Author: Stooge

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March 8, 2008 – Amy Adams / Vampire Weekend (S33 E7)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

CALL DRAMATIZATION
panicky president Barack Obama (FRA) calls Hillary Clinton (AMP) at 3am

— Interesting format for a cold opening, with most of this being a pre-taped attack ad consisting only of still photos and voice-overs. I like this change of pace for a cold opening.
— Some pretty good laughs from Fred-as-Barack-Obama’s angry, bleep-filled rant.
— I love Fred’s Obama asking “The wwwwwhat treaty?!?” in response to Poehler’s Hillary Clinton mentioning the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
— Fred’s Obama voice still isn’t good, but at least it’s better than that ridiculous, Hanna-Barbera cartoon-esque voice he used in the preceding episode.
— The advice Poehler’s Hillary is giving Fred’s Obama on increasingly minor things is pretty funny.
— The live, post-ad message from Poehler’s Hillary feels kinda unnecessary and a little overlong, despite a few laughs.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host & KRW sing “What Is This Feeling?” to voice their sisterly loathing

— I see SNL is addressing the Amy Adams/Kristen Wiig facial resemblance that I remember people used to point out in Kristen’s first few seasons on SNL.
— Oh, no. This turns into a musical monologue, just when I was kinda liking where this monologue was going.
— Not caring at all for this musical number.
— At least the slapping/punching bit during the mid-song interlude is pretty funny.
STARS: **


MIRROR IMAGE
identical twin teens’ (host) & (KRW) identity ruse unravels

— Right out of the gate after the monologue, we already get a sketch pairing Adams and Kristen as twins.
— Pretty funny premise of the bad attempt to pass Kristen off as Adams’ twin.
— I’m so tired of the constant winking gag throughout this.
— Something about Kristen’s pratfall through a breakaway table came off hacky here.
— The goofy, juvenile atmosphere of this sketch isn’t quite working for me, and is yet another season 33 sketch that, in hindsight, feels to me like an unfortunate harbinger of the type of bad sketches Kristen would frequently star in in seasons 34-37.
STARS: **


COUPLES THERAPY
(WLF) is blind to contractual nature of citizenship-seeking (AMP)’s love

— The setting of this brings back memories of that Poison Therapy sketch from the preceding season’s Drew Barrymore episode.
— Good character for Poehler, and her performance and delivery are cracking me up throughout this.
— Good reveal of how Poehler’s illegal immigrant character met Will.
STARS: ***½


HERO SONG
Batman-wannabe (ANS) is repeatedly punched by mugger (JAS)

— Even though it’s non-comedic, I absolutely LOVE the song Andy’s singing, and it’s being accompanied by some great nighttime scenery of high-rise buildings.
— A huge laugh from Andy’s song suddenly getting cut off by Jason punching him ENDLESSLY.
— There’s a “Sideshow Bob rake sequence” quality to the endless punching, in that it starts out funny, then stops being funny due to going on so long, then goes BACK to being funny because of how long it’s going on.
— A funny gruesome part with Andy spitting out blood after one of the punches.
— Why did they have a car block the visual of Andy getting a mailbox dumped onto him?
— I like the silent, abrupt ending to this.
STARS: ****


FIERCE: THE HOT MESS MAKE-OVER SHOW
catchphrases rule Bravo reality show

— When this sketch originally aired, it went completely over my head, as I had no familiarity (and still don’t, to this day) with Project Runway, nor the guy from it who Poehler is playing. In fact, I didn’t even know back when this sketch originally aired that Poehler was playing a guy. I assumed Poehler was playing a woman, until I read online discussions of this episode shortly after the episode’s original airing (and according to those discussions, Poehler’s portrayal of this guy was spot-on). Seems kinda odd to have an effeminate man be played by a woman, but I guess it’s no different from any of the times SNL has had a man play a butch woman.
— Even watching this sketch now, it’s doing nothing for me. SNL has quite a number of TV/movie spoofs that work for all viewers, regardless of whether or not you’re familiar with the TV show or movie being spoofed. This particular sketch, on the other hand, feels to me like it falls under the “You have to be familiar with the specifics of what’s being parodied in order to ‘get’ it” category.
— I am at least liking Casey’s straight man performance.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “A-Punk”


WEEKEND UPDATE
third-party candidate Tim Calhoun makes his case for the presidency

AMP sings theme song of Ghostbusters ripoff Brooklyn Ghost Investigations

European comic Jean K. Jean’s (KET) humor has a continental flavor

— Fuck yeah! Tim Calhoun!
— Tonight’s Tim Calhoun commentary seems to be relying on puns a little more than usual, but everything here is still working for me. My favorite is the bit about a cow college. I also love the running bit with Calhoun’s awkward smile towards the audience.
— What the holy hell was with that “Joke of the week!” confetti thing after Poehler’s smallest gun joke?
— Oh, god. This Ghostbusters theme song bit with Poehler is just plain annoying, and feels like a throwback to the typical bad, annoying, hacky stuff she and Tina Fey would do together during the Fey/Poehler era of Update. Between the aforementioned baffling “Joke of the week!” confetti thing and now this, what’s going on with Poehler in tonight’s Update? She’s relapsing badly in regards to her worst habits as an Update anchor that she had curbed (to an extent) ever since Seth became her Update co-anchor.
— The debut of Kenan’s Jean K. Jean character.
— The comedic conceit of this Jean K. Jean character actually isn’t bad at all, and Kenan’s performance is very fun and likable. He’s executing this really well. I know quite a number of people (even some Kenan Thompson defenders) can’t stand this character, but I gotta say, based on his debut tonight, I don’t get the hate. I’m reacting positively to him in this inaugural appearance of his. However, we’ll see how I’ll feel about him in his subsequent appearances.
STARS: **½


TRAFFIC SCHOOL
at traffic school, Penelope ultimately makes good on her boasts

— I recall it being pointed out by a lot of online SNL fans that there’s a distracting female background extra in this sketch who spends this sketch unprofessionally smiling really big both towards the camera and in reaction to things the main characters are saying. After all these years, I’ve never had a chance to go back and see these background antics for myself….until now.
— Oh, wow. Right out of the gate, I’m noticing the overly-smiley background extra (the second above screencap for this sketch). It was easier to spot her than I thought.
— I continue to be surprised by how tolerant I continue to be towards Kristen’s Penelope routine. Four sketches in, and this character is still getting decent laughs from me.
— After the first minute or so of this sketch, the aforementioned smiley background lady has actually gotten into character, keeping a serious face and making disapproving facial reactions to ridiculous things Kristen’s Penelope is saying. The way people online talked about this lady made it seem like she made distracting smiley faces all throughout this entire sketch, which is not true.
— A particularly hilarious line from Penelope claiming that’s her eye on the pyramid on the dollar bill. That’s probably my favorite one-liner of hers out of all of her sketches.
STARS: ***


DR. UNCLE JIMMY’S SMOKEHOUSE AND OUTPATIENT SURGICAL FACILITY
Dr. Uncle Jimmy (WLF) mixes smokehouse with outpatient surgical facility

— Oh, I recall this being a typical brilliant Will Forte piece, one that I had completely forgotten until now.
— Great character voice from Will.
— A very creative oddball premise of a BBQ restaurant/outpatient surgical facility hybrid.
— A good laugh from how Bill’s endorsement of this business is “Sure, you could find better barbecue or a safer surgical experience………”, and then he just stares at the camera, never completing his sentence with an expected “but…etc.”.
— Amusing how one of the critic “reviews” of this business is a police report stating “They’re performing surgery at a barbeque restaurant”.
— I love the “I hope those aren’t my ribs!” bit with Jason and Andy.
— Funny mix-up between the blood and barbecue IV bags.
STARS: ****


ROGER CLEMENS PRESENTS
Roger Clemens’ (JAS) play depicts the nightmare of steroids-free baseball

— This sketch was cut after the preceding episode’s dress rehearsal. Ellen Page played Amy Adams’ role in that version.
— Hilarious opening visual of Jason with those fake muscles.
— Darrell makes his only appearance of the night in this late-in-the-show sketch, playing a small, non-celebrity-impression role. Feels like a precursor to all the useless small non-celebrity-impression roles he’ll be given in the post-election half of the following season (his final season), after just about all of his celebrity impressions have outlived their usefulness.
— Jason’s rage-filled attitude and outbursts as Roger Clemens are priceless. He’s so perfect for this role.
— Poehler seems to be playing lots of male roles this season.
— Second consecutive sketch tonight containing a scene with Andy in a hospital room, this time with him playing the patient instead of the doctor.
— A great angry rant from Jason’s Clemens at the end of this sketch.
STARS: ***½


THE TOOKIE STYLES SHOW
25 years after its cable access run, Tookie Styles’ (KET) show is on DVD

— Holy hell. Talk about a sketch I had completely forgotten about until now. I fucking HATED this sketch back when this episode originally aired. Pretty much felt it was one of the worst sketches I had ever seen SNL air. Let’s see if it’s as bad as I remember it to be.
— I did at least get a laugh just now from the first instance of a Tookie Styles interview/dance sequence getting cut off by gunfire and the interviewee being rushed out of the scene.
— Bill’s character’s amused demeanor is charming.
— Aaaaaaaand there goes the endless repetition of the gunfire joke.
— We at least get a fake-out with Amy Adams’ character, with how the gunfire doesn’t happen during her initial appearance, but instead happens when she comes back to get her purse.
— Something about Kenan’s delivery of his discreet “Things have not been going so well for me lately” aside to the camera at the end of this sketch made that line much funnier than it had any right to be.
— Overall, still not a good sketch, but certainly not as horrible as I originally deemed it to be back in 2008. There was a weird goofy charm that made the poor script a little more tolerable.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “M79”


CELEBRATIONS
(AMP), (host), (CAW), (KRW) repurpose their old dance routine in a bar

— Casey gets her first real lead role.
— Bill has been all over tonight’s episode, as opposed to the measly one late-in-the-show appearance he made in the preceding episode.
— Very funny first dance from the ladies.
— Even more laughs from the ladies doing a very fast-paced version of the same dance to the fast-tempo second song that’s playing.
— Even though it’s predictable, it’s still funny seeing the ladies now doing a slow-paced version of the same dance to the slow-tempo third song that’s playing.
— I like the ladies unsuccessfully attempting to do their dance to Jason’s cellphone ringtone.
— Funny bit at the end with Bill already having the ladies’ purses ready for them.
— Great sketch overall, and a strong first big showcase for Casey.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, despite some flops. The second half of the episode was definitely stronger than the first half.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ellen Page)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
For the first time since all the way back in season 1, SNL dares to attempt a fourth consecutive live episode without having taken any weeks off in between. Future five-timer Jonah Hill makes his hosting debut.

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March 1, 2008 – Ellen Page / Wilco (S33 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES DEBATE
Hillary Clinton [real] responds to debate skit; Vincent D’Onofrio cameo

— A funny and very spot-on Brian Williams impression from Will, which is especially surprising, as Will’s not often known for doing dead-on celebrity impressions. Soon after this episode, it would be disclosed that he discovered how to do a Brian Williams impression by accident. He was trying out a character voice, and someone pointed out to him how much the voice he was doing sounded like Brian Williams, so he ran with it and turned it into a Brian Williams impression.
— What the hell? Is that eye-liner I’m seeing Darrell wearing as Tim Russert? Why?
— Speaking of Darrell’s Tim Russert, the real Russert would die just a few months after tonight’s episode originally aired. I can’t remember for sure, but I think that prevented this episode from getting a second NBC rerun (the first NBC rerun was sometime between tonight’s original airing and Russert’s death). I remember being a bit bummed back then that we never to got to see a second NBC rerun of this episode, because I missed the first NBC rerun of it, and I heard that SNL made quite a number of noteworthy edits and changes to this episode in the rerun (lots of dress rehearsal substitutions and such).
— I didn’t realize this until now, but starting in the preceding episode, SNL has finally ditched that dumb, unnecessary prosthetic nose they used to always have Amy wear as Hillary Clinton.
— A very funny speech from Amy’s Hillary about why she deserves to be president.
— Wow, Fred’s Obama voice in this sketch is just…wow. What the hell is he DOING?!? His voice is straight-up goofy, dopey, and cartoonish-sounding. I remember online SNL fans back at this time in 2008 saying he sounded Yogi Bear/Barney Rubble/Kermit The Frog-ish. Given the fact that this is only his second appearance as Obama, he’s clearly still experimenting with the voice at this point. I’d be more forgiving of that now if I knew in hindsight that he did eventually nail Obama’s voice, but nope. He never does.
— I love Will’s Brian Williams responding to a question from Amy’s Hillary by sternly telling her “We’ll ask the questions here, sister.”
— A very random but funny turn with Vincent D’Onofrio giving Amy’s Hillary a Law & Order-esque interrogation.
— At first, it seems strange that this cold opening concludes with a “The Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate” title sequence, without anyone saying “Live from New York…” (what is this, the Dick Ebersol era?), but we now see we’re getting an “Editorial Response” from the real Hillary Clinton. An unusual format of this cold opening.
— Hillary Clinton becomes the latest of what will be many presidential candidates to cameo during this 2008 presidential race.
— Hillary’s segment isn’t doing much for me, especially not the corny “celebrity meets their impersonator” meeting between her and Amy. Hillary would later do a better “celebrity meets their impersonator” sketch with Kate McKinnon in 2015.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host eschews Diablo Cody’s (ANS) overly-hip monologue verbiage

— Meh at the initial idea of Andy in drag playing Diablo Cody, but Andy seems like he can make this work.
— Funny bit with Andy’s Diablo Cody compulsively working the word “blog” into a whole bunch of consecutive sentences.
— Overall, Andy indeed made this potentially-iffy idea work.
STARS: ***


THE DAKOTA FANNING SHOW
Miley Cyrus (host) acts her age

— This recurring sketch makes its final appearance.
— Interesting change of pace with the “Kid Speak” segment.
— The “Kid Speak” segment was fun at first, but went on a little too long for something with such an obvious and thin comedic conceit that got its point across in its first 20 seconds.
— Ellen Page making an appearance as Miley Cyrus? Hmm.
— Yeah, Ellen is clearly badly miscast in this role. I don’t know what she’s going for in her Miley impression, but it’s not working AT ALL.
— A good laugh from Kenan muttering a bitter “Yeah, I’ll fiddle with your car breaks” in response to Amy’s Dakota lightheartedly calling him a second fiddle.
— I recently heard something in passing about how tonight’s Dakota Fanning Show installment caused some kind of controversy for Amy, but that’s news to me. I have no idea what it’s about. Thanks in advance if anyone in the comments section can give details on this.
— Oh, god, they’re now having Ellen sing as Miley Cyrus? Poor girl looks just plain embarrassed to be singing here, as she can be seen giggling nervously while singing half-heartedly, before Amy’s Dakota shows up to thankfully take focus away from her.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
“The Obama Files” by RBS- Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton are marginalized

— (*sigh*) The end of an era, folks. This turns out to be the final TV Funhouse cartoon during TV Funhouse’s regular run. A few years later in an Ed Helms-hosted episode, out of nowhere, there would be a one-night-only special return of TV Funhouse, with a half-live-action Ambiguously Gay Duo cartoon.
— A cheap laugh from Michelle Obama vomiting on cue to distract the media, even if it feels like Robert Smigel has done vomiting gags to death in his cartoons over the years.
— Feels kinda odd hearing Darrell’s typical Jesse Jackson voice in cartoon form.
— Whoever’s doing the voice for Obama in this cartoon is doing a very good job, which just makes Fred’s already-bad Obama impression look even worse.
— A few minutes into this cartoon, and boy, this is not working for me. I’m glazed over for so much of this.
— I did get a chuckle just now from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton’s podium and lion costumes.
— A somewhat funny ending joke with the Wayans Brothers making a movie about disguising as podiums.
— Overall, a very forgettable and sad way for TV Funhouse to go out.
STARS: **


THE COLLEGE FOR EXCELLENCE
(FRA) will teach you generic business phrases

— This feels like a variation of the Computer School commercial Fred did in the season 30 Paris Hilton episode.
— The bad, stiff acting from the commercial actors is only mildly funny. Nothing too great to me.
— Andy is stealing this whole sketch with his bizarre, awkward little background antics.
— I did not care at all for Fred’s whole ending spiel. Felt unnecessary, and ended this sketch on a flat note.
STARS: **


THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRLS
Henry VIII (JAS) juggles Anne (host) & The Other Boleyn Girls in movie

— Jason is a very funny straight man here.
— A somewhat rare (at least it feels somewhat rare) instance of Will dressing in drag.
— Kenan always kills with one-liners like the one he has at the end of this sketch, but I’m not sure how to feel about the whole ending portion of this sketch.
STARS: **½


NIGHTMARE
(host) & undead (ANS) occupy each other’s nested nightmares

— Some laughs from Andy’s goofy-looking “scary” character occasionally popping up in the mirror.
— Good turn with this turning out to be Andy’s nightmare instead of Ellen’s.
— The non-sequitur Dracula scene was pretty funny.
— Not sure I cared for that ending.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hate It Here”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Rudolph Giuliani [real] blames his campaign failure on his SNL appearance

Nicholas Fehn’s sociopolitical commentary comprises sentence fragments

— Our second instance tonight alone of a presidential candidate cameoing during this 2008 presidential race. This is starting to get kinda insane.
— “America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani”. Another now-sad reminder of how lovable Giuliani used to be.
— I kinda like the meta turn in Giuliani’s commentary with him blaming his campaign failure on him dressing in drag in a Rita Delvecchio sketch when he hosted SNL in 1997.
— Much like the famous “Can we be funny?” “Why start now?” exchange between Lorne and Giuliani in the post 9/11 cold opening, Giuliani gets in another good-natured dig at SNL, comparing his campaign to a typical SNL sketch, in that it started strong, but didn’t have an ending.
— I love the German napping bit that Seth and Amy are doing together.
— Nicholas Fehn has officially become recurring.
— Fred’s basically just repeating the exact same stuff from the first Nicholas Fehn commentary, but it’s still getting laughs from me in this second commentary, even if I’m not laughing as hard as last time. I can definitely see fatigue looming ahead towards this character, given how insanely frequently we’ll be seeing him in such a short amount of time within this and the following season, and how his routine never changes, but at this point, Fred’s still making this work and I still have enough goodwill left in this second appearance of this character.
— I love Nicholas Fehn’s random “I saw Dmitri” aside to a confused Amy.
— Amy laughed at Seth’s Doomsday Vault joke harder than the audience did. It always bugged the hell out of me when Tina Fey had a bad habit of doing that towards Jimmy Fallon’s jokes during the later years of the Fallon/Fey era of Update.
— A surprising amount of fairly forgettable jokes from Amy and Seth in tonight’s Update.
STARS: **½


SHOPPING WITH VIRGINIACA
Virginiaca & stepdaughter (host) are stymied by Baby Gap employee (ANS)

— UGH.
— What was the point of giving this particular Virginiaca sketch an opening “Shopping With Virginiaca” title sequence, complete with a Don Pardo voice-over intro, when SNL never did that in previous (nor subsequent) Virginiaca sketches? It isn’t like this sketch itself is any different from other Virginiaca sketches.
— I actually got a laugh just now from a Virginiaca sketch, with a displeased Andy telling Virginiaca “If you need me, I’ll be nowhere.”
— Much like the role of Miley Cyrus earlier tonight, here we have another very questionable choice for a role Ellen has been cast in.
— I once again ask, how in the world does this Virginiaca character have a completely different white stepdaughter in each sketch when we’re told she’s married to the exact same man (the wealthy Mr. Hastings) every time?
— Boy, it’s just plain bizarre seeing and hearing Ellen attempt to act and talk “black”.
— Andy continues to be the only saving grace of this sketch, with his deadpan “Aaaaaaand I quit” line at the end when Virginiaca is trying to seduce him.
STARS: *½


HOOK’S REVENGE
Captain Hook (BIH) can’t get his pirates to shoot Peter Pan (host)

— Geez, why the hell is this Bill’s first and ONLY appearance all night? SNL’s under-utilization of this fantastic performer in his early seasons is so damn frustrating. John Mulaney cannot arrive at the writing staff soon enough at this point.
— This sketch has a bit of the same vibe from the West Side Story and Evita sketches from season 22.
— I love Will’s look in this.
— Yeah, more and more, this sketch appears to be following the same route of the West Side Story/Evita sketches, right down to having Bill in the Norm Macdonald role. While he’s no Norm when it comes to this type of sketch, Bill’s still giving a very solid and funny straight man performance in his own right, and is helping to make this sketch work.
— I don’t care for the audience participation bit, with a dead, stomped-on Tinkerbell being brought back to life by the audience’s applause. Way too corny for my likes. It would’ve been funnier (if darker) to me if they had just left Tinkerbell dead.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Walken”


MARTY GOES GAY
(host) is feeling gay following a revelatory Melissa Etheridge concert

— Ah, not only a slice-of-life piece, which is INCREDIBLY rare for this era, but this is a slice-of-life piece with reality subtext in regards to our host, as this sketch obviously must’ve been inspired by the rumors/speculation of Ellen’s sexual orientation (this is several years before she would officially come out of the closet). When this sketch originally aired, I remember wondering if Ellen was using this sketch to tell us something about herself, so much so, that I half-expected her to follow this sketch by coming out of the closet in an official announcement during the goodnights (which, in a way, would’ve been a groundbreaking SNL moment).
— I’m absolutely loving Ellen’s recounting of what she experienced at a Melissa Etheridge concert, and I’m really enjoying the interplay between her and Andy.
— A very funny line from Ellen, asking “Why can’t I just hug a woman with my legs in friendship?”
— A really sweet and touching ending between Ellen and Andy.
— Overall, a very strong sketch. Great writing, great performances, great handling of the lesbian premise, and the aforementioned reality subtext adds a special, meaningful feel. Both Ellen’s performance and this sketch itself was much better than I remember deeming them to be back when this originally aired.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty middling and forgettable episode. Aside from the last sketch, nothing stood out to me as particularly great, and there was quite a number of weak sketches.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tina Fey)
a big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Amy Adams

Posted on

February 23, 2008 – Tina Fey / Carrie Underwood (S33 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

CNN UNIVISION DEMOCRATIC DEBATE
media favorite Barack Obama (FRA) cruises during debate; Obama Girl cameo

— (*sigh*) Hoooooooo, boy. The debut of Fred’s Barack Obama impression, a.k.a. Fredbama. This is gonna be a long four-and-a-half years.
— I will say that I remember being very impressed by the makeup job on Fred’s Obama back when this episode originally aired.
— Kristen’s Campbell Brown: “Like nearly everyone in the media, the three of us are totally in the tank for Senator Obama.” Funny how much things had changed since SNL’s last episode before the writers’ strike, given the fact that, as pointed out in my last episode review, that episode contained a sketch dealing with Hillary Clinton being the media favorite to become the Democratic nominee, much to the other Democratic candidates’ chagrin.
— Kristen’s whole opening spiel about her and her colleagues suffering from Obama-related ailments is very funny.
— This cold opening is doing a solid spoof of the media’s fawning over Obama at this time.
— Very funny line from Amy’s Hillary bragging that her only supporters are white women over 80.
— Ha, Obama Girl (a.k.a. Amber Lee Ettinger). Anyone remember her today, 12 years later? Even back at this time in 2008, there were some online SNL fans who had no idea who she was, and some of those fans mistakenly assumed she was the new female cast member SNL had just hired (who’s name I’ll soon mention, after my review of this cold opening). In a live discussion thread for this episode on an SNL message board, one of the aforementioned people who mistook Obama Girl for the new female cast member made a post saying “Is that the new cast member? Wow, she’s HOT!”
— I absolutely love Kristen’s deadpan, stern “If you ever interrupt Obama Girl again—” threat to Amy’s Hillary.
— For being such a heavy focal point of this cold opening, Fred’s Obama is largely silent for most of this. (Probably a good thing, in hindsight.) Is that SNL’s way of hiding the fact that Fred hasn’t mastered his Obama voice by this point? (Ha, as if he ever would master it.) I recall it being obvious that his Obama voice was still a work in progress in these early Obama sketches of his, because, IIRC, he uses an utterly BIZARRE, cartoonish-sounding voice as Obama in the cold opening of the very next episode. I can’t wait to see if his voice in that cold opening is as bad as I remember.
— Hmm, I spoke a bit too soon about Fred’s Obama being largely silent in tonight’s cold opening, as we now get a long speech from him.
— Kristen’s orgasmic reaction to the big, noble speech Fred’s Obama just made was hilarious.
STARS: ****


OPENING MONTAGE
— Casey Wilson has been added to the cast tonight.


MONOLOGUE
Steve Martin [real] gets unsure performer TIF to say “I can do it!”

— A lot of very good, perfectly Tina Fey-esque lines from Tina early on in this monologue in regards to the writers’ strike she participated in.
— Nice to see a Steve Martin appearance here, and his interplay with Tina is very fun.
— Much like Tina’s perfectly Tina Fey-esque lines here, Steve has so many perfectly Steve Martin-esque lines, especially in regards to the differences between a writer and a star.
— I love the bit with Steve having Tina say “I can do it!” in different specific voices (e.g. as an old-fashioned movie character, as a cartoon mouse, as a cartoon mouse in Spanish).
STARS: ****


ANNUALE
pill concentrates menstruation into a once-per-year paroxysm

— A female-oriented commercial that feels like it’s in the tradition of famous Tina Fey-era female-oriented Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph-starring commercials like Mom Jeans and Kotex Classic.
— An absolutely hilarious and epic turn with us being shown a montage of the insane actions of the women when they get their annual period. I especially love Tina’s character scaring her co-workers away by running around the office while swinging an axe like a madman.
— Great little detail throughout this commercial with how one object in each scene is pink while the rest of the objects are either a drab color or are shown through a black-and-white screen filter.
— A hilarious ending screen crawl disclaimer regarding the “Do not take if…”s of the medication.
— The ending voice-over from Amy was kinda pushing it and wasn’t necessary, but didn’t hurt this fantastic ad.
STARS: *****


ROCK OF LOVE 2
Bret Michaels (JAS) doesn’t choose one-legged Amber

— In hindsight, this sketch now serves as a time capsule of these “……Of Love” reality shows that dominated VH1 in the late 2000s.
— Tina is very funny here.
— I see SNL’s already letting Casey Wilson know her status as a newbie (which, as we now know, SNL would sadly NEVER stop doing for the remainder of Casey’s short-lived run as a cast member), as she’s the only contestant in this sketch who doesn’t get her own pre-taped confessional sequence like the other contestants are.
— After almost two minutes of being a straightforward (but funny) Rock Of Love parody, this turns into an Amber sketch OUT OF NOWHERE. This ends up being the final Amber sketch while Amy’s still in the cast.
— Ha, at least Casey gets a sloppy tongue-kissing make-out session with Jason, which is certainly……….something. I remember Casey talking about that in an interview she did on a podcast just a few months after tonight’s episode originally aired.
— I’m glad this sketch isn’t focusing as heavily on Amber as her previous sketches did, as the humor involving her character can tend to get a little tedious at times. Plus, in her limited airtime in this sketch, she’s actually working well.
STARS: ***½


GRANDKIDS IN THE MOVIES
edited-in grandsons (BIH) & (ANS) quell anxiety in DVDs for old people

— “The following is a message for old people.” That opening disclaimer made me laugh harder than it probably should’ve.
— A decent premise, even if it seems a little unexciting for a Digital Short in SNL’s first episode back after a long hiatus.
— The part with Bill and Andy telling the grandfather, in regards to the ringing phone in the Michael Clayton movie clip, “That phone’s in the movie, grandpa. That’s not your phone”, is particularly funny to me, because when I watched this Digital Short back when this episode originally aired, I mistakenly thought that was my phone ringing, too, and I’m not even remotely elderly (I was 23 when this originally aired).
— I love the bit with Andy struggling to translate Rainn Wilson’s ridiculous slang in the Juno clip.
— In hindsight, this short is unintentionally a good time capsule of big Oscar-nominated movies from around this time (No Country For Old Men, Juno, There Will Be Blood, etc.).
— Pretty odd how this Digital Short’s lead role of the grandfather is being played by a completely unknown actor. However, I’m enjoying his performance here, and he’s charming and likable.
STARS: ***½


WHAT’S THAT BITCH TALKING ABOUT?
(TIF) intuits females on game show

— Already a cheap laugh from the title right at the beginning of this sketch.
— This is the very first of what would be many instances of Kenan playing a game show host, though his second instance wouldn’t be until as much as five years later (in the “New Cast Member Or Arcade Fire” sketch, which, coincidentally, happens to be in another Tina Fey-hosted episode). After that, he’d go on to play game show hosts pretty often.
— A pretty good laugh from how the game show prize is an old canary-yellow 1992 Mazda Protege.
— I love Casey’s angry rant during her small appearance, especially her exaggerated southern-accented pronunciation of the word “ass”.
— A likable game show host performance from Kenan.
— Another sketch tonight that Tina is fun in, especially her extremely detailed, long-winded answer to the third question, involving a character played by Kristen.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “All-American Girl”


WEEKEND UPDATE
in politics & SNL, Mike Huckabee [real] misses his cue to exit the stage

TIF thinks the value of Hillary Clinton’s bitchiness is underappreciated

— I forgot to point out in the preceding episode that Barack Obama’s cameo is just the beginning of what will be MANY cameos from presidential candidates during this 2008 presidential race. Tonight’s Mike Huckabee cameo continues that.
— For a non-actor, Mike Huckabee is actually performing well here, not being stiff at all like some politicians tend to come off on SNL. He’s coming off likable and laid-back here.
— Having Tina bring back her recurring “Women’s News” segment from her Weekend Update tenure is a good way to work the obligatory commentary from her into tonight’s Update.
— A lot of solid lines from Tina in tonight’s Women’s News segment. And the turn at the end with her bragging about the perks of being a bitch is memorable, especially her “Bitch is the new black” declaration (which would soon be one-upped by Tracy Morgan in a cameo appearance three episodes later). Even the interaction between Tina and Amy here, which seems to be attempting somewhat of a throwback to the Fey/Poehler era of Update (and you KNOW how I felt about that Update era), is coming off better than I typically found their interactions during their era of Update together.
STARS: ***½


THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE
Donald Trump’s (DAH) axe swings for minor stars

— Great to see the return of Kenan’s Charles Barkley after how much he killed it in the Iconoclasts sketch earlier this season.
— I love Kenan’s Barkley firing himself for his poor idea, and walking out of the scene.
— Another return of a fun impression from a cast member: Bill’s John Mark Karr.
— A big blast from the past now to see impressions of Matthew Lesko (the Question Mark Suit Guy from those commercials in the 90s) and Mr. Six (the dancing old guy from the Six Flags commercials in the 2000s).
— Between playing Dennis Kucinich then-recently and now playing Mr. Six in this sketch, I’m getting a big Kate McKinnon vibe from Amy lately.
— I love Will-as-Judge-Ito’s sing-songy delivery of “I brought my own gaveeeeeellllll!”
STARS: ***


WEDDING TOAST
Ed Mahoney’s careless loquacity upsets newlyweds’ (WLF) & (TIF) reception

— Yes! The return of Jason’s Ed Mahoney character, a forgotten-by-most-people favorite of mine from a sketch in season 31. I remember hearing SNL attempted at least once to make him recurring back in season 31, but the sketch didn’t make it past dress rehearsal. The description of that cut Ed Mahoney sketch made it sound like a blatant carbon-copy of the first Ed Mahoney sketch, right down to ending the exact same way with him attempting to run out of a store with a stolen object and then getting brought down by a guard with a taser, so maybe it’s a good thing that sketch got cut. Tonight’s Ed Mahoney sketch is thankfully doing new, fresh things with the character instead of being a lazy carbon-copy of his first sketch.
— So many funny inappropriate lines from Ed Mahoney, and, as always, I absolutely love that trademark laugh of his.
— A very funny blunt, rude “I hope you two die!” parting message from Mahoney to the newlyweds.
STARS: ****


