Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
SELECTION SUNDAY
tournament brackets revealed for World’s Craziest Person
— The idea of presenting crazy news stories in a March Madness bracket style is very clever and creative for a cold opening. This is the kind of creativity I wanted SNL to show in their Charlie Sheen spoof in the preceding episode’s cold opening, instead of the generic, lazy, tired “Let’s just have Sheen host a talk show” route they ended up taking.
— Funny Dick Vitale impression from Andy.
— Jason’s Jim Nantz, on Andy’s Dick Vitale: “It’s like Stanley Tucci snorted Adderall.”
— Hilarious comment about Nicolas Cage always looking he just witnessed a murder.
— Speaking of Charlie Sheen earlier in this review, we get a scene with Bill’s Charlie Sheen here, and the style of it is much more refreshing than the aforementioned talk show route they took in the preceding episode’s cold opening.
— Such a fun cold opening.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
host delivers jokes while wearing Annie get-up & lip-syncing “Tomorrow”
— The usual priceless Zach Galifianakis stand-up one-liners.
— I particularly got an oh-so-wrong laugh from Zach’s joke about Axe Body Spray being called Ask Body Spray in urban neighborhoods, made even funnier by his addendum to that joke: “If you don’t get that joke…then you’re not racist.”
— Some fun bad character attempts from Zach.
— An absolutely hilarious turn right now, with Zach in the Annie dress lip-syncing “Tomorrow” while displaying various messages on an easel. Classic.
— Even the lettering style of the messages on the easel is somehow adding to the humor.
— I love the little touch with how Zack licks his hand each time before he rips a page off of the easel.
— Great callback to how Zach’s previous monologue ended, with him once again making a false “Hoobastank is here!” announcement.
— Overall, yet another legendary Zach Galifianakis stand-up monologue.
STARS: *****
THE TALK
panelists on lame knock-off of The View have little chemistry
— Much like her Rachel Maddow impression, Abby has Leah Remini’s New York accent down close enough, but the voice itself is too high-pitched, which is taking me out of the impression.
— Oh, wow. I completely forgot from my previous viewings of this episode that Nasim plays Sharon Osbourne in this sketch. Feels odd seeing Nasim in this role.
— Despite Amy Poehler being SNL’s definitive Sharon Osbourne, I’m finding Nasim’s impression to be good, and certainly much better than Drew Barrymore’s awful (and deservedly forgotten) Sharon impression from the episode Drew hosted the preceding season. It also feels a little rare to see Nasim go so over-the-top and silly like this.
— I like Vanessa’s Sara Gilbert hiding inside her sweater.
— The mention of The Talk co-host Holly Robinson-Peete being on vacation reminds me that, in dress rehearsal, she was actually portrayed by Jay in drag. Jay got cut from the live version of this sketch.
— A somewhat bad line flub from Abby just now. I’ve never seen the rerun version of this episode, but I’ve been told that reruns would fix Abby’s flub by replacing that small portion of this sketch with the dress rehearsal version, and reportedly, that dress rehearsal substitution was flawed in its own right, because Abby mugs the camera BADLY during it.
— Funny bits with Zach as an angry The View fan in the audience.
— Despite some funny lines, something about this sketch isn’t quite working for me. Not sure what, though.
STARS: **½
THE ORIGINAL KINGS OF CATCHPHRASE COMEDY
hack stand-ups headline the Original Kings Of Catchphrase comedy tour
— The debut of a memorable and well-loved recurring commercial.
— Such a hilarious spoof of hacky catchphrase-based stand-up comedians.
— I am absolutely howling at the “You ever come home and catch your wife eatin’ dookie?” bit that Kenan’s “Beeeeeeeef Jelly!” comedian is doing.
— Holy hell, Seth Meyers in a rare post-2006 non-Weekend Update appearance, playing an actual character!
— A fun way to get a lot of the cast involved. I think the second installment of this commercial uses the ENTIRE cast, which is one of the reasons that I think I might prefer it to tonight’s already-great installment (we’ll see when I review the second installment).
STARS: ****½
SCARED STRAIGHT
Lorenzo McIntosh & muzzled cousin (host) warn teens about prison rape
— This is the first appearance this recurring sketch has made in almost an entire year.
— Funny visual of Zach as a Hannibal Lecter-esque character.
— The “nuts and taint” line made me laugh so much.
— In response to Lorenzo MacIntosh and Zach’s Home Alone-related prison rape references, I love an appalled Jason saying “That’s only the first one; you’re leading off with that?!?”
— For the first in a long time, Bill doesn’t fully crack up during the usual part of these Lorenzo MacIntosh sketches where Kenan and the host gang up on Bill and playfully mess with him.
— Yeesh, what was with that half-assed ending? They seem to have run out of different ways to end this recurring sketch. In fact, despite me still enjoying tonight’s installment of this sketch, you can kinda tell the end of this recurring sketch’s run is near. There’s only one installment of this sketch remaining, and it doesn’t appear until an entire year later (in a Lindsay Lohan-hosted episode).
STARS: ***
ZACH LOOKS FOR A NEW ASSISTANT
host interviews elementary school kids
— A variation (of sorts) of the Zach Drops By The Set short from Zach’s previous episode, complete with a very similar-looking title sequence. However, unlike the Zach Drops By The Set short, this one opens with the “An SNL Digital Short” title screen.
— This cutesy concept, while not too bad in itself, isn’t really something I want to see Zach doing, and feels like a letdown after the great concept of Zach Drops By The Set.
— So far, I can’t find anything to say about the actual content of this short, but it’s decent enough.
