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SNL – 12/19/09 – James Franco & Muse – Under the Knife

Cold Open - “Lawrence Welk Show”

Same rehash of the sketch we’ve seen several times already. The only thing that changes in this sketch is the dresses the girls wear. Grade: C

Monologue

James Franco talks about how working on a soap opera is a step back for him career-wise. He explains that he picks his jobs by drawing slips from an “Idea Barrel”. It’s a slightly promising premise that isn’t really developed as far as it could have been. Franco’s delivery seems a little off, he is squinting (more than usual) and saying his lines in a raspy shout. Grade: C+

Sketch 1 - “What Up with That” feat. Mike Tyson and Jack McBrayer

Yet another sketch we’ve seen before. The only thing that changes here are the special guest stars. I liked this sketch the first time I saw it, but have felt cheated every other time they’ve dragged it out. Grade: D

Sketch 2 - “Kissing Family”

More of the same. It was as if they took an old script for this sketch and just altered a few lines. I’ve never liked this sketch. The only thing that works is the awkward same sex and group kissing, but the comedic potential in that was completely mined the first time they did this sketch with Paul Rudd a little over a year ago. Grade: F

Digital Short - “The Tizzle Wizzle Show”

Finally something fresh and laugh-out-loud funny. It’s sad that so often these last few months (arguably years) the best part of the show, a show that is supposed to be a paragon of live sketch comedy, is the pretaped digital short. The premise here: a children’s show that very quickly devolves into a bloody, all out, glow in the dark, group knife fight. Grade: A+

Sketch 3 - “The Manuel Ortiz Show”

Here’s the game Manuel Ortiz host a Latin American talk show, every time any one enters or exits the stage, everyone on stage is compelled to dance to a uptempo samba. The game goes absolutely nowhere though, besides just bringing more characters on and off. I thought a good direction to have taken this would have been if one of the characters had a heart condition and was begging people to neither enter or exit. Instead the sketch was just left to develop in the least imaginative way. Grade: C-

Weekend Update w/Seth Meyers

The jokes were particularly solid this week and Seth kept update moving at a pretty solid clip. The first character bit involved Bobby Moynihan playing a female cast member of the the reality show “Jersey Shore”. Although I’ve never seen the show, Moynihan’s performance was virtuosically broad enough that I still thoroughly enjoyed this bit. The second character bit involved Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig playing a holiday folk singing duo named Garth and Kat. Garth and Kat are woefully unprepared to perform on the show and so they try to get away with making up songs on the spot. What I really enjoyed here was that Armisen and Wiig seemed to actually be making up the songs as they were singing them in unison. This was a rare utilization of the cast’s sizable improv skills that I think SNL would really do well to use more of. Grade: A

Sketch 4 - “Fraternity Hazing”

Three frat guys are hazing a pledge. Through the course of their hazing we are made aware that they don’t know how to read, how to tie their shoes, or even grasp the basics of human reproduction. They use the hazing to educate themselves in these basic matters by demanding that the pledge do things like tie their shoes. It’s a decent sketch, which definitely benefited from some unique performances by James Franco and Andy Samberg. Honestly I’m just happy it’s an original sketch. Grade: B

Sketch 5 - “Vincent Price Christmas Special”

Same tired old retread, only worth watching for the performances. Recently I listened to an old episode of one of my favorite podcasts “The Sound of Young America” (http://www.maximumfun.org/sound-young-america/podcast-david-mitchell-mitchell-webb) , the host Jesse Thorn was interviewing the brilliant British comedian David Mitchell. Mitchell remarked that while making his own sketch comedy show “That Mitchell and Webb Look” with his comedy partner Robert Webb, they resisted repeating characters or premises unless they took them in a new direction. For instance their sketch “Numberwang” about an indecipherable game show involving numbers, moves on in its second iteration to the German version of the show, then to a word-based version called “Wordwang”, then to a documentary about the show, then an action thriller movie trailer for “The Numberwang Code”, and finally a commercial for the Numberwang home game. Each time they examined the same old premise from an original angle. Off the top of my head I can’t remember a single instance of SNL doing this. Grade: C-

Sketch 6 - “X-mas Tree Seller who Talks to the Trees”

Again, I’m just glad to see an original sketch. Hey SNL, if you’re looking for new ideas, I’d be happy to send off a sketch packet. This was a lackluster sketch that, yet again, wasn’t developed as much as it could have been. Franco plays a man who has conversations and complex relationships with the trees he sells. All I could think about while watching this was the vastly superior Christopher Walken SNL sketch “Indoor Gardening Tips from a Man Who’s Very Scared of Plants”. Grade: C

Sketch 7 - “Jerry, Carl, and Troy Buy X-mas Dildos”

Yet another sketch repeat, perhaps they didn’t have time to write the show this week because they put together an SNL Christmas Special that aired earlier in the week. This was my favorite of all the reheated leftovers tonight. It was different enough from the previous sketches featuring the brusk talking and infantile corporate executives, to maintain my interest. Still, maybe we could see something different than these characters sitting in an office. Put them on a cruise ship, ditch them in the Sahara, transport them to the Middle Ages, something anything different. Grade: B+

Sketch 8 - “Mark Wahlberg Talks to Christmas Animals”

Of course they’d in this show with a carbon copy of the Mark Wahlberg sketch. I have to admit the line, “Hey, Partridge you were in that song the 12 Days of Christmas. I was in ‘The Happening’”, made me laugh. still the only think new here was the Santa cap on Samberg’s head. Grade: D

Overall

Of the nine live sketches tonight only two were wholly original. Franco’s idiosyncratic performance added to most of the sketches but detracted from some as well. All in all a lazy, uninspired, modestly amusing outing with a handful of stand out moments. Overall Grade: C-