Thursday, February 19, 2015

Saturday Night Live 40 Review: Anniversary Special


Hi, everybody.
This day has been on everybody's minds for months. The anticipation, the wonder, the imagination, the excitement, the nostalgia, the fear, the potential disappointment, the wasted potential, the complaints about how it used to be (oh wait, that's still happening) and what could have been that could've been shown and represented.
But dammit, they pulled it off phenominally. Almost everything that represented this show throughout its' history (cast members, characters, sketches, moments, hosts, musical guests and Lorne Michaels) is represented very well in this special. I enjoyed almost every single moment from the event and I can't stop glowing from it.


The event begins with Justin Timberlake about to perform a ditty about the show, then Jimmy Fallon comes in, and they perform a rap called "The History of SNL". Rachel Dratch and Molly Shannon made their returns to Studio 8H as their beloved characters, Debbie Downer and Mary Catherine Gallagher. It was amazing; the rhymes were catchy, JF & JT did great and it was fantastic to see Debbie and Mary Catherine on "SNL" once again, especially for this special. And what a special it was!


The open featured many shots and elements from all of the opens in its history and some of the characters that made it famous, along with the many cast members and guests that appeared on the show appearing in the special. It was awesome seeing those elements of some opens mashed together with those of others was absolutely beautiful. And the bright colors used throughout made it even better.


After this, a monologue of epic proportions...sort of. Frequent host Steve Martin (who, by the way, hosted one of the best episodes ever all the way back in 1978) was the first to walk out on stage. He remarks that the special is like an enormous high school reunion (with nearly all of the students being white) and that comedians are the staple of the show. After this, other hosts/musical guests appeared to politely argue with Martin about who the host and musical guests are to have helped make SNL memorable over the years, including (in this order):
-(America's) Tom Hanks, representing actors
-Alec Balwin, for actors who've down comedy and drama. And have also hosted more than seven-eight times (and, as Martin put it, media skirmishes)
-Melissa McCarthy, for actress/not men over "80"
-Chris Rock, fronting hosts who used to be cast members
That was a fine open. I was puzzled by this, but it was nice to see a wonderful variety of hosts being mentioned on the show.

The Best (Sketches)

After this, a wonderfully put-together clip of some of the best sketches in the show's history, from "The Wolverines", the very first sketch, to "". If there was a favorite of any SNL fan, either casual or die-hard, it was in this. And it was a great continuation of the special, and was expected to celebrate the show's vast, rich and uproarious history.


(Excuse my terrible spelling)

Dan Aykroyd returned to Studio 8H to perform the first sketch tribute of the show, one of his legendary and signature skits: The Super Bass-O-Matic. This time, it's new and improved, and under a new name: The Super Bass-O-Matic 2150. It's exactly like the original sketch from 1976, except Aykroyd looks like he's really let himself go. He did a fantastic job, like he knew every word like the back of his hand...or like he wrote them on the back of his hands. Also, Laraine Newman made a return to 8H for her small part in the promo sketch, which was just as great. I did feel a rush of intensity and nerves during the part where Aykroyd slipped more bass into the Matic, in which he couldn't close the top (it's live, really) but everything came in control a few seconds later. I really enjoyed this part.
You still rock, Mr. Aykroyd and Mr. Newman.

It's Jeopardy! time!! #SNL40

— Andrew Pollard (@APollard36) February 16, 2015
Celebrity Jeopardy! is back!!

In the next tribute sketch, Will Ferrell retuned as Alex Trebek, one of his most popular roles one of the most popular sketches. Also returning are Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery and Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds, along with Mate McKinnon as Justin Bieber, Alec Baldwin as Tony Bennett and Taran Killam as Christoph Waltz. Straight up--One of the Best parts of the special. The jokes were of the same well-known concept, but are still funny and still awesome. The "Whore Ads" and the "Le Tits Now" jokes made me laugh hard.
Also, the guys of the sketch have not missed a beat; it's as if they secretly do their beloved roles somplace hidden from the outside world to keep them amazing. If this actually happens, it's made this one even more genius.
I really like how Trebek's hair has gotten greyer, just as a nod to the real host of the real Jeopardy! (along with the fact that he's returned to growing a mustache), and that the old set has stayed the same for familiarity.
Although, neither Bieber nor Waltz were needed here, and they felt like they weren't needed, but They were fine in their own right. The big boys of the skit (Especially Ferrell and Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery) just carry the skit by themselves like it's 1996 again.

