SNL - "Eli Manning/Rihanna"

Season 37, Episode 20

Let’s face it: The only real reason that Eli Manning is coming on SNL tonight, is because Payton Manning hosted an episode, and that one was fairly well-received. The only reason that Payton Manning appeared on the show was because SNL likes to trot out star athletes every once in a while. And SNL likes to have athlete hosts because…hell, I don’t know why. So can Eli Manning clear the incredibly low bar that’s set out before him? Let’s find out.

Cold Open – Fox and Friends: Wow, that was a lot of applause at the top of this sketch. The show usually buries the Fox and Friends sketches in the middle of its episodes, so I don’t really think of it as material fit for the politically-inclined cold open, but I think it worked fairly well. Of course by “fairly well”, I mean the sketch shoved in a whole bunch of different events to be riffed on. While it did provide some good one-liners – most courtesy of sketch MVP Bobby Moynihan – it was still pretty herky-jerky. The real point came when Armisen showed up as Murdoch. It wasn’t so much about what Armisen did, rather that this was perhaps the weakest story for the sketch to make jokes about.

Monologue: There are so many different ways for the show to have Eli Manning mock himself in the monologue…and they instead have him make jokes about being a “real New Yorker”. This is even worse when you consider that this is the exact line of jokes that the show did with Robert de Niro during his last appearance. Oh well, at least he demonstrates plenty of enthusiasm. That should help.

Amazon.com Mother’s Day: It’s hard to know what to do with these types of commercials, which start out advertising one product, before shifting and focusing on something else. On the plus side, it means that the commercials are using surprise to help make comedy. But on the negative, it just appears lazy, like the writers can’t just follow through with a joke. However, there was a solid joke here around 50 Shades of Gray, and it didn’t outstay its welcome. In fact, there was actually a pretty nice build to the jokes here.

(Oh, and here’s a watch commercial featuring…Eli Manning.)

Madden Motion Capture: His first sketch of the night, and Manning is playing himself. That’s not a good sign. However, his enthusiasm helped here, helping to sell all of the ridiculous posturing that he had to do. Also smart was the sketch switching between him and the victory dances of the other athletes.

Trial: This was a long sketch, and it was largely jokeless for the first two minutes or so, neither of which is a good omen. However, the sketch apparently wore me down, because by the end, I was laughing at just about every punchline. There was a weird build to this sketch, one where the rhythms had to be established before the jokes could begin to flow. And though that made for an awkward beginning, it also makes for an ending filled with humorous, rapid-fire exchanges. It should also be noted that the sketch got funnier as the specificity grew, and it became less about general texting jokes.

Little Brothers: Well, if the show can physically get Payton Manning to appear, at least they can do it in spirit. “Little Brothers” obviously apes the United Way commercial that circulated the internet after Payton’s episode, and while that’s obviously the kind of viral humor that the show is chasing here, they thankfully added a second layer to this one. Not only does Eli seems to be working out his own issues with his brother, but he also acts a whole lot like Payton too.

WXPD New York: Oh god, another Herb Welch sketch. I’ll admit, these seem to be wearing me down, and I find myself laughing at them more and more despite myself. However, that doesn’t forgive the show for doing the same beats over and over again. The sketches tend to rise and fall based on the creativity of the subject that the sketch has Herb reporting on, and Occupy Wall Street was already joked to death last fall. However, I did like the video package, which was at least a stab at a new direction. (And was it me, or was Herb’s death fake-out less funny this time around, like Hader wasn’t trying as hard at that bit?)

Weekend Update: In addition to Seth Meyer’s doing his usual shtick, we got…Kristen Wiig as the tan mom. When yoy think about it, this is the perfect sort of role for Wiig to do, but it wasn’t all that funny. Maybe because tan jokes are just so tired that the show couldn’t really do anything with it. Or maybe it’s because the story is so ridiculous that making jokes about it is sort of pointless…Sascha Baron Coehn showed up as the Aladeen character, doing the sort of promo work that he did for Borat some years ago. This one wasn’t nearly as funny, but it did clip along at a nice pace, and Scorsese gave a fairly game cameo performance.

(I like the little shout-out that SNL threw to MCA right before the commercial break with the footage of the Beasties performing “Sure Shot” some years back. In fact, let’s just go listen to that song now, shall we?)

What is This?: The faux-games show have been among the strongest elements on the show as of late (assuming that game show isn’t “Secret Word”), but this one didn’t quite clear the admittedly high-bar of past iterations. The best games show sketches have all of the contestants stumped or in some way flustered by the game. However, this time Abbey Elliot’s host (hey, at least somebody besides Hader is doing it) really only focused on one contestant, and while those jokes were pretty funny, it was also too broken up by her interactions with the other two. The best ones are rapid-fire in their pace, and this one wasn’t. (It also hurt the sketch that Elliot seemed to playing an offensively gendered stereotype. Her putting the screws to Manning’s character was funny, but the motivation behind it sort of soured the proceedings.)

Helga Lately: This is the perfect example of the one-joke sketch. While the idea of sending up Chelsea Lately by transporting the same tired jokes/catchphrases to another language was a good one, and provided all the laughs, that was all there was to this. Thus, the second, third, and fourth iterations of this joke just didn’t work. (By the end, the audience wasn’t even throwing the actors pity laughs.)

Miss Drag World: What the fuck did I just watch? This sketch was just a mix of bad jokes and transphobia. Ugly, disgusting, and unfunny. And even if it wasn’t transphobic, when will comedy writers realizing that putting a man in a dress simply isn’t funny.

Cheech & Chong and also Richard: You want to know what’s also not funny, or at least doesn’t work in sketch comedy? Wet blankets. (Hell, it took Community over half a season to get wet blanket Britta to work within the show’s dynamic.) This sketch was already a dud thanks to the inclusion of Richard’s wet blanket, but it was made even worse by the fact that apparently the writers didn’t understand what made the Cheech & Chong movies funny in the first place.

Admittedly, I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the show, but I believe that Eli Manning might be the best athletic host that the show has had in quite some time. He was personable, game for anything, and above all enthusiastic. It was this enthusiasm that helped to carry him in those sketches that went outside of his limited acting range. I’ve never wanted for an athletic host to return, and he wouldn’t be my top choice out of all the hosts, but I wouldn’t mind having him back again. And hey, props to the show for burying less than they have other hosts this season.

Best Sketch – What is This?

Worst Sketch – Miss Drag World

Next Week: Will Ferrell returns, bringing back the Jeopardy sketch. And Usher…I don’t know. What’s he been up to lately?

Quotes, Etc.:

“I had to throw mine out because a raccoon had babies in it.”

“I once saw a picture of a mountain with four presidents on it. That’s not real!”

“I thought Tu-Pac Shakur was dead, but I then I read he did a concert just last week.”

“This bamboo is only six points!”

“Last year, one of us got hit in the head with is a brick. It was hilarious.”

“Is that Joel McHale?” “No, it’s your dad. Get out!”

“You’re a quarterback. That’s how you throw?” “That’s how I throw a grenade.”

“And finally: What are those big boobs of yours doing right now?”

“And what is that banana supposed to represent?” “A penis.” “And whose penis?” “Mine.”                  

“Bin Laden was worried that his men were so depressed that they wouldn’t commit suicide.”

“He also gave it One-Testicle-Ripped-Cleanely-Off.”

“You think this is torture? I had to sit through The Aviator.”

“You told me I would be released.” “Well, you promised me that Hugo would be under two hours.”

“He later turned to politics after changing his name to Mitt Romney.”