SNL Reviews: Willem Dafoe/Katy Perry (1/29/22)

 Well, my blog has finally caught up with the show, so this’ll be my last review for a little while.

Cold Open: Russian Disinformation

President Biden is briefed about the Russia/Ukraine situation.

• Another Biden cold open? It’s like they finally remembered to make fun of him.

• Unfortunately, when I say “make fun of him”, I mean they make him the straight man, because the real “humor” in this sketch comes from the disinformation campaign Russia is sending out.

• If you look at the bogus Ukrainian headlines, the text under each story is the same block of Latin gibberish.

• All of these fake headlines are really bad, especially the “Slap me harder, daddy” one (don’t ask).

• JAJ’s Biden is growing on me. I wish they gave him better material.

• Now they’re resorting to dead memes for jokes.

• My brain melted when they showed a Russian TikTok video. Nobody gives a shit about TikTok!

• Then they show a Russian propaganda commercial where everybody talks like Yakov Smirnoff. Also, Kate speaks in her usual European stereotype voice.

• As an SCTV fan, this reminds me of the famous CCCP1 episode, where Soviets take over the station and broadcast ridiculous propaganda for Russia, such as a parody of “My Mother, The Car” where a young farm boy discovers his tractor is really Nikita Khrushchev reincarnated. The only difference is that the SCTV episode was funny and biting, while this sketch is a horrid piece of shit.

• I totally saw the “twist” coming with the Russian Aaron Rodgers impersonator turning out to be the real Aaron Rodgers.

• Yet another lousy cold open. It severely pales in comparison to the aforementioned SCTV episode.

Monologue

Dafoe talks about his time as a struggling actor in NYC, his expressive face, and growing up in Wisconsin.

• Dafoe is a natural on the SNL stage. It feels great to finally see him host.

• I howled at the picture of his younger self reading a book. That hair is so 80s it hurts. 

• He says people often tell him he’d make a great Joker, which I can totally see.

• When Dafoe starts talking about his childhood in Appleton, WI, the monologue is ruined when Aidy and Mikey show up as these two audience members who are also from Appleton. And before you ask, yes, they do have ridiculous accents.

• This monologue started out great, but the stuff with the audience members ruined it for me.

Sketch: Tenant Meeting

A meeting for a building’s tenants goes off the rails.

• This is a thinly disguised variant of those school board meeting sketches, but this time it takes place at an apartment building. 

• Punkie accidentally walks in front of the camera after delivering her line. This error was surprisingly not fixed for the online upload.

• I see we’re continuing to typecast Sarah Sherman as loud abrasive Jewish women.

• Ego’s character asking for permission to kill her neighbor’s loud dog was funny. When they deny it, she says, “Bitch, I don’t need permission, I was just asking out of courtesy.”

• Chris Redd, as the doorman, gets some laughs from his insistence that his name is Robert, not “JaMarcus”, as a lot of the building’s tenants seem to believe.

• Asian Terry Sweeney’s flamboyant nature actually comes in handy for his character, a man who’s practicing for the building’s talent show.

• The best character here is undeniably Dafoe’s. He plays an old man who complains about how NYC has lost its seediness and danger. I lost it when he mentioned going to CBGB’s to get pissed on by Iggy Pop.

• Yet another foreigner role for Aristotle. 

• Aidy plays her usual character from these meeting sketches.

• JAJ did the best out of all the newbies here with his character complaining about Verizon.

• Kyle and Andrew as these stoners were amusing. They keep making this sniffing noise, which hits a little too close to home for me because I have to deal with my brother doing that every day, though he’s thankfully not a stoner.

• Even Kenan playing one of his typical pimp roles was funny.

• Kate McKinnon only appears for 15 seconds, but still manages to annoy me with her stupid mugging face.

• At least we end on a great note with a call back to the JaMarcus gag from earlier.

• This is probably the best of these meeting sketches. The change of scenery was just what it needed to stay fresh.

Film: Now I’m Up

Two men sing about what woke them up.

• We haven’t had one of these music videos in a while. 

• An initial laugh from whatever the hell Kenan is wearing on his head.

• This song has a nice beat to it.

• The thing that wakes up Kenan is a mysterious lump on the back of his head, which he tries to take pictures of, but they all come out blurry.

• Willem is perfect as a late-night infomercial host!

• Then he and his co-host (Heidi) get involved in the song as well!

• I identify with the line about getting woken up by a cat in your face. That’s happened to me on several occasions.

• I love the picture of Chris in his yearbook wearing a shirt that says “Certainly Celibate”.

• The first strong music video we’ve had this entire season. Best of all, Pete Davidson was nowhere to be seen!

Sketch: Badminster Dog Show

A dog show has some very weird entries.

• “Judas Chrysler” and “Miriam Jeans”? I swear, these names just keep getting dumber. Oddly enough, it seems Kent Sublette had nothing to do with this one.

• As iffy as these “cute animal” sketches can be, I’m interested to see where this one goes.

• Something about Dafoe’s wig makes him look like Regis Philbin.

• I bet Kate enjoyed putting her arm around her fellow lesbian Punkie Johnson for so long.

• A rather funny random joke about the first dog being afraid of pineapples.

• Melissa starts having a little trouble with her lines when the dog licks her hands.

• An actually funny line from Kate telling the audience to stop clapping or else the dogs will kill themselves.

