Author: Stooge

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December 2, 2006 – Matthew Fox / Tenacious D (S32 E7)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

IRAQ PRESS CONFERENCE
Prime Minister al-Maliki (FRA) indicates Iraq is even worse than it seems

— It certainly feels quite odd seeing Will standing across from Jason’s President Bush, considering Jason had recently started replacing Will in that role.
— Oh, god, a translator cold opening? I see Jim Downey strikes once again.
— Yeah, Downey’s dry comedic style is all over Will’s dialogue. This is the type of dryness that worked in spades back in Downey’s prime, but in these later, past-his-prime years of Downey’s tenure, especially in damn translator cold openings, that dry style is often a slog to get through, despite some occasional genuine laughs in tonight’s cold opening, like the flashlights line, and the line about a mouse bomb blowing a guy’s toe off.
STARS: **


MONOLOGUE
floundering Michael Richards (BIH) wants to share SNL gig with host

— The SNL nerd in me has to nitpick how, when talking about his Party Of Five co-stars, Matthew Fox claims Jennifer Love Hewitt hosted before Scott Wolf, when it was actually the other way around.
— I like the dark turn with Matthew detailing the downward spiral he went through just from being the odd man out in terms of Party Of Five stars hosting while that show was still on.
— To nitpick even further, Matthew’s technically not even the odd man out in terms of Party Of Five stars hosting. Lacey Chabert, anyone? Maybe they’re not counting her because of how young she was during Party Of Five’s run (though it’s not like SNL hasn’t had children or especially teens host over the years).
— Pretty fun bit with Matthew’s mention of other members of sitcom ensembles who were the odd man out in terms of hosting SNL.
— A killer impression of Michael-Richards-as-Kramer from Bill, on the heels of Michael Richards’ notorious Laugh Factory incident. I remember Bill later disclosing in an interview that he didn’t even have a Kramer impression in his back pocket before the week of this episode. When this monologue was being concocted, an SNL writer (or someone in the show’s staff) just pointed at Bill and told him “You’re Kramer”, presumably because of Bill’s knack for great celebrity impressions, and the writer was adamant about keeping Bill in the role even after Bill explained he doesn’t have a Kramer impression. Bill then had to study Kramer in a whole bunch of Seinfeld clips in order to get the impression down by that weekend. The fact that he only had a few days to put this Kramer impression together makes it all the more impressive how much he’s nailing it here.
STARS: ***½


SALE MART
overworked & underpaid Sale Mart employees pass savings along to customers

— A big laugh from Kenan’s messed-up teeth.
— This is over already?!? This felt too short, and I had been looking forward to seeing this go further with the humor.
STARS: **½


NANCY GRACE
(KET) & (host) refuse to play the victimization game

— The stock theme music that I mentioned in my review of the previous Nancy Grace sketch this season has been replaced with new music tonight. Odd.
— Kenan’s playing a better political talking head straight man here than he played in the O’Reilly Factor sketch from the preceding episode.
— A clever bit with Amy-as-Nancy-Grace’s whole spiel about how, if Michael Richards sued himself, the case would be called Kramer vs. Kramer.
— A good laugh from Amy-as-Grace’s “The only n-word I would call you is ‘nice’” line to Kenan, as well as Kenan’s reaction to that.
— I like the bit with Amy’s Grace acting out how she would’ve reacted to the O.J. Simpson special if she had watched it.
— The “This pen feels lighter” running bit is a weak variation of the “This chair has been moved” running bit from the first Nancy Grace sketch this season.
— The pacing is badly sluggish during Amy-as-Grace’s interview of Matthew’s character. It’s hurting the momentum of this sketch for me.
STARS: ***


DEEP HOUSE DISH
new sidekick T’Shane (ANS) digs (MAR), (host), (AMP)

— Oh, no. SNL has decided to keep these Deep House Dish sketches going even after Rachel Dratch’s departure.
— A fake-out with an “in memoriam” screen being shown for Rachel’s Tiara Zee character (at least I now know she was born the same year I was: 1984), leading us to initially assume SNL killed her off, only for it to be revealed that she’s just dead to Kenan’s character.
— Andy gets the “honors” of being the new Deep House Dish co-host. All this means is we now get to hear an endless, annoying amount of “Ooh-wee, T-Shane!”s instead of “Ooh-wee, Tiara!”s. Oh, gee, what a huge change-up. At least, unlike Tiara and her alleged boring-ness, T-Shane gets called out by Kenan’s character on differing things each time, not that that’s much funnier.
— Maya makes her very first appearance in a Deep House Dish installment (the previous installments were all when she happened to be absent from SNL for maternal reasons), which seems very fitting, as she was born to play singers in these Deep House Dish sketches, and James Anderson (the writer of these sketches) always seems to love writing musical numbers for Maya.
— I like Matthew just dropping his mic and walking off the stage in an aloof, badass manner at the end of his musical performance.
— Amy continues her streak of appearing as a different singer in every single Deep House Dish up to this point.
— Amy’s Cologne For Christmas song at least has a very catchy beat, I admit.
STARS: **


“LOST” THEORIES
in an elevator, Lost fans (FRA), (AMP), (MAR), (KET), (ANS) accost host

— I love Fred’s little smirk when he recognizes Matthew.
— Fred is always good at getting laughs out of roles like this.
— A lot of entertaining and relatable realism in this sketch so far (realism that the cast is pulling off so well), and a good spoof of the Lost craze among people. Even though I’ve never been a Lost viewer myself, I can still follow and enjoy what this sketch is going for, because having to deal with people following the craze for hot TV shows is always relatable, regardless of what show it is.
— I love Andy just smugly saying “Purgatory” as soon as he recognizes Matthew.
— A laugh from Maya casually deciding to lie down on the elevator floor when she’s embarrassed to find out Matthew is married with two children.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Kickapoo”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Jesse Jackson (DAH) & Al Sharpton (KET) propose “Kramer” as new N-word

Aunt Linda is perplexed & perturbed by Borat, Casino Royale, Apocalypto

AMP editorializes against recent trend of ladies’ uncovered naughty bits

Whitney Houston (MAR) is flummoxed by a crank phone call

— This is the first Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton joint Update commentary since the days when Jerry Minor regularly played Sharpton in these commentaries. I prefer Jerry’s take.
— Jackson and Sharpton deciding “Kramer” is the new n-word is pretty funny.
— Geez, Aunt Linda has become recurring ALREADY, after debuting only two episodes prior? I found this character decent in her debut, but this doesn’t seem like it will have legs as a recurring bit.
— Yep, just as I was worried, Aunt Linda’s routine is suffering diminishing returns tonight. I’m especially tired of her ratings system gimmick, which is increasingly coming off more corny than genuinely funny.
— Oh, I have good memories of this straight-to-camera editorial Amy’s doing about the then-current trend of young female celebrities “flashing beav” in public. I recall this being one of Amy’s better pieces from her Update tenure.
— Yep, Amy’s editorial is just as solid as I had remembered. I particularly love her comment about how she remembers the days when a “lady garden” was as big as a slice of New York pizza before turning into an upside-down John Waters mustache. I can’t help but feel like this is material that Tina Fey would’ve delivered back in her prime years of Weekend Update (2000-2002), but Amy is performing it well in her own right, and it’s a refreshing change of pace from her usual Update persona.
— Our first Maya-as-Whitney-Houston Update commentary this season, which I recall going on to appear awfully frequently season, much like Aunt Linda.
— The concept of Maya’s Whitney reacting to a prank phone call is pretty funny, but blah, Maya’s execution of it is far more annoying than funny to me.
STARS: ***


MOUNTAIN MAN
AMP, KRW, MAR, Emily Spivey [real] twist script to make host kiss them

— I’m enjoying the exaggerated goofiness of this sketch so far, especially Amy and Kristen’s accents.
— Oh, I’m liking the fourth-wall break with Kristen’s “discreet” directions to Matthew on how to kiss her in this sketch.
— Ah, now this sketch has FULLY broken the fourth wall, with it being acknowledged that this sketch has been “re-written” to have Matthew do and say a whole bunch of sexual things towards Amy and Kristen. I’m loving this meta turn. Feels kinda like it’s in the tradition of those great fourth-wall-breaking Killer Bees sketches from the original SNL era.
— A very funny brief cutaway to SNL writer Emily Spivey, right after we’re told she wrote herself into the scene.
— Oh, now this has gotten even greater with Maya entering as Lorne, which also proves that just about every SNL cast member can do a spot-on Lorne impression.
STARS: ****½


HISTORY BUFF
home from college, math whiz (ANS) comes out to history buff father (WLF)

— Yet another episode this season where Will barely appears in any sketches. Again, I have to ask, is he busy filming a movie?
— I love Will’s character’s habit of quickly spouting off the birth and/or death dates of historical figures he casually brings up.
— Will’s screaming, glass-shattering outburst when Andy reveals he’s a math whiz is classic Forte.
— Kristen’s over-dramatic, horrified reactions to Andy coming out as a math whiz are great, as is how this then turns into Andy and Will both trying to one-up each other by angrily spouting off random math/history facts to each other.
— I like how Matthew’s random entrance as the professor of the history of math is upping the absurdity of this already-delightfully-absurd sketch.
— Will’s tearful reveal that he never learned to count is absolutely priceless.
— When the family wonders “Who was that strange man?” after Matthew’s character has randomly disappeared, I got a big laugh from Will’s line “I don’t know…..but he stole our television.”
— An overall perfectly executed sketch, and one of my all-time favorite oddball Will Forte sketches.
STARS: *****


THE FIRST CHOCOLATE
dramatized theory blames chocolate for downfall of Mayan civilization

— Given the subject matter of the sketch that preceded this, it’s unintentionally funny how this is a History Channel sketch.
— The premise itself is only mildly funny, but Fred is performing this simplistic material really well. Matthew is pretty good here too. The execution of this sketch is giving it a real charm that’s fun.
— Bill’s whole bit was fantastic.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Metal”; The Metal (Jason Reed) smites genres

— Oh, this is incredible with how most of the SNL cast is getting involved in this performance, with each cast member representing a different genre of music trying to take down heavy metal. One of the most fun and out-of-the-ordinary musical performances in SNL history.


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A fairly solid episode, bolstered by the very strong post-Weekend Update half, which started off with a fantastic one-two punch of the Mountain Man and History Buff sketches, then gave us the charming First Chocolate sketch, and then finished off the show with an absolutely epic cast-involved Tenacious D musical performance.


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

 


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Annette Bening

Posted on

November 18, 2006 – Ludacris (S32 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
George W. Bush (JAS) has literally gotten USA into another Vietnam War

— Jason has replaced the still-on-the-show Will Forte as SNL’s latest George W. Bush impersonator, making him the show’s FIFTH Bush impersonator during Bush’s presidency so far. Absolutely insane that SNL has gone through that many Bush impersonators over the course of just SIX YEARS. (Sure, SNL previously rotated a lot of people in the Ronald Reagan role during his presidency in the 80s, but that’s understandable, as SNL’s cast went through many big overhauls during Reagan’s presidency, unlike SNL’s cast during Bush’s presidency.) Tonight’s sudden re-casting of the Bush role after Forte had been SNL’s regular Bush for a few years completely blindsided SNL fans at this time, especially since there was no prior announcement of this re-casting before tonight’s episode originally aired. I remember in the live discussion thread for this episode on the now-defunct saturday-night-live.com message board, as soon as this cold opening first showed Jason as Bush after the typical “And now, a message from the president of the United States” intro, many members of the board, including myself, simultaneously flocked to the live discussion thread to post literally the exact same message: “WTF?!? Sudeikis?!?” Haha, we were absolutely SHOCKED at this re-casting.
— Funny announcement from Jason’s Bush of America now being at war with Vietnam.
— Jason’s Bush portrayal isn’t bad so far.
— Towards the end, this cold opening has started dying with the audience.
— Overall, I wish I had more to say for Jason’s first outing as Bush, but I found this cold opening okay as a whole. Wish it ended better than it did, though.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— Don Pardo once again proves how incredibly old he’s getting, by bizarrely and inexplicably mispronouncing the name Ludacris as “loo-DAY-cris”, not once, but TWICE. Let’s just say this earned about as many “WTF?!?”s in the aforementioned live discussion thread for this episode on the saturday-night-live.com message board as the sudden re-casting of the Bush role did. Also, something funny about Don’s “loo-DAY-cris” mispronunciation is that it rhymes with the correct pronunciation of the name Sudeikis. And know what’s even funnier about THAT? When Jason Sudeikis was just an SNL writer before being added to the cast, I mistakenly assumed his last name was pronounced “SOO-duh-kis”, much like how the name Ludacris is correctly pronounced.


MONOLOGUE
host’s old friend Rick ‘Diculous’ (KET) wants credit for stage name idea

— A mildly funny bit with Ludacris differentiating the use of his stage name and his real name, but nothing special.
— A laugh from the exaggerated size of the antenna on Kenan’s old-school 90s cellphone.
— Not sure what else to say about this monologue. I hate to use the term “only mildly funny” again for this monologue, but I can’t think of a better description of this monologue as a whole.
STARS: **½


YOUNG DOUGLAS: HYPIN’ THE CLASSICS
classic songs get rap complements on hype man Young Douglas’ (host) album

— It almost feels like Ludacris might as well just be playing himself in this sketch instead of a fictional character (even though Ludacris isn’t a hype man). This sketch is still working decently, though.
— The “You’re Beautiful (That Ass!)” duet is very funny.
— A very Kenan Thompson-y gesture with Kenan not even pretending to make his trumpet-blowing look convincing.
STARS: ***


THE BITCHSLAP METHOD
Dr. Bitchslap’s (host) marriage advice infomercial prescribes face swats

— A laugh from Ludacris’ character’s surname being Bitchslap.
— I like Bill as Amy’s now-whipped (or, should I say, now-bitchslapped) husband.
— As Jason’s character is putting his arm around his wife Kristen’s shoulder a little roughly, Kristen’s soft little “Ow” while keeping a nervous smile on her face is the type of thing she’s always great at getting laughs out of.
— The ending showing the various Bitchslap Method books came off a little awkward.
STARS: **½


THE O’REILLY FACTOR
Bill O’Reilly’s (DAH) potential boycott of Def Jam is a hollow threat

— After just using his real voice in previous Bill O’Reilly sketches, which was a surprisingly lazy move for a so-called master of impressions, Darrell finally attempts to actually imitate Bill O’Reilly’s voice tonight. It’s an improvement, but I still prefer Jeff Richards’ take on Bill O’Reilly. Also, too little, too late for Darrell to finally improve his impression of O’Reilly, given the fact that this ends up being the last appearance it ever makes.
— Kenan stretched out his intentionally-awkward, silent reaction to the first ridiculous question from Darrell’s O’Reilly way too long.
— The whole interview portion with Kenan in general is too slow-paced, even if there are some chuckles.
— Pretty funny to see Ludacris playing a professional political talking head, and quite well, might I add.
— I don’t know how to react to the fact that Ludacris, a non-comedian, is giving a FAR better performance in his portion of this sketch than Kenan, a freakin’ sketch comedy veteran, gave in HIS portion of this sketch.
— As usual, some laughs from the mailbag segment.
— Overall, some decent parts, but as a whole, this sketch did NOT do it for me. The laughs were too few and far in between, the sketch’s pacing was weak (especially during Kenan’s performance), and the overall sketch was WAAAAAY too long (it was seriously about EIGHT MINUTES, I shit you not). I am so glad this ends up being the final O’Reilly Factor installment with Darrell.
STARS: **


BOOTY BIDNESS WORKWEAR
host extends naughty slogans to women’s workplace attire

— This is a revamped version of a commercial that had gotten cut from at least one dress rehearsal (if not multiple dress rehearsals) earlier this season.
— Some laughs from the inappropriate sexual-related messages on businesswomen’s suits.
— Ludacris is absolutely perfect as the spokesperson here. I’m guessing the previous version of this commercial that got cut after dress rehearsal didn’t work anywhere near as well without the footage added in of Ludacris.
STARS: ***


BLIZZARD MAN
at a recording session, host ballyhoos Blizzard Man’s (ANS) dorky raps

— Andy’s Blizzard Man character makes its debut.
— I love Andy’s very early 90s look. SNL’s been getting some mileage lately out of early 90s-looking costumes, between Andy’s 1992 exercise gear in the preceding episode’s Out-Of-Breath Jogger From 1992 sketch, Kenan’s early 90s hip-hop outfit in tonight’s monologue, and now Andy’s Blizzard Man costume.
— I love Jason’s intentionally corny delivery of “Now you’re talkin’ my language, Luda!”
— Some really good laughs from Andy’s incredibly cheesy, whitebred raps, especially how it always immediately follows him prefacing the songs by doing actual solid and hardcore hype-man ad-libs into the mic. Very fun performance from Andy here.
— Meh, I could do without this sketch’s choice to do the “the camera cuts to a close-up of each straight man character having a frozen unpleasant facial expression while witnessing something odd the lead comedic character is doing” trope. That makes this feel too much like a damn James Anderson-written sketch, even though he obviously didn’t write this. I will say that I do like the comical intense look on Ludacris’ face (the last above screencap for this sketch) when the camera shows him jamming to Blizzard Man’s corny rapping during the aforementioned sequence showing a close-up of each straight man’s facial reaction.
— Funny twist at the end, with the Billboard chart that Blizzard Man’s song is listed #1 under turning out to be a chart of Least Bought Albums (screencap a little below). Not only that, but there’s an interesting subtle self-reference from Lonely Island: the #2 song on that Billboard chart is from Bing Bong Brothers, which was the name of a fictional R&B group played by Akiva Shaffer and Jorma Taccone in a pre-SNL Lonely Island music video.

STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Money Maker”


WEEKEND UPDATE
John Mark Karr (BIH) claims responsibility for high-profile crimes

AMP & SEM study guest seating chart for Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes wedding

following a weak joke, Bobby Knight (JAS) gets in SEM’s face

to editor (MAR) of a teen magazine, donating food is path to weight loss

— A very weak opening Bush joke from Amy.
— Bill killing it in yet another solo Update commentary this season. His John Mark Karr portrayal and dialogue are a lot of fun and are cracking me up so much.
— A fairly whatever bit with Amy and Seth breaking down who the guests were at Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ wedding. Too easy of a joke for my likes.
— Oh, I like this random bit with Jason as Bobby Knight chewing out Seth for his lame Tobey Maguire/Spider Man joke. And I’m always up for a showcase of Jason’s Will Ferrell-esque ability to play intimidating, screaming madmen.
— I could do without Amy’s bad, corny ad-libs after Jason’s Bobby Knight made his exit.
— Maya’s commentary is decent, and I’m enjoying her performance.
STARS: ***


POOL WATCH
urban lifeguard (host) isn’t ready to get in the water

— Lame stereotypical black jokes at the beginning, with the titles of black CW shows.
— Ugh, the screechy voice Maya’s using here is hard on the ears throughout this sketch.
— More weak stereotypical black jokes.
— A laugh from Ludacris wearing swimming trunks under his speedo.
— Believe it or not, Fred’s brief appearance at the end of this sketch as an unconscious body, a role that might as well have been played by an extra, is Fred’s ONLY appearance all night. Jesus Christ. Even odder, in dress rehearsal, Fred’s role was played by Will (who, by the way, has yet to be seen ANYWHERE in tonight’s live episode so far). I assume the reason for this role being re-cast from Will to Fred after dress rehearsal is because SNL felt bad that Fred was left with no appearances after the dress rehearsal cuts were made before the live show. I dunno, part of me feels that an SNL repertory player making their only appearance of an episode in a 5-second non-speaking role as an unconscious body is, in some ways, even more demeaning than making no appearances at all.
STARS: **


HAIR TRANSPLANT
shady plastic surgeon (host) schemes to steal (WLF)’s Elton John hair

— Will finally makes his first (and ONLY) appearance of the whole night. This, coupled with the fact that, earlier in this episode, SNL had unexpectedly re-cast the Bush role (and keep in mind that it wasn’t known yet among SNL fans that Will himself asked to be taken out of the Bush role, and thus, fans incorrectly assumed that Will got the Bush role yanked away from him against his wishes), made a lot of online SNL fans worry about Will’s job security at SNL, fearing he may be in for an upcoming firing at the end of this season. In fact, Will’s airtime has really taken a hit in the first half of this season in general. In a lot of episodes in this half of the season, he typically averages a measly 1-2 appearances per show, though his amount of airtime (thankfully) ends up returning to normal somewhere in the second half of the season, and, as we know now, he doesn’t end up getting fired after this season. I wonder what the reason is for his big decrease in airtime in the first half of this season. Was he busy filming a movie? “The Brothers Solomon”, perhaps?
— Speaking of the worry that a lot of SNL fans had for Will with the combination of his Bush impression suddenly being given to another cast member and Will not appearing in this episode until towards the end, I remember how Will making his entrance in this Hair Transplant sketch with a head bandage made one online SNL fan initially worry for a second that Will’s head bandage was REAL, with that SNL fan mistakenly assuming Will had suffered a head injury earlier that week and that that was the reason for both SNL re-casting the Bush role tonight and Will barely appearing in this episode. An odd misconception. I’m pretty sure if a cast member ever suffered a horrific head injury earlier in the week of an episode, an injury horrific enough to require a head bandage, there’d be an announcement of this injury sometime before the episode would air. I doubt SNL would just have a head-injured cast member waltz onto a sketch wearing their big-ol’ head bandage with no prior warning to us viewers.
— I love Ludacris preparing to jet the hell out of his office right before he reveals Will’s hair transplant.
— Very funny reveal of Will having the hairtop of a black man after the transplant.
— A lot of mentions of Atlanta in tonight’s episode.
— Will is playing his naive straight man character really well. Even just his way of cornily saying in shock “What in sam hill…?!?” when finally seeing his hair transplant made me laugh out loud.
— Hilarious reveal of Ludacris having switched hairtops with Will, just because Ludacris desperately wanted Will’s Elton John-like hair.
— I love the absurdity of this sketch, and Ludacris is proving to be actually really adept at this absurdist material. I would call this another oddball Will Forte sketch, and in some ways, it IS, but this sketch seems to be focusing more on Ludacris than on Will. And even though this sketch has kind of an oddly hollow, quiet, slow atmosphere, making it almost feel like a fugitive from this season’s wretched John C. Reilly episode, it is definitely working for me here.
STARS: ****


LESBIAN CRUISE
captain (host) futilely hopes lesbian cruise will become a porno fantasy

— I like Kristen’s little “Is…is he supposed to be drinking?” when she sees the captain holding up a glass of champagne.
— Not caring for where this sketch is going AT ALL, though Ludacris is, once again tonight, performing this well. Even something about the way he said “Yes, Arizona?” when Amy called his name made me laugh.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host & Mary J. Blige [real] perform “Runaway Love”


TWO OLD MEN
in a diner, old guys (DAH) & (host) question the worth of modernity

— Wow, Darrell starring in a non-impression role? AND IN THE 10-TO-1 SKETCH?!? Two huge rarities in one for Darrell.
— I’m liking the premise of this, and Darrell and Ludacris are surprisingly making a good duo, playing off of each other really well.
— The audience is getting lots of amusement from Darrell’s increasingly-hanging-off fake mustache. It’s adding to the fun nature of this sketch.
— A good laugh from Ludacris’ question about why companies can’t combine the “no pee” medicine with the “stiffy” medicine.
— Now Darrell is starting to crack up a little due to his hanging-off mustache, making the audience laugh even more.
— When Darrell is struggling to ask Ludacris “Do you….do you…” while stifling his laughter, Ludacris cuts him off with a fantastic ad-lib: “I know that your damn mustache is hangin’ off, I know that!” Priceless.
— Interestingly, after the aforementioned ad-lib from Ludacris, both he and Darrell, in character, signal for the sketch to end, without Darrell having even gotten to ask Ludacris the question he was supposed to, as if they know they can’t top the unscripted hilarious moment that had just happened. After this signaling from Ludacris and Darrell, the sketch indeed ends. That was odd, but actually kinda cool. I can’t think of many other times in SNL history that a sketch ended in this manner, with performers signaling to the show to cut the sketch off after it peaked with a great ad-lib. The only other instance that comes to mind right now is in a Norm Macdonald Weekend Update from season 22, where, after getting a HUGE audience reaction from an absolutely hilarious and classic ad-lib in which he ate fake vomit on the Update desk left over by Will Ferrell (who had just done an Update commentary reacting to Ellen DeGeneres coming out of the closet), Norm decides not to do the rest of the Update jokes (a photo for the next joke even shows up on the news screen next to him), and instead just says to the camera “Let’s just end it”, and then turns to the other camera and delivers his usual end-of-Update sign-off.
— Very fun closing sketch overall.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Meh, a lukewarm episode. Almost completely forgettable. There was still a pretty good number of strong highlights, though. And Ludacris was a fun, likable, and solid host, and made even the weaker material of the night less worse than it otherwise would’ve been, even that bad Lesbian Cruise sketch.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Alec Baldwin)
a big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Matthew Fox / Tenacious D

Posted on

November 11, 2006 – Alec Baldwin / Christina Aguilera (S32 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A MESSAGE FROM THE SPEAKER ELECT
Nancy Pelosi’s (KRW) platform confirms worst fears about Democrat control

— Interesting seeing Kristen at this early stage of her SNL tenure front-and-center in an address-to-the-nation cold opening, for her first time ever.
— Kristen’s Nancy Pelosi: “We Americans have always been a religious people, a member on my staff tells me.”
— So many funny announcements from Kristen’s Nancy Pelosi, even the line about gerbils.
— I love Will’s casual, affable delivery while dressed in a ridiculous S&M outfit.
— A very fun spoof of democrats.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
host & 30 Rock co-stars TIF & TRM give their credentials

— As the camera is panning down to the home base stage during Alec Baldwin’s entrance, two people in the floor seats actually give Alec a standing ovation (screencap below).

— I’m getting some laughs from Alec’s smug bragging about how he has no competition in terms of stars on the struggling NBC.
— Tina Fey in her first cameo after leaving the cast.
— Tracy Morgan’s various Star Wars one-liners are funny, especially his very Tracy Morgan-y one-liner “I’m personal friends with Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
— I love Alec imitating Tracy’s voice when saying “And I’m five to infinity!” Alec would later reprise this Tracy Morgan vocal imitation in SNL’s 40th Anniversary Special, when him and Tina do a tribute of sorts to the then-ailing Tracy (this was when he was recovering from his tragic car accident).
STARS: ***½


E-ZDATE.COM
online matchmaker e-zdate.com is a thinly-veiled front for prostitution

— Believe it or not, this is the FIRST pre-taped commercial to air all season. I can’t think of any other seasons before or after this where the first-aired pre-taped commercial was THIS far into the season. I think season 42 comes close; IIRC, the first pre-taped commercial of that season to air, “Chonk”, isn’t until the third episode of the season.
— Kenan’s line about “the behind” being the location he chose to spend his date was hilarious.
— Aside from Kenan’s aforementioned line and another laugh, this overall commercial didn’t do much for me.
STARS: **


BRITNEY’S DIVORCE
Britney Spears’ (AMP) grievances justify her divorce from Kevin Federline

— Well, I see an annoying remnant of the Tina Fey era, in which sketches overly obsessed with celebrity gossip and pop culture are placed upfront in episodes, has manifested itself into the early stages of this new post-Fey era. Yeah, not too thrilled about that.
— Amy-as-Britney’s line about getting “panty crickets” after Kevin Federline met Alyssa Milano was hilarious.
— Funny ending reveal from Britney about leaving her babies in the car for an hour.
— Despite some laughs, I was a little lukewarm on this sketch as a whole, and it probably would’ve worked better for me had it been placed later in the episode.
STARS: **½


SADDAM’S DEFENSE TEAM
condemned Saddam Hussein (host) meets with his lawyers (BIH) & (FRA)

— Alec’s Saddam Hussein impression from Alec’s season 31 episode returns for its final appearance.
— Two sketches IN A ROW that center around a famous person meeting with their lawyer(s)? Feels kinda redundant.
— Only 40 seconds into this sketch, and I’m already VERY sick of all the unfunny pop culture/TV show references Alec’s Saddam is constantly making. SNL has such an annoying habit of having foreign dictators do that.
— I do kinda like the touch of Alec’s Saddam sticking his head back into the room at the very end of this sketch (right as the screen is about to fade to black) to loudly join in on Bill and Fred’s nervous laughter, a move on Alec’s part that I’m assuming is an ad-lib.
— Overall, this sketch did almost NOTHING for me. Between the Britney sketch and this (and even the e-zdate.com commercial), this episode has not been starting off well post-monologue.
STARS: *½


VALTREX
(AMP)’s husband’s (host) Valtrex use calls his fidelity into question

— Wow, two pre-taped commercials early in tonight’s episode. Maybe SNL’s making up for lost time.
— Seeing a medication commercial with Alec paired with a female cast member as his wife reminds me of the Tylenol BM commercial Alec did with Rachel Dratch the preceding season.
— Alec’s trademark delivery is so perfect for this, and the implications of his character’s infidelity are funny.
— Overall, short and sweet.
STARS: ***½


CARPOOL
unlikely conversational missteps plague carpoolers (host) & (KRW)

— A very well-loved sketch.
— Very funny part with Kristen revealing that the Celine Dion song playing on the car radio is a CD, followed by Kristen disclosing to Alec a hilarious dramatic story about once having been rescued by Celine Dion.
— I’m absolutely loving how Alec and Kristen are each being offended by literally every single thing the other says or does, as it brings back a very touchy memory for them. And the escalation of the absurdity to these offenses is fantastic. There was a sketch with a similar premise in the season 13 Angie Dickinson episode (as I mentioned in this review of that episode), but I doubt many people remember that sketch compared to this one, and that’s understandable, as the Angie Dickinson sketch was, while not bad, completely unmemorable, and pales in comparison to the expert way this Carpool sketch is executing the similar premise.
— The on-point delivery from both Alec and Kristen is complementing this material so perfectly. Kristen is particularly fantastic here. One of her all-time best SNL performances.
— Hilarious reveal of Kristen being metal from the waist down.
— And there’s the moment that solidifies this already-fantastic sketch as a bonafide classic: Alec immediately blurting out “Bobby McFerrin raped my grandmother” in response to Kristen attempting to lighten the mood by affably saying “Don’t worry, be happy.” I remember when this sketch originally aired, that Bobby McFerrin one-liner of Alec’s gave me one of the hardest laughs I have EVER gotten from SNL. I’ll never forget that.
— Alec’s priceless Bobby McFerrin line is capped off well by the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” immediately playing on the car radio when Kristen turns it on in an attempt to get Alec’s mind off of what he had just said about Bobby McFerrin. Great way to end this sketch. I heard there’s some versions of this sketch that shorten the ending, fading to black immediately after Alec’s Bobby McFerrin one-liner, presumably because of music licensing issues involving the use of the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen this edited version of the sketch, but the shortened ending sounds like it would still be a perfect way to end this sketch.
— Overall, an absolute masterpiece.
STARS: *****


TV FUNHOUSE
“Kobayashi” [real] by RBS- champion hot dog eater saves the day in anime

— A hilarious and brilliant idea of a Takeru Kobayashi-starring anime superhero series. And as Robert Smigel has proven with the Ah-Lin The Skater Man cartoon from season 23, he’s adept at spoofing the anime genre.
— The cutaway to an anime Refrigerator Perry saying a shocked “Damn!” was hilarious.
— Very strong execution of this TV Funhouse.
— Wow, this is even involving the real Kobayashi in live-action interstitial scenes.
— A big laugh from the brief cutaway to a child puking in the toilet during the upbeat live-action musical scene with Kobayashi and the children.
STARS: ****½


THE PLATINUM LOUNGE
Steve Martin [real] rues host’s 13th SNL gig; MAS & Paul McCartney cameos

— Oh, words cannot express how I love that SNL is doing a variation of the Five-Timers Club concept, by having a Platinum Lounge for people who have hosted over 12 times.
— A big laugh from Alec immediately going from telling Maya he’ll allow her to visit the exclusive Platinum Lounge club to telling her a half-hearted, dismissive “I’m sorry, Maya, I did what I could” when the doorman doesn’t allow her into the club.
— Steve Martin! And it’s wonderful that SNL is continuing the premise of the Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin rivalry that was established in Steve’s episode from the preceding season.
— Ha, Martin Short randomly playing the waiter of the Platinum Lounge! And I love how Steve comments on that by just telling Alec “It’s sad.”
— Very fun bit with Steve’s attempts at poisoning Alec’s drink.
— I love Steve trying to make Alec continue looking out the window while panickedly trying to wipe up Alec’s drink that has overflowed after Steve poisoned it.
— Alec, while violently kicking Steve on the floor: “I…was in…Schwetty….Balls!”
— As an SNL nerd, and the fact that doing this SNL project has basically and unintentionally made an SNL historian out of me, I love how, when Alec is rapidly running down the dates of all of Steve Martin’s hosting stints, he mumbles the actual dates of Steve’s first few episodes (October 23, 1976, February 26, 1977, September 24, 1977, three times in 1978) before resorting to just mumbling fast-paced gibberish for the rest of the dates.
— Paul McCartney! And judging from Alec’s reaction, Alec was not expecting this. His shocked facial reaction to Paul’s cameo looks 100% genuine. I’m assuming SNL sprung this as a surprise to Alec. I recall hearing that a surprise Paul McCartney cameo being sprung on Alec would later happen again in a live 30 Rock episode. Is that true? I’ve never seen that 30 Rock episode myself.
— The ending between Steve, Paul, and Martin seems ad-libbed, adding further evidence that Paul’s cameo was most likely thrown in at the last minute.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ain’t No Other Man”


WEEKEND UPDATE
process of moving Donald Rumsfeld (DAH) from his office allegorizes Iraq

AMP’s irked Aunt Linda (KRW) gives eye-rolling reviews of new movies

waiter’s (ANS) misplaced decimal point produced Tom Cruise’s $10,000 meal

 

