The show starts with some 5 minutes of toothless political satire that takes 3 minutes to get to an actual joke. The premise, as far as I could tell, is that health care reform is unpopular (according to this sketch) and this might cost Sen. Harry Reid his seat… and hilarity ensues?

Host Monologue

This was basically Zach Galifianakis’ routine. It was excellent. I would say the spectrum of comedians doing their routines on SNL would probably go: Zach Galifianakis > Milton Berle > George Carlin (Carlin was just off that night) > Martin Lawrence > Andrew Dice Clay (note: due to laziness there are a lot of hosts left off of this spectrum). Although seeing Galifianakis do his act with the SNL band backing him did highlight the similarities between some of his material and “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey”.

Kissing Family

This week the “Kissing Family” find themselves at a funeral and my first thought was, “I hope they’re burying this tired old sketch.” Galifianakis seemed a little stiff, but that could have just been in comparison with the rest of the cast who has done this sketch so often they’re able to perform it with just the part of their brain that covers breathing, heart rate, and other autonomic functions. Seriously, if the point of this sketch is how shocking it is to see them all making out with one another don’t they invalidate it by performing it on every episode. Also, it seems like they missed an obvious opportunity for the father to have climbed into the coffin while making out with the deceased relative.

The Bidet

Here’s a sketch that develops ever so slightly and at a snail’s pace. Galifianakis’ performance is the best part, despite the fact that he is clearly reading off the cue cards. The only noteworthy thing about this sketch is that they use the Hotel Coronado for their establishing shots. Or is that the Disneyworld hotel that’s meant to look like the Hotel Coronado?

Zach Drops by the Set

It is what it is. The last segment where they cut to young Zach in the audience accompanied by the classic SNL audience member made-up fact they would do before going to commercial was pleasant.

Kathie Lee and Hoda

There are a few good jokes here. I appreciate that they didn’t completely rely on Wiig mugging to the camera. The digital short callback was a welcome change of formula as well.

Weekend Update

The jokes were good. None of them stick out in my mind, but they were good. Seth looks lonely by himself. I think he’s much better when he’s playing off someone.

There were two character pieces. One with Kenan Thompson playing Mo’nique, which I’m not going to bother embedding here. I couldn’t even decipher what the joke was supposed to be. Maybe that Mo’nique talks too much? Is that something people say about Mo’nique? The other piece was Will Forte as himself singing a song puportedly about “Women’s Herstory”. Forte is consistently my favorite thing on SNL.

What Up With That

I refuse to embed this video as well. Just scroll down and watch the one in the last SNL post. It’s the exact same damn sketch! In fact i refuse to call it a sketch, it’s a rubber stamp. At the moment this rubber stamp started it had been about 20 minutes or so since we had seen the host of the show, by the time Zach Galifianakis shows up halfway through this, it had been an eternity and 20 minutes since we last saw him.

The Situation Room

It’s okay, but this has already been done better several times on “The Daily Show”.

Pageant Talk

This sketch isn’t available online, so I didn’t see it. This is just one more example in a rather annoying trend of NBC cutting the last sketch of the show from their online content. I find it especially annoying as these are generally my favorite sketches. The last sketch before the host says goodbye is (according to this interview with former SNL writer Adam McKay) known as the “10 to 1″ sketch. Appearing roughly 10 minutes to 1 o’clock, the 10 to 1 sketch is generally the weirdest most daring sketch of the show. Here is my favorite 10 to 1 sketch of this season so far.

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-

Recap of the weeks news – Avatar opens, Auschwitz burglarized, boy found drunk and in a dress.

A recap of the weeks news. The Navy is tired of seamen. Celebrities defend pedophile. Britain’s high court tweeting. Man at KFC spared from eating at KFC. Methico. Sexy women love life. And Letterman can’t keep it in his Worldwide Pants. HAMMERTIME!

