February 6, 2016 – Larry David / The 1975 (S41 E12)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A MESSAGE FROM TED CRUZ
Ted Cruz (TAK) exults in having overcome his inherent disadvantages

— The setting of this reminds me of one of the Mitt Romney cold openings Jason Sudeikis starred in four years prior.
— I’ve never felt Taran nailed his Ted Cruz impression in previous appearances this season, but the off-ness of the impression is particularly noticeable in this cold opening, now that he’s front and center.
— Decent part with Kate as Cruz’s daughter.
— Overall, not much to say about this at all. Despite Taran giving an animated performance, this felt too typical of the boring person-speaking-straight-to-camera political cold openings that dominated Jim Downey’s later years as a writer.
STARS: **

MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about his journey from poor schmuck to rich prick

— Already getting Larry David’s hilarious typical attitude right out of the gate during his opening “greetings”.
— I’m a little disappointed Larry didn’t mention being a writer on SNL when he mentions auditioning for this show in the past.
— Larry is absolutely slaying me with practically everything he’s saying here.
— I’m surprised this monologue is already wrapping up. This felt a little short and I was left wanting more, but I certainly can’t complain about what we got.
— Even the ending of this monologue is hilarious, with Larry breaking up the usual monologue tagline.
STARS: ****½

FBI SIMULATOR
neon-clad Kevin Roberts (host) is target in & creator of street simulator

 

— Ah, an all-time favorite of mine.
— A huge laugh from the initial sight of Larry’s Kevin Roberts character.
— Kenan’s delivery of the straight man lines is absolutely perfect.
— Leslie’s yell of “I’M HIGH ON BATH SALTS!” had me howling.
— Larry is freakin’ priceless as this ridiculous character.
— Kevin Roberts: “Can a bitch get a donut?!?”
— I absolutely love Bobby’s brief appearance as Kevin Roberts’ friend who “got the bitch a donut!”
— Kenan: “He said he got to second base, and I was like, ‘Who would do that with Kevin Roberts???’”
— Overall, my personal favorite of the countless number of this type of Mikey Day/Streeter Seidell-written character sketch (you know the type, though I’m not sure how to accurately describe it), even moreso than than the iconic David S. Pumpkins sketch from the following season (though I love that one as well).
STARS: *****

BERN YOUR ENTHUSIASM
Bernie Sanders’ (host) neuroses lead to Iowa defeat

— A brilliant concept of a Bernie Sanders/Curb Your Enthusiasm hybrid.
— Great bit with Larry’s Bernie Sanders refusing to shake Leslie’s “germ-infested hand”.
— Jay is priceless and spot-on as Leon/J.B. Smoove.
— The imitation of Curb Your Enthusiasm’s typical style and humor is absolutely top-notch, and the Bernie Sanders aspects of the premise are being worked perfectly into the CYE style.
— Larry’s Bernie: “I-I’m from Brooklyn, we don’t pop in Brooklyn.”
— Much like Jay, Taran is also doing a hilariously spot-on impression.
— Excellent reveal of the five people who voted against Larry’s Bernie.
— I’m sure it’s just me, but seeing a close-up of Kyle and Larry next to each other makes me realize that they both kinda look like different-aged versions of each other, even though we know what Larry looked like when he was around Kyle’s age and he looked nothing like Kyle back then.
— Overall, a true masterpiece, and my second consecutive five-star rating in tonight’s review.
STARS: *****

STEAM SHIP
passenger on sinking ship (Bernie Sanders) decries upper-class privilege

— Larry’s “Check for pubes!” request about the young boy being let on the boat is hilarious.
— Love the concept of Larry as a whiny passenger on a sinking ship.
— At first, I was almost kinda surprised just now that SNL could still use the word “midget” in 2016, until Larry followed it up by humorously saying “I can say that, it’s olden times!”
— Surprise Bernie Sanders cameo.
— While it’s not the best direction the last third of this sketch could’ve gone, Bernie’s appearance here is actually pretty fun, and he and Larry are playing well off of each other.
— Bernie, when asked his name: “I am Bernie Sanderswitzky, but we’re gonna change it when we get to America so it doesn’t sound quite so Jewish.” Larry: “(sarcastically) Yeah, that’ll trick ’em!”
STARS: ***½

TOTINO’S PIZZA ROLLS / THE X-FILES
hungry guys are chanting zombies during Super Bowl

— Ah, time for our second entry in the fantastic Vanessa-starring annual Totino’s trilogy.
— I’m loving the guys’ repetitive, generic chants of “GO GO GO GO GO GO! TOUCHDOWN!” and “NO NO NO NO NO NO! AWWW, FUMBLLEEE!”, and how it eventually keeps cutting off Vanessa’s statements into the camera.
— A priceless reveal that nothing is even playing on the TV that the guys are watching.
— An excellent creepy, thriller-y tone change this commercial suddenly takes.
— Great visual of all the guys slowly turning around towards Vanessa, revealing they now have creepy alien-type eyes, and proceed to now deliver their “No no no no no no! Awww, fumblleee!” chant in a slow, unsettling manner.
— Vanessa: “(horrified and confused) WHAT’S?!? HAPPENING?!? TO MY HUNGRY GUYS?!?!”
— Some people don’t like the X-Files twist at the end, but I’m fine with it.
STARS: *****

MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
host & Bernie Sanders [real] introduce musical guest

— More fun interplay between Larry and Bernie, with Bernie doing Larry’s “Pret-ty good” catchphrase.

