SNL - "Seth McFarlane/Frank Ocean"

Season 38, Episode 1

Ah, there’s nothing like a new season, fresh with potential, to renew one’s faith in Saturday Night Live. Granted, these days it feels like any small change in the show’s line-up has the audience hoping that it will return the show to the quality of the halcyon days of the 70s/mid 80s/ early 90s (take your pick). But considering that the show has now lost Andy Samberg, Kristen Wiig, and Abby Elliot; has replaced Fred Armisen’s Obama impression with Jay Pharoah’s; and has three new featured players, it feels as if this would be as good of a time as any for the show to mount a mass improvement. And it’s that kind of potential that gives me hope, hope that not even Seth McFarlane’s job as host could possibly crush.

Right?

Cold Open – Democratic Rally: “I wouldn’t want his job, right?” And with that, SNL hands over the reins of the Obama impression to Jay Pharaoh. That alone would have made a cold open sketch better than any one staring Fred Armisen as Obama, but this one went above and beyond, by doing something that cold opens rarely do – actually be funny. Instead of just using Romney as a punching bag, something that the show did many times last season, it also managed to contrast both sides against each other and comment on both. Soon the sketch became not about the candidates themselves, but rather the race they are running against each other.

(Hey, there’s even a new credit sequence. See, I told you this was a new day for SNL. Too bad the static pictures make it kind of boring.)

Monologue: It would be hard to top such a strong opening, but it’s interesting to see two segments in a row try to use standard tricks to new effects. In this monologue, that’s where McFarlane doing the voices of his characters – and a few other impressions – came in. It’s the thing he’s most known for, and such crowd-pleasing actions would normally feel too safe to be funny. Fortunately, McFarlane framed the voices as representations of his own (fake) neurosis, and standing up on stage acting like a crazy person was just crazy enough to work. (Sorry.)  The singing, on the other hand, was just as calculated, but didn’t have anything new to add to the process, and thus fell fairly flat.

Obama Attack Ad: There’s something here to this ad that paint Romney as a utter and total dick, but it only really works in the second half, where we see Keenan Thompson’s character repeatedly followed from job to job by Bain Capital, as though it was some sort of conspiracy. Romney being a jerk about his illness isn’t really outrageous enough to be funny, but thinking that he’s targeting one specific human being certainly is.

Sex After 50: After a fake-out with Cecily Strong in the fake credits for this show-within-a-sketch, we got the return of a familiar figure with Armisen returning as his “producer who gives terrible advice on an advice show.” It’s the sort of crassness-for-crassness sake that doesn’t really work on SNL, especially when that crassness is use for a one-joke sketch. This is one Armisen recurring character that can’t be saved by giving it to Jay Pharoah; it just needs to die already. (But hey, at least Tim Robinson got his first appearance. Too bad it wasn’t in a better sketch.)

Clint Eastwood And Chair: And the award for most predictable sketch of the night goes to…this one. Ever since the real Clint Eastwood yelled at an empty chair at the RNC, it was pretty much guaranteed that SNL would manage to work in a sketch about it. However, instead of just resting on the laurel of the idea, the sketch was able to build on the initial idea of “Clint Eastwood and Chair” as a Broadway show (which wasn’t really all that funny) to the point that throwaway jokes (the various chairs, the “man on the street” praises) actually garnered some true laughs.

Lids: Confession: I don’t get the craze around “Gangnam Style”. It’s a song so crazy and batshit insane that I can’t get the appreciation of it, either as something you can dance to, or as ironic kitsch. As such, it’s hard for me to know just what to make of this sketch. If it’s meant to satirize that indiscernible popularity of the song, it sort of works. If it’s meant to celebrate the song – and the cameo by PSY seems to indicate that that’s the case – then I’m not really sure what the point of the sketch it. It turns the song into a punchline and celebrates it at the same time, and while it’s sort of enjoyable that way, I wouldn’t really call it funny.  