• The second dog gets some laughs when he sniffs Kate in the face. Then, while Andrew is talking about him, he almost gets his tongue in Andrew’s mouth.

• Not a big fan of the ending where we see the winning dog’s (censored) penis. 

• This was a little better than these “cute animal” sketches tend to be. 

Fake Ad: Nugenix

Frank Thomas, Doug Flutie, and Willem Dafoe tell a man about a great new product called Nugenix. 

• Ugh, the penis jokes are back. Even worse, this time they’re also erectile dysfunction jokes!

• The constant repetition of “You can’t get hard anymore” was super annoying.

• Man, when was the last time we had a good fake commercial? The big problem with this one is that it's nothing more than a lame copy of the real ad. A lot of the dialogue is taken verbatim, which is kind of bordering on plagiarism.

Musical Performance: “When I’m Gone”

• Perry and her backup singers are dressed as mushrooms, for some reason. It’s one of the worst musical performances in this show’s history. Also, she’s lip-syncing. Has the show learned nothing from the Ashlee Simpson fiasco?

Weekend Update (featuring Two Trend Forecasters and Peyton Manning)

• They seem to have finally stopped doing those awful Mitch McConnell jokes about his hatred of kids. Instead, they’re now resorting to jokes about him running over animals.

• A terrible joke about Ronald Reagan’s memory loss.

• Aidy and Asian Terry Sweeney have a commentary as these two “trend forecasters”. Overall, these characters are super shitty and I hope I never see them again.

• Yet another horrid misogynistic joke from Che. What is this guy’s deal with women?

• Then, Peyton Manning shows up. No, not someone impersonating him, the REAL Peyton Manning.

• He’s supposed to be talking about the NFL playoffs and the rumors of Tom Brady’s retirement, but instead goes off into a tangent about some Netflix show that my mom watches called Emily in Paris. So…what is the point of this commentary? Is it supposed to be an advertisement for the show? I have no idea. 

• Why would they even book a legend like Peyton Manning if they’re not going to make him do anything funny? Instead of making him plug a show on Netflix, have him do something like that United Way ad he did when he hosted.

Sketch: The Mirror

This Beauty and the Beast parody sees Belle’s father Maurice suffer a mental breakdown.

• The audience strangely has no reaction to the sight of Pete Davidson as The Beast, which is odd, because they usually go nuts whenever he shows up.

• When Dafoe started speaking in a French accent, I knew I was in for a treat.

• I like how Belle and the Beast are gradually surrounded by the other characters as the sketch goes on. Nice attention to detail.

• Dafoe’s mental breakdown is fantastic! This is the kind of stuff I was anticipating from him going into this episode.

• The part where he slaps his ass with a fireplace poker is priceless.

• Pete: “‘A tale as old as tiiiiime’…which is a song I would sing if we had the rights.”

• The best sketch of the episode, hands down. Dafoe was amazing in this.

Please Don’t Destroy: Martin’s Friend

Martin introduces one of his new friends to the other guys.

• YES!!! The PDD guys finally make it to the live show again! 

• The “friend” mentioned in the title is a rude little kid named Connor. I couldn’t find the name of the young actor who plays him, but he does an amazing job.

• He talks about a joke he wanted to pitch to Colin Jost: “What do you call a white guy with dreadlocks?” 

• Ben Marshall is the only one of the guys who besides Martin who thinks Connor is funny. He sums things up when he says it’s because of his delivery. 

• John Higgins: “So, how does it feel being a [bleep] baby?”

• John finally has enough of Connor’s shenanigans and steals his steak. But karma is a bitch, and he starts choking on it, leading to a hilarious slow-motion scene where Connor gives him the Heimlich maneuver. 

• Nice callback at the end where Colin shows up and says he loved the dreadlock joke from earlier, and that he’s going to use it on Weekend Update.

• Once again, the Please Don’t Destroy guys hit a home run. These sketches are the best thing to happen to SNL in years.

Musical Performance: “Never Really Over”

Sketch: Good Morning Columbus

Dr. Benjamin Bloom (Dafoe) appears on a morning show to talk about his new self-help book.

• Uh oh, we’re starting with a news intro. This is gonna suck…

• *sigh* It’s another variation of the Danny Bangs/Incest Twins routine. No, just…no. I can’t talk about this shit again.

Sketch: Office Song

A group of office workers break into song.

• Wow, Punkie’s had quite a busy night by her standards. 

• Really creative use of office supplies as instruments.

• Ugh, they start singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, one of my least favorite songs. Thankfully, this is cut off by Dafoe throwing a chair out of a glass window.

• After Dafoe’s little stunt gets him in trouble with Kenan as the boss, who’s car got destroyed when the chair landed on it, they give him a second chance, and the sketch skips ahead to the next day. 

• The only repair they’ve done to the window is put yellow safety tape in front of it, which doesn’t help at all when Dafoe accidentally pushes Heidi out of the window.

• Not too bad for a five-to-one sketch.

Cut For Time: Nice Jail

A commercial that advertises an alternative to jail.

• I laughed at the opening shot of a Marriott hotel that has a banner sloppily draped over its sign reading “NICE JAIL!” The joke continues when we cut to the interior shot of Dafoe, as the sign behind him in the lobby also has a “NICE JAIL!” banner placed over it.

• I’m surprised Dafoe was able to get away with imitating the (apparently) black inmate his character used to have in jail.

• I don’t know why, but there’s something really funny about that name.

