Tom Hanks hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guest the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Hanks was hosting for his eighth time and it was one of the best SNL episodes of the season. The episode aired on May 6th, 2006. This episode had some very funny moments.

So what about the sketches?

Cold Open: President Bush and VP Cheney at the White House talking about the changes going on in the administration. It started out kind of slow but when Tom Hanks came on as Senator Frist to talk about his new Gas Plan after his previous one not getting too far it got funny. It turned into an infomercial about what the American people would get for drilling in Alaska and the Grand Canyon. For starters they would get $120 instead of $100. Next they would each get a three-day trip to beautiful Busch Gardens in Florida and finally the Magic Mop with not one but two chamois clothes. It was a $500 value and was pretty funny.

Monologue: Tom Hanks comes out to talk about his new movie the Da Vinci Code. He is about to show a video diary when the audience interrupts him. The people asking the questions escalate from a woman, to a priest, then a Cardinal, to the Pope and then God himself. All with an albino monk and flying nun in there too. It was humorous.

Wheel of Fortune: Tom Hanks as Pat Sajak and Tina Fey as a mute Vanna White. The three contestants can’t seem to solve the puzzle: “By the S_in of Our Teeth.” Each guess gets more absurd until they just keep passing to the next player. It went on a little long and wasn’t that funny.

Rick and Caitlan: This is by far my favorite returning character on this show. Watching Amy Poehler running around like a hyper pre-teen screaming and signing at the top of her lungs is just funny to me. It is a mini tour de force performance that makes me tired just watching it. In this one Hanks plays Eli a guy with a iguana who needs someone to watch it while he and his wife go on a cruise. Caitlan chickens out and Rick once again comes to her aid.

An SNL Digital Short: New York City, 1991. This was pretty funny. Keenan Thompson standing there, looking like Dwayne Wayne from A Different World, asking if the others have heard the C+C Music Factory song “Everybody Dance Now.” Will Forte looking like Vanilla Ice asking if they had heard Right Said Fred with “I’m Too Sexy.” Chris Parnell asks if they have heard Rio and Ephram. They say no and he pulls out his giant boombox for them to listen. We are treated to the video where Hanks is Ephram and Andy Samberg is Rio. They sing about how they don’t want anything to happen to their testicles. It was a very funny spoof of early nineties fashion and music.

Universal Theme Park: This was the weakest sketch of the night. Tom Hanks and Fred Armisen as two guys in line for a ride yelling at there Mom to get in line with them, get out of other lines, by them pizza, etc. It was just an excuse for them to keep yelling Ma! This got old pretty quick.

Weekend Update: Very funny had some great lines. Like the Kennedy who got in a car wreck because of his medication, “Tylenol JD,” which was a bottle of Jack Daniels with the label changed in the graphic. The best line was from Amy Poehler about David Blaine spending the week in the water bubble saying he is trying to “break the record for the world’s shrivelyist penis.” Horation Sanz came on as Rosie O’Donnell to talk about joining The View.

Yoga Class: They each had to partner up. This left Rachel Dratch to partner with Teddy played by Hanks. He was hairy, sweaty and talked a lot. They end up in some very funny and compromising positions. Amy Poehler almost lost it at one point.

Colin’s Place: Keenan Thompson as Colin Powell and Finesse Mitchell as his son Michael. It was a pretty good take off of Sanford and Son. Overall it wasn’t great but is was solid and is the best thing either Finesse or Keenan have been in, in some time.

Tennis Club Partnership: Tom Hanks plays a tennis player with one arm. His partner wants to end the partnership before the big club tournament. He has a new playing partner with three arms. But Hanks has a back up partner he has recruited out of retirement with seven arms. It was OK. The funniest thing about it was that they all sounded like Thurston Howell, III from Gilligan’s Island.

Saturday Night Live had a really good week with Tom Hanks as host. Next week the hosting duties go to former cast member Julia Louis Dreyfus. Yes she is best known for Elaine on Seinfeld but she spent like three years back in the early 80s as part of the SNL cast. The musical guest will be Paul Simon.

