Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PIERS MORGAN LIVE
Chris Christie (BOM), Alex Rodriguez (host), Justin Bieber (KAM) respond to their scandals
— This ends up being the final appearance of both this recurring sketch and Taran’s Piers Morgan impression.
— I got a laugh from how one of the “positive” New Jersey qualities that Bobby’s Chris Christie lists off is “a vague chemical smell”.
— Drake already showing what a fun host he’ll be tonight, as he’s doing a solid job here in his scene as Alex Rodriguez.
— The debut of Kate’s Justin Bieber impression, back in the days when Kate playing a male in a cold opening was actually rare.
— Kate is absolutely priceless and spot-on in her Bieber impression here, especially the gestures.
— Kate’s Bieber, when asked what his age is: “I think I’m 40. Maybe I’m 5…I don’t know, my brain is broken.”
— That LFNY from Kate seemed abruptly thrown in out of absolutely nowhere. Makes me wonder if this wasn’t originally the cold opening in dress rehearsal. The fact that Drake appears in this supports that theory of mine, given how rare it is for hosts to appear in cold openings in recent SNL eras.
STARS: ***½
OPENING MONTAGE
— Sasheer Zamata has been added to the cast tonight, as SNL’s answer to all of the criticisms they faced this season for having no black women in the cast while hiring an overabundance of new white cast members.
MONOLOGUE
black & Jewish halves of host’s family commingle at his bar mitzvah
— Drake is immediately coming off very likable here.
— A rare instance of a sketch within a monologue, utilizing a different set and everything. This could be fun.
— Some good corny lines from Vanessa and Jay as Drake’s parents.
— I like the little bit with Drake’s mom making him change his new “Drake” moniker to the Jewish-sounding “Drakob”.
— It sure didn’t take them long to drop the comical pretense of this bar mitzvah taking place in 1999, as the rap that Drake is doing is oddly making references to celebrities like LeBron James, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye West, none of whom I believe were famous yet in 1999.
STARS: ***½
HIP HOP CLASSICS
hip-hop artists got started on unlikely TV shows
— A fun and promising concept.
— Taran’s Eminem impression always cracks me up, and his “CHOOSE YOURSELF! YOUR INTERNSHIP’S IMPORTANT!” line from this sketch has stuck in my memory over the years.
— Boy, does this Family Matters spoof really take me back to my childhood in the 90s.
— Kenan’s Carl Winslow/Reginald Vel Johnson voice is absolutely spot-on and hilarious.
— The spoof of the Blossom opening credits is something else that’s taking me back to my 90s childhood.
— Jay’s 2 Chainz is very funny during his angry confrontation of Kate and Noel.
— The Wonder Years/Flavor Flav scene is pretty awful, and is kinda hurting the momentum of an otherwise good sketch.
STARS: ***½
NANCY GRACE
to Nancy Grace (NOW), legalized Colorado marijuana is a cause for alarm
— A rare Noel Wells showcase. It’s about damn time, SNL.
— Is Drake going out of his way to do ALL of the impressions from Jay’s repertoire? (Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, and now Katt Williams.) Drake has been funny in all those roles, though, so I’m not complaining.
— As much as I want to root for Noel, I’m having very mixed feelings towards her Nancy Grace performance here.
— I’m also noticing that the audience isn’t all that into Noel’s performance either. They’re laughing less and less at her as this sketch progresses, to the degree that her last “WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES?!?!?!?” outburst receives a long, uncomfortable stretch of absolute dead silence from the audience. Ouch! If this sketch had any chances of convincing SNL to give Noel more airtime, the bad audience reaction must’ve put the kibosh on that fast. This would sadly end up being her final lead role on SNL, despite the fact that the woman still has, you know, HALF A SEASON remaining on the show. While I’m iffy on her performance in this sketch, she still deserved another chance to prove herself after this.
STARS: **½
RESOLUTION REVOLUTION
(TAK), (host), (JAP) undergo willpower failure
— Very catchy opening song from Taran. I kinda wanted it to go on longer before it cut off.
— The abruptness of the cutaway to Jay’s sex doll-humping scene is very funny.
— I like the randomness of how extended the cosplay scene goes on, and how that scene starkly contrasts to the rest of this music video.
