Saturday Night Live Season 23 Reviews - Episode 18 - Greg Kinnear / All Saints

"Smoking cigarettes through a filter is like sucking tit through a sweater"

Cold Open: Martha Stewart Living

3 Stars

Martha offers some tips for her Jewish viewers

Gourmet jelly beans, chocolate bunnies and a pastel rainbow of hand-painted eggs.  Martha Stewart is celebrating Easter (and Passover, that she says almost under her breath).  She shows us how to make a beautiful Easter basket out of reeds from her garden lined with Irish heather and she also made a Passover box made out of an old bird's nest and filled with giant Jew crackers.  Ham is a staple of Easter dinners but for Jewish friends you can enjoy an herb crusted roast loin of pork.  She brings out Greg Kinnear who will show her viewers how to make an authentic New York arugula.  When she asks him if he's Jewish he says, "Dear God, no".

Greg Kinnear Monologue

3 Stars

Greg shows us how he lost the Oscar

Greg mentions that he just got nominated for an Oscar for As Good As It Gets.  He's a little confused as to why he lost.  Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt both won for their performances but somehow his must not have been up to snuff.  He's been watching the movie over and over in slow motion to find the exact moment where he lost.  He plays a scene from the film and pauses it during a moment where he put a piece of food on his fork but doesn't raise it to his mouth.  He apologizes for the mistake and realizes that he ruined the film.  That's in the past though and he's looking forward to winning the Emmy for his performance tonight.  Greg has a charm to him that makes him likable.  He's a natural every man and even though he's probably richer and more handsome than you, there's just something about him that gets you on his side.  This feels like something he may have written himself and he comes off as natural and loose.  So far, so good.

Rerun of Cookie Dough Sport

Name That Dog

3 Stars

A game show where you try to guess that dog's name

Greg is the host and Chris and Tim are the contestants.  Tim has chosen to scream all of his lines, which works quite well for this completely stupid sketch.  The game is simple, a dog is brought out and you try to guess its name.  Champ?  Champagne?  No, Trooper was the dog's name.  Franklin?  General?  No, it was Lobo.  Bowser?  Montana?  It's name is Shep.  And it repeats like that.  There aren't many variations on the joke except for when they ask the judges for a ruling.
"Lady?"
"Judges, can we accept that?  No.  The correct answer was Gummo, so close."
The game ends in a tie because nobody guesses a dog's name correctly and they split the winnings of $0.00.  This dumb ass sketch should not have made me laugh, but it did.  It was so stupid that it circled around to funny.  I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, seeing as how it was in the lead off spot I assume that the show knew this was the good kind of stupid.

New Horizons

2 Stars

Bobbi and Marty Culp sing to recovering addicts

Greg congratulates a group for being clean and sober for an entire week.  He also wants whoever stole the freon from the 2nd floor air conditioner to return it.
"Freon won't get you high.  It will kill you."
Now you might have thought this was going to be a sketch about recovering addicts.  You wrong, bitch.  This is just preamble for Bobbi and Marty Culp.  I don't understand why this sketch always uses misdirection in its setup.  Greg Kinnear is talking to a group of addicts and I'm intrigued as to where this sketch is going.  Then the rug is pulled out from under me and it's really the same thing I've seen a dozen times.  Why not just have Will and Ana set up on home base and have Greg introduce them like a musical guest?  Anyway, Marty and Bobbi sing a medley to the crowd.  Marty is no stranger to addiction, getting hooked on nose candy after a sinus infection.  Not cocaine, sinus medicine.  Their medley includes inappropriate songs like White Rabbit, Cocaine, White Lines, Insane In The Membrane and, for some reason, Send In The Clowns and Walking On Sunshine.

Fives

1 Star

A man on a blind date is fond of high fives

Will and Ana are setting their friend Cheri up on a blind date with Greg.  When he arrives he insists that people call him B-Ball and give him high fives a lot.  He's also kind of douchey as he insists everyone smell his expensive cologne and brags that he won't drink any beer that costs less than $9 a bottle.  His high fives get more elaborate as the sketch goes on, there's an "ER five" where he rubs his hands together first and yells "Clear!" and there's a "Flare five" that shoots from his hand in to the recipient's.  This reminded me of a bad sketch that would feel at home in season 20.  The same lame joke is repeated over and over with no real punchline.

Fun With Real Audio

2 Stars

Tom Snyder takes his interview with Dolly Parton too far

I'm not sure if this was based on something that actually happened or not.  Seems like a silly thing to wonder when you watch the piece but I'm wondering if there was an interview with Tom Snyder that people thought was verging on creepy.  Tom Snyder is interviewing Dolly Parton and as the real audio plays we see him follow her outside, digging through her trash, calling her late at night, breaking into her house, getting arrested and being massaged by his cellmate.

