SNL After Party (S49 E6- Air Date 12/02/23) - "Smoking Makes You Skinny and Popular"

 Host: Emma Stone
Musical Guest: Noah Kahan

After the SNL crew took last week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, they return this week with the always reliable Emma Stone as host.

Did Stone’s appearance guarantee an Easy A, or was this week’s episode - somehow - Super Bad?

It would be Cruella of me to keep you waiting in La La Land to find out, so let’s crash this week’s After Party and see.

I am so sorry for that last paragraph.

Cold Open

The absurdity started immediately this week as Sarah Sherman portrayed Wolf Blitzer in a cold open that -to absolutely no one’s surprise- featured Bowen Yang as ousted Congressman George Santos giving his farewell press conference. Yang seemed to relish what is - presumably - the last appearance of this character. During questions from the press, Yang’s Santos declared he was leaving behind his Congressional title to retain his old ones, including “Protector of the Realm” and “Princess of Genovia.”

Yang then caps off the conference with a full on parody of Candle in the Wind, in which Santos calls himself “An evil Forrest Gump.”

The song brought down the house, and Yang deservedly got huge applause. The whole sketch felt like the kind of thing they do on the show when a cast member departs. As far as I know Yang isn’t going anywhere, but it does kind of feel like a mournful goodbye to his signature character. If not for the actual George Santos.

Monologue

Emma Stone first hosted SNL in 2010 at age 21. This episode makes her fifth time hosting, so her monologue - which is a misnomer - consisted of her being inducted into the hallowed five-timer club by other members Tina Fey and Candice Bergen.

Fey noted that at age 35, Stone is the youngest member of the five-timer club, while Fey herself - at age 53 - is the second youngest.

Although there wasn’t much to the monologue itself, it was a nice moment in the show, and good to see Bergen back on the SNL stage, where she was the first female host back in 1975. Not a typo.

Question Quest

Michael Longfellow hosts a game show in which contestant Emma Stone gets the first question right and wins Longfellow’s childhood pet tortoise, Speedy.

James Austin Johnson as the pitch-perfect announcer explains how long tortoises can live. Stone tries to get rid of the tortoise, urging fellow contestants Punkie Johnson and Heidi Gardner to take it off her hands.

Ultimately, when Stone says she absolutely doesn’t want it, Longfellow advises her, “Then kill him, tough guy.”

This was an absurd and very funny sketch. Stone’s acting and comedic chops pay off here.

Naked in New York

The traditional musical pre-taped bit this week starts off with Yang and Stone singing about the joys of riding on a NYC garbage truck while naked, and then we see them doing just that. Various other cast members show up to rhapsodize about doing other things naked in New York.

I guess there’s supposed to be a shock and silly angle here with the alleged nudity, but a technical glitch where a bit isn’t distorted clearly shows us a cast member in a nude suit.
It’s a harmless bit of nonsense, but isn’t quite funny enough to sustain the whole segment. But, Stone and the cast sell it and seem to be having fun.

Tree Lighting Gig

In this recurring sketch, Kenan Thompson is Trees, the leader of jazzy trio (that also includes Stone and Yang). This is one of those ridiculous sketches with Kenan shouting out ridiculous things, such as demands for Doan’s back pills. Stone is Sheila Foods, a trumpet player with an absurd mid-Western accent and a messed up instrument, while Yang affects a really odd gravelly voice as keyboardist. The sketch climbs higher and higher heights of absurdity, as Trees learns by phone that Sheila’s ex-boyfriend has flooded their hotel room with the toilet, yielding an 80% sewage rate in the room.

Trees spends the remainder of the sketch concerned about his suade scooter boots - a type of footwear no one else has heard of.

This was a delightfully bizarre sketch that Kenan excels at. Emma Stone fully commits to her ridiculous character as well.

We aren’t even to the first musical guest appearance, but this one felt like a real 11:50 sketch.

Please Don’t Destroy - A.I.

