Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
CRONYISM
George W. Bush (WLF) & Supreme Court pick Harriet Miers (RAD) are cronies
— Looking back at this topical cold opening years later, this serves as a time capsule of a period where the related words “Harriet Miers” and “crony” were all over the news at the time. This reminds me that, in terms of Bush-related news, we’re not too far away from the time where the name Scooter Libby was all over the news for a while, which SNL gets some mentions of sometime around this season’s Lance Armstrong episode.
— An amusing way Will’s President Bush greets his crony, Rachel as Harriet Miers, by lifting her in his arms.
— I’m three minutes into this cold opening so far, and there’s not much going on. While I still remember the news story this is spoofing, and while all of the cast members are performing this well, this cold opening is washing over me. Nothing noteworthy is happening here.
— I have absolutely no memory of the news story about Alberto Gonzales that this sketch has suddenly turned into a spoof of, with Horatio showing up as Gonzales and Will’s Bush acting very guilty around him. I did get a laugh from the way Will’s Bush nervously greets him with a fake-friendly “Al-ber-tooooo”.
— The long silent responses from Horatio’s Gonzales throughout his scene feel kinda overdone.
STARS: **
OPENING MONTAGE
— Chris Parnell has been removed from the montage, as he will be absent from these next two episodes while he’s away filming episodes of Thick And Thin, a Paula Pell-involved new NBC sitcom that ends up never airing.
MONOLOGUE
host’s college friend (JAS) appears to have inspired Napoleon Dynamite
— Jason is great as Jon Heder’s old college roommate, Leopold Samsonite, who Napoleon Dynamite is clearly based on, but Jon keeps denying.
— A good laugh from Fred popping in as a knock-off of Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite.
— Wow, Will is an absolute dead ringer for Kip Dynamite. Perfect casting here. His mere appearance gets a great response from the audience.
— Another early display of Jason’s knack for fun dancing.
STARS: ***½
TACO TOWN
the Pizza Crepe Taco Pancake Chili Bag is a many-layered treat
— Even when taking this episode off and being removed from the opening montage, Chris Parnell is technically still a part of tonight’s episode, as we hear his unmistakable voice as the announcer throughout this commercial.
— I absolutely love how the only performers appearing in this commercial are this season’s three featured players: Jason, Andy, and Bill. Such a great group of newbies, and it only gets even better when a certain fourth featured player is added to the cast a few episodes from now.
— This commercial comes to a brief halt by a huge technical error: for about four seconds, this commercial, including the audio, abruptly gets interrupted by an accidental cutaway to a silent exterior still shot of a funeral home (the fifth above screencap for this commercial) that’s supposed to be used for a sketch later tonight. You can hear very uncomfortable and confused light chuckles from the SNL audience during the awkward silence in the studio while this funeral home shot is onscreen. Ha, this technical gaffe oddly cracks me up every time I watch this. Back when this episode originally aired, I recall some online SNL fans saying they initially thought the accidental cutaway to a funeral home was an intentional part of this Taco Town commercial, as some kind of twist implying that eating this commercial’s unhealthy-looking taco would send a person straight to the grave.
— I’m loving the insane escalation to this, with the increasingly ridiculous food items being wrapped around the taco.
— Andy: “Pizza?!? Now THAT’S what I call a taco!”
— I absolutely love Jason’s ending maniacal shriek of “TAAAACOOOO TOOOOOWN!!!”
STARS: ****½
4TH GRADE SCIENCE FAIR
at school, Kaitlin & (host) give a science fair presentation on insects
— Only 11 minutes into tonight’s episode, and the somewhat-new Jason Sudeikis has ALREADY been very prominent.
— A good setting for Kaitlin, and it’s interesting to see her in a classroom for once.
— A pretty funny character trait with Jon always prefacing each sentence during his report by declaring what kind of a statement he’s making (e.g. “fact”, “personal anecdote”, etc.).
— Much like the topical Harriet Miers/crony cold opening, we get another time capsule of the year 2005, with the Dance Dance Revolution portion of this Kaitlin sketch, which really takes me back to how big that game seemed to be around this time.
— I love Kaitlin’s quivery-voiced nervousness when Jon’s character leaves her in front of the classroom by herself, and how Rick sweetly tries to get her out of it.
— Jason is great at the beginning and end of this sketch as the teacher. I especially love his delivery of his ending line “We gotta make this stuff more about science next year, guys”.
