Host: Taylor Swift (1). Her monologue included a couple good lines, goofing on how often people say it’s always been a dream to work on SNL. “I remember staying up late to watch Andy Samberg and Bill Hader — and now I finally made it!” She also did a song taking a dig at Kanye and Joe Jonas. Well done.
Musical Guest: Taylor Swift. At the risk of a man-foul, I enjoy You Belong To Me. This is the second time she’s been the musical guest on SNL and their sound stage doesn’t treat her well.
Best Skit: Scared Straight 2. This is the second time Keenan has played the scared straight ex-con who tells kids prison stories that resemble 80s movie plots. It’s also the second time Bill Hader hasn’t made it through the sketch.
Honorable Mentions: Swine Fever: A 2002 commercial for a rib joint that contains unfortunate references. Bunny Business: If for no other reason then Keenan’s Jennifer Hudson impersonation.
Lines of the Week: The View – Fred Armisen as Meredith Viera: “The only thing I practice in front of a mirror is sucking in my back-fat”.
Character of the Week: Also from The View: Andy Samberg’s Nicolas Cage. Bill Hader’s take on Sheperd Smith from Fox News wasn’t too bad either.
Worst Skit: Hollywood Dish: a take on annoying interviewers. But, props to Kristen Wiig for taking a spit-take to the side of the head and not even cracking a smile.
Should have been funnier: Roomies: Roommates who love and miss each other a little too much. They could have gone a lot of ways with this and I just kind of felt “bleh” about the one they chose.
Digital Short: Firelight: Twilight parody trailer with Frankenstein monsters instead of vampires and mummies instead of werewolves. This was a tremendously well-done, nearly frame-by-frame reshoot of the Twilight trailer save for reworded Frankenstein lines like: “Kiss me. “I can’t, because when I kiss people, I tend to accidentally choke them to death.” PLR is painfully in to Twilight so this was quite possibly the greatest skit I’ve ever seen. Well done, Lonely Island boys.
Weekend Update
- Great opening line. “In signs the economy is beginning to recover, New Yorkers started buying big ticket items again like elections [Picture of Mayor Bloomberg] and baseball championships [Picture of the Yankees]”.
- Political Comedian Nicholas Fehn: Another recurring character I just don’t get.
- Abbey Elliot as Sarah McLachlan: Ostensibly to talk about Lilith Fair — but she instead starts talking about abused dogs. Only funny if you’ve seen these completely unfair and traumatic commercials from the SPCA.
- Amy Poehler cameo!: For a new segment of “Really?! With Seth And Amy”. This was about Goldman-Sachs getting swine flu vaccines before pregnant women and babies and featured the lines: “Do you realize that when people saw the headline ‘Goldman Sachs Executives Get Swine Flu Vaccine’, people were really happy until they saw the word vaccine” and “Your jobs are to predict the future. Maybe next time if you see that you’re getting vaccine before pregnant ladies you’ll think about how that’ll go over.”
Final Notes: Taylor Swift did a pretty good job with her two characters (Shakira and Kate Gosselin) and the hits were better than the misses. The Twilight parody was the best thing of the year so far for me.