The House Of Dogs

3 Stars

You need a nasty, dirty, mean ass dog?  Come to The House Of Dogs

Tracy is in front of a bunch of barking dogs who bark during the whole sketch.  His store specializes in pitbulls and rottweilers.
"The only things my dogs care about is chewing faces and nuts."
Jim gives a testimonial from a wheelchair.  He wanted to keep kids off his lawn so he got Buzz.  He keeps him drugged up or else his teeth would be "clamped down on my nads".  Then in a bizarre crossover, Greg shows up as the host of Name That Dog who says that he can't look at a dog anymore, much less name them after one of Tracy's dogs came on his show and tore into every piece of soft tissue he had.  We end with a legal disclaimer saying that the dogs are illegal in most states and must be registered with the government.  This was a fine idea, would probably fit better towards the end of the night and the constant barking dogs distracted from some of the jokes.  Still, I love when the show sets up a shared universe and has sketches crossing over into other sketches.

Weekend Update

"I'll tell you how Seinfeld ends, with NBC president Warren Littlefield drunk in a gutter yelling, 'No!'"

I'm not sure which joke this was aimed towards but at one point in my notes I just wrote "UNCOMFORTABLE!".  Colin seems nervous and awkward for most of these Update appearances, only rarely nailing a punchline of a well crafted joke.  He seems more at ease when he goes on his long analogies.  Like this week when he talks about Easter and Jesus's crucifixion and compares it to not only a mob hit but the ending of Murphy Brown.  We get a pretty brutal O.J. joke this week, once again poking a hole in the theory that Norm was fired because of them, O.J. never talks to his children about their mother's death but he loves telling the story about how he lopped off Ron Goldman's head with a butcher knife.

On the one hand, Colin needs all the help he can get so a desk piece is always welcome.  On the other hand, we never needed to see Gunner Olsen again.  He's the guy who sings news headlines like a rock musician.  The real problem here is that there are no punchlines at all.  He sings the news, that's it, what is the opposite of hilarious?  Here's an example.
"Seinfeld is ending/will it be funny?/Guess who comes tomorrow?/the Easter bunny."
Where's the joke in that?  His energy is fine as he ends the bit in a stage dive but I really don't get this bit.

All Saints

"Never Ever"

I got a little excited when All Saints showed up.  I thought they were the band in the diner that Shawn and Cory went to in an episode of Boy Meets World.  After Shawn's dad dies he goes on a road trip to find himself and ends up in a diner where the owner knew his dad and also happens to have 4 beautiful daughters who entertain patrons with a pop song they wrote and badly lip-sync to.  This is not that group.  This is another group.  I did not like them.

Koppel Brothers

4 Stars

Ted Koppel's brother, Randy shows up for a hand out

While I liked this sketch, this is something the show does sometimes that always makes me feel weird.  A cast member will have a character or in this case an impression and the host will do it with them.  Every time I see this I picture the host coming in and pitching this idea themselves.  I've seen your Ted Koppel, I do a pretty good Ted Koppel too, maybe I could be Ted Koppel's brother?  Hey, I like that Mary Katharine Gallagher character, maybe I could be her long lost cousin?  Aside from that, this was pretty entertaining.  Greg shows up as Randy Koppel, he likes pot, detailing speedboats and sleeping with Asian businessmen.  Ted offers Randy a job but what Randy really wants it respect.
"I like being a junkie.  Is that too hard for you to understand?  When I sell a corn dog to a guy with an eyepatch, people look up to me."
The two embrace, finally understanding each other and Ted tells Randy to tune into tonight's show for a special surprise.  On Nightline, Ted says that he's proud of his junkie brother and we cut to Randy watching the show in bed, smoking pot with two Asian businessmen.

The Plank

2 Stars

Pirates make their prisoner walk an excessively long plank

Special guest, Bob Hoskins is playing Captain Kidd and him and his pirate crew have Will hostage.  Hoskins makes the scurvy dog walk the plank off his ship.  The pirates remark how long the plank is, Hoskins says he built it that long so the prisoner has time to think about his actions.  We hear lots of footsteps as the pirates look on.
"What do you suppose he's thinking about?"
"Probably where the hell the end of the plank is."

The pirates suggest alternate ways of murder like having him jump off the side of the plank, having one of them walk out there and shoot him or running in front of him with a saw to make the plank shorter.  They hear a splash and cheer but something just fell out of Will's pocket.  Finally they think he's fallen in but he's just lying down to take a nap.  No real ending to this one, Hoskins tells one of the pirates to run out and bring him some lunch.