• I like how Punkie’s “glowing review” of Nice Jail is a complaint about how she got gypped into thinking this was a Marriott.

• Dafoe: “It’s not just nice, it’s Nice Jail.” Hilarious!

• While this was really funny, I can kind of see why it didn’t make the cut. It was a little too long.

Final thoughts: What’s this? Another good episode??? This is probably the best one we’ve had since Kate’s return. It helps that she was barely in it. As for Willem Dafoe, what else can I say? He was absolutely perfect! It’s almost like he’s been hosting this show for years.

And with that, my reviews are finally caught up with the show. Join me after the Olympics are over for my next one!

Best sketches: Tenant Meeting, Now I’m Up, The Mirror, Martin’s Friend, Office Song, Nice Jail (Cut)

Worst sketches: Cold Open, Nugenix, Katy Perry’s performances, Good Morning Columbus

Next review: John Mulaney. See you guys in a few weeks!

SNL Reviews: Will Forte/Maneskin (1/22/22)

 Cold Open: The Ingraham Angle

Laura Ingraham and friends talk about what’s wrong with Biden’s America.

• First appearance of McKinnon’s Laura Ingraham in quite a while. Did that passage of time make her any funnier? NOPE!

• They’re still doing that awful gag where she plugs her sponsors. To this day, I have no idea what that’s supposed to be about.

• *angrily grits teeth* Please stop bringing back that female Ted Cruz impersonator!!! It’s not funny, it sounds nothing like him, and if you guys think you’re bothering him by doing it, then you’re wrong.

• Ego’s Candace Owens impression is a rare miss for her. She says some rather offensive things like “It is my greatest honor to continue fighting for African-Americans, no matter how many times they ask me to stop.” Because, you know, black people can only be Democrats. This is the exact same rhetoric Sleepy Joe Biden promoted when he told black people that they “ain’t black” if they didn’t vote for him.

• The real Candace Owens commented on this and slammed the show. She even offered to play herself the next time they need to make fun of her. Sorry, Candace, but there’s no way they’d ever let a Republican on this show again after the awfulness that was Trump’s 2015 hosting stint.

• Speaking of Trump, JAJ is back as him once again. This is the third time in the past two months that he’s shown up, and it’s always the same joke with him no matter what.

• I think it goes without saying that this cold open was extremely terrible. A bad omen for the episode that follows…

Monologue

Will Forte complains that he’s been waiting 11 years to host the show, while his fellow cast members have all hosted before him.

• Words cannot describe how happy I am to see Forte on the stage again. He’s definitely in my Top 5 favorite cast members.

• Minor nitpick: When he complains that all of his friends in the cast hosted before him, he mentions Bill Hader before Andy Samberg. Samberg came back before Hader. Not that I would expect him to know that because Will has wisely made very few cameos on the show since his departure.

• This comes to a screeching halt when Kristen Wiig, the spawn of Satan herself, shows up. UGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I understand why she’s there, because of something I’ll be getting to in a little bit, but can we go at least one season without a Kristen Wiig cameo? Why couldn’t another one of his friends, like Hader or Sudeikis show up? Hell, I’d even take another Fred Armisen cameo over this!

• Even more unwelcome cameos follow when Willem Dafoe randomly appears. He’s not supposed to host until the next episode (just wait until I get to that one), so I guess this is the show’s way of “preparing” us for him. 

• Lorne is there too, and it’s nice to see him again. I feel like his cameos are getting less frequent as he ages. In fact, this is the first time he’s made one since Season 45.

• This started out okay, but it crashed and burned when Wiig appeared.

Film: MacGruber (Part I)

MacGruber attempts to defuse a bomb, but his friends get distracted by his bizarre conspiracy theories.

• The audience went wild as soon as they realized what sketch this was. The reason Will is hosting is because he’s got a new MacGruber show on Peacock, and I guess this new sketch is meant to promote it. Jorma Taccone and John Solomon even came back to help write this.

• I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve never actually seen any of the original ones. I hope this gives me a good idea of what they’re about.

• Another random cameo from Ryan Philippe (who?) as one of MacGruber’s friends. And there’s Kristen again, reprising her role as Vicki.

• And things take a nosedive when MacGruber slowly reveals himself to have embraced anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories. Why is this? Because he had a tracking device put on his scrotum. So…yeah…this is what the other two MacGruber sketches are going to be about tonight…

Sketch: Kid Klash

A game show host (Forte) teaches a kid an important lesson as she competes in a physical challenge.

• This is a spot on parody of Nickelodeon game shows. I believe it’s specifically based on Double Dare.

• The host, Mark Zazz, is played by Will, who has a pedo mustache and a voice that I think he’s used for another one of his characters in the past. I don't care who you are, but putting Will Forte in a pedo mustache is always funny.

• Will already gets a chuckle out of me when he talks about a contestant who is at home recovering from last week’s episode.

• Some really nice set design. They nailed the Double Dare aesthetic here.

• Aidy’s prize for winning the show is a single box of pizza that she gets to keep for the rest of her life. You can already tell that the host of this show is not particularly sane.

• Every single thing that comes out of Will’s mouth in this sketch is hilarious. Even the lines that aren’t meant to be funny are still funny because of that voice he’s using.

• The useless hint he offers Aidy (“It’s in there”) is great.

• I wonder what the cream in that giant pie is really made of.

• Aidy finds a gold medallion in the pie, and Will’s response is to yell at her about not finding the flag she’s supposed to be looking for. Game shows need more angry hosts like this.

