SNL Review

[Ted the Poster 0]

Hey Bob, I haven't been here long so I've never seen one of your SNL reviews before. Do you do them on TSM, or do you have a site? Anyway, here are a few of my afterthoughts.

 

- Maya Rudolph may not be very funny, but at least she's a lot hotter than the fugly Dratch(but Dratch is funnier).

 

- I was glad that Jimmy was able to not giggle at himself for once.

 

- Tina Fey was, as usual, very hot and hilarious. Her joke about Bush's failure to find everything had me rolling.

 

- As for the new people, Kenan could work out if he sticks to impressions, and Finesse Mitchell seemed to be trying too hard to be the next Chris Rock(and did you see his LIPS? God, they were huge!).

 

- Jack Black was awesome, but it seemed like he was the ONLY thing keeping his sketches funny.

 

- Also, I just gotta say that even though he may be boring, John Mayer's music played from your car outside of a club attracts girls like mad(judging from few clubs I've been to). Women just love the guy.

 

 

By the way, what are your opinions about Will Ferrell's performance on SNL and in general? He was always one of my favorites, and his Harry Cary was awesome. The Roxbury sketches, however, were asinine. I've never seen anyone make so many other cast members crack up during a brodcast.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

Barron's SNL recaps can be seen at saturday-night-live.com as well as here. And yes, he is no Mark Polishuk, who simply rocked. I was actually writing a review for the site myself, but Word crashed and I lost half of it.

[bob_barron 0]

Eh, Jerry got some noticeable airtime, especially with the old school rap recurring sketch which I loved. "Back in my day we used to rap about sneakers!"

 

Dean, however, was TOTALLY shafted and deserved better.

 

Yea- Dean and Jerry were both really funny but with the exception of a few things- just got absolutely screwed over. I really hope Dean's sitcom deal with ABC works out since he's hilarious. I know I'd watch it.

 

- Maya Rudolph may not be very funny, but at least she's a lot hotter than the fugly Dratch(but Dratch is funnier).

 

I'll give you that.

 

- I was glad that Jimmy was able to not giggle at himself for once.

 

Same here- He seemed really focused and professional and he was funny. I'm glad he had a real good show.

 

- Tina Fey was, as usual, very hot and hilarious. Her joke about Bush's failure to find everything had me rolling.

 

My friend remarked how she wasn't feeling the highlights but Tina does look HOT in that intro. Update was really strong and Tina's Anti-Bush rant brought the funny.

 

- As for the new people, Kenan could work out if he sticks to impressions, and Finesse Mitchell seemed to be trying too hard to be the next Chris Rock(and did you see his LIPS? God, they were huge!).

 

Kenan was in Good Burger so I love him already. I like how they established the new people one show in. They gave both them chances to shine which was reminiscent of Seth two years ago. It'll be a few shows before I judge them officially though.

 

I rewatched Weekend Update- and yea- he's got big lips.

 

- Jack Black was awesome, but it seemed like he was the ONLY thing keeping his sketches funny.

 

Jack Black is one of those guys who will make me laugh at almost anything. I'll probably see School of Rock now.

 

- Also, I just gotta say that even though he may be boring, John Mayer's music played from your car outside of a club attracts girls like mad(judging from few clubs I've been to). Women just love the guy.

 

Hmmmmmm- I've got to try that one day. Thank you.

 

By the way, what are your opinions about Will Ferrell's performance on SNL and in general? He was always one of my favorites, and his Harry Cary was awesome. The Roxbury sketches, however, were asinine. I've never seen anyone make so many other cast members crack up during a brodcast

 

Will Ferrell was AWESOME. I rag him on a lot but he was an awesome cast member. I don't think he was this God at SNL that a lot of people think he was nor no I don't think his leaving the show caused this huge lapse in quality.

 

I loved the Roxburys and I loved Harry Cary. Some of the stuff he did with McKay was flat out awesome. His last year was not that good though- He was just lost without McKay and had to rely on his tired impressions and bad shock humour.

 

Will was the man though and it was a blast watching him on SNL.

 

Barron's SNL recaps can be seen at saturday-night-live.com as well as here. And yes, he is no Mark Polishuk, who simply rocked. I was actually writing a review for the site myself, but Word crashed and I lost half of it.

 

You can also see them at-

www.voy.com/16069/

 

Mark was good stuff but come on- the guy was bald! I have hair. Doesn't that make me better at all?

 

I'm sorry your review got lost- I always love hearing other people's thoughts on SNL.

