Tag: 2004-05

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January 22, 2005 – Paul Giamatti / Ludacris featuring Sum41 (S30 E10)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE BUSH DAUGHTERS
George W. Bush’s (WLF) daughters Jenna (AMP) & Barbara (TIF) assess him

— Tina and Amy are very fun here. Even though I don’t like them as a duo on Weekend Update, they’re still usually a good team elsewhere.
— A lot of laughs from the Bush Twins’ “secret twin language”.
— Will’s President Bush not understanding the twins’ secret language is probably an obvious joke, but it works here.
— Great bit with Darrell-as-Dick-Cheney’s little message to the twins.
— Surprisingly, this is Amy’s first-ever “Live from New York…”.
— An overall very solid cold opening. Probably my favorite cold opening of this season so far, not that it’s had much competition, off the top of my head.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Right out of the gate, Paul Giamatti’s energy is so great in this, and he’s doing a very good job getting the audience hyped up.
— An overall short but sweet monologue, and it’s nice to see that this was a real monologue, with no other performers except the host.
STARS: ***½


RICE CONFIRMATION HEARING
Barbara Boxer (AMP) impugns confirmation shoe-in Condoleezza Rice (MAR)

— I recall this being a very well-liked sketch among online SNL fans (including myself) back when this season originally aired.
— Poor Rob Riggle gets stuck in a pointless non-speaking role in this sketch, which ends up being his ONLY appearance all night.
— Seth’s John Kerry detailing how his inauguration would’ve gone this day had he won the election is pretty funny.
— Amy’s whole segment as Barbara Boxer is absolutely fantastic, and is what I had always remembered from this sketch. One of Amy’s best performances of this entire season.
— A solid sketch overall, though mostly just on the strength of the excellent Barbara Boxer segment. Everything else in the sketch was fine, but not particularly strong or stand-out.
STARS: ****


GAYSTROGEN
A rerun… FROM FREAKIN’ 2003. Geez, as if this commercial hadn’t already been re-aired too many times in season 29…


LIMO
limo driver (FIM) is a Jamie Foxx fan but doesn’t recognize host

— Good to see the underused Finesse with the sole lead role in a sketch, and not co-starring with Kenan for once.
— Finesse confusing Paul for Rob Schneider reminds me of how that was a common mix-up a lot of people had back in these days. I never really understood why people couldn’t tell Paul and Rob Schneider apart.
— Good line with a frustrated Paul calling Finesse “Human Tivo” during Finesse’s recreation of Jamie Foxx’s Golden Globes speech.
— Solid performance from Finesse, and I’m enjoying Paul’s frustration and desperation to impress Finesse with his movie resume, the latter of which Rachel humorously questions Paul on at one point.
STARS: ***½


MUSIC STORE
at a music store in search of an instrument, Kaitlin settles on the drums

— This recurring sketch has gotten to the point where Kaitlin’s entrance receives audience applause, though it’s only mild this time.
— Amusing look of Paul’s character, and he’s both funny and very believable as a rocker uncle, adding to the solid slice-of-life realism that this recurring sketch always has.
— Kaitlin’s yodeling when acting out how she would perform on The Price Is Right made me laugh out loud.
— Funny line from Paul about calling his mixture of rock, folk, country, and fusion metal genres of music “Rofolkcoumet”.
— I love Kaitlin’s singing of “Hard To Handle” into the microphone stand.
— I don’t know if it’s because this episode has put me on such a high so far, but I found this overall sketch to be the best of the Kaitlin sketches I’ve covered so far.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Get Back”


WEEKEND UPDATE
sadistic TIF & AMP make RAD report on the NYC blizzard from outside

Arnold Schwarzenegger (DAH) turns the topic to his bid for the presidency

— Interestingly, right out the gate after signing on at the beginning of this Update, Tina throws to a new Update segment called “Dratch on the 1s”, involving Rachel doing a remote segment outside of 30 Rock in the blizzard. An okay change of pace.
— I like how it’s become a running gag these past two Updates for Amy to angrily threaten Angelina Jolie.
— Oh, no. Not ANOTHER commentary from Darrell’s Arnold Schwarzenegger.
— I got one laugh from tonight’s overall Schwarzenegger commentary. That’s it.
— Are Rachel’s outdoors scenes pre-taped or live? I would normally assume pre-taped, but these sure feel live. The timing of Rachel’s answers to Tina and Amy’s live questions are strangely always perfect; there are no sloppy instances of Rachel responding to Tina and Amy too early or too late like you’d expect if a live Tina and Amy were interacting with a pre-taped Rachel.
— When Tina and Amy mention that Ludacris requested Rachel buy him a diet Snapple root beer that doesn’t even exist, I like Amy’s delivery of “Well, she better find it, cuz it’s for Ludacris.”
— Could’ve done without Tina and Amy pointing out “There’s no cocoa in here” regarding their coffee mugs.
STARS: **½


THE LUNDFORD TWINS FEEL GOOD VARIETY HOUR
The Lundford Twins (host) & (FRA) Feel Good Variety Hour was never aired

— I got a pretty good laugh from the first camera zoom-in of Amy crossing her eyes while saying a goofy “Aaaaaawww, nuts!” as a “boing” sound effect is played.
— Pretty funny lyrics in Maya’s song, especially the way it ended. Her segment in this sketch kinda feels like an unused bit from the Country Roses sketch in the preceding season’s Jennifer Aniston episode.
— When the Lundford Twins tell him they heard his record is selling really well, I liked Kenan’s delivery of “Yeah, not too good.”
— Overall, I don’t usually enjoy sketches like this, but this was a fairly well-done and entertaining spoof of variety shows and had some laughs.
STARS: ***


REINHOLD INVESTMENTS
Andy’s (WLF) telephone shrieks of “Oh no!” vex financial planner (host)

— Something seemed to happen right before this sketch started, as this sketch opens with the audience in the middle of laughing and Paul looking at the camera with an out-of-character awkward smile before quickly getting into character. Wonder what happened that we home viewers didn’t get to see.
— The debut of what’s probably one of Will’s most acquired-taste characters (which is certainly saying something, as that describes probably a lot of Will’s characters). Like a lot of what Will does, this character has definitely always worked for me.
— Will’s many “OHHHH, NOOOOO!”s are hilarious.
— I absolutely love Paul’s straight man performance. His various angry outbursts at Will are slaying me.
— Paul: “I am NOT gonna be a wedding DJ again… I can’t! I sold all my equipment!”
— Overall, such a dumb sketch, but a hilarious dumb one. Everything about this worked for me.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Number One Spot”


SPY GLASS
parliament reporter (host) fills in on the teen beat

— As usual in these Spy Glass sketches, a lot of well-done and impressively-delivered corny puns by Seth.
— I absolutely LOVE Paul’s excited British-accented gibbering when talking about how much he loves being a reporter.
— I guess Horatio’s Gene Shalit is fitting for a Spy Glass sketch, given his love for corny puns.
— Funny bit at the end with Amy’s character revealing she has Spanish Chlamydia.
STARS: ***½


CAT
(host)’s date with Phoebe is disrupted by her large house cat (FRA)

— I like the random exchange between Rachel and Paul, with her casually asking him “So you work on death row, huh?”
— Paul has been such a great host tonight that he even manages to get laughs out of simply asking Rachel to “neck” with him.
— A variation of the parrot sketch Fred did earlier this season. I recall this coming off as an inferior knock-off, but I admit, I laughed a lot just now from Fred’s entrance in the sketch, meowing towards the camera with a bug-eyed, curious expression.
— As a cat lover (as I’ve mentioned recently), I’m enjoying Fred’s spot-on imitation of typical cat actions.
— Fred’s deep-voiced meowing when he’s getting his medication applied anally has me laughing out loud.
— Overall, definitely not as bad of a follow-up to the parrot sketch as I had remembered.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A little over half a season, Season 30 has FINALLY done it: an actual strong episode. Every single sketch in this episode worked for me, and I felt very highly about a pretty good number of them. Paul Giamatti added a lot to this episode’s strength, as he was a fantastic host and gave a lot of fun performances. Overall, aside from Weekend Update (and even that was slightly better than it’s usually been in the Fey/Poehler era), this was a flawless episode, in my eyes.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Topher Grace)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Paris Fucking Hilton

Posted on

January 15, 2005 – Topher Grace / The Killers (S30 E9)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

TSUNAMI PRESS CONFERENCE
eloquent Bill Clinton (DAH) usurps George W. Bush (WLF) press conference

— For one episode only, Fred plays George Bush Sr. Needless to say, it certainly feels odd and almost wrong to see anyone other than Dana Carvey in this role after Dana did such a definitive, iconic take on him. That being said, Fred actually isn’t doing a bad job doing a straight imitation of Bush Sr. instead of aping Dana’s version.
— Kind of a one-note sketch, but there are some laughs from Will-as-President-Bush’s fumbling around when trying to make a point.
— Oh, god. There goes a reprisal of Will-as-Bush’s “It’s hard wooorrrrrrk”. NEVER AGAIN. That first presidential debate sketch from earlier this season permanently burned me out on that damn “We’re workin’ haaaaaarrrrrrd” phrase, thanks to their endless repetition of it in that sketch.
— I like the look on Rachel’s face when the camera does a brief cutaway to her while Darrell’s Bill Clinton is charming her.
— A good laugh from Will-as-Bush simply saying a surprised “Oh.” when Darrell’s Clinton points out that Monday is Martin Luther King Day.
STARS: **½


MONOLOGUE
host answers questions of Terrell & other audience members

— Okay, as pointed out by commenter Jack in the comments section of my season 28 Jennifer Garner episode review, the soon-to-join-SNL-in-season-31 Bill Hader, who auditioned for SNL the week of tonight’s episode and was invited to stick around to watch the live show, can be spotted standing in the background during a portion of tonight’s questions-from-the-audience monologue. I hadn’t been aware of any of these things about Bill until reading about it in the comments section. I’ll have to keep a sharp lookout for him here.
— Very funny part with John Lutz’s talk about internet rumors, including why Jennifer Garner had to drop out as this week’s host.
— Then-SNL writer, pre-cast member Jason Sudeikis prefaces his question to Topher Grace by greeting him with “Hey, buddy, how ya livin’?” I love that. Such a perfectly Sudeikis way to greet someone.
— Ah, I spotted Bill Hader! He’s in the background during the shots of Jason Sudeikis (screencap below, although the screencap quality renders Bill absolutely unrecognizable).

[ADDENDUM: I didn’t realize how dark the above screencap is until after I posted my review. Below is a brightened version of the screencap.]

It’s hard to see Bill’s face clearly (at least in my copy of this episode, even though my copy is HQ), but the hair looks exactly like how I recall Bill’s hair looking the following season when he joins SNL. As I expected, it feels odd seeing him in a season 30 episode. Seeing him here also makes me very eager to reach his first season on the show, not just for him, but for the great Class of 2005 in general. (The Class of 2005 being Hader, Sudeikis, Andy Samberg, and Kristen Wiig, the very strong featured player group of season 31.)
— Jason’s whole bit about shortened names is hilarious.
— Great to see the return of J.B. Smoove and Paula Pell’s audience couple characters, who are always a riot.
STARS: ****


TRUCKER TALK
rig drivers bemoan breakup of Brad Pitt & Jennifer Aniston

— The various trucker CB names are pretty funny, particularly Chris’ trucker CB name being Whiskey Dick.
— Meh. The fact that this Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston break-up gossip sketch is placed as the lead-off sketch of the night is YET ANOTHER example of this SNL era focusing way too heavily on pop culture and celebrity gossip. I guess it IS fairly funny seeing manly truckers emotionally discussing Brad and Jennifer’s break-up, but I’m not all that crazy about this.
— Nice to see yet another random appearance from Darrell’s Skeeter character.
— Pretty funny ending with all the trucks deliberately crashing into Fred’s house together.
— Meh, is it really necessary to do a “preview of next week’s episode” scene at the end of this sketch?
STARS: **½


PARAMEDICS
black paramedics (KET) & (FIM) won’t respond to emergencies on MLK Day

— Kenan and Finesse’s characters are pretty funny, especially when white guilt-ing their co-workers.
— Was Finesse’s delivery of that “commemorate” line supposed to be so horribly sloppy, or was it a genuine flub?
— Some laughs from Horatio’s failed attempt to convince Topher he has the same privilege Kenan and Finesse have to get Martin Luther King Day off, despite not even being black himself.
— Is Horatio capable of getting through a SINGLE episode this season without breaking? It’s especially annoying whenever he does it for no apparent reason, such as when he mentions Cesar Chavez Day at the end of his scene in this sketch.
— I don’t think I like that stereotypical ending where Kenan and Finesse finally respond to an emergency only because they found out they get to tend to plus-sized female models.
STARS: ***


CBS EVENING FRAUDULENT DOCUMENT UPDATE
Dan Rather (DAH) apologizes

— These solo Dan Rather pieces with Darrell have had a great track record in the past, and hopefully that continues tonight.
— I’m now almost two minutes into this, and I’ve barely gotten any laughs so far.
— Okay, the World’s Greatest Dad bit right now is pretty funny.
— Funny Andy Rooney mention.
— Overall, some highlights, and this got a little better as it went along, but this was a little meh as a whole and certainly doesn’t measure up to the last two great solo Dan Rather sketches.
STARS: **½


BEAVER RANCH
(host) is uneasy about losing virginity to elderly brothel worker (RAD)

— Will’s character being named Thew is a nice random little callback to the monologue.
— Good reveal of Rachel’s old hooker character.
— Rachel’s performance as this character is pretty solid.
— Some of the senior citizen cliches here are being executed well.
— A funny ad-lib with Rachel saying “Changed by itself!” when the music on the record player changes before she could make it look like she’s changing the music herself.
— A decent ending.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Somebody Told Me”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Alison Jackson-filmed party footage shows Prince Harry in Nazi garb

Cliff (KET) & Claire (MAR) Huxtable offer themselves as good role models

— Odd usage of a short film by Alison Jackson (who, as I mentioned in my review of this season’s premiere, was hired to be SNL’s regular filmmaker of this season, but ended up only getting TWO films on the air, including this short Update piece), with it being passed off on this Update as being from a young woman who obtained footage of Prince Harry at a Nazi party.
— Tina and Amy’s half-assed color commentary during the Alison Jackson film feels unnecessary and pointless to me.
— Fun idea of a commentary with Kenan and Maya and Cliff and Claire Huxtable. They’re both spot-on in their impressions, especially when Maya is imitating Claire’s trademark angry rants.
— Interesting seeing Tina being referred to by her real full name, Elizabeth Stamantina Fey, when Maya’s Claire Huxtable is telling her off.
STARS: **½


ART DEALERS
arty Nuni (FRA) & Nuni (MAR) welcome (host) & (RAD) to their home

— The debut of these Nuni sketches.
— I recall getting REALLY sick of this recurring sketch the more and more it appeared back when these seasons originally aired, but I’ll judge this first installment on its own merits, given that I recall thinking it was a pretty funny surreal, absurd sketch when it originally debuted.
— I got a really good laugh from Fred’s delivery of the line “You sit on that and it will ruin your ass!” in that accent.
— I’m enjoying the eccentric visuals all throughout this sketch, such as the unconventional furniture and unconventional food & drinks. A fairly fun sketch.
STARS: ***½


HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS
Howard Dean (ROR), Armstrong Williams (KET), Zell Miller (WLF)

— Not only is this the first in a long time where Hardball appeared outside of the cold opening slot, but wow, it’s buried all the way towards the end the show. Very odd to see a Hardball sketch so late in an episode.
— Rob is absolutely hilarious as Howard Dean.
— Kenan’s portions of this sketch aren’t working much for me.
— Yes! The return of Will’s Zell Miller!
— As always, Will’s Zell Miller steals the entire sketch.
— Wow, this sketch is already wrapping up? This felt kinda short for a Hardball sketch.
— I’ve gotten so used to seeing Hardball as a cold opening that it feels weird seeing Darrell’s Chris Matthews conclude the sketch WITHOUT saying “Live from New York…”.
STARS: ***½


THE NOT INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF THE DOWN AND OUT DOLLAR
poor exchange rates subject dollar (AMP) to taunting by other currencies

— Interesting setting for a topical sketch.
— Topher’s performance as the French Euro is really solid.
— As always, I like whenever SNL does a flashback scene that’s obviously performed in real-time.
— Overall, not a laugh-out-loud hilarious sketch, but it wasn’t trying to be one. For what was supposed to be a more cutesy sketch (something I don’t usually like seeing Amy perform), this was fine.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Mr. Brightside”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, especially for this season’s standards. Even though almost nothing stood out as particularly great, the episode flowed pretty smoothly and the few things I disliked weren’t anything particularly awful. Overall, this is only the SECOND episode all season that I actually liked, and even those two episodes (this and Luke Wilson) were no great shakes as a whole. Still waiting for that first actual strong season 30 episode, and at this point, I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever get it.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Robert DeNiro)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Paul Giamatti

Posted on

December 18, 2004 – Robert DeNiro / Destiny’s Child (S30 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PENTAGON PRESS BRIEFING
Craig Fenson reads more naughty-sounding names of suspected terrorists

— Third cold opening in a row with Darrell’s Donald Rumsfeld impression.
— A reprise of the dirty terrorist names bit with Robert DeNiro’s Craig Fenson character. This bit was surprisingly great the first time, but I’m wary on whether this will hold up in a second installment. This seems better left as a one-off, especially given how overly reliant this era has become on dirty wordplay humor after DeNiro’s previous hosting stint. (Hell, we got a dirty wordplay bit just ONE EPISODE AGO, with Colin Farrell’s Weekend Update commentary about Alexander The Great.)
— (*sigh*) DeNiro ALREADY screws up a line, early on in his appearance here.
— I’m two-and-a-half minutes into this, and just as I was afraid, this dirty terrorist names routine does NOT hold up in a second sketch. I’m still getting a few laughs, but tonight’s names are coming off tepid compared to the LOL-worthy names from the first installment of this. It doesn’t help that some of tonight’s dirty names are such old cliches that have been around for ages.
— Just now, DeNiro’s character discloses the fact that the he received his next bit of info from a radio DJ named Dirty Dan The Garbage Man and his morning crew. That’s actually a very random meta reference to a character played by Ben Affleck in a Z105 sketch from the episode Affleck hosted the preceding season.
— For the second episode in a row, we get a bad technical error in the cold opening. This time, a few seconds before DeNiro says “Live from New York…”, we get an accidental cutaway to a screen of SNL’s logo from the season 29 opening montage, with a Christmas wreath added onto the logo (screencap below).

