February 5, 2011 – Dana Carvey / Linkin Park (S36 E14)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

WAYNE’S WORLD
Winter’s Bone dominates the Oscar picks of Wayne & Garth

— Ah, Phil Hartman’s old voice-over intro.
— Fuck yeah! The return of Wayne’s World after many years! I remember what a huge shock it was to see this return when this episode originally aired, as no announcement of it was made beforehand.
— I like the callback to one of the last Wayne’s World sketches, with Garth saying “Last time you saw me, I got pubes.” To nitpick, though, that didn’t happen the last time we saw him (which was the season after Dana left the cast, and thus, he had to make a cameo for that night’s Wayne’s World sketch). That happened the second-to-last time we saw Garth (which was the final Wayne’s World sketch to be done during Dana’s tenure as an SNL cast member), and even then, Garth’s pubes announcement that night had already been made in an earlier Wayne’s World sketch.
— Such a novelty seeing a Wayne’s World sketch in such clear visual quality in a newer episode.
— I love that this cold opening is making me feel like I’m back to reviewing SNL’s late 80s/early 90s era again.
— A very funny meta “How old are you?” “Uh, it was never determined” exchange between Wayne and Garth.
— Despite Mike and Dana being much older than they were when these Wayne’s World sketches regularly appeared, these characters have not lost a step. We’re getting their usual hilarious humor.
— Even the overuse of the Winter’s Bone gag is made funny by Wayne’s self-deprecating “This joke has been done three times” line.
— Is it just me, or is Mike’s natural Canadian accent a lot more noticeable here than in previous Wayne’s World sketches?
STARS: ****½

MONOLOGUE
JOL backs up DAC’s contention that their era’s cast was SNL’s best ever

— I can certainly let my fatigue towards this season’s oversaturation of musical monologues slide in this case, given the song Dana’s singing about 1986-1993 being SNL’s best years. It also helps that those years just happen to be my personal favorite SNL years.
— I love hearing Dana mention the underappreciated Jan Hooks among the three examples he gives of important cast members that made his era beloved.
— A notable lyric of Dana’s song: “I did Ching Change, but that’s racist now, oops!”
— Of all the then-current cast members who make a walk-on in this, Andy noticeably gets much more cheers from the audience than Bill or Kristen.
— This monologue now gets even better, as JON LOVITZ gets involved!
STARS: ****

i-SLEEP PRO
Rerun from 10/2/10

CHURCH CHAT
Snooki (BOM) is exorcised & Justin Bieber [real] is tempting

— Ah, another old Phil Hartman voice-over intro.
— The fun nostalgia trip of tonight’s episode continues with our obligatory Church Chat return.
— Some funny opening lines from Church Lady about current trashy shows on TV.
— As I said in a previous review(s), whenever Dana brings Church Chat back in his hosting stints and cameos, it’s always a fun novelty seeing Church Lady interact with modern-day celebrities.
— A solid and out-of-the-ordinary-for-this-recurring-sketch sequence with Bill’s priest character attempting to exorcise Bobby’s Snooki.
— Aaaaaaaand the fun of this sketch comes to a screeching halt with a Justin Fucking Bieber cameo out of fucking NOWHERE. Are you kidding me, SNL?!? Bieber being brought on in a nostalgia-filled Dana Carvey-hosted episode, of all episodes?
— And to make the Bieber portion of this sketch even worse, it basically turns into that insufferable Lonely Teacher sketch from the preceding season’s Tina Fey-hosted episode, with an adult female character having inner thoughts about their inappropriate lustful feelings for Bieber. Ugh. That was squicky and unfunny enough the first damn time.
STARS: ***½ (the Bieber portion brought the rating of this sketch down half a star, and even then, I’m being generous, as I hated the Bieber portion of this sketch enough that I have the urge to demote a FULL star from the rating)

CELEBRITY TEEN CRISIS CENTER
actors poorly answer youths’ calls for help

— Always great to see Bill’s eerily-uncanny Alan Alda impression.
— Mm, probably not a good sign that the opening scene of this sketch, with Bill’s Alda giving advice to a teen, already has a meh feel.
— Even though Dana’s Mickey Rooney was never one of my favorite impressions of his, it still feels welcome to see it return here.
— Despite the fact that I’ve seen better Ice-T impressions, and despite the fact that we’re at the point of Fred’s SNL tenure where I’m sick of him getting away with playing black celebrities (Barack Obama, Prince, probably others I can’t remember), Fred’s Ice-T impression is cracking me up.
— After a slow start, this sketch has gotten a little better, though it’s still nothing special at all.
— Much like Bill’s Alan Alda, Jay’s Eddie Murphy impression is always fun.
— Another example of Jay’s penchant for line-flubbing, with him botching his Yo Gabba Gabba line at the end of this sketch, which he then tries to ad-lib his way out of. When this originally aired, I didn’t even realize that was a blooper, as it came off as part of the sketch to me. Watching it now, it’s obvious that it was a blooper, judging from the awkward pause Jay makes after initially butchering the title Yo Gabba Gabba, then the hesitant way he tries ad-libbing about it afterwards.
STARS: ***

THE ROOMMATE
Justin Bieber [real] & Sir Ben Kingsley (ANS) in trailer for male version of The Roommate

— (*sigh*) Really, SNL? You’re really gonna let Justin Bieber slowly take over a freakin’ Dana Carvey-hosted episode? One sketch appearance wasn’t enough?
— No idea what to say about the comedy of this piece so far.
— And this commercial is now over, with my only real laugh in the whole thing coming from the reveal of Sir Ben Kingsley playing Andy’s character.
STARS: *½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Waiting For The End”

