April 6, 2013 – Melissa McCarthy / Phoenix (S38 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

KIM JONG-UN ADDRESS
Kim Jong-un (BOM) lifts ban on same-sex marriage; Dennis Rodman cameo

— DAMMIT! After I was pleasantly surprised in the preceding episode that what initially seemed to be a translator cold opening ended up going a completely different route, the very next episode does end up having a full-fledged translator cold opening. Just my motherfucking luck.
— What in the world is the audience laughing so much at? Nothing intentionally comedic has even been said yet. Are they laughing at just the fake Korean gibberish that Bobby’s speaking in under the audio of Nasim’s American translation? Geez, is the audience that easily amused?
— Yeah, so far, this is just as awful, droning, and laughless as these crappy Jim Downey-written translator snoozefests typically are. Thankfully, this may be the last time I ever have to review one, given the fact that Downey leaves the writing staff at the end of this season.
— This even has Bobby’s Kim Jong-un asking himself, “Let’s see, what else, what else?” at one point, which was already done in a previous translator cold opening, the one with Fred as Moammar Gadhafi in the season 35 premiere.
— At least we get something kinda interesting with Dennis Rodman making his first SNL appearance since way back in 1996.
— Ha, my only laugh of this entire cold opening ends up being from something that wasn’t even in the script, nor was intended to be comedic: Rodman mush-mouthing his delivery of LFNY, rendering it unintelligible (“LOVE AND NEW YORK, IT’S SOLLDIE NAAAAUUUGHT!”).
STARS: *


OPENING MONTAGE
— After being out for three consecutive episodes due to an injury he suffered at home, resulting in a few people (Bill Hader, Darrell Hammond) filling in for him as SNL’s announcer, Don Pardo has returned.


MONOLOGUE
host’s platform heels leave her unable to walk, much less dance with TAK

— Wow, a huge change of pace for a monologue entrance in this SNL era, with the premise of Melissa McCarthy not being able to walk down the stairs on the home base stage, due to the pair of high heels she’s wearing. I love this. It feels like something from early SNL eras (70s and early-mid 80s), which weren’t afraid to occasionally play around with the formula of stuff like monologue entrances. I also love how Melissa makes the SNL Band play the ending portion of the theme music a second time, which is also something that hadn’t been done in ages.
— Some good physical work here from Melissa in her struggles to get to the front of the home base stage.
— When laying flat on the floor by the SNL Band, I like Melissa saying, “This smells like a lot of musicians.”
STARS: ***½


OUTSIDE THE LINES
coach Sheila Kelly (host) abuses basketball players

— A promising, fun, and topical idea to have Melissa play a female equivalent to infamous college basketball coach Mike Rice. Melissa was born to play this role.
— I’m loving the pre-taped footage of Melissa’s character physically and verbally abusing her basketball players, especially the shot of her using a t-shirt cannon to shoot a t-shirt up at the frightened team, who’s collectively bunched together in a corner at top of the bleachers.
— Now this is getting even funnier with the absolutely insane pre-tape of Melissa violently interrupting her players in their classroom. I especially like her occasionally using a taser on Bobby as the teacher.
— Good shot of Melissa in the window behind Bill, non-verbally threatening Jay during his interview.
— Funny little touch at the very end with Bill’s character giving a little hearty chuckle after announcing the horrifying sports story they’ll be covering next.
STARS: ****


THE VOICE
unlike celebrity coaches, singer (host) knows she lacks talent

— Fairly funny impressions of The Voice judges.
— When Melissa discloses the fact that she lives in a basement with no roof, I like Jason’s Blake Shelton responding “So, you…you’re talkin’ about a hole.”
— Despite some laughs, something about this sketch is leaving a little to be desired for me.
STARS: **½


HONEY BAKED HAM BAKE-OFF
at an annual ham bake-off, perennial also-ran (host) adds choreography

— A fun sudden turn with the ham-themed dance number Melissa, Bobby, and Taran do.
— Oh, I absolutely love when the music in the dance number suddenly turns to Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It”. As I said in a previous episode review (when covering one of the Spartan Cheerleaders sketches, I believe), I’m always a sucker for “Push It”.
— This sketch continues to be a lot of fun, and Melissa is great here.
STARS: ****


BATHROOM BUSINESSMAN
the Bathroom Businessman in-stall office setup evokes a plea for decency

