Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BLAGOJEVICH HEARING
profane Rod Blagojevich (JAS) asks U.S. Senate for a personal bailout
— (*groan*) Boy, am I getting tired of the overuse of the C-SPAN framing device for this season’s cold openings and sketches. It smacks of laziness to me on Jim Downey’s part.
— Funny initial visual of Jason in that Rod Blagojevich wig, and I got a laugh from his bleeped-out intro statement.
— Funny line from Casey’s Elizabeth Dole about Blagojevich being a disgrace to any other state besides Illinois.
— Great to see Bill’s hilarious Robert Byrd impression back. By the way, this sadly ends up being Bill’s ONLY appearance all night.
— Some of the bleeps of Jason-as-Blagojevich’s expletives are timed a little awkwardly (and at one point, accidentally gives away the fact that Jason says “frick” in place of the actual f-word), which is guess is to be expected for a live sketch. Probably the reason why a bleep-filled Rahm Emanuel sketch that Andy does the following season is pre-taped in advance.
— I love Will’s incredulous delivery of “You want the…government to pay you extortion money……..in return for not burning down the U.S. Capitol Building????”
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host avoids music royalties with a medley of Christmas song snippets
— Among his many thanks at the beginning of this, Hugh Laurie thanks “Sweetcheeks”, as a nice little callback to his previous SNL monologue, in which he named the collective audience Sweetcheeks while lovingly addressing them. I wonder how many audience members in tonight’s episode got the reference.
— After how fantastic Hugh’s previous monologue was, I’m looking forward to this.
— Hugh calling 2008 a bad year and saying it had so many downers seems kinda trivial in hindsight, in comparison to our current year (2020, for anyone reading this in the future). Also, I was about to ask, what downers in 2008 are Hugh referring to, because I don’t recall ’08 being known as a bad year, until I just now remembered the financial crisis, which was huge. Are there any other big downers in 2008 Hugh was referring to?
— Very funny bit with Hugh giving a tiny chapstick to an audience member as a Christmas gift.
— An okay bit with Hugh singing a medley of Christmas classics that consists only of three-second snippets of each song, so SNL won’t have to pay royalties. Something seems kinda cliched about that gag, but Hugh’s making it work.
STARS: ****
BRONX BEAT WITH BETTY & JODI
British butcher’s (host) accent makes Betty & Jodi flirty
— Another Maya Rudolph cameo this season. A planned Bronx Beat sketch actually got scrapped from the last episode Maya cameoed in earlier this season, the Jon Hamm episode, due to a then-pregnant Amy going into labor and giving birth hours before the live show.
— This is the final Bronx Beat installment with either Amy or Maya still in the SNL cast, as tonight is Amy’s final episode as a cast member, which is presumably the reason SNL brought this sketch back tonight. (This sketch would continue to make occasional appearances after this, when either Amy or Maya are hosting SNL.) Speaking of which, this sketch also has the distinction of appearing in Maya and Amy’s respective final episode as a cast member.
— Good part with Amy and Maya eagerly making Hugh say British versions of American words.
— Amy’s character, in regards to her and Maya’s character: “I wish we had accents.”
— A particularly great and raunchy part with Amy and Maya asking Hugh what his favorite meat body part is. Amy and Maya’s characters seem even hornier than usual tonight, which is certainly saying something.
STARS: ****
DYSFUNCTIONAL CHRISTMAS DINNER
(JAS), (host), (CAW), (WLF), (KRW) are on hair triggers at holiday dinner
— Here’s a sketch I’ve always had very fond memories of, and has (rightfully) been played in many SNL Christmas compilation specials.
— The performers are doing such a great job conveying the tenseness of this dinner.
— The “Anyone need more wine?” “YES!” bit is very funny.
— I’m enjoying the running gag throughout this sketch with everybody yelling “Sit down, Judith!” whenever Kristen angrily gets up to leave. During one of those “Sit down, Judith!” sequences, I particularly love how Jason yells “CHAIR, BUTT, NOW!”
— Hugh’s sudden “DAMMIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!” outburst absolutely SLAYS me every time I watch this sketch.
