Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
60 MINUTES
Bill Clinton (DAH) & Bob Dole (DAA) do a Point-Counterpoint about Iraq
— Good to see a Dan Aykroyd cameo, even if it always feels a little awkward seeing him play Bob Dole anytime after Norm Macdonald became SNL’s definitive Dole.
— An okay dry speech from Darrell’s Bill Clinton, if certainly long.
— There’s the obligatory classic “You ignorant slut” one-liner from Dan.
— Solid fast-paced delivery from Dan as usual during his very wordy and long Dole speech, but his speech isn’t featuring much to laugh out loud at. This is the kind of overly-wordy, “tell, don’t show” style that’s slowly been taking over these cold openings lately, much to my chagrin.
— An odd and somewhat rare occurrence of “Live from New York…” being delivered by an unseen voice-over while a still photo is shown of a logo. Not exactly an exciting way to kick off an episode, especially after a very dry, long-feeling, and occasionally dull cold opening like tonight’s.
STARS: **½
MONOLOGUE
Sir Mix-A-Lot (TRM) defends host’s kingdom from other royal rappers
— Funny reveal of Queen Latifah being an actual queen of a kingdom.
— That loud, stuffy British voice that Seth often relies on is kinda like nails on a chalkboard to me. It’s almost starting to get on the same level of the awful nasal, throaty voice that Maya uses when playing certain black roles.
— Very solid and fun execution of this premise, and there are so many funny little rap/royalty jokes all throughout this, such as the LL Cool J/ “Don’t call it a callback, he’s been here for years!” bit.
STARS: ****
106 & PARK TOP TEN LIVE
Baby K & his producer (host) perform infantile hip-hop
— OH FUCKING NO. The return of that god-awful Baby K character. At least his previous appearance, as horrible as it was, was just a very short Update commentary. Now he gets a FULL-FLEDGED SKETCH?!?! Oh, spare me, SNL.
— The gag in this sketch with Maya sounding very stilted and unconvincing when talking in street lingo is weak and tired.
— Ugh at that music video. And I remember an online SNL fan at this time complained that that music video felt very MADtv.
— Latifah’s performance is very good, but this sketch is brutally unfunny.
— A minor laugh from Dean happily saying “Me too” after Baby K admits he still has bathroom accidents sometimes.
— (*groan*) Another musical performance in this sketch?
STARS: *
LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY
Frenchie Davis (host) sings
— Good to see this back.
— We get our very first instance in these sketches of Amy’s Kelly Ripa saying “I don’t know who that is, Reege. WHO IS THAT?!?!”, which would go on to be one of the most remembered aspects of these sketches.
— Good ad-lib from Darrell when Amy’s Ripa holds him particularly tight and rests her head on his shoulder: “Careful, or we’re both gonna get pregnant.” I enjoy the way Darrell and Amy always play off of each other in these sketches.
— A lot of really good lines from Latifah’s Frenchie Davis.
— Amy attempts to make Darrell crack up by climbing all over him, which eventually succeeds in getting Darrell to break, which is still a little rare to see by this point of Darrell’s tenure.
STARS: ****
WHO FARTED?
FOX reality show traps contestants in room with a gas passer
— Feels weird seeing Darrell with his normal look while being grouped with the rest of the cast in a sketch where they’re all playing nameless characters.
— A very juvenile premise, but it’s certainly coming off funny in this suspenseful reality show trailer. Much better than that awful and lazy fart sketch the show had recently done with Matthew McConaughey.
— Parnell’s always-great voice-over work is making this even funnier.
STARS: ***½
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
’60s girl group sought a follow-up dance craze hit
— A huge technical issue is occurring in the studio right now, which not only causes the opening “Where Are They Now?” title sequence to have no music, but also forces Latifah, Maya, and Amy to do their first few musical numbers with absolutely NO background music. Wow. There’s some talk about this in one of the updated versions of the “Live From New York” SNL book, where either Maya or Amy discloses the fact that she and her fellow two performers were informed right before this sketch went on air that they would have to perform their songs without background music, due to audio problems going on.
— During the video packages detailing things about the girl group that Latifah, Maya, and Amy are playing, faint voices from inside SNL’s studio can unintentionally be heard in the background, including a woman’s voice repeatedly counting down. All of these audible voices are obviously related to the technical problems going on with the music. I wonder if the woman being heard constantly counting down is someone in the SNL Band.
— These musical performances feel odd and bare-bones without any background music.