— Interesting change of pace by having Seth do a live (though we’re told it’s taped) interview of Darrell’s Donald Rumsfeld on a different set.
— I’m not caring for the the bit with Kenan’s mover character during the Rumsfeld interview, and how Kenan’s failure to move the couch is alluding to the Iraq situation.
— The overall Donald Rumsfeld/couch mover segment fell badly flat for me. SNL would later replace this segment with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, in which a lot of the lines are completely different, and the overall segment works MUCH better than the live version of it did. The fact that they re-wrote the piece between dress rehearsal and the live show probably at least partly explains why the live version came off so weak and poorly executed.
— After the Donald Rumfseld interview ends and Amy thanks Seth for his “taped” report, I love Seth then re-entering the Update set, walking up to Amy, and saying, while looking into the camera, “You’re welcome, Amy”, comically breaking the illusion that the Rumsfeld interview Seth had just done was pre-taped.
— Kristen’s big night continues, as she gets her very first Weekend Update showcase (unless I’m forgetting something).
— A decent characterization from Kristen as Aunt Linda, and this commentary isn’t bad. However, this seems like something best left as a one-off. I get the feeling I’m not going to care for this character’s subsequent appearances when I have to review them (and it doesn’t help that she makes A LOT of appearances this season, IIRC).
— Seth has been having some killer jokes tonight. Amy has also had a few.
— I love Andy’s flat “Ohhh, noooo” when realizing he overcharged Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on their meal. This is the type of humor that Andy can make work.
— Overall, Amy and Seth had their best Update up to this point. Too bad the guest commentaries weren’t up to the same level and brought the rating down a little bit, even if I liked two of the three commentaries.
STARS: ***½


THE TONY BENNETT SHOW
tribute act (Tony Bennett) helps Tony Bennett (host) with duet

— Alec’s wig and make-up as Tony Bennett looks a little more spot-on than usual here, but that may be because of a certain special thing in store for us later in this sketch…
— Andy is perfect as a douchey Kevin Federline.
— And there he is: the real Tony Bennett. Tonight’s episode has been having some fantastic cameos.
— I get the feeling Tony stopping Alec mid-sentence to humorously tell him “You got a great nose job” was an ad-lib.
— I love the reveal of Tony’s stage name as a Tony Bennett impersonator: Phony Bennett.
— Out of SNL’s many “impersonator meets the celebrity they’re impersonating” sketches, which can get annoyingly cheesy and cliche at times, this is definitely one of the better and more charming ones.
— The usual funny spiel from Alec’s Bennett whenever he does his mid-sketch promotional ad.
— Nice duet from Alec and Tony at the end.
STARS: ****½


BRAZILIAN BAR
in a Brazil lounge, gauche roue (host) fails to charm (KRW), (ANS), (AMP)

— A fun one-off character for Alec, one that he seems like he can play to perfection.
— Alec to Amy: “You know what part of a woman I like best? And I’m not kidding about this: the vagina.”
— The occasional musical interstitial bits with Maya and Fred are a funny touch to this sketch.
— What’s the point of Jason even being in this sketch? He’s reduced to the role of a background extra, standing in the back of the set as a barely-noticeable bartender, and has no lines, nothing to do, and the camera doesn’t even show a remotely close shot of him. Odd. This has been a very light night for him in general.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hurt”


A MOMENT WITH THE OUT-OF-BREATH JOGGER FROM 1992
The Out-Of-Breath Jogger’s moment from 1992 yields bits of nostalgia

— Well, this sure was an unlikely sketch to bring back.
— This isn’t working quite as well as the 1982 jogger one from earlier this season, but I’m still laughing. It also helps that I have somewhat of an obsession with early-mid 90s pop culture (probably due to those years being the peak years of my childhood).
— Something interesting I realized about this sketch: the amount of time between 1992, the year this sketch is taking place in, and 2006, the year this episode originally aired in, is only 14 years, the exact same amount of time between 2006 and our current year, 2020. This kinda blows my mind, as 1992 and all of its pop culture felt much older to me in 2006 than 2006 and all of its pop culture feels to me today. Can anyone else relate to this? Then again, I was only a little kid in 1992, which probably explains it. I’m guessing 2006 and its pop culture now feel really old to people who were little kids that year.
— Also, the fact that 1992 and 2006 have the exact same amount of years between them as 2006 and 2020 means that Andy could conceivably now do an “Out-of-Breath Jogger from 2006” sketch, a fact that further blows my mind. I’d actually be very curious to see him do that sketch.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Tony Bennett [real] perform “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— While a little more flawed than I feel a lot of people remember this episode as being, this episode as a whole definitely had a classic vibe to it. The misfires from early on in the episode bring the overall quality down a bit, but this was still a strong episode. A lot of what worked in this episode was absolutely killer, we got two sketches tonight that received a perfect five-star rating from me (Carpool and The Platinum Lounge), and we got lots of special, fun, and very impressive cameos. The Christina Aguilera/Tony Bennett duet at the end of the show also added to the special, epic feel of this episode. And, of course, it helps that we had a veteran host like Alec Baldwin doing his usual terrific, expert job. An overall great episode, and one of Alec’s best. SNL has been on a real hot streak these past two episodes.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Hugh Laurie)
a very slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Ludacris

Posted on

October 28, 2006 – Hugh Laurie / Beck (S32 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

KAZAKHSTAN MINISTRY OF INFORMATION
Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) promotes Kazakhstan during paid announcement

— A message from Lorne? I see we’re already starting off with something different.
— A laugh from Lorne taking the time to pour himself a drink while telling us about the drastic budget cuts NBC has had to make lately.
— Right before Lorne is handed his sandwich by someone, the audience suddenly breaks out into WILD applause out of nowhere. This is presumably because off-camera, a certain special guest who we’re about to see onscreen was spotted by the audience (the set he’s standing at was probably lit up at this point), but I remember a lot of online SNL fans back at this time in 2006 speculating if the applause was for the person who handed Lorne his sandwich, a person who is mostly off-camera, except for their hand holding the plate with the sandwich. Some of those SNL fans not only wondered if that person handing Lorne the sandwich was a famous person, but they even assumed it might’ve been the recently-departed-from-the-show Tina Fey, because, upon being given his sandwich, Lorne says what sounds like “Thank you, Tina!” (it’s hard to tell what name Lorne is saying under all the wild applause from the audience). Pretty silly to think Tina Fey would make such a brief, off-camera “cameo” in which the only thing we can see of her onscreen is her hand. That would be probably the oddest form of a cameo in SNL history, though you have to admit, it IS amusing to imagine Tina Fey making a hand cameo. Coincidentally, we actually do end up getting a Tina Fey cameo (and a certain other SNL alum/30 Rock cast member) in the monologue of the very next episode.
— An unintentional laugh from Lorne’s genuine difficulty in pronouncing “Kazakhstan”. Charming to see Lorne make a gaffe like that.
— And now we see who the audience was wildly applauding for earlier: Borat!
— The “human pubis” that Borat displays is hilarious, as is him saying “This bale took over three women to make.”
— I’m getting so much of the usual “oh, so wrong” laughs at Borat’s juvenile-and-offensive-but-funny comedy.
— I like the Wayne’s World reference with Borat occasionally saying “Shwing?”
— Borat even manages to make his “Live from New York…” funny, by throwing in “home of the Jew”.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
host tells how he’s unlike House & says what to expect from an Englishman

— A big gaffe right at the beginning, in which SNL’s fake applause track accidentally continues to play long after the real audience has stopped applauding and long after Hugh Laurie has begun speaking. I really don’t understand SNL’s need to use a fake applause track during the opening montage, and this gaffe tonight should’ve led to SNL finally stopping their usage of it, but nope. They continue to use it to this day, I believe.
— I love Hugh naming the audience collectively “Sweetcheeks”.
— Hugh, in one of the many things he says he is: “I’m the yelp of a puppy freed from the microwave.”
— I am absolutely LOVING this monologue. Not only are there lots of funny lines, but Hugh is handling this so damn well, with tons of charm, expertise, and genuine funniness.
— Great ad-lib from Hugh after his Shakespeare joke doesn’t go over well with the audience.
STARS: ****½


MOST HAUNTED
(host)’s flatus is mistaken for sign of paranormal activity

— The use of infrared night-vision is interesting and unique for a live SNL sketch.
— A fart sketch? And as the lead-off sketch of the night?!? I do recall this actually being surprisingly not bad for a fart sketch, though.
— So far, while this is not quite as good as I had remembered, it’s still working decently for something with such a sophomoric premise. What makes this sketch work is how overly seriously Fred, Amy, and Bill are taking the “mysterious sound”, how ridiculously heavily they’re analyzing it, and how embarrassed Hugh is over all of this.
— The ending with a ghost’s voice actually saying “Juliaaaan” (as a callback to Fred, Amy, and Bill mistaking the sound of Hugh’s fart for a voice saying a stretched-out “Julian”) didn’t work for me.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
by RBS- George W. Bush downplays scare tactics of GOP’s negative TV spots

— Our first TV Funhouse of the season.
— Blah, the Bush intro at the beginning appears to be using the same odd animation style that was used in the TV Funhouse from the season 30 Luke Wilson episode, an animation style that I hated (and it didn’t help matters any that that particular TV Funhouse itself was a dud).
— Luckily, most of this cartoon isn’t focusing on the badly-animated Bush scenes.
— Good political satire in the gay marriage/“Count Obama” ad.
— The Hillary Clinton ad made me laugh out loud. The ridiculous voice used for her made it even funnier.
— This cartoon is over already? This felt unusually short, and it seemed like we were meant to see a third political attack ad instead of just two.
STARS: ***½


NATIONAL ANTHEM
at the World Series, (MAR) renders National Anthem nearly unrecognizable

— A very well-known Maya Rudolph sketch.
— I used to pretty much HATE this sketch and find it insanely overrated, but that was also back in the days when I had a seething dislike for Maya Rudolph in general, and thus, I just dismissed this sketch as both “Another bad Maya Rudolph singing sketch” and “Another bad Maya-Rudolph-does-a-goofy-voice sketch”. Now that I’m older, more mature, and try to be more critically fair in my assessments of SNL than I was in my original days as an SNL reviewer back in the 2000s and early 2010s, I’ve become more appreciative of Maya’s comedic talents, and thus, I can recognize this sketch’s value. While I’m still certainly not finding it to be a classic like a lot of people seemingly do, I’m enjoying this sketch a lot, and I’m finding Maya’s many different bad singing styles for each individual verse of the National Anthem not only amusing and fun, but actually impressive, and a good spoof of the overwrought way certain singers butcher the National Anthem when trying to show off their vocal range.
STARS: ****


PROMO

— Bizarrely and inexplicably, Don Pardo announces that the next live episode is airing “on MONDAY, November 11”, despite that date being, of course, a Saturday. All I have to say is, boy, is Don getting old.


ADVANCE MAN
equerry (host) requisitions oddities for Queen Elizabeth’s hotel stay

— When failing in his attempt to apply his glasses onto his face with one hand, Hugh ad-libs a witty “Fortunately, these are just an affectation”, and does away with the glasses. And showing what a true pro she is, Kristen perfectly keeps a straight face during this funny ad-lib.
— I am absolutely LOVING the absurd British, Monty Python-ish comedy style of this sketch, which Hugh Laurie is obviously a natural for. His delivery of these lines about Queen Elizabeth’s very eccentric requests is a riot.
— I love Hugh responding to Kristen’s “Will you be here when she (the Queen) arrives?” question with an “Absolutely not” before making his exit.
STARS: ****½


HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS
Ken Mehlman (ANS) & Howard Dean (JAS) forsee GOP midterm defeat

— Our first Hardball sketch in almost an entire year.
— Darrell’s Chris Matthews impression seems a little more toned down and serious tonight.
— I think that’s SNL producer Ken Aymong as Glenn Beasley in the various photos.
— So far, this feels very different from typical Hardball sketches. They’ve shaken up the format, which is much needed, after how stale the last few Hardball sketches before this were.
— Darrell is a stumbly mess throughout this sketch. He can barely get a line out without flubbing it.
— Jason’s Howard Dean challenging Andy’s Ken Mehlman to a fistfight is making me laugh.
— While I’m enjoying the dialogue and humor here, the pacing and energy of this whole sketch feels off, which is hurting this.
STARS: **½


PROTEST SONG
host performs a protest song that mumbles answers to the world’s problems

— Ooh, I like the setting of this. Feels like a throwback to earlier SNL seasons, where a performer doing a comedy bit on SNL’s home base stage was much more common, outside of monologues.
— I recall finding out this is an old bit that Hugh brought to SNL from his comedy act. It’s coming off solid here, and a very nice change of pace for an SNL piece in this era.
— Some nice camera angles throughout this that show both Hugh and the audience.
— I particularly love the part with Hugh desperately resorting to a harmonica solo during one of his many avoidances of saying what the answer is.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Nausea”


WEEKEND UPDATE
senatorial candidate Tim Calhoun offers qualifications & proposals

New Jerseyite same-sex couple (FRA) & (BIH) endorses gay marriage ruling

— I’m starting to question just how much Amy has “improved” as an Update anchor so far in this Poehler/Meyers era, because I’ve been noticing that she’s still using the same annoyingly cutesy, cheesy delivery she used during the Fey/Poehler era, and her jokes are just as cringey as they were back then. Seth, on the other hand, has been absolutely solid and sharp as an anchor so far, and he has by far the better jokes of the two anchors. Despite their always-great chemistry when interacting with each other, Seth and Amy’s individual Update delivery styles are kind of an odd mish-mash with each other so far. Maybe Amy eventually gets better, because I recall feeling she was decent when the Poehler/Meyers era of Update originally aired.
— Tim Calhoun!
— I love the similarities Tim Calhoun says he has to America: he’s heavily in debt, he’s 10% gay, and he has a really bad gas problem.
— A particularly hilarious Tim Calhoun confession right now (and remember that this is when the Mark Foley/teenage pages scandal was going on): “I have touched many pages in my life……..because I am a voracious reader……..of child pornography……..studies……..illustrated studies.”
— My god, Calhoun is even funnier than ever tonight, which I didn’t think was possible. I am being DESTROYED with laughter here.
— I’ll give Amy credit for her good delivery of the Panama Canal Widening joke. Despite my criticism of how the quality of her delivery and jokes has mostly been unchanged from the Fey/Poehler era, Amy has some occasional winners.
— The debut of Bill and Fred’s Same-Sex New Jersey Couple. (*groan*) How do you follow up a killer Tim Calhoun commentary with THIS?
— So far in tonight’s Same-Sex New Jersey Couple commentary, I am liking Bill’s delivery (and he’s always great at delivering wiseguy-esque “Ohhhhh!”s), but otherwise, this is just as weak as I had remembered these characters being back when this SNL era originally aired.
— Ha, I love Seth ad-libbing a callback to the Same-Sex New Jersey Couple commentary from earlier in this Update, by improvising a quiet “Ohhhh!” after the punchline of his gay marriage/St. Louis Cardinals joke.
STARS: ***


TRUST YOUR PHYSICIAN
broken leg sufferer’s (KET) distrust of doctor (WLF) impedes treatment

— Kenan makes his first and ONLY appearance of the night here. So far this season, I feel like he’s been kinda struggling to fit into this season’s shortened cast, especially now that he’s the only black male cast member left.
— That fucking horrible sketch with John C. Reilly in drag in the preceding episode makes me initially worried seeing Hugh Laurie in drag here.
— Interesting role for Kenan, which feels out of the ordinary from the way he’s typically used in these earlier seasons of his SNL tenure.
— Hugh is actually really funny in this drag role, further proving how great of a performer he is.
— While I’m getting some laughs and am enjoying all of the interplay between Kenan and Hugh, this sketch is kinda hard for me to figure.
— There’s been quite a number of sketches this season so far that have ended with a character breaking the fourth wall and delivering a message to the camera.
STARS: **½


THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
snide Frankenstein (BIH) hides his identity from confused villagers

— A very solid role for Bill, and SNL allowing him to deservedly carry a sketch in the lead role feels somewhat rare at this point of his SNL tenure.
— I love both Bill and Jason playing relatable, realistic personifications of Frankenstein and Dracula, respectively, with Bill’s characterization being snarky and Jason’s characterization being laid-back and smug (nice detail with the latter nonchalantly filing his nails while the angry mob is questioning him).
— I like the way Bill’s Frankenstein keeps sternly telling one of the people in the angry mob to get that fiery torch away from him.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Clap Hands”


JOB INTERVIEW
(host) & (FRA) squeal “Ooh!” while interviewing (AMP) for a law firm job