VIRGANIA HORSEN’S HOT AIR BALLOON RIDES
Virgania Horsen (KRW) wants you to take a ride in her hot air balloon

— So much bizarre, low-budget randomness here, but I am loving it, and it’s being executed so well. This definitely feels like the type of thing that would’ve aired at the time on Tim & Eric.
— Kristen is absolutely perfect here.
STARS: ****


I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE
Daniel Plainview (BIH) intensifies egg creams

— I absolutely love this unusual, creative way of spoofing the famous “I drink your milkshake” scene from There Will Be Blood.
— Amy plays her second male role in tonight’s episode alone.
— A great opening title sequence and Will Forte-sung theme song. (Side note: between the MacGruber sketches and now this, I’m starting to think every sketch that contained a theme song in this era should’ve been sung by Will Forte.) One minor little question about the title sequence, though: why does Amy’s character have light blonde hair in it, while having dark brown hair in the live portions of this sketch?
— Bill is absolutely brilliant in his performance as Daniel Day Lewis’ There Will Be Blood character. At this time back in 2008, it still felt somewhat rare to see Bill in a lead role in a sketch, which made this sketch come off particularly refreshing.
— Fred is a dead-ringer for Anton Chigurh. I can’t say for sure if he’s nailing the voice, though.
— Much like the Digital Short earlier tonight, this sketch, in hindsight, is a good time capsule of the big Oscar-nominated movies from around this time.
— Bill-as-Daniel-Plainview’s “I’VE ABANDONED MY CHIIIIIIILD! I’VE ABANDONED MY BOOOOYYYYY!” panicked outburst is not only hilarious, but has stuck in my memory over the years. It’s hard to forget that specific shouting from Bill.
— Second episode in a row where Fred makes his exit in a sketch by slowly walking past the camera in an obnoxious, hammy, screen-hogging manner. Ugh, I hope that’s not becoming a habit of his, even if I did kinda chuckle at it in this context of him doing it as Anton Chigurh (it would’ve been funnier had he not already done it in the preceding episode).
— Interesting having this week’s SNL host play a character (Juno) that the following week’s SNL host played in a movie.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Flat On The Floor”


LADY BUSINESS
yet another TV show features determined career women

— The semi-theme tonight of female-oriented sketches/commercials pairing Tina and the entire female cast together continues.
— Very funny little moment from Kristen with her clarifying to Andy that her last name, St. George, is pronounced “stuh-gorg”.
— Poor Casey, being one of the four female leads in this sketch, but getting no lines, nor her own scene like the other three female leads are getting. I’ll give SNL the benefit of the doubt and assume it was planned for her to have her own scene in this sketch, but portions of this sketch had to go through some hasty, last-minute trimming due to the show running a little long. I can’t remember if I’ve seen it confirmed that Casey did indeed get her own scene in the dress rehearsal version of this sketch.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS
90 year-old DOP blows out the candles on his birthday cake

— A special occasion during these goodnights, as SNL holds a wonderful little celebration for Don Pardo’s 90th (!!!) birthday.
— An interesting coincidence how both times Carrie Underwood was a musical guest on SNL (the preceding season’s Peyton Manning episode being the first time), a big birthday celebration was held during the goodnights.
— A memorable visual of Don blowing out the 90 candles on his birthday cake. Too bad the goodnights get cut off before he finishes.
— I believe this ends up being Don’s final onscreen SNL appearance, despite remaining SNL’s announcer for the next 6 years. It’s significant that this birthday celebration is what ends up being his final appearance.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A strong episode, and a great return for SNL after the writers’ strike. Every single segment in this episode worked for me, and there was a high number of segments that received a rating from me ranging from 4-5 stars. Much like Molly Shannon in her hosting stint the preceding season, Tina Fey being given a lot of the same type of non-Weekend Update roles she typically played during her cast member years, including some very minor roles, made this episode refreshingly feel almost like there was no host, and that Tina was just a cast member again.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Brian Williams)
a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Ellen Page

Posted on

November 3, 2007 – Brian Williams / Feist (S33 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HALLOWEEN PARTY
Barack Obama [real] at Bill (DAH) & Hillary (AMP) Clinton Halloween party

— An often-played cold opening in many SNL Halloween compilation specials.
— I love the Halloween costume that Darrell’s Bill Clinton is wearing, even if I’ve never had any familiarity with The Pickup Artist, nor the person from it who Darrell’s Clinton is dressed as.
— A Horatio Sanz cameo out of nowhere. At least this is more welcome than his season 32 cameo as Elton John in a tired Versace sketch, given the fact that having him appear here as Bill Richardson at least kinda makes sense. And, wow, he’s lost a lot of weight since his last cameo, where he had already started losing a little weight. He’s still not quite as thin as he would eventually get, but he’s still looking much healthier in tonight’s episode than he ever looked during his SNL tenure.
— The debut of Jason’s Joe Biden impression.
— The running gag with people mistaking Amy-as-Hillary-Clinton’s bride costume for a witch costume is funny, but don’t witches always wear black, not white?
— Fred as a straitjacketed Mike Gravel made me laugh at first, though he REALLY milked his exit in this sketch by slowly walking past the camera in a hammy fashion (something that sadly feels kinda like a precursor to how annoying and obnoxious Fred would go on to often come off in his later seasons).
— Meh, a predictable joke with what the loose Milk Duds in Fred-as-Gravel’s plastic bag turns out to REALLY be.
— A very well-known cameo from the real Barack Obama, a cameo that, of course, would later be looked back on as an even bigger and more significant deal after he would become president.
— I remember once seeing a publicity photo of the dress rehearsal version of this cold opening, where, instead of the real Obama being there, he was actually played by Maya in drag. (Perhaps the photo can be found on GettyImages; I don’t have time to check.) I’m guessing the real Obama wasn’t able to make it to dress rehearsal, so SNL used Maya as backup to fill in his role. I remember how, back in these days when online SNL fans were speculating who on SNL would regularly play Obama, several fans suggested that SNL have Maya dress in drag to regularly play him, given the fact that both Maya and Obama are half-black half-white. SNL probably knew not to make Maya their regular Obama impersonator, considering she already had one foot out the door by this point of her SNL tenure.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— A pretty good laugh from Brian Williams mentioning how everyone, including himself, is currently thinking the same thing regarding him hosting SNL: “Now is this really a good idea?”
— Brian mentions in passing that he moderated the Democratic debate earlier this week. That’s actually impressive and surprising that he was able to do that the same week he hosted SNL.
— While the turn with Brian treating this monologue like he’s delivering a news story (complete with news graphics being displayed next to him) is quite predictable and maybe a little corny, Brian is executing it well and is making it charming. He’s already showing good promise as a host.
STARS: ***½


MAYBELLINE FOR MEN
packaging is only differentiating feature of Maybelline makeup for men

— Meh at this premise. And it’s no surprise Fred plays the first guy seen wearing makeup in this, given how often we see him in drag during these years of his SNL tenure. So tired.
— Wow, that’s it? That’s the whole commercial? This was lame as hell. While the concept of advertised men’s makeup being the exact same as women’s makeup, minus the labeling on the package, had maybe a little promise, the execution of it did nothing for me.
STARS: *


BRONX BEAT WITH BETTY & JODI
fireman (host) gives home safety preparedness suggestions

— This is the final installment of this sketch when both Maya and Amy are still in the SNL cast, as tonight ends up being Maya’s final SNL episode. This sketch would still go on to continue appearing several more times, either when Maya makes a cameo while Amy’s still in the cast, or when either Maya or Amy are making a cameo in an episode that the other is hosting.
— I love Brian’s New Yorker voice as this fireman character. He’s surprisingly very convincing in this role.
— A big laugh from Amy’s “It’s gonna be hard to keep her off the pole” comment regarding the future state of Maya’s young daughter who’s shown a way-too-early interest in dressing sluttily.
— Another very funny line from Amy, this time regarding her husband being an expert at “grabbing himself”.
— Maya has a bad habit of sometimes speaking a little too fast and unintelligibly in these Bronx Beat sketches. I could barely understand a single word from her during her bit right now about her husband watching ESPN, and I think the audience feels the same way as me, as they aren’t laughing at that bit. Maya delivered that line SO unintelligibly that she made one part of it sound dirty (“My husband’s [*word I can’t decipher*] off to ESPN every night.”), even though I doubt that’s how it was actually worded.
— I really like the short, vague bit with Amy whispering advice to Maya to get “one of those things” to spice up her love life. A very realistic and authentic little moment.
— A change of pace with this sketch concluding with Amy and Maya’s characters walking off of the show mid-progress, leaving their guest sitting there by himself.
— A huge laugh from Brian’s brief Borat-esque delivery of “MY WIIIIFE!” during his whole spiel at the end.
STARS: ***½


RILEY’S WAY
TV actor (host) reacts poorly to the news he won’t be in spin-off series

— Brian’s desperation to continue hanging out with his younger co-stars is pretty funny.
— Very funny how Brian’s attitude during the scene being filmed turns very bitter and unprofessional after he finds out he’s not going to be in the Riley’s Way spin-off.
— We now get a funny visual of Brian poorly trying to come off cool and young during the filming, complete with a sideways cap.
— I really like the twist ending with Bill’s clapboard-holder character being written into the Riley’s Way finale as a guy who killed Brian’s character.
STARS: ****


PUBLISHERS CLEARING HOUSE GIVEAWAY
sweepstakes winner’s (host) subdued reaction baffles cheery Cheryl (KRW)

— Oh, wow, I had completely forgotten about this very-occasionally-used recurring sketch until now. (It’s so very occasionally used that the second installment of it doesn’t appear until THREE SEASONS LATER).
— I remember finding Kristen’s performance to be a laugh riot when this sketch originally aired, but I’m wondering how I’ll feel about it now in retrospect, due to 1) the fact that this would eventually become a very unnecessary recurring sketch, suffering diminishing returns, and 2) the fact that this sketch happens to be debuting around the same point of Kristen’s SNL tenure where I’m now noticing we’ve been getting an awful lot of worrisome harbingers of the badly-written, unfunny, annoying Wiig-starring sketches that would regularly appear in seasons 34-37.
— I’m getting pretty good laughs so far from Kristen’s failed attempts to get Brian hyped up.
— Not only is it inherently funny seeing Brian Williams play a role like this, but he’s perfectly selling his character’s indifference towards his prize.
— I love Kristen’s suddenly deep, gaspy voice when she starts running out of breath due to her excitement.
— Even though it’s probably not a great punchline and is somewhat predictable, I’m loving Brian’s execution of the bit where he finally shows excitement……..over receiving free cheesy bread, of all things.
— Overall, I’m glad that, contrary to my worries, I was able to still enjoy both Kristen’s performance and this sketch in general, and not find it to be an unfunny, badly-written harbinger of annoying 2008-2012 Kristen Wiig showcases. However, this will NOT hold up as a recurring sketch, especially since, IIRC, the subsequent installments of this sketch change NOTHING up; they’re basically just a lazy re-write of the first installment. Not to mention the fact that the hosts who appear in those installments (Emma Stone, Russell Brand, can’t remember if there’s anyone else) aren’t as fun to see play an indifferent role like Brian Williams was.
STARS: ***½


BRIAN DIARIES
narcissistic host documents his day; Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Bono cameos

— Kind of a different-feeling Lonely Island Digital Short, not only because of the very mature vibe, but also because it features no SNL performers. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any other Lonely Island Digital Shorts that feature neither Andy nor any other SNL performers. Before anyone points out the Peyton Manning United Way ad (and even there, one could argue that an SNL performer is featured, as Bill does the voice-over in it), I’m just counting things that were officially billed on the air as Digital Shorts, by opening with the famous “An SNL Digital Short” black title screen.
— Hilarious scene involving Brian throwing pennies from his office window onto Al Roker and Matt Lauer below while they’re doing a Today Show report.
— Wow, a VERY random but funny cameo from Bono. Despite U2 being somewhat a Friend Of The Show to SNL, I’m still surprised SNL got Bono to do such a brief, random scene like this.
— Keeping up the trend in tonight’s episode of predictable gags being executed surprisingly well, the ending reveal of the sweet, heartfelt voicemail message Brian was shown leaving earlier turning out to be towards himself could be seen coming from a mile away, but somehow ended up still working and making me laugh.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “1234”


WEEKEND UPDATE
innumerate studio head (FRA) gives producers’ side of writer strike

Barbara Birmingham rails against kids’ sexy Halloween costumes

— The darkened Update set this season is looking PARTICULARLY dark tonight.
— Roger A. Trivanti? That name of Fred’s character reminds me of a certain Dick Ebersol-era one-time SNL host: Daniel J. Travanti.
— Fred has done a commentary in every single Update so far this season, as a different person each time. Keeping up the Ebersol-era theme in my review of this Weekend Update, is Fred attempting to become the new Tim Kazurinsky when it comes to frequently appearing as guest commentators on Update/Saturday Night News? I can actually picture Tim playing this smug, slimy Roger A. Trivanti character of Fred’s. This makes me try to picture Fred and Tim playing each other’s Update characters in general. Since Fred seems to love doing bits that mess with the audience’s heads and tests their patience, I can kinda picture him playing Dr. Jack Badofsky, though I can’t see him doing it quite as well as Tim did it.
— I’m really enjoying Fred’s Roger A. Trivanti commentary, and he has some very funny brash lines.
— While Roger A. Trivanti would never become a recurring character on SNL (something I wish I could say about the Nicolas Fehn character that Fred debuted in the preceding episode’s Update), Fred would reprise him about a week later in a writers’ strike-related comedy video he would post online, where he, as Trivanti, approaches striking writers on the picket line and basically trolls them. It’s in the tradition of the man-on-the-street videos Fred used to do on HBO in his early, pre-SNL comedy days.
— The second and final appearance from Kenan’s now-forgotten “Update Nanny” character, Barbara Birmingham.
— The beginning of tonight’s Barbara Birmingham commentary, with her giving Amy a normal greeting, then randomly giving Seth a very dismissive, unfriendly greeting, which offends Seth, reminds me too much of the way the Aunt Linda commentaries from Kristen always begin.
— Some occasional brief instances of self-amused breaking from Kenan. Is he being haunted by Horatio Sanz’s essence due to Horatio being in the building tonight?
— I’m not caring much for tonight’s Barbara Birmingham commentary. Her previous commentary was better.
— After the Barbara Birmingham commentary has ended, I absolutely love Seth’s ad-libs about how Barbara messed up his tie when she angrily swiped her hand towards him a little earlier.
STARS: ***½


LARRY KING LIVE
Harry Potter outtakes depict gay Dumbledore (BIH)

— Meh, I’m never crazy about seeing Fred’s Larry King impression.
— Oh, I remember this sketch being filled with lots of groan-worthy gay jokes. I can only imagine how even more groan-worthy these gay jokes will now come off by today’s standards.
— Ugh at that joke about a gay club being named “Man Hole”.
— Dumbledore: “Ohh, Minerva. If only you had a penis and balls.” I remember that line actually having me laughing out loud back in 2007. I have no reaction to it today.
— I got a laugh from Kristen’s intentionally stiff delivery of the line “Oh, no you di-iiiiin’t!”
— Overall, it turns out most of the gay jokes weren’t as cringey as I was expecting, but I still got almost no entertainment from this sketch.
STARS: *½


iPHONE
(FRA)’s testimonial explains how the iPhone helps him cheat on his wife

— I like Fred’s delivery of the line “God, I wish my wife wasn’t pregnaaaant”, after having revealed to us so many sleazy things regarding the affair he’s having with another woman.
— Pretty funny reveal at the end.
— There’s a second installment of this commercial that got cut after dress rehearsal, but would be put online as a special cut-for-time online exclusive shortly after this episode originally aired. This installment starred Jason, and he, while praising the features of the new iPhone, bragged about his penchant for randomly punching cops in the face (or something like that; my memory of it is fuzzy). I remember this commercial being hilarious, especially the ending of it, though I can’t even remember what exactly happened at the end.
STARS: ***


BEFORE THE DEBATE
Bill Richardson (HOS) & other Democrats conspire to stop Hillary Clinton

