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bob_barron

SNL Review

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SNL Review- Scarlett Johansson/Bjork

 

Mailbag!!!!-

 

[email protected] writes-

 

Hey Bob-

 

I was wondering if I could get your reactions to the Virginia Tech

tragedy this past week. How do you feel about the entire thing? How do your

feelings compare to those when Columbine occurred? How do you think we

should deal with mentally ill and emotionally disturbed people? How can

we prevent something like this from ever happening again?

 

For me, I’m just shocked that the Virginia Tech shooter isn’t some

skinny white trash kid.

 

In my opinion, mass murderers should just shoot themselves- not take it

out on innocent people.

 

Later-

 

Ken

 

I thought the whole shooting was sad. I didn’t get emotional over it, just like I didn’t really get emotional over Columbine. With people like that, there’s not much you can do. It seems like with this dude they did everything they could do to get him some help. If someone doesn’t want help, you just can’t force it on them.

 

I was shocked that the Virginia Tech shooter wasn’t some emo kid or Marcus Vick. I was also surprised that the dude was an English major and not a math major.

 

And now the review…..

 

Cold Opening

Cast- Senator Chuck Schumer, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Kenan Thompson, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph

Thoughts- Senator Chuck Schumer?? I like the guy, but that was a pretty odd choice to lead off the show. Plus, his LFNYISN was pretty lame. I’m not surprised he appeared b/c as Bob Dole once said, “The most dangerous place in Washington is between Charles Schumer and a television camera.” This was a solid cold opening, with Sudeikis’ W getting in some good lines. I especially liked the bit at the end where they intended to get around any loopholes W. might try to use. ***1/4

 

Monologue

Cast- Scarlett Johansson, Andy Samberg, Wiig

Thoughts- ** on the outfit alone. I used to not like Scarlett (hated her in Lost in Translation), but then I saw Match Point, and I realised what everyone else was going gaga over. She looks damn fine in Scoop too. They should’ve just ended the monologue with her coming out in that outfit. But then we got Andy doing his Sanjaya impression, which wasn’t that funny the first time. They also redid the fan crying thing, even though it was still funny. Also, I noticed Andy touched tat- lucky bastard. **1/4

 

Live with Regis and Kelly

Cast- Johansson, Amy Poehler, Darrell Hammond, Fred Armisen

Thoughts- They brought this back? They haven’t done this in forever. But good to know that Regis is doing well and will be coming back. The problem with Johansson’s Ivanka Trump impression is that no one watches the Apprentice anymore, so no one cares about the impression and thus, it falls flat. Fred as Howie Mandel was hilarious though. The rest was just eh. **1/4

 

Virginiaca

Cast- Johansson, Thompson, Wiig, Hader

Thoughts- This would be the first of three skits that were also done in the Jaime Pressley show. Spoiler alert: The Jaime Pressley show sucked. This edition of Virginica was crappy, but it was so bad that I started laughing at it- and I thought Scarlett was really funny and Bill did a good job as a straight man. But no more Virginica though. **1/2

 

SNL Digital Short

Cast- Samberg

Thoughts- I’m happy they showed this one because I was sick of seeing it at dress rehearsals, and it’s really funny. Samberg may suck, but the Digital Shorts continue to be funny. I really enjoyed the song, especially Andy talking about wanting to burn the marriage license. The twist of the guy not actually being Roy was a weak ending, but this was a funny song. ***3/4

 

Marble Columns

Cast- Johansson, Armisen, Sudeikis, Poehler, Thompson

Thoughts- No idea what the heck this was supposed to be. Fred saying “MAHHBLE COLUMNS” over and over again isn’t funny. I knew of a house that had marble columns. That’s all I got. DUD

 

Around the Town

Cast- Johansson, Wiig, Sudeikis

Thoughts- Another character brought back from the Jamie Pressley show, one of the truly great shows of our era. Kristin’s creepy lesbo stalker wasn’t funny the first time, and it wasn’t good the second time either. Sudeikis’ facial expressions were hilarious, the rest was junk. *1/2

 

Bjork “Earth Intruders”

Thoughts- Well, I never thought I would have to Tom Green a musical guest, but that’s Bjork for you. This was awful, yet perversely entertaining and hilarious at the same time. Who actually sits there and writes out this song and then decides to not only put on live TV in front of millions. Icelanders are a bunch of odd ducks. **1/2

 

Weekend Update

Cast- Seth Meyers, Poehler, Forte, Armisen

Thoughts- A Will Forte song and a REALLY! SNL must really be trying to makeup for some mediocre Meyers-Poehler Updates recently. Thankfully, this Update did not see Seth mispronounce the name of a polar bear. The jokes were really good this week. LOVED the Law and Order joke. A few clunkers here and there, but both Seth and Amy had some real winners this week. REALLY was really funny, and I hope Seth and Amy can develop more funny bits like that to increase the Seth-Amy interaction. The minute they introduced Forte on Update, I got excited since he always brings the Update goods and this was no exception. Hilarious song, loved the references to Battlefield Earth and come on- who doesn’t hate recycling? Really good Update and hopefully they can keep the momentum going till the end of the season. ****

 

Kuato

Cast- Johansson, Hader, Rudolph, Poehler, Armisen, Hammond, Samberg

Thoughts- This would be your third skit taken from the Jaime Pressley show, which aside from the January clunkers, was the worst show of the year. Steal from the Alec Baldwin show, not this! This was horrible, and all attempts at shock and/or random humour failed. Look- Andy and Scarlett look disgusting! Imdb even had a news item on how Scarlett looked ugly on SNL. Must’ve been REALLY slow news day. And then there was throw up! Lots of random throw up! And oh snap, a random Darrell Hammond cameo doing his horrible Ahnuld impression. Yay! DUD

 

Newsmakers

Cast- Johansson, Wiig, Thompson, Armisen, Hader, Forte

Thoughts- Given the way NBC has treated YouTube, I found it amusing that they did a whole skit that basically gave them free publicity. While I understand wanting to protect your copyright, I once posted a video of Norm Macdonald on Conan from 1997 that’s not on any NBC DVD or will ever be rerun on the network. And it got yanked within a day. Seriously, how am I harming the great and powerful NBC Universal by having Norm Macdonald point out that the board is spelled b-o-r-e-d.

 

This was funny, and I loved Kenan’s part and all of the quips Jane Pauley threw at. And they referenced the Star Wars kid at the end. Nice! ***

 

TV Funhouse

Thoughts- That’s weird they put TV Funhouse on so late in the show. Doesn’t make much sense but this wasn’t a great TV Funhouse so it’s no big loss. This was pretty good until the lame ending with the guy going soft. I liked the references to Abu Gahrib though. **3/4

 

Bjork

Thoughts- This one was just boring, and didn’t even have the Tom Green charm that Earth Intruders have. I didn’t even know Bjork was still relevant. I think her lasting legacy will be that stupid swan dress she wore at the Oscars. But based on what I read at wikipedia, Iceland is a pretty efficient country, so she’s got that going for her. **

 

Bottom Line- The avg. skit was **.29 making this a thumbs in the middle show. I considered this show to be a disappointment, given how much I enjoyed last year’s show hosted by Scarlett. For some reason they brought back three recurring characters from one of the worst shows of the year, which doomed the episode from the beginning. This was just a poorly laid out show with recurring characters that didn’t need to be brought back and the non-recurring stuff just falling flat. Let’s hope for the next show that we get 95-97 Molly and not 2000 Molly. Things could get ugly.

 

Thumbs in the Middle

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are you guys talking about when Norm went on Conan and had diarrhea and Conan totally loses it and starts laughing uncontrollably? If so, yes that is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Haven't seen it in ages.

 

I have that on tape somewhere along with every Norm talk show appearance from 1996-2000 (yes even the View ones)

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Yea, I uploaded it and NBC took it down but someone re-uploaded it later. Good thing to, since I told Norm it was on there and he wanted to check it out.

 

That whole interview with Courtney Thorne Smith is the funniest thing ever

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