Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
fake sign-language interpreter (KET) gets on Barack Obama’s (JAP) nerves
— SNL gets in their obligatory spoof of the clueless sign language interpreter at the then-recent Nelson Mandela memorial service.
— Kenan’s doing a decent job, but this feels like an inferior reprisal of the translator bit in the preceding season’s Hurricane Sandy Press Conference cold opening, which worked much better for me. SNL should’ve gone with a more original angle in this spoof of the Mandela translator.
— A good laugh from Kenan’s sign language for the word “thrilled” being him doing the Thriller dance.
— I like how there’s a growing story arc in Kate’s Angela Merkel appearances, with us finding out more and more about her crush on President Obama.
STARS: **½
MONOLOGUE
host & KET sing “All I Want For Christmas Is Booty”
— Boy, does it feel nice seeing John Goodman entering the home base stage again for the first time in 13 years. It’s also a novelty seeing him entering this particular home base stage for his first-ever time, which just goes to show you how long it’s been since he last hosted, given how extremely long this particular home base stage had been used by this point (and would continue to be used long afterwards, to this day in 2020). Hell, Goodman’s last hosting stint prior to this was so long ago that not even Kenan was in the cast yet back then.
— Goodman brings up the fact that he hosted SNL every year from 1989 to 2001. To nitpick, he didn’t host in 1991. And, if by “year”, he meant season, he didn’t host in season 26.
— Only two segments into tonight’s episode, and we’re already getting an early sign of how extremely dominant Kenan will be in tonight’s episode.
— Catchy song, but the lyrics themselves aren’t anything special, and this isn’t exactly the type of monologue I want to see Goodman doing for his big return after a long hiatus. This feels like a monologue they could do with almost any host.
STARS: **½
GUY FIERI’S FULL THROTTLE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
bad taste characterizes Guy Fieri’s (BOM) Christmas special
— For some bizarre reason, when the camera is on a close-up of Brooks (who looks unrecognizable in this) as Kid Rock showing us his Bud Lime Gazpacho drink, his line about the drink is completely muted out, even though the background music still plays as normal. What the hell?
— Hilarious occasional animation sequences of Bobby’s Guy Fieri punching various famous Christmas characters in the face.
— I have no familiarity with Big Ang, but Kate is hilarious as her here.
— I remember an online SNL fan back at this time in 2013 mistakenly thinking that the Duck Dynasty guys were played by four of the five new male featured players, as SNL’s way of doing a meta joke about how supposedly interchangeable the new male featured players are (I don’t agree with that latter part, for the record). Heh, that’s actually Kings of Leon playing the Duck Dynasty guys.
— Pretty funny seeing Bobby as all of the Pawn Stars guys.
— Throughout this commercial, in various groups shots of celebrities, you can see Noel as one of the celebrities, but she never gets a line, a close-up, nor does this commercial even bother to tell us who she’s playing. According to various people who saw the full version of this commercial one way or another, Noel’s playing Reba McEntire, who she would play again later this season in a Celebrity Family Feud sketch. In the shortened on-air version of this commercial that I’m currently reviewing, all of Noel’s main parts are completely cut. (*sigh*) Yet ANOTHER sign of how this season’s new featured players keep getting screwed over.
STARS: ***
DANCE OF THE SNOWFLAKES
snowflake-costumed (host), (VAB), (KET), (AIB) rue holiday pageant dance
— Goodman’s delivery of his first inner thought, “Oh, no. Is this…….DUMB???”, gave me a good laugh.
— I love Kenan’s first inner thought: “Hooollllyyy f(*bleep*)!”
— A nice out-of-the-ordinary structure to this sketch with almost all of the dialogue being pre-taped inner monologues.
— More good lines from Kenan throughout this, especially “My wife’s never gonna wanna see my penis again.”
— An unexpected and interesting happy ending with the characters suddenly convincing themselves to be proud of what they’re doing.
STARS: ***
THREE WISE GUYS
wise guys (host), (Sylvester Stallone), (Robert De Niro) go to see Jesus
— Ohho, no. NO. I recall this sketch being absolutely DREADFUL, and one of the nadirs of this season.
— I wish I could be more excited about a Sylvester Stallone cameo. The DeNiro cameo, on the other hand? Get him off my screen.
— Ugh, so many bad, hacky, and groanworthy wiseguy lines throughout this. Not even that camel toe one-liner of Stallone’s could elicit so much as a smirk from me.
— Making this already-painfully unfunny sketch even worse is the fact that it is SO damn sluggishly paced.