— The slow build-up to Hugh and Fred’s first “ooooOOOOOoooooh!” is good.
— I really like how this silly “ooooOOOOOoooooh!” routine feels like something Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz would’ve done together in the late 80s SNL era. In fact, this sketch feels like a spiritual successor to a sketch that Dana and Jon did do together once: a fun, silly sketch from the season 15 Robert Wagner episode (an episode filled with fun, silly sketches that are really strong) where Dana, Jon, and Robert Wagner were professionals on a political roundtable show, and Dana and Jon each kept making high-pitched, childlike bragging noises whenever one would one-up the other during their debate.
— I like Hugh and Fred quietly starting an “oooooo–” and holding it for a long time while anxiously waiting for Amy to deliver one particular answer.
— Decent turn with Hugh and Fred having a displeased reaction to Amy doing the “ooooOOOOOoooooh!” thing herself, leading to her not getting the job after all.
— The show is seemingly starting to run a little long, as this sketch suddenly fades to an SNL bumper photo of Hugh a tad early while Hugh and Fred are still delivering the final exchange of the sketch.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very solid episode, and a complete turnaround from that wretched preceding episode with John C. Reilly. I liked almost every single sketch tonight, and even the few I didn’t care for were nothing terrible. Tonight had a lot of strong highlights, and the show as a whole had a fun vibe. Hugh Laurie was also a fantastic host, no doubt due to all of his comedy experience in his career, and he added to the aforementioned fun vibe of this episode. Another big positive in this episode was SNL favorite Beck, who’s musical performances tonight (particularly the second one) were outstanding.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John C. Reilly)
a huge step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Well, as I already gave away earlier in this review…

Posted on

October 21, 2006 – John C. Reilly / My Chemical Romance (S32 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

SPECIAL REPORT W/ BRIT HUME
George W. Bush (WLF) acknowledges Iraq failures but remains optimistic

— I’m being tickled by Will’s President Bush matter-of-factly agreeing with Darrell’s Brit Hume on all of the horrible screw-ups Bush has made in his handling of the war in Iraq. The overly serious look on Will’s face during that matter-of-factly agreeing is adding to the humor.
— I have very mixed feelings on the punchline, and I was expecting it to be funnier after such a long set-up of this nature.
— This ends up being Will’s final appearance as Bush. Unlike the last two cast members who played Bush before him (Chris Parnell and Darrell), Will didn’t get the Bush impression yanked away from him against his will. He would later reveal it was his own decision to stop playing Bush. He asked SNL to be taken out of the role because he never felt comfortable doing political humor. A shame, because I liked him as Bush, and it was nice to have stability in the role for a few seasons after the initial revolving door of Bush impersonators after Will Ferrell’s departure.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— The SNL logo has gone through a third and final modification this season. While it still has a similar look to the Ebersol-era look it had in the last episode, the letters are widened, giving it a bit of a more unique identity. (below is a tracking of this season’s logo changes, in chronological order)


MONOLOGUE
James Lipton (WIF) incorrectly credits host during his hagiography

— Will Ferrell as James Lipton!
— Not only is it always nice to see Ferrell return to the show, but it’s always fun to see him and John C. Reilly together.
— Ferrell’s Lipton constantly mistaking John for being in movies that he wasn’t even in is worth some good laughs.
— Pretty funny bit with Ferrell’s Lipton making John pretend to be Roxie from the movie Chicago.
— A huge laugh from “I have an erection” being one of the many things Will’s Lipton says in delight during John’s singing.
— Not sure I needed this to turn into a duet, as I have a low tolerance for musical monologues.
— The “Sean C Reilly” light-up sign is pretty funny.
STARS: ***½


COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG
Colonial Williamsburg role accuracy is a pretense for (host)’s racism

— I love Jason’s line about how John “really came within a stone’s throw of using correctly once”, regarding his constant use of the word “harken”.
— Some laughs from the bigoted comments we’re told that John made towards the black employees, and Jason is a good straight man here.
— While this sketch isn’t too bad so far, it feels too quiet and slow for a lead-off sketch. It would’ve fit much more a little later in the show. This has no business being the lead-off sketch of an episode. Already a sign that we may be in for a rough night.
— I love Kenan’s walk-on. He steals this sketch for me.
— John’s ending line (“Those knee socks are inaccurate!”) was a weak note to end this sketch on.
STARS: **½


SWIMMING LESSON
(WLF) learns strokes while strapped to unorthodox swim instructor (host)

— Funny entrance from John.
— I remember some online SNL fans back at this time in 2006 saying John’s character felt awfully Will Ferrell-esque, specifically Ferrell’s Ted Brogan character, and those fans also said that, since Ferrell was actually in the building during this episode, they might as well have given this role to him.
— John’s inappropriate “69” comment was hilarious.
— A pretty good laugh from the penis-adjusting bit.
— Okay, this sketch is starting to devolve into pointless, sophomoric, and unfunny homoeroticism. It’s losing me.
— I’m usually iffy on text crawl endings, but this one made me laugh, despite being awfully long-winded.
STARS: **


KIM JONG IL’S ADDRESS
Kim Jong Il (AMP) flaunts nukes & asks North Koreans to sacrifice

— I found Amy’s Kim Jong Il impression pretty funny as a supporting role in that Hugo Chavez Political Roundup sketch, but it doesn’t seem like something that can carry its own sketch. And was it really necessary to give him his own extensive, fleshed-out opening title sequence here?
— I’m still hearing Dexter from Cartoon Network’s Dexter’s Laboratory in Amy’s Kim Jong Il voice. As a 90s kid, I’d like to think that’s intentional on Amy’s part, but would she even be familiar with that cartoon?
— Not caring for anything in this sketch at all so far.
— Yeah, this is pretty much a dud.
— The “Th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!” ending wasn’t necessary, and I’m usually a sucker for a Looney Tunes reference.
STARS: *


TWO A-HOLES WORK OUT WITH A TRAINER
personal trainer (host) doesn’t know what to make of insouciant A-holes

— This is our first appearance this season of any pre-existing recurring characters. Impressive that SNL went this long into the season before they whipped out any recurring characters.
— The usual funny comments from the Two A-holes.
— I particularly like the part where, when Jason just stands in silence after bringing up the fact that he can do a great impression of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, John asks him “So, are you gonna do it, or…” and Jason immediately answers with a blunt “No.”
— This sketch has taken a VERY odd and out-of-the-ordinary turn with John’s whole flustered monologue in reaction to the Two A-holes refusing to speak to him anymore. I appreciate this attempt at something different in a Two A-holes sketch, but it’s not working for me and it’s absolutely bombing with the audience. This episode in general has been having a bit of a hollow feel, and the uncomfortable lack of audience reaction during John’s flustered monologue portion of this Two A-holes sketch is further adding to that hollow feel.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Welcome To The Black Parade”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Flavor Flav (KET) assigns cheeky nicknames to female politicians

AMP leaves a note for SEM upon heading to Colorado for hassle-free weed

— Wow, Kenan’s Flavor Flav impression is fucking HORRIBLE. See, this is one of the problems with having Kenan as the only black male cast member left after Finesse Mitchell’s firing. This being long before the days where he became the polished, reliable veteran he’s appreciated as today, Kenan’s limitations as a performer get exposed badly in these post-Finesse Mitchell pre-Jay Pharoah seasons, when, due to being the only black guy in the cast, he’s sometimes thrown into certain types of black roles that he can’t pull off.
— In addition to his horrible impression, Kenan-as-Flavor-Flav’s breakdown of politicians is just plain unfunny.
— In retrospect, it’s unintentionally amusing how Barack Obama is one of the various politicians who’s photo Kenan’s Flavor Flav responds to with a dismissive “Don’t know ‘im”. If he only knew what the future held for Obama… (Though even Seth, in this Update commentary, is shocked that Kenan’s Flavor Flav doesn’t know who Obama is.)
— Quite a number of weak and/or baffling Update jokes tonight.
— Oh, I absolutely love this side bit with Seth reading a wartime-esque farewell letter from Amy after she’s left the Update desk to get some soon-to-be-legal weed at Colorado. Even the little detail of Amy’s voice crumbling whenever Seth crumbles the letter into a ball while she’s narrating it is fantastic.
— Kinda funny seeing Seth do a Matthew McConaughey vocal impression, as I remember Seth’s brother Josh regularly doing a pretty popular McConaughey impression on MADtv.
— Overall, a few good jokes and a great “farewell letter/Colorado weed” bit, but this was the first subpar Update of the Poehler/Meyers era. Still more tolerable than a typical Fey/Poehler-era Update.
STARS: **½


SHE’S A MESS
(host) alternately gorges on Mexican food & pines for ex-boyfriend (FRA)

— A male extra at the beginning of this sketch botches his cue on when to enter the set. At the same time, you can also hear the stage manager hurriedly whispering to him “Go!”
— Ugh at the reveal of John in drag. I can already tell this is going to be a rough sketch. I remember saying in the original 2006 review (which sadly isn’t available anymore) I did of this episode back when it originally aired, “After John’s opening line in this sketch after the reveal of him in drag, I half-expected this sketch to cut to the “And then there’s Carol!” opening title sequence from Horatio Sanz’s Carol sketches.
— This surprisingly feels like Maya’s first appearance all night, until I remembered she made a small appearance in the Colonial Williamsburg sketch. Amy’s been having a surprisingly light night too, making only three appearances all night, which is a very paltry number compared to how insanely high her appearance-per-show average was the preceding season.
— This sketch is PAINFUL so far. The comedic conceit of John C. Reilly in drag simultaneously crying, talking, and stuffing his face with food, with no funny dialogue to be found anywhere, is comedy death. I also feel bad for Maya, Amy, and Kristen, who’s respective talents are being completely wasted in this sketch in very poor roles.
— What’s with the excessive number of “you guys” being delivered during Maya, Amy, and Kristen’s secretive conversation with each other about John’s character? Is that supposed to be amusing?
— WTF at Fred’s walk-on as some bizarre, unfunny character? And was it intentional to make him look like the lovechild of Austin Powers and Dr. Evil?
— Aaaaaaaaaaand to top this already-horrible sketch off, we end with a man-on-man kiss as a cheap, unnecessary, and brutally unfunny attempt at a laugh. Yep, it’s now official: this is, hands down, one of the worst sketches I have EVER sat through during my SNL project. For various reasons, I get the strong feeling James Anderson was the writer behind this disaster (right down to the Anderson trademark of the camera doing a pan shot of each normal character having a frozen unpleasant look on their face as they’re witnessing something odd the lead comedic character is doing). If so, I see he’s done it once again with yet another sketch that actually ANGERS me with how painfully bad it is. I’m sure James Anderson is a great person behind the scenes at SNL and everything, but it utterly baffles me that this man has kept his job as an SNL writer for 20+ seasons, still continuing TO THIS FUCKING DAY. Looking at a list of sketches he wrote is like looking at a list of sketches that I hated the most from the 2000s and 2010s – there’s an unsettling number of the same sketches on both lists.
STARS: *


HOUSE OF CARTERS
brothers Nick (JAS) & Aaron (ANS) argue & make up

— Jason’s portrayal of Nick Carter is hilarious.
— Meh, the comedic conceit of this sketch is ALREADY getting old.
— Andy shirtless in two sketches tonight?
— Kenan as “black manager” got a laugh out of me with his one line.
— I spoke too soon, as Kenan’s second line fell badly flat and ended this sketch on an awkward note.
STARS: **


HARPOON MAN
whaler Harpoon Man (host) hunts his derogative orca balladeer (ANS)

— Interesting idea for a Shaft spoof, and the mere idea of Andy Samberg as an Isaac Hayes-esque deep-voiced singing narrator tickles me.
— This short has a very “Young Chuck Norris” vibe. Even Bill (where has he been tonight, by the way?) and Jorma Taccone reprise their bit roles from Young Chuck Norris, right down to the same costumes.
— I like the turn with Harpoon Man hunting down the singing narrator during all of his childish insults of him.
— I love the oddball ending.
STARS: ***½


MCMILLAN FAMILY MOMENT
Mr. McMillan (host) relays family Oreo tradition to unreceptive son (ANS)

— I recall an online SNL fan pointing out back when this episode originally aired that a tooth crown can be seen accidentally falling out of John’s mouth during his angry rant at Andy in this sketch, and that John can then be seen awkwardly using the inside of his mouth to feel the missing crown. I’m watching this sketch right now, and I’m pretty sure the “tooth crown” falling out of John’s mouth (the last above screencap for this sketch) was actually only a piece of white cookie filling he had just licked from the Oreo. He does appear to be awkwardly using the inside of his mouth to feel his teeth afterwards, but he’s probably just doing that because he presumably has some cookie filling stuck on his teeth.
— Yet another sketch tonight that ends very awkwardly.
— Overall………no idea what to say about this sketch, other than I didn’t laugh a single time. Man, tonight’s episode is getting BRUTAL with all of its bad sketches.
STARS: *


THE BEAR SHARK PROJECT
scientists (host) & (MAR) sing to mourn the end of Operation Bear Shark

— This looks like it could be a good oddball sketch. The premise alone is very interesting and creative.
— Great visual effect of Jason’s endlessly-bleeding chewed-off arm, especially the little gag of him unintentionally leaving blood on the door window as he’s making his exit.
— Funny line from John about losing his hand AND his virginity to the Bear Shark.
— I’m pretty sure Bill hasn’t uttered a single line in this entire episode (not counting his various Chris Parnell-esque voice-over roles). Damn.
— OH, GOD. Why’d this have to turn into a freakin’ musical sketch? What happened to the jokes? Why waste such a brilliantly absurd premise? God, this episode is DESTROYING me.
— Not even the lyric from a Will Forte-voiced Bear Shark during the Maya/John musical number can save this for me.
— Ugh, this unfunny musical number from Maya and John feels like it’s going on FOREVER.
— Jason, to us viewers, regarding how this sketch turned out: “You feel gypped, right?” Hell fucking yes. You read my mind, Jason, even if you didn’t mean that in the way I want you to.
— Jason’s condescending ending message to us viewers is pretty funny, ALMOST saving this extremely disappointing sketch.
STARS: *½


MCMILLAN FAMILY MOMENT
Mr. McMillan can’t interest Little Brother (KET) in family Oreo tradition

— (*sigh*) Another one of these?
— Once again, not a single laugh from me during the entire sketch. These McMillan Family bits are so weak, and tonight’s episode continues to gradually murder me with its horrible quality.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Cancer”


MCMILLAN FAMILY MOMENT
Mr. McMillan’s dad (JAS) denies authenticity of family Oreo tradition

— OH FUCKING NO.
— Watching this episode is starting to make me feel like I am in hell.
— I very rarely, if ever, criticize Jason Sudeikis, but something about his performance here doesn’t feel right for the character he’s playing. On paper, you’d think the casting of Jason as a grumpy elderly father would be perfect, but he’s coming off too…I dunno, stiff? Something feels awkward and off about his performance in this role. This is a role that Chris Parnell would’ve played to perfection IN HIS SLEEP had he still been on the show.
— Wow, this overall third edition of the McMillan Family runner was somehow even worse than the first two, which I didn’t think was possible. What a horrible runner. How did stuff like this make it on the air?!?
STARS: *


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Oof. What a rough, rough episode. Easily the worst episode I’ve reviewed since the dreaded season 30. Looks like we have a new entry for the list of my lowest-ranked reviews. Very few sketches in this episode worked for me (and not even any of THOSE received a rating over a measly three-and-a-half stars), while A LOT of stuff flopped hard. The post-Weekend Update half in particular was downright unwatchable, aside from the Digital Short. That half of the show made me increasingly miserable, as seen throughout my review. This episode in general felt SO off that even some of the not-so-bad stuff had kind of a hollow, quiet feel, like I mentioned earlier. When your funniest live sketch of the night is a Two A-holes sketch that isn’t up to snuff compared to previous Two A-holes sketches, there’s a big problem. Even SNL themselves seemed to know this episode is a dud, because, IIRC, it ended up never getting an NBC rerun. [ADDENDUM: As said by some in the comments section of this review, this episode did get an NBC rerun, but it was over a year later and was during a long writers strike, showing that SNL was indeed not proud of this episode for a long time.] I remember how both this episode and the worst aspects of the preceding Jaime Pressly episode had a lot of online SNL fans back at this time in 2006 worrying about the direction of this new season, fearing we were in for a potential disaster season. Hindsight has taught us better, as we now know this season ends up turning out fine. I’ll just chalk the shakiness of these past two episodes up to this season trying to find its footing after some major shakeups in the cast. There’s been a different, experimental feel in the early episodes of this season, and, knowing in hindsight that this season ends up being good, I can accept a big misfire like tonight’s episode and the rough patch in the middle of the preceding episode as byproducts of that early experimentation.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jaime Pressly)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Hugh Laurie

Posted on

October 7, 2006 – Jaime Pressly / Corinne Bailey Rae (S32 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A MESSAGE FROM THE SPEAKER
Dennis Hastert (DAH) tells of Mark Foley’s deep interest in page program

— Not caring all that much for the lines about Mark Foley’s love for teenage male pages. My only chuckles from this are very mild. This tepid material isn’t helped by the way it’s being presented, with this being YET ANOTHER cold opening with Darrell doing a dull, non-comedic impression of some boring politician sitting behind a desk and delivering a straight-to-camera address to the nation. Yawn.
— Overall, very meh.
STARS: **


OPENING MONTAGE
— The new SNL logo introduced in the preceding episode has been altered tonight. Not only are the words “Saturday Night Live” now displayed vertically instead of horizontally, but the look of the logo’s font is slightly modified to look EXACTLY like the 1981-1985 Dick Ebersol-era SNL logo. (comparisons below between the Ebersol-era logo and tonight’s logo)

       

I remember finding this logo alteration quite jarring when this episode originally aired. Whenever an SNL bumper photo of Jaime Pressly or Corinne Bailey Rae would appear onscreen each time this episode came back from a commercial break, the SNL logo in the bumper made me feel like I was watching an early 80s rerun, making me half-expect to see a young Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo in the about-to-air sketch. (I remember actually kinda liking that, especially since it was somewhat rare back then to see SNL episodes from the early 80s.) This switchover to the Ebersol-era logo would only last for tonight’s episode. In the next episode, the logo goes through a third and final alteration.
— The way the musical guest and host’s photos are displayed in this opening montage has also changed. They’re displayed as a full-screen shot tonight (which would remain a regular thing for the rest of this opening montage’s run), whereas in the season premiere, they were displayed as a smaller shot in front of a live-action NYC backdrop.


