Saturday, October 22, 2022

SNL Reviews: Jerrod Carmichael/Gunna (4/2/22)

Cold Open

The FOX and Friends crew talk with Donald Trump and Clarence Thomas.

• “You’re watching FOX and Friends.” This sketch is going to suck. 

• First time they’ve done a FOX and Friends bit since 2018. 

• When Heidi mentioned Ted Cruz, I was afraid that meant we would be getting an appearance from Aidy’s “impression” of him. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

• Instead, we get an appearance from Kenan as Clarence Thomas, and Kate as his wife. Once again, Kenan is playing a celebrity he has no business as, and Kate is just there to mug and be annoying.

• Kate’s line about being “The Yoko Ono of the Supreme Court” was lame.

• Cecily’s awful Judge Pirro impression is back. Her first line is an incredibly unsubtle “Hello, my only friends!” Also, her whole drinking shtick has gotten so old by this point.

• *sigh* Another fucking appearance from Trump. Does this guy live rent-free in their heads or what?

• Jeez, we’ve approached the point where they start making a bunch of Will Smith Oscars jokes. These haven’t aged well.

• What the hell is all this Kevin James nonsense about? Is it just another “haha Trump is insane” joke?

• And just to show you how much this sucks, there’s no list of corrections at the end. That’s the best part! Why didn’t they include it?!??

• This cold open was a fuckin’ nightmare to get through. A candidate for the worst sketch of the entire season.


Monologue

Jerrod talks about coming out and the Will Smith slap.

• So far, he’s gone on a rambling speech about the Will Smith thing.

• It’s not until 3:15 into this that he FINALLY changes the subject to how nobody knows who he is.

• Some amusing self-deprecating jokes about coming out as gay and the special treatment that entails if you live in New York.

• I totally agree with him that hosting SNL is the gayest thing you can do.

• Once he got past all the Smith jokes, this monologue wasn’t too bad.


Sketch: Is My Brain Okay?

The game show where contestants see how much their brain remembers two years into the pandemic.

• Normally, I’d complain about the game show host’s name being “Lisa Something”, but it fits with this sketch’s theme about remembering things.

• Rare sighting of Kate as a game show host.

• Kate: “What do you do now?” Jerrod: “Mushrooms.”

• Aside from that exchange, this is just a pretty lame variation of What’s Wrong With This Picture, except it’s even less funny.

• Not helping matters is Kate’s baffling performance. I’m not sure if it’s part of the sketch or not, but she sounds extremely out of it. Only five episodes to go before I’m rid of her…


Film: Short-Ass Movies

A rap about watching short movies.

• Oh, that’s right, Pete Davidson is still in the cast. This is the first we’ve seen from Pete since the Dafoe episode, and it’s his only appearance all night. He won’t be seen again until the season finale.

• Apparently his long absence didn’t make him any funnier, because this film is a big snooze fest.

• I like the set of the hallway with all the clocks in it.

• This song is admittedly kind of catchy.

• Our musical guest and some other rapper I’ve never heard of make cameos. Don’t know why I brought this up. I guess I just ran out of things to mention here.


Sketch: ShopTV

A dollmaker shows off his creations on a home shopping channel.

• Jerrod’s name is “Kevin Lickitt”? UGGGHHHH!!!

• Despite all of the typical Anderlette traits in this sketch (the hosts’ Southern accents and the aforementioned “funny” name), this was apparently written by Seiday. Is Anderlette’s influence rubbing off on these two?

• Another huge groan from me when they take off the doll’s clothes to reveal rainbow pubes..

• I did like Ego as a caller referring to it as a “rainbow vag-afro”.

• More groanworthy material when Jerrod looks like he’s fisting the doll.

• If you wanna see an SNL sketch do a decent job of parodying home shopping programs, watch the “Shop at Home Network” sketch where they try to sell Mark Hamill.


Sketch: Seat Fillers

An Oscars seat filler gets interrupted while talking to Will Smith.

• Our obligatory Oscars sketch.

• I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kyle in a tuxedo before. He looks almost unrecognizable.

• Chris’s Will Smith impression could be better, but it’s doing its job just fine.

• I think this would have worked better as a quick minute-and-a-half sketch. Just have the intro play as normal and end it right after Smith slaps Rock.

