Author: Stooge

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November 15, 2003 – Alec Baldwin / Missy Elliott (S29 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE NEW IRAQI GOVERNMENT
George W. Bush (DAH) details Iraq’s new undemocratic constitution

— Oh, what the hell are you doing, SNL?!? ANOTHER presidential address-to-the-nation cold opening with Darrell’s horrible Bush impression, after you just did one TWO EPISODES AGO???
— Now Darrell has “enhanced” his impression by adding in a “leaning to the side” pose, lots of arm mannerisms, and lots of vocal inflections. It’s doing NOTHING to stop this from being an embarrassingly bad impression. In fact, seeing Darrell desperately do all of these ridiculous poses, mannerisms, and vocal inflections to try to put his impression over, and failing miserably, just makes it even sadder.
— Just like last time he played Bush, Darrell has that stupid smirk on his face, though it’s not quite as prominent as it was last time. I still don’t know what he’s going for with the smirk.
— Also just like last time, this cold opening is DEATH. Absolutely no laughs from me, not just because of Darrell’s horrible impression, but also because of horrible writing that not even Will Ferrell would’ve been able to save.
— The only positive thing I can say is that this thankfully ends up being the final appearance of Darrell’s Bush impression. After only two appearances from his impression, SNL would re-cast the role ONCE AGAIN later this season. Darrell’s Bush would end up going down in SNL history as possibly the worst presidential impression ever seen on the show. Even Darrell himself would later admit what a misfire his Bush was, calling it “the Waterloo of my career”.
STARS: *


MONOLOGUE
when co-star host fails to self-promote, MIM plugs The Cat In The Hat

— WTF? Jimmy and Horatio in the SNL Band? Oh, lord, what horror am I in for THIS time?
— Dammit, now we get Jimmy and Horatio taking over this entire monologue while acting like obnoxious jackasses, which they’re given free rein to do too damn often. The fact that it’s an Alec Baldwin monologue this is happening in feels especially wrong.
— Well, at least we get a surprise Mike Myers cameo.
— Ugh, the running gag with Mike constantly dropping character to plug The Cat In The Hat has not aged well, though I remember this bit kinda rubbed me the wrong way even when tonight’s episode originally aired. Almost nothing in this monologue is working for me.
STARS: *½


HUGGIES THONG
— Rerun from 10/4/03.
— During the beginning of this re-airing, you can hear audio of what sounds like excited audience members yelling “MIKE!” in the studio, apparently trying to get Mike Myers’ attention right after the monologue ended.


PLASTIC SURGEON
unprofessional plastic surgeon (host) recommends D cups for patient (AMP)

— I recall hearing this sketch was cut from the preceding season’s Ray Romano episode.
— I like this non-sequitur exchange between Alec and Amy, during their discussion of breast augmentations: “Do you know Catherine Bell from JAG?” “No.” “Damn. I was really hoping to meet her.”
— Amy sternly warning Alec “I am only gonna stay here for a few more jokes!” is very funny.
— Alec is solid in this inappropriate role, though I can’t help but wonder what this sketch was like with Ray Romano. I can picture him being great in Alec’s role too.
STARS: ***½


ZINGER VS. BURNS
scientists (host) & Dave ‘Zinger’ Klinger (SEM) trade childish gibes

— The debut of this character of Seth’s.
— Surprisingly, this ends up being Maya’s only appearance all night, and it’s just a straight role in which she only has about two lines.
— Seth’s zinger routine did nothing for me for the first minute of this sketch, but Alec suddenly coming in and doing the same basic routine as Seth had me laughing out loud. I guess it’s all in the performance. Alec is just better at this type of material than Seth is, in my opinion.
— Some laughs from how extensive Alec and Seth are getting in their burn/zing routines.
— I like Chris having such disdain for Alec and Seth’s burn/zing routines, but treating it so seriously that he demands Alec and Seth do a best-of-three burn/zing-off to declare a winner.
— Okay, this whole burn/zing gimmick is starting to run out of steam for me, though the performances from Alec and even Seth are fun.
STARS: **½


THE TONY BENNETT SHOW
acquitted millionaire Robert Durst (FRA)

— This sketch has officially become recurring.
— Like last time, we’re getting so many hilarious one-liners from Alec’s Tony Bennett.
— I don’t know why, but the characterization Fred is doing for his Robert Durst impression feels kinda Christopher Guest-esque to me. Not sure what it is about Fred’s performance that makes me feel that way.
— Hilarious promo that Alec’s Bennett does for for Stayfree Maxi-Pads.
— Funny bit with Bennett getting Richie Sambora to “apologize” to him.
— Is EVERY character of Horatio’s now going to be a character written to be very giggly? Is this SNL’s way of trying to hide Horatio’s natural giggliness? Horatio’s at least playing his role in this particular sketch like a normal person, and not treating it as one of his typical over-the-top roles.
STARS: ****


GAYSTROGEN
Another rerun tonight, this time from 10/18/03


THE FALCONER
Donald has a wild night in Las Vegas while The Falconer hangs upside down

— Good to see this sketch make its first appearance of the season. Believe it or not, this ends up being the ONLY Falconer sketch of this entire season. Quite odd, after how frequently this sketch appeared the preceding season.
— The Falconer, while hanging upside-down: “For four days, I have dangled here like a urine-soaked pinata.”
— I love the visual of Donald the Falcon seeing a “Knives, axes… Anything store (We specialize in rope cutting)” and a casino located on opposite sides of each other, then deciding to go to the casino instead of the Knives store which would’ve been convenient in getting The Falconer out of his trap.
— A hilarious cocaine sequence with Donald the Falcon. I especially like his crazed, rapid, increasingly higher-pitched squawking after snorting the cocaine.
— Nice touch with how the traditional ending title card of The Falconer has his usual photo flipped upside-down tonight, to match how he has been hanging upside-down for the entire sketch.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pass That Dutch”


WEEKEND UPDATE
riding Paris Hilton’s coattails, WLF shows his own night vision sex tape

TIF mistakes phone interviewee Christian Slater (JIF) for Jack Nicholson

— Wow, Tina’s Al Gore joke gets booed from somebody in the audience.
— Great to see Will doing an Update commentary as himself.
— Hearing Will speak in his normal voice here, I notice he sounds a tad “country”. Isn’t he from California, though?
— Will’s Paris Hilton-esque sex tape is a riot. Not sure that ending with Fred was necessary, though.
— A good Christian Slater vocal impression from Jimmy. Also, I’m finding the ridiculous back-and-forth Slater/Jack Nicholson fake-out to be pretty funny.
— A somewhat short Update. At least they finally managed to get through an Update without a derailing appearance from Horatio, for the first time since the second episode of this season.
STARS: ***


PRESS CONFERENCE
(host) answers euphemistic questions linking Prince Charles with gay sex

— Fun British accents from Alec and the cast.
— Despite being a cavalcade of cheap puns about gay sex, these are actually coming off fun, funny, and well-delivered.
— Seth’s double entendre about Prince Charles wanting his “crack” to be filled with “caulk” feels like a precursor to a sketch that Jason Lee would later do in season 31 that’s in the vein of dirty wordplay sketches like Colonel Angus and Cork Soakers.
STARS: ***½


KEEN CORPORATION
co-workers (host) & (AMP) flub a presentation after a one-night stand

— Not caring for this cliched premise.
— Okay, Alec’s line about how even his mother looks like Jewel after he’s had 10 drinks was pretty funny.
— I like Alec’s delivery of “So frickin’ what?!?” after revealing to his co-workers all the wrong things he and Amy did last night.
— For some reason, Amy loses it and busts out laughing very loudly during her and Alec’s passionate make-out session on the table.
— A somewhat weak ending with Seth and Rachel.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Work It”


ROY RETURNS
Roy Horn’s (host) return to the stage is beset by more animal attacks

— Hoo, boy. I remember this being kind of a notorious sketch, with some SNL fans considering it really tasteless that SNL would make light of Roy Horn’s tragic attack in such a manner.
— A funny visual of Amy as a beehive-haired lady among people in the crowd getting splattered with blood from off-camera.
— Good lord at the turtle/eye scene.
— Wh… what? THAT’S the entire sketch?!? This sketch felt almost completely pointless, and the turtle/eye scene sure was one weak punchline. Something felt almost season 20-esque about this sketch.
STARS: *½


SCHEINWALD STUDIOS
pandering studio mogul Abe Scheinwald (RAD) scares off director (FRA)

— Here’s another sketch tonight that was cut from an episode from a previous season, this one being cut from the Jon Stewart episode all the way back in season 27. I think I recall hearing Jon Stewart played the role that Fred’s playing in tonight’s version, while the role that Alec’s playing wasn’t in the Jon Stewart version of the sketch.
— Seth has been all over tonight’s episode.
— Funny walk-on from Rachel’s Abe Scheinwald character, making his debut.
— Alec seems to be playing a Robert Evans pastiche.
— Some pretty funny lines from Rachel and Alec all throughout this sketch.
— After something Rachel did just now, all of the performers except Alec are fighting to keep a straight face.
— As this sketch ends and the screen holds on a shot of all of the performers, you can hear audio of the Tel-e-link commercial from this season’s Halle Berry episode start to play, but it soon gets cut off as an SNL bumper photo of Alec appears onscreen. I guess people in the SNL control room realized at literally the last second that there’s not enough time to re-air the Tel-e-link commercial, so they had to quickly abort it on the air after cueing it up. A sloppy moment that you don’t often see happening on SNL. Also, if that Tel-e-link commercial had aired tonight, it would’ve been the THIRD repeated fake ad in tonight’s episode, which might’ve been an all-time record.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— One of the more average Alec Baldwin episodes. Not bad, but definitely doesn’t stand out among Alec’s roster of episodes. There were still a few solid highlights, though, and Alec added his usual professional-but-fun atmosphere to the show.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Andy Roddick)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Rev. Al Sharpton

Posted on

November 8, 2003 – Andy Roddick / Dave Matthews (S29 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

20/20
Barbara Walters (RAD) lists epithets used on Martha Stewart (AMP)

— Wow, right out of the gate in tonight’s episode, we open on Rachel and Amy taking over impressions of Barbara Walters and Martha Stewart last done very famously and definitively by Cheri Oteri and Ana Gasteyer, respectively. One can’t help but wonder what this sketch would’ve been like in, say, 1998, when Cheri and Ana were sitting pretty in their SNL tenures.
— While Rachel’s Barbara Walters impression definitely doesn’t measure up to Cheri’s, I still like it, and she eerily looks A LOT like Barbara, especially with the soft focus screen filter being used. Amy’s Martha Stewart, on the other hand? Blah. I find that it leaves a lot to be desired, but that could just be because Ana Gasteyer set the bar so high.
— Some laughs from Barbara telling Martha how bad her reputation is.
— I absolutely love Rachel’s delivery when her Barbara tells Amy’s Martha “If you were a man, I’d be all over you like butter on beans.”
— Okay, all the listed-off insults toward Martha that Barbara is reading off are starting to get old. Is that all this sketch is focusing on?
— It feels like a nice change of pace seeing Rachel get a “Live from New York…”.
— I’m surprised this cold opening is over already. This was pretty short, and kinda underwhelming.
STARS: **½


MONOLOGUE
“Hey Ya!” variant by Andre 3000 (FIM) helps host hold onto the audience

— Wow, after only one episode, we already get the return of J.B. Smoove and Paula Pell as the married couple in the audience.
— Once again, J.B. Smoove kills. You really have to wonder how in the world SNL passed up the opportunity to put him in the cast, and instead had him stuck in the writer’s room. Finesse’s failed SNL stint makes SNL’s decision to not cast J.B. come off even more questionable in retrospect. I remember some SNL fans at the time making the argument that J.B., while hilarious, doesn’t have the versatility to be a cast member, as he seems capable of only playing himself. However, in light of Leslie Jones’ trajectory on SNL years later (she similarly started out as a writer who would frequently make scene-stealing onscreen appearances and would constantly out-perform actual cast member Sasheer Zamata the same way J.B. Smoove would constantly out-perform Finesse, and there was an outcry among SNL fans for SNL to put Leslie into the cast, despite her seeming lack of versatility, to the degree that SNL would eventually give in and indeed put Leslie in the cast), the argument that J.B. needed versatility to be an SNL cast member no longer holds water. J.B. would’ve killed as an SNL cast member.
— Some good laughs from John MacEnroe during his appearance.
— Kinda random having Finesse now appear as half of the last episode’s musical guest, Andre 3000, which SNL lampshades by having Finesse’s Andre 3000 explain “One thing led to another, and…. I’m still here!”
— I have very mixed feelings about this monologue turning into a performance of “Hey Ya!”. While I’m always a sucker for hearing that song, and the performance of it here is fun and energetic, it’s too unrelated to the rest of this monologue, comes off pointless and random, and leaves me questioning why it’s completely taken over this monologue. Did the writers lack THAT much confidence in Andy Roddick?
— Tina is really putting her all into her wild, sultry, intense dancing towards the end of this monologue.
STARS: **½


CRYOGENIX
await a future cure for your minor ailment in Cryogenix’s freezer

— Uh… I kinda liked Chris’ deadpan ending line “If it’s good enough for Ted Williams, it’s good enough for me.” That’s about all I liked in this commercial. I can’t find anything else to say about this.
STARS: *½


Z105
Joey Mack & his imaginary zoo crew go for cheap laughs at host’s expense

— This sketch has officially become recurring, after debuting a year prior. We’ll be seeing this sketch quite a lot this season.
— I strongly disliked the first installment of this sketch, but now that I have a better understanding of what these sketches are going for (thanks to Carson in the comments section of my Eric McCormack review from the preceding season), I’ll go into this installment with a more open mind.
— The voice that Jimmy is using for his black weatherman character sounds like Jimmy’s doing an intentional Tracy Morgan impression.
— Jimmy’s overly intense way of always saying “Aaaaand we’re BACK!” cracks me up, even if Jimmy himself seems a little too genuinely amused after saying it just now.
— As always, I have to commend Jimmy for his ability to seamlessly go from one voice to another to another to another.
— Overall, not bad, though this kinda felt like a rewrite of the first installment with Eric McCormack. I’m looking forward to the installment with Ben Affleck later this season, as I recall that one shaking up the format and also having a lot of fun interplay between Jimmy and Ben.
STARS: ***


BATTLE OF THE SEXES II
host easily bests cocky Billy Jean King (FRA) in Battle Of The Sexes II

— (*groan*) Kenan and Finesse in drag once again. This is only their fifth episode, and they’ve ALREADY been cast in too many female roles.
— Now we get Fred in drag, but at least his performance here is actually funny. I’m enjoying the casual way he’s portraying Billie Jean King as competitive.
— John MacEnroe continues to get laughs tonight, in a second appearance.
— Pretty funny visual of Fred’s Billie Jean King with a tennis ball sticking out of her forehead after the game.
STARS: ***½


GOVERNESS
teen (host) bristles as cheery governess Mrs. Dalrymple (RAD) babies him

— Rachel accidentally almost fell over backwards when initially arriving on an unseen moving platform. After that happened, she looked amused for a quick second before quickly getting into character.
— A good laugh from Chris’ exit line: “Your mom and I have some bedroom-related things to work out.”
— Rachel mistaking Andy’s bong for a toy is pretty funny.
— Not sure what to say about most of this sketch, but it’s decent.
— Rachel’s exit line: “If you need me, I’ll be in the living room watching scrambled porn.”
STARS: ***


UPDATE
CHP & John McEnroe [real] analyze host’s performance on SNL so far

— ANOTHER John MacEnroe appearance tonight. Who exactly is tonight’s host again?
— It’s always a nice and creative change of pace the rare times SNL does a post-sketch analysis segment like this.
— John MacEnroe, on how Andy Roddick could fail as a host: “He could freak out like Martin Lawrence and start swearing, or pull an Adrien Brody and start babbling in a Jamaican accent for no reason.” A very funny reference to two infamous SNL hosts, though I have to nitpick the Martin Lawrence reference, as “freaking out and starting to swear” is not even close to being accurate to what Martin’s hosting stint is infamous for. Or was MacEnroe’s line just referring to Martin’s reputation in general?
— Ehhh, I could do without a cliched “You cannot be serious!” reference from MacEnroe, though admittedly, he’s making it fun enough.
STARS: ****


ANDERSON MELLNER YEAR END PARTY
Daryl Hall (WLF) & John Oates (FRA) sink to corporate awards banquet gig

— I always love the pairing of Will and Fred, and they’re funny in their portrayal of Hall & Oates.
— Some laughs from Hall & Oates awkwardly shoehorning employee names into the lyrics of well-known Hall & Oates songs being performed.
— Wow, Will is really putting all of his soul into the note he’s singing right now, in a comedic fashion.
STARS: ***½


ADOPTION
Richard Williams (KET) wants to make host the brother of Venus & Serena

— Another post-sketch bit? And I’m surprised we haven’t had a commercial break since the Governess sketch started. A huge rarity for SNL to do four consecutive segments with no commercial break interruptions.
— This is probably the biggest showcase Kenan has had up to this point of his SNL tenure. It’ll be interesting to see how he does.
— Ehhh, Kenan’s performance isn’t doing much for me. He’s not too bad here, actually, but this feels like a pale shadow of the strong performance that he would give if he did this sketch nowadays.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Save Me”


