Tag: Season 27

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May 18, 2002 – Winona Ryder / Moby (S27 E20)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

JIMMY CARTER IN CUBA
Fidel Castro (WIF) recaps embarrassments of Jimmy Carter’s (DAH) tenure

— (*sigh*) Well, here we go. Will Ferrell’s final episode. Of all the cast members I’ve reviewed and become attached to during this SNL project of mine so far, Will’s gonna be one of the hardest for me to let go. And knowing what the following three seasons are going to be like without Will makes his departure that much more difficult to take.
— A solid Jimmy Carter voice from Darrell, and his make-up and facial expressions are amusing me.
— Some laughs from Will’s Fidel Castro bringing up infamous and embarrassing things from Carter’s presidency. It’s especially funny how Castro is harping so much on Carter’s rabbit attack.
— Solid delivery from Maya as Castro’s translator.
— Maya delivers her very first “Live from New York…”. Odd how they’re having her deliver it with the about-to-depart Will, though, not to mention how Will only gets to deliver it in Spanish here. You’d figure they’d have Will deliver a solo LFNY for his final episode.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
TRM alerts host to the existence of dressing room security cameras

— The concept of a monologue showing live scenes from backstage security cameras reminds me of John Goodman’s season 21 monologue.
— I love Ana and Darrell being shown having an argument about him possibly being the father of the baby she’s pregnant with.
— I absolutely LOVE the footage of the featured players (Dean, Jeff, and Seth) contemplating which SNL veterans besides Will are possibly leaving. Reminds me so much of how online SNL boards always heavily speculate which cast members may possibly be leaving whenever we head towards the end of a season. I also like the part with Dean, Jeff, and Seth giving a “Yeah, right”-type of laugh at the possibility of Tracy leaving.
— Lots of other funny security camera footage, including Jimmy secretly peeing in Lorne’s coffee pot, and Will spraypainting an obscene goodbye message on the wall.
STARS: ****


CELEBRITY JEOPARDY
Dave Matthews (JIF) & Bjork (host); Alex Trebek cameo

 

— Our final edition of Celebrity Jeopardy, until the sketch would occasionally be resurrected in some of Will’s future hosting stints and SNL’s 40th Anniversary Special. I certainly hope tonight’s installment is better than the underwhelming one from earlier this season.
— Great line from Darrell’s Sean Connery about cutting an album of filthy limericks just so he’d be eligible for the rock-and-roll edition of Celebrity Jeopardy. I also love the filthy limerick he demonstrates, before Will’s Alex Trebek prevents us from hearing the particularly dirty part.
— Good to see Jimmy back in a Celebrity Jeopardy sketch, after skipping the one from earlier this season. He’s doing a spot-on Dave Matthews impression.
— I like the voice and bizarre ramblings that Winona’s doing as Bjork.
— Alex Trebek, to Bjork: “Are you Icelandic or retarded?” Meh, that’s just a lazy variation of the “Are you English or retarded?” line that Will’s Trebek delivered to Molly Shannon’s Minnie Driver in a previous Celebrity Jeopardy.
— Dave Matthews being accompanied by a violin-playing Boyd Tinsley during one answer is pretty funny. Tinsley is played by Dean here, but at dress rehearsal, Tracy played him.
— I love Trebek cutting off one of Bjork’s long ramblings with “Aaaaaaaand SHUT IT.”
— Brief screen glitches have now begun occasionally showing up during this sketch (example below).

This isn’t a local station error; these screen glitches are actually from SNL’s end. SNL’s control room was experiencing “power burps”. I remember this was confirmed on the SNL newsgroup (alt.tv.snl) by a mysterious SNL insider who occasionally posted under the name “He Who Knows” (and, yes, he was a reliable source for inside SNL info). Reportedly, people at SNL were upset that these screen glitches were occurring on the big Will Ferrell farewell episode.
— Oh, I had forgotten until now that the real Alex Trebek walks on at the end of this, to help officially conclude the series of Celebrity Jeopardy sketches.
— A nice and meta way for the sketch to end.
— Overall, definitely a step up from the Celebrity Jeopardy installment from earlier this season, but still falls quite short of measuring up to a typical classic installment. It’s a bit of a shame that this very reliable recurring sketch started kinda fizzling out towards the end of its original run, but that was probably inevitable. Despite that, this has still always been a funny recurring sketch, even in its lesser installments.
STARS: ****


UNCLE MIKE & UNCLE DANNY
bride’s (host) two dads (WIF) & (CHP) sing at her wedding reception

— Yet another example of a gay stereotype sketch that I found hilarious at the time, but now find that this type of humor comes off tired and doesn’t hold up well.
— I absolutely love the way Will intensely and exaggeratedly sings the lyric “There’ll be no distance between us”.
— Horatio being brought in as an interpretive dancer is fairly funny.
— The constant cutaways to Kattan and Rachel’s put-off facial reactions to the singing are getting very old.
— Screen glitches have begun showing up again.
— It’s hard to tell, but at the end of this sketch, it looks like Horatio accidentally trips and begins falling down when walking off the platform as the camera fades to black.
STARS: **


BEAROLOGIST
bear researcher (WIF) is double-crossed in a plot to kill his wife (ANG)

— After getting cut from the live show many times this season, this sketch has finally made it on the air, most likely as a favor to Will for his final episode.
— I love Ana’s accent as Will’s wife, as well as the unexplained detail of her wearing a neck brace.
— Hilarious part with the bear following orders to kill Ana, but doing so by unexpectedly picking up a gun and shooting her. However, due to Ana’s very pregnant state, we don’t get to see her reacting to the gunshot by doing a great jump in the air, which she was previously seen doing in a rehearsal of this sketch shown in a behind-the-scenes SNL documentary that A&E did on this season’s Gwyneth Paltrow episode.
— Will’s frustration over the bear shooting his wife instead of strangling her is great.
— Will, to the cop: “I swear, a TV-watching bear killed my wife!”
— Excellent twist ending with the bear turning out to be the brother of Will’s character, disguised in a bear costume.
— Seth: “14 years in a bear suit FINALLY paid off!”
— Brilliant sketch overall, and Will’s final classic sketch during his tenure as a cast member.
STARS: *****


BOTOX
the stroke-victim look is only a needle of poison to the face away

— SNL’s very first mention of the Botox craze going on at the time.
— A lot of funny lines from the ladies touting the wonders of Botox. I especially like Winona’s “It’s like a little stroke you shoot into your head with a needle.”
— A great ending shot of the ladies all drooling while speaking out of the corner of their mouths.
— This ends up being the only segment all night that Will doesn’t appear in (not counting Moby’s musical performances).
STARS: ****


GIRL NEXT DOOR
one-legged Amber & other contestants compete to be a Playboy centerfold

 

— Great line from Maya about flashing her “ebony beav”, and how she’ll be flashing it for Harriet Tubman.
— Amy’s one-legged Amber character has now become recurring.
— I love Maya saying “This is MY underground railroad” while gesturing towards her crotch.
— Like the previous sketch featuring this character, Amber is getting laughs from me with her bragging about undesirable things about herself. I worry that I’m eventually going to get sick of this character, but so far, she’s been funny in her two sketches that have aired up to this point. It also helps that tonight’s sketch has a lot of other funny characters surrounding Amber.
— Maya continues to kill in this sketch, with yet another great line, in which she tells one-legged Amber “Shut up, pogo stick!”
— I like Ana’s overdramatic delivery when revealing the winner.
STARS: ***½


WEEKEND UPDATE
childless TIF, RAD, AMP, MAR are sick of biological clock reminders

Neil Diamond (WIF) & friends sing “Cherry, Cherry”; Neil Diamond cameo

— Jimmy’s Luciano Pavarotti joke received a very bizarre-sounding laugh from a male audience member, which Tina physically acknowledged by shooting a funny look towards that audience member’s direction.
— Very funny rant from Tina so far, regarding the pressure put on women to have children. Some funny lines during Tina’s rant include “Either your cooter works or it doesn’t” and “I was an ugly baby. I looked like a cross between that chick from the Indigo Girls and… the other chick from the Indigo Girls.”
— I like Tina now getting the rest of the non-Gasteyer female cast members involved in her baby rant, and they’re all adding to the humor here.
— Tina, Rachel, Maya, and Amy talking about how unenthusiastic they are to have babies is even funnier in retrospect, knowing that they’re all moms today. (Actually, I’m not 100% sure about Rachel. Is she a mom? Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.)
— A good laugh from Will’s Neil Diamond mistaking this for being a Cheers reunion.
— Ah, now Will’s Diamond brings out “the 2002 Weekend Update All-Stars”: Gay Hitler, Geraldo Rivera, Drunk Girl, aaaaaand… the real Neil Diamond, the latter being our second cameo tonight from a celebrity who Will has famously impersonated over the years. SNL is really going all out tonight for Will’s last show.
— The real Neil Diamond didn’t appear during this episode’s dress rehearsal, which would explain why he looks kinda lost and under-rehearsed during his singing here.
— A nice way to end this season of Update.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “We Are All Made Of Stars”


LOVERS
in hotel hot tub, Roger & Virginia re-encounter Dave & win over (host)

— I would normally question why they’re doing ANOTHER Luvahs sketch so soon, just two episodes after we last saw them with Alec Baldwin, but they’re obviously only doing this sketch tonight for closure before Will leaves.
— Some pretty funny vocalizations from Roger when he and Virginia recognize Jimmy’s character, Dave, from the Luvahs sketch from this season’s Drew Barrymore episode.
— Roger’s odd way of always pronouncing “hot tub” as “hah-TAHB” finally gets called out.
— There’s our final go-around of Will’s usual attempts to crack Jimmy up. I remember some of the news articles about Will’s departure from SNL asked “Now that Ferrell’s gone, who’s gonna make Jimmy Fallon laugh during every sketch?” They clearly forgot about Horatio, who’s traditional attempts to crack Jimmy up would unfortunately go into overdrive starting in the following season (and be far less forgiving than Will’s traditional attempts to crack Jimmy up), to the degree that people today now remember Horatio as the resident “Fallon breaker” and forget that Will was heavily associated with that role before Horatio was.
— Jimmy’s character, when feeling somebody underwater touching him in a certain area: “Who’s hand is on my cul-de-sac right now?”
— This sketch is getting awfully muddied. This has become a cacophonous mess of everybody squirting food into each other’s mouths while Jimmy repeatedly cracks up as he delivers a long rant about something that I can’t even pay attention to, and other nonsense. The audience isn’t laughing during this incoherent mess, and neither am I.
— A twist on the traditional, played-out “Ow my back” endings of these Luvahs sketches, but this twist still didn’t work for me.
— Overall, a poor way for The Luvahs to go out (not counting their future appearance in the following season’s Christopher Walken episode that Will cameos in). Despite that, I’m proud to say that doing this SNL project of mine has made me come around on The Luvahs, after hating them with a fiery passion back when their sketches originally aired.
STARS: **


MANGO
while out with host & musical guest, Mango is arrested for shoplifting

— Oh, dear god. Mango. Thankfully, this ends up being the last Mango sketch ever. (And no, Kattan’s unfortunately not leaving with Will. Kattan probably just got sick of doing Mango sketches and decided to officially stop after this season.)
— Mango’s initial appearance here is welcomed by absolute DEAD SILENCE from the audience. That speaks volumes of how played-out and horribly past his prime Mango is by this point.
— Moby’s “I heart Eminem” shirt is presumably his response to being dissed by Eminem in the preceding episode, when Eminem performed “Without Me”.
— A very weak way of spoofing Winona’s shoplifting scandal.
— I could do without the overlong and unfunny photo montage of Mango’s mugshots, though they’re probably only showing this to give Kattan time to change into his prison outfit for the next portion of this sketch.
— Mango and Winona having a wild make-out/sex session with each other on the opposite sides of a pane of glass is kinda funny, but I think I’m just desperate to find SOMETHING to laugh at in this sketch.
— Terrible ending.
— Much like the final Mr. Peepers sketch from a little earlier this season, tonight’s overall Mango sketch was a pathetic last gasp of a dying recurring sketch. Good riddance to Mango.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “South Side”

— SNL abruptly cuts this musical performance off mid-progress, presumably because the show is starting to run long and they want to leave enough time for the special piece that follows this musical performance.


WILL’S FINAL SHOW
on WIF’s final show, all cast members but TRM have fond memories of him

— Kinda meaningful in retrospect that Ana is the first person who speaks in this Will Ferrell tribute, considering she would end up leaving with Will, but neither SNL nor Ana herself knew it at the time. She had publicly announced before the end of this season that she plans on returning the following season. I guess having motherly duties after giving birth to her baby over the summer gave her second thoughts about staying on SNL, and she would publicly announce sometime before the following season started that she’s not returning. A shame she never got the opportunity to say goodbye on the air.
— When Darrell begins stating, in regards to Will, “I came into this place with him…”, he takes a pause before continuing “…and I’m gonna miss him.” I remember when this originally aired, my heart kinda jumped when I seriously thought for a second that Darrell was going to follow “I came into this place with him…” with “…and I’m gonna leave this place with him.” If he did say that, though, I guess that would’ve kinda taken away from this being Will’s farewell piece, not to mention it would’ve probably made some people feel bad for Darrell that his departure is being so overshadowed by Will’s. In retrospect, though, this clearly should’ve been the point where Darrell left. For the remaining seven(!) years of his SNL tenure, his relevancy on the show sadly drops off more and more with each passing season, and he gradually comes off more and more unenthusiastic in his performances, to the degree that I remember sometimes actually being kinda bothered watching this man who visibly didn’t seem to give a shit anymore about being on SNL.
— Very nice how we’re seeing testimonials about Will from every repertory player except Amy (who I guess is excluded from this because she’s only worked with Will for one season… less than one season, really, when you factor in the three episodes that Will missed this season). You can really see just how much love and respect the cast genuinely has for Will.
— Very interesting and bold how Parnell is openly addressing his firing and eventual rehiring, and how Will made that rehiring happen.
— Up to this point in SNL’s run, this is by far the biggest deal SNL has ever made on the air about a beloved cast member leaving. I remember how unusual and unprecedented it felt at the time seeing this. I think the only future example that would compare to the huge deal SNL’s making about Will’s departure is Kristen Wiig’s farewell piece 10 years later.
— Tracy, as soon as the camera cuts to him: “*I* got a story.” Oh, you know THIS is gonna be good.
— So many hilarious lines from Tracy dishing dirt on Will, despite 30% of Tracy’s dialogue here being an unintelligible garblefest.
— Ha, speaking of how some of Tracy’s dialogue here is an unintelligible garblefest, am I hearing him constantly mispronounce Will’s last name as “fuh-REL”?
— Reportedly, in the dress rehearsal version of this piece, among the many terrible things Tracy accused Will of included “He made sure all of Dean’s sketches got cut!” A hilariously meta reference to Dean’s extreme lack of airtime, but unfortunately, that line didn’t make it to the live version, which, in a way, further proves Tracy’s point. Something else that unintentionally makes that line of Tracy’s even funnier is the aforementioned fact that Dean replaced Tracy as Boyd Tinsley in the live version of the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch earlier tonight.
— Ah, and here’s the man of the hour, Will. Pretty funny how he’s confirming all of the awful things Tracy said about him.
— Very sweet ending between Will and Tracy.
STARS: N/A (not sure if this is a rateable segment)


GOODNIGHTS

— SNL continues to go the whole nine yards for Will’s final episode, by flashing a “BYE WILL” light above the stage door, and a hand being shown holding up a “We’ll miss you, Will – the crew” sign in front of the camera.
— Man, seeing Maya in tears when hugging Will is really getting to me.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good season finale, though there was a drop-off with the first few post-Weekend Update sketches. This was also a satisfying Will Ferrell farewell episode, with the show getting pretty much all the mileage out of him that they possibly could for one last time, having him appear in a whopping ten sketches(!), which I believe holds the all-time record for most appearances by a cast member in a single episode.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kirsten Dunst)
about the same


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


HOW THIS OVERALL SEASON STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2000-01)
a very slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 28 begins, with host Matt Damon, and the addition of two new featured players to the cast

Posted on

May 11, 2002 – Kirsten Dunst / Eminem (S27 E19)

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.

