Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS / WIKILEAKS: TMZ
Julian Assange’s (BIH) latest undiplomatic WikiLeaks are TMZ-style videos
— Ha! A Fredbama presidential address got cut off out of nowhere! The gods have answered my prayers.
— Good fake-out with this Obama cold opening suddenly turning out to be Julian Assange introducing his TMZ-style show. Clever concept, and this also ends up being the first of a very rare three-consecutive-episode running gag in which a sketch gets interrupted by Bill’s Julian Assange.
— A spot-on TMZ parody.
— Vanessa has become SNL’s latest Hillary Clinton impersonator.
— Hilarious how the Hillary Clinton crotch shot video turns out to be filmed by Jason’s Joe Biden.
— An overall pretty fun cold opening, and felt refreshingly different for a cold opening in this era.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host’s henchmen bully audience members who point out his NYC inaccuracies
— A blah premise with Robert DeNiro comically listing off a whole bunch of inaccurate New York City facts. Maybe it would be funny if it wasn’t for DeNiro’s typical dull, halting, comedy-killing delivery. Doesn’t SNL later do a monologue with a very similar premise with Eli Manning the following season, or am I remembering wrong?
— Good to see SNL going back to using writers as fake audience members. That still doesn’t change the fact that this season is relying a little too heavily on audience interaction monologues.
— Yeah, this is becoming more and more of a chore to watch. DeNiro’s delivery is such DEATH.
— At least we get a funny gag with DeNiro’s henchmen handing an audience member a severed horse head.
STARS: **
THE ABACUS CONUNDRUM
Dan Brown-like author (host) hawks his latest book
— Some laughs from the ridiculous book titles.
— Nothing to say about the DeNiro portions of this commercial, though this is probably one of SNL’s better uses of him by default.
STARS: ***
WHAT UP WITH THAT?
Hollywood tribute has host & Robin Williams [real]
— DeNiro playing himself as a What Up With That guest?!? Did a special guest for this sketch back out at the last minute?
— Ah, at least Robin Williams is an exciting choice for a guest.
— Geez, DeNiro can’t even say “Hello, Deandre” on cue, without preceding it with an awkward long pause. He even butchered the pronunciation of Deandre. Keep bein’ on-brand, Robert.
— I do like the change of pace during the usual part where the drum beat is heard starting back up while the guest in the first seat is speaking seriously about something, with DeNiro actually calling that out, leading to tenseness between him and Kenan’s Deandre Cole.
— I have no memory of this Wiig/Brittain musical number.
— I don’t remember this part with Andy as Mothra either. I guess this is one of the less memorable installments of this recurring sketch.
— The escalation to the “Lindsey Buckingham reacts to getting bumped once again” running gag in these sketches continues to be solid. I especially like how this one ends with Kenan’s Deandre asking Bill’s Buckingham “You want some cake?”, and then when Buckingham excitedly nods his head, Deandre says “Well, I guess we shoulda got some.”
STARS: ***½
FROM THE GARDEN WITH MR. PRODUCE
Mr. Produce’s (host) insolent son (ANS) wants attention
— Oh, god. A sketch starting with DeNiro front-and-center, onstage by himself? This spells doom.
— Ugh, and as expected, DeNiro is butchering his lines, blatantly looking for his cues on the cue cards before doing certain actions, and generally killing any comedic potential of this sketch.
— At least we have occasional Andy Samberg walk-ons to save this.
— Did…did I seriously just hear DeNiro call Andy by his real name just now, instead of by his character’s name?!?
— Jesus Christ, even for DeNiro standards, he mangled the living hell out of that “You might be racking your brains out…” line. If it wasn’t for Andy’s occasional walk-ons, this sketch would be a fucking DISASTER.
— I do admit that the part right now with DeNiro furiously throwing fruit very stiffly at an off-camera Andy while speaking in a staccato manner in time to each throw has a “So bad, it’s good” quality.
