Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
IRAQ PRESS CONFERENCE
Prime Minister al-Maliki (FRA) indicates Iraq is even worse than it seems
— It certainly feels quite odd seeing Will standing across from Jason’s President Bush, considering Jason had recently started replacing Will in that role.
— Oh, god, a translator cold opening? I see Jim Downey strikes once again.
— Yeah, Downey’s dry comedic style is all over Will’s dialogue. This is the type of dryness that worked in spades back in Downey’s prime, but in these later, past-his-prime years of Downey’s tenure, especially in damn translator cold openings, that dry style is often a slog to get through, despite some occasional genuine laughs in tonight’s cold opening, like the flashlights line, and the line about a mouse bomb blowing a guy’s toe off.
STARS: **
MONOLOGUE
floundering Michael Richards (BIH) wants to share SNL gig with host
— The SNL nerd in me has to nitpick how, when talking about his Party Of Five co-stars, Matthew Fox claims Jennifer Love Hewitt hosted before Scott Wolf, when it was actually the other way around.
— I like the dark turn with Matthew detailing the downward spiral he went through just from being the odd man out in terms of Party Of Five stars hosting while that show was still on.
— To nitpick even further, Matthew’s technically not even the odd man out in terms of Party Of Five stars hosting. Lacey Chabert, anyone? Maybe they’re not counting her because of how young she was during Party Of Five’s run (though it’s not like SNL hasn’t had children or especially teens host over the years).
— Pretty fun bit with Matthew’s mention of other members of sitcom ensembles who were the odd man out in terms of hosting SNL.
— A killer impression of Michael-Richards-as-Kramer from Bill, on the heels of Michael Richards’ notorious Laugh Factory incident. I remember Bill later disclosing in an interview that he didn’t even have a Kramer impression in his back pocket before the week of this episode. When this monologue was being concocted, an SNL writer (or someone in the show’s staff) just pointed at Bill and told him “You’re Kramer”, presumably because of Bill’s knack for great celebrity impressions, and the writer was adamant about keeping Bill in the role even after Bill explained he doesn’t have a Kramer impression. Bill then had to study Kramer in a whole bunch of Seinfeld clips in order to get the impression down by that weekend. The fact that he only had a few days to put this Kramer impression together makes it all the more impressive how much he’s nailing it here.
STARS: ***½
SALE MART
overworked & underpaid Sale Mart employees pass savings along to customers
— A big laugh from Kenan’s messed-up teeth.
— This is over already?!? This felt too short, and I had been looking forward to seeing this go further with the humor.
STARS: **½
NANCY GRACE
(KET) & (host) refuse to play the victimization game
— The stock theme music that I mentioned in my review of the previous Nancy Grace sketch this season has been replaced with new music tonight. Odd.
— Kenan’s playing a better political talking head straight man here than he played in the O’Reilly Factor sketch from the preceding episode.
— A clever bit with Amy-as-Nancy-Grace’s whole spiel about how, if Michael Richards sued himself, the case would be called Kramer vs. Kramer.
— A good laugh from Amy-as-Grace’s “The only n-word I would call you is ‘nice’” line to Kenan, as well as Kenan’s reaction to that.
— I like the bit with Amy’s Grace acting out how she would’ve reacted to the O.J. Simpson special if she had watched it.
— The “This pen feels lighter” running bit is a weak variation of the “This chair has been moved” running bit from the first Nancy Grace sketch this season.
— The pacing is badly sluggish during Amy-as-Grace’s interview of Matthew’s character. It’s hurting the momentum of this sketch for me.
STARS: ***
DEEP HOUSE DISH
new sidekick T’Shane (ANS) digs (MAR), (host), (AMP)
— Oh, no. SNL has decided to keep these Deep House Dish sketches going even after Rachel Dratch’s departure.
— A fake-out with an “in memoriam” screen being shown for Rachel’s Tiara Zee character (at least I now know she was born the same year I was: 1984), leading us to initially assume SNL killed her off, only for it to be revealed that she’s just dead to Kenan’s character.
— Andy gets the “honors” of being the new Deep House Dish co-host. All this means is we now get to hear an endless, annoying amount of “Ooh-wee, T-Shane!”s instead of “Ooh-wee, Tiara!”s. Oh, gee, what a huge change-up. At least, unlike Tiara and her alleged boring-ness, T-Shane gets called out by Kenan’s character on differing things each time, not that that’s much funnier.
— Maya makes her very first appearance in a Deep House Dish installment (the previous installments were all when she happened to be absent from SNL for maternal reasons), which seems very fitting, as she was born to play singers in these Deep House Dish sketches, and James Anderson (the writer of these sketches) always seems to love writing musical numbers for Maya.
— I like Matthew just dropping his mic and walking off the stage in an aloof, badass manner at the end of his musical performance.
— Amy continues her streak of appearing as a different singer in every single Deep House Dish up to this point.
— Amy’s Cologne For Christmas song at least has a very catchy beat, I admit.
STARS: **
“LOST” THEORIES
in an elevator, Lost fans (FRA), (AMP), (MAR), (KET), (ANS) accost host
— I love Fred’s little smirk when he recognizes Matthew.
— Fred is always good at getting laughs out of roles like this.