— Funny sudden turn with Hugh’s random, tender singing of “Silent Night”, and how he’s eventually joined in by everyone else.
STARS: ****½
WEDDING TOAST
wedding reception emcee (JAS) can’t stem the flow of unwanted toasters
— This is the first edition of this series of wedding/funeral speech sketches, featuring the same cast of oddball characters.
— Great to see Jason so prominent in tonight’s episode so far, especially given how little he had been appearing the last few episodes prior to this. In fact, he didn’t appear in the preceding week’s John Malkovich-hosted episode AT ALL. Speaking of which, I remember it was pointed out by some online SNL fans back at this time in 2008 that Jason looks really sullen during the goodnights of the episode I’m currently reviewing. It would be revealed not too long after this episode’s original airing that Jason was going through a rough divorce at this time, which perhaps explains his unhappy demeanor in this episode’s goodnights. I also used to think it explained his aforementioned absence in the Malkovich episode, as I assumed maybe Jason asked Lorne for a week off so he can deal with the personal hardships he was going through in regards to his divorce, but when watching and reviewing that Malkovich episode yesterday, I was surprised to notice that not only could Jason be seen during that episode’s goodnights despite his mysterious absence from the show itself, he was also all smiles in those goodnights, looking like he was in an upbeat mood. For anyone who’s seen the James Franco-made behind-the-scenes documentary on that Malkovich episode, was Jason shown in it? Was he in any of the sketches that got cut from the live show? Thanks in advance.
— I love Hugh’s very dry voice in this sketch.
— I see that both Fred and Kristen are, separately, playing characters that have a look that’s very quintessential of typical Armisen and Wiig characters. That’s not a bad thing to me in this particular sketch’s case, as I’m enjoying Fred and Kristen’s characters here.
— Bobby steals this sketch with his very random “(*grabs mic*) WHAAAAAAAT?!? (*drops mic in a badass manner*)” bit.
— Jason’s a great frustrated straight man.
— Oh, we now get the debut of Will’s racist, anti-Obama character, Hamilton, probably my favorite aspect of this series of wedding/funeral speech sketches. He even eventually gets spun off into his own sketches in season 35.
— Once again, Will is excellent at pulling off ballsy, touchy humor.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Love Lockdown”
WEEKEND UPDATE
David Paterson (FRA) gives criteria for senator replacement candidates
incredulous SEM & AMP say “Really!?!” to Rod Blagojevich’s obstinance
wandering David Paterson (FRA) interrupts AMP’s emotional valedictory
— The final Weekend Update of the Amy Poehler era.
— The debut of Fred’s David Paterson impression. Judging from things I’ve read in the comments section of some of my recent reviews, I take it these David Paterson commentaries are not looked back on fondly by most SNL fans nowadays. I personally recall really liking the first few Paterson commentaries (before they got run into the ground, in typical Fred Armisen fashion) back when they originally aired, so we’ll see how these Paterson commentaries hold up for me after all these years.
— Lots of cheap blind jokes so far in tonight’s Paterson commentary, though I’m enjoying Fred’s performance.
— Seth, to Fred’s David Paterson: “Governor, what do you have against New Jersey?” Paterson: “Unfortunately, a southern border.” I feel like I should be ashamed for laughing so much at that.
— Fred’s Paterson got yet another laugh from me just now, by saying his crazy life is the plot of a Richard Pryor movie.
— There goes our obligatory instance of a blind Fred Armisen wandering around lost in front of the camera, blocking the person speaking to the camera. That routine is still making me chuckle, but I found it funnier when Fred previously did it as his blind stand-up comedian character, Pep Walters.
— Great to see a “Really?!?” segment in Amy’s final Update.
— Some strong lines from Amy in tonight’s “Really?!?”, especially the bit about how she uses circus tickets as a codename for weed when ordering it over the phone. I also like her delivery of “The first time I saw you, I thought you were walking away”, regarding Rod Blagojevich and his odd hair.
