SNL Review

[bob_barron 0]

SNL Review- Lance Armstrong/Sheryl Crow

 

Sports Report-

 

Maple Leafs- I think I finally got my karma for all the Team Bankruptcy jokes I made. I still hate the Senators with a passion, but I have to tip my hat to them for that 8-0 drubbing. That was pretty ugly. Dany Heatley scored 4 goals, which is 3 more then the amount of people he’s killed.

 

Canucks- Tough loss tonight to Colorado, but at least they got the point. Auld did fine in backup, I hope Cloots isn’t out for too long. They’ve been playing amazingly well recently, so I’m not going to harp on the losses too much.

 

Saints- You would think with that whole Katrina thing would cause the refs to be biased towards the Saints but alas. Another BS call screws us over, even though not holding a lead against the Rams is pretty bad. Anyway, Miami is a winnable game, so hopefully the Saints can improve to 3-5.

 

Mailbag!!!!-

 

Chad Ruffner writes-

 

Aside from the horrid never ending Vince operating on J.R. skit, I thought Raw was once again a solid show that provided decent hype for "Taboo Tuesday". All the segments and matches (yes, even the operation sketch, as bad as that was), either forwarded storylines and/or helped build up the already announced matches for The PPV. Once "Taboo Tuesday" Is over and done with, however, I do hope the appearances by The McMahon's become few and far between, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. Whatever. Favorite part of the show for me Monday was The Edge/Chris Masters/Lita/JBL/Rey Mysterio confrontation, as Edge was at his heel best on the mic. Here's hoping that they can keep the momentum going after T.T. and Into The Survivor's Series. What Did You Think? Chad

 

I thought RAW was pretty bad. They’re doing a good job of building to Taboo Tuesday, but that JR skit was an abortion, and the three-way wasn’t that good either. Plus, the main event with Angle and Cena was the usual lame Bischoff screwjob finish. This Cena-Bischoff stuff wasn’t cool in August, and really sucks now.

 

[email protected] writes-

 

Hey Bob-

 

This is Ken Hayashi from Voy again. I was hoping if you could do a

small favor for me in the near future. Back in mid-2003, I started this

side project in my spare time. On my computer, I began developing a kind

of storyline for a teen movie that I’d like to see as an SNL-based

project. Of course, a year after I had come up with this movie idea, SNL

gave us Mean Girls.

 

Here’s my idea for this movie. It’s called Beggars & Choosers, and

stars Hilary Duff. It would be produced by Lorne Michaels, and its

screenplay would be written by former SNL writer Conan O’Brien. The movie is a

flat-out teen comedy that takes a satirical look at the contemporary

high-school dating world between guys and girls. The story is pretty much

based on my own experiences with girls and relationships when I was in

high school. I’ve dubbed the movie “Clueless meets American Pie” of

sorts.

 

I guess you already see the parallels between Mean Girls and my movie

idea-

 

Lindsay Lohan = Hilary Duff

Tina Fey = Conan O’Brien

 

So I was hoping if I could send you an MS Word copy of the plot, cast

and character listings, and content breakdown of my movie idea during

Christmas break, which is when I should be done putting together all of

the background and details. Since you go see teen movies a lot, and

since you’re obsessed with Hilary Duff, I really would like to get your

honest opinions on my entire movie idea. It should be fun. I just wanted

to get your approval first. How does this whole thing sound to you?

 

Later,

 

Ken

 

The movie could be interesting, although I guess it’s kind of odd to come up with a movie idea to be written by someone else. Send it along, and I’ll give it a look. Hilary has played the bitch before (she was pretty good on JOA) so I think she could handle a role like LL had in Mean Girls. To make another Mean Girls type comedy work, you need to have the excellent supporting players. Without Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert and Tim Meadows, Mean Girls would’ve been a pretty basic teen comedy.

 

 

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

 

And now the review….