STARS: ***½
SLUMBER PARTY
at a slumber party, Melanie (AIB) yearns for girl’s (SAZ) dad (host)
— Drake is surprisingly PERFECT as a cheesy middle-aged dad. And I’ll never forget some people on an SNL board jokingly referring to his character in this sketch as “Black Ned Flanders”, based on his look.
— Interesting kid voice from Kate. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her use that voice before or after this.
— Aidy’s doing well in this, and has good lines all throughout.
— Very funny ending regarding Aidy suggestively lying face-down on a beanbag with her hands under her body.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Started From The Bottom” & “Trophies”
WEEKEND UPDATE
spacey Jacqueline Bisset (VAB) has trouble getting from audience to stage
Arianna Huffington (NAP) mulls Hillary Clinton’s presidential viability
— I’m loving Vanessa’s bit as Jacqueline Bisset in SNL’s audience, spoofing Bisset’s appearance at the then-recent Golden Globes. This is not only funny and features solid execution by Vanessa, but the studio audience setting is a refreshing change of pace for an Update segment.
— For the second time this season, my growing tolerance towards Cecily as an Update anchor unfortunately gets set back by her regressing, though I don’t put the blame all on her this time. She’s been saddled with a lot of corny, weak jokes tonight that I’m not sure any Update anchor could’ve made work.
— This ends up being the final appearance of Nasim’s Arianna Huffington.
— As usual, some good comments from Nasim’s Huffington, even if I feel she’s had some better commentaries in the past.
— Given the trend the last few Updates prior to this of Update guests getting emotional over Seth’s soon-to-come departure, and also given the trend of Nasim’s Huffington always flirting with Seth, I’m surprised tonight’s Huffington commentary went by without her saying anything about how much she’s gonna miss Seth. Maybe SNL felt they overdid the “guests emotionally say goodbye to Seth” thing in the last few Updates, especially since Seth ends up staying a little longer than SNL originally expected, reportedly.
— A good continuation of Vanessa’s Jacqueline-Bisset-in-the-audience bit.
— Cecily’s punchline to the news story about a man who experienced an erection for five weeks after falling off of his mountain bike: “So…I know what I’m gettin’ my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day…..” Ugh. While that’s actually a funny joke in itself and Cecily’s delivery sold it, it’s a little disturbing when you realize Cecily’s real-life boyfriend at this time was her castmate Mike O’Brien. And thus, that mountain bike/erection joke of Cecily’s plants an image of Mike in my mind that I could’ve happily lived the rest of my life not ever having.
— The conclusion to the Jacqueline Bisset runner was somewhat predictable, but Vanessa executed it well.
STARS: **½
DISNEY WORLD SHOW
at Disney World, language barrier hamstrings would-be Indiana Jones (NAP)
— Nasim, upon her entrance, constantly repeating “I…am…Rahat” to increasingly dead silence from SNL’s audience makes me worried for what kind of sketch awaits me.
— And now, we get another often-repeated line from Nasim’s character: “This is my rice.” Blah.
— Most of Nasim’s character pieces work for me, but this is a big ol’ miss for me.
— Drake gives yet another fantastic performance tonight, and he is spot-on as a typical upbeat amusement park host (whatever the official title for that occupation is). He’s making me laugh far more than the actual main comedic focus of this sketch: Nasim’s Rahat character.
— Great line from Drake about a video of this whole Rahat situation being put up on YouTube.
— The ending was just plain dumb. And why did Nasim fall down a full second BEFORE the boulder “knocked her over”? And then she gets up and randomly throws herself onto the boulder??? Why???
STARS: *½
DETENTION
Miss Meadows brings her love of poetry to students serving detention
— A cute and oddly likable character from Vanessa the first time she appeared earlier this season, but I’m not sure I needed a second appearance from her, especially one that’s in the exact same classroom setting as last time.
— Oof, Brooks’ delivery of his one line in this sketch was pretty rough.
— When Vanessa’s Miss Meadows character asks if the students have any poetry-related questions, I love how the question Drake asks her is a concerned, “I’m just tryin’ to make sure, like, are you alright?”, in regards to her odd behavior and vocalizations.
— So far, this is way too much of a lazy carbon copy of the first installment of this sketch, right down to having the exact same two cast members (Aidy, Kenan) read a poem in front of the class. I did like Aidy’s poem in tonight’s installment, though.