— Hmm, a second sketch tonight with the Democratic candidates. At least, much like the cold opening earlier tonight, SNL isn’t going the predictable route by having the candidates appear in a typical Democratic debate sketch.
— What the hell? Now Darrell is playing Chris Dodd? After Bill played him in the cold opening earlier tonight??? I guess Darrell wanted to play him to begin with, but couldn’t do it in the cold opening because he was playing Bill Clinton. Still weird and confusing to have two different cast members play the same politician in two different sketches in the same episode, especially when that politician is a presidential candidate. Even odder is the fact that Bill and Darrell’s impressions of Dodd are completely different from each other. Bill seemed to be going for a more generic impression, barely even changing his voice (which is unusual, since Bill is generally a great impressionist), while Darrell appears to be going for a much more accurate, distinct voice. (I don’t have much familiarity with what the real Chris Dodd sounds like, so I have no idea if Darrell’s nailing the voice.)
— SNL never fails to get a cheap laugh from me whenever a sketch does an initial cutaway to Amy as Dennis Kucinich.
— Speaking of Amy’s Kucinich, that’s another role that’s been played by two different performers tonight, but, much like Darrell, Amy couldn’t play Kucinich in the cold opening because she was playing Hillary Clinton.
— Brian Williams bluntly telling the Democratic candidates that he and everybody else in the media are pulling for Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee is interesting in hindsight, because, when SNL returns from writers’ strike a few months later, they do a whole bunch of cold openings about how miffed Hillary is that Obama is the media darling who everyone is pulling for to be the Democratic nominee.
— The fact that nobody’s playing Obama in this sketch, because he, as Will’s John Edwards explains, is on his way, makes it painfully obvious that SNL still doesn’t have a plan at this point on who in the cast will play Obama. Given the fact that The Rock was scheduled to host the following week’s episode, before the writers’ strike ended up putting the kibosh on that, I remember making a prediction back at this time that The Rock would play Obama in a sketch in that episode, given how so many people back then pointed out the strong similarities between The Rock and Obama’s voices. (As we know now, despite the writers’ strike canceling The Rock’s scheduled hosting stint this season, he would later play a form of Obama very sporadically on SNL, in those “The Rock Obama” sketches.) Also, sometime during the writers’ strike after tonight’s episode, SNL would hold auditions to hire an Obama impersonator. (The auditioners include several well-known or soon-to-be-well-known names, such as Donald Glover, Wyatt Cenac, and Jordan Peele. Of those auditioners, I remember having my fingers crossed for Peele to get hired, as I would’ve LOVED seeing him as an SNL cast member after having been a fan of his work on MADtv at the time.) SNL would end up passing on ALL of those auditioners, and would questionably end up choosing……a certain someone within their then-current cast to play Obama (as we’ll see in the very next episode).
— Horatio Sanz is surprisingly pretty solid and understated in his performance here.
— Despite some funny lines, this sketch isn’t working much for me. It’s coming off as another one of this era’s sluggish, tepid, overlong, Jim Downey-written political pieces that are a slog to get through.
— I do kinda like the reveal that Fred’s Mike Gravel isn’t even in the debate, but nobody has the heart to tell him.
— The bit with Jason-as-Biden’s “Where’s the beef?” suggestion is INCREDIBLY unfunny on paper, but Jason’s solid delivery of it is actually making me laugh.
— Now the candidates are talking about kidnapping Hillary and tying her up with a rope? Ugh, this sketch is getting increasingly lame in its failed attempts to escalate the humor.
— Hmm. An out-of-nowhere turn with Fred-as-Gravel’s violent off-camera outburst. That’s still not funny enough to save this sketch, unfortunately.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Feel It All”


THE NEW OPEN
host rejects new news theme ideas in favor of his own 007-style concept

— I think Amy has appeared in practically EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight. Feels like a throwback to how frequently she was utilized in seasons 30 and 31.
— And now here’s Fred, who’s also had an incredibly busy night, appearing in a majority of the sketches.
— Feels kinda bittersweet seeing Maya in what ends up being her final sketch as a cast member, which wasn’t known at the time (though she may have suspected it, given the fact that it was known how strong the possibility was of the writers’ strike occurring the following week). At least she’s ending her SNL tenure doing one of her all-time favorite things: singing in an exaggerated, hammy voice.
— Kinda fun seeing the vastly different singing style of each individual member of this band.
— An absolutely fantastic 007-esque NBC Nightly News intro sequence with Brian, made even more epic by it being immediately followed by him behind the Nightly News desk, signing on by saying, in his professional trademark delivery, a badass “Good evening, I’m Brian Williams, and…that’s…how…I…roll.” Not only a perfect way to end this sketch, but a perfect way to end this episode.
STARS: **** (the rest of this sketch would’ve only gotten three or three-and-a-half stars from me, but the whole ending portion bumped the overall rating up to four stars)


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mostly good episode. Brian Williams was also a surprisingly strong host, doing a solid job in every sketch, being fun, coming off likable, and getting laughs. It did feel, though, like he disappeared for a large portion of the post-Weekend Update half of the episode, but then again, since he had to moderate the Democratic debate earlier this week, maybe that cost him a day of rehearsals at SNL, and thus, they had to write some sketches that didn’t utilize him much or at all.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jon Bon Jovi)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Instead of us getting the following scheduled episode…

…the writers’ strike puts SNL on a lengthy hiatus. They eventually return in February with host Tina Fey, and a new female addition to the cast.

Posted on

October 13, 2007 – Jon Bon Jovi / Foo Fighters (S33 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

AMY POEHLER’S HOUSE
21 years ago in teenage AMP’s bedroom, host counsels her about the future

— Hmm, “Amy Poehler’s House, 1986”? Well, THIS is certainly going to be a different and interesting cold opening. I absolutely LOVE this huge change of pace.
— Great touch with Teenage Amy Poehler speaking in a Boston accent.
— Charming interplay between Amy and Jon Bon Jovi.
— When being told she’ll be an SNL cast member 20 years from now, Teenage Amy should’ve been more surprised to hear that SNL would even still be on the air 20 years later, especially since 1) SNL had only been on the air for 11 calendar years by this point in 1986, and I’m not sure if many people in ’86 could’ve predicted the show would go on to reach 31 years on the air (let alone 45 years), and 2) the date that this sketch is set in (October 13, 1986) is just two days after season 12 of SNL premiered (I’d love to think Teenage Amy Poehler watched it that night), and it wasn’t known at the time yet if the then-revamped SNL was going to save the show from cancellation after the troubled season 11.
— Amy’s confusion over why Jon Bon Jovi would ever host SNL is really funny.
— Another SNL piece where Amy gets in a self-deprecating dig at her own small chest size, this time by asking Jon Bon Jovi “Will I ever get boobs?”
— Good set-up to the rest of this episode, with Jon telling Amy the next time she’ll see him will be on October 13, 2007 (the airdate of this episode).
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
Richie Sambora [real] & other audience members want host to sing

Bon Jovi [real] performs “Lost Highway”

— Liz Cackowski makes her way into yet another questions-from-the-audience monologue, despite not even being an SNL writer anymore by this point. She left the writing staff two seasons prior. So what in the world is she doing here? Was she just hanging around backstage this week with Akiva Schaffer, her future husband (or were they already married by this point?)?
— Another dig tonight at how odd it is that Jon Bon Jovi is hosting.
— Steve Higgins gets in his usual laughs that he always gets in these questions-from-the-audience monologues.
— Wow, what the fuck happened just now? Why did Richie Sambora completely and awkwardly blank on one of his lines with that big ol’ goofy smile on his face, forcing Jon to eventually feed him his line?
— This monologue transitions to the host walking over to the musical guest stage and doing a full-fledged musical performance, much like a few other monologues from double-duty hosts (e.g. M.C. Hammer, Sting in his first hosting stint).
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


OHHHHH!
game show elicits New Jerseyites’ (FRA), (host), (DAH) outbursts

— A fairly okay way to utilize this particular SNL cast’s penchant for saying “Ohhh!” when playing wiseguy New Jerseyites, even if this is far from a memorable game show sketch. I’ll still take this over another Same-Sex Couple From New Jersey appearance on Weekend Update.
— Fred’s delivery of his first answer was hilarious.
— Darrell manages to work his Tony Soprano impression into another sketch.
— Jon’s timing seems kinda off during his spiel just now.
— A pretty good laugh from the contestants not seeing what the problem is with being serviced by a hooker on their wife’s birthday.
— Interesting use of Kristen.
STARS: ***


A VISIT WITH FORMER VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE
Nobel recipient Al Gore (DAH) shows off the contents of his trophy room

— Darrell’s microphone isn’t turned on when he starts speaking at the beginning of this, rendering his first line inaudible. Am I watching a repeat of the Jeremy Piven episode?
— What was with the awkwardness of how Darrell put away the Nobel Peace Prize?
— Ugh, I hate the running gag in this sketch, with Darrell’s Al Gore constantly namedropping (or titledropping) An Inconvenient Truth. This is pure COMEDY DEATH. Even the audience has stopped laughing at it by this point, halfway through the sketch. It’s just plain uncomfortable hearing their laughter towards the repetitive An Inconvenient Truth gag gradually die off to the point where you can hear a pin drop in the studio.
— An actual laugh from the Tony award that Darrell’s Gore displays turning out to be his wife Tipper’s Tony award for the Vagina Monologues.
— There’s some scattered funny parts here and there, but, man, so many parts of this sketch are dragging HORRIBLY. It’s too bad, because I’m liking Darrell’s loose, laid-back demeanor here. Between his likable performances as Fred Thompson and Lou Dobbs in the preceding episode, and his fun performance tonight as Al Gore, Darrell seems to have had some new life injected into him lately. Too bad I know it doesn’t last, and he eventually goes back to being his usual sluggish-performing, aloof, unhappy-looking, out-of-place, barely-appearing, “Why is he still on the show after so many years?” self that he is in these later seasons of his SNL tenure.
STARS: *½


PEOPLE GETTING PUNCHED JUST BEFORE EATING
ANS slugs hungry folks

— Already a hilarious and fun concept. This kind of dumb random humor is right up my alley, and very few are better than Lonely Island at executing this type of humor. Feels like a more elaborate variation of the “Andy Popping Into Frame” Digital Short that Lonely Island did the preceding season.
— Very catchy simplistic background music.
— A particularly funny “Double Punched!” bit with Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl. And it’s always nice to see Grohl get involved in a comedy bit on SNL.
— Jon Bon Jovi getting a “Jovi Punch!” was funny, but I don’t like how he made a “Full Recovery!” afterwards. I get the really bad feeling Jon himself demanded that “Full Recovery!” part be put in, because, with his huge ego, he probably refused to do a scene where he gets punched out WITHOUT him coming out on top in the end. Ugh.
— An absolutely hilarious fake-out with an about-to-eat Jason suddenly pulling out a cellphone right when he was about to get punched by Andy, causing Andy to halt mid-punch, then panickedly do a 180 and run back out of the scene.
— I love the running bit with Will throughout this, especially how it ends with the dark “Murder!” bit.
— Hmm, a very random (even for this already-random short’s standards) but interesting turn with the zombie chase sequence. Only the Lonely Island could make me like a turn that questionable.
STARS: ****½


POSTSEASON 07
for some reason, Dane Cook (JAS) promotes American League pennant series

— An absolutely perfect Dane Cook impression from Jason. Freakin’ spot-on. It helps that Jason already has a natural facial resemblance to Cook, but he’s nailing all of Cook’s mannerisms, delivery, and comedic style here, and is accurately parodying so many of the things I find so annoying about Cook.
— An overall very brief sketch, but I know in hindsight we’ll be getting a continuation of it later tonight.
STARS: ***½


LA RIVISTA DELLA TELEVISIONE CON VINNY VEDECCI
cultural misunderstandings baffle host

— Not a very entertaining reaction from Jon Bon Jovi when finding out Bill’s Vinny Vedecci is going to interview him in Italian dialect, compared to the on-point reactions that Julia Louis-Dreyfus and even the overly-hammy Zach Braff had to that in previous installments of this sketch.
— Another instance of Vinny Vedecci doing a fun, out-of-character celebrity impression, this time doing Steven Van Zandt. We also get the addition of Fred’s producer character doing an out-of-character Paulie Walnuts impression that we saw Fred do before in a Sopranos sketch. Quite a number of Sopranos references in tonight’s episode, by the way, between the “Ohhhhh!” sketch and this.
— A hilarious part with the cigarettes-for-kids commercial, complete with the Bon Jovi song “Blaze Of Glory” being played over it.
— I like the bit with the steel horse.
— I’m not caring for Jon’s straight man performance AT ALL here. Something is off-putting to me about his performance in this sketch. I wonder if part of it is that arrogance and ego of his that I complained about earlier. (Can you tell I haven’t been liking him as a host tonight?)
— Good turn at the end with Jon calling Vinny out on his fake Italian, resulting in a very “Uh-oh”-type silent pause from Vinny, Fred’s producer character, and even Will’s non-speaking spaghetti-eating character. I remember some online SNL fans back at this time in 2007 took that as a sign that this was going to be the final Vinny Vedecci sketch, given the fact that Jon calling Vinny and the others out on their fake Italian would’ve been a fitting way to conclude this series of sketches. As we know now, this ended up being FAR from the last installment of this sketch.
STARS: ***½


WEEKEND UPDATE
ahead of the writers’ strike, scab-to-be Rosa Santiago (MAR) tells jokes

naked guy using a cellphone (ANS) walks onto the Weekend Update set

political comedian Nicholas Fehn (FRA) can’t formulate a thought

— Wow, I cannot remember the last time prior to this where Weekend Update aired BEFORE the musical guest’s first performance. It may have been way back in season 28. I think tonight’s episode also may be the last time this has happened to this day in 2020, but then again, I can’t say for sure, as I have yet to see any episodes from December 2018-May 2020.
— Another so-called “funny”-voiced foreign-accented Maya Rudolph character.
— Maya’s Spanish janitor character here feels like a variation of someone Maya once played in an Update commentary very early in her SNL tenure: a Spanish maid of Linda Chavez’s. The fact that that was early in Maya’s SNL tenure, and her similar character in tonight’s Update is in her second-to-last episode, gives her SNL tenure a bit of a full-circle feel.
— Good ad-lib from Maya in reaction to the loose desktop her hands are resting on.
— Maya’s foreign-accented delivery is actually so goofy and over-the-top that it’s gone from kinda annoying me to actually making me laugh in spite of myself. I’m actually starting to enjoy this commentary of Maya’s, and find her character kinda charming.
— An okay brief bit with Andy as the naked guy who made headlines that week for walking nude into a Tad’s Steaks.
— The audience’s reactions to a lot of Amy’s jokes tonight are noticeably fairly mild.
— The debut of Fred’s Nicolas Fehn character.
— This inaugural Nicolas Fehn commentary has me laughing so much, and Fred is doing such a great skewering of “deep” political humorists. Unfortunately, SNL would later go on to run this character INTO THE FUCKING GROUND. He appears, like, 10 times within this and the following season. This probably would’ve been much better off being left as a one-and-done character. His subsequent appearances after tonight’s episode would have him just repeat the exact same bit every single time, which doesn’t work anywhere near as well on repetition.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Pretender”


WHERE’S MY PURSE?
during an alien attack, lost purse preoccupies spaceship captain (KRW)

— A dumb, questionable premise for a sketch.
— I’m about halfway through this sketch, and I have yet to get a single laugh.
— Another sketch this season that feels like an early precursor to badly-written Kristen Wiig-starring sketches that we’ll be seeing on a regular basis from seasons 34-37, even if Kristen’s character in this particular sketch is nowhere near as annoying, muggy, or twitchy as a lot of her badly-written characters from seasons 34-37 would be. Speaking of which, something about Kristen’s characterization in this sketch strangely feels kinda Carol Burnett-esque to me.
— Why in the world did some audience members randomly applaud when Bill, in a bit role, got shot by one of the aliens?
— Kenan makes his first appearance all night in a bit role where he gives a loud, kinda annoying, very hammy performance that feels too out of place in this lethargic, lifeless, dreary sketch, almost as if he’s intentionally overacting due to being upset over his lack of airtime tonight. (I doubt that’s the case, though. I only said it because the thought of it amuses me.)
— (*sigh*) Absolutely NOTHING about this sketch is working for me. Even something about the general aura of it feels “off” (like I said earlier, it feels dreary and lifeless, aside from Kenan’s out-of-place hammy, broad performance). Please end this sketch already, SNL.
STARS: *


POSTSEASON 07
Dane Cook (JAS) puts his stamp on National League pennant series promo

— Jason’s Dane Cook impression continues to crack me up.
— Some more funny lines from Jason’s Cook in this continuation of the first Postseason piece from earlier tonight. I especially like his self-aware “Spider-Man reference” remark.
STARS: ***½


NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL ON NBC
NBC is the proud home for broadcasts of Notre Dame’s awful football team

This fake ad is missing from the copy I’m reviewing of this episode. I think the reason is because this fake ad was aired in the middle of a VERY LONG commercial break, and, because of how short this fake ad was and how the only visuals in it were stock footage of college football games, whoever recorded the copy I’m reviewing of this episode must’ve mistaken this fake ad for a real one. If you’re curious to see my thoughts on this fake ad, read it here in my original 2007 review that I wrote way back when this episode originally aired.