— Funny line from an emotional Andy, during the mock-sentimental turn: “Maybe you should ask yourself…have you watered your son lately?”
— What a stupid ending. Made no sense and wasn’t funny.
STARS: *½
PARTY AT MR. BERNARD’S
movie plot echoes Weekend At Bernie’s
— A random but interesting Weekend At Bernie’s take-off. Spot-on casting of Bill in the Jonathan Silverman role, by the way.
— A good deconstruction of Weekend At Bernie’s’ plot, with a more realistic and dark turn this spoof takes when the party guests see the dead body.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Coming Home”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Kim (NAP), Khloe (ABE), Kourtney (VAB) Kardashian rescind endorsements
upside-down understudy (ANS) from Spider-Man musical can’t right himself
1980s aerobics instructor (KRW) aims to fight childhood obesity epidemic
— This is the first instance of Nasim, Abby, and Vanessa all appearing together as the Kardashians. Nasim’s Kim Kardashian impression made solo appearances the preceding season.
— I find it a little odd how Vanessa isn’t doing the nasal, goofy voice that Abby and Nasim are doing.
— I laughed at the low-pitched, very quiet “Booooooo” from an audience member in response to Seth’s Polish joke.
— When this episode originally aired, I remember I spent Andy’s entire commentary mistaking him for Taran. It wasn’t until I rewatched this episode the following day that I realized it was Andy. I guess the cause of that confusion was a combination of Andy being upside-down the entire time (which I guess made it a little hard to make out his face) and me not being too familiar with then-newbie Taran’s face yet.
— I like the return of Seth’s occasional routine of doing one joke several times in a row with a different punchline each time, this time on the topic of a man marrying his dog.
— “Janet Judytran”?
— Kristen doin’ those future Triangle Sally hip moves, I see.
— What the heck is the point of this Wiig commentary? It’s going absolutely nowhere.
— SNL sure loves doing that gag where a performer uses a fake leg prop when stretching their leg upwards. Didn’t care for it in this particular instance.
STARS: ***
LITTLE FOCKERS
on the set of Little Fockers, everything but host wows Keith; BES cameo
— A random return of Bobby’s “It’s okaaaaayyyyyy?” little boy character, Keith, from a one-off sketch two seasons prior.
— Nasim takes over the role of Keith’s mother that Michaela Watkins played last time. It’s one thing to recast a departed cast member’s unspecific role like Will Forte’s announcer character from What Up With That, but I find it a bit much that they would recast the specific role of the Keith character’s mother, even though the character had only appeared once prior to this. Couldn’t SNL have just had Keith with his father in tonight’s sketch instead of recasting the role of his mother? [ADDENDUM: Scratch all of that. According to commenter Michael Cheyne in the comments section of this review, I didn’t catch a line early on in this sketch where Nasim’s character referred to Keith as her nephew. I went back to the sketch to check, and Michael Cheyne is correct. My apologies.]
— Meh, this sketch is using the exact same main joke from the first installment of this sketch.
— Okay, this installment has now actually taken a different and solid turn, with Keith’s biting comments towards DeNiro.
— Ben Stiller cameo. So I take it this is sometime after he and Lorne finally made up after the nasty drama with Ben dropping out from hosting SNL due to 9/11.
STARS: ***½
BLIZZARD MAN
Blizzard Man & his mother (host) join Sean Combs [real] in the studio
— I completely forgot about this recurring sketch by this point, given how long it had been since this sketch’s last appearance prior to this. This also ends up being the final appearance this sketch makes during Andy’s tenure as a cast member.
— There goes Kenan’s technician character once again acting like he’s never met Blizzard Man and doesn’t know he’s a shitty rapper, despite having gone through this in every single previous installment of this sketch.
— Was it necessary to repeat the bit from a previous installment of this sketch where Jason’s agent character says “Now you’re speakin’ my language!” in a corny upbeat manner?
