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bob_barron

SNL Review- featuring a report of my trip to SNL

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SNL Review- Queen Latifah

 

The order of the skits in this review are in the order they aired in DRESS.

 

SNL Moment #19-

 

19. Smigel manages to offend all with Saddam and Osama

 

Usually Don Pardo announcing that we were getting a Robert Smigel cartoon means SNL fans are in for a treat. The cartoon ‘Saddam and Osama’ somehow managed to offend everyone in a short span. I think Smigel set a new record with this one.

 

THE MOMENT:

 

The setup for Saddam and Osama was that both men were partners in crime fighting the good fight of Islamic Jihad.

 

It began with this:

 

Announcer: It's the Abu Dhabi Kids Network! State-run and gobs of fun.

 

Jingle:

"Saddam & Osama!

On the run from American imperialist pig-eaters.

Satan tries to catch them

But they are endowed with amazing transforming powers.

Glory be to Allah!

Saddam & Osama!"

 

 

It was all downhill from there. President Bush was portrayed as a monkey while Dick Cheney ate a roasted pig. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was wearing a large diaper.

 

This may not sound that funny- but I was wiping away tears and nearly fell over multiple times. As I told Robert Smigel the words ‘Oh no, oh no’ kept flickering in my head.

 

Somehow SNL wasn’t yanked from the air at this point and the skit continued.

 

Saddam Hussein: Cracky! Good to see you, old friend!

 

Osama bin Laden: Why the long face, Saddam?

 

Saddam Hussein: It's a letter from my wives. How I miss them.

 

Osama bin Laden: I miss mine. But, look - there is no time for tears. [ points to arriving American tanks ]

 

 

The shining moment of Saddam and Osama came when the cartoon had to break for commercials. I can’t describe this so we’ll have to rely on the transcript once again.

 

Announcer: Bat-Man faces not one.. but four treacherous villains as he battles..

 

[ show The Joker ]

 

The Jew..

 

..and also does battle with..

 

[ show The Riddler ]

 

..the other Jew..

 

As they join forces with..

 

[ show The Penguin ]

 

The little old Jew. Next on.. "Bat-Man".

 

Next was a commercial involving seventy virgins being the Olsens. Smigel still had a few left in him and unleashed these gems:

 

Announcer: Then, it's "Disney Favorites", hosted by the Information Minister Mohammed.

 

Information Minister Mohammed: The Queen has arrived and has beheaded the dwarves, I swear by God, she remains the fairest of them all. Snow White and the Prince have committed suicide, and God will roast their stomachs in Hell.

 

Announcer: On "Disney Favorites".

 

[ cut to intercut images of kids dancing with decal-designed rocks and Iraqis throwing the same rocks at American tanks ]

 

Jingle: Rocks! Rocks! Rocks!

They come with cool decals

and cool flourescent colors.

Then you throw them at the soldiers.

Collect them all!

Rocks!

 

The skit continued and it was funnier and funnier. I picked this cartoon because I believe it’s Smigel’s best (and most offensive) work over the past five years. Just awesome.

 

Even the credits were funny as they credited Sean Penn as a writer.

 

Robert Smigel told me this was his favourite cartoon.

 

Moment #18 will be revealed in two weeks.

 

In Memoriam-

 

Rodney Dangerfield- I saw Ladybugs as a kid and liked it. I loved Rodney’s one liners and he seemed like such a cool guy. I’ll miss him a lot- Back to School owned and he did a lot for young standups- that’s something I’ll always admire.

 

Christopher Reeves- I met him at my movie theatre and went to shake his hand. Two weeks later I was fired.

 

Sports Report-

 

Braves- I keep wondering how I’m going to get to 100 pages in my finale review. But I think ranting about Chris Resuckma will make it very easy.

 

Saints- This is typical Saints. Beat the Rams, lose to the Cardinals and Bucs. I always question whether they or the Braves give me more ulcers. Hopefully they can beat Minnesota- since it’s on Sunday night it will be the first game I can see them in all year.

