"So many skirts and me with only one wiener"
Cold Open: 20/20
Cold Open: 20/20
2 Stars
Barbara Walters interviews Martha Stewart
Not much to this at all, Martha Stewart is on trial for insider trading and Barbara Walters tells her that everyone hates her, calling her names in the process like demon spawn, biatch and greedy old hag. This does have one of the weirdest transitions into the sign on.
"We wish Martha Stewart would jump up her own live from New York..."
Not much to this at all, Martha Stewart is on trial for insider trading and Barbara Walters tells her that everyone hates her, calling her names in the process like demon spawn, biatch and greedy old hag. This does have one of the weirdest transitions into the sign on.
"We wish Martha Stewart would jump up her own live from New York..."
We're just using the sign on as a replacement for cursing now.
Andy Roddick Monologue
2 Stars
Andy gets interrupted by the audience and Andre 3000
When you can’t think of what to do for a monologue and then suddenly you get 6 ideas and do all of them. Andy starts by lowering our expectations and saying he’s just a tennis player. He’s not a movie star, can’t act and doesn’t have a sense of humor. JB Smoove then stands up from the audience upset that he’s watching a show hosted by an amateur after he saw the Kelly Ripa show last week. Then John McEnroe stands up and insists he should be the host. Then Finesse comes out as Andre 3000 and sings ‘Hey Ya’ while the female cast dances around him. Just couldn’t decide which thing to pick this week.
When you can’t think of what to do for a monologue and then suddenly you get 6 ideas and do all of them. Andy starts by lowering our expectations and saying he’s just a tennis player. He’s not a movie star, can’t act and doesn’t have a sense of humor. JB Smoove then stands up from the audience upset that he’s watching a show hosted by an amateur after he saw the Kelly Ripa show last week. Then John McEnroe stands up and insists he should be the host. Then Finesse comes out as Andre 3000 and sings ‘Hey Ya’ while the female cast dances around him. Just couldn’t decide which thing to pick this week.
Cryogenix
3 Stars
Feeling sick? Freeze yourself
If it’s good enough for Ted Williams, it’s good enough for me. People talk about the wonders of freezing your body to be thawed out in the future. They’re not waiting on a cure for cancer but rather an end to lactose intolerance, halitosis and male patterned baldness. Maya just wants a better weight loss drug.
If it’s good enough for Ted Williams, it’s good enough for me. People talk about the wonders of freezing your body to be thawed out in the future. They’re not waiting on a cure for cancer but rather an end to lactose intolerance, halitosis and male patterned baldness. Maya just wants a better weight loss drug.
Z105
2 Stars
A morning DJ mocks Andy Roddick on air
Jimmy plays an annoying radio DJ who acts as his own morning zoo. He plays himself, his dumb female co-host, the gross guy who always talks about sex but also the black weatherman who hates whitey and the Indian guy with the offensive accent. It’s certainly not PC now but I’m having a hard time believing that it was PC then, then again Jimmy did don blackface to play Chris Rock. Andy is on his show to promote a charity event but Jimmy makes fart noises and tells his audience that Andy pooped his pants. Making fun of hack jokes but also just doing hack jokes doesn't work for me. Also, doing this character seems to tickle Jimmy so he has that big stupid grin on his face the whole sketch.
Jimmy plays an annoying radio DJ who acts as his own morning zoo. He plays himself, his dumb female co-host, the gross guy who always talks about sex but also the black weatherman who hates whitey and the Indian guy with the offensive accent. It’s certainly not PC now but I’m having a hard time believing that it was PC then, then again Jimmy did don blackface to play Chris Rock. Andy is on his show to promote a charity event but Jimmy makes fart noises and tells his audience that Andy pooped his pants. Making fun of hack jokes but also just doing hack jokes doesn't work for me. Also, doing this character seems to tickle Jimmy so he has that big stupid grin on his face the whole sketch.
Battle Of The Sexes II
4 Stars
Billie Jean King challenges Andy on the court
For some reason this sketch needs to start with both Kenan and Finesse in drag as Venus and Serena Williams. They don’t hang around long as they just introduce Fred as Billie Jean King. She’s celebrating the anniversary of The Battle Of The Sexes and she wants another one, this time with Andy Roddick. They get to the court and Andy fires up a serve that burns a hole in her racket. Then we get footage of Billie struggling while Andy plays sitting down, reading a magazine and drinking a daiquiri. Andy’s last serve embeds the ball in her skull which gets revealed during her postgame interview with John McEnroe. I really liked Fred’s performance in this one. He was dryly hilarious but also played Billie Jean as a real character instead of going the dude in drag route. The mixture of pre-tape and live gave it a Monty Python feel that I really enjoyed too.