— This continues to be a lazy carbon copy of the first installment, as Drake now reads a love poem that becomes increasingly clear that it’s about Miss Meadows, leading to Drake suddenly kissing Meadows on the neck, all of which Miley Cyrus previously did in the first installment.
— Continuing to show what an awkward live performer he is, Mike breaks in response to Vanessa’s over-the-top vocalizations while Drake is flirting with her.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Hold On We’re Going Home”
host & Jhené Aiko [real] perform “From Time”
MORNIN’ MIAMI
(host) & fellow Mornin’ Miami anchors are only sunny when the camera’s on
— Not only is this the SECOND consecutive sketch tonight that’s being brought back from this season’s Miley Cyrus episode, but these two consecutive sketches also aired back-to-back in Miley’s episode (separated only by a musical performance, much like tonight), though in the opposite order than they’re airing tonight.
— Unlike the Miss Meadows sketch, this retread is actually working, thanks to the fact that the bizarre promos that the three Mornin’ Miami hosts deliver into the camera are not only new in each installment of this sketch, but are hilarious. I especially like Bobby’s “One fish, two fish, red fish, Jew fish” line, and his mention of Orthodox fisherman Schmooley Majors.
— Like last time, I can forgive the repetitiveness of the sequences with the three hosts angrily sitting in miserable silence between promo shoots, but it was very unnecessary to repeat one particular gag from the first installment of this sketch, where Kate breaks the miserable silence by starting to sing, only to IMMEDIATELY get shut down by Bobby.
— I like the running gag this recurring sketch has with the mentions of “actor Topher Grace”.
— Like last time, we get a funny reveal of what Bobby’s character’s “B.F.” initials stand for. This time, instead of “Bitch Fantastic”, it’s “Burt Fingerblast”.
STARS: ****
I KNOW
(KYM) annoys (BEB) with nonstop casual claims of omniscience
— First time we’ve gotten a Beck/Kyle short in quite a while.
— A good and realistic situation for Beck and Kyle, and I’m enjoying all the fast cuts from Beck and Kyle at one location to another.
— I laughed at the intentionally bad, unconvincing way Kyle slipped on the floor.
— More laughs from intentionally bad cheesiness, this time with the visual of Kyle’s ghost and his stilted delivery.
— Speaking of Kyle’s delivery as his ghost, I like the little touch with the humorous “poignant” manner in which he says the word “smart” (“sss…mart”).
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
— Drake gives a special shoutout to newbie Sasheer, and asks the audience to give her a round of applause. Between the fairly large amount of appearances Sasheer made in this debut episode of hers, and now this special moment she gets during the goodnights, plus the special attention that her hire in general got in the media due to the many complaints SNL previously received for not having any black women in this season’s cast, I remember this episode made me think at this time in 2014 that Sasheer was a cast member we would be seeing PLENTY of over the years. Little did I know…….
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mostly good episode, even if there were barely any segments that stood out to me as particularly great. Drake was a strong host, being fun, funny, and likable, and adding something to every single sketch. He even came off engaging during the longer-than-usual goodnights speech he gave, and even managed to throw in a funny mention of Lorne at the end of the second musical performance.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Mornin’ Miami
Slumber Party
Hip Hop Classics
i know
Resolution Revolution
Piers Morgan Live
Monologue
Weekend Update
Nancy Grace
Detention
Disney World Show
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jimmy Fallon)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Jonah Hill
I’ve always loved this episode; there’s not any massive high points, though a lot of sketches have some bit that I absolutely love (“No more cosplay!”, Drake’s Jay-Z impression) and the entire night is so breezy. Drake is such a likable host that commits to everything he’s given, and it makes you wish that he became more of a perennial host for this current era of the show.
I’ll also defend that Rahat sketch. It’s sort of impossible to defend because it’s so dumb, but sometimes that just works for me. It’s completely bereft of anything intelligent but it’s just stupid slapstick and fun character work from everyone involved; even jokes as hacky as Rahat praying to the idol statue kill me just because of the dopey earnestness that Pedrad plays the character with. I could not make someone who hates Rahat like it, but it just makes me smile in such a pure way, and I have no idea how often SNL does that.