— Even with the two-year hiatus this sketch had taken prior to tonight’s episode, this installment still has kind of a tired, tepid, been-there-done-that feel.
— Blizzard Man’s bad raps are at least still providing some chuckles, and continue to be strangely catchy.
— OH NO. DeNiro entering in fucking drag??? This sketch has gone from tepid to worse.
— Ugh, now we have to hear a whole bunch of sexual implications between Diddy and DeNiro’s drag character, and see DeNiro grinding his ass on Diddy’s crotch? Christ.
STARS: **
LA RIVISTA DELLA TELEVISIONE CON VINNY VEDECCI
Vinny Vedecci revisits host’s famous roles
— Not only is this the third consecutive recurring sketch tonight, but it’s the third consecutive one that’s making its final appearance (not counting the Blizzard Man sketch that appears when Andy hosts in season 39). Tonight’s episode seems to be where recurring sketches go to die.
— (*sigh*) Cue the beyond-tired “interviewee says they don’t speak Italian, leading to an argument between Vinny Vedecci and Fred’s character” routine that this sketch always begins with. That’s one part of this otherwise fun recurring sketch that I will not miss.
— Hoo, boy. I mildly griped earlier about Nasim replacing Michaela Watkins as Bobby’s mom in the Keith sketch, but having Paul Brittain replace Will Forte’s silent spaghetti-eating producer character in these Vinny Vedecci sketches is far more irksome to me.
— Very funny announcement from Vinny Vedecci that “the deer from Deer Hunter is here!”
— I love DeNiro throwing a pencil into the neck of the guy in the deer costume.
— Good part with a “Technicale Difficulto!” screen showing up when they’re checking up on the stabbed guy in the deer costume.
— Great trick Vinny Vedecci does to make DeNiro say his famous “You talkin’ to me?” Taxi Driver line, after he flat-out refused to say it when Vedecci requested it.
STARS: ****
BOSLEY HAIR RESTORATION
Rerun from 9/25/10
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Swizz Beatz [real] perform “Ass on the Floor”
IT’S A LIVING
in a bar, (host) is the guy (ANS) & (JAS) have to screw to get a drink
— I like the “Aww, man, this is gonna suck!” line from Andy, after thinking it over upon finding out he has to screw DeNiro’s character to get a drink. Jason’s reaction to that line of Andy’s is also funny.
— A good laugh from Andy’s positive “He kinda looks like Gandalf!” line when defending his choice to screw DeNiro’s character.
— Great delivery of “Dammit. DAMMIT!” from Jason when realizing he, like Andy, is going to give in to the option of screwing DeNiro’s character.
— Andy and Jason’s performances and aforementioned funny lines are all making this cheap homoerotic premise come off better than it normally would.
— I’m iffy on that ending with Ben Stiller.
STARS: ***
AMERICAN AMERICA PRESENTS: I, HIPPIE WITH DANA CARVEY
by FRW- child of the ’60s (DAC) now works the counter at Burger King
— The second and final aired cartoon of this short-lived Fred Wolf-made American America series. I had mis-remembered this one airing in the second half of this season.
— Feels so welcome hearing Dana Carvey’s voice on SNL again.
— Wow, that twist ending with the Carvey-voiced hippie turning out to be a fast-food cashier was lame and hacky as FUCK. That punchline was absolutely not worth that lead-up, and was such a waste of Dana.
STARS: *
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— By default, the best of the three Robert DeNiro-hosted episodes. (Faint praise, I know.) Even though I had a number of issues with this episode (most of those issues unsurprisingly being related to DeNiro’s typically horrible hosting job), and only one sketch stood out to me as particularly strong, this episode had a higher number of good sketches than either of DeNiro’s preceding two SNL episodes had, and the general feel of this episode seemed smoother than his other two episodes. Thank God this ends up being his final hosting stint (as of 2020), though.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
La Rivista Della Televisione con Vinny Vedecci
What Up With That?
