Tag: Donald Trump

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November 7, 2015 – Donald Trump / Sia (S41 E4)

Lord have mercy for what I’m about to walk into.

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES FORUM
Bernie Sanders (Larry David) is irascible at Democratic candidates forum

— Interesting seeing Cecily reprise her Rachel Maddow impression for the first time since her third-ever episode on SNL.
— A funny comically very brief, pointless interview of Taran’s Martin O’Malley.
— Kate’s Hillary Clinton getting her usual good laughs from me and the audience.
— A pretty fun format and atmosphere to this cold opening.
— Kate’s Hillary, when asked whether she’s an extrovert or introvert: “I would say I’m a little bit of both. I’m an extrovert because I love meeting people and connecting with them and smiling with them. But I’m an introvert because no I don’t.”
— Larry David’s Bernie Sanders impression has officially become recurring.
— Like last time, Larry’s Bernie has an endless amount of very funny lines, such as his ridiculous vacuum pennies spiel.
— I love the running gag with this debate occasionally cutting to very tight shots of black people in the audience to remind viewers that this takes place in South Carolina. The “Bitch, please” look Leslie gives the camera in her tight close-up after Larry’s Bernie says his “crush” is every black person in America is particularly hilarious.
— A great LFNY subversion, with Larry’s Bernie delivering a perfectly Bernie-esque “Live from New York…aaaaaah, you get it.”
STARS: ****


OPENING MONTAGE
— Oddly, Darrell Hammond forgets to precede the featured players portion of his announcements by saying “Featuring”. He just launches into the featured players’ names right after announcing all of the repertory players’ names.


MONOLOGUE
Larry David [real] yells “Trump’s a racist!” at host & doppelgangers (TAK) & (DAH)

— (*deepest of all deep sighs*) Oh, God, here we go.
— Only a minute into this, and, similar to what I said in my review of his season 29 monologue, Donald Trump’s typical bragging bullshit is INSUFFERABLE, especially his “hilarious” talk about Rosie O’Donnell.
— Aidy at least gets a laugh from me and the audience with her delivery of her response to Trump introducing her as Rosie O’Donnell: “Sir, as I told you many times, my name is Aidy Bryant, I’m a cast member on the show.”
— The return of Taran’s Trump impression. Again, I definitely see what he’s going for in the impression, but something about the voice just isn’t working for me.
— I see this monologue is going a similar route to Trump’s season 29 monologue, where he was paired with a doppelganger/stand-in, played by Darrell. I already didn’t care for this premise then.

— Seeing Darrell’s Trump impression in tonight’s monologue kind of puts Taran’s to shame, even if Darrell’s impression is still stuck in 2004, being more accurate to Apprentice-era Trump than presidential candidate-era Trump.
— Larry David saves the day! He provides easily the biggest laugh of this dire monologue in the bit with him heckling Trump, as a reference to some kind of money-involved dare that a website offered towards any audience member to heckle Trump during this episode. Also, for those keeping count, this is actually the second time Larry David heckled a host as part of a scripted comedy bit in the host’s monologue. The first time was in Michael McKean’s season 10 monologue (“Hey, Lenny, how’s your short friend Squiggy?!?”), back when Larry was an SNL writer.
STARS: *½


WHITE HOUSE 2018
in 2018, host’s presidency is the best of all time (because fuck common sense); Ivanka Trump cameo

— Note: the “(because fuck common sense)” I added to the above synopsis for this sketch was suggested to me by Vax Novier, a frequent commenter on this site. Thanks, Vax.
— Oh, are you fucking kidding me with this sketch, SNL? (*sigh*) I see the Trump ass-kissing is out in full-force tonight.
— Even the mere atmosphere of this “hypothetical great Trump presidency” sketch feels very dead and depressing.
— Further proving my point about how incredibly dead and depressing the atmosphere of this sketch is, Ivanka Trump’s cameo is welcomed with a hearty round of ABSOLUTE DEAD SILENCE from the audience. That will probably end up being my biggest laugh all night from something involving a Trump.
— Ugh at the part with Taran’s worried status report turning out to be that the Trump presidency is going TOO well and has just been endless winning for Americans.
— A horrible ending with Trump’s speech into the camera confirming how great his presidency would go. The soul of whoever wrote this Trump dick-sucking sketch has got to be long dead by our current point in 2021.
— Overall, yep, fuck every single thing about this sketch. One of the absolute worst, most miserable (if not THE absolute worst, most miserable) things I have ever sat through in all 41 seasons I’ve reviewed in this SNL project of mine.
STARS: * (and even that’s being far too generous)