STARS: **


MONOLOGUE
host & Kermit The Frog (Steve Whitmire)- “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”

— Wow, Kermit The Frog. He “interrupted” DeNiro’s monologue VERY early, after DeNiro delivered only one line in this monologue. Probably a good thing DeNiro got “interrupted” so early, considering what a disaster he always is on SNL, and considering how bad his solo monologue from his previous episode was.
— I appreciate the sweet idea behind this Christmas duet, but at the risk of sounding like a Scrooge, I’m not caring for the execution of it. Kermit singing a non-comedic Christmas duet with a stiff, un-charismatic Robert DeNiro is simply not entertaining to me. I really don’t understand why this monologue has been played in so many SNL Christmas compilation specials.
— Okay, I admit, a warm smile came across my face just now when DeNiro gave Kermit a sweet kiss on the face at the end of this.
STARS: **


WOOMBA
the automated feminine hygiene product enforces vaginal freshness

— Another female-oriented commercial starring the Fey/Dratch/Poehler/Rudolph group.
— Very funny concept for a Roomba parody.
— Boy, all the bright colors during Tina’s scene look HORRIBLY faded in my poor-quality copy of this episode (as seen in the third above screencap for this commercial).
— Oddly enough, that sound that the Woomba device makes whenever it travels across the floor sounds almost like it’s Amy making “Whoooooo” sounds.
— I like the twist on the “woman running through the woods in slow-motion” shot from the real Roomba commercial, by having Maya’s slow-motion running woman trying to escape the Woomba chasing her through the woods.
— Overall, in my opinion, this was probably the lesser of the trilogy of female-oriented commercials starring the Fey/Dratch/Poehler/Rudolph group (Kotex Classic, Mom Jeans, Woomba) by default, but that’s not knocking this, as this was still very solid.
STARS: ****


PRANKSTERS
(host) equates chainsaw dismemberment with wacky hijinks

— Ugh, really, SNL? You’re really bringing back this well-done favorite of mine (which was perfectly fine staying a one-and-done sketch) after TWO SEASONS, and with fucking Robert DeNiro, of all people, filling in the role played perfectly by the great Christopher Walken?!?
— Given his Nickelodeon past, Kenan is perfect as a guest in a goofy, cheesy, kid-friendly show like Pranksters.
— Okay, I admit, even though it’s just an imitation of Walken beating Chris to death with a tire iron in the first installment of this sketch, I still laughed out loud at DeNiro gruesomely chainsawing Chris to death in tonight’s installment.
— Why does Chris always get stuck playing the guy who gets violently pranked to death in these Pranksters sketches? I could rant about how this is yet another example of Chris never getting any respect at SNL, but whatever.
— DeNiro’s typical bad delivery suddenly rears its ugly head and starts to hamper this already-troublesome sketch. All of a sudden, halfway through this sketch, DeNiro’s fucking up EVERY LINE.
— This sketch has died off really badly after DeNiro’s prank video was shown, as the remainder of this sketch is just hitting the EXACT SAME beats the first Pranksters sketch hit after Walken’s prank video was shown. That just doesn’t work a second time.
STARS: **


TOMMY
oblivious (host) wonders why his gay-acting son (SEM) hasn’t yet married

— OH, GOD. Here comes our obligatory weekly season 30 sketch that relies on hacky gay-themed humor and unfunny gay stereotypes.
— Ugh, I’m two minutes into this sketch, and I’ve been finding this pretty insufferable.
— Okay, I finally got one laugh just now, from DeNiro’s mention of finding a VERY large ring in Seth’s room and innocently assuming it’s an engagement ring for Seth’s girlfriend. Chris’ knowing reaction to that is funny as well.
— I will say it’s at least progressive for 2004 SNL standards that DeNiro’s character is very accepting of his son’s alleged homosexuality when he has a sudden realization about him.
— Not sure how to feel about the ending of this sketch, with the reveal of Maya’s big penis-shaped finger.
— Overall, didn’t care for this sketch as a whole, but there have been (and will continue to be) worse gay-themed sketches this season.
STARS: **


PRINCE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
host, Star Jones (KET), Al Reynolds (FIM)

— Meh. I’ve gotten tired of seeing this recurring sketch.
— You’d think they’re only doing this sketch tonight because the real Beyonce is at SNL and you’d assume SNL would have her appear in some form interacting with Maya’s impression of her, but she ends up being nowhere to be seen in this sketch. It would later be said that she kindly declined to appear in this sketch because she wanted to study Maya’s impression of her. That excuse makes very little sense to me. “Study Maya’s impression of her”? Blah, I say Beyonce just had no interest in appearing in this sketch and was too kind to flat-out tell SNL that.
— DeNiro playing himself in a Prince Show sketch seems SO lazy.
— Kenan In A Dress alert.
— (*groan*) Finesse plays a gay role for the SECOND consecutive sketch tonight.
— (*sigh*) I can’t even work up so much as a mere chuckle anymore at the played-out formula of this sketch. How many times are we supposed to laugh at Fred’s Prince doing some kind of side activity while staring at the camera with that exact same trademark Prince facial expression every time (as seen in the third and sixth above screencaps for this sketch)?
STARS: *½


TV FUNHOUSE
by RBS- on Christmas, Santa skips red states to bitch with liberal celebs

— Ah, our second Christmas TV Funhouse in the style of the classic Rankin/Bass “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” special. Always a treat to see Smigel’s spot-on spoofs of that.
— I got a big laugh from Santa’s blunt delivery to Rudolph of the line “Screw the red states!”
— Interesting idea to tie in this Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer spoof with the then-recent Bush/Kerry presidential election.
— A memorable and funny part with Santa bitterly naming the red states “Dumbf***istan”, which gets HUGE applause from SNL’s audience.
— Speaking of the audience, I remember an article coming out shortly after this episode’s original airing that, at one point, featured an account from someone who was in the audience for this episode and witnessed some nearby right-wing audience members being absolutely PISSED by this cartoon and proceeding to complain to each other about “fucking liberals”.
— Funny scene with Santa having dinner with left-wing celebrities, including SNL’s own Al Franken.
— I love the voices for the two little kids waiting for Santa.
— I just now noticed the detail of Rudolph having a blue nose instead of a red one, presumably because of Santa’s hatred of the red states. I missed that detail earlier in this cartoon.
— This ended on kind of a weak punchline, but I like the subsequent ending credits and post-ending credits scene.
— Overall, I enjoyed this cartoon a lot, even if I feel this doesn’t measure up to Smigel’s previous attempt at a spoof of the Rankin/Bass special (The Narrator That Ruined Christmas).
STARS: ****


TRUMP PROMO
Donald Trump (DAH) tapes a Christmas-themed promo for The Apprentice

— Our second Donald Trump promo shoot sketch of the season.
— Nice little continuity from the last Trump promo shoot sketch, by having Darrell’s Trump immediately insist on saying “One” himself when the director is counting down, which was a gag established in the last Trump promo sketch after Darrell’s Trump expressed confusion over why the director never said “one” during his countdown.
— A memorable part of this sketch, with Darrell’s Trump pronouncing Hanukkah as “Cha-noo-kuh-ha”.
— Seth is solid as the off-camera director. Without even being onscreen, Seth does a really good job of conveying his character’s obvious repressed impatience for Trump’s antics.
— Overall, these Trump Promo sketches this season continue to be a winner.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Lil’ Wayne [real] perform “Soldier”


WEEKEND UPDATE
violent prayers of street preacher Leviticus (ROR) are off-putting

Abe Scheinwald doesn’t share grandson’s (SEM) yen for cinematic subtlety

— At least Tina seemed to be self-aware over how incredibly lame her Zell Miller joke was.
— Here comes what would end up being Rob Riggle’s only real claim to fame in his one season on SNL: his Leviticus character.
— Rob’s performance as this Leviticus character is hilarious, and he’s doing a spot-on caricature of typical preachers.
— Okay, I’m now starting to feel this Leviticus commentary is going on longer than it should. Too bad, because if they had kept it short, it would’ve been one of the biggest highlights of this episode.
— Rob would go on to try turning Leviticus into a recurring character a COUNTLESS number of times later this season, but it would always end up getting cut after dress rehearsal.
— Boy, Tina and Amy are BOTH unusually stumbly with a few of their jokes tonight.
— Kind of an interesting change of pace placing Rachel and Seth’s Abe and Brad Scheinwald characters on Update for once.
— Meh, it turns out that not even this new Update setting is adding any new life into this Scheinwald bit. The Scheinwald bit is officially old and tired.
STARS: **


ITALIAN STEREOTYPES
mole (HOS) clumsily employs Italian stereotypes to infiltrate the mafia

— Blah. This looks to be a typical bad Horatio Sanz ham-fest.
— I’m tired of the bit they keep repeating throughout this sketch where Horatio says “Fuhgettaboutit” and somebody responds “Forget about what?”
— One repeated bit throughout this sketch that’s kinda working for me is Fred always saying “There’s a lotta money in that.”
— Aaaaaaand there goes Horatio’s obligatory breaking, where he cracks up at himself. Fucking ugh.
— Geez, DeNiro’s “How am I funny?” Goodfellas reference was incredibly lazy and HORRIBLY executed.
— Weak twist towards the end involving Horatio’s hidden wire.
— Ooh, here’s one unscripted part of the sketch that I absolutely NEED to address. During Horatio and Seth’s conversation with each other towards the end of this sketch, Horatio AGAIN starts cracking up at himself and Seth can then be heard muttering under his breath an out-of-character “You blew it” to Horatio, then, while still staying out of character, Seth pretty much rolls his eyes at Horatio for the rest of this sketch, as if he is SO done with Horatio’s typical jackassery. While I definitely share Seth’s frustration towards Horatio’s jackassery, I still have to ask: what the fuck, Seth?!? Horatio’s constant breaking may be unprofessional, but dropping character, quietly calling Horatio out ON THE AIR for ruining a scene, openly looking almost disgusted at him, and flat-out giving up on the sketch is EVEN MORE unprofessional. Man, this season is such a mess. Seth’s actions here are Season 20 levels of unprofessionalism.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Cater 2 U”


CHRISTMAS WITH THE CAT LADY
Christmas With The Cat Lady (host) comprises one-sided chats with felines

— What…the…hell?!?
— I’m a cat lover, but even *I* find this sketch tepid.
— Okay, I did get a laugh just now from DeNiro’s cat lady character’s story about how she ended up with so many cats, a story that simply involves her being kicked by a horse.
— Overall, aside from the above-mentioned highlight, I did not care for this.
— I will say that, as much as I didn’t care for this sketch, it went by surprisingly smoothly. Given the fact that it starred nobody but freakin’ Robert DeNiro and a whole bunch of cats, this could’ve easily gone awry.
STARS: **


BEAR CITY
by T. Sean Shannon- anthropomorphic ursines go caroling

— A new addition has been made to Bear City’s opening title sequence, in which we see two kids who we’re told by Fred Willard’s narration are the only two humans left, only for them to then get attacked by bears.
— The reveal of the Jewish bear family is hilarious and well-done.
— Overall, one of the funnier Bear Cities I’ve ever seen.
STARS: ****


SEASON’S GREETINGS
HOS & Muppets Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Animal perform happy Christmas ditty

— Unfortunately, my copy is missing the first 30 or so seconds of this, in which Horatio shows up onstage alone, ready to start the traditional I Wish It Was Christmas Today song, only for him to look around and sadly realize that none of his three cast mates who have always performed this song with him are on the show anymore. After Horatio gets depressed by this, The Muppets show up and ask Horatio if they can fill in his former cast mates’ spots in this song. My copy of this sketch picks up from this part of the sketch. I remember an online SNL fan back at this time in 2004 pointing out how sad and haunting it felt seeing a lone Horatio look around an empty stage and ask “Jimmy? Tracy? Kattan?”
— When The Muppets are playfully teasing Horatio for doing the same Christmas song three times every season, the SNL nerd in me absolutely LOVES Fozzie saying “Yeah, even Hans and Franz changed a few lines every once in a while.”
— I’m already always a sucker for the I Wish It Was Christmas Today bits, and this new twist with Horatio performing the song with The Muppets is a very charming blast. I absolutely love this.
— It’s amazing how likable Horatio can come off in stuff like this when he’s playing himself and just being natural and doing good-natured things, without any of his typical annoying self-amused hamminess, mugging, and constant breaking we’ve often been getting from him lately when he plays characters.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

— Jesus Christ, DeNiro sounds even more low-energy than usual during his goodnights speech, and I didn’t think that was possible. He sounds outright DEPRESSED here. Such a buzzkill to see this immediately after that very fun piece with Horatio and The Muppets.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty weak Christmas episode, making this a fitting end to what has undeniably been a disappointing and troublesome first half of the season. Much like Robert DeNiro’s previous episode, this episode actually had a pretty good number of strong highlights that were unfortunately far outnumbered by a large amount of flops. Robert DeNiro once again did a lousy job as a host, though I didn’t find him quite as consistently unlikable this time, and at least every sketch tonight wasn’t just “DeNiro plays a tough guy in a Peter Pan outfit/Santa outfit/car dealer outfit/etc.”, like SNL lazily did in DeNiro’s previous episode.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Colin Farrell)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
We enter the year 2005, with host Topher Grace

Posted on

December 11, 2004 – Colin Farrell / Scissor Sisters (S30 E7)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

TOWN HALL MEETING
in Kuwait, poorly-equipped soldiers question Donald Rumsfeld (DAH)

— Geez, right out of the damn gate at the beginning of this cold opening, while the camera is on Chris starting to speak, we get an ugly and distracting technical error, as SNL’s attempt to display a graphic on the bottom of the screen accidentally causes the screen to freeze in an odd way for a few seconds and makes Chris look like his head has several outlines.
— I got a cheap laugh from the reveal of a pants-less Finesse.
— Some laughs from the comically awkward pauses between Darrell’s Donald Rumsfeld and Rob when Rumsfeld is lying to him about the armor plating.
— Rachel’s story of how she got unwittingly enlisted is pretty funny.
— Despite some laughs throughout this cold opening, this feels too slow-paced and sluggish. Portions of this are dragging for me. Must be the combo of Darrell’s slow speaking as Donald Rumsfeld and Jim Downey’s typical dry writing (the latter of which USED TO consistently be reliable for great humor).
— I like Darrell’s Rumsfeld telling Rob, in a friendly voice, “Don’t make me have you shot” when Rob keeps asking about the armor plating.
— What was with the odd way Darrell bowed his head in the middle of his “Live from New York…”?
STARS: **½


MONOLOGUE
despite host’s coaching, male castmembers can’t woo Lindsay Lohan [real]

— Early in this monologue, Colin Farrell follows up a line flub of his by ad-libbing “I’m gonna do that again, live!”, and then repeats the line correctly. The audience seemed confused by that, as was I when this originally aired. I now find it to be a pretty funny loose little ad-lib.
— Finesse’s Irish accent is pretty amusing.
— Lindsay Lohan cameo.
— I wonder if Fred’s line about people on the internet thinking he’s gay is based on reality. If it is, I don’t remember those rumors from back at this time.
— Finesse telling Lindsay, while pointing at her stomach, “I wanna put a baby in THAT!” felt way too much like a line written for Tracy Morgan, and we know that NOBODY can deliver a line like that the way Tracy can.
STARS: ***


TURLINGTON’S LOWER BACK TATTOO REMOVER
— A rerun from the preceding season. Coincidentally enough, the episode it originally aired in was hosted by tonight’s special guest, Lindsay Lohan.