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April 20, 2002 – Alec Baldwin / P.O.D. (S27 E18)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

BLAKE MURDER MYSTERY
Fox News Channel anchors are thrilled at prospect of Robert Blake trial

— A funny clip of O.J.-like footage of a white car driving on a freeway, which we’re told is footage of Robert Blake being taken to a police processing center. I also like Will’s delivery of “White car on the L.A. freeway, ya’ll!” (a line that I had always misrembered as being delivered by Parnell).
— I like Parnell’s laid-back performance as a celebrity scandal expert.
— Some pretty good laughs from the Fox News anchors’ excitement over this Robert Blake mess potentially being an O.J.-like scandal.
— Blah, I’m sick of Darrell’s overlong Geraldo Rivera bits this season. I’m apparently in the minority in that regard, as the audience always eats these Geraldo bits up.
— At least SNL’s showing some continuity, with Darrell’s Geraldo making a passing mention of his “Tour of Terror”, a reference to something established in the last Weekend Update commentary that Darrell’s Geraldo did.
— I love the Robert Blake-related soundbyte of gunshot sounds followed by audio of a man saying in a jokingly menacing voice “You little rascal!”
— I hope nobody lets Brian Fellow anywhere near THAT talking bird. I’m sure the only readers who will get that comment of mine are ones who are familiar with the Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet sketch from the last episode that I reviewed.
— An interesting unconventional “Live from New York…”, with it being delivered by a bird (voiced by Steve Higgins). And at least it’s a break from all the endless Ferrell/Hammond LFNYs we’ve been getting lately.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
Al Gore (DAH) gives host tips on how to get over presidential election

— I probably said this before, but I like how it’s a tradition at the beginning of Alec’s monologues for him to give the SNL Band their due by physically pointing them out.
— Darrell showing up as Al Gore to give Alec advice? I guess this is their way of following up Alec’s last monologue, in which Darrell gave him advice as Bill Clinton.
— Darrell’s Gore calling Alec out on his empty threat to move out of the country if George W. Bush got elected president is fairly funny.
— Could’ve done without this turning into a duet of “Accentuate the Positive”. What’s the point of that?
— An overall somewhat forgettable monologue that fizzled out at the end. Not one of Alec’s better monologues.
STARS: **½


KOTEX CLASSIC
Rerun from 3/16/02


GAY VOICEMAIL
(host) is perplexed that he sounds gay on his voicemail greeting

— I admit to getting a laugh from the first lispy-sounding voicemail, though I’m aware of the direction this sketch is going.
— A good laugh from Ana IMMEDIATELY confirming to Alec “No, that’s how you sound” before casually walking off, after hearing the gay-sounding playback of his voicemail.
— Alec now doing a cartoonishly deep, macho voice into the voicemail in an attempt make it avoid sound gay in the playback is pretty funny.
— Okay, after a while, I’m getting fairly tired of the joke of the increasingly gay-sounding voicemails, though the inclusion of Kylie Minogue music in the background of one gay-sounding voicemail was an amusing choice.
— Overall, I’ve seen some people say this is one of the better of SNL writer James Anderson’s endless myriad of gay stereotype sketches. I only half-agree, as I enjoyed this sketch at first, but then it kinda lost its luster for me halfway through. Still not terrible, though, especially compared to a lot of James Anderson’s gay-related material.
STARS: **½


WHITE MEN BLACK WOMEN
successful white men are dumping their wives for elderly black women

— Yet another drag role for Tracy, but he’s certainly very funny in this as Alec’s new elderly black girlfriend.
— A very inspired and funny premise, how this is treating the unusual concept of successful white men leaving their wives for elderly black women as a very commonplace cliche.
— The back-and-forth between Jimmy and Amy is solid.
— Dean is hilarious as Darrell’s Caribbean-accented elderly black girlfriend. I especially like his delivery of the line “I smack the white right off her!” Stuff like this makes me wonder why the hell SNL often treats Dean like a glorified extra and doesn’t use him more often.
— A particularly funny line from Tracy’s character about having to watch her sugar or she’ll lose her foot.
— I love Rachel’s angry rant.
STARS: ****½


OZZY
domesticated Ozzy Osbourne (HOS) is only intelligible while singing

— After we got a sample of Horatio’s imitation of Ozzy Osborne’s singing in the Just Enjoy The Ozzy sketch from season 24, we get the debut of Horatio actually playing Ozzy himself… in a regular SNL episode, that is. The actual debut of Horatio playing Ozzy himself was in a Celebrity Jeopardy sketch from one of the two “Primetime Extra” specials that SNL did in 2001.
— We also get the debut of Amy’s Sharon Osborne impression, which I’ve always found spot-on.
— Horatio’s mumbling as Ozzy is pretty funny, and, much like the aforementioned Just Enjoy The Ozzy sketch, Horatio continues to do a solid impression of Ozzy’s coherent singing voice.
— Very funny part with Alec requesting to an incoherently-speaking Ozzy, “Would you mind singing your lunch order?”, which Ozzy then proceeds to do perfectly. I especially love the “Diet Coke, HA HA HA HA! With ice, ice, ice!” bit.
— Damn, that was a good, long tender song from Horatio just now. He’s really been impressing me throughout this sketch.
— Amy’s silly facial expression while her Sharon Osborne is doing a doggy voice made her look remarkably like Rachel, oddly enough. (screencap below)

I remember always thinking back in these days that Amy and Rachel look like they could be real-life sisters, though I no longer see the resemblance all that often now that I’m older.
— During the long, bleeped-out argument between Sharon, Kelly, and Jack Osborne (the latter two played by Rachel and Parnell, respectively), audio of Amy, Rachel, and Parnell’s actual yelling can be heard under the bleeping. Most of that yelling is unintelligible to my ears, but at the very end of that yelling, I clearly heard Amy saying “MOTHERFUCKER!” twice. I’m guessing there was an audio glitch and we weren’t supposed to hear what Amy, Rachel, and Parnell were really yelling under the bleeping, and Amy apparently wasn’t aware that her yells of “MOTHERFUCKER!” were going out on the air. Does this technically put Amy in the prestigious “SNL cast member dropping an f-bomb on live TV” club?
— After Sharon, Kelly, and Jack walk off after the aforementioned bleeped-out shoutfest between them, I love the camera panning over to Horatio’s Ozzy silently staring at the camera with a deadpan look on his face.
STARS: ****


THE CARDINALS
Pope John Paul II (host) summons The Cardinals for a chastening

— A pretty fun badass intro sequence with various crime-fighting cardinals. I especially love the shot of Parnell casually speaking on the phone while loading his rifle.
— A great ending one-liner from Alec’s Pope, towards The Cardinals: “I got-a one thing to say to you guys: keep-a you peckers in your pants!” A good reference to the Catholic church sex abuse scandal in the news at the time.
— The way this sketch unexpectedly ends with Alec’s aforementioned one-liner, after being preceded by such a long and elaborate opening title sequence, kinda reminds me of the then-current Astronaut Jones recurring sketches. It also reminds me of other sketches SNL has done over the years that comically end with a very quick scene after a lengthy opening title sequence, including a “U.N. Weapons Inspectors” sketch that Jimmy does with Robert DeNiro the following season.
STARS: ***½


WEEKEND UPDATE
emotional Ally McBeal (RAD) sounds off about her show’s cancellation

Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire (SEM) is a nigh-comatose action movie hero

having taken her daughter (AMP) to work, TIF deals with insolent behavior

— Good to see Rachel’s Ally McBeal suddenly pop up, after the announcement of the cancellation of her TV show.
— A good heated rant from Rachel’s McBeal. (Which makes this Rachel’s second long, angry rant in tonight’s episode, by the way. She’s on fire tonight.)
— Seth is doing a pretty funny caricature of Tobey Maguire’s bland, lethargic demeanor, though future SNL cast member Taran Killam did a far more spot-on Tobey Maguire impression on MADtv during this same season.
— Interesting bit with Tina doing a segment with her (fictional) teenage daughter, Savannah Dakota Fey, played by Amy. Funnily enough, I think this fictional daughter of Tina’s is around the same age that Tina’s real-life first child, Alice, is today.
— I got a pretty good laugh from Tina suddenly and randomly asking her daughter “Do you take ecstasy?!?” right in the middle of their exchange just now.
— Something about this overall Update felt unusually short to me, even though it had three guest commentaries.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Youth Of The Nation”


BIRTHDAY LOVERS
Roger’s college roommate (host) attends surprise party thrown by Virginia

— Interesting beginning to this Luvahs sketch, with Virginia planning a surprise party for an about-to-arrive-home Roger. I believe this is the first (and perhaps ONLY?) time we’ve ever seen Roger and Virginia appear separated from each other.
— Akira Yoshimura! (the third above screencap for this sketch) Sightings of him have become so rare by this point of SNL’s run.
— Good character from Alec.
— Interesting how the non-Luvahs couples in this sketch are played by cast members who are often paired together as couples and always have fantastic chemistry with each other: Parnell & Ana, and Seth & Amy.
— During The Luvahs’ story about once making love on a cliff, Alec’s own anecdote about how he fell off the cliff while “playing with his balls” (as he puts it) as he watched The Luvahs’ lovemaking is absolutely hilarious. I particularly love him touting the “free-fall release” that he experienced during his mid-masturbation cliff fall as the greatest achievement of his life. This whole bit alone makes this one of the better Luvahs sketches.
— For some reason, Will starts breaking while he’s chewing on food.
— Aaaaaand there’s our unnecessary “Ow, my back” ending that these Luvahs sketches traditionally end with.
STARS: ***½


FRANCE
for anti-Semitism & snootiness, it’s time we got back to hating France

— A pretty funny France tourism ad pointing out all the unpleasant things about the country.
— The voice-over’s closing line: “With all that’s going on in the world, isn’t it about time we got back to hating the French?” Funnily enough, that actually would end up happening just a year later. Remember America’s soured relationship with France in 2003 (something to do with France opposing the War in Iraq), to the degree that congress would legally change the name of French fries to freedom fries?
STARS: ***½


THE TONY BENNETT SHOW
Liza Minnelli (MAR) & David Gest (CHK)

— This recurring sketch makes its debut.
— Alec is doing a great Tony Bennett here.
— Kattan makes his first and ONLY appearance of the entire episode. With this being the second time in these last three episodes I’ve covered that Kattan made only one appearance all night, in a sketch buried towards the end of the show to boot, you’d think Kattan would take this as a hint that his time on SNL is clearly beyond up and he would leave SNL at the end of this season, but nope. No matter how many clues he’s been given, the man STILL ends up returning next season. (*groan*)
— All that being said about Kattan, his facial expression as David Gest in this sketch is certainly amusing me.
— When addressing the gay rumors about David Gest (and I’ll just ignore the frustrating fact that this is YET ANOTHER sketch this season in which Kattan is either playing a gay guy or a guy accused of being gay), I admit to getting a lot of big laughs from Tony Bennett’s various euphemisms for Gest’s desire to have a partner with a penis. I particularly like Bennett asking Gest “Why would you build your house in a cherry orchard when you dig bananas?”
— A hilarious story from Tony Bennett about once making love to a woman’s foot for 7 hours before a nurse came in and said “Mr. Bennett… she’s gone.”
STARS: ****


TV FUNHOUSE
“The Anatominals Show” by RBS- LOM is embarrassed during senatorial visit

— The second and final Anatominals TV Funhouse.
— Not caring too much for the Anatominals portion of this, as a lot of it feels like its treading the same territory from the first Anatominals installment.
— Even the Lorne portion of this isn’t anywhere near as funny as the one from the first Anatominals installment.
— Okay, I do like Lorne and Senator Moynihan both saying “Bear got boobies!” when seeing the Anatominals on the TV monitor.
— Overall, a laugh here and there, but yeah, they clearly should’ve kept Anatominals a one-off.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Alive”


MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
a clown with a knife in chapter 1345


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Yet another reliable Alec Baldwin episode. While this doesn’t seem to be one of the more remembered Baldwin episodes among SNL fans (though that may be due to the lack of airtime this episode has received. Hasn’t it been said that this episode has NEVER been re-aired on TV, for some very odd, unknown reason? I know NBC has never re-aired it, but what about cable channels like E! or VH1?), this had a solid quality to it, and a few great standout sketches.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (The Rock)
a mild step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Kirsten Dunst

Posted on

April 13, 2002 – The Rock / Andrew W.K. (S27 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
George W. Bush (WIF) tries to trump suicide bombers’ martyrdom rewards

— Pretty funny turn with Will-as-President-Bush’s sex chatline infomercial-esque offer to suicide bombers.
— Funny detail of how the naughty photos of American women that Bush is offering have censor bars over their eyes.
— A laugh from Bush naming his deal offering the “Bush/Cheney/Guccione Peace Plan”.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
host takes two punches in the face from CHK

— The Rock already gets a good laugh very early on in this monologue, with the fake-out of him plugging his alleged new movie, Gosford Park 2.
— Pretty funny visual of The Rock manhandling “Little Chris Kattan” while giving him a friendly greeting.
— Not much to this monologue, and this is pretty thinly-written, but The Rock is making this work with his reactions after getting punched by Kattan. This is the kind of monologue that would easily fall flat if it were performed by a host who doesn’t have The Rock’s talent and charisma.
STARS: ***


BRIAN FELLOW’S SAFARI PLANET
parrot spurs fears of identity theft

— Brian Fellow’s angry reactions when the parrot keeps saying “I’m Brian Fellow” are very funny and memorable.
— Tracy managed to get a great, extended laugh from the audience with his delivery of the line “Hopefully, we will fix this in editing.”
— The whole bit with Brian Fellow constantly bringing up the parrot during his interview of The Rock’s character is hilarious, especially Rock’s very funny uncomfortable facial expressions. I particularly like the silent, obedient way Rock nods his head when Brian Fellow asks him if he saw that “loudmouth bird”.
— When Brian Fellow is looking at a thought bubble of the parrot trying to buy something over the phone with Brian’s credit card, I absolutely howled at the way Brian screamed “HANG UP THAT PHONE!” Man, Tracy’s delivery as this character (and Tracy’s delivery in general) is pure gold.
— The Rock is a great straight man here.
— Priceless ending with Brian Fellow growling “I’m gonna kill that motherf–” when getting up to run after the parrot.
— Overall, this has long been my absolute favorite Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet installment.
STARS: ****½


THE SCORPION PRINCE
Scorpion King (host) doesn’t want to take whiny son (SEM) into battle