— The ending could’ve been better.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & B.o.B [real] perform “Price Tag”
WEEKEND UPDATE
fired from Spider-Man musical, Julie Taymor (KRW) sings a song she wrote
Liam just woke up from wet dream about hooking up with hawk-human hybrids
SEM tells viewers how they can contribute to the Japan relief effort
— Boy, was that a lame opening joke from Seth.
— A big ol’ “meh” from me towards Kristen’s overall commentary. At least it didn’t make me want to rip my hair out like her last Update commentary (the disco meteorologist one from this season’s Dana Carvey episode) did.
— The unwelcome return of Andy’s weak Liam The Teenager Who Just Woke Up character.
— Andy’s in-character sleepy delivery during some portions of this commentary sounds quite Adam Sandler-esque (especially when he sings in a goofy, high-pitched voice), which is strangely fitting, given the fact that, as I mentioned in this Liam character’s first appearance, the conceit of Liam feels like an unintentional(?) variation of an obscure one-off Update character named Sleepyhead who Adam Sandler played.
— This Liam commentary is just plain dumb and unfunny, even moreso than his previous commentary. And much like Liam’s previous commentary, Andy’s usual ability to sell dumb humor and make it work isn’t at play here. Judging from Andy’s out-of-character smirking and giggling right now, even he’s aware of how weak this commentary is.
— Tonight’s Update ends on a serious note, with Seth telling us how we can contribute to the relief efforts for Japan. (Tonight’s episode is a day after the tragic Japan earthquake and tsunami).
— An overall mildly mediocre Update for Seth, which is a letdown after he just had one of his strongest Updates in the preceding episode.
STARS: **½
NOODLES
(host) & (KRW) tell kids the family dog, Noodles, died via autoerotic asphyxiation
— I like Nasim as the overly-wise young daughter.
— Really good laughs from all of the bad lies Zach and Kristen tell the kids in regards to how the dog died.
— Such a hilarious reveal of what the dog really died of: autoerotic asphyxiation.
— Funny visual of the dog porn magazine, which Zach makes even funnier by giving it a long, interested look before putting it down.
— The beginning of Kenan’s voice-over for the dog gets botched, causing Zach to break.
— Continuing tonight’s theme of bad endings (though it’s not like that’s a new criticism of SNL), this very funny sketch fizzles out poorly with the whole dog voice-over ending. Not sure why they thought that would be a good way to end this.
STARS: ****
CELEBRITY SCOOP
Canadian gossip show is unfailingly nice & well-mannered
— Boy, that is one lousy Canadian accent from Fred.
— The humor of Zach’s “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” character is just plain dumb, but he’s making it funny. It also, in a way, feels like a role tailor-made for Will Forte.
— Two minutes into this Canadian talk show sketch, and Zach has been providing my ONLY laughs. The main joke with Canadians being overly nice and folksy is doing absolutely nothing for me. Thank god this ends up being yet another instance of a potentially-recurring talk show sketch this season that stays one-and-done.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Mamma Knows Best”
CORN SYRUP PRODUCERS OF AMERICA
rude mother (NAP) parrots Corn Syrup Producers Of America talking points
— Another sketch tonight with Nasim nailing a wise, smart aleck-y role, with her beautifully telling off Kristen’s character and putting her in her place. This has always been what I feel is one of Nasim’s best performances.
STARS: ****
TITANIC
crossdressed captain of the Titanic (host) shamelessly hogs lifeboat spot
— I’m not all that crazy about this premise, but Zach is well-cast in this role, and he’ll probably make this work.
— Mm, it turns out that, even with Zach’s typically-funny performance, this sketch still feels like a bit of a flop. Much like The Talk sketch earlier tonight, something’s not quite working and I can’t pinpoint what nor why.
— Nasim’s been having a fairly big night.
— Not even Bill’s appearance as a grown-up, mustached “baby” can make me laugh as much as I feel it should.
— I didn’t even notice Abby has been one of the women on the boat all this time, until near the very end of this sketch when she had to go through the trouble of leaning all the way to the side while speaking, so we could get a clear view of her (seen on the right end of the last above screencap for this sketch). She’s sitting all the way in the back of the boat, behind everyone, which makes it impossible to see her for most of this sketch. What’s the point of her even being in this, then?
— What in the world was with Zach’s long, awkward delay before doing his ending bit? He seemed to completely forget what he was supposed to do, and then, after a long, silent pause, Bill can be seen elbowing Zach to cue him, then by the time Zach gets up and mock-dramatically yells “Titanic!” like he was supposed to, the screen freeze-frames on him too early. This whole blooper is strangely amusing to me.
— Tonight’s theme of bad endings sadly continues once again, with the weak text crawl epilogue of this sketch.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
host reveals that his hair & the Mr. T sketch have been cut
— As what’s seemingly a follow-up to how, in his previous hosting stint, Zach shaved his beard off-camera for the final sketch of the night and then wore a fake beard during the goodnights, Zach is seen in these goodnights with his hair shaved in a Mr. T style, and humorously tells us “Unfortunately, we did not get to the Mr. T sketch!”
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Much like the preceding Miley Cyrus-hosted episode, this was kind of an uneven episode, but it contained several more highs than the Cyrus episode, which makes it easier to overlook the lows. Some really solid pieces tonight. Zach Galifianakis was his usual very funny self, and I’m glad he was given much more speaking roles tonight than he got in his previous hosting stint.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Monologue
The Original Kings of Catchphrase Comedy
Selection Sunday
Corn Syrup Producers of America
Noodles
Scared Straight
Zach Looks For a New Assistant
The Talk
Weekend Update
Titanic
Celebrity Scoop
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Miley Cyrus)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Elton John