Saturday Night Live (12/19/09) and the SNL Thursday Gilly Christmas Special (12

[WMC2006]

Last night's Christmas show (and last SNL of the decade) was fair at best with guest host James Franco and musical guest Muse.

In no particular order:

The Good

-Muse
-Vincent Price Christmas (with Armisen's Liberace giving sexual favors to Franco's James Dean at the end of the sketch)
-What's Up With That---NBC.com has the dress rehearsal version online which was better than the aired version. Guest Mike Tyson does alot of dancing which he does not do on the aired version: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-l...up-with-that-dress-rehearsal-version/1187096/
-Kissing Family---I would LOVE to see the dress rehearsal of this sketch. This is the aired version: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-l...up-with-that-dress-rehearsal-version/1187096/


The OK

-Fraternity (with three stupid frat guys slapping around Andy Samberg, the frat pledge
-Weekend Update---Seth was fair (nothing earthshakingly funny) but the Weekend bits were unfunny and the Housewife one (Bobby) went too long


Forget it

-Lawrence Welk (the opening sketch)
-Jerry---a recurring skit with this one focusing on company Christmas gifts which happened to be dildos. Could have been funny but it wasn't. (Carol, hold my calls)
-Christmas Tree Lot
-Digital Short
-Mark Wahlberg talks to Christmas Animals


The show was better than last week's with Taylor Lautner which reeked. Lautner ranked in the basement with January Jones. This one was just a bit higher. No one has come close to the top with Taylor Swift.

And speaking of Taylor Swift, her episode is repeated next week (the 26th).

I don't know who hosts the next live show.

I caught only the last 45 minutes or so of last Thursday's Gilly Christmas Special but that was enough to catch Alec Baldwin's "Schweddy Balls" sketch. Just as hilarious now as it was then. And it was good to see Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer again. Good times, good times.

 

[stdjsb25]

Re: Saturday Night Live (12/19/09) and the SNL Thursday Gilly Christmas Special

I was very displeased with the special....mainly by the apparent lack of some all time SNL classic clips and the extensive usage of newer material.

While some of the newer SNL stuff ("Schweaty Balls", for example) is considered classic, there's much more that is better than the material the show has put out for the last couple of years. Only two pre-1980 sketches (Garrett Morris singing "Winter Wonderland" and Candice Bergen and Dan Aykroyd in "Consumer Probe" were included), along with a portion of one sketch from the Dick Ebersol years (an Eddie Murphy "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" sketch.)

It was just overall, disappointing, compared to their "Christmas Past" specials....there was so much that could have been aired. (What SNL Christmas special would be complete without "A Gumby Christmas", "Hanukkah Harry", and "Santa Pads"? Those are much better than the stuff SNL puts out now.)

Just another sign that SNL is going downhill.

 

[Garrett]

Geeze that thing put me to sleep...

Last night's Christmas show (and last SNL of the decade) was fair at best with guest host James Franco and musical guest Muse.

In no particular order:

The Good

-Muse
-Vincent Price Christmas (with Armisen's Liberace giving sexual favors to Franco's James Dean at the end of the sketch)
-What's Up With That---NBC.com has the dress rehearsal version online which was better than the aired version. Guest Mike Tyson does alot of dancing which he does not do on the aired version: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-l...up-with-that-dress-rehearsal-version/1187096/
-Kissing Family---I would LOVE to see the dress rehearsal of this sketch. This is the aired version: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-l...up-with-that-dress-rehearsal-version/1187096/


The OK

-Fraternity (with three stupid frat guys slapping around Andy Samberg, the frat pledge
-Weekend Update---Seth was fair (nothing earthshakingly funny) but the Weekend bits were unfunny and the Housewife one (Bobby) went too long


Forget it

-Lawrence Welk (the opening sketch)
-Jerry---a recurring skit with this one focusing on company Christmas gifts which happened to be dildos. Could have been funny but it wasn't. (Carol, hold my calls)
-Christmas Tree Lot
-Digital Short
-Mark Wahlberg talks to Christmas Animals


The show was better than last week's with Taylor Lautner which reeked. Lautner ranked in the basement with January Jones. This one was just a bit higher. No one has come close to the top with Taylor Swift.

And speaking of Taylor Swift, her episode is repeated next week (the 26th).

I don't know who hosts the next live show.

I caught only the last 45 minutes or so of last Thursday's Gilly Christmas Special but that was enough to catch Alec Baldwin's "Schweddy Balls" sketch. Just as hilarious now as it was then. And it was good to see Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer again. Good times, good times.