— I’m a few minutes into this sketch, and if you haven’t noticed, I have yet to say anything about the actual content of the sketch itself. That’s because I haven’t been finding anything too funny or noteworthy about the content. All the technical issues of this sketch are more interesting to me than the material itself is.
— The background music has now finally kicked in, halfway through this sketch. I can’t remember if SNL would later replace the first half of this sketch with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, but I assume they do.
— Okay, this sketch is starting to pick up a little with Maya’s character descending into insanity.
— I like Latifah telling Amy “You was always more of a ho than me.”
— Funny reveal of Amy being the mother of Baby Jessica, the baby who fell down a well in the 80s.
STARS: **½
I’M A CELEBRITY… WHO FARTED?!
ABC reality show has famous flatulence
— While it’s very questionable they’re doing a SECOND one of these fart-based reality show promos, and I want to say SNL is pushing it, this is coming off pretty fun with all the celebrity impressions in place of the nameless contestants from the first Who Farted ad.
— Great to see Jimmy’s dead-on Gilbert Gottfried impression back, which is what Jimmy debuted on SNL with in his very first episode.
— Jeff’s Gary Busey is always a riot.
— Gary Busey, when denying it was him who farted: “Trust me, buddy, you’ll know when a Juicy Busey hits you between the eyes.”
— This was kept at a short-and-sweet length.
STARS: ***
WEEKEND UPDATE
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (HOS) is upset by picture taken just after capture
fresh from his Grammy gig, Dustin Hoffman (JER) stammers kudos for NYC
Trevor The Broadway Guy (CHP) emotes regarding musicians’ strike
— Oh, god. It now seems to be a weekly thing on Update for Tina’s opening joke to be a horrible, cringeworthy joke in which she punctuates it with some kind of desperate, corny, and unfunny gesture or ad-lib. Then the camera cuts to a deadpan and straitlaced Jimmy, who proceeds to approach his jokes the RIGHT way. I said this in my last review, but it’s fucking surreal how Tina and Jimmy have gradually been switching personalities over the course of this season.
— A bad anti-Bush joke from Tina. That’s something that would soon go on to be ANOTHER annoying weekly thing from her: doing unfunny anti-Bush jokes that seem more focused on pushing her own political views than on getting the audience to laugh. I never liked Bush either, and even *I* recall finding this weekly habit of Tina’s to be annoying.
— Horatio’s Khalid Shaikh Mohammed commentary has some laughs, with his comparisons to who he looks like in his infamous photo, but portions of this feel awkwardly improvised and have too many silent pauses. Perhaps portions of this are improvised, given that when this episode would later be re-aired, the dress rehearsal version of this commentary would be used, in which some of the dialogue is very different and also seemingly improvised, and Horatio and Jimmy’s performances are much more loose. So loose that, at one point for a brief moment, Horatio jokingly slips in an “ova heah” bit, referencing that dreaded Aquarium Repairmen sketch from earlier this season.
— Jeff rebounds nicely after his awful Baby K bit from earlier tonight, with a fantastic and fun impression of how Dustin Hoffman acted at that year’s recent Grammys. Jeff even looks like him here.
— Parnell’s Trevor The Broadway Guy is at least a change from the roles that Parnell is usually typecast in, and it’s certainly nice seeing him get a front-and-center showcase, but unfortunately, I’m not finding myself laughing here.
— Much like the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed commentary, the Trevor The Broadway Guy commentary would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, which is longer than the live version. One of the things the dress version of the commentary has that the live version doesn’t is Parnell’s Trevor mentioning doing an off off off off off off-Broadway show (I can’t remember exactly how many “off”s he used, but it was a lot). I’m now wondering if Jeff’s Dustin Hoffman commentary was also replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. If so, wow, SNL might as well have just shown the dress version of this ENTIRE Update in reruns.
— It’s become a running gag these past two Updates for Jimmy to do a joke about Vagina Auction, a non-existent(?) FOX reality show.
— Tonight’s weekly end-of-Update walk-on from SNL writer Eric Slovin has him dressed as Thomas Jefferson and using Jimmy’s pencil to sign the Declaration of Independence.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Dy-na-mi-tee”
GIVE UP THE HAM
(WLF) pleads for peace via song when (host) & (AMP) fight over a ham
— Oh, here comes a favorite of mine.
— When this sketch originally aired, I remember thinking Amy looked very Hillary Clinton-esque in that wig and dress, which is funny in retrospect, given that Amy would later start playing Hillary the following season.
