Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
DUH! WINNING! WITH CHARLIE SHEEN
Charlie Sheen (BIH) celebrates fellow deluded trainwrecks
— On one hand, it’s always refreshing to see a cold opening that, while very topical, isn’t political. On the other hand, why does this spoof of the Charlie Sheen scandal have to be in the lazy, overused talk show format? Of all the ways SNL could’ve spoofed the scandal, they chose one of the simplest, dullest routes.
— Good to see the Christina Aguilera impression being given back to Abby, as I like her take on Aguilera much better than Nasim’s. I’m still wondering why the hell the Aguilera impression was temporarily taken away from Abby in the first place and given to Nasim in this season’s Gwyneth Paltrow episode.
— A good laugh from the reveal of Gary Busey being the writer of the viewer email praising Charlie’s crazy behavior.
— A rare instance of an SNL host appearing in the cold opening.
— Despite my frustration with SNL choosing the talk show format for this Sheen spoof, the execution of this isn’t too bad. Still nothing special, though.
— I like the defibrillator bit, which came out of nowhere.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
mostly-irreproachable host sings “I’m Sorry That I’m Not Perfect”
— There’s our obligatory instance of Miley Cyrus starting this monologue by dryly quoting the theme song lyrics of SNL’s Miley Cyrus Show sketches: “We’ve got guests and a show, and I’m ready to go, so I guess that’s pretty cool.”
— (*siiiiiiiigh*) Yet another season 36 musical monologue. I’m pretty sure that, up to this point of the season, season 36 has yet to go more than three episodes without a musical monologue. I wonder if that’s some kind of record.
— Overall, well, that was a whole lot of nothing. At least it was pretty short, and Miley came off well.
STARS: *½
BABY SPANX
Rerun from 10/23/10
OUR TIME! WITH TABOO AND APL.DE.AP!
Taboo (ANS) & apl.de.ap (KET) flee Fergie (host) and Will.i.am’s (JAP) shadow
— Blah, ANOTHER celebrity-hosted talk show sketch tonight? And this one isn’t even a particularly promising one. Plus, we already know we’re getting a THIRD celebrity-hosted talk show sketch later tonight with our obligatory Miley Cyrus Show appearance.
— Feels a little interesting seeing Abby’s Khloe Kardashian impression away from Nasim and Vanessa’s Kim and Kourtney Kardashian impressions for once.
— A pretty good laugh from Andy-as-Taboo’s line “And I am from The Matrix!”
— Like a lot of SNL’s celebrity-hosted talk show sketches, this seems like it’s set up to become recurring, with each installment likely having Andy and Kenan’s Taboo and apl.de.ap interviewing an overshadowed member of a famous group. However, this sketch (thankfully) never ends up becoming recurring.
STARS: **
THE ESSENTIALS WITH ROBERT OSBORNE: THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Hispanic stand-up (FRA) was cut from The Sound Of Music
— (*groan*) Much like that awful Wizard Of Oz installment of The Essentials from earlier this season, we get another The Essentials installment starring Fred as a character cut out of a classic movie, this particular character complete with a bevy of awful Hispanic stereotypes. As if we needed ANOTHER sketch this season that proves Fred is the bane of this season.
— I’m three minutes into this sketch so far, and yep, not a single laugh from me yet.
— This sketch even ends the same way the aforementioned Wizard Of Oz sketch ended, with Fred’s character looking into the camera and saying the title of the movie in a mock-significant manner at the end of his final line.
STARS: *
THE DISNEY CHANNEL ACTING SCHOOL
host & Raven-Symone (KET) teach Disney Channel tropes
— Kenan In A Dress alert. Feels like this is the first time I’ve said that in a while. Hopefully, this is a sign that Kenan’s drag roles are being phased out (unintentionally, I assume, given the fact that it wouldn’t be until 2013 where Kenan would publicly take a stand against dressing in drag on SNL).
— A well-done and very spot-on spoof of Disney Channel tropes. Each individual scene here is on point.
STARS: ****
THE MILEY CYRUS SHOW
Justin Bieber (host) is a male counterpart to Miley Cyrus (VAB)
— In the last installment of this sketch prior to tonight’s episode, this recurring sketch as a whole had been showing signs of running out of steam. I’m especially tired of the parts with Billy Ray Cyrus, which have gotten old pretty fast. All that being said, hopefully the real Miley being involved in tonight’s installment will shake things up a bit.
— Hmm, a Darrell Hammond shoutout. (Jason’s Billy Ray praises Vanessa-as-Miley’s celebrity impression skills by telling her “You’re like a pretty little Darrell Hammond!”)
— Fitting and amusing casting of Miley as Justin Bieber.
— Very funny cutaway to Taran as Bieber’s swagger coach, and a good example of Taran’s ability to get laughs even without speaking.
— Some decent meta humor during Vanessa-as-Miley’s interview of Miley’s Bieber.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Under Cover of Darkness”
WEEKEND UPDATE
SEM groups entities affected by Charlie Sheen into Winners & Losers
The Devil doesn’t like the Westboro Baptist Church’s anti-gay protests
Anthony Crispino gets facts wrong about the Oscars, Libya, Charlie Sheen
— I like Seth starting tonight’s Update by sternly telling a photo of Charlie Sheen that he’ll have to wait his turn because “other things happened this week!”
