Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
NIGHTLINE
Peanuts characters mourn the passing of Charles Schulz
— Feels like we haven’t seen Darrell’s Ted Koppel impression in a long time.
— Good to see another sketch with the cast playing Peanuts characters, after the classic Charlie Brown parody SNL did in the preceding season.
— I love the visual of Horatio’s Pig Pen.
— Franklin: “Back then, it was hard for a brother to get in the funnies. No one wanted to take the time to do the shading.”
— I love Rachel-as-Marcie’s scream while raising her head, after saying Peppermint Patty didn’t reciprocate Marcie’s feelings towards her.
— A pretty good laugh from the off-camera Nightline producer’s voice being represented by the “womp womp womp” voice that the adults in Peanuts always speak in, even if SNL already used that joke in the last Charlie Brown sketch.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
Gwyneth Paltrow [real] comes on-stage & steals spotlight from host
— A nice callback to Gwyneth Paltrow’s monologue from the preceding season, in which Ben Affleck made a cameo from the audience.
— A lot of fun barbs between Ben and Gwyneth, especially the whole bit about winning an Oscar. And like Gwyneth’s last monologue, both her and Ben are proving themselves to be good sports.
STARS: ***½
VICTORIA’S SECRET
Marisa’s boobs ask “what is desire”
— A silly but funny parody of real Victoria’s Secret ads from around this time.
— Good bit with the deep-voiced talking butt (or was that a crotch?) trying to interrupt, only to get cut off by the talking boobs.
STARS: ***½
BAND SHOT
G.E. Smith [real] plays guitar
— G.E. Smith’s back tonight!
MANGO
host pretends to be Matt Damon in order to get close to Mango
— At least this season managed to go through a month (January) without resorting to a Mango sketch, which is a big feat considering how much they’ve been overusing Mango this season.
— Mango: “Ben Who-fleck?!?”
— A good Talented Mr. Ripley turn, with Ben trying to pass himself off as Matt Damon.
— The stripping scene in the dark is pretty funny, as is Ben losing control and assaulting Mango on the floor.
— Overall, one of the better Mango sketches, mostly helped by Ben’s performance, even if his demeanor came off a little more smiley and jokey than his role required.
STARS: ***
DONNIE’S PARTY
Donnie Bartolotti’s (host) attentions toward Denise make Sully jealous
— I remember an old SNL review from 2000 pointing out that Ben seemed to be trying to emulate Adam Sandler in this sketch, right down to the Happy Gilmore-esque jersey he’s wearing. I can see it; he looks eerily Sandler-esque at some points of this sketch.
— After exclaiming the word “Irregahdless!” in a Boston accent, Jimmy cracks himself up.
— I love the parts with Rachel and Ben acting out rewinded scenes, especially the slow-mo scene.
— Now Jimmy has begun cracking up again, this time in response to Ben just saying “Bro” over and over to him, which I can forgive, as I’ve been enjoying Jimmy and Ben’s chemistry throughout this sketch. However, this sketch can be pinpointed as the official point in Jimmy’s SNL tenure where his frequent breaking started becoming noticeable.
— Denise: “Don’t hurt him! He’s got a haht murmuh!”
— Some laughs from Ben’s character and Sully listing off the goofy names of their friends.
— Overall, this has always been my personal favorite of the Boston Teens sketches.
STARS: ****
TV FUNHOUSE
“The All New Adventures of Mr. T” by RBS- Ibsen play is a chance to work
— Robert Smigel must be very busy, as we’re more than halfway through this season and this is only the fourth TV Funhouse of the season, which is a small number compared to the amount of TV Funhouses that appeared in the preceding three seasons.
— Very funny idea of a Mr. T-starring TV Funhouse, in the style of a typical 80s animated series, a style that Smigel is doing a dead-on emulation of.
— Mr. T: “I’m back! And I need work!”
— Some good laughs from Mr. T randomly throwing in out-of-place educational tips throughout this.
— The stiffly-animated corny fight scene is very funny.
— Mr. T: “If you believe in yourself, drink your school, stay in drugs, and don’t do milk, you can get work!”
— Great touch with the Charles Schulz tribute during the TV Funhouse closing credits, which leads into an SNL Band shot of Cheryl Hardwick playing a Peanuts tune on the piano.
STARS: ****
FRETTS FILM FORUM
small-town movie reviewers offer clever quotables
— I’m surprised that this is the first appearance all night for the usually-dominant Will Ferrell.