Introduction to Puppetry: As Crank Yankers proved long ago, having puppets say dirty and inappropriate things doesn’t automatically translate to hilarity. What makes this sketch work then is that instead of just playing off the “sweet meets naughty” formula, they ground the action of the puppets in those that are controlling them. By breaking down the normal artificiality that comes with puppet shows that hide the puppeteers, we see “Tony” as the physical manifestation of Anthony’s neuroses, and that makes it funny. That the sketch took this to the next level by having Anthony interact with the other puppets only sweetened the pot.

Weekend Update: In addition to Seth Meyers doing his normal shtick, we got…Honey Boo-Boo and Mama came on to mock the fact that their show got higher ratings than the convention telecast (though it’s more complicated than that), but really it was just a chance for SNL to mock a show that’s already a mockery to begin with…McFarlane comes on with a killer impression of Ryan Lotche doing fall TV preview…And it end with a quasi-racist Domican “Get out the Vote” Volunteer character. Really, I’m not sure what the writers were going for here, as it bounced around too many ideas for any of them to really land.

Stuttering Sergeant: This is a tricky one. When the sketch is asking us to laugh at the fact that the sergeant has a speech impediment, it comes off as more mean than funny. However, when it asks us to laugh at his hubris over the fact, or the confusing of the new recruits, then it gets some genuine laughs. (The “repeat after me” gag, for example, was predictable, but worked in the classic slapstick tradition.) Too bad it felt like the former outweighed the latter.

The Steve Harvey Show: That’s right. Steve Harvey really does have his own talk show. (So do Katie Couric and Jeff Probst, but that’s a whole other issue.) The thing is, the show’s only been on for a couple of weeks, so it’s not like it’s well known enough for SNL to really mock the talk show itself. Instead, it’s mostly just an excuse for Keenan Thompson to bust out his Steve Harvey impression and crack jokes about the actor, a target that seems really random in this day and age. That being said, they’re were a few good lines, and nothing too groan-inducing.

Blind Date: Making a joke out of people saying “I am all like…” isn’t really a joke, and it’s not really funny, which just makes this one-note sketch even more unbearable. There were a couple of good laughs with the superficiality of the phrase was matched with some heavier stuff (like say, death), but there wasn’t enough here to justify this sketch making it on air. (Or perhaps Keenan Thompson’s waiter put it best: “I’m all like, this needs to stop.”)

Wooden Spoon Warehouse: A simple joke about the backwards nature of the Amish, that had enough sense to get in and get out. (Though it does make me wonder is SNL always keeps such simple gag sketches around in case they’re getting down to the wire and need to fill some quick time.)

Though I really can’t stand Seth McFarlane and his animation empire, I have to admit that he really brought it tonight, and was able to bring charm to even the worst sketches. As for the episode on the whole, it was stronger than average, (that’s to be expected for the first one after a break), but not strong enough to belay the confidence that I had for the show at the beginning of the night.

Best Sketch – Introduction to Puppetry

Worst Sketch – Sex After 50

Next Weeks: It’s a swoon-off between host Joseph Gordon-Levitt and musical guest Mumford & Sons.

Quotes, Etc.:

In other, less-hope-inspiring updates to the show, apparently SNL is just going to directly crowd-source hosts and musical acts straight from the Internet. Because there’s no possible way that can go awry.

“I do that to remind you that I have two young daughters, and not five creepy adult sons.”

“Thank you for your service. Oh, I’m sorry, your gay service.”

“That doesn’t make me a liar. It just means I’m terrible with numbers. Now, let’s talk budget.”

“Whoomp! Chair it is!”

“DeGens! That’s legit.”

“Nobody was laughing out loud that day in Grenada.”

“But if you know how Mitt Romney travels, this is one trip you do not want to win.”

“You know you’ve made a terrible decision when having a neck tattoo is the second worst thing about your neck tattoo.”

“This will be Pacino’s second movie with the line ‘Say hello to my little friend.’”

“It’s not fair to give all the best lines to the monkey.”

“It feels so weird to be dry.”

“It’s the prefect way to tell the world ‘Yes I have a small penis, and no, it don’t work so good.’”

“I have a correction to make: The animal I was holding was called a marmoset, not a pocket monkey.”

“I like a pocket square that has three titties – like that girl in Total Recall.”

“I’m not going to say ‘no’ on TV in front of everybody.”

“No, don’t do Family Guy. We’re 30.”