Tag: Jonah Hill

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March 5, 2016 – Jonah Hill / Future (S41 E14)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

CNN ELECTION CENTER
Ted Cruz (TAK) & Mitt Romney (JAS) weigh in against Donald Trump (DAH)

— The debut of Beck’s Jake Tapper impression.
— A good laugh from the conceit of Bobby’s Chris Christie shamefully acting submissive towards Darrell’s Donald Trump.
— Decent speech from Kate’s Hillary Clinton.
— A funny beginning to the Taran-as-Ted-Cruz interview, with the uncomfortably-close initial shot of his face, and Beck’s Tapper being startled by it.
— There’s that maniacal, over-the-top laugh from Taran’s Cruz again, which I never care for, partly because it feels to me like Taran’s trying too hard (he also did a very similar laugh as Peyton Manning a few episodes prior), and, as I said in a recent review, kinda signifies the fact that his SNL tenure is coming to a close, despite him not even knowing that. And in general, I just have a hard time buying him as Ted Cruz.
— Whoa, Jason Sudeikis cameo as Mitt Romney. I had no prior memory of that being in this episode.
— I like the callback to a previous Mitt Romney appearance of Jason’s, with him referring to rappers as “rapsters”.
— Some okay lines from Jason’s Romney here, and Jason’s giving his usual solid performance.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
host fights career slump by performing “Jumpman” with musical guest

— Boy, we’re ALREADY launching into an audience Q&A, only 10 seconds into this monologue.
— Kyle, as an audience member: “Hey, Jonah, medium fan here.”
— A pretty funny and unexpected reveal of Kyle actually playing himself. I’d like to think that’s SNL’s self-deprecating way of making fun of how they’ve strangely taken to using cast members as fake audience members in Audience Q&A monologues in recent years. (Seriously, why’d they stop regularly using writers for those roles?)
— Jonah Hill, to Kyle, after Kyle passive-aggressively insulted him: “I love your videos that you make. They remind me of how much I miss Andy Samberg.”
— The Jonah/Future duet isn’t doing a thing for me.
— That’s the whole monologue? Aside from the funny back-and-forths between Jonah and Kyle at the beginning, this monologue felt like a whole lot of nothing, though it wasn’t horrible.
STARS: **


RACISTS FOR TRUMP
a variety of things make Donald Trump an attractive candidate to racists

— Given the nature of the set-up, the reveal of Taran wearing a swastika armband and Vanessa knitting a KKK hood is hilarious.
— Sadly, the shock value of the reveals wore off fast. After the big laughs from the first two reveals with Taran and Vanessa, this commercial had no other place to go. By the time they got to the final scene with Kyle, the reveal in his scene barely even registered.
STARS: **½


FOND DU LAC ACTION NEWS
off-topic personal items guide small town report

— A fairly amusing concept of a Midwestern folksy approach to presenting the news.
— Pretty funny how Aidy’s remote “report” just consists of Cecily and Jonah speaking to each other while Aidy silently stands there.
— There’s our obligatory display of Jonah cracking up, which seems to happen at least once in each of his hosting stints.
— Taran steals this sketch in his Lotto Picks scene.
— Overall, decent execution of a premise that I initially didn’t think would have the legs to sustain a full four-minute sketch.
STARS: ***


THE CHAMP
newscast details how much of a loser high schooler (host) is

— Unexpected twist with Jonah finding out the real reason behind the special treatment he received from his peers.
— There’s our obligatory display of “Jonah Hill plays a character who gets called out on a bathroom-related embarrassment”, which, much like him breaking out into giggles during a sketch, seems to happen at least once in each of his hosting stints.
— Kenan apparently doing an homage to Fred Armisen’s stereotypical Spanish-accented roles, I see. Kenan’s even using the same vocal inflection Fred would’ve used had he played this particular janitor role.
— The random bit with it being disclosed that Eric McCormack had just committed a murder next door made me laugh.
— The more this short goes on, the less I’m liking the mean-spirited tone of it. I can certainly get behind mean-spirited humor when done right, but this ain’t it.
— Great delivery from Cecily on the following breaking news she gives about Eric McCormack: “It’s twiiiiiins!…that he murdered.”
STARS: **


STUDENT AUCTION
Qatari emissary (host) bids for viral videomakers at high school auction

— Jonah looks like he’s struggling so hard to keep up that Middle Eastern accent he’s doing.
— Cecily, after being told that she and Sasheer will be made to prepare the evening’s feast: “(confused) I don’t know how to cook…” Jonah: “THEN YOU WILL LEARN!”
— A good laugh from Beck suddenly changing his tune in regards to his daughter going to the Middle East unsupervised after he hears how much he’s going to get paid for it.
— Not sure I need Taran in this.
— Overall, I feel like this sketch should’ve ended after the good first half. The second half, after the Cecily/Kyle/Sasheer group exited, was pretty blah for me.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & The Weeknd [real] perform “Low Life”


WEEKEND UPDATE
The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started A Conversation With At A Party is a pompous mess

