April 5, 2014 – Anna Kendrick / Pharrell Williams (S39 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

GM HEARINGS
new General Motors CEO Mary Barra (KAM) can’t recall ignition switch woes

— Lots of funny lines from Kate, especially the escalating ridiculousness and immaturity in her responses.
— Feels so odd seeing Mike being cast in this particular context.
— A great LFNY subversion, with Taran cutting off Kate’s LFNY and calling her out on using it as a means to escape answering a difficult question. This isn’t the first time SNL ever used this LFNY subversion, but it’s always fun whenever they do.
STARS: ****

MONOLOGUE
host sings “Belle” variant to share her SNL excitement with cast members

— Another musical monologue, but it’s understandable here, given Anna Kendrick’s musical theater background.
— Very funny little bit with Kate musically questioning Vanessa’s attempt at a Scottish brogue.
— This is being well-executed for a musical monologue, and has a charming, catchy, and pretty fun atmosphere.
— The visual of the entire cast lined up onstage together during the conclusion of this monologue is noteworthy, as 1) seeing them lined up in that manner really makes you realize how gigantic this season’s cast is, and 2) this visual brings to mind the memorable moment where the also-gigantic season 17 cast is lined up together onstage in the conclusion of the legendary Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight cold opening with Steve Martin. Also, seeing this entire season 39 cast together in this manner makes me wish this season got more of this kind of mileage out of having such a large cast, mileage that season 17 was good at getting out of their large cast.
— Ha, during the aforementioned full-cast musical number in the conclusion of this monologue, Mike is noticeably doing a half-assed attempt at making it look like he’s singing in unison with the rest of the cast. He’s barely even moving his mouth. I also noticed something similar earlier this season in Tina Fey’s monologue, where Mike barely even moved when he and the rest of the new featured players were doing silly dances. Either these things are yet another sign of how ill-fit Mike is as a live TV performer, or he must just have a Norm Macdonald-like aversion to performing full-cast singing/dancing numbers.
STARS: ***½

FOX & FRIENDS
Neil deGrasse Tyson (KET) discusses climate change

— Surprisingly, this is the first time we’re seeing this sketch all season. It hadn’t appeared since May of the preceding season.
— I guess showing how long it’s been since this sketch last appeared prior to this, real Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson left the show and was replaced with Elisabeth Hasselbeck at some point during the hiatus of SNL’s Fox & Friends spoofs. In an apparent attempt to keep the great chemistry that Taran, Vanessa, and Bobby always had in previous installments of this sketch, SNL makes the right decision to keep Vanessa in the group by having her play Hasselbeck, instead of them giving that role to another performer.
— The usual hilarious dimwitted comments delivered affably by Bobby’s Brian Kilmeade.
— I love Vanessa-as-Hasselbeck’s obliviousness to the fact that her husband was intentionally watching porn in the anecdote she tells.
— The traditional list of fact corrections that these Fox & Friends sketches typically end with is noticeably scrolling by in a slower speed than usual tonight, perhaps because SNL wants viewers to have a better chance of catching each fact correction without having to pause their screen.
STARS: ***½

DONGS ALL OVER THE WORLD
women fly globally for penis; Icona Pop cameo

— This dongs concept isn’t bad, I guess, but yeesh, the execution of it feels so flat and ineffective. This ain’t working.
— I do at least find the melody of the song to be very catchy. I just wish the lyrics themselves were actually funny or entertaining.
— Okay, we now get an actual decent interlude during the song, with Aidy and Vanessa’s awkward conversation.
STARS: **

THE LITTLE MERMAID
Ursula (AIB) doesn’t want Ariel’s (host) unmelodic pop singer voice

— This has been a musical-heavy episode so far.
— Not only do I love the voice Aidy’s using as Ursula, but I also like how unintentionally Julia Sweeney-esque it sounds at certain points.
— A very awkward music miscue on SNL’s part when Anna’s supposed to sing her first song, causing her to helplessly laugh a little. Aidy eases this awkward tension with a decent ad-lib until the music is cued up correctly.
— Solid execution from Anna of the various badly-sung pop songs, even if this is the type of humor that usually doesn’t do much for me. I’ve never been as big on this sketch as a number of SNL fans seem to be, but I still find the sketch to be fine.
— I love the following exchange between Anna’s Ariel and Aidy’s Urusla, after Ursula disapproves of Ariel’s choice to sing one particular song: “It’s okay. It’s Iggy Azalea, and she’s white!” “Now…I meant that because…she’s better than you, but…I guess…now we know you’re a racist.”
STARS: ***½