ROACHES
a very large & resilient roach (HOS) is loose in (host)’s apartment

— Meh, not too crazy about this premise. Feels like an inferior variation of the giant parrot sketch Fred did just a few episodes prior. (And Fred himself would soon do an inferior variation of that giant parrot sketch, in a sketch later this season in which he plays a giant cat.)
— Another meh at the gross-out gag with Colin getting covered in green roach goo.
— Yeah, a few minutes into this, and I haven’t been caring for this at all.
— What the hell was with that ending with all the giant roaches running around the apartment like this is some wacky sketch from some bad 1970s variety show or something? Blah.
STARS: *½


¡SHOW BIZ GRANDE EXPLOSION!
Bono’s (host) use of “catorce” bugs Fericito

— The pre-interview portion of these sketches have become way too formulaic for my likes, and I can’t take Fericito’s “Ay dios mio!”s anymore.
— Interesting how Colin is playing the last SNL episode’s epic musical guest, Bono.
— A good laugh from Fericito’s own “iPod”, which is just a cheap old-fashioned tape recorder with wallet photos taped to the back.
— I like Colin’s Bono playing around with the camera while singing into it, ala the real Bono in the last SNL episode.
— Overall, unlike Snoop Dogg in the last installment of this sketch, the Bono interview portion of this sketch didn’t give this sketch all that big of a needed boost, though it still had its moments.
STARS: **½


BODY SEARCH
airport security guard (AMP) gropes (host) during ostensive search

— When this sketch originally aired, I and some other online SNL fans felt this was a rip-off of the airport security sketch from the season 17 Sharon Stone episode, only with the genders reversed this time. Besides the similarities between the basic premise of both sketches, I no longer feel tonight’s sketch is a direct rip-off. The premise is basic and simplistic enough that anyone can think of it, and tonight’s sketch is focusing on having Amy’s airport security guard character find excuses to fondle Colin’s body, whereas the Sharon Stone sketch had the airport security guards finding excuses to get Stone to remove her clothing.
— Amy’s actions are only mildly funny at best. I’m not laughing all that hard here. This feels too cliched for my likes, and I’m don’t mean in comparison to the aforementioned Sharon Stone sketch.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Take Your Mama”


WEEKEND UPDATE
AMP queries Brett Hull [real] regarding effects of NHL lockout

mentors TIF & AMP lecture Lindsay Lohan [real] on how she should behave

double entendres belie host deemphasizing Alexander The Great’s sexuality

— Even though it’s yet ANOTHER gay joke in the bad gay joke-heavy season 30, I got a good laugh from hockey player Brett Hull’s answer to Amy asking how he feels about the gay marriage law passing in Canada: “That’s what happens in Canada when there’s no hockey.”
— An overall fairly short and okay commentary from Brett Hull, and he came off likable.
— Oh, no. Here’s the bit with Tina and Amy mentoring Lindsay Lohan, a bit I never liked and has aged poorly.
— Yeah, this whole Lohan segment is rubbing me the wrong way.
— Good to see SNL writer John Lutz in a Weekend Update photo (the fourth-to-last above screencap for this Update), as I’m always a sucker for when SNL uses their writers in comical fake Update photos.
— Is it really all THAT funny when Amy says “Fiddy Cent”?
— Tina and Amy’s 50 Cent/airplane terrorist/Ludacris re-enactment was pretty dumb. While I did kinda appreciate the “Who’s on first?”-esque dialogue, Tina and Amy’s execution didn’t fully work for me, and it smacked a little too much of typical Fey/Poehler self-indulgent-ness, in which they’re given too much free rein to just goof around and try to amuse each other.
— Always rare to see an SNL host doing an Update commentary as themselves.
— Blah, this Alexander commentary from Colin is just a whole bunch of bad gay sex puns. In other words, season 30 up to its old tricks of focusing heavily on hacky gay humor.
— My negative reaction to these bad sexual puns in Colin’s Alexander commentary makes me now understand why some people in the comments section of my reviews don’t care for the Colonel Angus or Cork Soakers sketches, though I still stand by my highly positive review of Colonel Angus and my mildly positive review of Cork Soakers. This Alexander commentary from Colin, on the other hand? Yeesh. There’s a reason nobody remembers this commentary the way Colonel Angus and Cork Soakers are remembered.
STARS: **


KEY PARTY
at a key party, Carol (HOS) & other swingers tell their names & safewords

— One of the more oddly memorable season 30 sketches.
— The debut of Horatio’s Carol character, who would later be spun-off into her own recurring sketch the following season.
— The constant sequences with the characters each taking turns listing off their name or safeword in a camera close-up are fun, and is the type of humor that this season’s cast is good at pulling off.
— I love the unique touch and little details each performer brings to their character during the close-up of them saying their name or safeword. I particularly like Fred with his exuberant head nod, Will always stating John George Peppers (an epic name in itself, especially when delivered by Will, though I’ve seen it once spelled as Jean-Georges Peppers, and I’m not sure which is the official spelling) as both his name AND safeword, and the odd subtle joke of Chris pronouncing his name and safeword differently each time.
— Horatio’s typical bad, self-amused hamminess actually works here. Same goes for the very repetitive nature of this sketch. It’s probably hard to explain to some people why this is such a good and well-liked sketch, but… it just is. Everything here just clicks.
— After the success of this sketch, Seth would later try for YEARS to turn Key Party into a movie, to no avail.
STARS: ****½


WINDOW WASHER
on-the-job interview with window washer (KET) imperils TV reporter (host)

— I like the somewhat ambitious and convincing visual of Colin and Kenan on a scaffold in the air outside the huge window during a shot of this sketch’s full office set (the first above screencap for this sketch), which is the type of thing you don’t see often in live SNL sketches.
— Kenan’s performance as the janitor is pretty funny.
— Ehhh, I don’t think I care for where this sketch is going.
— All of these scaffold catastrophes that Colin and Kenan are facing aren’t doing much for me, and feel like a lame and aimless premise for a sketch. Then again, maybe it’s not the premise itself that’s the problem, as I feel that a season with better writing could get some good humor out of this premise.
STARS: **


PAT ‘N PATTI’S SLACKS, SNACKS, & KNICK KNACK SHACK
Pat ‘N Patti are back with their Slacks, Snacks, & Knick Knack Shack

— OH, GOD.
— Can’t believe they brought this back.
— At least we’re seeing Colin play against type. Despite my dislike of this sketch’s material itself, Colin is giving a good performance and is doing a surprisingly convincing job as this dorky-ish character.
— What’s with the mysterious stain on Colin’s shirt? Subtle joke?
— At least we don’t have Jimmy Fallon to completely botch his scene like a complete amateur, as he did in the first installment of this sketch. I still can’t get over how awful his performance in that sketch was.
— Overall, much like the first installment of this, this sketch didn’t make me so much as crack a smile.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Comfortably Numb”


MERV THE PERV
accent of Merv The Perv’s cousin Steve The Skeeve (host) charms women

— This character makes his first appearance in over a year.
— Merv The Perv’s opening title sequence from the preceding installment of this sketch has now been edited to replace Merv’s narration about himself with a theme song sung by Merv. I love this theme song, especially the very 70s sound to it, which fits this character so perfectly.
— Merv’s habit of twisting innocent statements into dirty remarks always makes me laugh.
— A decent turn with Merv being joined by an equally-pervy but handsomer character, Steve The Skeeve.
— Merv The Perv to a pregnant woman: “If that’s a little lady you got in there, then I’m lookin’ at my first three-way.” So wrong, but so damn funny.
— Overall, this sketch was a good way to end the show.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS
host says SNL was a great experience, “I shit you not”

— When thanking SNL for supplying him with one of the greatest weeks of his life, Colin says “I shit you not.” In reaction to this, we get a hilarious early-era “Kenan reacts” moment, from what little you can see of Kenan’s face in the background (screencap below).

I also noticed a reaction from Seth, in which he makes a face at first, then laughs and shakes his head afterwards. Otherwise, unlike the last time someone said a no-no word during the goodnights (hint: an f-bomb in season 6), no big deal is made of Colin’s s-bomb, and, as far as I know, SNL didn’t end up getting in too much (if any) trouble for it. This being 2004, the word “shit” being said on TV was no longer quite as big of a deal as it used to be.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— After season 30 FINALLY achieved its first good episode with the preceding episode, we’ve immediately gone back to the usual season 30 low quality. This episode wasn’t particularly awful or anything, just meh. I didn’t care much for anything in the pre-Weekend Update half of the show aside from the monologue (and even THAT was just average to me), Update itself didn’t work for me (as usual in the Fey/Poehler era), and, while the post-Update half of the show began and ended with on a high note with the memorable and standout Key Party and the always-funny-to-me Merv The Perv, there were two bad sketches sandwiched between them.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Luke Wilson)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Robert DeNiro hosts the Christmas episode

Posted on

November 20, 2004 – Luke Wilson / U2 (S30 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

WHITE HOUSE APPRENTICE
George W. Bush (WLF) fires Colin Powell (FIM) a la The Apprentice

— An okay and timely premise with Will’s President Bush making his firing decision in the style of The Apprentice.
— The camera cuts are pretty off during the portion of the sketch right now, as the camera keeps cutting to close-ups of performers AFTER they’ve said a line.
— A laugh from Darrell’s Donald Rumsfeld disparagingly referring to Finesse’s Colin Powell as James Earl Jones.
— President Bush to Colin Powell: “You seem to be the only one in this administration who knows anything about fighting a war. Obviously, you don’t fit in.”
— Ending was a little on the weak side.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
HOS uses cellphone photos to refresh host’s memory of their wild night

— A very Horatio Sanz-y entrance from Horatio, on a motor cart.
— Funny to see in retrospect how photos taken on cellphones back in 2004 look so cheap by today’s standards.
— Blah, I am not caring for these photos at all.
— Aaaaaaand there goes season 30’s obligatory and unfunny reliance on a man-on-man kiss for a cheap laugh.
— Overall, oof.
STARS: *½


DEBBIE DOWNER
Debbie Downer spoils Thanksgiving dinner with her depressing digressions

— Oh, no.
— I’m a minute-and-a-half into this sketch, I am freakin’ STONE-FACED during this entire Debbie Downer routine so far. The audience’s hysterical laughter throughout this sketch, and the defending of this character that I’ve seen in the comments section of some of my reviews make me feel so alone in not understanding the appeal of this Debbie Downer character AT ALL.
— This character is almost reaching the same level of annoyance to me as The Whiners from the early 80s. Then again, at least the Whiners sketches usually always had funny straight man performances from the main foil in the sketch. There’s nothing funny about the straight man performances in the Debbie Downer sketches. The straight men in these sketches just blandly look disappointed in reaction to Debbie Downer’s one-liners.
— Okay, I kinda smirked just now when, after a depressing one-liner from Debbie Downer about cooked turkeys, the usual “Wah-wahhhhh” camera zoom-in is subverted a bit by the camera doing a zoom-in on the cooked turkey on the table for the first “Wah” sound effect, then does a zoom-in on Debbie Downer on the second “wahhhhhhh” sound effect.
— Aaaaaaaaand cue the obligatory “It’s the number one killer of domestic cats” line. Ugh. Again, STONE-FACED.
— What was with Rachel’s odd long pause before saying “Guess who’s got eczema”? It hurt the timing of what was supposed to be a big laugh line (not that it would’ve made me laugh anyway).
— What in the world?!? After Debbie Downer’s line to the cooked turkey at the end of this sketch, the cooked turkey gets up and walks out of the shot (presumably via the use of wires from above or some other kind of trickery). Rachel looks GENUINELY surprised and taken-aback by this (first screencap below), as if this wasn’t a planned part of the sketch, and stifles her laughter, then attempts to do her trademark deadpan Debbie Downer look into the camera as the camera zooms in on her, but she keeps helplessly smirking from what had just happened (second screencap below).

What in the world was all that about? Was the walking-away turkey gag a surprise addition to this sketch on SNL’s part to catch Rachel off-guard and get her to crack up ala the first Debbie Downer sketch? If so, I wonder how the sketch was originally supposed to end.
— The sketch-ending audience applause slightly drowned out whatever Debbie Downer’s one-liner was in the bubble shot of her during the closing title sequence, but knowing these sketches, I doubt the ending line would’ve made me laugh anyway.
STARS: *½


THE AMERICAN TRAINWRECK AWARDS
pitiful celebrities fete their peers

— I recall this being a pretty popular sketch among online SNL fans back when this season originally aired, and it being considered one of the better sketches from this weak season.
— I’m already getting a laugh right from the start, with Amy and Maya’s drunken, stumbly, unintelligible entrance as Anna Nicole Smith and Diana Ross. I usually don’t care for sketches or Update commentaries focused around Maya’s Diana Ross impression, but it’s working in this particular sketch.
— SNL makes yet another meta reference to the Ashlee Simpson SNL incident, a reference that actually receives applause from SNL’s audience during this sketch.
— Seth is cracking me up in his performance as Mickey Rourke.
— In the announcements of the nominees for Male Trainwreck, I got a laugh from President Bush being nominated “for Iraq”.
— Fred’s Tony Danza voice is very funny.
— I like Fred’s Danza mentioning in passing the title to Toby Keith’s song: “It Ain’t Rape If You Know Her”.
— Rob Riggle is always perfect at playing rednecks. He’s both very believable and funny in those roles.
— The ending of this sketch, which spoofs the notorious Ron Artest-involved wild fight from the previous night’s Pacers/Pistons NBA game, was obviously a last-minute addition to this sketch, and was the perfect way to end this.
— Overall, this sketch still works for me and it was definitely fun. It also, in retrospect, provides an interesting time capsule of the year 2004. However, I’m not quite sure I would call this one of the best sketches of this season anymore, but we’ll see when we reach the end of the season.
STARS: ****


TV FUNHOUSE
by RBS- George W. Bush fudges heterosexuality by swapping gays’ minds

— What’s with the odd animation style? Doesn’t look like the usual animation of Smigel’s TV Funhouses AT ALL. Is Smigel using a different animation company tonight?
— This cartoon is doing nothing for me so far, not even the wild, raunchy make-out session between a now-heterosexual Rosie O’Donnell and Richard Simmons.
— Okay, I got a laugh just now from a now-heterosexual Ellen DeGeneres’ deep-voiced delivery to a now-heterosexual Ryan Seacrest of the line “I want you inside me”, even if it was a cheap line.
— This cartoon is getting out of hand, and not in the good way.
— What the holy fuck was with that lame-ass “Bush switches brains with a dog” ending?
— Overall, a rare miss from Smigel around this time period. Between the bad humor and the different-looking animation that I wasn’t digging, this felt so off for Smigel’s standards.
STARS: *½


BEST BUDS
intimacy between old pals (host) & (ROR) creeps out wives (MAR) & (AMP)

— Rob Riggle finally gets his first real lead role in a sketch… and unfortunately, it has to be THIS. A typical bad season 30 homoerotic sketch, where we’re basically told “Haw haw, look at the two guys acting gay-ish with each other!” It also feels redundant seeing this immediately after a bad gay-themed TV Funhouse. Man, what is with season 30’s obsession with hacky gay humor?
— Making this sketch even worse for me is the constant cutaways to a silent Maya and Amy’s put-off facial reactions to Rob and Luke’s homoerotic ways of feeding each other.
— I recall an online SNL fan back at this time saying this sketch felt like a rip-off of a (far superior) season 17 sketch with Dana Carvey and Linda Hamilton romantically feeding each other in a baby-ish manner at a restaurant, only with a homoerotic theme this time. I can see some similarities between the sketches, but I think calling tonight’s sketch a rip-off is a stretch. However, we will be getting a sketch in the very next episode that has always kinda reminded me of a certain OTHER season 17 sketch (one involving Sharon Stone), only with the genders reversed, though I’m not calling that a rip-off either. We’ll see when we get there, though.
— Overall, this was absolutely awful. Not a single laugh from me. What a waste of Rob.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Vertigo”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Arnold Schwarzenegger (DAH) supports amendments to the Constitution

TIF & AMP ignore janitor (MAR) as she empties their wastepaper baskets

kids’ toy Bump-It seems to want AMP to give it a hand job

— Meh, I continue to not care much for Darrell’s weak Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.
— Darrell’s overall Schwarzenegger commentary tonight just came and went with no real laughs from me. Felt like typical snoozeworthy political writing from 2000s-era Jim Downey. At least it wasn’t a cold opening this time.
— Another reference to the previous night’s Pacers/Pistons fight, this time with the use of actual footage of it (with a bizarre, unfunny, and unnecessary voice-over by Amy). This reminds me that, IIRC, there was an Update commentary cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal, which had Finesse as Ron Artest and Kenan as Artest’s publicist both addressing the previous night’s Pacers/Pistons fight. Jason Sudeikis, still just an SNL writer at this point and not yet a cast member, had a brief walk-on during this commentary as a passerby, who then gets pummeled by Finesse’s Artest.
— Ugh, why did Amy feel the need to explain the joke of the doctored photo of David Lee Roth as an EMT, as if we couldn’t see for ourselves what was going on in the picture? A comedian explaining their own joke is always a comedy sin.
— The whole raunchy bit with the Forte-voiced “Bump It” toy is absolutely priceless.
— This is the third episode in a row with a solid Fred Armisen commentary on Update (even if this one tonight is barely a Fred commentary, given the fact that it focuses far more on Amy and the “Bump It” toy). Fred has been on fire lately. Of this season’s cast, Fred and Will were who I considered at the time this season originally aired to be the only two consistently-reliable saving graces in this weak season, especially when it came to Update commentaries.
STARS: **½


COOLEST TEACHER AT BENTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL
(host) threatens (SEM)’s claim as Coolest Teacher At Benton Township H.S.