• When time runs out, her family feels sorry for her. Except her dad (Kyle Mooney), who yells “Damn it, Tatum!”

• Will suddenly turns creepy when Aidy tries to leave to get cleaned up. He says to her, in a voice that sounds like he’s about to offer her some candy, that she can’t leave until she finds the flag. Forte is a comedy genius when it comes to being a creepy person.

• My favorite Will line: “Look, I didn’t start this game show to encourage children to quit like whiny little babies.”

• Then he forces Aidy to start looking for the flag again, as he humiliates her even further by playing depressing music and making the pie spin around.

• Even the joke about Aidy having her period while in the pie was pretty funny.

• When she finally does find the flag, it is very small, and colored the same as the cream in the pie. Aidy tells the host that the game was very bad, he shouts “No, it’s GOOD!” at her like a crazy man denying that he’s crazy.

• Will plugs the next part of the challenge, which Aidy’s brother (Bowen) has to complete. He also randomly reveals that the brother is adopted, which, given that he’s Asian, isn’t hard to believe.

• This sketch ends in an amazing fashion: a slow zoom in to Will’s face. I think I’m in Heaven…

• Overall, I thought that was pretty good. It helps that it has Will Forte being a creep in it.

Film: MacGruber (Part II)

• MacGruber takes a ton of pills and drinks bleach. Get it?!? Because that’s what Donald Trump apparently told us to do!

• If you thought this part was bad, well, wait until we get to the end of the show…

Sketch: Cinema Classics

A scene from the 1944 film “Gaslight”, which is where the term originated from.

• Just when this episode couldn’t get any worse, they bring that godawful Cinema Classics bullshit out of the mothballs! UGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! No matter how many times I think they’ve retired it for good, it keeps coming back like the fucking plague! I refuse to watch this shit again, so, let me borrow a quote from Stooge: No, just…no.

Sketch: Threesome

A married couple tries to spice things up in bed by adding someone else.

• As soon as Will arrived in that ridiculous getup, I knew I was in for something special.

• The hardest I laughed at this entire episode was when Will started shaking the couple’s bed. It goes on for twenty seconds, and it gets funnier the longer it continues.

• Then he starts pretending to fuck a pillow, and I laughed even harder. This sketch should have just been about Will Forte going insane in a hotel room. For an idea of what that would have been like, just wait until the next episode…

Musical Performance: “Beggin’”

Weekend Update (featuring Chen Biao, Sarah Sherman, and The Guy Who Just Bought A Boat)

• An unwelcome return from that horrid Chen Biao character. This guy fucking sucks.

• Sarah Sherman has another commentary, and it’s just like the last one she did, except it’s about Winter this time. They even recycle the same joke where she throws insults at Colin.

• The only part I laughed at was the fake photo of Colin in S&M gear.

• *sigh* The Guy Who Just Bought A Boat returns. I’ve never found the appeal of this character. To make matters worse, he has a friend with him called “A Guy Who Just Bought A Ferry”, played by Pete. As if one of these guys wasn’t enough, now I’ve gotta deal with two of them! 

• This is the second episode in a row where Update crushed my soul. Why didn’t they have Will do any of his characters?

Sketch: Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snead

The famous country duo have a new album out.

• Kenan’s name is “Jevner Keeblerelv”? I don’t even need to ask who wrote this. Oddly, the YouTube description calls him “Jevner Keeblerpooble”, which I assume was his name in dress rehearsal or something.

• These characters of Kristen and Will’s make their return. I’d never heard of them before, but any role where Will Forte wears a bald cap has got to be funny.

• While I’m not happy to see Kristen in yet another sketch, this is the type of stuff she works best in. She doesn’t do her usual mugging, and her singing voice is honestly not that bad.

• Will’s moaning “vocals” during a song called “The Eyes of God” are amazing.

• A nice understated little sketch.

Musical Performance: “I Wanna Be Your Slave”

Film: MacGruber (Part III)

• Easily the worst of the three parts of this sketch. Now Will is dressed like that horned guy from the Capitol riots, and he’s espousing conspiracies about politicians eating babies. 

• I can’t believe they did it…They ruined MacGruber. On a night when one of the greatest cast members returns to host, they waste his most popular character on this terrible excuse of a sketch! Fuck these writers, and fuck whoever decided to make MacGruber act like this!

Note: A dedication to former writer John Bowman appears before the goodnights.

Cut For Time: ESPN’s First Take

Things get heated when the moderators of First Take argue about Tom Brady and the Buccaneers.

• Perfect casting choice of Chris Redd as that asshole Stephen A. Smith.

• Nice to see Kenan do a voice that I don’t think I’ve ever heard him do before.

• Both Kenan and Chris do an amazing job when their characters start arguing. Chloe’s character sums it up when she says that they’re acting like they’re on cocaine.

• Will appears as a writer for a sports blog (one of society’s greatest ills), and his character is even more over the top than the other two. I love his bizarre exaggerated statements about Tom Brady’s dominance, such as how he’s able to eat planets. 

• Despite not being a sports fan, I’ve seen enough of SportsCenter to know that this is some biting satire of how these sports talk shows work: Two people come onto the show and see who can yell the loudest. Why didn’t this make the live show instead of that Cinema Classics bullshit?!?