News From The Future- musical guest declines to participate

110 Year-Old Flossie Dickey (KAM) wants no part of an interview with VAB

JAP uses impressions to recreate a secret meeting of black comedians

— Interesting hearing Michael do a Ben Carson vocal impression. Not bad.
— Cecily’s Girl At A Party, to Michael: “Just so you know, if it were up to me, every year would be Black History Month.”
— Michael: “So are you voting democrat or…?” Girl At A Party: “Why do we have to labia everything, Michael?!?”
— Girl At A Party, in a request to Michael: “Just slap me really hard. It’s about Wall Street.”
— The usual hilarious overall commentary from Girl At A Party.
— A funny idea to do a variation of “The Weeknd Update” bit that they did with The Weeknd earlier this season (funny how he also happens to be in this episode, too), and Future’s little delivery of “What’chall doin’?!?” at the end of his outbursts towards the camera particularly made me laugh.
— Interesting change of pace for Update with the segment with Vanessa interviewing Kate as the world’s oldest woman.
— Meh, as this Vanessa/Kate interview goes on, it’s not doing much for me.
— Okay, I did love Vanessa’s smiley delivery when asking “Oh, no?” after being told by Colin and Michael that she’s not quite done yet after she desperately tries to end the interview prematurely.
— As much as I’m not caring for Kate in this segment (another example of her “peak years” of 2014-2017 being more hit-and-miss than I had remembered), I did laugh just now at her deadpan, grizzled delivery of “Leave this place.”
— Vanessa continues to be the only consistent highlight of this overlong Kate segment. Vanessa’s selling her controlled frustration really well.
— Another interesting change of pace for Update, with Jay doing a commentary as himself that involves him doing a rapid-fire string of many vocal impressions.
— Pretty fascinating seeing Jay do his familiar celebrity voices while playing himself instead of playing the actual celebrities.
— Jay’s Kevin Hart impression has improved a bit from when he last did it in Hart’s season 40 hosting stint.
— This commentary of Jay’s is fun as hell. I’d say this is one of the best things he’s ever done on SNL, which is significant, as we’re nearing the end of his tenure.
— I like the new impressions Jay’s doing here that he never did on SNL before, such as Dave Chappelle and Hannibal Burress.
— Funny reveal at the end that Jay was making the whole event up.
STARS: ****


MURDER MYSTERY
(host)’s massive dump is revealed in course of murder mystery resolution

— A variation of the Couples Quiz sketch (a.k.a. the game show sketch where Jonah gets called out on clogging the toilet in the studio’s bathroom) from Jonah’s season 39 hosting stint. Is SNL freakin’ kidding me making this a recurring concept for Jonah Hill-hosted episodes? Plus, we just got a “Jonah pooping his pants” joke in that The Champ short from earlier tonight.
— I did at least crack up just now at Aidy’s quivery-voiced, British-accented, old-timey delivery of “Why…those are MINE!”
— Taran’s big line flub and subsequent brief giggling over it reminds me of a very similar blooper happening with him in that Murder Mystery sketch from the season 39 Jim Parsons episode, which is an eerie coincidence, as not only do that sketch and this Jonah Hill sketch both have the exact same title as each other, but both sketches even use a very similar-looking set.
STARS: *½


SIDE NOTE: At this point of the episode, just like something I pointed out towards the end of this review of Jonah’s season 37 hosting stint, we get a mid-commercial break shot of what appears to possibly be a red carpet awards show sketch being set up (screencap below), but when SNL comes back from commercial break a minute or so later, we instead get a pre-taped short. We end up never getting the sketch that was shown being set up.


INSIDE SOCAL
(host) reports on (CES)’s tragic breast-reduction surgery

— The third and final installment of this recurring short. Makes sense doing one of these tonight, given the fact the first installment was in Jonah’s season 39 episode.
— A very funny awkward “World News” segment about Indian food.
— Hilarious conceit to this short with Beck and Kyle mourning the loss of Cecily’s big breasts, as she’s getting a breast reduction. This comedic throughline makes this my favorite of all three of the Inside SoCal shorts.
— Funny visual of the hospital waiting room full of depressed bros, sad over the breast reduction surgery Cecily had just now.
— For once, an Inside SoCal short doesn’t end with Bobby entering the scene and sternly putting an end to the recording. The baby bit at the end of tonight’s short is pretty solid.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO

— A bit interesting how both of Jonah’s musical guest intros tonight have him so casual that he’s holding a Styrofoam cup that he was seemingly drinking out of before doing the intro. Channeling Elliott Gould, I take it?


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “March Madness”


SILVER STAR CATERING
caterer (host) aggressively overstates the success of his food offerings

— Ugh at the main comedic character of this sketch being an EXTREMELY broad, obnoxious, and unfunny gay stereotype.
— An even bigger ugh at the comedic lines that Jonah’s annoying gay stereotype character is blurting out, especially when he starts using sexual terms to describe the manner that the food was eaten by the employees (including flat-out saying at one point that the food was “raped”). This sketch is painfully unfunny.
— As if the reliance on a broad gay stereotype character didn’t already clue you in on the fact that this sketch came from the pen of writers James Anderson and Kent Sublette, the pointless, needless side plot (a trademark of Anderson/Sublette sketches) with the guy who Jonah’s in a phone conversation with being robbed during the conversation makes it official that this is pure “Anderlette” at their worst.
STARS: *


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A weak episode. Jonah Hill’s episodes typically have a way of just washing over me without registering much, despite not being all that bad, but I felt this particular episode actually was all that bad. My problem with Jonah’s episodes isn’t with Jonah himself, as I don’t find him to be outright terrible as a host or anything, but he’s also not the kind of host who can salvage the bland or bad writing that dominates episodes like this.
— I just realized that, for the first time ever in a Jonah Hill hosting stint, we didn’t get the usual Six Year Old recurring sketch. I know some people really don’t care for those sketches, but they always really work for me, and an appearance from one tonight may have helped the quality of this episode a little.


