SNL After Party (S50 E1 Air Date 09/28/24) - "The lyrics are vague, but the vibe slaps"
Host: Jean Smart
Musical Guest: Jelly Roll
A half a century of sketches, fake news, music, and Jimmy Fallon laughing. It has all lead to this, the 50th season of Saturday Night Live!
Does the NBC stalwart’s golden anniversary shine, or did we get the comedy pyrite? Let’s find out, as we open the doors on this season’s SNL After Party!
Cold Open
In what should have been a surprise to absolutely no one, the cold open was politics based and jam packed with celebrity cameos.
In an ABC news segment (hosted by Andrew Dismukes as David Muir) featuring political rallies, Maya Rudolph made her much ballyhooed return as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Rudolph, of course, nails it.
She is promptly joined by Jim Gaffigan as running-mate Tim Walz. Gaffigan also knocks it out of the park with Walz’s “BDE” (That’s Big Dad Energy, of course), points out he agreed to join the ticket because, “as a former teacher, I needed the money.”
As he leaves the stage, Rudolph pointed out “What a loud treasure.”
But, wait, the cameos aren’t over! Kamala needs her husband to make an appearance, which he does in the form of an Andy Samberg cameo. Samberg looks forward to serving as First Gentleman and decorating the White House for Christmas. “The theme will be Hannukah!”
The program then cuts to the Trump rally where, thank goodness, James Austin Johnson is portraying Trump. I had concerns that this cameo heavy opener would bring in Alec Baldwin (or, Heaven forbid, Shane Gillis again). But, they wisely stuck with JAJ. He hit the eating the dogs and cats issue, tying that into Diddy’s current legal woes.
He then introduces his running mate, J.D. Vance, noting, “People are saying he was a bad pick and in many ways he was.”
Instead of a celebrity pop-on, Bowen Yang arrives to play Vance, and is very funny.
Finally, the newscast cuts back to Harris, who brings Joe Biden out. Will it be Jason Sudekis? Will it be Jim Carrey? Will they let a cast member try it?
None of the above. None other than Dana Carvey comes out, doing a Biden impression that sounds nothing like him, but that manages somehow to get it exactly right.
It’s a solid - if long - opener.
Monologue
Former Designing Woman and current Hacks star, does a charming monologue with pseudo-song about how she likes New York punctuated by observations. This was cute if not particularly funny, and it was not a nitro burst for the beginning of this special season.
But, at least they controlled themselves by not having Tina Fey, Steve Martin, or Mike Meyers show up to interrupt the monologue.
$100,000 Pyramid
Time for some celebrity impressions!
Devon Walker hosts the Pyramid as Michael Strahan. So who are the celebs?
Chloe FIneman is the Hawk Tuah girl (whose fifteen minutes surely ran out over the summer?), Smart is the Chimp Crazy lady (accompanied by an admittedly hilarious chimp puppet), Marcello Hernandez is Bad Bunny, and Kenan Thompson is North Carolina gubernatorial candidate (”I didn’t comment on those awesome pornos”) Mark Robinson.
This one is alot of setup for little payoff. But, it’s a game show sketch, and it does what game show sketches are supposed to do.
Main Street
Our first taped bit is a hackneyed Spirit Halloween commercial. Spirit Halloween jokes at this point seems like, I don’t know, Nickleback jokes.
Not much to this one.
Scholastic Books
Smart is a romance writer who authored a math textbook. The sketch consists of editors having Smart read inappropriate word problems. It gets repetitive pretty quickly.
This one, if X equals funny and Y equal number of examples read, leads to (Y+1) - Y = X. (If I did that right, it’s 1 funny).
(And, by the way, what was that deal about not wearing t-shirts at the beginning of the sketch?)
Weekend Update
There was plenty of material to mine here. Jokes included a commentary on complaints from the Trump camp that Democrats were responsible for the assassination attempts on Trump, which let to “When Democrats want to take out a presidential candidate, they get the job done” as a photo of President Biden popped up.
Another joke was was regarding P. Diddy’s attorneys saying he’s not R.Kelly. Of course he’s not, as “R. Kelly’s songs are good”.
And a story on people using AI to translate Hitler’s speeches led to a video of Hitler with Trump’s “They are eating the pets” rant.
The jokes were uneven this week, and Che did more of his irritated that the audience didn’t like certain jokes bit than usual. Overall it was a solid, if not shining, Update.
With one notable exception. Bowen Yang showed up as delightful baby hippo Moo Deng, who occasionally took breaks from talking to chomp at water being squirted at him from a hose.
This was way funnier than it sounds like it was. But, just watch the thing…
History of Sitcoms
Bowen hosts this CNN about the history of I Love Lucy. In the segment, Lucille Ball was not the original choice for the part (just go with it), and the role was originally played by Smart’s character, a dramatic stage actress. The piece is very funny, as Smart’s character treats I Love Lucy like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? while Hernandez’s Ricky just sticks to his character.
It’s silly, but well done and it made me laugh.
Ultimately, Smart’s character was apparently replaced by Lucille Ball “Which made sense, as her name was Lucy and she was married to the lead actor.”
Talk Talk
I must admit this sketchwas not made for me (or anyone within 20 years of my age). Bowen is Charli xcx who hosts a talk show with sidekick “Australian Dingo twink Troye Sivan” (Sarah Sherman).
To me this one just felt like an excuse to use the words “brat” and “nat” repeatedly.
Maybe the kids liked this one.
The Real Housewives of Santa Fe
The less said about this the better. The housewives argue at a Mexican restaurant while a waiter tries to put down trays full of fajitas.
That is it. That’s the sketch.
I am not kidding.
The Goodbye Wave
Best Sketch: Kind of a tough decision. The cold open could qualify, as could the I Love Lucy sketch. But, in the end, I’m giving this to Moo Deng on Weekend Update. As it was just such a flight of whimsy!
Worst Sketch: This, on the other hand, was fairly easy. The Real Housewives easily take this title, with Scholastic Books a distant second.
Random Notes:
- The cold open was 13 minutes long. This seriously cut into time for other material. Veteran cast members had limited air time, and the three new supporting players Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim, and Jane Wickline got practically none. I am sure we’ll get to see what they can do in the coming weeks. Meanwhile wave goodbye to Punkie Johnson, Molly Kearney, and Chloe Troast who did not get a chance to return for the 50th.
- Jean Smart and her Hacks co-star Hannah Einbinder introduced musical guest Jelly Roll’s first number. Fun fact: Einbinder is the daughter of original SNL cast member Laraine Newman! By the way, is it weird that I actually liked Jelly Roll’s first song?
- There was an in memoriam card for Tom McCarthy. McCarthy was a former secret service agent who was head of security for NBC.
- At least a couple of bits were scrapped for time. Both should have made the show instead of, say, Real Housewives and Scholastic Books. You can enjoy them below.
I felt this was a middling to fine episode, but was expecting more of an acknowledgment of the historic nature of hitting the big 5-0. I was surprised not by the number of cameos this week, but by who they were from (or more to the point, who they were not from). It was good to see Carvey and Gaffigan. But, overall, I am surprised the show didn’t lean more into this being the 50th anniversary. I guess I was expecting bumpers with old clips and cameos from more old cast members. I am shocked that all the celebrity appearances were front loaded and that there weren’t more alums.
I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to wax nostalgic, but there’s plenty of time in the season for that. I’m just kind of surprised the love fest didn’t start this week.
Grade: C
As always, we grade SNL episodes in comparison to other SNL episodes. Not TV in general.
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