— A lot of entertaining and relatable realism in this sketch so far (realism that the cast is pulling off so well), and a good spoof of the Lost craze among people. Even though I’ve never been a Lost viewer myself, I can still follow and enjoy what this sketch is going for, because having to deal with people following the craze for hot TV shows is always relatable, regardless of what show it is.
— I love Andy just smugly saying “Purgatory” as soon as he recognizes Matthew.
— A laugh from Maya casually deciding to lie down on the elevator floor when she’s embarrassed to find out Matthew is married with two children.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Kickapoo”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Jesse Jackson (DAH) & Al Sharpton (KET) propose “Kramer” as new N-word
Aunt Linda is perplexed & perturbed by Borat, Casino Royale, Apocalypto
AMP editorializes against recent trend of ladies’ uncovered naughty bits
Whitney Houston (MAR) is flummoxed by a crank phone call
— This is the first Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton joint Update commentary since the days when Jerry Minor regularly played Sharpton in these commentaries. I prefer Jerry’s take.
— Jackson and Sharpton deciding “Kramer” is the new n-word is pretty funny.
— Geez, Aunt Linda has become recurring ALREADY, after debuting only two episodes prior? I found this character decent in her debut, but this doesn’t seem like it will have legs as a recurring bit.
— Yep, just as I was worried, Aunt Linda’s routine is suffering diminishing returns tonight. I’m especially tired of her ratings system gimmick, which is increasingly coming off more corny than genuinely funny.
— Oh, I have good memories of this straight-to-camera editorial Amy’s doing about the then-current trend of young female celebrities “flashing beav” in public. I recall this being one of Amy’s better pieces from her Update tenure.
— Yep, Amy’s editorial is just as solid as I had remembered. I particularly love her comment about how she remembers the days when a “lady garden” was as big as a slice of New York pizza before turning into an upside-down John Waters mustache. I can’t help but feel like this is material that Tina Fey would’ve delivered back in her prime years of Weekend Update (2000-2002), but Amy is performing it well in her own right, and it’s a refreshing change of pace from her usual Update persona.
— Our first Maya-as-Whitney-Houston Update commentary this season, which I recall going on to appear awfully frequently season, much like Aunt Linda.
— The concept of Maya’s Whitney reacting to a prank phone call is pretty funny, but blah, Maya’s execution of it is far more annoying than funny to me.
STARS: ***
MOUNTAIN MAN
AMP, KRW, MAR, Emily Spivey [real] twist script to make host kiss them
— I’m enjoying the exaggerated goofiness of this sketch so far, especially Amy and Kristen’s accents.
— Oh, I’m liking the fourth-wall break with Kristen’s “discreet” directions to Matthew on how to kiss her in this sketch.
— Ah, now this sketch has FULLY broken the fourth wall, with it being acknowledged that this sketch has been “re-written” to have Matthew do and say a whole bunch of sexual things towards Amy and Kristen. I’m loving this meta turn. Feels kinda like it’s in the tradition of those great fourth-wall-breaking Killer Bees sketches from the original SNL era.
— A very funny brief cutaway to SNL writer Emily Spivey, right after we’re told she wrote herself into the scene.
— Oh, now this has gotten even greater with Maya entering as Lorne, which also proves that just about every SNL cast member can do a spot-on Lorne impression.
STARS: ****½
HISTORY BUFF
home from college, math whiz (ANS) comes out to history buff father (WLF)
— Yet another episode this season where Will barely appears in any sketches. Again, I have to ask, is he busy filming a movie?
— I love Will’s character’s habit of quickly spouting off the birth and/or death dates of historical figures he casually brings up.
— Will’s screaming, glass-shattering outburst when Andy reveals he’s a math whiz is classic Forte.
— Kristen’s over-dramatic, horrified reactions to Andy coming out as a math whiz are great, as is how this then turns into Andy and Will both trying to one-up each other by angrily spouting off random math/history facts to each other.
— I like how Matthew’s random entrance as the professor of the history of math is upping the absurdity of this already-delightfully-absurd sketch.
— Will’s tearful reveal that he never learned to count is absolutely priceless.
— When the family wonders “Who was that strange man?” after Matthew’s character has randomly disappeared, I got a big laugh from Will’s line “I don’t know…..but he stole our television.”
— An overall perfectly executed sketch, and one of my all-time favorite oddball Will Forte sketches.
STARS: *****
THE FIRST CHOCOLATE
dramatized theory blames chocolate for downfall of Mayan civilization
— Given the subject matter of the sketch that preceded this, it’s unintentionally funny how this is a History Channel sketch.
— The premise itself is only mildly funny, but Fred is performing this simplistic material really well. Matthew is pretty good here too. The execution of this sketch is giving it a real charm that’s fun.
— Bill’s whole bit was fantastic.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Metal”; The Metal (Jason Reed) smites genres
— Oh, this is incredible with how most of the SNL cast is getting involved in this performance, with each cast member representing a different genre of music trying to take down heavy metal. One of the most fun and out-of-the-ordinary musical performances in SNL history.
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A fairly solid episode, bolstered by the very strong post-Weekend Update half, which started off with a fantastic one-two punch of the Mountain Man and History Buff sketches, then gave us the charming First Chocolate sketch, and then finished off the show with an absolutely epic cast-involved Tenacious D musical performance.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ludacris)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Annette Bening