I’d bet money that the Rahat sketch was written by Mikey Day. Drake’s character is the EXACT faux-enthusiastic straightman archetype that would later become sort of a staple of Mikey’s own performances. And Rahat reminds me of all the strange characters he inserts into his sketches that repeat the same phrase (Boo Boo Jeffries, Kevin Roberts, etc.)
I believe you would be correct. Day also collaborated with Nasim on Shallon, Heshy, and the Kimye sketches (the latter with Jay and Che). (In fact, I think it was Nasim who brought Day to SNL as a writer?)
Also worth noting: this was Leslie’s first episode as a writer.
So Sasheer was hired for the cast and Leslie Jones and someone named Lakendra Tookes were hired for the writers room. Tookes either got fired or quit after this season I think. Sasheer stayed three and half seasons with no air time and Leslie Jones became a star on the show ngf flubbing lines as she went.
Indeed, Lakendra probably had the worst of it, of the three hired. She was credited as a writer for 11 episodes, and I think she had only one sketch make it to air. She seems to be doing okay as an actress and TV writer, though. (Yes, she was part of the en masse firings that June.)
This episode is one of the strongest of Year 39, but sadly is arguably where the season peaks. That’s not Sasheer’s fault; her presence is a breath of fresh air here and throughout, and I’m glad the audience treated her warmly in her very first sketch. (Recognition applause?) It’s just that this cast was now bloated, and there’s some obvious deadweight. John and Brooks have done some decent stuff post-SNL (both are pretty solid on Twitter) but it’s hard to imagine an alternate universe where both became stars on this show.
Besides the kid with the internet show that debuts in the next season’s Chris Rock show, did Sasheer have any recurring characters? She would be in the top 5 of invisible cast members that were on the show for more than a season.
The only other thing I can think of would be her character from Black Jeopardy.
A fun episode, largely because of Drake, who pumps a lot of life into some thin sketches and premises. Aside from Rahat, I don’t think there’s anything in this episode that I hate, but there’s not a lot that I love per se, yet Drake makes a lot of them work.
Kate as Bieber in the opening is perhaps my favorite of her performances. Unlike some of her later impressions of male celebrities, she also really nails the voice and mannerisms (well, the speaking style, I’ll say).
Did they miss an opportunity to have Drakob and Jacob host dueling bar mitzvahs? Ah well.
The “dopey dad” sketch featuring Drake almost seems like a precursor to a lot of recent sketches in which the host plays a dopey dad wrangling issues at sleepovers (the idiotic pair of sketches involving Kate destroying something, but also the one in which Paul Rudd’s daughter calls up Satan’s daughter).
If Rahat was by Mikey Day, the sketch is the rare time where Mikey and Nasim’s contributions completely fall flat for me, as I normally enjoy their work. I can kinda see what it’s trying for, but it comes off as kind of borderline racist and also insanely repetitive, very much in that vein of SNL sketch in which someone cannot understand how to do a simple task (which sometimes work, but frequently don’t). Drake does such a good job that it perversely almost hurts the sketch in a way that I don’t know how to explain, like pumping a dying dog with drugs enough to live in pain for another few days.
I don’t really like Noel’s performance as Nancy Grace, but I can’t blame her for playing things so broad. It reminds me of what some reviews said about Kate’s first season–stuff she normally would get huge reactions in as the years went on were greeted with blank silence. The SNL audience is a tough one at times–it’s rare for me to think of new players, especially female new players, to immediately get killer reactions.
I don’t know what to think of Sasheer. She never really gave a bad performance, but I can’t think of too many good ones or standout moments. I am not sure if she or the show is the primary reason to blame there, or more likely, a combination of both. In her relatively short time on the show, Ego, for example, has already given more standout performances and seemed far more comfortable. But, of course, the show has also changed.
Sasheer has said that she never felt very comfortable at SNL. She was thrown into the lion’s den, as a hire that many would be able to say was just token status. I think there are some performers who are much stronger in the pre-tape format. For me, Sasheer is one of them. Yet she never really got to have starring roles in that format. Add in that this era’s cast was very “up” and “hey kids, let’s put on a show!” which she clearly was not, and she had many struggles, on top of the huge burden placed on her as the first black woman in the cast in over 5 years and the face of sustained press backlash. Ego has mentioned how much Leslie Jones helped her when she joined SNL. I think Leslie’s help, along with the bloc that Ego, Kenan and Chris Redd formed with writers like Michael Che or Bryan Tucker, are one of the main differences between then and now. I wish things had been different for Sasheer, even if, for all we know, it just never would have worked out under any circumstances as some people just don’t fit SNL.
