Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BACKSTAGE
backstage, WIF has awkward reunions with former castmates & LOM
— Much like I said about David Spade earlier this season, it feels refreshing seeing Will Ferrell back on SNL during trying times like season 30.
— A big laugh from Ferrell’s very first inner thought, in which we hear him thinking “Oh, man, what is this guy’s name?!?” about his former four-year castmate Chris Parnell. Ha, poor Chris.
— Another big laugh from a Ferrell inner thought, this time with him thinking “This is Finesse. Do NOT call him Kenan!”
— Hilarious pay-off to the Finesse-not-Kenan scene, with it turning out it was a bet between Finesse and Kenan to see which name Ferrell would call Finesse by. I also love Kenan bragging “Told you he ain’t know the difference!”
— I like the visual of Ferrell immediately turning away in a panic from an approaching Lorne.
— I wonder if Ferrell pulling a “Hey, look over there!” on Lorne was an intentional reference to the end of the Spelling Bee sketch that Ferrell did in the James Van Der Beek episode from season 24. Probably not, but it does go nicely with that.
— I love Ferrell’s “Live from New York…” delivery at the end of this.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
while singing “On A Clear Day,” WIF pees his pants & ambles into audience
— I’ve said this about several former cast members in the monologue from their respective first hosting stint, but it’s so nice to see Ferrell making an entrance on that home base stage as the host.
— While singing, Ferrell accidentally and bizarrely reveals a device hidden inside his jacket (the second above screencap for this monologue), giving away a joke that’s about to happen.
— And there it is: the pee stain on Ferrell’s pants. Funny, and a very fitting premise for Ferrell, but it accidentally being telegraphed earlier in this monologue hurt the joke for me a bit. IIRC, SNL would later replace this monologue with the error-less dress rehearsal version in reruns.
— I love Ferrell going up to Steve Higgins as an audience member and getting way too close to him with his pee stain while trying to have a friendly conversation.
— When Higgins reveals that the woman sitting next to him is, in fact, NOT his wife after Ferrell asked, I like Ferrell responding “Well you make a lovely couple.”
— Even Ferrell’s simple, casual, affable delivery of “Whoops, I peed my pants” when finally noticing his pee stain was great and such a Will Ferrell-y moment.
STARS: ***½
CELEBRITY JEOPARDY
Bill Cosby (KET), Sharon Osbourne (AMP), Sean Connery (DAH)
— Right out of the gate, I see we’re wasting no time in bringing back one of the most beloved recurring sketches that Ferrell was involved in back when he was a cast member. Hope this is an improvement from the underwhelming last few installments of this sketch.
— I can’t understand why tonight’s audience is going absolutely nuts here for the typical staccato, cutesy speak that Amy’s Sharon Osbourne always does when speaking for her puppy (“Mi-nnie, say he-llo to Al-ex! Al-ex, say he-llo to Mi-nnie!”). I take it the only reason tonight’s audience is having such a huge response to this is because they’ve never seen Amy’s Sharon Osbourne impression before and are surprised by how much Amy sounds like her. I think those tepid Sharon Osbourne Show sketches from the preceding season permanently burned me out on Amy’s Sharon Osbourne impression, and I personally hate when Amy’s Sharon uses a staccato, cutesy voice when speaking for her puppy…plus, I heard that real Sharon has NEVER been known to use a cutesy voice for her puppies in real life (not that a celebrity impression on SNL can’t be exaggerated or embellished, of course, but still…).
— Ah, Connery and Trebek reunited.
— Alex Trebek, after yet another one of Sean Connery’s “mother” jokes: “For your information, my mother’s in a nursing home in Canada.” Sean Connery: “Oh, she was nursing it, alright.”
— I love the “Automatic Points” category.
— During the “How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?” segment, when the camera cuts to Ferrell’s Trebek after Darrell’s Connery says “*I* got a finger” while starting to unbutton his pants, I like Ferrell’s Trebek saying to the camera “Please don’t cut to him” and then telling Connery “That’s not a finger, and you know it.”