What did you think of this week’s SNL? How did you like Tom Hanks? What did you think was the best sketch of the night? Have any thoughts on the show? Leave them in the comments.

Lindsay Lohan hosted Saturday Night Live on April 15th, 2006 with musical guest Pearl Jam. Last week was pretty good and past SNL hosted shows by Lohan were also pretty good. Who doesn’t remember the classic Harry Potter sketch from the last time she hosted. It was hilarious. There was nothing during this episode that will be remembered in the future like that.

So what about the sketches?

Cold Open: CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer is the backdrop for yet another unforgettable opening bit. They played off the recent Bush Administration departures as of late. It did look like it was going to pick up when they went live to the new press secretary played by Lohan as a teenager recently picked for the job who was formerly Chief Justice Roberts’ babysitter. Yet that quickly fizzled as well but thankfully the sketch was over as Lohan hoarsely yelled out “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”

Monologue: This was Lindsay’s third stint hosting the show. As she starts a drunk Easter Bunny comes out played by Kenan Thompson. She talked to the bunny about being a role model for children and how he shouldn’t act this way. It was a clever attempt at making a joke out of the tabloid type stories that are bandied about regarding Lohan herself. It was a clever but the execution just wasn’t all that funny.

Coin Slot Cream Advertisement: This was the first bit of the night to actually get a laugh. It was for a cream for the top of your crack because it gets exposed to the elements due to the present trend of low cut fashions. You don’t want dry burning skin there do you?

Deep House Dish: Kenan once again as D.J. Dynasty Handbag and his side kick Tiara Zee played by Rachel Dratch. She says stupid stuff; he says how boring she is. We get it already. Ooh Wee, SNL for the sake of your show this sketch is BORING! Please send it out to that farm in the country where all the little kids’ pets go.

TV Funhouse: Cartoon focused on Disney and the Disney vault. Some of the movie titles were pretty funny. Bambi 2002, Jungle Book 3.0: Jungle Blog and Lion King 5 2/3: Simba Sits in for Meredith. Also the kids get a tour of the vault by Mickey Mouse where the kids come across the head of Disney, how Disney “ratted out” animators as commies and how Disney was a racist by show a clip of a cartoon he only showed at parties. Finding Jim Henson and Kermit tied up down there was funny also. It was over the top as usual but had some really funny moments.

The O’Reilly Factor: Darrell Hammond played O’Reilly and had some of the tone of the show down and played up Bill cutting people off and saying, “we will just have to agree to disagree” and “I’ll give you the last word.” It just fell flat. It didn’t have the energy that the Hardball sketch does and kind of just plodded along. The one funny bit was Will Forte as Newt Gingrich telling O’Reilly he needed to “read some books” after he had just mixed up the signing of the treating to end WWI with WWII, the Korean War and when JFK was president.

Chocolate Vesuvius Cake: This chocolate dessert is so good that it prompt outrageous and far out reactions after tasting it. These include smashing chairs over people and basically becoming uncontrollable. When the waitress comes with the check they all say that it really wasn’t that good. I had a similar reaction to this sketch as it was not very good.

SNL Digital Short: Laser Cats: Bill Hader and Andy Samberg think they have come up with a great idea for a filmed bit for the show. They tell Lorne that everyone likes cats and lasers and they have found away to put them together. Lorne doesn’t think it sounds very good. They show him the tape. The tape is story of two guys who use cats that shoot lasers out of their mouths to save a princess. It was mildly amusing. The funniest bit is when they get to the princess played by Lohan and want her to choose between them and then decide that she should just say she slept with both of them. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. So they edit in Rachel Dratch as the princess to say the line and then it blinks back to Lohan. It was visually funny but that was about it. My reaction was much the same as Lorne’s at the end of the bit.