BAD GIRLS
women oversell the naughtiness of their delinquencies

— As I implied in my review of the Say What You Wanna Say short from the preceding season’s Dakota Johnson episode, the format and basic premise of this Bad Girls short feel like a companion piece to that Say What You Wanna Say short.
— Vanessa’s leaving-ice-cream-by-the-bread-section-of-the-supermarket bit is particularly funny to me.
— Glad to see I’m not the only one who does that trash bin trick that Aidy did here.
— Good ending to the bathroom scene with Kate.
— Pretty solid conclusion to this short, with Aidy and the rest of the “bad girls” changing their tune when Aidy’s worried husband, Beck, shows up.
STARS: ***½


LIVE TWEETING
host’s defamatory live-tweeting distracts cast members during sketch

— Trump: “I hate to break it to you guys, but I’m not gonna be in the next sketch.” Me: “YAAAAAAY!” Trump: “Since I can’t do it and can’t be in it, I’ll live-tweet it.” Me: “BOOOOOOO!”
— The comedic premise of a host negatively live-tweeting a sketch is actually very promising, but you can’t get laughs from them being Trump tweets, as the tweets featured in this sketch are TOO close to the kind of mean-spirited bullshit Trump would tweet in real life (and it ain’t funny then), without having the comedic slant needed for a sketch like this. And thus, instead of coming off funny, the mean-spirited insults in this sketch just come off…mean-spirited.
— Yep, just as I was afraid of, this sketch has been DREADFUL so far. Not only are these mean-spirited Trump tweets TOO realistically mean-spirited as I noted above, but comedy-wise, they’re lame and painfully unfunny as all hell. “Kate McKinnon was born stupid”? That’s the type of comedic one-liner that third-graders would consider high comedy.
— Very awkward execution of the ending “I love the blacks” tweet. Not even Leslie’s angry reaction to that tweet could save it.
— Overall, not too far behind that White House 2018 sketch from earlier tonight as a contender for the absolute worst, most miserable sketch I have ever sat through for my SNL project.
STARS: *


HOTLINE BLING
Drake (JAP) defends Ed Grimley-inspired “Hotline Bling” dorky dance moves

— A fairly fun atmosphere to this Hotline Bling parody, even if I’ve yet to laugh out loud at anything so far. It’s amusing enough, though.
— Ed Grimley out of absolutely NOWHERE. I would normally be welcoming of a Martin Short cameo, but I just feel bad for him appearing in this of all episodes. Martin deserves better than that. He’s adding nice life to this short, though.
— Aaaaaand here comes Trump to hijack this fairly fun piece. Does the show really expect me to just sit back and laugh at this jackass comically and lightheartedly potentially dancing his way into voters’ hearts?
STARS: **½ (Trump’s awful involvement lowered my rating)


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Alive”


