SNL Reviews: John Mulaney/Jack White (4/14/18)

Cold Open: Mueller and Cohen

Robert Mueller and Michael Cohen appear in a parody of Meet the Parents.

* Robert DeNiro takes over as Robert Mueller, and Ben Stiller makes his first appearance as Michael Cohen. 

* As is usual, DeNiro has no business appearing on a live broadcast. His bland, stuttering delivery that we've had to deal with for years now is on full display.

* The sketch itself is the usual Trump-bashing that we get in cold opens, so, nothing special, really.

2/5


Monologue

 * Now this is what you call a monologue. No stupid characters, no stupid songs, and no dumb politics! Just seven minutes of Mulaney doing stand-up. Easily the best monologue of the season.

5/5


Sketch: Drag Brunch

A waiter serves guests while in drag.

* This was just an okay sketch. Mulaney did an excellent job as the waiter, and the ending, while it was a little random, was pretty good.

* Mulaney:  “Got your menus, you hungry, hungry whores”.

3/5


Sketch: Walkout

Students prepare for the national school walkout, but Gerald (Mulaney) refuses to go outside after getting an erection.

* I was worried that this sketch would be nothing but the cast editorializing against gun violence. Imagine my surprise when I found myself laughing a lot.

* Even more surprising, Kate McKinnon made me laugh with her brief appearance as the Swedish exchange student, who talks about how Sweden has no guns (or sunlight), and how they worship a giant.

• Best of all is the ending, where Gerald loses his erection after witnessing his principal (Leslie Jones) stomping on a bug.

5/5


Film: Wild Wild Country

A parody of the Netflix documentary of the same name about the Rajneeshee movement of the 80s.

* This was a pretty great film. I was already familiar with the Rajneeshees from the episode of Forensic Files about the bioterrorist attack they carried out, so this was a treat for me.

* Former cast member Nasim Pedrad appears in the film. When watching this live, I was confused by all of the applause when she showed up. Now that I know it was her, I understand.

* The highlight was Kenan's character, who only talks about the women’s asses.

* The only problem I had was that it was a bit too long.

3/5


Sketch: Diner Lobster

Some lobster (Thompson) sings about why you should never order lobsters in a diner.

* The media went nuts for this sketch after it aired. Does that mean it was good? The answer, unfortunately, is no. This just dragged on and on, and the concept itself was pretty dumb.

* Mulaney says that he pitched this to the show for the Zack Galifianakis episode back in Season 35, but it was rejected. Wonder what made them accept it this time?

1/5


Musical Performance: Jack White - “Over and Over and Over”

A solid performance from White. It seems like he always does a great job whenever he performs on the show.


Weekend Update (featuring Laura Ingraham and LaVar Ball)

* There were a couple of good stories this time, but, for the most part, it was much of the same.

* Uggghhhh....another Kate McKinnon guest commentary. This time, she comes out as Laura Ingraham of Fox News. To my surprise, however, this one wasn’t that bad. I enjoyed all of the fake sponsor plugs she did, and Jost’s insistence that they weren’t real sponsors.

* Then they have Kenan come out as LaVar Ball for the millionth time. Unlike the Ingraham commentary, they weren’t even trying here. He did have a few good lines, but this just went on and on.

3/5 (this is mostly for Ingraham’s commentary)


Sketch: Sitcom Reboot

Jay Paultodd (Mulaney) appears on a talk show to discuss the reboot of his 80s sitcom, “Switcheroo”.

* The best sketch of the night. I didn’t know what to expect at first, but when it got to the part of the theme song about the son having sex with the mom, I lost it.

* Mulaney completely owns the sketch with his performance as Jay Paultodd. He perfectly sells the fact that this man is not right in the head.

* There were so many good jokes here, I’m having a hard time thinking about which one was my favorite. But I’m gonna have to go with the one about them shooting the series in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, followed by Mulaney doing a fake patois accent.

• I didn’t get this joke at first, but the name of the child actor is Andy Cunanan, which also happens to be the name of the serial killer who murdered Gianni Versace. It seems the audience didn’t get it either, because they had no reaction to it.

5/5


Sketch: Horns

A man (Luke Null) who had horns implanted in his head wants them removed.

* A bizarre, but entertaining sketch. It wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny, but it didn’t need to be. The visual of Null with horn implants was funny enough. And, yet again, John Mulaney steals the sketch as the doctor.

3/5


Musical Performance: Jack White - “Connected by Love”

Just as good as the first performance.


Sketch: The Real Intros of Beverly Hills

* I don’t know what this was doing here. While it did have some good jokes, it had no purpose being on the show this late.

2.5/5


Final Thoughts: This was the best episode of the season. Pretty much everything Mulaney did in this episode was funny, and I really hope they bring him back to host in the future. Aside from Mulaney, Kenan also had a pretty good night, and, surprisingly, Kate McKinnon was the best part of WU.

