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Saturday Night Live (1/9/2010) Commentary and Discussion

Wow! All I gotta say is....this was BAD. January Jones bad. Bad bad bad.

The first show of the year (and the new decade but that's another thread altogether :D ) and it was horrible.

Charles Barkley was the host of tonight's show that started about 40 minutes late due to NBC football and late local news. Who, in their right minds, thought Charles could speak and act any better than he does in real life which is not very well.

Here are the few highlights:

-One joke in Charles's monologue when he mentioned the show starting late but that was ok because he won 20 grand on the game
-Thomas Peepers Insurance ad parody
-Both of musical guest Alicia Keys' performances. That woman is GORGEOUS.

Even Weekend Update was sub-par with the only semi-good moment being Andy Samberg impersonating Nicholas Cage.

I was hoping for somegthing (anything) related to the Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien/NBC issues but all we got was a lame joke from Seth on Update.

The rest of the sketches, none of which were good:

-CNN/Situation Room: this was the opening sketch with a brief appearance from former castmember Chris Parnell as Wolf Blitzer
-Real Quotes game show
-All of the MacGruber sketches: MacGruber returns (for the first time this season, I'm pretty sure) and the theme is that MacGruber is racist. As usual, the sketch is beaten to death with three of them airing and one lamer than the other
-Ski Retreat/Shanna: Kristin plays the hot employee oogled by all the men including the boss played by Barkley. The sketch might have been ok if Barkley didn't stumble over most of his lines. Good lord.
-Inside the NBA on TNT
-Weekend Update
-Haney Project/Golf Channel
- SNL Digital Short
-Scared Straight: This sketch tends to run nearly every week with each week's guest in it but with little to do. Barkley was a waste.
-Barkley's Bank: the show ran short on time and the sketch was never finished. As the commercial slide came up and the music played, you could still hear Barkley continuing the sketch even though his microphone was turned off. West coasters will probably see a finished sketch from dress rehearsal. Maybe. If you're lucky. Or unlucky.

This show was heavy on poor timing and line fumbling and awkwardness on Barkley's part. It was just bad. Charles, you can join January Jones on the SNL Host Hall of Shame.

Mountain and Pacific Time Zones, don't waste your time.

Next week, we have host Sigourney Weaver with musical guest The Ting Tings.
 
I agree with WMC that the 9 Jan SNL was a thumbs down. However, I can't call it January Jones bad. Charles Barkley has a presence that at least made him passable. Yes, he read the cue cards and forgot (a lot of) lines but I've seen Steve Martin, John Goodman and Alec Baldwin do the same thing. Other notes:

  • There is supposed to be a MacGruber movie so we might see the skit at least once more this season.
  • I liked the Shanna and Scared Straight sketches. Of course during Scared if you looked at Bill Hader, he was trying not to laugh the entire time.
  • Barkley Bank was also cut off during the Mountain time zone airing.

Next week, I think it would be funny if Sigourney Weaver came out smoking during her monologue!

WMC2006 said:
-CNN/Situation Room: this was the opening sketch with a brief appearance from former castmember Chris Parnell as Wolf Blitzer

It was Jason Sudeikis, not Chris Parnell. I thought it was strange when Barkley didn't mention any other 'special guests' other than Alicia Keys (nobody else was listed on his cue cards? :D ). I rewatched and it was Sudeikis.
 
We didn't have local news in Philly for the 30 minutes between SNF wildcard game and SNL. WCAU did 30 sports program on the Eagles loss. Having DirecTv, I was able to watch WMGM's news from Altantic City, NJ. Nice how the little NBC station in the Philly area does news and the BIG NBC owned station does not, just bla bla bla, the Eagles lost. How about some weather? Or is that what the NBC owned weather channel is for or WCAU-DT2?
 
Yeah, Barkley wasn't that good, but he wasn't that bad either. If i had to choose between the January Jones episode and the Barkley episode, i would choose Barkley. And Alicia Keys' performance... hell yes. ;D

And i won some money on the game too.
 
brian4 said:
Scared Straight sketches. Of course during Scared if you looked at Bill Hader, he was trying not to laugh the entire time.[/list]


It was Jason Sudeikis, not Chris Parnell.