 

Cold Opening

Cast- Darrell Hammond, Fred Armisen

Thoughts- I still think he can be funny and all but Darrell is just so stale, and so are everyone one of his impressions it seems. I understand his career prospects are nil when he leaves SNL, and I guess Lorne would feel bad firing him but seriously, it’s so time for Darrell to go. This was alright. Some of the lines worked, but this mostly was too flight. I understand they didn’t want to overkill Bush by doing it another week, but I don’t know, anyone but Darrell would be nice. **1/4

 

Monologue

Cast- Sheryl Crow, Lance Armstrong, Armisen, Will Forte, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis Andy Samberg, JB Smoove

Thoughts- Hey, JB Smoove is back on SNL!! Beats having to see him do the warmup. I thought the whole thing with Armstrong’s team was hilarious. I don’t know why SNL didn’t get Miguel Indurain to host back in the 90s, I mean that guy won 5 Tour de Frances in a row…and he has two testicles. Or Greg LeMond. I mean dude got shot, and went on to win the Tour. Jan Ulrich would’ve been a good host too. Armisen as the oily French guy was funny as well. JB Smoove was okay. Could’ve done without the Sheryl Crow ending, but the bike team was awesome and made this monologue. ***

 

Celebrity Ironman

Cast- Armstrong, Meyers, Chris Parnell, Finesse Mitchell, Horatio Sanz, Hader, Samberg,

Thoughts- Welcome back Parnell. I assume they should be done taping all 6 episodes of Thick and Thin. Well I guess he only taped 5 episodes, but I digress. NBC has so many midseason offerings this year that I think it’s bordering on overkill. I’ll give Book of Daniel a shot, even though it sounds kind of like a Joan of Arcadia ripoff. Anyway, this was way too predictable and quite stupid at that. I thought the interview with Armstrong at the end was quite funny, but the rest of this was pretty lame stuff. A skit like Celebrity Ironman has potential, but not if you make it a lame skit to hide Lance Armstrong’s lack of talent. **

 

Smoke Alarm

Cast- Parnell, Armisen, Forte, Rachel Dratch, Sanz, Thompson, Mitchell, Sudeikis

Thoughts- This was actually pretty funny. I liked Fred as the ultra serious fireman and this was a good concept. I have to say that I think I’d be more likely to get out of the house if I had some annoying 80s synthesizer music playing. The stuff with Fred telling people to get out of the house ASAP and Parnell talking about enjoying the music was good stuff. I also enjoyed the little bit with Finesse and Kenan at the end. ***1/4

 

Indigo Girls

Cast- Crow, Armstrong, Dratch, Amy Poehler

Thoughts- With the intro, I thought this was going to be Appalachian Emergency Room, but thankfully we got this instead. Well not really, since this sucked. The SNL animal curse continues, as I have a feeling the dogs were not acting the way they were supposed to. This skit had an odd feel, it felt like everything was a bit off and it was weird. Amy and Rachel as the Indigo Girls really isn’t that funny. I laughed more at the dogs then I did at the actual skit, which is pretty sad. At least the crowd seemed to be into it. *1/4

 

O’Reilly Factor

Cast- Armstrong, Hammond, Armisen, Parnell

Thoughts- Poor Jeff Richards. This had to be a kick in the teeth for him. I mean, ouch. I do feel bad for the guy, because his O’Reilly Factor from the Elijah Wood dress rehearsal was some seriously funny stuff. I thought this was really good, but a bit flat in spots to prevent this from being truly awesome. Darrell got the voice down and I thought there were a lot of good lines here. Fred looked really funny as Charles Schumer. Like I said, a lot of good-great lines here and I love seeing them spoof O’Reilly but this just needed a bit more to push it over the top as a great skit. The mailbag letter about Bird Flu-Larry Bird was hilarious though. Fine-tune this skit a bit, cut out some dead spots, and this could definitely go ****+. Also, haven’t been able to watch O’Reilly Factor in a while, is his set and graphics really that ugly now? Jeff Richards was fired. Too funny. ***1/2

 

Sheryl Crow “Good is Good”

Thoughts- Sheryl Crow needs to learn how to not mumble since I had trouble understanding a word she said. The music was nice but boring and I probably would’ve liked this more but like I said, too much mumbling. **1/4

 

Weekend Update

Cast- Scott Posednik, Fey, Poehler, Dratch, Mitchell, Thompson

Thoughts- Well this Update was….long. Scott Posednik was quite the random cameo. Everyone’s timing was badly off during then, and it sounded like you had to be from Chicago to really appreciate it and well, I’m not from Chicago. But still, congratulations to the White Sox for winning the World Series that nobody cared about. Finesse’s bit was pretty funny and Kenan dressed up as Mrs. Butterworth made me laugh. Amy had her usual horrible jokes but the Update was so long that there were enough funny jokes to make this one not too bad. Rachel drunk-dialling President Bush was funny as well. The usual crappy Fey/Poehler thing, but I was able to flip to the Canucks-Avs game during the dead spots, so this wasn’t too awful. **1/4