— Ah, now we get a special, tender goodbye message from Amy, acknowledging that this is her final episode. This is actually making my eyes start to tear up a bit, to be honest. The nature of this SNL project of mine, with me doing daily reviews in chronological order, gets me so attached to certain SNL cast members, much moreso than I had ever been before. I also feel like it was just yesterday when I reviewed Amy’s very first episode (Reese Witherspoon/Alicia Keys from season 27), which is part of why it now feels very emotional for me to see Amy’s goodbye message. Doing this SNL project is such an interesting ride for me.
— Right in the middle of Amy’s tender goodbye message, we get ANOTHER sudden interruption from Fred’s wandering Paterson again blocking the camera. I admit, that bit is actually working more for me here than it did earlier in this Update. I especially like how, while blocking the camera, Fred’s Paterson orders $50 worth of “circus tickets” over the phone, as a callback to something Amy said during the “Really?!?” segment in tonight’s Update.
— It’s interesting how, in each of the two episodes Amy appeared in after her maternity leave (the preceding week’s John Malkovich episode and tonight’s episode), she only appeared in one sketch and Weekend Update. You’d figure SNL would instead be utilizing Amy more than ever in her final two episodes as a cast member, as SNL often tends to do for veteran cast members when they’re about to leave. I feel like Amy’s small amount of appearances in her final two episodes was a conscious decision on her part, as this was probably her way of willingly phasing herself out of the show, and she also probably didn’t want to step on the toes of the two women who were added to the cast during her maternity leave (Abby and Michaela). If that’s true, then I appreciate that classy move of Amy’s. It could’ve been interesting, though, seeing her interact with the new girls in a sketch. I can’t imagine how surreal it would’ve felt seeing Amy and Michaela side-by-side in a sketch.
STARS: ***½
LAMPS
musical features luminaires that sing, dance, take hostages
— Hmm, not too sure about this premise.
— I like Andy’s exaggerated delivery of “THIS IS WHAT’S…HAPPENING…SHARON!” What was with the odd long pause afterwards, though, before the camera cut to an exterior shot of the store?
— After a scene transition, the camera accidentally catches Michaela tying a gag over her own mouth, when we’re supposed to believe the lamps were the ones who tied the gag over Michaela’s mouth.
— Meh, I’m not caring for this sketch. Not even the part with Will’s grandfather clock character suddenly getting shot did anything for me.
— Very lame twist ending, with this turning out to be a preview for a Broadway play.
STARS: *½
THE CAT’S CHRISTMAS LETTER
(KRW) dictates a holiday letter in the voice of the dead family cat
— Pretty funny when Kristen clarifies to Hugh that the pun word “purrrrrrr-sonal” has to be typed with seven ‘r’s.
— I like Hugh questioning why Kristen is writing a Christmas letter from a dead cat. I also like Kristen responding to Hugh’s unhappiness over that by telling him a stern, deadpan “Tough tacos.”
— Some good tension between Kristen and an uncooperative Hugh throughout this sketch.
— Blah, I didn’t like that corny “I’ll make wuv to you” ending. Second consecutive sketch tonight with a lousy ending.
STARS: ***
COOKIES
at a somber company meeting, (FRA) can’t stop snacking
— In each of the last two Christmas episodes prior to this, we got an absolutely epic, legendary, and viral music video Digital Short: Lazy Sunday in season 31’s Christmas episode, and Dick In A Box in season 32’s Christmas episode. (Season 33 didn’t have a Christmas episode, due to the writers’ strike.) So how does Lonely Island continue that tradition in tonight’s Christmas episode? By having the Digital Short be a very unassuming, forgettable, no-reason-to-be-pre-taped, throwaway, non-music video short starring Fred playing a mincing gay man, a tired archetype that Fred’s already played to death prior to this. Really, Lonely Island? Perhaps they should’ve saved their fantastic Jizz In My Pants short from the preceding episode for tonight’s episode instead. Jizz In My Pants would’ve continued the “every Christmas episode has an epic music video Digital Short” tradition nicely.