WEEKEND UPDATE
presidential candidate Tim Calhoun pulls skeletons out of his own closet

two-faced Rosie O’Donnell’s (HOS) demeanor is alternately sanguine & sour

— Yesssss! Tim Fucking Calhoun!
— I absolutely love how Tim Calhoun’s commentaries are always a string of non-sequitur one-liners, one of my all-time favorite forms of comedy.
— Tim Calhoun: “I propose that for scientific purposes, we breed a type of midget even smaller than the normal midget. We can call them… Shetland midgets.”
— Oh, come the hell on, SNL. A Horatio Sanz commentary on Update for the THIRD consecutive episode, and after how much of an abomination his last two commentaries were?
— (*groan*) There goes Jimmy and Horatio being a giggly mess as usual. Unlike the last episode, though, Jimmy is actually the one laughing worse than Horatio.
— I kinda like the idea of a two-sided Rosie O’Donnell giving an Update commentary, but I’m not caring for the execution, thanks to Horatio’s overly jokey, self-amused performance. As much as I don’t care for this, this at least isn’t nearly as much of a nightmare as Horatio’s last two Update commentaries were.
— This ends up being Horatio’s only appearance of the night, which is certainly refreshing after how heavily the show relied on him the last two episodes and how consistently annoying a lot of his performances were in those two episodes.
STARS: ***


TENNIS TALK WITH TIME TRAVELING SCOTT JOPLIN
past (SEM), present (host), future (WLF) of Andre Agassi

— This brilliantly absurd sketch from the preceding season’s Brittany Murphy episode returns for its second and final installment.
— I love the idea of the three guests in this installment being Andre Agassi from three different time periods. And Will is absolutely perfectly cast as Future Andre Agassi.
— Maya-as-Scott-Joplin’s smug smiles towards the camera while playing the piano after a zinger of his are even funnier here than they were in the first installment.
— Future Andre Agassi, when past and present Andre Agassi are arguing about Barbra Streisand: “That’s no way to talk about the president of the United States!”
— The audience seems to have gotten really tired of Scott Joplin’s constant zingers. It’s still killing with me, though.
— Overall, even better than the great first installment of this sketch.
STARS: *****


MERV THE PERV
Merv The Perv harasses patients in a gynecologist’s (host) waiting room

— This character has officially become recurring, after debuting over a year prior.
— We get the debut of Merv The Perv’s opening title sequence, but unlike subsequent installments of this sketch, the opening title sequence doesn’t have a theme song tonight. It just has Merv The Perv narrating about himself while background music plays.
— For some reason, I got a big laugh from Rachel’s simple delivery of “Ew.” after the opening title sequence ended.
— I like Merv The Perv’s ways of twisting innocent things ladies say into dirty statements (e.g. turning “I will break every bone in your body” into “I’d like to break into your body with my bone-y.”).
— Much like with another Chris Parnell recurring sketch, the Bloater Brothers, I seem to be in the minority in liking these Merv The Perv sketches.
— The concept of Andy being the attractive gynecologist who ladies find desirable and Merv The Perv being the unattractive gynecologist who ladies are turned off by reminds me of the Mel Gibson, Dream Gynecologist sketch from season 14, where Jon Lovitz appeared at the end as the undesirable gynecologist.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “So Damn Lucky”


JOCK TALK
testosterone drives Blake (JER) & fellow brutes (SEM) & (host)

— IIRC, this is a sketch version of a jock bit that Jeff did in his stand-up act around this time.
— There goes John MacEnroe making a FOURTH appearance tonight. Will somebody remind me once again why Roddick is hosting and not MacEnroe?
— Man, this sketch is DEAD. Not even MacEnroe is saving this. I don’t know what’s not working about the execution of this sketch, but it is simply NOT WORKING. There’s not a laugh to be heard from the audience nor me.
— Even just the setting and format of this sketch feels so tired. Does this SNL era need yet ANOTHER potentially-recurring talk show sketch? (Jeff’s impending mid-season disappearance prevents this sketch from eventually becoming recurring, though the lack of any audience laughter might’ve already sealed this sketch’s fate of staying a one-and-done sketch.) And having stock, boring jock characters hosting this particular talk show sketch isn’t the way to inject much-needed life into this tired format.
— I love Jeff as a celebrity impressionist, but between Drunk Girl, Baby K, and now this jock character, I’m finding Jeff’s character work to leave A LOT to be desired.
— Boy, an SNL crew member really screwed up just now when they tried cueing audio of Kelly Clarkson’s “Miss Independent” song. Sadly, that unscripted gaffe is the closest to a funny thing to happen in this entire sketch.
STARS: *


ACTION NEWS 13
local newscast is debilitated by incessant theme music & audio overload

— Great to see Will getting so much airtime tonight, especially given how extremely underused he was in the first two episodes of this season.
— I like the slow burn that Will and Maya’s news anchors do when the opening news theme music fails to stop.
— The look on Andy’s face when the music keeps preventing him from speaking is pretty funny.
— Out of SNL’s “Everything goes wrong during a newscast or morning show” sketches, this is okay, but doesn’t hold a candle to the one that SNL did with Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer in season 27’s Britney Spears episode, nor the one that SNL would later do with Horatio and Kristen Wiig in the Julia Louis-Dreyfus-hosted episode from season 31.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An average episode. The show started off shaky with the first few segments, but afterwards, things stabilized to an overall decent effort.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kelly Ripa)
a very slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Alec Baldwin

Posted on

November 1, 2003 – Kelly Ripa / Outkast (S29 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

WEAPON DISCOVERIES
George W. Bush’s (DAH) Iraq initiatives would’ve been welcome in the USA

— OH FUCKING NO. We get the debut of Darrell’s notoriously bad George W. Bush impression, after SNL has abruptly yanked the impression away from Chris. Tonight’s episode is already starting off on shaky ground.
— Okay, I can kinda see what Darrell is intending with the Bush voice, but MY GOD, is his attempt not coming off well at all. His impression just sounds like Darrell Hammond speaking out of a small mouth. He’s not even trying.
— Why does Darrell look like he’s about to bust out laughing during this entire cold opening? Why does he have that awkward smirk on his face? It’s almost like he’s fully aware of how bad his Bush impression is.
— Was Darrell’s mild trouble in pronouncing the word “Tikrit” a genuine mistake or just a scripted Bush-ism? If it was a scripted Bush-ism, Darrell didn’t do anywhere near enough to make it comical. He just mildly stumbled over the word, paused awkwardly, and then went on with the remainder of the dialogue. Ugh, what an unfunny mess his performance is.
— Oh, so now we’re relying on a whole bunch of lame props to “save” this D.O.A. mess? (*groan*)
— This cold opening is PAINFUL. I have not laughed a single damn time. As horrid as Darrell’s Bush impression is, the material is also at fault here. I don’t think even Will Ferrell could’ve made this material funny back when he was regularly playing Bush. Looks like Jim Downey’s poor writing of political cold openings in the second half of the preceding season has carried over into this season. It’s hard to believe this is the same Jim Downey who wrote so much strong and reliable political material for the show in the preceding three decades, and even very early in this 2000s decade.
— Overall, this may be the most unintentionally laughless cold opening since… God, I don’t know when. When was the last time I gave a cold opening a one-star rating? (One-and-a-half-star ratings don’t count in this case.) Season 20?
STARS: *


MONOLOGUE
host answers questions of Terrell (J.B. Smoove) & other audience members

— Wow, a bit of a change from usual questions-from-the-audience monologues, with Kelly Ripa actually going into the studio audience to take her first few questions (before taking the rest of her questions from the home base stage like hosts usually do).
— Steve Higgins works his way into another monologue, just two episodes after having a fun showcase in Justin Timberlake’s monologue. Always a treat to see Higgins appearing onscreen on SNL.
— Then-new SNL writer J.B. Smoove makes his first of quite a number of memorable onscreen SNL appearances. Glad to see this.
— J.B. is freakin’ HILARIOUS in this. He is slaying me.
— The idea of J.B. Smoove and Paula Pell being a married couple is hilarious in itself.
— Jim Downey (right after I bashed his writing in the cold opening) is good as the creepy audience member inappropriately obsessing over Kelly’s teenage days on Dance Party USA, even though the humor feels kinda cliched today. The same bit that Downey is doing here would later be done by Chris Parnell in Natalie Portman’s questions-from-the-audience monologue two seasons later.
— Seeing J.B. Smoove’s first onscreen SNL appearance was exciting enough, but now we get the very first onscreen appearance of another then-new SNL writer as well as a future cast member: Jason Sudeikis!
— It feels so odd and jarring to see Jason at this point of SNL’s run, and makes me eager to reach his tenure as a cast member. And, ha, look at the hairstyle he had back at this time.
— Wow, even in his first onscreen SNL appearance, Jason absolutely kills with his first string of dialogue: “I’m a big fan of your new sitcom, Hope & Faith.” Kelly: “Oh, thank you!” Jason: “Nah, I was just kidding.” Very promising sign of things to later come from Jason.
STARS: ****


TRESSANT SUPRÊME
crack cocaine in Tressant Supreme hair color enables host’s busy schedule

— Very funny concept of the busy Kelly Ripa using hair shampoo that contains “just a liiiiiiittle bit of crack cocaine”.
— An absolutely priceless very brief and unexpected cutaway to Kelly dancing wildly while making “Ooh-a ooh-a!” sounds.
— Kelly is giving a very solid performance here, and is executing this premise well.
— Hmm, I’m kinda disappointed this has ended already. This commercial was good, but it had potential to go much further with the crack-induced craziness, which it initially seemed like it was going to do.
STARS: ***½


LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
Angelina Jolie (host) is weird

— Nice to see Darrell’s Regis impression, just because I want to see Darrell redeem himself from his horrid Bush impression earlier tonight.
— A too-soon Chris Kattan cameo, reprising his role as a flamboyant, stereotypically gay Gelman. Blah. Is this really necessary?
— Here comes Kelly in her “cast member plays the host while the host plays someone else” role, as Angelina Jolie.
— Ugh, the usual bits with Kattan’s Gelman, which was never funny to me to begin with, are coming off soooo tired tonight.
— A laugh from Kelly’s Jolie kicking Amy’s Kelly in the face because “I find your perkiness disgusting.”
STARS: ***


ACCESS HOLLYWOOD
Renee Zellweger (host) praises her obesity coach (HOS)

— Quite a lot of celebrity impressions from Kelly so far tonight.
— Blah, this just seems to be an excuse for Horatio to ham it up with a goofy, exaggerated, slow voice, and potentially crack up both himself and Jimmy.
— Yep, there goes Horatio’s obligatory laughing at his own performance. (*sigh*) Jimmy’s at least not breaking quite as badly as I expected.
— I can see some people finding Horatio’s performance in this sketch to be hilarious, but he’s just annoying the hell out of me. And the lazy, cheap fat jokes all throughout this sketch aren’t making this any better.
— During Jimmy-as-Pat O’Brien’s sign-off at the end, what the holy fuck was with his VEEEERRRRRY long, awkward pauses after saying things like “Wait’ll you see what my good friend Keanu Reeves is up to”? Those long pauses were seemingly intentional, but I don’t understand what the hell they were going for, and apparently, neither does the audience, judging from their painfully uncomfortable silence.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hey Ya!”


WEEKEND UPDATE
at the NYC Marathon, Sean Combs (FIM) returns fire of starter’s pistol

still in her Catwoman costume, Drunk Girl recalls Halloween

Jimmy Buffett (HOS) recounts Tyco party via “Margaritaville” variants

— In the spirit of tonight’s musical guest, Jimmy and Tina sign on at the beginning of tonight’s Update under the names Andre “Ice Cold” 3000 and Big Boi.
— In an earlier Update from this season, Jimmy did a vocal impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger that was much better than the Schwarzenegger impression that Darrell regularly does. Now we get Tina doing a good Schwarzenegger vocal impression of her own, officially proving that everyone and their mother can do a better Schwarzenegger than Darrell.
— A very Norm Macdonald-esque “crack” joke about Whitney Houston from Jimmy, feeling like a throwback to Norm’s famous running joke about Marion Barry.
— Some really good jokes from Jimmy and Tina so far tonight.
— The brief P. Diddy marathon race bit was funny. There’s a misconception in some episode guides that J.B. Smoove played P. Diddy in this. It was actually Finesse playing P. Diddy. No idea what caused the mix-up. Finesse and J.B. look nothing alike. Maybe it was the sunglasses that threw some people off. (If you need proof that it was Finesse and not J.B. playing P. Diddy, below is a screencap from the end of the P. Diddy segment, in which his sunglasses unintentionally fly upwards when he’s running away, revealing his eyes.)

This ends up being Finesse’s only appearance all night, and if it had been J.B. Smoove who played P. Diddy here, then not only would that mean Finesse would be completely absent in this episode, but that BOTH of SNL’s black male cast members would be completely absent in tonight’s episode, as Kenan will not be seen tonight. We actually do eventually get an episode in which Kenan and Finesse, SNL’s only two black guys, are both absent in an episode: the following season’s premiere, of all episodes.
— Once again, I share Tina’s usual disdain whenever she introduces a Drunk Girl commentary.
— Two minutes into this Drunk Girl commentary, and I have yet to laugh a single time. Thankfully, this ends up being the final appearance of this character.
— Okay, the M&Ms bit that Drunk Girl does towards the end of this commentary is decent.
— Wow, talk about a Norm-esque joke from Jimmy. He now does a particularly Norm-esque off-color, dark joke about the recently-deceased Rod Roddy being “nestled warmly at the right hand of Satan”. I admire the pure balls it took for Jimmy to do such a harsh joke that randomly implied Rod Roddy went to hell after dying. That joke receives a boo or two from the audience, just like some of Norm’s particularly off-color jokes received back in the day.
— Oh, dear god, help me. Here goes another Fallon & Sanz bit, for the second time tonight, and for the second Update in a row. Jesus Christ, SNL. Wasn’t the Super Fans abomination that Horatio did in the last Update enough?
— God, this painfully unfunny, rambling, and seemingly lightly-scripted Jimmy Buffett commentary of Horatio’s is FUCKING. BRUTAL. TORTURE. End this now, SNL. This feels like an even more unfunny sequel to Horatio’s Elton John commentary from the preceding season’s Adrien Brody episode.
— Oh, great, now Horatio is ad-libbing the then-forbidden-on-NBC word “goddamn” several times while giggling at himself. Just stop, Horatio. You ain’t no Norm when it comes to ad-libbing “goddamn” freely.
— I cannot complain enough about how irksome it is that SNL gives Horatio so much free rein to fuck around on the air during sketches or Update commentaries with half-written material. Honestly, even freakin’ Jimmy looks slightly annoyed by Horatio at a few points of tonight’s Update commentary (though maybe that’s just Jimmy acting in character), and almost seems like he’s only forcibly laughing along with Horatio to humor him, not because he’s genuinely amused by him like he usually is.
— I remember how, right after tonight’s episode originally aired, a lot of people on the online SNL newsgroup (alt.tv.snl) were angrily demanding the firing of Horatio. Yep, it had gotten to that degree. Some people had had ENOUGH of Horatio’s nonsense. Of course, unsurprisingly, these online complaints led to nothing happening to Horatio on SNL, but if SNL had fired him around this time, I personally wouldn’t have had any objections. Sure, Horatio certainly has his moments, but even at his best, he’s always been an expendable cast member to me. And at his worst? Oof. The self-indulgent hamminess and mugging, the painfully awkward long pauses before delivering some of his lines, the self-amused breaking, the constant jackassery with Jimmy, the unearned free rein to do whatever the hell unfunny nonsense he wants to on the air, etc. And we’ve been particularly bombarded with a display of ALL of those things these past two episodes.
STARS: ***


COW FART STUDY
while on the job, cow fart scientist (WLF) reconciles with wife (host)

— Will and Kelly’s individual lines occasionally being punctuated by cow farts is making me laugh in spite of myself.
— A rare example of SNL actually pulling off a fart sketch well. It helps that this fart sketch also happens to be a patented oddball Will Forte sketch.
— The melodramatic argument between Will and Kelly on the subject of cow farts is hilarious.
— A particularly funny part with a silent Will being in deep thought while farts are going off non-stop in the background.
— I had thought for sure this was a Will Forte-written sketch, despite being more juvenile than his usual material, but the use of a toy model of the earth blowing up at the end of this sketch kinda reminds me of the ending of a really wretched and unfunny sketch that I believe I found out was written by James Anderson, in a Miley Cyrus-hosted episode from 10 years later, in which a cheerleading squad is abducted by an alien spaceship one-by-one. Plus, this Cow Fart Study sketch focused a lot on fart humor, which is a bit of a staple of James Anderson sketches. I now find myself wondering if Anderson wrote this Cow Fart Study sketch. If he did, I give him a lot of credit for doing a good job with this solid sketch, which is saying a lot coming from me, as he’s often the writer behind a lot of sketches that I strongly dislike.
STARS: ****


LEILANI BURKE: PET PSYCHIC
animal ESP is secondary to Leilani Burke’s singing career

— A very random return of Maya’s Leilani character from a forgotten-but-well-written 10-to-1 sketch in the Katie Holmes episode from three seasons prior. The character is now placed in a new setting, given a last name (Burke), and given white streaks in her hair that she didn’t have in her previous appearance.
— I recall an online SNL fan at the time saying the new white streaks in Leilani’s curly red hair made her resemble Bonnie Raitt.
— I like the cheesy theme song Maya’s Leilani performs.
— This is the second time SNL has used a “Welcome Back Potter” joke these past two seasons, after a commercial SNL did in the preceding season’s Brittany Murphy episode.
— At least Horatio’s managing to not annoy me here, for once tonight.
— A very odd and random sketch, but it’s coming off amusing enough, though I’m not laughing out loud. Solid performance from Maya, though.
— I like the eventual reveal that Leilani learned to talk to animals after drinking a box of paint thinner.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Sleepy Brown [real] perform “The Way You Move”