— An amusing separate opening title sequence and theme song for Seth and Luke’s cool teacher characters respectively.
— Horatio rebelliously throwing his desk out the window made me laugh out loud.
— Aaaaaaaand there goes Horatio’s obligatory cracking up at himself, even causing Seth in turn to crack up.
— Funny reveal of Horatio’s high school student character being old enough to drink.
— What’s with Seth’s terrible acting when he starts getting emotional and teary-eyed after the students have turned on him?
— Another pre-cast member Sudeikis walk-on! And J.B. Smoove! Together! (the last two above screencaps for this sketch)
— Great twist with Luke’s character turning out to be an old, mean teacher in disguise.
— I like the ending exchange between Amy and Seth’s characters, with Amy asking Seth “Are you still gonna take me to get my abortion?” and Seth responding, while smiling into the camera, “With a smile on my face.”
— An overall very solid sketch for this season’s standards, despite a few minor flaws.
STARS: ****


THE FALCONER
Donald & dog attend state fair while The Falconer & (host) are trapped

— This sketch makes its first appearance in an entire year.
— I like the opening bit with The Falconer unintentionally making rock star puns when talking about the rocks he’s buried in.
— I love The Falconer’s stretched-out yell of “NOOOOOO!!! MOOOOOOORE ROOOOCCCKS!!!” during stock footage of a rock avalanche, which seems to be Will comically vamping for time while SNL crew members cover Luke in rocks off-camera.
— A good twist on the usual “Donald the Falcon flies off and has fun somewhere when he’s supposed to be getting The Falconer some help” aspect of these sketches, with Donald being accompanied by a dog this time.
— Solid bit with Donald and the dog communicating with each other in animal sounds, translated by text on the bottom of the screen.
— Very entertaining montage of Donald and the dog’s wild adventures together at the state fair.
— A good laugh from the part with the dog licking up Donald’s vomit.
— This sketch has now hilariously gone off the rails, when the dog doesn’t follow his cue to hand Luke the dynamite stick he’s holding in his mouth, and instead aimlessly wanders around the sketch’s set (at one point even stopping briefly to sniff the falcon puppet that Will is holding) while Luke desperately keeps trying to get the dog to hand him the dynamite stick, all the while Will unsuccessfully tries to keep the sketch going by delivering the mock-dramatic speech his Falconer character is supposed to deliver, which can’t even be heard due to the audience’s laughter at the dog’s antics. A hilarious mess. Probably one of my all-time favorite animal bloopers on SNL.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own”


BUSINESS TRIP
as (host), (SEM), (KET) get sozzled, their patter recurs & escalates

— I absolutely love the progression to this, with a drunk Luke, Seth, and Kenan repeating the exact same conversation over and over as they get increasingly drunker, only the wording in their repeated conversation each time gets increasingly brash and inappropriate. A creative and very fun structure to this sketch, and it comes off especially refreshing in a weak season like this.
— A great loud outburst from Seth of the random line “WE PLAYED SPORTS!!!!”
— I’m six episodes into this season, and I gotta say, I’m not finding Seth to be quite the irksomely bland performer we got shoved down our throats that I recall him being this season. Even though I still don’t feel he was ever meant to carry SNL on his back as the show’s star like the show seemingly tries to get him to do this season in light of Jimmy Fallon’s departure, I’ve been finding myself enjoying quite a number of Seth’s performances so far this season, including this sketch.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS
musical guest performs “I Will Follow”

— Right out of the gate, we see an interesting deviation from the usual goodnights, with the out-of-the-ordinary set up of the cast standing behind Luke and Bono both seated on the floor at the front of the home base stage.
— Now Bono has gone over to the musical guest stage, leading to a third U2 performance tonight. Awesome.
— Ah, halfway through the performance, there goes Bono up to his old tricks from U2’s last SNL appearance in season 26, in which he freely wanders off the stage and around the studio while still singing. This is always a blast to see.
— Wow. Now we get a still-singing Bono practically giving a random female audience member in the front row a lapdance. Judging from the woman’s very emotional joy during this, you can tell this is truly a moment she’ll cherish for the rest of her life. This is touching to watch.
— Now a still-singing Bono has gone over to the SNL cast on the home base stage, and you can tell the cast is absolutely loving this performance. It’s great to see their genuine reactions here. Bono then hugs an absolutely hysterical Amy Poehler, bringing her to tears. These goodnights cannot get any more epic.
— Just now, at the end of the song U2’s performing, Bono adds in a poignant utterance of “Saturday Night Live, live, live, live.” I’ve seen some online SNL fans back at this time theorize that Bono’s very heavy emphasis of the word “live” is his way of referencing the then-recent Ashlee Simpson SNL incident and telling us that, unlike her, HE’S actually performing live.
— While the audience is applauding after U2’s performance has finished, Bono exclaims “One more! One more!”, and the audience goes WILD. You can then hear music for the next song start up right as the show-ending Broadway Video and SNL Studios production logos appear, meaning we home viewers don’t get to see this impromptu fourth U2 performance.
— Overall, absolutely freakin’ amazing goodnights.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— It’s easy to let the epic U2 goodnights cloud my judgment and give this episode more credit than it deserves. In fact, it’s easy to let the entire post-Weekend Update half of the show cloud my judgment and give this episode more credit than it deserves. As strong as all of the sketches in the post-Update half were, and as amazing as those goodnights were, I can’t ignore the fact that the pre-Update half of the show had A LOT of duds. Aside from the fun American Trainwreck Awards sketch and the okay-but-a-little-forgettable cold opening, I didn’t like ANYTHING in the pre-Update half of the show. And I wasn’t crazy about Update itself either (minus the great “Bump It” segment), as usual in the Fey/Poehler era. A very bipolar episode, in which almost everything was either really great or really terrible; no middle ground. (Kinda reminiscent of the Brittany Murphy episode from season 28.) Still, the combo of the American Trainwreck Awards, the great “Bump It” Update segment, the post-Update streak of strong sketches, and those epic goodnights all add up to an overall enjoyable-though-extremely-uneven episode, making this the first episode all season that I actually liked. Sad that it took THIS long for season 30 to have their first good episode, and even sadder that their first good episode is still as spotty as this.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Liam Neeson)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Colin Farrell

Posted on

November 13, 2004 – Liam Neeson / Modest Mouse (S30 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

CONGRATULATORY CALL
victorious George W. Bush (WLF) covets John Kerry’s (SEM) carefree life

— Already a laugh right from the very beginning of this, with the funny way Will’s President Bush says “Thanks, Ashley” to his secretary, pronouncing “Ashley” in a smug, laid-back manner (“Ash-lehhh”). It’s so many little things like that which make Will’s Bush impression enjoyable.
— I continue to not care for Maya’s take on Teresa Heinz-Kerry, but at least she didn’t break out into a random, unnecessary song this time.
— A mildly amusing surprise appearance from Darrell’s Al Gore.
— What’s with the occasional awkward long pauses between Will and Seth’s lines to each other?
— Overall, this was pretty meh, and kinda dead at some points. Completely forgettable as a whole.
STARS: **


MONOLOGUE
castmembers echo host’s vow not to allow stereotypes into the show

— A big laugh from when, immediately after declaring he won’t be playing any unflattering stereotypical black roles, a smiley Finesse continues with “…and that’s why this is the only time you’ll see me on the show tonight.” I like that self-deprecating dig at how utterly TERRIBLE Finesse’s airtime has been so far this season. Aside from the Queen Latifah episode, he’s gotten absolutely NOTHING to do this season so far (and even with the Latifah episode, it’s obvious that the only reason Finesse was used so much that night is because a black woman was hosting). He appeared as a freakin’ background extra with no lines in a Tony Blair press conference sketch from the Jude Law episode, and was completely absent from the other two episodes this season (Ben Affleck and Kate Winslet). This is Dean Edwards levels of under-utilization.
— Horatio’s brief appearance as himself here ends up being his ONLY appearance all night. Hallelujah to that. And he was actually tolerable here, playing it straight and low-key.
— Yikes, Liam Neeson’s delivery of that Tiger Woods joke was pretty awful, causing it to receive a very uncomfortably tepid audience reaction.
— Always feels weird at this point of Darrell’s run to see him play himself. He seems a little looser here than he typically comes off when playing himself.
— Judging from how he’s dressed, the nameless Native American character that Fred appears very briefly as seems to actually be Fred’s Billy Smith character, the Native American stand-up comedian character Fred has done on Weekend Update.
— Always fun to spot a Jason Sudeikis sighting in his pre-cast member days where he was an SNL writer (the second-to-last screencap for this monologue). We’ll be seeing him pop up as an extra in quite a number of sketches and monologues this season before SNL adds him to the cast in the homestretch of this season.
— Speaking of SNL writers who are always a welcome sight, John Lutz is always particularly funny whenever he plays a character who gets randomly insulted by someone, like he does in this monologue.
STARS: ***


PRE-WEDDING NIGHT
on the eve of her wedding, Star Jones (KET) takes phone calls

— OH, GOD. I mentioned in my review of the Paparazzi sketch from the preceding season’s Jennifer Aniston episode that the particularly heavy and annoying focus this 2003-2005 period of SNL does on pop culture and celebrity gossip reaches a nadir when they eventually place a sketch about freakin’ Star Jones’ wedding, of all things, as the big lead-off sketch of an episode. Well, here we are at that episode.
— It is kinda refreshing, though, to see the underused Kenan and VERY underused Finesse both starring in the lead-off sketch of an episode.
— Kenan-as-Star-Jones’ deep-voiced angry outburst when the phone first rings seems to be a follow-up to the Chris-Farley-esque deep-voiced outburst Kenan’s Star Jones had at the end of a sketch from the preceding season’s Donald Trump episode.
— Feels odd seeing Maya’s Liza Minnelli impression without Chris Kattan’s David Gest. She also, for some reason, seems to be speaking in a much froggier-sounding voice than she did in her previous Liza Minnelli appearances. It’s quite annoying.
— Rachel’s Barbara Walters, on the other hand, is an impression that always works for me.
— WTF? Liam Neeson as Sean Connery?!? Isn’t Darrell still in the building tonight?
— Seeing a Barbara Walters and Sean Connery portrayal as part of a split-screen sex-related late night phone conversation with Star Jones reminds me of the cold opening from the season 24 Ray Romano episode, where, at one point, we see a split-screen phone sex conversation between Cheri Oteri’s Barbara Walters and Darrell’s Sean Connery.
— Okay, they are overdoing THE HELL out of Kenan’s deep-voiced angry outbursts every time the phone rings. It stopped being funny after the first time. They seem to be relying heavily on it to mask the lack of any actual funny material during the scenes with Star and her closeted husband.
— Another SNL writer who’s always a welcome sight: J.B. Smoove!
— Damn, it turns out that not even J.B. Smoove can save this weak sketch. His scene sadly fell flat. This sketch is a bust.
STARS: *½


YOU CALL THIS A HOUSE DO YA?
squalid Irish home receives a makeover

— I remember when this episode originally aired, the RTE 2 station identification at the beginning of this sketch made me initially think SNL was strangely going to attempt a Top O’ The Morning sketch WITHOUT Jimmy Fallon, given the fact that those Top O’ The Morning sketches always opened with the exact same RTE 2 station identification, right down to the exact same quivery Irish-accented voice-over from Steve Higgins. This turns out to be a new Irish TV show sketch starring Seth.
— I like the idea of this sketch’s concept, and it’s a decent way to parody the craze of home makeover shows from this time period.
— The fast-motion renovation scene is hilarious.
— I’m enjoying the wild ending fight in the background between Liam and Rob while Seth is wrapping up the show.
STARS: ***½


DR. PORKENHEIMER’S BONER JUICE
— Rerun from 10/2/04.
— The ending from the original airing of this commercial, in which we see Rob “pitching a tent” under the bedsheets while Amy says to the camera “My guy? Yeah, he’s happy with his boner”, has been completely re-edited to now show Amy saying that line while Rob is simply standing behind her with his arm lovingly around her.

In other words, the original ending bit with Rob “pitching a tent” has been replaced with a much tamer and non-comedic bit. Did somebody at NBC complain about the “pitching a tent” visual being too risque?


PARROT
(host)’s date with Phoebe (RAD) is disrupted by her large parrot (FRA)

— I remember absolutely LOVING this sketch back in 2004 when it originally aired, back in the days when Fred could do no wrong for me.
— Fred is so spot-on and funny in his imitation of a parrot.
— Even the bird poop ending made me laugh.
— Overall, a pretty fun sketch, but to be honest, I don’t find this anywhere NEAR as classic as I used to. The writing for this sketch seemed pretty thin after a while, but Fred’s performance made this sketch work.
STARS: ***½


WAKE UP SAN DIEGO
theme music entrances presenters (host) & (MAR)

— There goes Maya doing that lean-all-the-way-back-in-a-staccato-manner dance move in YET ANOTHER sketch. I lost count of the number of sketches she’s done it in over the years, but the point I want to make is, it was only funny to me the first time, in that MTV Spring Break sketch from season 27.
— I got a minor laugh from Maya’s casual passing mention of having been through an identity theft and kidnapping.
— Blah, I see where this sketch is going (Maya and Liam constantly getting up and dancing to EVERY instrumental that plays on the show), and I don’t like it. This feels like the type of Maya Rudolph/James Anderson collaboration piece that I typically never like. (If I’m correct about Anderson being the writer behind this sketch, then I bet if he had done this sketch nowadays, he would’ve had Cecily Strong in Maya’s role. And I typically dislike the collaboration pieces Cecily often does with Anderson as well.)
— Much like the constant dancing, Maya and Liam constantly asking Chris as the stage manager what song just played is also not working for me. I did kinda get a laugh, though, from one of Chris’ answers, about one of the instrumentals being from a Starbucks CD.
— Overall, this sketch got almost no laughs from me.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Float On”


WEEKEND UPDATE
John Ashcroft (DAH) rues failure to implement more unconstitutional ideas

TIF & AMP use Barbie dolls to re-create Tara Reid’s wardrobe malfunction

college student (SEM) makes excuses for missing presidential election

TIF & AMP perform their critically-panned song “The Party’s Cancelled”

deaf comic Ritchie B’s (FRA) interpreter (KET) nixes jokes about blacks

— Darrell’s John Ashcroft impression hasn’t appeared in years. Hell, Will Ferrell was still on the show regularly playing Bush the last time Darrell’s Ashcroft appeared, just to show you how long it’s been.
— Darrell’s Ashcroft commentary started slow, but his list of ideas is getting funnier the more absurd it’s getting.
— Uh-oh. We get our first of a few instances throughout the Fey/Poehler era in which Tina and Amy both use freakin’ Barbie dolls to re-enact an entire news story, which irked some online SNL fans during these years, including myself. My complaint about these Fey/Poehler Barbie bits, besides the fact that I don’t find them remotely funny, is that they seem too “inside” for my likes, as if they’re just an excuse for Tina and Amy to freely and childishly goof around with each other on the air with the use of Barbie dolls under the guise of a news story re-enactment, and try to amuse themselves more than the audience, even though, yes, the audience seems to be enjoying tonight’s Barbie piece, and yes, I’m well aware there are viewers who would enjoy this too. This type of stuff just isn’t for me, though, and I know I am not alone.
— Seth attempts a new character.
— As I mentioned in my review of Seth’s Update commentary as himself from the season 28 Nia Vardalos episode, his Update character in tonight’s episode feels like a variation of an Update commentary Will Ferrell once did as a fratboy giving his thoughts on the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, only Seth isn’t as good at pulling off this type of character as Ferrell was. As I also mentioned in the afore-linked review, Seth’s Update commentary from that episode briefly mentions a quarterback at his old high school named Doug Stradley, which happens to be the name of the fratboy character Seth is playing in tonight’s Update commentary.
— Yikes, a lot of Tina and Amy’s jokes tonight are fucking awful, even moreso than usual. That Special Olympics Robbery joke from Amy just now was particularly lame.
— Oh, geez. ANOTHER side segment with Tina and Amy tonight, with them now breaking out into a party song. Ugh, this bit is awful, pointless, and, much like the Barbie dolls bit, too self-indulgent for my likes.
— Fred debuts his newest of many Update stand-up comedian characters.
— I wonder if Fred’s sign language throughout this commentary is real. Probably not, but he’s doing such a great job of making it look real. Kinda like how Bill Hader can make his Italian gibberish in the Vinny Vedecci sketches sound real.
— Kenan’s taken-aback reaction to Fred’s racist joke about Adam and Eve not being black is very funny.
— This character from Fred is great, and Kenan is a perfect foil here.
— Overall, this was the second episode in a row with an unusually long and jam-packed Update. I remember around the time tonight’s episode originally aired, an online SNL fan who, much like me, didn’t like the Fey/Poehler era of Update, had a theory that SNL themselves weren’t happy with the way the Fey/Poehler Updates had been going this season so far, and this online SNL fan’s evidence of that was the fact that SNL started “frontloading” episodes around this time (“frontloading” meaning when a majority of the sketches in an episode are placed in the pre-Update half, causing Update to be buried in a later timeslot than usual) and also started padding Update with a large and lengthy amount of guest commentaries in an apparent attempt to mask the awfulness of Tina and Amy’s jokes (this is the same method Dick Ebersol previously used in the second half of season 7 to mask how terrible the anchors’ jokes were on Update, or SNL Newsbreak as it was called that season). As much as I’d like to think that people at SNL were indeed of the opinion that the new Fey/Poehler era of Update was really not working and needed some serious help, I highly doubt it. I’m sure Lorne was fully aware that the media and general SNL audience were eating up the Fey/Poehler Update duo. I seem to be in a small minority of SNL fans who feel that the Fey/Poehler era of Update is terrible.
STARS: **


APPALACHIAN EMERGENCY ROOM
bumpkins explain origins of medical crises

— I recall hearing that the Ben Affleck episode from earlier this season attempted a variation of Appalachian Emergency Room, called Appalachian Police Station, but it got cut after dress rehearsal.
— Wow, not even Amy’s usual hilarious delivery of her exit line got much laughs from tonight’s audience. I’d like to think the preceding terrible Weekend Update killed the energy of tonight’s audience, but again, I know that’s not true.
— Ha, I absolutely LOVE Rob’s look as a redneck. He’s also doing a great redneck voice to go along with it.
— Hmm, much like Amy’s exit line earlier in this sketch, the ending of Rob and Liam’s scene surprisingly received complete silence from the audience.
— What’s with Seth flubbing his greeting to Chris’ character?
— Wow, it turns out the audience is absolutely dead during this ENTIRE sketch. There is little-to-no reaction from them during ALL of this sketch’s gags (“Rightfully so”, I’m sure any of you readers who don’t like these sketches are thinking to yourselves), which is unusual compared to how responsive SNL’s audiences were in previous Appalachian Emergency Room installments. Maybe tonight’s Weekend Update really did kill the crowd’s energy after all.
— Okay, Chris’ car alarm trick (where he manages to activate his car’s alarm with the car keys stuck up his rectum by just simply moving his body in a certain way) woke the dead audience up for a moment.
— Overall, I usually like Appalachian Emergency Room, but tonight’s installment felt off, and not just because of the dead audience.
STARS: **


DRUG-SNIFFING DOG
stoner (host) tries to persuade cop (CHP) to loan him a drug-sniffing dog