— Kenan’s intentionally cheesy delivery  of “I’m flushing my career down the toilet!” cracked me up.
— Blah at that fart gag & sound effect.
— A good comedic conceit with the long, complex set-up of the Bathroom Businessman product while Kenan desperately has to go to the bathroom.
— The sudden “Decency” bit at the end was a pretty solid surprise twist.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Entertainment”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Jacob’s scripted account of Passover includes lighthearted family foibles

the Final Four has contributed to Charles Barkley’s (KET) gambling debt

Drunk Uncle bemoans tax season with his brother-in-law (Peter Dinklage)

— Wow, feels kinda surprising and unexpected in 2020 seeing a 2013 mention on Weekend Update of “California attorney general” Kamala Harris.
— I love Vanessa-as-Jacob’s Jewish-accented pronunciation of “rock music”.
— With this being only Jacob’s second Update commentary, I’m not QUITE as sick of the very thin formula of his Update commentaries as I know I’m eventually going to be. However, I’m already beginning to really hate that repetitive gag with him always going back to reading from his speech whenever Seth asks him a question. They don’t need to repeat that gag 100 freakin’ times in every single Jacob commentary.
— A pretty funny passing mention of Jacob’s cat being named David Ben-Purrion.
— Hmm, I have no memory of this episode having a Kenan-as-Charles-Barkley commentary on Update.
— Kenan-as-Barkley’s line about Michael Jordan being the Michael Jordan of gambling too much was pretty funny.
— I laughed at the long, awkward pause between Kenan and Seth after Kenan’s Barkley mentions one basketball player recently broke his leg simply because “………….he jumped………….”
— Drunk Uncle: “Huey Lewis and the Jeeewwss!
— Drunk Uncle, after making an offensive comment towards Native Americans: “You’re welcome, Chief Pays-No-Bills!”
— Nice to see a cameo from Peter Dinklage as Drunk Uncle’s brother-in-law Peter Drunklage, as what ends up being the first of several instances of a guest star or host playing a relative or friend of Drunk Uncle’s.
— Peter Dinklage is fantastic here. You’d think he’d been playing this character for a good while like Bobby has.
— I love the “Marco?” “Rubio!” bit between Drunk Uncle and Drunklage.
STARS: ***


MILLION DOLLAR WHEEL
awful fill-in letter turner (host) wrecks game show

— I love Bill’s cheery delivery of “Suzette left because of an alcohol problem – MINE!”
— I remember an online SNL fan back at this time in 2013 pointing out how Victoria Jackson-esque Melissa’s voice and characterization came off here. Yeah, I can see it.
— An extremely thin sketch so far, like some Melissa-plays-a-wacky-character sketches tend to be.
— Yeah, as this sketch goes on, it’s becoming more and more clear that this ain’t working for me. Melissa’s been given practically NO material here, like that awful Turner Classic Movies sketch from her previous episode where she played an actress who kept falling down the stairs over and over and over and over.
— I did get a laugh just now from how, after Melissa has revealed all of the letters on the puzzle, Fred (in his first appearance all night, by the way, which is yet ANOTHER obvious sign that he’s on his way out this season) says “I’d like to solve the puzzle”, only to foolishly end up getting the answer completely wrong.
STARS: *½


PIZZA BUSINESS
loan officer (JAS) denies funding for (host)’s pizza eating business

— Some of Melissa’s characterizations tend to come off awfully similar to each other. Her character in this sketch, for example, feels like a hybrid of her character from the ham sketch earlier tonight and her character from the (overrated, in my opinion) Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing sketch in her preceding episode.
— I like the running gag with Melissa offering Jason a pen when he already clearly has one.
— Despite Melissa giving a very lived-in, established performance as usual in her character pieces (which is something I can often admire about a lot of her characterizations, even when some of them come off too similar to each other and/or don’t make me laugh all that much), and despite me getting a laugh here and there, her constant ramblings in this sketch are becoming white noise to me, which was one of the problems I think I recall having with the aforementioned Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing sketch.
— I actually love the ending, with Melissa returning to the room in slow motion to grab the pizza box after the realization Jason just had. I’ve heard a theory from an SNL fan that Jason truly wasn’t expecting Melissa to do that, because the dress rehearsal version of this sketch reportedly ended differently (with a screen crawl epilogue, I believe), and the shocked & gleeful reaction Jason had to Melissa’s slow motion return in the live version of this sketch looked genuine to that SNL fan.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Trying To Be Cool” & “Drakkar Noir”