— I’m now two minutes into this short, and, man, I’m finding this insufferable. (*sigh*) You know, I gotta say, stuff like this short and that awful Boy George commentary Fred did on Weekend Update in the preceding episode make me kinda understand why some people feel THIS season is when Fred’s infamous decline started, a viewpoint I had always disagreed with in the past. (Now that I think about how the remainder of this season goes, Fred does have some more awful stuff coming up later this season, including some painfully unfunny Bernie Madoff pieces.) However, I personally still say his decline doesn’t hit FULL SWING until season 35 (one of several things I’m kinda dreading about that season as we get closer and closer to it in this SNL project of mine). As I said in a somewhat recent episode review, I now consider seasons 32-34 to be Fred’s very hit-and-miss “Something unfortunate is looming ahead” years. His decline as a cast member is so gradual that it’s kinda hard for me to pinpoint when exactly it started, but, yeah, I still feel by this point in season 34 that he still has enough good stuff that somewhat balances out his bad stuff. And, again, it’s not until season 35 when I feel that the really bad, annoying, anger-inducing stuff becomes Fred’s almost-entire output. So, in other words, if you already haven’t been liking Fred by this point in season 34, things sadly get EVEN WORSE in his subsequent seasons.
— Kenan makes his ONLY appearance of the entire night in a small walk-on at the end of this 10-to-1 pre-taped Digital Short, meaning he makes no live appearances tonight.
— I admit to getting a cheap laugh from the reveal that the cookies Fred has been stuffing into his mouth all throughout this short are actually laxatives.
— Funny bit at the very end where, right before the screen cuts to black, Jason, after giving it some thought, reaches for a cookie, despite having just learned that those cookies are laxatives.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Heartless”
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An episode with a good first half, but a very forgettable second half. Overall, not one of SNL’s more memorable Christmas episodes, nor one of their more memorable season 34 episodes, but still not too bad an episode as a whole. This sure pales in comparison to Hugh Laurie’s first episode, though. I also wasn’t too crazy about some of the roles SNL utilized Hugh in tonight.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Dysfunctional Christmas Dinner
Monologue
Bronx Beat with Betty & Jodi
Wedding Toast
Weekend Update
The Cat’s Christmas Letter
Blagojevich Hearing
Cookies
Lamps
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John Malkovich)
a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
We enter the year 2009, with host Neil Patrick Harris
Heads up, everyone. The second half of this season is going to drop in quality very quickly. A preview of what’s to come next season, perhaps?
I liked the Paterson routines, mostly just because of Paterson’s hatred for New Jersey, which I will always find funny. I agree the blind stuff gets wheezy after a while.
The dysfunctional Christmas dinner sketch seems like this cast’s take on the dysfunctional dinner sketches done by the Will Ferrell cast. I think it works, even if it isn’t as good as the original in that vein.
Yeah a lot of this episode wastes Hugh Laurie. He does a good job and makes a fine character player or straight man in the parts he does, but you could easily be forgiven for thinking Laurie didn’t have any comedy experience or hadn’t hosted the show before!
Based on comments here, Amy seems a mildly polarizing performer, mostly because her style of comedy increasingly became more cutesy and she definitely wanted to be loved in many of her performances (which, to be honest, are both traits I think were both used very well in Parks and Rec). I agree about both of those things, but in the right cast, it’s fine to have such a performer (in some ways, you could say the same thing about Gilda Radner). She’s certainly one of the more beloved SNL cast members. I never really thought she was a great Update fit, though, even if she improved more when paired with Seth (I liked Really??? a lot).
I really love the upcoming episode a lot, although looking back there’s some real good and some real bad. But it does feature two of my favorite, underrated Sudeikis performances.
That’s what I was saying, Jared!
Agreed, however– a good first half and an uninspired second half. A weird 2008 for SNL ends with a whimper. Mike and Abby are still relegated to smaller roles. As I said 11 1/2 years ago, if everything after Update disappeared, I wouldn’t have noticed. There’s some “bad Army” tonight, but it escalates as Year 34 goes on and into the next four years. At least it was balanced out (almost) by a string of nuanced Suds performances.