— Will: “Fantasia is fantas-great.”
— Some good laughs from the critics thinking Stuart Little is a real mouse and assuming he’s the same mouse from Mouse Hunt.
— Great bit with Will’s whole hand demonstration when talking about Richard Gere’s beautiful acting and comic timing.
— The critics’ increasingly bad puns and fawning over questionable movies are funny.
— I like it now getting to the point where the critics each give up after starting to really reach with their puns.
STARS: ***½
FANATIC
obsessive (host) wants Anna Nicole Smith (MOS) to be his mom
— A change of pace for this era.
— IIRC, director Paul Thomas Anderson was the one behind this pre-taped sketch.
— This is such a well-done and spot-on parody of the real Fanatic show on MTV, especially the visual look and camera angles.
— Even though it’s a very typical Molly Shannon moment, I howled at the intro shot of Molly’s Anna Nicole Smith, with her randomly yelling “I WILL KICK! YOUR! ASS!”
— Very funny visual of a braces-wearing Ben, especially him screaming on the floor when Jimmy is excitedly jumping on him.
— Funny concept with Ben wanting to get Anna Nicole Smith to adopt him.
— Nice touch at the very end, with Ben missing his elevator after speaking to the camera.
STARS: ****½
WEEKEND UPDATE
George W. Bush (WIF), John McCain (CHP), Alan Keyes (TIM) speechify
— We’re starting off with a LONG string of “George W. Bush is dumb” jokes from Colin.
— And now we go to a press conference with Will’s Bush. A nice change of pace for an Update segment.
— Ah, now we get a press conference with Parnell’s John McCain giving a concession speech, saying racist things about the Vietnamese.
— The whole scene with Tim’s Alan Keyes holding a press conference in an empty room is pretty funny.
— Short Update overall.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Limp”
SPARKS
salesman (host) is embroiled in Zimmermans’ sexy search for a used car
— After a weaker and somewhat off-putting installment of this sketch from the Heather Graham episode, there’s hopefully nowhere for this sketch to go but up.
— Ben’s performance as an Armenian car dealer is very funny, especially the slang he keeps using (e.g. “homesnakes”).
— Good bit with Cheri and Kattan occasionally honking the car horn to censor their expletives during their dirty talk to each other.
— Hilarious visual of Ben revealing his leopard skin speedo with an excessive amount of bushy pubic hair sticking out.
— Overall, not bad, and a definite improvement over the last installment.
STARS: ***
POLICE TRAINING
Sally O’Malley barges in on a police academy exercise training session
— I love Ben’s performance in this, especially the Chicago accent he’s doing.
— Meh, I can certainly do without the return of the Sally O’Malley. I know this character has her defenders, but she simply does not work for me. Sure, SNL changes the scenery in every Sally O’Malley sketch, unlike with Molly’s similar Helen Madden character, but that’s not enough to make Sally O’Malley funny or less one-note to me. To me, these sketches have always epitomized the decline Molly took as a performer in her later seasons.
— The ending fight scene is kinda entertaining, at least.
STARS: **
TRILOCAINE
Trilocaine treats your dandruff & induces horrific hallucinations
— Very funny how the listed-off side effects quickly go from typical minor things to a very unsettling long description of insane hallucinations.
— I like how this has kind of a Deep Thoughts vibe.
STARS: ****
WHO WANTS TO BE GROPED BY AN ELEVEN THOUSAND-AIRE?
(host) paws (CHK)
— A very funny idea for a parody of FOX’s Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire show from around this time.
— Yet another great characterization from Ben tonight, who’s redneck performance in this is priceless.
— Funny how the prize is getting groped in the back of a rusted-out Maxima.
— Good bit with Ana regarding an alleged TV show she was in called Showering With Bill.
— After one particular thing Ben says towards Kattan, we get an amusing brief close-up of Kattan mouthing what appears to be “What the fuck?”, which the audience catches.
— Odd how this is the second sketch tonight with Ben sexually assaulting Kattan, after the Mango sketch.
— A pretty funny blooper at the end where Will accidentally trips on the floor when walking over to Cheri and Ana.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A consistently solid episode, and the best episode in a good while. Minus Sally O’Malley, the show had an endless run of good sketches, some of which stood out as great. Even the Mango sketch managed to be decent. Ben Affleck was a very strong host in this first hosting stint of his, immediately showing the chops to become an eventual five-timer.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Julianna Margulies)
a mild step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Joshua Jackson
I always loved this episode. Affleck was a great host.