Final thoughts: What a huge disappointment. Going into the episode, I thought it was going to be amazing. Instead, I got a total waste of one of my favorite cast member’s talents. The numerous Wiig cameos didn’t help, either. Why am I seeing so much of her in an episode that she’s not hosting? Overall, what should have been one of this season’s greatest triumphs instead turned out to be one of its worst episodes.

Best sketches: Kid Klash, Will moving the bed, Maneskin’s performances, First Take (Cut)

Worst sketches: Cold Open, MacGruber (all three parts), Cinema Classics, Chen Biao commentary

Next review: Willem Dafoe/Katy Perry

SNL Reviews: Ariana DeBose/Bleachers (

 Cold Open: Spider-Man

Biden won’t stop connecting his important Omicron speech to the new Spider-Man movie.

• Our first appearance of JAJ as Biden in quite a while. I’m glad they’ve been spacing out his appearances more instead of featuring him in nearly every episode like they did with Trump.

• The comedic hook of this got old very fast. All of the random Spider-Man references annoyed me more than they amused me. 

• Pointless “alternate universe Biden” bullshit from Pete.

• And, in case we didn’t know who Biden was referring to, Spider-Man shows up at the end!!!! LOL OMGZ SO FUNNYYYY!!! Gag me with a spoon.

Monologue

The host sings with Kate McKinnon.

• I already had no faith in this when the host mentioned she was in that shitty West Side Story remake, but then Kate McKinnon showed up and I nearly lost my lunch.

• Surprisingly, this is the first musical monologue we’ve gotten all season. All I’m going to say is that Ariana is no Madeline Kahn when it comes to singing “I Feel Pretty”.

• Only two sketches in and I already want to hurl.

Sketch: NBA on TNT

The panelists discuss a Nets vs. Kings game where the Kings are dealing with a COVID situation.

• Kenan’s Charles Barkley is one of his few good impressions. This should be interesting…

• I’m not too familiar with Ernie Johnson, but I like Moffat’s impression of him. They even gave him that dopey bow tie that Johnson wears.

• I laughed at Barkley’s “Shaq-Flu” pun. Honestly, I like any joke that takes the piss out of that awful video game.

• Bowen Yang as Yao Ming was hilarious. I’m not sure, but I think his voice might have been artificially deepened as well.

• The YouTube description of this sketch claims that the game they’re covering is between the Lakers and the Kings. In the actual sketch, it’s between the Nets and the Kings. Could the YouTube description be from an earlier version of this sketch?

• JAJ looks hilarious in his brief pictured role as the Kings’ equipment manager.

• A funny contrast where Mikey’s player character is shorter than the woman interviewing him.

• The best Yao moment is when he compares his giant hand with Barkley’s. I love the fake hand prop they used.

• For a sketch about basketball, which I have no interest in, this was pretty good. And I’m also surprised that my favorite character in this was played by Asian Terry Sweeney. See what wonderful things can happen when you let him play different characters?

Film: Urkel

The latest gritty sitcom reboot focuses on the exploits of Steve Urkel.

• This sketch was an apparent response to the announcement of a dark reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

• As soon as the audience realized who this was about, they went into hysterics, myself included.

• I noticed that Urkel has a Goku poster on his door. I can totally see him as being an anime fan.

• Kenan’s Carl Winslow impression is a role he was born to play!

• DeBose’s voice in this reminds me of Cree Summer. Which is awesome, because I love Cree Summer.

• Urkel assaulting a guy and asking “Did I do that?” was brilliant. 

• They even manage to make this a little heartwarming at the end with Carl accepting Urkel as a part of his family, concluding with the greatest line ever: “Family (bleep)ing matters!” Absolutely hilarious. One of the best sketches in recent years.

Sketch: Ron and Donna Lacatza’s Formal Emporium

The perfect one-stop shop for all your school dance needs.

• After the awesomeness that was Urkel trying to kill someone, it’s back to basics with another “funny voices” sketch. This time, it’s Pete Davidson and Sarah Sherman speaking in awful New York accents. It seems like they’ve been typecasting Sherman as Jewish stereotypes.

• I absolutely hate these “two people advertise a business they own” sketches, such as “Pat and Patti’s Knapsack Shack”, the “chandaleeuh” sketches with Fred Armisen and Scarlett Johansson, and all of the really bad ones we’ve been getting lately with McKinnon and Bryant. I wish they’d stop doing these, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.

Sketch: Press Conference

The new mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, holds his first press conference.

• Sometimes there are sketches that you can tell are gonna suck just by the way they begin. I’ve already brought up the examples with Disney and “We now return to”, and here’s another example: if a sketch starts with a news intro, it’s gonna be terrible.

• I cringed at the awful attempts at “urban” humor from the City Hall press secretary.

• I love all the airtime Chris Redd has been getting in this episode.

• Am I the only who thinks it’s kind of racist that they’re making a black politician act like a gangsta? The only thing that could make this even more stereotypical is if he was wearing gold chains.

• I absolutely hate it when SNL tries to make politicians seem “relatable” by making them act hip and cool. It’s like when your grandpa tries to get “with it” by spouting outdated rapper slang.

Musical Performance: “How Dare You Want More”

Weekend Update (featuring Elmo)

• Epic funny-time moment when Colin Jost tries to mock Republicans by saying that Jefferson Davis was one. Newsflash, idiot, Jefferson Davis was a Democrat. In fact, all of the politicians that supported the Confederacy were Democrats!