— Aaaaaaand there goes that obligatory halting, delayed delivery from DeNiro that you can always depend on whenever he appears on SNL. At one point here, he even squints hard when struggling to read the word “Frankincense” off the cue card.
— Overall, yep. This lived up (or down?) to my extremely negative memory of it. Pure oof.
STARS: *
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Temple”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Santa Claus (KET) makes an appearance to reveal that he is indeed black
Drunk Uncle & his Drunker Uncle (host) take issue with the holiday season
— Some good comments from Kenan all throughout his Santa commentary.
— Seth and Cecily’s jokes tonight are an okay improvement over their very blah jokes in the preceding episode’s Update.
— A big laugh from Drunk Uncle’s opening “I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas” bit.
— Drunk Uncle: “We got Black Friday now???? Barf! Wasn’t February enough?”
— Tonight’s Drunk Uncle commentary feels faster-paced than usual. He’s still a riot as usual.
— Nice inclusion of Goodman as “Drunker Uncle”.
— (*groan*) Freakin’ Seth and that damn habit he often has of loudly laughing off-camera during a guest commentator’s segment. His loud off-camera guffawing made it a little hard to hear the ending of Goodman’s funny opening line: “All I want for Christmas…is my two neighbors not to be Chinese anymore.”
— A sweet ending with even the harsh Drunk Uncle giving Seth a sincere goodbye hug because, as is acknowledged here, this is the final Update that Drunk Uncle and Seth are appearing in together before Seth’s soon-to-come departure. (Between Vanessa’s Jacob commentary in the preceding episode’s Update and now this Drunk Uncle commentary in tonight’s Update, SNL is kinda making Seth’s departure seem like it’s coming sooner than you’d think. We still have four episodes left of him after this.) Speaking of which, seeing Goodman’s Drunker Uncle also hug Seth during this acknowledgment of Seth’s departure makes me realize something: Goodman’s last hosting stint prior to this was all the way back in Seth’s fourth episode as a cast member (and an important night for him, as that was his breakout episode, after he quietly spent his first three episodes not standing out at all and being considered by SNL fans to be interchangeable with one of his fellow newbies, Jeff Richards), and now Goodman’s return as host just so happens to be one of Seth’s last episodes as a cast member, which means Goodman basically bookends Seth’s SNL tenure. Interesting coincidence. This also makes you realize just how extremely long Seth has been a cast member.
STARS: ***
TOO HOT
lawyer (CES) argues that (BEB) fired mannish (host) for being too sexy
— I love how Taran’s opening argument to the “Fired for being too hot” claim made about Goodman’s female character is just Taran saying “I meaaannnn…” while gesturing towards Goodman.
— Mixed feelings towards this concept, given how hacky “men in drag” humor can be in more recent decades, but Goodman seems like he can make this work, especially after we’ve gotten such a long break from seeing him host SNL.
— Goodman’s “Tee hee!”s are cracking me up, and it turns out he’s indeed making this material work. The supporting performers are also helping make this work, especially Taran, who’s a solid straight man here.
— Funny dance moves from Beck (who’s stuck in nothing but two non-speaking roles all night) at the end.
STARS: ***½
FIRE SAFETY
fireman’s (host) holiday safety message is flipped completely by Shallon
— Like last time, Nasim is very funny as this character.
— Yikes, Milhiser clearly missed a line at one point, as the camera cuts to a close shot of him when he’s supposed to say his second line in this sketch, only for him to just sit there blankly, unaware that it’s his turn to deliver the next line, leading to long awkward silence before an off-camera Goodman tries to keep the sketch moving by jumping ahead of the script a little and saying his own next line. Right as Goodman does this, Milhiser FINALLY starts saying his line, only to immediately cut himself off because Goodman is now speaking. I like Milhiser and generally feel really bad for how screwed-over he got in terms of airtime this season, but man, you’d figure he’d cherish the few lines he got in this sketch, given how little he gets to speak or do anything on SNL. I remember how, back at this time in 2013-2014, gaffes like the one Milhiser made here contributed to me feeling that most of this season’s newbies came off awfully green, and made me wonder if THAT was the reason why they barely got any airtime this season. In my re-watch of this season, I’m not finding the newbies to be all that green, minus Mike O’Brien and the gaffe that Milhiser made here.
— So far, this is just a variation of the first installment of this sketch from earlier this season, only with the kids’ van fascination being replaced with a fireplace fascination. This variation, while still providing a few laughs, isn’t working anywhere near as well for me as the first installment did.
