Saturday Night Live

[smartbunny]

Hated the Digital Short, hate the "ugly kids" and the Dancing Coach was good one time, we don't need more. Once was enough.

Didn't get Pepper Guy. Why was Wiig's Homeschool-Mom character walking around pointing at everything? Is that like how the YFZ Ranch ladies were?

I was hoping they would do something about the crazy amount of food that Michael Phelps eats; it's really interesting. A tub of Halloween candy! And to wash it down? Hollandaise sauce. Loved the cold open. Playing Hillary as just dumbfounded (Anyone can be President, really... anyone) was funny.

[Valorie]

There was way too much "Hey! People liked this sketch last season, so let's bring it back"

That's one of my biggest problems with SNL. I remember watching the Tina Fey episode and thinking that the majority of it was recurring sketches. It's too safe. Show me something new and different.

[theodoric]

Thank God for TiVo. We got thru this one quickly.

[Ravi]

http://www.usatoday.com/life/televis...l-review_N.htm

Don't be fooled by funny opening: 'SNL' isn't back
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Fooled again.

Out of some peculiar brew of boundless optimism, lingering nostalgia and limitless hype, we always seem to get sucked into the notion that this week, this year, Saturday Night Live will be the show we imagine it once was. Certainly, expectations were set high for Saturday's season premiere: the "get" of Michael Phelps as a host, the trumped-up suspense over whether Tina Fey would return to play Sarah Palin (of course she did), the countless interviews proclaiming the writers' eagerness to tackle the election. Throw in our own You Tube-like memories, which tend to highlight the show's best moments and discard the rest, and surely you were primed for something special. And odds are, you were disappointed.

The opening promised so much more, as Fey and Amy Poehler teamed for a Palin/Hillary Clinton joint appearance, with Palin cheerfully oblivious ("I can see Russia from my house!") and Clinton increasingly vexed. Combining skillful mimicry and on-screen chemistry, the women got the show off to a great start.

Unfortunately, as far as politics went, that was pretty much it. A few more Palin jokes were dropped into an otherwise tepid Weekend Update, but there were no other electoral skits — and barely any mention at all of the two people actually running for president, Barack Obama and John McCain. It makes you think Obama was wise to bow out of the show: No politician wants to be labeled as tedious by association.

As usual, there were some amusing moments scattered throughout the evening, but even the few decent skits just petered out, and too many of them made you ask "why?" The writers have spent the summer surrounded by one of the most interesting elections of our time, and the best they can come up with for the season opener is a fey waiter, some ugly kids and Andy Samberg playing Cathy from the comics? Really?

Granted, most of SNL's best moments have always been essentially pointless, from land sharks to Justin Timberlake extolling the glories of a gift box. Pointless and funny is fine. Pointless and dull, not so much.

As for Phelps, he came across precisely as he did during the Olympics: a nice guy and incredible athlete who is inexperienced and uncomfortable in front of a camera. Still, he was at least willing and game, putting on silly wigs and playing second fiddle to William Shatner's cameo and Will Forte's dancing coach (a Peyton Manning retread).

The mistake, of course, was in once again falling for the idea that SNL is a comfortable home for relevant, topical humor. It isn't, one over-played, over-rated debate sketch from last season to the contrary. You want political satire, watch The Daily Show. Still, odds are SNL knows just what it's doing. The Fey/Poehler sketch will play in clip-form everywhere and be discussed by pundits who won't have bothered to watch anything else in the flat, draggy, 90-minute show. And once again, they will declare "SNL is back!"

So who's the fool?

[scamboogah]

Pretty sub-par season premiere.

Phelps was a real zero in the charisma department, Moynihan seems like a low-rent Horatio Sanz so far, and apart from the open and a couple of Weekend Update bits, most of the sketches really fell flat.

And what the fuck was that digital short? Did I miss some cultural touchstone that was being sent up there?

C-

[KeithTalent]

Armisen's Weekend Update thing was the highlight. Reminded me of a certain track on the Comedy Death Ray CD.


Can someone explain to me what is meant to be funny about the pepper guy? I'm serious. It's not that I think anyone's wrong for liking it, I seriously don't understand what the joke is supposed to be. I'll be disappointed if nobody tries to explain.

Is it that...people think the word pepper is funny? Are olfactory hallucinations hilarious?

I'm all for arbitrariness and stuff but seriously. what.

I mean if his speech patterns were at least funny...like Tracy Morgan had some bits that didn't really make sense, they were funny because of his performance. But the pepper guy...it's a shallow, done-to-death characterization. He doesn't have any unique tics or anything, he just talks like a caricature of an "urban" woman and says he smells pepper. I feel like I've even seen the playing-with-do-rag-tails move before. The funniest part was the anime shirt.

Until that sketch I had my eye on that guy. In the other sketches he was in he played things straight, without mugging, which is a welcome change for SNL. His takes were the best part of the ugly kids sketch. I'm still hoping he turns out to be good.