Governess
For some reason this sketch needs to start with both Kenan and Finesse in drag as Venus and Serena Williams. They don’t hang around long as they just introduce Fred as Billie Jean King. She’s celebrating the anniversary of The Battle Of The Sexes and she wants another one, this time with Andy Roddick. They get to the court and Andy fires up a serve that burns a hole in her racket. Then we get footage of Billie struggling while Andy plays sitting down, reading a magazine and drinking a daiquiri. Andy’s last serve embeds the ball in her skull which gets revealed during her postgame interview with John McEnroe. I really liked Fred’s performance in this one. He was dryly hilarious but also played Billie Jean as a real character instead of going the dude in drag route. The mixture of pre-tape and live gave it a Monty Python feel that I really enjoyed too.
Governess
3 Stars
A Mary Poppins style nanny helps an older boy
Chris and Amy have hired a governess to watch after their very old son while they go do “bedroom related things”. In comes Rachel as a Mary Poppins-like nanny who sings a song about cleaning up a messy room while she picks up porno mags and a bong. There was a good idea here but I felt like something was missing. It wasn’t set up well enough. By the time I got the joke it was over. Why does this old kid need a nanny? What time period does Rachel live in? Does the nanny understand the world around her? It ends with the nanny going downstairs to watch scrambled porn, so I’m not sure what to think. I could see a whole movie about Mary Poppins in a cynical, real world setting ala The Brady Bunch Movie.
Chris and Amy have hired a governess to watch after their very old son while they go do “bedroom related things”. In comes Rachel as a Mary Poppins-like nanny who sings a song about cleaning up a messy room while she picks up porno mags and a bong. There was a good idea here but I felt like something was missing. It wasn’t set up well enough. By the time I got the joke it was over. Why does this old kid need a nanny? What time period does Rachel live in? Does the nanny understand the world around her? It ends with the nanny going downstairs to watch scrambled porn, so I’m not sure what to think. I could see a whole movie about Mary Poppins in a cynical, real world setting ala The Brady Bunch Movie.
After the sketch, we get a sports update style pop in from Chris and John McEnroe about Andy’s progress. John thinks Andy is glued to the cue cards but still has time to pull out a funny hillbilly character or start swearing like Martin Lawrence or pull an Adrien Brody and babble in a Jamaican accent. He also still thinks he should have been the host tonight and tries to impress Chriswith his Jack Nicholson impression, which is awful.
Anderson Mellner Year End Party
Anderson Mellner Year End Party
2 Stars
Hall & Oates sings at a corporate retreat
The boss at a company retreat has a very special surprise, Hall & Oates. They sing “She’s Gone” while dropping names in awkwardly, most humorously Brian Love Hewitt, no relation. That’s it. That’s what happens. It’s way too early for something this weird and stupid. I wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be the real Hall & Oates or impersonators. If the sketch was funnier is late in the night when I’m expecting something like this, I may not have cared about logic questions.
Adoption
The boss at a company retreat has a very special surprise, Hall & Oates. They sing “She’s Gone” while dropping names in awkwardly, most humorously Brian Love Hewitt, no relation. That’s it. That’s what happens. It’s way too early for something this weird and stupid. I wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be the real Hall & Oates or impersonators. If the sketch was funnier is late in the night when I’m expecting something like this, I may not have cared about logic questions.
Adoption
2 Stars
Venus and Serena's dad wants another offspring
Venus and Serena Williams’s dad wants an autograph but Andy quickly realizes that he’s being conned into signing adoption papers. Mr. Williams wants to add one more tennis star to his brood but Andy is having none of it. He then asks if he can possibly get an autograph from Mandy Moore (Andy’s fiancée at the time).
Dave Matthews
"Save Me"
Sans the band but with Trey Anastasio from Phish, potheads everywhere rejoiced. ‘This is a fine song except for the weird screaming part at the end. This is about the time I stopped paying attention to Dave Matthews Band after them being one of my favorites.