MONOLOGUE
host’s song is interrupted by cast members dressed as southern stereotypes

— Kenan, dressed as Uncle Remus, bitterly saying “Zippety-do-dah, my ass!” while making his exit gave me a good laugh.
— A guilty laugh from Fred’s KKK hood bit.
— I love Bill randomly and slowly entering in the background dressed as Colonel Sanders during Jaime Pressly’s singing of “Fever”. Between dressing as Colonel Sanders in both the Unsolved Mysteries sketch from the preceding season’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus episode and now this monologue, I remember thinking at the time tonight’s episode originally aired that SNL was going to make a long-standing running gag of Bill dressing as Colonel Sanders, but we end up never seeing it again after tonight’s episode.
— Jason’s portrayal of a redneck is very funny.
— I love how this is yet another instance this season of the entire cast being worked into a sketch, once again showing how refreshingly small this cast is compared to the preceding season’s bloated cast.
— An unintentional laugh from the mistiming of Andy’s banjo strumming, which Andy makes a comical facial reaction to.
STARS: ***½


NANCY GRACE
interviewees (ANS), (host), (KET) dodge accusations from Nancy Grace (AMP)

— This is using the same opening theme music that was used as the theme music for the Situation Room cold opening in the preceding season’s Lindsay Lohan episode. I assumed back when I reviewed that Lohan episode that that music was the actual Situation Room theme music, but now I take it that’s just stock music SNL uses for some of their political talking head show sketches? I do love hearing that epic music, though.
— Amy’s portrayal of Nancy Grace is good.
— The occasional unrelated comments from Amy’s Nancy Grace about her chair being moved come off baffling and random at first, though thanks to having already seen this sketch before, I’m now aware of where it’s going.
— Some good laughs from Amy’s Nancy Grace constantly reaching to find seediness about every little thing.
— Great bit with Kenan as a janitor suddenly being mic’ed and sat down for an interview, much to his complete confusion. Kenan can always sell stuff like this well.
STARS: ***½


NEW YORK CITY STORIES
Martin Scorsese (FRA) & Rosie Perez (AMP) on NYC

— Interesting format to this piece.
— A good and amusing Martin Scorsese impression from Fred. And I absolutely LOVE the voice Amy’s using as Rosie Perez. I’m finding her Rosie Perez voice both funny and oddly endearing.
— A very funny brief Do The Right Thing-esque cutaway to Amy’s Rosie Perez dancing in the street.
STARS: ***½


JON BOVI
record exec (host) hears antonym-based lyrics of Jon Bovi (JAS) & (WLF)

— The debut of Jason and Will’s Jon Bovi characters. Unless I’m forgetting something, this ends up being the only non-Weekend Update appearance they would ever make on SNL.
— As I said in a recent review, I’m usually a sucker for whenever Will or Jason individually do comical singing in a sketch, so as you can imagine, this Jon Bovi bit is pretty much comedy gold to me. While the comedy of this is incredibly dumb, Will and Jason make it the absolutely right kind of dumb, and they’re a blast as a duo in this.
— I love the repeated sayings of “Where the eff do we sign?!?” “We brought our own peeeeeeeens!”
— A very fun, silly conceit of Jon Bovi singing opposite lyrics of hit songs.
— Such a funny little detail with the random countdown numbers Will and Jason keep doing before each song.
— The completely nonsensical bit about Will having lost his pens in his butt is hilarious.
STARS: ****


WVIR NEWS
TV reporter Michelle Dison (KRW) awkwardly hits on interviewee (host)

— Early on in this, Kristen manages to get a good laugh just from the simple bit with her looking Jaime up and down, before we realize the comedic conceit of this sketch.
— A good laugh from Kristen’s out-of-nowhere comment about how Jaime must look coming fresh out of the shower.
— Some more good amusement from Kristen’s increasingly lustful-but-nervous compliments about Jaime’s looks.
— Decent ending with how Kristen’s embarrassment from the Jaime situation increases when bird poop from above randomly drops onto Kristen’s shoulder while she’s still on camera. Her drawn-out, mostly-silent awkward reaction to that is the type of thing Kristen is always so good at getting laughs out of.
STARS: ***½


NEW YORK CITY STORIES
Lou Reed (FRA) & Patti Smith (AMP) on CBGB

— I like how not only is this a runner, but each segment features Fred and Amy playing a different pair of celebrities.
— I’m really enjoying the format of these New York City Stories pieces, and I love the way this particular one is shot, including the black-and-white screen filter.
— Overall, my favorite of these New York City Stories pieces so far.
STARS: ****


ST. AMBROSE SCHOOL
principal (BIH) meets with unruly (host)’s stepmom Virginiaca (KET)

— Kenan In A Dress alert.
— Ugh, the debut of Kenan’s Virginiaca character, the nadir of Kenan’s annoying and constant drag in these earlier seasons of his SNL tenure. I think I’ve said this before, but old stuff like this sketch makes you really appreciate how much more mature Kenan is as a performer nowadays.
— I can’t find anything else to say about this sketch while I’m suffering through it.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Put Your Records On”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Peter O’Toole (BIH) thinks Mark Foley is unworthy of the term “alcoholic”

Fugly Betsy (FRA) stars in Ugly Betty knock-off produced by Charo (MAR)

— I love the idea of Bill doing a commentary as a drunk Peter O’Toole.
— Bill is killing it here, and I feel this is one of the best things he’s done by this point of his SNL tenure. At the time this originally aired, I remember considering this to be the type of brilliant, mature comedy that I knew Bill was capable of, and that I wanted SNL to let Bill display much more often.
— Even the post-commentary bit with Bill’s O’Toole is funny, with him having to be told which direction to exit in.
— Seth’s joke about how Bill Frist “is the guy who thought we could still fix Terri Schiavo” got a VERY interesting and initially-hesitant audience reaction. I also remember it getting LOTS of praise on some of the SNL message boards at the time, for how edgy and daring the joke was perceived to be, and it was because of this that a lot of people on those message boards started coming around on Seth as an Update anchor. I admit to following the hype back then, regarding the love for Seth’s Terri Schiavo joke. Nowadays, I have absolutely no idea how to react to that joke, and I’m someone who can enjoy a good edgy, tasteless Update joke (after all, Norm Macdonald is one of my all-time favorite Update anchors).
— I love Seth’s Iran/masturbation joke.
— Meh, this commentary with Fred as an Ugly Betty knock-off doesn’t seem like it’ll be something I’ll like. If anything, at least this, in retrospect, serves as a time capsule of when Ugly Betty was the big new hit show.
— I did get a laugh from Fred-as-Fugly-Betsy’s “Aaaaaaaaaand…” when trying to think of another thing she did in her acting career besides play a bludgeoning victim once. Otherwise, yeah, just as I predicted, I’m not caring for this Update commentary.
— The return of Maya’s Charo impression. I still can’t understand a word she’s saying, much like in the Charades sketch from the preceding season’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus episode.
— Another winner from Seth tonight: his delivery of the eye laser surgery joke.
STARS: ***


THE NASCARETTES
Nascarettes (host), (FRA), (KRW), (AMP), (MAR) dance on the racetrack

— A laugh from Amy’s line about being the girl who held the cards between rounds at cockfights.
— I love the brief cutaway to Kristen helplessly still doing her dance move while panickedly looking for her lost earring on the track.
— Okay, I am not enjoying where this sketch is going.
— Ugh. Yeah, this is an unfunny endless repetition of a joke that didn’t work all that well to begin with.
— Very weak ending.
STARS: *½


NEW YORK CITY STORIES
Fran Lebowitz (FRA) & Yoko Ono (AMP) opine

— Not quite as funny as the last two editions of this, but Fred’s delivery and performance are keeping this amusing for me. He’s so good at making fun of pretentious people like this.
STARS: ***


BIG WIGS
ceiling fan cuts down corporate consulting of Big Wigs (host) & (AMP)

 

— What the heck is this? So-called “big wigs” literally having big wigs? Are they kidding me with this grade-school-level comedy?
— Is half of this episode being written by James Anderson, because I’ve been getting an awfully big James Anderson vibe from the Virginiaca, Nascarettes, and Big Wigs sketches. (I think I heard he indeed wrote Nascarettes, but I’m not sure about the other two. He would also later write a few sketches that are in a very similar vein to Nascarettes, including a really wretched sketch from Lindsay Lohan’s season 37 episode.) And all three of these sketches represent so many things I despise about Anderson as a writer.
— Man, what the hell am I watching? This sketch is awful.
— Not even the Ball Busters ending with Maya and Kristen could save this for me. At least this sketch was short, though.
— When this episode originally aired, an online SNL fan said this sketch had a HUGE season 6 vibe (and he or she certainly didn’t mean that as a compliment). Back in 2006, I wasn’t able to accurately agree or disagree with that SNL fan’s comment, because at the time, I had barely seen anything from season 6, though from all the things I had heard about that season back then, I could see that SNL fan’s point about Big Wigs. Now that I’m very familiar with season 6 after having reviewed the entire season earlier in my SNL project, I can definitely agree with that comment about Big Wigs feeling like a season 6 sketch. It especially would’ve fit right at home in that season’s bad-pun-filled Malcolm McDowell episode (Serf City, Jack the Stripper, etc.). Regardless of which season 6 episode this sketch would’ve appeared in, I can easily picture Jason, Andy, and Bill’s roles as the businessmen being played by Charles Rocket, Gilbert Gottfried, and Joe Piscopo, Jaime and Amy’s roles as the Big Wigs being played by a female host and Gail Matthius (the latter doing her Roweena’s Cut ‘n’ Curl/Bobby’s World “Don’cha know” voice), and Maya and Kristen’s roles as the Ball Busters being played by Ann Risley and Denny Dillon. Alternately, you can switch Gail and Denny in each other’s roles, as I can also easily picture Denny as one of the Big Wigs, and I can kinda see Gail as one of the Ball Busters. Or, if this sketch appeared in a season 6 episode without a female host, then both Gail AND Denny could’ve played the Big Wigs, and Ann and Yvonne Hudson could’ve played the Ball Busters. Okay, I am thinking WAY too hard about this, but hey, I’m far more entertained by imagining Big Wigs as a bad season 6 sketch than I am by watching the ACTUAL bad season 32 version of the sketch.
STARS: *


KUATO
vile Kuato (ANS) in (BIH)’s abdomen creeps out fellow partygoers

— Uh…okay. Certainly an out-of-the-ordinary Total Recall-inspired premise. This does seem like something Andy can make work, though.
— I’m now halfway through this sketch, and I’m not sure how to feel about it so far. I’ve been liking some of Andy’s lines, and the off-beat concept is growing on me, but at the same time, I’m not laughing at this sketch as much as I feel like I should.
— I love Bill’s exaggerated delivery of “DAMN YOU, KUATO WHO LIVES IN MY STOMACH!”
— No. NO! Not the return of Darrell’s awful Ahnuld impression. Ugh.
— A terrible ending that felt unnecessary.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Like A Star”


PORCH TALK
daft & indiscreet (host) & (KRW) sip hot cider on a pleasant fall evening

— Another example tonight of the type of role that Kristen is always great at selling perfectly. She has been really solid, reliable, and fun in these early seasons of her SNL tenure so far.
— I’m enjoying the bizarre and disturbing facts about themselves that Kristen and Jaime are very calmly and affably sharing with each other in between their sips of cider.
— A very funny random and casual ending reveal from Jaime of “I peed in the cider.”
— Overall, short and sweet.
STARS: ***½


A MOMENT WITH THE OUT-OF-BREATH JOGGER FROM 1982
The Out-Of-Breath Jogger’s (ANS) moment from 1982 is a time capsule

— A very Andy Samberg-y premise (one that he auditioned for SNL with), and the type of stupidity and inanity that only he can sell.
— I particularly love the little part with Andy just randomly yelling out “Pet rock!” as a non-sequitur sentence.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A bit of a hard show to figure. The show both started and closed with a string of good pieces (minus the weak cold opening), but there was a string of truly AWFUL things in the middle of the show (not counting Weekend Update): Virginiaca, Nascarettes, and Big Wigs. Even the Kuato sketch, which I didn’t exactly hate, left me a little cold, despite some aspects of it that I liked. The good does outnumber the bad in this overall episode, but boy, was that middle BRUTAL. And even with the highlights this episode had, this episode didn’t have many strong pieces that I found to be worthy of a 4 or 5-star rating, unlike the preceding episode. I do like how this season is continuing to have a new, experimental feel, including a continued refrain from relying on any recurring characters (which I forgot to point out in my review of the preceding episode, which I’m surprised at, given how I remember heaping praise for it in the review I wrote back in 2006 when that episode originally aired, a review that’s sadly not available anymore).


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Dane Cook)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
John C. Reilly

Posted on

September 30, 2006 – Dane Cook / The Killers (S32 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COMPTROLLER RALLY
unpopular George W. Bush (WLF) is sidelined at minor GOP campaign event

— Hmm, an unexpected way to open a new season.
— Fred and Maya even manage to get laughs just from the simple way they nod their heads lightly and smile politely when they’re introduced by Jason’s character.
— Oh, so we get a random inclusion of Will’s President Bush, which I guess is why this is the cold opening.
— A good way to work almost the entire cast into the season premiere’s cold opening (I think only Darrell and Kenan are missing from this, not counting the now-Weekend-Update-only Seth), immediately showing how much smaller this new season’s cast is compared to the preceding season.
— This odd use of Will’s Bush could, in retrospect, be seen as a sign of the beginning of the end for Will’s run as Bush. He makes only one more appearance as Bush two episodes later (in another odd usage of him) before the Bush role is given to a certain other cast member.
— I love Will-as-Bush’s delivery of “Taliban is back, that’s a burn.”
— A funny reaction from Will’s Bush to Andy’s “Politics” line.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— New montage.

   

— We get a new SNL logo for the first time in 11 years. As you might have noticed among the above screencaps, the words in this new logo are displayed differently from how it would soon go on to be, as the words are displayed horizontally tonight instead of vertically. This 2006-2014 SNL logo will be going through some noteworthy changes the next few episodes before SNL settles on the now-familiar style of it.
— Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, and Kristen Wiig have all been promoted from featured players to repertory players.
— No new cast members this season.
— The final shot of this opening montage, with the camera showing a tilted shot of the NBC Studios sign (the last above screencap for this opening montage), seems like it might’ve been inspired by a shot shown in the cold opening from the preceding season’s Steve Martin episode (side-by-side comparison below).


MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about negative people, liars, suicides, car wrecks

— The monitors on the left and right side of the home base stage still display the preceding season’s SNL logo and a still from that season’s opening montage. This would eventually be changed to reflect this season’s new logo and montage.
— Welp, here comes another round of Dane Cook stand-up I have to endure in this SNL project.
— Like I said in my review of Dane’s last monologue, I really dislike his trademark stand-up delivery.
— The suicide bits about “Karaoke Kevin” and “Limbo Linda” are decent.
— The bit about how everything is on YouTube now (and to think, this was before our more current days, where truly almost everything CAN be found on YouTube) is memorable and funny, mainly the “A:F6” part.
— A laugh from Dane’s “Ma’am, you can drive through ghosts” comment.
— Overall, I’m surprised by how much I laughed at this Dane Cook stand-up monologue, and this thankfully lacked some of the more annoying aspects of Dane’s previous monologue.
STARS: ***


SIDE NOTE: No post-monologue fake commercial in tonight’s season premiere? Can’t remember the last time prior to this where a season premiere went without one.