Presidential Address / Wikileaks: TMZ
Party At Mr. Bernard’s
Little Fockers
The Abacus Conundrum
It’s A Living
Weekend Update
Blizzard Man
Monologue
From The Garden with Mr. Produce
American America Presents: I, Hippie with Dana Carvey
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Anne Hathaway)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Paul Rudd / Paul McCartney
I love seeing animation and outside shorts on SNL but that I, Hippie thing was pretty bad. Good old Fred Wolf writing stuff that is very much…there ?
Also, in regards to you saying “So I take it this is sometime after [Ben Stiller] and Lorne finally made up after the nasty drama with Ben dropping out from hosting SNL due to 9/11,” that probably happened a few years before this episode since Ben was supposed to host in S34 but ended up cancelling. I just know this because you can see his name on the scheduled host corkboard in the James Franco documentary.
Hello Ruby. I Don’t Know IF Lorne And Ben Made Up, But That Was EIGHT Years After That Happened And I Would Think Stooge Wouldn’t Have Been Surprised About That Since That Was SO Long Since That Had Happened !
I believe that Nasim is actually playing Keith’s *aunt* in the Little Fockers sketch, not his mother.
I think the Abacus Conundrum and Little Fockers are the best use of DeNiro on SNL, faint praise as that is. I think his smug grin in Abacus Conundrum is funny and my friends will still ask “Have you buckled up yet?” at times. Little Fockers is amusing in the way the boy doesn’t just find DeNiro uninteresting, but actually hates him and zings him repeatedly near the end.
I remember watching this with a group of friends and while they were entertained to start and even found the hacky monologue funny, the Mr. Produce sketch killed them and we had to turn it off.
“I believe that Nasim is actually playing Keith’s *aunt* in the Little Fockers sketch, not his mother.”
My apologies. That’s what I get for not paying attention to every line at the beginning of the sketch, but it’s hard to do that and take notes at the same time. Another thing that made me think Nasim was playing Michaela’s character was the fact that she wore a very similar wig.
Hello Michael. I Don’t Like For People To Turn Off Saturday Night Live ! They Might Have Liked Little Fockers OR Maybe, There Would Be Other Things That They Might Have Liked ! ! They Should Watch The Whole Show And Then IF They Hated The Whole Show, Then They Would Know IT Was A Bad Show ! How Ever, Now, They Might Have Missed A Pretty Good Show ! Watch And Find Out Whether IT Was A Good Show OR NOT !
Kristen’s Update commentary has her playing the host of the Jazzercise videos – those videos had recently gone viral, as the original woman bore an INSANE resemblance to Kirsten.
Back in the Brian Williams thread, we pieced together (thanks @Jack) some sketches cut from that episode – one of them was Mr. Produce, which of course we saw here. This was a pretty one-note premise, but I wish we could see Brian’s version (even if Robert isn’t really my problem with it).
This cold open is eerily timely (even moreso back in 2016), but also works as humor, unlike many cold opens by this point. I didn’t realize Vanessa Bayer started as Hillary so early in her run, which means she would play her off and on for four seasons. I wonder how it felt to have to give the role over to Kate McKinnon, especially since she had to end up playing her assistant in an early sketch.
I would agree this is the best of Robert’s three episodes, although a part of me prefers the more inferior episodes as they had some good-in-a-bad-way sketches that can stay in my mind (like the ode to Seth Meyers sexual ambiguity in his second episode).
This episode is nothing special, but it goes along passably enough until that Blizzard Man return. It’s bad enough to see the same characters have the exact same reactions to the same raps for the third or fourth time (does Blizzard Man have some kind of mindwipe function??), but we then have the incredibly embarrassing sight of de Niro in drag, trying to be “sexy” with Diddy-whatever-he-called-himself-at-the-time. One of the most cringeworthy moments on the show in a while. I guess at least this one ends with Blizzard Man finally getting his hit, which was a natural end to a sketch series that never should have recurred.