And the surprise appearance of Kenan Thompson as Bill Cosby during the Video Daily Double gave this a little more laughs.
Again, one of the best parts of the night, by far.

This sketch is still one of the best. #CelebrityJeopardy #SNL40

— Andrew Pollard (@APollard36) February 16, 2015


Pete Davidson and Leslie Jones, the tow last cast members before the show turned 40, presented a segment on the Auditions, the moment where unknown actors and comedians try-out to impress Lorne and the producers for a spot in the cast. It was a refreshing joy to this, watching cast members do impressions and such for a spot, and look around stuff and ask question, especially some of the Not Ready for Primetime Players. It was an even bigger surprise to see Jim Carrey, Stephen Colbert and Zach Gallafinackis audition, too, I could only wonder if any of them got hired. Oh well.


Next up, previous host (and proud Yorkian) Robert DeNiro presented us a really well-done clip of New York City, as shown through Saturday Night Live sketches. The show salute to and spirit of the Big Apple shines bright, since the day of the choice of production in '75 and still lives on to this day. You do see shows celebrate its city like Johnny Carson and Jay Leno-era Tonight Show for Los Angeles and Portlandia with Portland, Oregon, but you don't see the spirit and love of the NYC like SNL does. And it's not during the opens. Well, almost all of them; New York is nowhere to be seen in the season 27 intro--wonder who's dumb idea that was. Anyway, even though I'm not from the city, or the state, I'm very proud of the biggest city in the world for many reasons. One of them being the taping location of SNL. Thanks to it (along with the soap operas at the time), many shows would later be taped in New York (city and state) in the later 1990s and 2000s. SNL and New York, we're grateful for the both of you.

Three cheers to New York City. Just because...#SNL40

— Andrew Pollard (@APollard36) February 16, 2015
Agreed.

After the break (of many!!), Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones introduced Paul McCartney, who performed "Maybe I'm Amazed". And like his appearances on the show, and with The Beatles, he really hits it out of the park. Oh yeah, and this. too.

So yeah, a Rolling Stone introduced a Beatle. That's history in the making, don'cha know. #SNL40

— Andrew Pollard (@APollard36) February 16, 2015


Jack Nicholson gives us another clip featuring SNL's legendary satire and lampooning of American Politics. From Gerald Ford to the George Bushs to Bill Clinton to Barack Obama and everyone in between, SNL was boss at counterpoint to the elephant and donkey parties. And if you were a fan o SNL, you should know how awesome these sketches were. The brutal humor coming to the world of politics was perfect and really enjoyable, and for the 40+ years on the air, SNL certainly know what to do. It's not my favorite parts of the show, but I still enjoyed them a lot.

Honestly, I don't know why this sketch was represented.

But if it can get most of the late 2000s cast back together, then I'll forgiven. Especially with Laraine Newman and Betty White appeared. Although, Kerry and Taylor's accents were super thick and nearly unrecognizable. It may seem hard to pull off a Valley Girl accent, but I myself can do it easily and near-perfectly. So this is unacceptable. I laughed a lot when Kristen Wiig said "Did everyone RSV-Pah??" and when everyone broke character for a bit after the Spanish housekeeper character (played by Vanessa Bayer) faints. And Betty did awesome in this; her performance made the sketch look like a real soap opera on (the now defunct) SOAPnet. It even gripped me in for a little while, after that ended, I went back to watching a sub-par sketch I can barely stand. So yeah, I'd call this the weakest sketch of the special. I mean of course it is when compared to the others, like the remake of the "Bass-O-Matic" sketch, "Celebrity Jeopardy!" and Weekend Update.
As for the ending, which is a special-made one to the Airline Sketch of the 90s, I kinda like this one, although it felt a little botched, but we can count that to the camera shot coming in a little early than expected.


