Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
ROMNEY: BELIEVE IN AMERICA
Mitt Romney (JAS) puts a positive spin on his GOP primary losses
— Blah, another Jason’s-Mitt-Romney-speaking-straight-to-the-camera cold opening, after the weak one from two episodes prior. This is also the FOURTH consecutive cold opening centered around a republican presidential candidate, three of which feature the candidate just speaking straight to the camera, a cold opening trope that’s rarely fun to watch. Yes, I’m aware that this is during the 2012 republican presidential primaries, but 1) SNL needs to do more fun and creative stuff more often with these republican candidate cold openings, like they did with the Newt Gingrich: Moon President cold opening in the preceding episode, and 2) I wonder if the over-reliance on these republican presidential candidate cold openings lately is a byproduct of SNL intentionally(?) phasing out Fred’s Obama, given how little it appears this season. Not that seeing it more often would be a better alternative to these dull republican-presidential-candidate-speaks-straight-to-the-camera cold openings.
— Them playing the Debbie Downer “wah-wahhhhhh” sound effect when pointing out Newt Gingrich’s poor percentage at the Colorado primary is sadly the closest to an interesting thing in this cold opening so far.
— (*groan*) I’m tired of all these percentage points they keep showing. Even the audience’s laughter, which started out fine, is now starting to get kinda tepid.
— The dog endlessly barking in an alarmed manner when being approached by the “friendly” and “personable” Mitt Romney is pretty funny.
— A nice changing-up of the usual LFNY routine, with Jason’s Romney stopping mid-LFNY to plead to his dog to stop barking because it’s ruining Romney’s LFNY moment.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
host plays ukulele & sings a song about a forgotten Valentine’s Day
— I can’t find anything at all to say about Zooey Deschanel’s Valentine’s song so far, but it’s fine and has some decent laughs.
STARS: ***
CHRYSLER
mad Clint Eastwood (BIH) denies Chrysler commercial is political metaphor
— Bill’s intense ranting as Clint Eastwood is hilarious, and a funny spoof of the real Super Bowl commercial that Eastwood did around this time.
— Bill-as-Eastwood’s angry exclamation of “Pussy!” towards Rick Santorum had me howling.
STARS: ****
PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT
Super Bowl halftime show spurs responses
— The debut of Taran’s Piers Morgan impression.
— Jason’s mere look as Redfoo is hilarious.
— A very amusing take on Piers Morgan from Taran.
— Zooey’s doing a good spoof of typical moral-outraged mothers, and the “decency strap” she displays is great.
— Funny line from Kristen’s Madonna about Cee Lo Green being dressed as Janet Jackson’s boob during his Super Bowl halftime performance.
— I like Kristen’s Madonna doing the Vogue hand moves while flashing her blurred-out crotch.
STARS: ***½
LES JEUNES DE PARIS
The Artist (Jean Dujardin) dances monochromatically
— Ooh, this recurring sketch, which I always enjoy, has certainly taken a very different turn right now, by suddenly becoming a spoof of The Artist, complete with an appearance from The Artist’s Jean Dujardin.
— This change of pace is an absolute blast so far, even moreso than this recurring sketch usually is. I can’t look away from the screen; I’m practically mesmerized by what I’m watching.
— Overall, I found this sketch to be absolutely perfect.
STARS: *****
LITTLE CAESARS PIZZA
Clint Eastwood (BIH) warns about Chinese in surprise Little Caesars spot
— More hilarious angry ranting from Bill’s Eastwood, and he had an especially funny line complaining about viewers “strokin’ it to those godaddy.com commercials”.
STARS: ****
NEWSPAPER
new reporter (host) can’t keep up with Front Page patter of (JAS) & (KRW)
— Our first sign that Bill Hader isn’t there live at SNL tonight, as he’s nowhere to be seen in this sketch filled with fast-talking 1940s characters, something that you know Bill would’ve been cast in (most likely in Jason’s role), as he’s a complete natural at pulling off old-timey roles like this. The reason for his absence in the live portions of tonight’s episode is because, IIRC, he suffered some sort of eye injury at some point that week (I don’t know the specifics of the eye injury) and wasn’t able to do the show that weekend. The only times we’ll be seeing him tonight are in pre-taped form. A little strange how some of the veterans in this cast have been absent from episodes lately, such as Andy in the Daniel Radcliffe episode and Bill in tonight’s episode.
— Even with the lack of Bill, the performers playing these old-timey, fast-talking characters are doing a fantastic job. Reminds me of how great SNL’s late 80s cast typically was at doing this type of sketch.
— Funny cutaway to Bobby’s insanely fast typing.
— Good line from Zooey: “Okay, straight-up – is everyone here on cocaine?”
STARS: ***½
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Clint Eastwood (BIH) yields to Mexico, plugs Trojan Vibrations massager & The Dark Knight Rises
— A good cheap laugh from the visual of Bill-as-Eastwood’s pants being up to his chest.
— Another good visual, this time from Bill-as-Eastwood’s hair being blown back.
— The unexpected reveals of what unrelated product these Eastwood spots are advertising continue to be funny.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Broken Hearted”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Arianna Huffington (NAP) speaks to women’s issues currently in the news
Nicolas Cage [real] & his clone (ANS) complement & compliment each other
— The debut of Nasim’s Arianna Huffington impression, which would become a recurring Update feature. I remember, when this originally aired, I was bothered by Nasim taking over an impression that the undeservedly-fired-after-only-one-season Michaela Watkins previously not only did on Update (albeit only once), but had been doing prior to SNL, as seen by some online videos of her. Nasim’s Huffington appearances on Update would end up somewhat growing on me over time.