— And there’s our obligatory category mix-up of tonight’s Celebrity Jeopardy sketch: Connery misreading “Japan US Relations” as “Jap Anus Relations” . I shamefully admit that I chuckled, but 1) it’s FAR from one of the better Celebrity Jeopardy category mix-ups, and 2) SNL could never get away with that “Jap Anus Relations” bit nowadays. At least Ferrell’s Trebek calls Darrell’s Connery out on how awful that was.
— Meh at the reveal of Connery’s full Final Jeopardy answer (which initially reads “0+0-0=0”) being “POOP”.
— Overall, this was pretty fun, but as I was afraid of, it was a far cry from bonafide five-star classic installments of this sketch from back in its prime. It’s sad how this usually-reliable sketch has officially lost its luster sometime after the one from the Lucy Liu episode in season 26 (the last Celebrity Jeopardy sketch to get a five-star rating from me). However, from my memory of the next Celebrity Jeopardy from Ferrell’s following hosting stint in season 34, the luster that this sketch has lost returns in spades.
STARS: ***½
ORACLE CONCLAVE
(WIF) emcees amateurish show for Oracle employees at annual conclave
— Aaaaaand there goes season 30’s obligatory weekly instance of Maya singing. At least this particular instance isn’t an annoying one.
— I love Ferrell’s increasingly tense off-camera conversation with someone about an employee who’s currently in poor health.
— A big laugh from the slideshow awkwardly only consisting of shots of the same three employees at one table, and them all having red-eye in the photos.
— This is a very Will Ferrell-y sketch, and I love that. This feels like a sketch I can picture Ferrell doing in his first season as a cast member. Both he and Cheri Oteri excelled in this type of sketch back then, where they’re alone onstage and react to people who are off-camera. Sketches like Cheerleaders and Rita Delvecchio (Cheri’s lady-on-the-porch character). I guess The Culps also count as that type of sketch, so I’m wondering if this sketch style is a specific Groundlings thing, as Ferrell, Cheri, and Ana Gasteyer are all Groundlings alums.
— Ferrell’s awful rap number is funny, especially when he falls off the stage mid-song, which I’ve always wondered is supposed to be a spoof of a then-recent viral video of Kelsey Grammer accidentally falling off the stage during a speech at Disneyland (“OH, DEAR GOD!!!”). Ferrell’s hilarious angry reactions after falling are so perfectly Will Ferrell.
STARS: ****
PARA TRI-CYCLEN
Para Tri-Cyclen is birth control option for promiscuous women like (AMP)
— Amy bringing in any average joe to sleep with her is pretty funny in the context of this birth control commercial.
— Meh, I’m no prude, but I could do without an adolescent boy being one of the people Amy brings in to sleep with her.
— This overall commercial fizzled out a little towards the end, but was okay as a whole.
STARS: ***
ART DEALERS
(SEM) & (RAD) meet Noonie (WIF), the childish adult son of Nuni & Nuni
— Okay, after giving a positive review to the first two installments of this recurring sketch, I think this is the point where I officially get tired of this sketch, especially since it feels almost wrong for them waste Ferrell as a side character in this formulaic sketch that can be performed literally almost any other week.
— Ferrell at least is playing a goofy-acting and oddly-dressed character that he was born to play. I also love how his entrance gets a hysterical laughing gasp from a woman in the audience.
— Ugh, there goes the obligatory part of every Nuni sketch where Fred and Maya’s characters clarify to their visitors how to differentiate the pronunciation of their respective name, then butcher the simple pronunciation of their neighbors’ names.
— A clumsy gaffe in which Seth accidentally knocks the head cushion off of the massage chair. I got an unintended chuckle from that.
— Ferrell is singlehandedly making this otherwise tiredly derivative sketch more tolerable.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Little Sister” with Gene Frenkle (WIF) on cowbell
— Halfway through this performance, we get Ferrell showing up out of nowhere in the background as his legendary one-off Gene Frenkle character, banging on that cowbell once again. Fuck yeah!
WEEKEND UPDATE
apologistic John Bolton assistant (SEM) displays traits of battered wife
— (*sigh*) You know the routine: Tina and Amy open with a string of terribly hacky jokes that would make even Charles Rocket, Gail Matthius, and Brian Doyle-Murray cringe, while I groan and roll my eyes.
— Pretty good performance from Seth downplaying John Bolton’s horrible, violent treatment of him, even though the commentary itself is nothing special.