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the following enigmatic commercial, dubbed the Crying Number, ran during the early 1990’s. The hotline claims that those who call the number will hear tales of such insurmountable woe that they will be unable to keep from bursting out in uncontrollable sobs.

Finally, at long last, there has been discovered a rare recording of the sad lachrymal testimony that brought so many to such a deeply shaken emotional state.

I cut two jokes, one was about the island of Palau, the other Paula Abdul.

Beginning in England where…

• A theatrical version of The Shawshank Redemption is being put on at London’s West End. The play features a rather graphic scene of prison rape in the South End.

• A theme park in England has begun offering speed dating on a roller coaster. It is one of the only times women are encouraged to test the lap bar before the date begins. Park officials say if the date goes well the couple moves on to the log ride.

• A group of British scientists plan to scan Mt. Rushmore with lasers. The scientists say this will create an exact digital model of the monument and it should eliminate Teddy Roosevelt’s need for eyeglasses.

And in Italy…

• Antique lovers will gather next week for one of the world’s largest antique fairs held in the city of Florence. This will mark the first time any Antique Lover has ever been spotted inside anything called Florence.

And finally in Germany…

• A recent poll shows one in seven Germans want the Berlin Wall back. When questioned further those Germans admitted they only wanted it back as part of an elaborate ploy to get Hasselhoff to sing on top of it again.

I’ve been looking for freedom!

               BEN and FBI MAN stand at a table with 2 guinea pigs on it.

                                     FBI MAN
                         Well I don't know how, but you guinea
                         pigs did it again.  Dr. Foster these
                         guinea pigs are dynamite!

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         Thanks Director Morris.

                                     FBI MAN
                         So how'd you break the case?

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         Easy.

                                     ALL GUINEA PIGS
                         Gadgets, gizmos, and guinea pigs!

                                     FBI MAN
                         Ha, ha. Well keep up the good work.

               FBI MAN exits

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         Alright he's gone.  Ben bring in the
                         prisoner.

                                     BEN
                         Come on guys.  We solved the case.
                         Can't we take a rest.

                                     GUINEA PIG #2
                         He said bring in the prisoner!

                                     BEN
                         Okay, okay.

               Ben leads OMAR in. Omar is bound and wears a hood.

                                     OMAR
                         Death to America! Death to Guinea
                         Pigs! 

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         Alright Omar where are the drugs?

                                     BEN
                         Drugs?  What's going on guys?  The
                         case was about weapon smuggling?

                                     GUINEA PIG #2
                         Don't be naive Ben it was all financed
                         by top quality Afghani Heroin.

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         We stopped the weapons deal, but
                         they ditched the payment before we
                         could get our hot little hands on
                         it.

                                     BEN
                         But guys, isn't this a matter for
                         the DEA?

                                     GUINEA PIG #2
                         Sure Ben we hand over the case to
                         the DEA and they'll be sitting with
                         their thumbs up their butts for years
                         waiting for a court to issue warrants.

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         You turn a blind eye on this one Ben
                         and we'll cut you in for a taste
                         when we seize the product.

                                     BEN
                         What?  That's evidence, you'd have
                         to turn over any seized drugs
                         otherwise it could be deemed
                         inadmissable in court.

                                     GUINEA PIG #2
                         Ben, this ain't going to any court.

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         As soon as we get that sweet lady H,
                         we're gonna cut it with powdered
                         milk and have our squirrel friends
                         turn it out on the streets.

                                     BEN
                         That's terrible!

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         Just in the slums and barrios, we
                         wouldn't sell to any real Americans.

                                     GUINEA PIG #2
                         Besides all the money goes to
                         spreading democracy.  We got some
                         chinchillas running black ops in
                         Venezuela.

                                     BEN
                         I'm sorry guys I can't be a party to
                         this.

               Ben makes for the door but before he makes it one of the
               guinea pigs shoots him

                                     GUINEA PIG #1
                         It didn't have to end this way Ben.
                         You should have played ball.  Now
                         you, Omar, talk before my friend
                         here chews through your nutsack.

                OUT.