SPY GLASS
Ian (SEM) & Zoe (AMP) dish dirt on British celebrities

— The debut of a short-lived recurring sketch that I remember strongly disliking at the time, but lots of other online SNL fans seemed to love. I recall being perplexed over the love so many people had for these sketches. Maybe I’ll now understand it, as I will now go into these sketches with a more open mind.
— I was about to say how surprising it is that Seth is just now making his first appearance of the night, in the second-to-last sketch of the episode, but then I remembered he was in a small pre-taped scene in the Regis & Kelly sketch. Either way, I had completely forgotten about him until his appearance in this Spy Glass sketch. He’s become such a forgettable cast member to me over the course of these past two seasons.
— Seth’s delivery of his long string of puns during the Elle MacPherson news item was very fun and impressive.
— Ugh, after my praise for Seth above, he annoyed me just now with that ol’ penchant he occasionally has for horrible overacting. Come on, Seth, I’m trying to LIKE you here.
— Rachel’s segment tickled the hell out of me.
— A pretty good laugh from Seth’s character admitting he overdid it with his puns during his Ian McKellen news item.
— A… uh, clever(???) callback to tonight’s earlier Access Hollywood sketch, with Jimmy reprising his Pat O’Brien impression by playing a British version of him in this sketch. Not quite sure this is something I needed, though.
— Oh, geez, Jimmy’s British Pat O’Brien ends his segment by doing VERY long, awkward pauses after each upcoming celebrity news item he teases, just like he did at the end of the Access Hollywood sketch earlier tonight. And just like when he did it in that Access Hollywood sketch, it’s met with uncomfortable silence from the audience during this Spy Glass sketch. Does ANYONE understand why SNL keeps having Jimmy’s Pat O’Brien do those long, awkward pauses after teasing upcoming celebrity news items? I used to watch Access Hollywood regularly back in this era (which is not something I’m proud to admit), and Pat O’Brien NEVER paused awkwardly like that. So what the hell is SNL going for by having Jimmy do it?
— Seth and Amy’s chemistry is fun here, as usual whenever they’re paired together.
— What was the point of going back to Kelly’s Geri Halliwell for a second report, when she had nothing to really say this time? That fell completely flat.
— Overall, a hit-and-miss sketch, but I have enough goodwill towards the hits to give the overall sketch a passing rating. I’m glad to have somewhat come around on this sketch, given how strongly I used to dislike it.
STARS: ***


GREENBRIAR COUNTY ANIMAL RESCUE SHELTER
(CHP) & (host) defame a seemingly-adorable pup that’s up for adoption

— Geez, Chris is JUST NOW making his first appearance of the night, in the 10-to-1 sketch?!? Unlike when I mistakenly thought Seth made his first appearance of the night in the second-to-last sketch of this episode, THIS actually bothers me, as Chris is a far more valuable cast member than Seth, in my opinion. Between Chris getting his Bush impression abruptly yanked away from him against his will earlier this week, and now him having his only appearance of the night be buried at the very end of the show, you’ve got to wonder if poor Chris started worrying about his job security, fearing a potential reprisal of his 2001 firing.
— The setting and framing of this sketch is bringing SNL’s future Whiskers ‘R We sketches to mind.
— Also, it’s odd how this is the second sketch tonight filled with pets, after the Leilani Burke sketch.
— Very funny turn with Chris’ extremely blunt statement of “Pumpkin is a bit of a douchebag.”
— A random but funny slam from Kelly about Craig Kilborn being a soulless creep.
— The dissonant adorable close-ups of Pumpkin the puppy while Kelly and Chris are saying vicious things about him are adding to the humor.
— Some really great slams from Chris about Pumpkin. Kelly has funny ones too, but Chris is really standing out to me. He is fantastic in this sketch, and it’s nice to see him play against type.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode, particularly the post-Weekend Update half of the show, which felt pretty consistent. What was bad in this episode was reeeeaaaalllly brutal, though: Darrell Hammond’s painful Bush cold opening, and Horatio Sanz’s typical self-indulgent jackassery in both the Access Hollywood sketch and (especially) Weekend Update. Luckily, the bad aspects of tonight’s episode were kept to a minimum.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Halle Berry)
a fairly big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Andy Roddick

Posted on

October 18, 2003 – Halle Berry / Britney Spears (S29 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESS CONFERENCE
publicly-supportive wife (MAR) yanks Kobe Bryant’s (FIM) leash in private

— A solid fiery-mad performance from Maya as Vanessa Bryant whenever Chris steps out of the room, and how Maya’s Vanessa immediately shifts back to “loving, sentimental, supporting wife” mode whenever Chris returns to the room.
— Maya’s Vanessa responding to Finesse-as-Kobe’s “I hate that!” with “You know what *I* hate? I hate goin’ to my husband’s rape trial” is a line that stuck with me for a lot of years, and got a very big audience reaction.
— Interesting fake-out with Finesse’s “Live from New York…” getting cut off by Maya. It would’ve been shocking if SNL let Finesse say LFNY only three episodes into his tenure as a new featured player. Then again, Abby Elliott would later say LFNY in only her fifth episode as a featured player, and likewise for Paul Brittain in only his fourth episode as a featured player.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
LOM tries to get host to kiss musical guest a la Madonna at MTV Awards

— A pretty cliched premise, and SNL has gone to the “Lorne plays a horndog towards the host and/or musical guest” well a few times too many by this point of SNL’s run.
— I bet Lorne died a little inside having to mention Adrien Brody when bringing up Halle’s Oscars kiss. The next time SNL mentions Adrien Brody, just two episodes from now, it wouldn’t be in such a kind manner.
— I did get a laugh from Lorne asking Halle and Britney Spears to “Do it for those poor Cub fans”, as this is just a few days after the infamous Steve Bartman incident (an incident I remember all too well, as someone who lived in Chicago at the time and was exposed to the incident ad nauseam on the local news the week of tonight’s episode.)
— This monologue ends with Halle and Britney basically promising us that they’ll kiss later in the episode. However, said kiss ends up NEVER happening. Really, SNL? What a cheap-ass ratings gimmick, trying to get viewers to stay tuned into tonight’s episode, expecting a Halle/Britney kiss. (And SNL also teased the same thing in one of the promos earlier that week.) And then the kiss ends up not even happening! I would call this a new low for SNL, but I guess it ain’t THAT big a deal. Still, though, fucking really, SNL?
STARS: **


GAYSTROGEN
Gaystrogen restores homosexual behavior of (CHP)’s partner (FRA)

— I remember finding this commercial absolutely hilarious back when it originally aired, but all these years later, I now find this kind of gay stereotype humor hacky and tired, especially in an SNL era that relied increasingly heavier on this type of humor.
— After Fred yelled “White is white, Steven!”, I did like Parnell’s humorously dramatic, emotional delivery of “Since when, Russ?! Since when?”
— The part showing a computerized model graphic responding to taking a Gaystrogen pill by becoming rainbow-colored and doing a “gay” dance is one particular part of this commercial that I remember had me howling back in 2003, but I now just groan and roll my eyes at.
— The only thing I’ll say about the cheap man-on-man kissing from Fred and Chris at the end of this commercial is that it’s ironic how tonight’s SNL episode ends up not coming through on their promise of a Halle/Britney kiss, but does give us a same-sex kiss with two men instead. Is this SNL’s way of trolling all the horndogs who were anxiously awaiting the Halle/Britney kiss or something?
STARS: **


THE DON ZIMMER SPORTS SPECTACULAR
guests easily parry Don Zimmer’s (HOS) attacks

— I love Will singing the opening theme song. There’s a subtle absurdity to it that’s great.
— A very topical sketch that doesn’t hold up well, as the Don Zimmer/Pedro Martinez fight it’s based on is probably forgotten by a lot of people today, and is completely unknown to young people watching it in the future. Then again, I didn’t find this sketch funny even when it originally aired.
— Horatio is slipping some mannerisms of old-timey comedians into his Don Zimmer impression whenever he apologizes at the camera. I hear some of both Lou Costello and Curly from the Three Stooges in his voice (hell, at one point, he almost broke into Costello’s “I’m a baaaaaad boy” catchphrase), and just now, he even did the Curly-from-the-Three-Stooges hand-wave towards the camera. You’d think I’d love all of this, if you know how much of a diehard Three Stooges fanatic I am (and a fanatic of classic comedy teams in general, including Abbott & Costello), but nope. Horatio’s Curly/Lou Costello pastiche is just coming off annoying and unnecessary, and you can tell he’s probably amusing himself like crazy, which is something I always find UNBEARABLE about him. He finds himself far funnier than I do.
— Another annoying thing about Horatio’s performance here is that he keeps awkwardly pausing before delivering some lines. He’s always had a bad habit of doing that sometimes in general.
— I always love Darrell’s Bob Costas impression.
— Blah, a VERY one-joke sketch. And one joke that got tired after the first minute. Why the hell was this extremely thin sketch placed as the lead-off sketch of the night (besides the topical nature of it)?
— Boy, was that a lame ending… if it can even be called an ending.
— SNL would later replace this sketch with the dress rehearsal version in reruns.
STARS: *½


VERSACE HALLOWEEN
Naomi Campbell (host) & Elton John (HOS) visit

— Blah again. Ever since the Robert DeNiro episode from the preceding season, these Versace sketches have officially lost steam. And between the Don Zimmer sketch and this, tonight’s episode isn’t exactly off to a hot start.
— Okay, I did love the part just now with Versace inappropriately giving the trick-or-treating kids “candy cigarettes”, which are literally some candy and some cigarettes. That kinda reminds me of a classic bit from a Coneheads Halloween sketch, in which the Coneheads give trick-or-treating kids a 6-pack of beer.
— A nice and committed dive through a breakaway wall from Halle just now.
— Both SNL and NBC would go on to love that visual of Horatio’s Elton John wearing a Spongebob costume, as they would end up using an image of it in a number of things, including SNL promos displayed on the bottom of the screen during some other NBC shows.
— Ugh, Horatio looks like he’s cracking himself up AS USUAL, during the part when where his Elton John is singing. And right after I complained about how damn amused by himself Horatio often comes off.
— The gag with a bat flying out from under Versace’s dress fell flat.
— Okay, I did love Versace’s line after the aforementioned bat gag, with her starting to wrap up her show by saying “Since you can’t top a bat flying out of my cooch…”
STARS: **½


TEL-E-LINK
tel-e-link phone service is simple if you’re a cellular technology expert

— A decent commercial, though the premise of people casually spouting off increasingly complicated technical terms as if it’s simple was already used in that Wilson Countersink Flanges commercial from season 18. I think there was also another sketch or commercial that SNL used that premise in, but I can’t remember what.
— This is the first passing rating I’ve given to a segment tonight since all the way back in the cold opening.
STARS: ***


QUICK ONES
Quick Ones pills efficiently provide immediate sexual gratification

— Amy’s monotone fast-paced orgasm utterances after taking the pill was pretty funny.
— Meh, this premise is already starting to get a little old and one-note.
— Okay, Will is making the gag funny again with his great delivery.
— I got no laughs from that “We’re coming” double entendre at the end, even though it was intended to be badly cheesy.
STARS: **½


JAPANESE STEAK HOUSE
on her birthday, Starkisha (FIM) seeks shrimp at a Japanese restaurant

— OH FUCKING NO. The Starkisha bit that Finesse gave us an extended sample of in his Weekend Update commentary as himself in this season’s premiere has now been spun-off into its own recurring sketch. Oh, these are gonna be some brutally bad sketches to get through.
— Even the names of Starkisha’s friends in this sketch, Frerejaque and Appreciante, are reused from Finesse’s aforementioned Update commentary in the season premiere.
— Halle doing a variation of her work in the movie B.A.P.S.
— I still can’t get over how baby-faced Kenan looks in these early episodes of his compared to how he looks today. Then again, there is a 17-year gap between then and now.
— Boy, this is some cringey and groanworthy stereotypical ghetto humor.
— Chris, to Kenan, in regards to Starkisha and her friends: “Could you please tell your friends to keep it down?” Kenan: “Why they gotta be my friends? Hey, man, I came with YOU.” Solid delivery from Kenan on that very funny line, reminding me of what a reliable and sketch-saving straight man he would go on to regularly become in more recent seasons.
— Good god, that ending bit with Starkisha telling an Asian waiter “I loved you in that movie Rush Hour” was hacky as hell.
STARS: *½


THE SUNDAY NATIONAL ENQUIRER
The Sunday National Enquirer gives erudite readers their trash fix

— Some pretty good laughs from the way this National Enquirer ad is being presented in the manner of a wholesome and reputable newspaper ad.
— This is over already? This actually could’ve benefited from an extra half-minute. Speaking of which, I’m not 100% sure, but I think SNL would later show a longer version of this commercial in reruns, which includes more customers giving testimonials about the National Enquirer.
— Very awkward how this ended with no applause from the audience.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Me Against The Music”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Native American stand-up Billy Smith (FRA) has to explain his references

Bob Swerski & nephew Bart (HOS) vow revenge on Cubs fan Steve Bartman

— Fred does his first of several intentionally bad stand-up comedian characters (I don’t think Fericito is supposed to be bad).
— I’m getting a big kick out of the anti-comedy of Fred’s Billy Smith commentary, and Fred is executing this very well. I remember when this episode originally aired, I absolutely loved how this Billy Smith commentary felt very much in the vein of Andy Kaufman (one of my biggest comedy idols). In his prime, Fred has a great knack for Andy Kaufman-style humor.
— Could’ve done without that bizarre ad-libbed vocalization Tina made in reaction to the audience’s response to her Kabbalah joke.
— That Chinese Space Launch bit… ehh, didn’t we already do a bit earlier tonight (the Starkisha sketch) making use of bad Asian stereotypes that have now aged poorly?
— There goes yet another display of Tina’s love of gay-themed punchlines.
— Tina keeps making unnecessary weird ad-libs after some of her jokes tonight. It kinda reminds me of Colin Quinn’s bad habit of muttering bizarre, often unfunny, and barely intelligible ad-libs in response to the audience reactions to some of his Update jokes.
— Now this is just sad. Horatio as a seemingly semi-mentally challenged member of Bill Swerski’s Super Fans? What the fuck are you doing, SNL?!? Get this crap off my screen. You’re pissing all over the legacy of the Super Fans sketches. Not to mention we’re getting yet another dreaded display of typical Fallon & Sanz jackassery.
— Boy, that is one horrible Chicago accent from Horatio, but I know it turns out to be an intentional part of his characterization, as we’ll see later on. Still doesn’t make it funny.
— As if I haven’t been shitting on Horatio enough in this episode review, now we get MORE painfully awkward long pauses between his lines here, like I mentioned earlier tonight. Ugh. I hate this habit of his. Why does he DO that?!?
— Ah, the return of George Wendt as Bob Swerski, here to save this unbearable Fallon/Sanz bit! Why didn’t SNL just have Wendt’s Bob Swerski come on in the first place by himself, without Horatio prefacing him by doing a terrible “updated” version of the Super Fans routine?
— I wonder if part of the reason for Wendt being willing to show up tonight is because his nephew, Jason Sudeikis, had recently debuted on SNL as a writer.
— Oh, no. Even with Wendt, this Super Fans commentary is still not working for me. It’s a complete mess, and the All That Jazz number at the end is doing nothing for me. It’s also sad to see Wendt get brought down to Jimmy and Horatio’s immature level. Just end this commentary already, SNL. I can’t watch anymore.
— The Super Fans commentary would later get replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns.
STARS: **


THE BEST OF KLYMAXX
Joey Lawrence (SEM) tries to interest ’80s fans in The Best Of Klymaxx

— Finesse in drag TWICE tonight?
— Speaking of black men in drag, it feels odd in retrospect seeing Kenan in his very first of MANY drag roles on SNL, given the fact that, 10 years later in 2013, he would publicly take a stand against dressing in drag and vow to officially stop playing women on SNL. I believe he has kept his word on that to this day, 7 years later, and it’s just one of several examples of how much he’s matured as a performer in more recent years. I wonder what his final drag role on SNL was.
— Boy, this sketch is doing absolutely NOTHING for me. Just having Halle and the cast play Klymaxx and sing their songs isn’t inherently funny.
— Okay, I did get a laugh from Rachel’s facial expression and sassy head-bob after incredulously asking “Your half?!?”
— The running bit with Fred’s non-responses to Seth’s Joey Lawrence asking him how great the Klymaxx CD is is falling REALLY flat. It’s getting zero laughs from both the audience and me. And Horatio’s long, awkward pauses from earlier portions of tonight’s episode must be contagious, because there’s an awful lot of bad long pauses between Fred and Seth’s lines in this sketch. Man, what the hell is going ON in tonight’s episode???
— Having Klymaxx do a variation of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf” is at least fairly funny in concept, even if I’m still not laughing all that much at the execution of it.
STARS: *½


BROKAW VOICEMAIL
Tom Brokaw (CHP) gets mad while recording a voicemail message for (host)

— Blah (I’ve been saying that quite a lot in this episode review), this sketch is going NOWHERE. I’m more than three minutes into this, and I haven’t laughed a single time.
— Great fiery-mad delivery from Chris when he loses his temper while recording the final voicemail message towards the end of this sketch. I still haven’t laughed a single time during this entire sketch, but at least Chris’ angry delivery towards the end was impressive.
— Horrible ending.
— SNL would later replace this sketch with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. (Notice a trend in this episode? Well, besides the trend of this episode sucking.) Two big differences I can remember in the dress version of this sketch is that, instead of telling Brokaw “Now you sound like you’re gay” after one of Brokaw’s recordings like she does in the live version, Halle actually says “Now you sound like a f*g”, though the slur in that line was bleeped out on TV. The ending was completely different in both versions too. The dress version’s ending (something to do with us seeing Halle’s voicemail playing the fiery-mad message that Brokaw recorded and it being followed by Halle saying something on the voicemail about how unpleasant it is to work with Brokaw) was a little less hacky then the live version’s ending, but still not funny.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Everytime”