— (*groan*) As soon as he enters the sketch, Jimmy IMMEDIATELY breaks, for NO APPARENT REASON. Jesus Christ.
— Seth’s exaggerated performance as an angsty teen is not working for me. I know the point is that this character is supposed to be whiny and irritating to his father, but he’s coming off far more annoying than funny to me. I can officially pinpoint this as Seth’s very first performance that bothered me during this SNL project of mine… and if my recollection of season 30 is correct, this will be far from the last Seth Meyers performance that I’ll be complaining about.
— The funniest and most memorable moment of this entire sketch is one that’s not even in the script: during his rant to Seth about how he’s taken him places in the past, The Rock accidentally pronounces “tomb” as “tome”, and then, without breaking character at all (hear that, Jimmy?), smoothly saves himself with a funny ad-lib: “I didn’t take you to the tome, I took you to the tomb”, which gets a good audience reaction. He then milks some more audience laughter out of this by turning around and saying “It was a tomb!” to a still-trying-not-to-laugh Jimmy, who then repeats “It was a tomb!”
— Something about the combo of Seth’s whiny facial expressions and that wig he’s wearing make him strongly resemble Ben Stiller at certain points of this sketch. And now that I say that, I’ve just remembered that Stiller also once did a sketch in his season 24 hosting stint in which he played a whiny, irritating son similar to Seth in this sketch, though that Stiller sketch was much better than this.
— Another text crawl ending, though this one is an improvement over the one the show had then-recently used in the Bass-Off sketch from the Jack Black episode.
STARS: **


ARTHUR ANDERSEN
Arthur Andersen now offers shady accounting to individual taxpayers

— A good laugh from Rachel’s foreign cleaning lady asking “Que?” with a clueless big smile on her face.
— A solid little Ferrell moment with him following up his line about “getting huge credit for drilling an exploration” by informing us “…and that’s NOT a sex joke.”
— A decent spoof of the Arthur Andersen/Enron scandal. I particularly like spokesperson Parnell’s pride in Arthur Andersen’s criminal deceit.
— Steve Higgins can be heard stifling laughter during his ending voice-over. Is that part of the script?
STARS: ***


HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS
Dick Armey (WIF), Pat Caddell (JIF), Paul Begala (CHK)

— Surprisingly, this is the first Hardball sketch to air all season, which is particularly a shock when you consider how frequently these sketches appeared in the second half of the preceding season. There was a Hardball installment cut after dress rehearsal from the Gwyneth Paltrow episode earlier this season.
— Jimmy looks hilarious Pat Cadell.
— After his line about how only 50 people watch this show, Darrell starts laughing out of character, for no apparent reason. Seems to be quite a lot of unexplained breaking throughout tonight’s episode.
— A big laugh from the viewer letter complaining about how they had the TV on mute and Chris Matthews’ loud voice still woke up their kid.
— Very funny line from Will’s Dick Armey about taking over West Bank and naming it “America 2” and using it for storage.
— Chris Matthews’ various misnomers for the name Dick Armey are freakin’ priceless. I remember there being some controversy online from some people accusing SNL of stealing the “Vagina Coast Guard” misnomer from Family Guy. I personally say there’s a 50/50 chance between SNL having stolen the joke and it just being a coincidence. I’m leaning towards the latter. After all, I don’t think it takes THAT much creativity to come up with “Vagina Coast Guard” when trying to think of similar names to Dick Armey.
— In my review of the last Hardball sketch, I complained that the constant Paul Begala insults from Darrell’s Chris Matthews were getting old. Well, the long absence of Hardball sketches this season seems to have done some good, as Matthews’ constant Begala insults tonight seem more fresh and are making me laugh a lot. Even better, this ends up being the final appearance of Begala in a Hardball sketch, and thus, I don’t have to worry about Matthews’ insults to him ever getting old again (especially considering how frequently we’ll be seeing Hardball sketches in the upcoming season 28).
— Kinda disappointing that Parnell wasn’t in this overall Hardball installment, as he usually was always given the funniest comments in previous Hardball installments.
STARS: ****


DRUNK GIRLS
backstage, Drunk Girl & her equally-sloshed friend Pamm (host) accost SEM

— A good new setting for Drunk Girl.
— Seth: “How did you get in here?” Drunk Girl: “Tracy Morgan.” Seth: “Yeah, it figures.”
— Much like the first episode hosted by the Rock, we get another excuse to throw The Rock in drag. However, I’m finding him very funny here as a Drunk Girl-type character. His drunk, slurred female voice is making me laugh out loud.
— Tonight’s breaking-filled episode continues, as Seth cracks up after unexpectedly getting his nipple pinched by The Rock.
STARS: ***


ON THE SUBWAY
on the subway, (MAR) musically disses loudmouth know-it-all Fred (TRM)

— The very first of a series of semi-dramatic Tracy/Maya pieces, in which both performers deliver a theatrical-type reading, as different characters in each sketch. As a teenager when these sketches originally aired, I absolutely HATED these, would wonder where the hell the comedy was, and would always trash these sketches in my reviews back then. (I also used to always refer to them as “Subway Fred sketches”, named after Tracy’s character in tonight’s sketch.) As I got older, I’ve developed a huge appreciation for SNL’s semi-dramatic slice-of-life sketches, and I now find myself far more game and curious to revisit these Tracy/Maya pieces, especially since these pieces are in an SNL era where semi-dramatic slice-of-life sketches were a thing of the far, far past.
— I like the 70s look to Maya’s character.
— The combination of Maya delivering her lines musically and Tracy delivering his lines in a spoken manner is quite interesting.
— Overall, nothing particularly memorable here, but I found this to be an interesting, entertaining, and well-performed experimental piece. I wonder which writer is behind this and the subsequent semi-dramatic Tracy/Maya sketches. I’d figure it has to be a black writer, as these sketches accurately capture a very urban atmosphere, but did SNL even have any black writers during the seasons that these sketches span (seasons 27 and 28)?
STARS: ***½


SHE’S THE GIRL WITH NO GAYDAR!!!
Nicole, The Girl With No Gaydar misreads patrons at a gay piano bar

— I can understand the appeal of the first installment of this sketch from earlier this season (and I now admit I was a little too dismissive of that first installment in my recent review of it), but yeah, this will not work as a recurring sketch.
— Feels odd seeing Darrell with his natural look while playing an effeminate character like this.
— The novelty of seeing The Rock playing a lispy, microphone-stroking gay guy doesn’t hold up much nowadays, but his performance is still coming off fairly fun, which is one of the few positive things I can find in tonight’s Girl With No Gaydar installment.
STARS: **


WEEKEND UPDATE
having bears rampage through his home inspires Gene Shalit (HOS) to pun

— Oh, god, a Horatio Sanz commentary with him seated next to Jimmy. As if tonight’s episode didn’t feature enough breaking…
— I got a laugh from one of Horatio-as-Gene-Shalit’s alleged puns being a simple, pun-less “Those bears made me poop in my pants.”
— I’m a little torn on the overall Gene Shalit commentary. I can see the “So bad, it’s good” appeal to this, but at the same time, I didn’t find myself laughing all that much. At least this commentary was thankfully not derailed by too much Fallon/Sanz giggling, which is more than I can say for a later Gene Shalit Update commentary I recall Horatio doing the following season.
— A solid vampire rapist bit between Jimmy and Tina. That’s always been one of my favorite side bits that Jimmy and Tina ever did together on Update.
— Oh, god, I spoke too soon about the Gene Shalit commentary ending and not being derailed by Fallon/Sanz giggling. Horato’s Shalit has suddenly returned to deliver more puns. I knew his commentary from earlier tonight ended awfully abruptly.
— Update’s over ALREADY? This Update only felt about 5-6 minutes long. Kinda odd how, in the span of just two episodes, SNL has gone from what was possibly one of the all-time longest Updates to one of the shortest Updates in a good while.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Party Hard”


ALL ABOARD THE FREEDOM TRAIN: THE DUETS OF NEIL DIAMOND AND BIGFOOT
duets album by Bigfoot (host) & stoned Neil Diamond (WIF) may not be real

— Hilarious initial visual of The Rock as a casually-acting Bigfoot.
— Ha, now Bigfoot is singing beautifully. The Rock has been singing in quite a lot of sketches tonight, by the way.
— Yes! Will’s Neil Diamond! I absolutely LOVE this absurd, random setting of Neil Diamond and Bigfoot advertising a duet album of theirs.
— Neil Diamond, on Bigfoot: “This kid’s got pipes so sweet, it almost makes you forget the truly astounding amounts of feces matted into his hair.”
— I absolutely love Neil Diamond’s line about someone he once met who looks like a black version of Richard Mulligan.
— A very funny message to us from Diamond about how he’s not even sure if any of this is real because he’s stoned out of his gourd and is pretty sure he’s in his basement talking to his water heater.
— A classic little moment with Diamond throwing in the lyric “I sold a human foot to some Chinese dudes in a van” during the duet of the song “Fire And Rain”.
— The little gestures and actions that The Rock is adding in as Bigfoot throughout this sketch are hilarious, especially him randomly rubbing his own ape nipple at one point.
— Overall, what a blast this sketch was. Of all the Neil Diamond follow-up appearances that Will has done after the classic Storytellers sketch that his Neil Diamond impression made its debut in, tonight’s sketch is the closest SNL has come to equaling the greatness of that Storytellers sketch. I really, really want to give this sketch a five-star rating, but I’m a bit torn, as I feel this sketch still doesn’t quite measure up to the classic-ness of Storytellers, despite coming very close.
STARS: ****½ for now. I might eventually change my mind to a five-star rating, but I don’t want to screw up the rating averages and five-star tallies that are graciously provided by some of the commenters on this site.


AMERICA UNDERCOVER
trashy white couple wreaks havoc in an emergency room

 

— The final appearance of these America Undercover redneck characters of Kattan and Amy’s.
— A good laugh from Amy handing The Rock a tree branch as a “stick” that she peed on to see if she’s pregnant or not.
— Overall, nothing new here, but the incoherent madness in these America Undercover sketches always amuses me, even though this installment didn’t make me laugh quite as much as the first two installments. However, at least the hospital room setting provided a bit of a change of pace to the usual antics of Kattan and Amy’s characters. Also, after I’ve been particularly salty towards Kattan in my last few episode reviews (and rightfully so, as I’m sure quite a number of you readers feel), I’d like to say something positive about him for a change by pointing out that he made me laugh throughout tonight’s America Undercover installment. Even though Kattan has been doing absolutely nothing new in any of the various sketches he’s appeared in tonight (which is par for the course for him this season, sadly), at least he’s showing he still has the ability to get some laughs from me every now and then.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Get Wet”


A MESSAGE FROM SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
new ditty by HOS, CHK, TRM, JIF encourages everybody to cool out

— Ah, a variation of the traditional “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” song, with this being a new song that has a completely different melody, different lyrics, and a different central theme. Tracy’s even doing a new dance.
— Very catchy melody to this new song. I love it.
— So far, this isn’t as strong as the “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” bits, but it’s still fun.
— Horatio’s lyrics calling for peace remind me of a cut-after-dress-rehearsal piece from around this time (I can’t remember which episode) that I once read about, in which Horatio, as himself, stood alone on the home base stage and sang the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” while a TV monitor next to him accompanied the “don’t worry” parts of the song with images of tragic things currently in the news at the time (e.g. 9/11-related stuff) and then accompanied the “be happy” parts of the song with images of heartwarming, sweet things like cute puppies. A nice, heartfelt message that Horatio was sending out, and a side of Horatio that we don’t see anywhere near as often as we should. He would later get a heartfelt piece like that on the air in which he, again standing alone on the home base stage as himself, does a sentimental tribute to Mister Rogers, who had recently passed away.
— Right as Tracy steps to the front of the stage during the song and begins a straight-to-camera monologue about peace, the screen abruptly crossfades to an SNL bumper photo of The Rock while audio of Tracy’s peace monologue is still heard, which is an obvious sign that the show is running long and this sketch is about to get cut off prematurely. The odd thing, though, is that in the copy I’m currently watching of this episode, both the bumper photo of The Rock and the audio of Tracy’s peace monologue go on for a very long time before the sketch gets cut off by a commercial break. (At one point during the audio of Tracy’s peace monologue, we hear him say, in regards to infighting among the SNL cast, “Sometimes things get a little out of hand and someone gets cut. I’m sorry, Parnell”, referencing Parnell’s temporary firing.) Whichever affiliate that the copy I’m watching of this episode was recorded from (I don’t know where, as it’s not my personal copy) is clearly not the same affiliate I watched this episode on when it originally aired back when I lived in Illinois, as the Chicago affiliate I watched cut to commercial very shortly after the bumper photo of The Rock prematurely showed up during Tracy’s peace monologue.
— When NBC would rerun this episode a few months later, the ending of this sketch would still get cut off prematurely (though it lasts a little longer than it does in the live airing), but that may be because right before the goodnights, that rerun inserts a tribute to former SNL director Dave Wilson, who had recently passed away. (For anyone curious, the tribute showed behind-the-scenes footage of Wilson in the SNL control room getting things ready for the X-Files cold opening of the about-to-go-on-the-air David Duchovny-hosted season 20 finale, which was Wilson’s final episode as SNL’s director.)
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS
(Not included in the copy I’m reviewing of this episode. My copy just abruptly ends after the preceding sketch gets cut off prematurely. I guess this episode ran so long that the affiliate the copy I’m watching of this episode was recorded from had no time to air the goodnights. Again, this shows how differently each of the affiliates handled this episode running long, because the Chicago affiliate I watched this episode on when it originally aired actually showed the goodnights, though it got cut off VERY early, I think before The Rock even finished speaking.
This is only the second (and hopefully last) time during this SNL project of mine that a copy I reviewed of an episode was missing the existing goodnights. The first time that happened was the Christopher Walken episode from season 21 (as seen towards the end of my review here). As you can imagine, it feels very odd and quite empty to watch an SNL episode end without ANY goodnights or any variation of goodnights.)

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, though felt a little on the forgettable side compared to The Rock’s memorable first episode and most of his later episodes. There were still a few strong highlights tonight, though. The very abrupt, premature ending to this episode (as mentioned above) kinda left a bad taste in my mouth, but SNL can’t be blamed for that. As good as The Rock did in his first hosting stint, he was even better tonight in his second stint, and has officially entered the status of “potential future five-timer”.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Cameron Diaz)
a mild step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Alec Baldwin. An odd coincidence I realized just now: prior to the episode I just reviewed above, the only episode I reviewed that was missing its existing goodnights in the copy I watched, the aforementioned season 21 Christopher Walken episode, was also followed by an Alec Baldwin episode.