WHAT TO CALL THE BAND
in 1984, host’s new band is skeptical of his eponymous naming idea

— A fairly likable, realistic premise.
— I’m enjoying Jason’s frustrated straight man performance.
— Meh, this sketch is now getting a little too repetitive and thin for my likes.
— A laugh from Jon not even knowing the name of his two bandmates played by Andy and Will.
STARS: **


ICONOCLASTS
Bjork (KRW) & Charles Barkley (KET) visit Cheesecake Factory

— The debut of Kenan’s Charles Barkley impression.
— A rare instance in Kenan’s early seasons of him actually putting effort into sounding like a celebrity he’s playing.
— Hilarious idea of Bjork and Charles Barkley being paired together in an Iconoclasts episode.
— Kristen’s Bjork impression is consistently cracking me up here, but what’s REALLY making this sketch for me is Kenan’s priceless Barkley. Every single thing coming out of his mouth is a riot, especially him telling Bjork “Damn, you are like Dennis Rodman if he was a tiny white lady” and him constantly calling Bjork “Bork”.
— Very strong sketch overall. I remember back when this episode originally aired, I assumed Iconoclasts was going to become a recurring sketch, with a different pair of quirky, mismatched celebrities in each installment, but we end up never seeing this sketch return.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS
Jack Nicholson [real] introduces Bon Jovi [real]

Bon Jovi [real] performs “Who Says You Can’t Go Home”

— Holy hell, Jack Motherfucking Nicholson??? Randomly appearing at the goodnights??? Introducing a Bon Jovi musical performance??? Uh, wow. Oh, and how the hell is this only Jack’s second and final appearance in a regular SNL episode (the 40th Anniversary Special doesn’t count), neither of which were hosting stints?
— An uncommon instance of the goodnights being a musical performance. Because, apparently, SNL needs to stroke Jon Bon Jovi’s ego EVER FURTHER tonight by giving him and his band a second musical performance. Meanwhile, tonight’s ACTUAL CREDITED MUSICAL GUEST and SNL favorites, Foo Fighters, only got one measly performance in this entire episode. I remember how much this pissed off a number of online SNL fans back in 2007.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Even though it feels like I gave out a decent number of good ratings in this review, I don’t feel too crazy about the episode as a whole. Maybe because what was bad in this episode was REEEAAALLLLY bad, like most of that Al Gore piece and all of that wretched Where’s My Purse dreck. Another big problem I have with this episode is Jon Bon Jovi himself. Aside from the cold opening, I got an unlikable, arrogant, egotistical vibe from him all night, and he was about as “funny” a sketch performer as one would expect him to be.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Seth Rogen)
a slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
The final episode before a writers’ strike puts SNL on a four-month hiatus. Brian Williams hosts, and Maya Rudolph gets her last hurrah before officially leaving the show prior to SNL’s return from the writers’ strike.

Posted on

October 6, 2007 – Seth Rogen / Spoon (S33 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A MESSAGE FROM KEVIN FEDERLINE
Kevin Federline (ANS) tells what he knows about being a good parent

— Good to see a non-political cold opening, even if this is still following the format of typical political openings by involving a person sitting behind a desk, talking straight to the camera (one of the laziest formats for a cold opening, even if SNL has certainly had their share of successes with it).
— Lots of pretty funny lines from Andy’s K-Fed.
— Ooh, that ending bit with Andy’s K-Fed proudly pointing out similarities between himself and Bill Cosby hasn’t aged well, for obvious reasons.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— A Cartoon By Robert Smigel is credited, but no such cartoon ends up airing tonight. It would’ve been one of Smigel’s last had it aired.


MONOLOGUE
host reads the SNL monologue he wrote when he was 13 years old

— I like the “Party on, Wayne” reference in the dated monologue that Seth Rogen wrote as a 13-year-old.
— Another fun mention in Rogen’s dated monologue, with his prediction of him going on to be made a member of Wu-Tang Clan when he’s in high school.
— A random inclusion of a Steven Seagal impression, but a decent way to display that fun chemistry between Bill and Rogen that was previously seen in the then-recent hit movie Superbad.
STARS: ***


VERITAS ULTRASOUND HD
Veritas Ultrasound HD displays high-quality fetal video for dads-to-be

— A huge laugh from Jason proudly exclaiming “Now THAT’S a penis!” when seeing the high-definition ultrasound of the fetus in Kristen’s stomach.
— A lot of funny straight lines from a deadpan, mildly-annoyed Kristen in reaction to dumb things Jason says.
STARS: ***½


2007 NATIONAL DOUCHEBAG CHAMPIONSHIPS
finalists (BIH), (host), (WLF) offend

— I’m already very interested in this sketch concept.
— Funny mention of Jared Leto and Entourage in connection with douchebags.
— Will’s physical look as a douchebag is fantastic.
— I love Jason’s subtly disapproving facial reactions to certain things the douchebag contestants say. Funnily enough, Jason’s displaying the same great subtle annoyance that Kristen displayed towards him in the Ultrasound HD commercial that preceded this.
— A good use of Amy’s Sharon Osborne.
— Spot-on casting of Fred as Gene Simmons.
— Andy’s ridiculous, obnoxious character is hilarious.
— Heh, Amy seemed unsure of her delivery of the word “doucherty”, and it seemed like she really wanted to laugh after saying it, but she held on and stayed in character.
— Andy’s ferret being named Ferret Bueller is a joke that was used on SNL a few seasons prior to this, in a scene with Ben Affleck in an Appalachian Emergency Room sketch.
STARS: ****


MACGRUBER
MacGruber’s balding-induced self-consciousness derails rescue plan

— Tonight’s MacGruber shorts end up being the final ones with Maya as one of MacGruber’s assistants, as all of the subsequent SNL episodes that contain MacGruber shorts are after Maya has left the cast. Her character in these shorts would be replaced by a new character played by Kristen.
— A decent short overall, but nothing particularly noteworthy in this.
STARS: ***


BIG KIDS
gawky Jeremy (host) & Stacia (KRW) are cute only to parents (BIH) & (AMP)

— Boy, only 20 seconds after Kristen and Rogen’s entrance, and SNL is ALREADY running that “I said we!” line of Kristen’s into the damn ground. It doesn’t help that she says it in an increasingly exaggerated, obnoxious manner over the course of this sketch.
— There goes the very tired routine that a lot of sketches in this era have, where the camera does a pan shot of straight man characters each having a frozen unpleasant look on their face as they’re witnessing something odd the lead comedic character(s) is doing.
— The part with Kristen and Rogen performing the then-contemporary Amy Winehouse song “Rehab” is at least an interesting 2007 time capsule in hindsight.
— Not caring for this sketch so far. I remember finding it hilarious when it originally aired, but it doesn’t hold up well for me after all these years, possibly because it’s basically one of the earliest precursors to the type of badly-written “Kristen Wiig plays an annoying, quirky, ‘Look at me!’ character” sketches that SNL would later do on a regular basis from 2008-2012. I also wonder if this sketch is the work (or co-work) of a certain new writer this season: Kent Sublette, a writer responsible (or co-responsible) for a lot of those aforementioned badly-written “Kristen Wiig plays an annoying, quirky, ‘Look at me!’ character” sketches from 08-12. Sublette plays a big part in the unfortunate turn that Kristen’s SNL trajectory takes around 2008, where she goes from being mostly known for perfectly, charmingly, and hilariously playing lots of subtle, deadpan, low-key roles to being mostly known for playing lots of loud, wacky, obnoxious roles. IIRC, Kristen would later disclose in an interview that she herself doesn’t like some of those obnoxious characters of hers that she’s been given in 2008-2012, and she even had to tell Sublette at one point to stop writing sketches starring a certain character of hers (I think Trina, the wacky wife who always says “Thomas!”).
— Boy, they are relying WAY too heavily on the aforementioned pan shot of frozen unpleasant facial reactions from the straight man characters.
— I finally got one genuine laugh: Will getting ready to jump out the window during one of Kristen and Rogen’s musical showcases, and then, when told they’re on the 15th floor, casually responding “I’m well aware of that.”
STARS: *½


MACGRUBER
MacGruber’s cosmetic work has helped land a young girlfriend (KRW)

— A huge laugh from MacGruber’s bad plastic surgery.
— Funny in hindsight seeing Kristen appearing as a random one-off character in this MacGruber short, given the fact that, as mentioned earlier, Kristen would soon go on to be a permanent part of these MacGruber shorts by replacing Maya’s character.
— Pretty funny how MacGruber is desperately attempting to pass off his two assistants, Maya and Rogen, to his girlfriend as his parents.
— The ending was kinda weak.
STARS: ***½


A MESSAGE FROM FRED THOMPSON
Fred Thompson (DAH) sort of wants to be America’s next president

— I’m not too familiar with Fred Thompson, but I’m liking Darrell’s portrayal of him. This is a more loose, likable performance than we usually see from Darrell in his later seasons.
— Yet another walk-on from Fred’s Sam Waterston impression. They’re spreading the impression kinda thin here. The previous appearances of Fred’s Waterston already got all the laughs out of this impression that SNL is ever going to get.
STARS: ***


MACGRUBER
mirror reveals extent of MacGruber’s botched overseas plastic surgery

— Strange how SNL is airing all three of tonight’s MacGruber shorts so close together and so early in this episode. Usually, SNL spreads MacGruber shorts much farther throughout an episode.
— I don’t know why, but the “Monastery Control Room” sign shown at the beginning of this made me chuckle, even though I don’t even think it was intended to be funny.
— I like the suspense they’re keeping us in by only showing MacGruber from the back throughout this, not letting us see what his face looks like after his horribly-botched plastic surgery.
— And now we finally see what MacGruber’s post-surgery face looks like. Hmm. To be honest, I was expecting that reveal to be funnier, after such a huge build-up. He didn’t look much worse than he did in the last MacGruber short prior to this. They should’ve went more all out in making Will look EXTREMELY ridiculous.
— Tonight’s overall collection of MacGruber shorts was a little too average for MacGruber standards. The shorts were fine, but do not measure up to the typically strong and memorable MacGruber shorts. Unfortunately, I recall the next set of MacGruber shorts, in the Jonah Hill episode later this season, also being kinda below par for MacGruber standards (so much so, that SNL doesn’t even bother airing all three of the MacGruber shorts in that episode, leaving the third short as a special cut-for-time online exclusive), but we’ll see when we arrive at that episode.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Underdog”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Lou Dobbs (DAH) doesn’t like SNL gigs going to Canadians like host

incredulous SEM & AMP say “Really!?!” to Larry Craig’s indiscretions

Willie Randolph (KET) & Omar Minaya (FRA) can’t explain Mets’ collapse

CHC gives a report on the field of presidential candidates

— Why is Amy’s opening joke of practically every Update always so damn bad? Why would you intentionally open Update with your worst, lamest joke of the night?
— Something about Meyers’ hair looks kinda different tonight.
— A good laugh from Darrell’s Lou Dobbs naming Tom Hanks and, of all people, Jonny Moseley as ideal American hosts that SNL has had in the past.
— Darrell continues the surprisingly solid night he’s been having in this episode, as his Lou Dobbs commentary here is fantastic. He has so many funny disparaging anti-Canadian comments. (Speaking of which, Seth Rogen is one of those celebrities who I always forget is Canadian.) He’s also coming off laid-back, loose, and likable here, much like in his performance as Fred Thompson earlier tonight. Why can’t we see THIS Darrell Hammond much more often in these later seasons of his SNL tenure?
— Amy’s very brief joke about Anita Hill (in which Amy just cornily says “Anita Hill? Anita vacation!”) doesn’t hold up well after all these years, when, like me, you have absolutely no context for what the joke was about. I certainly know about the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings back in 1991, but have no memory of Hill being in the news in 2007.
— “14-year-old Miley Cyrus”. Boy, do those words feel odd to hear nowadays.
— The Larry Craig gay scandal is a good topic for a “Really?!?” segment, and there are some fantastic barbs from Meyers and Amy here. I also like how they’re not taking a homophobic stance here like I was initially worried they would.
— I remember an online SNL fan back at this time in 2007 pointing out that the casting of Fred as Omar Minaya made them realize that Fred could conceivably play Barack Obama, as this was at a time where every SNL fan was wondering who in the cast would play Obama. (Over the summer prior to this season, Kenan was in talks to lose a lot of weight so he could potentially play Obama, but as we know now, that ended up never happening.)
— The comedic conceit of this Willie Randolph/Omar Minaya commentary, with them just stammering and “ummmm”-ing when trying to make a point, is actually working for me, though I can understand why some people wouldn’t care for this. Fred is usually good at pulling this kind of humor off in these years of his SNL tenure (the years before he goes really downhill). In fact, the humor in this commentary feels a bit like a precursor to Fred’s Nicolas Fehn character, who, coincidentally, debuts in the very next episode.
— Not only do we get a surprise Chevy Chase cameo as Update’s “senior political correspondent”, but they’re even having him deliver his commentary from a replica of his old Update set! Seeing Chevy at this set brings back nice memories of when I reviewed seasons 1 and 2 earlier in this SNL project.
— Wow, I love how they’re even having Chevy start his commentary by doing the raunchy phone conversation gag that he typically opened his Updates with.
— Chevy’s actually coming off fairly likable and professional here, which is surprising, given his age and reputation by this point. His joke delivery isn’t all that great here, and it doesn’t help that some of the writing of these jokes is fairly tepid, but I know not to expect Chevy to have the same solid, reliable, snappy delivery that he had way back in 1975 and 1976. His delivery here is still better and more palatable than his mess of a marble-mouthed delivery in both his season 5 hosting stint and in the Weekend Update he did in his season 6 guest appearance.
— Boy, this may be one of the longest Updates ever. I’m surprised the jokes from Amy and Meyers are still going after that super-long Chevy segment. Kinda feels like that Chevy segment was meant to close this Update.
— I wonder if that “super gay” George Takei joke that Amy closed tonight’s Update with can be considered the type of homophobia that I was glad to see her and Meyers refrain from during their “Really?!?” segment earlier tonight.
STARS: ***


AMERICA’S FIRST COLONISTS
(host)’s settlement revolved around marijuana

— A pot-themed History Channel sketch starring Seth Rogen? Oh, I don’t think I’m going to like where this is going……
— Yep, two minutes later, it turns out I’m not caring for this sketch AT ALL. Just a collection of lazy, low-brow, boring stoner humor, placed in an equally-dull colonial setting.
— I do kinda like the stoner voice Will’s using.
— Kenan provides my only real laugh in this sketch, with his very funny brief walk-on.
STARS: *½


ROWLF & THE SWEDISH CHEF
Rowlf (host) & The Swedish Chef (ANS) sing “Beyond The Sea”

— Ah, a change of pace for this SNL era, and I like the use of the home base stage, giving this an old-school SNL feel.
— Not sure what to say about this sketch so far. It’s cute, but not all that funny. Then again, I don’t think it’s intended to be all that funny. I guess it’s basically just Rogen and the SNL cast’s homage to the Muppets that they grew up watching and loving. I can appreciate the charm behind that idea. SNL would later do an actual comedic and, from what I remember, pretty solid Seth Rogen-involved Muppets sketch, when Rogen hosts the following season.
— A fantastic Animal impression from Bill, and I love his insane drum solo.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”