Weekend Update: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler started out slow but it picked up a bit with Seth Meyers as Stormy Windbreaker doing the weather. His end of days forecast was pretty funny with the final day being the Sun exploding. Jason Sudeikis coming on as Taylor Hicks, the grey haired soul singer from American Idol, was the best bit of the night. He did a really good impression of him. The part where he just sings gibberish but puts feeling into it was great. Once again the best part of a very week episode of Saturday Night Live.

Debbie Downer Bachelorette Party in Vegas: This sketch along with Deep House Dish needs to be put downer for good.

After Work Drink at a Bar: Three socially inept co-workers go out for a drink after work. They do not know what to do once they get there. The sketch dragged on and when it finally got to the punchline it was very funny.

TCM Movie Archives: They show and old Ann Margaret movie that didn’t do to well as she costarred with Liberace. The attempted joke was about how sexy Ann was and how not into women Liberace was. This sketch ended the show as it begun, flat and not funny.

Saturday Night Live was once again very disappointing. I don’t know what it was but everything just fell flat for me this week. You can count on one hand the number of good episodes this season and still have fingers left.

Next week is a repeat of the Natalie Portman hosted show with musical guest Fall Out Boy. In two weeks they will have a Best of TV Funhouse episode hosted by the AG Duo. That has the potential to be good as TV Funhouse is consistently one of the best parts of Saturday Night Live.

What did you think of this week’s SNL? Did you like Lindsay Lohan? What did you think of her performance? Do you have any thoughts on the show? Leave them in the comments.

Well I have to say that the time off may have been good for them this time. This was actually an enjoyable episode of Saturday Night Live. It wasn’t great but it was better than most of this season from start to almost finish. Antonio Banderas was pretty good as the host. So what about the show?

Anderson Cooper 360: The cold open was Seth Meyers doing his Anderson Cooper of CNN impersonation. Overall the sketch was pretty amusing. The best parts were that building a wall between the USA and Mexico would not be that expensive because the government has found a large cheap labor force ready to do the job. Also, Antonio Banderas as President Vicente Fox talking about American immigration to Mexico. His line about all the people going there for spring break and sucking up all there natural resources like Tequila was pretty funny. Good solid opening to the show.

Antonio Banderas Monologue: This was pretty funny also. Antonio talking about being apart of American pop culture and that he may not be able to find work after doing this show. Then he reveals that he is actually a woman named Guadalupe. It was short and funny.

Basic Instinct 2: Return of the Beaver: Mock advertisement for the Sharon Stone movie sequel and what made the first one infamous. It was quite amusing as Amy Poehler as Stone kept trying to distract the cop.

Deal or No Deal: Fred Armisen played Howie Mandel who hosts the show. It spoofed how nobody really understands how the game works. They took a funny premise did what they could with it and then got out. Again it was quite amusing. Watch for yourself and see.

Phone System Voice Girl at Party: This was another short and sweet sketch. Rachel Dratch plays a girl at a party that Antonio Banderas starts a conversation with. We find out that she works recording the voice you hear when using an automated phone system. The funny bit is that she talks in real life just like that. Fred Armisen comes in for a bit as the Spanish-speaking counterpart. They didn’t beat a dead horse the sketch may have lasted all of three or four minutes.

Besos Y Lagrimas: Spoof of Spanish Telenovelas. This too was pretty good. Everytime Antonio as Paolo came in the music kicked up and his shirt blew open. Each scene ended with people crying and muttering Paolo. The last scene where the woman is holding a baby and when Paolo’s shirt flies open so does the little shirt the baby is wearing. Once again they did like three short scenes and you got the joke and then they were done.

The 13th Annual Women’s Basketball Coaches’ Fashion Awards: The opening for this sketch was really funny. The event was being held at the Kotex Lightdays Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The first award for “Best Squat In An Above-The-Knee Skirt” was kind of funny when Rachel Dratch came up to accept and showed everybody how it is done. The sketch sort of petered out down the stretch with Antonio singing between each award with backup dancers.