ASHFORD & SIMPSON
on her birthday, (host) is thrilled to meet Ashford (KET) & Simpson (MAR)

— First a Klymaxx sketch, and now a freakin’ Ashford & Simpson sketch? What the hell? Were the writers on a 70s and 80s fix this week, or is this just a sign of how bad this season’s writers are at writing for black female hosts?
— Finesse has been getting tons of airtime in this episode, obviously because we have a black host. He’d better be enjoying all of this airtime, because this would end up being as good as it gets for him in his disappointing three-year SNL tenure. Actually, I recall him getting tons of airtime in the following season’s Queen Latifah-hosted episode too, which I guess proves that black women hosting is the only way for Finesse to catch a break on SNL.
— Most of this sketch is very blah (sorry for using that word AGAIN in this episode review). I am liking Kenan’s delivery here, though, which is the only bright spot I’ve been able to find.
— Guess what, folks? This is YET ANOTHER sketch in this episode that would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. (Man, I wonder if this is one of the most heavily-edited-in-reruns SNL episodes of all time?) The biggest difference I can remember is that, in the live version, Halle and Finesse are sitting at their table alone, whereas the dress version has Halle and Finesse accompanied at their table by Rachel and Amy as their friends. I wonder why Rachel and Amy’s roles were removed from the live version.
STARS: *½


SPEEDREADER
speedreader Gary (WLF) uses his skill to pick up (host) at a bar

— Oh, thank god Will Forte has come to save tonight’s dire episode. His patented oddball sketches are always very reliable.
— Hilarious reveal that Will’s sleazy character is a speedreader. It’s also equally hilarious how he keeps bragging about it, thinking it’ll impress Halle.
— I love the vocalizations Will makes whenever he speedreads.
— Will, after speedreading the bible: “Done! Poooooor Jesus.”
— I was actually shocked (as was the studio audience apparently, judging from their silence) at Will bluntly saying “I got a big dick…”, until he hilariously followed it up with, after a one-second pause, “…tionary.”
— This sketch ends a bit abruptly, seemingly because the show is running long. SNL’s been having a problem ending the show on time this season, as this is the second instance in these past three episodes in which the final sketch got cut off early due to the show running long.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

— Yep, the show is indeed running long. Much like in the first episode of this season, these goodnights get cut off before Halle even finishes her goodnights speech.
— Speaking of Halle in these goodnights, I remember her sharing a story several months later on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (lord knows why I was watching that show that night) about how SNL’s wardrobe crew dressed her for these goodnights in such a hurry that they accidentally put her boots on the wrong legs, and she had to do the whole goodnights like that.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— As if I didn’t say it enough in this episode review… BLAH. Nah, fuck it. Blah is being too kind. This episode was flat-out terrible. The number of sketches I rated one or one-and-a-half stars almost rivals the number of one or one-and-a-half-star sketches from my reviews of some of the more notorious episodes from season 20. The difference is that none of tonight’s sketches are particularly disastrous or infamous among SNL fans (as far as I know). But still, what a lousy, lousy episode, and it has probably one of the lowest rating averages out of all of my reviews in this SNL project. The Speedreader sketch was the ONLY live sketch I liked all night (not counting the cold opening), and that was buried all the way at the end of the show. I remember when this episode originally aired, it was the official point where I started worrying about the quality of this season, especially since I didn’t like the season premiere either.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Justin Timberlake)
a colossal step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Kelly Ripa

Posted on

October 11, 2003 – Justin Timberlake (S29 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS
GOP apologists Karl Rove (JER) & Ann Coulter (AMP) on CIA leak

— A new opening title sequence for these Hardball sketches. I like the brief shot of Darrell’s Chris Matthews incredulously shaking his head with a smile.
— Pretty funny pudgy facial make-up on Jeff’s Karl Rove.
— A hilarious slam from Darrell’s Chris Matthews to Amy’s Ann Coulter, telling her she looks like a kneecap with hair.
— Kenan is pretty funny as Gary Coleman. I especially like his passing reference to the infamous Bicycle Man child molestation episode of Diff’rent Strokes.
— Some good lines from Amy’s desperate Ann Coulter.
— Chris Matthews to Ann Coulter: “I would call you a media whore, but I feel that would be offensive to whores.”
— The writers seem to have forgotten to write any funny lines for Jeff’s Karl Rove (though the detective thing at the beginning of his interview was funny), and the bit with him shutting down Hardball fell completely flat with the audience.
— Overall, while this was mostly fine, it paled in comparison to all the exceptionally strong Hardball sketches from the preceding season.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— After only one episode, some modifications have been made to this season’s new opening montage: Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers’ respective shot from the season premiere (first and third screencap below) have been changed to slightly different ones (second and fourth screencap below).


MONOLOGUE
host doesn’t feel right serenading a teeny-bopper’s dad (Steve Higgins)

host performs “Rock Your Body”

— I like the line from Justin Timberlake about being allowed as a kid to stay up late to watch SNL “way, way, way back in the day when, like, Molly Shannon and Chris Kattan were on the show”, even though it’s just a variation of something that Christina Ricci said in her season 25 monologue.
— Steve Higgins is very funny as the audience member brought up onstage.
— Justin’s displaying some good comic timing in his straight man reactions to Steve.
— Justin: “I don’t sign dude’s breasts.”
— The way this transitioned into a full-fledged musical performance on the musical guest stage reminds me of Sting and M.C. Hammer’s monologues from the early 90s.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


PUNK’D BARELY LEGAL
extreme Ashton Kutcher (host) pranks compiled on DVD

— Justin is a freakin’ riot in his skewering of the over-the-top, loud, spastic Ashton Kutcher.
— Hilarious reveal of Kutcher’s prank on Maya’s Christina Aguilera being him switching out her birth control pills, and how Maya’s Aguilera has a laid-back reaction when finding out about such an inappropriate prank.
— Finesse looks kinda uncanny as 50 Cent here.
— A funny random utterance of “I love Justin Timberlake!” from Justin’s Kutcher before exiting this sketch. I’m assuming that line was an ad-lib, judging from how random it was and from how Justin seemed to kinda break when delivering it.
— An overall perfect length for this great sketch, though at the same time, I wouldn’t have objected to one more prank scene.
STARS: ****½


PRESS CONFERENCE
in-over-his-head governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger (DAH) resigns

— Darrell’s Arnold Schwarzenegger impression is kinda growing on me A LITTLE, even though it’s still way off on sounding like the real Schwarzenegger.
— Odd how the camera’s not showing the reporters who are asking Darrell’s Schwarzenegger questions. The first reporter asking a question appears to be Jim Downey, judging from the voice.
— Some laughs from Schwarzenegger admitting how bad of a governor he would make.
— Darrell’s getting pretty stumbly with his lines here.
— I’m starting to kinda lose interest in this, though the material isn’t exactly terrible. Just nothing special.
STARS: **½


A MESSAGE FROM NICK LACHEY & JESSICA SIMPSON
Nick Lachey (JIF) & Jessica Simpson (host) fail to dispel her ditzy image

— A lot of laughs from Justin’s portrayal of Jessica Simpson, and he has lots of funny ditzy lines.
— If only Jimmy could look like he’s NOT about to bust out laughing any second.
— A very funny ending with Justin’s Jessica explaining what she means by “drop the kids off at the pool”.
STARS: ****


BENNY’S VS. OMELETVILLE
singing & dancing mascot (host) overshadows rival breakfast hawker (CHP)

— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring character debut!
— Meh. I never cared for these very audience-pandering Dancing Mascot sketches.
— I will say that Justin’s energy in tonight’s installment of this sketch is very fun. He would have that same energy in all the subsequent installments of this sketch, but I’m finding that his energy is more endearing here in the first installment.
— Justin’s songs here are thankfully much shorter than the ones he would typically do in later installments of this sketch.
STARS: **½


DIRECTV
Gary Busey (JER) preempts DIRECTV fan letter to praise booby channels

— Jeff’s Gary Busey is always a huge treat.
— Busey’s various stories here are freakin’ hilarious.
— A particularly funny clarification from Busey on his revelation of his farts smelling like butterscotch: “That’s not a joke, they smell like either butt or scotch.”
STARS: ****½


BIRTHDAY DINNER
Sully, Denise, her brother (host) misbehave in a swanky restaurant

— A good laugh from Sully yelling at an old lady for not participating in the Red Sox chant that he starts in the restaurant.
— Funny bit with Sully, Denise, and Justin’s character immediately changing their orders of alcoholic drinks after their waiter asks for some I.D.
— For the second episode in a row, we get a display of horrible overacting from Seth, this time when he’s angrily telling off the Boston Teens and Justin at the end of this sketch. After recently being surprised to discover what a good first season Seth had, I’ve been finding him increasingly forgettable and try-too-hard-ish with each passing season I’ve reviewed since then.
— Overall, this sketch was pretty much a return to form for the Boston Teens after their subpar last installment with Bernie Mac, but it’s probably a good thing there’s only one Boston Teens sketch remaining during Jimmy’s tenure as a cast member.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Senorita”


WEEKEND UPDATE
TIF reciprocates privacy invasion of Kobe Bryant’s lawyer Pamela Mackey

— Tina’s Pamela Mackey rant was very hit-and-miss with me.
— Pretty fun bit with Jimmy and Tina sharing dirty Dutch terms with each other.
— Wow, this Update is over already, and with no guest commentaries. A rarity at this point of SNL’s run to have a commentary-less Update.
STARS: ***


THE SHARON OSBOURNE SHOW
shorn Michael Bolton (host) sings

— I usually always like Amy’s Sharon Osbourne impression, but I’m not crazy at all about the idea of her starring in her own talk show sketch, even though I know this sketch is a spoof of an actual talk show that the real Sharon Osbourne hosted at the time.
— Fred’s Quentin Tarantino impression is very funny and spot-on, even if he looks absolutely nothing like him. At this time, it was a huge rarity to see Fred do celebrity impressions. I think the only one he did prior to this was of Uday Hussein, and that was the type of impression that doesn’t require the performer to actually imitate the voice and mannerisms of the person they’re playing.
— Despite a decent performance from Amy, my only laughs here are from the other performers.
— Justin’s doing a very accurate imitation of Michael Bolton’s singing voice.
STARS: **½


THE RAINBOW CONNECTION
host & Kermit’s Muppeteer (WLF) brawl during “Rainbow Connection” duet

— Very good imitation of Kermit’s voice from a not-revealed-yet Will Forte. I remember when this sketch originally aired, I almost did think that was the real voice of Kermit, though the shoddy-looking Kermit puppet made it obvious that it wasn’t.
— The way this Justin/Kermit duet is being played so straight for so long is going to make the eventual comedic reveal that I’m aware of come off that much funnier.
— Aaaaaand there it is. Great comedic turn with Justin getting into a wild fight with Will as Kermit’s puppeteer.
— Speaking of Will, his lack of airtime this season so far is very puzzling. SNL went through the trouble of promoting him after one season, only for him to get literally almost NOTHING to do in the season premiere, and then to have his only appearance in tonight’s episode be this sketch. At least he’s still making the best of his very limited airtime so far this season, as he stole the Telemarketers sketch in the season premiere with only one line, and this Rainbow Connection sketch I’m currently reviewing is famous as an SNL masterpiece.
— Very funny detail of Will wearing suspenders and a tie-dye shirt, which seems believable for a puppeteer.
— Will, as Kermit: “Can you say you’re sorry to Bill for being a douchebag?”
— Perfect ending.
STARS: *****


CARL WEATHERS FOR GOVERNOR
Carl Weathers [real] aims to become third governor from cast of Predator

— Fun guest spot from Carl Weathers, reminding me how much I liked him as a host back in season 13.
— I’m getting some good laughs from Weathers’ various bad movie-related puns, such as his line about how he has the “Apollo Creed-entials” to be governor.
STARS: ***½


BACKSTAGE
AMP comes on to decade-younger host during rehearsal in dressing room

— A funny sudden change in Amy’s tone the second time she asks Justin “Can you imagine that?” after bringing up the possibility of them having sex.
— A great little “Just let me do this” comment from Amy when she’s tightly clinging onto Justin at the end of this.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Cry Me A River”


THE BARRY GIBB TALK SHOW
California politics & fulsome falsetto

— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring sketch debut! (I believe this is the first time I’ve ever used that line twice in the same episode review.)
— An extremely fun and memorable opening theme song.
— Jimmy’s speaking voice as Barry Gibb is a riot, as is his no-nonsense, temperamental attitude towards the guests.
— Such a random premise, but it’s coming off very well in its execution, especially with Jimmy’s extremely committed performance. For once, Jimmy’s not even falling victim to his usual case of the giggles (minus some smirking whenever Justin breaks).
— I always like whenever someone on SNL does an impression of a former cast member, and Jeff’s Al Franken is an absolutely perfect imitation.
— I particularly love the “I’ll put you in the ground” part with the Gibb Brothers.
— It’s a damn shame SNL would eventually ruin this overall great one-off sketch by turning it into an unnecessary recurring sketch.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A great episode, with a lot of very strong and memorable sketches, and an unexpectedly (at the time) very impressive hosting debut from Justin Timberlake. I would go on to have some issues with Justin’s subsequent episodes (issues that I’ll get to when covering those episodes), but I have almost nothing but praise for tonight’s episode and this debut hosting stint of Justin’s.


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


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Halle Berry

Posted on

October 4, 2003 – Jack Black / John Mayer (S29 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

CALIFORNIANS FOR SCHWARZENEGGER
Arnold Schwarzenegger (DAH) gives non-specifics of his five-point program

— Darrell’s Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, which was never all that great to begin with in its prior appearances, has really slipped by this point. The voice is quite a ways off. Unfortunately, this would end up becoming the default version that we would semi-regularly see of Darrell’s Arnold impression.
— His “solution” for jobs is pretty funny.
— Some more decent laughs from his vague, overly simplistic statements about other things he would fix, like education and crime.
— After Darrell says “Live from New York…”, the screen does a hard cut to the (new) opening montage instead of crossfading into the montage. I’m pointing this out because tonight’s episode is the official point where it would become a long-lasting tradition for SNL to transition into the opening montage with a hard cut instead of a crossfade, a tradition that continues to this day in 2020, I believe.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— New montage.

— A very impressive and fun style and visual quality to this opening montage, feeling like a modernized hybrid of the big-budget continuous-shot style of season 10’s opening montage and the first-person perspective of the second opening montage from season 11. The very impressive visual quality of this montage makes sense, given the fact that it was directed by Dave Meyers, director of MTV music videos such as Missy Elliott’s “Work It”, though something unfortunate about this is that it kinda foreshadows how this SNL season in general will be pandering awfully hard to the MTV audience.
— Will Forte, Seth Meyers, and Jeff Richards have all been promoted from featured players to repertory players.
— Finesse Mitchell and Kenan Thompson have been added to the cast tonight.
— After being credited on a regular basis in every opening montage since season 12, the SNL Band receives no credit in this new montage. This lack of an opening montage credit for the SNL Band would unfortunately go on to be a regular thing that continues to this day in 2020, at least in regular SNL episodes. I hear that the special SNL At Home episodes that SNL has been doing lately has credited the SNL Band in the opening montage (no, I haven’t seen those episodes myself yet, as I’ve been on hiatus from watching new SNL episodes ever since December 2018, and I won’t break from that hiatus until I eventually review all of the episodes that I’ve missed during that hiatus), but as far as I’m aware, those SNL At Home episodes don’t count as regular SNL episodes. The SNL Archives page for the first SNL At Home episode (link here) seems to agree with me, as there’s no official episode number listed for it like regular SNL episodes are typically given on that site, plus the fact that on that site’s Season 45 page (link here), SNL At Home is listed under the “Specials” tab instead of the “Episodes” tab. [ADDENDUM: SNL Archives now counts the SNL At Home episodes as regular SNL episodes.] (Not to get even further off-topic in this review, but those SNL At Home episodes kinda throw a wrench into my plans for this SNL project of mine. Right from the start, I had always made it a rule for this SNL project that I will only review regular episodes and no specials, as stated on my home page, and it’s a rule that I sternly refuse to break. If I allow myself to bend the rules and review one or two specials, then to me, my SNL project will always have an incomplete feel, because I would have reviewed one or some of the specials, but not others. However, I’ve seen some online SNL fans make the point that they personally consider the SNL At Home episodes to be part of SNL’s roster of regular episodes, which really confuses me over whether I should review them or not when I arrive at that point of SNL’s timeline. As of now, I’m siding with SNL Archives and not counting SNL At Home as regular episodes. So, at the risk of potentially disappointing some of you readers, the plan right now is for me to not review the SNL At Home episodes, unless someone can make a strong and convincing argument that those officially count as being part of SNL’s roster of regular episodes.) [ADDENDUM: After a strong and convincing argument from various commenters, I’ve decided to review the SNL At Home episodes.]