 

Lance sings for Sheryl

Cast- Crow, Armstrong, Armisen, Hader

Thoughts- This is why athletes shouldn’t host because they have to make special considerations to try to make the episode watchable, like having his girlfriend/musical guest all over the show. I admittedly didn’t pay too much attention to this because of hockey, but I what I saw was a lame skit with an unfunny joke. Hader and Armisen were okay as Armstrong’s mariachi band but the rest was pretty unfunny. *1/2

 

Days of our Lives

Cast- Hammond, Meyers, Poehler

Thoughts- It’s weird, this Trump skit still has yet to get that old. It’s formula, and while it’s not perfect, the formula works. I laughed at Trump mixing up donation and money and him forgetting the girl’s name. The skit as usual went on a bit too long, like the other Trump skits, but for late in the show, nothing wrong with it. ***

 

Carol

Cast- Armstrong, Poehler, Sanz, Sudeikis

Thoughts- Yea, you know I wasn’t going to like this one. This skit was poorly written, as it seemed like Carol was flirting with Sudeikis’ character rather then Armstrong’s, and that doesn’t make much sense. I laughed a little at the Carol intro but the rest of this skit was filled with horrible one-liners and well it was kinda gross too. Please SNL, don’t make Carol a recurring character. ½*

 

Sheryl Crow “Strong Enough”

Thoughts- Kudos to Sheryl Crow for pulling a Franz Ferdinand and playing a song from her first album, and a great song at that. What I Like About You Fans (all 3 of you) will recall that they used this song in the episode No More Mr. Nice Guy where Henry and Holly were enjoying their romantic night on the terrace grilling steaks. Probably one of my favourite WILAYs, and this is one of my favourite Sheryl Crow songs. So we’re all winners! ***1/2

 

Gangsters at the Dock

Cast- Armstrong, Sanz, Forte

Thoughts- The crazy Forte skits work sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t. This was one of those times. Forte was funny at the beginning but this soon became annoying and really unfunny. The bit with Sanz shooting him a bunch of times pretty much sucked. Plus, they didn’t even wrap up the skit! What became of Armstrong’s character? If you’re going to do a crappy skit, at least give us answers! *1/2

 

The Bottom Line- Avg. skit was **.13 making this a thumbs down show. I can’t really I’m surprised since an athlete seems to always equal a bad show, and this was no exception. Armstrong didn’t do anything and showed no discernible talents, and thus writing the show I’m sure was a challenge and resulted in a lot of lame flat skits. Sheryl Crow was okay, but seeing her pop up in every other skit got annoying. Hopefully, we got our athlete host out of the way for the season. I also noticed a lot of skits seemed to have that Tina influence (Indigo Girls in particular), which can’t be good. There’s no excuse for the Jason Lee show not to be good though. I have high expectations for that show, and I hope SNL can deliver and not have another Jason Bateman like debacle.

 

Thumbs Down

[Mik 0]

If anybody has this on tape - go back and watch the look on Forte's face during the Discovery Team segment during the cold opening. It never changes and its hilarious.

[treble 0]

Eh, I liked Lance singing and the O'Reilly Factor, but that's about it. Wasn't a bad show, though, a lot better than I figured it would be based on the past few athletes who've hosted. Nothing too horrible (outside of maybe the Carol sketch, but that wasn't Armstrong's fault), just a bunch of stuff was that was just there.

[ZGangsta 0]

Dany Heatley scored 4 goals, which is 3 more then the amount of people he’s killed.

Jesus Bob, that's rough.

[bob_barron 0]

Yea, the Discovery Team stuff was hilarious, maybe my favourite part of the show.

 

And it's Heatley, I always make fun of him.

[DMann2003 0]

Jason Lee's hosting next week, I figured that was happening sooner or later.

 

What's the over/under on Kevin Smith popping up during the show

[Ravenbomb 0]

Jason Lee's hosting next week, I figured that was happening sooner or later.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

sweet!

[Chazz 0]

Who Is J.B. Smoove? He seems to have more talent and charisma than a lot of the cast members (i.e. Finesse, Samburg, etc.)

[bob_barron 0]

JB Smoove is horrible. His stand-up is like something out of a bad 1980s special