Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
during a GOP debate, fellow candidates pity forgetful Rick Perry (BIH)
— Another funny loopy portrayal of Rick Perry from Bill, and it’s an interesting change of pace having this GOP debate sketch mainly focus on him.
— Some funny unsettled reactions from the other candidates to Bill-as-Rick-Perry’s endless screw-ups and embarrassments.
— Another example of Paul sounding very Will Forte-esque as Ron Paul, this time when exclaiming “All his cards are BLANK!”
— A hilarious visual of Bill’s Perry seen wearing a dickey when he removes his suit jacket.
— As I’ve disclosed before, Of Mice And Men is my favorite book of all time, and I’m always a sucker for parodies of it. Thus, I love the Of Mice And Men turn this cold opening takes towards the end.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
ANS wishes he & not Andrew Garfield [real] were host’s Spider-Man co-star
— I see Andy’s apparently doing a variation of the upside-down Spider-Man commentary he did on Weekend Update the preceding season.
— A laugh from Andy’s sloppy attempt at passing off silly string as a web shooter.
— A meta, self-aware part with Emma pointing out that Andy’s just re-doing the same monologue Kirsten Dunst did in 2002.
— Andy, when learning that the surname of Spider-Man’s new actor is Garfield: “How’s he gonna fight crime when he’s busy eating lasagna and tworking Nermal, amirite?!?” Assuming “tworking” means “fucking”, it’s funny how many people, including Andy, are under the incorrect assumption that Nermal is a girl. I used to think so myself when I was a kid.
— I love Andy’s “HE’S BRITISH?!?” line when hearing Andrew Garfield’s accent.
STARS: ***½
SECRET WORD
oblivious Mindy Grayson & Miss America (host) are worthless
— (*groan*) (By the way, I wonder how many recurring sketches in this era always immediately induce a *groan* reaction from me in my reviews. Whatever the number is, it must be close to the double-digits by this point, if not already there, which just goes to show how many bad recurring sketches this era has).
— I guess they’re running out of cast members to play the straight man contestants in this recurring sketch, as this is Paul’s second time getting stuck in this role in a Secret Word sketch.
— Funny bit regarding Emma disclosing the fact that she was disqualified from a pageant because “they could see my puss”.
— Like most SNL hosts in this recurring sketch, Emma continues to be the only real saving grace of this installment (aside from a few funny reliable lines from Bill). The Mindy Elise Grayson (once again, I hate the fact that they randomly and pointlessly added a middle name to this Mindy Grayson character starting last season) portions, on the other hand, are as painful as ever. In fact, I don’t know if it’s just me, but this character seems to be getting more and more annoying with each passing installment of this sketch lately, especially her songs that these sketches seem to be relying on more and more.
STARS: *½
WXPD NEWS NEW YORK
journalistic fossil Herb Welch flubs reporting on falling ice story
— Makes sense seeing Emma Stone in a Herb Welch sketch and being the victim of Herb’s typical microphone face-hits, given the fact that, reportedly, Bill inadvertently came up with the Herb Welch character during rehearsals of the news sketch from Emma’s previous episode, where Bill, while playing a normal reporter character, kept ad-libbing by hitting Emma and others in the face with his microphone while interviewing them.
— A good laugh from Herb randomly asking Emma “You think this Belafonte kid oughta…pipe down?”
— A decent twist to the usual microphone face-hitting gag at one point, with Emma using her purse as a shield when Herb’s about to hit her in the face with his microphone once again, causing him to unintentionally hit himself with the microphone.
— Good job from Kristen on perfectly keeping a straight face during Bill’s VERY extended tapping of his microphone onto her crotch, which (unsurprisingly) cracks himself up at one point.
— Maybe I’m slowly starting to get a little tired of the usual formula of this recurring sketch, because, while I still enjoyed tonight’s overall installment, I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as previous installments.
STARS: ***½
WISH IT WOULD RAIN
lack of precipitation hampers singer’s (ANS) video
— Oh, no. I recall this short being HORRIBLE. When it originally aired, I was absolutely floored by how bad it was. It was the point where I slowly started realizing that the Digital Shorts had officially “lost it” this season.
— The bit with the “rain” turning out to be Jason peeing on Andy got a laugh from me. Otherwise, yeah, this short is dire so far.
— Jesus Christ, the appearance of Emma with an exaggeratedly big butt is SO desperate. Just sad. The fact that they felt the need to randomly throw that gag into this is a huge sign of the general lack of inspiration in this season’s Digital Shorts.
— Yikes, that Andy-getting-struck-by-lightning-and-then-disappearing ending was AWFUL, and, again, reeked of sad desperation and lack of inspiration.