 

Mailbag!!!!!!-

 

Chad Ruffner writes-

 

Hi Bob, Going Into Monday Night I decided to watch Raw over Monday Night Football for 2 Reasons. 1.) Raw was being broadcast from Madison Square Garden, where they always seem to get up to have good shows, and 2.) I didn't care for the 2 Teams In The MNF Contest.(Kansas City and Baltimore) Needless to say I am regretting that decision this afternoon. It says an awful lot about The State of The Company In that they couldn't even be bothered to put on a decent show at "The Mecca." HBK vs Christian was a pretty good match. That's about the only good thing I can say about this Show. The rest was the usual 2 Hours of Boring Garbage I've come to know and expect over the past 4 years. I can only Imagine The Buy rate for "Taboo Tuesday" will be among The lowest In WWE/F History. Nothing new here. What did you think? Chad

 

I usually am sad when they do shows from MSG since I’m not there. But that RAW sucked and sucked bad. Gene Snitsky is hilarious and was the highlight of the show. HBK v. Christian was whatever and did nothing for no one. HHH v. Jericho was just insulting but I guess we needed to be reminded that HHH>Jericho lets we forget. I hate Randy Orton with a passion now and his new Stone Cold Randy Orton persona really irked me a lot last week. Just a bad depressing show all around.

 

Wanna be in the mailbag???? Email me at [email protected]

 

And now the review....

 

 

Presidential Debate

Cast- Will Forte, Seth Meyers, Chris Parnell, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler, Rob Riggle, Paula Pell

Thoughts- I give these credit. They wrote this the minute the debate ended and stayed up till 1:30 doing so. I think Jim Downey helped as I saw him at the dress. I missed the debate but I know what happened. Seth’s Kerry continues to be awesome and it’s carrying these debate skits. The pandering and the naming of all these guys was awesome and he’s making Forte look like a bitch out there. I like Forte’s Bush but they need to stop with the running gags. They drag these skits out way too much. You know- the legendary debate skits of 2000 were about 5 minutes long and they stuck with one thing and went with it. Forte making the timber wood reference once or twice is fine and funny, dragging it out just makes it well bad. They gave Seth more to do as John Kerry which is a thumbs up in my eyes and it carried the skit. Forte is trying hard and he’s funny but it’s all Seth. ***1/2

 

Monologue

Cast- Queen Latifah, Horatio Sanz, Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Forte

Thoughts- I don’t know who thought that people scatting off key was funny because it’s really not. Fred and Will tried to use their skills at making bizarre and stupid stuff funny but they were fighting an uphill battle. I laughed a few times at Forte and Armisen but this was pretty bad. Our first bad monologue of the year! *1/2

 

Zing v. Snap

Cast- Latifah, Parnell, Meyers, Dratch, Thoughts- I know this was on last but I do this in the order they were in dress. Poor Seth- got bumped to the bottom. Latifah wasn’t my optimal choice to have a zing off with Seth (I think Eminem would’ve been PERFECT) but she kept up with him. Seth doing the karate chop to celebrate a zing was gold. As was Latifah punching him in the face after the SATs joke. In continuing with the ‘Dress is better then live rule’ they cut Rob Riggle walking in in a nuclear reactor suit going: We solved the reactor thing. No thanks to your zing-snap off thing. Parnell is becoming quite the comedy goldmine here. A good skit but way too short and they cut one of the funniest parts. ***

 

Stahkisha

Cast- Latifah, Poehler, Rudolph, Parnell, Kenan Thompson, Finesse Mitchell

Thoughts- Not to sound racist but if never having another black host means never having another Stahkisha- then is that so wrong? This was the usual ** Stahkisha affair. Amy singing the Ralph Nader song was the best part but I didn’t care for the exchanges between the Featured Player Brigade. Latifah singing Unity went over the heads of about everyone but her I guess. Her doing the MC Hammer move was awesome and I think she finally atoned for the Queen Latifah Show. So yay for that. In dress Stahkisha made a Bush drug joke. Can’t have that make the live show. **1/4

 

Basketball

Cast- Latifah, Riggle, Meyers Thompson, Mitchell

Thoughts- Okay. So in dress Riggle came out dressed just like Bobby Knight and it made everything he did that much funnier and I couldn’t stop laughing. So why change him into a suit and tie? Riggle is perfect in roles like this and in my opinion it killed a lot of his humour. Seth as the sleazy sports agent was really funny and he had the line of the night with: Kobe Bryant…Jayson Williams…not guilty. The dress crowd didn’t know how to respond that. Kenan as the old guy preaching old basketball fundamentals had me cracking up. Riggle had some good lines but he really should’ve kept the red sweater on. ***

 

