Facebook
Twitter
RSS
I wasn’t going to blog about “SNL”‘s latest episode because, honestly, I fell asleep at 10:30 last night and didn’t wake up until 11:35, missing the cold opening (from what I have read, I haven’t missed anything.)
But as I watched it, I became charmed by guest host Joseph Gordon-Levitt, by guest environmental straight man Al Gore, by guest musician and eager goofball Dave Matthews, and by the fact that the show has finally found a proper use for Kenan Thompson. (And it’s not playing Jennifer Hudson!)
I’m pretty tough on this show – with good reason – so when it has a consistently funny episode, I feel I should note that as well. Gordon-Levitt was a winner, mostly because he’s genuinely talented, not just the hottest person of the moment. I love when kid stars grow up to prove that their initial stardom was about comic timing and the ability to hold the camera’s attention, and not just that they’re cute.
I may be in the minority of loving his “Make ‘Em Laugh” monologue – the audience didn’t seem to get it, but I thought it established not only his jaw-dropping comic versatility (He sings! He runs up walls! He takes a fake punch in the face and keeps singing!) but his ability to go for a joke like an outfielder reaching for a long ball. He tried, and there’s something old school about that. And Donald O’Connor references are classy. If you don’t get them, that’s on you.
The “Palin 2012″ bit was expected, but sorta funny. I didn’t love the Thanksgiving sketch, but the “Secret Word” bit shone mostly because of Bill Hader’s deadpanned responses and because Kristin Wiig was channeling her screwball (that’s when I like her the best). It’s still curious to me that the show hired two new female actors, almost never shows them, and barely uses Abby Elliott. I know that Wiig is comic gold. But there is such thing as too much gold. Ask Mr. T.
The digital short with Andy Samberg and “Reba McEntyre” was crude, wrong….and so funny I almost knocked over my ice cream. And that’s how you do shocking, y’all! You just keep it going, keep it fast, get to the joke, and get out. This is the only reason I can tolerate Kenan in a dress – when he’s supposed to be a man in a dress, and not a woman they can’t cast because they ran out of women. Priceless!
I adore “What Up With That?” because I love random – that’s just my humor – and any skit that threads together Al Gore, a gospel choir, a keytar, Jake “The Snake” Roberts and a breakdancer is random. It’s also funny because, again, it acknowledges the joke, that none of these guests are ever going to finish their interview because the host can’t stop butting in, gets to it, and gets out. And Bill Hader, again, as Lindsey Buckingham, is the most random of all.
“Weekend Update” was OK – I liked Seth Meyer’s joke about people who only smoke in social situations being liars, and just the thought of Al Gore putting guns in trees in people’s front yards made me giggle, because he’s pretty fearless comically. “The Mellow Show” makes me laugh because the randomness of jam bands is funny to me (“Chicken Panini!” “Ultimate Frisbee!” Boyd Tinsley reference!) Even though JGL made fun of my beloved Jason Mraz, he did a great job. And Dave Matthews as Ozzy? Please give Dave Matthews a comedy show (let him sing, too.)
And while doobie-rolling pets are improbable, they earned that snicker.
“Woman To Woman” was meh. But the “Say Anything” sketch? As much as I love that movie, it answers questions I’ve always had about it, which is how a guy can hang outside with a boombox at twilight in a residential neighborhood and nobody either came to ask him what he was doing, or to knock it off, or threatened to call the po-po. And Jason Sudeikis plays a perfect jerk, doesn’t he?
So…not a perfect episode. But a funny one. For some reason, this show lives and dies lately by its hosts. You can’t have that. The host should be the cherry on top of an already funny sundae. Otherwise, what are you paying all those people (particularly the writers) for?
Keep it up, show.
For those of us skeptics and deniers it’s the Sun that determines how warm or cool the Earth is. The truth about some of the scientists behind the global warming hoax has finally arrived.
The hoax has its roots in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) an instrument of the United Nations Environmental Program for whom global warming was the open sesame to achieving a one-world-government by scaring nations into signing a treaty that would control their use of energy, the means of producing it, and require vast billions to be sent to less developed nations in exchange for emitting greenhouse gases.
Energy is called the master resource because if you have lots of it you can call your own shots. If you don’t you are condemned to live in the dark and keeping people in the dark about the global warming hoax was essential. For years the IPCC has been controlled by a handful of the worst liars in the world utterly devoted to taking actual climate data and twisting it to confirm the assertion that the Earth was not only warming dramatically but that humanity was in peril of rising oceans, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, more hurricanes, the die-off of countless animal species, and every other calamity that could possibly be attributed to “global warming”, including acne.
So around November 20, when some enterprising individual hacked into the computers of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), making off with thousands of emails and documents that demonstrate the level of collusion and deception being practiced by its scientists.