Weekend Update: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler had some good jokes as usual. Finesse Mitchell talking about how not to piss off a black woman, in reference to Cynthia McKinney recently on Capitol Hill, wasn’t that funny. Well, except for the end when you see he has a pen stuck in the back of his head and says that Mary J. Blige doesn’t like to be bothered with signing autographs while she is preparing to sing.

Zorro Filming: Antonio doesn’t want to do a kissing scene with his co-star because of bird flu or herpes. So, he has hired a stand in for these scenes. Horatio Sanz plays the stand in. Seeing Horatio in a Zorro costume next to Antonio is the main joke here. A little amusing and once again they didn’t go overboard with it.

Karaoke Night: This was really funny. Rachel Dratch played a shy woman at a karaoke bar with a date played by Antonio. She goes up to sing him a special song. The host played by Amy Poehler says she will help her out if she gets stuck. As the song gets going Amy jumps in and practically takes over. She ends up dancing suggestively on and around Antonio. This upsets Rachel who starts to sing more and more suggestive songs trying to get the spotlight back on her to no avail. Then Amy as the host says that they are just there to have fun and asks her husband played by Chris Parnell to back her up. He doesn’t and is completely annoyed with his wife’s behavior as the host. It was short and hearing Rachel sing and watching her dance to some of the songs was great.

Backstage: The bit turns into a PSA with Antonio, Fred and Horatio talking about Hispanic immigrants and the plan they have grown up with. That being to come to the US and steal jobs, stab people and make babies. The best bit was how the sketch started off. Amy is talking with other backstage and Antonio walks by and says he is thinking of doing sketch comedy fulltime because he likes it and it is really easy, then he walks off camera. Amy gets mad and starts talking about how all the Mexicans do is come here and steal our jobs. Overall this was pretty funny and timely given the weekends planned events.

Wine Tasting: Antonio, Chris Parnell and Amy Poehler as characters sitting around a table tasting wines. They each remark about what they can taste in each. This was the worst sketch of the night but it was the last one. At least it was short.

The theme of the night was short and sweet. Each sketch had a good premise to work from. SNL this week was like bidding on The Price is Right, the sketches were mined for as much comedy as possible without going over.

The musical guest was Mary J. Blige. I watched Saturday Night Live on tape and just fast-forwarded through the musical numbers. When I watch the show live that is usually when I go get a snack or something anyway. What did fans out there think of Mary J. Blige?

What did you think of this week’s Saturday Night Live? What was your favorite sketch? Did you think Antonio Banderas did a good job?

Next week is new with host Lindsay Lohan and musical guest Pearl Jam. How many LiLo bare butt jokes do you think we are in for?

I missed Natalie Portman last week but read that I didn’t miss much. I wish that I would of missed this episode of Saturday Night Live though as it was really BAD. The host this week was Academy Award nominated actor Matt Dillon. He was nominated for his performance as a racist cop in the movie Crash. The musical guest was the Arctic Monkeys.

So What About the Show

Show Opening: The show opened with a sketch about four girls at the Akron-Canton Airport talking about their plans for Spring Break. They mention things like drinking and smoking pot and such. The whole thing is supposed to be a setup for the ending where the punchline is that one of the girls’ parents have been sitting there the whole time and when their flight is called they stand up tell the girls to have fun on their trip. This would have been semi-humorous except for the attempt at a joke about one of the girls having a friend that went missing on an island and how cool that was. They even high-five each other over it. They completely lost me at this point. I know this show tries to push the envelope so-to-speak but all that popped into my head was Natalee Holloway and how I don’t think that any of her friends are giving each other high fives over her disappearance. This was one of the worst things I have seen on TV in a long time. I can’t imagine what the writers were thinking.

Matt Dillon Monologue: He gives his acceptance speech that he was not able to give at the Oscars because he didn’t win. His character was racist and his speech was meant to show that it was only his character and not himself. So he goes on to make stereotypical remarks about different races and people in his mock speech. It was semi-humorous for a bit but then as they seem to like to do lately on SNL they went to far. It ran on to long. It was like we must take a jab at everyone or it wouldn’t be fair or something. But he went on and on and on and it got less funny as he did.