— OH FUCKING NO. Not another insufferable and pointless Tina and Amy Update musical number…well, just Amy this time. Still, though: cringeworthy.
— Well, at least this Amy musical number ended up being short, and I did like how it ended with Tina telling Amy “This is the last time that I suck beer out of the dirt with you.”
STARS: **
PEPPER GRINDER
diner (WLF) employs pepper grinder to build character in waiter (WIF)
— Oh, this is a dream come true for a comedy nerd like me: the two great Wills of SNL history, Ferrell and Forte, paired together in an absurdist sketch! This is going to be fucking epic.
— Forte’s refusal to say “when” as Ferrell is tirelessly grinding pepper onto Forte’s meal is great.
— When asked to tell Ferrell to stop grinding pepper, I absolutely love Forte’s delivery of “I will…when…I’ve had…enough.”
— Now this sketch is really hitting a peak, as we get Forte increasingly getting very intense in his “Grind!” bellowing while Ferrell is screaming in anguish. Such a perfect combo of just some of what makes both Ferrell and Forte absolutely fantastic performers. Man, just imagine if their respective tenure as a cast member overlapped with each other, even if just for one season.
STARS: *****
TV FUNHOUSE
“Shazzang!” by RBS- sadistic, psychotic, hegemonic genie is superpowerful
— A spot-on spoof of the style of the Shazzan series from the 60s.
— I’m getting so many laughs from Shazzang’s increasingly sadistic treatment of the villain, the villain’s mother, and a cow. I’m also getting laughs from the disturbed reactions from the other characters. Shazzang’s sadistic actions have bothered A LOT of SNL fans (“That poor cow!” is something I’ll never forget one online SNL fan complaining), but this type of dark humor is right up my alley.
— Holy shit, this cartoon is getting even more and more fucking insane. Smigel ain’t holding NOTHING back. I am absolutely loving how extensive this sadism is getting, and there’s something I find great and fitting about the fact that something this disturbing is airing in a Will Ferrell-hosted episode, but yeah, I can see why so many SNL fans are very off-put by this cartoon.
STARS: ****
GOULET RINGTONES
Robert Goulet (WIF) plugs ringtones & cellphones shaped like his head
— Yes! Freakin’ Goulet!
— Fun premise with Ferrell’s Robert Goulet advertising various ringtones sung by himself.
— I absolutely love the very brief and simple “Dinkle-dongle, dinkle-dongle, someone’s calling you, Goulet!” ringtone.
— The big-horned sheep returns! I always love Ferrell-as-Goulet’s interactions with him. Even just the way a whole bunch of fake fur is unintentionally seen floating away from the fake sheep each time Ferrell violently taps it with his hand is slaying me.
STARS: ***½
GOING 2 C MOVIES WITH TERRYE FUNCK & VASQUEZ
Terrye Funck, Vasquez, (WIF) review Revenge Of The Sith
— We get a very random pairing of a semi-regular Horatio Sanz character and an obscure, previously one-off Chris Parnell character.
— Man, Horatio is stumbling all over his lines in this sketch so far.
— Ugh, this sketch is reminding me why I hated this Vasquez character in the last few appearances he’s made before this.
— What the fuck is with this sketch?!? This premise involving Ferrell’s breath is horrible, and the jokes within the dialogue feel like a 10-year-old wrote this.
— My only laughs in this entire sketch so far have come from Ferrell’s gasping sound whenever he catches a whiff of his own breath. Otherwise, not even he can save this awful sketch.
— Jokes about smoking “dookie” cigars? Yeah, this sketch was definitely written by a 10-year-old. I guess this wouldn’t be a season 30 episode without at least ONE “How the fuck did this make it on the air” sketch?
— Aaaaaaand to make this sketch even more insufferable to me, we now get our obligatory display of Horatio giggling at himself. Fucking ugh.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
— Ha, Ferrell manages to even make a musical guest intro funny, with the way he’s lovingly and slowly stroking the back of a random audience member’s head while re-introducing the musical guest.
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “In My Head”
LUXURY
in a bar, luxury-loving spy (WIF) thinks that (MAR) is his contact
— Ferrell enters as yet ANOTHER character tonight that’s very fitting and perfect for him.