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Sound”

WEEKEND UPDATE
COJ breaks down footage of Ben Carson’s failure to enter GOP debate stage

self-assured Sturdy Barbie (KAM) isn’t among the new doll body types

JOR mimes fallout of partner-catching fail in Dirty Dancing Live audition

Derek Zoolander (BES) & Hansel (Owen Wilson) critique political fashion

— I absolutely love the bit with Colin riffing on footage of Ben Carson missing his cue to enter that night’s republican debate.
— Hmm, I have absolutely no memory of this Sturdy Barbie commentary of Kate’s.
— So far, I’m not finding this commentary of Kate’s to be overly exciting or anything, but it’s the type of role she can sell well at this point of her tenure, and she has some good lines here, particularly the one about the accessories she comes with.
— Here we get Jon’s one claim to fame of his short-lived SNL tenure. This Dirty Dancing routine was something he previously did at his SNL audition, and some online SNL fans speculated that Jon dusted off this audition routine this week out of desperation due to how much he had been struggling this season.
— Very fun and increasingly-dark miming that Jon’s doing to the song “The Time of My Life”. I’m finding this to be an absolute blast. When this season originally aired and I, by this point of the season, had officially considered Jon to be a bust of a hire (especially with stuff like that painfully bad pirate sketch he did in this season’s Chris Hemsworth episode), he impressed me with this Dirty Dancing routine, and it ended up being the first of only two things he did all season that I liked back then (the second thing being a far more minor moment in a later episode, but I’ll point it out when we arrive at it).
— A number of online SNL fans at the time considered this Dirty Dancing commentary to be Jon’s breakout, “A star is born” moment (right down to some of Jon’s castmates eagerly pointing to him during the goodnights of this episode, an action that’s usually only reserved for new cast members in their first episode). Weird to think back on that glowing assumption people made about Jon’s SNL future, now that we know in hindsight the complete opposite direction his SNL future would end up taking. However, this Dirty Dancing commentary of his definitely still holds up for me.
— Wait, they’re not ending tonight’s Update with Jon’s commentary? His commentary seems like the perfect and most fitting way to end an Update.
— A surprise Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson cameo as their characters from Zoolander. I guess that’s why Jon’s commentary wasn’t what tonight’s Update ended with.
— Stiller and Wilson are fine here, but I’m a little meh on this commentary. And I liked Stiller’s Zoolander reprisal on Update better when he previously did it in a Stefon commentary.
— Colin and Michael’s mics seemed to be turned up abnormally high during their sign-off at the end. Come to think of it, there seemed to be some mic issues in general during this Update, as I noticed Jon’s voice strangely sounded a bit tinny at the beginning of his commentary.
STARS: ****

SONGWRITING CLASS
at a songwriting class, (host) eschews rhymes in favor of frog-toad saga

— Love Vanessa’s awkward look after singing her opening statement.
— EXTREMELY dumb and questionable material here, but it’s the kind of thing that Larry David is probably the only person in existence who could sell. His delivery of this incredibly stupid, badly-written material is cracking me up, making this sketch a guilty pleasure of mine.
— Pete’s doing a good job in a type of straight man role that he doesn’t seem to be cast in often during these early seasons of his tenure.
STARS: ***

A SUPER BOWL GREETING FROM CAM NEWTON AND PEYTON MANNING
Cam Newton (KET) & Peyton Manning (TAK) sing “Ebony & Ivory” variant

— Some pretty fun chemistry between Kenan and Taran here, and it’s helping to put this sketch over, even if I’m still not finding this sketch to be anything special.
— Second sketch tonight with Taran doing an overexaggerated goofy laugh as part of an impression. I can’t help but look at that as a sign that his SNL tenure is nearing the end at this point, even though he didn’t know it at the time.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Love Me”

LAST CALL
(host) & Sheila Sovage convince themselves they have chemistry together

— First time we’ve seen this recurring sketch in a while.
— Kate’s Sheila Sovage, when telling Larry her name: “You can remember that because if you mix up the letters, it almost spells ‘Vagisil’.”
— Sheila Sovage, after Larry reveals he’s a “before” model for teeth-whitening ads: “Get out! I have teeth!….for now!”
— Out of all of the installments of this recurring sketch, Larry is one of the better hosts at having fun chemistry with Kate.
— Love the bit with the tiny blinds that Kenan closes in front of his face.
— Another funny ending to this recurring sketch, this time with Kenan wrapping “Crime Scene Do Not Cross” tape over the bar while Larry and Kate are disgustingly making out.
STARS: ****

GOODNIGHTS

---

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A great, great episode, and has always been one of my favorites of this era. A fantastic host, THREE five-star segments in this episode, a few other great pieces, and almost no segments that I gave a low rating to.

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

RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
FBI Simulator / Bern Your Enthusiasm (tie)
Totino’s Pizza Rolls
Monologue
Last Call
Weekend Update
Steam Ship
Songwriting Class
A Super Bowl Greeting From Cam Newton and Peyton Manning
A Message From Ted Cruz

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ronda Rousey)
a big step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Melissa McCarthy