WEEKEND UPDATE
COJ & MIC marvel at Ben Carson’s string of outrageous utterings

LEJ sees man-bitches’ texts to her as evidence of changing gender roles

Drunk Uncle is thrilled to have host representing his point of view

— Colin and Michael, save me from this episode!
— An awkward beginning with Michael being VERY late on his cue to say his “And I’m Michael Che” sign-on. As amusing as this awkward gaffe was, I can’t help but feel it also adds to the off, unfortunate vibe of this episode in general (including even little things like Darrell forgetting to announce the featured players as “Featuring” in the opening montage).
— Michael, regarding Jeb Bush saying he can fix things: “Which is true if the problem being fixed is the threat of ANOTHER Bush presidency.” Really? You’re really gonna say that in this of all episodes? Yeesh, this episode is even starting to make me a bit salty towards Jost and Che for once. I gotta check that saltiness at the door for this Update.
— Ha, a very Norm Macdonald-esque O.J.-is-a-murderer joke from Michael.
— Oh, I know at least Leslie’s gonna take my mind off of the misery of this episode.
— Great line from Leslie, regarding being sent suggestive eggplant emojis: “Don’t send me vestibles! Send me some MEAT!” And yes, “vestibles” is indeed how she pronounced “vegetables”.
— Michael, regarding the Kansas City Royals beating the New York Mets in the then-recent World Series: “(said in a professional-but-braggart manner) This week, Colin Jost spent three days in his dressing room crying like a bitch!” Colin: “……..Then I found out the Mets lost!”
— We get a reference to the people outside 30 Rock protesting Trump’s hosting of this SNL episode. I’m sure a large number of cast members in this episode wish they could join those protesters, but they probably refrained due to what happened to Nora Dunn after she boycotted a host.
— Two decent anti-Trump jokes from Michael (including him doing a takedown of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan) that I’m surprised Trump didn’t throw a fit about earlier in this week.
— Drunk Uncle seems to be appearing less and less lately.
— It at least makes sense to have Drunk Uncle be a Trump fan. However, I am so oversaturated on Trump in this episode that all of the Trump talk in this Drunk Uncle commentary is souring me a little on it. Only a little, though, because this commentary is still funny, and at least the Trump theme of it is offering a bit of a shake-up to the usual formula of Drunk Uncle’s commentaries.
— I remember an SNL reviewer saying they had a problem with the audience actually applauding during their laughter at Drunk Uncle’s one-liner about Caitlyn Jenner: “HIS NAME IS BRUCE!”
— A good laugh from Drunk Uncle being handed a new glass of alcohol after angrily crushing his first one in his hand when being asked his thoughts on Hillary Clinton.
— At least Colin refrained from uttering the beyond-tired “That’s not anyone!” line that he (and formerly, Seth Meyers) usually responds to Drunk Uncle’s “That’s not me!” line with in every Drunk Uncle commentary. It looks like it took Colin everything in him to refrain from saying it, though.
STARS: ***½


ROCK BAND
laser harp player (host) is bitter that his bandmates hog the spotlight

— Good “bass face” from Beck.
— The already-worrying first minute of this sketch, with several bad James Anderson/Kent Sublette-isms (such as every character having stupid “comical” last names), is followed by an even worse reveal of Trump’s character and the conceit of his appearance.
— I’m now a few minutes into this sketch, and man, what the hell IS this whole laser harp bit with Trump that this sketch is centered around? It’s going nowhere and is both baffling and painfully unfunny.
— Overall, oof. Yet another “One of the the absolute worst, most miserable sketches I’ve ever reviewed” contender in tonight’s episode.
STARS: *


MR. CROCKER
Mr. Crocker (BEB) embarrasses family with his karaoke fixation

— A great sudden angry outburst from Beck.
— Beck’s performance in this lead role is absolutely great, and I really like how off-kilter this material feels.
— (*groan*) Another pre-tape that Trump stops dead in its tracks. Why this of all pre-taped pieces? This was going so damn well.
— And to top it off, as if Trump’s mere appearance in this wasn’t bad enough, they end this short by having Trump do a goofy and unfunny mugging-into-the-camera bit. Way to have the entire Trump-involved portion of this short leave a very sour taste in my mouth and make me completely forget why I was loving this short in the first place. The fact that Trump’s appearance in this short came after he ALREADY ruined so much of the show makes me even more salty on this than I probably should be.
STARS: ***½ (Trump’s awful takeover of this and the obnoxious ending with him mugging was bad enough to bring my rating of this short down a full star, which is a damn shame, as it was a VERY strong Beck Bennett showcase prior to Trump’s takeover, and would’ve gotten the highest rating out of anything in this episode so far)


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
11 years after they did SNL together, Toots Hibbert (KET) & host catch up

— Ah, a big format break for a musical guest intro, and an interesting idea to have a callback to a host’s episode from 11 years prior. Again, though, this is another idea that would have infinite more potential had it been done with any host other than DONALD FUCKING TRUMP.
— Most of this material is absolutely nothing to write home about so far, but Kenan is at least pretty fun in his performance as Toots, and I got a good laugh from his line about eating some deep-fried parrot.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Bird Set Free”