Venus and Serena Williams’s dad wants an autograph but Andy quickly realizes that he’s being conned into signing adoption papers. Mr. Williams wants to add one more tennis star to his brood but Andy is having none of it. He then asks if he can possibly get an autograph from Mandy Moore (Andy’s fiancée at the time).
Dave Matthews
"Save Me"
Sans the band but with Trey Anastasio from Phish, potheads everywhere rejoiced. ‘This is a fine song except for the weird screaming part at the end. This is about the time I stopped paying attention to Dave Matthews Band after them being one of my favorites.
Weekend Update
"And from what I’m seeing, they should be"
Jokes include Larry King being old, Bush being dumb and Dennis Kucinich being high. Best joke of the segment for me was a story about cats and ferrets being able to carry the SARS virus, as a result, the orgy at Richard Gere's house has been cancelled.
Tim Calhoun is running for president and wants to run his campaign completely honest. He comes clean about the number of times he's been in jail, that most of the time he's not gay but other times he is really gay, he's a terrible driver when he's drunk and he thinks we should breed a smaller type of midget that could be called Shetland Midgets. I love Will's delivery here, this is one of my favorite oddball characters.
Who is the real Rosie O’Donnell? The queen of nice or an abusive tyrant? To answer this question literally, Horatio comes out with one half of his body as the nice Rosie and the other half as the butch and bossy Rosie. Her nice side calls Jimmy a cutie patootie and gives him a free CD of her new musical. The evil Rosie calls Tina "Four Eyes", slaps her and threatens her with the Ebola virus. Way too much giggling to make this enjoyable for me. Also Jimmy seems to be stalling for time before he introduces Rosie, I'm assuming so Horatio could get situated between them.
Tennis Talk
5 Stars
A time traveling Scott Joplin interviews 3 Andre Agassis from different time periods
There are so many things at play here, but they all somehow come together and work. Maya is playing Scott Joplin, the ragtime piano player most widely known for The Entertainer, as a time traveling tennis enthusiast. First guest is Andre Agassi from the present, played by Andy, then Seth comes out as Andre Agassi from 1992, finally Will is playing Andre from the future when he has become the ambassador to Neptune. 92 Agassi is dating Brooke Shields, present day Agassi is married to Steffi Graf and future Agassi is back with Brooke and her sex clone. So many good gags here, most punctuated by a piano solo from Joplin.
Merv The Perv
There are so many things at play here, but they all somehow come together and work. Maya is playing Scott Joplin, the ragtime piano player most widely known for The Entertainer, as a time traveling tennis enthusiast. First guest is Andre Agassi from the present, played by Andy, then Seth comes out as Andre Agassi from 1992, finally Will is playing Andre from the future when he has become the ambassador to Neptune. 92 Agassi is dating Brooke Shields, present day Agassi is married to Steffi Graf and future Agassi is back with Brooke and her sex clone. So many good gags here, most punctuated by a piano solo from Joplin.
Merv The Perv
4 Stars
Mervin Watson visits a gynecologist office
All the girls are excited for their cute gynecologist, played by Andy. Is that a real thing? I've seen the trope of cute male doctor in so many things but it never made sense to me. If my doctor was a hot woman and putting her fingers inside of me I wouldn't turn to her and say, "See anything you like?". Merv gets his own theme song which makes this stupid sketch even stupider, in a good way. He turns everything he hears into a creepy double entendre.
"I wish you would get out of this office and leave us alone."
"I wish I could get into your orifice and leave you a bone."
"I will break every bone in your body."
"I'd like to break into your body with my bone-y."
Andy eventually has to go home to change his shirt and leaves Merv in charge. He says it's time to turn their "uterus" into "meterus".
Dave Matthews returns to sing So Damn Lucky which is a slow and pleasant toe tapping jam.
Jock Talk
All the girls are excited for their cute gynecologist, played by Andy. Is that a real thing? I've seen the trope of cute male doctor in so many things but it never made sense to me. If my doctor was a hot woman and putting her fingers inside of me I wouldn't turn to her and say, "See anything you like?". Merv gets his own theme song which makes this stupid sketch even stupider, in a good way. He turns everything he hears into a creepy double entendre.
"I wish you would get out of this office and leave us alone."
"I wish I could get into your orifice and leave you a bone."
"I will break every bone in your body."
"I'd like to break into your body with my bone-y."
Andy eventually has to go home to change his shirt and leaves Merv in charge. He says it's time to turn their "uterus" into "meterus".
