Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE CENSUS
Barack Obama (FRA) encourages USA to answer invasive census questions
— Some laughs from the inappropriate sexual-related census questions.
— At least all of these census questions are distracting somewhat from the usual drabness of Fred’s Obama and his typically-boring address-to-the-nation cold openings.
STARS: **½
MONOLOGUE
support crew helps TIF juggle it all; Mark Sanchez & Steve Martin cameos
— Already a funny opening line from Tina Fey about how her second time hosting is a record….“a personal record”.
— When disclosing her least favorite questions that people often ask her, I half-expected one of the questions to be “How’d you get that scar?”, but I was incorrect. Maybe the scar thing is too sore a subject for Tina. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen her joke about it.
— Meh, a musical monologue, but Tina seems like she’ll make this fun.
— As expected, it turns out there’s some good and fun typical Fey-esque silliness during the song.
— Two hosting stints in, and Tina is 2-for-2 in her monologues having a Steve Martin cameo.
— Our obligatory Justin Bieber walk-on.
— Kenan In A Dress alert, for the third damn episode in a row.
STARS: ***
BROWNIE HUSBAND
Duncan Hines Brownie Husband fills women’s need for companionship & fudge
— Decent concept.
— Nice showcase for Tina, and it feels like a very rare novelty to see her starring in a solo, pre-taped commercial.
— I like how Tina’s really going all out in her engorging of her brownie husband towards the end of this commercial.
STARS: ***½
MASTERS
Tiger Woods’ mistress (TIF) provides expert commentary at The Masters
existence of chiding ad voice-over by Tiger Woods’ (KET) dad (BIH) is its basis
— Despite playing a cliched character that feels too been-there-done-that, Tina has some funny lines here, and she’s making the role work decently.
— I like Jason’s delivery of “Oh, god, no!” when Tina whispers the definition of “dog leg” to him.
— The Tiger Woods Nike commercial with Kenan is cracking me up.
— The fact that the aforementioned Tiger Woods Nike commercial is having Bill do a “black” voice as the voice-over of Tiger Woods’ deceased father makes it painfully obvious that Kenan’s the only black member of this season’s cast. At least they didn’t resort to having Fred do the “black” voice-over for Tiger’s father.
STARS: ***
SARAH PALIN NETWORK
line-up of shows reflects Sarah Palin’s (TIF) political views
— Our obligatory Sarah Palin sketch of the night. I like the concept of this particular Palin sketch.
— Tina spoofs the Katie Couric/Sarah Palin CBS interview for the second time, after the famous cold opening from the preceding season’s Anna Faris episode.
— The “Todd!” scene is absolutely great.
— Funny bit with Bobby’s Bob Ross-esque painter character painting a Hitler mustache onto a cloud.
— A laugh from the slam against The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
STARS: ***½
LONELY TEACHER
teacher (TIF) imagines pupil (musical guest) musically requites her crush
— Oh, no. After our obligatory Justin Bieber walk-on in the monologue, we now get our obligatory Justin Bieber-starring sketch of the night.
— Another “Oh, no” from me, as Bieber is now breaking out into a fucking song. Oh, and, of course, we also have his cringey try-to-sound-cool-and-“black”-by-saying-stuff-like-“Aight” shtick.
— Multiple Bieber songs in this sketch? (*groan*)
— Seeing Tina have to perform this pandering mess of a sketch is sad. I feel embarrassed for her.
— The bored, miserable look on Bobby’s character’s face in the background (screencap below) perfectly matches my face during this whole sketch.
— I finally got a mild chuckle in this sketch, from Tina’s “I should NOT have put wine in my cereal this morning” line. Still not enough to make up for the dreadfulness of the rest of this sketch, though.
STARS: *
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Baby”
WEEKEND UPDATE
The Devil (JAS) takes moral stand against molestation by Catholic priests
Aunt Linda likes The Tooth Fairy much better than 3D movies full of CGI
Women’s News- TIF slags Bombshell McGee & bewails the ubiquity of whores
— The debut of Jason’s The Devil character.
— Jason portraying the devil in a very Jason Sudeikis-y manner is great.
— Pretty sensitive subject matter for this Devil commentary, focusing on the priest child molestation scandal, but Jason is making it work.