For me, the best part was Kanye’s performances. I think this was the first time a giant LED screen was used for a musical guest, a precursor for more visually ambitious acts. It seems like he had a miserable time at SNL that week (did you miss the rant?) yet he’s come back four times since.
Bobby’s gloriously random mic drop was the biggest laugh of the night for me. It confirmed to me that he would be coming back next year. I love Bobby cause he was the kind of castmember who would take a really small part and almost always steal the sketch.
I believe they didn’t have Amy in much in her brief return because they didn’t want her to over-exert herself- she DID just give birth, and she was also likely focusing on her Nickelodeon show The Mighty B- it may have been voluntary on her side to make sure production on both of them didn’t conflict her schedule.
@Michael Cheyne, after seeing Amy talk in Gilda’s documentary about basically borrowing her child characters from Gilda, I do compare them at times now (I really hadn’t before). When I watched Amy in the UCB episodes, as I’ve done again recently, I thought she managed to balance a sharp performance style with an accessibility to viewers. SNL isn’t really that type of show (with women in particular, for many years, having hurdles to overcome in being seen as tough enough), but she did manage to maintain a more natural style in her first seasons. It’s mostly around the mid-00s that I find her tough to watch – too much Kaitlin (I know that was created pre-SNL but it’s the kind of overegged, look-at-me kids stuff that I have a limited tolerance for [even with Gilda, one Judy Miller was enough for me]) and way too much of the tee hee routine with Tina on Update. I think she managed to find her way back in her last few seasons, again finding trust in viewers and in herself, and left on a high note.
That’s another departure from Gilda, who I feel like, possibly because she was SO loved by viewers, tried very hard to gravitate toward more unpleasant characters in her last few seasons and lost some of the nuance and heart in her work; along with her fatigue from being on Broadway and her heartbreak over all the problems in her life, this meant she didn’t really get to enjoy a proper goodbye. Compared to the pain and tragedy of the rest of Gilda’s life, it’s very small potatoes, but her journey with the show being so unfinished will always make me a bit sad.
Amy didn’t really need SNL – she was known and respected beforehand, and could have easily continued in that vein and probably still had her own shows and projects (look at Amy Sedaris, who turned down SNL and went on to have some of her biggest successes) – but she used the show to help establish herself into even higher levels in the industry . She got everything she could from the experience and then she moved on, continuing to make her mark as actress, producer, writer, etc. As the years have passed she has become something of an institution, and much like SNL itself, has also generated her share of criticism and controversy. In that sense she may be the best example of the differences between her generation of SNL cast and what came before her (and Maya and Tina and Jimmy and Seth) – rather than SNL just being a show she was on for a while, a photo on a wall, she’s part of the brickwork – she helped make the show what it now is, and vice/versa. And most of the body of her work on SNL remains lively, committed, and unique, and always will.
Will’s Hamilton Whiteman character that debuted in this episode in the wedding sketch seems to be a bit of a cast favourite. During Seth’s wedding rehearsal dinner, Will gave a speech as Hamilton (there used to be a video of the whole speech floating around the internet, but i can’t find it now), where he was making the usual sexist/racist comments, and its really funny! Andy was getting married a few weeks later so after the speech at Seth’s wedding, asked Will if he would do one at his wedding too – and Will did! I wonder how many other SNL characters can boast wedding speeches at two cast members weddings!
@Cate, I was also wondering if that video was still around – it was on Vimeo but is now gone.
There is a (NSFW) snippet in Will’s interview with Seth from about 5 years back.
I’ve always liked Amy on the show, even being aware of her pre-SNL work on UCB and Conan and whatnot. I suppose I understand all the criticisms that everyone has of her, but I dunno, I don’t personally feel any of them. She was a dependable player and her Update stint with Seth was pretty good imo (I’m indifferent on her paired with Tina. I don’t haaaate it, though.) Her Hillary impression is also my favorite out of all the ones SNL has done.