— Overall, oof. Yeah, this mostly lived up to my horrible memory of it, though I did get one actual laugh this time (the aforementioned bit with the rain turning out to be Jason peeing), which was more than I got during my first viewing of this back when it originally aired. Still one of the worst Digital Shorts of all time, though.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Paradise”
WEEKEND UPDATE
the nature of the Penn State scandal is too much for The Devil to take
Garth & Kat add a backup singer (Chris Martin) for Thanksgiving tunes
— Ah, this Penn State commentary from The Devil is the commentary that I’ve remembered the most out of all of his appearances. This also ends up being his final Update commentary. His only remaining appearance is just a non-speaking background appearance with various other Update characters during the epic “Stefon’s Wedding” bit in Bill’s final episode.
— I absolute love The Devil’s various reactions to certain horrifying details about the Penn State scandal. Given this VERY heavy subject matter, this is a fine line for SNL to tread, but Jason’s execution of it is perfect.
— After The Devil says, in an aghast manner in response to one of the Penn State scandal details about the child sexual abuse, “This is college football, not the catholic church!” and the audience gasps at that, I love The Devil then asking the audience “Are you sorry that it happened or that I reminded you of it?”
— After The Devil learns of one PARTICULARLY horrifying fact about the Penn State scandal, Jason gets such a huge laugh out of me from him getting out of his seat and yelling at the Weekend Update map “ARE YOU HEARING THIS?!? ARE YOU HEARING THIS…MAP?!?” Jason is absolutely slaying me in this whole commentary.
— The Devil ending his commentary by officially retiring from his job is perfect closure for this recurring character.
— Aaaaaaand, after my very positive reception to The Devil commentary, Garth and motherfucking Kat are here to give me one of the biggest mood whiplashes I’ve EVER gotten during SNL.
— Much like Gwyneth Paltrow in the preceding season, her then-hubby Chris Martin plays a third member of Garth & Kat. I’m guessing Chris Martin previously watched Gwyneth doing this and liked it so much that, when he showed up at SNL this week, he asked if he could do a Garth & Kat bit. So I see I have him to thank for having to suffer through these characters once again.
STARS: **½ (as usual, Garth & Kat’s painful and overlong commentary docked half a star from the rating)
LES JEUNES DE PARIS
teens dance & get married to “A Cause Des Garcons”
— This episode is going really heavy on recurring characters, though I’m not complaining about seeing this particular sketch.
— Emma reprises the character she played in the very first installment of this sketch.
— I kinda don’t like how the French songs played in these sketches seem to get less and less bizarre with each passing installment of this sketch, but that’s a minor gripe about this always-very-fun recurring sketch.
— Great bit with a little person appearing from under Emma’s wedding dress.
— Some fun walk-ons and passersby at the end.
— While I didn’t feel this overall installment of this recurring sketch was quite as great as previous installments (which I also said about Herb Welch earlier in this episode review), this was still strong and enjoyable.
STARS: ****
BRIDAL SHOWER GIFTS
(host)’s X-rated gifts are inappropriate for (KRW)’s bridal shower
— An actual original, non-recurring sketch tonight.
— The odd, very deep voice Emma’s using here is immediately cracking me up.
— So far, good job from Emma as this off-beat character, and her inappropriate bridal shower gifts are pretty funny.
— I know it’s cliched for me to say this at this point of Fred’s SNL tenure, but ugh, I hate Fred’s performance in this otherwise good sketch. I find him unlikable when he plays characters like this in his later seasons, and not unlikable in the intentional, comedic way.
— Decent bit with Emma’s reactions to the “cops”.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall”
SAD SONG
depressed (NAP) & co-workers have a good cry to “Someone Like You”
— A laugh from Nasim, after initially hiding her true emotions from her co-workers, immediately following her co-workers’ exit by playing Adele’s “Someone Like You” on her computer and instantly breaking out into tears.
— Very funny visual of Nasim and Emma simultaneously pigging out on ice cream while crying to the song.
— Amusing how Kristen’s reason for wanting to cry to the song is because her parakeets have been fighting all week.
— Hilarious actions and facial expressions from Emma, Nasim, and Kristen right now during their emotional “Someone Like You” crying together.
— Great escalation to this sketch.
— I love the gag with Bill randomly having mascara running from his eyes during his crying.
— An excellent meta turn with us now even seeing Coldplay, as themselves, falling victim to the chain reaction of emotional “Someone Like You” crying while watching this sketch backstage at SNL.
STARS: ****½
WE’RE GOING TO MAKE TECHNOLOGY HUMP
handheld devices perform porno plots
— Well, this is certainly an out-of-left-field premise. I’m onboard, though.
— Jay makes his ONLY appearance of the entire night in something that’s 1) pre-taped, and 2) can hardly even be called an “appearance”, as we only hear his voice and see his hand during one of the technology sex scenes.
— Why are Andy and Emma’s portions of this sketch pre-taped? One could say it’s because Andy gets bleeped out at one point when jovially saying “I hear that shit!”, but it’s not like this era hasn’t had bleeped-out scripted swearing in live sketches (e.g. the Paula Deen sketch from the season 36 Scarlett Johansson episode).