AIRPORT SECURITY SEMINAR
(host) & (JAS) instruct airport security workers regarding liquids & gels

— A fun ensemble piece for the lead-off sketch of the season.
— Dane and Jason make a good duo here, and I’m really liking Jason’s delivery.
— A good laugh from the whole bit with Fred trying to claim that a turkey sandwich can count as a liquid.
— I love Will and Kenan simultaneously saying the same answer to the question of why someone would put a turkey sandwich in a blender: “Well, if your jaw was wired shut–”
— All of the asinine questions the employees are asking are very funny.
— Maya seems like she’s playing a variation of her Jackie character from season 26, who, in one of her appearances, actually did work at an airport (she worked at a post office in her other appearance).
— The “You mean producing a liquid?” “Or a gel” exchange is a particularly hilarious and memorable part of this sketch, made even funnier by Kenan making a classic “Kenan reacts” face in the background.
— A great stern and blunt delivery of “No” from Dane in response to Maya asking if a meatball can count as a liquid.
— Here’s the first sign that I noticed tonight’s episode has a new director (Don Roy King): this sketch ends with a cutaway to an exterior shot of an airport, which I remember feeling was an odd choice when this episode originally aired, especially given the fact that this sketch didn’t open with an exterior shot of anything.
— Overall, a very strong sketch, and a promising way to lead off the new season.
STARS: ****½


HUGO CHAVEZ POLITICAL ROUNDUP
heads of state bash USA & its leader

— Right out of the gate, Fred’s exaggerated gestures and facial expressions as Hugo Chavez are freakin’ slaying me. I can definitely see some people being annoyed by this, but it has me practically on the floor.
— The debut of Amy’s Kim Jong Il, my first reminder that Horatio Sanz is no longer in the cast, as he used to play this role.
— I recall an online SNL fan back at this time (possibly fellow SNL reviewer and fellow SNL blogger The Doc, but I can’t remember for sure) pointing out Amy’s voice and accent as Kim Jong Il in this sketch sounded like the character Dexter from Cartoon Network’s 90s animated series Dexter’s Laboratory.
— The performances in this sketch are very fun, and that, coupled with the silly atmosphere of this sketch, is making the dialogue much funnier than it actually is.
— Holy hell at Dane’s Saddam Hussein voice. Is he attempting to imitate the gruff voice Alec Baldwin used as Saddam the preceding season? I recall an online SNL fan back at this time (not sure if it was the same fan I mentioned above) saying Dane’s Saddam voice sounded like Cookie Monster with a foreign accent.
STARS: ***½


CUBICLE FIGHT
(host) fiercely guards territory from new employee (BIH)

— Funny “Cubicle Fight” reveal.
— Jason is great as the boss with his occasional interruptions during Bill and Dane’s wild fight.
— Solid bit with Bill using Dane’s tongue to lick an envelope.
— Good bit with the pencil sharpener.
— I love the little strut Dane does when he’s turning around as he’s about to stab Bill with a knife.
— Uh…okay. A very odd, speechless, abrupt ending to this short after Dane’s violent and very bloody off-camera stabbing of Bill. Half of me actually kinda loves that, as a Michael O’Donoghue-esque weird, dark, and disturbing way of ending this short, while the other half of me is just left baffled.
STARS: ***½


AL PACINO CHECKS HIS BANK BALANCE
operator (KRW) helps excitable Al Pacino (BIH) check his bank balance

— Fun concept for a sketch showcasing Bill’s killer Al Pacino impression, which we last saw a year prior in Bill’s breakout performance in his very first episode.
— A lot of funny lines from Bill’s Pacino throughout his phone conversation, helped by his very funny delivery.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “When You Were Young”


NEW CO-ANCHOR
crestfallen Brian Williams [real] learns that SEM is AMP’s new co-anchor

— Wow, a change of pace, with a pre-Weekend Update intro segment, or a Weekend Update cold opening.
— I see we have a new Update set.
— Very strong premise of the real Brian Williams mistakenly thinking he’s Amy’s new Update co-anchor.
— I love Brian’s reactions to finding out SNL decided to go with Seth as the co-anchor instead of him. We’re seeing early signs of the surprisingly solid SNL host Brian would be the following season.
— Great exit line from Brian, and I love the detail of how he gives Seth a rude, dismissive shoulder bump as he walks past him.
— Odd how the show has gone back to a commercial break right after this short piece, instead of immediately cutting to the Update opening title sequence. However, the copy I’m watching of this episode cuts out all the commercial breaks, which makes it look like SNL does go immediately from this Brian Williams piece to the Update opening title sequence.
STARS: not sure this segment even warrants a rating, but if it does, I’ll give it a very high ****½


WEEKEND UPDATE
Bill Clinton (DAH) refires passion of old flame Condoleezza Rice (MAR)

George Allen (JAS) says he’s an inventor of silly words, not a racist

Dustin Diamond (ANS) hopes to raise money with his unappealing sex tape

— A new Update era officially begins.
— I’m not crazy at all about Amy’s opening joke. Feels like nothing has changed with her from the dire Fey/Poehler era that preceding this.
— A better second joke from Amy tonight.
— Right out of the gate, I’m finding myself liking Seth’s delivery as an Update anchor. His opening joke deserved a much better audience reaction.
— We’re already getting our first Update commentary, after only about three Update jokes?
— Interesting how Darrell and Maya are paired together in this Update commentary in the season premiere, because I remember how, after the somewhat large exodus of season 31 cast members over the summer of 2006, I was disappointed to learn that Darrell and Maya survived the purge, as I was of the opinion that, of all the returning cast members for season 32, Darrell and Maya were the ONLY two that should’ve went out the door with Horatio Sanz, Finesse Mitchell, etc. In hindsight, I’m now aware that season 32 ends up being Maya’s best season in a long while. Darrell, on the other hand? Meh.
— Interesting how Darrell’s Bill Clinton is going right to the point as soon as he shows up in this commentary, bypassing his usual habit of drawing out the beginning of his Update commentaries by making flirtatious comments towards the female anchorperson and milking laughs over little things.
— Maya’s “smirk” as Condoleezza Rice is pretty funny.
— Darrell’s Clinton continues to come off more streamlined tonight, as he surprisingly waited until the end of this Update commentary before he broke out his trademark thumbs-up and lip-bite moves. I appreciate how he saved that for the end, because, while I generally like Darrell’s Clinton, he does usually have a habit of relying on certain things too much as a crutch to get easy audience laughter and applause.
— Seth has been impressing me more and more with his delivery as an Update anchor in his debut tonight. A breath of fresh air from Tina Fey’s later years at the desk. Right out of the gate in his first Update, Seth is coming off so comfortable and sharp.
— Jason is always fun in Update commentaries.
— I’m not too crazy about a lot of the dialogue itself that Jason has here, but his delivery is making it work for me.
— The casting of Andy as Dustin Diamond/Screech seems fitting.
— I like the Saved By The Bell-themed names Andy’s Dustin Diamond/Screech gives for his sex acts.
— Amy’s Miss Cleo/lesbian joke really rubbed me the wrong way. Am I the only one?
— A fun closing joke from Seth.
— Overall, things are looking up for Update in this new era. Seth had a surprisingly very solid debut, and the writing of the jokes was a little better from the last few seasons. Amy still had some iffy moments that reminded me a little too much of her typical Update performance the preceding two seasons, but I’m seeing small signs of improvement in her. I found tonight’s Update alone to be better than literally any Fey/Poehler Update.
STARS: ***


POLAND SPRING DELIVERY MEN
empty bottles belie claims of thirsty water deliverymen (host) & (WLF)

— Right out the gate, we open on a hilarious and odd visual of Will and Dane chugging gallon jugs of water.
— I love Dane poorly and bizarrely making up an excuse that he’s busy “boning” some lady right now, and Will then telling Dane that was a good cover.
— I got a huge laugh from Will’s meek delivery of “I like to watch”, in regards to Dane “boning” his lady.
— Kristen is a great stern straight man here.
— This is such a strong oddball Will Forte sketch as usual. It’s so good, that even Dane Freakin’ Cook is coming off really well here, and his typical delivery style is actually working well in this material instead of hurting it. And who knew he would make a great duo with Will?
— A very memorable and classic sequence right now with an ENDLESS number of water jugs falling out of the closet. Very much in the “Sideshow Bob rake sequence” category of comedy.
— I’m really liking the very meta turn this sketch has taken, with Will detailing his plan to get this whole situation adapted into an SNL sketch. We also get a mention of NBC having two new SNL-based shows at this time: 30 Rock and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. This was an interesting time to be an SNL fan.
— A solid self-deprecating ending line from Will about how the funny part of this sketch “ended a looooong time ago”.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Bones”


FARRAH FAWCETT FOR OCEAN SAVE
flighty Farrah Fawcett’s (AMP) pro-ocean message lacks focus

— Random idea for a sketch, but I like that we’ve been getting quite a lot of randomness in tonight’s season premiere.
— I’m not 100% sure if the bit with one of Amy’s fake breasts falling down her dress was intentional, as I recall some online SNL fans back at this time questioning if it was a genuine accident. It seemed planned to me, but if it was an accident, then Amy did a good job playing it off like it was part of the sketch.
— Yet another very meta turn tonight (which is another theme in this episode), with Amy-as-Farrah-Fawcett’s rambling getting interrupted by the camera pulling away from this sketch and panning over to the set for the next sketch, all the while Amy’s Farrah Fawcett worriedly follows the camera and asks where it’s going. The audience seems sooooo confused over this, judging from their awkward silence, but I am LOVING this. Such a unique transition into the following sketch. I also love how Amy’s Farrah ends this transition by randomly saying “I’m gonna do this scene now” as the screen fades to black.
STARS: ***½


CLOSING TIME
jerks (host) & (JAS) forcibly eject patrons from a bar at closing time

— Another Jason Sudeikis-starring sketch that takes place in his (I think) real-life hometown of Kansas City, much like the Once In A Lifetime Jewelers sketch he did the preceding season.
— Jason and Dane make yet another solid duo tonight.
— Solid execution of this sketch.
— Another good way tonight to work this entire cast into a sketch.
— Amy’s Farrah Fawcett, in her only line of this sketch: “She’s getting married, and I’m Farrah Fawcett.”
— I love the bit with Fred, which is a great way to end this sketch.
STARS: ****


GEICO
Geico customer’s (ANS) tale is augmented by wreck Whitney Houston (MAR)

— A funny way to spoof the Geico commercials from this time that each had a comical testimonial with an average citizen paired with a celebrity.
— I’m usually not all that crazy about Maya’s Whitney Houston appearances, but it’s working more for me in this format, with her always following up a straitlaced brief anecdote from Andy by saying a crazy brief anecdote.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very solid season premiere. I enjoyed literally EVERY SINGLE SEGMENT in this episode, the whole show had a fun vibe, two of the sketches were particularly strong (Poland Spring Delivery Men and Airport Security Seminar), and I liked all the different, out-of-the-ordinary, meta things the show tried. A promising start to a different-feeling SNL season so far. Speaking of a different-feeling SNL season so far, when this episode originally aired, I considered this the start of a new era. There were various things that gave this episode such a “new era” vibe for me back then, which include a new opening montage, a new Update co-anchor and Update set, a new director, the unusual lack of a pre-taped commercial for a season premiere, Weekend Update having a “cold opening”, the aforementioned focus on breaking-the-fourth-wall, meta humor, how unusual it felt seeing the show have a much smaller cast than the extremely large cast of the preceding season, and even a change of the formatting of the post-Weekend Update commercial breaks (though that’s probably more an NBC thing than an involuntary SNL thing). Speaking of the much smaller cast, I remember when I first watched this episode the night it originally aired, I was so used to the preceding season’s large cast that I kept getting an empty feel regarding the smaller cast in this episode. Not necessarily empty in a bad way, but in a way that I kept wondering why the heck it feels like one-third of the cast hadn’t appeared in any sketches yet, until I had to keep reminding myself that one-third of the cast is now gone. It took me an episode or two to get used to this season’s smaller cast, though I definitely appreciated the cast having a more streamlined feel this season (something modern-day SNL in 2020 could learn from). I really like how there were several segments in this episode where SNL used the entire cast (or most of them), showing how much smaller, cohesive, and comfortable-seeming this cast is than season 31’s bloated, mish-mashed cast.
— I was surprised by Dane Cook’s performance as a host in this episode. Unlike his first hosting stint, where I ran hot and cold on him all night (much more cold than hot towards the end of that episode), Dane didn’t bother me at all in any of the sketches he was in tonight (the closest was his odd Saddam Hussein voice in the Hugo Chavez sketch, but that was harmless and only a small part of that sketch), and he also worked well when paired with certain cast members, such as Will Forte and (especially) Jason Sudeikis. Even Dane’s monologue was decent tonight, after an iffy first two minutes.


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


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Jaime Pressly

Posted on

May 20, 2006 – Kevin Spacey / Nelly Furtado (S31 E19)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

ANDERSON COOPER 360
Arnold Schwarzenegger (DAH) on immigration

— Kenan is pretty funny here in his laid-back performance.
— Ugh, the return of Darrell’s weak Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.
— Rachel putting her Boston accent routine to good use here, even long after Jimmy Fallon’s departure.
— It’s almost as if SNL heard my criticisms of how bland and unfunny of a straight man Seth’s Anderson Cooper was in the previous Anderson Cooper 360 cold openings this season, because I’ve noticed that he’s making a lot more funny comments tonight.
— A subversion from how these Anderson Cooper 360 sketches usually end with Seth’s Cooper saying “Live from New York…”, as Rachel gets to be the one to deliver the LFNY this time, obviously because SNL was aware that tonight’s season finale was most likely Rachel’s final episode. She would indeed leave with Tina over the summer to do the show 30 Rock (Rachel was originally cast as the character Jenna), but, IIRC (though I’m not sure, so take this with a grain of salt), it wasn’t 100% confirmed yet as of this episode’s original airing if NBC was picking 30 Rock up (which is why I said SNL was aware that this was most likely Rachel’s final episode). Rachel leaving SNL for the show 30 Rock is sad in hindsight, knowing what would go on to happen to her in regards to that show (NBC would demand a re-casting of the role of Jenna, because they felt Rachel wasn’t “hot” enough to play the character).
STARS: **½


MONOLOGUE
host sings an American Idol-friendly version of “For Once In My Life”

— Could’ve done without Kevin Spacey’s little political jab at George W. Bush when making an analogy between the number of voters of American Idol and the last presidential election. Hey, I don’t like Bush either, but this little jab from Kevin felt way too out-of-place and shoehorned into this monologue, and took me out of the point he was trying to make about American Idol.
— Meh, not too crazy about this premise of Kevin enacting his ideal version of an American Idol performance. Feels like a waste of his comedic talents. Hopefully, he can still make this fun, though.
— Kevin’s executing this well, but I’m not laughing.
— Okay, I finally got a laugh just now, from how Kevin refers to Paula Abdul.
— The singing-on-the-floor bit is okay.
— I’m aware that Kevin deciding to finish his song “as a black person” is off-putting to some SNL fans nowadays. I’m not off-put or offended; my problem is that it’s not particularly funny.
STARS: **


TWO A-HOLES AT A CRIME SCENE
detective (host) interviews A-holes about a car theft they witnessed

— I like how this appears to be using the same set from the very first Two A-holes sketch, the one where they try to buy a Christmas tree.
— A huge laugh not only from the Two A-holes randomly requesting to have some of the cop’s donuts (which he doesn’t even have), but from the subsequent cutaway to Kevin’s deadpan, silent facial reaction to that request.
— Now Kevin is making absolutely hilarious deadpan, silent facial reactions straight into the camera.
— Kevin continues to be a fantastic straight man towards the Two A-holes’ hilarious lines; by far the best straight man these Two A-holes sketches have ever had.
— Ha, even Kevin’s execution of the very brief phone call was priceless.
STARS: ****½


OPRAH WINFREY’S LEGENDS BALL SPECIAL
black women plus John Travolta (DAH)

— As usual in sketches with Chris as a voice-over announcer, he has some funny lines here. I just now came to the sad realization this is the final episode we’ll be hearing Chris’ fantastic voice-over work on SNL. In my opinion, to this day in 2020, SNL has yet to find a cast member as strong of a sketch voice-over performer as Chris ever since his departure. Bill would pretty much take over Chris’ role as the go-to cast member for sketch voice-overs, but, as much as I love Bill, I’ve honestly never cared at all for his voice-over work on SNL. I like Cecily Strong’s voice-over work in more recent seasons, but not even she compares to Chris in that department.
— Kenan In A Dress alert.
— Finesse In A Dress alert. Good god.
— Jesus Freakin’ Christ, now we get another Kenan In A Dress alert…IN THE SAME SKETCH.
— Oh fucking no. Now we get the return of Darrell’s absolutely god-awful John Travolta impression. Okay, you know what, JUST END THIS SKETCH ALREADY.
— Oh, and between Ahnuld and now John Travolta, what’s with Darrell bringing back two of his worst celebrity impressions (besides Bush) in not only the same episode, but a season finale of all episodes? Given the fact that he was one of the cast members who online SNL fans at the time speculated over that summer would leave the show (then again, that was pretty much a tradition among online SNL fans during EVERY summer of Darrell’s later seasons, given how incredibly long he was on the show), Darrell doing two of his worst celebrity impressions would’ve been a poor way to end his long SNL tenure if this had indeed ended up being his final episode.
— I finally got a laugh just now, from Katie Holmes being billed as Katie Cruise-Hubbard.
— Funny Tom Cruise impression from Seth, without even saying a single word.
STARS: *½