Dave Matthews returns to sing So Damn Lucky which is a slow and pleasant toe tapping jam.
Jock Talk
1 Star
Dumb jocks host a talk show
"I’m a jock and you’re watching me on jock talk!"
Oh, this was pretty bad. Jeff is the host with Seth and Andy and the joke is they're all dumb jocks. So very stock characters hosting a talk show, it don't get much more SNL than this. I feel like Jeff had a hold on this character but Seth and Andy, not so much. John McEnroe ends up getting most of the laughs to be had here as Jeff's dad who keeps walking in during inappropriate times and assuming the boys are gay. When he first makes an appearance he gets a huge amount of applause. Did the audience forget he was here.
Action News 13
"I’m a jock and you’re watching me on jock talk!"
Oh, this was pretty bad. Jeff is the host with Seth and Andy and the joke is they're all dumb jocks. So very stock characters hosting a talk show, it don't get much more SNL than this. I feel like Jeff had a hold on this character but Seth and Andy, not so much. John McEnroe ends up getting most of the laughs to be had here as Jeff's dad who keeps walking in during inappropriate times and assuming the boys are gay. When he first makes an appearance he gets a huge amount of applause. Did the audience forget he was here.
Action News 13
3 Stars
Music stings won't let the news start
Will and Maya are news reporters who can't start reading the top stories because the theme music refuses to end. Every time there is a gap in the music they start to speak only to have the music start up again. They throw to Andy who is outside a Bachman Turner Overdrive concert. Then we get a mixture of BTO, the news theme music and include a test pattern. With all hope gone, they throw to commercial. This was very silly and a sketch that I wish would have been explored more. It was so quick that it was kind of forgettable but with just a little more flourish it may have been a classic.
FINAL ANALYSIS
Will and Maya are news reporters who can't start reading the top stories because the theme music refuses to end. Every time there is a gap in the music they start to speak only to have the music start up again. They throw to Andy who is outside a Bachman Turner Overdrive concert. Then we get a mixture of BTO, the news theme music and include a test pattern. With all hope gone, they throw to commercial. This was very silly and a sketch that I wish would have been explored more. It was so quick that it was kind of forgettable but with just a little more flourish it may have been a classic.
FINAL ANALYSIS
"I did not poop my pants"
Average
2.75 Stars
MVP
Will Forte
Anderson Mellner, Weekend Update, Tennis Talk, Jock Talk (Voice), Action News 13
Anderson Mellner, Weekend Update, Tennis Talk, Jock Talk (Voice), Action News 13
Best Sketch
Tennis Talk
Worst Sketch
Jock Talk
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
This one had a lot of ups and downs. The cold open was pretty weak but nothing else would fit in that slot and then the monologue left me feeling really nervous but then things started to balance out. I would put Anderson Mellner at the end of the night, move Tennis Talk to before Update and put Jock Talk in that post Update slot that is usually reserved for the worst sketch of the night. Then maybe lead off the night with Battle Of The Sexes II, way better than Z105.
Host Analysis
You have to grade athletes on a curve because they're never gonna really impress with their comedic timing. Andy didn't do anything to make me ever want to see him host again but he also didn't do anything to ruin the episode. He delivered his lines perfectly adequately which is the most I could ask of him. I'm not sure if John McEnroe would have been an improvement. He was funnier than Andy but only in an ironic way, because he can't act, wasn't trying to and just had a weird way of reading the cue cards. An entire episode of that may have been too much.
Final Thoughts
You have to grade athletes on a curve because they're never gonna really impress with their comedic timing. Andy didn't do anything to make me ever want to see him host again but he also didn't do anything to ruin the episode. He delivered his lines perfectly adequately which is the most I could ask of him. I'm not sure if John McEnroe would have been an improvement. He was funnier than Andy but only in an ironic way, because he can't act, wasn't trying to and just had a weird way of reading the cue cards. An entire episode of that may have been too much.
Final Thoughts
I feel like we're on a bit of an upswing. Jack Black was forgettable, Timberlake was good, Halle Berry was awful, Kelly Ripa was passable and this was decent. I'm starting to see better ideas and more fully realized sketches. Not to mention, laughing more often.
Up Next
After 3 weak hosts in a row they finally call in a professional. Alec Baldwin hosts with musical guest Missy Elliot. Is this where they met before they started doing Amazon Echo commercials together?
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