THE ART OF THE ENCOUNTER
videos depict strategies for landing Mr. Right

— So far, this is filled with typical James Anderson/Kent Sublette tropes, especially the very questionable gag names all the characters have (ugh).
— Melissa has an ability to get the audience so on her characters’ side that the audience collectively goes “Awww” whenever her characters experience a letdown. This sketch contains the third separate instance of that happening in this episode alone.
— Despite all the Anderson/Sublette-ness of this sketch, the absurdity and comical awkwardness in this sketch is starting to work for me more and more.
— I love the odd way Taran “gets into place” for Melissa to do the splits on his face.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS


IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very mixed episode. As you can see from my reviews of the two episodes Melissa McCarthy has hosted by this point, I run extremely hot-and-cold on the sketches that are a big showcase piece for her. That was especially on display in this episode, where I seemed to find tonight’s big Melissa showcase pieces to be either a blast (Outside the Lines, Honey Baked Ham Bake-Off) or a repetitive bore (Million Dollar Wheel, Pizza Business). There was almost no middle ground for me. Her sketch comedy seems to be very polarizing among people in general (which is something she has in common with her friend and Bridesmaids co-star Kristen Wiig). Some of the big Melissa showcase pieces that I liked in these first two episodes she hosted, I’m sure quite a number of people dislike, and I’m sure quite a number of people like some of the big Melissa showcase pieces in these two episodes that *I* disliked. Of all the episodes Melissa has hosted (as of 2020), I personally prefer her final two (2016 and 2017), because, IIRC, SNL moves away a little from focusing so heavily on one-note Melissa-plays-a-wacky-character sketches. My memory of the sketches those two episodes actually contain is admittedly very fuzzy, so I might feel a bit differently about those episodes when I eventually review them. We’ll see.


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


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Outside The Lines
Honey Baked Ham Bake-Off
Monologue
The Art Of The Encounter
Bathroom Businessman
Weekend Update
The Voice
Pizza Business
Million Dollar Wheel
Kim Jong-Un Address


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Vince Vaughn

April 4, 2009 – Seth Rogen / Phoenix (S34 E19)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

OBAMA’S BUSINESS RULINGS
Barack Obama (FRA) passes judgment on product category winners & losers

— The idea of breaking down which brand of certain products will get a government subsidy and which won’t has some promise, but Fred’s weak and dull Obama impression isn’t the best way to execute it. I guess it’s still better than just having Fred’s Obama deliver a direct-to-camera speech, like he does in most of these presidential address cold openings.
— I’m getting some small chuckles from some of the products given or not given a subsidy, but no big laughs from me.
STARS: **


MONOLOGUE
audience members prefer Paul Blart, Mall Cop & pre-weightloss host

— I got a laugh from Seth Rogen’s meta bit about how the second time you host, SNL gets lazy and has you take questions from the audience.
— Some funny lines making fun of how there were two mall cop movies around this time (Paul Blart and Observe & Report).
— Pretty solid bits with Bill as a pizza deliveryman and Bobby as a heavyset Seth Rogen lookalike.
STARS: ***


THE FAST & THE BI-CURIOUS
rival drivers (host) & (ANS) exude gayness

— Meh, a very dumb premise for a Fast And The Furious parody.
— Overall, nothing about this commercial worked for me. Not the lame homoerotic humor, not Abby’s grossed-out facial reactions, nothing.
STARS: *


SAVE THE FUNNIES
Dick Tracy (JAS) & other funny pages denizens want to save newspapers

 

— A variation of the fantastic Save Broadway sketch from earlier this season, right down to having Jason play the character holding the meeting.
— As someone who was OBSESSED with Archie comics when he was a kid, I love the inclusion of Bill and Abby as Archie and Veronica.
— Judging from Kenan’s look in the background, he looks like he’s playing the same character he played in the Save Broadway sketch. He’s wearing the exact same wig and clothes.
— Bobby has played a cat in both the Save Broadway sketch and this.
— Just like last time in the Broadway sketch, we get a bit with Jason being told “That’s racist”.
— Also similar to last time, immediately after Jason claims he’s not racist, he automatically mistakes Kenan for being from a black comic strip (which I guess is why Kenan is dressed the same way he was in the Save Broadway sketch). I feel like I should be annoyed by this particular gag reprisal, but the fact that this has become a running gag actually tickles me.
— Feels a little odd but interesting seeing Andy’s Cathy in this sketch and not on Weekend Update.
— I’m not familiar with the Far Side comic strip, but the cutaway to Paula Pell made me laugh.
— (*groan*) Here we have yet another display of Fred’s classic Asian stereotype routine.
— What a lousy ending with Fred.
— Overall, very mixed feelings from me. This pales badly in comparison to the classic Save Broadway sketch from earlier this season, but I still got a decent amount of laughs throughout this. If I hadn’t seen the Save Broadway sketch, I probably would’ve had a little more appreciation for this Save The Funnies sketch as its own entity. Still a horrible ending in this sketch, though.
STARS: ***