Posted on

April 6, 2002 – Cameron Diaz / Jimmy Eat World (S27 E16)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

LAMAZE CLASS
in Lamaze class, Marty & pregnant Bobbi perform a gestation medley

— After three straight “political figure sits behind a desk and addresses the nation” cold openings, it’s refreshing to get a non-political opening.
— Speaking of refreshing, it feels so good to see Will back after his absence from the last two episodes.
— This ends up being the final appearance of The Culps during their original run, not counting when they would be resurrected years later in both a Will Ferrell-hosted episode from 2012 and SNL’s 40th Anniversary Special.
— SNL finds another good way to work Ana’s real-life pregnancy into the show.
— Marty Culp, during the usual “hot mic” spiel: “Would it be too much trouble to ask to get the sound right just one time? No? Not gonna happen?” Interesting how that line takes place in what ends up being the final regular Culps installment.
— I love the metaphors The Culps use when expressing surprise at Bobbi getting pregnant at her age, with Bobbi saying her “abandoned garden still had one big yam left” and Marty saying his “pencil still had some lead in it”.
— The Culps’ pre-song banter seems even funnier than usual tonight.
— The Culps’ song medley tonight is okay, though the only part I’m really crazy about is their take on Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” (then again, I’m always a sucker for that song).
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host & her butt choreographer (WIF) have a booty-shaking contest

— Wow, tons of energy from Cameron Diaz right from the start of this monologue.
— Great that SNL is wasting no time IMMEDIATELY getting so much mileage out of Will in his first week back. Then again, the heavy usage of him so far in tonight’s episode ends up being misleading, as we end up barely seeing him for the rest of this episode.
— Is Will wearing the same hilarious wig that he memorably wore in the Music International sketch from this season’s Jack Black episode? (side-by-side comparison below)

— Will is solid as the butt choreographer. Also, this role of his feels like a precursor to a bit that he and Vince Vaughn would later do at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, in which they both play butt make-up artists (or something like that) on the set of Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle, getting Cameron, Lucy Liu, and Drew Barrymore’s butts prepared for a sexy burlesque scene they’re filming.
— Pretty fun Butt-Off between Cameron and Will.
STARS: ***½


THE 17TH ANNUAL AUTO SHOW SPOKESWOMAN AWARDS
gushy (CHP) savors historic win

— Wow, what’s this? Dean Edwards with a… LEAD ROLE??? Am I seeing things?
— The fake-out with the Aretha who Maya is playing turning out to be Billy Ocean’s wife instead of Aretha Franklin kinda fell flat.
— The goofy photo of Amy demonstrating an airbag is pretty funny.
— Parnell is absolutely hilarious doing a spoof of Halle Berry’s then-recent emotional Oscars acceptance speech. This has always been one of my absolute favorite things Parnell has ever done on SNL.
— Very funny cutaway to stock footage of Halle Berry’s then-husband Eric Benet in the audience when Parnell thanks “my partner Jason”.
— Another funny cutaway, this time to Jeff in a backstage room stopping the award show music by simply turning off a cheap tape recorder while doing a crossword puzzle.
STARS: ***½ (the pre-Parnell portion of the sketch would’ve only gotten a mere **½, but Parnell’s whole bit bumped this sketch up a full star)


MTV SPRING BREAK
(host) & (MAR) dance to “That Don’t Impress Me Much”

— A lot of laughs from Cameron and Maya doing the exact same silly dance moves every time to Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much”. Maya in particular is great here, and I remember this being a very popular performance of hers among online SNL fans back at this time. Unfortunately, Maya would later go on to use those exact same dance moves (particularly the one where she slowly leans back in a staccato manner) in various other sketches over the next few seasons, with very diminishing returns in each passing sketch, which kinda makes it feel a little less special when you look back at the original instance of those dance moves in this MTV Spring Break sketch, but those moves still hold up as very funny and charming here.
— Tracy: “Go Brown!” Amy: “Oh, you go to Brown?” Tracy: “No, I don’t go to school. I work at UPS.”
— Very fun sketch overall, and a rare instance in which repeating the same joke over and over actually works.
STARS: ****


SNL 530
dozy Donald Sutherland (WIF) & Glenn Close (ANG) do an Oscars-like segue

— Seth makes his ONLY appearance of the entire night in a silent, brief role as a prancing, barely-clothed, violin-playing guy from the then-recent Oscars. At least Seth got a laugh just from that goofy visual.
— I love this very out-of-the-ordinary post-sketch bit, spoofing the Oscars. A great way for SNL to go outside the box and do something creative with their format, which is something we don’t see enough of in post-80s SNL.
— Will’s slow, monotone voice as Donald Sutherland is very funny.
— Why are they saying this is the 530th SNL episode? Considering SNL announced in the Julia Stiles episode in March a year prior that it was their 500th episode that night (which it indeed was), I doubt they’d already be at 530 episodes just a year and a month later. [ADDENDUM: Looking at SNL Archives, this is episode #521. So where’d the extra 9 episodes come from to make SNL think this is their 530th episode?]
— A good laugh from Ana’s Glenn Close drinking NyQuil out of a wine glass.
STARS: not sure this short interlude segment warrants a rating, but I’ll give it a ****


ASTRONAUT JONES
voyage to Jupiter yields spacebabes (host), (MAR), (AMP)

— This sketch has officially become recurring, a choice that utterly baffled me at the time (as seen in my original 2002 review for this episode here).
— That theme song and opening credits sequence gets me every single time. No matter how many times I’ll have to see this sketch during this SNL project of mine, that theme song and opening credits sequence will always be a treat to watch.
— Maya and Amy have been in tons of sketches so far tonight.
— Even though they re-use the first Astronaut Jones installment’s punchline of Tracy following up the aliens’ big speech by saying a horny one-liner about their fat asses, it killed me once again tonight, which really says something about how great Tracy’s delivery is.
STARS: ****


CELINE DION ON CBS
after a brief retirement, Celine Dion (ANG) sings & talks of motherhood

— Feels like we haven’t seen Ana’s Celine impression in quite a while. This also ends up being the final appearance of her Celine.
— The various stories from Ana’s Celine have some laughs, but some of this is coming off underwhelming.
— The goofy, quivery voice-over at the end calling CBS “The old people network!” made me laugh.
— This overall sketch was sadly kinda forgettable. Not the best way for Ana’s Celine to go out. Disappointing how Ana’s Celine AND Martha Stewart impressions both went out on a forgettable note this season.
STARS: **½


GORGEOUS LIVING WITH PRUNELLA WATSON
sloppiness equals style

— “Gorgeous Living”? Couldn’t SNL have come up with a different title? I don’t need any reminders of that wretched Pretty Living recurring sketch from the then-recent past.
— I smell an attempt at a new recurring sketch. And like a lot of the attempts the second half of this season has been making at new recurring sketches, we end up NEVER seeing this sketch return.
— A laugh from Amy casually revealing “I just got punched in the face last night.”
— Amy’s English accent and delivery is very solid.
— Pretty funny how every guest who arrives immediately apologizes to Amy’s character for punching her in the face last night.
— After the first two minutes, I’ve pretty much lost interest in this sketch. A lot of this is washing right over me. This seems like the type of sketch that would appeal more to people who were familiar with Style Network’s programs during this era.
STARS: **


WEEKEND UPDATE
TIF gives her take on terrorism & the Middle East situation

Denzel Washington (DEE) & Halle Berry (MAR) are still on an Oscar high

following a breakdown, robot TIF is replaced with another unit

self-aggrandizing Geraldo Rivera (DAH) says he’ll end war in Middle East

Jasper Hahn & (host) sing double entendre songs about Fuzzy Buddy puppets

— During Tina’s opening rant, I love her comment about how Palestinians would do VERY well on Fear Factor.
— An overall very lengthy opening rant from Tina, and a pretty good one, though not up to the quality of her best rants. Come to think of it, it’s been a good while since she last had a rant that was up to the same standard of her best rants.
— Wow, TWO lead roles for Dean tonight? It’s official: I must be watching an episode from an alternate universe.
— Great Denzel Washington voice from Dean. Thanks to SNL’s constant underutilization of him, it’s easy to forget that Dean has a knack for doing solid impressions.
— Another funny parody of Halle Berry’s Oscars speech, this time from Maya as Halle tearfully thanking an endless number of random famous black women, some of whom are fictional.
— Pretty funny addition to the Denzel/Halle commentary, with Amy spoofing Julia Roberts’ ego and physically big mouth.
— A funny twist on Jimmy and Tina’s “Oh, snap! / Oh, no you di-in’t!” bit from earlier this season, with Tina having a robotic breakdown in the middle of it, and then being replaced with a new Robot Tina. I like the detail of the new Robot Tina entering with a plastic bag over her head.
— A lot of very strong jokes from Tina throughout tonight’s Update.
— Darrell’s Geraldo Rivera commentary is going in the same direction as his last one from earlier this season, but this still has some laughs. However, if they do a third Geraldo commentary in the same vein, I’ll have officially gotten sick of these.
— This ends up being the final Jasper Hahn appearance.
— Ah, a nice change of pace in tonight’s Jasper Hahn commentary, with him doing away with his usual dirty drawings routine and replacing it with songs and animal puppets.
— An overall pretty funny Jasper Hahn commentary, ignoring Horatio’s usual obnoxious attempts to crack Jimmy and himself up.
— Very, very long Update overall. Possibly one of the longest ever.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Middle”


MISS PEEPS
(WIF) notes gender differences between Mr. Peepers & Miss Peeps (host)

— Mr. Peepers makes his first appearance in over a year, and this ends up being his final appearance. This character feels really out of place by this point of SNL’s run.
— This is Kattan’s first and ONLY appearance all night, and it’s as a character who peaked in popularity years prior. (*sigh*) As if we needed even more evidence that it’s BEYOND time for Kattan to finally get the heck off of this show. It’s getting just sad seeing him still on the show trotting out the same old played-out shtick that feels out of place this season. And even Kattan’s ONE attempt at something new lately (that Hollywood character on Weekend Update) ended up being honestly one of the worst things I’ve EVER seen SNL air.
— This may be the shortest I’ve ever seen Will’s real hair. It also almost looks like it’s graying on the sides, even at Will’s then-young age, though I think that “graying” in his hair is actually just his skin. The sides of his hair are cut in a weird way.
— I do like the change of pace by having a female host play a Mr. Peepers-like character, which is something that I remember always wanting to see SNL try back in Mr. Peepers’ heyday. Cameron’s doing a spot-on Peepers imitation here, which I never would’ve expected from her.
— Oof. Despite the initially fun turn with Cameron entering as a female Mr. Peepers, this sketch is not going well at all. There are almost NO actual laughs to be had here, and the Mr. Peepers shtick feels SO tired in this sketch. Cameron’s not breathing much life into this, either. This is a poor last gasp of a dying recurring sketch.
STARS: *½


MTV 4
shy Japanese girl group Crash Papaya performs boisterously on MTV4

— Our second MTV sketch of the night. I remember this annoyed quite a number of online SNL fans at the time, who then accused the show of trying too hard to pander to teen viewers. I was 17 years old myself at the time this episode originally aired, and even *I* thought two MTV sketches in one night was a bit much. Then again, I was also the type of 17-year-old who knew that MTV was mind-numbing garbage even at that young age of mine.
— Tonight’s episode has been very female-dominated among the cast, particularly Maya and Amy, who are both having a huge night.
— The absolutely bizarre, nonsensical lyrics being scarily shout-sung by the shy and innocent Japanese girl band was funny at first, but has kinda lost its novelty after the first song.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sweetness”


MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
glistening breasts in chapter 750


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very uneven episode. The first 35 minutes of this episode was absolutely fine and had a good number of strong sketches, but after the Astronaut Jones sketch ended, it was nothing but underwhelming sketches for the rest of the night, minus an enjoyable (if extremely long) Weekend Update. This all averages out to a thumbs-in-the-middle episode.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ian McKellen)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
The Rock

Posted on

March 16, 2002 – Sir Ian McKellen / Kylie Minogue (S27 E15)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HOMELAND SECURITY SYSTEM
colors of Tom Ridge’s (DAH) terrorism alert scale are confusingly neutral

— Why does every cold opening around this period of the season have to be a “political figure sits behind a desk and addresses the nation” piece? This is the THIRD consecutive one, and it’s getting redundant. I also see we’re unfortunately going back to this season’s old habit of Darrell and Will being the ONLY cast members to say “Live from New York…” this season.
— Some pretty good laughs from how the color coding choices for the terror alerts are all variations of white.
— A particularly funny part with Darrell’s Tom Ridge realizing they mistakenly put “Enormous risk of terrorist attack” for two different colors.
— I like Darrell-as-Ridge’s monotone deadpan while pointing out his bitterness.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host sees the SNL troupe as a worthy extension of theater tradition

— You can already tell that Ian McKellen is going to be a fun host just from his very upbeat entrance in this monologue.
— Ian: “People are always telling me I should do more comedy. Well, this show will show them. They’ll never ask that again.”
— Ian’s comment about Jimmy Fallon is pretty funny.
— A classy part with Ian giving the SNL cast their due.
— Ian is coming off as a complete natural here and is also getting a lot of laughs.
— Ian, on gays not being welcomed at New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade this year: “They don’t seem to mind the priests, though, do they?”
— Great to see two consecutive episodes with a host doing a real monologue.
STARS: ****


KOTEX CLASSIC
bulky 1950s-era sanitary napkins are impractically retro

 

— I love the 50s aesthetic at the beginning of this.
— Hilarious visuals of the huge, bulky, impractical pads from the 50s, especially the ways the female cast is trying to make them look sexy and casual.
— Tina: “This IS your mother’s pad.”
— Ana is reduced to a much smaller role here than the rest of the female cast, but that’s probably because of her pregnancy. In retrospect, though, it feels like yet another sign of her being on her way out while the Fey/Poehler/Dratch/Rudolph group of female cast members gradually starts to take charge.
— Very solid commercial overall. I might be forgetting something, but I think this is the first of quite a number of memorable Tina Fey-written woman-centric commercials that star the entire female cast. [ADDENDUM: According to commenter Matt Vandermast, this was actually written by Paula Pell, though Tina helped advocate for it.]
STARS: ****½


VERSACE OSCAR PARTY
Bono (CHK) & Yves St. Laurent (host) shmooze

— This sketch has suddenly gone from always appearing towards the end of the show to now being the post-monologue lead-off sketch.
— A nice way to work Ana’s real-life pregnancy into the show, having her play the then-also-pregnant Elizabeth Hurley.
— Ian’s mere walk-on as Yves St. Laurent is already cracking me up.
— I like Ian’s eager dancing with Versace’s shirtless male assistants at the end.
— Overall, I didn’t find myself laughing all that much throughout this sketch, aside from the stuff with Ian, but I still enjoyed the overall sketch enough and found it had an entertaining atmosphere. Unfortunately, I recall it being all downhill from here in the subsequent Versace sketches (which is saying something, considering I wasn’t crazy about these Versace sketches to begin with). We’ll see if that still holds true or not.
STARS: ***


THE DELICIOUS DISH
Lynn & Margaret Jo learn of (host)’s Irish dishes’ ties to dead relatives

— They’re STILL doing the post-Molly Shannon era of these Delicious Dish sketches? I would’ve assumed they only resurrected this sketch once after Molly’s departure just as an excuse to do an (unnecessary) sequel to Schwetty Balls. Anyway, tonight’s Delicious Dish installment ends up being the final appearance of this recurring sketch during its original run, not counting when they would resurrect it years later for the Betty White episode in 2010.
— I like Ana’s comment about Rachel being “dangerously anemic”.
— Rachel’s long, disturbing spiel about how cooking cabbage makes her feel like a woman is very funny. Her Delicious Dish character is growing on me (too late, though, considering this is the last we ever see of her), though I feel like her delivery as this character, while soft-spoken and low-key as it should be, is on a bit of a different page than Ana’s delivery, which makes it hard for me to feel the same chemistry between them that I felt between Ana and Molly.
— Ian’s constant dead relative stories are okay, especially the particularly dark story regarding the death of a cousin who had the mind of a child. The voice Ian’s using is also adding to the comedy.
— Overall, not bad, though this didn’t quite measure up to a typical Molly Shannon-era Delicious Dish installment, in my eyes.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
“Fun With Real Audio” by RBS- Bjork’s swan dress comes alive at Oscars

— A big laugh from Charlton Heston pulling out a gun when Bjork’s Swan dress comes to life, only for Heston to be stopped by Tom Hanks.
— As usual in Fun With Real Audio, a lot of pretty funny little actions happening all throughout this in rapid succession.
— It’s pretty fun trying to recognize the celebrities being portrayed in animation form. I’m having a hard time recognizing some of them, though.
— A good cheap laugh from the quick ending gag with Winona Ryder stealing the Oscar statuette.
STARS: ***½