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


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Weekend Update
Inside SoCal
Fond Du Lac Action News
CNN Election Center
Racists For Trump
Student Auction
The Champ
Monologue
Murder Mystery
Silver Star Catering


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Melissa McCarthy)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Ariana Grande

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January 25, 2014 – Jonah Hill / Bastille (S39 E12)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE U.S. MEN’S HETEROSEXUAL FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS
heterosexual male figure skaters (BOM), (JAP), (BEB) lack flamboyance

— Funny concept of ridiculously-heterosexual male figure skaters, as a result of the controversy regarding that year’s Winter Olympics.
— Pretty solid performance from Bobby.
— Beck is very funny during the pairs team scene, especially the lengths he goes through just to take an upskirt photo of Kate with his phone.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
Leonardo DiCaprio [real] deflates Oscar nominee host’s self-admiration

— It feels a little rare to see questions-from-the-audience monologues anymore in these past few seasons that I’ve been covering. At least this monologue format is a way for some of this season’s very underused featured players to get much-needed-albeit-still-too-brief airtime, much like how the (many) questions-from-the-audience monologues in season 19 gave some much-needed-albeit-still-too-brief airtime to very underused featured player Sarah Silverman.
— The conceit with all of the audience members’ questions to Jonah Hill just being about his co-star Leonardo DiCaprio feels derivative of a few other questions-from-the-audience monologues (e.g. Jason Priestley).
— It’s very surprising that this is the first (and, I believe, only, as of 2020) SNL appearance DiCaprio has ever made.
— I like the What’s Eating Gilbert Grape reference Jonah drops to Leo.
— Some okay interplay between Jonah and Leo, but this feels drawn-out and a little corny at times, and I’m finding myself getting a little bored at certain points.
STARS: **½


SIX YEAR OLD
6 year-old Adam once again uses Benihana as a venue for his comedy material

— This staple of Jonah Hill episodes returns, and, as usual, he appears in that same-old Benihana setting. (*groan*) I actually like this character a lot (probably more than most people do), but damn, SNL, would it kill you to put this character in a non-Benihana setting for once? There are so many fresh, promising settings this character can be put in. It’s so lazy to always relegate this character to only appearing in a Benihana.
— Nice continuity and passing-of-the-torch by having the guardian who’s accompanying Jonah’s Adam Grossman character tonight be his now-stepmother, who was introduced as Adam’s father’s new girlfriend in the last installment of this sketch prior to this episode. A good way to work around Bill Hader no longer being around to play Adam’s father.
— As usual, Jonah’s very good in this role and is cracking me up all throughout this, even if I can’t find much to say about this.
STARS: ****


THE HIT
gunmen (KET), (TAK), (JAP) are enchanted by nighttime snowfall

— Pretty funny conceit with hardcore gangsters gradually and uncharacteristically speaking glowingly about the snowfall, to the degree where Jay’s the only sane one left in the bunch.
— Good ending with Kenan and Taran immediately driving off in a casual manner after Jay gets gunned down.
STARS: ***½


COUPLES QUIZ!
game show contestant (host) admits to clogging toilet

— Not crazy about this premise, though I got a laugh from Kenan’s friendly, innocent delivery of “So, uh…….who did this???” when trying to get the contestants to confess to clogging the toilet.
— They seem to be trying to make it a regular thing for Kenan as a game show host to have an angry “NO!” outburst and rant towards someone, after the New Cast Member Or Arcade Fire sketch from earlier this season.
— I continue to have very mixed feelings towards this premise. It’s way too juvenile and questionable for my likes, and the fact that they would end up making this premise a semi-staple of Jonah Hill-hosted episodes sours me somewhat even more in hindsight, but the ridiculous lengths that the characters are going through just to get Jonah to confess are making me chuckle, as are some of Kenan’s outlandish reasons for why this game show is making such a big deal about a mere clogged toilet.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pompeii”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Miami police officer (KET) was amused during his arrest of Justin Bieber

miserable Olya Povlatsky can’t fathom why the Olympics would pick Russia

— Ha, that Bieber mugshot photo always cracks me up (the first above screencap for this Update).
— Kenan’s good in his laid-back commentary as the cop who arrested Justin Bieber, and he has some funny lines, especially his remarks about Bieber’s father.
— Cecily’s drunk Scottish fish joke (“YOU…DON’T…KNOW…ME!”) is probably her most-remembered Update joke from her entire short-lived Update tenure.
— I like how Seth, after a weak joke, ad-libs a callback to Cecily’s “YOU…DON’T…KNOW…ME!” line by quoting it, leading into an all-too-rare instance of actual interaction and chemistry between Seth and Cecily.
— Another ironic SNL instance of Kate playing a character who says at one point, “I wish I was gay.”
— As usual, Kate’s Olya Povlatsky is very funny and likable, and has some great lines.
STARS: ***


WILLOW
a horse kicks, headbutts, bites, brands its groomers (host) & (CES)

— A laugh from the first hit that Cecily receives from the horse.
— Boy, after the aforementioned first hit, this sketch has fizzled out for me FAST. The comedic conceit is one-joke and weak. Maybe if the horse’s violent actions were increasingly outlandish, over-the-top, and non-horse-like, I’d find this funny.
— I remember an online SNL fan back at this time in 2014 saying this felt like a throwback to Jack Handey-written sketches from the late 80s and early 90s. When I initially read that comparison, after having not enjoyed this sketch during my original viewing the night it originally aired, my ears perked up (Handey’s my personal favorite SNL writer of all time), so I then followed that by giving this sketch a re-watch with that new perspective, and I ended up enjoying it. However, all these years later, during my current re-watch, I’m no longer finding myself enthusiastic at all about this sketch, nor do I find the sketch to be Handey-esque. Handey likely would’ve done much more creative, oddball stuff with this premise if he wrote this.
— Okay, so they actually fulfilled my wish for the horse’s violent actions to be more outlandish and non-horse-like, with the ending of this sketch having the horse brand Cecily’s face. Unfortunately, even that fell completely flat for me.
STARS: *½