MAD JOE DIXON
Mad Joe Dixon (host) & Delilah (MAR) reveal personal peccadilloes

— Pretty funny line deliveries from Kristen and Maya during their conversation with each other at the beginning of this sketch.
— Not caring AT ALL for these unfunny, increasingly unsubtle, and poorly-written sexual references and bathroom-humor jokes during Rogen and Maya’s conversation. What the hell IS this?!? Was this sketch submitted by a 13-year-old?
— The reason Rogen’s character gives for why he’s called Mad Joe Dixon was just plain stupid, and not the funny kind of stupid.
STARS: *½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very average and nothing-special episode. Not too bad, but barely anything stood out in this episode, and the quality took a dive in most of the post-Weekend Update half.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (LeBron James)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Jon Bon Jovi

Posted on

September 29, 2007 – LeBron James / Kanye West (S33 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE ALL-BUT-CERTAIN-TO-BE NEXT PRESIDENT
patronizing presumed president Hillary Clinton’s (AMP) future is perfect

— Darrell makes his only appearance of this entire season premiere in a brief, mostly-silent bit as Bill Clinton at the beginning of this cold opening, proving to me back in 2007 how pointless it was for SNL to keep Darrell in the cast for YET ANOTHER season.
— Some laughs from Amy’s Hillary Clinton treating her chances of becoming the next president as a foregone conclusion.
— Amy’s Hillary wig looks different tonight, and, for some reason, it really emphasizes that dumb and pointless prosthetic nose that she wears as Hillary that I always complain about.
— I’m enjoying Amy-as-Hillary’s personal messages to each of her opponents, especially her biting remark about John Edwards.
— Amy’s Hillary: “In 2016, when I will have completed my second term as president—”. Considering what does end up happening to the real Hillary in regards to the 2016 elections, this feels odd to see in hindsight.
— This is starting to drag a little bit towards the end, and the audience apparently agrees with me.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— Same montage from the preceding season.
— This is the second consecutive season premiere with no new cast members. The cast is the exact same as the preceding season.
— Yikes, Don Pardo’s microphone isn’t working during the first 20 seconds or so of this montage, though his voice can start to be heard VERY faintly under the music a short while before his mic volume gets turned way up. Then when his mic volume does get turned way up, the mic is still faulty for a short while, as it makes Don’s voice sound extremely hollow and muffled. Then the voice of who I assume is an SNL technician is heard exclaiming something quickly and then saying what sounds like “This mic is (*unintelligible word*).” Wow, this is an absolute mess.


MONOLOGUE
watching SNL in Akron, The LeBrons (host) evaluate host’s performance

— Pretty fun dancing entrance from LeBron James.
— Good bit with LeBron lying to those of us not familiar with basketball about how his Cavaliers swept the Spurs in that year’s NBA Finals, then advising those of us who are familiar with basketball to “be cool and shut up”.
— A good use of LeBron’s characters from a series of Nike commercials he did at the time.
— A big laugh from LeBron’s pretty-boy character saying, in regards to SNL, “I thought they canceled it after Eddie Murphy, too.”
— I’m particularly liking LeBron’s performance as the grumpy grandfather character.
— An overall short but sweet monologue.
STARS: ***½


ANGRY DOG
the canine-riling kibble has Michael Vick’s picture on the bag

— A very funny, pretty creative, and timely way to spoof the then-recent Michael Vick dog-fighting controversy.
— I love Will’s aggressive, bleep-filled message.
— I almost thought the old guy sitting by the fireplace with his dog was Fred Willard at first glance.
— Great facial reaction from Kristen to the scary face the dog makes at her.
STARS: ****


CHILDREN’S HOPE AUCTION
Penelope’s self-aggrandizement cramps host’s role as charity auction item

— Feels odd seeing Maya this season, partly because of how the preceding season’s finale made it seem like that was her final episode, and partly because she only appears in the first four episodes of this season before she does officially leave.
— SNL leads off this new season with one of the preceding season’s new, breakout characters.
— Penelope gets some good recognition applause in this third appearance of hers.
— Once again, despite the one-note nature of this character, I’m still enjoying these early sketches of hers.
— Kinda funny in retrospect hearing LeBron talk about growing a big beard, given the trademark (and now-graying) beard he has in more recent years.
STARS: ***


HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: RETURN OF THE SENIORS
host & Zac Efron (ANS) portray rival basketballers

— Andy is pretty funny in his portrayal of Zac Efron’s High School Musical character. This also reminds me that, back when this episode originally aired, in the comments section of a review of this episode on one of those AV Club-type sites, somebody left a comment complaining that Andy didn’t “gay it up” enough as Efron in this sketch.
— Funny look of LeBron.
— Wow, until now, I (and I’m assuming just about everybody else) had completely forgotten about the nude picture controversy that Vanessa Hudgens (or, as she was called back then, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, according to this sketch) was in over the summer. This overly-topical portion of the sketch doesn’t hold up very well after all these years. Then again, I remember not finding it all that funny even when this originally aired.
— Despite some funny performances, there’s not much to this sketch.
STARS: **


IRAN SO FAR
ANS & Adam Levine [real] sing a ballad to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (FRA)

— A great and creative way to spoof Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial Columbia University speech that week.
— Ha, Adam Levine appearing for the second consecutive SNL episode (Maroon 5 was the musical guest in the preceding episode).
— This is incredibly well-shot. Such beautiful cinematography for a Digital Short, especially the occasional shots of Andy playing the piano on a moving platform on a bridge, which is impressive for SNL.
— Hilarious lyrics from Andy, accompanied by some great and funny cutaways of Fred’s Mahmoud.
— I love the very brief, silent, blink-and-miss-it cameo from Jake Gyllenhaal, stroking his beard and flashing a cool pose while staring into the camera with a bug-eyed look.
— I’m glad Lonely Island restrained themselves from throwing in a cheap, hacky man-on-man kiss between Andy and Mahmoud.
STARS: ****


READ TO ACHIEVE
unprofessional basketball-passer Jeff bugs host during PSA taping

— The Jeff/Mike Underballs sketch has officially become recurring. This is probably the most well-known and popular installment of this recurring sketch, perhaps partly due to it being aired in many of SNL’s Sports Extra compilation specials.
— And there goes Bill’s angry pronunciation of Jeff that I always love in these sketches: “JYYYYEEEEEEEFFFFF!”
— Great delivery from Jason on his rude line to LeBron just now: “You’re 22, right? Go sit at the kids table, have a juice box.”
— I laughed so hard at the book bit just now, with Jason randomly tossing LeBron a book instead of a basketball, which LeBron responds to by asking “What the hell is this?!?”, and Jason answers from off-camera by yelling “THAT’S A BOOK!”
— A particularly biting slam from Jason to LeBron: “We should get Dwyane Wade anyway, at least he’s got a ring.”
— I absolutely love the one-on-one game between LeBron and Jason, and how LeBron effortlessly shows Jason up and eventually gives him a much-deserved nosebleed.
— Fantastic sketch overall, and one of Jason’s all-time best.
STARS: *****


THE LYLE KANE SHOW
fellow dweebs (BIH) & (host) are out-of-place on BET

— The return of Will’s Lyle Kane character, after debuting just one episode ago in the preceding season’s finale. Interesting how not only has SNL made him recurring after only one episode, but he’s gotten spun-off from an ensemble sketch into his own sketch. I wish it wasn’t in the lazy and beyond-overused talk show format, but this Lyle Kane character seems like he can definitely still make the format of this sketch work.
— Already a laugh right at the start, with the theme music being badly played on a flute.
— This show being aired on BET, of all channels, is hilarious.
— I love how Lyle Kane keeps referring to BET as “the Black E.T. channel”.
— I said it before and I’ll say it again: the Forte/Hader duo is an underrated pairing that we should’ve seen much more often during their years in the cast together.
— Funny seeing LeBron talking in this type of voice and imitating Lyle Kane’s “Hi, derrrreee”s. For a non-actor, LeBron’s doing a good job in this goofy role.
— The “B.J.” question that LeBron relays to Lyle Kane is very funny, as is Lyle actually answering the question.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Stronger” & “Good Life”


WEEKEND UPDATE
O.J. Simpson (KET) defends the reclamation of one’s sold property

(MAR) translates Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s (FRA) affinity for mannish women

— A very different and much shorter hairstyle from Amy this season. And no, I’m pretty sure it’s not a wig. I remember how, somewhere around this time, her and Tina Fey filmed an interview for an HBO (or one of those channels) special that gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the movie Baby Mama (released the following year in 2008), and during the interview, Amy had the exact same short hairstyle she has in these early season 33 Weekend Updates.
— Ugh, THAT’S the joke they open this season of Update with?
— Maybe it’s just the visual quality of this new season in general, but the Update set and lighting look darker than usual tonight.
— The debut of Kenan’s O.J. Simpson impression.
— A laugh from Kenan-as-O.J.’s lightheartedly exasperated “Grrrrrr!” in reaction to Amy not understanding his point.
— Seth’s smiling delivery of “No” when Amy asks him if he understands O.J.’s logic was very funny.
— Something about the way Seth followed the 9/11 punchline of his Rudy Giuliani joke by silently mouthing the term “9/11” again and staring at the camera with a smarmy smile, all the while the audience was reacting to the punchline, felt VERY David Spade-esque. I can totally picture Spade doing that whole thing in a Hollywood Minute segment.
— Hmm, Fred’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears a second time tonight? They’ll never top his appearance in the Digital Short from earlier tonight.
— Meh, a predictable and not-very-funny comedic conceit of this Mahmoud commentary, with his description of his ideal woman turning out to just be a description of men. Yeah, they should’ve just left the number of Fred’s Mahmoud appearances tonight at 1, with that far-superior Digital Short.
— Some pretty solid jokes throughout this Update, despite some occasional clunkers from Amy.
STARS: ***½


BEST OF SOLID GOLD
DVD highlights Solid Gold Dancers (MAR), (KRW), (AMP), (WLF), (host)

— Kenan playing a very effeminate male character with the gag name C. Micah Kring (See My Cock Ring)? AND introducing a Solid Gold spoof? Yeah, I don’t need to ask which person in SNL’s writing staff penned THIS sketch.
— Very funny inclusion of LeBron, of all people, as a Solid Gold dancer.
— I feel bad for Will having to follow LeBron’s entrance, as he’ll never top that. Poor Will had to resort to lots of mugging into the camera during his entrance in an attempt to get any kind of reaction from the audience after the huge response they had just given LeBron.
— LeBron is killing it in this sketch. His performance, delivery, and facial expressions are providing the only real amusement, as the humor of the rest of this sketch has run out of steam fast.
STARS: **


TV FUNHOUSE
“First Served, First Come” by RBS- The Ambiguously Gay Duo foils loo trap

— This ends up being the second-to-last TV Funhouse during TV Funhouse’s regular run.
— Holy hell! The return of the Ambiguously Gay Duo after a very long hiatus! This is much-needed at this point, given how much the quality of TV Funhouse has diminished in this late stage of its SNL run (with a few exceptions).
— Hmm, they shortened the usual AGD theme song.
— A timely tie-in to the Larry Craig toe-tapping/bathroom stall scandal going on at this time.
— I’m no prude, but the constant shots of characters groaning and straining on the toilet while having diarrhea feels unnecessary and too desperate for laughs, though I am chuckling at the odd detail of how the police officer inexplicably still has his pants fully on while using the toilet (the last above screencap for this TV Funhouse).
— A nice subversion of the usual “What’s everyone looking at?” “Nothing!” bit in these AGD cartoons.
— For some bizarre reason, Maya’s headshot that was used for a special occasion in the ending credits of the preceding episode’s TV Funhouse (because it was assumed by many at SNL that Maya was leaving) is still left intact in the ending credits of tonight’s TV Funhouse, despite the fact that 1) tonight is obviously NOT Maya’s final episode, and 2) Maya didn’t even do a voice in this cartoon.
STARS: ***½


106 & PARK TOP TEN LIVE
failure to win awards induces tantrums in musical guest

— A very strong and well-remembered sketch, with Kanye West making fun of his own penchant for interrupting people’s acceptance speeches at awards shows. The even funnier thing about that in hindsight is the fact that this sketch is two years before Kanye’s most infamous interruption of an acceptance speech: the Taylor Swift one at the 2009 MTV VMAs, which I guess proves that, while Kanye was certainly a great sport to do this 106 & Park sketch back in 2007, he did not learn his lesson AT ALL. I guess no matter what, Kanye’s gonna Kanye.
— Kanye: “I used to believe the children were our future…but (*bleep*) that!”
— For some reason, Bill’s very dry, droll, deep voice during his speech in the Nobel Peace Prize scene is cracking me the hell up, especially his delivery of the name George F. Smoot. (Then again, George F. Smoot is a funny name in itself.)
— The quiet and dignified Nobel Peace Prize ceremony suddenly getting crashed by Kanye yelling a very loud and jarring “AW, HELL NAH!” had me freakin’ howling.
— The pumpkin scene is particularly funny, especially the champagne in Kanye’s pumpkin.
— Despite the repetitive, one-note nature of this sketch, it’s still working very much for me. It’s all in the execution, and Kanye is perfect here.
— I like the meta turn with Kanye being shown backstage at SNL angrily ranting in his dressing room over the fact that LeBron is hosting instead of him. This is also rather prescient, as Kanye would later infamously end up going through a real-life angry backstage rant at SNL in his 2016 appearance (in an episode hosted by Melissa McCarthy), when finding out SNL’s crew changed the design of the musical guest stage after rehearsals without asking him in advance. (Audio of this rant was leaked online shortly after the episode aired.) This has probably been forgotten by most people in the wake of Kanye’s far-more-infamous onstage post-goodnights political rant at SNL two years later (in a season premiere hosted by Adam Driver).
— Kanye: “Man, give a black man…give a SHORT black man a chance!”
— Maya’s sign-off at the end seemed like it should’ve been funnier, instead of just the line “More screamiiiiiiiin’!” But I guess it doesn’t matter, when the rest of this sketch was as strong as it was.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Champion” & “Everything I Am”


GREAT MOMENTS IN GUIDANCE COUNSELING
(JAS) steers host away from college

— Great to see another big Jason Sudeikis showcase tonight, after the fantastic Read To Achieve sketch from earlier tonight.
— Hilarious reveal of Jason sharing an office with a meek Will.
— Wow, SNL’s camerawork is an absolute MESS during this sketch. Not only does the camera constantly keep mistakenly cutting to close-ups of the wrong person when someone else is speaking, but we get one PARTICULARLY bad and jarring gaffe at one point, where the camera accidentally briefly cuts away from this sketch to a darkened part of SNL’s studio (screencap below), completely ruining the gag where Jason takes his diploma off the wall and dismissively throws it onto the floor. WTF?!?