Best Sketches: Sitcom Reboot, Drag Brunch, Monologue, McKinnon’s Update commentary, Wild Wild Country, Walkout

Worst Sketches: Mueller and Cohen, Diner Lobster, LaVar Ball commentary, Real Intros

SNL Reviews: James Franco/Sza (12/9/17)

The next episode I’m going to review is the James Franco/Sza episode that aired a week after Ronan/U2. I believe this was meant to promote Franco’s appearance in The Disaster Artist, not that you’d know that from the episode because they only mention it once. Anyway, let’s get to the review.

Cold Open: A Visit with Santa

A department store Santa (Kenan Thompson) receives some unusual questions.

• This was a mixed bag. While I admire the fact that they didn’t have another cold open with Baldwin’s Trump, this was only slightly better.

• When this originally aired, some of the child actors messed up their lines. Kenan was able to coach them on, which shows you how much experience he has with child actors. After all, he used to be one himself. The version of this sketch that’s online uses the dress rehearsal instead. Big surprise there.

• Sadly, one of the children here (the girl who asks about Trump) would pass away from asthma a couple years later.

• I can’t stand McKinnon’s character and the way she smugly delivers that line about Trump’s female accusers. 

• I did get a chuckle out of that one kid asking about Matt Lauer’s sex toys. But, once again, this was a perfect opportunity to call out Al Franken which they brushed aside.

2.5/5

Monologue (feat. Jonah Hill, Steve Martin, and Seth Rogen)

James Franco takes questions from the audience. 

• Last week we had a musical monologue, and this week, we get the other commonly overused type of monologue; a questions from the audience monologue. My brain hurts.

• This was obviously written by Colin Jost, who loves using celebrity cameos as a crutch for sketches. He thinks that by featuring a lot of celebrity cameos, it will distract the audience from the bad writing. “Hey look! It’s Steve Martin! Look! It’s Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill! Please laugh now!” (EDIT: No, this wasn’t written by Jost. I don’t know where I got that info from.)

• As forced as his appearance is, it was nice to see Steve Martin again. Hey SNL, when are you gonna let him host again?

2/5

Sketch: Sexual Harassment Charlie

Two longtime employees are fired for sexual abuse accusations, but the women of the workplace place all their hatred on Doug (Franco), rather than the front desk guy, Charlie (Thompson), and his creepier escapades.

• SNL tries to say something about the rampant sexual abuse allegations in America, but fails miserably. The show received outrage for this sketch, and rightfully so.

• Basically, the problem I have with this sketch is how the rather minor things that Doug did are blown out of proportion by the female workers, while Charlie’s extremely disturbing actions get ignored. Oh, but they have Doug point this out in the sketch, so that makes it okay, right? No, it doesn’t. It shows that they know what the problem is, but they won’t do anything about it.

• That being said, I did laugh at all of the things Charlie says he did. Too bad it doesn’t make the rest of the sketch any better.

2/5

Sketch: Gift Wrap

A gift wrapper (Franco) at Bloomingdale’s cuts his finger.

• Well, this came out of nowhere. This right here is a candidate for one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. 

• SNL has done sketches like this before, most notably that one with Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child back in the 70s. That one was actually funny, because the old writers knew how to restrain the shock comedy without it being too gross. But those days are long gone, and now, all shock comedy has to be over the top and in your face.

• Leslie Jones later revealed that she almost threw up when Franco spat the fake blood in her face. She’s certainly braver than I would have been in that situation. I give major props to her.

• In the live show, Franco screwed up the effect where he cuts his leg off at the end by taking out the fake leg too early. This was also fixed in the online version by using the dress rehearsal.

1/5

Film: Scrudge

A film shows what it would be like if Scrooge (whose name they spell “Scrudge” for some reason)  came to a Christmas party. 

• If you needed further proof that SNL doesn’t know how to make films these days, look no further than this sketch, While it had an interesting concept, they ruined it by making this sketch as boring as possible.

1/5

Sketch: Spelling Bee

A spelling bee moderator reveals how messed up his childhood was through his definitions of words.

• This sketch was a slight rise in quality. While nowhere near classic material, it’s better than most of the other stuff we’ve seen in this show so far. Sadly, this is the high point of the night.

• Franco runs away with this sketch with his performance as the moderator. Best part: his definition of “little pig boy”.

4/5

Musical Performance: Sza - “The Weekend”

• Ehh, this wasn’t too memorable, especially compared to the U2 stuff from the last episode.

2/5

Weekend Update (feat. Cathy Anne)

• Man, this was an awful news segment. None of the headlines made me laugh at all. Not a good sign.

• The show finally references Al Franken through a guest commentary by Cathy Anne. Whoever this Cathy Anne character is, she didn’t win me over, because none of what she said was funny. This was yet another good chance to call out Al Franken, but they only threw softball jokes at the subject.