Prisonmate.net: Advertisement for an online dating service for women to find men that they will always know where they are. It was kind of funny but not great like the Me-Harmony.com spoof they did last season.

SportsCenter: A spoof of Dan Patrick and Stuart Scott. Finesse Mitchell’s Stuart Scott was good. Kenan Thompson as Barry Bonds was pretty funny especially when he put his hands up to the camera and they were huge. Matt Dillon played the man who gave Bonds the steroids. Showing the before and after photos of the two of them was pretty good. Solid sketch, probably the best of the night but that isn’t saying much.

SNL Digital Short: Dopple Ganger. Seth, Andy and Will. They point out people that look exactly like each other. They find Will but he has a mustache. Then they find Seth but he is wearing a big top hat. Then they see Horatio and they say he looks like Andy. Andy says he looks like the guy with the green bandana. They say Horatio looks like him except for his red gloves. Andy goes over and takes of the gloves and then Seth and Will say they can’t tell them apart and pulls a gun saying he doesn’t know which one to shoot. Andy doesn’t know why he needs to shoot anyone. Seth is telling him to take the shot. You hear a shot and then see the three sitting together again except it is Horatio instead of Andy. Will admit he shot the wrong one. It ranks right up there with the Lettuce Digital Short, kind of amusing but not all that funny.

2 A-Holes at a Travel Agency: If you like awkward silences and long drawn out sketches of a one note variety then this is the sketch for you. When the characters had long pauses between lines of dialogue it was the only time you heard any audience laughter and it was that uncomfortable type of laughing not because it was funny. The only funny line was when she said she wanted to go to Hogwarts.

Sushi Bar: Matt Dillon plays a guy that has written a book about ordering properly in a Sushi restaurant. It was just Matt saying Japanese words to order and the waitress looking at him like he was an idiot.

J. J. Casuals Commercial: Feet that look like shoes. Replay of a not that funny bit to begin with.

Joplin Alive Video Podcast: All I can say is Jared’s Room it was not.

Weekend Update: As usual it was the best part of the show except for the two guests. The joke about Osama bin Laden’s niece, Wafah Dufour, getting her own reality show called “Skating with Neices of Terrorists” and Wal-Mart reversing a decision on carrying a contraceptive pill “when they thought for a second about who shops at Wal-Mart.” Read more at Weekend Update Quotables on the NBC Saturday Night Live site.

TV Land 1961 Variety Vault: Bill Hader does a great Vincent Price impersonation and Kristen Wiig does a good Katharine Hepburn but the sketch as a whole is not all that funny. Darrel Hammond even showed up as Barney Fife.

Taping of a Relaxation Tape: About what you would expect, two professionals with soothing voices and then Matt Dillon with a hard gruff voice, which stands out from the rest. It was pretty bland.

Appalachian Emergency Room: Filler. That is what this must be. The writers sit around and go well we can’t think up anymore funny stuff, not that they have been doing much of that recently, and decide to through another one of these out there. Pretty week. Tyler ended up being a walking rainstick.

Unicorn Salesmen: Two guys sell unicorns like used cars. It was clever but wasn’t too funny. The mini unicorn was pretty cute but that was about it. Overall it wasn’t bad for the final sketch of the night.

Overall: The show was really bad from start to finish. The Digital Short has been the best thing about this season but also shows that they all can’t be good and they run the risk of taking something good and ruining it with over exposure. Also Appalachian ER and 2 A-Holes need to be retired. One had a good run and the other needs to be put out of its misery before we have to suffer any more of are own trying to watch it.

What About the Music

The musical guest was the Arctic Monkeys. They were OK. They are supposed to be the next big thing musically speaking. While I thought their guitar play was great in the opening and closing of each song, the songs and the singing didn’t really do it for me. Do you like the Arctic Monkeys? Did you enjoy their performance on SNL?

What did you think of this week’s Saturday Night Live? What did you think of Matt Dillon as host? What would you do to make the show better? Let us know in the comments.