Ehh, I chalk all the camera gaffes in this sketch up to the fact that this is a season premiere, and SNL’s control room crew understandably must be a little rusty after their summer break. I also assume that’s the reason for Don Pardo’s mic issues during the opening montage earlier tonight.
— I am absolutely loving Jason’s performance here.
— I like Jason’s constant threats to Will every time Will says something.
— Keeping up the bad technical issues in this sketch, this sketch ends in a very awkward manner, as if the people in the control room didn’t know when to fade out of the sketch. There’s actually a reason for this. This sketch was supposed to end with a brief preview of another “Great Moments in Guidance Counseling” scene, where a young Kanye West (complete with nerdy glasses and a high-pitched voice) is given advice by his high school guidance counselor, played by Kenan, but the show ran long and was forced to cut that ending scene at the very last minute. During the goodnights, both Kanye and Kenan can even be seen wearing their outfits for this sketch, which just goes to show you how last-minute the decision to cut their scene was. I’m not 100% sure, but I think in reruns of this episode, SNL would insert the original Kanye/Kenan ending scene from the dress rehearsal version of this sketch. I can’t remember if that rerun replaces this entire sketch in general with the dress version, but I assume it does, given the aforementioned bad camera gaffes that kept happening all throughout the live version of it.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good start to the season, and there was a nice number of strong sketches, including an all-time favorite of mine (Read To Achieve). LeBron James was also pretty good for an athlete host.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2006-07)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Seth Rogen

Posted on

May 19, 2007 – Zach Braff / Maroon 5 (S32 E20)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PUPPET BUSH
George W. Bush (JAS) perversely feels vindicated by Iraq failures

— This ends up being the last time we’ll be seeing Jason’s Bush for over a year (he completely skips season 33). I will not miss seeing these tepidly-written straight-to-camera Bush-addresses-the-nation pieces that Jason often gets stuck with.
— An odd but pretty funny first cutaway to Darrell’s Dick Cheney silently giving Jason’s Bush a thumbs-up.
— The occasional cutaways to Darrell’s Cheney are getting old, but are sadly the funniest thing to me in this cold opening so far.
— I like Darrell’s Cheney missing from the cutaway to him after Jason-as-Bush’s remark about critics being right about the Bush administration conducting the Iraq war incompetently.
— Maya’s Condoleezza Rice randomly being thrown into the end of this and saying “Live from New York…” was taken at the time by online SNL fans (including myself) as one of many signs in tonight’s season finale that this is Maya’s final episode. We would end up being wrong about that, but I do believe that Maya did originally intend this to be her final episode. From what I remember hearing, her coming back the following season was a late-in-the-summer decision she made only as a favor to Lorne, who asked her to come back because he wasn’t satisfied with any of the women he auditioned that summer to fill in Maya’s spot in the cast. The announcement of Maya being in the season 33 cast wasn’t even made until literally just two or three days before that season premiered, which is insane. And, IIRC, when she initially signed a contract for that season, she didn’t sign for a full season, which is why she bails after the writers strike starts a few episodes into that season. (She doesn’t even appear in the special Michael Cera-hosted writers strike SNL episode at the UCB Theater.)
STARS: **


MONOLOGUE
proud of his place of birth, host is in a “New Jersey State Of Mind”

— When mentioning the characters he would see on SNL when staying up to watch the show as a kid, I love that Zach Braff mentions Toonces alongside Church Lady.
— I don’t think I’m going to care for this monologue, and not just because it’s another musical one. I’m not caring for the insider New Jersey premise.
— The inclusion of the cast dressed as New Jersey landmarks was somewhat fun, but was too brief to salvage this monologue.
STARS: **


PUPPY LOVE
apartment-seeker (ANS) falls in love with (host)’s talking dog

— Wow, a Digital Short right after the monologue? That’s new.
— Funny voice of the seductive dog. Who IS that doing the voice anyway? It doesn’t sound like a cast member. Is it perhaps Jorma Taccone or Akiva Schaffer?
— I love Andy’s mock-dramatic delivery of “You used me.”
— Blah at the ending with Andy making out with the dog in slow-mo. Could’ve done without that, even if that was the only logical conclusion of this.
STARS: ***


PROM COMMITTEE
popular (MAR) & (AMP) quash prom theme ideas of Lyle Kane (WLF) & others

— Funny bit regarding why Amy and Maya’s characters are each called B.J.
— The debut of Will’s short-lived but very funny Lyle Kane character, who I admit I’ve completely forgotten about until now.
— Ugh, I don’t like the idea of Zach’s tongue-in-cheek, meta Garden State-obsessed character. Between the monologue and this sketch, Zach has been kinda putting me off as a host. Something seems really self-indulgent about him.
— A fun ensemble piece with everyone in the cast each getting their own chance in the spotlight.
— While the celibacy bit with Kristen and a sexually-tense Bill feels kinda derivative for SNL, it’s being executed well, especially Bill’s reaction to Kristen innocently touching his back.
— Random inclusion of Darrell as a Sean Connery lookalike, even if it does tie into the 007 prom theme. Funny line from him, though, about the two B.J.s.
STARS: ****


DEEP HOUSE DISH
(MAR), (host), (AMP) & (WLF) perform quirky jams

— I admit to laughing at the exaggerated quivery laugh Kenan did in response to a joke from Andy, even though it feels like Kenan’s done stuff like that ad nauseam during his SNL tenure.
— I think there’s been a Dora The Explorer reference in just about EVERY episode in the last quarter of this season, which I guess shows how big that show was at this time. An interesting time capsule in hindsight.
— Amy continues her streak of appearing as a different singer in every single Deep House Dish sketch to air up to this point.
— Ha, a Deep House Dish musical performance is actually making me laugh for once: the Brown Eye song with Amy and Will. Catchy beat to it, too.
— The voice Amy’s using during her and Will’s post-song interview is basically a variation of her Rosie Perez voice.
— Something about Will’s accented delivery of “It’s so obvious!” was hilarious.
STARS: **


TV FUNHOUSE
by RBS- on Oprah, presidential candidates air shocking revelations

— Feels a little weird to hear an impression of early-era Barack Obama, before the days when people started noticing his distinct vocal mannerisms. As expected, whoever’s voicing Obama in this cartoon is using a pretty generic voice for him.
— Some pretty funny revelations from the candidates, especially Obama’s real name, and both of Bill Richardson’s halves being Mexican.
— For some reason, Oprah’s facial expressions in this cartoon are making me laugh.
— The violent brief fight between John McCain and Rudy Giuliani feels like a throwback to early TV Funhouses, back when humor like that was much more common in these cartoons of Robert Smigel’s.
— Clearly, Smigel must’ve gotten word that this is potentially Maya’s final episode, as he includes a headshot of her in the ending credits of this TV Funhouse.
— Overall, a rare good cartoon during these waning days of TV Funhouse. It felt good to consistently laugh for most of this, after how weak the last few TV Funhouses prior to this were.
STARS: ***½


SONG MEMORIES
“The Weight” evokes creepy memories in (host) & other icky reminiscers

— This sketch has officially become recurring.
— Hilarious punchline to Jason’s oral sex story.
— I like how every song in these Song Memories sketches reminds Bill of “muh dad”.
— Another great punchline, this time to Will’s drunk-driving story.
— Blah, what’s with Zach’s story immediately being about him mailing people his own poop? That’s too dumb and blunt even for the silly nature of these Song Memories sketches. Not even the Rachael Ray punchline could save Zach’s story.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Makes Me Wonder”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Aunt Linda isn’t going to enjoy the upcoming summer blockbusters

Sam Waterston (FRA) objects to AMP’s Law & Order joke

Whitney Houston (MAR) celebrates summer with cocaine brownies

— Meh, Aunt Linda once again. Thankfully, this ends up being the last time we’ll be seeing her for a long while, as she’ll be joining Jason’s Bush impression on a year-long hiatus.
— At least Aunt Linda’s commentaries are getting shorter and shorter lately, which almost seems to be the writers admitting the thinness and diminishing returns of these pieces.
— Wow, Amy’s surprisingly been having some strong jokes tonight. Usually, Seth gets the better jokes.
— Fred’s Sam Waterston impression always cracks me up, and I like how they kept this appearance brief and simple.
— Ha, a reminder of ABC’s ill-fated decision to make a TV series out of those Geico caveman ads from this time.
— I think that’s Colin Jost I’m seeing in the punchline photo to Seth’s soccer joke just now (the fifth-to-last above screencap for this Weekend Update). Funny to see him on Update in this capacity years before he would become an Update anchor.
— Another meh, as we get the return of Maya’s Whitney Houston, who’s been pretty insufferable in most of her appearances this season.
— A rare instance of breaking from Maya when she randomly calls Amy what sounded like “Seth Meyers”. Possibly another sign tonight that Maya was potentially on her way out.
— And now we get yet another sign of Maya’s potential departure, as her Whitney randomly returns to the Update set at the very end of this Update after Amy and Seth’s sign-off to be embraced by Amy and Seth with a big hug and what appeared to practically be a dry-hump session on the Update desk right before the camera faded to black.
STARS: ***


LA RIVISTA DELLA TELEVISIONE CON VINNY VEDECCI
host & Vinny Vedecci fight language barrier

— Another sketch tonight that has officially become recurring.
— Bill continues to be an absolute riot as this character.
— Great to see Bill work in his funny Peter Falk vocal impression that he last did on Weekend Update in his very first episode.
— A good laugh from the Scrubs clip being re-dubbed into a deep Italian drama.
— Quite a lot of projectile vomiting in the last quarter of this season. I do love the way Vinny Vedecci responds to the vomiting in this sketch by saying “She vomit! In your face!”
STARS: ****


BRONX BEAT WITH BETTY AND JODI
unpaid production intern (host) fills in for a no-show

— A Bronx Beat sketch airing THIS late in the show, around 12:40? After the previous installments of this sketch all appeared with the first 15 minutes of the show? Wow. I take this as an admission from SNL that tonight’s Bronx Beat is not up to snuff and/or must’ve received a poor audience reaction at dress rehearsal.
— This sketch feels really rushed so far, and a lot of the usual beats from Amy and Maya’s characters feel kinda half-assed tonight.
— I did get a laugh just now from Amy’s “balls of garbage” line during the bit about how restaurants make meatballs.
— A few laughs during Amy and Maya’s interview with Zach, but this still feels below par for a Bronx Beat sketch.
— I cracked up at Maya randomly saying “I’m sicka seein’ Tony Soprano doin’ it” at the end of this sketch.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Won’t Go Home Without You”


MELISSA
homely receptionist Melissa (FRA) displays her infatuation with host

— Ugh, we’re closing the season with a random Fred-in-drag sketch?
— I think I recall hearing this got cut from an earlier season, but I forgot who the host in the sketch was.
— Maya appearing in a prominent role in yet another sketch tonight is yet another sign that this was potentially her final episode.
— Boy, this sketch is awful, and feels like a really unfortunate precursor to the typical annoying work that Fred would often do in his later seasons. A shame, considering I generally still like him by this point of his tenure.
— Aaaaaaaaand as if this sketch wasn’t already bad enough, both it and this season in general closes with one of the cheapest, desperate, hackiest attempts at a laugh ever: a man-on-man kiss. Not to mention it’s the second segment tonight to end with a cheap, unconventional kiss (the Digital Short being the first one).
— Overall, wow, this has got to be one of worst season-ending sketches in SNL history. Can’t think of any time prior to this where I gave the final sketch of a season a measly one-star rating. I guess the Bag Lady short film from the end of the final episode of season 6 comes close (if memory serves correct, I gave it one-and-a-half stars), but that episode wasn’t an official season finale.
STARS: *


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty forgettable season finale, and an unexciting way to end this season. There was some good stuff tonight, but barely anything stood out as particularly strong, there was too heavy a reliance on rehashed sketches, and the episode ended with one of the worst season-ending sketches in SNL history.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Molly Shannon)
a big step down


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


HOW THIS OVERALL SEASON STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2005-06)
a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 33 begins, with host LeBron James

Posted on

May 12, 2007 – Molly Shannon / Linkin Park (S32 E19)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

AMERICAN IDOL
Mary Katherine Gallagher crashes American Idol & sings “Brass In Pocket”

— For whatever reason, Bill has replaced Seth as SNL’s Ryan Seacrest impersonator, despite the fact that Seth had last played Seacrest just earlier this same season in a rare non-Weekend Update appearance.
— Funny constant fake-outs and mind games from Bill’s Seacrest to Maya’s Melinda Doolittle, regarding whether she’s safe or eliminated.
— Feels interesting reviewing a Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch for the first time in many seasons.
— This is a good setting for MKG.
— I love the cutaway shot of Amy’s Paula Abdul after MKG mentions that Paula’s never drunk, just naturally drowsy.
— Molly’s hitting all the familiar MKG beats here, but she’s doing it well, and it’s coming off particularly fun and infectious tonight, possibly because of Molly’s return to the show and the fact that we hadn’t seen MKG in so long.
— Particularly strong delivery from Molly during her Jackson Five movie monologue.
— Kinda odd how all of the pratfalls in this MKG sketch are being done by other performers instead of Molly. I doubt she’s not up to the physical task of doing pratfalls anymore by this point.
— Solid “Live from New York…” delivery from Molly.
STARS: ****


OPENING MONTAGE
— Don Pardo accidentally bills Linkin Park as “special guest” instead of “musical guest”.


MONOLOGUE
’90s flashback shows MOS’s crush on LOM ending with a broken heart

— Molly’s expressed excitement for getting to host is very endearing.
— Some fun talk from Molly about her days as a cast member.
— I’m loving the pre-taped flashback scene between Molly and Lorne, complete with lots of fun 90s references.
— Great background details in Lorne’s office to make it convincingly look like 90s SNL, such as having individual photos of late 90s cast members on the wall behind Molly, a collage of bumper photos of 90s hosts seen next to Lorne (one minor nitpick though: the Charlie Sheen and Mena Suvari bumpers are from after the 90s), and the index cards on the corkboard of host/musical guest line-ups being episodes from season 24.
— I only wish the overall pre-taped flashback scene worked in a brief appearance from Darrell, since he’s the only 90s cast member who’s still on the show at this point in 2007. Having him in a 90s wig briefly interrupt Lorne and Molly’s conversation to tell Molly they need her for the rehearsal of a sketch would’ve been fun and a nice nod to Darrell’s longevity in the cast.
STARS: ****


URIGRO
Rerun from 1/20/07


TENANT MEETING
Penelope’s competitive behavior alienates her neighbors at tenant meeting

— I’m starting to notice how interesting it feels seeing Molly interacting with cast members she never worked with during her years as a cast member.
— Penelope’s entrance already gets some faint recognition applause, despite this being only her second sketch.
— Good gag with Penelope suddenly appearing opposite of the side of Jason she was standing in a few seconds prior.
— The Penelope routine continues to work for me so far in these early Peneople sketches, despite it’s one-note nature.
— A particularly funny line from Penelope about her recently-deceased cat being her baby who she gave birth to.
— They managed to top the Peyton-Manning-imitates-Penelope’s-habit-to-show-her-how-annoying-she-is bit from the first installment of this sketch by having Molly actually imitating Penelope’s voice and mannerisms while imitating her habit.
— An interesting otherworldly bit at the end with Penelope actually turning invisible like she claimed she could earlier in the sketch. IIRC, SNL would go on to do variations of that at the end of subsequent Penelope sketches.
STARS: ***½


THE FRINGE CANDIDATES DEBATE
Dan Rather (DAH) moderates debate of fringe presidential candidates

— A promising and fun-seeming idea.
— Will perfectly playing yet another creepy, boundaries-pushing child predator character, this time a NAMBLA member. I absolutely love the seedy casual look on his face.
— Yet another sketch featuring hilarious dancing from Jason.
— Poor timing from Andy, accidentally delivering his opening line too early when Darrell’s Dan Rather hadn’t finished introducing him yet, leading to awkward dead air after Darrell does finish introducing him.
— I like Darrell-as-Dan-Rather’s facial reaction to Molly’s Jews line.
— Boy, have I gotten sick of Fred frequently playing stock middle-eastern stereotype roles, which, by this point of his SNL tenure, he can do in his sleep.
— Maya’s loud laugh-speaking right now is really annoying, though it does cause Darrell to break.
— The mechanical devices in Maya’s wig are resulting in occasional distracting whirring noises being heard in the background while some of the other cast members are speaking. It’s particularly noticeable during Bill’s speech as Tony Blair.
STARS: ***½


THE SOPRANOS
Sally O’Malley auditions for dancer job at Bada Bing! Club

— Jason’s mannerisms at the beginning of this sketch are cracking me up.
— Another interesting instance tonight of a Molly Shannon recurring character being placed in a TV show spoof. I’m liking this use of her characters tonight.
— Watching and reviewing this Sally O’Malley sketch makes me feel like it’s 2000 or 2001 again. I love that nostalgic feeling, and it’s making me feel strangely kinda giddy, despite me never having been a fan of this character back when she regularly appeared. It’s funny how nostalgia works sometimes.
— A particularly boundary-pushing visual of Sally O’Malley’s camel toe right now, completely topping the cameo toe visuals from previous Sally O’Malley sketches. A funny moment, and I love the reaction to it from the audience and the Sopranos characters.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “What I’ve Done”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Comedy Cul-De-Sac- Jeannie Darcy does stand-up on her relationship woes

disorientation thwarts demonstration by blind barbecue expert Pep Walters

What’s in a Word?- SEM & AMP debate the propriety of “panties” & “nipple”

— Great to see the return of Jeannie Darcy, one of Molly’s best recurring characters, despite her 1) not being as universally well-known as some of her other recurring characters (I’m assuming), and 2) debuting towards the very end of her SNL tenure, which was at a time when she was seemingly past her prime on SNL and giving a lot of weak performances.
— I like Seth’s exaggerated amusement over Jeannie Darcy’s bad, stiff jokes.
— Funny how we’re getting TWO intentionally bad stand-up comics in tonight’s Update, with us now getting Fred’s blind comedian character, Pep Walters.
— A laugh from Pep Walters accidentally flinging his steak off-camera.
— There’s the obligatory instance of the “a blind Fred Armisen blocks the camera after his Update commentary” gag. It’s still working for me by this point of Fred’s SNL tenure.
— Seth never did finish that Iran soccer joke of his that Pep Walters interrupted by blocking the camera. I’m surprised they didn’t just have Seth do the traditional tree frog joke that always gets interrupted.
— An interesting “What’s In A Word” segment, and I like Seth’s lines during it.
STARS: ***½


KAITLIN ENTERTAINS
Kaitlin’s equally-hyper mom (MOS) misses performance at an old-folks home

— Feels a little odd to see the return tonight of a non-Molly Shannon recurring character who’s been on a hiatus.
— It also feels odd seeing a Rick-less Kaitlin sketch; the only one in SNL history, as this ends up being the final Kaitlin sketch. SNL writes Rick out of this sketch by explaining he’s waiting outside in the car.
— I love Kaitlin quickly going through each decade from the 1920s to then-present day during her “This is your life” presentation to the senior citizens.
— I’m a little surprised this sketch is still working for me without the Rick character.
— I had been wondering where Molly was. Interesting use of her as Kaitlin’s similar-traited mother. It’s odd, though, that Molly didn’t appear until the end of this sketch, but at the same time, I kinda like that, as it makes it feel like she’s just a cast member again instead of a host.
— Speaking of it feeling like Molly’s a cast member again, the shirt she’s wearing in this sketch is the same one she once wore over a decade earlier in the Russell & Tate sketch from the season 22 episode hosted by another former cast member, interestingly enough: Dana Carvey (side-by-side comparison below).

