SNL – 3/6/10 – Zach Galifiankis & Vampire Weekend
Mar/100
Cold Open
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.
SNL – 12/19/09 – James Franco & Muse – Under the Knife
Dec/090
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-
G-Force Parody
Sep/090
Here’s a parody I wrote of G-Force back when it was topical.
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.
Here it is performed at the iO West's Andy Dick theater on Sept. 13, 2009. Starring David Tieck as Guinea Pig 1, Jacqueline Beaulieu as Guinea Pig 2, Lloyd Collins as Ben, and Sheldon Coolman as Director Morris and Omar.
“Star Trek – The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise” – Under the Knife
Jun/092
Title: Star Trek – The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise
From: Saturday Night Live aired 5/26/1976
What Worked: Well the performances were good. Outside of that though, there wasn’t much else to admire here.
What Didn’t Work: For starters, did you make it through the entire sketch? Eleven minutes and twenty-five seconds! And there were only about 5 real jokes in it, the rest was exposition and lines that added nothing but time to the sketch. The sketch was ostensibly about the cast/crew of Star Trek encountering a network executive there to cancel their mission/show. When writing a sketch you want to start your game no later than halfway through the first page or about 30 seconds in. This sketch doesn’t start until about six minutes in, when Elliott Gould and Garrett Morris enter. Most of the humor was derived through impersonations and sight gags and not from the logic of the sketch. Also, you might think this sketch was topical, but this aired seven years after the shows cancellation, two years after the animated shows cancellation, and three years before the first movie came out.
Notes: Honestly, I was just getting sick of writing positive reviews. So, I picked a clunker with sentimental appeal.
Rating: 
“Sloths!” Under the Knife
Jun/092
Title: Sloths!
From: Satuday Night Live 02/10/2007
What Worked: Everything.
What Didn’t: Nothing. The only possible criticism is that perhaps the sloths’ promise to “kill all your friends and ride their corpses like a carousel” is a little less extreme than them hiring a dog to burn down a hospital, and as such would be an example of de-heightening. But, that is debatable. Sloths hiring a dog to burn down a hospital is more absurd than sloths murdering all your friends and riding them like a carousel. But, sloths saying they’re going to kill all your friends personalizes their wanton destruction and so might have a bigger impact on the audience.
Notes: Quick, clean, powerful, and increasingly weird.
Nice Details: “…kick your face in a puch fight.” and “SLOTHS!!” with two exclamation marks instead of the standard one exclamation mark or the exuberant three exclamation marks.
Rating: (out of 5)