— I had completely forgotten about Aunt Linda until now. Her last appearance was quite a long while ago, which itself was her first appearance in quite a long while. These long gaps between these past two commentaries of hers are not long enough for my likes, given how I’m of the opinion that this character only worked in her first appearance. Thankfully, tonight’s appearance ends up being her final one.
— As expected, tonight’s Aunt Linda commentary contains her usual tired shtick, especially her groan-worthy corny-ass ratings system.
— Good to see the return of Tina’s recurring Women’s News segment from her Weekend Update years.
— Bombshell McGee? I have no memory of who that is, but Tina sure is focusing heavily on her here.
— Some of the usual solid lines from Tina in tonight’s Women’s News sketch. I especially like how it ends with her meta comment about her having her leg and pubic hair ripped out earlier today so she could wear a hooker costume for a sketch that ended up not even making it to air.
STARS: ***
AL ROKER’S RUFF, RUGGED AND ROKER
Al Roker’s (KET) nightclub party pauses for weather reports
— What we initially see in this sketch is an interesting change of pace for typical Kenan’s Al Roker portrayal.
— Blah. During the occasional weather reports, not only do we suddenly get the return of that Bullwinkle-esque hokey voice Kenan typically portrays Al Roker with (which I never liked), but the turns this sketch keeps taking with Kenan’s Roker alternating between acting hokey and whitebred when he’s on the Today Show camera, and coming off badass and urban when the Today camera turns off, is straight out of that memorable season 21 sketch with another Today Show personality, Bryant Gumbel, played by David Alan Grier. That Gumbel sketch was pulled off much better than this.
STARS: **
SCHOOL DANCE
(TIF) wishes her too-sensible daughter Bedelia (NAP) would act her age
— The debut of Nasim’s Bedelia character.
— A solid character piece for Nasim, and, much like with the Roomies sketch she did earlier this season with Taylor Swift, Nasim continues to prove herself to be adept at slice-of-life material.
— I got a good laugh from Bedelia’s inappropriate “So Grandpa’s startin’ to go, huh?” line to her mother.
— (*groan*) Our THIRD Justin Bieber sketch appearance tonight.
— The ending with Nasim and Bieber had a sweet feel, at least.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “U Smile”
TINY HOOKER
nine-inch-tall hooker (TIF) gives up on a trip to Paris to save orphanage
— Interesting concept, even if it feels a tad like a variation of both Cool Mite (a forgotten Andrew Dice Clay sketch) and Tiny Elvis.
— Yet another solid showcase for Tina tonight, and the writing of this sketch is certainly better than I found the writing in the aforementioned Cool Mite and Tiny Elvis sketches to be.
— (*sigh*) Yet another episode this season in which Will feels sadly invisible, and in which the sight of him popping up in a sketch reminds me that, contrary to how it may seem, Will Forte is, in fact, a cast member this season.
— Jason’s delivery of “And don’t you ever COME BAAACK!” was hilarious.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode, despite the overuse of Justin Bieber and one or two other misfires. Most of the episode had a good feel, even if there was nothing I found particularly stand-out great until the final sketch.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Tiny Hooker
School Dance
Brownie Husband
Sarah Palin Network
Monologue
Masters
Weekend Update
The Census
Al Roker’s Ruff, Rugged And Roker
Lonely Teacher
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jude Law)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Ryan Phillippe
Tina does mention how she got the scar in her book “Bossypants”; suffice to say, it was an unpleasant experience.
Tina’s scar is also brought up in a 2009 Vanity Fair piece that she was featured in.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120818112826/http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/tina_fey200901
— Jessi Klein wrote Brownie Husband.
— Paula Pell wrote Lonely Teacher.
— Mike O’Brien wrote Tiny Hooker.
Bombshell McGee was who Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock with.
I think we are getting entrenched firmly in the
Seth Meyers “cruise control” era. Lots of *** sketches and solid but kinda boring and uninspired stuff
I always liked Bedelia a lot. A very good lowkey character (lowkey for this era, at least.)
The whole “When Tina smiles, I smile” at the end of his second number in this show is pretty cringeworthy. Who would have thought that Bieber would be appearing on SNL ten years later? Thankfully, that time he was confined to the musical performances.
I remember around this time, one of the message board regulars started doing fake reviews from the perspective of someone offended enough by the show to register for an account just to post once and declare that it was the last time they would be watching. I remember his review of the Tiny Hooker sketch was something like “I don’t like the idea of a priest being near a small person. It reeks of pedophilia.”