I especially like the way she did kid roles. The cut from dress “Christmas at Nana’s” sketch she did with Kyle Mooney is one of my favorites, and Kaitlin is one of the only things I can salvage from 2004-05. I’m glad that The Mighty B! was basically a spiritual continuation of the Kaitlin character, since I’ve always found her funny no matter how loud or repetitive the sketches got.
I also wondered if Hugh Laurie was referring to anything else, but then the financial crash was horrible and had long-lasting effects…it just feels less now, because, well, 2020. Anyway, the monologue was, thanks to Hugh, charming, if slight. I was mostly fascinated by how we got a comment on the election from him (saying only half the audience would be pleased) and we got later commentary from Hamilton Whiteman, yet the cold open was spent on another cookie cutter panel/hearing format (mostly enlivened this time by Sudeikis). Between that and the week that the cold open was Biden, they seemingly knew Fredbama just wasn’t working – but didn’t bother to do anything about it.
Is it me or does Michaela Watkins resemble Nasim Pedrad when they’re in old lady makeup? (no wonder Nasim took over so many of her impressions)
Hamilton is probably the last of the definitive Will Forte characters, and is the type you are more likely to get through when you’re in your last years as a cast member. I have mixed feelings about this type of character, similar to my views on some of Will Ferrell’s final few years – it’s difficult to play such unfiltered ugliness in a very filtered format. With that said, Forte’s performance tends to put it over, and the character is oddly ahead of the curve for a time on the show that is pretty dated in many other ways.
I agree with you about Hugh not getting the roles he may have deserved. There was no piece tailored to him, like the hotel sketch he had in his first episode. He did a good job with most of what he had, enough to where the only two roles I didn’t enjoy were the digital short and the lamps sketch (was that another Mulaney piece? The Broadway tones reminded me of his work). I didn’t dislike that one as much as you did but it definitely felt very half-written, at best.
This Bronx Beat seemed very very loose, but was still enjoyable, especially when Hugh got involved. He was trying hard not to crack up when they started going on about “thigh” and “rump.”
Aside from being a tad overextended, I enjoyed the fighting family sketch. I’d probably put it above the Ferrell version as the I-am-shouting-now moments of Ferrell’s run don’t do much for me. This was one of Casey’s best roles of the season, tapping into her more subtle abilities as an actress; it’s also another example of how much she would have been at home in the late ’80s SNL.
I think someone in the other Hugh Laurie thread said James Anderson wrote this digital short. That would certainly make sense. I didn’t hate this but I agree it didn’t need to be a pre-tape, and it didn’t really need to be anywhere as long as it is either.
The cat newsletter has a very unique premise, and is close to another slice-of-life glimpse, but the ending makes no real sense with what they built up to. I wonder if they had to change anything at the last minute.
I don’t have a great deal of use for the David Paterson impression, although if it had only happened once, I might be less critical. Instead, we basically have a parade of look how dumb and goofy this blind guy is!!! And this wasn’t even the first time Fred had a recurring Update character who exists mostly just so we can chortle at a blind man. I’m not sure if we are meant to marvel at his gutsiness or if, similar to that awful Boy George routine, he just didn’t have anything better to come up with. I have a feeling they had Fred crash the end of Update because Amy didn’t want a big emotional farewell, so I don’t put the onus on Fred for this, but whatever the intent was, the image of that nonstop mugging blocking out a much more organic and compelling moment pretty much sums up what he has come to represent for me by this point.
Promo for this episode:
I think “Lamps” was written by Andy and Rob Klein.
I do fondly remember the monologue, “Bronx Beat”, “Dysfunctlonal Christmas Dinner” and most of “Weekend Update” especially Fred’s David Patterson blindidly going all over the set as Amy does her farewell speech. She was quite a beauty with a great sense of humor, much like Tina Fey in that regard. No wonder they made a great team when doing their jokes during the Golden Globes! (Glad they’re coming back to that next year!) By this point, Kristen Wiig will start to become more annoying with her tics and what have you and it will be sad how badly Abby and Michela, and especially Casey, are treated in the wake of even more Wiig…
Love it all, anytime.
Who had the higher pitcher singing voice in the dinner sketch? Was that Kristen or Casey?