HOT AIR BALLOON MYSTERY THEATER
(host) solves murder in cramped basket

— Right out of the gate, I love this silly concept.
— Fun goofy British accents from the cast.
— I like the flashback sequence that’s obviously being performed live. Also, the flashback shows why Kattan was cast in his particular role. Before then, I was wondering to myself “Are they really relegating Kattan to just playing a dead body in a sketch? Boy, if Kattan doesn’t see that as enough of a sign that it’s beyond time for him to FINALLY get the heck off of this show…”
— The chase sequence in that tiny basket space is hilarious.
— Great ending with Ian randomly and jovially jumping out of the hot air balloon to his apparent death, and the balloon passengers nonchalantly going on with their sight-seeing immediately afterwards.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Maggie Smith (host) makes Oscar predictions & flirts with JIF

Paula Jones (RAD) & Tonya Harding (AMP) review Celebrity Boxing match

during a news item, JIF accidentally summons Louie Anderson (JER)

— I like Tina’s little Strom Thurmond impression during her joke about him.
— Considering the connection he has to her, it’s very funny seeing Ian playing Maggie Smith. He’s giving a solid performance as her.
— A very memorable moment with Ian faking Jimmy out by kissing him on the lips after innocently asking for a kiss for luck. For various reasons (one being that it was a callback/punchline to one portion of Ian’s monologue from earlier tonight), this particular kiss avoids coming off like this era’s overused, tired “men kissing each other for a cheap laugh” gimmick that hasn’t aged well.
— Of Jimmy’s seemingly off-the-cuff remarks to the audience after the big kiss, the first two (“Maggie Smith should shave” and “Does this mean I’m knighted?”) weren’t actual ad-libs during the live show, according to an online SNL fan who was in the audience for this episode’s dress rehearsal and revealed that Jimmy made those same two remarks after the kiss in dress rehearsal. However, Jimmy following up “Does this mean I’m knighted?” with “Or did I get queened?” was an actual ad-lib. You can also tell by Tina’s genuine reaction to it.
— Good to see Rachel appearing a lot in tonight’s episode, after how very little she appeared in the last handful of episodes.
— Rachel’s Paula Jones saying her occupation is “a stay-at-home actress” is very funny.
— I like Amy’s Tonya Harding and Rachel’s Jones running off in fear when Tina threateningly takes off her glasses and steps up to them.
— Funny bit with Louie Anderson unintentionally being summoned by the mention of McDonalds and Family Feud.
— Jeff continues to amaze with his celebrity impersonation skills. What was with the awkward long pause before the Louie Anderson bit concluded, though? Did Jeff forget a line?
— I like how it’s become a running joke in this season’s Updates to use Martin Landau’s testicles as a random punchline to an unrelated joke. Kinda feels like a throwback to the Norm Macdonald era of Update, where he would have a countless number of running punchlines.
— A very long overall Update tonight, but a strong one.
— Finally, an Update with no Kattan, for the first time since we’ve entered the year 2002.
— This Update ends up being Jimmy’s only appearance all night. A very rare occurrence during the Fallon/Fey era in which Tina actually makes more non-Update appearances than Jimmy, which makes me wonder of an alternate universe in which Jimmy’s the co-anchor who regularly only appears on Update while Tina’s the co-anchor who regularly juggles both Update and sketches.
STARS: ****


THE FEREY MÜHTAR TALK SHOW
club owner (host) on Turkish program

— As I mentioned in some earlier reviews, I run hot and cold on Horatio’s penchant for occasionally relying on hammy overacting. This is one of the times I run hot on it. It’s working for me in the setting of this inherently silly sketch.
— Yet another funny entrance from Ian during a sketch.
— Uh-oh. Darrell’s fake mustache is hanging half-peeled off of his face.
— Haha, while Darrell’s delivering a line, Ian ad-libs by adjusting Darrell’s hanging-off mustache, causing Darrell to now start uncontrollably laughing his way through the rest of the sketch.
— When chastising Darrell’s character, Horatio makes a great ad-lib: “You can’t even grow a ‘stache, man!”, making Darrell crack up even more.
— Some good laughs from the detail of Ian… uh… adjusting his crotch throughout the sketch.
— Heh, why did Ian completely lose his fake Turkish accent during his rant to Darrell just now? He’s using his natural U.K. accent for some reason.
— Just now, when the camera cuts back to Darrell and Ian after a close-up of Horatio, Darrell’s fake mustache is suddenly completely missing. When noticing this, Ian makes yet another hilarious ad-lib by jokingly slapping Darrell’s face a few times. This is a riot. All of the fun bloopers and ad-libs throughout this sketch are giving it a huge boost.
STARS: ****


THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES DICKENS
(host) makes many quick changes during one-man show about Charles Dickens

— Yet another sketch with an inherently silly vibe that works for me.
— Ian is absolutely incredible here with his constant campy character transformations and onscreen quick changes.
— I’m loving how this sketch has a very old-school feel and is completely different from typical sketches in this SNL era.
— I particularly love the part with Ian acting as five children in rapid succession.
— Ha, now Ian’s even playing a cat.
— When this sketch originally aired, some online SNL fans (including myself, as seen in my original 2002 review here, which, by the way, trashed this episode) assumed the voice heard loudly saying “Finally!” at the end of this came from an impatient SNL audience member who did not enjoy this sketch. That utterance of “Finally!” was actually a scripted part of the sketch, as it’s implied that the audience within the sketch was relieved to see Ian’s character finally perform the soap opera character that he’s most famous for. One dead giveaway that the utterance of “Finally!” was scripted is that the voice saying it is clearly mic’ed. Another dead giveaway is that the voice is provided by, I believe, Rachel, though it also kinda sounds like it could be Amy. A little hard to tell, but I’m fairly certain it’s Rachel.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “In Your Eyes”


KEVIN AND RICHIE’S COMIC BOOK ZONE
Dr. Who impersonator (host)

— ANOTHER talk show sketch tonight hosted by Horatio?
— This is such a blatant attempt at a new recurring sketch, but this ends up never making an on-air return. There is an attempt to bring this back in the Kirsten Dunst episode from later this season, but the sketch gets cut after dress rehearsal.
— So far, this sketch isn’t particularly hilarious, but there’s some laughs and an infectious charm to the atmosphere (even if Horatio’s a little TOO giddy here). Thankfully, we have Ian now making an entrance, and we know he’s gonna give this a boost.
— Something about Horatio’s delivery of “Congratulations on a new P-Zone” made me laugh out loud and has stuck with me for a few years after the original airing of this sketch, even though I could never remember which sketch or performer that line came from.
— As expected, Ian is indeed adding a lot to this sketch.
— Ian’s various impressions of his own movie characters are fun.
— When this sketch ends, I love the unscripted (I assume) detail of Cheetos spilling all over the place when Ian waves goodbye with his open Cheetos bag.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode. While not perfect in itself, every sketch in this episode was enjoyable to me and there was a very fun atmosphere to this episode that gave even the lesser sketches a boost. A huge part of the fun atmosphere of this episode can be attributed to Ian McKellen, who was an absolutely fantastic host, and, ever since I saw this episode back when it originally aired, has always been somewhere in the top 5 of my hypothetical list of hosts who surprised me by how funny they turned out to be. Ian also helped give the atmosphere and some of the sketches the feel of an episode from an earlier SNL era, including some sketches that already had that atmosphere and feel on their own (e.g. Hot Air Balloon Mystery Theater, The Life and Times of Charles Dickens).


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jon Stewart)
a very slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Cameron Diaz

Posted on

March 9, 2002 – Jon Stewart / India.Arie (S27 E14)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

VICE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Dick Cheney (DAH) is concerned about networks’ battle for David Letterman

— Darrell makes his return after having to miss the last episode due to a rehab stint (though at the time, the public was given other reasons for his absence). At the very beginning of this cold opening, the audience immediately welcomes Darrell back with an extended HUGE round of applause. Quite a heartwarming SNL moment.
— A good laugh from how the “serious” matter Darrell’s Dick Cheney addresses turns out to be the hoopla at the time about David Letterman being rumored to move over to ABC.
— Pretty funny bit with Cheney indirectly comparing Craig Kilborn to President Bush, when asking, in regards to Kilborn, “How does a guy who can’t read, with nothin’ but good looks and charm, get to such a high position?” However, I gotta say, the implication that one of the reasons Bush got elected president is due to his so-called good looks is quite a stretch, to say the least.
— Ha, SNL makes another reference to the “Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell” commercial guy. At the time, I hated those commercials, but now, when I see these old SNL episodes making a reference to the Dell guy, I get nostalgic thinking back on those commercials. Funny how nostalgia works sometimes.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— Much like the Josh Hartnett episode from earlier this season, Will Ferrell will not be appearing in any sketches in tonight’s episode, nor in the next episode, as he continues to film the movie Old School. However, unlike the Josh Hartnett episode, Will hasn’t been removed from the opening montage in tonight’s episode, nor will he be in the next episode. I wonder if SNL decided to leave him in the montage because of the scare his removal from the Hartnett episode’s montage caused online, with some worried SNL fans wondering if Will is officially no longer on the show.


MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about late-night wars, NYC, gay rights, sexuality

— I like how Jon Stewart immediately addresses the Letterman/ABC rumors and if Jon himself will be willing to take any of the open talk show spots at CBS or ABC, which Jon answers here by desperately saying “Yes, I would”, and goes on about how he would gladly replace ANYONE who’s willing to leave. By the way, I found out just a few days ago that ABC almost did end up going with Jon as their late night host, but ended up deciding to give it to Jimmy Kimmel instead.
— Jon, on one of the downsides of his show airing on Comedy Central: “Your show comes on after THREE Andrew McCarthy movies. Do you understand what that’s like? And not the good ones where the mannequin comes to life. The bad ones.”
— Jon: “Are Justin and Britney the before, and Kid Rock and Pam Anderson the after?”
— All of Jon’s material about gays is working for me, and what helps most of it age well (I say “most of it” because I don’t know how people today would react to the whole part with Jon implying the boy scouts are gay, though *I* laughed, due to Jon’s solid delivery) is the fact that Jon is taking a pro-gay stance here.
— Jon, on a guy having sex with a pinata: “…or maybe that’s how they get the candy in them.”
— Great bit about having a sexual attraction to pumpkins.
— Jon: “If you think puttin’ the Ten Commandments up is gonna stop violence, then you think ‘Employees must wash hands’ is keepin’ the urine outta your Happy Meal.”
— Fantastic stand-up monologue overall.
STARS: *****


THE CHEESE GAME
George Plimpton [real] pitches fun way to raise gourmets

— George Plimpton makes another funny random SNL appearance, after the Just Enjoy The Ozzy sketch from season 24.
— For some reason, something about the execution of this is kinda reminding me of that solid The Bird Bible commercial that SNL would later do in season 39.
— A random and questionable premise at first glance, but the execution of it is actually strong and has a lot of charm.
— I like Parnell and Amy’s weirded-out facial reaction when George Plimpton puts his arms around them and introduces himself to them.
— Great ending visual of the little kid sleeping with a cheese grater by his side.
STARS: ****


TRL
(host)’s genetically-engineered boy band makes debut

— Pretty good bit at the beginning with Jimmy’s Carson Daly momentarily breaking from his usual calm demeanor to yell “SHUT UP!” at the screaming teen girls in the TRL audience.
— A hilarious look and voice from Jon as a boy band manager. Something about his voice kinda reminds me of an Adam Sandler character, for some reason. Am I thinking of Audience McGee?
— I like the vague implication that Jon’s character once got busted for something illegal that was found on his hard drive.
— Funny bizarre random concept of a genetically-engineered boy band.
— Some good details in the oddities of Jon’s genetically-engineered boy band members, such as the member played by Parnell being allergic to light. Oh, and, of course, uh… Assface. Wow.
— I absolutely LOVE Parnell briefly breaking out into a hard, fast-paced rap, before suddenly cowering away from a shining light in his face. Parnell’s rapping skills never cease to amaze me.
— A priceless line from Horatio about how his penis looks like a thick piece of bacon with a toenail hanging from it.
— I love Horatio’s anguished “Just kill me; I have GILLS!!!” rant during his solo number.
— Ha, the Assface dance solo is absolutely hilarious. Some SNL fans have had a theory that the (male) Assface character is actually played by a woman, perhaps Tina or Maya, due to Assface’s body supposedly looking somewhat feminine under that outfit when he’s dancing. Yeah, I don’t see it. And whoever it is in that Assface costume seems a little taller than Tina and Maya. Whether male or female, I’m sure the person in that costume is just some extra who’s trained in dancing.
STARS: ****


CUSTOMS
Bloater brothers’ dad (host) comes to rescue them from airport security

— The Bloater Brothers make their first appearance since Parnell’s return to the cast, and they are welcomed warmly byyyyyyyy…. nobody but me, as I’m probably the only person in existence who can tolerate these two characters. Don’t expect ANY kind of positive reception from me, however, when we get the inevitable return of those godforsaken DeMarco Brothers that Parnell does with Kattan.
— I particularly like the “War, huh, good god ya’ll, what is it good for, absolutely nothing” bit the Bloather Brothers are doing.
— The Bloater Brothers now have their inevitable “host plays a character with the same traits as a current cast member’s recurring character” installment. I recall hearing that there was later going to be another “host plays a character with the same traits as a current cast member’s recurring character” Bloater Brothers installment in the Winona Ryder-hosted finale from the end of this season, in a sketch that got cut after dress rehearsal in which Ryder played a Bloater Brothers-esque woman who the brothers meet on a cruise ship.
— Jon’s doing an accurate imitation of the Bloater Brothers.
— Pretty funny ending regarding a cavity search.
STARS: ***


TV FUNHOUSE
“Fun With Real Audio” by RBS- Colin Powell hallucinates a generation gap

— An okay mockery of the intelligence level of MTV audiences.
— Pretty funny visual of one MTV audience member hallucinating Colin Powell having huge cleavage. That feels like a precursor to that “The Life Of Big-Boobed Einstein” TV Funhouse that Robert Smigel would later do in the Molly Shannon-hosted episode from season 32.
— Good hallucination of Colin Powell as Capt. Crunch.
— Ha, a Beavis and Butthead cameo! Kinda odd seeing them right after a Bloater Brothers sketch, considering I recall some online SNL fans back in this era comparing both pairs of characters (oh, is THAT why people can’t stand the Bloater Brothers?).
— A new MTV show titled “Colin Powell Wails On Teens”? Now THAT’S the kind of MTV programming I would’ve proudly watched back then, and I was a teen myself when tonight’s episode originally aired.
STARS: ***


TALKIN’ TO THE STARS WITH RACHEL AND TRACY
good girl RAD & bad boy TRM interview host