CAROL!
at a restaurant, on-the-rebound (host) is captivated by crude Carol

— The fact that this is Horatio’s swan song and the fact that we had gotten a bit of a break from this character after her last appearance makes tonight’s installment a little more tolerable to me.
— I like Jason’s response to Kevin referring to Carol as an enchanting creature.
— It took Amy’s character that long to figure out what DILF stands for?
— Seth’s delivery as the waiter is pretty funny when he’s giving Carol her various bags of food in intervals.
— We get a PARTICULARLY energetic and exaggerated delivery of “iiiiiiiIIIIII’M CAROL!” from Horatio just now. I would say that’s a sign that Horatio is fully aware that this is the final Carol sketch and his final episode as a cast member, but I doubt it, as he actually gets fired over the summer due to budget cuts; it wasn’t his choice to leave. I remember an online SNL fan later saying sometime around 2010, in a negative manner, “If Horatio had his way, he’d still be on the show today.” Sadly, that’s very true. It would’ve taken us AGES to get rid of Horatio if it was up to him when he got to leave. A lot of us SNL fans should be very grateful for those 2006 budget cuts Lorne was forced to make, even if that meant we also lost the solid Chris Parnell in the process (though, honestly, I feel it was the right time for Chris to go, especially with Jason and Bill now in the cast).
— I got a laugh from Carol’s line about being a model for plus-sized coffins.
— Overall, for the final Carol sketch, I got some chuckles, though this sketch as a whole was still nothing great to me, and I’m a little disappointed that I never fully came around on the “So bad, it’s good”-ness that some people enjoy from these Carol sketches.
STARS: **½


TV FUNHOUSE
“Fun With Real Audio” by RBS- administration claims produce spit-takes

— A laugh from a congressman spitting out an entire bowl of soup onto Donald Rumsfeld.
— Larry King spitting out an entire lung when doing a spit-take while sipping an ice cream sundae had me freakin’ HOWLING. Hell, even just the randomness of Larry King drinking an ice cream sundae while conducting an interview on his show is hilarious in itself.
— I remember an online SNL fan back at this time suggesting that if this cartoon had appeared in the preceding episode, hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, they could’ve somehow worked Julia’s memorable spit-take talk show host character from 1985 into this cartoon, given the spit-take theme of this cartoon.
STARS: ***


ANDY’S EXCUSE
ANS snows host with a Keyser Soze-worthy yarn to explain why he was late

— An interesting and out-of-the-ordinary backstage sketch.
— I love Kevin’s slow burn while sipping from a drink when he comes to the realization of what Andy had just pulled on him.
— An absolutely hilarious The Usual Suspects-esque turn with Kevin seeing all the visuals in the room that Andy made up his on-the-spot lie from.
— The “I Lied!” fax that Kevin receives at the end is very funny.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Timbaland [real] perform “Promiscuous”


WEEKEND UPDATE
excitable American Idol finalist Taylor Hicks (JAS) breaks into song

on TIF’s advice, AMP escapes from an alligator by pretending to be asleep

TIF extends her heretofore correct predictions regarding Britney Spears

Whitney Houston (MAR) leads a salute to TIF on her 180th show

— The final Tina Fey-anchored Weekend Update.
— When pointing out someone’s at the Update door, it sounds like Amy calls Tina “Betty”. At first, I thought to myself “Huh?”, until I remembered Elizabeth is Tina’s real first name (she gets the name Tina from her middle name, Stamantina), and Betty is commonly used as a nickname for the name Elizabeth.
— Great to see the return of Jason’s hilarious impression of Taylor Hicks.
— Like last time, lots of funny lines and singing outbursts from Jason’s Hicks.
— A rare Tina/Amy interaction piece on Update that actually works, as I really like the very random alligator bit. A good way for Tina/Amy Update interaction pieces to go out, considering this is our final one.
— Amy introduces tonight’s Women’s News segment from Tina by saying it’s the second-ever edition of it. Not even close. Tina actually did several editions of these Women’s News segments back in her earlier seasons, but I guess everyone at SNL, including Tina herself, only remembers the famous one about Britney Spears from Tina’s very first Update.
— Another big hint that this is Tina’s final Update, as we get a clip of the aforementioned Britney Spears-centered Women’s News segment from Tina’s very first Update.
— Funny to see how different Tina looked back in 2000 in the aforementioned clip, which 2006 Tina then gets in a self-deprecating jab at, by saying “I was really rockin’ that David Spade haircut.”
— I’m really enjoying Tina’s whole speech towards Britney Spears during tonight’s Women’s News segment. This is easily some of the better material Tina has performed on Update in a long time.
— Tina, towards Britney Spears: “In 10 years, you’ll be president.” Considering who actually does end up becoming president 10 years later, Tina’s joking comment about Britney Spears becoming president no longer seems as far-fetched as it would’ve back in 2006.
— Seems to be a bit of a fat baby theme in tonight’s Update.
— You can tell from looking at Tina right after she did her final Update joke that it was a significant moment to her.
— Amy mentions this is Tina’s 180th show at SNL (I’m assuming that’s including her pre-cast member years as a writer?), and brings out a celebration for Tina. This is actually a thinly-veiled way to give Tina a sendoff, but I’m assuming they’re not coming right out and saying this is her final episode, because, as I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t a 100% sure thing yet if the show 30 Rock was going to get picked up, and Tina probably wanted to keep SNL as an open option to stay on in case NBC decided to pass on 30 Rock. She probably saw what happened to Paula Pell, who left at the end of the preceding season (and got a big deal made about that during the goodnights) to work on an upcoming NBC sitcom, only for that sitcom to end up not even making it to air, leading Paula to come crawling back to SNL after about half a season.
— I love how in the middle of Maya-as-Whitney-Houston’s tribute song to Tina, Maya’s Whitney brings out who she incorrectly assumes are Tina’s favorite characters: Frondi, Vasquez Gomez-Vazquez, and Qrplt*xk.
— And thus concludes Tina’s…uh, rather varying tenure on Weekend Update. Honestly, I didn’t like being so negative about her in my reviews of these past few seasons, given how strong, consistently funny, witty, and refreshing she was in her first two seasons at the Update desk, and what a breath of fresh air her and Jimmy Fallon’s version of Update was from the Colin Quinn era it succeeded (though I ended up hating the Fey/Poehler era so much that my dissatisfaction with the Quinn era now feels absolutely trivial in hindsight). But, hey, I have to be open and honest about my opinions in these reviews, and I personally felt that Tina gradually went badly downhill as an Update anchor starting in season 28, culminating in the absolutely unwatchable final two seasons of her Update stint, the most dire that I feel Update had been since the rock-bottom 1980-1982 years of Update/SNL Newsbreak. I’m glad Tina at least went out on a bit of a high note, as she had some actual good moments in 3 of her final 4 Updates (the exception of those 4 Updates being the one from the Tom Hanks episode). And now, I say: BRING ON THE NEXT UPDATE ERA!
STARS: **½


THE FALCONER
quest to save Donald via time machine produces 14 copies of The Falconer

— This ends up being the final Falconer sketch.
— I love Donald squawking a dirty joke to The Falconer, which gets an offended reaction from The Falconer.
— Jason and Bill as Falconer clones in the first back-in-time scene is great.
— Oh, I am absolutely LOVING the absurd and ambitious escalation of this. This is becoming absolutely INSANE in the most perfect way.
— Hilarious how this sketch has gotten to the point where it has to resort to using female and black cast members to play Falconer clones, due to having used up so much of the cast.
— Various Falconers in unison throughout this sketch: “TO THE TIIIIIIME MACHIIIIINNNNNE-AH!”
— A very funny subversion with one scene being a completely unrelated bit involving Abraham Lincoln chopping wood, because the various Falconers went too far back in time.
— The visual of almost the entire cast dressed as the Falconer and speaking in unison is unforgettable.
— Overall, wow. An absolute masterpiece. And this was such a perfect way for The Falconer sketches to go out. SNL would actually attempt another Falconer sketch sometime after this, but it wouldn’t make it past dress rehearsal. The premise of that cut Falconer sketch was very meta, having something to do with Will’s Falconer character finding out that his life is a sketch on a comedy show. As much as tonight’s Falconer installment was such a perfect way to end this recurring sketch’s run, that cut sketch sounds like it would’ve also been a very fitting way to end The Falconer’s run.
— I only wish that 1) tonight’s Falconer sketch included Tina, so this would’ve been an ENTIRELY full-cast sketch (though it’s not a big deal that she’s not in it, as I guess you can still argue it’s a full-cast sketch in regards to regular sketch performers), and 2) it was placed as the final sketch of this season finale. Closing the season with a full-cast sketch of this nature would’ve been absolutely epic, and this already-classic sketch would’ve gone down as one of the best season-ending sketches in SNL history.
STARS: *****


ANDY WALKING
ANS belittles correct man-on-the-street quiz responses

— Another display of Andy’s Adam Sandler-esque ability to milk laughs out of incredibly stupid humor. I especially got a laugh from the “Are you McSure?” bit.
— I love the bit with SNL writer John Lutz as a passerby.
— Overall, this was fine in itself, but way too average for a season finale Digital Short. Considering the huge first year they had on SNL, you’d figure Lonely Island would go all out on their season-ending Digital Short.
STARS: ***


LEGENDS OF HISTORY
inventor of sarcasm (host) confuses English in 1100s

— Perfect casting of Kevin as this inventor of sarcasm.
— Oh, I absolutely LOVE the voice Bill is using.
— Believe it or not, this is the very first and only time in Chris’ entire SNL tenure where he has dressed in drag. An odd and fitting coincidence how this is occurring in what ends up being Chris’ final episode. You’d think this coincidence was intentional, as a way to scratch off the last thing on the list of things Chris never did during his SNL tenure (besides break character), but, much like Horatio, it wasn’t planned at the time for this to be Chris’ final episode. He was another casualty of the budget cuts Lorne was forced to make over the summer.
— Some good laughs from Kevin’s sarcastic remarks throughout this sketch.
— Hilarious reveal of Stonehenge having gotten built just because of a sarcastic thing Kevin told his men to do.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Maneater”


I DO NOT AGREE WITH MANY OF THIS ADMINISTRATION’S POLICIES
Neil Young’s (host) new album contains unsubtle political commentary

— Sadly, this is the ONLY celebrity impression Kevin has done all night. A letdown compared to the wide array of spot-on and very funny celebrity impressions he memorably did in his first hosting stint. Not only that, but his Neil Young impression in this sketch isn’t even particularly good. I see what he’s going for, but I’ve seen much better Neil Young impressions.
— The laughs in this sketch are only mild AT BEST. This is no way to close a season finale.
— Overall, an extremely meh sketch. I once again argue that SNL should’ve closed out this season with that epic Falconer sketch.
STARS: **


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An overall average season finale. There were a few REALLY strong points, but a number of average or weak pieces brought the episode down to just an okay level. Kind of a forgettable episode compared to Kevin Spacey’s phenomenal season 22 episode. Spacey himself, despite a disappointing monologue and a mediocre Neil Young impression, brought a lot of solid performances tonight, even if, again, this hosting stint of his does not hold a candle to his season 22 hosting stint.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)
a 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 (2004-05)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 32 begins, with Dane Cook as host, a more streamlined cast size, and Amy Poehler being joined by a new co-anchor on Weekend Update

Posted on

May 13, 2006 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus / Paul Simon (S31 E18)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PARALLEL EARTH
on a parallel Earth, everything is great under president Al Gore [real]

— Right from the opening intro sequence of this, it looks like we’re in for an out-of-the-ordinary cold opening.
— Very fun concept of the real Al Gore being president in a parallel universe, and Gore has proven himself in the past to be a good presence on SNL.
— So much great and inspired ironic humor here, and this is both very well-written and well-performed.
— Ha, there goes a lockbox mention.
— A particularly funny line about California no longer existing, and having been replaced by Mexifornia.
STARS: ****½


MONOLOGUE
Jason Alexander [real] thinks JLD has broken the Seinfeld [real] curse

— It feels very nice to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus back on SNL for the first time since her departure from the cast in 1985.
— I like that Julia starts this monologue by bringing up the little-known-among-more-casual-viewers fact that she was once an SNL cast member. I wish she talked a little more about that here, but she would later do that in her season 41 monologue.
— We also get a mention that Julia has the honor of being the first female cast member to host. I remember how, before this, a lot of online SNL fans were surprised that in SNL’s then-31 years on the air, there had yet to be a female cast member who has come back to host. Thankfully, after Julia’s hosting stint in tonight’s episode, there have been much more female cast members who have hosted.
— Very funny mockery of men’s maturity levels with the various working titles Julia says that her show The New Adventures Of Old Christine originally had.
— I absolutely LOVE how we’re getting a Seinfeld-esque pre-taped outdoors scene with Julia and Jason Alexander.
— Great scene with Julia and Jason, especially the sudden car collision ending.
— Now we get a Jerry Seinfeld cameo! Even the odd raspiness in his voice here is making me laugh a lot.
— A noticeable absence of a Michael Richards cameo. Either he wasn’t available, or SNL somehow looked into the future and saw that he was soon going to gain extreme notoriety with his infamous Laugh Factory incident later in this same year.
STARS: ****½


TECH PACK
wired vest organizes electronic devices but looks terroristic

— I recall this getting cut from many dress rehearsals this season before finally making it on the air in tonight’s episode.
— I like how the only performers in this are two of the newbies.
— Amusing how the Tech Pack that Jason is demonstrating to Kristen looks unintentionally like a terrorist’s bomb strap, complete with a detonator.
— Very funny ending with Jason running through the airport with his bomb strap-looking device, scaring the hell out of the other people at the airport.
— Overall, short and sweet.
STARS: ***½


BUM ATTENTION
insecure (JLD) is upset she isn’t being harassed by a lewd bum (BIH)

— Feels interesting seeing Julia paired with this female cast after having gotten so used to seeing Julia’s female cast mates being Mary Gross, Robin Duke, etc. when I reviewed her SNL era earlier in this project of mine.
— Julia’s disappointment at not getting sleazily hit on by Bill’s disgusting hobo character like her friends did is very funny.
— A great crass performance from Bill.
— I love the long, suspenseful buildup to the comment Bill is going to make to Julia.
— A hilarious dirty line that Bill eventually says to Julia, much to her poorly-disguised pleasure.
STARS: ****


THE MORNING SHOW
everything goes wrong during live television broadcast

— It certainly feels odd but interesting seeing this pairing of Kristen and Horatio front and center in this sketch. Watching back this season in retrospect years after it originally aired, it kinda blows my mind now that Kristen and Horatio’s SNL tenures overlapped for a season, as that’s easy to forget when watching this season, partly due to them rarely interacting with each other onscreen, partly due to the very different SNL eras they represent respectively, and partly due to how Horatio’s presence has gradually diminished this season while Kristen’s presence gradually increased.
— I absolutely love how literally EVERY SINGLE THING is going wrong in this morning show. SNL has done this premise with some other news or morning show sketches (e.g. a sketch from Britney Spears’ season 27 episode, and one from Andy Roddick’s season 29 episode), but it’s being particularly executed well here.
— Two hilarious running gags throughout this sketch, one with a deceased staff member and another with the show’s theme song randomly playing at the wrong times.
— A rare solid performance from Horatio at this late stage of his SNL tenure.
STARS: ****½


MYSPACE SEMINAR
students in (ANS)’s Intro To MySpace class are mostly sexual predators

— In retrospect, an interesting time capsule of the MySpace craze still going strong at this time.
— Great reveal of the class being mostly full of sexual predators in their 40s.
— Is Will playing an early version of Jeff Montgomery, his later and well-remembered sex offender character from season 34 (most famously in a sketch with Jon Hamm where Montgomery is a trick-or-treater)? Will’s even wearing the exact same jacket in this MySpace sketch that he would later wear in the Jeff Montgomery sketches.
— Oh, that’s right, Seth Meyers is still a cast member. Lately, he’s been joining Maya and Horatio in the “They’ve been appearing on the show so little lately that it feels like they’ve already left the cast” department.
— I love Seth’s line about using 1991 in his username because 1,991 is supposedly his favorite number.
— Hilarious bit with Will pretending to type on this laptop when he says he’ll change his “NaughtyGirlHotStuff” username after being told that username will attract a lot of teenage boys.
— Seth’s Dateline question is fantastic.
— Ha, something about Chris’ mere delivery and facial expression during his bit about having his face altered is cracking me up.
— I love all the guys immediately clearing out of the room in a panic when a cop shows up.
— After the cop leaves, we get an absolutely priceless reveal of Horatio hiding very poorly behind a small potted plant. Speaking of Horatio, wow, between the Morning Show sketch and now this, he’s having by far the best night he’s had in a LOOOOOOONG time.
— Overall, such a perfect sketch.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “How Can You Live In The Northeast?”