Was G.E. filling in for Dr. Luke, or merely a special guest?
Special guest. You can see Dr. Luke’s Pacifica in the screencap above. It’s a shame there was only one band shot. During the mid-commercial break ins you got shots of G.E. and Lenny from what I remember.
I have only seen this episode once, when it aired live. It was good, I love seeing Lenny with G. E.
GE was a guest, Luke was there.
Always appreciated the “Stay outta my hairspace” references in the Fanatic short. A funny but probably kinda obscure reference to those Anna Nicole Smith Skyscraper outtakes that were circulating around the early days of the internet in the 90s.
There’s a little moment in the video review sketch where Jimmy is breaking and Ben sort of guides him about keeping it together. When watching that I thought to myself – if you were a sporadic viewer who wasn’t really into pop culture and turned on the TV around that time, you’d probably think Ben was the cast member and Jimmy was the host. In another world, Ben probably *was* a cast member – he certainly fits the DNA (for better or worse).
That last sketch has aged roughly for – well, for several reasons..but still has its share of good stuff (Ben’s performance, the Showering with Bill bit, Cheri’s hysteric outbursts, etc.).
I can’t judge you about just not being into a recurring character, as this episode has three I can’t abide, which unfortunately weighs the night down for me. I wonder if they assumed Ben wasn’t going to be much of a host so they brought out security blankets.
If that is the case, then he certainly showed otherwise, with an absolutely first-rate set of performances all night. Right from the monologue with Gwyneth (which is just as good as her very commendable hosting gig the season before), you know you’re in for something special, and he doesn’t disappoint.
Much as I love Parnell, I’m glad they gave Ana a chance at that lengthy voiceover, especially since the Lost Deep Thoughts she had a few years before were such a mixed bag quality-wise. She is fantastic.
Also fantastic is the Fanatic piece, which, as you said, is incredibly faithful to the source material. I love that they even go the extra mile of filming ridiculous Skyscraper scenes with Molly. Watching this and the Steve Irwin sketch the episode before makes you feel slightly morbid, even moreso here because the media circled like vultures around Anna Nicole Smith for the last decade of her life (there’s a very effective TV Funhouse coming up about just how that shameful TV show her people put her on in her last few years), but morbidity aside, this is an excellent product that has high quality work from everyone involved.
I went down a Fiona Apple rabbit hole on YouTube tonight, as I sometimes do, and I started wondering if she’d ever played SNL. Therefore…
Musical Performance #1 & Only: “Limp”
-Huh, I thought I might see Fiona behind the piano but I guess not.
-The groove that this song is built on is so sick. I can’t tell what’s making the scratchy, warped sound- a guitar with effects on it?
-I don’t know if Fiona’s live band includes any of the musicians who played on her album, but the drummer is living up to Matt Chamberlain’s epic performance. (If the drummer IS Matt Chamberlain, then I feel fortunate to watch him at work.)
-Fiona’s voice is pretty rough and raspy on the chorus. She’s pushing it pretty hard, which I’ve seen her do in a couple other live clips that I’ve viewed. I can’t imagine this approach would sustain her well throughout an entire concert, but for a single-song performance, it’s excusable.
-The piano on the chorus is REALLY hitting the spot.
-Dance break! I love Fiona’s uninhibited, jerky moves. The instrumentation here is also great, particularly the rhythm section (the bass is complementing the drum solo really well), and it’s interesting to watch the keyboardist in the back playing the part that sounds like pipes/bells (the name of the instrument I’m trying to refer to is completely escaping me at the moment).
-It wasn’t until the final chorus that I realized, I hardly heard any guitar in that song at all, despite the presence of a guitarist onstage.
Stars: ****
Interesting that both times Fiona played SNL, she only performed one song. I’d assume that’s because of stage fright/anxiety, but she seems pretty relaxed during this performance. At any rate, she certainly pulled off a memorable enough performance that another song wasn’t necessary (though I would have enjoyed it…).
I didn’t want to fire up an entire SNL episode just to see one musical performance, so I didn’t watch anything else from it, but if what you say in this review is true about Paul Thomas Anderson directing one of the pre-tapes, that’s interesting that it happened to air in this particular episode, as I believe he and Fiona Apple were dating at the time.