ME
Theodore Twombly (host) is narcissistic with surrogate (Michael Cera)

— A somewhat interesting concept for a “her” parody.
— Pretty solid scene with Jonah and Vanessa in an elevator.
— Figures that Michael Cera would be cast in this particular role.
STARS: ***


BOSS DINNER
at his boss’ (BEB) house, unnerved (host) yells at himself within earshot

— Another sketch tonight with a thin, dumb, and repetitive premise, but Jonah is actually making this one work. His delivery of his off-camera yells has me in absolute STITCHES. I guess I can place this sketch in the “guilty pleasure” file.
— Jonah’s “Jeffrey has a tummy-ache!” bit, and his reaction to that, is very funny.
STARS: ****


INSIDE SOCAL
laid-back teens (BEB) & (KYM) make TV at a house party

— A trunk piece from Beck and Kyle’s pre-SNL days on YouTube.
— Funny cutaway to Mike and Brooks, though there’s also a lot of reality subtext there, whether intended or not, as Mike and Brooks’ appearance here is brief and just features them standing there with awkward looks on their faces, not saying a single word, all of which sadly sums up the way SNL typically under-utilizes them (and a lot of this season’s other featured players). This also ends up being the ONLY appearance Mike and Brooks make all night (and it’s not even a live appearance), so…yeah.
— Some pretty good laughs from the intentional stilted, low-budget presentation of this show, especially the bad segment jingles.
— Great walk-on from Bobby as Jonah’s pissed-off father.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Oblivion”


LAMBORGHINI
(host) & vacuous ex-porn stars endorse Lamborghini

— Vanessa’s monotone “Meep meep” made me laugh.
— Vanessa: “Hasta la vista, scabies.”
— There’s something I loved about Cecily’s extremely random “Why I oughtaaaa…!” non-sequitur.
— Vanessa, when trying to remember the word for pedals: “What are those things you press with your feet?” Cecily: “Testicles.”
— Cecily: “One time, I thought I banged Seal Team Six, but it was actually 16 seals. I was like, ‘Thanks, America! Arf arf.’”
— Vanessa’s whole funeral story is very funny.
— Cecily: “I thought I was in the movie Alien, but it was just a big penis in my stomach.”
— Jonah’s “Well, I don’t know if you can fit a whole car…” line during his confusion about Lamborghini being a vaginal device made me laugh out loud.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode, though, for some reason, I’m left feeling it was kind of forgettable. Despite the good ratings I gave out throughout the review, I can’t help but have kind of a nagging “It was fine, but in a very average, unexciting, ‘just there’ kind of way” gut feeling towards this episode, which, in some ways, is kinda par for the course in regards to how I typically feel about Jonah Hill-hosted episodes.


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


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Lamborghini
Boss Dinner
Six Year Old
The U.S. Men’s Heterosexual Figure Skating Championships
Inside SoCal
The Hit
Weekend Update
me
Monologue
Couples Quiz!
Willow


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Melissa McCarthy hosts. It’s also the final episode for 13-year veteran Seth Meyers.

Posted on

March 10, 2012 – Jonah Hill / The Shins (S37 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW
marginal backers replace Rush Limbaugh’s (TAK) deserting sponsors

— Great to see featured player Taran starring in a solo cold opening for a change.
— The “motto” for Syria Tourism Board being “Aah! No! There’s nowhere to hide!” is hilarious.
— Some good laughs from the strange, low-budget companies that don’t exist in real life being the only sponsors Taran’s Rush Limbaugh has left. Also, am I correct in remembering SNL would later use this same concept of “Controversial right-wing TV/radio host lists off their show’s strange, low-budget, non-existent-in-real-life new sponsors, after losing most of their big-name sponsors due to recently saying something offensive” in a Laura Ingraham cold opening? In fact, I think it was in one of the last new SNL episodes I ever watched before starting my (still ongoing) hiatus from watching new episodes. So that would pinpoint the Laura Ingraham cold opening in question as being from about November 2018. In fact, coincidentally, it may have even been in that season’s (season 44) Jonah Hill episode. (For the record, the final new episode I watched before starting my hiatus was season 44’s Steve Carell episode. And, yes, the quality, or lack thereof, of that episode played a part in my decision to go on a long break from watching new episodes, though the main reason was my increasing dissatisfaction with SNL’s quality in general at the time.)
— I got a big “Oh, so wrong” laugh from the bit with the Fake Rape Whistles sponsor.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
Tom Hanks [real] puts an end to Oscar nominee host’s week of pomposity

— A fairly fun monologue premise, with a video chronicling Jonah’s week at SNL.
— Interesting seeing SNL’s wardrobe room, which I don’t think we’ve seen all that often over the years, surprisingly.
— A particularly funny comment from Bobby pointing out Jonah’s glasses keep getting smaller while his scarves keep getting bigger.
— TOM HANKS!
— As always, Tom is reliably funny here, especially when he cruelly fakes Jonah out by acting like he was going to let Jonah have one of his Oscars.
STARS: ***½


SIX YEAR OLD
back at Benihana, 6 year-old Adam teases his dad’s (BIH) girlfriend (VAB)