STARS: ***½
WEREWOLF
mustache growth is the extent of (host)’s transformation into a werewolf
— Pretty funny reveal of Jon’s alleged werewolf transformation turning out to be him merely growing a mustache.
— There’s Jason once again tonight.
— Yet another nice pairing tonight of the three featured players.
— Not much to say about this overall sketch, but it was decent for me.
STARS: ***
THE MISADVENTURES OF TOM DELAY AND BILL FRIST
Tom DeLay (WLF) & Bill Frist (JAS) drive away from their legal troubles
— Jason’s huge night continues. He’s EVERYWHERE in this episode.
— I love the idea of this sketch.
— I was about to ask why SNL took the Tom DeLay role away from Chris Parnell and gave it to Will, until I remembered that Chris is absent tonight. Amazing that I already forgot that. Chris’ absence also probably explains why Jason has been having such a huge presence tonight.
— I like the running bit throughout this sketch with Will’s DeLay exclaiming “Jackrabbit!” and shooting his gun off-camera.
— Ah, a surprise appearance from Darrell’s Bill Clinton.
— The “S-E-X” line from Darrell’s Clinton was a lame and telegraphed joke that I didn’t laugh at, and neither did most of the audience, the latter of which is surprising, as the audience usually eats up any sexual-related line from Darrell’s Clinton.
— When this sketch originally aired and I wasn’t yet very familiar with Jason, I remember noticing while watching this sketch that he facially looked like a cross between Jeff Richards and Kiefer Sutherland. I now no longer see the Jeff Richards resemblance, but I definitely still see the Sutherland resemblance.
— Overall, I found this sketch okay, but like the Werewolf sketch that preceded it, it didn’t fully live up to its potential and not much stood out.
STARS: ***
¡SHOW BIZ GRANDE EXPLOSION!
Fericito liked Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite
— This sketch makes its final appearance.
— Maybe it’s because of SNL’s new HD format this season, but the set for this sketch looks nicer to me this season.
— A good addition to this sketch with Bill as a new member of Fericito’s house band.
— Bill’s able to get laughs from me even in a silent role, with that eager open-mouthed smile he has on his face the whole time throughout this sketch.
— Overall, some laughs here and there, but overall, I can’t say I’m going to miss this recurring sketch. I never could get into it all that much aside from the one with Snoop Dogg, and that was only because of Snoop’s very fun performance.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Catch Me When I Fall”
WEEKEND UPDATE
self-styled Supreme Court candidate Tim Calhoun lists his qualifications
Everglades python story turns into HOS & AMP performing “Baby Got Back”
LOM sexually harassed AMP by questioning her need to wear a bra
— I got a laugh from Horatio’s sign-on at the beginning, in which he randomly says his first and last name in a very heavy Spanish accent.
— Amy’s “Lost” joke about President Bush was okay on paper, but her delivery of it was SO corny. Ugh.
— Horatio continues to do a surprisingly decent job as an Update anchor. At this point, do we NEED Tina back? You know how I feel about how she’s been at the Update desk the last three seasons before this. She returns in the very next episode, too. Damn. It’s going to be a bummer for me to go from Horatio’s surprisingly refreshing approach as a temporary Update anchor to Tina’s beyond-tired regular antics at the Update desk, which I do not need another season of. I say keep Horatio as an Update anchor for the remainder of this season and keep him out of sketches. That would’ve actually been a graceful way for him to end his 8 years on SNL.
— Hell yeah! Tim Calhoun! We surprisingly haven’t seen him in over a year. He was completely absent in the dire season 30.
— I love Calhoun listing off his various convictions.
— An absolutely priceless turn with Calhoun reading off an index card of his which states “Note from self: don’t mention food court”, then him panickedly whispering to himself when realizing he’s already mentioned a food court earlier in this commentary, then he inexplicably goes on to re-state the exact same food court mention from earlier. All funny stuff.
— Ugh, I absolutely HATED Amy’s cutesy “business babies” joke, as well as Amy’s VERY extended giggling over the “cute” picture.
— I thought the interplay between Horatio and Amy these past two Updates was an improvement over the interplay we typically get between Tina and Amy, but this “Baby Got Back” bit that Horatio and Amy are now doing seems exactly like the type of awful bit Tina and Amy would do on Update, though this one isn’t annoying me quite as much.
— Not caring for Amy’s performance in tonight’s Update in general, which is a bummer after the improvement she showed as an Update anchor in the preceding episode. Her delivery, timing, AND jokes are off tonight. Horatio’s been having the better delivery and jokes tonight, despite some iffy moments.