— Given the tidbit I just shared about a cut-after-dress Appalachian Emergency Room variation that was set at a police station, it’s funny how the sketch that immediately follows tonight’s Appalachian Emergency Room sketch is a sketch that takes place at a police station.
— I already like this premise, with Liam’s harebrained scheme to borrow a police station’s drug-sniffing dog to find his lost weed at home.
— So many funny lines from Liam in his various absurd made-up stories, especially the one about his son not wanting any cops at their house because he watched footage of the Rodney King beating on A&E.
— In the past (as seen here in the original 2004 review I did for this episode back when it first aired), I felt that Liam’s wooden-ness dragged this sketch down, but I can appreciate his very low-key energy more now, even though I can’t help but kinda wonder if another host would’ve brought a little more to Liam’s role in this sketch.
— Chris, as always, is absolutely perfect as a deadpan straight man.
— Wow, it feels like Kenan has appeared in almost EVERY single sketch tonight. I’m pretty happy for him, after how very underused he was in the first three episodes of this season.
— The little kid running around the characters seated on the couch reminds me of Amy’s Kaitlin character whenever she runs around in circles repeatedly shouting “Rick!”
— Good ending.
— Overall, not only was this a solid sketch and not only was there something about it that felt refreshingly different for this SNL period, but this will probably end up standing out as one of the best sketches of this overall weak season.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ocean Breathes Salty”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— This episode was a bit on the forgettable side, despite a solid 10-to-1 sketch, a fairly fun Irish home makeover sketch, and two memorable and well-liked-among-SNL-fans-back-in-2004 Fred Armisen pieces (Parrot, deaf comedian). There was just too much typical season 30 badness surrounding those positive aspects of this episode. I hate to say it, but my god, this young season is now 0-for-5 so far in episodes that I like. This is insane. In all 30 seasons I’ve covered so far in this SNL project of mine, I have never dealt with a season starting off with THIS long of a losing streak until now.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kate Winslet)
a mild step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Luke Wilson / U2

Posted on

October 30, 2004 – Kate Winslet / Eminem (S30 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

OSAMA’S ADDRESS
undecided voter Osama bin Laden (SEM) considers USA presidential election

— OH, GOD. Not another damn translator cold opening. Is it season 28 again?
— Pretty funny disclosure from Seth’s Osama Bin Laden about him being hunted down by the John Kerry campaign to register as an American voter.
— Good line about Michael Moore.
— A few dead spots for me here.
— Not sure how to react to the bit with Seth’s Osama admitting he would physically beat the hell out of Teresa Heinz-Kerry if she were his wife, which the audience actually applauds.
— SNL makes their obligatory meta reference to the preceding episode’s infamous Ashlee Simpson incident, with Seth’s Osama ranting to America about “your lip-synching pop stars.”
— Overall, surprisingly not bad for a translator cold opening.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
host sings “Pick Yourself Up” & tap dances to prove she’s no lip-syncer

— Our second meta reference to the Ashlee Simpson incident.
— OH, GOD. Two episodes in a row with a song-and-dance monologue?!?
— At least there’s no typical use of SNL cast members as backup dancers, like we usually get in song-and-dance monologues.
— What a complete bore this monologue is. While I want to find a charm to this monologue, it’s not working for me AT ALL. Maybe it would work if this hadn’t come one episode after we just GOT a damn song-and-dance monologue (and frankly, the last one was a little better).
— I recall hearing that Kate would later disclose in an interview that she hated doing this monologue, which, if true, makes me like this monologue even less (if that’s possible).
STARS: *


RAP NIGHT WITH CHUBB HOTTY
obese rapper Chubb Hotty (HOS) in duet with Norah Jones (host)

— OH, GOD. The debut of a horrible short-lived Horatio Sanz recurring sketch. IIRC, this recurring sketch is going to be pure torture, and a quintessential display of season 30’s shittiness. Oh, and let me just ask: Really, SNL? You’re placing THIS as the lead-off sketch of the night? Ooh, this is gonna be a LOOOONNNNG episode, isn’t it?
— Believe it or not, this is actually a character that Horatio tried to get on the air many years earlier. Chubb Hotty was originally supposed to debut in the John Goodman episode from way back in season 24, which was Horatio’s first season. The Chubb Hotty sketch written for that episode was going to be some kind of MTV “behind the music”-type special on Chubb, but the sketch ended up not making it to the live show.
— Kinda funny to hear the VERY mixed reaction SNL’s studio audience has to Chubb Hotty’s line about the Red Sox winning the World Series. Sadly, that’s most likely going to be the most interesting part of this entire sketch.
— Awful character from Horatio, and this sketch is filled with lots of very hacky fat jokes. This is insufferable. Feels like an even worse variation of that fat acting coach sketch that Horatio did in the preceding season’s Kelly Ripa episode.
— There goes Horatio pulling a Chris Farley once again by doing a pratfall through a breakaway prop. This particular pratfall came off so desperate.
— Kenan’s a great straight man here, and has been the ONLY thing coming close to holding this terrible sketch together.
— As if this sketch hasn’t already been unwatchably hacky enough, now we get a gigantic fart from Horatio’s character. It’s official: I am in hell.
— Aaaaaand there goes Horatio’s obligatory breaking, where he cracks up at himself for no reason. You know what, SNL, just end this fucking sketch already before it finally makes me crumble to pieces.
STARS: *


MRS. DR. FRANKENSTEIN
creation (FRA) of husband-seeking Mrs. Dr. Frankenstein (host) is gay

— OH, GOD. (Has literally every single sketch tonight so far made me start off by saying “OH, GOD”?) Not only is this one of a COUNTLESS number of bad homoerotic sketches this season, but it’s our very first of an also-countless number of a specific type of homoerotic sketch this season where the entire premise is just “What would it be like if (insert whoever here, like Frankenstein, Jeff Foxworthy, a spaceship crew, etc.) acted like a gay stereotype?” This stuff on SNL was considered very hacky even back at this time in 2004/2005, but it comes off particularly groanworthy in our current age of LGBT acceptance.
— Oh, no. And now here comes a fucking musical number from Fred’s Gay Frankenstein.
— Ugh at Kate’s “I made a homo” line.
— Even the audience has stopped laughing by this point of the sketch.
— Overall, not a single laugh from me at any point during this sketch, making this the third consecutive horrible segment in tonight’s episode. We’re only 20 minutes into this episode, and it’s ALREADY destroying me.
STARS: *


TV FUNHOUSE
“Fun With Real Audio” by RBS- John McCain labors to laud George W. Bush

— Please save me from the hell that is this episode, Smigel.
— Some laughs from John McCain’s secret frustration over having to laud President Bush at a rally.
— Good little bit with McCain’s dog being so disgusted by him that he spits on him.
— A hilarious Apocalypse Now-esque turn right now.
— What was with that lame-ass hokey ending, with McCain just saying “This is tougher than I thought.” THAT was the best ending Smigel could up with?
STARS: ***


CAMPAIGN STOP
at a campaign rally, Bill Clinton (DAH) overshadows John Kerry (SEM)

— There’s almost a “So bad, it’s good” quality to Will’s attempt at a Bruce Springsteen impression.
— I love the bit with Darrell’s Bill Clinton borrowing Clarence Clemons’ sax to impress the crowd at the John Kerry rally.
— Decent part with Darrell’s Clinton repeatedly putting his trademark thumbs-up in and out of the door to demonstrate to Seth’s John Kerry how much the crowd outside the door loves him.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Mosh”


WEEKEND UPDATE
AMP gives her takes on singers’ reactions to Ashlee Simpson’s lip-syncing

SEM is thrilled that the Red Sox won the World Series; Johnny Damon cameo

WLF belts out a song about strange Halloween memories from his youth

newly-naturalized citizen Diego (FRA) explores Democracy Plaza

Elton John (HOS) slams Ashlee Simpson with “Tiny Dancer” variant

— Our THIRD meta reference to the Ashlee Simpson incident.
— Even though I rarely like it whenever Amy does a “bit” during the Fey/Poehler era of Update, I’m actually kinda impressed by her rapid-fire string of comical impressions of various singers during her “famous singers react to the Ashlee Simpson SNL incident” joke, including some singers who Amy has played on SNL before (Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears). That’s a bit I can picture Jimmy Fallon doing back when he was on the show, given his knack for impressions of celebrities (particularly singers).
— Pretty good Update segment with Seth, keeping up the tradition of his Red Sox fan Update bits.
— I love Tina introducing Will as “resident sex symbol Will Forte”.
— Yes! We get the debut of Will doing an Update song as himself, which would go on to be a recurring thing throughout his SNL tenure, and has always been among my many favorite things Will has done on SNL.
— Will’s bizarre, hard-to-follow Halloween song is absolutely HILARIOUS. I am loving this.
— Hmm, according to a news story from Tina, Halloween masks have predicted the outcome of the last six presidential elections (as of 2004), then Tina says that this year, Bush masks have been the winner. That ended up being another accurate prediction of who would win that year’s election. Makes me wonder if Halloween masks also correctly predicted the outcome of the later 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections.
— Fred debuts a new Update character that ends up never becoming recurring, even though he kinda seemed set up to become recurring.
— Even though, on the surface, this kinda feels like a standard Hispanic Fred Armisen role, I’m really enjoying this character. Like I say about some of the stuff Fred has done in these early seasons of his, this character has a good Andy Kaufman vibe (e.g. Foreign Man), and this pre-taped format with him at Democracy Plaza is a fun use of him. This pre-tape also feels like a throwback to man-on-the-street comedy bits Fred was known for doing as various characters before he joined SNL.
— Amy’s Daylight Savings Time joke was particularly weak, even for her standards.
— WTF? Horatio’s goddamn Elton John impression in ANOTHER Update commentary, just a few episodes after he already did an Update commentary? What did I do to deserve this punishment?
— Ugh at the obligatory lame gay sex joke early on in this Elton John commentary. Yeah, we get it. Elton John is openly gay.
— Our FOURTH meta reference to the Ashlee Simpson incident.
— I remember how this Horatio-as-Elton-John “Ashlee Simpson, you’re a phony” song bothered some people at the time, who felt SNL was pushing it and going a little too far in their Ashlee-bashing tonight.
— At least Horatio’s Elton John song tonight ended up being pretty short.
— Overall, was this a season 30 Weekend Update I watched, or was it a season 7 SNL Newsbreak? This Update was JAM-PACKED and felt never-ending. Too bad the Fey/Poehler portions are still mostly tepid to me (which is yet another similarity tonight’s Update has to season 7’s SNL Newsbreaks, even if I don’t find Fey/Poehler quite as dire as the crap that Brian Doyle-Murray et al. regularly churned out at the news desk in season 7). They continue to not work for me as an Update duo.
STARS: **½


MALL
at the mall, Kaitlin has second thoughts about getting her ears pierced

— This sketch has officially become recurring.
— As I said in my review of the first installment of this sketch, I have a much bigger appreciation for these Kaitlin sketches nowadays, after utterly despising these sketches when they originally aired. Back when they originally aired, I (and I’m sure some others) couldn’t look past the annoying, shrieky, and rambly nature of Amy’s Kaitlin character. I can now enjoy these sketches for the realism, slice-of-life, and heart that both Amy’s characterization and these sketches themselves are going for.
— Kate Winslet is very believable in this type of role that I wouldn’t have been able to picture her pulling off before seeing this sketch. By the way, I’m pretty sure this is the first thing I’ve had to say about Kate in any of tonight’s sketches. And believe it or not, this ends up being her LAST sketch appearance all night. She’s not in ANY of the remaining sketches. Geez, she’s gotta be one of the most invisible hosts in then-recent memory. Word has it that she was very nervous about doing the show, which is why SNL used her so little.
— Another nice touch of amusing realism to this sketch is Maya and Rachel as jogging middle-aged women in the background all throughout this sketch.
— The interplay between Kaitlin and Rick in these sketches is always enjoyable, especially whenever she secretly discloses to him that she wants to get out of a situation she’s gotten herself into with someone else, and he tries to get her out of it. There’s something both funny and really sweet about that.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Proof [real] perform “Just Lose It”


GOODWIN WIG & TOY
Halloween-averse Glenda Goodwin has non-scary costumes

— OH, GOD. (Sorry, I just wanted to say that one more time tonight.) Those awful “Second Time Around” sketches from season 28 really soured me on this Glenda Goodwin character. At least they took her out of the “Second Time Around” setting tonight, though.
— This sketch is in a similar vein to the Attorney-At-Law sketch that the Glenda Goodwin character made her debut in, only this one has her advertising a Halloween costume shop.
— Overall, meh. This forgettable sketch just came and went with only a few mild laughs from me. Nothing noteworthy at all in this sketch. The format of this sketch worked better in the aforementioned Attorney-At-Law sketch that Goodwin debuted in.
STARS: **


ELECTORAL MAP
Tim Russert (DAH) & Tom Brokaw (CHP) consider colors for electoral map

— I liked Chris-as-Tom-Brokaw’s line when seeing the flesh tone color used for some of the states: “Now Florida looks like a semi-erect phallus.”
— This sketch is extremely boring. Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert just discussing an electoral map’s colors? How is this supposed to be enjoyable? How did a sketch with this premise even make it on the air? Kinda like the monologue earlier tonight, I want to find a charm to this premise, but nope. Not working for me in the slightest. Maybe in a much better episode, I’d appreciate this sketch’s simplistic, realistic, and dry premise more, whereas in an episode like tonight’s, this sketch is just adding to the episode’s dead feeling.
— Not sure how to feel about that non-ending.
STARS: *½


GOODNIGHTS

— At the very beginning of these goodnights, the camera catches the very end of an odd exchange Kate and Eminem have, where she’s seen asking him an offended-sounding “What?!?” before realizing she’s on the air and then begins her goodnights speech. She had a sly smirk on her face immediately after her offended-sounding “What?!?”, which makes me wonder if her seemingly offended response to whatever Eminem said to her was just playful joking around.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Not a good episode at all. Despite a few things I liked, this episode featured WAY too many flops, some of which are definitely among the worst sketches of this entire season (and considering the poor quality of this season as a whole, that’s saying something). The bad one-two punch of Chubb Hotty and Gay Frankenstein early in this episode was particularly brutal. I remember when this episode originally aired, this was the official point where I started realizing that something was going horribly wrong with this new season. Oh, and for anyone keeping count in my reviews, we’re 0-for-4 in good episodes this season so far, in my opinion. I’m pretty sure this is the first season I’ve reviewed where I went THIS far into it without liking a single episode. (The closest I can think of to this happening before is in season 22, which, while an overall good season, had a pretty rough start with its first three episodes.)


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jude Law)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Liam Neeson

Posted on

October 23, 2004 – Jude Law / Ashlee Simpson (S30 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS
Ed Gillespie (SEM) smiles & Zell Miller (WLF) fumes

— Seth’s overly smiliness as Ed Gillespie is pretty funny.
— Mary Beth Cahill? Okay, I’m assuming that’s a real person Amy is playing, and not just SNL making a very random meta reference to a certain obscure short-lived featured player from season 17.
— Wow, Darrell badly screwed up his Bush/“beer night” joke, but swiftly tried to get a laugh out of the flub by making gibberish sounds.
— Amy’s various crude lesbian euphemisms all throughout this sketch, in regards to Dick Cheney’s daughter, had me howling back in 2004. Not sure how to think about it today, especially considering how BEYOND burned out I’ve become by this SNL era’s overabundance of unflattering gay material that now comes off badly dated and hacky.
— Oh, fuck yeah! Here we go, the debut of Will’s legendary Zell Miller!
— Will’s insane ranting as Zell Miller is absolutely PRICELESS, as is the great visual of Will’s face genuinely turning purple and veiny over the course of his yelling throughout this sketch. Simply classic.
— The “PISTOLS AT DAWN, MATTHEWS!” bit was a fantastic ending to the Zell Miller interview.
STARS: **** (This would’ve just been three stars until Will’s Zell Miller came along and bumped it up a full star. He was THAT good.)


