work for me, and I certainly find this character more tolerable than some of Kristen’s other recurring characters around this time.
STARS: ***
MACGRUBER
racial sensitivity class hasn’t fixed relations with Darrell
— I think this is the first and only time Vicky has been included in a MacGruber opening title sequence.
— Very strong premise of MacGruber allegedly being reformed after taking racial sensitivity classes.
— Classic part with MacGruber spraying Charles with mace when Charles was simply going to hand MacGruber the pen that MacGruber asked him for.
— Great ending.
STARS: *****
INSIDE THE NBA
Danny Hoover’s incongruous play-by-play perturbs host
— Continuing season 35’s annoying trend of randomly bringing back a one-off sketch from a previous season that had no business becoming recurring, we get the return of this perfectly fine one-off sketch from years earlier in season 32.
— So far, this is following the exact same pattern as the first installment of this sketch, and, as expected, it’s not working quite as well for me this time. I also feel that “Nothing but the bottom of the net” doesn’t have the same memorable ring as “That’ll move the chains”.
— The “Thunder Dan is en fuego!” bit is pretty funny, especially Charles’ reaction.
— Ha, we actually get a direct callback to the aforementioned “That’ll move the chains” catchphrase from the first installment.
— I love Charles angrily calling Andy a “world class baloney head”.
— Meh, even the ending of this sketch is a weak knock-off of the first installment’s ending, only with Automatic Dying Disease (ADD) being replaced with Overwhelming Corpse Disease (OCD). Still the same basic joke.
STARS: **½
MACGRUBER
MacGruber’s African pilgrimage failed to curb his racism
— Hilarious visual of MacGruber wearing African clothing.
— Very funny ending with MacGruber spraying Charles with mace AGAIN during the sentimental sequence with Charles going in for a handshake.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart”
WEEKEND UPDATE
James Carville (BIH) downplays terrorism threat posed by Underwear Bomber
new United Nations ambassador Nicolas Cage (ANS) thinks he’s in a movie
David Paterson (FRA) sustains critical tone of State Of The State Address
— Good to see the return of Bill’s James Carville impression.
— Hilarious fat lady/grasping-for-straws analogy Bill’s Carville makes.
— Blah, this Nicolas Cage commentary isn’t working for me. The whole conceit with him repeatedly acting like he’s in an action/thriller scene in a movie is too repetitive and corny for my likes.
— Love the comical Update photo of new Harlem Globetrotters, as the photo is a who’s who of then-current SNL writers (the fourth-to-last above screencap for this Weekend Update).
— We haven’t seen Fred’s David Paterson all season until now. Unlike some people, I actually liked his previous Paterson commentaries from the preceding season, but, knowing how badly Fred has been doing this season, I’m iffy on how tonight’s Paterson commentary will turn out.
— I like Fred-as-Paterson’s line about how Jersey Shore is New Jersey’s equivalent to The McLaughlin Group.
— Not a bad overall commentary from Fred’s Paterson.
STARS: ***
THE HANEY PROJECT
host’s awful mechanics extend beyond golf swing
— I believe it’s been said that this is the only sketch that Hannibal Burress got on the air during his sole season as a writer.
— The real-life clips of Charles’ awful golf-swinging technique are good for a laugh. I also like Jason describing that technique as it being like Charles had a heart attack mid-swing but miraculously recovered.
— Though an obvious joke, the clips of Charles doing everyday routines in the same awkwardly-stopping-short-then-continuing manner as his golf-swing technique are providing pretty good amusement.
— The wedding cake clip is particularly funny.
STARS: ***½
BOOTY CALL
musical guest inexplicably wants to bed nerdy Lionel (ANS)
— A typical goofy Andy Samberg character, but it’s certainly cracking me up. Even just the mere look of his character is keeping me amused.
— I laughed out loud at Andy’s “Oh, you mean over the diaper?” line when Alicia Keys asks him what he’s wearing.
— Hilarious reveal of Andy being at an intervention that’s held for Bobby. I also love the pissed-off, haggard look on a silent Bobby’s face. Even the little detail of Abby looking at Bobby in an emotional, teary manner (the last above screencap for this short) is somehow adding to my amusement.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Empire State Of Mind (Part II) Broken Down”
SCARED STRAIGHT
tales of Lorenzo McIntosh & dad (host) don’t frighten trespassing teens
— When Lorenzo McIntosh guesses the juvenile delinquents have gotten busted for cannibalism and Charles tells him “That’s a good guess”, I love Jason responding “What, are you kidding? That’s a horrible guess.”