— The pre-taped sexual harassment scene, with Lorne coming up to Amy, randomly asking her if she’s wearing a bra, then, after she answers “Yeah”, asking her “What the hell for?”, gave me a huge laugh, just for Lorne’s great delivery and the way he walked off in an amused manner afterwards. Given the Me Too era in more recent years, I wouldn’t be surprised if this scene would bother some people nowadays, but Lorne’s very funny delivery of his one-liner makes it still work for me.
— Speaking of the pre-taped Lorne scene, the very end of it would be replaced with an alternate version in reruns, in which, from what my fuzzy memory of it recalls, after Lorne says his “What the hell for?” one-liner to Amy and then leaves, the scene ends with a big close-up of Amy looking comically distraught, whereas the live airing of the scene just ends with a wide shot of both Amy and Horatio sitting there, with Amy in shock over what Lorne had just said, while Horatio has a blank, un-phased look on his face.
STARS: **½
WILSON BROS. FUNERAL HOME
at a funeral home, friends successively go from mourners to corpses
— Ha, here’s the sketch that the accidental shot of a funeral home in tonight’s earlier Taco Town commercial came from.
— I know this is only his second episode as a featured player, but I feel bad that Bill’s stuck playing this sketch’s first dead body in a coffin, because, unlike the other cast members who we’ll be seeing in a coffin as this sketch progresses, we never got to see Bill’s character alive before he was shown dead in the coffin. They might as well have gotten an extra to play Bill’s role. Heh, Bill got “Gilbert Gottfried-ed” in this sketch, if you understand that reference to a very obscure funeral sketch from season 6.
— Guess what? Jason shows up in yet another prominent role tonight.
— A funny cutaway to a smile on a dead Will’s face after it’s revealed that he died of a stroke during sex.
— I love the way Finesse keeps saying “Don’t mind if I do!” in a very high-pitched, friendly voice whenever he’s offered a snack.
— For some reason, I like how you can hear the VERY loud off-camera sounds of cast members getting in and out of the coffins whenever Fred is shown outside of the funeral room. Also, are we supposed to always see Fred switching the names on the “In Memoriam” board whenever the camera cuts to him?
— A very funny blooper just now: when the camera first cuts to the funeral room during the Finesse/Rachel joint funeral, a supposed-to-be-dead Rachel can accidentally be seen still getting inside her coffin, then she quickly “plays dead” when realizing she’s on camera, but can’t help herself from uncontrollably laughing, so she turns away from the camera to hide her laughter, all of which humorously ruins the illusion that her character is dead. When Amy notices Rachel’s uncontrollable laughing, she starts cracking up as well. Admirably, Jason, who’s delivering a lot of dialogue during this blooper, doesn’t let the blooper phase him at all, showing what a true pro he is.
— A very funny cutaway to a dead Finesse in his coffin with his hands in a strangling position after it’s been revealed that before dying from poisoned food he ate, Finesse strangled Rachel to death for giving him that food in the first place.
— A great deadpan one-liner from Kenan, with him telling Amy “Don’t bring that death box around me” when she tries to hug him.
— I am loving the escalation of this bizarre sketch.
— Throughout this sketch, Jason is great in his explanations of the ways each character died.
— Ha, with the way SNL’s control room has to keep constantly cutting to the exterior shot of the funeral home all throughout this sketch, I think I’m starting to understand why that technical gaffe occurred during the Taco Town commercial earlier tonight.
— Excellent line about how Amy’s boss fired her because she was taking so many sick days to go to all these funerals lately.
— Funny twist with Fred holding Jason at gunpoint.
— Jon sure screwed up that “Now no one will call me Four-Eyes again” line during the big reveal in the climax of this sketch.
— I’ve been getting a bit of a Jack McBrayer vibe from the way Jon looks during some points of tonight’s episode.
— Overall, I loved this sketch. Even with some sloppiness (most of which actually amused me), this was a fun, very well-written, and elaborately-structured sketch that refreshingly felt out-of-the-ordinary for SNL, especially coming so soon after the creatively bankrupt season 30.