— This character from Jonah’s first hosting stint has officially become recurring.
— This sketch of Jonah’s was solid the first time, and I don’t mind seeing it become recurring, but boy, is it lazy on SNL’s part to place this character in the EXACT SAME Benihana setting from his first sketch. There are so many settings you can place this character, so why keep him confined to the Benihana setting from his debut?
— At least we get a nice new addition to this sketch with Vanessa as Bill’s new girlfriend.
— It turns out that Jonah continues to do a solid job as this character, and, like last time, I’m getting good laughs from his Borscht Belt-esque one-liners, helping me overlook my frustration with SNL lazily reusing the Benihana’s setting.
— I notice that Jonah’s occasionally causing himself to break out into brief giggles in the middle of some of his lines, but it’s not detracting from the quality of this sketch or anything.
STARS: ****


SCIENCE FINDERS
tennis balls to the groin put stress on (host)’s heart; John MacEnroe cameo

— Not too sure about this concept. And after how bad a lot of this season’s Digital Shorts have been, I have a right to be wary of this short.
— The endless replaying of Jonah’s yell from the initial groin hit he suffers has a “So dumb, it’s funny” quality.
— A pretty good laugh from Jonah immediately getting hit in the groin a second time as soon as he removes the ice pack from his injured groin.
— John MacEnroe makes yet another SNL cameo.
— While the concept of this short remains a little questionable, the execution isn’t bad. Again, there’s a “So dumb, it’s funny” quality to this short, further helped by how it’s being presented in such a mock-serious way.
STARS: ***


J-POP AMERICA FUN TIME NOW!
samurai-wannabe (host) has bad swordsmanship

— A funny visual of the exams that Taran and Vanessa turned in, shown by Jason.
— For the first time, the guest in this recurring sketch is male.
— Holy hell at that samurai voice Jonah’s attempting.
— I love the photo of Taran and Vanessa hosting a Rastafarian version of this show. I actually would like to see them do that version of this sketch.
— All of a sudden, Jonah has begun helplessly laughing his way through his lines, for no visible reason. He would later reveal in an interview that the reason for his laughing in this sketch is because (and this is from my admittedly faulty memory, so some details may be a little off) he spotted a friend of his in the floor seats of SNL’s audience, and remembering the odd laugh that friend has induced a laughing fit from Jonah himself.
— No idea how to react to the song Jonah’s doing, but I can see a “So bad, it’s good” quality (which is probably what they’re going for).
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Simple Song”


WEEKEND UPDATE
diabetic Paula Deen (KRW) responds to family problems & charges of racism

ANS doesn’t realize how bad his Sarah Palin impersonation is

Stefon’s St. Patrick’s Day plans involve a long kiss with SEM

— Meh, not sure I need a second appearance from Kristen’s Paula Deen, after her first appearance in a sketch from the preceding season’s Scarlett Johansson episode. I was okay-ish with that sketch back then (probably only because I had just suffered through that St. Kat’s Middle sketch and was desperate for a laugh), but this impression of Kristen’s, and, more specifically, that voice she uses, are all better left in small doses. I didn’t even remember until now that this impression of Kristen’s ever made a second appearance.
— Well, just now, Kristen’s Deen made a passing mention of the Three Stooges (or, as she calls, “a three stooge”), so that’s something, at least (for me, anyway).
— What the hell was with that ending of Kristen’s Deen commentary??? Was that even an ending???
— Ha, Andy showing up doing Tina Fey’s trademark impression, Sarah Palin.
— I like the meta, self-aware direction this Palin commentary has gone, with a sotto voce Seth calling Andy out on all the inaccurate things he’s doing in his Palin impression, and how he should just leave this impression to Tina.
— Ha, speaking of meta, I love Andy quoting “Daaa Bears!” as one of Palin’s alleged catchphrases.
— Here’s our Stefon commentary. This particular one is fairly important, as a special moment happens at one point during it.
— Funniest comments from Stefon tonight are the mention of an old Pakistani woman that looks like a California Raisin, the trivia game “Shaun White or Bonnie Raitt?”, one of the clubs mentioned having the name “…………..(*looks around in a concerned manner*)…………Kevin????”, the mention of black Irish comedian Sinbad O’Connor (I wonder if the latter is writer John Mulaney making an intentional nod to a memorable line from SNL’s classic The Sinatra Group sketch), and Stefon’s explanation of what a Human Roomba is (the latter of which makes Bill bust up in particularly hard laughter, even moreso than he usually does in these Stefon commentaries whenever he reads a newly-rewritten line on the cue cards).
— And there’s the aforementioned special moment of tonight’s Stefon commentary, with him following his “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” button gift to Seth by suddenly giving the unsuspecting Seth a big, long kiss on the lips, complete with playful slaps to his face during the kiss. Certainly much more acceptable than most of SNL’s “men kissing each other for an unnecessary cheap laugh” moments from the late 90s to the early 10s, and it’s also yet another thing that continues the growth of the great story arc between Stefon and Seth.
STARS: ***½


PRIMATE RESEARCH CENTER
(host) is outed as a racist zoophile by the ape he taught to speak (FRA)

— Good make-up on Fred, rendering him downright unrecognizable.
— A quintessential example of a “Jonah Hill as a character who gets humiliated by something personal about himself getting exposed” sketch that seems to be his SNL trademark (aside from the Six Year Old sketches), as this type of sketch (often involving Jonah getting called out on clogging a toilet) appears at least once in a lot of his hosting stints.
— I’m not enjoying this sketch. Even for “immature, crude humor” standards, it feels below par and isn’t remotely funny to me. Also not helping is Fred’s delivery. Something about the VERY slow-paced, beast-like, slightly-hard-to-understand delivery Fred’s deliberately using as the ape when disclosing all of Jonah’s deviant actions is getting on my nerves.
— Overall, oof. Didn’t care for this AT ALL.
STARS: *