X-Presidents

Thoughts- Good to see the X-Presidents back and they’ve somehow managed to overcome Reagan’s death and Clinton being one. I wasn’t feeling the Ron Reagan stem cell jokes but the rest of this was very funny. The bit where they took all the black voters was awesome. Carter’s reaction to kicking John Kerry was funny stuff. And I always mark out for Benjamin Harrison references. His relative was president for 30 days! Ronald Reagan playing with the guys in heaven was funny stuff as well. I just wish they had cut out the stem cell stuff- then this could’ve been classic Smigel. ***1/2

 

Rodney Goes to Heaven

Cast- Sanz, Darrell Hammond

Thoughts- The dress crowd got uncomfortable when Darrell started doing Rodney. This is better then the live crowd which stood there silently. I loved Rodney’s one liners and Darrell captured them perfectly and I was laughing at each of his one liners. Horatio cracking up was totally justified given the context of the skit. SNL always has done a good job at doing tributes as I loved their tributes to George Harrison and Mr. Rogers. This was awesome- it’s just a shame the live crowd was once again flat. ****1/4

 

Queen Latifah

Thoughts- I’m glad she didn’t rap. She’s a pretty good singer and I really liked how she got the crowd involved in the song. That’s a lot of fun when you are live. Queen did not violate any of my musical guest rules and for that I commend her. ***1/4

 

Weekend Update

Cast- Latifah, Tina Fey, Poehler, Dratch, Mitchell

Thoughts- Amy was better this week. There- I said it. She was less nervous and her delivery on some of the jokes has much improved. Now the bad news. Her jokes were just awful. I didn’t really laugh at any of them and her best joke was cut in dress. Tina had some good ones and I LOVED the Mormon/Kobe joke. That pretty much saved the Update for me. We’re seeing a different trend with the Fey/Poehler debacle of an era. It used to be Jimmy and Tina would hit jokes out of the park and then watch as Horatio Sanz would ruin their efforts. Now it seems like the people doing commentaries come in and completely save Amy’s ass. It used to be my goal for Fallon and Fey in their first season was for them to finally hit ***** which they did in the Walken episode and it was the most satisfying Update ever. Now my goal for Poehler/Fey is to not match or do lower then Weekend Trumpdate. Finnesse’s commentary was pretty funny and I’m glad they were able to make another joke on his name. Rachel and Latifah in jail was awesome though. From Rachel’s teardrop, to Latifah explaining her nickname, to the way she talked, to the gang initiation line and Latifah’s funny scowls- the whole thing was awesome and saved this Update. Amy’s starting to get down the art of nottalkingtofast or talking. too. slow. on. Update. She just needs to get better jokes and maybe this two episode debacle can be saved. Seth wouldn’t have been this bad. ***1/4

 

Short and Curly

Cast- Armisen, Meyers, Riggle, Parnell, Forte, Mitchell

Thoughts- I’m sorry if I’m missing anyone but I didn’t take notes on this one. This had a funny premise but I don’t need to see the entire male cast of SNL naked. Not what I look forward to when I see a dress. Stuff like this is just gross and makes me turn away when I instead could’ve been laughing at the jokes. Good premise, bad execution. **

 

The Vice Presidential Debate

Cast- Latifah, Forte, Hammond

Thoughts- This was wicked funny in dress as they made Edwards look like a bitch and Latifah had some funny lines. Of course since dress is better then live, this came off really flat and everyone’s timing was off. They also cut out Queen’s funniest line and what I thought was the funniest line of the skit. This really should’ve been the cold opening as with a lot of effort they could’ve made it work and they wouldn’t have had to rush a Presidential debate skit to air. I’m probably overrating this but I really enjoyed this in dress and I loved Darrell’s 6 degrees thing. ***

 

Excedrin

Cast- Latifah

Thoughts- Yay! Racial humour. I don’t really know what this is based on but whatever- this was awesome and it had a lot of great lines from Latifah. Especially the Kobe line and the reggae line. And another great thing is that since it was pre-taped- they couldn’t screw it up in live! Aside from the tribute to Rodney, this was definitely the best thing they did all night. ****

 

Prince Show

Cast- Latifah, Armisen, Rudolph. Poehler

Thoughts- This is one of those recurring characters that I just never find funny. This is probably because- it’s not funny. Does anyone even remember that Prince and Beyonce sang at the Grammys? No. I laughed about once or twice at Prince and Amy tried to save it with her awesome Sharon Stone impression but in the end- it’s the Prince show and there’s nothing saving it. I’m actually surprised Amy is getting a lot of airtime since she’s on Update and I think that could be part of her sucky performance. I really like her in skits and her impressions are great but I really think SNL should pull back her airtime and give her a chance to perform better on WU. *1/2