Ben Stiller must have loved the idea of men going to bars and being pressured into having sex with other men, as this was the same “joke” used the last time he made a cameo (in Adam McKay’s “The H is O” short). This starts out as an average attempt at absurdity but just feels cheap by the end.
I guess Colin Jost must have written the book sketch, given all the goofy wordplay. This was fine but I could have used a few less interjections from Robert.
I would agree this is one of the less memorable What’s Up With That? installment, although after Robin Williams’s journey as SNL host ended so abruptly, it’s good to see him back briefly 20 years later, seemingly enjoying himself. I also laughed at DeAndre’s gift to Lindsey – a framed photo of his face, with Lindsey barely visible. I also have to give a shout out to Kristen doing a homage (I assume…) to the “Love is a Stranger” video by The Eurythmics.
It was nice to see honorary cast member Paula Pell in a monologue for the first time in a while (as usual she gave me my main laugh) – I wonder if this is her last before she leaves. It’s also a bit surprising Mulaney wasn’t in this given his recent oncamera appearances. Maybe he had decided not to continue appearing oncamera.
The Little Fockers sketch is much better than it had any right to be – Bobby’s delivery is just first-rate, and to Robert’s credit, he nails the fed up and stunned reactions to every jab.
Vinny Vedecci was my favorite Bill Hader recurrer, and I think there was still some life left in it, but better to end in an alright place…not really the same without Will anyway (and geez, talk about setting Paul Brittain up for a fall, putting him in Will’s chair). Still, I’m a bit sad to see it go, since it’s the goodbye to Bill’s first era on the show.
That Kristen Update appearance is the epitome of being able to just stretch out a joke as long as you want. I don’t really love Andy’s bit either but it goes by in a brisker manner at least. They are both better served by the Digital Short – I like that they don’t just do the “edgy” or “real” version of Weekend at Bernie’s, but instead loop back around to dumb fantasy, only now in a much darker context (I was genuinely shocked when they decided to party with Bernie again – now just his skeleton). Kristen’s line about how they are going to burn in hell made me laugh. Also nice to see a relatively rare teamup of Bill and Andy.
Were there any other American America cartoons planned? i wonder who would have been lined up as the next voices.
I barely remember this episode at all, but am I wrong to wonder if that Mr. Produce sketch was written by whoever wrote Indoor Gardening Tips and The Haney Project? The setups all seem the same to me.
Similar premises aside, I know for a fact that they all can’t be written by the same person because The Haney Project was written by Hannibal Buress who was only a writer for one season. That being said both Mr. Produce & Indoor Gardening Tips originated in season 33 so I wouldn’t be surprised if those two were written by the same person.
Agreed, this is the best DeNiro show by a comfortable margin. This era had a better feel for him, his strengths and weaknesses than in Years 28 and 30. That ad parody almost, *almost* predicted the Detective Pikachu movie. Take away the grocer sketch and “I, Hippie” and you have a diligent set of sketches.
Diddy Dirty Money has to be one of the worst musical guests in recent memory. Diddy just sits there silently for the first half of this second song. Little wonder this side project only lasted one album.
Not Dan Brown so much as Robert Ludlum. Most famous for the Bourne series, you’ll find his books all over airports with titles like: The Osterman Weekend, The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Holcroft Covenant, The Parsifal Mosaic, The Icarus Agenda…you get the idea. Fun, trashy reads.
And yet another ep that I either missed or don’t remember which, according to this review, is just as well…
Bobby and Kenan were sharing SNL memories in a recent livestream, and Bobby talked about how Diddy could NOT pronounce “Reese Witherspoon,” leading them to change it to Kate Hudson before air.
It starts at about 17 minutes.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CLpu3K0nQNk/?igshid=1ovi6q2nx1hsc
Lovely to see Robin in the goodnights RIP
Less lovely to see Diddy trying to kiss De Niro in the goodnights.