MONOLOGUE
host says “not this Jack” to ego trip prospect; WIF & Kyle Gass cameos

— New home base stage. I remember how exciting this was at the time, but little did I know just how insanely long this home base stage would last, still being used to this day, 17 years later, which sadly makes me lose all hope that we’re EVER going to see a new home base stage. Given that SNL has kept this home base stage for the exact same period of time that Kenan Thompson has been in the cast, it almost makes one wonder if SNL is waiting for Kenan to leave until they finally change the home base stage.
— Jack Black is doing a great job right out of the gate getting the audience hyped up. His typical energy is perfect for a season premiere monologue.
— An around-the-studio musical number from the host, in the tradition of things like Steve Martin’s Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight cold opening and Mike Myers’ monologue.
— Funny bit with Jack asking the two new cast members “What’s your names?”, then IMMEDIATELY cutting them off with “Like I care!” Amusing to see in retrospect that this is how record-breaking long-tenured cast member Kenan Thompson was introduced on SNL.
— Speaking of Kenan, it feels just as odd as I expected for me to have officially reached the tenure of a cast member who’s currently still on the show today, which makes me realize I’m slowly getting closer and closer to reaching the modern-day era of SNL and completing this SNL project of mine. Then again, it will be 8 seasons until I reach the debut of the second longest-tenured current cast member, Kate McKinnon, and by the time I reach that season, Kate may have already left the current cast.
— Holy hell, a random casual and quick Will Ferrell cameo, getting shoved face-first out of the way by Jack.
— Now the (almost) entire cast is joining Jack’s musical number, interestingly in the exact same spot in SNL’s studio that the entire cast joined Steve Martin in the portion of the aforementioned Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight cold opening where the cast sings the lyrics “We’re gonna learn our lines, do our parts well, then we’ll go back to coasting… etc.”.

— Horatio’s attempt at scatting is very funny.
— Ah, I knew SNL wouldn’t let Will Ferrell’s only appearance in this monologue just be a very quick, barely-noticeable, non-speaking appearance in which he just gets shoved face-first by Jack, though at the same time, it would’ve been absurdly hilarious if SNL did leave that as his only appearance in this monologue.
STARS: ****


HUGGIES THONG
Huggies Thong diapers may not stop leaks, but they sure are fashionable

— Rachel looks like she lost quite a bit of weight over the summer.
— In the past, I’ve always been pretty meh on this commercial (maybe because of the huge overexposure it would get this season, with it being repeated in WAY too many of this season’s episodes), but it’s coming off harmless enough during this current viewing, and I admit it’s a funny premise for a fake ad.
STARS: ***


QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GAL
(TIF) gets lifestyle advice from lesbians

— I see SNL’s wasting no time in immediately spoofing that summer’s hit new reality show, Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.
— Interesting seeing Paula Pell in a co-starring role, even though she has no actual dialogue here.
— A huge laugh from Jack’s lesbian character asking Tina “Where are your dildos?!?”
— The newspaper/magazine reviews shown throughout this aren’t that funny.
— Jack: “We should tear this carpet up.” Tina: “You guys would know about tearing up carpet.” A very funny line on paper, but something about Tina’s delivery of it didn’t quite work for me. The fact that she probably wrote that line herself (which I’m only assuming, as the writing of this sketch in general seems like her style) also gives her delivery of it a self-indulgent feel that I don’t like.
STARS: **½


THE WADE ROBSON PROJECT
awful dancers (MAR), (AMP), (host) flail

— (*sigh*) More early proof that this season of SNL will be pandering hard to the MTV audience. I also don’t like how the first two lead-off sketches of tonight’s season premiere are BOTH reality show parodies.
— Maya reuses the leaning-all-the-way-back-in-a-staccato-manner dance move from the MTV Spring Break sketch she did with Cameron Diaz in season 27.
— Some of the dialogue is falling kinda flat with the audience.
— A good laugh from one part of Amy’s dance sequence, where she mimes giving birth and then throwing the baby away.
— Jack’s performance and dance sequence is hilarious, and is giving this tepid sketch a much-needed boost. I especially love him doing the Russian Cossack dance move.
— The ending bit with Seth’s Wade Robson telling each dancer how bad they are is another portion of this sketch that’s falling flat.
STARS: **


COOKING CLASS
long-haired chef (host) teaches Vasquez, Gabe, Ruth, Pete (CHP) to cook

— Our third and final sketch with this group of student characters (though Horatio’s Vasquez will continue to make other appearances), but the A.J. character played by the no-longer-on-the-show Tracy Morgan has been replaced with a new character named Pete, played by Parnell.
— Another Jack Black character tonight that is so perfect for him that you would think he wrote it himself.
— A pretty good laugh from Jack’s character being unaware that his long curly hair is dipping into the pot of sauce while he’s speaking.
— Fred continues to kill me as his Gabe character.
— Rachel’s constant mentions of her allergies are getting tired.
— The band-aid ending was very funny.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
“Yankee Super-Heroes” by RBS- deep pockets empower baseball mercenaries

— Why is Stuart Scott being voiced by Parnell, of all people?
— A good laugh from the photo seen in each Yankee player’s locker.
— I don’t know why, but the voice for Derek Jeter is cracking me up. There’s also a funny gag with him singing a Mariah Carey-esque sonic shriek as a weapon against enemies.
— Some laughs throughout this overall cartoon, though this felt a little on the unmemorable side.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO

— Jack mistakenly pronounces John Mayer’s last name as “Myer”, then makes a very funny and genuine “Oops!” face as the camera pans away from him (screencap below).


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Bigger Than My Body”


WEEKEND UPDATE
doped-up Rush Limbaugh (JER) is unapologetic about racial insensitivity

FIM recalls birthday party at Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon screening

Bill Cosby (KET) scuffles with Wanda Sykes (MAR) at Emmy Awards

— This is the second of only two appearances for Jimmy tonight, and the first was a quick non-speaking appearance in the monologue. His airtime is going to be unusually light in the first half of this season, as he’s filming the movie Taxi.
— Jimmy’s brief vocal impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger was very spot-on, putting Darrell’s impression to shame and making one wonder why SNL didn’t cast Jimmy in that role, other than the fact that SNL feels the need to justify Darrell’s unnecessary ninth season in the cast.
— An interesting out-of-the-ordinary set-up to Jeff’s Rush Limbaugh commentary.
— For some reason, it feels a little out of place and dissonant seeing Jeff in this season. Maybe because I now know what’s to come for him mid-season…
— As expected, Jeff’s Rush Limbaugh is yet another spot-on celebrity impression from him.
— A very funny line from Jeff’s Limbaugh about how he regrets the timing of his various controversies, as the possibility of him going to jail just so happens to be right after he pissed off a lot of black guys.
— Wow, a lame photo-based joke (the one about Laura Bush) that feels like a bad throwback to the old days of Update where lame photo-based jokes were a lot more common. (Dennis Miller is especially remembered by some SNL fans today for relying almost entirely on lame photo-based jokes. I disagree with that assessment of Dennis, but that’s another topic.) I think it was the Norm Macdonald era of Update where SNL finally got away from their bad habit of photo-based jokes.
— Giving Finesse Mitchell his own stand-up commentary on Update is a good way to introduce him in his first episode, though it certainly doesn’t make one forget about Tracy Morgan, who’s spot in the cast Finesse was seemingly hired to fill in.
— Kinda lame how Finesse’s commentary is focusing on a movie that came out THREE YEARS prior (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), especially since Tina set his commentary up as being about the new Denzel Washington movie Out Of Time. Finesse must’ve taken this commentary from an old stand-up routine of his, but couldn’t he have updated it?
— I’m having a hard time enjoying this Starkisha routine that Finesse is doing in his commentary, knowing in retrospect that this whole Starkisha bit would soon be spun-off into an unbearable recurring sketch.
— I really like how Jimmy is doubling down on the Norm Macdonald-esque deadpan, blunt punchlines and delivery that he began honing the preceding season. I know Jimmy is certainly no Norm, but still. And it’s certainly preferable to the mediocrity that Tina’s been dishing out lately at the Update desk.
— The random evil twin bit with Jimmy and Tina made me laugh, just because of how funny Jimmy looked in that fake big mustache.
— Here comes Kenan Thompson in his very first big SNL role, doing the Bill Cosby impression that he used to do back in his All That days on Nickelodeon.
— I am absolutely howling at the way Kenan’s Cosby keeps saying “Get out of m’face.” The fact that Kenan can get this big a laugh out of me in his first episode is impressive.
STARS: ***


CAT’S IN THE CRADLE
while onstage, guitarist (host) broaches childhood issues with dad (HOS)

— This is the very first sketch written by newly-hired SNL writer and future cast member Jason Sudeikis.
— Kenan looks so baby-faced here compared to how he looks today.
— Pretty funny reveal of Jack’s stepmom being Shelley Long, portrayed amusingly by Amy.
— Some funny lines from Horatio, such as him saying Jack’s cat had Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and him justifying his own drunkenness one Halloween by saying he was dressed as Abraham Drinkin’.
— Knowing that Jason Sudeikis wrote this, the constant mentions of the sitcom Cheers make a lot of sense, as Jason is George Wendt’s nephew. (Am I the only one who can see a bit of a facial resemblance between them?)
— Also knowing that Jason Sudeikis wrote this, I can’t help but picture him playing Horatio’s role, and he would’ve been absolutely perfect in it, though Horatio is absolutely fine here in his own right.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO

— This time when saying John Mayer’s last name, Jack correctly pronounces it in a comically emphasized manner, as if to say “See, everyone, I got it right this time!”


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Clarity”


WINE TASTING
vintner’s son (SEM) endures spit-take facials from wine expert (host)

— Meh, a sketch centered around spit-takes.
— After not laughing for most of these spit-takes, I finally got one laugh just now, from Jack turning all the way around while spitting out wine just to get it on Seth, after Seth has moved to a different spot.
— As I expected, I’m not caring for this very one-joke sketch, though Jack and Seth are performing this really well.
— Okay, I spoke too soon about Seth giving a strong performance, as he annoyed me just now with his horrible overacting during his delivery of “What about the special bottle?!? You have to try the special bottle!” It’s bad moments like that that make me wonder what SNL was thinking a year later in season 30 when they erroneously think Seth has what it takes to carry the show on his back as the male star of the cast.
STARS: **


TELEMARKETERS
via song, telemarketers romanticize sales method killed by no-call list

— Ugh, Kenan’s bizarrely goofy delivery of the line “The majestic buffalo” was too out-of-place for this sketch, and reminds me of how long it would take for him as an SNL cast member to shake a lot of his weaker habits from his child actor days on Nickelodeon. I also recall how, when tonight’s episode originally aired, some online SNL fans who were unhappy with SNL’s decision to hire a former All That cast member (and some of those SNL fans seemingly STILL haven’t gotten over that today, 17 years later) complained about how awful, distracting, and unnecessary Kenan’s mugging during some of Jack’s lines in this sketch was. Over the course of these next (insert large number here) seasons that I’ll be reviewing, it’s going to be interesting seeing Kenan gradually grow into the mature, solid, and reliable veteran he is today.
— Yet another sketch that Jack is absolutely perfect for.
— Horatio has been all over tonight’s episode.
— On an opposite note from what I just said about Horatio, where the heck has Forte been tonight? SNL went through the trouble of promoting him to a repertory player after only one season, only to give him practically nothing to do in his first episode as a repertory player. That being said, he completely steals this sketch with his one and only line of tonight’s entire episode: a hilarious solo lyric about his cocaine addiction.
— Fun guitar bit Jack is doing while standing on the desk.
— Both the audience and me got a pretty good laugh from Jack’s little “Take it” ad-lib in the middle of his long spiel while he handed his guitar to someone off-camera.
— The ending of this sketch abruptly gets cut off due to the show running long.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

— Further proof that this episode is running particularly long, as these goodnights get cut off before Jack even finishes his goodnights speech.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Despite an exciting new feel to the season with a brand-new opening montage, new home base and musical guest stages, and even a new visual quality onscreen, this ended up being a somewhat meh season premiere, and not a promising sign for the season. This episode was far from awful, but a lot of it hovered around the fairly unimpressive two-and-a-half/three-star rating range. Barely any sketches stood out. Jack Black was certainly a strong host, though, and gave this episode a boost with his fun and reliable energy.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2002-03)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Justin Timberlake makes his hosting debut

Posted on

May 17, 2003 – Dan Aykroyd / Beyonce (S28 E20)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HARDBALL
Al Sharpton (TRM) has little chance to become president in 2004

— Good to see Dan Aykroyd appearing right at top of tonight’s episode.
— Hilarious line from Dan’s Andrew Card suggesting that, to have a candidate who’s universally adored, the democrats need to lower the voting age to 6 and nominate Spongebob Squarepants.
— Chris Matthews, regarding Rick Santorum: “Please welcome the man who put the ‘idiot’ into… ‘he’s an idiot’.”
— So many laughs from Parnell’s Rick Santorum unconvincingly clarifying how un-bigoted he supposedly is towards gay people.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
DAA & JIB perform “Time Won’t Let Me”

— Man, it feels so nice to see Dan standing on that home base stage as the host.
— Just now, Dan made a very sentimental mention of John Belushi no longer being with us, which actually put a lump in my throat just now.
— I got an unintended(?) laugh from Jim Belushi’s facial expression when cornily dancing his way onstage during his entrance, though it’s more of a “Man, that’s pathetic” laugh, from seeing a man his age dancing like that.
— I believe this is the first and only time that Jim Belushi has appeared in a regular SNL episode after leaving the cast.
— Nothing to say about the musical number itself. At least it’s not another full-on post-John Belushi Blues Brothers routine, and the song is high-energy, but this whole thing is very whatever.
— I like Dan’s special mention at the end of this being Tracy and Kattan’s last show.
STARS: N/A (I don’t usually rate stuff like this)


TOP O’ THE MORNING
William’s dad (DAA) & many siblings fill the bar

— A laugh from the opening sponsor bit with Colin Farrell’s Anti-Bacterial Cream (“You put it on when you can’t remember WHERE you put it last night.”)
— The flashback sequences regarding Seth’s black eye are funny, and I always get a kick out of when SNL makes it obvious that they’re performing a flashback sequence live.
— Dan is pretty fun here, and is coming off as a natural in this recurring sketch.
— I love Dan sternly telling one child he catches with an alcoholic drink, “Not until you’re 13.”
— Some good ad-libbing from Seth in response to Dan unintentionally having some egg yolk on his face.
— A good laugh from the bit about one of the many Irish kids being named Julio because the family ran out of Irish names.
— Overall, this was EASILY the best Top O’ The Morning sketch to air up to this point. Some good laughs throughout this, a great performance from Dan, and a nice general atmosphere and energy all made this much better than this sketch usually is.
STARS: ***½


THE RIALTO GRANDE
Buddy Mills introduces son (Kip King) & reconciles with old friend (DAA)

— One of Kattan’s two swan-songs tonight. This recurring sketch, though very similar in each installment, is always very enjoyable, and is nice to see in Kattan’s final episode.
— Kattan’s Buddy Mills introduces his son in the audience (the third above screencap for this sketch), which is actually an inside reference as part of Kattan’s farewell, as Buddy Mills’ son is being played by Kattan’s real-life father, actor Kip King, who I recall hearing Kattan based this Buddy Mills character on.
— Now Buddy Mills introduces Dan’s character as being the voice of Tailor Smurf, which is another inside reference to Kattan’s real-life father, as Kip King was the voice of one of the Smurfs (not sure if it was Tailor Smurf or not, though).
— I love Dan’s goofy vocalizations when pulling the banana out of the front of his pants.
— Overall, the usual solid Rialto Grande installment, ending a nice regular run of these sketches (not counting the return it makes in one of the episodes that Kattan cameos in the following season).
STARS: ****


THE FALCONER
Donald joins a biker gang while The Falconer sinks in quicksand

— Tonight’s season finale seems to be SNL trotting out the biggest recurring sketches of the season.
— Even though it feels kinda odd seeing another Falconer sketch so soon, after SNL last did one only TWO EPISODES AGO, I certainly have no complaints, as The Falconer sketches are always strong and very reliable.
— A random John Goodman cameo (and he’s barely recognizable under that sunglasses and fake beard), which makes sense in tonight’s episode, given how often Dan has cameod in past John Goodman-hosted episodes.
— Hilarious visual of Donald the Falcon giving Dan the middle finger.
— I love the ridiculous fight scene between Donald the Falcon and all the bikers.
— Ha, I just spotted Tom Davis as one of the bikers getting beat up by Donald (screencap below).