It’s a climate hoax expose that some are calling “climategate.”The weather has nothing whatever to do with human activity!The East Anglia CRU charlatans have been exposed. Most certainly, the United Nations IPCC should be disband in disgrace. It belongs in a museum of hoaxes right beside the Piltdown Man and the Loch Ness Monster.
Read full article:http://www.infowars.com/global-warming-meltdown-climategate/
Paul Revere
Then explain why polar bears are now required to swim to their food?
Any word on Jon’s Amazing Race recap from last night?
In his self-chosen “beat”, you’d think he would post an hour or two after the episode. That’s when folks want to talk about it, not a few days later, when he’s given his brilliant writing a chance to marinade. It’s a reality show, and a blog, at that?
What taketh lil Jon so long??
ps. I caught the SNL opening — it was funny, except the butt-****ing part went the wrong way: China’s gonna have us bent over pretty soon, if we continue spending their money on unaffordable pie-in-the-sky plans. (Why can’t WE have universal healthcare coverage, if all the Euro countries do. *whine*)(A: Because we’ve already spent that money on other crap Americans wanted, and this is BORROWED money, China’s money, where their “healthcare sacrifices” include only allowing one child per family. That’s why.)
You didn’t conveniently fall asleep for the funny opening that insulted the President’s progress and China trip, just so as not to touch the funny skit everyone’s talking about today in favor of waking up to hear the lame, twice-baked Palin jokes? If you’re gonna have this as your beat, at least stay awake (or review the parts you missed)?
Otherwise, it kinda does look like maybe your blackness keeps you from honestly evaluating a tv show that is just starting to poke fun at his magical brilliance. (Maybe you and Jon could trade, if he’s uncomfortable reviewing Race episodes where the white couples come in first?)
Colorblind kids. Stay awake, turn your copy in on time, we won’t have to consider why some parts are arbitrarily skippedv or late…
Hey — I took a minute or two online, and found somebody posted the skit you slept though online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN-ui28SlHU
in case you wanted to update and review the show fully…
“Your country owes us large sum of money? No?”
“Look, your country is going to get their money…”
Funny stuff really. And timely too. (Sarah Palin, god bless his heart, really isn’t front page news anymore, much as she’s playing the press. Best to focus on the real funny stuff — the president and his “progress” … all that hope and change stuff coming to fruition and all.) This China stuff… it really is the wave of the future and just the beginning of comedy touching it, I think.
Wake up, Leslie!
“Do you know how many uninsured we have in China? ONe and a quarter billion …billion.
But I tell you this: we don’t owe anyone $800 billion!”
Good skit. Again, they just had the ****er and the ****ee roles reversed.
Elise:
As I said, “SNL”‘s not something I review every single week. I watched it this week for my own edification (I wanted to see what JGL would do) and since I enjoyed it so much, I figured I should write about that with the disclaimer that I’d missed the first five minutes. I give the show enough grief – since I witnessed a great episode, it was only fair to chime in.
I have no idea about Jon’s writing schedule – I for one usually like writing before six a.m. the next morning, before people get up and start wondering about the previous night’s shows. Sometimes that’s not possible.
What did you think of the rest of the show?
You don’t review this show every week? Hmm… it sure seemed like it.
Did you get a chance to watch the opening skit everybody’s talking about that was pretty funny and spot on about Obama and China? I put the link right there for you, just click on it to watch…
That’s too bad about Jon missing this week’s episode. (You don’t think he’s going to bother, after a few days have passed and he’s read what all the other reviewers have written? I say get it done right then, you don’t puzzle over writing about reality tv; you record your thoughts and hit “publish”.)
Since his multiracial team did poorly, and the “boring” white couple scored first (again), I wonder if it’s a blue flu kind of thing — him sitting out the episodes where the ones he favors impose their own obstacles (again).
Sorry, like I wrote upthread, ” I caught the SNL opening “. Meaning unlike you, I’m not a regular viewer and didn’t bother watching past that funny Obama China skit. Sorry you missed it.
Also, you might have to opine for them hiring an Asian, as the white guy playing Chinese is just as bad as black man playing woman, in those diversity/quota-counting systems.
Too bad you missed it (and didn’t watch the link.) I was curious to see if your opinions would be consistent (the anti-Obama material, the lack of diversity other than urging a black woman hire.)
Good luck to ya; hope you and Jon get some sleep on your time off! (You do get paid as a reviewer, right?)
Good grief, lighten up people! Leslie wrote about enjoying SNL and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and suddenly an idiot does a rant on here about his cockeyed views on global warming and another person accuses Leslie of not writing about the Obama-China skit because of her blackness!!!!
Can you trolls just go away and let the rest of us enjoy reading a review of SNL and learning that Gordon-Levitt in addition to being a good actor was a good host on the show.