LIZA MINNELLI TRIES TO TURN OFF A LAMP
on Cats’ opening night, Liza Minnelli (KRW) does what the title above says

— A variation of Kristen’s Ann-Margret Tries To Throw Away A Wad Of Paper Into A Trashcan sketch. I liked that one, but yeah, I did NOT need a follow-up.
— This version seems to be more well-known among people than the Ann-Margret version, which is odd to me, because I’m finding this one to be FAR inferior to the Ann-Margret one. Also, the concept of “Celebrity has a difficult time doing a simple task” was far more fitting & fun with the Ann-Marget dancing routine. Compared to that, this Minnelli sketch is doing too much by having Kristen’s Minnelli wandering around aimlessly and rambling about random things, and it’s not funny AT ALL to me. And at the risk of sounding redundant after what I just said about Fred’s voice in the preceding Primate Research Center sketch, adding to my lack of enjoyment of this Minnelli sketch is the annoying delivery Kristen’s using. I know she’s just trying to sound like Minnelli, but her attempt at it is annoying as hell to my ears.
STARS: *


SIDE NOTE: The mid-commercial break shot of SNL’s studio shows the set for a SportsCenter sketch finished being assembled on the home base stage while Jonah and Jay, both dressed in character (complete with wigs), can be seen among the performers taking their place for the sketch (screencap below).

However, when SNL comes back from the (very long) commercial break afterwards, what do we see? Jonah dressed as himself and standing by the audience while introducing The Shins again, who proceed to launch into their second musical performance. So…what the hell?!? What happened??? Why’d SNL decide at LITERALLY the last minute to cut the SportsCenter sketch, after going through all the trouble of getting the set assembled and getting all the performers into costume? I guess they realized during the commercial break that there’s not enough time to do that sketch AND the 10-to-1 sketch that we’ll be seeing after the second Shins performance. And, knowing in hindsight what the ending of the 10-to-1 sketch has in store for us, I assume SNL didn’t want to risk the ending of that 10-to-1 sketch getting cut off due to the show running long, so they decided to scrap the about-to-air SportsCenter sketch.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “It’s Only Life”


ANNIVERSARY SONG
(host)’s anniversary surprise for (KRW) turns into “C U When U Get There”

— A funny unexpected turn with the soft, classical music suddenly turning into upbeat hip-hop music, and Jonah breaking out into a singing of Coolio’s “C U When U Get There”, all to Kristen’s utter confusion. All the absurdity here is pretty fun.
— Now this has gotten even more fun with Kristen having a change of heart and deciding to happily go along with the “C U When U Get There” musical number, after Jonah wins her over with his big explanation for why he’s using that as their anniversary song.
— Oh, hell yeah. Now this has gotten EVEN MORE fun with all of the performers dancing their way off the set and, while still dancing and singing “C U When U Get There”, going through SNL’s studio and interacting with the audience.
— I like how, while the performers are going through SNL’s studio, Kristen and Jonah are starting to comically exaggerate their singing to each other, in a manner that you can tell they’re having so much fun with each other. They’ve both been having strong chemistry all throughout tonight’s episode. Even at the end of that Liza Minnelli sketch that I absolutely hated, we got to see Kristen and Jonah having fun together with the goofy dance they were doing while hamming it up in each other’s faces.
— Ha, an absolutely perfect ending, with the In Memoriam graphic of Coolio, which, as soon as it showed up, initially made some viewers back in 2012 (including myself) think “Wait, WTF? Coolio DIED?!? When did this happen? How come I’m just now hearing about this, in an SNL sketch of all things?”, until you notice the year they put for his death: 3162. Absolutely hilarious and awesome.
STARS: ****½ (the entire last minute of this sketch was great enough to bump the rating up)


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— The first half of this episode was absolutely fine, but once Weekend Update ended, the show crashed-and-burned hard with the first two post-Update sketches (which worryingly seems to be becoming a trend for this season lately, given the fact that the post-Update half of the preceding Lindsay Lohan episode also fell horribly apart), only for the show to thankfully rebound nicely with the very enjoyable 10-to-1 sketch.
— This episode seemed to have a lower-than-usual number of sketches, which is odd, because nothing felt particularly long in this episode, aside from Weekend Update. Update must’ve been even longer than I thought if it took up THAT much of the show to the degree that it left a shorter-than-usual amount of time for sketches.


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


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Anniversary Song
Six Year Old
The Rush Limbaugh Show
Monologue
Weekend Update
Science Finders
J-Pop America Fun Time Now!
Liza Minnelli Tries To Turn Off A Lamp
Primate Research Center


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lindsay Lohan)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Sofia Vergara hosts. We also get a new female addition to the cast, a certain female who’s still in the cast today in 2020.

Posted on

March 15, 2008 – Jonah Hill / Mariah Carey (S33 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

SPITZER & ASSOCIATES
in private practice, Eliot Spitzer (BIH) will handle sex-related cases