— Some good and inspired gags during the technology sex scenes, like the camera’s penis being its extended lens, the iPad turning around to receive anal sex, and the curling iron’s plug being used as a whip.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode. The first half was kinda bumpy, but things got better and more consistent in the second half (which was also the case with Emma Stone’s previous episode).
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Sad Song
Les Jeunes de Paris
We’re Going To Make Technology Hump
The Republican Presidential Debate
WXPD News New York
Monologue
Bridal Shower Gifts
Weekend Update
Secret Word
Wish It Would Rain
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Charlie Day)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Jason Segel
Agree tonight’s Herb Welch felt a little repetitive, but it still predictably had some great lines, like the Belafonte but or Herb’s disgusted “pick a name.”
Interested in tomorrow’s episode. I don’t know that I can remember ANYTHING from it, to be honest (ok I kind of remember some Muppets in his monologue, but that’s about it).
Stone’s later SNL’s are more memorable to me. She gets two of Julio Torres’s all time best pieces (and gives fucking fantastic performances in both) with “Wells For Boys” and “The Actress”, but also gets those poster sketches, which I hate.
The technology hump sketch is a true, A+ cheesy good laugh SNL piece. Andy and Emma are wonderful, but it’s the completely outlandish premise, sold so naturally, that gets me every time. Vanessa and Jason probably sell the whole thing the most of any of the voices, and it wouldn’t work without them. The last part, where Andy and Emma do the voices and you have the whole hilarity of another curling iron joining them, the whipping, etc. is just an absolute hoot. My FAVORITE part is when they get the letter demanding to just have porn and nothing else, and Emma insists sorry, no, she needs to have storylines and romance. The whole thing feels like a modern day version of Liquid Television, and I absolutely love that.
‘Wish it would rain’ is known to be awful by everyone involved, the lonely island didn’t even want to put it on! Andy has spoken about it a few times, but did so at length on his Late Night podcast appearance, where Seth is basically just making fun of it and delighting in how awful it is. Andy basically says that during the week, they were overbudget on it, and also KNEW it was bad, so kept telling Lorne it wasn’t good enough and not to put it on, but Lorne I guess thought they were just being harsh on themselves and put it on anyway. After it aired Jorma said he was in the hall and Lorne sarcastically said ‘great job on the short’, and Jorm was just thinking ‘we TOLD you it was bad!’. Andy also points out that he has no idea who the character is supposed to be, or what it’s supposed to be parodying, and that it just didnt come together. I think it’s now funny to look back at such a mess (Seth often says he loves the bad sketches because it’s funny to see really funny, talented people have a rare misstep), but it would have been so disappointing to have that be the digital short when youre watching the show weekly (or daily!)
C8lin,
Yea I Wish It Would Rain is such a mess. That’s a funny story though. I didn’t think Jorm was still on by that point, though. Either way, I like whenever writers/actors admit something they did was terrible, like when Seth admitted the January Jones Rear Window sketch he wrote was “the worst sketch ever.”
I Thought IT Was The Fact There Was A Drought And Then, I Think They Were Doing A Parody OF Singing In The Rain ! I Thought That Was Clever, But Maybe Neither Idea Is What This Kind OF Audience Cares About Having A Drought OR Singing In The Rain ! !
The other three women in the bridal shower sketch are writers Christine Nangle, Shelly Gossman, and Sarah Schneider.
I like this episode better than Emma Stone’s first episode. I enjoy her overall performance more and I think she plays more entertaining characters. This is my favorite Secret Word sketch just because of her beauty pageant character, who’s kind of cute and kind of creepy at the same time.
I feel like the microphone-tapping in the Herb Welch sketch wasn’t supposed to go on that long, it seemed like an attempt to make Kristen break… which backfired, of course. Love Emma’s accent in that sketch.
I didn’t know when I first saw it that “I Wish It Would Rain” had such a negative reputation… I did actually get a laugh at the lightning strike ending… but now that I watch it again, it’s done so poorly it’s hilarious. The lyrics sound like someone thinking up lines on the spit. It really feels like “oh god I have to write and film this by the end of the week, no time to think of better ideas!”
The second half of the episode is stronger than the first. I love the last three sketches in particular.
I mainly remember the monologue, Secret Word, Herb Welch, that first We’re Going to make Technology Hump, Les Junes de Paris, and that commentary of The Devil concerning that whole Penn State incident. Ms. Stone can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned!
The Only Things I Remember Is The Devil Talking About Penn State AND Chris Martin OF Cold Play With Kat And Garth And Chris Stayed Right With Them With His Hand Movements ! I Had Thought Gwen Did A Good Job, But I Think Chris Martin Did Even Better ! !
Ah yes, we’ve arrived at Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto era, oof.
Is that Jost in the peeing shot?
When this aired I can remember SNL reviewer jojo saying Stone sounded like a female version of Butthead in the Bridal Shower sketch and that has been stuck in mind the last 12 years.