— After Nasim’s Huffington imitates President Obama’s supposedly-bad singing, I laughed at Seth responding to her, in an affable manner, “Yeah…that was WAY worse than when he did it.”
— Some good lines from Nasim’s Huffington, especially her bit at the end about Newt Gingrich.
— This Update keeps mentioning how successful the premiere of NBC’s then-new show Smash was. Feels odd seeing these mentions in hindsight, given that fact that, IIRC, Smash’s initial success sure didn’t end up lasting long, and the show would end up being canceled after only one or two seasons.
— A special edition of the recurring “Get In The Cage” segment, this time with Andy’s Nicolas Cage sitting alongside the real Nicolas Cage, the latter making his first SNL appearance in 20 years.
— Lots of fun interplay between the two Nicolas Cages, and it helps that SNL’s not going the corny, cliched route of “real celebrity confronts cast member impersonating them and disapproves of their impression”. I like the fact that the real Nicolas Cage is playing it completely straight by playing along with Andy’s Cage right from the start of this.
— Fantastic line about how all of the dialogue in a typical Nicolas Cage movie is either whispered or screamed.
STARS: ***
BEIN’ QUIRKY WITH ZOOEY DESCHANEL
Zooey Deschanel (ABE), Mary-Kate Olsen (host) & Bjork (KRW) act kooky
— Hmm, speaking of a celebrity being impersonated next to the real celebrity…
— Normally, I’d spew my usual complaints about SNL always over-relying on the tired “celebrity-hosted talk show” trope, but I’m just happy to see the usually-underused Abby get a rare lead role in a live sketch.
— Great to see Taran’s very funny Michael Cera impression back.
— Abby-as-Zooey’s brief song about garbage gave me a pretty good laugh.
— All the very random mini-segments throughout this talk show are pretty fun.
— I cracked up at the initial cutaway to Kristen’s Bjork shyly hiding in the doorway.
— I’m definitely finding this sketch more enjoyable than the usual celebrity-hosted talk show sketches in this era.
STARS: ***½
VERIZON
Verizon employee (BIH) confuses (FRA) with technology & handset options
— Some laughs from Bill’s increasingly-hard-to-follow, fast-paced technical mumbo-jumbo about phones to a confused Fred.
— The little “I live off a settlement” “You’re a Native American?” “Not on a settlement, off a settlement” non-sequitur between Fred and Bill was particularly funny.
— Pretty good punchline at the end.
STARS: ***½
PATIO PARTY
(KRW) & (host) build up guests’ hunger for crab legs at backyard cookout
— Was Bobby supposed to be seen jogging his way into the scene at the very beginning of this sketch, or was he genuinely late on his entrance?
— Blah, I am not caring for this at all so far. Also not helping this already-weak sketch is the fact that it features one of writer James Anderson’s worst trademarks: every character in it having goofy southern accents for no good reason.
— The ending actually kinda got a chuckle out of me, which is more than I can say for the rest of this sketch.
STARS: *½
IN MEMORIAM
a photo of Whitney Houston marks her passing
WE’RE GOING TO MAKE TECHNOLOGY HUMP
electromechanical implements have sex
— The second and final installment of this sketch.
— I liked this as a creative, random one-time thing earlier this season, but I’m not sure I needed a second installment of it.
— I’m really liking the whole 1980s technology scene, featuring devices such as a Game Boy, a Duck Hunt gun, a pager, and a Rubik’s Cube.
— Despite my initial reservations, it turns out that I’m actually enjoying this second installment. Some really good gags here, such as the label-maker’s blurred-out crotch shot, and the label-maker printing out a paper that says “Yes” over and over during its lovemaking with a remote-controlled car.
— Ehh, wasn’t necessary to basically rehash the exact same viewer letter that was shown in the first installment of this.
— I love Andy’s sly delivery of “Now that’s a job I can do overtime!” as the voice of a power drill.
— Ha, the ending of the final technology-humping scene is great, with a child-aged phone walking in on its parents having sex.
— Overall, not only did this second installment prove my initial doubts about it completely wrong, but I actually liked it more than the first installment. While the first one was fine, my problem with it was that the three technology-humping scenes within it were too same-y for my likes, and thus, it got a little redundant by the third one. Tonight’s installment, on the other hand, had enough big and fun differences between each technology-humping scene to keep the whole concept fresh.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Told You So”
VICTORIAN LADIES
Victorian pen pal spinsters (KRW) & (host) will settle for doofuses
— I don’t like how this is basically a Victorian-themed variation of that weak Ferrari Calendar sketch from this season’s Anna Faris episode, only with this sketch actually showing the grotesque men that the characters played by Kristen and the host fawn over. Being able to see the grotesque men this time isn’t making this tepid material any funnier, nor is the fact that the grotesque men in this one have the added factor of having a low IQ.
— I did kinda laugh just now at the random bit with Kristen lovingly keeping the severed thumb of her deceased lover on a necklace she’s currently wearing.
— What…the…HELL was with that non-sequitur 1960s surfing ending??? I do like, though, how the SNL bumper photo that’s shown immediately afterwards is related to this sketch’s ending, by showing Zooey, as herself, dressed like a 1960s surfer, with a background image of a surfing wave.
STARS: *½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good and consistent episode, other than a weak cold opening and two big misfires towards the end of the show. This episode also thankfully contained a higher number of standout strong segments than the preceding two episodes had.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Les Jeunes de Paris
We’re Going To Make Technology Hump
Chrysler
Little Caesars Pizza
Bein’ Quirky with Zooey Deschanel
Newspaper
Piers Morgan Tonight
The Dark Knight Rises
Verizon
Weekend Update
Monologue
Romney: Believe In America
Patio Party / Victorian Ladies (tie)
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Channing Tatum)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Maya Rudolph