• Instead, we have Smith shouting “KEEP MY WIFE’S NAME OUT YOUR *bleep* MOUTH!!!!” over and over again. That quote was funny on its own, but not when it’s repeated.


Musical Performance: “Banking On Me”


Weekend Update (featuring Marsha Blackburn and OJ Simpson)

• Man, these Oscars jokes are painful. That whole incident was fading from my memory until reviewing this episode brought it back.

• Che with a surprisingly good point about how everyone should stop pretending they knew about Jada’s hair condition.

• Cecily’s latest annoying Update character is an impression of Republican senator Marsha Blackburn. And it’s just as bad as all of Cecily’s other Republican impressions.

• Not the biggest fan of Che’s plug for his HBO Max special.

• Yet another appearance from Kenan as OJ. I’ve already made my opinions on that clear, so let’s move on.


Side note: A dedication to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins is shown after Update. It’s kind of surprising that they didn’t show a clip from one of his many performances on this show with the band.


Sketch: Scattering Remains

Things go wrong when a family attempts to put their pop-pop to rest.

• Another non-impression role for JAJ. I’m glad they haven’t been relegating him to impressions only.

• Hilarious and ballsy part where “Pop-Pop’s” body takes a rough tumble down the cliff when they try to throw him into the ocean.

• James’ reaction to this is great! I’m loving his voice in this sketch.

• For such a dumb idea, everyone’s giving it their all.

• Andrew’s “Pretty goo-er, pretty cool!” gaffe was good for an unintentional laugh.

• I like how Andrew picks up a cyclist who he thinks is the grandfather, and then dumps him back in the water when he finds out it’s not.

• Great ending where Andrew falls in the water after getting an urn dropped on him.

• I enjoyed this sketch a LOT more this time around. It was kept the right length and I got some great laughs from it.


Sketch: Story

A man gets really excited about a story.

• First off, what a lazy title.

• This mediocre final season of Kyle’s continues, as his role in this sketch is extremely annoying.

• Also, I just noticed that this is Ego’s first physical appearance tonight, after her voice was in that awful doll sketch from earlier. Given how well her airtime has been this season, it’s quite a shock.


Musical Performance: “Pushin’ P”


Fake Commercial: Osh Kosh F*gosh

A new, more “inclusive” line of baby clothes.

• Wow, what a dumb concept.

• I feel sorry for the babies in this sketch having to wear such “funny” sayings as “Future Twink”, and “L’il Lez”.

• This is also the only appearance of Chloe in this episode. Thank GOD for that!

• The Harvey Milk pun was horrible, but I liked Chris’s delivery of his name.

• Overall, one of the worst fake ads in recent memory. At least I can say it was an original concept and not some thinly veiled advertisement for a real company.


Cut For Time: Three Normal Goths

The PDD guys live completely normal lives…as goths!

• Aw man, the PDD guys got cut from the live show again! The other Cut For Time sketch on YouTube was another Angelo bit, but there’s no way I’m bothering with that shit!

• The initial reveal of Martin turning around to reveal the goth makeup was funny.

• I like how the theme song is broken up into little bits throughout the sketch.

• It feels sad hearing this without any applause. Then again, these barely get any applause when they actually make the live show.

• Excellent Peter Griffin impressions from all three guys.

• Speaking of great impressions, I love Ben’s Jimmy Cagney impression when he finds out that The Beatles aren’t on Spotify, which is then followed by another line of the theme song: “Sometimes their jokes don’t land!”

• Another funny use of a “slash” graphic after they criticize Jerrod’s fedora. I don’t know why I always get laughs from that, but I do.

• Overall, yet another great film from these guys, even if this one kind of suffered from the lack of audience response.


Final thoughts:  A step down from the last few episodes. While the excessive Oscars slap jokes didn’t help, there was a huge feeling of “been there, done that” to a lot of the material here, especially that god awful ShopTV sketch. On the plus side, Jerrod Carmichael did a pretty good job. I wish he had a better episode to appear in.


Best sketches: The second half of the monologue, Scattering Remains, Three Normal Goths (Cut)

Worst sketches: Cold Open, Most of the monologue, ShopTV, Weekend Update, Story


Next review: Jake Gyllenhaal/Camilla Cabello

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