WEEKEND UPDATE
AMP & Al Gore [real] do a Point-Counterpoint about global warming

TIF’s grandfather (FRA) tries to sign up for Medicare benefits via phone

FIM gives fashion tips to young men regarding appropriate prom attire

David Blaine (ANS) fails in his attempt to hold his breath for 9 minutes

— A big laugh from the mostly-blacked-out global warming report that Al Gore displays.
— Ugh, words cannot express how much I absolutely HATED Amy “flipping” the “You ignorant slut” routine when Gore was about to say it during his and Amy’s Point-Counterpoint. Amy’s corny, cutesy delivery of “You ignorant slut” didn’t help. Way to piss all over a great, long-standing SNL tradition, Amy.
— A somewhat interesting change of pace for Update with the segment involving Fred as Tina’s grandfather, Wolfgang.
— I admit to getting a cheap laugh from Fred’s Wolfgang muttering “I got the damn cleaning lady” when the phone operator speaks in Spanish.
— Finesse appears in his final Update commentary.
— I loved Finesse’s “You are a magician” bit, as did the audience. The rest of this commentary, on the other hand? Meh. At least it’s not as painfully unfunny as Finesse’s last Update commentary before this about angry black women.
— I like Rachel’s lines as the phone operator in the second segment with Fred’s Wolfgang.
— This Update feels like it’s going on FOREVER.
— The whiny, gaspy voice Andy is using after he as David Blaine failed to complete his magic trick sounds very Adam Sandler-esque.
— Andy’s David Blaine commentary is pretty dumb on paper, but it’s the kind of dumb that Andy can execute well (which is another similarity Andy has to Adam Sandler), which he is doing here.
— Tired, past-their-prime, and about-to-leave SNL veterans having a better night than usual seems to be a theme tonight, because not only has Horatio been having a surprisingly strong episode, but Tina has had what is probably her best night in a while in tonight’s overall Update, though it’s still a far cry from her glory days on Update back in 2000-2002. Amy, on the other hand, was as horrible tonight as she usually is in the Fey/Poehler era of Update, maybe even moreso, especially that absolutely god-awful dolphin joke of hers tonight.
STARS: **½


CHARADES
contestants’ (AMP) & (JLD) pantomime is sexually suggestive

— Fitting casting of Darrell as impressionist Rich Little.
— I like Chris always responding to Darrell-as-Rich-Little’s hacky and shoehorned celebrity impressions by immediately shutting him down or just quickly moving on in a clearly-unamused manner.
— Some good laughs from the increasingly suggestive-looking charade gestures Amy and Julia have to do, and how the celebrity contestants can easily guess Amy’s gestures, but constantly mistake Julia’s gestures for sex acts.
— Maya’s Charo is getting increasingly unintelligible as this sketch goes on.
— I love the look Kenan’s Nipsey Russell gives Maya’s Charo after she says “You are me – Charo!” (which makes at least one line of hers that I could decipher) in response to one PARTICULARLY dirty-looking charade gesture of Julia’s.
STARS: ***½


UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
Unsolved Mysteries re-enactor (JLD) doesn’t believe (KRW)’s alien story

— I remember the absolutely befuddled reaction among online SNL fans back at this time in regards to SNL’s decision to do an Unsolved Mysteries sketch in 2006, years after Unsolved Mysteries had stopped being relevant.
— I also recall how I and other online SNL fans back at this time got a VERY Mo Collins (from MADtv) vibe from Kristen’s twitchy, psychotic character in this sketch, back in the days before us SNL fans got very accustomed to seeing Kristen play twitchy, psychotic characters.
— It’s cracking me up how, among the cartoonish ghoulish off-camera voices, one of the voices is literally just saying “Ghoooosts” in a quivery, spooky voice.
— The increasingly bizarre movie characters showing up during the scene being filmed are pretty funny.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Outrageous”


PEYOTE
peyote leads to street-level suicide jump threat drama with (ANS) & (WLF)

— This is the ONLY time I can remember that a Lonely Island-made Digital Short, billed on the air as such with the “An SNL Digital Short” title screen, has ever aired as the last segment of an episode, but I can’t say for sure.
— A hilarious ending reveal of Andy not standing on the high ledge of a building like we were led to believe, but rather standing on a sidewalk against a building, and Will being crouched down right in front of him.
— Much like at the end of the Lettuce Digital Short from earlier this season, we get a very brief Jorma Taccone appearance as a passerby.
— Speaking of Lettuce, tonight’s short has a similar twist ending, with peyote being the subject matter instead of lettuce, which is very funny after the aforementioned reveal of Andy and Will both bizarrely being on ground level.
— This may be the shortest Lonely Island Digital Short of all time.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS
(Not included in the copy I’m reviewing of this episode. For anyone keeping count, this is only the third time in my SNL project that the copy of an episode I reviewed cut off abruptly before its existing goodnights were shown. The previous two episodes were Christopher Walken’s season 21 episode and The Rock’s season 27 episode. Unlike those two, tonight’s episode isn’t followed by an Alec Baldwin-hosted episode, so at least I know there’s not some kind of curse going on.)

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode, and one of the absolute best of this season. This episode was almost completely flawless, minus Weekend Update, though even THAT was a little better than it’s usually been in the Fey/Poehler era. The first half of this episode was especially phenomenal, with almost EVERY SINGLE SEGMENT receiving a rating ranging from 4-5 stars. Very impressive. Almost everything in the first half of this episode seemed so “on”, especially the inspired writing. And as I mentioned earlier, even some tired veterans in the cast had their best night in a while in this episode.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tom Hanks)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 31 comes to an end, with host Kevin Spacey. It’s also the final episode for Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Finesse Mitchell, Chris Parnell, and Horatio Sanz, as well as the final episode of Seth Meyers’ tenure as a regular sketch performer.

Posted on

May 6, 2006 – Tom Hanks / Red Hot Chili Peppers (S31 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE GAS PLAN
Bill Frist (host) sells his new gas rebate plan to George W. Bush (WLF)

— Not caring for Will-as-President-Bush’s whole spiel about wishing for May to turn into June. The audience is amused by this tepid comedy far more than I am.
— Ha, I got a huge laugh from Will-as-Bush’s off-color line to Darrell’s Dick Cheney, “That Frist plan went down so fast, it was like YOU shot it in the face.” Darrell’s Cheney also has a very funny facial reaction to that line.
— Great to see Tom Hanks in the cold opening in his long-awaited return as host after a 10-year hiatus.
— Finesse stuck in his typical useless, brief non-speaking role that might as well have been played by an extra. Only two episodes left for Finesse to suffer through the hell of SNL’s awful utilization of him.
— Bill Frist: “Let’s say that a gallon of gas hits $4 a gallon.” President Bush: “Heh, oh, it’s GONNA.”
— This turning into a Magic Mop infomercial is fairly funny, but nothing great and certainly not something I’d call sharp political satire.
— How do you have Tom Hanks still onscreen at the end of a cold opening and NOT have him say “Live from New York…”? Did we really need Will Forte saying LFNY as Bush for the 150th time when Hanks was RIGHT THERE?
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
host takes DaVinci Code questions from religious figures in the audience

— I recall someone who used to work at SNL (I forget who) once famously revealed that SNL relies on questions-from-the-audience monologues whenever the writers don’t know what to do with a host for their monologue (if that’s true, then season 19 had A LOT of hosts that the writers didn’t know what to do with). I shudder to think that’s true for this particular episode, because if so, shame on this writing staff. How do you not know what to do with Tom Freakin’ Hanks?
— SNL writer Liz Cackowski continues to be the Sarah Silverman and Paula Pell of this era’s questions-from-the-audience monologues.
— Pretty funny subversion with Fred-as-the-priest’s alleged hard-hitting, stern religion-related question just turning out to be “What’s the deal with your hair?”
— Chris’ passive-aggressive line is very funny.
— Hilarious bit with Bill as an albino monk.
— The Flying Nun bit with Rachel was just dumb and didn’t work for me AT ALL.
— Didn’t care for the drawn-out bit with Darrell as the pope, and it needed a funnier punchline than a mention of Vince Vaughn.
— Very funny initial cutaway to Jason as Jesus, and Jason is always great at milking laughs from the audience without saying a word whenever the camera first cuts to him as a character in a questions-from-the-audience monologue, like in Natalie Portman’s monologue a little earlier this season.
— Jason’s natural resemblance to Kiefer Sutherland is coming off particularly noticeable to me here.
— The whole back-and-forth between Tom and Jason is absolutely fantastic, especially it ending with Tom, after calling Jason out on the gall he has as an SNL newbie to insult both the son of man and Steven Spielberg, sarcastically telling Jason “I’m sure we’ll see you in September.”
STARS: ***


WHEEL OF FORTUNE
dumb contestants (AMP), (FRA), (KRW) can’t solve puzzle

— A thin premise, but the execution isn’t too bad so far, and I like Tom’s performance as the straight man.
— Meh, this is now getting old, and the audience is agreeing with me, judging from their silence during some comedic parts. What is this sketch doing in the lead-off spot?
— Tom-as-Pat-Sajak’s long, frustrated spiel towards the end after he’s given up is great, and deserved to be in a much better sketch.
STARS: **


KAITLIN’S IGUANA
Kaitlin’s enthusiasm about taking care of (host)’s iguana levels off

— It feels odd seeing Horatio, because, once again, I keep forgetting he’s even still in the cast, given how much his airtime has (mercifully) diminished lately.
— This ends up being the final Kaitlin sketch with Horatio’s Rick character. The only remaining Kaitlin sketch appears towards the end of the following season, when Horatio is long gone from SNL.
— I like the suspenseful background music and unique camera angles during the sequence with a fearful Kaitlin having second thoughts about taking care of the iguana.
— Tom’s exit line was pretty funny.
STARS: ***


ARIEL & EFRIM
in their early ’90s music video, (host) & (ANS) fear for their testicles

— When this episode originally aired, I remember it strangely took me halfway through this short to recognize Andy Samberg and Tom Hanks as the two lead singers. Until then, I seriously thought the two lead singers were played by special guests who I wasn’t familiar with. I guess it was something about the way Andy and Tom looked in those bald caps that made me not recognize them.
— So I take it from Liz Cackowski’s appearance in this Digital Short (assuming she hasn’t appeared in a Digital Short prior to this) that she and her future husband Akiva Shaffer have hit it off by this point?
— Maya makes her first appearance in three episodes. Much like Horatio, it’s become easy to forget Maya is even still in the cast by this point.
— The wraparound segments with Chris, Will, and Kenan are very similar to the wraparound segments of a pre-SNL Lonely Island music video called Bing Bong Brothers. Even the ending wraparound segment of both that short and this one feature a character saying “I did NOT like that” in response to the music video that was just shown.
— Overall, this was a fun Right Said Fred take-off, but not quite as strong as I remembered it, and pales a little in comparison to the other Lonely Island music videos that have appeared on SNL prior to this. Still good, though.
STARS: ***½


UNIVERSAL THEME PARK
while in a theme park line, (host) & (FRA) yell at their lost ma (RAD)

— Hoo, boy. I recall this being a WRETCHED sketch.
— Fred appears to be wearing his Tony Danza wig.
— A laugh from Tom, when complaining about E.T. not having called Tom by his name during one ride, dismissively saying “E.T., he’s dead to me.”
— Who the holy fuck at SNL thought a sketch with Fred and Tom yelling “MA!” over and over at the top of their lungs for the entirety of a FIVE-MINUTE SKETCH would be worthy of not only making it to air, and not only making it to air in a TOM HANKS-hosted episode, but airing in the freakin’ pre-Weekend Update half of a Tom Hanks-hosted episode?
— I will admit that Tom’s yelling is actually making me smirk at parts, as awful as this material is. A testament to how terrific Tom Hanks is. Imagine how even worse this sketch would’ve been with a different host.
— The roller coaster bit is kinda funny, I guess.
— Ugh, this sketch is going on and on and on and on and on…
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Dani California”


WEEKEND UPDATE
TIF asks Rosie O’Donnell (HOS) about joining Star Jones on The View

Patrick & Gunther Kelly debate the immigration controversy with a song

— What is that bizarre off-camera noise while Tina is delivering her opening joke? The off-camera noise sounds like a pig squealing. The fuck? I don’t recall any pigs being involved in any of the subsequent sketches in this episode. Am I watching a rerun of Dennis Miller’s Weekend Update from the season 14 Ted Danson episode, where Dennis got interrupted at one point by the off-camera sounds of squealing pigs who were about to appear in the sketch that followed?
— Ugh, the return of Horatio’s Rosie O’Donnell. At least this is the last time we’ll ever see it.
— This Rosie O’Donnell commentary is as insufferable as I expected.
— Didn’t Rosie O’Donnell’s tenure on The View, which tonight’s Update mentions was soon going to start, end up being very short-lived? Not saying this is the sole reason her tenure was short-lived, but I recall her being in the news for some controversy she got into at one point for an Asian stereotype bit she did on The View. (Sounds like the type of thing celebrities would get “canceled” for nowadays.)
— When listing off similarities she has to Star Jones, Horatio’s Rosie ends with “and we both have gay partners”. Not only a lame joke, but Tina goes “Ohhhhh!” in response, as if it was some sick burn, which bugs me, because I’m sure Tina wrote that “sick burn” herself, as she seems obsessed with making fun of Star Jones and did write those View sketches back in the day. If she indeed wrote that “sick burn” that Horatio’s Rosie delivered here about Star having a gay partner, then Tina going “Ohhhhh!” in response is yet ANOTHER example of her patting herself on the back for an “edgy” joke of hers.
— Yikes, the string of Update jokes from Tina and Amy after the Rosie O’Donnell commentary is…just…Jesus Christ, how does stuff like this make it on the air?!? (*sigh*) Only two episodes left until Update gets a bit of a much-needed revamp.
— We haven’t seen the Patrick & Gunther Kelly characters in a fairly long time.
— Even though these Patrick & Gunther Kelly commentaries use the exact same joke every single time, it still works for me, especially after we’ve gotten a fairly long hiatus from these characters. I especially love how, in tonight’s commentary, Will’s musical high-pitched “Yuh”s are being done in time to the complicated background music.
STARS: *½


CLAREMONT YOGA CENTER
in a yoga class, (RAD) is unhappily partnered with sweaty & gross (host)

— A funny character for Tom.
— Liz Cackowski has appeared in THREE sketches tonight. How did SNL not eventually make this woman a cast member? Also, she’s gotten far more airtime tonight than actual cast member Seth Meyers, who is nowhere to be seen in this entire episode. Seth’s decision to decrease his own airtime this season to concentrate more on his new behind-the-scenes job as a head writer has reached a crescendo this week.
— Tom’s “Anus to anus” line was hilarious, as was him then saying, in response to him and Rachel doing the “anus to anus” move, “Boy, this would cost ya 20 bucks in Thailand.”
— Tom’s disturbing stories towards an uncomfortable Rachel are providing lots of laughs.
— Good line from Rachel about trying not to breathe in OR out while a sweaty Tom is hanging above her in a yoga position.
— I love the angry look on Rachel’s face at the end as the camera zooms in on her between Tom’s legs.
STARS: ****


COLIN’S PLACE
Colin Powell (KET) fields State Department overtures a la Fred Sanford

— As someone who used to be an avid watcher of Sanford & Son reruns, I appreciate this idea of doing a Colin Powell/Fred Sanford hybrid. It also kinda feels like a precursor to a fairly well-remembered sketch SNL would later do where Fred’s Barack Obama and his family star in a take-off of The Cosby Show, though I recall that sketch having better writing than this one.
— Kenan’s attempt at a Redd Foxx-type voice could be better, but Kenan was never known as a good impressionist in these earlier seasons of his.
— If I played a drinking game during this sketch, taking a drink every time Finesse’s Lamont Sanford-esque Michael Powell says “Come on, Pop!”, I’d be passed out before the sketch ended. I don’t recall “Come on, Pop!” being something the actual Lamont said THIS frequently on Sanford & Son.
— I like Maya playing a Condoleezza Rice/Aunt Esther hybrid.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Give It Away”


TENNIS PLAYERS
tennis players have one (host), two (WLF), three (CHP), seven (BIH) arms

— A great snob voice from Will.
— Will unconvincingly trying to act like Tom’s missing arm isn’t the reason he’s dropping him as his tennis partner is pretty funny.
— After Tom’s line “You’re going to throw away 25 years of tennis and lovemaking?”, Will starts to say his reply, but pauses in an odd way after a second, then continues his reply. I’ve seen some people theorize that Tom’s mention of lovemaking was an ad-lib, and that Will paused so oddly during his response because he was genuinely taken aback by the ad-lib.
— I love Chris entering as Will’s new three-armed tennis partner.
— A very fun increasing absurdity to this sketch.
— I am absolutely LOVING how the only performers in this sketch are Tom Hanks, Will Forte, Chris Parnell, and Bill Hader. Some of my all-time favorite sketch comedy performers, all in one sketch together! And to make it even better, the sketch they’re appearing together in is a very well-written absurdist one.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— For the first Tom Hanks-hosted episode in 10 years, this unfortunately had a bit of a flat feel. The episode actually wasn’t all that bad, and there were a few strong pieces in the post-Weekend Update half, but 1) this episode as a whole didn’t have the special feel it should’ve had for Tom Hanks’ big hosting return, 2) there were a few really lousy sketches placed so bizarrely early in the show, and 3) the episode as a whole was largely forgettable, even with some of the highlights. Tom Hanks himself did not disappoint, though, giving the A+ performances and commitment he can always be relied on to give on SNL. After tonight’s episode, he sadly wouldn’t host again for another 10 years, but unlike tonight’s episode, THAT one actually ends up being worth the 10-year wait.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lindsay Lohan)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Julia Louis-Dreyfus becomes the very first female cast member to host the show