Thanks for saving my show, little ones!

Well, maybe not completely. But at least they saved this episode from completely tanking, as is the recent practice with this show. You know I’m right. Then again, I keep watching this show and expecting it to be consistently funny, and don’t they say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Alec Baldwin’s advantage, one imagines, is that he’s an excellent actor, and has hosted this show about eleventy-three times. Then again, that didn’t help Steve Martin much. Baldwin’s also currently a great big TV star on an NBC show that parodies “Saturday Night Live,” so maybe that’s just the synergy at work. Some of his bits, like the monologue shtick about Jack “Kenneth The Page” McBrayer stealing his thunder, were predictable, but funny. I’ll take predictable if it’s funny. And it was a darned sight better than the boring, Dan Ackroyd-wasting cold open. Blech.

I also liked his constant acknowledgement of his nasty 2007 phone message to his daughter, from thanking Christian Bale for replacing him as the king of “recorded celebrity meltdowns,” flashing a Valentine for his daughter, Ireland, in one of the still lead-in photos, and inviting her to introduce the Jonas Brothers.

Speaking of the Jo-Bros, Baldwin was a hoot as Gary, the suspicious fourth Jonas brother. Those boys have great comic timing – I particularly like Joe’s reaction to Gary’s accusation that Joe “isn’t one of us – he has straight hair and his eyebrows look like they were drawn in with a Sharpie.” I wish Baldwin had acknowledged that he was part of a famous, if aging, set of brothers as well. Missed opportunity.

Not having the Jonases on the “Cougar Den” sketch was another missed opportunity, but I can see how that would have been creepy. The closer I get the 40, the less funny cougar jokes are, but I loved, loved, loved Cameron Diaz as Latina cougar Kiki DeMora. I don’t know why she was on there, but it was awesome.

Also, “Cougay” is my new favorite word. Look it up if you didn’t see it – it’s not funny if I tell you.

Other funny stuff:

— The awkwardly-ended but hilarious digital short where Andy Samberg reveals that the Jonas Brothers are actually a bad ’80s band called Property Of The Queen, who made a deal with a wizard so they’d never age. I don’t know what was funnier- Kevin’s perm wig or the riveting song “Africa” and the stirring lyric “I’ve been to Africa!” If you were in the 80s, kids, you know why this was funny. And then you cry a little, because you probably owned something worse.

— “Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Photo Shop”: The anaconda was a nice touch, doncha think?

— The news was pretty funny, especially Michaela Watkins’ clueless, bitter celebrity blogger Angie Tempura of Bitchpleez.com and her excoriation of Brad Pitt’s movie “The Curious Case Of Some Old Man Baby.” However, they’re gonna burn out Abby Elliott’s eerily perfect Angelina Jolie if they don’t watch it. Also, Joaquin Phoenix as a “joke teller”- priceless.

— Alec Baldwin’s cough acting lessons: Perfection. Short, to the point and…funny.

— The Vincent Price holiday specials are always funny, because it’s still humorous to see Bill Hader ty not to freak out when drunk celebrities mess up his family friendliness. Kristin Wiig is still used way too much, but her Carol Channing-as-closet-freak was brilliant.

Speaking of Wiig – why did they replay “Chewable Pampers” and that lame hot air balloon commercial? Do they need to overexpose her so compulsively that they have to re-run her old sketches?