After a week off for Thanksgiving, and a
much needed break, everyone at SNL
starts to prepare for the last three shows of 2014. The Thanksgiving show was
hosted by Cameron Diaz with musical guests Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, who were
also the first dual musical guest of the season. This episode was okay but it
was definitely one of the weaker episodes of the season.
Some highlights from the last episode
include:
-A cold open that brought
back School House Rock.
-A monologue that could
have been better.
-An amazing sequel to “(Do
It On My) Twin Bed”.
-Leslie Jones being her
amazing self in a sketch parodying the new Annie
movie.
-An amazing performance
of the hit song “Uptown Funk” from Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars.
For this episode, I didn’t know what to
expect from James Franco. I know he’s hosted before but I’ve never seen
anything from when Franco last hosted. I’m not a big James Franco fan and I’m
not a big fan of Nicki Minaj either so I didn’t have many high expectations for
this show.
Sketch
Rundown:
Politics
Nation Cold Open:
With the tragedies in Ferguson and in New
York, I wasn’t surprised they used this as the cold open. I figured Kenan would
be able to do his Sharpton impression as Sharpton had been in the news a lot to
show support for the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. I thought this
cold open was good and the kind of humor that we as a nation needed. I thought
it was funny how Kenan’s Sharpton would mispronounce different words as well as
mispronounce St. Louis. I found the rules for submitting a video to police and
the rules for an indictment were funny. Some of my favorite quotes from the
cold open include “This is what it must feel like to be Beyoncé.” and “75% of
police on Staten Island are brothers. The rest are just cousins.” Overall, I
thought this was one of the stronger politically driven cold opens.
James
Franco Monologue:
I thought Franco’s monologue was good but
it wasn’t my favorite. I expected Seth Rogen would show up since Franco was on SNL to promote the movie The Interview. I loved the joke about
Franco releasing his e-mail and password before the hackers did, which were cuterthandavefranco@aol.com
and littlejamesiecutiepie, respectively. I thought the photos of James Franco
and Seth Rogen were funny although some of them scarred me for life. However, I
did think Franco was being a little redundant with the references to his
Instagram messages with young teenage girls at the end of the monologue. It was
funny but so much time had passed since news of that broke out. It was more
topical when Franco made a cameo in Rogen’s monologue when the latter hosted
last season. Overall, this monologue was just okay.
Peter
Pan Live:
I expected that this would either be a
sketch or the cold open. I also expected Cecily to play Allison Williams
playing Peter Pan. Regardless, I absolutely loved this sketch. I loved getting
to see Tonkerbell again and her appearance seemed perfect for this sketch. I
loved Franco’s exaggerated impression of Christopher Walken. I also loved Kenan
and Taran’s facial expressions throughout the sketch. I thought the oversized
popcorn bit was great. One of my favorite quotes from this sketch was “Captain
Hook, even though you only got one hand you should be able to carry a tune.” I
loved this sketch and thought it was one of the best of the night.
Star
Wars Teaser:
I figured they would do something
regarding the trailer for the new Star
Wars movie coming out. Regardless, I found this short to be quite humorous.
I loved Bobby as Princess Leia trying to figure out how to work R2D2. I also
thought Leslie was hilarious, as always. I did notice some technical issues
like the green screen being left in for a scene, the lightsaber walker not
lighting up, and the music being a little loud when Taran as Han Solo was
speaking. The audio for the latter reason was a little soft. I think they
accidently showed a rough cut during the live show but made up for it by
releasing the finished cut online. I loved this parody and it was one of the
better sketches of the night.
Jingle
Ballerz Special:
I thought this sketch was a good use of
Pete, especially with his history with MTV. I thought the idea for “Hip Hop Nativity”
was a good idea. I loved the impressions, especially Sasheer’s Rihanna. I loved
that Kate’s Justin Bieber impression returned and it was funny because Bieber
does not usually fit in with the hip hop scene. I figured Jay’s Kanye West
impression would make an appearance. I thought Nicki Minaj had a good Beyoncé
impression but the outfit could have been better. Overall, I thought this was a
really good sketch.
Grow-A-Guy:
I really liked this sketch and it was good
to see Mike O’Brien again. I thought the concept of this sketch was pretty
funny and I could really feel for O’Brien’s character. I liked Franco as the
“Grow-A-Guy” and his character did have a point about hashtags. Overall, I
liked this sketch and I love Mike O’Brien’s work.
Magic
Bridge:
I thought the sketch was okay and it had a
decent start to it. I thought Cecily’s Kathy-Ann character was funny and I kind
of hope this character becomes a reoccurring character. I did find it
distracting with her trying to light the cigarette but I think that was just
part of the character. I thought that James and Kyle really got into that kiss
and I’m surprised they did the kiss more than once. Overall, this sketch was
just okay but it was very weird.
Nicki
Minaj “Bed of Lies” Performance feat. Skylar Grey:
I’m not a big fan of Nicki Minaj but I
thought this song was really good. I could tell this song was really personal
and this is one of the few songs by her I can actually tolerate. I think if
more of her songs were like this, I would actually listen to her music more
often.
