Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BRIEFING
George W. Bush (WIF) misidentifies Middle East leaders’ names in briefing
— This ends up being the final appearance of Will’s George W. Bush during Will’s tenure as a cast member (obviously not counting the times Will would later play Bush when hosting or cameoing). Due to that, it’s bittersweet watching this particular cold opening in retrospect, especially when being aware of the huge struggle that SNL’s going to have in regards to getting a new Bush impersonator.
— A big laugh from Will’s Bush calling Hussein Of Jordan’s wife Queen Amidala.
— Bush, after being surprised to hear there’s two Abdullahs: “Is this some kind of a test?” Dick Cheney: “I ask myself that every day.”
— Pretty simple “Bush is dumb” premise, but it’s being executed well. Again, knowing that this is Will’s final Bush appearance during his SNL tenure, the simplicity and straightforwardness of this cold opening is strangely kinda charming in a way, though at the same time, it would’ve been nice if SNL ended Will’s run as Bush by going all out on an epic, special cold opening and saved it for Will’s final episode the following week.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host shows clip of earlier SNL appearance; HOS pretends to be Spider-Man
— A nice part with Kirsten Dunst pointing out that she once appeared on SNL as a child extra in a Dana-Carvey-as-Bush-Sr. cold opening from 1988, which we’re then shown a clip of. Feels like it was just yesterday when I reviewed that cold opening.
— Pretty funny use of the old Spider-Man theme song when an upside-down Horatio in a Spider-Man costume makes his entrance.
— A laugh from Horatio’s Spider-Man explaining his weight gain by claiming he was stung by 1,000 bees.
— Yikes, when Kirsten is supposed to pull down only the mouth part of Horatio’s Spider-Man mask, she accidentally pulls off the ENTIRE mask, which kinda blows the bit, as Kirsten’s not supposed to realize it’s Horatio under that mask until much later in the monologue. After accidentally removing Horatio’s entire mask, Kirsten awkwardly attempts to put the mask back on him, to no avail.
— Double-yikes, now this monologue has gone even further off the rails. When Horatio asks for a bucket to vomit in, a crew member is supposed to hand him one, which Horatio was then supposed to put his head inside while vomiting sound effects are played. However, for some inexplicable reason, no bucket is handed to Horatio, forcing him to hesitantly skip the vomiting part, and he and Kirsten just awkwardly go on with the monologue. Geez, what the hell is going ON???
— When Horatio attempts to kiss Kirsten, she responds “You just puked, I’m not gonna kiss you!”, a line that makes absolutely NO sense, given that Horatio never got to do the vomiting bit. This line of Kirsten’s receives uncomfortable silence from the studio audience, who were probably just as confused over that line as I remember being when watching this episode live.
— Now Horatio reveals to Kirsten, “It’s me, Horatio”, as if he had just taken off his mask to reveal his identity, which, again, makes NO sense to SNL’s studio audience and home viewers, considering Horatio’s mask had ALREADY been long removed by accident. Jesus Christ, this monologue is a mess.
— SNL would later replace this monologue with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, for obvious reasons.
STARS: *½
CLEAR RESULTS
(ANG) gets reassurance in third trimester
— A lot of laughs from Ana’s voice-over constantly questioning if she’s pregnant of not, when we can see that she clearly is very pregnant.
— A good reveal that this is a pregnancy test commercial.
— An overall solid way for SNL to get mileage out of Ana’s real-life pregnancy, and ends up being one of her last great SNL moments.
STARS: ****
LAST CALL WITH CARSON DALY
derivative (host) sings & plays piano
— Kirsten’s playing a solid combo of Alicia Keys and some other young female singers from this time period.
— Funny part with Kirsten’s character explaining she used to go out with Bob Saget, spoofing Alanis Morissette’s relationship with Dave Coulier.
— I love Jimmy-as-Carson-Daly’s line about having a side job mixing paint at Home Depot.