— Good to see a change of pace from all the Hillary/Obama cold openings that the show had been doing lately. Also great to see Bill play the lead in a cold opening, which feels very rare in these early seasons of his SNL tenure.
— I like the voice Bill’s doing here. 12 years after this Eliot Spitzer scandal, I now no longer have any recollection of what Spitzer’s voice sounds like, but I recall finding Bill’s vocal impression of him to be spot-on when this originally aired.
— A good laugh from the “1-800-T-A-W-D-R-Y” phone number.
— Without even saying a single word in this entire cold opening, Kristen is still doing such great work conveying the anger of her role as Spitzer’s wife.
— I absolutely HOWLED at Bill-as-Spitzer’s initially-calm-then-suddenly-loudly-angry delivery of “You, by the side of the road, wrapped in PLASTIC!!!!!”
— Lots of pretty funny lines regarding the sex-related cases Spitzer and his law firm will take on.
— Good little touch with how, after Bill-as-Spitzer’s “Live from New York…”, instead of SNL immediately cutting to the opening montage like usual, the camera precedes the opening montage by panning over to a silent Kristen-as-Spitzer’s-wife’s frowny face, keeping up the theme of her having a cold, unhappy demeanor throughout this cold opening.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
to combat his crude big-screen image, host sings about how he is fancy

— OH, GOD. A musical monologue for the second consecutive episode? Come on, SNL.
— I do like Jonah’s “fancy dance”, at least.
— A fairly funny cutaway to Amy as Jonah’s Grandma Nancy.
— An unintentional laugh from Jonah’s line flub when he tells us, through song, to “kliss” his classy ass.
STARS: **


MACGRUBER
competency questions bring about a crisis of confidence for MacGruber

— Feels pretty nice to see a MacGruber short right after the monologue for once.
— Due to Maya Rudolph’s then-recent departure from the show, the regular character played by her in these MacGruber shorts has been replaced with a new soon-to-be regular character played by Kristen.
— A pretty good laugh from the obligatory end-of-sketch explosion happening right at the turn where MacGruber suddenly starts to ask, in a worried, sincere voice, “You really think I’m not good at my jo–”.
STARS: ***½


WHAT’S YOUR SITUATION?
emcee (host) thinks game show is a singles bar

— Not too sure about this premise.
— I like Casey’s delivery of “Because….I….love my husband….?” when unhappily asked by a sleazy Jonah why she’s married.
— Jonah is at least executing this fairly well, surprisingly.
— I don’t know why, but in a weird way, this sketch feels to me kinda like a poor man’s precursor to the following season’s superior I’m Gonna Have Sex With Your Wife game show sketch with Bradley Cooper, despite that sketch having pretty much a completely different concept than the one this sketch has.
— I spoke a bit too soon in my compliment of Jonah’s performance, as his timing seemed kinda off at the end.
— At least this overall sketch was pretty short, but that may have been part of the problem, as it kinda feels like they didn’t really explore this concept enough. Then again, I’m not sure what else they could’ve done with this concept.
STARS: **


SIX YEAR OLD
precocious 6 year-old Adam (host) treats Benihana like a Borscht Belt gig

— The debut of what would go on to be a staple of most Jonah Hill-hosted episodes (I think his 2016 episode has been the only one without this sketch, as of 2020).
— Solid concept of Jonah playing a very precocious six-year-old who talks like a Borscht Belt comedian.
— Jonah is strong here, and his performance is a lot of fun. I’m also loving his endless amount of wisecracks.
— Overall, a great debut. We’ll see how I’ll feel about the subsequent installments of this sketch. I remember being so increasingly frustrated that those installments take place in the EXACT SAME Benihana location that this first installment took place in. So lazy. There are so many promising locations you can place Jonah’s character in. Why use the Benihana setting EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME?
STARS: ****


MACGRUBER
MacGruber’s paranoia over backstabbers results in abdication

— A very funny shot at the end of the opening title sequence, with MacGruber walking past the camera while rudely giving everyone the finger.
— This overall short, and the general conceit of tonight’s MacGruber shorts, was better than I had remembered it, but still don’t quite measure up to typical strong MacGruber shorts.
— Strangely, tonight’s SNL episode ends up not showing the third part of tonight’s MacGruber runner. It would be put online shortly after the original airing of this episode. From what my admittedly-fuzzy memory of it recalls, it involved Bill as some kind of therapist/trainer helping a very unconfident, practically-catatonic MacGruber in one of those control rooms that MacGruber and his assistants are always locked in, and the short ended with MacGruber aimlessly and repeatedly banging the leg of a chair onto a table before the obligatory end-of-sketch explosion.
STARS: ***½


THE SUZE ORMAN SHOW
financial questions receive thrifty responses from Suze Orman (KRW)

— The debut of Kristen’s Suze Orman impression. Wow, I had completely forgotten about this recurring Suze Orman sketch until now.
— Kristen’s portrayal of Orman is very funny, and her delivery of every single line she has is making them fun.
— I like the interplay between Kristen’s Orman and Jonah’s character.
STARS: ***½


ANDY’S DAD
ANS is distressed to learn that his dad (JID) is going out with host

— I remember finding this short to be a laugh riot when it originally aired in 2008, but the crass, cheap homoerotic premise doesn’t seem like the type of thing that will hold up quite as well in today’s age. Then again, Lonely Island has proven that they can make good shorts out of crass, cheap homoerotic premises and have it still hold up well today (e.g. Roy Rules, Iran So Far).
— A very interesting use of Jim Downey.
— Aaaaaand there goes the obligatory cheap, unnecessary, hacky attempt at a laugh with a man-on-man kiss (which I previously praised Lonely Island for refraining from doing in the aforementioned Iran So Far short). However, I do love how the kiss is immediately followed by a cutaway to a close-up of Andy with a VERY stern, frozen expression on his face (the sixth above screencap for this Digital Short).
— A big laugh from how Jonah lowering his head while laughing with Jim Downey turns into Jonah lowering his head further and going down on Jim below the camera view.
— Aside from the aforementioned kiss, I’m actually enjoying this short. Yet another example of Lonely Island executing a potentially-dodgy homoerotic premise well.
— Bill caps this short off well with his hilarious ending line, “We’ve been f(*bleep*)in’!”, followed by the screen doing a freeze-frame on him smiling at the camera while a random “Created by Lorne Michaels” credit is displayed onscreen.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Touch My Body”