Weekend
Update:
I ended up really liking this Weekend Update. I felt that the jokes
and guest segments were pretty strong. I loved the back-and-forth between Jost
and Che regarding the Eric Garner case. I loved Che’s joke “Now being racist
seems to be a requirement.” I loved Che’s Oprah joke, as well. I thought it was
great that they brought back Anthony Crispino. I always love seeing Bobby’s
characters on Update. Some of my
favorite parts of that segment were Moynihan and Che playing off of Che’s line
flub and the ode to Alvin and the Chipmunks towards the end of the segment. I
also loved seeing Leslie Jones and thought her segment was hilarious. The
mushroom bit was great as well as the quote at the end, “Can a bitch get a weed
bowl?” I always enjoy Leslie’s segments on Update.
On the other hand, I didn’t really like Nicki Minaj as Kim Kardashian. I
suppose they still had more jokes about those pictures, which I am okay with
never seeing those pictures again. When Jost introduced the segment, I really
thought they were going to bring back Nasim. The segment was good but I could
have done without it. Overall, I did like this Weekend Update, though it ended up being one of the longer ones of
the season.
Brain
Space:
I really liked this sketch. I thought the
impressions and the characters were great and very funny. I know Cecily’s
character was supposed to fall and I really hope she was okay because it looked
so real. I loved Taran’s line of “He used my lyrics against me!” I know I show
my age and taste in music since I forgot the name of the musician he was
parodying. I loved Kyle as one of the members of N’SNYC dancing the “Bye Bye
Bye” dance. In all honesty, nobody should ever forget that dance (I’m a child
of the 90s, I had to say that). I thought the 90s movie quotes were funny,
especially the random line from Titanic.
I also thought the dog from the 90s production company was cute. I thought Beck
as one of the members from O Town was funny, even though I’m not sure if anyone
even remembers O Town. Also, thanks to Nicki Minaj, I can’t get the first line
of “Anaconda” out of my head. Overall, I thought this sketch was great and I
wish it was available online.
Kid
Mayor:
I thought this sketch was
funny but it wasn’t my favorite. The kid from the sketch was just adorable. I
also loved the references to Frozen
and how Franco’s character thought only the parts with Olaf were funny. When
mentioning that Franco’s character had met the president, I thought it was
pretty funny when they showed him with Cee Lo Green instead of President Obama.
Some of my favorite quotes from this sketch were “I thought Elsa was a bitch!”
and “I’m Tad Rankin and I paid all my money to make this ad.” While watching
this sketch, I was surprised they only used Franco and not any of the other
cast members. I know Cecily had a voiceover but no cast members were physically
shown during this sketch. Overall, this sketch was just okay.
Nicki
Minaj “Only/All Things Go” Performance:
I thought this performance was okay though
I preferred the first performance to this performance. I also thought the
second half of this performance was better than the first part of the performance.
Former
Porn Stars Sunseeker Yachts:
I absolutely love these sketches! These
sketches are always full of great one-liners. I also thought this sketch was a
good use of James Franco and Seth Rogen. I loved how Seth used James Franco as
his character’s name. Some of my favorite quotes from this sketch include “Hey!
You just knocked over a lighthouse, you idiot!” “You’ll feel like a Real
Housewife of Atlantis.” and “Seersucker Yaks. They’re yaks in seersucker suits.
Because, why not? Yaks can be fancy, too.” I thought this sketch was the
perfect way to end the show.
Overall, I thought this was a pretty good
episode. It wasn’t one of the strongest episodes but it wasn’t a weak episode
either. I was pretty impressed with Franco’s performance since I didn’t have
many expectations going in to this episode. I was also impressed with Minaj’s performance,
both in sketches and in her performances. Similar to Franco, I didn’t have many
expectations for Minaj. I knew she was in a sketch or two the last time she was
on as a musical guest and her sketch performance was met with mostly positive
reviews.
Some SNL
news from the past week include SNL
alum and host of The Tonight Show
Jimmy Fallon and his wife Nancy welcomed their second daughter via surrogate.
Frances Cole “Franny” Fallon was born on December 3, 2014 and joins big sister
Winnie Rose. Congratulations to the Fallons on this wonderful addition!
Before I end this post, I wanted to take
the time to talk about a sketch that was cut for time. I normally don’t review
sketches that were cut for time but I felt like I had to talk about this
sketch. The sketch is called “Morning News” and it is about a St. Louis news
team trying to do a morning show after covering the events in Ferguson. In
previous posts, I have mentioned that I’m from the St. Louis area. With
everything that has happened in Ferguson, and even across the country, I felt
that this is the kind of humor that we need. Since the sketch was released
online the day after the episode aired, there has been a debate on whether the
sketch was really cut for time or if the sketch was too controversial to air.
Personally, I thought the sketch was fantastic and I’ve lost count at how many
times I’ve watched this sketch. I’ve read comments about the video and the
comments have been met with positive reviews and no one thinking the sketch was
controversial. I’ve included a link to the sketch so you can watch it for the
first time or watch it for the millionth time.
This has been my take on SNL hosted by James Franco and musical
guest Nicki Minaj. I’ll be back soon with a review of SNL hosted by Martin Freeman and musical guest Charli XCX. Please
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Thanks for reading!
Lauren
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