• Another sick anti-Catholic joke. Try telling these same jokes about Jews or Muslims and see what happens!

• I almost wanted to skip over reviewing this episode because I didn’t want to talk about the following commentary again. But I can’t do that to you guys, so I’m going to suffer through it, just to make you happy. Yay, me…

• Anyway…Chloe Fineman shows up as…*sigh*…Elmo. The voice she uses is so AWFUL and sounds nothing like him. They try to be clever by giving the costume arm rods like an actual Elmo puppet would have, but it doesn’t work as well with a real person.

• So, why the fuck is Elmo here in the first place? Surely SNL is no place for a puppet who’s supposed to be three years old, right? Well, in the week leading up to this episode, a clip of Elmo going ballistic at his friend Zoe’s pet rock Rocco went viral…for some reason. People make memes out of the dumbest things these days (see also: Among Us). 

• I bet SNL thought it would be “cute” to cash in on all the memes and do a sketch about it, so we get a really really really BAD commentary where they bring out “Rocco” and Elmo Fineman gets angry. There’s no observations, no nothing. They just do the exact same bit from the show, with no variation. It honestly borders on plagiarism.

• As of late, SNL has gotten a reputation of being a “meme-killer”. When this aired, a bunch of people (who I am very thankful for) tweeted their displeasure at this awful sketch and the unfunny woman behind it, saying that SNL ruined the meme for them. Sure enough, I haven’t seen anything else about this meme since then, which I’m okay with because I didn’t find it that funny anyway. But I prefer memes over shitty SNL sketches by a wide margin. 

• To sum things up, Chloe Fineman is now my least favorite cast member and this commentary encapsulates everything I hate about her.

Sketch: New Governess

In this Sound of Music parody, Maria hires a governess to take care of the children.

• Another odd discrepancy between the sketch and the YouTube description. It claims that this is about a widower (played by Kenan) hiring the governess, but the actual sketch is a parody of The Sound of Music where Maria is the one who hires the governess. Was this originally written for Kenan before they changed it at some point to a Sound of Music sketch?

• I would have liked to see the Kenan version (if it even exists), because Kate has nothing new to offer here. Her Julie Andrews voice is the same that she uses for all of the old-time female celebrities she plays.

• The song lyrics themselves are shit. I’d almost swear this was a Cinema Classics sketch because of how poorly written it was. Just you wait until next episode…

Musical Performance: “Chi-Town”

Sketch: Sappho

Some long-lost poems from the Greek philosopher Sappho are discovered and presented to a crowd at Cornell University.

• Rather odd choice to use Cornell as the setting.

• Mikey plugs the event’s sponsor: FAGE Yogurt. The slogan is “Be careful how you say it.” Wow, thanks for explaining the joke, Mikey! 

• I knew exactly where this was headed when Mikey said that the poet was from the island of Lesbos. And seeing as Kate McKinnon shows up right after that…can you tell who wrote this sketch yet?

• Unsurprisingly, the poems all turn out to be lesbian poems. Yay, I predicted a joke again!

• I’m ashamed to admit that I laughed at a poem that says “I have of girls”.

• And they just keep piling on the obvious jokes, such as this one knee-slapper about a Rosie O’Donnell family cruise. Get it?!? Cuz she’s a lesbian!!!

• I thought this show was supposed to be progressive! Why are we getting lame stereotypical lesbian jokes that even Chelsea Handler would reject?

Sketch: Longhorn Steakhouse

Workers at a steakhouse try to make it through their shift while dealing with their demanding boss.

• Barf. Yet another “funny accent” sketch. Since this takes place at a steakhouse, the workers all have dumb Southern accents. And it gets more and more painful to listen to as it goes on.

Final thoughts: It’s been a while since we had an absolute clunker of an episode. There were a couple of good sketches in the first half of the show, but then that…THING…on Weekend Update happened, and the show never recovered.

Best sketches: NBA on TNT, Urkel

Worst sketches: Cold Open, Monologue, Press Conference, Weekend Update, Longhorn Steakhouse

Next review: Will Forte/Maneskin

SNL Reviews: Paul Rudd (12/18/21)

 Okay, now this is going to be a very unusual episode. Here’s a little backstory first. In the week leading up to it, New York City cancelled a lot of special holiday events due to the rise of the Omicron variant. Some people that work on SNL were affected by it, including some of the cast members, like Punkie Johnson. As a result, tonight’s intended musical guest, Charli XCX, was forced to pull out of the show, and there are no musical performances in this episode for the first time ever. But will it still be a good episode despite all of these things working against it? Well, let’s see…

Cold Open/Monologue: Five Timers

Paul Rudd is inducted into the Five Timers Club.

• The first person we see in this is Tom Hanks, the first time he’s appeared on the set since the Season 42 finale.

• Damn, the studio sounds so barren without an audience. Only one guy from the SNL Band showed up, and it was pretty funny seeing him all by himself.

• After explaining the situation, Tom introduces fellow Five Timer Tina Fey. Tina says this isn’t the smallest audience she’s performed for, as she has also done improv inside of Macy’s.

• I’m ashamed to admit I laughed at Tina saying Tom was responsible for starting COVID.

• Our actual host doesn’t show up until a minute and a half into this. But at least he’s a good enough sport to show up at all.

• One of the only cast members to appear tonight is Kenan, who comes out to give Paul his Five Timers jacket. I find Kenan a lot more charming these days when he’s just playing himself, like he is here. I admit I chuckled when he facetiously asked if COVID is even real.

