This is more along the lines of what I expect out of Saturday Night Live. This show was really good. A few downers (Debbie anyone?), some solid sketches and a Digital Short that will become an all time classic.
The show started off really well …
Opening Sketch: Dick Cheney as Santa Claus was really funny. Having the kids ask for things like drilling for oil in the Alaska to bring oil prices down so their grandma could visit was a great comedic twist to the normal happenings at your average Mall Santa Stand. Darrell Hammond does a great Cheney impersonation. I would put it in his top three with Hardball and Bill Clinton. Having Will Forte and his bad Bush impersonation ask for an XBox 360 was pretty good also.
Jack Black Monologue: Jack Black sung a song he wrote about King Kong that he said was rejected from inclusion from the movie. This was really good. Anything that you can think of that rhymes with Kong was pretty much used in this song. Plus anytime the star doesn’t do a lame Q&A session is a good thing.
Stuart Little Mouse Removal System: I thought this was great. Using the little red car from the Stuart Little movies to lure mice into driving out the door where the car explodes was quite funny.
… And then things took a bad turn …
Windy Sbarro Pizza Store: This looked like it was going to be funny. It just wasn’t. Except for Rachel Dratch as the Grandma being sent flying out of the shot. I kept thinking it was going to get funny anytime now. It never did.
Appalachian ER: This was OK. The best part being Chris Parnell’s character trying to come up with an excuse to why he was stuck in a watermelon, at least this time something wasn’t stuck in him. Johnny Knoxville makes a guest appearance as himself with a 2 x 4 nailed between his legs.
… And then the Show takes back off …
Robert Smigel Cartoon: So what do all the Jews do during Christmas? Well we get to find out that they do whatever they want as the streets are open and clear. They watch King Kong without having to stand in long lines for tickets, go out for Chinese food and watch Jon Stewart reruns to close out the day. All this while a Female Motown Trio sings about it. There is usually a point in each of his cartoons where you just can’t believe what you just saw or heard. This was no different.
Channel 5 Photo Shoot: This was an above average sketch. The Channel 5 News Team is taking a new billboard shot. The best part of this sketch was the shots of previous photos. The on with them all jumping was great. As they are taking the picture they are all supposed to point at each other when the photographer tells them to. The problem is that nobody is pointing at Jack Black’s character. This goes on and on until he gets really mad. Then they all make up and take a couple more. Then you see the final result, which is the three pointing at each other, and just Jack’s hand on the left side pointing at the other three together on the right.
Digital Short Lazy Sunday: Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg as two rappers rapping about The Chronicles of Narnia and cupcakes at the Magnolia Bakery. Instead of me trying to explain it why don’t you just watch it yourself. Oh and Mr. Pibb and Red Vines are crazy delicious. This was the best bit of the night by far.
Weekend Update: This was one of the better WU’s off the season. All the jokes landed pretty well. My favorite was Amy Poehler giving the update that there were only “Seven more shopping days until Holidayâ€. Tracy Morgan made a guest appearance with Keenen Thompson as tourism promoters for Skull Island, the home of King Kong and lots of giant bugs and other creatures. This was a somewhat funny but mostly just good to see Tracy Morgan. Hopefully the SNL spoof sitcom starring him and written by Tina Fey that they are doing for NBC will be good.
… And then the show heads back Downer …
A Very Downer Christmas: All I can say is that it was. Not the worst of the night but pretty bad.
Glirk Sketch: I thought this was really bad. Basically it was all a setup for the final voiceover by Jack Black, which was somewhat humorous.
Two A-holes Buying a Christmas Tree: Lame. There is nothing else to quite say about this except that they were a-holes.
… And then it ends well.
Spelling Bee: Another final sketch that was pretty good. Like last weeks Always Be Cobbling bit. This week we get a Spelling Bee with a little Tenacious D.
All in all it was a really good week for SNL. More than half of the comedy bits were above average and only a couple was really pathetically bad. I wonder though, is it a bad thing that three of the best bits were all recorded and not live: Commercial, Cartoon and Digital Short? What do you think about SNL and this week’s show with Jack Black?