 

[mr.ric]

I don't know who hosts the next live show.

Next live show:

January 9
Host: Charles Barkley
Musical Guest: Alicia Keys

 

[Firebird]

Last night's Christmas show (and last SNL of the decade) was fair at best with guest host James Franco and musical guest Muse.

The next decade begins on January 1, 2011, so this was not the last SNL of the current decade.

 

[WMC2006]

A decade is 10 years long. The year 2000 was the first year of the decade. 2009 is the last year of the current decade. This decade ends in 10 days.

 

[KML0224]

Technically, the third millennium began on January 1, 2001. The 2,000th full year A.D. had ended the day before. It threw me off at first too, I'll admit. As for a decade though, I think it's safe to say the "teens" are from 2010 to 2019.

 

[DToTheJ]

The show was better than last week's with Taylor Lautner which reeked. Lautner ranked in the basement with January Jones. This one was just a bit higher. No one has come close to the top with Taylor Swift.

And speaking of Taylor Swift, her episode is repeated next week (the 26th).

Are Swift and Lautner really dating each other? I would hate to be a fly on the wall in that bedroom...

 

[BRNout]

Re: Saturday Night Live (12/19/09) and the SNL Thursday Gilly Christmas Special

Technically, the third millennium began on January 1, 2001. The 2,000th full year A.D. had ended the day before. It threw me off at first too, I'll admit. As for a decade though, I think it's safe to say the "teens" are from 2010 to 2019.

Technically, you're right. And decades run from 01-10. So, the 60's are actually from 1961 through 1970. All because there was no year zero - we started with year 1 and that first decade ran through the end of 10.

Now, all this may sound like hokum until you consider that 1960 was more like the 50's than (what we think of as) the 60's; 1970 was a lot more like the 60's than the 70's; 1980 was more like the 70's than it was like the 80's; and so forth. So, it does seem to work out in a way. Think about it - and even listen to the music from those years versus the music from the following year. Odd but true.

However, too many people are too simplistic in their thinking (and bad at math) so the 'decade' changes when that third digit changes. But 2010 will still be more like the 'aughts culturally, economically and socially while '11 will set the tone for the "teens."

 

[Paige Turner]

Re: Saturday Night Live (12/19/09) and the SNL Thursday Gilly Christmas Special

However, too many people are too simplistic in their thinking (and bad at math) so the 'decade' changes when that third digit changes. But 2010 will still be more like the 'aughts culturally, economically and socially while '11 will set the tone for the "teens."

I wonder what people will commonly call the years in the coming decade. 2010 might still be "two thousand ten" rather than "twenty ten," but I think after that we may see a shift toward saying "twenty eleven," "twenty twelve," etc, especially when we get to the teens. It rolls off the tongue better.

 

[brian4]

Thanks again WMC for starting this topic. I would have done the last 2 SNLs but I'm good at reading/comments, not at creating...

Taylor Lautner episode was okay. During his monologue he showed his martial arts skills but missed his jump spinning round kick 3 times.

James Franco episode was better. The Kissing Family was funny, especially when the older son was feeling up his Grandmother!

The Gilly Christmas is thumb in middle. I agree with stdjsb25 that I didn't like some of the choices with it being heavy into the 90s & 00's. It was criminal only showing a small bit of Eddie Murphy's Mister Robinson's Neighborhood. I didn't remember the Will Ferrell vomit skit. I've always liked when they did the projecting vomit. I was happy that they showed Stewart's Topless Christmas and Schweddy Balls.

 

[firepoint525]

Re: Saturday Night Live (12/19/09) and the SNL Thursday Gilly Christmas Special

However, too many people are too simplistic in their thinking (and bad at math) so the 'decade' changes when that third digit changes. But 2010 will still be more like the 'aughts culturally, economically and socially while '11 will set the tone for the "teens."

I wonder what people will commonly call the years in the coming decade. 2010 might still be "two thousand ten" rather than "twenty ten," but I think after that we may see a shift toward saying "twenty eleven," "twenty twelve," etc, especially when we get to the teens. It rolls off the tongue better.

As long as they STOP referring to 2000 as "the year 2000"! : Look folks, we know that 2000 was "a year," so why all the stiff formality? You usually only see that formality on wedding announcements and college diplomas, but not in everyday conversation. I had enough of this "Y2K" hype when we went through it (and I was working in shortwave radio at the time, so I really heard a lot about it! ), so now that it's behind us, I really don't want to relive it!