[TheBostonStrangler 0]

Good review, Barron. I'd give the Yankees cartoon about ***3/4 stars, but otherwise, I pretty much agree with your ratings. A lot of good skits (nothing standout, though), Jack Black ruled, a quality Weekend Update, good use of the new talent, and a very nice season opener. Good call on the review.

[Lando Griffin 0]

I tuned in during the monologue, so I missed the cold opening. Was Darrell's Arnold impression essentially the same as the one he did on Weekend Update a couple years ago? That one was hilarious.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

No, it wasn't. It was pretty damn bad, as his accent seems to have gotten exponentially worse since he did it back then.

[bob_barron 0]

Mark posted his thoughts on the show Gosunkugi so here they are-

 

I own the same sweater that Fred's character wore in the cooking class skit. I suddenly feel so old.

 

But my self-pity aside, this episode didn't quite do it for me. The new opening to the show is flat-out awesome, and it got me in a real pumped-up mood, but (to paraphrase an old Kirstie Alley bit from the Emmys) it was like having a girl zip down your fly and then zip it back up again over the course of the night.

 

*Frankly, they should retire the 'host does a musical number walking through the set' routine, since unless Steve Martin or Mike Myers is involved, it ain't all that grand.

 

*Was there an in-joke to the Schwarzenegger skit? Was the dialogue actually taken from this speeches? Pardon my ignorance, but I haven't really been following the California election since I'm still under the impression that he isn't actually running and this is all a big scam for the season premiere of Punk'd. Either that, or this is all part of a giant conspiracy on the part of Hush to torment me. But who could Hush be??? Is it Jay Stuler??? He's one of the few who know my secret identity.

 

* John Mayer was suitably blah with a side helping of blah.

 

* New Black Guy #1 was ok, and New Black Guy #2 was average.

 

* The Yankee Superheroes skit was hilarious, thanks to the small details (i.e. Bernie Williams, a classical guitarist, taking his ray gun out of a guitar case). Smiegel must be a baseball fan. It was very X-Presidents lite, but the in-jokes were good. Cubs/Red Sox in the Series, y'all! Let one curse end!

 

* For perhaps the first time in SNL history, the four funniest people on the show (with the exception of Will Forte) are all women. Given the sorry state that the men have degenerated to, thank God that Rachel, Amy and Maya are carrying the load.

 

* Speaking of women, hooray for Tina being in more skits. Update was ok, though Fallon's jokes were all horrible aside from the one about the old Japanese man. Richards as Limbaugh was good, and Richards continues to make Darrell Hammond utterly expendable. The Cosby/Sykes thing was unimpressive aside from the nice attention to detail in having a Larry David lookalike sitting behind Cosby. Finesse Mitchell's bit was ok, but like another reviewer said earlier, it seemed like a recycled stand-up bit. Why not just update the material to the most recent hit subtitled movie (which would be.....um....er....Talk To Her?)

 

* Jack Black, bless his heart, gave 110%, but the material just wasn't up to par tonight. Just letting Jack be Jack for 90 minutes would've been funnier than this entire show.

 

I'm not even going to name a 'best skit' since nothing really stood out, even the cartoon or Update. Worst skit was clearly the Wade Robson dance contest, which barely differed from the actual show to call the skit a satire.

 

All in all, I'm sure glad I don't have to write 11 pages about this episode. Yay retirement!

[Ted the Poster 0]

Barron, I'm confused- are you talking about Adam McKay, the guy who did those mini-movies like the Food Pawn Shop with Steve Buscemi? Or was he a person who wrote Ferrell's best sketches?

[bob_barron 0]

Yea- McKay was Will's right hand man.

 

Some of his stuff was way out there but when he was on- he was ON.

[Ted the Poster 0]

Yeah, the H... is O.

[bob_barron 0]

I HATE the H...is the O with a passion.

 

The whole Alan Cumming show is total dogcrap but the H is the O was just awful

[Youth N Asia 0]

My long delayed reply

 

Arnold for Govenor

Cast- Darrell Hammond

-I really wasn't feeling this one. It had one joke and they ran the hell out of it. And the audiance loved it way more then I did...shame. *

 

Monologue

Cast- Will Ferrell, Kyle Gass, Jack Black, Rachel Dratch, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Will Forte, Darrell Hammond, Seth Meyers, Chris Parnell, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Richards, Fred Armisen, Finesse Mitchell, Kenan Thompson

-I liked it. I'm way sick of the singing opening, but it got good when he went backstage. I liked the Kyle and Will cameos too. Plus him taking cheap shots at the cast. ****

 

Huggies Thong

Cast- Rudolph, Dratch

-It was alright. Sadly the way kids are these days this could be a reality. **

 