Noel seems very bitter about her time at SNL. Due to my growing up with SNL, sometimes my emotional instinct to that type of alum attitude is to be defensive, but when I watch sketches like this I can understand why she feels the way she does. This is not even the last time this season that her main chance for airtime is a very broad impression of a woman who is about 20-30 years older than her. I don’t really know what Noel auditioned with, but it’s hard for me to believe this is what she wanted to do on the show. To be honest I find her performance in this sketch to be flat-out embarrassingly bad (the same goes for the upcoming sketch where she plays Reba), made worse by Drake completely showing her up as Katt Williams. There are a lot of cringeworthy performances and sketches on SNL, but, excluding bad political material and bad racial/homophobic/etc. material, this is way up there for most purely cringemaking…only some of the lower lights of Chris Kattan might make me cringe quite this much.
The irony is that Noel’s performance in the Laura Parsons sketch, which was meant to parody bad acting of roles far from your age range, was much subtler than this. This type of performance is exactly what those sketches were intended to make fun of, and never quite managed.
Ego has been CRUSHING it lately. Very excited to see where her and Chloe’s tenures go.
Here’s an article featuring what Noel had to say about SNL:
https://news.avclub.com/former-cast-member-noel-wells-is-glad-to-be-done-with-s-1798259067
Some people just don’t work out. Maybe SNL isn’t right for their talents. I don’t think that’s really an indictment of them nor the show.
Sometimes it’s the performer, sometimes it’s the show. I’d say it’s pretty evenly split. SNL has really fucked up on a few of their early dismissals and really set the show back in significant ways.
We also don’t know what goes on behind the scenes.
Funny that there’s a good amount of conversation going on about Noel Wells, considering today is actually her birthday!
As always, Stooge’s blog moves in mysterious ways.
Happy birthday, Noel…
Here’s a short interview she did around the end of her season. I didn’t know she had auditioned so many times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHVudPLOu3I
Here’s her comments on her season in a now wiped interview. Interesting that she describes the “boys club mentality” as at this point SNL was starting to move more heavily out of this period. I guess it’s another reminder of just how crucial timing is for when you join (well that, and Kate and Cecily likely took many of the parts she might have played).
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/101299434.html
Brooks has also taken some shots at SNL in more recent times as well. (I recall he had some harsher ones that he deleted later that day, guessing he probably regretted them as the day went on)
https://twitter.com/brookswheelan/status/1306367076034994177
This tweet from him was good and pretty accurate.
@SOB It certainly seems accurate for the last few years. And quite frankly it’s a sign of desperation when a show doesn’t have enough confidence in its full time staff to do high profile impressions.
Yeah, you’d get the occasional guest appearance in the olden days (like Aykroyd playing Dole or Jan Hooks coming back to play Hillary after she’d left), but those are the exceptions that prove the rule (they were ex-castmembers, after all). Now it seems the show eagerly seeks out as many unrelated guest, non-host celebrities they can find to play roles in sketches, which sort of defeats the purpose of SNL quite honestly.
It drives me crazy. I get Tina Fey-Sarah Palin or Larry David-Bernie Sanders which everyone wanted to see, but they needed Rachel Dratch to play Amy Klobacher?
One of the reasons cameos continue is because other than grumbling from some hardcore fans and former cast members, many fans tend to enjoy them. So once the show opened that box, they had no need to close it. Indeed, I saw some fans complaining about the Christmas episode last weekend not having cameos. I would see some fans asking the show to have Miley Cyrus play Tiffany Trump – a week after Chloe Fineman had already played her. Last weekend I saw an article which briefly mentioned one cast member playing Biden (Fineman) before suggesting Tig Nitaro and Jack Nicholson (and it was clear that Nicholson was the main preference). Even many of the complaints about Biden did not involve a lack of a cast member – instead they were pining for Jason Sudeikis (who hasn’t been a cast member in over 8 seasons) or Woody Harrelson. And when a cast member did start playing Biden again, Brooks Whelan and others who were unhappy with the cameo parade had little to say (unless I missed something). It’s easier to complain about something SNL does than to praise something SNL does – and SNL probably prefers the complaints (unless they get too hot or too numerous), as it’s a surefire way of getting attention.