— Great ending to the fight scene, with Donald gruesomely pulling out Dan’s heart.
STARS: ****½


TV FUNHOUSE
“Cokee, The Most Expensive Dog In The World” by RBS- Ben Affleck buys Jennifer Lopez a Robert Duvall look-alike dog

— The animation here looks a little different from usual TV Funhouse cartoons. Is this spoofing an animated series that I’m unaware of?
— The voice Amy is using as Jennifer Lopez is pretty funny.
— Very random premise of Ben Affleck and J.Lo having a dog who looks like Robert Duvall.
— What’s with Amy’s J.Lo ending a lot of her sentences with “…and split” instead of “…and shit”? There’s something strangely funny about that, even though I don’t get it.
— Quite an odd overall cartoon. I’m not even sure if I liked it as a whole or not, despite some laughs I got. I still kinda get the feeling this was spoofing something that I’m unaware of.
STARS: **½


DONATELLA VERSACE BACKYARD BARBEQUE
Anna Nicole Smith (John Goodman) visits

— SNL continues tonight’s theme of all the sketches being the biggest recurring sketches of the season.
— Yes! We get to see Jeff’s eerily spot-on and funny David Letterman impression again. Hope he gets better material than he got last time, in that News Media sketch from the preceding season.
— Ehh, Jeff’s Letterman ended up being wasted in this sketch too, just playing straight man to Versace. It’s a shame that SNL doesn’t know how to give Jeff’s perfect Letterman impression funny material.
— Ha, Goodman as Anna Nicole Smith is worth some cheap laughs, and is helping to enhance this somewhat meh sketch a little.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Jay-Z [real] perform “Crazy In Love”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Drunk Girl thinks she’s in a tanning bed & flashes JIF

in a terrible re-enactment, CHK recapitulates his career at SNL

— Normally, I’d groan at yet another Drunk Girl appearance, but at least they’re shaking things up a bit in her appearance tonight, which is making her shtick come off a little fresher than usual. Though I gotta say, Jesus Christ at all that skin she’s showing here.
— A callback to the punching bit between Jimmy and Tina from the Update in the Ray Romano episode a month prior. At least the punch sound effect actually plays this time.
— Jimmy has a lot of solid jokes tonight. Tina, on the other hand? Ehhh…
— Oh, I absolutely love the meta premise of Kattan doing a Terrible Re-Enactment of his own SNL tenure. Thumbs-up to whoever came up with this idea.
— So much fun seeing Kattan performing a quick sample of each of his biggest SNL characters and impressions, even the characters/impressions that I don’t care for. I particularly like seeing Kattan doing a sample of the characters that he hasn’t played in years (e.g. Roxbury Guy, Azrael Abyss), because it’s bringing back nice memories of me reviewing their sketches earlier in this SNL project of mine. I also love how one of the characters Kattan reprises is randomly Molly Shannon’s Mary Katherine Gallagher.
— I have so much goodwill towards this Terrible Re-Enactment segment that even the big Mango ending has me smiling.
— Overall, wow, what a wonderful farewell from Kattan. This was such a great way for him to go out, and it ALMOST makes me sad that he’s leaving. (Almost.)
STARS: ***


ASTRONAUT JONES
Astronaut Jones & (DAA) encounter yet another busty space vixen (MAR)

— And now, here’s Tracy’s own farewell.
— I like the Ghostbusters-esque feel of Dan’s character (assuming that’s what SNL is going for here).
— A fantastic twist at the end of the usual routine of these sketches, with Maya breaking the fourth wall by dropping character and responding to Astronaut Jones’ typical horny one-liner with a stern “You know what, Tracy? Don’t.”, and Tracy responding to that with “Aw, cut the crap, Maya! You know I been wantin’ to get you pregnant!” I cannot think of a more perfect punchline to end Tracy’s SNL tenure with. I only wish SNL placed this as the 10-to-1 sketch of the night, because the punchline of this Tracy Morgan swan-song would’ve been a fun and fitting way to close this episode.
STARS: ****½


LA CUISINA CANINA
canines sample the cuisine at an upscale restaurant run by & for dogs

— First non-recurring sketch all night.
— Interesting premise, even if it reminds me a little of a sketch from the Dolly Parton episode in season 14. The similarities are nowhere near stark enough, though, to call this another case of a sketch this season possibly plagiarizing a sketch from SNL’s late 80s era, after the Self-Involved Guy sketch from the preceding episode.
— I recall a lot of SNL fans finding this sketch cringey, but I dunno, I myself have never hated this sketch. I’m finding a charm to it during this current viewing, even though I’m not laughing out loud.
— Feels odd seeing Darrell in a role like this at this point of his SNL tenure.
— Dean appears in his final SNL role (and his only appearance all night), and of course, it’s just a small role where he gets only one line. I guess that’s a fitting way to close his short-lived SNL tenure. It’s probably assumed by most people that he got fired after this season, but I recall finding out sometime before the following season began that he actually left on his own to join the cast of a then-upcoming new ABC sitcom. However, the sitcom ended up not even making it to air.
— A nice groan from both me and the audience when Goodman is presented with a “Bitches Piss Martini”.
— The “butt-sniffing ban” bit at the end is a decent parody of the New York smoking ban that was then-recently imposed.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Dangerously In Love”


DR. DEACON’S HAUNCH CRACK POWDER
Sam Elliott (DAA) stays dry with Dr. Deacon’s Haunch Crack Powder

— Great delivery from Dan as Sam Elliott.
— A cheap laugh from Dan applying the powder “back there”.
— Another cheap laugh from scented paste coil that Dan pulls out from “back there”.
— That’s Tom Davis doing the closing voice-over, which makes me wonder if he wrote this sketch. I can kinda picture this being something he would’ve written for Dan back in the original era. In fact, I can picture this being one of those live fake ads that would appear in the middle of Weekend Update in seasons 1 and 2, back when Update would regularly have a fake commercial break in the middle.
— Overall, not too bad for something with a questionable and juvenile premise, and Dan sold this VERY well. However, this shouldn’t have been the final sketch of the season. And I still say the Astronaut Jones sketch should’ve been placed here.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

— Aww, Tracy’s tugging at my heartstrings with how sad he looks here. You can tell it’s very emotional for him to part ways with SNL.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent season finale. There was an atmosphere that made the quality of this episode feel even better, and I attribute that atmosphere to Dan Aykroyd’s presence, as he was a solid host and added a nice fun vibe to the show, even if it didn’t feel like he was utilized to his full potential.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Adrien Brody)
a step up


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


HOW THIS OVERALL SEASON STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2001-2002)
a big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 29 begins, with host Jack Black, and the addition of two new cast members, one of whom would go on to have a record-breaking long-lasting SNL tenure that continues to this day

Posted on

May 10, 2003 – Adrien Brody / Sean Paul, Wayne Wonder (S28 E19)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

AMERICAN IDOL
commercials & teases stretch out announcement of finalist

— Refreshing to see a non-political cold opening, especially given how bad and redundant a lot of the political cold openings have been in the second half of this season.
— I forgot that Ryan Seacrest used to have hair like that and used to dress like that in these early seasons of American Idol. The hairstyle and clothes that Jimmy is donning as Seacrest here are pretty much an embodiment of the early 2000s.
— Isn’t Kimberly Locke, the American Idol contestant who Rachel is playing, black? If so, why in the world is Rachel playing her? Where the heck is Maya?
— Ah, there’s Maya, playing R&B singer Mya, fittingly enough.
— Kattan’s wonky eyes as Clay Aiken are funny.
— A pretty funny running gag with Jimmy’s Seacrest badly stretching out the big reveal of the finalist by constantly throwing to commercial, and how the one commercial that plays every single time is a Mya-starring Coca-Cola commercial. What keeps this from being a typical annoying one-joke sketch is the fact that the repetitiveness of this cold opening is based so much in reality.
— Is Maya performing the Coca-Cola commercial live each time? Well, I guess so, because if it was pre-taped, then she would’ve been available to rightfully play Kimberly Locke, instead of SNL resorting to having Rachel pull a Mary Gross by donning slightly tanned make-up to play a black woman.
— Some laughs from Amy and Parnell’s impressions of Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell.
— Boy, between the extremely heavy amounts of fat make-up that Tracy and Dean are both wearing as Ruben Studdard and Randy Jackson, respectively, SNL’s prosthetics department is working overtime tonight.
— Good “Live from New York…” fake-out with Jimmy’s Seacrest.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
host kisses MAR & HOS; his mom [real] urges him to cut the apron strings

— An interesting deviation from usual monologues, with Adrien starting this off by IMMEDIATELY walking offstage as soon as the theme music ends, going over to Maya and kissing her, then kissing a random audience member (SNL writer Emily Spivey), then kissing Horatio, which is all spoofing Adrien’s famous kiss with Halle Berry at that year’s Oscars. I’d enjoy this bit more (well, not the tired man-on-man kissing gag involving Horatio) if I wasn’t aware of what a bad host Adrien is going to be tonight.
— An okay bit with Adrien’s mother.
— Another Oscars spoof, with Adrien’s message to his mother starting to get cut off by music.
— Overall, this monologue wasn’t anything great, but it was harmless enough, especially given what’s to come from Adrien later tonight.
STARS: **½


MOM JEANS
Mom Jeans are made for women ready to embrace a post-childbirth physique

— A very well-known, frequently-aired, and fondly-remembered SNL commercial.
— The SNL women are fantastic here as middle-aged moms embracing and showing off their blah-looking motherly jeans.
— I love the displeased look on Parnell’s face when his wife, played by Rachel, walks up to him in her motherly outfit.
— Excellent execution of this very relatable concept.
— Announcer: “Give her something that says, I’m not a woman anymore…I’m a mom.”
— Of all the female-oriented commercials in this era that center around the Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph female cast, this has got to be what I personally feel is the best. Well, the best out of all the ones I can remember right now, at least. I used to always think this era had tons of those Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph female-oriented commercials, but now that I’m thinking of it, I can only think of two other ones: the preceding season’s Kotex Classic (which is fantastic, but not quite five-star-worthy, in my opinion) and the yet-to-air-by-this-point Woomba (which is funny, but I’ve always felt in the past was kinda overrated). Are there any I’m forgetting? If not, I wonder why it feels like this era had much more of those Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph female-oriented commercials than it actually did.
STARS: *****


BRIAN FELLOW’S SAFARI PLANET
hairless cat & toucan are anthropomorphized

— This recurring sketch makes its final appearance during Tracy’s tenure as a cast member (not counting the appearances it would make during Tracy’s various cameos the following season, nor the appearances it would make in Tracy’s future hosting stints). I wonder why they didn’t save this for Tracy’s final episode the following week, as it was already widely known at the time of tonight’s episode that Tracy is leaving. Maybe because they already had it planned to do a final installment of Astronaut Jones for Tracy’s farewell the following week (which they indeed end up doing). But why not do both Astronaut Jones and Brian Fellow in Tracy’s final episode? At least it would’ve given Tracy more to do that night, as he is sadly almost non-existent in that episode.
— Brian Fellow’s disgust over what cats look like without their fur is funny.
— I like the new occasional gag in these latest Brian Fellow sketches, with Brian with sometimes saying an uncharacteristically intelligent, wordy, and informative statement about an animal.
— A very funny thought bubble of an unhappy Brian Fellow getting his head shaved by a hairless cat. The awkward, uncomfortable look on Brian’s face is what makes it especially funny.
— Overall, this sketch was fine as usual, but I wish SNL did something more special for what they knew at the time would be the final Brian Fellow installment during Tracy’s tenure. They just treated tonight’s Brian Fellow sketch as a typical installment.
STARS: ***½


SELF-INVOLVED GUY
(RAD)’s date’s (CHK) apartment reveals him to be a self-involved weirdo

— Okay, we’ve finally arrived at this sketch. If you’ve remembered, in my review of the Conceited Guy sketch from the Corbin Bernsen episode way back in season 15, I pointed out that SNL would later do a rip-off of that sketch in the Adrien Brody episode, and I mentioned that I have a theory that the Adrien Brody sketch was written by “a certain long-time SNL writer who’s received quite a number of accusations of stealing material over the years”, and I promised to reveal the name of the writer in question when I eventually cover the Adrien Brody episode. Well, all these months later, here we are at the Adrien Brody episode, folks. The mysterious writer I mentioned is James Anderson. I don’t know for certain that he wrote this sketch, nor do I know for certain if he indeed ripped it off from the Corbin Bernsen sketch, but various factors lead me to think so. In addition to the aforementioned public accusations that have been made by various people of Anderson stealing material over the years (the biggest and most controversial example being the River Cruise sketch from the Sarah Silverman episode in season 40), NBC had aired the Corbin Bernsen episode in their “Classic SNL” slot (which was a slot from 1998-2006 in which NBC would air a full 90-minute version of an old SNL episode after the regular 11:30 p.m. showing of a new SNL episode) just a few weeks before the Adrien Brody episode originally aired, and on a night that SNL didn’t have a new episode (though I’m not 100% certain about that last part). It’s possible that James Anderson or whoever it was that wrote tonight’s Self-Involved Guy sketch caught that then-recent “Classic SNL” airing of the Corbin Bernsen episode, and became…uh…“inspired” (and I obviously use that word loosely) after seeing Bernsen’s Conceited Guy sketch. Again, I am in no way saying that any of my accusations here are certain, as I have absolutely no official proof. It’s just a theory of mine.
— I like Rachel’s scream when seeing Kattan’s ridiculous, huge face photo on the wall.
— I admit that the huge face photo of Kattan is actually funnier-looking than the huge face photo of Corbin Bernsen from the original Conceited Guy sketch, but ehhh. This sketch is still leaving a bad taste in my mouth from how much of a rip-off it appears to be.
— At least Kattan’s character having a “man-servant” is an original aspect of this sketch and not another thing that’s seemingly stolen from the Corbin Bernsen sketch, but I am not caring for Adrien’s characterization of the “man-servant” AT ALL here. He’s just coming off annoying. Also, something about his character, particularly the somewhat homoerotic undertones, further prove my point that this is most likely a James Anderson-written sketch.
— The gag of Kattan turning on the stereo and the voice heard singing from it turning out to be Kattan himself seems like a gag that was used in a previous (or later) sketch, but it’s not the Corbin Bernsen sketch. (In fact, in my afore-linked review of the Bernsen sketch, I even said at one point, “When Jan [Hooks] turned Corbin’s stereo on, I expected the music that played from it to be sung by Corbin, but I turned out to be wrong. I feel like that joke DID appear in an SNL sketch, though I can’t remember which one.” It’s possible that I was actually thinking of this very sketch with Adrien Brody when saying I can’t remember which sketch that joke was used in, but I dunno. I swear there’s another SNL sketch I saw that uses that joke. I don’t think it’s the “Everyone’s A Critic” digital short that Andy Samberg would later co-star in with Paul Rudd, even though a variation of the joke does appear there.)
— I love Rachel’s yell of “Damn you, Match.com!” before making her exit.
STARS: **


LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
trip winner (host) amputated his arm

— Kattan has been EVERYWHERE tonight so far.
— Unlike the previous two installments of this sketch, I’m not finding myself laughing much here.
— We at least get a nice display of Darrell and Amy’s usual charming chemistry at the end, as Amy is seemingly ad-libbing her repeated friendly punching of Darrell’s arm, but overall, this was a subpar installment of this sketch.
STARS: **


TV FUNHOUSE
“Saddam & Osama” by RBS- wanted duo evades USA forces in kids show

— Hilarious concept of a Saddam And Osama foreign animated series.
— Bush being portrayed as literally an ape is priceless.
— As usual for a solid TV Funhouse, we’re getting so many fast-paced funny gags on a non-stop basis.
— A very funny commercial break, especially the Rocks toy commercial.
— Great detail during the fake ending credits, with Sean Penn being the only American name among the writers’ credits shown in Iraqi language.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
rastaman (host) introduces Sean Paul

— Hooooo, boy. Welp, we’ve arrived at the most notorious part of this episode, and a notorious SNL moment in general.
— Jesus Christ, this Rastafarian routine is some hacky-ass shit.
— I can hardly understand what the hell is being said, and what little I can understand is cringeworthingly unfunny. For example, just now, he seriously said “Re-speck. You know, my wrist-speck, my neck-speck, my knee-speck, my ankle-speck.” The man seriously said that, folks. I…I…I have no words in response to that.
— There is no end to this. Why the hell is this going on and on? I would laugh my ass off if SNL would finally throw their hands in the air and just cut this fool off halfway through his ridiculous rastaman routine.
— Aaaaaaand to top everything off, Adrien ends this by proceeding to mistakenly announce Sean Paul as “Sean John”. My god. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot make this stuff up.
— Okay, now that this mess is (mercifully) over, I need to address the two famous rumors about it, one being that this was an unplanned moment that Adrien sprung on the show without getting Lorne’s approval, and the other being that this would lead to Adrien getting banned from SNL. The whole “so-and-so is banned from SNL” rumor about quite a number of hosts and musical guests is such B.S., so much so, that I won’t even dignify it by talking about it. But I will talk about the rumor regarding this being an unplanned moment. If this truly was unplanned, then I can certainly understand why it would upset Lorne. However, if this was unplanned, then how did Adrien manage to sneak into his Rastafarian costume (and keep in mind that SNL has a whole wardrobe crew that gets the host quickly in and out of costume between segments) and arrive onstage to do his Sean Paul intro, with NOBODY stopping him at any point before the show came back on air? Also, something that really makes the rumor about this being an unplanned moment come off dubious is the fact that, when SNL would later re-air this episode, Adrien’s rastaman bit would be replaced with the dress rehearsal version, in which he does the same bit, but there are a few minor differences in what he says and how he says it. So if he did this bit in dress rehearsal, how exactly was it “unplanned” in the live show? Is it possible that, after Adrien did the bit at dress rehearsal, Lorne saw how cringeworthy and overlong the bit was, and informed Adrien between dress rehearsal and the live show that, while he can still wear his Rastafarian costume during his Sean Paul intro in the live show, he’s going to have to trim the intro down to simply just saying “Ladies and gentlemen, Sean Paul” in a Jamaican accent, and in turn, Adrien, fed up with how SNL kept turning down his “hilarious” ideas all week (which Tina would talk about in an interview years later), ended up defying Lorne’s orders by going on the air and doing the entire rastaman bit that he was told not to do in the live show, resulting in a very pissed-off Lorne? That’s my personal theory. (After all, isn’t that also the story behind what happened with Martin Lawrence’s notorious monologue? That after dress rehearsal, Martin was told to do less-raunchy comedy material for the live monologue, but Martin went on the air and did the same raunchy material that he did at dress rehearsal?) Either way, this Adrien Brody/rastaman bit is a moment that would go on to live in SNL infamy. SNL themselves would even make fun of it at least once, with a passing mention of it during the following season’s Andy Roddick episode. I feel like there may have been another time that SNL made fun of it, but nothing’s coming to mind right now.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Sean Paul performs “Get Busy”


