Last week, there was a weirdly funny
Halloween episode hosted by Jim Carrey with musical guest Iggy Azalea. To get
in the Halloween spirit, as well as to celebrate the fortieth season of SNL, the anchors of Today dressed up as some iconic SNL
characters. Willie Geist and Tamron Hall were the Spartan Cheerleaders, Natalie
Morales was Mary Katherine Gallagher, Lester Holt and Al Roker were the Blues
Brothers, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb were Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s
World; Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Bush Hager, and former anchor Meredith Vieira parodied
the “Mom Jeans” commercial, and Matt Lauer was Pat along with a special guest
appearance from Julia Sweeney dressed as her iconic character. The costumes
were complete with a cold open featuring Kenan Thompson as Al Roker, a full SNL intro featuring the anchors, and the
anchors acting out the iconic sketches dressed as their respective characters.
Some highlights from last week’s SNL episode
include:
-Jim
Carrey dressed as a devil and Elvis hybrid called “Helvis”
-Cast
members did their best impressions of past Jim Carrey characters
-A
predictable yet fun cameo from Jeff Daniels
-Kate
and Jim dancing around the studio to Sia’s “Chandelier” both dressed as the
dancer from the music video
For this week’s episode, I wasn’t
expecting a lot from Chris Rock. I’m familiar with his style of comedy but not
enough to know what he would do while hosting. That being said, I did expect
for countless articles about specific sketches and Rock’s monologue causing a
little bit of controversy.
Sketch
Rundown:
Kelly
File Cold Open:
Out of all the cold opens that have aired
so far, this had to be one of the stronger cold opens. Cecily’s impression of
Megyn Kelly was a great impression. One of the opening lines about how “Blacula
was in fact white” was a great opener. Bobby’s Chris Christie was also a great
impression with great jokes and one liners. Kate’s impression of Kaci Hickox
was also really funny with a lot of great jokes and one liners.
Chris
Rock Monologue:
Overall, I thought the monologue was
funny, even though at first I felt a little uneasy about some of the jokes.
Knowing that it was Chris Rock hosting, I knew some things he said would cause
some controversy. That being said, I wasn’t surprised he pushed the envelope a
little during his monologue. Rock did have a lot of great jokes in his
monologue. Some of the memorable quotes included “no sacred days because we
commercialize everything”, “these Toyotas are practically free at last, free at
last”, “Madea’s Got a Dream”, and “no bling on Jesus”.
Vlog:
I thought this sketch was good but it wasn’t
necessarily my favorite sketch. Chris Rock, though, was great in this sketch.
Jay and Kyle were great in this sketch, too, along with Sasheer. This sketch
was pretty relatable along the lines of trying to show one of my parents how to
use something like YouTube.
GoProbe:
I thought this short was hilarious. The
old-time footage of “your grandpa’s colonoscopy” was a great comedic touch. A
parody like this does beg the question, is there anything a GoPro can’t do?
How’s
He Doing?:
Out of all the times they’ve done this
sketch, this one had to be my favorite. Since there are more African American
cast members this season, this is a great way to use them in a sketch and to
show off their talent. This sketch always has some great jokes and I can always
get a laugh out of them.
Prince
Performance:
I thought it was really cool to witness
history with Prince’s uninterrupted, eight-minute-long performance. When Prince
was transitioning from his first song to his second song, I didn’t notice at
first that his guitar was unplugged. Overall, I’m not a huge fan of Prince but
his set was good.
Weekend
Update:
This week’s Weekend Update started off strong but some jokes fell flat on both
parts. One of my favorite parts of Update
was seeing Pete Davidson again. I’m really starting to like his segments on Update. One of my favorite jokes of the
night was the last joke that was said by Colin Jost. The joke was about some
kind of a dance ban in St. George, Utah and the joke was that Kevin Bacon was
on it, in regards to the popular movie, Footloose.
I wasn’t a fan of the very end of the Katt Williams and Suge Knight segment at
the end. Overall, Weekend Update was
good but it wasn’t my favorite.
Shark
Tank:
I thought this sketch was a great sketch
to show after Update. SNL took a really big risk with joking
about ISIS but they really made the joke work. I thought this Shark Tank sketch was better than the Shark Tank sketch when Kevin Hart hosted
back in season 38. I thought Homeland Security coming out at the end was funny.
I watch Shark Tank a lot and the
impressions of the investors were very on point. This was definitely one of my favorite
sketches of the night.
Swiftamine:
As a huge fan of Taylor Swift, I
absolutely loved this ad parody. This
was definitely one of the best parodies I’ve seen in a long time. Leslie Jones
was absolutely hilarious, as usual, especially at the end when she was dressed
in a tutu. This ad parody shows that it is impossible to not love Taylor Swift.
The
Couple:
Normally, I don’t like saying that I
absolutely hate a sketch. This sketch, however, was so painful to watch. This
is a sketch that was probably executed better during rehearsals. I don’t think
anything could have saved this sketch. I did feel really bad for Leslie with
the blocking flub. Even though the dress rehearsal version was released online
instead of the live version, this sketch was still the weakest sketch of the
night.
Bank
Robbery:
If you read the blog regularly, then you
would notice that I always say that the Good Neighbor shorts are not my
favorite sketches. This one, however, I actually liked. This short made me
wonder if all bank robberies would end this way. This sketch was funny and
definitely took the comedic turn I wasn’t expecting. The little musical number
at the end was a great touch. This sketch was one of the better sketches after Weekend Update as well as one of the
better sketches during the entire show.
Women
in the Workplace:
Honestly, I didn’t think this sketch would
be a reoccurring sketch. This was the typical sketch to save for the end of the
show. Although I love Kate and Cecily, this sketch was just okay. The only
memorable line from this sketch was when Kate said to “put this diversity truck
in reversity”.
Overall, this episode started out strong
but fell flat halfway through the show. To me, it seemed like everyone was
having an off week. Whether or not it had anything to do with all the
controversy surrounding Michael Che and his comments about the catcalling video,
I have no idea. Luckily, they have a week off before the next episode with host
Woody Harrelson and musical guest Kendrick Lamar.
This has been my take on SNL hosted by
Chris Rock and musical guest Prince. I’ll be back soon with a review of SNL hosted
by Woody Harrelson and musical guest Kendrick Lamar. Please spread the word
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clean. Also, please feel free to give me constructive criticism about the blog
so I can improve the blog in any way.
Thanks for reading!
Lauren
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