— I’m enjoying the interesting set-up of this.
— Funny bizarre interplay between Ferrell and Maya all throughout this sketch. And at least Maya’s managing to get through a lead role this season without using an annoying character voice or singing for once.
— Didn’t care for the ending with Horatio. At least he didn’t ruin the deadpan stare-off between himself and Ferrell by breaking, though.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
— After Ferrell finishes his goodnights speech and the credits start rolling, the camera briefly cuts to a specific group of people in the audience who are unidentified (the last above screencap for these goodnights), no doubt confusing lots of viewers. Those people in the audience appear to be Will’s family, as I recognize Will’s mom, from two SNL appearances she’s made other times (one in an SNL Mother’s Day special from 2001, and the other in Will’s season 37 monologue). So I’m guessing the older man two seats from Will’s mom is Will’s dad. However, who’s the woman in between them? Will’s sister, perhaps? Does he have a sister?
— Seeing Rob Riggle during these goodnights makes me realize that he was completely M.I.A. during the actual show. Jesus Christ. First Rob struggles to get any good airtime for most of this first season of his. Then he has to witness a writer on the show (Jason Sudeikis) being added to the cast in the third-to-last episode of this season and IMMEDIATELY waltzing in with a very visible presence, making it look effortless. Then Rob gets completely shut out of the very next episode after that, which is especially a shame, considering he seems like he would’ve worked PERFECTLY with Ferrell, given their similar comedic styles (and, IIRC, Rob actually would later be cast in some of Ferrell’s movies, or at least one of them). At this point, Rob must fully realize that that there’s NO FUCKING WAY he’s being asked back next season. You really gotta feel for the guy.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— While certainly not the classic that one in 2005 would’ve hoped a Will Ferrell-hosted episode would be, this was BY FAR one of the better episodes of this troubled season. The quality of the sketches was mostly good, and a few pieces were particularly strong, one of which is an all-time favorite of mine and I’m pretty sure is shockingly the FIRST sketch I’ve given a five-star rating to in this damned season (Pepper Grinder). Will Ferrell, of course, was a fantastic presence as a host, was reliably funny as usual, and fit back into the show well.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Johnny Knoxville)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Season 30 (mercifully) comes to an end, with host Lindsay Lohan. It’s also the final episode for newbie Rob Riggle.
Pepper Grinder is definitely in the top 10 for the season. One of the most abrasive and loud SNL sketches ever. I liked the TV Funhouse and the cold open as well. I liked Oracle Conclave too, but the fact that most of the sketch is just Will and it’s (IIRC) kinda long shows how much the show was struggling without him. He’s holding this entire episode on his shoulders. The last two sketches are so bad that even he can’t save them. I want to know who wrote Going 2 C Movies because that was…not okay.
Idk if it’s just me, but you can really see the weirdness of this season’s camera quality during Celebrity Jeopardy. You can see how high the color saturation is by looking at the set. It just looks a bit odd. The colors and lighting get more muted when they switch to HD.
I believe Pell and Parnell wrote The Terrye Funck Show sketch from two seasons earlier. Not sure if that means they wrote this one.
Liz Cackowski and Emily Spivey wrote Oracle Conclave.
Ferrell and Andrew Steele wrote the Goulet sketch.
Always liked the Luxury sketch.
The color saturation and image quality of season 30 has always bugged me too. I actually mentioned to someone a day or so ago that this season’s look really gave me a “sanitized and Disneyfied Times Square” vibe.
You nailed it, Ben.
No, it’s not just you. There is something odd about the image quality of this season. Maybe they knew they would be moving to HD soon so less of a shit was given about the cameras?
Gene Frenkle’s appearance was the idea of SNL fan and Queens of the Stone Age lead singer Josh Homme. The studio version of Little Sister has a woodblock keeping the rhythm, Homme thought it would be fun to include the cowbell instead.
E! reran this episode A TON and others barely ever because of the lack of quality in this season.