MONOLOGUE
via song, MAR, TIF, RAD, AMP dub host The Most Beautiful Man In The World

— Meh, a song-and-dance monologue.
— I like Rachel’s “I wanna be against the law… Jude Law, that is!” line during the song.
— Another funny Rachel line, with her rhyming the name Jude with “about to be screwed” before getting panickedly cut off by Jude.
— Ashlee Simpson’s appearance here feels kinda awkward to watch in retrospect, given what we now know will be happening with her later in this episode. She actually made two additional sketch appearances in dress rehearsal. I wonder if at least one of those two sketches was scheduled to air late in the live show, but had to get cut after what happens with Ashlee later tonight (we’ll get there, folks).
— I like the song suddenly turning into a sampling of “Hey, Jude”.
— Overall, I wasn’t crazy about this song-and-dance monologue as a whole, but Jude came off fun enough and there were a few good parts during the song.
STARS: **½


GREEN SCREEN
actor (host) is vexed while shooting Sky Captain-ish green screened movie

— When Jude says he’s never worked with a greenscreen before, I like Seth’s director character attempting to calm him down by telling him “And I’ve never worked with live actors before.”
— The fireball part of the movie filming was pretty funny, especially Jude later questioning why he would bite a fireball.
— Seth, when directing Jude on how to act throughout a scene that’s currently being filmed: “Not so gay.” Ugh. Oh, early 2000s SNL and your endless gay jokes…
— Meh at the “These are my street clothes” ending with Will.
STARS: **½


THE DYSON TOILET
James Dyson (FRA) has invented a toilet that doesn’t employ suction

— Fred’s doing a good impression of the guy from the real Dyson commercials.
— This unfortunately continues this season’s theme of low-brow commercials, after stuff like Dr. Porkenheimer’s Boner Juice and Short & Curly.
— I would say this is a unique and funny concept, but this concept feels kinda reminiscent of the Mike Myers-starring Jonathan Pryce toilet commercials from a season 19 episode. I doubt the similarity is intentional, but either way, I feel those Pryce commercials did this concept better.
STARS: **½


NINTH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
George W. Bush (WLF) & John Kerry (SEM) rehash themes in ninth debate

— OH, GOD.
— The fact that SNL buried this debate sketch right in the middle of the show instead of placing it as the cold opening like the first two Bush/Kerry debate sketches probably shows that even SNL has become fully aware of how tepid these Bush/Kerry debate sketches have been.
— I guess SNL calling this the “Ninth Presidential Debate” and treating it as if a whole bunch of wacky antics happened during the third-to-eighth debates (in reality, there have only been three Bush/Kerry debates) is SNL’s way of working around the fact that the REAL third Bush/Kerry debate, which this sketch is parodying, actually aired the previous week when SNL didn’t have a new episode. Instead of spoofing a debate that’s over a week old, SNL just shouldn’t have even bothered with a debate sketch this week. Ain’t like we’re waiting with bated breath over SNL’s take on the third debate anyway, given how hugely disappointing all the other debate sketches have been this season.
— Once again, OH, GOD. We get more cheap jokes tonight about Dick Cheney’s daughter being a lesbian. (And yes, I know that aspect of this particular sketch is referencing the real John Kerry’s mentions of Cheney’s daughter’s lesbianism during the real Bush/Kerry debate. Still, enough is enough.) By the way, has there been a gay joke in EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight so far? I didn’t mention it earlier, but the monologue had one too.
— The audience is getting a much bigger kick out of this sketch than I am. I haven’t had a single laugh yet.
— A particularly groanworthy and lazy part of this sketch right now, with Seth’s John Kerry retelling the famous long-winded urban legend about a construction site mishap.
— I finally got my first laugh of this sketch, from Will-as-Bush’s goofy, over-the-top delivery of “ex-agg-er-a-tions”.
— Ugh, make this sketch end already. I can’t take anymore.
— Mercifully, this has now ended, thus also ending SNL’s run of presidential debate sketches this season. Congratulations, SNL – you’ve dropped the ball with every single debate sketch you’ve done this season. Wow. This is the first election season in SNL history where NONE of the presidential debate sketches were a hit. (Season 22 doesn’t count, for reasons I mentioned in my review of the “debate” cold opening of this episode.) This is especially a shame when considering the reputation SNL has long had for being really “on” when covering elections. What the hell happened this season?!?
STARS: *½


PARIS HILTON APOLOGIZES
Paris Hilton (MAR) apologizes for using the n-word, lists hot black guys

— Blah, a cheap attempt at a laugh by having Jude, of all people, play Nicki Hilton. This casting decision also feels a bit like a possible attempt to imitate another “two famous young singers or socialites deliver an address to the nation together” sketch: the “A Message from Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson” sketch from the preceding season, in which Justin Timberlake dressed in drag to play Jessica Simpson alongside Jimmy Fallon’s Nick Lachey (but at least THAT sketch was actually funny).
— So far, I’ve gotten only one laugh in this sketch: George Hamilton being included as one of the black guys who Paris finds hot.
— Overall, this sketch did almost nothing for me.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pieces Of Me”


WEEKEND UPDATE
ghost of Babe Ruth (HOS) let Boston Red Sox escape Curse Of The Bambino

— Some really weak jokes so far tonight.
— Okay, Tina’s black voters joke just now made me laugh.
— Blah, a Horatio Sanz Weekend Update commentary, which almost always spells doom, even without Jimmy Fallon there anymore to indulge Horatio in his unprofessional antics.
— This Babe Ruth commentary of Horatio’s is painful and completely laughless so far.
— Not even a walk-on from Rachel can save this Horatio commentary.
— Oh, god, and now there goes Horatio cracking up at himself for no reason, AS USUAL. (*sigh*) It really is something how unwatchable this guy has become in these later seasons of his.
— After a more professional performance in the Update from the preceding episode, Amy has unfortunately gone back to her cutesy, silly, giddy persona from her first Update, which is such an ill fit for this format.
— Didn’t care for Tina and Amy’s goofy bit with the bananas.
— Just now, Tina and Amy, together, do a variation of Jimmy Fallon’s recurring “You’re welcome” routine from some of the preceding season’s Updates (in which, during a joke about people receiving STDs, the punchline would be Jimmy looking into a side camera and delivering a sly “You’re welcome”). At the very end of Tina and Amy’s variation of that routine tonight, Tina even slips in a “Hi, Jimmy” into the camera.
STARS: **


BUSH/BLAIR PRESS CONFERENCE
Tony Blair (host) follows George W. Bush’s (WLF) lead at press conference

— Meh, I’m burned out on seeing Will’s Bush tonight after that horrible debate sketch earlier.
— I’m liking the voice Jude is using as Tony Blair.
— Just now, Will’s Bush has repeated his over-the-top delivery of “ex-agg-er-a-tions” from the debate sketch earlier tonight. It was funnier the first time.
— Why has Jude suddenly begun lisping halfway through this sketch?
— I’m enjoying the interplay between Will’s Bush and Jude’s Blair throughout this sketch, and Jude’s performance is fun, but the material itself is kinda washing over me.
— I like Will-as-Bush’s random nicknames to the reporters, such as him calling Rob Riggle’s reporter character “Sasquatch”.
— This sketch has ended without Fred or Finesse getting to do or say ANYTHING at any point during the sketch, even though they can be seen throughout this sketch as two of the reporters (Fred can be seen to Rob’s left in the second-to-last above screencap for this sketch, and Finesse can be seen to Amy’s right in the last above screencap for this sketch). What’s up with that? Why were Fred and Finesse reduced to playing silent background extras in this sketch? Were they just thrown into this sketch at the last minute because SNL felt bad that neither of them had anything else to do tonight? (Sure, Fred starred in that Dyson Toilet commercial, but it was pre-taped. Finesse, on the other hand, has NOTHING tonight, live or pre-taped. After receiving tons of airtime in the preceding episode, I see things have sadly gone back to status quo for Finesse.)
STARS: **½


TRUMP PROMO
Donald Trump (DAH) tapes a Halloween-themed promo for The Apprentice

— The first of several sketches this season with Darrell’s Donald Trump filming a commercial. I recall these sketches being popular among online SNL fans when these originally aired, so it will be interesting to revisit them.
— Darrell’s Trump voice sounds like it’s gotten even more accurate since the preceding season. Maybe working with the real Trump when he hosted in the preceding season (*shudder*) has made Darrell perfect his imitation of Trump’s voice.
— Lots of laughs from so many of the dumb things Darrell’s Trump is doing throughout this. Very fun sketch.
— A lot of SNL’s old Trump material from older seasons such as this one can be hard to laugh at in retrospect nowadays, due to… well, you know. This particular sketch, however, is just good ol’ timeless silliness that still holds up, at least in my opinion.
STARS: ****


JANE EYRE
Jane Eyre’s (RAD) employer Mr. Rochester (host) keeps booty call in attic

— Funny performance from Rachel, who always cracks me up when playing Victorian-era women like this.
— Some funny dialogue here and there, but something about this sketch isn’t fully clicking for me.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest aborts “Pieces Of Me” & walks offstage

— Welp, here we are, folks…
— After a gaffe in which a vocal track from the song that Ashlee Simpson performed earlier tonight, “Pieces Of Me”, has mistakenly begun playing here, exposing Ashlee as lip syncing, Ashlee awkwardly stops dead in her tracks for a long time (the first above screencap for this musical performance), then randomly dances around in a very goofy manner (the second above screencap for this musical performance). After a few seconds of this goofy dancing, she stops, helplessly wanders around the stage a bit while playfully laughing at the whole crazy situation that’s happening, then finally just slowly walks offstage (the third above screencap for this musical performance).
— Now Ashlee’s band, left alone onstage while still playing the instrumental to the song, starts really jamming on their instruments while occasionally looking at each other with awkward smirks (the last above screencap for this musical performance).
— And now a Jude Law SNL bumper photo has abruptly showed up, followed by an unscheduled cut to a commercial break.
— Well, now that that’s over, I just have to say: OH. MY. FREAKIN’. GOD. Wow. Just wow. What a disaster. Never before in SNL history has anything on this level happened.
— As much as I wish I could say I saw this piece of SNL history when it happened live, there’s actually a pretty funny story about that. I did watch this SNL episode while it was airing live, but back in these days, I would always tune out whenever musical performances were on. So during the live airing of tonight’s episode, as soon as I saw Jude Law say “Once again, Ashlee Simpson” and the camera then showed Ashlee onstage doing some bizarre pseudo-rockstar dance moves while her band starting playing, I rolled my eyes at Ashlee and turned away to do stuff on my computer, located next to my TV. Ashlee’s musical performance was mere background noise to me as I was busy on my computer, but then I noticed in the corner of my eye that a Jude Law SNL bumper photo was on the TV screen while instrumental music from Ashlee’s musical performance could still be heard off-camera. I then turned fully towards the TV in confusion and wondered to myself “Why is SNL showing Jude Law’s bumper photo only 40 seconds into this musical performance? Why is instrumental music from the musical performance still playing off-camera? What happened?!?” And then SNL cut to a commercial break, and I was absolutely baffled. I said to myself in my thoughts “What the fuck?!? Were there technical difficulties during the musical performance, and SNL was forced to abort the performance and cut to commercial early? Has that EVER happened in the history of SNL? Hmm, come to think of it, I never heard Ashlee singing while this performance played on the TV as I was on the computer.” Thankfully, I had been recording this episode on my VCR (as I did every week back in this era), and thus, I stopped the VHS tape I was recording this episode on, and then rewinded the tape a little bit to answer my burning question of what the hell could’ve happened during Ashlee’s performance that would warrant SNL cutting it off after only 40 seconds. And as I watched the tape, boy, I will never in my life forget my reaction. I. Was. Absolutely. FLOORED. I could not believe that something like this had just happened on SNL.
— Needless to say, the media and general public’s reaction to this whole Ashlee Simpson incident was HUGE. I remember it being heavily featured on news broadcasts and entertainment shows the next few days, and people on the internet could not stop talking about it. (Just imagine if Twitter was around back then.) Speaking of the internet, after the aforementioned thing where I replayed my VHS tape right after Ashlee’s performance to see what had just happened, I immediately rushed to my computer to go to the (now-defunct) saturday-night-live.com message board, so I could see what everybody was saying about the Ashlee mishap. And, as you could imagine, the message board was absolutely FRENZIED with activity at the moment, as tons of board members were simultaneously posting about the Ashlee incident. In fact, there were so many board members simultaneously posting that it caused the board to crash for a while. (Besides this instance, the only two later instances I can remember in that message board’s long history where the board crashed due to too many board members simultaneously posting about something HUGE that had just occurred on SNL is 1) when Jenny Slate accidentally dropped an f-bomb in her very first episode, and 2) when SNL’s big 40th Anniversary Special was airing.)


BEAR CITY
by T. Sean Shannon- anthropomorphic ursines in a car wreck

— This recurring season 30 piece makes its debut.
— The fact that this is airing immediately after a commercial break shows that SNL must’ve put this on as an emergency after what had just happened with Ashlee Simpson.
— Nice to hear the voice of the great Fred Willard, playing the narrator in the intro sequence of this short.
— I notice the intro sequence of this inaugural Bear City short didn’t include the part where two little kids, who we’re told are the only human survivors on the planet, are attacked by several bears. I guess that part was added into the intro sequence of later Bear City installments.
— I like the detail of one bear giving the other bear an “All Bear Auto Insurance” card after their car accident argument.
— Overall, I actually found this short pretty amusing. I recall absolutely HATING these Bear City shorts when they originally aired, but I can appreciate this type of humor more now. That being said, I have a feeling that these Bear City shorts will come off better left as a one-off instead of a season-long runner. We’ll see. While I have a more open mind about these Bear City shorts nowadays, I can’t help but worry that I’ll do a slow-burn towards them over the course of this season.
STARS: not even sure if these Bear City shorts warrant a rating, but: ***


THE ADVENTURES OF PETER O’TOOLE & MICHAEL CAINE
soused Peter O’Toole (host) & Michael Caine (SEM) are disoriented

— I can already tell from the opening title sequence that this is going to be a fun sketch.
— I love Seth and Jude’s performances as a drunk Michael Caine and Peter O’Toole, randomly treating their visit to this fast-food restaurant as if they’re hosting a talk show.
— Lots of funny odd little talk show segments all throughout this, such as “Guess the Accents”.
— A good laugh from Caine and O’Toole assuming Kenan is Othello.
— Speaking of Kenan, this small role is his first and only appearance all night. His airtime has been pretty bad this season so far.
— Kenan is okay as the straight man here, but I find him to be a much better straight man in more recent years. He still seems a little green to me in this sketch.
— O’Toole ordering a gin-lovers pizza is hilarious.
— Peter O’Toole: “We’d like to thank our sponsors: Walkers Crisps and the planet Mercury.”
— Overall, such a great sketch.
STARS: ****½


BEAR CITY
by T. Sean Shannon- anthropomorphic ursines at the office

— I’m assuming the only reason we’re seeing a SECOND one of these tonight is, again, because the Ashlee mishap threw off the timing of the show so much. I wish I could see what the originally-scheduled live rundown for this episode looked like.
— I’m starting to love that theme song. “Bear City. Bear, Bear City.” Simplistic, but catchy.
— Overall, this made me chuckle, but not quite as much as the first Bear City short.
— At some point this season, I’ll probably stop saying anything about these Bear City shorts, and just give them the Jack Handey treatment (referring to how I usually didn’t review Handey’s Deep Thoughts, Fuzzy Memories, and My Big Thick Novel pieces, nor did I give them a rating), only I guess I’ll actually be giving these a rating, unless someone in the comments section can make a good argument for why I shouldn’t rate these.
STARS: **½


GOODNIGHTS
apologetic musical guest says her band played the wrong song

— For some reason, right after the Jude Law SNL bumper photo that’s shown after the commercial break, instead of SNL going right into the goodnights, SNL shows a “Promotional Services Furnished By Columbia Pictures” screen. (screencap below)

Not sure why they’re showing this promotional screen, unless it’s just because the Ashlee incident left SNL with some unexpected time, so they took this as an opportunity to air a special credit for their promotional services. My memory is fuzzy, but I think the Ellen Page episode from season 33 also has a “Promotional Services Furnished By…” screen shown right before the goodnights, even though, as far as I know, nothing goes wrong in that episode that would leave unexpected extra airtime.
— At the beginning of his goodnights speech, Jude instantly addresses the Ashlee Simpson incident by simply saying “Ladies and gentlemen…what can I say? Live TV.” A mortified and apologetic Ashlee then proceeds to explain to us what went wrong, by blaming her own band for “playing the wrong song” and then telling us she didn’t know what to do, “so I thought I’d do a hoedown.”

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Feels odd summarizing my thoughts on this episode, given how much the Ashlee Simpson incident overshadows everything else. It doesn’t help that a lot of this episode was nothing to write home about anyway, making this young season 0-for-3 in good episodes so far, in my eyes. (Man, even the notorious seasons 6, 11, and 20 had at least one good episode by this point in their seasons.) That being said, most of what DID work in this episode was actually really strong, particularly Trump Promo and The Adventures of Peter O’Toole & Michael Caine, both of which will most likely be going into my end-of-season “Best Of” picks.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Queen Latifah)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Kate Winslet

Posted on

October 9, 2004 – Queen Latifah (S30 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
undecided voters address debaters George W. Bush (WLF) & John Kerry (SEM)

— Hoo, boy. Welp, here’s SNL’s second attempt at a Bush/Kerry debate spoof, after how much of a colossal failure the one from the last episode was.
— After getting so used to seeing Chris play Jim Lehrer in all the debate sketches from season 26 and in the debate sketch from the first episode of this season, it feels odd now seeing him play a different moderator this time (Charles Gibson). Interesting how Chris has become SNL’s resident impersonator of all presidential debate moderators, to the degree that, even four years later during the 2008 elections, which is a few years after Chris’ second firing, SNL would actually bring Chris back in cameos to play the various moderators of all the presidential debate sketches that year (not including the vice presidential debate). I think he would also cameo to play a moderator in one of SNL’s 2012 debate sketches. I’ve always been very conflicted on SNL’s decision to make Chris their resident impersonator of every single presidential debate moderator in 2004 and 2008. Part of me feels that 1) it’s a lazy, one-note, and dull way to use Chris, 2) it typecasts him in an unfortunate way, and 3) it, among many other things, seems to suggest that SNL foolishly doesn’t value Chris much as a comedic performer and instead looks at him as someone who’s more capable of just playing non-comedic straight roles. On the other hand, it shows A LOT of trust and confidence on SNL’s part for them to always give the pretty important role of presidential debate moderator to Chris, even to the degree that they would go out of their way to BRING THE MAN BACK IN CAMEOS years after his second firing to moderate every single one of their 2008 presidential debate sketches (and keep in mind this is years before it became commonplace for presidential sketches to have many cameos).
— Hopefully, the town hall format will add life into THIS debate sketch, and prevent it from being a dud like the debate sketch from the preceding episode.
— I’m two-and-a-half minutes into this cold opening so far, and Will’s performance ALONE is making me like this better than the preceding episode’s debate cold opening. Will is hilarious in this as a very jumpy and defensive Bush.
— Not caring for anything from Seth’s John Kerry in this cold opening so far, especially not the tiring and weak bit with him naming off an endless number of fellow politicians from the military.
— Okay, I’m getting laughs from the bit right now with Seth’s Kerry making really bad puns over how crooked Bush is.
— I love the camera cutting to SNL writer John Lutz as a puzzled guy in the town hall audience when Seth’s Kerry points towards him and says “Maybe this fat guy right there.” A Lutz sighting on SNL is always a plus.
— Will’s Bush and some of his dialogue continue to crack me up throughout this cold opening.
— I love Will’s delivery of “Heh, need some wood?”, even though it’s just a verbatim quote from Bush in the real debate that this cold opening is spoofing.
— When Will’s Bush asks SNL writer Paula Pell “That answer your question?” after giving her a particularly nonsensical answer, I like Chris’ Charles Gibson saying a very deadpan “No, it doesn’t.”
— Okay, they’re starting to focus WAY too much on Bush’s sarcastic “Apparently, I own a timber company” thing. It’s not getting much laughs anymore. However, it’s still not as annoying as hearing “We’re workin’ haaaaarrrrrrrd” 10,000 fucking times in the last debate sketch.
— The audience loved Seth-as-Kerry’s “I’m going to keep talking. You know why? Because I…can’t…help…myself.” line, but it did nothing for me.
— This overall cold opening clocked in at 10 minutes. Three minutes shorter than the insufferable debate cold opening from the preceding episode, but still quite long. However, this debate cold opening as a whole was a mild improvement over the last one. Some of the Bush stuff was actually pretty good and Will gave a very solid and funny Bush performance here, but, much like the preceding debate spoof, SNL’s Kerry material still leaves A LOT to be desired and this overall debate spoof failed to provide ANY of the type of memorable, legendary moments that all of SNL’s best debate spoofs have.
STARS: **½