— An experimental new cornrow hairstyle from Tracy.
— Interesting seeing Rachel and Tracy as themselves hosting a talk show sketch together. No idea how SNL came up with this random pairing of Rachel and Tracy, but I like it.
— Tracy’s distinct “Tracy-speak” all throughout this sketch, and the juxtaposition of it and Rachel’s professional speak, are priceless.
— Rachel: “I find if Tracy says a word I don’t know, it usually means ‘high’.”
— Jon’s reaction to finding out there’s hardcore porn on cable is pretty funny.
— Tracy, to Rachel, regarding Jon: “You don’t care about no Daily Show! You just wanna be his Daily Ho!”
— Jon, regarding Rachel: “Very cute, she’s charming and, uh, very funny.” Tracy: “So why don’choo get her pregnant?” That’s our very first SNL occurrence of Tracy saying a line about getting somebody pregnant, something that would go on to be a major Tracy Morgan trademark both on SNL and beyond.
— I love all of Rachel’s flustered reactions to Tracy.
— Overall, such a great sketch.
— I remember some SNL fans at the time were expecting this sketch to become recurring (ala The Chris Farley Show), but we end up never seeing it return. I’m not sure if any subsequent installments ever could’ve topped this debut anyway.
STARS: *****


NEWS MEDIA
David Letterman (JER) & Ted Koppel (DAH) confer at telejournalists’ party

— Great to see Parnell’s Tom Brokaw back for the first time since Parnell’s rehiring.
— A very fun setting, as well as a fun excuse for impressions of news anchors.
— Darrell’s Dan Rather saying “Why don’t you go jump up your own ass, Brokaw?” had me howling, though it got only minor chuckles from the audience.
— Seth is certainly trying, but he’s no Rob Lowe when it comes to impersonating Stone Phillips.
— (*groan*) Kattan playing yet another woman. (And yes, I’m aware that Christiane Amanpour is a role he’s already played several times back in his earlier seasons.) Him playing women has become about as tired as him playing gay roles all the time lately.
— Very funny bit with Amy-as-Greta-Van-Susteren’s obvious surgically-altered new breasts, which she comments on by simply saying “Why stop at the eyes?”
— I love the look on Parnell-as-Brokaw’s face when Jimmy is attempting to imitate his voice.
— Fantastic meta bit with Parnell’s Brokaw mistaking Tina for being herself, only for her to reveal she’s supposed to be playing Ashleigh Banfield, then saying “Forget it, I shouldn’t be in sketches anyway” and walking off in disappointment.
— Wow, two Darrell Hammond impressions in one sketch, with both impressions being performed live. (Now we know why Darrell’s Dan Rather had to leave the sketch early.) Having Darrell do two live impressions in the same sketch is nice way to show viewers that “He’s back!” after his personal struggles and absence from the last episode.
— The tense silence among the party when it’s announced that David Letterman is outside the door is hilarious, as is Darrell’s Ted Koppel dramatically saying a bold “Let ‘im in.”
— Yikes, this great sketch briefly comes to a screeching halt with the bit with Maya as Lisa Ling saying an agitated “And, no, I was not in Charlie’s Angels. That was Lucy Liu”, which bombed HARD with the audience. That received season 20 levels of uncomfortable silence.
— When Jeff enters as David Letterman, what the hell was that sound I heard in the background? It sounded like one of the performers on the set spitting something out of their mouth VERY loudly. What the hell?!?
— Now I see Horatio in the background, helplessly laughing his ass off HARD with his head lowered (you can see it in the second-to-last screencap above, if you look between Jeff and Darrell), while an amused Jon is looking at him and appears to be trying to get him to compose himself. Clearly, there’s some kind of connection between this and that bizarre loud spitting sound I heard in the background a moment ago. What the hell happened?!?
— Jeff does it once again with yet ANOTHER spot-on celebrity impression. His David Letterman voice is freakin’ uncanny. I do wish he was given funnier lines here, though.
— It’s about half a minute later, and Horatio is still seen uncontrollably laughing HARD in the background with his head lowered while an amused Jon continues to try to calm him down. And I’m still left scratching my head over what the hell is going on there, but I will NOT let Horatio’s typical unprofessionalism take anything away from this great sketch for me.
— Funny ending visual of Letterman and Koppel tenderly slow-dancing together.
— Rachel was the ONLY cast member missing from this overall sketch. Odd how this is the third sketch lately that was one cast member short of being a full-cast sketch. The Bass-Off sketch from the Jack Black episode was only missing Amy, the Super Buzzers sketch from the Jonny Moseley episode was only missing Jeff, and now this sketch was only missing Rachel. By the way, Rachel’s airtime has taken a real hit lately. She seems to be averaging only 1-2 appearances per show these last few episodes.
STARS: ****½


WEEKEND UPDATE
in a terrible re-enactment, John McEnroe (CHK) reacts to cancellation

host almost gets his chance to be an anchor on network television

Drunk Girl sloppily relates Spring Break safety tips to TIF

— Man, these Terrible Reenactment bits of Kattan’s, which I found funny the first 1 or 2 times they appeared, need to freakin’ STOP. Tonight’s was the unfunniest one yet. And why the hell has Kattan been appearing on EVERY SINGLE UPDATE since the Josh Hartnett episode all the way back in January? I’m telling you, Kattan’s unnecessary presence on SNL this season continues to bug me. I can’t believe I still have a little under a season-and-a-half to go until he finally leaves (and even then, he makes tons of cameos in the first season after he leaves).
— The tree frog joke that gets interrupted by Jimmy getting a leg cramp would go on to be a Weekend Update tradition whenever a joke gets cut off by something.
— I absolutely love this whole segment with an overly eager Jon Stewart being brought in from the bench to fill in for Jimmy as an Update anchor. Also, in the initial shot of Jon getting up from the bench, he’s wearing the same SNL athletic sweatsuit that Kattan and Tracy both wore in Kattan’s Olympic Personal Profile sketch from the season 26 premiere.
— Drunk Girl has officially become recurring.
— Even in her second appearance, Drunk Girl already has a way-too-recognizable pattern of bits that she follows every time in the exact same order. I’m still laughing somewhat, but I’m already seeing early signs of me getting burned out on this character.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Video”


JAZZVISIONS
spoons player (host) performs cuts from his sensual album

— Tracy is already getting laughs just from his smooth delivery as the host.
— The music video is hilarious, between Jon’s look, Dean as the singer (yes, you heard right – Dean Edwards is one of the highlights of a sketch), and Jon playing the spoons as an instrument.
— Very funny awkwardness after Tracy responds to Jon’s “They’re either in your hands or in your mouth” comment with “Just like genitals”. Even just the odd way Tracy pronounced “genitals” is hilarious in itself.
— So many laughs throughout the Tracy/Jon interview.
— I love the line about Maya being the voice of the tambourine-playing ostrich from the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic stage show.
— The musical performance at the end with Jon and Maya is giving me a lot of laughs.
STARS: ****


WE WERE SOLDIERS THAT KNEW WHAT WOMEN WANT
an odd Mel Gibson (host) film

— A funny hybrid of two completely different Mel Gibson movies.
— Wow, Dean has been having a fairly active night in this episode, for his standards.
— Very broad stereotypical Asian accents from Maya and Ana, though something about the goofy, dumb, somewhat-fun nature of this general sketch makes those Asian stereotypes come off a little passable, even if this sketch in general isn’t quite as hilarious as I had remembered it being.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ready For Love”


MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
mulling a cliff jump in chapter 677


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A great episode, and definitely one of the best of the season. Every sketch in this episode worked for me, and there were lots of strong segments that received four or five-star ratings from me. Jon Stewart was also a great host as expected. Also, unlike the Josh Hartnett episode earlier this season, Will Ferrell’s absence did not negatively affect the show. In fact, I surprisingly didn’t even notice his absence in any of the sketches while watching the episode, which goes to show how solid this episode was.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jonny Moseley)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Ian McKellen

Posted on

March 2, 2002 – Jonny Moseley / Outkast (S27 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
anything that irks George W. Bush (WIF) earns membership in Axis Of Evil

— Tonight’s episode was actually originally scheduled to be one of the episodes this season that Will misses so he can film the movie Old School, but he ended up having to alter his movie-filming schedule this week due to Darrell’s absence. Darrell is out this week because he’s at rehab (it was falsely rumored online at the time that the reason for Darrell’s absence was because he suffered a heart attack, then it was later “confirmed” in the media that he was just feeling under the weather, the latter being a cover-up to hide the fact that he did a rehab stint), and I guess it was felt by Will and/or SNL that it would be too much for both Will AND Darrell to be absent in the same episode (especially an episode hosted by an athlete with no acting experience, which is already a huge gamble), and thus, we have Will on the show tonight. Will was also probably eager to be there this week for a certain rehired cast member’s first week back (more on that in a little while), especially considering that Will (along with Kattan) played a crucial part in said cast member’s rehiring.
— A good laugh from Will’s Bush putting Enron in his Axis of Evil because the Enron scandal makes his head hurt to think about it.
— More laughs from Bush putting other things he doesn’t like into his Axis Of Evil for petty reasons, I particularly found it funny that he put Evil Kneivel into the Axis Of Evil “for obvious reasons”, but refused to put Dr. Evil in because he makes Bush laugh.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— Don Pardo is out sick tonight, and Seth Meyers gets the honors of doing tonight’s announcements in a Pardo imitation. The usual Don Pardo impersonator of this cast, Darrell Hammond, is absent himself this week, as mentioned earlier. Reruns of this episode would replace the theme music with the dress rehearsal version and insert newly-recorded announcements from the real Don Pardo. However, an odd thing regarding the latter is that Pardo’s newly-recorded announcements announces “A Cartoon By Robert Smigel”, even though 1) there is no “A Cartoon By Robert Smigel” graphic that accompanies Pardo’s announcement, and 2) there is no Smigel cartoon that airs in this episode.
— After getting fired after the preceding season, Chris Parnell has been rehired and is reinstated back into the opening montage.

As shocking as this rehiring move on SNL’s part seems, it’s not unprecedented (despite Parnell himself later claiming it was, in Will Ferrell’s farewell piece from this season’s finale). Jim Belushi was fired at one point around the middle of season 10, then got rehired a few episodes later. And if we count off-seasons, then both Gary Kroeger and Tim Meadows were fired and rehired between seasons (for Gary, it happened between seasons 8 and 9, and for Tim, it happened between seasons 20 and 21).
— At the time, there was so much uncertainty to me and others in the online SNL community in regards to Parnell’s return that it was initially unsure to us if he was back for good or if his return tonight was just a one-night-only thing (the latter of which seems kinda silly, looking back on that theory in retrospect). It was confirmed sometime before the next episode that Parnell was indeed back for good, much to my excitement.
— A lot of odd and interesting things have been going on with the cast lately, between Will Ferrell having to miss certain weeks due to his movie schedule, Darrell Hammond missing this week due to rehab, Ana Gasteyer being pregnant while still an active cast member, and the rehiring of Parnell, plus you could add in Don Pardo’s absence tonight too.


MONOLOGUE
after not medalling at Olympics, host settled for fourth-place ceremonies

— Ah, Jonny Moseley. I remember what a puzzling and questionable hosting choice he was considered at the time (in fact, I and quite a number of other online SNL fans didn’t even know who the hell he was when SNL first announced in the preceding live episode that he was the next host). This hosting choice probably comes off even more puzzling and questionable in retrospect, all these years later.
— Interesting gimmick with Jonny making his entrance onto the front of the stage via ski ramp. Kinda reminds me of Brendan Fraser making his season 23 monologue entrance via swinging on a rope, ala George Of The Jungle.
— Right out of the gate, Jonny’s already showing he has no experience as an actor in front of a studio audience, by how he goes on speaking long before the opening audience applause stops, causing us to not even be able to hear what he’s saying.
— Jonny’s delivery is coming off as a typical surfer-type dude, but he seems affable enough and at least isn’t sounding stiff like some athlete hosts from over the years (e.g. Nancy Kerrigan).
— The various pre-taped scenes of the celebration for 4th place winners is worth a mere chuckle or two. Otherwise, meh.
STARS: **


SKI LIFT
Sully & Denise reconcile while riding a ski lift to the top of a mountain

— Interesting setting for the Boston Teens.
— Pretty good storyline with us seeing Sully and Denise in the middle of an argument with each other for a change.
— Gee, way for Jonny Moseley to INSTANTLY stretch as a performer.[/end sarcasm] He might as well be playing himself in this sketch.
— Funny visual of a Sharpie-drawn beard on Denise’s face.
— The audience is pretty quiet throughout this sketch.
— A laugh from Jonny’s character’s “wise” advice being him reciting the famous “up-up-down-down etc.” code that’s used to get unlimited men in the Nintendo game Contra. That really takes me back to the Nintendo-playing days of my childhood.
— I love Horatio’s delivery of “At least my poop will smell like the BEACH!”
— An overall average outing for the Boston Teens. Despite the nice change of pace in both the setting and storyline, the resulting sketch was just decent, nothing special.
STARS: ***


THE O’REILLY FACTOR
guests’ facts are judged as matters of opinion

— Great to see Jeff starring in his own sketch for a change.
— Jeff knocks it out of the park once again with another fantastic and spot-on celebrity impression.
— Ah, Parnell in his first sketch back. God, it feels so refreshing to see him again after half a season.
— I like Parnell’s puzzled delivery of his ending line “Is there someone else I can talk to…?” while looking around.
— Once again tonight, the audience is pretty quiet, despite Jeff’s solid performance and various funny lines.
— Okay, the audience is getting a little more into this, especially in response to Jeff-as-O’Reilly’s idiotic statement about Space Mountain.
— A very funny viewer mail segment.
— This overall sketch seems like it was being set up to become a Hardball-esque recurring sketch, but we end up never seeing this sketch return… at least not under Jeff’s tenure. SNL would later make these O’Reilly Factor sketches recurring long after Jeff’s (mysterious) departure, with the Bill O’Reilly role being taken over by Darrell, who’s O’Reilly “impression” could best be described as “Darrell Hammond in a wig” (this was long after Darrell seemed to stop giving a shit on SNL). Darrell’s O’Reilly impression would eventually get better after a few appearances, though.
STARS: ***½


DISMISSED
(host) chooses hootchie (MAR) over one-legged Amber (AMP)

— Amy’s Amber character makes her debut. I remember absolutely HATING this character in the past, but, as usual in this SNL project of mine whenever I cover recurring characters I used to strongly dislike, I’ll now try to go into her debut with an open mind.
— Some laughs from Amber bragging in her intro about having one leg.
— I like how, during her and Maya’s meeting of Jonny’s character, Amber is now bragging about being hypoglycemic.
— So far, this sketch is an accurate parody of both this DisMissed show and general MTV shows from this era.
— Funny bit with Maya sluttily talking with her mouth full of chewed hot dog.
— Maya, to Amber: “You have to leave us alone for 20 minutes. Why don’t you go look for your leg?”
— Amy managed to even make the fart gag at the end work. I doubt I’ll feel the same way about that fart gag in this character’s subsequent sketches, though.
STARS: ***½


JONNY’S JOURNEY
orbiting host solves problems while performing signature Dinner Roll move

— A creative and fun concept and theme song sequence. I’m already onboard for this sketch.
— Very funny visual of Jeff being impaled with a ski pole.
— The cheap special effects are adding to the oddly infectious charm of this sketch.
— I like the silliness of Jonny using pizza to get Horatio and Seth’s fighting Saudi Arabian characters to unite.
— I think I’m in the very small minority in loving this dumb, silly sketch, as I remember a lot of my fellow SNL reviewers back in 2002 dismissing this sketch as a real dud.
STARS: ****