This installment of Celebrity Jeopardy has a real paint by numbers feel to it but I’ve always liked Connery saying “It is a number, number 2! Get it?” Speaking of recurring Ferrell sketches, a Luvahs sketch was cut after dress. Also cut after dress was a Lundford Twins variety hour sketch that airs in next seasons premiere with Steve Carell
The people in the goodnights are Ferrell’s family. From L-R: His Dad, Wife & Mother. That area of the upper deck seating seems to be where the host’s family regularly sits as seen in Tim Robbins / Sinead O’Connor, Steve Carell / Ella Mai and the Danny Devito episode from either season 13 or 14
You’re definitely not kidding about E! airing this one a lot, it seemed as if they’d only show this or the Season 29 Lindsay Lohan episode. It’s rather disappointing that E! let 30+ years worth of content go to waste.
I think Louis CK co-wrote the TV Funhouse cartoon with Smigel.
Yep and Dino Stamatopoulos. Seemed like when they were involved you’d typically get some of the more f-ed up TVFH’s that would’ve typically aired on Smigel’s Comedy Central show if it had still been around.
According to the Best of Saturday TV Funhouse DVD commentary, Shazzang! IS a holdover from Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse. Why it took Smigel four years to revisit the idea, he doesn’t say – in fact, he rambles about not wanting to do recurring characters and how people mistook Shazzang! for a comment on the Iraq war.
Also, apparently Smigel did live-action reference for Shazzang punching the cow and its “fertilizer”. I admittedly refer to the Best of Saturday TV Funhouse DVD commentary track a LOT, yet it’s worth it for his anecdotes.
My friend and I..to this day..will break silences with “Do you like luxury?”
The rerun of this show was the last standard definition episode to air before next season’s HD premiere.
I recall a cut sketch from this episode that was posted on either FunnyOrDie or Yahoo Screen several years back that had Riggle in it. Can’t for the life of me remember what the premise was but I remember Riggle’s character (some kinda karate meathead guy from what I recall) giving me strong Danny McBride in The Foot Fist Way vibes in it when I watched it.
This is one ep of “SNL” from this particular season that I seem to remember a lot of especially Para Tri-Cyclen, Pepper Grinder, and Gene Frenkle’s appearance during the musical guest’s first set. Really enjoyable one, this was!
I don’t think Rob seemed too pleased in the goodnights that he wasn’t in the show. Jason’s arrival made him expendable. I do think Rob deserved a lot better during his time. The funny thing is that when he was gone, two new males came in (Bill and Andy) and knocked it out of the park. It was a reverse of when Jerry was let go a few years before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VsnSxiWUhg
Skimmed through some of Riggle’s old WTF to hear what he said about his time on SNL (SNL talk starts at 57 minute mark) recall it being the most I’d heard him discuss it. Listening to some of these clipped, I also kinda forgot he was still an active member of the Marines while in the SNL cast, I now remember that being seen as a big deal in press at the time of his hiring, especially having been one of the military responders during the WTC attacks.
Will was hosting this episode to promote the “Bewitched” movie with Nicole Kidman and Steve Carell, who was auditioning for the same SNL spot Will ended up getting back in ’95.
Coincidentally, Carell would marry one of the season 21 rookies, one-year wonder Nancy Walls, that same year.
No, he was promoting “Kicking And Screaming” which had been released the day before.
And the following week’s host Lindsay Lohan was promoting “Herbie: Fully Loaded” which was one month away from release.
As bad as Season 30 is, how come it doesn’t get brought up with the notorious 3 bad seasons (6, 11, and 20) as much?
My guess is because it wasn’t branded a failure at the time, unlike those other three seasons–after all of those other seasons, the show basically rebooted, almost wholesale changing their cast and in several cases basically saying on-air how things were bad. You didn’t see this after S30–things were less of a reboot and more welcome new blood and a slow process of improvement. While I watched S30 at the time and knew it wasn’t great, it’s not really until going back and revisiting that you realize how bad it was.
You could make the argument that people assume this season is good because Tina, Maya, Amy, Seth, Kenan, Fred, Forte, Parnell, etc. are in it. A lot of people whose tenures on SNL are generally liked by the public, as well as the things they did post-SNL. However, you could say the same thing about S20’s cast. The 2009-2010 season has a similar reputation: people like that cast so much that they don’t really notice how recycled and stale the show had gotten.