FLIRTY
shy (KYM) struggles to ask neighbor (VAB) out on a date

— This is the first time a Beck/Kyle short has aired in the pre-Weekend Update half of the show, possibly because the humor in this is more mainstream than their usual shorts.
— Such charmingly awkward and funny interactions between Kyle and Vanessa. The execution of this is fantastic, and I love the tender, slice-of-life feel this is giving to an SNL era that’s usually devoid of tender, slice-of-life pieces.
— Vanessa’s acting is particularly great and very believably romcom-ish. I particularly like how understated her growing frustration towards Kyle’s constant reluctance to ask her out is.
— A funny kiss fake-out.
— A big laugh from Beck coming in out of nowhere and bluntly asking Vanessa, “Do you wanna have sex with me right now?”, and then, after he’s told “Yes”, casually saying “I guess I’ll just go get set up and give myself a boner.”
— Such a lovely moment when Kyle finally asks Vanessa on that date.
— Excellent ending with Kyle’s very charming reaction to Vanessa accepting his offer to go out. I especially love the freeze-frame the screen does on Kyle’s jump when he’s mid-air.
— An overall perfect gem.
STARS: *****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Happy”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Angela Merkel (KAM) is tired of being responsible on the world stage

BRW warns that excess drinking can lead to unexplained butter in pants

George R.R. Martin (BOM) is behind schedule because he’s out of ideas

— Ugh, I see this is yet another Update where Cecily is saddled with a lot of corny punchlines and “character voice” punchlines. Much like the preceding episode’s Update, Colin has the better jokes of the two anchors tonight, despite him having not yet found his voice as Update anchor.
— Much like in her Olya Povlatsky commentaries, Kate is always fun and likable in her commentaries as Angela Merkel.
— (*groan*) Speaking of corny punchlines that Cecily is saddled with, is SNL freakin’ kidding me with that “horse jail” punchline that Cecily delivered just now? That’s a punchline I could’ve come up with when I was 10 years old, and that’s certainly no compliment from me.
— The second and final stand-up Update commentary Brooks does as himself.
— This “butter prank” routine was a somewhat well-known comedy routine of Brooks’ that he previously did at various venues. It’s a funny story, so I can’t complain about him doing it once again here.
— What’s this? An actual interaction piece between Cecily and Colin? Up until this point, I thought SNL forgot that the concept of Update co-anchors interacting with each other existed.
— I do feel this Cecily/Colin interaction piece had a strong ending, delivered well by Cecily.
— Aw, man, now even Colin’s letting me down with some Cecily-esque bad, corny, childlike punchlines, like that awful “hawks/library” joke.
STARS: **

LES JEUNES DE PARIS
(host)’s cups accompany (TAK) & “Louxor, J’Adore”

— Surprisingly, this is the first appearance this recurring sketch has made in over two full years. This also ends up being its final appearance. I wonder if they only brought it back tonight because Anna possibly requested it, as I can picture her being a fan of previous installments she may have seen of this sketch.
— Showing how many changes have occurred in SNL’s cast since the last time this recurring sketch appeared prior to this, Cecily has now replaced Kristen Wiig’s station ID voice-over that this recurring sketch always opens with, John has replaced Paul Brittain’s regular role as one of Taran’s character’s friends, and Noel has replaced Abby Elliott’s regular role as one of the host’s character’s friends. Noel in particular seems perfectly cast as a French youth, as she looks very natural in that role.
— I like the reference/homage to “Cups (When I’m Gone)” that Taran and Anna do.
— This sketch is fun as usual, even if it’s just going the usual route that this recurring sketch typically goes in instead of doing something vastly different with the formula like the last installment prior to tonight’s installment did, in which they did a brilliant mash-up with the movie The Artist. I’m not complaining about the return to the old formula, though, since we had such a long hiatus from this recurring sketch in general.
— A very funny Chris Tucker/Ruby Rhod appearance from Jay at the end.
STARS: ****