LA RIVISTA DELLA TELEVISIONE CON VINNY VEDECCI
Vinny Vedecci thinks host is a Bear Man

— Cue the obligatory “Vinny Vedecci starts the interview by speaking to the interviewee in Italian, the confused interviewee explains they don’t speak Italian, leading to Vedecci getting into an argument with Fred’s character”. It’s a shame this otherwise fun recurring sketch always has to open with such a formulaic beginning. However, they did add something a little new to that formulaic beginning tonight, with Fred’s character immediately taking off his glasses when Rogen says a man with glasses was the one who told him the interview would be done in English.
— Funny conceit with Rogen being known as the Bear Man in Italy. And when Vedecci is running down the Italian titles of Rogen’s movies, I like the meta bit with Vedecci saying Superbad’s Italian title is “Bearman And A Very, Very Handsome Gentleman” as we’re shown a photo of Rogen and Bill Hader’s Superbad characters.
— Another funny instance of Bill, as Vedecci, doing an impression of the interviewee.
— Good bit with the bottle of Pellegrino in a bear trap.
STARS: ***½


LIKE A BOSS
insecure bigshot ANS describes his supervisory doings

— When this Digital Short originally aired, I felt it was both below par and too been-there-done-that for Lonely Island standards, and I was then kinda surprised to see the huge popularity it ended up taking on, leading me to deem this short vastly overrated. However, I will go into this short with an open mind in my current viewing, in hopes that I’ll gain a higher opinion of it.
— Good style to this Digital Short’s conceit, and some really funny visuals throughout, such as Andy taking a dump on the desk of the co-worker who rejected him.
— Overall, while I couldn’t find much to say during this, I found this short to be MUCH better than I originally deemed it. I’m glad to have come around on it. However, it’s definitely still not a classic to me. Lonely Island has funnier and more epic music video Digital Shorts than this.
STARS: ****


PHONE VOICES
(ANS), (BIH), (host) employ funny voices when talking on their cellphones

— I love the premise to this. This feels like a simplistic but effective premise that would’ve appeared in an earlier SNL era. Kind of a timeless feel to this type of sketch (ignoring the technology involving the cellphone usage).
— This sketch is a blast with the various phone voices Bill, Andy, and Rogen are using. Bill’s voices are particularly great. Such a fun display of Bill’s knack for doing fantastic cartoonish voices.
— Fred makes yet another bad walk-on at the end of a sketch. For me, he’s hurt the great momentum of this sketch.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Lisztomania”


WEEKEND UPDATE
SEM critiques the gift exchange between Barack Obama & Queen Elizabeth

bargaining Rod Blagojevich (JAS) wants to be an undercover governor

Barack Obama’s visit to Europe has inspired some Jean K. Jean riffs

Angelina Jolie (ABE) outmaneuvers fellow baby-seeker Madonna (KRW)

— Wow, a very strong run-on delivery from Meyers during his Obama Gift Exchange rant. This biting rant feels more like something from the current-era Weekend Updates with Colin Jost and Michael Che, as it doesn’t follow the usual “simple set-up, simple punchline” formula of Meyers’ Update jokes.
— I didn’t remember Jason’s Rod Blagojevich impression lasting THIS long. I thought his final appearance was in January of this season.
— Are Meyers and Jason just trying to amuse themselves with the seemingly ad-libbed bit with Meyers making various guesses on what Jason-as-Blagojevich’s undercover name might be? This feels too “inside joke-y” for my likes, plus the names that Meyers is guessing just aren’t that funny.
— Despite a decent start, this overall Blagojevich commentary did not do it for me.
— I think this is Jean K. Jean’s first Update appearance where he’s sitting next to Meyers instead of Amy Poehler, for obvious reasons.
— The usual with Jean K. Jean, overall. Some laughs, and Kenan’s typical charm carries the bit and makes it fun. I will say, though, that I could really do without those dance breaks in his commentaries.
— This Madonna commentary from Kristen is a good way to work in the usual walk-on from Abby as Angelina Jolie, and to keep those walk-ons of hers from getting too old. I like how Kristen’s Madonna and Abby’s Angelina are in a competition with each other on where they adopt their babies from.
— Great line from Abby’s Angelina about her Russian baby being a baby inside a baby inside a baby.
STARS: ***