It’s not visibly falling on its face the way the other bad seasons do, either. There isn’t an episode where the studio audience is dead all the way through like S20, nor any moments where the show feels the need to self-deprecate their own loss in quality like S11. I think the show was fully comfortable with their identity just being “gay, fart, and Maya singing.”
Michael Cheyne has a good point about how this season wasn’t seen by NBC as a failure; they didn’t have to fire anyone next season except for Riggle. The ratings went down too, but not to the extent where NBC had to step in.
For what it’s worth, I think this is SNL’s worst year. S6, S11, and S20 have several fantastic sketches and moments sprinkled throughout, but a lot of the better S30 moments are kinda ‘eh’ to me. It doesn’t help how smug and lowbrow this season is, too.
“You could make the argument that people assume this season is good because Tina, Maya, Amy, Seth, Kenan, Fred, Forte, Parnell, etc. are in it. A lot of people whose tenures on SNL are generally liked by the public, as well as the things they did post-SNL. However, you could say the same thing about S20’s cast. The 2009-2010 season has a similar reputation: people like that cast so much that they don’t really notice how recycled and stale the show had gotten.”
I think the main difference between the S30 cast and the S20 cast is the people who are remembered most from that era of the show (the “bad boys”) never shook a heavy association with SNL – Farley because he died a few years after leaving, Spade because he has mostly given the same performances and persona ever since he left; Sandler has managed to find a great deal of success, but mostly after the building blocks of characters and performances viewers got to know on SNL.
With the S30 cast, you mostly either have people who aren’t associated with this period by a lot of fans (Forte, Fred, Kenan), people who went on to have shows that overtook their SNL fame (Tina on 30 Rock, Amy on Parks and Rec), or people like Parnell or Maya who were liked and remembered by fans in a positive way, but never really had a big “moment” of a breakout character or sketch. All of these paths mean that viewers were less likely to pay as much attention to or have as many memories of the material from this era of the show.
Plus, some would still leave after S31, including Sanz who many was divided on during this season. With him gone, along with Fey, Dratch, Parnell, and Mitchell, plus Meyers just doing Update and no longer in sketches, the show was able to rebound from the awful S30. Plus, I think some of the writers left too. Didn’t the other head writer with Fey for S30 get some of the blame for the bad writing and sketches?
Will’s hosting stints over the years have been a mixed bag. I’d say his ‘09 episode is his best, but this one is okay too.
The ’09 episode was also Darrell’s last episode. The weird thing was that his departure was never confirmed until the S35 premiere.
This season’s failure didn’t seem as big because fewer people were paying attention. The show had vanished into an institution, like Meet the Press. It wasn’t in danger of being cancelled in 2005. Nobody had written a savage article in the New Yorker about it. The fans were certainly complaining about it on the internet…But the mainstream media hadn’t picked up on it.
And there was a big cast turnover coming up, but Lorne Michaels staggered it over the course of a season…again, so it wouldn’t look like there were major problems.
Cheyne, I agree 100%. Year 30 compares to Year 19 for me (still not a positive comparison) insofar that what’s good is great, what’s bad is wretched, and there isn’t much in between. The “Class of 2005” arrived just in time.
Ranking the Year 30 shows, Ferrell/Queens is my second or third favorite. Like I said 15 years ago, Ferrell exposed how scattered the writing was, as well as the weaknesses of the male cast. “Going 2 C Movies” really was the only bad sketch all night. Amy, Maya, and Rachel were the MVPs of this season, but that’s my two cents.
The next show is my final TV Tome review, before the site was gobbled up by CNet.
The Para Tri-Cyclen ad may go a bit too far, but the boy holding a Nintendo DS is a nice little time capsule into when that was a new thing. I always like seeing the technology that dates an episode. It’s fun in its own geeky way.
Ascertained by the end credits, Forte brought Pepper Grinder from his portfolio of sketchwork done at the Groundlings Theater. He got guest writer’s credit for fellow Groundling Kevin Ruf who I assume played the waiter on stage (Ruf is a tall man like Ferrell).
During the DVD commentary for The Best of SNL 2006-2007, particularly the “Dancing Coach” sketch, Forte mentioned getting into some sort of tantrum over Lorne telling him for his character to lose the mustache between dress and air.
