Thursday, March 26, 2015

Blake Shelton January 24, 2015

Well everybody, it’s happened. We finally have our first guest host pulling double duty of both host and musical guest! To be honest, I thought this would happen earlier in the season. Last week, the second half of the season kicked off with returning host Kevin Hart and first time musical guest, Sia. I liked this episode a little more than I thought I would. I was surprised that they picked Sia for a musical guest since she rarely does live performance. Nevertheless, both of her performances of “Elastic Heart” and a more acoustic, stripped down version of “Chandelier” were beautiful. Some highlights from the last episode include:
            -Kevin Hart delivering a funny stand-up monologue.
            -Kate McKinnon spoofing the Justin Bieber Calvin Klein ads.
            -A technical glitch during the first live sketch of the episode played off very well by Kevin Hart and Vanessa Bayer.
            -Both of Sia’s musical performances.
This week, Blake Shelton comes to the show on his first time hosting and his first time as a musical guest. I knew that Blake was funny and had a sense of humor just from watching him on The Voice with his interactions with the other coaches, especially Maroon 5 front man Adam Levine. Even though I loved this episode, I was surprised that Levine or the other coaches on The Voice didn’t make a cameo during the episode. I was also surprised that Blake’s wife, country singer Miranda Lambert, didn’t make an appearance either (It was later revealed that she was performing that night). Nevertheless, Blake Shelton is one of those hosts that I would love to see come back and host again.
Sketch Rundown:
Patriots Press Conference Cold Open:
I thought this cold open was very funny and I’m glad that it wasn’t a political cold open. I thought Beck was great as the Patriot’s head coach. Taran was great as Tom Brady. I also loved Bobby’s character as the assistant equipment manager, Dougie Spoons. Some of my favorite quotes from the cold open include “I’m Greg Gumbel, the human microphone,” “You’ve seen American Psycho,” “science computer,” “That’s honestly above my pay grade. You make $26.5 million a year,” and “You can’t handle the truth!” I also loved the interaction between Bobby and Kate and the reactions of everybody after the last line of this section:
            -“Did you deflate the ball?!”
            -“I did the job I was told to do!”
            -“Did you deflate the ball?!”
            -“You’re damn right I did!”
Overall, I thought this was a great cold open and one of my favorites this season.
Blake Shelton Monologue:
Knowing Blake’s sense of humor, I had kind of an idea of what to expect from him during his monologue. I really liked his monologue and thought it was very humorous, even though I did expect a musical monologue from Blake. I also loved how he said “I’m kinda like the Justin Bieber of country music. Just a little troublemakin’ cutie.” I loved his tribute to Hee Haw and getting to see the cast dress up and act stereotypically like country people. I thought Leslie was hilarious during the monologue and I loved Cecily’s fake country accent. I thought this monologue was great and it probably was one of my favorite monologues this season.
Farm Hunk:
I liked how this sketch was supposed to be a parody of The Bachelor. Throughout the sketch, I kind of got the joke that all the girls did some sort of work in the porn industry. I loved Kate’s character and thought the character was hilarious and thought the same of Aidy’s character. I loved the quote “I’m a veteran…of the porn industry,” and how all the girls would say in weird yet funny voices “Sorry, can steal him for a sec?” I loved Leslie at the end and when she said “Just google ‘Leslie Jones SNL’. It’ll all come up.” Overall, I thought this sketch was funny and was a good sketch.
Wishin’ Boot:
I loved this music video as it combined two of my favorite things: SNL and country music. I loved the song; it was catchy and I can’t get it out of my head. I loved everything about the boot. I loved food being in the boot, the imprint of the boot left on the bed, the boot pulling out a knife, and the dog becoming the boot. I loved the quote at the end “We’re gonna make so much fucking money off this song.” I love this music video and so happy they released this song on iTunes.
Celebrity Family Feud:
I’m so glad they brought back this sketch, especially since I love Kenan’s Steve Harvey impression. The impressions of the judges from both The Voice and American Idol were great, although Sasheer’s impression of Nicki Minaj was just okay. I was surprised they used Minaj and Steven Tyler since they’re no longer judges on Idol. I figured they didn’t have anybody to play Jennifer Lopez. I loved how towards the end of the sketch they made fun of the bromance between Blake Shelton and Adam Levine. I loved the quotes “I got this hat from Smokey the Bear,” “a voice from God and hair from Jennifer Aniston,” and “I think this Bratz doll is possessed. I thought this sketch was great and very funny.
Blake Shelton “Neon Light” Performance:
This is one of my favorite Blake Shelton songs and I wasn’t surprised he performed this song since it’s his most recent single. I like the song since it’s very catchy and I learned a line dance to this song a few weeks ago and I did do the line dance while this song was on. I thought this was a good performance from Shelton.
Weekend Update:
I thought this week’s Weekend Update had a strong start from both anchors. I feel like at this point in the season both Che and Jost are starting to get the hang of it and are starting to feel a little more comfortable doing Update together. I loved Bobby’s new character, Riblet, and Bobby was great at reading the news. I loved the alternate intro and the mic drop at the end. In my opinion, Riblet could actually take Che’s job and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a petition started to make that happen. I loved how Colin almost broke after Che’s last joke before Pete’s segment. I thought it was great to see Pete again and I loved his segment. I didn’t agree with Pete saying “I might be like a straight 5 but I’m a gay 1” but I completely lost it when Pete said to Colin “Easy for you to say. You’re like a straight 8 and a gay 10.” I laughed so hard at that line. I loved Pete’s quote “It was really good weed” and how he called The Expendables a gay porn franchise. I loved Colin’s instant replay joke and him getting hit in the face with a football. I loved Che’s reply of “You look so dumb” but unfortunately it’s been cut online and from all broadcasted repeats of this episode. I loved that Sasheer got a new character but was disappointed because the character was so static and didn’t seem like a very developed character. I thought Colin backing away in the middle of the segment was hilarious. It was almost as if Jost was saying “Yeah, I’m not getting involved in this.” I loved the back and forth “Why were you on Tinder? To see if you were on Tinder!” I thought it was great to see Riblet appear during the segment again and I loved the second mic drop as much as the first. Overall, I thought this was a good Weekend Update.
Parole Board:
I thought this sketch but felt that it was a little predictable and that they were using the same joke over and over again. Regardless, I thought Kenan’s character was still funny. I loved the quotes “You’re the Texas Man Gobbler. We’d be insane if we let you out,” “You ate a whole guy, man. All that was left was just empty clothes and his hair. That’s like a magic trick!” and “We watched the sunset, had a couple of beers, and when he was good and drunk, I ate him.” This sketch wasn’t one of my favorites and one typically saved for after Update.
My Darlin’ Joan:
I liked this sketch but it wasn’t my absolute favorite. I loved the makeup work done on Taran for this sketch. I had to take a second to make sure it was him because I didn’t recognize him at first. Great job to the makeup department on that! I loved the pictures of Kate in the background. The song was so catchy that I couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks. Some of my favorite lines from the song include “You could silence a room with your nasty remarks,” “You’re hatred of animals rattles my core,” “You’re favorite hobby was making me cry,” “Do they let you use your humidifier in hell?” and “Does the devil let you curse at him in front of his friends?” I loved how Taran was lip synching the words and harmonizing at the end. I loved the quotes “He’s my landlord so I kinda had to,” and “There’s three more verses.” I thought this sketch was good and it was funny but not one of my favorites.
Blake Shelton “Boys ‘Round Here” Performance:
This is another one of my favorite Blake Shelton songs though, unfortunately, I don’t know a line dance to this song. This song is also really catchy and gets stuck in my head all the time. Although I loved the performance, I was surprised he performed this song since it’s an older one from around late 2013 or early 2014. Nevertheless, I love the song and loved the performance.
Magician:
I didn’t expect this to be the last sketch of the night. I’m thinking either lines were cut or lines were skipped. I thought the sketch was somewhat funny but it was a typical sketch saved for near the end of the show. I thought Blake’s character was funny but then came off as annoying. Although, when they mentioned chicken nuggets with ranch, I did start craving chicken nuggets with ranch (No joke, I’m craving them right now as I type this blog post). I also liked Taran’s character and thought he was funny. There weren’t too many memorable quotes but some of the more awkward quotes were “I wanna be a black guy just for one day,” and “Give me the power to go down on myself.” This sketch was okay but I felt like they were dragging out the joke in this sketch.