• Next, they try to spice things up by having Michael Che go “undercover” as a liberal white woman, via a short film. As if the episode couldn’t get any worse, they have the balls to copy Eddie Murphy’s classic “White Like Me” sketch, in which he goes undercover as a white man. It’s a little surprising to see SNL skewering liberals, but, of course, they do nothing with it. A total waste of time and money.

1/5

Sketch: Za

Franco gets confused about the musical guest.

• Ummmm....what was the point of this one? The only joke here is that pizza and Sza kind of sound similar. Did someone have a few too many when they wrote this?

• This sketch gives me bad memories of the Peter Saarsgard episode from Season 31, where they had no less than two sketches solely dedicated to how funny his name is. It didn’t work then, and it still doesn’t work here.

• Of course, the media ate this sketch up. Proving, once again, that they have no taste in comedy.

1/5

Film: Christmas Charity

• Booooriiiiing! This kind of saccharine bullshit doesn’t belong on SNL, it belongs in a Hallmark movie.

1/5

Unfortunately, I can’t review the rest of the episode because I turned it off after the lame Christmas Charity film.

Best Sketches: Spelling Bee, Charlie’s comments in Sexual Harassment Charlie, Steve Martin’s cameo, and the comment about Matt Lauer in A Visit with Santa

Worst Sketches: Most of Sexual Harassment Charlie, McKinnon’s comment about Trump’s accusers in A Visit with Santa, Gift Wrap, Scrudge, Za, Weekend Update, Christmas Charity 

SNL Review: Saiorse Ronan/U2 (Season 43, 12/02/17)

Since these seem to be so popular on the internet, I thought I’d try my own. Now, SNL needs no introduction. It was once the greatest comedy in history. Nowadays, it’s no different from the other late-night shows. Is it really as bad as everyone says it is? Let’s start with the first episode I watched all the way through, the one with Saoirse Ronan that aired in December 2017. Each sketch will be rated on a scale of 1 to 5. So, what are we waiting for? As Bob the Builder used to say, “Let’s get started!”


Cold Open: Spirits of Trump’s Past

In a parody of A Christmas Carol, Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) is visited by evil spirits who confront him about the bad choices he’s made in office.

• What a way to start the show, huh? Like most episodes these days, it begins with a sketch demonizing Trump. Now, before continuing, I have to confess that I am a Trump supporter (and proud of it!). If these reviews sound a little biased, that’s why. Anyway, this sketch is pretty much indistinguishable from any other Trump cold open. The jokes all consist of “lol Trump is racist”, “lol he hates women”, and “lol he’s stupid”. And I totally saw the twist at the end with Hillary Clinton being the Ghost of Christmas Future coming from a mile away.

• I have to admit, Kate McKinnon impressed me with how quick she was able to change from her Kellyanne Conway makeup at the beginning of the sketch into her Hillary makeup at the end.

2/5


Monologue: Saiorse Ronan (feat. Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones)

Ronan teaches everyone how to say her name, in song!

• Just when the show can’t get any worse, they throw this at me. A big complaint among fans over the past decade or so has been the number of musical monologues. They almost always suck, and this one was no exception. It just seemed to go on forever.

1/5


Commercial: Floribama Shore

A commercial for MTV’s latest reality show, which takes place in the Floribama area (I’m guessing they mean the Pensacola-Mobile area?).

• When I first saw this sketch, I thought it was just a parody of MTV’s typical trashy reality shows like Jersey Shore. But eventually, I found out that this is apparently a real show. You heard me right! MTV has gotten so bad that their shows are starting to become self-parodies.

• The sketch itself wasn’t too bad. Compared to the last two, it was a breath of fresh air. If there’s one thing SNL can still do, it’s commercial parodies.

• While the jokes are a little too obvious (a freaking hurricane hits at one point), I still laughed.

3/5


Sketch: Action News at Five - American Girl Store Fire

A news report about a fire at an American Girl Store in Phoenix, where a male shopper (Mikey Day) continually tries to deny that he was buying a doll for himself.

• I don’t really know how to feel about this one. On one hand, it was pretty well acted (Day’s performance as the shopper was a particular stand out, along with Kenan as the reporter on the scene), but on the other hand, the script needed major improvement. This sketch has pretty much only one joke: “Lol this guy likes dolls! He’s so creepy!” While that is indeed creepy, it felt like it needed more fine tuning to work as a running gag.

• It reminded me a lot of that “Danny Bangs” sketch from the previous season, but, while that one certainly wasn’t perfect, it was actually funny, despite having only one joke.

2/5


Film/Song: Welcome to Hell

Some women sing about Hell, or something.