The next episode really pissed me off, though.
Haha, I remember those — wasn’t that “Friendlerson?” Those were great. I think each one revolved around a running theme? (I recall pedophilia was the theme of this one.)
I remember they “reviewed” the Betty White show with a “concussion” and as such was easier on it then the other ones, though they kept sidetracking into thoughts about “micropenises” (after such was mentioned in a sketch from that episode).
Yep, Friendlerson. I can’t remember what his theme for the next show was, but I remember Gabourey Sidibe was “the show is racist for either having her play a black woman or not having her in a sketch” and every sketch in Alec Baldwin was all about how he hates his daughter.
I remember he also did some funny “fan sketches” that made fun of the writing on the show. I did the one that was just Kristen Wiig saying “Look at me! Look at me!” alternating with bug-eyed reaction shots of Kenan for who knows how long (later expanded to include Fredbama droning and Andy Samberg randomly popping in with a non-sequitur 80s reference).
I believe the story was the writers were instructed/forced to write a sketch for Bieber and Pell thought the classroom sketch was something that at least he could pull off competently. Sing/play himself essentially
I consider the classroom sketch to be one of the worse of all-time in my opinion. I don’t modern SNL pulls classroom sketches very well as they used to.
Gilly, Shallon, that one Luke Nell sketch, another with Lin-Manuel Miranda, and plenty others were either meh to pretty bad.
Now, the sketch from Jerry Seinfeld’s first episode was excellent. An example of how a classroom sketch should be done.
You’d be surprised to know today that “Tooth Fairy” was co-produced by Jason Blum.
As in, the founder of notable HORROR MOVIE company Blumhouse Productions.
Funny enough, Nasim and Bieber would be paired together several time when he hosted three years later.
This episode starts off the weird string of random Bieber appearances on the show (during the Church Lady sketch from Carvey’s S36 episode, the 100th digital short, and some ho-hum roommate pretape with Samberg) leading up to his hosting gig in S38. I’m honestly still very much baffled by how the show had him in their orbit to that degree since they’ve had unpleasant experiences with him starting here—Mulaney recounted in a video that Bieber knocked all the papers out of his hands—but I guess that’s just SNL being SNL for you. At least he doesn’t make any sketch appearances in the S45 RuPaul episode, even if that honestly couldn’t have hurt that show too badly.
But Tina’s hooker sketch did end up on air.
With the exception of the yucky teacher-student aketch, this episode was just fine. Calling Year 35 bland as a whole is not inaccurate.
To have Bieber forced down the throats of the staff and viewers was appalling. It seemed as if producers was obsessed with him, yet many who watched SNL were NOT in his demographic.
The biggest crime was when Bieber was all over Dana Carvey’s episode in S36, where he got more airtime than Jon Lovitz, who I felt was completely wasted in that show. Then to allow the singer to be a prima donna (before he ended up getting saved) was even worse.
I guess it was all for a kiddie/tween/teen demographic, but it alienates the older audiences that had been enjoying the show.
Just wait until Miley Cyrus starts showing up…
Is it me or did Kristen completely forget how to do the Aunt Linda voice? Thankfully that will no longer be a problem…
Surprisingly the cold open is not one of the weaker parts of this episode. While the subject matter is difficult to laugh at in our current climate, if I can turn that switch off, some of the questions here are funny (especially asking people if they have weapons and when will they be out of their homes), and Fred’s delivery is more energized than usual for Fredbama.
Tina’s hosting episodes frequently have extremely odd or extremely unpleasant vibes for me – this one falls more into the “odd” category. There is a very halting and conflicting feel about Tina’s work here – she either goes deep into melancholy and anxiety (Tiny Hooker, Bedelia, the chocolate pre-tape, that teacher sketch) or tries to dive back into her old brash and pop culture obsessed persona (Update, monologue, the golf sketch, that Al Roker thing, the teacher sketch). It’s a very herky-jerky shift, and also feels at odds with the assembly line SNL had become under Seth. It also reminds me that while Tina will always have deep ties to SNL, she tends to feel separate and bigger than the show in many of her returns, which I feel comes through oncamera.