[BillBrasky]

Armisen's Weekend Update thing was the highlight. Reminded me of a certain track on the Comedy Death Ray CD.
.

Yeah, this was commented on the first time he did this on the show. Then he proceeded to do it again...the exact same thing...3 more times. This time, the audience didn't even seem to be into it, and usually they go nuts for it.
Somebody who attended the show wrote on the SNL boards that there are no cue cards for Fred's performance, so in essence he's improv-ing these little rambling speeches, which is admirable, but that doesn't really make it funny, once you've gotten the initial "joke" (or lack of one).
I think somebody wrote once on here that this is the kind of thing that is funny when you see it live, in the moment, but doesn't really work on what is a mostly scripted television show.

[Aaron1933]

I really like the Nicholas Fehn stuff. I feel like I could watch Fred Armisen do that for an hour straight, and I'm not just saying that in the way people say that. I'd like to see far he could go with it.

[KeithTalent]

Yeah, this was commented on the first time he did this on the show. Then he proceeded to do it again...the exact same thing...3 more times. This time, the audience didn't even seem to be into it, and usually they go nuts for it.
Somebody who attended the show wrote on the SNL boards that there are no cue cards for Fred's performance, so in essence he's improv-ing these little rambling speeches, which is admirable, but that doesn't really make it funny, once you've gotten the initial "joke" (or lack of one).
I think somebody wrote once on here that this is the kind of thing that is funny when you see it live, in the moment, but doesn't really work on what is a mostly scripted television show.

I didn't realize it was a recurring sketch, I haven't watched SNL regularly in a while. Armisen's Weekend Update bits are almost always a one-note joke...in fact I could say that about most things he does. I admire the guy but how many unfunny-on-purpose characters do you need?

[mueXog]

I admire the guy but how many unfunny-on-purpose characters do you need?

My favorite character like that he did was "Billy Cloud" or whatever the Indian comic he used to do was called.

I still enjoy Fehn sometimes, but wish they'd change things up if they insist on bringing it back again. I actually think he'd work well in his own sketch if they had a good idea in mind.

[man124]

When Seth announced that Kathy was a guest on weekend update, I got really excited because i thought they were gonna have Tina do more of that Kathy joke from 30 rock, then when it turned out it was samberg, i could not have been more depressed.

[Big Box Of Money]

In the writers' defense, they are kinda hamstrung when an athlete hosts. Peyton Manning is really the only professional athlete who didn't look a little foolish hosting the show(although not as foolish as say, Will Forte would look in the 4X100 relay). Actually MJ was pretty funny he hosted too, but these are men who had been in public eye for years before hosting.


I liked the pepper thing.

I hope Hader will be featured more than he was in this episode.

Kristin Wiig plays the same character a lot(see: The compound Mom)

Was the family in the homely child sketch named "Trig"? I may have misheard.

[KeithTalent]

I liked the pepper thing.

BUT WHY

what's the joke

help me

[KevinLee]

I really like the Nicholas Fehn stuff. I feel like I could watch Fred Armisen do that for an hour straight, and I'm not just saying that in the way people say that. I'd like to see far he could go with it.

Fred just posted this on his youtube page.

One Man Show
[youtube]kcyJW-GeMDc[/youtube]

[I love nny]

I do not at all get the Nicholas Fehn segment. I get that he is just blathering on and that the "joke" is that he is trying to be smarter than the average person. or maybe that the headlines he reads are so over the top that anyone should see the dark humor or whatever. The pepper guy sketch suffers from this as well where the joke is the ridiculousness of the character rather any real jokes.

[disl]

just because all of the jokes are pepper-related does not mean that there were no jokes in the sketch.

[KevinLee]

"Here's some water. You drink that with your mouth."

[Big Box Of Money]

just because all of the jokes are pepper-related does not mean that there were no jokes in the sketch.

"We got over four different flavors of soda!!" That shit wasn't even pepper-related!!

Keith - I just like dumb things that are also dumb. Remember that sketch that consisted of Forte screaming "Ohhh noooooooo!!" into the phone over and over again? That was right up my dumb alley. That being said - I probably wouldn't want to see a second pepper sketch ever, so of course there will be eight more this season.

[disl]

the pepper sketch could work if they put him in a different scenario instead of doing like snl loves to do and just put the same characters in the same scenarios over and over and over again. so basically you can count on him being in next week's show serving another couple at the same restaurant.

[karyrogers]

I do not at all get the Nicholas Fehn segment. I get that he is just blathering on and that the "joke" is that he is trying to be smarter than the average person. or maybe that the headlines he reads are so over the top that anyone should see the dark humor or whatever.

I don't think that's it. The character is a take on the tension building, punchline-less style of comedy. Some call it anti-comedy, I call it funny.

I heard an interview with Amy and Fred in which Amy said Fred just improvises the bit until she or Seth cuts him off. My understanding is that Lorne is not a big fan of improvising on the show, so to me it says a lot about the show's (Lorne, writers, etc) confidence in Fred.