STARS: ***½
TV FUNHOUSE
“Bambi 2002” by RBS- unfocused Disney sequel sullies memory of original
— A huge laugh from one of the announced Disney movies being a porno titled “Pokahotass”.
— A lot of very funny and inappropriate out-of-place situations for Bambi to be placed in.
— David Spade voice cameo!
— And… OH, NO. A fucking Jared Fogel voice cameo?!?!? Goddammit, I thought the only Jared Fogel SNL cameo I ever had to worry about covering is in the Michael Phelps episode from much later in this decade. I had completely forgotten about his animated appearance and voice cameo in this cartoon.
— Solid TV Funhouse as a whole.
STARS: ****
DEMILON
Demilon keeps senior citizens controllable by counteracting memory drugs
— Kind of a touchy subject, trying to get laughs out of Alzheimer’s.
— I did get a laugh from Rachel’s old lady character happily saying “I’m having lunch with Eleanor Roosevelt… and Yogi Bear!”
— An overall surprisingly short sketch, and, other than one laugh, was nothing special at all.
STARS: **
BACKGROUND ACTORS
extras’ (WIF), (AMP), (host) antics steal attention from serious scene
— Will and Amy’s extremely exaggerated, unnatural background acting is providing good laughs.
— Kirsten eventually getting into the act is pretty funny as well.
— Good understated frustration from Maya and Kattan’s actor characters, who are trying to keep the scene going despite the background antics.
— There’s one brief point where Maya looked like she was about to come very close to helplessly busting out laughing in reaction to the faces that Will, Amy, and Kirsten are making right next to her, but she’s doing a good job of pulling through and keeping a straight face.
— Great anger from Parnell towards the terrible background actors.
STARS: ***½
JARRET’S ROOM
(host) & (AMP) are the stars of a copycat webcam show
— Somewhat interesting with us being shown Kirsten and Amy starring in a rip-off version of Jarret’s Room.
— I like the mirror bit that Gobi’s doing with Amy as his female counterpart.
— An overall somewhat fun Jarret’s Room installment, and a step up from the disappointing last installment with Britney Spears.
— Where was Jeff as his usual Jarret’s Room character? In fact, Jeff ends up not appearing in ANY sketches tonight (same goes for Tracy, by the way), though he’s certainly there in the SNL studio, as he can be seen in this episode’s later goodnights.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Without Me”
WEEKEND UPDATE
socialites Nicky (host) & Paris (MAR) Hilton visit Weekend Update
in a terrible re-enactment, Queen Elizabeth (CHK) sees a streaker (CHK)
CHP performs a rap about his gangsta life & relationship with host
— I see that, after experimenting with many different hairstyles this season, Jimmy has returned to the trademark hairstyle he had in his first three seasons.
— (*groan*) We get our very first display of SNL’s inexplicable fascination with the Hilton Sisters, long before the sisters even became universally known to most people. Back in these days, I used to blame Tina for this annoying obsession of SNL’s (especially around seasons 29 and 30, where I had A LOT of issues with Tina), as she seemed to have a fascination for Paris Hilton and trash like Paris who were around in this era.
— And the Hilton Sisters segment is now already over, with no semblance of a premise to be found anywhere. What exactly was the point of that short segment?
— Oh, no. Another freakin’ Terrible Reenactment from Kattan. Man, between the Hilton Sisters bit and now this, the guests in tonight’s Update are starting to destroy me.
— Ah, here comes Parnell to give the guest side of tonight’s Update some much-needed stability.
— Even though Parnell suddenly breaking out into another Update rap no longer has that great element of surprise that his first Update rap did, his rap tonight is still a pure blast to watch. Plus, there’s something funny about knowing that Eminem is in the building during tonight’s Parnell rap.
— An overall absolutely fantastic rap from Parnell once again.
— A second appearance from Kirsten in tonight’s Update, this time as herself? At least her refuting all of the things Parnell rapped about her is taking this into a different direction from Parnell’s original Update rap.
