Saturday Night Live

[Jenny]

So sadly, Robert Downey Jr. isn't hosting September 20th. Shit.

[mezmorized]

I just started watching as Weekend Update came on. Has Bobby been in a sketch yet?

[Jenny]

I just started watching as Weekend Update came on. Has Bobby been in a sketch yet?

He was in the ugly kid sketch, that's all really for now.

[Aaron1933]

Hmm.




Fabrice Fabrice?

[Ramsobot]

Very much so.

[Shane]

bobby is on right now as a restaurant server, hilarious. HOW DO YOU NOT SMELL THAT PEPPA?

[Señor Colostimizer]

I don't know who this Michael Phelps guy is, but he stinks.

[gigglechick]

well, um... after the cold open the rest of the show was pretty meh.





(and by "meh" i mean "good god, i'm not usually critical of SNL, but jeezuz that was not exactly a swell episode")

[metal2000]

Didn't mind the zaniness of the Digital Short, Weekend Update had some decent jokes, and it's always good to see William Shatner (he should host again!) -- but overall, it was a pretty lacklustre show tonight.

I wonder how some sketches make it into the first half hour. Like, who's sitting there thinking, "Quiz show with homeschooled religious kids and dumb public school kids? Put it on early, that one's gonna be legendary!" And why on earth did the "ugly kids" sketch become recurring? Seriously.

[inturnaround]

Overall a pretty weak premiere. Phelps was no Peyton Manning and it was odd that we only saw Hammond once in the whole episode and he didn't play McCain. I wouldn't be surprised if he was part of the aborted Obama sketch. Hopefully Obama will be back soon.

Great cold opening. Couldn't ask for much more than that. Fey's Palin and Poehler's Clinton were excellent.

The monologue was weak. Was I the only person to play spot Guy Fieri all night? I guess he knows a guy.

Fred Armisen's Nicholas Fehn character is hilarious. I never tire of seeing him do that. I bet he could do that for hours.

Update was generally good, but other than Fehn, the character bits fell flat. Here's where a good McCain bit would have been nice. (And seriously, Cathy jokes? What is this? 1986?)

I've no doubt James Franco will do a better job next week.

As for the pepper guy sketch...I laughed a few times, but my girlfriend was stonefaced. So, mixed on that.

[disl]

awful episode save for moynihan's "it smells like peppa up in here" character (name escapes me) and the bit during weekend update about the bird calling 911, which i loved. this is probably an annoying thing to say, but they had all summer and that was what they put together for a season premiere? granted, obama didn't do them any favors by canceling just one day before the show, but come on. with that much talent, you'd think they could have pulled out something better.

also, someone needs to teach ALL snl writers how to write a commercial parody. even though it's a parody, the company making the commercial should still want it to be on television to advertise their product. that'll actually gives the sketches some weight. the "whos in your fave five?" parody they did was a good example of that. after the initial joke that the dad is a pedophile, the sketch lost all of its punch because it was inexplicably still an ad for verizon (i hope that's the right company). that one didn't even need to be a commercial, if it was a scene on it's own, i think it wouldve been a solid sketch (everyone in america got the reference right away, i'm assuming. we didnt really need the verizon logo/slogan tags). all of the GOOD snl commercial parodies still respect the idea that it's an ad for a presumably real product (schmidt's gay, bass-o-matic, happy fun ball, old glory robot insurance, etc.), they need to start keeping that in mind. at least the phelps diet commercial kinda did that until that fatass jared fogel showed up and undercut the entire ad. why would you have a celebrity say that your diet plan sucks in the middle of an ad promoting your diet plan? that's just idiotic. bad writing.

[Aaron1933]

awful episode save for moynihan's "it smells like peppa up in here" character (name escapes me)

Seriously, wasn't that character basically just Fabrice Fabrice?

[Hated Milk Machine]

also, someone needs to teach ALL snl writers how to write a commercial parody. even though it's a parody, the company making the commercial should still want it to be on television to advertise their product. that'll actually gives the sketches some weight. the "whos in your fave five?" parody they did was a good example of that. after the initial joke that the dad is a pedophile, the sketch lost all of its punch because it was inexplicably still an ad for verizon (i hope that's the right company). that one didn't even need to be a commercial, if it was a scene on it's own, i think it wouldve been a solid sketch (everyone in america got the reference right away, i'm assuming. we didnt really need the verizon logo/slogan tags). all of the GOOD snl commercial parodies still respect the idea that it's an ad for a presumably real product (schmidt's gay, bass-o-matic, happy fun ball, old glory robot insurance, etc.), they need to start keeping that in mind. at least the phelps diet commercial kinda did that until that fatass jared fogel showed up and undercut the entire ad. why would you have a celebrity say that your diet plan sucks in the middle of an ad promoting your diet plan? that's just idiotic. bad writing.

its the family guyzation of comedy!

[Valorie]

This is what I thought of it Darryl. Hated it. Hated LW.

[disl]

Seriously, wasn't that character basically just Fabrice Fabrice?

moynihan has been doing that character for at least a year, they are separate entities. fabrice fabrice is a more rounded character anyway, he at least has a backstory. the "peppa" guy literally just talks about pepper all the time (i'm not knocking it, i think it's hysterical).

[wrinkle_in_my_pants]

I don't know, Bobby played Fabrice Fabrice's nephew or cousin a long ass time ago, never saw it, just heard about it. It was Obviously inspired by FF... I would have rather not seen Bobby do that character ever and have Fabrice on as a guest later on. He was great though, showed off a lot of talent. He's gonna be great.

I actually liked the T-Mobile parody, everything about it. The best was the Phelps diet, Tina/Amy opener, and I do love watching Forte make an ass of himself dancing like an idiot.

[Ravi]

all of the GOOD snl commercial parodies still respect the idea that it's an ad for a presumably real product (schmidt's gay, bass-o-matic, happy fun ball, old glory robot insurance, etc.), they need to start keeping that in mind. at least the phelps diet commercial kinda did that until that fatass jared fogel showed up and undercut the entire ad. why would you have a celebrity say that your diet plan sucks in the middle of an ad promoting your diet plan? that's just idiotic. bad writing.

You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me angry!

[wrinkle_in_my_pants]

ps- i vote yes on freds political comedian and i'm voting against the digital short. i loved the special effects though, they've come a long way from laser cat.

[Valorie]

Is it wrong that I liked the music from the digital short?

[BillBrasky]

The cold opening was great, but after that the show went downhill quickly. There was way too much "Hey! People liked this sketch last season, so let's bring it back" (technically, the dancing coach sketch was from two seasons ago). The ugly kids really didn't need to be recurring. And I can't be the only one who's really sick of Nicholas Fehn. Funny once, yes - five times or however many times they've done it, no.

I'm going to take all of your words on this and give Bobby Moynihan the benefit of the doubt, but I really wasn't feeling that pepper thing.

I do kind of dislike it when people say "They've had all summer to work on this", because really, they haven't; they meet for the first time on Monday and put the show together in a week, same as every other show. But yeah, they should probably spend some time during the summer actually coming up with ideas that they can bring to the table the week of the show. But maybe they just enjoy goofing off. This was a really weak season premiere, but the same was true of the LeBron James episode last season, and they managed to improve from there, so we'll see.

( I did like the music in the Digital Short too, although the premise was pretty stupid)