One final note, Forte named both his and Dratch’s characters of Louis and Jamie after SNL superfans Louis and Jamie Klein. Louis has gone to almost every SNL taping since the show started in Oct 1975 and Jamie had joined him since they got married. Here’s more on that:
http://www.ironicsans.com/2006/11/interview_louis_klein_the_satu.html
An episode I always liked, but wanted to love. What helps this episode over most of the rest of the season is that it never really bottoms out. What hurts is that it never quite reaches the heights you would hope.
It operates like a lot of returning castmember episodes. The old standby (Jeopardy) is a sleepwalk, but the niche return (Goulet) still boasts more life and energy. Ferrell also breathes some energy into the Nuni sketch, which was a fabulous one-off, but curdled upon repetition.
Oracle Conclave, Luxury and Pepper Grinder are all fun, semi-forgotten pieces that won’t soon dent Ferrell’s legacy. I always liked Pepper Grinder, but saw it as a merely good Forte piece. The previous season had far more fun performances.
My favorite piece might be the opening, but I’m a sucker for backstage cold opens. Anything to get away from a straight-to-camera address.
I saw someone refer to Dratch, Rudolph and Poehler as the season’s MVPs. I can’t agree with that totally. Rudolph certainly did as much harm as good, if not more. Dratch was fine, but didn’t really hit this season. Poehler had a 77-78 Aykroyd season. Stellar sketch work, but WTF with Update?
This season was when I became a fan of Amy, so I have a huge soft spot for her this season and I’d give her the MVP (followed by Will and Fred). She was such a work horse. Her performance inThe Barbara Boxer sketch from the Paul Giamatti episode is one of my personal faves.
I’m not a big Darrell fan but I feel like I have to give him an MVP this season – a lot of fun impressions and a number of strong solo pieces. He also seems less mannered and in need of audience approval than in some previous seasons.
I have to second Carson’s spot-on description of Amy’s year. And also the general consensus on why s30 isn’t lumped in with the “notorious 3.” At this time, the general public was just kind of apathetic. I think in the 2002 Shales book, Gilbert Gottfried describes SNL as “just a restaurant in a good location”… when I read that back in ’02, I disagreed. But by ’05, it seemed like a perfect description.
Stooge — or anyone — I seem to recall a really obvious jump cut in the cold open. I can’t recall if I saw this episode live or in a rerun. So if that’s in the live show, I assume the cold open was pre-taped? But if I saw the rerun, does anyone know what was cut, and why? Or maybe there was just some technical glitch at WMAQ that night and they had their delay on by accident or something
The woman in question in the last screenshot is Will’s longtime wife: Viveca.
In the art dealers sketch, Will plays his music from a first generation iPod Shuffle, which was basically a flash drive with a headphone jack and a play button. Will’s handling of the prop makes it appear as if he thought it was a remote, which I find amusing. Also amusing to me is Rachel only being visible from the knees down for the entire middle of the sketch. Maya talked about the Nuni characters on Late Night once, and there was a still from this sketch, and Seth had no recollection of having been in it.
I think the absurdity in the Shazzang cartoon hits a perfect level when he kicks his victim’s mother in the stomach, causing her to vomit, then turns the vomit into rats which immediately swarm her. But there’s something special about going to the perfect level and then going two steps further.
This episode has a few lines that have become running jokes with me and my sister, because I once made her a video CD of this episode (yes, video CD; I didn’t have a DVD burner in 2005) that was one of her primary forms of entertainment when she moved out of state for a year. (She accidentally left the disc behind, but I think it had done its job amply by then). The mispronunciations of “Greg” and “Susan” by Maya, Fred, and Will (Zweezoo, Shrufus, Greasy, Shoeshine, and Hehh-hoo); “It is a numbah, numbah two, get it?” plus Kenan’s Cosby noises; “Party on the highway! I’m gonna drink beer dirt in Canada!”; “I’m honestly trying to think: did I smoke a dookie cigar?”—all of these have stayed with us (and to some extent our other siblings) for these 16 years (exactly!) since this aired.
I was surprised enough people remembered Shazzan for SNL to spoof it. Shazzang was indeed disturbing, however did anyone notice the Nancy character seemed to go through puberty during the sketch?