STARS: ***
KOURNIKOVA VS. PENTHOUSE
trial of Anna Kournikova (host) vs. Penthouse takes on a Laugh-In flavor
— Kirsten’s accent and broken English as Anna Kournikova are both funny, especially her mentions of her “boobings tips”.
— A fun random turn with a sudden Laugh-In dance sequence, complete with go-go music, party lighting, and camera zoom-ins-and-outs.
— A hilarious portion of the sketch with Seth as an average joe testifying how violated he was by finding out that pictures he masturbated to were NOT of Anna Kournikova. This is made even funnier by Ana’s professional voice-over detailing this ridiculous testimony.
— A great laugh from Parnell’s failed attempt to trigger yet another Laugh-In sequence.
— Will is completely stealing this sketch, doing a perfectly Will Ferrell-esque take on Bob Guccione. Again, there’s a bittersweet feel, when you realize this is going to be one of our very last opportunities to ever see Will steal a sketch during his tenure as a cast member.
— Darrell’s awkward dancing at the end is cracking me up.
— Very fun sketch overall.
STARS: ****
WAKE UP WAKEFIELD!
Megan & Sheldon at (host)’s slumber party
— A very nice change of pace, having tonight’s Wake Up Wakefield be set at a slumber party. Seeing talk shows and the like changing things up by taking place inside somebody’s house is something that’s become quite common to see today, considering the current situation going on in the world.
— I like the comically unsettling line about Sheldon’s parents needing to “work stuff out” at home.
— The addition of Tina, Amy, Kirsten, and Ana’s characters is really adding to the adolescent atmosphere that these Wake Up Wakefield sketches always go for. Kirsten is particularly funny here as her adolescent character.
— A very funny line with Amy’s rumor about how Kirsten once “put a frozen hot dog in her nooners”.
— This is the SECOND sketch tonight in which Jimmy and Kirsten make out with each other.
— Cute ending with the girls ganging up on Sheldon to tickle him.
STARS: ***½
AUDITION
Kyle & Sean DeMarco & cousin (host) audition to tour with musical guest
— Dean is making the most of his obligatory sole appearance of the night.
— Boy, Eminem’s delivery here is terrible. He takes practically half a minute just to deliver single lines. What’s with all the damn pausing from him?
— Ugh, our inevitable post-Parnell’s-rehiring return of these insufferable DeMarco Brothers. Thankfully, however, this ends up being their final on-air appearance. SNL was going to do a DeMarco Brothers sketch the following season with musical guest Avril Lavigne (in the Jeff Gordon episode), and the sketch even survived dress rehearsal cuts and was going to go on the air somewhere around the 10-to-1 slot, but it ended up getting cut at the last minute because Lavigne reportedly claimed to be having throat problems after her second musical performance (I remember some online SNL fans at the time had a theory that Lavigne faked her alleged throat problems as an excuse to get out of a lame sketch).
— I love Parnell warning Kattan, in regards to Eminem, “He is fixing to pop a cap in our fannies.”
— Another surprisingly funny line, with Kattan responding to Eminem’s homophobic insult to the DeMarco Brothers by telling him “Eminem, quite frankly, I don’t care where you melt.”
— Yet ANOTHER surprisingly funny line, with Parnell warning Kattan, again in regards to Eminem, “He is a gangbanger! He will gangbang us!” You know, it’s too bad the dance portions of this sketch are so painfully unfunny and unwatchable, and Eminem’s delivery is so terrible and sluggish, because there is some good dialogue among the DeMarcos here.
— An awful and drawn-out ending.
STARS: **
MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
shooting horses in chapter 852
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode. Despite a couple of misfires (including a pretty disastrous monologue), the overall show had a lot of enjoyable sketches and a fun vibe for most of the night. Speaking of fun, Kirsten Dunst impressed me with how fun she was as a host. I wouldn’t have minded if she had hosted a second time in this era.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Alec Baldwin)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Season 27 comes to an end, with host Winona Ryder. It’s also the last show for Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer.