The host is Gabourey Sidibe, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Musical guest MGMT.
I missed the cold opening, and the monologue. I can't seem to get the hang of this Central Time Zone. I'm too used to 11:30 being the start time of this show, having watched it at that time for twenty years.
Ok, first sketch: Suze Orman show parody starring Kristin Wiig and the host. It's crammed full of jokes about how horrible and possibly gay Orman is. Wiig is better than this sketch. It's getting laughs, and Sidibe's Jamaican author character is a good foil for the insane Orman, but I have no interest.
Next up, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with Kenan Thompson playing Steve Harvey as the host. This timely parody is pretty one-note, the joke being that Harvey can't pronounce any of the answers. "My makeup lady is half Paprikas(meaning Puerto Rican, I guess)" and attempts to pronounce Eyjafjallajokull. As you might imagine it's HILARIOUS!
Oh look, Betty White hosts in a couple weeks. Musical guest Jay-Z! HOVA! This news only serves to remind me how much I'd rather be watching that episode. Fuck.
Next sketch, two New York youths played by Fred Armisen and Thompson, chatting idly (and loudly) on a stoop about New York events, and continually interrupted by Sidibe playing an old lady who has a lot of advice to give, and also she wants them to shut up. The one laugh from me came when Sidibe's character was asked how she is so knowledgeable, and she replied "My daddy used to sell Wikipedias". Sidibe garbled a few of her words and it kind of took me out of the sketch...which I was happy about. This shit's hard.
Digital Short, "Cherry Battle". The sheer weirdness of this sketch is really doing it for me. Andy Samberg and Sidibe dressed as samurai, perhaps Ronin, spit numerous cherries in slow motion at each other, and catch them in their mouths. Samberg gets the win after spitting a cherry with a little face on it, mouthing the "Thus Sprach Zarathrusta"-type music. Watch this sketch online.
Danish Frank Sinatra sketch also weird, which helps, but too long. and one-note. Yes, the Danes have interesting interpretations of the English language and their accent is inherently goofy. But, it's not a good sign if you're ripping off gags from Family Guy.
My lord, all of the women on SNL are smokin' hot. Really, really hot.
MGMT first performance. I haven't heard any of of their new stuff yet. Apparently they've finished the transition to psychedelia. I can't really judge this song on one listen, but I dunno. Kind of stupid. Also, the rhythm guitarist looks like he pooped a little on accident. It's super hard to judge a band that plays on SNL, they have serious sound issues usually. I don't know why they can't get it right, given that it's been sucky for so long.
Weekend Update. Usually good fer a couple chuckles at least. Highlights:
"Every time 'show me your papers' is said, Hitler's family gets money"-reference to Arizona's new immigration bullshit.
Wiig's "prominent travel writer" character, supposedly on Update to talk about the Icelandic volcano, isn't very funny, but she has a fucking mouthful of words to say and she pulled it off flawlessly. Impressive, but not exactly comedy gold.
Good joke about Octomom's vagina emitting carnival midway music.
Ah, here's some Bill Hader. Love Bill Hader. This strange, gay "Streets Correspondent" character, ostensibly giving tourist advice but really just talking about "the hottest club in New York" over and over would have sucked in less capable hands, but Hader's mannerisms sell it. Also, he fought off a case of the giggles admirably, and I'm kind of a sucker for when cast members break character and giggle a bit. Sometimes that's really fucking annoying, like when Jimmy Fallon was on the show and couldn't get through a sketch without grinning like an ass, but this worked for me.
"Tranny Oakley" I love puns.
End of Update.
Iron Man 2 preview. Holy schnikeys, May 7 can't come soon enough.
This is boring, i'm going to take a break and live blog my next cigarette.
11:30: Smoked a cigarette. Tasted great. Felt guilty after.
Oh no, I missed the beginning of the next sketch. Some sort of Public Employee awards show. "Like many New York custodians, he is a year-round resident of Florida" This sketch sucks ass. I get it, New York Public Employees are corrupt and lazy. Jason Sudeikis' character won while on his extended break. The shot of him being informed of the win was pretty great.
Weird sketch about two girls with funny voices selling custom alarm clocks featuring their said weird voices as the alarm. It was okay, at least it's an original premise.
MGMT again. this song, um..."Brian Eno" is the chorus. What? This is strange. It's kind of unlistenable. I'll give it this: from what I've heard tonight, I think that this album would be great for freshmen in college who just discovered pot and want to listen to some hip new sounds, man. Like their first album but less accessible. Less accessibility means more street cred, yo.
Almost done. Five minutes to go. Even if I hadn't blogged about this while watching, it still would have been work to get through it. I know I'm not saying anything new when I say SNL is weak shit this year, but goddamn.
Last sketch. Best of the night, in that it got one big laugh from me. The premise is that Sidibe is giving a talk about Precious. Her ex-boyfriend, played by Will Forte, shows up and wants her back. He's a little racist, but he's trying to change. He laments their breakup, asking Gabourey if she remembers when he'd spend the evening "Tracing Robert Ludlum passages into your back with my penis" Holy shit, that's a great line. Funniest moment all night. She's hesitant to take him back, but he tells her he saw Precious and although "the black audience was talking to the screen" he enjoyed what he did manage to see and hear. He completes getting her back by serenading her, telling her "Life is a Gabourey". Loved this sketch.
SNL always puts the weird stuff at the end. Sometimes the weird stuff works, sometimes not. It's always refreshing to see something off-the-wall on the show, however. I don't believe in irreverence for the sake of irreverence, in fact few things are as annoying, but in its thirty-fifth year SNL should take any shot in the arm in can get. I believe the Suze Orman sketch at the top of the show was the only recurring sketch, which is something. SNL is known for sticking with tried-and-true tropes, and beating them into the public's brain with a claw hammer. Sometimes to great effect (Wayne's World, Celebrity Jeopardy) and sometimes not (all recurring sketches from the last five years.)
I realize now that this isn't really live-blogging, in that my comments aren't presented "live". Fine.
Why does this show suck now? They have a great cast, I can't come up with someone I really think is talentless. A great number of them I think could be comedy legends, and they regularly make me chortle hard in other venues. The blame must fall to the writing, but even that's hard to judge. With the way comedy has evolved since SNL was the gold standard (yes, it's been up and down throughout its run), and SNL's tortoise-like adaption to anything new, the blame must be cast on the producers. SNL does well when there is ripe political strife to comment on, or when they present a completely original sketch. It just seems like nowadays SNL is just looking for that next Digital Short meme, or trying to skew younger and younger with their hosts. There is no fucking way Taylors Swift and/or Lautner would have been hosts fifteen years ago. You kind of had to prove yourself a bit. At least a little.
It's still a remarkable achievement putting a live show on every week with six days to prepare. (Five maybe, as I believe they take Sunday off.) And it's really easy for me to judge it harshly. I know that I couldn't do any better with my skills as they are. Comedy is exceedingly difficult. The simple fact that SNL and NBC have nigh-limitless resources to cull the best and the brightest writers, people with their finger on the pulse...so why sketches that hammer one unfunny bit over and over? Don't beat us over the head with this shit, especially when there are so many other opportunities to find sublime comedy these days.
Imagine if "Drunk History", or a few other internet-based sketches had been co-opted by SNL instead of Funny Or Die. Critics would be creaming themselves talking about how SNL is back, blah blah blah. At the very least, SNL could produce some original content in the same vein, filming some stuff with the kind of A-List celebrity that FOD manages on a weekly basis. Maybe it'd be cheap. Maybe it wouldn't, but at least SNL could pretend it understands how comedy works now.