TRUMP 2016
host doesn’t approve of vacuous ex-porn stars’ endorsement

— This ends up being the final installment of this recurring sketch.
— Showing how past-its-prime this recurring sketch is, Vanessa and Cecily’s comical one-liners tonight are only mildly chuckleworthy at best, and feel WAY too formulaic and old hat by this point. I’ve become too numb to this humor by now. A shame, given how fantastic this recurring sketch used to be in its heyday.
— There’s usually at least two very quotable great lines in each installment of this sketch, but so far in this particular installment, I can’t even find ONE.
— Bobby’s imitation of Trump is surprisingly not bad. I kinda want to say it’s better than Taran’s.
— Okay, we finally got a good line just now, from Cecily: “Yeah, maybe we’ll visit the White House. I haven’t been there since the 90s.”
— (*sigh*) Another Trump walk-on to ruin the progress of a sketch and bring down my rating of it, even though my rating of this sketch was already going to be low even before he appeared. Wasn’t all of Vanessa and Cecily’s talk about him in this sketch enough without us having to actually see him in person here? I was hoping the equal-time rule announced prior to this episode’s airing would fully keep Trump out of at least ONE live sketch tonight, but nope. And even when he’s absent for the majority of a live sketch, the sketch still has to be aaaaallllll about him, as this sketch and that fucking dreadful Live Tweeting sketch showed.
STARS: *½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Simply put, 1) soul-sucking misery wrapped in a 90-minute package, 2) THE biggest mistake made in SNL history, and 3) absolutely deserving of its horrible reputation. That’s all that can be said here, after everything I’ve already said earlier in the review.


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


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Democratic Candidates Forum
Weekend Update
Mr. Crocker
Bad Girls
Hotline Bling
Ex-Porn Stars
Monologue
Rock Band
Live Tweeting
White House 2018


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tracy Morgan)
a gargantuan step down of unmeasurable proportions


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
(*first let me breathe a sigh of relief and happily tell myself “I did it!” after getting through the nightmarish task of having to review this Trump episode, which was by far the episode I was most dreading having to review ever since I launched this project*)
Elizabeth Banks, a.k.a. Not-Donald-Trump

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April 3, 2004 – Donald Trump / Toots and the Maytals (S29 E16)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE APPRENTICE
host fires JIF a la The Apprentice; George Ross & Carolyn Kepcher cameos

— Geez, we get Trump appearing right out of the gate tonight, without me even getting to enjoy the first few minutes before he inevitably takes over the show. Boy, this is going to be a LOOOOOOONNNNNG episode, isn’t it?
— I will say that Trump looks “normal” here compared to how he looks today.
— I got a good laugh from George (Trump’s male assistant/board member/whatever) responding “I thought it sucked!” when asked how he felt about dress rehearsal.
— I did get one laugh from Trump just now (I’ll keep count of how many laughs I’ll get from him tonight, which I highly doubt will come anywhere close to approaching the double digits) when he points to Jimmy and says, in regards to Jimmy’s performance at dress rehearsal, “This idiot was laughing the whole time”, which is made even funnier by the camera then cutting to a close-up of Jimmy stifling his laughter as usual.
— Finesse: “First of all, nobody’s firing me, because there’s only four black people on NBC: me, Kenan, Kwame, and Whoopi.” Funny line, but I doubt a lot of people watching this cold opening years later have any idea who Kwame is (a then-current contestant on The Apprentice) nor are aware that Whoopi Goldberg had a short-lived NBC sitcom at the time. Wasn’t Tracy Morgan’s short-lived NBC sitcom still on its last legs around this point? Finesse should’ve included him as a fifth black person on NBC.
— A very funny Frasier promo shown during a mid-sketch fake commercial break. Reminds me of that brilliant “Last Chance Tuesdays” promo that SNL did in the middle of a Bachelor sketch from the preceding season’s Eric McCormack episode. I wonder if both mid-sketch promos were written by the same person.
— Good walk-on from Lorne.
— Lorne, while on a firing spree: “Finesse, go get Parnell.” Ooh, I do NOT like that implication that Lorne’s about to fire Parnell. Sure, it’s only a comedic line in this sketch, but come on, SNL. You already fired the man once before (very undeservedly so), and making a “humorous” passing mention in a sketch of firing him again just feels cruel.
— I like how this Apprentice parody is even going to the extent of showing Jimmy’s “exit interview” in the back of a taxi after SNL fires him.
— A few awkward pauses from Trump here and there throughout this cold opening.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— A Cartoon By Robert Smigel is credited in this montage, but no cartoon ends up airing tonight, as the show presumably runs long. The cartoon was going to be about tonight’s host, Donald Trump.