MONOLOGUE
host performs “Take The A Train” with Scat Cats HOS, MAR, FRA, WLF

— A random but funny “Clean Yo Teefah” toothpaste endorsement joke from Queen Latifah.
— A rare instance of SNL Band saxophonist Lenny Pickett getting to speak a line, even though he wasn’t shown onscreen during his line in this monologue.
— Horatio’s silly scatting reminds me a lot of the silly scatting he did in Jack Black’s monologue from the preceding season.
— Not caring for this monologue. How SNL went from Latifah’s great monologue from her season 28 episode to THIS monologue is beyond me.
— I did get a chuckle just now when the music stopped to a comically abrupt halt as Latifah bluntly tells the Scat Cats she doesn’t want to be in their group.
STARS: **


SHORT & CURLY
Short & Curly pubic hair shampoo draws groin attention in the locker room

 

— A big laugh from Will’s delivery of the line “Greg, your pubes look FANTASTIC!”
— Good reveal of the Short & Curly pubic hair shampoo product.
— After the initial big laugh from the shampoo product reveal, the appeal of this commercial is wearing off for me, as it’s now just relying on shock value with all the blurred-out groins of the casually-nude male cast members. This shock value isn’t even being executed in a particularly funny way like a stronger SNL era could’ve done. And considering we already had a lame low-brow commercial in the last episode (Dr. Porkenheimer’s Boner Juice), is it too much to ask for an SNL commercial this season that DOESN’T rely on cheap shock humor (not counting Swift Boat Veterans For Truth from the preceding episode, as that was just a topical, one-time commercial, not a traditional SNL commercial)? Another early harbinger of how weak and cheap this season’s writing in general will be.
— Finesse Mitchell makes his very first appearance of this season brazenly removing his towel and exposing his allegedly well-endowed self (blurred out, of course). I guess that certainly counts as making a splash in your first appearance in a new SNL season. (Neither Finesse nor Kenan were anywhere to be seen in the preceding week’s season premiere. Kinda insane that both of SNL’s only two black male cast members would be shut out of a season premiere.)
STARS: **


PRINCE SHOW
Patti LaBelle (host) & Sharon Stone (AMP) claver

— Can’t say I’m excited to see this back for a third time, as this is the type of sketch that’s funny and unique in its debut, then gradually diminishes both in quality and novelty with each passing installment, due to how formulaic it is.
— Yep, just as I was worried, I see that the novelty of these Prince sketches has officially worn off. Feels like if you’ve seen one installment of this sketch, you’ve seen them all.
— Good to see the return of Amy’s pretentiously-wordy Sharon Stone impression, just because of how much I liked it in the preceding season’s Megan Mullally episode.
— Latifah’s Patti LaBelle doing an over-the-top pratfall off of the carousel horse felt too desperate for a laugh. I recall an online SNL fan from back at this time in 2004 saying that portion of this sketch came off so hacky that he almost wondered if he accidentally turned the channel to “All That” on Nickelodeon.
— I like the little detail of Prince’s purple pillows having purple feathers inside of them when he’s tearing the pillows apart during his “tantrum”.
STARS: **½


EXCEDRIN FOR RACIAL TENSION HEADACHES
Excedrin for Racial Tension Headaches curbs (host)’s ignorant co-workers

— Some well-done, pointed racial humor here.
— Great reveal of the Excedrin For Racial Tension Headaches medication.
— Latifah: “Excedrin RT works fast. Takin’ me from ‘Oh, no, you di-n’t’ to ‘I wish the mother(*bleep*) would’.”
— Overall, now THIS was a good commercial, and sure beats the low-brow, shock value Dr. Porkenheimer’s Boner Juice and Short & Curly.
STARS: ****


VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
vice-presidential candidates Dick Cheney (DAH) & John Edwards (WLF) spar

— During this sketch’s opening title sequence, I was about to say “ANOTHER Bush/Kerry debate sketch tonight?!?”, before remembering from my past viewings of this episode that this particular sketch is the vice presidential debate. Still feels redundant to see TWO debate sketches tonight, though, especially considering how shaky and unreliable SNL’s debate writing has been so far this season.
— Latifah and Darrell’s timing feels off so far.
— I just now realized how odd it is that Will is playing a candidate in both debate sketches tonight.
— A cellphone can faintly be heard going off in SNL’s studio just now. If that’s an audience member who’s cellphone is going off, then I assume he or she got kicked out immediately afterwards, as it’s a strict rule at SNL that audience members turn off their cellphones before the show.
— After an off start, Latifah and Darrell’s timing has gotten better.
— A good laugh from Darrell-as-Cheney’s impatient teeth-gritting face (the last above screencap for this sketch) when Will’s John Edwards keeps going on and on about Cheney’s daughter’s lesbianism.
— Wow, this sketch is wrapping up ALREADY?!? I’m very surprised, as this sketch felt only about 3 minutes long. A huge contrast to the very long length of the respective Bush/Kerry debate sketches so far this season. I guess even this season of SNL is self-aware enough to realize that two super-long debate sketches in the same episode would’ve been murder on viewers. Normally, I would praise SNL for managing to do a debate sketch this season that’s actually SHORT, but this sketch just came and went with mostly only mild chuckles from me, and I had been waiting for this to finally start taking off, only for it to abruptly end after what felt like only three minutes.
— The closing line from Latifah’s Gwen Ifill: “I’m going back over to Public Television with Jim Lehrer where you won’t be seeing me for another four years.” Funnily enough, four years later when SNL would do a parody of the Sarah Palin/Joe Biden vice presidential debate, Latifah would actually cameo to reprise her role as Gwen Ifill, given the fact that the real Ifill moderated the real Palin/Biden debate. SNL didn’t have a black female in the cast by that point (this was a year after Maya’s departure, and it wouldn’t be until FIVE LONG YEARS LATER where lots of media outrage forced SNL into holding a special mid-season audition for a new black female cast member), which is most likely why SNL resorted to calling up Latifah to reprise the Gwen Ifill role.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “The Same Love That Made Me Laugh”


WEEKEND UPDATE
new inmate Martha Stewart (RAD) has taken quickly to prison life

FIM favors restrictions on names bestowed by young black mothers

— There’s been a change made to the Update desk tonight, as the desktop now has several transparent things (seen in the screencap below) that resemble item scanners at the check-out counter in stores. Obviously, that’s not what the transparent things on the Update desk are, but I don’t know what they are.

— I see we’re continuing to take a page out of The Daily Show’s playbook in this new Update era, by relying on news clips to punctuate a joke. And didn’t Amy ALREADY do a joke in the last episode that used a clip of President Bush rapidly blinking hard during a Bush/Kerry debate?
— Rachel as Martha Stewart???
— Latifah is cracking me up with her faces in the background during Rachel-as-Martha’s commentary.
— Rachel’s certainly no Ana Gasteyer when it comes to playing Martha Stewart, but I like her Martha a little better than the disappointing one Amy once did the preceding season.
— The side segment with Tina and Amy’s speech to lonely single female voters isn’t too bad. Better than what I remember Tina and Amy’s side segments were typically like during this Update era.
— Amy, on the announcement of a Britney Spears rap album: “’I can’t wait to hear that’, said no one.” This is the very first instance of a “said no one” joke on Update, which would go on to be used quite a lot during the Seth Meyers years of Update. Some SNL fans incorrectly attribute that joke to just Seth, as if he’s the only person who ever delivered it on Update. As we see here, Amy was actually the very first Update anchor to do the joke, long before Seth was even an Update anchor.
— Speaking of Update jokes that’s also used elsewhere on SNL, Tina’s joke just now about guys on Howard Stern throwing baloney at a stripper’s ass was actually previously used as a line by Amy’s one-legged Amber character in the “The Swan” sketch from the preceding season’s finale hosted by the Olsen Twins. I wonder if this means Tina writes those Amber sketches.
— The M.I.A.-in-last-week’s-season-premiere Finesse Mitchell gets his own Update commentary as himself. Meanwhile, the also-M.I.A.-in-last-week’s-season-premiere Kenan Thompson is still M.I.A. tonight. Where the hell has he been this season???
— Hearing Finesse talk about what it was like growing up with the name Finesse doesn’t quite work when you’re aware that his real name isn’t even Finesse. A month or so after tonight’s episode, he would reveal during an interview on John MacEnroe’s short-lived CNBC talk show that his real first name is Alfred, if I recall correctly.
— Considering my mother had me at a very young age (14, believe it or not), I’m really liking Finesse’s comical exaggerations about what it was like for him to grow up with a mother who was still growing up herself. (Finesse says his mother had him when she was 15.) This resonates with me personally.
— Overall, after all of my complaints in the inaugural Fey/Poehler Update from the last episode, tonight’s Update actually wasn’t TOO bad. Still far from great, but this Update had a more streamlined feel, and Tina and (especially) Amy seemed a little more restrained and professional tonight. (I guess Amy’s still experimenting on her Update persona at this point, as, from what I remember of the remainder of the Fey/Poehler Update era, Amy would unfortunately soon go back to the cutesy, silly persona she had in her very first Update, which drove me nuts.) Aside from some minor things here and there, neither Amy nor Tina had any real frustrating moments tonight that made me groan or roll my eyes like in the last episode’s Update.
STARS: **½


BASKETBALL OFFERS
high school basketball phenom (FIM) picks pro spoils over college toil

— There’s Kenan finally making his first appearance of this season.
— Kenan’s voice as the old man is pretty funny.
— This sketch is obviously based on LeBron James going straight from high school to the NBA the previous year. Hell, Finesse’s LeBron-esque character in this sketch is even named LeTron.
— Not only has SNL finally given newbie Rob Riggle his very first comedic role, but wow, he just now did an INSANELY intense little rant that was fantastic. Quite Will Ferrell-esque.
— I like the sequence with Rob and Seth taking turns whispering persuading things in Finesse’s ears.
— Despite the aforementioned highlights, something about this overall sketch as a whole didn’t fully click for me.
STARS: **½


TV FUNHOUSE
“X-Presidents” by RBS- election meddling summons ghostly X-X-Presidents

— (*sigh*) The final X-Presidents cartoon. Feels kinda odd seeing an X-Presidents cartoon appearing as recently as 2004. (Coincidentally, the last time an X-Presidents cartoon appeared before this episode was in Queen Latifah’s previous episode.)
— Hmm, Ron Reagan Jr. is now a member of The X-Presidents? How random.
— Ah, now I see why Ron Jr. is now a member. This is not too long after Ronald Reagan passed away.
— A laugh from Barbara Bush bumping her head on the ceiling and falling down when the X-Presidents fly out of a ceiling exit while Barbara is still sucking on Bush Sr.’s feet.
— Jimmy Carter to John Kerry, right before kicking him in the face: “Feelin’ malaise yet, bitch?”
— Great turn with several dead presidents, including the then-recently-deceased Ronald Reagan, rising out of their respective grave to become the X-X-Presidents.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The only thing you have to fear… is my foot up your ass!”
— Benjamin Harrison to George W. Bush: “Four score and seven years ago, I hung you by your nuts!” George W. Bush: “Hey, that’s not your line!” Benjamin Harrison: “Gimme a break, I’m Benjamin Harrison.”
— When Bush Sr. is about to vomit after eating Ron Jr.’s stem cell-filled cooking, I absolutely HOWLED at the gag with a Japanese leader being hurriedly placed next to Bush just so Bush can vomit into the leader’s lap, referencing Bush’s infamous Japan/vomiting incident from 1992.
— A good variation of the usual musical endings of these X-Presidents cartoons, with the deceased Ronald Reagan singing in heaven with dead rock legends.
STARS: ****


HEAVEN
St. Peter (HOS) feeds straight lines to Rodney Dangerfield (DAH)

— Speaking of SNL portraying deceased celebrities in heaven…
— Darrell’s Rodney Dangerfield impression is always solid.
— Dammit, even in a nice tribute sketch like this, Horatio has to shoehorn in his horrible long-time habit of pausing awkwardly for a few seconds before delivering some of his lines.
— I particularly like the joke from Darrell’s Rodney about his wife being so dumb that she has to reach inside her bra to count to two.
— Boo to the audience for their tepid reactions to these great Rodney jokes. Does the audience just feel tense and hesitant to laugh because of how soon after Rodney’s death this sketch is airing? Can’t they see this sketch is clearly coming from the heart?
— A very classy and touching response from Horatio’s St. Peter when telling Darrell’s Rodney why he asked him all of those questions if it was already decided that he’s allowed into heaven: “I just wanted to hear those jokes one more time.”
— An equally classy “We’ll miss you” In Memoriam card shown at the very end of this sketch.
— Overall, a much better Darrell Hammond-starring deceased celebrity tribute sketch than whatever the hell SNL was going for in that Johnny Cash sketch from the preceding season.
STARS: ****


VOTER REGISTRATION
Starkisha & (host) compete to register voters in a black neighborhood

— Oh, god, Starkisha again.
— After not appearing at all in the preceding episode, Finesse has been all over tonight’s episode, but it’s obviously only because we have a black female host. (Why have we seen so little of Kenan, though?) Finesse immediately goes right back to receiving little-to-no airtime in the next few episodes.
— Is Amy playing the same clueless whitebred character she played in the last Starkisha sketch? I liked her in that sketch.
— Ah, Chris has now appeared as Amy’s husband, like how he played her husband in the last Starkisha sketch, so I guess Amy’s character is the same clueless whitebred one she played last time.
— I’m a few minutes into this sketch, and most of my only laughs have come from Amy. The Starkisha stuff, on the other hand, does nothing for me as usual, even though I actually kinda like this presidential election premise for her, as it’s a more mature change of pace from her previous sketches.
— A laugh from Latifah doing the MC Hammer dance.
STARS: **


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
CHK introduces host

— WTF? Kattan out of nowhere. Boy, between his countless cameos the preceding season and now this, it’s REALLY hard for him to part ways with SNL since leaving, isn’t it? His post-SNL career clearly hasn’t been going well.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Hard Times”


ZINGER VS. SNAP
Dave ‘Zinger’ Klinger & Dr. Sheila ‘All Snaps’ (host) trade insults

— This was originally cut after dress rehearsal from the preceding season’s Snoop Dogg episode, with Snoop playing Latifah’s role.
— After the tepid reaction I had to Seth’s zinger character in my review of his first sketch, this character grows on me more and more with each passing sketch he appears in.
— Latifah is really fun in this, and I’m enjoying the way she and Seth are playing off of each other, moreso than how Alec Baldwin and Megan Mullally played off of Seth in the previous installments of this sketch.
— I love the “zing pong” miming that Latifah and Seth are doing right now.
— When Chris has a sudden yelling outburst at Rachel, Rachel helplessly cracks up and tries to mask it.
— A good laugh from Latifah punching Seth’s zinger character for his crude face-sitting joke about Latifah’s mama.
— Feels a little weird seeing a Zinger sketch as the final sketch of the night, but this is actually a fun way to end the show.
— This ends up being the final Zinger sketch. At least this series of sketches went out with what I feel has been its best installment.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Much like the season premiere, this episode showed early signs of this being a bad season, but I still slightly prefer this episode to the season premiere. Despite a lot of weak segments, this had a better overall average than the premiere and not even the weakest segments of the night tanked TOO badly, compared to what we’ll be seeing whenever this season scrapes the bottom of the barrel. It helps that Queen Latifah was a fun host once again, and her energy gave the atmosphere of this episode a boost.