FIELD TRIP
Principal Frye reprimands misbehaving students during zoo field trip

— Another recurring sketch tonight that’s making its final appearance.
— Jay-as-Principal-Frye’s reports are funny as usual.
— Anne is very solid in her upbeat delivery when quoting rude things the off-camera students are saying to her.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Hans Zimmer [real] perform “Marilyn Monroe”

BIG JOE
Big Joe’s (TAK) bone disease leaves him unable to free (BOM) from rocks

— Ah, a sketch that’s always been a guilty pleasure of mine. I’m aware that many SNL fans feel (or at least felt back at this time in 2014) that this is a very dumb sketch with a bad, thin script. I can understand that viewpoint, but man, Taran absolutely sells this sketch for me BIG-TIME. Everything about his performance here slays me, from his mere look, his deep-voiced southern-accented delivery, and more. I especially love his delivery of the line “He gon’ DAHH (die).”
— When Anna easily lifts a rock, I laughed at Taran’s Big Joe nervously saying, “I-I loosened that one, *I* get credit.”
— Between these past two episodes, SNL seems to be phasing Noel into the “little girl” roles that Nasim would usually get, possibly because they realize by this point that Nasim will be leaving after this season to do John Mulaney’s then-upcoming sitcom. (Speaking of Nasim, it feels like she’s completely disappeared from the show these past two episodes, after having a boost in airtime for a majority of this season. I mean, she’s been in these past two episodes, but she’s completely invisible in them. Perhaps the reason for that is she’s possibly been very busy filming episodes of Mulaney’s sitcom.) However, as we know now, this decision to phase Noel into the type of roles Nasim used to get would turn out to be for nothing, as Noel ends up going out the door with Nasim that upcoming summer, thanks to SNL firing her along with most of her fellow newbies.
— Love the sequence with sunrises and sunsets constantly passing while Big Joe is in a frozen position while struggling to lift a large rock.
— Showing what a musical-heavy episode this is, even this sketch has a song thrown in at the very end.
STARS: ****

AUDITION
(host) & off-key sister (VAB) want to be backup singers for musical guest

— Our obligatory spoof of Pharrell’s famous hat.
— Tonight’s musical theme continues once again.
— Uh, where exactly is this Anna/Vanessa musical number going??? What’s the main joke? If the main joke is supposed to be Vanessa’s bad singing, she’s not making her bad singing comical enough. In fact, she doesn’t even sound all that horrible, which is hurting the alleged joke of this sketch.
— And now to make me like this sketch even less, we get the use of the ol’ SNL trope of the camera doing cutaways to each straight man character having a frozen shocked look on their face while witnessing something odd. They subvert that a little here by having the “frozen shocked looks” sequence end with a shot of Pharrell actually smiling and bopping his head to the music, but even that’s an overused SNL trope.
— I did get a laugh just now from Taran rudely asking, “Did one of you not get enough oxygen in the womb or something?”
— The running gag with Kenan and Taran’s magically-appearing Pharrell Hats isn’t doing anything for me.
— Was that ending even an ending???
STARS: *½

NCAA TOURNEY BEST OF THE WHITE GUYS
Caucasians in NCAA Basketball Tournament are lauded

— Making fun of the lameness of white basketball players is far from an original concept, but the idea to present that in an mock-exciting, hyped-up NCAA commercial is a funny idea, and it’s being executed well.
— The various NCAA white guy tropes being glowingly advertised, such as “Checking into a blowout”, are all funny.
STARS: ***½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode with a likable and fun atmosphere, which even managed to make the heavy musical focus come off acceptable. Anna Kendrick contributed well to the likable and fun atmosphere of this episode.

MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS

RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Flirty
Les Jeunes de Paris
Big Joe
GM Hearings
Monologue
The Little Mermaid
Fox & Friends
Field Trip / NCAA Tourney Best Of The White Guys (tie)
Weekend Update
Dongs All Over The World
Audition

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Louis C.K.)
a slight step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Seth Rogen