WEEKEND UPDATE
SEM groups participants in Egypt’s political unrest into Winners & Losers

multitasker James Franco (PAB) loves keeping busy doing a variety of jobs

Angela Dixon’s (KRW) meteorology is colored by her disco queen background

— The debut of a Seth Meyers Update segment called Winners/Losers. With this and that “Come On, Dictionary” segment he did earlier this season, Seth seems to be trying to branch out from doing “Really?!?” segments.
— Seth’s Winners/Losers rant tonight ended up being pretty meh for me, sadly.
— Good to see the underused Paul Brittain with an Update commentary.
— A pretty solid performance from Paul as a workaholic James Franco. I particularly like his delivery of “I’m goin’ to Disney World!…to work at Space Mountain.”
— I love the turn immediately after the Franco commentary ends, with Paul’s Franco delivering Seth’s next Update joke for him before Seth quickly puts an end to that.
— I like how the Franco workaholic gag continues even two minutes after the Franco commentary has ended, with Seth stopping mid-joke when realizing Paul’s Franco is now holding Seth’s cue cards.
— (*groan*) Kristen’s disco meteorologist commentary is turning out to be a typical badly-written, annoying Kristen Wiig/James Anderson (IIRC) collab from Kristen’s later seasons.
— (*another groan*) The further this disco meteorologist commentary goes on, the more awful it gets. This is UNBEARABLE and feels endless.
— I like how, even at the end of Update after Seth says his sign-off, we get another continuation of the James Franco workaholic running gag, with Paul’s Franco now cleaning off the Update desk.
STARS: ***

LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
Kathie Lee Gifford (KRW) drops by

— Feels odd seeing a Regis & Kelly sketch without Darrell Hammond and Amy Poehler in the roles, but it’s certainly nice to see the return of Dana’s Regis impression.
— I see what Nasim’s going for in her impression of Kelly Ripa’s voice, but it’s not fully coming through, as Nasim’s natural voice is too distinctive, and the mish-mash of her natural voice attempting to imitate Ripa’s voice just sounds odd and a little grating.
— A relief to see a Regis & Kelly sketch that doesn’t portray Gelman as a flamboyant gay stereotype for once.
— Feels odd how they’re just letting Kristen as Regis’ former co-host, Kathie Lee Gifford, completely hijack this sketch with her usual shtick. I’ve gained a lot of tolerance for Kristen’s Kathie Lee over the past few seasons, but I can’t say this is the best way to end this sketch, and it feels too out of place for the tone this sketch set prior to Kristen-as-Kathie-Lee’s appearance.
STARS: **½

PAGEANT PREVIEW
boy (ANS) competes in preteen girl pageant coordinated by (DAC) & (KET)

— The first Dana Carvey sketch role all night that’s not a character or impression from his SNL tenure.
— I haven’t been caring at all for the campiness of this sketch. This is completely boring me.
— It figures that, out of all the female cast members, Wiig would be the one who plays the one little girl in this pageant who’s a screenhog. Even for 2009-2012 standards, there is so much wrong with the way tonight’s episode in general has been utilizing Kristen.
— Dana’s having a little fun with his role, but that’s the only enjoyment I’m getting out of this sketch.
— A poor reveal at the end with all the contestants onstage being disqualified.
STARS: *½

DEIDRA WURTZ: DOWNSIZING EXPERT
Deidra Wurtz (ABE) delivers bad news with empty apologies & platitudes

— A rare Abby Elliott-starring piece. Even more rare to see her starring as a character and not a celebrity impression.
— This was cut from preceding week’s episode, made obvious by the fact that Jesse Eisenberg can be seen as one of the employees during the office meeting scene (seen to Abby’s left in the third above screencap for this commercial).
— Good performance from Abby as this character. However, the humor itself is too generic and one-note for my likes. There’s not much to see here.
STARS: **

MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
JOL, MIM, DAC introduce musical guest

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “When They Come For Me”

SPORTS BAR
New Wave band spoils Packer-fan Super Bowl party at nepotist’s (TAK) bar

— Another sad example of Jason’s diminished airtime in some episodes this season, as he’s just NOW making his first appearance of this entire episode…in the final sketch of the night. Geez.
— Another “Fred band” sketch this season, I see. Given the track record of these sketches, I’m very wary of what this particular one has in store for me.
— I do like seeing Fred and Dana paired together as these British-accented 80s singers. Makes me wonder what fun collaborations we could’ve seen Fred and Dana do if they were castmates back when Fred was still in his prime on SNL.
— A fairly meh conceit with the juxtaposition of this extremely soft 80s song being performed at a sports bar filled with manly guys who have no tolerance for this type of music. I’m also getting tired of all the cutaways to the manly guys’ frozen-faced reactions to the music.
— There is something a little catchy about that “Embrace Me” song being performed.
— I love Taran’s silly dancing at the end. One of our very first displays of Taran’s ability to elevate a sketch just by dancing in a wild, silly manner.
STARS: **½

GOODNIGHTS
DAC’s sons Dex & Tom [real] join him onstage

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— The first 20 or so minutes of this episode were strong, fun, and nostalgia-filled. However, as no coincidence, Justin Bieber’s cameo halfway through the Church Chat sketch seemed to start a turning point where the quality of this episode gradually died off. The show sadly never recovered; in fact, the post-Weekend Update half didn’t contain ANY segments I fully liked. An overall pretty disappointing Dana Carvey episode. Certainly no fault of Dana himself, though. A shame this ends up being his final hosting stint (as of 2020).

MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS

RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Wayne’s World
Monologue
Church Chat
Celebrity Teen Crisis Center
Weekend Update
Sports Bar
Live with Regis & Kelly
Deidra Wurtz: Downsizing Expert
The Roommate
Pageant Preview

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jesse Eisenberg)
a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Russell Brand