WEEKEND UPDATE
incredulous SEM & AMP say “Really!?!” to Eliot Spitzer’s whoring

TRM’s electoral assessment- “black is the new president, bitch”

— Ha, the photo of Eliot Spitzer making a goofy-looking ashamed, disgraced face (the first above screencap for this Update) was shown a lot in the news and online back at this time, and used to always crack me up back then.
— Good ad-lib from Seth after Amy flubbed her Brita joke.
— Good to see Seth and Amy doing a “Really?!?” on the Spitzer scandal. This should be good.
— An overall pretty solid edition of “Really?!?”, even if it trailed off for me a little towards the end, though not even that was anything bad.
— Ha, not only does Colin Jost make his way into yet another comical Update photo, but we get to see him with what appears to be a natural beard! (the third-to-last above screencap for this Weekend Update)
— Tracy Morgan cameo!
— Tracy seems to have facially aged a lot in such a short amount of time since his last cameo prior to this, in the preceding season’s Alec Baldwin episode.
— As usual, Tracy is killing it here. He has an endless number of funny remarks. He’s even getting laughs from some of his non-verbal actions.
— Tracy brings up the “Bitch is the new black” declaration Tina Fey memorably made on Update three episodes prior, and has this epic rebuttal to it: “Bitch may be the new black…..but black is the new president, bitch.” Classic line.
STARS: ***½


TARGET
Target Lady advises daft fellow employee (host) on how to woo co-worker

— (*groan*)
— Well, at least we got a fairly long break from Target Lady, as her last appearance prior to this was in February 2007.
— Not caring for Jonah in this sketch. He’s trying too hard to play “quirky” and “twitchy”, and it’s coming off too forced.
— Seeing all those boxes of Nilla Wafers in Will’s shopping basket makes me hungry as hell. I haven’t had Nilla Wafers in ages.
STARS: **


NBC SPECIAL REPORT
Brian Williams (WLF) presents evidence proving John McCain (DAH) is old

— Hmm, something seems off about Will’s Brian Williams voice tonight. It’s not as spot-on as it was in the previous appearance Will’s Brian Williams impression made. He’s lacking the dry cadence of Williams’ voice that he nailed last time. Tonight, he just sounds like Will Forte talking in a slow voice.
— A pretty funny formal, professional announcement from Will’s Williams that “John McCain is, in fact, old.”
— The debut of Darrell’s John McCain impression.
— Just like I remember finding it to be, Darrell’s McCain impression is fine, but boring. I know that McCain himself is not exactly an exciting man to impersonate, but I’ve seen some actual funny McCain impressions from other comedians. Darrell’s take on McCain is just adequate, but nothing more. The idea of his boring McCain impression being paired with Fred’s awful (not to mention also-boring) Obama impression in the following season’s presidential debate sketches has me worried for how those sketches are going to turn out. Actually, I have only one Obama/McCain debate sketch to review anyway, as two of the three Obama/McCain debate sketches appear in Weekend Update Thursday specials.
— This is the second consecutive episode in which Fred has barely appeared in any sketches. I remember how, back at this time in 2008, I took Fred’s sudden huge drop in airtime as a sign that SNL was very hesitant to use him in sketches after the backlash he and SNL received for his then-new Obama impression. (For anyone wondering how strong that backlash was, well, you’re obviously aware that it wasn’t strong enough to get SNL to yank Fred out of the Obama role back at this time.)
— This sketch is basically just a parade of stereotypical jokes about old people, but it’s working decently enough, especially the bit with Fred and Amy questioning McCain.
STARS: ***


CLANCY T. BACHLERATT AND JACKIE SNAD SING SONGS ABOUT SPACESHIPS, TODDLERS, MODEL T. CARS & JARS OF BEER
Clancy T. Bachleratt (WLF) & Jackie Snad (KRW) do what the title above says

— Oh, I recall this being a fantastic bizarre Forte/Wiig sketch.
— Very funny reveal of the album title, seen above as the title of this sketch in my review. (There’s no way I’m typing all those words a second time.)
— Will and Kristen’s absurd toddler/beer jars/spaceship/Model T-related songs are absolutely PRICELESS.
— Wow, Jonah’s doing a great Horatio Sanz impression! Seriously, what’s going on with him? Why is he laughing his way through this entire sketch, for no apparent reason? (He’d later do the same thing in a J-Pop America Funtime Now sketch in his second hosting stint.) Did he…uh…take a little toke in his dressing room right before this sketch or something?
— The new National Anthem song at the end is particularly hilarious, made even funnier by Will’s insane facial expressions.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & T-Pain [real] perform “Migrate”


FACE TO FACE
upon meeting in real life, (CAW) finds that (host) is an online liar

Sadly, this sketch is strangely missing from the copy I’m currently watching of this episode. Too bad, as it features Casey Wilson in a fairly rare co-starring role. If you’re curious to see my thoughts on this sketch, read it here in the original 2008 review I did back when this episode originally aired (the sketch is titled “Online Dating” in my review). And a screencap can be seen here on SNL Archives’ page for this sketch, if you’re curious what this sketch looks like, given how mysterious and seemingly-forgotten the sketch is, and the fact that I can’t find an online video of it to link to.


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode. Even though only about two or three things stood out to me as strong, most of the sketches were enjoyable, and there wasn’t much that dragged this episode down.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Amy Adams)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Christopher Walken returns for his seventh and final (as of 2020) hosting stint