MONOLOGUE
host’s stand-in DAH practices “You’re Fired”; Jeff Zucker (JIF) pitches

— Oh, god. Cue the shameless Trump bragfest about how “great” he is and how The Apprentice is currently the #1 show on TV. This smug bragfest is fucking TORTURE to sit through.
— Darrell appearing as a Trump stand-in alongside the real Trump isn’t saving this monologue like I want it to, though it’s a gag that SNL would later repeat in Trump’s season 41 monologue, only with Taran Killam added in as a third Trump.
— Blah, the fake NBC shows Jimmy’s Jeff Zucker is plugging are all over-relying on hacky gay jokes, which is sadly typical for this SNL era.
— Overall, not a single laugh from me during this entire monologue.
STARS: *


FEAR FACTOR JUNIOR
Joe Rogan (FRA) traumatizes youngsters on reality TV

— Very funny concept of little kids cruelly being made to perform the type of stunts adults typically perform on Fear Factor.
— Fred is great as Joe Rogan.
— In a scene where one kid is told his parents will get a divorce if he doesn’t complete his challenge, one of his parents is played by future cast member Rob Riggle (screencap below).

STARS: ****


LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
host unabashedly promotes himself

— Solid bit with Amy’s Kelly Ripa currently taping various shows on different cameras.
— WTF? Gelman played by Dratch??? While I’m happy not to have to see YET ANOTHER Chris Kattan cameo this season (then again, just wait until the following episode…), having Rachel take over the Gelman impression is just… odd. And not funny. SNL needs to just drop the Gelman parts of these sketches. They’ve never been anything but a whole bunch of hacky, lazy-ass gay jokes that, as I said earlier, are way too overused in this SNL era.
— The usual fun chemistry from Darrell and Amy, including a big character break from Darrell when Amy keeps grabbing onto him at one point.
— Ugh, cue YET ANOTHER shameless Trump bragfest tonight, with the added “bonus” of Darrell’s Regis kissing his ass over how amazing he is. Fucking kill me.
— Double ugh at Trump’s sleazy-ass comments about Amy-as-Kelly-Ripa’s body.
— Overall, despite the usual fun from Darrell and Amy in these Regis & Kelly sketches, all the awful Trump stuff killed this sketch dead. The Gelman crap with Rachel only helped to make things even worse.
STARS: *½


VIP SEATS
Star Jones (KET) corrals host & claims to know who will be The Apprentice

— Kenan In A Dress alert.
— Between Kenan in yet another drag role, Trump being Trump, and lots of hacky and lazy-ass fat jokes about Star Jones, there is NOTHING to like here so far.
— Okay, Kenan got a great laugh from me at the very end of this sketch, with him suddenly grabbing an NBC page by the arm and telling her, in a deep, loud, intimidating voice, “GIMME A PELLEGRINO!” That was reminiscent of a very famous SNL moment with Chris Farley in a Gap Girls sketch (“LAY OFF ME, I’M STARVING!”).
STARS: *½


DONALD TRUMP’S HOUSE OF WINGS
David Crosby (HOS) endorses host’s chicken eatery

— Another in the series of “non-actor host does a commercial promoting their fictional restaurant” sketches.
— I remember when I watched this episode back when it originally aired in 2004, I disliked the musical numbers of this sketch (I couldn’t stand these “non-actor host does a commercial promoting their fictional restaurant” sketches back then) while loving Trump’s goofy dancing and facial expressions during said musical numbers. Cut to 16 years later, I now feel the exact opposite about this sketch, where I like the musical numbers but can’t even muster up so much as a chuckle at Trump’s goofy dancing and facial expressions during the musical numbers.
— Why the hell does Trump sound like he’s yelling all of his lines, as if he thinks he’s not mic’ed?
— An actual funny walk-on from Horatio as David Crosby.
— At the end of this sketch, they actually reference the previous two “non-actor host does a commercial promoting their fictional restaurant” sketches in a map at the end (screencap below), which was a nice touch.

STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest, Ben Harper & Jack Johnson [real] perform “Pressure Drop”


WEEKEND TRUMP DATE
newscast’s garishness makes TIF uncomfortable

— Hmm, interesting deviation from the usual Weekend Update.
— Jimmy and Tina end up immediately giving up on this idea, and decide to go back to the regular Weekend Update. Ehh, probably for the best, as this revamped Update was starting to come off too Trump-centric for my likes. Still, this was an interesting brief bit, as I’m always a sucker for when SNL breaks format.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment, but then again, I’m stretching things by counting this as a separate segment from the regular Weekend Update)


WEEKEND UPDATE
many objects hit indignant Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth (MAR) on the head

— Feels kinda fitting seeing an Update joke about Jason Patric during an SNL episode with a difficult, notorious host, considering the infamy Patric has as an SNL host himself (though as far as I know, Patric wasn’t difficult behind the scenes at the show).
— Jimmy is far more amused at this a-whole-bunch-of-things-falling-on-Omarosa’s-head bit than either I or the audience are (though the audience is fairly amused). This bit is just plain stupid and annoying to me. I’m aware of the Apprentice incident it’s spoofing and I remember a lot of online SNL fans in 2004 loving this spoof, but the spoof is unfunny to me, is going on WAAAAYYYY too long, and is encouraging lots of bad mugging from Maya.
STARS: **½


THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
update of The Prince & The Pauper has Donald Trump (DAH) & janitor (host)

— Another sketch tonight pairing Darrell’s Trump with the real deal, this time with the real Trump playing a mustached janitor.
— When this sketch originally aired in 2004, I remember how funny I found Trump’s line where he makes fun of his own hair (“My hair’s supposed to look like this – I’m a janitor”), but, much like his goofy dancing in the House Of Wings sketch earlier tonight, I now find myself not even being able to so much as chuckle at the line now. The Trump-makes-me-laugh-tonight count remains a measly 1.
— A very dull sketch so far.
— A pretty funny meta bit with Maya as the narrator intentionally and awkwardly vamping to give Darrell and Trump time to switch costumes off-camera.
STARS: *½


FATHERS AND SONS
(host)’s son (SEM) envies bond between (JIF) & dad (HOS)

— The first (and only) time all night where Trump plays a character that has nothing to do with himself, though of course, he plays this role like himself anyway.
— Trump’s delivery is killing any potential humor during the tense father & son exchanges between him and Seth.
— Oh, no. Another Fallon & Sanz pairing.
— Aaaaaaaand there goes our obligatory Fallon & Sanz breaking. What the holy fuck are they even laughing at here? Unlike most of their other character breaks, nothing appeared to provoke their character break in this sketch. Are they aware of how much this sketch has been falling flat, and are intentionally breaking to “save” the sketch (which is basically the premise of the “That’s When You Break” digital short SNL would later do, which I think even shows a clip from this sketch during one of the “And here’s another one from Fallon & Sanz” lyrics)?
— Jesus Christ, even for a Fallon & Sanz character-breaking moment, they are laughing PARTICULARLY hard in this, and it’s completely taken over the rest of this sketch. Jimmy and Horatio both pretty much just gave up on this sketch, and are laughing so hard that their faces are turning red, almost to the degree where they look like they’re going to die laughing. It sure would be nice of them to let us in on what the hell they’re laughing so hard at.
— As much as I hate to compare myself to Trump in any way, his demeanor during the endless Fallon/Sanz gigglefest, in which he’s aloofly staring off-camera with a bored, miserable look on his face while resting his fingers on his temple and looks like he’s thinking to himself “Ohhh, these two giggling idiots…”, mirrors EXACTLY how I look during this sketch.
— Seth at least makes a funny ad-lib just now, during the endless Fallon/Sanz gigglefest when both performers are supposed to be crying: “They’re so sad, they’re happy.” I remember a fellow SNL reviewer from back at this time in 2004 having a theory that Seth had that ad-libbed line prepared in his head way in advance, because he probably knew Jimmy and Horatio would break during their crying scene.
— While Jimmy and Horatio are still in the middle of their endless laughing, Horatio takes the time to point to something on a newspaper on the table in front of him (screencap below), which then makes both him and Jimmy laugh EVEN HARDER.