• This sketch is just confusing. I have no idea what they were trying to do here. They try to claim that it’s a response to all of the sexual predators in the news lately, but I don’t know what lollipops and brightly colored dresses have to do with sexual predators.

• The worst part is that news outlets everywhere just went crazy over this sketch. Maybe they got something out of it that I missed?

1/5


Sketch: Complaint Department

Customers deliver complaints to a Kmart employee.

• I don’t remember much about this one, other than the fact that I didn’t laugh at all.

1/5


Film:  The Race

Two office employees have a race. Chaos ensues.

• My initial reaction to this: WTF? Unfortunately, this was not a good kind of WTF, where something is so bizarre that you can’t help but like it. SNL has done tons of these kinds of sketches over the years (my favorite being “Wake Up and Smile” from Season 21), but this one wasn’t even trying.

• What was the deal with that random puppet saying “She was a ghost!!!” near the end? Whatever it was, it wasn’t funny in the least, and was just pointing out the obvious.

1/5


Musical Performance: U2 - “American Soul”

• Now we’re talking! This was such a great performance! Of course, it helps that U2 is such a great band to begin with.

• My favorite detail was the back-projection of the flags on the back of the walls.

5/5


Weekend Update: Featuring Theresa May (Kate McKinnon), and Shelly and Greg Duncan (Leslie Jones and Mikey Day, respectively)

• In terms of the stories, we’ve got more of the same Trump-bashing that we get every week. I was praying that they would do a joke about Al Franken’s titty-grabbing shenanigans, but, sadly, they didn’t, because they are under the mistaken belief that he is innocent. Look, SNL, just because you guys never saw him do anything doesn’t mean he’s innocent. Former cast members should not be exempt from being mocked.

• As if it couldn’t get any more tedious, they have McKinnon come out as British prime minister Theresa May for a guest commentary. Ugggggghhhhhh.......If there’s one thing I’m tired of, it’s Kate McKinnon and her unfunny commentaries. I will give them this; at least it wasn’t her Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because that would have been unforgivable.

• Then, these people named Shelly and Greg Duncan show up for a guest commentary. I have no idea who they are, but, it turns out, I’m actually finding this funny! The flash cards they showed with the various sex positions were all pretty funny. This whole commentary pretty much redeemed the whole Weekend Update from getting a lower rating.

3/5


Sketch: Bachelor’s Auction

Women bid money for various bachelors.

• The upswing in quality continues with this hilarious sketch. I’m thrilled that they didn’t give Kate McKinnon the role of the auctioneer, and instead gave it to Mikey Day (they really need to make him a full cast member).

• The best part of this sketch was this guy named Chad (Pete Davidson), who is apparently a recurring character, although I couldn’t have known that at the time. He made this sketch come to life with his presence, and the things he did were funny (like his impression of Jim Carrey as the Grinch, and a little dance he calls the “Doink Doink”, which is just him shaking his arms while saying “Doink Doink”).

• It gets even better when John McEnroe shows up as a bachelor! Unlike Chad, the women in the audience want nothing to do with him.

5/5


Sketch: Late for Class

A new student named Brody Choad (Luke Null) shows up late for class and starts insulting his classmates.

• The first time I saw this, I had no idea where it was going. Then, it got to the twist where it’s revealed that Brody is actually a new student, and it all made sense.

• Another pretty good sketch. The various insults were all pretty funny, but my favorite part was the aforementioned twist.

• Luke Null was excellent as Brody. It really is a shame that this was his only season.

• By the way, who’s the Asian guy that’s sitting behind Pete Davidson?

EDIT: I guess I should bring up some background info here. The immediate downfall of Luke as a cast member can be traced to this sketch. This was only his first major live role, and the fact that he spends the first half of it insulting everybody kinda reflected badly on him. I had no idea about any of this when I originally posted my review, but even with that knowledge, I still think this sketch is great.

4/5


Musical Performance: U2 - “Go Your Own Way”

• All I will say here is that this performance was just as good as the first.

5/5

Sketch: Aer Lingus

Flight attendants on an Irish airline.

• The last sketch of the night, and it’s pretty bland and one note. You knew that they would get at least one Irish-related sketch in tonight, considering who the host is, and this one is nothing but lame Irish stereotypes. The characters all have stereotypical Irish names like “Pee-Wee Riley”, and “Colleen Doyle”, and apparently, SNL received some complaints about this sketch from Irish-Americans. Ronan defended it, however, saying that she approved of it, and that it was written by her.

2/5


Final thoughts: A mixed bag. While the first half of the episode was really bad, it got better after U2’s first performance. Trump jokes were at a minimum, restricted to the cold open and WU.

Best Sketches: Floribama Shore, both U2 performances, The Duncans’ segment of Weekend Update, Bachelor’s Auction, Late for Class

Worst Sketches: Monologue, Welcome to Hell, Complaint Department, The Race