Overall, I thought this was another strong episode. As I mentioned before, Blake Shelton is one of those hosts that I would love to see host again.

Some SNL news from the past week include the casting decisions for the reboot of the classic 80’s film Ghostbusters, this time with an all-female cast of Ghostbusters. The cast includes Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. The director for the reboot is Paul Feig who directed films such as Bridesmaids, which starred both Wiig and McCarthy. Feig also released the news via his personal Twitter account. I know people have their doubts about a reboot of a classic film and that it is an all-female team but I think it is going to be great and I couldn’t agree with Feig’s casting decisions. About a month before this casting decision was released, there were rumors going around that directors were wanting to cast Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones as one of the primary antagonists and Cecily Strong as a “frenemy” of the Ghostbuster. This casting information was released as part of the Sony hacks and since then not much regarding this information has been confirmed. Regardless, I have a good feeling that this will be a good movie. The movie has been given a release date of July 22, 2016 so we have a little while until there is even a trailer released. Another piece of SNL news I forgot to mention in last week’s post is that SNL has already won an award at the start of award season. Saturday Night Live won a People’s Choice Award for “Favorite Sketch Comedy Show” on January 7, 2015. SNL beat out shows like Key & Peele and Inside Amy Schumer for this award based on votes from the people on the People’s Choice Award’s website. Congrats to SNL on this award! Hopefully, there will be many awards to come during the 2015 awards season.

This has been my take on SNL with host and musical guest Blake Shelton. I’ll be back soon with a review of SNL with host J.K. Simmons and musical guest D’Angelo. Please spread the word about the blog and subscribe to the blog. Also, follow the blog on Twitter @SNLblogger and on Instagram @snlblogger. I live tweet during new episodes on the blog’s Twitter so feel free to join in on the conversation. Feel free to start your own conversations about episodes in the comments section but keep them 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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