STARS: ****½
HUBBARD SYSTEMS RETREAT
(SEM) admonishes employees for pranks pulled after company retreat party
— Wow, this is Seth’s first (and only) appearance ALL NIGHT. I didn’t even realize until now that he had been missing from this episode. Now that I think of it, I can remember how him making his first and only appearance so late in tonight’s episode was a huge shock to online SNL fans (including me) back when this episode originally aired, especially after his increased airtime in the preceding season 30. Then we remembered that Seth is a writing supervisor this season, so we then figured Seth’s lack of airtime in tonight’s episode must’ve been because he was sacrificing his onscreen presence to work hard behind the scenes as a writing supervisor. (And given the noticeable upswing in the quality of SNL’s writing this season, I have absolutely no complaints about Seth focusing more of his time in the writers room. And Lorne certainly must’ve been impressed by Seth’s behind-the-scenes work as a writing supervisor, because Seth would later be promoted from writing supervisor to co-head writer halfway through this season.) Seth’s limited airtime in sketches goes on to be pretty much a regular thing this season, to the degree that there’s even one episode towards the end of this season (the Tom Hanks episode, I think) where Seth doesn’t appear AT ALL. Also, now that I realize Seth has been absent for most of tonight’s episode, that, along with the aforementioned fact that Chris is absent tonight, is a big explanation for why Jason has been absolutely DOMINATING tonight’s episode in lots of utility male roles.
— Ha, speaking of Jason dominating tonight, there he shows up ONCE AGAIN in another noteworthy role tonight. And by this point of tonight’s episode back when it originally aired in 2005, I remember being officially 100% sold on Jason, after not having any real opinion of him in his previous episodes as a cast member. His strong showing throughout tonight’s episode proved to me back in 2005 that he was absolutely the next “SNL everyman” that the show had desperately needed for several years.
— Jason is hilarious in his anger here.
— After Jason threateningly says “Wipe that grin off your face, Sanji!”, I love the camera cutting to a silent Fred with a grin on his face.
— Rachel’s delivery of her parting line, “I’ll haunt you all from my grave!”, was hilarious.
— I love Seth’s delivery when calling out Amy on the fact that her doing the finger/eye thing towards Jon gives away the fact that she was the one behind the prank done to Jon.
— Solid sketch overall.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Boyfriend”
VOICE RECORDING BLIND DATE
automated phone menu voicer Julie (RAD) goes on a blind date with (host)
— Good to see Rachel getting better roles tonight than she got in the season premiere. The airtime between her and Amy, as the only two working female cast members at this point of the season, feels a little more balanced to me tonight, unlike the preceding week’s season premiere, in which Amy was given a Bill-Murray-in-season-5-esque huge workload in carrying almost EVERY single main female role while the underappreciated Rachel was left with nothing but two forgettable small roles and a Debbie Downer sketch buried at the very end of the show.
— A good and spot-on performance from Rachel as an automated phone voice recording worker, and this is a decent setting for this concept. Rachel’s getting all the details of automated phone voice recordings down perfectly.
— A very solid ending, leaving this to be a short and sweet sketch.
STARS: ***½
1-800-555-PHUNK
The Black Eyed Peas (AMP), (FIM), (KET), (host) are willing to sell out
— I like Bill’s scruffy, casual look as the spokesman.
— Funny spoof of a real Best Buy commercial that The Black Eyed Peas starred in at this time. Something even funnier about that is, back when this episode originally aired, the very first commercial to air after this Black Eyed Peas spoof ended was the real Black Eyed Peas/Best Buy commercial.
— The casting of Amy as Fergie is surprisingly the first time all night that I’ve noticed Maya’s been absent from this episode (it didn’t even cross my mind when I subconsciously mentioned earlier in this review that Amy and Rachel are the only two working female cast members at this point of the season), as Maya has begun her maternity leave this week, and if she had been available and wasn’t pregnant, she WITHOUT A DOUBT would’ve played Fergie in this commercial. So weird to think that there are THREE cast members missing from the show this week (Maya, Tina, and Chris). Also so weird to think this episode has literally only two women performing in sketches (Amy and Rachel). The very large size of this season’s cast makes it easy to not notice the absence of so many cast members, as well as the onscreen near-absence of Seth. In a much smaller cast, just imagine how empty the cast would feel if three (three-and-a-half if you count Seth’s near absence) cast members were simultaneously absent in a single episode.
— The Bar Mitzvah scene is hilarious.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode. The post-Weekend Update half was particularly strong and absolutely flawless, in my eyes. So far, I am absolutely loving the feel of this new season. It cannot be said enough how much this season has done a much-needed turnaround from the terrible season that preceded it. In fact, after having to cover THREE consecutive weak seasons (seasons 28-30), it feels so refreshing to be positive about SNL in my reviews again.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Steve Carell)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Catherine Zeta-Jones