 

Queen Latifah

Thoughts- Good to know that Chris Kattan could look up from his massive line of coke and go out there and introduce Queen. This was an okay song but it was a bit too slow for my liking. Queen does have a real good stage presence and in dress she was very good at getting the crowd into her songs. The good mg streak is at one although I think that will stop when Ashlee Simpson shows up. **1/4

 

The Bottom Line- Avg. skit was **.87 making this a thumbs up show. I could see how people didn’t like it since the show seemed to come across very flat live and a lot of the energy and fun that was in dress did not seem to carry over into the live. I tried to adjust my ratings accordingly but there’s only so much I can do since I was only half paying attention to the live show. They got a lot out of Queen Latifah who was very funny once again. I think given the fact that he’s British- Jude Law will be a good show. SNL rebounded from the lacklustre season premiere and hopefully they can start stringing together some good shows.

 

Thumbs Up

 

SNL Trip Report: Golf, Famous Black People and McDonalds

 

When we last left me at the standby line- I had perfected standby golf, sang the Full House theme to the Olsens and got to say goodbye to Jimmy Fallon.

 

I arrived at the standby line at 1 after seeing Raise Your Voice. I was #3 in line and had found out that I hadn’t missed much. With nothing to do for a while I took out my golf club and began practising my swing. My golf game had really improved since May as I was able to play the downward slope of the street better. I found it funny seeing tourists jump and do everything they could to get out of the way. Don’t they realise I’m the asshole playing golf on a busy street?

 

Me and my friend tried to make money by making people pay us to ask what we were waiting for (We said we’d donate it to Kerry/Edwards) but NBC Security quickly thwarted our plans. That’s just mean. So it was back to more golf and a re-energising slice of pizza. Around 3 we saw Rob Riggle go in. I went and congratulated him on getting on SNL. Out of nowhere Lorne Michaels walked by and I asked him about the show. He said it hadn’t been written yet which kind of scared me. Lorne is always in a much better mood when you catch him going in so it was good to see him. Finesse walked by the line, and stopped and said hello to us.

 

The 4-6 hour meant waiting for the Conan guests. I saw Dave Navarro go in and congratulated him on doing so well at Celebrity Poker and we pounded hands. I then found out P. Diddy was on. I figured he’d garage it but some collectors pointed out his bodyguard so I waited for him. P. Diddy took forever to come in so when he showed up he was rushed in. He was really cool and I asked for a picture and he said ‘Of course.’ So P. Diddy and the whitest man alive are in a photo together. Fo shizzle my nizzle indeed. On the way in I ran into Queen Latifah and said hello to her. Robert Smigel came down and I told him I loved the Triumph DVD. He seemed touched and thankful and I said ‘FOR ME TO POOP ON!’

 

Smigel turned and said: I have no idea what you’re referencing at all.’

 

AWESOME.

 

I left the line to do other engagements and then returned. I continued my standby tradition of putting a tampon in my mouth and just generally being a total ass. As it got late on Friday we all headed over to 49th to meet the cast. Finesse came down and told me it was a very musical show but very funny. Horatio said hi and I pretty much ignored Parnell and Maya like always. Fred came down and was totally awesome. He talked and joked with all of us for a while. I had an aeroplane magazine with me and I decided to have Fred fill out the mock custom form in the back. He did and it looks hilarious. Since they were doing the Prince skit I asked him to sing Purple Rain like Prince and he obliged. I also got to see my girl Sue Simmons and Darrell Hammond who is not my girl. Queen Latifah came down again and she was so nice. She signed for all of us and took pictures for everyone. She told all to go see Taxi. She must think we’re sadists. We also ran into some SNL writers like Steven Higgins and Jason Sudakis.

 

Since he was writing the debate skit Seth came down really late. He came down the same time as Amy. He looked disgustingly tired so we talked baseball and Kerry for a few moments and then I let him go. I heard after I left he faked a phone call so as not to talk to anyone. Awesome. I didn’t feel like waiting for Tina anymore. I had nothing to say to her and I wanted to listen to my friend’s IPod before she went to sleep. I missed Tina by 30 minutes but she rushed out and again- I had nothing to say to her.

