Ranking The DeNiros

Bobby D's hosted 3 times.  Now that I've covered all of them, let's take a look back at the two-time Academy Award winner's time on SNL.

#3

Season 30 Episode 8

Robert DeNiro / Destiny's Child

Sketch Average: 2.5 Stars

This is one of the better episodes from Season 30 but that doesn’t mean it’s good.  The bright spots are a visit from The Muppets and a pretty good TV Funhouse.  But there’s also sketches unfortunately and DeNiro is completely lost in the cue cards all night (and not in a fun Walken way).  Speaking of Walken, this has a repeat of Pranksters that is a pretty pale imitation of the original.  There’s Prince Show with Kenan as Star Jones, a sketch where DeNiro fails to realize that his son is gay that’s aged less than beautifully, a trip to Bear City, and we spend Christmas With The Cat Lady.

#2

Season 28 Episode 7

Robert DeNiro / Norah Jones

Sketch Average: 2.8 Stars

DeNiro was a little better in his first episode but still looked like he was reading his lines for the first time.  He appears less like an Oscar winning actor and more like a retired football coach who’s gonna pull a funny on SNL.  They went with the dress the host up in funny outfits route a few times having him play one half of Siegfried & Roy, a Mall Santa, Thomas Jefferson, and an old Peter Pan.  This is on the weak side but does have a very funny 10-1 sketch involving a 900 foot bear raping a 900 foot hunter.

#1

Season 36 Episode 8

Robert DeNiro / Diddy-Dirty Money

Sketch Average: 3.6 Stars

This.  This one is good.  I had very low expectations for a DeNiro episode after his first two but he was in fine form here.  Actually, that’s not entirely the case, they just used him extremely well.  He played himself for pretty much the entire show and people were funny around him like his interview with Vinny Vedecci, his appearance on What Up With That?, and meeting a board child on the set of Little Fockers.  Then he played Blizzard Man’s mom and a dead guy in the hilarious Digital Short Party At Mr. Bernard’s, so he doesn’t need to really “act”.  With the exception of a weak sketch where DeNiro plays an old man who humps dudes in bars in exchange for beer this was a top to bottom fun show.

Despite his last episode being strong I don’t think we need any more DeNiro on SNL.  Seeing how he’s won two Oscars you’d think acting would come easy to him but he really struggles to be entertaining.  He gives little to no effort in his performances.  Nothing is worse than his Season 39 cameo with John Goodman and Sylvester Stallone playing the Three Wise Guys.  I haven’t rewatched his time as Robert Mueller yet and I’m not looking forward to, I remember it sucking all the life out every cold open.