The Robin Byrd Show

1 Star

Robin Byrd welcomes a porn star and an entertainer from Branson to her show

We're still doing this?  I'm not liking it, it doesn't appear that the audience is liking it, what do they call that when you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results?  Tim comes out dressed as a sailor, shaking his booty and slapping his ass.  He says he just finished doing a tasteful and explicit photo shoot for Railyard Trash Magazine and we can expect to see him in next month's Anal Maniac.  Then Greg comes out dressed as a cowboy.  We find out that he was booked on the show by mistake.  He is performing in the Will Rogers Follies in Branson, Missouri and all the penis euphemisms from Cheri and Tim fly over his head.  Before they go they try to rip Greg's clothes off.  I really don't like this sketch.

Former Hosts Of Later Reunion

4 Stars

All the former hosts of the late night show reunite to interview Bob Hoskins

We get commercials for Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien and then at 1:30am every person who has ever hosted Later will reunite.  See former hosts like Bob Costas, Greg Kinnear, Cindy Crawford, Jon Stewart, Rosie O'Donnell, David Alan Grier, Geraldo Rivera, Richard Belzer, Carol Leifer, Al Roker, Rob Schneider and many more.  For instance, the list goes on.  See them all reunite with other former hosts like, the list goes on again.  Also appearing will be these former hosts, and we get a long quick text scrawl of names.  I paused it a couple of times and jotted down a few funny names, Winston Churchill, Peter Parker, Jonah Hex, Bob N. Frapples, Mrs. O'Leary's Cow, Wilson Phillips, and someone in the graphics department must have been a Twin Peaks fan because we get Dr. Lawrence Jacobi, Ben Horne, Hank Jennings, Annie Blackburn and Albert Rosenfeld.  So to put this into context, Later was the show that aired on NBC after The Tonight Show and Late Night at 1:30am.  In one of the Bill Carter books about the late night wars, he mentions that NBC was grooming Kinnear to take Conan's spot but his movie career took off so he left.  That left no host for the 1:30 am slot so they kept bringing in random comedians to host it on a weekly basis until something stuck.  Eventually the show turned into Last Call with Carson Daly.  So here, Greg and Darrell as Bob Costas stand in Madison Square Garden in front of 15,000 former hosts of the show as they all interview Bob Hoskins at the same time.  Bob sits in a chair as they all ask him in unison what his favorite film was, he answers Mona Lisa then they all say their personal favorite which is inaudible.  The man announcing this television reunion says to stay tuned next week when he will be hosting Later.  This bit of stupidity tickled me.  I can just imagine someone going, Greg Kinnear, who's that guy?  He used to host Later.  Hasn't like every comedian hosted Later?  Hey, I got an idea...

We end on The Lost Deep Thoughts where Jack tells us that playing dead not only helps with bear attacks but also important business meetings.

FINAL ANALYSIS

"And the correct answer unfortunately was Boots, Marshall, Navy, Peanut, Dojo, Max, Douglas, Shilo, Pixie and Ruggles"

Average

2.5 Stars

MVP

Tim Meadows
Name That Dog, Koppel Brothers, The Plank, The Robin Byrd Show

Best Sketch

Koppel Brothers

Worst Sketch

The Robin Byrd Show

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

I would definitely swap Fives with The Plank for multiple reasons.  Fives was a really bad sketch and having it so early hurt momentum.  Also, we saw neither hide nor hair of Bob Hoskins until after Weekend Update and the musical guest.  I completely forgot that Don Pardo said his name in the opening credits and then there he is, in a wig and facial hair that would make him unrecognizable if it weren't for his easily identifiable voice.

Host Analysis

What Greg Kinnear lacks in any talent or comedic skills he makes up for with charm.  He just feels like a nice guy.  I remember being happy for him when he got Oscar nominated.  I used to watch him on Talk Soup and then, if I couldn't sleep or was trying to defy my parents by staying up late, Later.  When his career took off it was like one of my friends was making it.  I thought he was fine in this episode but the writing was fairly weak.  His experience hosting two talk shows probably helped with his ease in front of a live audience.  I caught him looking at the cue cards a couple times but never glued to them.  I wouldn't mind seeing him again but also wouldn't petition to have him back.
Final Thoughts

This was a weird episode because right after watching it I came away thinking that it was pretty good.  Then I totaled the sketch average and thought that a 2.5 was less than I was expecting.  Then I remembered sketches like Fives, Robin Byrd, The Plank and The Culps and realized that this wasn't very good at all.  I was focused on the few silly highlights like Name That Dog and Later Reunion.  Throw in a weak Update that included a very annoying Jim Breuer bit that went on too long and this whole episode was kind of a turd.  I don't know why I thought differently at first.  Maybe I was just charmed by Greg Kinnear into thinking it was better than it was.  I bet you I know what it was, there were only 2 recurring bits this week, The Culps and Robin Byrd.  I enjoyed this more than an average episode because they were at least trying new stuff.  A bad original is always more interesting than an adequate recurring sketch I've seen a hundred times.
Up Next

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Matthew Broderick hosting, probably to promote Godzilla, is not gonna be the best of episodes.  Always keep an open mind but I'm anticipating a weak one.