Now I can’t help but wonder what in the world Horatio pointed to on that newspaper, and why it contributed to him and Jimmy laughing non-stop like jackass hyenas on acid.
STARS: *


9/11 HEARINGS
prophetic Richard Clarke (DAH) testifies to his myriad unheeded warnings

— (*sigh*) I’m three minutes into this, and this sketch has been droning on and on with typical dull and unfunny 2000s-era-Jim-Downey-written dialogue that gets little-to-no reaction from neither the audience nor me.
— Are these VERY sporadic cutaways to stock footage of real senators at a hearing even supposed to be funny? SNL’s not even fully committing to this aspect of the sketch, like they usually do in State Of The Union sketches.
— Oh, god, now this is just getting desperate and juvenile, with Darrell’s Richard Clarke claiming Dick Cheney “touched me inappropriately”. Just plain dumb.
— Poor Chris Parnell is JUST NOW making his first and only appearance of the whole night here, and he’s just playing a small, bland, forgettable straight role that’s a complete waste of him. This only makes that joking implication earlier tonight about Lorne firing Chris a second time come off even more unfortunate. Chris’ airtime has gotten pretty damn bad these past few episodes, with him being stuck in featured player-level roles like the “Are we goin’ to the Baywatch?” guy who only gets shown from the back in the Gigli sketch from the Ben Affleck episode.
— Speaking of underappreciated cast members getting screwed in this episode, the great Will Forte is NOWHERE to be seen in this entire episode. A real bummer.
— This sketch is BRUTAL. Just end this already, and tell Jim Downey to get back the sense of humor he used to consistently have.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest, Bootsy Collins & The Roots [real] perform “Funky Kingston”


APPRENTICE BAND
band comprising host & Apprentice co-stars rehearses “She’s Got Class”

— A second Apprentice sketch tonight? Well, at least SNL’s getting their money’s worth out of that set tonight.
— Oh, no. I do not like the looks of where this is headed, with musical instruments being revealed behind a hidden wall in the Apprentice office.
— Ugh, in typical Trump fashion, he breaks the fourth wall in an unscripted manner by smugly milking audience applause from his obvious miming of somebody else’s keyboard playing.
— No, no, no! What is this sketch throwing at me? Trump and his two Apprentice assistants/board members/whatever playing instruments and, ahem, “singing”? What did I do to deserve sitting through this? This feels like some self-indulgent bullshit that Trump probably fought to get on the air.
— What is this sketch even going for? This clearly isn’t a funny sketch. If it is trying to be funny, it’s failing. If it’s trying to be a slice-of-life sketch, it’s failing. If it’s trying to be just a fun AND entertaining musical number, it’s doubly failing.
— This feels like a precursor to a PARTICULARLY wretched and widely hated sketch from Trump’s second hosting stint years later in 2015, where he plays a laser harp instrument in a band.
— Now Maya joins in on the musical number, singing in an extremely goofy, exaggerated voice. Jesus Christ, just end this episode already. I’ve had more than enough.
STARS: *


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— (*sigh*) Well, that was… just as rough to get through as I was afraid it would be. I know Donald Trump’s 2015 episode is far more controversial and is widely considered by many SNL fans to be an absolute disaster, but my god, in terms of episode quality, tonight’s episode has to be right behind that 2015 episode. While this episode may have been controversy-free at the time, it does not hold up well AT ALL nowadays, for obvious reasons. Even if I look at Trump through pure, non-judgmental eyes, he was comedy poison in this episode (as I said earlier, my only laugh from him all night came from his “This idiot was laughing the whole time” line in the cold opening), basically sleepwalking through the episode with an unlikable, arrogant demeanor while having SNL stroke his ego for almost the entire 90 minutes. Absolutely unwatchable. And it wasn’t even just the Trump-centric stuff in this episode that I hated. As the interminable and boring 9/11 Hearings sketch, the idiotic and endless Fallon/Sanz breaking in the Fathers And Sons sketch, and the overlong and dumb Omarosa bit on Weekend Update all showed, this episode had quite a number of non-Trump stuff for me to get frustrated by. There were only TWO segments all night that I gave a passing rating to (the cold opening and Fear Factor Junior). Other than that, this episode has got to have one of the top 10 lowest rating averages of this entire SNL project of mine.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ben Affleck)
one of the biggest step downs imaginable


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Janet Jackson