 

Unlike previous standbys I had actually made friends so I talked to some cool people for 4 hours as none of us were willing to sleep and we all helped make the sucky part of standby not very sucky.

 

At 6 everyone was asleep and I headed off to McDonalds. Their steak and egg bagel was the yummiest thing ever. I was in awe that something that good could come out of McDs at 6 am but damn- that was GOOD.

 

They handed out the tickets at 7 and I got #3 dress.

 

LATER THAT NIGHT-

 

Did I get in? Yes.

 

I saw Jim Downey and Finesse before I went up though. Like I said- there’s no reason to act like there’s any suspense over whether I got in since it’s basically a foregone conclusion.

 

Darrell did the warmup and his act was pretty good. Too much Clinton though. Now here’s….

 

WHAT! GOT! CUT!

 

 

Tyson Toilets

Cast- Armisen

 

Fred is selling a new kind of toilet. There was some joke at the beginning that was apparently real funny but I didnt hear it. Poop jokes are funny though. ***

 

Spanish BBQ

Cast- Dratch, Riggle, Armisen, Meyers, Thompson, Forte, Poehler

Thoughts- This was AWESOME. Fred was a Spanish guy plugging his new Spanish sauce and everytime someone tried it they turned into a Mexican stereotype. I was dying here since I love racial humour. I don't know if it'll be as funny when they air it but I LOVED this. *****

 

Charlie Coffey

Cast- Thompson, Latifah, Dratch, Parnell, Rudolph

Thoughts- Maya played some old lounge singer drunkinly singing a song and falling off the stage and stuff. The usual from Maya ie: horrible. 1/4*

 

Rick! Rick! Rick!

Cast- Poehler, Sanz, Latifah

Thoughts- Amy brings back the character from the LL show and her and Latifah play Ougi. Not as funny as LL and was in fact- quite bad. *

 

World of Waino

Cast- Mr. Lippman, Scott Waino

Thoughts- Scott Waino does a short film about a guy who decides he doesn't care if he never walks again. Mr. Lippman from Seinfeld plays his disgruntled doctor. **1/2

 

Starting Over

Cast- Dratch, Latifah, Poehler, Fey, Rudolph

Thoughts- A spoof of the TV show- this was long and not funny. The fact that Tina wrote it was dissapointing. Maya played Jackee (from Sister Sister)'s cousin. I found that kinda funny but this just went on forever. 1/2*

 

No Confidence Guy

Cast- Armisen, Latifah, Dratch

Thoughts- Fred plays a guy with no confidence in his appearance but whenenver someone is nice to him- he sings about it. Not funny. 1/4*

 

And that was it for another very successful standby weekend. I highly recommend anyone who lives near NY or who will be visiting to NY to do standby. It’s tons of fun and you most likely will get in. What’s not to love in?

 

Well besides me being an asshole and playing golf all the time. I’ll probably do standby in December and you know another wacky and somewhat implausible trip report will be there.

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I'm suprised that Zing made it on the air, usually they don't bother with recurring characters during the last skit. The commercial parodies were the best part this week. The show was just average this week, I didn't think anything really hit.

 

Bob's stand by stories have made me want to try waitnig in line if I'm ever in NYC during a show week. (Not likely since I'm in Texas).

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Guest PlatinumBoy

Though SNL normally does do good tributes to dead people, their "Johnny Cash" sketch last season during the Sharpton episode was probably the worst skit they've EVER done in SNL history--good to see the Dangerfield one was good.

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I thought they were gonna cut Zing since it was pretty short and I got the same cut vibe that I did during the Snoop show.

 

I really wish they aired the BBQ skit instead of pubes.

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Though SNL normally does do good tributes to dead people, their "Johnny Cash" sketch last season during the Sharpton episode was probably the worst skit they've EVER done in SNL history--good to see the Dangerfield one was good.

I don't know if that was a tribute- I think that was a bet with Lorne on how long Darrell could go out there without getting a single laugh

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Charlie Coffey

Cast- Thompson, Latifah, Dratch, Parnell, Rudolph

Thoughts- Maya played some old lounge singer drunkinly singing a song and falling off the stage and stuff. The usual from Maya ie: horrible. 1/4*

You know, it wasn't funny when Catherine O'Hara did it on SCTV (A rare time when I didn't find something on SCTV to be funny), and I can't see it getting funnier now...

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