WEEKEND UPDATE
skaters David Pelletier (WIF) & Jamie Sale (AMP) wanted SNL to pick them

name-dropping gossip columnist Hollywood (CHK) isn’t much of an insider

while delivering a news item, JIF gets a few pies in the face

— A new hairstyle from Tina tonight.
— Boy, the graphics department badly screwed up Jimmy’s cross-country skiing joke, causing it to get very few laughs from the audience.
— Funny segment with Will and Amy as famous Canadian pair skaters trying to host SNL.
— A good laugh from Amy’s skater doing a brief vocal impression of a black homeless woman. That’s the type of crazy, UCB-esque Amy Poehler that I wish we saw more of throughout her SNL tenure.
— Wow, a lot of Jimmy and Tina’s jokes are getting a very tepid audience reaction. As I pointed out in some earlier sketches in this review, the audience has strangely been dead for quite a number of portions of this episode.
— What the BLOODY HELL am I watching Chris Kattan do here?!? This new Hollywood character of his is fucking TERRIBLE.
— Hmm, figures that tonight’s usually-dead audience would actually chuckle at this Kattan crap.
— Mercifully, Kattan’s commentary is finally over. Jesus Christ, that was a trainwreck. Is SNL kidding me putting that on the air? In the past, before doing this SNL project of mine, whenever I would think of how much Kattan overstayed his welcome and went badly downhill in his later seasons, this Hollywood bit was usually always one of the first things that came to mind, and that has not changed after my viewing just now. Definitely one of the worst things Kattan has ever done on the show, and that’s certainly saying something.
— Odd but entertaining bit with Jimmy repeatedly getting prematurely hit with a pie before he can get to the punchline of a clown joke he’s doing. SNL would later replace this bit with the dress rehearsal version in reruns.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Whole World”


SUPER BUZZERS
1970s game show comprises panel intros; Rip Taylor cameo

— This sketch is introduced by a voice-over from the real Don Pardo, which must’ve been taped earlier that week before he got too sick to do the show. His voice does sound slightly more frail than usual here.
— The random joke with the two contestants being named, respectively, Jill Kenson and Ken Jillson, makes me think that James Anderson might’ve written this sketch, as he’s known for throwing in random odd, gimmicky character names like that in his sketches, especially in his game show sketches.
— Jimmy’s doing a great impression of George Gaynes. Odd, though, how Punky Brewster is mentioned in this portion of the sketch as a soon-to-debut new sitcom, considering this sketch clearly takes place in the 70s, and, as far as I know, Punky Brewster didn’t debut until well into the 80s (1984, I believe). Ah, well. This was clearly just an excuse for Jimmy to imitate Gaynes’ distinct way of saying the name Punky.
— I love Parnell’s little responses to each of the celebrity panelists, especially his more taken-aback responses.
— Ana’s Jo-Anne Worley impression (last seen in Kate Hudson’s monologue from season 26) always cracks me up.
— Will’s Paul Lynde impression is spot-on and a riot.
— Rip Taylor cameo.
— Boy, they’re letting Rip Taylor go on and on.
— Not counting Darrell, the ONLY cast member missing from this overall sketch was Jeff, which is ironic, considering this sketch was an impression showcase and Jeff has a knack for doing impressions.
STARS: ***


TYPHOID MARY REHEARSAL
over-the-hill Broadway legend (ANG) pushes for minimal choreography

— Hmm, a sketch with Jonny and several male cast members playing flamboyant gay roles. Is this our second consecutive James Anderson-written sketch of the night?
— Oh, and of course, Kattan is cast as one of the flamboyant gay guys, making this not only the second consecutive sketch tonight that Kattan’s playing a gay role in, but the second consecutive episode in which he plays MULTIPLE gay roles in, respectively. At this point, I don’t know whether to roll my eyes at that or just feel sorry for Kattan for getting so typecast and making the already-long-existing gay rumors about himself grow. Then again, if that mind-numbingly terrible Hollywood bit he did earlier tonight is an example of the non-gay performances he can contribute to these later years of his SNL tenure, then oof.
— I love the occasional bit with Ana using her fingers to count the words she occasionally speak-sings (e.g. “I’ve got a pin in my hip”).
— Ana’s performance and delivery here are very solid and is carrying this sketch well, though the material itself is a little iffy.
— Yeah, this has GOTTA be a James Anderson-written sketch. More and more, I’m seeing way too many of his trademarks for it to NOT be one.
STARS: **½


MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
a shrunken head in chapter 1148


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ms. Jackson”


EXTREME WEDDING
groom (host) & bride (AMP) have pre-ceremony doubts about extreme wedding

— Meh, another sketch tonight about surfer/skiing bro stereotypes. Sure, that’s in Jonny’s wheelhouse, but I have no interest in seeing any more sketches like this tonight.
— Jeff has refreshingly been getting some good airtime tonight (ignoring his odd exclusion from the Super Buzzers sketch). I remember some online SNL fans at the time were worried that Parnell’s return would mean even LESS airtime for the already-very-underused Jeff Richards and Dean Edwards. Ha, so much for that, at least regarding Jeff. No comment on Dean.
— I’m currently halfway through this sketch so far, and I have no idea what to say about the sketch, except I’m hearing a whole bunch of kinda-funny-but-also-kinda-tepid “brah” puns. Otherwise, this sketch is washing right over me.
— Okay, I did get a laugh just now from the goofy visual of Seth testing out some kind of bungee pack in the background.
— I love that Parnell is appearing in so many sketches in his first episode back.
STARS: *½


MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
an idiot spacewoman in chapter 1234


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty forgettable episode, though not particularly weak. In fact, I actually liked a good majority of the sketches, until the last 15-20 minutes of the show. It’s just that, even with all of the decent sketches, something about the show as a whole felt a little on the “meh” side. Part of the reason for that “meh” feel could be the host. For an athlete, Jonny Moseley wasn’t a terrible host, but he added little to the show.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Britney Spears)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Jon Stewart

Posted on

February 2, 2002 – Britney Spears (S27 E12)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE WOMEN’S DOWNHILL
Mormons (DAA) & (WIF) proselytize during Olympian’s (AMP) downhill run

— Ha, we get a random Dan Aykroyd appearance (who’s apparently there tonight to help tonight’s host, Britney Spears, promote her new movie Crossroads, as he plays her dad in it), being paired with Will as Mormons. Dan’s appearance in this cold opening is actually a last-minute addition. In dress rehearsal, Kattan played the role that Dan is playing here, but most (if not all) of Dan’s sketches got cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal, leaving him with little-to-nothing to do in the live show, so SNL threw him into Kattan’s role in this cold opening. I’m not 100% sure, but I also believe that in dress rehearsal, Britney Spears played the role that Amy’s playing in this cold opening, which probably means that this wasn’t the cold opening in dress (I can’t quite remember from the details I read long ago about this episode’s dress rehearsal).
— A pretty good laugh from the Mormons interrupting a skiier in the middle of an Olympic competition.
— Ehh, after the initial laughs from the aforementioned Mormon interruption, this doesn’t seem to have anywhere else to go, though it’s still passable enough.
— The Mormons telling Amy “Good luck in hell” as their parting message when Amy lets them know she doesn’t want to be a Mormon is pretty funny.
— I like Seth shoving Maya’s reporter character out of the way to bombard Amy with more Mormonism.
— Seth delivering a (solo) “Live from New York…” so early into his tenure as a featured player is a nice shock. SNL has been doing a great job of changing up the LFNYs these past two episodes, after an endless, tiring consecutive streak of episodes where Darrell and Will were the only cast members who got to deliver LFNY.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
Justin Timberlake [real] learns he slept with host’s doppelganger (CHK)

— A good reveal after “Britney Spears”’ entrance that she’s actually Chris Kattan. Chris can now say that he’s posed onstage as both a certain musical guest and a certain host, at the beginning their musical performance/monologue: Ricky Martin in season 26 and Britney Spears tonight.
— After Chris’ comically bad dancing demonstration, I actually got an unintentional bigger laugh from Britney’s attempt to show Chris how it’s done. Britney’s supposedly “better” dancing was almost as terrible as Chris’. Back then in 2002, I remember SNL reviewing great Mark Polishuk describing Britney’s so-called dancing demonstration as being “one pole away from being a stripper’s gyration”.
— Much like in the Joshua Jackson episode from season 25, it still feels weird seeing N’Sync-era Justin Timberlake appearing on SNL.
— Another unintentional laugh, this time from how extremely early-2000s Justin’s shirt looks.
— It might just be me, but Justin’s coming off kinda bland here, which is surprising in retrospect. I’m not seeing any signs of the distinct comedic skills he would later surprise viewers with in his first hosting stint two seasons later.
— I got a laugh from Chris saying his personal life has been falling apart because Corky Romano didn’t do as well as he thought. Sadly, though, knowing some of the things I now know about Chris, I wouldn’t be surprised if he really did go through some issues in his personal life due to Corky Romano flopping.
STARS: **½


LOOSE BEAR
Rerun from 12/8/01


BRIAN FELLOW’S SAFARI PLANET
rabbit & donkey don’t cut their own hair

— After making its debut in the 10-to-1 slot several seasons prior, Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet has slowly made its way to the big post-monologue slot, where it would stay for most (if not all) of its subsequent installments during Tracy’s SNL tenure.
— As usual, Brian Fellow’s idiotic statements and snippiness crack me up.
— An interesting twist to these usual sketches, by showing a guest actually having the same thought bubble that Brian Fellow has.
STARS: ***½


INSIDE BARBIE’S DREAMHOUSE
Skipper (host) learns that she’s Barbie’s (AMP) daughter, not her sister

 

— An interesting premise that has potential.
— I like the mentions of the various famous dolls and action figures who are going to be at the party that Skipper wants to go to.
— Good reveal from Barbie that she and Skipper are actually mother and daughter instead of siblings.
— A big laugh from Barbie and Skipper demonstrating how their legs are double-jointed.
— Skipper, to Barbie, after being told her father is a Han Solo action figure: “He’s not even our scale! What kind of slut are you?!?”
— Nice detail with the stiff, doll-like hand movements Amy and Britney keep doing throughout this.
— (*groan*) Figures that Kattan would be the one who gets cast as a catty, effeminate Ken doll.
STARS: ****


JARRET’S ROOM
stoners Gobi (HOS) & Summer (host) make a perfect couple

— Jarret, to DJ Jonathan Feinstein: “If you’re from England, what’s the queen’s name?” DJ Jonathan Feinstein: “Latifah?”
— The first two or so minutes of these Jarret’s Room sketches are always kind of a write-off, as they just feature Horatio and Jimmy hamming it up, mugging straight into the camera, and cracking each other up (in other words, the usual nonsense whenever those two performers are paired together). These Jarret’s Room sketches don’t usually start getting fun until the host shows up, but I don’t see Britney as the kind of host who can add much to this sketch.
— Funny bit with Gobi and Britney’s character carrying on an entire conversation without either of them knowing what the other is saying.
— The spy cam footage of Jeff is worth some laughs, though it’s not as funny as the footage of him in the last Jarret’s Room installment.
— Overall, after a big upswing in quality with the last two Jarret’s Room sketches, we get the return of Jarret’s Room’s mediocrity tonight, though this installment wasn’t as bad as the ones from the preceding season. This had some decent moments here and there, but was lacking the infectiously fun feel of the last two installments.
STARS: **½


CAMP X-RAY
international critics misjudge edenic Camp X-Ray, says Dick Cheney (DAH)

— The premise of Camp X-Ray being glowingly advertised in the style of a tourism commercial is pretty funny, and the execution is okay, though nothing special.
STARS: ***


A MESSAGE FROM MARTHA STEWART
Martha Stewart (ANG) is rethinking her affiliation with bankrupt K-Mart

— A laugh from Ana’s Martha Stewart calling Ghostface Killah her very close friend. While it was intended as just a facetious line at the time, a real-life Martha Stewart/Ghostface Killah friendship would actually be far more believable nowadays, considering the hip-hop cred Martha has gained.
— Martha Stewart, to the bankrupt K-Mart: “If I had wanted to spend my life dragging a wounded, impotent beast around on my back, I would’ve stayed married.”
— Some pretty solid lines from Ana’s Martha towards the end of this sketch, but overall, this sketch was merely average, a step down from the usual strong sketches starring Ana’s Martha.
— This ends up being the final appearance of Ana’s Martha Stewart impression during Ana’s SNL tenure. This fantastic impression and all the great sketches she starred in over the years will be missed, though we do end up getting a guest appearance from Ana’s Martha in a season 29 cold opening.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman”


WEEKEND UPDATE
SEM awards a point to JIF for making a joke palindrome

Geraldo Rivera (DAH) claims to have found Osama bin Laden in Somalia

JIF plays guitar & sings pop-inspired songs about the Winter Olympics

Gay Hitler speedskates as Neil Diamond (WIF) performs “America”

— Yeesh, Jimmy’s hair is looking particularly bad tonight.
— I love the randomness of Seth popping up from below to award a point to Jimmy for a joke palindrome.
— The debut of Darrell’s Geraldo Rivera impression, which is spot-on and pretty funny. He’s having a good amount of funny lines in tonight’s Update commentary.
— The usual okay-but-nothing-special guitar song medley from Jimmy. I do kinda like his spoof of Ludacris’ “Rollout”, though.
— Always great to get an Update walk-on from Will’s Neil Diamond.
— Neil Diamond: “You bet your balls it’s Neil Diamond.”
— Hmm, “Gay Speedskating Hitler” (which won’t make sense to any viewers who didn’t see the original Gay Hitler bit from earlier this season). Well, I see once again tonight that Kattan’s hard at work quashing those gay rumors about himself.
— Interesting and kinda fun how, as Neil Diamond’s musical number is closing out this Update, the Update guests from earlier tonight return in the background.
STARS: ***½


ASTRONAUT JONES
sci-fi romp is a vanity project for its star

— This sketch makes its debut.
— A pretty big night for Tracy, between him getting to do both Brian Fellow AND Astronaut Jones, both of whom would go on to be his two biggest signature recurring characters.
— Man, that is one epic theme song and opening credits sequence. Outstanding.
— Tracy’s one-word utterances in between each sentence of Britney’s long speech are hilarious.
— Tracy, after Britney’s speech ends: “Well, why don’t you jump outta that green jumpsuit and show me that fat ass?!?” I also love how, immediately after that line, this episode of Astronaut Jones ends, and you then realize that the opening title sequence was humorously longer than the episode itself was.
— Hilarious ending credits.
— Overall, an absolutely perfect Tracy Morgan sketch. I’ve always had very mixed feelings about them later turning this into a recurring sketch, but I’ll try to go into those subsequent installments with an open mind in this SNL project of mine.
STARS: *****


HBO FIRST LOOK
Gemini’s Twin & latest member (host) in hip-hop epic film

— This ends up being the final Gemini’s Twin sketch. (Quite a lot of recurring Ana Gasteyer pieces are being retired tonight.) Can’t say I’ll miss this recurring sketch, though I enjoyed the first few installments.
— A laugh from the title of Gemini’s Twin’s movie: Damn, My Dixie’s On Fire.
— I love Will’s spot-on look as a typical hip-hop producer.
— Will is getting his usual big laughs even in the smallest of roles. He especially got a good audience response from unnaturally pronouncing “asked” as “axed”, in a poor attempt from his character to sound “street”.
— I see ONCE AGAIN tonight that Kattan’s hard at work quashing those gay rumors about himself. My god, has he played a gay role in EVERY SINGLE SKETCH that he’s appeared in tonight? (Note: I’m only vaguely familiar with the real Brian Grazer and I can’t remember if he’s gay or not, but Kattan is playing him in a very effeminate, flamboyant way in this sketch.) Plus, there was the whole monologue earlier tonight. Jesus Christ, this is getting insane.
— Pretty funny line about Britney’s character playing a runaway slave named Ungawa, because Maya’s (black) character refused to do it.
— When Gemini’s Twin has stripped down to more revealing outfits for their big musical number, Ana’s real-life pregnancy is quite visible here. There had been public confirmation of her pregnancy sometime not too long before this episode’s original airing, which was a huge deal at the time, as she was the very first cast member in SNL history to be pregnant during their SNL tenure.
— I like how the HBO First Look format is changing up a lot of things in the Gemini’s Twin formula.
— Ana’s violin solo during the Gemini’s Twin musical number is very funny.
— Overall, this actually wasn’t bad. Better than the last two Gemini’s Twin installments, and a pretty good way for this recurring sketch to go out.
STARS: ***