Kenan ALWAYS tries to get Hader to laugh during that sketch. It's about the only redeeming thing about it. They rely too much on it but it is funny when Hader breaks up. And, are you SURE that wasn't Chris Parnell? I realize he was fired and rehired twice in the past and it's been awhile but it looked just like him under that Wolf beard.

I did forget to mention the NY Gov David Patterson bit on Update. That was passable as well.
 
WMC2006 said:
CNN/Situation Room: this was the opening sketch with a brief appearance from former castmember Chris Parnell as Wolf Blitzer

brian4 said:
It was Jason Sudeikis, not Chris Parnell. I rewatched and it was Sudeikis.

WMC2006 said:
And, are you SURE that wasn't Chris Parnell? I realize he was fired and rehired twice in the past and it's been awhile but it looked just like him under that Wolf beard.

Yes, I'm SURE. When SNL first came on and I saw 'Blitzer,' I thought that it was Sudeikis instead of Darrell Hammond, who used to play Blitzer.

After you wrote it was Parnell, I went back and looked at it on my DVR since I didn't erase it yet. I paused and confirmed it was Sudeikis. Then I wrote my reply on this Board.

After you asked was I SURE I went to Hulu.com and loaded Yeoman Press Conference video. It was Sudeikis. Look at this:

http://www.hulu.com/collections/359/119789
 
I watched the monologue and turned it off. You could clearly tell Barkley was reading from cue cards/teleprompter/whatever they use. Even the jokes weren't that funny. Awful.
 
I had already rewatched it on NBC.com. I SUPPOSE you could be right especially since Charles didn't thank anyone at the goodbyes aside from the cast and Alicia Keyes. ::)
 
WMC2006 said:
-Barkley's Bank: the show ran short on time and the sketch was never finished. As the commercial slide came up and the music played, you could still hear Barkley continuing the sketch even though his microphone was turned off. West coasters will probably see a finished sketch from dress rehearsal. Maybe. If you're lucky. Or unlucky.

Mountain and Pacific Time Zones, don't waste your time.


brian4 said:
  • Barkley Bank was also cut off during the Mountain time zone airing.

So did this week's episode end at 1 AM ET (or close to it), or was it also delayed 40 minutes? I would think if the show ended at 1AM despite the late start, stations in the west would be hard pressed into filling the missing time themselves.
 
In the east (Boston market anyway), it started at 12:05am and ran for the full 90 minutes until 1:35am.
 
One word about SNL this season: Uneven.

The Taylor Swift show was one of the best in years, the Barkley show was one of the worst in years. Uneven.
 
WMC2006 said:
All of the MacGruber sketches: MacGruber returns (for the first time this season, I'm pretty sure) and the theme is that MacGruber is racist. As usual, the sketch is beaten to death with three of them airing and one lamer than the other

I think we'll be seeing more of the MacGruber sketches this year.

After all, on April 16th Relativity Media's Rogue Pictures will release (via distribution by Universal) the film version of MacGruber, co-written (along with star Will Forte and another SNL writer John Solomon) and directed by Jorma Taccone, one of the guys behind the SNL Digital Shorts.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1470023/
 
SNL came on its normal time of 10:35 Mountain Standard Time. I always DVR and watch it the next morning. I didn't realize the football game caused a time shift until Barkley said they were 40 minutes late.
 
Bill_W said:
We didn't have local news in Philly for the 30 minutes between SNF wildcard game and SNL. WCAU did 30 sports program on the Eagles loss. Having DirecTv, I was able to watch WMGM's news from Altantic City, NJ. Nice how the little NBC station in the Philly area does news and the BIG NBC owned station does not, just bla bla bla, the Eagles lost. How about some weather? Or is that what the NBC owned weather channel is for or WCAU-DT2?

KXAS in Fort Worth/Dallas also did a 30 min sports show instead of news. Guess NBC told the newsroom staff in D/FW and Philly to take the night off.
 
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