— Ha, I have no idea why Charles has suddenly started laughing out of character while speaking right now (the first above screencap for this sketch), but it’s making me laugh, too. There’s something strangely infectious about his breaking.
— As always, it’s fun to guess which movie Lorenzo McIntosh is referencing.
— Also as always, I’m getting lots of guilty laughs from all of the crude prison rape jokes.
— The “Body fluids!” bit during the Matrix gag made me laugh out loud.
— I like Kenan, in his latest attempt to get the obligatory laugh out of Bill during Kenan and the host’s ganging up on him, giving Bill a Wet Willy, made even funnier by Jason eagerly saying an off-camera “Do it!”
— The prison rape jokes during the Jerry Maguire bit are particularly hilarious. This sketch in general has got to be one of the funnier Scared Straight installments.
— For once, they didn’t do usual ending where, after Lorenzo McIntosh and his partner leave, one of the juvenile delinquents points out the window and asks “Hey, are they (insert bad thing here)?” and Jason looks out the window and then happily responds “Nah, they’re just (insert even worse thing here).”
— An odd theme I’ve noticed in the post-Weekend Update half of this episode: this is the third consecutive comedy segment to end with someone saying an angry “Dammit!” or “Damn!” Charles said it at the end of the Haney Project sketch when he couldn’t get the door open, Alicia Keys said it at the end of the Digital Short when Andy canceled their booty call, and Jason said it at the end of this sketch when the delinquents admitted they didn’t learn their lesson.
STARS: ****
BARKLEY’S BANK
host’s financial plan for your money is double or nothing
— Funny premise of Charles owning a bank and admitting he will either double your money or lose it all.
— I got such a big laugh from such a little Christopher Walken-esque detail of Charles delivering the word “motto” in an odd manner, stiffly pronouncing it as two separate words in an emphasized manner with a very hard “t”.
— After Charles shows the “You win some, you lose some” motto on the wall, SNL suddenly cuts to an SNL bumper photo of Charles (the even odder thing about that is that the cutaway to the bumper is done as a hard cut instead of the usual crossfade) while a now-un-mic’ed Charles can faintly be heard still speaking, then SNL suddenly goes to a commercial break. The show has obviously run long and they had to cut this sketch off halfway through. The full dress rehearsal version of this sketch would be shown in reruns (I can’t remember what, if anything, was removed in that rerun version to allow the full version of this Barkley’s Bank sketch to fit into the show, but I would guess it was the Thomas Peepers Insurance commercial), and it features a second testimonial from another married couple, played by Andy and Abby. If this portion of the sketch hadn’t got cut from the live show at the last minute, it would’ve been Abby’s ONLY live appearance of the night. Just her luck that her ONE scheduled live appearance of the episode, buried all the way at the end of the show, ended up getting cut at the last minute due to the show running long.
STARS: N/A (too much of the sketch got cut off for me to rate fairly)
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode, and deserves its reputation as one of the better episodes of this not-very-well-liked season. Most of the episode had a consistently good quality, and there were a few standout memorable pieces (the MacGruber shorts and the Barkley portions of the Reel Quotes sketch). Charles Barkley was a fun host in a strange way. To make another Christopher Walken comparison, Charles has a bit of a Walken-like quality as a host, in that something about his natural oddness and stiff, monotone manner inherently makes the material he’s performing funnier.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
MacGruber 1-2 (tie)
MacGruber 3
Monologue
Reel Quotes
Thomas Peepers Insurance
Scared Straight
Booty Call
The Haney Project
Weekend Update
Ski Retreat
Inside The NBA
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (James Franco)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Former one-time host Sigourney Weaver makes her return 24 years(!) after hosting the inaugural episode of the Phil Hartman/Dana Carvey/Jan Hooks era
This is a better episode than I remembered–the MacGruber sketch is one of my favorites of that character (perhaps my favorite). I like your analogy to Walken–Charles isn’t as funny as Walken, but he has the same function of him, basically playing some variation of himself in every sketch. I think most of his episodes don’t work as a full show, but they all have moments.
The Reel Quotes is very good–I agree that Wiig’s shtick gets old fast, and I’m glad her character is dropped relatively quickly. My favorite part is probably when the question is “may the force be” and Barkley just gives the scientific definition before pointing out he isn’t dumb, he just doesn’t know movies.
There really isn’t anything awful here either–the opening is boring and some of the retread stuff is old, but none of it is like show killing in the same way as we’ve been seeing some material.
Unlike some other recurring sketches, there’s at least a legit reason they brought back the NBA on TNT sketch- considering Barkley, then and now, serves as a coanchor on the real show.
Next to Reynolds, Gordon-Levitt, White, and Baldwin, one of my five “keeper” shows of Year 35. I love the randomness of a basic cable NBA analyst hosting for no discernible reason. Not to mention, that it technically happened in three times in seven years (I’m excluding his Year 19 stint, which belongs in another galaxy) simply because his randomness meshes well with the show. Neither Army nor Wiigy got on my nerves.
Alicia Keys was also very good.
An addendum: Galifianakis is a close sixth.
SNL put the full Barkley’s Bank sketch up on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFOPrepwE9w
Jillian Bell and Kristen co-wrote a sketch for this episode (I would have put that in over about 3 sketches we got):
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/06/jillian-bell-rough-night-hwd-profile
” (Wiig told me one of her all-time favorite S.N.L. memories was a never-aired sketch the pair wrote involving her and Charles Barkley playing grief counselors hired to speak to employees whose co-workers had been tragically killed at a corporate retreat.) “
That’s a very good point about the Barkley/Walken similarity. His last time hosting (2018?) was pretty fun, almost solely because of his delivery in each sketch.
I really, really love this MacGruber. Everyone involved is on their A-game and the script is perfectly paced. And it also takes a touchy subject and makes genuinely hilarious material.
Charles is the perfect host for modern SNL in that the flaws seem impossible to fix, so may as well just embrace them and make them a part of you. He embraces his stumbliness (which came in handy in this episode as Jason and to a lesser degree Bill have some noticeable stumbles) and offsets it with a charismatic but centered personality. When he laughs in the NBA sketch, it doesn’t ruin the sketch (admittedly there isn’t much to ruin in the first place…), because he just comes across as enjoying the moment.
Until we get to the part where they just repeat turd jokes over and over, I enjoyed this Shana sketch more than the first – the flow was a little better, and while I still find it degrading to have a new female cast member in the position of the unappealing woman who just has to react to Kristen, at least Jenny got a little more to do than Casey (and gets more airtime in most episodes than Casey did). The constant cutting to closeups you complain about reminds me of a recent interview with Don Roy King, where he says Lorne suggested he stop:
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/saturday-night-live-director-don-roy-king-interview-71474/
This is a much better Scared Straight sketch than some we’ve had so far – the jokes are sharper and the cast seems much more into what they’re doing (like Kenan getting physical with Bobby, who can barely stop himself from breaking).
The Peeper sketch is a familiar idea, but they make it seem fresh – it’s also a perfect role to show off Bill’s creepier range. (and nice to see Mike O’Brien in a bit part – who was the other writer with Rich, Mulaney, O’Brien and Tucker in the Update photo?)
I feel like all I do is complain about the Paterson appearances, but when you make sure you stare right into the camera to deliver the joke, it kind of defeats the purpose of laughing at him for being blind…
Charles is pretty good as the contestant, but the Reel Quotes sketch doesn’t quite work for me. It’s mostly down to the portion with Kristen and also down to their seemingly not being sure just how far to take his character. I would have cut out her part and just gone right to the lightning round part with Bill and Charles.
This was around the time that Bill’s anxiety was, from what he’s said in interviews, leading to where, by the end of 2010, he was having panic attacks live on air. He seems to hide it on air most of the time but it’s interesting to know some fans did wonder if something was wrong.
Other writer in the basketball photo is Ryan Perez, who I believe wrote on SNL this season only, at the time he was one of the people creating a lot of content for Funny or Die, when that site was in its hayday and a lot of people were getting hired to write from SNL through it. He recenty joined the writing staff for Fallon, so I guess he sorta works for Lorne again technically.
It’s kind of sad that a lot of new writers came and went while several of the longtime (and tired) ones have stayed put. I guess it’s all about playing favorites and having relationships.
Thanks! I’d never heard about him. Sometimes when you hear people talk in recent years about not enough writer stability you forget that the fast comings and goings have been very longstanding for SNL.
I’m not sure I’ve seen this ep because if I did, I’m sure I would’ve remembered much of what was in it…
Thank you for qualifying Alicia Keys as “the musical guest”; that shows the absolute nerdness of that whole futile exercise.