The gang’s video for this week had some footage corrupted, so it had to be re-pieced together with A.I. The results are very funny, and the boys seem back to their approach of layering the jokes so they build on each other to create some great absurdism.

Just watch it. I can’t explain this one, and not sure it would do it justice if I tried.

What’s In The Kiln?

I feel as though I have been visited by the ghosts of Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer from Delicious Dish in this amateur potter show from Women’s Creek, Vermont.

Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner host a pottery show, and they are not good at pottery. Fineman shows off her hilariously terrible mug, which Gardner hoists complimenting it for how heavy it is. Pottery is praised for never looking dirty, because it never looks clean to begin with.
Stone joins as a more accomplished potter who is also terrible.

Not a lot to this sketch that came across as a little half-baked. (See what I did there, I’m Kil-n me!)

Weekend Update

We are back to a single guest to the desk this week, but it was a great one.

Michael Longfellow showed up as an Old Fashioned Cigarette who decries vaping and makes some pro-cigarette smoking statement to the youth of America. This was one of the funnier desk guest spots in a while.

There was something off about the news itself this week. The jokes didn’t seem to be landing overall (with some strong exceptions, including a reference to Elon Musk looking the ghost of a guy who died in a 1950’s drag race, and a solid joke at Colin’s expense). But something was going on here. Colin and Che developed a case of the sillies and got very goofy.

This is not bad. Indeed, it seemed to redeem the jokes that tanked.

Or maybe they just couldn’t stop laughing at that cigarette.

Mama Cass

It was clear after the recent orphanage sketch that Chloe Troast would make an impact with musical sketches. And this week strengthens that likelihood. In this sketch, Troast portrays Mama Cass recording Make Your Own Kind of Music. Stone is her producer, Mitch.

Mitch explains how Cass’ song is going to prove to be great for various ironic film montages, which she proceeds to act out. The sketch is more impressive than funny, but impressive it is. The acted out montages are well executed by Stone and the rest of the cast, and the button at the end heightens the absurdity of the sketch.

Stone acts her heart out in this one.

Posters

Marcello Hernandez is a high school student who falls asleep while struggling to study for a physics test. In his dream, his posters come to life and give him advice.

All the posters - including Mikey Day’s David Beckham, Kenan’s UFC fighter, and Ego Nwodim’s video game assassin all give advice on how they use physics. But, Stone’s sexy pinup (she’s an Instagram model and unpopular podcast host) just talks in a “sexy” voice and strikes poses.
Stone is able to be sexy, idiotic, and awkward all at once. The sketch is not that great, but Stone layers her ridiculous character well.
A shame the kid failed his test, though.

Diet Coke Olay

Women love Diet Coke, or something.

The Goodbye Wave

Best Sketch: The Cold Open. Yang belted it out of the park with the Santos swan song. It will be interesting to see what new recurring character Yang grapples onto now.

Worst Sketch: What’s In The Kiln? A visit from Pete Schweddy may have helped.

Random Notes:

- Emma Stone is a multiple Oscar nominee, and has won for Best Actress in La La Land. She has huge talent and a sort of easy charisma that makes her good in everything she does. She also seems quite at home at SNL. So, even when her sketches weren’t as strong as some, she always brings something great to them. Actors who can handle comedy are often great hosts, and Stone is no exception.

- Musical guest Noah Kahan blew off the roof with his pop-folk band. Kahan performed his hits Dial Drunk and Stick Season. The string heavy band got a great reaction from the audience. Kahan is known almost as much as a mental health advocate as he is for his music, and the overlap between the two is pretty significant. An interesting change of pace for musical guests.

- We got a Lorne sighting! He silently appeared raising a glass when Emma Stone said she met her husband at SNL. It’s always oddly fun and - dare I say - comforting to see Lorne on the show. Maybe that’s just me, and I probably need to work through that at some point.

Overall, Emma Stone and some strong - deeply absurd - sketches really elevated the episode above some of the weaker bits. Stone has earned her Five-Timer’s robe, and it was good that we all got a chance to celebrate.

Grade: B

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