WEEKEND UPDATE
drooling mutant Q*terplx (RAD) was left out of the X-Men movie sequel

Elton John (HOS) reworks his greatest hits for upcoming vampire musical

— A cringeworthy opening joke from Tina.
— The running gag with Rachel’s deformed baby character continues. I always find this character’s appearances worth a quick laugh.
— When about to set up Horatio’s Elton John commentary, Jimmy starts by flat-out asking towards the camera “We’re still doing this?”, as if he expected the Elton John commentary to have been cut after dress rehearsal, then he proceeds to go through his introduction of the Elton commentary quite hesitantly. Oh, god, this is already making me uneasy for the Fallon/Sanz jackassery that awaits me.
— Well, I’m glad Jimmy and Horatio are having fun during this Elton John commentary, cuz I sure ain’t.
— Okay, I did finally get ONE laugh just now, from Horatio ad-libbing the line “I put it on pause” after Jimmy calls him out on pressing the keys on his (fake) piano keyboard when there’s not even any music playing right now.
— Boy, this Fallon/Sanz bit is awful, and is going on and on. Lorne gives these two performers WAY too much free rein to waste airtime with their loose, inside-y antics, and it’s especially unneeded tonight, right after Adrien Brody ALREADY wasted airtime by going on and on with that rastaman fiasco.
— Tonight’s weekly end-of-Update walk-on from SNL writer Eric Slovin has him dressed as…nobody. He’s actually nowhere to be seen here. At the end of the Updates from the second half of this season, Slovin usually interrupts Jimmy’s trademark pencil-throw by taking Jimmy’s pencil away from him while dressed as a different type of character each week. Tonight, however, Jimmy just does his trademark pencil-throw with no interruptions from anybody. I guess Slovin’s running gag is officially over. Too bad, because I’ve always found it very fun.
STARS: **½


LENSMASTERS
at Lensmasters, (host) & (CHK) suggest high-concept glasses for (AMP)

— Kattan’s big night continues. It’s obvious that the reason SNL is using him so heavily tonight, after he barely did anything the last few episodes, is because he officially announced earlier this week that he’s leaving at the end of this season.
— A groan from me almost INSTANTLY at the beginning of this sketch, when seeing that Kattan is playing YET ANOTHER gay stereotype. Thank God this is Kattan’s second-to-last episode. I can’t take any more gay stereotype roles from him in his SNL tenure.
— Oh, god, now we get Adrien also playing a gay stereotype, complete with a lisp. I am in for one terrible sketch, aren’t I? Between Adrien’s rastaman bit, the Fallon/Sanz mess on Weekend Update, and now this, tonight’s episode is starting to become torturous for me to watch.
— Three minutes into this sketch, I finally got ONE laugh, from the “cyclops” glasses that are put on Amy.
STARS: *½


DANCE CLASS
ballroom dance instructor (host) coaches Vasquez, Gabe, Ruth, A.J.

— Jesus Christ, yet ANOTHER bad, over-the-top, hammy foreign accent from Adrien tonight??? I’m telling you, tonight’s episode is starting to destroy me.
— At least it’s great to see Fred’s Gabe character back, though Fred’s delivery as this character seems a little more exaggerated this time. I enjoyed the slightly-more toned-down delivery he used the last time this group of characters appeared.
— Some funny lines from the group of students throughout this sketch (even Horatio’s iffy Vasquez character), but it takes a lot for me to look past Adrien’s awful, hammy performance.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO

— Thankfully, Adrien does THIS intro in a normal, straightforward manner (yet he somehow manages to deliver even that kinda awkwardly). I have to point out the shirt he’s wearing, though, which has a blurry photo of himself. It’s the same shirt that Maya wore in the Wake Up Wakefield sketch from two episodes prior (side-by-side comparison below). Interesting callback.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Wayne Wonder performs “No Letting Go”


VELVET PRODUCTIONS
(host), (CHP), (WLF) struggle to title gay porno version of The Pianist

— We get Will finally making his first appearance of the night, in the 10-to-1 sketch. Damn. It almost feels like Parnell is making his first appearance of the night here too, as his only prior roles tonight were two very brief ones. And, wow, I just now realized that Seth is COMPLETELY absent tonight. That doesn’t bother me as much, though, as Seth is nowhere close to being one of my favorites of this cast like Will and Parnell are.
— Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Now Adrien is doing ANOTHER lispy, effeminate voice, which seems to be almost as much of a comedy crutch for him as his bad, over-the-top foreign accents are. Please just end tonight’s episode already, before Adrien makes me officially lose my mind.
— I got a big laugh from Parnell’s suggestion that the gay porno version of the movie Sweet Home Alabama be titled Sweet Home Alan’s Butthole.
— Another good laugh, this time from Will suggesting the gay porno version of Gladiator be titled Glad He Ate Him.
— Meh, the big turn with the guys having difficulty titling a gay porno version of the simple The Pianist isn’t doing much for me. It would be funny as a quick gag, but I don’t like how it’s taken over the entire second half of this sketch. I had been enjoying where the sketch was going before then, even though it was just a set up for this.
— The further this sketch goes on, the further it becomes undeniable that Adrien’s lispy, effeminate voice is completely unnecessary for this sketch, and detracts too much from the humor of his dialogue for me. In fact, there’s no reason he has to speak in ANY kind of character voice in this particular sketch, especially with Parnell and Will both using their normal voices.
— What the hell was with that twist ending? Awful.
STARS: **½


GOODNIGHTS

— God, Adrien even manages to annoy me HERE, with his shameless attempt to act “black” and cool around Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder, and then taking the time to halt the proceedings just so he can awkwardly shoehorn in an even more shameless plug for his next movie.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— In a word: blah. In case you couldn’t tell by all of my complaining throughout the review, I did NOT enjoy this episode. I found a lot of it to be a slog to get through, and there was a ridiculously small number of segments that I found to be outright good. Though he was far from the only problem, a big reason for my dislike of this episode was definitely Adrien Brody. Man, where do I even BEGIN with him? You know how, when Nia Vardalos hosted earlier this season, she displayed a variety of characterizations, comedic voices, and silly foreign accents, and was able to pull all of that off well, considering she has an improv background? Well, Adrien Brody pretty much attempted the exact same approach as Vardalos, but ended up falling flat on his face, considering he doesn’t have an improv background. He tried so hard to prove he can pull off sketch comedy, but he ended up coming off unfunny, obnoxious, and showoff-y, especially with the heavy over-reliance on bad foreign accents and effeminate, lispy voices. And don’t even get me started again on that notorious rastaman fiasco during his Sean Paul intro. Adrien was fine when playing normal roles, I’ll give him that. I had no problem with him in the monologue, Brian Fellow, or Regis & Kelly sketches. But in everything else, in which he tried to be the “funny” one? Oof. Adding to the unlikability of him as a host are behind-the-scenes horror stories that Tina Fey would later disclose about how he was a chore to deal with. (By the way, between Robert DeNiro, Matthew McConaughey, and Adrien Brody, this season has had quite a lot of hosts who were a nightmare for the SNL cast and crew to deal with behind the scenes. It makes sense that DeNiro, McConaughey, and Brody also ended up being awful hosts onscreen as well.)


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ashton Kutcher)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 28 comes to an end, with host Dan Aykroyd. It’s also the final episode for Chris Kattan, Tracy Morgan, and Dean Edwards.

Posted on

May 3, 2003 – Ashton Kutcher / 50 Cent (S28 E18)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN
George W. Bush (CHP) polls returning sailors on future military action

— Oh, god, yet another cold opening from the second half of this season that’s a dull, straight-to-camera Bush speech.
— Is this spoofing the Bush “Mission accomplished” speech that would soon go on to be very infamous?
— They sure are waiting a long time to reveal whatever the comedic conceit of this cold opening is supposed to be. I’m almost two minutes into this, and there has not been a single joke yet.
— Okay, now we see what the conceit is: the sailors’ applause throughout Bush’s speech changing back and forth from exuberant to mild, depending on what Bush says. Meh, a nothing-special premise that SNL has already done at least once before (in a very weak and rarely-seen Soviet Central Committee sketch from the Quincy Jones episode in season 15).
— Okay, I did get a laugh from “Those who applauded for North Korea, please give yourselves a round of applause.”
— Bah, just end this cold opening already. It’s going on forever for something with a dull one-joke premise.
— When Parnell delivers “Live from New York…” at the end, the camera doesn’t zoom in on him, for some odd reason. Also odd is the fact that immediately afterwards, when the opening montage begins, the SNL Band is completely silent for the first few seconds before finally starting to play the theme music. What’s going on?
— This ends up being the final appearance of Parnell’s Bush impression. SNL would take the impression away from him the following season and re-cast the role. While Parnell’s impression was no great shakes (it was merely serviceable at best, as I said in an earlier episode review), the material he was given didn’t help, as it failed him more often than not, including tonight.
STARS: *½


MONOLOGUE
having forgotten to wear his pants, host attracts attention of MAR & CHP

— A unique monologue entrance for a host, with Ashton entering in his underwear.
— A good use of inner thoughts to reveal that Ashton has no idea he’s not wearing pants, but suspects he forgot something.
— SNL makes yet another gay reference towards Kattan.
— The homoerotic stuff with Parnell is whatever, but I did laugh at the “Knock yourself out, man” “I just might” exchange between Ashton and Parnell, after Parnell requests to watch this monologue from a dark corner.
STARS: ***½


COUNT CHOCULA SILVER
elderly Count Chocula (JIF) promotes cereal for seniors

— Great make-up job on Jimmy as Count Chocula. I remember when this originally aired, a lot of online SNL fans had a hard time telling it was Jimmy who was playing Count Chocula. Some people even wondered if it was Fred. Revisiting this commercial now, the voice alone is a dead giveaway that it’s Jimmy.
— An odd and random premise.
— Where are the laughs in this? If this is supposed to be funny merely because it’s Count Chocula, of all people, doing a dead-serious commercial about cereal for senior citizens, then I get the comedic potential of that, but it’s not coming through in the execution. This is just dull.
— I finally got one laugh, with Will’s cheesy facial expression when mouthing the words “You’re fine.” As I said a few episode reviews ago, Will has the ability to steal a segment even in a small, bland role.
STARS: *½


JARRET’S ROOM
fan from Iceland (host) tries weed from Amsterdam

— At least they waited a few months to do this sketch again, after the last three installments of this sketch all appeared within a stretch of SIX DAMN EPISODES.
— Ashton playing an Icelandic character named Yaorg, Jarret’s Room’s only viewer, is actually a callback to the very first Jarret’s Room installment, where it was mentioned that a guy in Iceland named Yaorg is the only person who ever watches Jarret’s Room. Nice continuity.
— Man, between Jimmy, Horatio, and Ashton, this sketch is out of control, with a lot of way-too-over-the-top performances. Can’t say it’s making me laugh much.
— Overall, blah. This sketch was just a whole bunch of over-the-top screaming, mugging, and typical Fallon/Sanz giggling, with no actual substance. Even the bits with Seth and Jeff’s side characters fell pretty flat with me.
STARS: **


MADONNA: AN AMERICAN LIFE
Matt Lauer (SEM) looks back on aging Madonna’s (AMP) career

— Funny passive-aggressive opening lines from Seth’s Matt Lauer, regarding being able to handle a show without Katie Couric as his co-host.
— Not many laughs during the Madonna interview so far.
— Okay, I got a laugh just now from Amy’s Madonna defending Swept Away by saying it was “the type of movie that was not supposed to be good.”
— Seth’s Lauer had a good closing line about Madonna: “80 years old, with a vagina closing in on 100.”
STARS: **


PLAGIARISM CLASS
teacher (CHP) busts students who got their term papers from the Internet

— Parnell is absolutely perfect here as a teacher calling out individual students on their moronic plagiarism.
— A good laugh from Ashton’s email that he foolishly turned in as his report.
— The whole phone call bit is hilarious.
— An overall great sketch and it also did a wonderful job of showing off Parnell’s underrated and underutilized leadership skills. Sketches like this solidify the fact that Parnell definitely has some Phil Hartman in him.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & G Unit [real] perform “In Da Club”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Liza Minnelli (MAR) is excited about David Gest’s (CHK) birthday party

TRM eats birthday cake meant for Saddam Hussein, states booty preference

Patrick & Gunther Kelly promote knowledge of SARS prevention with a song

— Boy, Jimmy and Tina sped through their opening sign-on.
— Oh, god, another freakin’ Liza Minnelli/David Gest commentary. I didn’t like the last one they did on Update earlier this season.
— Yeah, so far, no laughs from me at all during this Minnelli/Gest commentary. This is just plain bad writing, and Maya and Kattan’s performances are doing nothing for me. And this commentary is over-relying on the kissing gag.
— I was about to say Tracy’s brief walk-on was just whatever, but his little addendum about his love of thick booties made me laugh, even if it was a lazy joke.
— Finally, an actual GOOD commentary tonight, with us getting the return of Will and Fred’s Kelly Brothers characters.
— Even though the payoff of this Kelly Brothers commentary is the exact same as their first appearance (except for the fact that their nonsensical song has actual lyrics this time), it’s still worthy of good laughs, and Will’s falsetto in these is always killer.
— Tonight’s weekly end-of-Update walk-on from SNL writer Eric Slovin has him dressed as a giant pencil and taking Jimmy’s pencil away as if it’s his own baby.
— A lot of fairly bland, forgettable jokes from Jimmy and Tina in tonight’s overall Update. At least Tina managed to go through her first Update in a while without outright annoying me at any point, though she came a little close with her ad-lib after her awful Tommy Lee/“She had it up to here” joke.
STARS: **


THE FALCONER
animal companions of The Falconer & The Muskrateer (host) do battle

— Awesome to see two big Forte showcases in a row tonight.
— Ashton’s character having his own Falconer-type opening title sequence is pretty funny.
— Ha, I love how they showed The Falconer’s title sequence for a second time in tonight’s installment, with the second instance being a very sped-up version with announcer Steve Higgins speaking comically fast.
— A great insane shouting from Will of the line “LET THE GAAAAMES BEGIIIIIN!”
— I like how tonight’s Falconer installment is focusing more on the Falconer himself than usual. Usually, he only appears at the beginning and end of these sketches.
— Great montage of Donald the Falcon and Ashton’s muskrat competing against each other in various games. The part with them playing Quarters is particularly funny.
STARS: ****½


NO PUNKING
host tries to convince TRM, DEE, LOM that they won’t be Punk’d

— Ah, another post-sketch Tracy-chatting-with-the-host bit, though the last one with Sarah Michelle Gellar earlier this season was fairly underwhelming.
— Ashton apologizes to Tracy for a sketch of his titled Dude Where’s My Weed getting cut after dress rehearsal (which is just a joke for this sketch), and a carefree Tracy tells him he’ll do it in next week’s episode, as it’s perfect for… um, the next host, who Tracy mentions by name, but I’ll wait until the end of this episode review to reveal who it is, because this certain host, uh… deserves a special mention, let’s just say. (You’ll see why.) Anyway, at dress rehearsal, Ashton’s line about Tracy’s cut sketch had the title being Big Dick Black Guy instead of Dude Where’s My Weed. It’s needless to say why SNL had to change that title for the live show.
— Something funny in retrospect about the premise of this sketch, with Ashton trying to assure Tracy that he would never prank him as part of his Punk’d show, is the fact that Ashton really does end up doing a Punk’d episode where he pranks Tracy, just a few months after tonight’s episode originally aired, IIRC.
— For obvious reasons, I keep forgetting Dean is even still in the cast. That being said, it’s good to see him getting airtime as himself here, which is very rare. I believe this ends up being the final semi-big role he would end up ever getting on SNL, as we’re in the homestretch of his short-lived SNL tenure.
— This, I believe, ends up being our final onscreen display of the excellent running chemistry between Tracy and Lorne (not counting any instances in any of Tracy’s future hosting stints), as Tracy is another cast member who’s tenure we’re in the homestretch of.
— A nice variation of the obligatory “Get me a soda, bitch!” routine, with Lorne not even needing to be told it this time, as Tracy’s mere facial expression causes Lorne to respond “That’s an orange soda, right? Okay, be right back.”
— I like the stern staredown Tracy and Dean both give Lorne when Lorne comes back to ask them to clear up confusion he has over the drinks they requested.
STARS: ***½


POLITICS TODAY
high school dropouts ignorantly address issues of the day

— We get the return of Darrell’s Skeeter character from the Extreme Hunting With Ted Nugent sketch from all the way back in season 24. Darrell has played some unnamed redneck characters between that Extreme Hunting sketch and tonight’s episode who might’ve also been Skeeter.
— I love Tracy’s smug facial expression when silently pausing for a while after telling Fred “I didn’t understand most of the words in your question, so I’m just gonna start talking.”
— As a 90s kid, the cutaway to Ashton being seen playing with an old-school Game Boy serves as a nice blast of nostalgia for me.
— After a pretty good amount of laughs in the first half, this sketch has been starting to feel kinda bland and a lot of the dialogue is kinda washing over me. Darrell’s Skeeter is at least reliable for occasional laughs here, as there’s a “so bad, it’s good” quality to this character’s stupid one-liners. However, it feels kinda sad seeing Darrell relegated to doing THIS as his only appearance of the night. Why couldn’t he take the various hints he’s been getting lately that it’s clearly time for him to leave SNL?
— Further proving my points that 1) it’s time for Darrell to leave, and 2) his heart just hasn’t been into SNL lately, he can be seen dropping character and IMMEDIATELY walking off the set before the camera has even cut to this sketch’s closing title sequence. Not a big deal, but he’s been doing this quite a bit lately at the end of sketches. Who does he think he is – Norm Macdonald?
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Nate Dogg [real] perform “21 Questions”