9 NEWS MORNING EDITION
technical problems vex anchors (WIF) & (ANG) during morning news program

— Ana has been getting a lot of airtime tonight, which is very refreshing, considering how underutilized and clearly-on-her-way-out she’s been in a lot of this season’s episodes.
— Already a laugh right from the beginning, with the visibly obvious lack of chairs for Will and Ana.
— Ah, this is one of those everything-goes-wrong-during-a-TV-broadcast sketch, the type of sketch I’m always a sucker for.
— Funny visual of Ana chomping into a huge hoagie when she thinks she’s off-camera.
— I like Will’s perfectly Will Ferrell-esque delivery of “God, that’s a stinky dog! That is a stinky dog!”
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Boys”


THE LEATHER MAN
The Leather Man (JIF) sells squeaky animal-skin attire to (host)

— Oh, god, a SECOND Fallon & Sanz sketch tonight?
— I can already tell from the leather store setting that I’m not going to be crazy about this sketch, nor this character of Jimmy’s. Regarding the latter, this feels like a character more suitable for someone like Will, who could easily wring laughs out of a role like this in his sleep.
— Tom Davis is credited during the goodnights of tonight’s episode as guest writing a sketch. I really hope THIS isn’t the sketch he guest wrote, but I think it is, as Tom is also credited as a guest writer in the following season’s Brittany Murphy episode, which just so happens to contain another Leather Man sketch. (Come to think of it, the Brittany Murphy episode also contains two other recurring sketches from tonight’s episode: Jarret’s Room and Astronaut Jones, though regarding the former, Tom Davis obviously has nothing to do with the writing of those, and I certainly can’t see him writing the latter, either.)
— Okay, I am chuckling at the initial leather sound effects when Jimmy starts walking around, but those sound effects seem like they’re going to get old after a while.
— Of course, Jimmy IMMEDIATELY starts smirking when Horatio first comes waddling onscreen.
— A pretty funny walk-on from Dan Aykroyd in that ridiculous leather outfit. I can’t remember if I heard that his appearance in this sketch was also a last-minute addition after dress rehearsal, like his appearance in the cold opening.
— The running gag with Jimmy making Horatio scream by hitting him with a whip is clearly just an excuse to get Jimmy cracking up.
— A good laugh from Horatio’s naughty actions inside the dressing room.
— There’s Ana once again tonight.
— Back-to-school shopping in FEBRUARY???
— Pretty funny ending with Will, Ana, and their kids stealing clothes when they’re left alone in the store.
STARS: **½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode overall. The quality was a little all over the place, but even at its worst, the show never really bottomed out, and there was definitely more good than bad.


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


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Jonny Moseley. We also get SNL pulling a very rare move and rehiring a certain recently-fired cast member.

Posted on

January 19, 2002 – Jack Black / The Strokes (S27 E11)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRETZEL INCIDENT
pretzel took blame for Dick Cheney’s (DAH) abuse of George W. Bush (WIF)

— Great to see Will back after how sorely missed he was during his absence in the last episode.
— I remember how eager a lot of SNL fans at the time were to see SNL parody President Bush’s then-recent pretzel-choking incident.
— Funny reveal of Darrell’s Dick Cheney having been hidden behind the couch in a wifebeater.
— I like how gradually clear it’s becoming that the pretzel-choking is a made-up excuse to hide the real reason for Bush’s injury.
— Not only do we FINALLY, for the first time all damn season, have someone in the cast who’s NOT Darrell or Will say “Live from New York…” (I just mean among the cast members, in case anyone wants to point out that Rudy Giuliani said LFNY in the season premiere), but it’s Jimmy, of all people, who delivers it. Believe it or not, Jimmy had never gotten to deliver a LFNY until now, four seasons into his SNL tenure.
— I was surprised how early this cold opening ended. Not sure what else they could’ve done with it, but the finished product of this cold opening felt only half-cooked.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
narcissistic host sings of his place in comedy history; Kyle Gass cameo

— A funny sudden turn in Jack Black’s initially humble song, about how we’re the lucky ones for getting to watch him on SNL.
— I love the interlude during the song, about how amazed Jack is to be standing on the same stage that such SNL legends as Eddie Murphy, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner stood on, before singing about how he’s blowing those SNL legends away with his “intensity”.
— A solid inclusion of Kyle Gass towards the end.
STARS: ****


FLENDERSON’S
without one of Flenderson’s huge bows, a gift car is sure to disappoint

— Seth, to Amy, regarding the new car she got him as a gift: “It doesn’t have one of those huge oversized bows on it… so I hate it.”
— An overall simple but funny parody of the tradition of car commercials showing people receiving a huge-bow-wrapped car as a gift.
STARS: ***


RUSSELL PUTNAM, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
stoner journalist (host) hazily investigates federal marijuana conspiracy

— Odd usage of Darrell throughout tonight’s episode so far. They seem to be casting him in lots of Chris Parnell/Will Ferrell-esque important utility roles, which shows that, even though Will is temporarily back from his filming of the movie Old School, Will’s availability this week must’ve been limited and some roles that normally would go to him had to be given to other performers.
— Good premise of Jack as an investigative reporter for High Times magazine, complete with his own opening title sequence.
— Speaking of the opening title sequence, I remember some online SNL fans at the time wondered if Jack getting hit on the head with a boom mic during one part of the title sequence (the fifth above screencap for this sketch) was a Christopher Guest-esque genuine gaffe (remember when Guest accidentally bumped his head on a boom mic in the Ed Grimley sketch from the first episode of season 10?). Thinking that was a real gaffe is silly, considering this opening title sequence is clearly pre-taped (dead giveaway: Jack is wearing a completely different shirt in it than the one he’s wearing in the live portions of this sketch).
— Funny bit with Jack playing back an audio tape that he secretly recorded of the mayor, only for it to turn out to be a tape of the conversation that Jack literally just had with his stoner friends when setting up his playing of the tape.
— This overall sketch was just average, and nowhere near a strong as it initially seemed like it was going to be.
STARS: ***


TALES OF VALOUR
monster (host) would prefer a slut to virgin (AMP)

— Darrell’s rare big night continues, as he’s cast in YET ANOTHER Chris Parnell-esque role (though Darrell did previously play a role just like this in the Scarlett Letter sketch from the preceding season’s Lara Flynn Boyle episode, back when Parnell was actually still in the cast).
— Great demonic voice from Jack, as well as great demonic make-up on him. By the way, he appears to be wearing the same make-up prosthetics that Will wore in the Lucifer Songs sketch from season 25’s Garth Brooks episode (side-by-side comparison below).

— A good laugh from Jack’s character unexpectedly requesting Jimmy to bring him a slutty girl instead of a virgin.
— I’m really enjoying the realistic turn this has taken with the conversation Jack and Jimmy are having about virgins vs. experienced women.
— Hilarious ending with Tracy randomly appearing as himself to join Darrell’s character in ogling dirty pictures in a storybook that Darrell’s reading from. I love that Tracy’s defined and reliable onscreen persona has gotten to the point where SNL can just randomly throw him as himself into out-of-place settings like this, and they know it’ll work. (Years later, SNL would occasionally do the same thing with Leslie Jones.)
STARS: ****


MOUNTAINTOP LOVERS
at (host)’s ski lodge, Roger & Virginia unsettle (CHK) & (AMP)

— I recently read an old SNL review that stated The Luvahs are basically just a much-older version of The Zimmermans (the sex-crazed married couple characters that Kattan used to play with Cheri Oteri). I guess I can kinda see that, though I think The Luvahs are inherently funnier characters than The Zimmermans (though I’m more tolerant of the Zimmermans sketches than quite a number of people are), and are thankfully much more low-key.
— Rachel’s Luvahs wig looks kinda different tonight.
— I’m getting my usual amusement from the Luvahs here, though there’s nothing new so far.
— Ha, a walk-on from Jack as a Luvahs-esque character.
— I love Rachel’s line about anxiously awaiting the delicious taste mixture of chest hair, chin sweat, and goose juice.
— Will’s line about how he climaxes very loudly at exactly 7 AM each morning is hilarious.
— Jack’s distinct delivery of the words “elvin cloak” in that Luvahs-esque voice was great.
— During his spiel right now, Will seems to be intentionally milking his character’s usually odd inflections of syllables in some words, with the way he’s now saying “Su-BAH-ru” and “tow-TRUCK”.
— When Jack’s character is speaking while he and The Luvahs are in a casual three-way fondling session, Will starts feeling up Jack’s upper leg/butt, which you can tell Jack didn’t expect, as his voice suddenly raises an octave in surprise and he then is seen stifling some laughter, though he gets back into character fast.
— (*groan*) There goes the tepid traditional “Ow, my back” ending, though this one is a variation, with Will’s back catching on fire from the fireplace. Still not necessary.
STARS: ***½


FRIENDS
in its seventh season, Friends is running out of character pairings

— A laugh from this Friends promo teasing an incestuous relationship between Monica and Ross.
— An amusing ending confession from the announcer that “we’re kinda running out of combinations”.
STARS: ***


NOW THAT’S WHAT ACTORS CALL SINGING!
album features stars’ vanity bands

— Funny premise mocking the trend of celebrities attempting side careers as singers.
— I’m particularly enjoying Will and Jack’s performances in the Bacon Brothers scene.
— A huge laugh from the singer name used for Al Roker (the fifth above screencap for this sketch).
— Jeff steals this whole sketch with an absolutely hilarious and spot-on Kevin Spacey.
STARS: ***½


BASS-OFF
hype ensues when (WIF) challenges electric bass master (host) to a duel

 

— Will’s “bass face” when jamming out on his bass is hilarious.
— Yet another sketch tonight in which Will and Jack play off of each other really well.
— I love the phone gossip montage with quick cutaways to various random characters spreading word of Will and Jack’s bass-off, and it’s a good way to include most of the cast in this sketch (including a then-rare non-Update appearance from Tina). Also, in the shot of Jack’s character during this phone gossip montage, why in the world is he randomly wearing lip gloss, when he didn’t wear it earlier in the sketch?
— Wow, there’s Darrell in yet ANOTHER non-impression role. For some reason, his grumpy, cigar-smoking character in this sketch is making me laugh, even though it’s just a very small role.
— During the bass-off, I like Jack’s shocked reaction when Will starts playing Jack’s bass during his own bass solo.
— What’s with the whole gas leak thing?
— A fairly weak and unnecessary text crawl ending.
— Amy is the ONLY cast member who was missing from this overall sketch.
— After a solid first half, this sketch kinda fell apart in the second half. Promising sketches fizzling out towards the end seems to be a theme tonight, between the Bush cold opening, the Russell Putnam sketch, and now this sketch.
STARS: ***


WEEKEND UPDATE
TIF gives her thoughts on the absurdly awful Enron scandal

shy & adorable Amelie (CHK) visits Weekend Update

I Have An Opinion- JIF thinks Camp X-Ray living conditions are just fine

Tenacious D performs “Hornet’s Nest” to comment on world politics

 

— Tina’s long-winded Enron rant, while having a few dead spots, was okay as a whole, but wasn’t as strong as her usual rants.
— Ha, a mention of the teen, Steve, from the Dell computer commercials at the time (pictured in the second above screencap for this Weekend Update). Just hearing a mention of him really takes me back.
— I like Jimmy and Tina’s random-but-funny “Oh, snap! / Oh, no you di-in’t!” bit after Jimmy’s sly double entendre about Jennifer Aniston getting “rear-ended”.
— No idea what to say about Chris’ overall VERY random Amelie segment. He did an accurate impression, at least, but, like a lot of things Chris does at this later stage of his SNL tenure, it came off too much to me like something that Chris had already done on the show.
— Some pretty funny ad-libs from Jimmy when the audience fails to applaud at the beginning of his “I Have An Opinion” side segment.
— Good to see a Tenacious D commentary. Weird to think that the last time Tenacious D appeared on SNL, they were an unknown band doing a “guest comedian” spot that seemed to be SNL’s attempt at a throwback to early seasons, where guest comedian spots were common.
— The usual entertaining Tenacious D song.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Last Nite”


AMERICA UNDERCOVER
gruff (host) & trashy white couple in love triangle

— Something odd I just noticed about these America Undercover sketches: the blurry, hard-to-distinguish background video used for the America Undercover opening title sequence is, for some reason, an SNL clip of Will and Vince Vaughn in the Exxon-Mobil Merger sketch from Vince Vaughn’s season 24 episode.
— The voice that Jack’s using is slaying me.
— I like the running gag with Jack’s failed attempts to climb the fence.
— Poor Dean, always stuck in these America Undercover sketches playing the role of a cop who holds a briefs-wearing Chris upside-down and has his face awfully close to Chris’ nether regions.
— This America Undercover installment is even more incoherent and crazy than the first installment earlier this season, but it’s making me laugh a lot.
— Funny reveal that Jack is Chris’ stepfather.
STARS: ***½


MUSIC INTERNATIONAL
(host)’s gothic rock opera serves as a Happy Birthday Song alternative

— A priceless entrance from Will asking “Does this look familiar?” while wearing a cheesy bowl cut wig. This receives what may be one of the most extended laughter breaks that I’ve EVER heard on SNL. Such a classic little Ferrell moment.
— A very funny exaggeration on how “complicated” and “difficult to sing” the traditional Happy Birthday song is.
— I love the sudden wild, perfectly Jack Black-esque turn that Jack’s new Happy Birthday song takes after a tender beginning.
— This sketch is now featuring more and more increasingly dark, bizarre, insane, and elaborate turns. Very unpredictable, fascinating, and fun.
— Amy is great as the witch.
— When Amy gets lifted into the air, one of her legs stick out, unintentionally revealing that she’s still wearing the blue pants from the preceding America Undercover sketch (screencap below), which is an amusing juxtaposition to the witch character she’s playing here.

— This is such a perfect sketch for Jack Black. I cannot imagine anybody else playing his role.
— I wonder if that falcon puppet (seen in the last of the above group of screencaps for this sketch, above the stray screencap of Amy being lifted in the air) is the same one that SNL would end up regularly using in the Falconer sketches that star the soon-to-join-the-cast Will Forte. Even the bird squawk sound effect is the same.
— Overall, what an epic masterpiece.
— IIRC, SNL would later move this sketch up to a much earlier spot in this episode in reruns. I can understand why, but this sketch is a far more perfect fit in its original late spot.
STARS: *****


MY BIG THICK NOVEL BY JACK HANDEY
sprung by a monkey in chapter 828


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hard To Explain”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode, though not quite as strong I had remembered it (which I seem to be saying quite a bit this season). Even so, there was a nice consistency to the quality of the sketches all night, and we got one classic in the Music International sketch. Jack Black was a fantastic host, gave a strong and fun performance in every sketch, and fit SNL like a glove.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Josh Hartnett)
a fairly big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Britney Spears