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


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Jude Law, a.k.a. the episode with the infamous Ashlee Simpson incident

Posted on

October 2, 2004 – Ben Affleck / Nelly (S30 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
first George W. Bush (WLF) vs. John Kerry (SEM) debate covers Iraq policy

— A decent opening spiel from Chris’ Jim Lehrer about the presidential candidates wearing a collar to keep them both from walking to the other’s podium.
— To quote something I said in my review of the Bush Sr./Dukakis presidential debate sketch from the season 14 premiere: “The gag with Bush being on a higher platform than Dukakis as they shake each other’s hand after making their entrance would later be copied in a George W. Bush/John Kerry debate sketch in 2004. The gag didn’t even make sense in that context! It made sense here because Dukakis is much shorter than Bush Sr., whereas neither Kerry nor Bush Jr. are short.” It really irks me that they ripped off that Bush Sr./Dukakis height difference gag in tonight’s debate sketch. I know both debate sketches were written by Jim Downey (or at least, I’m assuming they were), but that doesn’t excuse him recycling his own gag, especially since, as I said in the quote, it makes no sense in this context.
— We get the debut of Will’s whinier version of President Bush, which would go on to be the most remembered aspect of Will’s impression.
— Oof. I am now SEVEN MINUTES into this debate sketch, and I have not been laughing much. Bush’s repeated “We’re workin’ haaarrrrrd” has literally been the ONLY part of this very long debate sketch that resonated with me over the years, and that has not changed so far during my current re-watch. And even that “We’re workin’ haaarrrrrd” aspect of this is relied on way too heavily here, as if that’s the only hook Jim Downey could come up with for spoofing Bush here, besides the short bit with Bush praising Saddam Hussein.
— There are absolutely no “Strategery”-esque legendary moments to be found in this presidential debate sketch. No “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”-esque legendary moments”. No “It was my understanding that there would be no math”-esque legendary moments.
— Oh, man, this cold opening is just going on and on. Sure, SNL’s presidential debate sketches are typically very long, but more often than not, they’re consistently funny enough to excuse the length and make the time pass by fast. With a dull, lacking debate sketch like tonight’s, on the other hand, the long time length is fully felt.
— Seth and Will seem to be tripping over some lines throughout this.
— I finally got one other good laugh besides Will-as-Bush’s first “We’re workin’ haaarrrrrd” (before that line got run into the ground), and it’s from Seth-as-Kerry’s “That is not flip-flopping, that is pandering! And America deserves a president that knows the difference!”
— Oh, god, I swear, if Will’s Bush says “Workin’ haaarrrrrd” one more time, I’m going to fucking snap. This sketch has gotten to the point where the “Workin’ haaarrrrrd” stuff has become literally the ONLY material they’re having Will’s Bush do anymore. They took a once-funny line and completely ruined it over the course of a single cold opening.
— 13 minutes. This cold opening is just now concluding, after 13 minutes. 13 fucking minutes, people. Not even the first Bush/Gore debate cold opening was that long, and THAT cold opening had actual funny things to say.
— Overall, my god, what a huge disappointment this debate sketch was. A rare flop at this point in SNL history for such a big presidential debate sketch.
STARS: *½


OPENING MONTAGE
— New montage.

— The SNL logo is still the same from the past 9 seasons, but it’s been slightly modified to have far more spacing between the letters (as seen in the second above screencap for this montage).
— Speaking of the SNL logo, there surprisingly isn’t a number 30 added to it to commemorate the 30th season. I wonder why, considering SNL has added an anniversary number to the SNL logo for every other anniversary season ever since season 15.
— After the very unique, fun, and memorable music video style of the preceding season’s opening montage, SNL has gone back to a more standard style. Despite the standard, generic style of this montage, I actually really like the aesthetic of it, with the dark motif and very “late night” feel.
— Fred Armisen has been promoted from featured player to repertory player.
— When announcing Will Forte’s name, Don Pardo mistakenly says “Will Ferr–”, then suddenly cuts himself off and never corrects himself. Don obviously almost called Will Forte “Will Ferrell” before catching his mistake. This is reminiscent of a moment from an episode in the preceding season, where Don mistakenly announced Chris Parnell as “Chris Kattan”, but at least Don corrected himself during THAT particular goof.
— Rob Riggle has been added to the cast tonight.
— This overall montage feels A LOT shorter than the preceding season’s montage.


MONOLOGUE
Alec Baldwin [real] warns host against stealing his moves

— Right out of the gate, Ben Affleck immediately addresses how unusually soon he’s hosting after his last episode, by saying “You’re not watching a rerun. Yes, I did host just five minutes ago.”
— Oh, is that Alec Baldwin’s voice I’m hearing from off-camera?
— Yep, there he is.
— Some good laughs from Alec’s comparisons between himself and Ben.
— Great delivery from Ben of the line “Those aren’t moves, Alec. They’re just the slow-motion trainwreck I like to call my life.”
— Alec to Ben: “Don’t jerk me around, Gigli!”
— I’m finding Alec to be an absolute RIOT in this monologue.
— Alec: “Mike Myers will suck your soul out, then complain about how bad it tastes.” Haha, goddamn. IIRC, Tina would later disclose the fact that she ended up getting chewed out over the phone by an angry Mike Myers, who called up SNL to complain about that soul-sucking line in this monologue. This whole incident is very reminiscent of the notorious Eddie Murphy/David Spade incident. Unlike that, however, where David’s mean-spirited comment about Eddie is still left intact in reruns, SNL would be forced to remove the Mike Myers slam from reruns of this monologue.
— Just now, Alec brags to Ben that he’s hosted 9 times. Odd, considering it’s actually 11 times Alec has hosted up to this point.
— Alec to Ben: “Don’t get too comfortable. Me and Goodman are constantly circling the building every five minutes.”
— An overall strong monologue, with a great performance from Alec.
— At dress rehearsal, Darrell played Alec instead of Alec showing up as himself. I even recall seeing a publicity photo years ago at NBC.com from this version of the monologue (the photo can probably currently be found at GettyImages), and in the photo, Darrell’s not even wearing a wig or anything to look like Alec! Darrell just has his normal slicked-back gray hair, which looks nothing like how Alec’s hair looks at this time. I wonder if Alec not being able to show up for dress rehearsal was perhaps something that happened on VERY short notice, and so SNL was forced to just throw Darrell out there in Alec’s place at the last minute to read off his lines for this monologue, with SNL not even bothering to put him in costume. If so, I’m morbidly curious to see just how bad this monologue HAD to have been with an out-of-place Darrell delivering Alec’s funny dialogue.
STARS: ****


DR. PORKENHEIMER’S BONER JUICE
Dr. Porkenheimer’s Boner Juice emphatically reverses erectile dysfunction

— Meh, a juvenile concept, and not a particularly funny one.
— A particularly cheap attempt at laughs right now, with the ending shot of a satisfied Rob Riggle “pitching a tent” under the bedsheets. I remember that made me laugh a lot when this originally aired, but I can’t even so much as crack a smile at it today. I may be biased, though, because, after the entirety of this SNL season originally aired and I walked away from it feeling the season was a quiet disaster, I would go on to look at this commercial as an embodiment of the bad and lazy humor that dominated this frustrating season.
— This commercial would go on to be re-aired in a few episodes, and IIRC, the aforementioned ending shot of Rob “pitching a tent” under the bedsheets would be replaced by various new and far tamer alternate endings that changed EVERY time this commercial was re-aired in a new episode. Am I remembering correctly? I recall there being at least two different alternate endings used in future re-airings. I guess I’ll see for myself when I cover the episodes that this commercial is re-aired in.
STARS: *½


DEBBIE DOWNER
Debbie Downer kills the festive mood at (host)’s birthday party

— Oh, god. This sketch has officially become recurring, a decision I strongly disagree with, for reasons I explained at the end of my review of the legendary first Debbie Downer sketch.
— Okay, after not laughing for tonight’s Debbie Downer sketch so far, I do kinda like the part right now with the camera doing several mini-zoom-ins on Debbie Downer as she lists off the name of each of the latest tropical storms.
— After being into this sketch at first, the studio audience is noticeably laughing less and less as this sketch progresses. Man, this sketch is dying. Without the performers’ epic laughing meltdown from the first Debbie Downer installment, this sketch’s formula is exposed for how weak and annoyingly repetitive it is.
— Did they have to repeat the “It’s the number one killer of domestic cats (*meow meooooowwww*)” line from the first Debbie Downer installment?
— Overall, boy, this sketch did absolutely NOTHING for me, aside from the aforementioned tropical storms bit. Why couldn’t SNL have just left a classic one-off sketch alone? This reminds me a lot of how, 10 years earlier, the season premiere of the notorious season 20 made the mistake of doing a second installment of the classic first Buh-Bye sketch, and even placed it in an early spot in the show, expecting it to be another hit, only for it to fall HORRIBLY flat and die a painful death. At least in that case, however, SNL learned from their mistake and didn’t do any more Buh-Bye installments after that. With Debbie Downer, on the other hand, I have god-knows-how-many more installments to put up with after this episode.
— This sketch would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, which is even prefaced with a disclaimer stating, from what I can remember, “The following sketch is from dress rehearsal, simply because it worked better”, which is noteworthy, as I don’t think there have been any other instances in SNL history where a rerun actually pointed out a dress rehearsal substitution for a sketch. The reason for a dress rehearsal substitution of this particular Debbie Downer sketch is because the dress version features a lot of breaking from the performers (though definitely not as much as the famous first Debbie Downer sketch), which the audience, of course, loved. The use of the dress version of this sketch in reruns and it actually being pointed out with a disclaimer is clearly SNL fully admitting how much of a failure the live version of this sketch was. IIRC, the dress version of this sketch shown in reruns is also (rightfully) moved to a much later spot in the show than the live version of the sketch was.
STARS: *½


SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH
Swift Boat Veterans expand their list of John Kerry’s deficiencies

— The unnecessary reliance on a gay marriage reference for a cheap laugh is so sadly typical of this era, and an unfortunate harbinger of how particularly heavy this season will be relying on hacky, gay-stereotype humor.
— This commercial is slowly getting funnier and funnier as it goes along.
— I love the little detail of how Will’s only credential listed on the bottom of the screen is “saw ‘Platoon’”. That makes me wonder if the guys who were shown being interviewed before him also had a funny credential listed on the bottom of the screen, and I just didn’t notice.
— A priceless dry delivery from Will of the word “catsup”.
— Overall, this was a good political piece, but it wasn’t quite as strong or as smart as I had remembered.
STARS: ***½


CAMPAIGN STOP
James Carville (host) wants John Kerry (SEM) to go on the offensive

— The two sketches in tonight’s episode that have Seth playing John Kerry end up being Seth’s ONLY appearances all night, which is surprising, especially knowing in retrospect how hard this season is going to be pushing Seth as the new male star of the show in light of Jimmy Fallon’s departure.
— Oh, no. Maya’s Theresa Heinz-Kerry breaking out into a brief song was just plain unnecessary and unfunny. This is yet ANOTHER unfortunate harbinger of what’s to come this season, as this season is going to be relying particularly hard on Maya singing in sketches, much to my chagrin back when this season originally aired.
— James Carville to John Kerry: “You beat George Bush in a talking contest. That’s like Wilt Chamberlain playing basketball against Stephen Hawking and beat him by ten points. The man can’t talk, John!”
— Ben is fucking fantastic as James Carville. He is slaying me all throughout this sketch. I think I like his impression even more than Bill Hader’s Carville impression from years later, and that’s saying something, as Bill’s Carville is great in its own right.
— I remember it being pointed out by several online SNL fans back when this originally aired that Seth can be seen mouthing Ben’s lines throughout this sketch.
— I know I said in a recent episode review that I’ve gotten burned out on Darrell’s Bill Clinton, but it’s winning me back over here, now that they’ve finally taken him out of the Weekend Update setting he was stuck in during the preceding season.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Jaheim [real] perform “My Place”


WEEKEND UPDATE
New Jerseyan Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) on Jim McGreevey resignation

host points out hypocrisy of Matt Damon’s call for integrity in acting

Elton John’s (HOS) songs fail to make amends for his behavior in Taiwan

— A new Weekend Update era has begun, with Amy joining as Tina’s new co-anchor.
— I like the new Update opening title sequence.
— Just-departed cast member Jimmy Fallon does the voice-over in the new Update opening title sequence (probably because Amy previously did the voice-over for the Update opening title sequence during most of the Fallon/Fey era), and him doing this voice-over in the style of “hyper young cool dude” instead of “professional news broadcast voice-over” is SO WRONG for Update. Hell, he even literally shouts an excited “Yaaaay!” at the end of his voice-over here! I kid you not, folks. WTF??? Thankfully, SNL would remove that “Yaaaay!” from the title sequence of all subsequent Fey/Poehler Updates.
— They’re still using the Update set from the Fallon/Fey era, but something about it’s color has definitely changed. It looks…I don’t know, glossier? A different shade of brown? SOMETHING looks different about the coloring of the set, but I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is.
— A terrible opening Bush joke from Tina. As I said in a review from late in the preceding season, Tina’s developed a bad habit lately of using her worst and most desperate joke of the night as her opening joke.
— Amy’s very first Update joke just now wasn’t bad, but she kinda ruined it for me by making an out-of-place cutesy, hammy big smile at the camera immediately after she finished the joke.
— Oh, god, and now, right after what I said above about Amy’s first joke, Amy actually interrupts Tina’s next joke to giddily cheer “That was my first joke!”, which Tina then responds to by joining in on Amy’s giddiness and motioning the audience to actually APPLAUD Amy for doing her first joke. Are you fucking kidding me?!? In all my years of watching SNL, I’ve never seen a new Update anchor basically BEG the audience to freakin’ applaud the fact that they got through their very first Update joke, as if they’re a child. Ugh, this new Fey/Poehler Update team is already starting off very worrisome for me.
— The use of clips of real footage from the presidential debate feels unusual for Update at this point of SNL’s run, but would go on to be a semi-regular aspect of Fey/Poehler Updates. I remember how some online SNL fans back at this time in 2004/2005 complained about SNL trying too hard to be like The Daily Show with their new gimmick of commenting on clips of real news footage. I think SNL fans would later go on to get used to seeing that more often on Update nowadays, with Colin Jost and Michael Che often playing clips of Trump saying stupid shit.
— Nice surprise appearance from James Gandolfini as “a New Jersey resident”. I’m enjoying his performance here.
— I like Tina’s remark after Gandolfini leaves: “That is the scariest man…I have ever been attracted to.”
— Amy seems to be trying way too hard in her delivery of some jokes.
— Just now, Tina has mentioned her former co-anchor Jimmy Fallon in a jokingly unflattering manner, when telling Amy she thinks things are going to work out well between her and Amy as a new Update duo.
— A rarity to see a host do an Update commentary as themselves, or, as Ben’s billed here in a tongue-in-cheek manner, “a Hollywood actor”. Between Gandolfini being billed as “a New Jersey resident” and now Ben being billed as “a Hollywood actor”, are none of the Update guests going to be using a name anymore in this new Update era?
— I liked Ben’s self-deprecating joke about making movies with his girlfriend.
— I’m surprised Ben’s commentary is ALREADY over, after only about one minute. Most of his commentary surprisingly didn’t do much for me.
— Ugh, Horatio’s Elton John.
— Another acknowledgment of Jimmy Fallon’s departure, with Horatio’s Elton John starting his commentary by looking around confusedly and asking “Where’s my Jimmy boy?”
— Blah, these Elton John songs from Horatio are not working for me AT ALL. Just typical self-indulgent hammy Horatio Sanz crap with bad writing.
— Overall, all I can say about this inaugural Update of the Fey/Poehler era is: oof. Normally, if a new Update duo has a rough start, I’d think “Maybe they just need time to grow.” But I’ve already seen all of the Fey/Poehler Updates back when they originally aired, and I recall their Updates drawing A LOT of ire from me in how weak, annoying, frustrating, and unprofessional they were. So, yeah, I don’t think things ever get better for this Update duo, but I’ll see as I go through this era.
STARS: **


ESCALATOR
stalled mall escalator proves disastrous for overly dramatic shoppers

— Good mock-dramatic, over-the-top, disaster-movie-esque performances from the cast in the way their characters are overreacting to a simple broken-down escalator.
— They’re overdoing Ben’s slaps to Rachel WAY too much. It was only funny the first time.
— I love Chris giving up and committing suicide by jumping off the escalator.
— Rachel’s long, exaggerated yell of “NO!” causes Ben to break character by laughing. This has made me realize that we’ve gotten little-to-no instances of breaking from Ben before this point in tonight’s episode compared to his episode from the preceding season, in which he laughed in practically every single sketch.
— Ben’s Spanish conversation with Maya is pretty funny.
— I got a good laugh from Will’s fireman character accidentally falling from the rope holding him.
— An overall solid and fun sketch. Much better than I remember it being in my past viewings.
STARS: ****


WEDDING
obnoxious deejay’s (host) inappropriate tunes derail a wedding reception

— Not too crazy about this cliched “obnoxious DJ at a dignified gathering” concept.
— Rob Riggle’s been stuck in nothing but dull straight roles for the entirety of this first episode of his. An unfortunate harbinger (which is something I’ve been saying A LOT in this review) of things to come for him in what would end up being a short-lived SNL tenure.
— A good laugh from Ben playing the song “Sister Christian” during the priest’s speech.
— Ben to the priest: “Alright, father, stay away from the kiddie tables, alright?”
— Despite my dislike of this cliched premise, Ben’s giving this his all as he always does, and there are a few laughs.
— When Amy and Rob complain about Ben playing “Who Let The Dogs Out” instead of the slow song they wanted to dance to, I like Ben complying by slowing down the tempo of “Who Let The Dogs Out”.
— This sketch is going on too long, and should’ve ended earlier.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Na-Nana-Na”


A NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID
by Alison Jackson- a dramatization of Bush substance abuse at Camp David

— Much like the “Adventures of Harold” short film in the preceding season’s finale, we get a huge change of pace for this SNL era, with another out-of-the-ordinary film that involves no recognizable performers. This particular film is by Alison Jackson, who was hired to be SNL’s regular filmmaker of this season. However, tonight’s film ends up being the ONLY film of hers to ever make it on the air, aside from a pre-taped Weekend Update mini-piece that airs later this season. Most of Jackson’s attempts to get films on the air this season end up not making it past dress rehearsal.
— I really like the unique aesthetic of this, as well as the music, but I have not been enjoying this film itself all that much.
— Overall, I give SNL credit for trying something completely unlike anything they had ever done before, and I liked certain individual aspects of this film, but the film as a whole didn’t really entertain me like it should’ve. I think I can see why Alison Jackson’s attempts to be SNL’s regular filmmaker of this season ended up failing, but I still say SNL should’ve aired a second film of hers, just so we could judge the quality of her as an SNL filmmaker more fairly.
STARS: **


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A weak and disappointing season premiere, immediately showing signs of how troubled this infamous-among-hardcore-SNL-nerds-but-forgotten-among-general-SNL-fans season is going to be. That interminably dull and one-note Bush/Kerry debate cold opening already got the night off on the wrong foot, and the episode as a whole never fully took off, despite some solid bright spots here and there. A very tepid and worrisome debut of a new Weekend Update era also didn’t help. Ben Affleck was a strong host once again, but he’s definitely been given much better episodes before and after this.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2003-04)
a slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Queen Latifah