— Seth’s Winners/Losers segment on the Charlie Sheen scandal is working much better for me than Seth’s last Winners/Losers segment from a few episodes prior.
— Good to see the return of Jason’s The Devil character.
— I’m getting my usual laughs from The Devil’s dialogue. I especially like him saying about gay people, during his complaints about them being so nice and always cleaning up what he worked hard to make bothersome, “I hate ’em…but I can’t stay mad at ’em!”
— Solid delivery from Seth of his wordy, long-winded, rapidly-spoken Playboy Mansion joke.
— Ah, another Update character tonight who I always enjoy: Anthony Crispino!
— Once again, I’m getting SO many big laughs from Crispino’s various false news scoops. Way too many funny ones here for me to single out. Everything here is slaying me.
— Hmm, there’s a bit with Crispino mangling the story about the Charlie Sheen scandal by saying Charlie Rose’s show is getting canceled due to a scandal. Little did SNL know that actually WOULD end up happening six years later when Charlie Rose would get MeToo-ed.
— Seth continues to have some really solid jokes tonight. This has definitely got to be one of his best Updates in a long time.
STARS: ****
LES JEUNES DE PARIS
jealous (host) & the song “Tekitoi” spur French teen dancing
— This sketch has officially become recurring. A very welcome return.
— Like last time, I absolutely love the visual of the characters suddenly simultaneously breaking out into wild dancing when the French music really kicks in.
— A particularly hilarious part with Taran shoving crepes into mouth in time to the portion of the French music that’s currently playing. Such spot-on timing from Taran.
— Good involvement of Andy as a mime.
— Very solid running gag with Taran getting wine thrown into his face. I especially love the instance of it when a wine glass is revealed behind the Playboy magazine.
— Overall, this recurring sketch continues to be an absolute blast.
STARS: ****½
BEASTLY
plot of movie starring host & Gene Hackman (ANS) involves beauty & the dweeb
— A technical gaffe early on in this pre-tape, where the Les Jeunes de Paris title screen (which failed to show up at the end of the actual Les Jeunes de Paris sketch) accidentally shows up during the opening scene.
— Oh, geez, they’ve made this Andy-as-a-grotesque-character-in-a-movie-trailer thing recurring? It was bad enough the first time. At least we don’t have a shoved-down-our-throats Justin Bieber in this one, though.
— Meh, the reveal of Gene Hackman playing Andy’s character didn’t make me laugh as much as the Sir Ben Kingsley reveal in the first installment of this.
— I did finally get a laugh just now at the end, with Andy’s Rango/Beastly mix-up.
STARS: *½
ROCK-A-BILLY LADY PARTY MOISTURIZING FACIAL CREAM
(KRW) & (host) sell facial cream & rockabilly CD only as a package deal
— A fairly funny random mish-mash concept.
— I was a little wary of this sketch at first, worried it would turn out to be a typical annoying, badly-written Kristen Wiig-starring sketch that we’ve been getting at least once on a weekly basis these past few episodes. (Speaking of which, it feels like SNL has refreshingly started scaling back the usually-dominant Kristen’s airtime these past few episodes. IIRC, that continues for most of the remainder of this season.) However, I’m pleasantly surprised to find myself liking this sketch more and more as it progresses. The absurd humor regarding the rockabilly CD/facial cream mish-mash is being executed pretty well.
— A funny passive-aggressive line about the company accidentally mixing up which name goes to which product.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Life Is Simple In The Moonlight”
CRUISE
unhappy cruise ship performer (host) sings “You People Are Gross To Me”
— A bit of a meh conceit with Miley singing about old people being gross.
— Vanessa gets a good laugh with her old lady character cluelessly asking Miley “Can you sing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Titanic?”
— Yet another sketch that Taran is one of my favorite parts of. Between his impressive big night in the preceding episode and now this episode, he’s continuing to really come into his own lately after having his breakout night in the Jim Carrey episode a few months prior. Also, when this episode originally aired, I remember this sketch being one of several things that made me wonder if Taran was hired to be Jason’s eventual replacement (especially with Jason’s diminished airtime this season, which made me incorrectly assume he was on his way out), given the fact that Taran’s grouchy old man character in this sketch felt to me like a role Jason would’ve normally been given.
— The ending almost seemed like it got cut off.
STARS: **½
CBS
in March, expect to see even more dead bodies on CBS during Gurney Month
— This was previously cut after dress rehearsal from, I believe, the preceding episode. The topical brief mention of Two And A Half Men in this commercial is obviously a new addition, since the Charlie Sheen/Two And A Half Men controversy hadn’t happened yet when the preceding episode aired.
— A pretty funny cheesy presentation of such a dark concept.
— Overall, short and simple.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Kind of an up-and-down episode, but there were a few more good pieces than bad. Given how some online SNL fans back at this time in 2011 (including myself) weren’t thrilled with the initial announcement of Miley Cyrus hosting, she ended up doing just fine. She played her parts well, and I had no problems with any of her performances.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Les Jeunes de Paris
Weekend Update
The Disney Channel Acting School
Rock-A-Billy Lady Party Moisturizing Facial Cream
Duh! Winning! with Charlie Sheen
The Miley Cyrus Show
CBS
Cruise
Our Time! with Taboo and apl.de.ap!
Beastly
Monologue
The Essentials with Robert Osborne: The Sound Of Music
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Russell Brand)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Zach Galifianakis