— A good laugh from Aidy randomly saying, when the kids are proudly saying which dangerous fireplace-related location they’re going to hide in, “I’m gonna hide in a dry cleaning bag!”
— Goodman is quite stumbly with his lines throughout this sketch. Also, I’m not finding him to be as good a straight man as Edward Norton was in the first installment of this sketch. Goodman’s performance seemed especially off towards the end of the sketch right before Kate came back into the classroom.
STARS: **½
HALLMARK CHANNEL COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS
Hallmark Channel is chock-full of tedious holiday movies with minor stars
— A good laugh from the “Phylicia Rashad’s Christmas Nap” movie title.
— An overall quick, simple, and decent-enough piece.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Wait For Me”
THE CHRISTMAS WHISTLE
movie’s titular noise drives characters crazy
— Two-and-a-half minutes into this sketch, and the only thing I can think of to say in my review is that the whistle sound is pretty annoying. Yes, that’s the point, but that doesn’t automatically make it funny, which it certainly isn’t. And nothing else funny has been happening in this so far.
— Bobby’s off-camera yell of “What the hell is a Christmas whistle?!?!?” made me laugh, only because of his delivery.
— We at least get a decent bit regarding Kate’s mother, played by Aidy.
— Not even Taran’s walk-on at the end can save this, as much as I like the characterization he’s doing here.
STARS: *½
H&M
(JAP) & Wale [real] rap about H&M’s cheap, colorful, undersized clothes
— What the heck is that (admittedly catchy-sounding) lyric that Jay keeps singing at the beginning of his song? I can’t understand the last few words of it, despite how frequently he keeps singing that same lyric over and over: “You an H&M shoppin’ (something something something)”. Thanks in advance if anyone can answer my question.
— This is another segment tonight that I’m having a very hard time finding anything to say about. Aside from a few amusing cutaways of Kyle and Mike suavely looking into the camera while wearing stylish clothes, and the brief sequence with Goodman straining when putting on skinny jeans, I’m not even sure this music video is supposed to be funny or entertaining as an SNL piece. It’s become white noise to me after a while. For all I know, this could be a legit H&M commercial that just so happens to feature SNL cast members and John Goodman. It might as well be, because it sure ain’t working as a comedy piece.
— Overall, blah. I guess not all of this season’s music videos can be winners.
STARS: *½
LAST CALL
drunk & lonely (host) & Sheila Sovage settle for a sad make-out session
— Kenan’s extremely busy night concludes. He’s been all over this episode, far more than most of his fellow repertory players. I remember this really bothered a number of online SNL fans at the time (including me, though I’ve gained a much bigger appreciation for Kenan in these re-watches of mine), who were not pleased with SNL’s decision to make Kenan the cast’s new utility player this season in general.
— A very funny “66” bit from Kate.
— As usual in this recurring sketch, Kate’s delivery absolutely kills, and also as usual in this recurring sketch, we get some good gross-out humor here. But so far at this point of SNL’s run, there has yet to be a Last Call installment that comes close to measuring up to the great first one. I believe that eventually changes, as I recall some really strong installments with Woody Harrelson, Larry David, and Dave Chappelle, though my memories of what actually occurs in those installments are fuzzy. I’m pretty eager to revisit them.
— Sheila Sovage: “My heart and my genitals say ‘no’. But my hypoglycemia says ‘yes’.”
— Great whipped cream make-out session between Sovage and Goodman, both of whom are going all out.
— An absolutely hilarious and outrageous sequence with Goodman motor-boating Sovage as she makes cat orgasm noises. Tonight’s Last Call installment is getting funnier and funnier as it goes along. While it, for me personally, still doesn’t quite measure up to the first installment, it’s very close.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mediocre episode. A lot of pretty forgettable stuff, some flat-out weak stuff, and one of the worst sketches in recent memory (Three Wise Guys). The only segment all night that I gave an above average rating to happens to be a sketch that didn’t air until the very end of the episode (Last Call). Hell, there was almost nothing in this episode that even got so much as a mere three-and-a-half-star rating from me. An overall letdown for John Goodman’s big hosting return. Not only that, but it doesn’t even lead to Goodman going back to hosting regularly or at least semi-regularly. After his return in this episode, he’s seemingly gone back to no longer hosting the show.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Last Call
Too Hot
Dance of the Snowflakes
Guy Fieri’s Full Throttle Christmas Special
Weekend Update
Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas
Monologue
Fire Safety
Presidential Address
H&M
The Christmas Whistle
Three Wise Guys
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Paul Rudd)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Jimmy Fallon hosts the Christmas episode