CORPORATE MEETING
(host)’s dub of Grease soundtrack onto corporate CD has co-workers fuming

— During the first playing of the “You’re The One That I Want” song, I like the camera constantly cutting back and forth between Rogen’s ashamed face and Fred’s very tense staredown of him.
— Odd structure to this sketch, but the various tense close-ups of everyone are a funny contrast to the upbeat “You’re The One That I Want” song playing. Bill’s tense close-up is particularly funny.
— I like how, after one of the times he’s played a portion of “You’re The One That I Want”, Fred angrily says to Rogen “I mean…Lee!”, then stares him down again for a few seconds before just playing another portion of “You’re The One That I Want”.
— (*sigh*) Yet another episode this season in which Darrell is relegated to making an awkward walk-on in a non-impression role, just to give him something to do. Have I made it clear enough in my recent reviews how sad I find it to watch Darrell in this final season of his?
— The ending with Darrell was so bad. Poor endings to otherwise good sketches seems to be a theme in tonight’s episode.
— In dress rehearsal, Darrell played John Travolta in this sketch (presumably because of the Grease connection with the use of “You’re The One That I Want”) instead of the random character he plays in the live version. Not sure if him as Travolta would’ve made this ending any better. I despise his Travolta impression.
STARS: ***


MILESTONE HIGH
(ANS)’s tutoring fails because dumb (host) is not a jock

— Funny reveal of Rogen not even being on the basketball team, and just being some random idiot who doesn’t even know anything about basketball.
— That’s it? The sketch is already over? Felt like this sketch should’ve more to it after the aforementioned reveal.
STARS: **½


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

— A follow-up to the fantastic Clancy T. Bachleratt/Jackie Snad sketch from the preceding season.
— I’m surprised to see this is using the same song topics (spaceships, toddlers, Model-T cars, and jars of beer) as the first Bachleratt/Snad sketch. I thought I recall all the follow-ups to the first Bachleratt/Snad sketch (includng a cut-after-dress-rehearsal one from the following season’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt episode, which was put up online as an “Online Exclusive” after the episode’s original airing) having song topics with different oddball combinations.
— I’m still getting a lot of laughs from this, even if this isn’t hitting quite as hard for me as the first installment of this sketch did.
— At least Rogen isn’t laughing his way through this sketch like an idiot, the way Jonah Hill inexplicably did in the first installment of this sketch.
— Like last time, we get fantastic insane facial expressions from Will during his and Kristen’s New National Anthem song at the end.
— I love how, at the end of the final song, Will and Kristen’s over-the-top musical vocalizations continue for a while AFTER the background music has stopped. Their vocalizations during this part sound kinda like old-fashioned native chanting you’d see in a movie or something.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “1901”


MUPPET BUS
Nipsey Russell (KET) stops Muppets in Electric Mayhem bus for hit & run

— Another Seth Rogen-involved Muppets sketch, after the more-charming-than-intentionally-funny one from Rogen’s first episode. I like how tonight’s Muppets sketch has much more of a comedic conceit and an actual point, and I also appreciate how it’s involving much more of the cast than the first one did.
— Funny to see Will dressed in a Kermit costume after the legendary Kermit hand puppet sketch Will did with Justin Timberlake years prior.
— I love the “boom boom, sniff sniff” bit, with Bill-as-Animal having dynamite and a bag of cocaine on him.
— After Andy’s Swedish Chef slaps a freaking-out Kristen-as-Beaker, I got a pretty good laugh from Swedish Chef telling Beaker a stern “Smorgy…….bork!”
— Amusing inclusion of Kenan as Nipsey Russell, and it’s very funny how he suddenly gets shot in the middle of one of his typical poems.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS
musical guest performs “Too Young”


IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode. In the past, I had always felt this episode was very forgettable. After reviewing the episode just now, I’ve found that I actually like a lot of the content in it, though I still have that lingering “good but forgettable” feel. Not sure why.


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


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Phone Voices
Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad Sing Easter Songs about Spaceships, Toddlers, Model T. Cars & Jars of Beer
Like A Boss
Muppet Bus
La Rivista Della Televisione con Vinny Vedecci
Monologue
Corporate Meeting
Weekend Update
Save The Funnies
Milestone High
Obama’s Business Rulings
The Fast & The Bi-Curious


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tracy Morgan)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Zac Efron