The most jarring for me may have been her Update return, where we went from Seth giggling through the Devil commentary (such a…hilarious piece of subject matter this week) to Tina ranting about this woman for 2-3 minutes. I remember this scandal, and “Bombshell McGee” was a pretty low character, but the whole unpleasant piece reminded me of just how two-faced much of the hype about the glories of the female-dominated Tina years is and was, as it so often seemed to involve denigrating other women or trotting them out over and over when they were clearly not in a great place (Lindsay). I don’t remember if Tina even had a word to say about Sandra Bullock’s scumbag husband in her comments.
The monologue was a huge mixed bag – Tina’s initial material up there alone was fine, and Steve Martin’s cameo was fine, but otherwise so much went the wrong way. The song, the elephant of the room of having black women on the show as nothing more than decoration (which also happens in that weak Al Roker sketch) while Kenan gets to revive his lousy Chaka Khan impression (at least this time SNL actually remembered to give him a Chaka Khan song!), and the baffling choice to have Will up there playing a character. I think having cast members play characters in the monologues is always a questionable idea, but one who has been there for 8 seasons makes it even more difficult. It didn’t help that the joke wasn’t very funny, not really that well-timed either, leaving the audience confused.
I absolutely, viscerally loathed the teacher sketch. It is one of the worst I’ve ever seen on SNL or on any sketch comedy show. The subject matter in of itself is kind of gross, but the absolutely GODAWFUL performance from Bieber kicks it all the way into the abyss. This was beyond cringing – it’s just embarrassing and dogshit. The worst of the pandering to some kind of young viewer at this time who, most likely, was weirded out by whatever the hell this was intended to be.
The Al Roker sketch gave me bad flashbacks to some of the late ’90s LOUD IS FUNNY moments, although at least we got to see how Nasim (who should never get that much dialogue using the Kim voice…) could so easily play such diverse characters going from this to Bedelia. Bedelia is a great blend of a believable character and a good comedy character, helped massively by Nasim navigating all the awkwardness, never dwelling too much on it, just letting it rest for viewers to savor.
Outside of Jason’s wonderful performance, which puts the audience at ease, this first Devil commentary doesn’t work for me. They simultaneously take in a very serious subject and try to joke about it, which can be a valuable part of comedy, if done right. In this case, I can’t say that it was – the general lighthearted tone of the Devil pieces means that we get jokes like sex offenders not being given access to paper towels. It’s unintentionally dismissive, not helped by Seth giggling in the background, and just doesn’t sit well. The last Devil appearance, focused on Penn State, does a better job with the tone.
On paper, there’s absolutely nothing special about the golf sketch (and it’s something Cheri Oteri probably would have had a star turn in), but Tina’s really in her element here, and she is perfectly balanced by the subdued performances from Bill and Jason. I also like the way they handled the Tiger Woods commercial – it feels like something they would have done in the early ’80s.
The Palin reprisal makes some good fun out of what could have felt like box-ticking – I do love the scene where “Todd” arrests Kenan (“You can’t do that! Obama is President!” “Oh yes I can!” ) and the deadpan moment of revealing the right wing cable network has the Tonight Show gave me a big laugh. Also love Tina’s delivery on the Are You Smarter Than A Half-Term Governor? part. For some reason, Jenny’s raspy “Mommy??!!!?” in this one is my defining memory of her SNL tenure.
By the time the episode ends, there’s a sad, somewhat deflated air (that weak Al Roker piece sort of started that feeling off), so Bedelia followed by the Tiny Hooker sketch are tonally appropriate to wind down the night. This would have fit into the late ’80s, and the cast here does a great job of getting the tone of creaky old Hollywood right, rather than overegging it. One of Tina’s best performances on SNL – funny yet touching.
Promo:
I feel bad constantly criticizing Tina Fey—even though she was headwriter during my least favorite era and is semi-responsible for all the pandering/starfucking they do with the cold opens, I really do like her as a performer—but like…it’s very surprising that she’s never hosted a really strong episode. Most of her episodes (this one included) are pretty meh, I know her 2013 one rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and I absolutely hated her 2018 episode. It’s sad because I think 30 Rock is genius, but that show’s sensibility never translates over to SNL when she hosts.
This is first album, adorable peak tween Justin Bieber. I love U Smile, gosh darn it ? But once he morphed into Raging Jerkface Justin Bieber, I don’t know why they kept having him back either.
Chocolate Husband always gets me whenever it comes…As for Bieber, meh…
Five-Timers Individual Rankings:
7.6 – Tina Fey / Carrie Underwood (33.05)
5.8 – Tina Fey/Justin Bieber (35.18)