50’S ENT.
death row inmates boo doo-wop group ’50s Ent. (JIF), (FRA), (host), (CHK)

— Great to see yet another big role for Will tonight.
— Wow, is this Kattan’s first appearance all night?!? It sure feels like it. An obvious sign that we’re witnessing the end of Kattan’s tenure (though he’s been having a surprisingly good second half of this final season of his). With Kattan being almost non-existent tonight and Fred being much more prominent than usual, it feels like there’s a passing of the torch. (You could probably also make that same statement with Will in place of Fred.)
— Oh, wait, I just remembered that Kattan was in that Liza Minnelli/David Gest commentary on Weekend Update earlier tonight. I was probably trying to erase that from my memory, given how much I hated it.
— Pretty funny how after Will introduces 50 Cent, out comes a corny, white, 1950s throwback doo-wop group.
— I absolutely LOVE Will’s constant southern-accented yelling of “Shut the eff up!” when the prisoners are booing the doo-wop group’s musical number.
— I cracked up at Tracy’s (who’s been all over the second half of tonight’s episode) mere delivery of “Man, you ain’t no 50 Cent!”
— Funny reveal of the doo-wop group being named 50’s Ent. (short for 50’s Entertainment), which explains the 50 Cent mix-up.
— A huge gaffe has happened just now, where the off-camera SNL Band has accidentally begun playing the wrong background music for a song that 50’s Ent. is about to sing. As this incorrect background music is playing, the cast members playing members of 50’s Ent. look at each other confusedly, then some of them (Jimmy and Fred) start hesitantly singing in a very awkward, hushed manner while stifling laughter, before the SNL Band begins playing the correct background music.
— Ha, during 50’s Ent.’s singing right now, Will makes a great ad-lib in response to the aforementioned background music gaffe, by yelling at the booing prisoners “So they made a little mistake! You give them some respect!” Very quick thinking on his feet there.
— Why does Kattan keep hitting Fred throughout this sketch every time Fred says something? I don’t understand that. I guess in a way, though, that’s another odd, subtle passing of the torch between Kattan and Fred.
— Speaking of Kattan, he has not said a single word during this entire sketch. Yep, the man’s time on SNL is so clearly coming to a close.
— After being slapped on the face by Kattan just now, Fred pauses awkwardly, then helplessly starts laughing out of character and tries to hide it from the camera by turning away and standing close to Jimmy (who begins cracking up himself, naturally). A very rare instance of Fred breaking during his early years on SNL. (Remember how he’s the ONLY performer not to laugh out of all the performers sitting at the table in the legendary first Debbie Downer sketch from the following year?) I wonder if Fred laughed here because he was letting out a bit of anxiety over how the aforementioned background music gaffe from the SNL Band threw off the sketch.
— We get yet another good ad-lib about the aforementioned background music gaffe, this time with Jimmy telling the prisoners “The band don’t even know what song they’re playin’… thanks to you guys”.
— Even just the way Tracy says “We wanna hear more doo-wop!” has me cracking up. God, I’m gonna miss his inherently funny delivery when he soon leaves SNL. He is truly a one-of-a-kind cast member, and I recall the following season’s cast feeling like it was missing a little something without him and his ability to effortlessly save sketches.
— Ha, we now get the funny visual of Tracy’s hardcore prisoner character singing whitebred doo-wop with 50’s Ent.
— The bloopers, ad-libs, and performances have been enhancing this sketch, as the material itself is just whatever.
STARS: ***


STRAIGHT TALK
Rerun from 1/18/03


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Not too bad, but this episode was nothing special as a whole. Things started out rough in the first 15-20 minutes (minus the monologue). Starting with the Plagiarism Class sketch, the show got better, but even so, there were still occasional weak or iffy things here and there.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ray Romano)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
(*groan*) Adrien Brody

Posted on

April 12, 2003 – Ray Romano / Zwan (S28 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

LIVE ADDRESS
Saddam Hussein (HOS) avers that he’s alive, in Baghdad, on Saturday night

— Yet another damn translator cold opening this season. Cold openings in the second half of this season are in desperate need of a shake-up, because not only have most of them been very poorly written, but most of them have been stuck in a rut of being either 1) addresses to the nation from President Bush or 2) translated messages from foreign people. Enough is enough.
— Some laughs from Horatio-as-Saddam’s desperation to prove he’s still alive and that this video wasn’t taped in advance before his possible assassination, but this cold opening isn’t anything particularly great. I did get a good laugh from the bit with Saddam’s failed walnut-breaking attempt, though.
STARS: **½


MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about hotel room adult movies & parenting young kids

— It’s great to get two stand-up monologues for two consecutive episodes, even if I was a little underwhelmed by Bernie Mac’s stand-up in the last episode.
— Very funny bit about getting hate mail from people with OCD.
— He’s doing a bit about identical twins again, like in his last monologue? I hope he doesn’t re-use the same material about ugly twins.
— Okay, he’s thankfully doing new material about twins.
— Good bit about how your happiness peaks at 4 years old, especially the part about how impossible it is for adults to think about candy.
— Overall, as funny as this was, this didn’t feel quite as strong as Ray’s usual stand-up material, nor as strong or memorable as Ray’s monologue from the first episode he hosted. Why have such solid stand-up comedians like Ray and Bernie Mac not been using their “A” material on SNL this season?
STARS: ***½


WHAT’S THE RUSH?
(host) thinks chaste couple (SEM) & (AMP) should bone

— It feels like this season hasn’t had many sketches lately that display Seth and Amy’s great chemistry.
— Seth and Amy are pretty funny with how on-edge they are from their sexual abstinence, even if this premise feels awfully derivative. In fact, didn’t SNL already do a talk show sketch about on-edge abstinent couples, in the Savin’ It sketch from season 25’s Julianna Margulies episode?
— A good laugh from Seth delivering a very intense “I am gonna kill you!” to Amy with a friendly smile on his face.
— Ray looks hilarious in that wig, mustache, and outfit.
— Funny bit with Seth pouring water all over his crotch to calm his horniness down. This is what I had always remembered the most from this sketch.
— Solid performance from Ray as this sleazy character.
— Wasn’t crazy about that ending.
STARS: ***½


WAKE UP WAKEFIELD!
Sheldon’s dad (host) gives tax advice on career day

— Sheldon’s timid “Hey” whenever he greets viewers at the beginning of every installment of this sketch always gets me.
— Between the What’s The Rush sketch and this, what’s with the bone/boner theme in tonight’s episode?
— SNL has been making lots of mentions of Adrien Brody these past two episodes. That’s understandable, given how huge he became around this time, but these constant Brody mentions on SNL have aged so poorly, considering what a notorious host he would turn out to be the following month.
— A laugh from Sheldon’s poor attempt to imitate David Letterman’s comedy style.
— Ray walks on with another funny visual appearance, this time looking like an adult version of Sheldon.
— Funny awkward bit between Sheldon’s father and Horatio’s teacher character.
— Ray is very good and believable as Sheldon’s father.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Lyric”


WEEKEND UPDATE
sore winner SEM relishes victory in SNL’s NCAA basketball office pool

Iraqi Minister of Information Muhammad Said Al-Sahhaf (DAH) spins lamely

— A change of pace from Seth’s usual Update commentaries as himself.
— At first, I had no idea what to think about this Seth commentary, but I’ve gotten into it after a while. There’s a very over-the-top, “so bad, it’s good” or “so dumb, it’s funny” quality to this bit that’s working for me.
— I love Seth’s reaction when realizing he won only $150 in the office pool.
— What was with the lack of sound effects during Jimmy’s repeated punching of Tina? That sound effects failure caused this bit to fall completely flat and come off kinda pointless.
— ANOTHER boner mention tonight? Yeah, there’s definitely a theme going on tonight.
— Darrell’s overall commentary was pretty whatever. Did very little for me (which also describes a lot of Darrell’s performances in general lately, even though he at least showed energy here, unlike the lethargic, awkward performances he’s been giving in some sketches lately).
— We get a callback to the punching bit from earlier in this Update, with Jimmy now punching Tina again, only this time, the sound effect actually plays, which Tina then calls attention to by saying to us “See how funny it is with the sound effects on?” and then mentioning the name of SNL’s sound effects guy, Bill Taylor.
— When the audience is laughing at her Wayne Brady joke, Tina actually cheers “Yay, I got you, Wayne Brady!” Oh, god, so Tina’s now making it a weekly thing to cartoonishly cheer her own slams at celebrities? Unlike the Rosie O’Donnell/“They celebrated by eating out” joke that Tina cheered in the preceding episode, this Wayne Brady joke wasn’t even funny. It’s been so depressing this season watching Tina gradually transform into some over-the-top, silly, cartoonish, unfunny Update anchor who desperately resorts to basically BEGGING the audience to like her and cheer her jokes. What the hell happened to the Tina Fey from her first two seasons behind the Update desk?
— Tonight’s weekly end-of-Update walk-on from SNL writer Eric Slovin has him dressed as… some guy in a suit and wig, fighting Jimmy for his pencil. Huh? I’m assuming Slovin’s playing a famous politician or celebrity, and that this is some kind of topical reference that went over my head. [ADDENDUM: SNL Archives claims Slovin was just playing a businessman, so maybe it wasn’t a topical reference after all, but just Slovin playing a random nameless character like most of his other end-of-Update walk-ons. But I dunno, something seemed a little too specific about his appearance tonight to just be some nameless character.]
— This overall Update felt fairly short, at least compared to how packed the last few Updates were.
STARS: **½


THE RIALTO GRANDE
losing his gig at Caesar’s has devastated Buddy Mills’ colleague (host)

— We finally hear Mackey (Fred’s old drummer character in these sketches) speak, with him bellowing out “Mabel is fine!” half a minute after Kattan’s Buddy Mills asks him how his wife is doing.
— I absolutely love Ray always following up a punchline of his with “Hold… hold… hold…. and release.” That’s my favorite punchline gimmick of all the hosts who appeared in these Rialto Grande sketches.
— Haha, man, even though it’s the same gag as always, Mackey doing a delayed rimshot whenever the character played by the host is having an emotional breakdown gets me EVERY DAMN TIME.
— I never realized until now how funny Amy’s dancing at the end of these Rialto Grande sketches is, when she and the rest of the female cast are dancing by Kattan and the host. I can’t stop watching her dancing here. She’s throwing in so many funny little gestures that are easy to miss if you’re not paying attention to her.
STARS: ****


CNN UPDATE
during a marathon anchor session, Aaron Brown (DAH) covers tonight’s SNL

— It’s good that Darrell’s getting quite a number of impression roles tonight, after being stuck in nothing but awkward non-impression roles the last few episodes.
— I love the meta premise of this CNN sketch, having Darrell’s Aaron Brown do coverage of tonight’s SNL episode by addressing the Rialto Grande sketch that has just ended. Very creative premise, especially for something from one of the more recent decades, where SNL very rarely goes outside the box and does interesting out-of-the-ordinary things with their format.
— Excellent detail with the ticker on the bottom of the screen having funny SNL-related news items about Tracy, Horatio, and “SNL rookie writer” James Eagan.
— Speaking of Tracy, where’s he been in tonight’s episode so far?
— Okay, the SNL-related news items on the bottom of the screen are now repeating in a cycle, but that’s probably for the best, as it would be too distracting from the sketch itself if it was one new news item after another for the entire sketch.
— A good laugh from the failed attempt at an interview with Kattan.
— Darrell’s performance and delivery here are very funny. This is easily one of his best performances in this shaky season of his.
— Overall, very strong execution of this creative idea. A great bit.
— SNL was originally going to do a follow-up to this bit later in this same episode, by having Darrell’s Aaron Brown do post-sketch coverage of the Club Traxx sketch that will be airing near the end of this episode, and interviewing Maya and Fred while both are still in costume on the Club Traxx set, but the bit got cut after dress rehearsal. Probably for the best it got cut, as SNL might’ve been pushing it and belaboring the point by trying to stretch the great Aaron Brown bit into two separate segments. At the same time, though, it could’ve been nice to have this as a runner for this episode.
STARS: ****½


PHONE BOOTH
telephone-answerer (host) is made to embarrass himself a la Phone Booth

— Some interesting and unusual (for SNL) camera angles early on in Ray’s phone conversation, spoofing the then-new movie Phone Booth.
— I like the idea of Ray starring in a comical take-off of Phone Booth.
— Very funny visual of Horatio quickly passing by the screen with a hot dog sticking out of his mouth while falling down after getting shot (the third above screencap for this sketch).
— Ah, there’s Tracy. I wonder if the reason why he’s been appearing so little these past two episodes is because he’s possibly taping stuff for his upcoming sitcom, The Tracy Morgan Show, which would debut sometime after Tracy leaves SNL at the end of this season.
— After Ray reveals he wears Spongebob footsie pajamas, I love Tracy saying “I myself sleep butt-naked” in that threatening cop-during-a-standoff voice.
— An absolutely hilarious bit with Ray badly trying to mask his remark of “I hate black people” by turning his head away and singing the word “black” in a faint, stretched-out manner, then waving to the crowd while saying “People!”
— After Ray finally tells the crowd “I hate black people” in the blunt manner the sniper on the phone forces him to, I love Tracy responding with an offended “What’d you say, bitch?!?”
— Lots of small penis jokes tonight. Between that and the constant boner mentions tonight, there’s definitely a penis theme in general throughout this episode. Odd.
— Yet another killer line from Tracy, this time after Ray demonstrates to the crowd how small his penis is: “(to his fellow black cop) That’s why he hate us.”
— A priceless ending where, as soon as Ray has finally gotten out of his whole phone booth fiasco, the phone rings again, Ray foolishly answers it IMMEDIATELY, then the voice of the sniper from the previous call sternly asks Ray over the phone “What is wrong with you, Walter?!?” and Ray responds “DAMMIT!”
STARS: ****½


ACCESS HOLLYWOOD
Chet Harper cheerfully fabricates showbiz items

— The return of Chet Harper, Ray’s character from the legendary SportsCenter sketch in Ray’s first episode. As great as that original sketch was, it seems best left as a one-and-done thing and doesn’t seem like it will translate well to a recurring sketch.
— Ray’s inane made-up reports, voice-overs during clips, and side remarks here are making me laugh, but just as I expected, they’re NOWHERE near as funny or memorable as the inane made-up reports, voice-overs during clips, or side remarks from the original SportsCenter sketch.
— I remember when this Access Hollywood sketch originally aired, I almost thought the voice of the off-camera producer was Parnell, who’s been M.I.A. so far in tonight’s episode, but it turns out it’s some non-cast member’s voice. Parnell ends up not making any appearances or voice-overs AT ALL in tonight’s episode. For that matter, Will Forte is completely absent tonight too. Damn. And they’re both two of my personal favorite members of this season’s cast.
— It’s a testament to how funny Ray is that he’s making this not-as-funny-as-the-SportsCenter-sketch material come off funny.
— Ehh, now this is resorting to cheap gay jokes and drag jokes.
— The dance Ray does whenever the Access Hollywood theme music plays is at least a funny new aspect they added to this character.
— Ray’s whole ending spiel was hilarious.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Settle Down”


CLUB TRAXX
Iraqi pop sensation Youseffi (host) likes to disco

— Oh, dear god, this terrible sketch has become recurring.
— Aaaaaaand there goes the constant insufferable and unfunny musical numbers from Fred’s character, probably my least favorite aspect of these Club Traxx sketches, which is certainly saying something, considering the large number of things to hate about these sketches. This is basically an early preview of how annoying I would eventually go on to regularly find Fred in his later seasons.
— Not even the reliable Ray Romano can make this mess funny. And he’s doing a VERY broad Middle Eastern stereotype that will probably make a lot of people cringe nowadays. Hell, I remember how, even back in 2003, some people were saying Ray’s role came off very racist.
— This sketch is torture. Tonight’s installment may be even worse than the first installment. And the first installment had Matthew McConaughey speaking with an UNBEARABLE, ridiculous character voice while wearing an equally ridiculous half-shirt, so the fact that tonight’s installment is somehow even worse is certainly saying something.
— Okay, I finally got a laugh, from Tracy (ever the sketch saver) asking if any American G.I.s are his father.
STARS: *½


UDAY HUSSEIN
Uday Hussein (FRA) makes his case to succeed his dad as president of Iraq

— Not sure I’m ready to sit through another goofy, over-the-top portrayal of a Middle Eastern person, after what Ray just did in the preceding sketch.
— Hmm, turns out Fred’s performance is actually amusing me.
— I was wondering where this was going, but then we got a fairly killer punchline to end this on: “(directed at America) I know what you’re thinking: why elect the less-competent son of a former president? Well… you guys did it.” I also love how, after that punchline, the screen immediately crossfades to a photo of Fred’s Uday Hussein with a hilariously goofy big smile on his face (the last above screencap for this sketch).
— This commercial would later be cut from reruns, because the real Uday Hussein ended up getting killed just a few months after this episode originally aired.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— While this certainly doesn’t measure up to Ray Romano’s epic first episode (which is one of my personal all-time favorites), this was still a pretty good episode. We especially got a very nice peak with the first three post-Weekend Update sketches (The Rialto Grande, CNN Update, and Phone Booth), which was an impressive one-two-three punch of strong sketches. Ray Romano was mostly solid, even if a lot of his performances weren’t quite as memorable as the performances he gave in his first episode.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Bernie Mac)
a fairly big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Ashton Kutcher