Queer Eye for the Straight Gal

Cast- Black, Poehler, Fey, Rudolph, Dratch

-Jack was great, and Poehler was real good. Mya still suck though. **1/2

 

The Wade Robson Project

Cast- Black, Meyers, Rudolph, Poehler, Mitchell

-Jack was great, Mya was bad, and everyone else was so-so or worse. One accidental "n-bomb" wasn't enough to save it...and you saw it coming a mile away. *

 

Italian Cooking

Cast- Black, Sanz, Dratch, Parnell, Armisen

-Average. Jack was funny, Sanz was good, and Fred was good. But nothing special. **

 

Yankee Superheroes

-You wonder why they didn't think this one up sooner. It was alright, but they could have done better. **1/2

 

Weekend Update

Cast- Fey, Fallon, Richards, Rudolph. Mitchell, Thompson

-Pretty good. Tina and Jimmy were funny, but lose points for the dumb little bit with the drink and mustace. They seem to do a lot of stuff like that and it's just not funny. And the guy doing the theater bit bugged me. How stong a comedian are you where your material has to be 3 years outdated to work? I liked the Rush bit. And I liked the Cosby bit. ****1/4

 

Jack Black sings

Cast- Black, Dratch, Rudolph, Richards, Poehler, Sanz, Thompson

-Um...why was this done? It had a laugh or two, but just seemed bad at the same time. **

 

Wine Critic

Cast- Black, Rudolph, Dratch, Sanz, Meyers

-I stopped laughing after a while. The skit ran too long to be great, but it was good for a while. **1/2

 

Telemarketers

Cast- Black, Parnell, Sanz, Poehler, Forte, Rudolph, Thompson

-Like the Wade Roberts deal, the racial joke was the best thing. Bad skit and they did Black singing to death. 1/2*

[bob_barron 0]

Arnold for Govenor

Cast- Darrell Hammond

-I really wasn't feeling this one. It had one joke and they ran the hell out of it. And the audiance loved it way more then I did...shame. *

 

I agree- I guess the audience didn't figure out: Hey... this impression blows! I thought the stuff that came out of Arnold's mouth was a lot funnier then the way Arnold said it so that's why I gave it a higher rating then it probably deserved.

 

Monologue

Cast- Will Ferrell, Kyle Gass, Jack Black, Rachel Dratch, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Will Forte, Darrell Hammond, Seth Meyers, Chris Parnell, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Richards, Fred Armisen, Finesse Mitchell, Kenan Thompson

-I liked it. I'm way sick of the singing opening, but it got good when he went backstage. I liked the Kyle and Will cameos too. Plus him taking cheap shots at the cast. ****

 

Yea- only a few monologues (Mike Myers, Martin Short, Kevin Spacey) can pull off singing to perfection. Kyle's cameo was really really funny and Will was funnier backstage then he was onstage.

 

 

Queer Eye for the Straight Gal

Cast- Black, Poehler, Fey, Rudolph, Dratch

-Jack was great, and Poehler was real good. Mya still suck though. **1/2

 

Good to see you sipping on the Maya Haterade YNA.

 

The Wade Robson Project

Cast- Black, Meyers, Rudolph, Poehler, Mitchell

-Jack was great, Mya was bad, and everyone else was so-so or worse. One accidental "n-bomb" wasn't enough to save it...and you saw it coming a mile away.*

 

Yea- Jack could probably make the Alan Cumming show decent. Maya was the only real downside to this skit to me as her dancing just went on for way too long. Finesse added nothing even though I'm glad they gave him airtime.

 

Italian Cooking

Cast- Black, Sanz, Dratch, Parnell, Armisen

-Average. Jack was funny, Sanz was good, and Fred was good. But nothing special. **

 

Yankee Superheroes

-You wonder why they didn't think this one up sooner. It was alright, but they could have done better. **1/2

 

Agreed 100%.

 

Weekend Update

Cast- Fey, Fallon, Richards, Rudolph. Mitchell, Thompson

-Pretty good. Tina and Jimmy were funny, but lose points for the dumb little bit with the drink and mustace. They seem to do a lot of stuff like that and it's just not funny. And the guy doing the theater bit bugged me. How stong a comedian are you where your material has to be 3 years outdated to work? I liked the Rush bit. And I liked the Cosby bit. ****1/4

 

The drink and moustache stuff surprised me since they usuallyp ull that stuff in dress rehearsal and it almost always gets cut. I think they do it just to amuse themselves but Lorne apparently found drink + moustache + Jimmy Fallon's evil laughter= hilarity. I did not agree.

 

 

 

Good review YNA- I pretty much agreed with a lot of what you had to say