— After Amy’s dignified and lengthy description of what she plans to do with the ham, I like Latifah’s simplified, ghetto version of her own plans for the ham: “I’m gonna take this ham home and I’mma eat it.”
— I love this sketch so much that I’ll refrain from ranting about the fact that this is Kattan’s SECOND drag role tonight, in addition to the fact that his only other appearance tonight besides those two drag roles was playing a flamboyant gay role (Gelman in the Live With Regis And Kelly sketch).
— The increasingly out-of-hand fight over the ham has a nice escalating absurdity to it, and I also like how Latifah and Amy’s respective friends are opposite versions of the same archetype.
— I love Will’s delivery of “Everybody just needs to cooooool out” when he walks on and takes the ham away from the fighting customers.
— There’s Will’s classic Give Up The Ham musical number, a legendary Forte moment, and a great example of how much he hit the ground running in his first season with his delightful oddball style.
— Great ending with Parnell stepping in front of the camera as a random spokesman and explaining the story behind this sketch, which includes the writer being drunk.
STARS: *****
TV FUNHOUSE
“X-Presidents” by RBS- SpongeBob SquarePants rejects cartoon jingoism
— I got a huge laugh from Reagan’s line, regarding Carter’s Nobel Prize: “They should call it the No-Balls Prize.” Reagan’s bitter one-liners in these cartoons never fail to kill me.
— Funny war propaganda cartoon clips of Bugs Bunny and Grape Ape, the former of which is based on an actual WWII Bugs Bunny cartoon (“Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips”).
— Nice to see that Spongebob Squarepants’ appearance here is being voiced by Tom Kenny, Spongebob’s real voice actor.
— Some laughs from the display of how inappropriate Spongebob would be for a modern-day war propaganda cartoon.
— Wow, after a Spongebob appearance, now we get a Powerpuff Girls appearance? Unfortunately, all of these famous cartoon character appearances aren’t turning out as epic as one might think. This cartoon is a little too average for my likes.
— No musical number at the end? Don’t these X-Presidents cartoons always end with one?
STARS: ***
PROFILES IN JAZZ
’20s singer’s (host) lyrics didn’t hide sexual content
— Great to see Darrell’s Jack Perkins impression back for the first time in years.
— “Joe The Plumber”? Well, that now sure brings up unintended memories of the future 2008 elections.
— Dammit, Maya’s doing that godforsaken nasal, throaty voice ONCE AGAIN. Her over-reliance on that voice lately is getting ridiculous.
— Some laughs from Latifah’s increasingly un-subtle sexual songs.
— Fred is hilarious and spot-on in his interview as a pretentious, unemployed jazz historian.
— Wow, two roles in one sketch for Tracy.
STARS: ***
DON’S APOTHECARY
overly-personal apothecary Don (HOS) drives business to Walgreens
— This is the first of two of these Don’s Apothecary sketches. I remember not caring for these at all when they originally aired, but Horatio would later give a backstory about this sketch during an interview, explaining that he when he came up with these sketches, he was attempting a slice-of-life, relatable feel, and based it on real-life childhood experiences from when the neighborhood he grew up in went through a change. Knowing that, I’ll hopefully have more of an appreciation for these sketches now that I’m revisiting these.
— I love Will’s inexplicably dignified, proud delivery when correcting Horatio by telling him “No, I have herpes.”
— A few minutes into this sketch, and, while I’m indeed enjoying the relatable feel that Horatio intended for these sketches, I’m still not finding this sketch all that great, and all the juvenile medical-related jokes aren’t doing much for me.
— Didn’t care for the Walgreens twist ending. It also reminded me too much of that “Gary’s Fish Tanks” twist ending from that dreaded Aquarium Repairmen sketch.
— I’m not 100% sure, but I think this sketch would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns (seems to be a lot of that in this episode), which includes some differences in the last portion leading up to the Walgreens twist ending.
STARS: **½
MISTER ROGERS TRIBUTE
HOS sings “You Are Special” to mark the passing of Mister Rogers
— A nice change of pace with us getting a display of a more tender, emotional side of Horatio.
— A very sweet tribute to Mister Rogers after his passing.
— Great ending with the famous Mister Rogers trolley passing by at the end.
STARS: N/A (I’m never sure if any of SNL’s tribute pieces warrant a rating)
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty average episode. There were a few strong things, including one of my favorite sketches of the season (Give Up The Ham), but quite a lot of the episode felt comprised of average material, as well as a few iffy things here and there. Queen Latifah was a pretty fun and reliable host as expected.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Christopher Walken)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Salma Hayek