   

STARS: ***


MACGRUBER
dirty bomb threat is eclipsed by MacGruber’s urge to make a Bloody Mary

— MacGruber has officially become recurring.
— Feels rare to see a MacGruber sketch with the non-Maya Rudolph/Kristen Wiig assistant role being played by a female host instead of a male one. The only other instance of that I can think of is with Betty White, but maybe I’m forgetting something.
— Funny reveal of MacGruber making a drink right before the explosion happens.
STARS: ***½


TV FUNHOUSE
“Tales From The Greatest Generation” by RBS- big-boobed Einstein is ogled

— A questionable premise to base a TV Funhouse on.
— The Franklin D. Roosevelt scene is actually very funny.
— Feels a little odd hearing Bill Hader’s voice in a TV Funhouse, I guess because it’s easy to forget that Bill’s SNL tenure overlapped with TV Funhouse’s tenure for a while. Speaking of which, is Bill doing the voice of practically ALL the characters in tonight’s cartoon? Sure sounds like it. What happened? Could Robert Smigel not afford to pay a lot of voice actors for this particular cartoon, so he had to resort to using a single SNL cast member to do almost all of the voices? If so, this is yet ANOTHER sign that TV Funhouse is dying.
— Overall, meh. Some individual laughs from the silliness of this, but as a whole, no. This continues the limping that Smigel has been making towards the finish line of his TV Funhouse tenure. A shame to see this happen to such a formerly-reliable SNL segment.
STARS: **


THE OAK ROOM
Charli Coffee shares the stage with fellow boozehound Toni Carlisle (MOS)

— The very random return of a forgotten one-time sketch Maya did two years prior in the season 30 Tom Brady episode. I hated this sketch the first time, but maybe I’ll be more lenient on it this time, because, unlike the first installment of this sketch, tonight’s installment is thankfully airing outside of a season where Maya did annoying, hammy singing sketches like this on a weekly basis.
— Maya’s delivery during her stories reminds me a lot of Alec Baldwin’s Tony Bennett. I’m kinda liking that.
— Molly’s delivery is fitting for this type of role and sketch, and I like the way she and Maya are playing off of each other.
— Not too many laughs here, but it doesn’t seem to be attempting them, aside from the occasional comedic lines from/about Kenan’s character. I like how this sketch is going for a more low-key, realistic, slice-of-life feel, as opposed to the first installment, which made a lot of bad attempts at wacky humor (especially the running bit with Maya’s pratfalls over tables and pianos). Tonight’s installment is a big improvement.
STARS: ***


MACGRUBER
MacGruber’s drunken guitar playing takes precedence over hydrogen crisis

— I like how tonight’s episode is introducing the concept of each MacGruber short having new theme song lyrics that pertain to the plot of that night’s MacGruber’s shorts, instead of just using the same generic theme song for each short.
— A solid progression to tonight’s MacGruber shorts, with MacGruber’s increasingly drunk state.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Bleed It Out”


TRUMP STEAKS
Donald (DAH) & Melania (MOS) Trump pitch co-branded Sharper Image steaks

— Darrell seems much more prominent than usual in tonight’s episode. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that his former cast mate Molly Shannon is hosting.
— A lot of steaks in tonight’s episode, between the Pep Walters bit on Weekend Update and now this.
— A laugh from Darrell-as-Trump’s “black anus beef” malaprop.
— Overall, not bad. Short and harmless enough, especially compared to some other Trump sketches from around this time that haven’t aged well.
STARS: ***


MACGRUBER
MacGruber’s shirtless hamburger-eating stupor mirrors David Hasselhoff

— Particularly hilarious theme song lyrics in this.
— A very funny, spot-on, and timely spoof of the then-new viral video of a drunken David Hasselhoff.
— I strangely love Molly’s off-camera delivery of the line “The bomb you made when you were DRUNK!”
— Very funny how the obligatory explosion of this MacGruber short happens out of nowhere when MacGruber is quietly in the middle of eating his burger.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty solid and fun episode, with almost nothing I disliked. Molly Shannon played a big part in the fun vibe this episode had, and it was nice to see her back on SNL, doing good work. Despite being surrounded by a mostly-different cast than the one from her SNL tenure, Molly blended back into the show really well tonight. The energy and nostalgia in the air during this episode made some of Molly’s recurring characters come off even better than usual, particularly Mary Katherine Gallagher and Sally O’Malley.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Scarlett Johansson)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 32 comes to an end, with host Zach Braff

Posted on

April 21, 2007 – Scarlett Johansson / Bjork (S32 E18)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE
evasive George W. Bush (JAS) lets Chuck Schumer-on-tape [real] start show

— At least this is a President Bush press conference that has him interacting with reporters instead of delivering a barely-funny straight-to-camera speech once again.
— Jason-as-Bush’s random nicknames for the reporters are increasingly funny.
— This cold opening is dying for me during the back-and-forth between Jason’s Bush and Maya, and the audience apparently agrees with me, judging from their silence.
— Meh at the bit with the brainteasers book.
— Even the nicknames bit that I praised earlier in this cold opening has now gotten old.
— Kristen’s list of demands has some funny lines, and is being well-delivered by her.
— Jesus Christ, this cold opening has been going on for eight minutes. EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES, PEOPLE! That is absolutely ridiculous for something that contains material as scant and weak as this. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: Jim Downey is given WAY too much free rein during these past-his-prime years of his SNL run. Lorne needs to realize that this is long past the days where Downey’s political writing was always reliable.
— An extremely random pre-taped Chuck Schumer cameo, just there to say “Live from New York…”.
STARS: *½


MONOLOGUE
host cheers Sanjaya Malakar (ANS) with “Something To Talk About” duet

— The return of Andy’s topical Sanjaya impression.
— Meh, a musical monologue.
— Some fairly interesting and impressively-fast hair changes from Andy all throughout the song. Not sure how they’re pulling those changes off so quickly. Unfortunately, that’s the only semi-interesting thing going on during this song.
STARS: *½


LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
Ivanka Trump (host) plugs away

— Wow, they haven’t done this sketch in years. The last time it appeared was when Donald Trump hosted (*shudder*) back in season 29. This also ends up being the final Regis & Kelly sketch that has Darrell and Amy. There would later be at least one Regis & Kelly installment with different performers playing the roles.
— Funny cutaway to Fred as Howie Mandel on standby in case Regis can’t go on with the show. And at least this means SNL refrained from having Chris Kattan do another cameo as Gelman, or resort to giving the Gelman role to a current cast member (I still can’t believe they stuck Rachel Dratch with that role last time this sketch appeared.)
— Speaking of Donald Trump, it feels kinda odd in retrospect seeing Scarlett debut her Ivanka Trump impression 10 years before it would become a regular role she’d play on SNL.
— Amy’s crying as Kelly Ripa right now actually looks very convincing.
— Okay, the cutaways to Fred’s Mandel are way too frequent. It ain’t funny anymore.
STARS: ***


PROM DRESS SHOPPING
Virginiaca helps stepdaughter (host) shop for hootchie-worthy prom dress

— Ugh, another Virginiaca sketch. And she’s now getting recognition applause from the audience?
— I once again ask: how many white stepdaughters does this character have?
— Once again, I can find nothing to really say during this sketch, except it’s the usual insufferable Virginiaca tripe.
STARS: *


ROY RULES!
ANS has more than a mancrush on his brother-in-law

— Interesting seeing Lonely Island take on 70s/80s heavy metal for once instead of the music genres they typically cover.
— Good use of SNL writer Bryan Tucker.
— The “24/7 69” lyric was very funny.
— I love the random, brief key change in the song, with Andy comically singing in a tender manner while playing piano.
STARS: ***½


MIKE’S MARBLEOPOLIS
Chandelier Galaxy scion Lexi (host) touts classiness of marble columns

— The second installment of this series of sketches, becoming a staple of Scarlett Johansson’s early episodes.
— Fred’s distinct, exaggerated, New York-accented delivery of “Maww-ble cahh-lums” is probably his funniest pronunciation of the product being sold out of all of the installments in this recurring sketch.
STARS: ***½


WIIX NEWS
Michelle Dison’s lesbian leanings resurface during interview with (host)

— The real-life TV station name used in the first installment of this sketch earlier this season, WVIR, has been changed to an apparently fictional TV station name in tonight’s installment: WIIX, which is apparently a play on Kristen’s real-life last name. Presumably, the reason for the change in station names is because WVIR is a Virginia station, and the infamous Virginia Tech school shooting had happened just a few days before this episode, and thus, SNL apparently felt it would’ve been in poor taste to use Virginia’s TV station name during this tragic time.
— It’s mentioned that Kristen’s Michelle Dison character is returning from a leave of absence she had taken for about 6 months, which I assume is continuity from the end of the first installment of this sketch, as that installment aired about 6-7 months prior to this.
— Between the Roy Rules short and Kristen’s bi-curious tendencies in this sketch, there seems to be a bit of a theme going on in tonight’s episode.
— I love Scarlett’s taken-aback delivery of “I…I don’t know what’s going on” when bombarded with a whole bunch of friendly-but-way-too-forward offers from an awkwardly flirtatious Michelle Dison.
— The random cat attack ending felt very inferior compared to the bird poop ending from the first installment of this sketch.
— Overall, this was basically just a re-write of the first installment of this sketch. It still worked for me, mostly due to Kristen’s good execution of the material, but this installment paled in comparison to the first installment.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Earth Intruders”


WEEKEND UPDATE
incredulous SEM & AMP say “Really!?!” to Alberto Gonzales’ amnesia

for Earth Day, WLF sings about the wonderful planet we live on

— Two big changes of pace right out of the gate in this Update: Amy’s hairstyle, and Seth getting to deliver the opening joke for, I believe, the first time ever.
— Boy, Bryan Tucker is getting lots of face time tonight (the third above screencap for this Weekend Update).
— Good to see the “Really?!?” segment from earlier this season return.
— Much like the last “Really?!?” prior to this, we get some more great barbs from Seth and Amy, though these aren’t as memorable as the ones from the Michael Vick-themed “Really?!?” from earlier this season.
— Yes! Another Will Forte Update song!
— Like Will’s last Update song prior to this, he gets assistance from a guitar-playing Fred.
— Very funny lyrics from Will about what bad things he does towards the planet.
— Pretty funny turn in Will’s song with him now singing the praises of the movie Battlefield Earth.
— Pretty nice hearing the audience get involved in clapping the beat of Will’s song.
STARS: ***


KUATOS
male (ANS) & female (host) Kuatos gross out dinner guests (FRA) & (AMP)

— This is now the THIRD recurring sketch tonight that debuted in this season’s Jaime Pressly episode. (The other two being Virginiaca and Michelle Dison.) I remember when tonight’s episode originally aired, I worriedly asked myself during this Kuato sketch, “What next? The return of that godforsaken Big Wigs sketch?”
— Not sure we needed to see a second installment of this Kuato thing. I still don’t know what to make of the first installment of it.
— Scarlett as a female Kuato? Meh.
— So far, I don’t think I’ve laughed a single time during this sketch yet.
— Fred: “I do NOT like where this is going.” That makes two of us, knowing in retrospect what this sketch is leading up to.
— Aaaaand there it goes. Why has this sketch suddenly turned into Rookie Cop 2.0, with the chain reaction of vomiting? The original Rookie Cop sketch is actually a guilty pleasure of mine, as fully disclosed in my review of it, but I certainly didn’t need this Kuato sketch to turn into some kind of pale version of it.
— Ugh, as if the parade of vomiting wasn’t bad enough, now SNL throws another appearance from Darrell’s fucking Ahnuld impression at us to close out this mess.
STARS: *


NEWS MAKERS WITH JANE PAULEY
Jane Pauley (KRW) interviews stars of viral online videos

— Shortly into the small scene with Fred as the dancing little person, I got a laugh from Kristen’s Jane Pauley just saying “Aaaaaand let’s just end the interview there.” Speaking of which, according to Fred in a blog he had on NBC.com’s SNL site back around 2007/2008, the dress rehearsal version of this sketch had MULTIPLE cutaways to him as the dancing little person all throughout the sketch. Fred was bummed to learn after dress rehearsal that SNL was cutting down the number of his scenes in this sketch to just one. I think SNL did us a favor with that decision.
— I love Kristen’s Jane Pauley questioning the bad puns she’s reading off the teleprompter.
— Boy, I haven’t seen that Grape-Stomping Lady video in ages.
— Another blast from the past, with Will’s spoof of the Star Wars Kid video that was popular back in this era.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
“Torboto” by RBS- at Guantanamo Bay, torturing robot does the dirty work

— Damn, that is a great theme song.
— A spoof of the old Anime series Gigantor, which I’m not all that familiar with, though I’m at least familiar enough with its animation to know that this spoof is doing a spot-on imitation of that animation.
— The Amish part was pretty funny.
— All of the torture the robot is doing to the prisoners feels like a poor man’s version of the Shazzang cartoon from the Will Ferrell-hosted season 30 episode.
— I don’t get the cat/tree/reassignment thing Torboto did at the end of this.
— Overall, I’m pretty meh on this. Aside from the classic Maraka cartoon, Robert Smigel hasn’t had a good track record lately as we head towards the end of his TV Funhouse run on SNL.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Wanderlust”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An off episode, and the first episode I disliked in what feels like a long time (which at least shows how well this season had been going). Among the problems of this episode: none of the sketches stood out to me as strong (the highest rating I gave out was just a mere three-and-a-half stars, though I may soon change the Roy Rules rating to four stars, as I’m having a hard time deciding which rating I personally feel it deserves), there was a lot of unnecessary rehashing of about 30% of the sketches from the not-all-that-great Jaime Pressly episode, some of the non-recurring stuff was also weak, and the overall show had a very forgettable feel. Not a particularly awful episode, but mediocre for this season’s standards.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Shia LaBeouf)
a big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Molly Shannon