In an ideal world, the show managing to get through 9 episodes without, say, Gina Gershon (nothing against her) appearing as Betsy DeVos and continuing to get decent ratings and media attention might make Lorne and co. see they can move on, but I guess we should expect a return to old when we go back to ‘normal’…whatever that is even supposed to mean.
(as for Rachel, I had mixed feelings because I’m always glad to see her back on the show, but that probably was a role someone like Melissa Villasenor could have easily played)
I think if they just had been judicious some actually logical bringing back of old people would have had more of an impact. Like I think Kamala Harris is actually a perfect Maya Rudolph role, but she shows up all the time, of course, and there’s no way we needed everyone else back to play all the other roles.
This garnered Brooks a little publicity
https://mobile.twitter.com/brookswheelan/status/1248133045724438530?lang=en
On the topic of Sasheer joining the cast, amazing to think how many people auditioned for this. Nicole Byer, Amber Ruffin (who was hired for Late Night with Seth), and future host Tiffany Haddish all auditioned in L.A. Another future host Issa Rae was invited to audition but declined after having just signed a deal with HBO to develop her web show The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl into a series which became Insecure. Her Insecure co-star and future SNL writer Natasha Rothwell auditioned in New York along with Sasheer and Brianna who appeared in two episodes of I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson and is currently in 9-1-1: Lone Star. Leslie Jones made the second round of auditions in studio 8H after being personally recommended by Chris Rock.
NPR Interview with Rothwell including her SNL audition story
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/24/651208815/snl-wasn-t-a-good-fit-now-on-insecure-natasha-rothwell-is-anything-but
https://www.vulture.com/2013/12/snl-held-an-audition-of-exclusively-black-female-performers-last-week.html
Strong episode. The pre- Seth’s departure part of this season continues to not be bad. While they’re haven’t been any great episodes, more than half have been really solid (this one, Fey & the run from Norton to Hutcherson).
Drake is (I believe) one of 6 rappers to host the show, the others being MC Hammer, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Donald Glover & Chance the Rapper. I’d say Drake was possibly the best host of the bunch (though I thought Chance was also really great; makes sense they were the 2 of the bunch that got to return.) which is surprisingly considering how much I love Glover.
I believe Taran’s Eminem is saying “choose yourself”, not “lose yourself”.
For some reason the way Drake’s Katt Williams says, “Nancy” has stuck with me for years.
“I Know” is the first Good Neighbor short up to this point I don’t care for. Every once their stuff feels a little too wash, rinse and repeat “weird” (like that stupid sketch they did with Fred in the At Home episodes).
It sucks that it took public criticism for Lorne to finally cast a Black woman, but it did work.
SNL went from having only three Black female cast members in the show’s first 38½ years to four in the last six and a half years.
I don’t know that it worked until next season. Sasheer shined in this episode, but she never really found a home at SNL. Leslie, whether you love her or hate her, definitely made a mark. Also, as I’ve mentioned a few times on here, I’m becoming a big fan of Ego. Having 2 black women and 2-3 black male cast members also allowed the show to have better race humor than it had at any point in the past, outside a few classics like White Like Me and Word Association. That’s the only area where I can say this era is a peak for the show.
I’d also count the many times Eddie Murphy got to impersonate Bill Cosby, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder…
I mean that’s a black performer at the top of his craft, but I don’t know that I’d necessarily call it “racial humor”.
Fair enough.
It was the Kerry Washington Episode that made Lorne Consider having a black female cast member
I gotta say guys, that “I celebrate Chanukah, dated Rihanukah” line from Drake’s monologue has been jammed in my mind since this rewatch for some reason.
Amber Ruffin actually talked about her experience trying out for SNL & how it led to working on Late Night with Seth Meyers, towards the end of her recent interview on Fresh Air.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/16/946731151/late-night-comic-amber-ruffin-on-her-new-show-and-telling-jokes-seth-meyers-cant
Listening to an old interview with Bobby. Apparently he got ill right before the episode and didn’t feel like he could go on for the cold open, but didn’t have a choice. He only shows up again at the end, when he got somewhat better.
He also said he had “two or three” of his own sketches in the show, so this rundown must have been last minute.