• We then get a filmed message from Steve Martin! This is his first appearance on the show since January 2019, and it feels so good to see him again! The message is actually for Tom, with Paul’s name awkwardly being dubbed over every time he says it. Then Martin Short shows up as a servant, and, despite this being another waste of his talents, this was a much better appearance than that awful Kamala Harris sketch he was in last season.

• Considering how challenging it was to put this show on, this “cold open” wasn’t too bad. Though I feel like I’m only rating it higher because of the presence of these SNL legends returning.

So, basically, tonight’s episode is a mixture between stuff from older episodes, and stuff that they taped earlier in the week before the live show was cancelled. Normally, I wouldn’t review an episode that’s just a glorified clip show, but I haven’t tortured myself on this blog in a while, so I’ll let it slide in this case.

Film: HomeGoods

Two women (Bryant and McKinnon) try to shoot a commercial for HomeGoods, but fail miserably.

• This was shot the night before everything got cancelled, as Paul explains in his intro.

• Ugh, another Bryant/McKinnon pairing. The break from these we got while Kate was absent was nice, but all good things must come to an end at some point. 

• Couldn’t they have picked an actual good sketch to lead off this episode with? This is fucking awful, and a perfect display of how out of place Kate and Aidy are in this season. They need to leave as soon as possible.

Repeat: Dick in a Box (from 12/16/06)

Do I even need to say anything?

• YES!!! After the laughless tripe that was the previous sketch, it felt good to have some fun again.

• No matter how many films The Lonely Island guys made, this (and Lazy Sunday) will always be their most iconic. Personally, I’m more of a “Jizz In My Pants” fan, but I doubt they would play that one in a holiday episode.

Film: An Evening With Pete Davidson

We take a trip to the future of 2054, where Pete Davidson has to prove that he’s still got it.

• Paul says that this was completed that morning at 5 AM, probably the last thing they were able to get finished before the announcement was made that they wouldn’t be doing the live show. When introducing the people that appear, he says that Colin Jost is “sort of” in it. I missed that line when I first saw this, but we’ll see what he means…

• This film is entirely in black and white, a nice change of the norm.

• A funny reveal of Pete’s future makeup, where the only change made to him is that he has a receding hairline.

• I laughed out loud at the Colin Jost robot that now hosts Weekend Update. Considering how long he’s been the anchor, I wouldn’t be surprised if SNL eventually goes that route.

• Even in this future setting, Pete’s still doing lame Staten Island jokes. This angers an audience member (Mikey) who wants him to do Chad. Pete eventually relents, and says “Okay” in that unmistakable Chad voice, for what I assume is the last time ever, since Pete said that Chad died for real after that Mars sketch in the Elon Musk episode. But, hey, I’m just glad we got to hear him do the voice again.

• Then Robot Jost malfunctions and has to be extinguished. If only that were the real Colin Jost this was happening to…

• Unfortunately, the rest of the film after that is kind of sappy and boring, definitely not as strong as it started.

Repeat: Santa And His Magical Elves (from 12/5/15)

Masochistic elves try goading Santa into discipline.

• I’ve heard a lot of bad things about these sketches, and after watching this one, I can see why.

• At least it was nice to see Bobby Moynihan and Vanessa Bayer again. They don’t get enough love.

• Was Ryan Gosling high or something? He keeps giggling for no reason.

Repeat: The Global Warming Christmas Special (from 12/8/90)

Various celebrities share facts about global warming.

• Minor nitpick: Tom claims in his intro that this sketch is from 1991. It actually aired in December 1990. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder.

• The late 80s-early 90s era is severely underrepresented in this episode. I’m glad the sketch they chose for it was this amazing one, which I had never seen before.

• Mike Myers is a riot as Carl Sagan, especially the way he keeps emphasizing certain letter sounds. 

• Tom Hanks nails his Dean Martin impression. As soon as he came out and asked where the cue cards were, I was won over.

• Dead on casting of Victoria Jackson as human waste of space Sally Struthers. She perfectly nails Struthers’ sad whimpery delivery that she did in those PSAs she used to appear in. And I also love how Sagan introduces her as “Archie Bunker’s daughter”, as if that’s all she’s ever going to be famous for.

• Amazing part where Sagan chuckles like a moron after making a bad pun about “hot water”.

• Kind of funny in retrospect how Sagan mentions the Aladdin Hotel as being one of the only remaining monuments of Las Vegas after global warming. The Aladdin was imploded in April 1998.

• I got kind of sad when Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman showed up as Crystal Gayle and Isaac Asimov, respectively, but then I felt better once Asimov started singing in his dull monotone voice. Then Gayle calls Sagan a “nerd” after he splashes red paint on her fur coat. All hilarious stuff.

• Dana Carvey’s hilarious Paul McCartney impression makes an appearance here. The voice he uses and the way he nails McCartney’s way of speaking is great. I especially love the brief closeup of Dean Martin’s confused face while McCartney is rambling on about something. That’s apparently writer Christine Zander as Linda McCartney, who has no lines and just silently watches her husband make a fool of himself.

• Nice to see Kevin Nealon here too, wearing tanned makeup as George Hamilton.

• Hamilton’s creepy statements about Dyan Cannon and her “flaky” skin were hilarious.

• Some of the other celebrities Hamilton mentions are a nice retrospective of who was big at the time, such as Rob Lowe, Lorenzo Lamas, and the two Coreys.

• Brief appearance from the real Ralph Nader, who they don’t even allow to speak before introducing the next guests.

• Chris Farley and Julia Sweeney get laughs without even speaking from their brief appearances as Dom DeLuise and Petula Clark.

• Overall, a perfect summary of why this era of the show is my favorite.

Weekend Update (featuring Tina Fey)

• Colin Jost went home after the rest of the show was cancelled, so Tina Fey is filling in for him. Sadly, Michael Che is still there.

• Call me a heretic for admitting this, but I’m not a big fan of Tina as an anchor. She started out okay, but she quickly devolved into a “cutesy” parody of herself. Once she got paired up with Amy Poehler, she was just insufferable.

• Pretty amusing shot of Rudd, Hanks, and Kenan as the “audience”.

• Extremely distasteful joke from Tina about the death of one of the NES’s creators. I’m sure she thought it was cute in dress rehearsal, but, it’s still about someone dying. Try to show some respect.

• The only thing I laughed at was Che’s camel joke, which he says Hanks would like, because it’s about Botox.

• Overall, one of the worst Updates ever. Seeing two of my least favorite anchors together was unbearable.

Film: The Christmas Socks

A man sings a song while helping a little boy buy a pair of socks.

• This sketch was filmed Friday morning. Our original music guest, Charli XCX, makes an appearance in it, obviously before she was forced to drop out.

• I got a laugh out of the album’s name being “Songs in C Manger”.

• This is really sappy, and not the kind of thing you’d expect to see on this show. I admire the cast’s singing voices, though. Except Kenan. Auto-tune just makes him sound weird.

• Apart from the intros, this is the last bit of new material in this episode. It’s all repeats from here on out.

Repeat: A Holiday Wish (from 12/6/86)

Steve Martin’s holiday wishes are increasingly selfish.

• Another all-time classic. What more needs to be said about this one?

Repeat: Holiday Pageant (from 12/15/12)

A man won’t let his musical partner sing during an audition for a Christmas pageant.

• This originally aired in an episode where Martin Short hosted, and Paul McCartney was the musical guest. Both of them appear in this, although I’m a little weary of the corniness of Paul playing a character who can’t sing. 

• Cecily plays one of the judges. This was in her first season on the show, and she hasn’t aged a bit. It’s also extremely weird to see her alongside Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen.

• Even back then, Kenan was still doing that voice I hate so much, although not as exaggerated as it is today.

• I’m getting Jackie Rogers, Jr. vibes from Short’s character.

• Short and McCartney’s interplay in this is so, so good. It’s like they’ve already been a comedy duo for years.

• Seeing a musical legend like Paul McCartney stand around while awkwardly holding a triangle is hilarious.

• I don’t know how Paul is able to keep a straight face while Short is yelling in his ear.

• Paul: “I was chasing a bird.” Perfectly delivered.

• Turns out this sketch was just a setup to a performance of “Wonderful Christmastime”, which is my favorite Christmas song of all time. Unfortunately, they cut the song from the version of this sketch that aired in this episode! Boooo!!!!!

Repeat: North Pole News Report (from 12/20/19)

• Note: I already reviewed this sketch when I covered the episode it aired in.

Repeat: One Direction Concert Line (from 12/8/13)

• I can’t find any high-quality copies of this sketch online, but I remember it being pretty funny to see Paul Rudd act like a teenaged girl. I’ll update this part once I find it.

Repeat: Now That’s What I Call Christmas (from 12/21/13)

All your favorite artists sing classic holiday hits!

• A classic impression showcase sketch. I’m glad to be reviewing the amazing and underrated Jay Pharoah for the first time on this blog!

• After a surprisingly good Michael Bublé impression from Jimmy Fallon, we get a really bad one of Shakira from Kate McKinnon, which is just her shaking her hips and babbling in a Spanish accent.

• I didn’t know who that was as Zooey Deschanel at first. Then I found out it was Nöel Wells. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of her. This was her only season.

• Jimmy’s Alan Rickman is spot on. I would have loved to see Rickman host SNL at some point. Too bad he never will…

• Speaking of spot on, Jay Pharoah as DMX is perfectly cast.

• As much as I’ve grown to like Kyle Mooney, his impressions are always pretty bad, such as his bizarre Axl Rose in this sketch. To be fair, though, he was still pretty new when this was made.

• Bobby Moynihan does a better Andrea Bocelli impression than you’d expect. 

• Cecily as Alanis Morrisette makes for some nice eye candy. Her singing partner is Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day (played by some guy I’ve never seen before).

• Another terrible McKinnon impression, this time as Lorde. Thankfully, this is overshadowed by Jimmy as Harry Styles jumping around like an idiot.

• Jimmy as Pitbull is a great way to end this, but it’s a casting choice that he unfortunately would never get away with today.

Repeat: Christmastime for the Jews (from 12/17/05)

A heartwarming look at what Jewish people do during the holidays.

• My absolute favorite TV Funhouse sketch. The intentionally broad stereotypes, the beautiful performance by Darlene Love, the line about “Daily Show reruns dancing in their heads”, everything about this sketch works for me. What else can I say? A definite 10/10.

Final thoughts: Overall, how do you even rank this episode? It barely qualifies as one. It was more like a glorified clip show. Because of that, I won’t be doing my usual sketch ranking thing here.

Next review: Ariana DeBose/Bleachers