And now, another Best Sketch of the show, Weekend Update. At least it should be with Jane Curtain, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler at the desk. And it was funny. Really funny. All the jokes landed, including my favorite

the chemistry between the three was wonderful and the guests paying tribute to a few iconic characters of both Update and SNL proper:
-Emma Stone as Roseanne Roseannadana
-Edward Norton as Stefon (with Bill Hader returning as the real Stefon, along with Seth Meyers making a brief cameo)
-Melissa McCarthy as Matt Foley, and
-Bobby Moynihan as the Land Shark
did a fantastic job. The only crime with this one was that it was a little short, at least compared to the regular Update. (Blame Kanye.) I wish it was at least 7 minutes long, because then, at least more Update anchors would've came in and contributed to the sketch. That would've been better in my eyes. But overall, this was another Best of the Special.

And straight after, a retrospective of the iconic middle-of-the-show segment, featuring almost all of the hosts (Cecily Strong were notably missing) and the iconic moments that came with them. I thought it was disrespectful for Cecily to get jettisoned when she was a anchorperson just like everyone else. Granted for a single season, but still. And the same thing goes for everyone else who was also not shown in the clip. Other than that, it was a great retrospective of a really great part of SNL since the very start.
Which would go to another great part of one of the Best Parts of the Special:

Four of the male anchorpersons of Update (Kevin Nealon, Norm MacDonald, Colin Quinn and Seth Meyers) came together to discuss their bright memories of the segment and then to honor the man who started the tranquil madness and uproarious news, Chevy Chase. Chase came to the main stage to discuss the segment and his . And it was short. I mean...come on!! (Blame Kanye.)

Music with Marty and Maya as Beyoncé
Part 1:

Part 2:

Martin Short and Maya Rudolph stewarded this segment chronicling the iconic moments of popular music characters on SNL. And boy, did they help bring out the greats.
Starting with Rudolph herself as Beyoncé, performing a version of Knowles' song "Drunk in Love", which was really good, with the bit with Short literally being blown away by the stage fans was really funny
and continued on with:
-Garth & Kat singing a song "specially created for the show". And if you know who they are, then you know this is not the case; when I mean by "specially created for the show", I mean "something really terrible they made up on the spot".
-Marty Culp and Bobbi Mohan-Culp (Will Ferrell and Ana Gastayer) performing a superculp--I mean supercut of current popular songs, which was very funny
-Joe Piscopo (!!) performing "New York, New York" as Frank Sinatra (!!!)
-Derek Stevens (Dana Carvey) singing his classic "Choppin' Broccoli"
-Adam Sandler as Opera Man
-DeAndre Cole performing his future-classic, uber-catchy title theme of the "What's Up with That?" sketch, along with Jason Sudeikiis reprising his role of Cole's right-hand running man.
-Steve Martin with a classic straight out of Ancient Egypt, "King Tut", and
-Nick "the Lounge Singer" Ocean (Bill Murray) singing that amazing "Love Theme" from "Jaws",
ending it with The Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi [in the place of his late brother John Belushi]).
This was a fantastic recollection of the music of the series, and another Best Part for me. The performances were done live (which was a better thing than watching a pre-tape of them) and all of the former cast members/hosts looked and sounded great, especially Mr. Rudolph. Her outfit looked hot, and her legs look amazing. I'd pay money just to see those gams from 50 feet away.
I wish some of the performances were longer, though. Again, Blame Kanye (and maybe Miley, too).


Chris Rock walked to the stage and talked about Eddie Murphy, the most-well-known, beloved (in Dick Ebersol's case, VERY beloved) and best-used African American cast member in SNL history. And then Murphy himself made his first appearance on SNL in 30 years, talking about his experience on the show and what it made him to be: a comedy legend. And that's it. If Eddie Murphy is going to appear on the show for the first time in 30 years, you gotta make time for him! You can't just give him a whole minute to say a few words and then go to commercial, That's not fair.
Honestly this lasted about 5-1/2 minutes (including Rock). Let's--let's just--(sigh) Blame Kanye, folks.


Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning open this pre-packaged clip of all the times athletes hosted SNL (so all of you who expected OJ Simpson or Robert Blake to appear, you are greatly disappointed). I didn't enjoy it as much as the others, but I still found it funny.

The end of the segement features the return of Sudeikis and Will Forte as Pete Twinkle and Greg Stink, and these guys are just as great as they were back during the sketch's beginning. This is one of my favorite pieces of the special.



After an introduction by long-running host Candace Bergen and Win Butler of Arcade Fire,
Miley Cyrus performed Paul Simon's immortal "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Umm...why?? Why is she performing the song? I mean, Simon was in the studio, so it would've made a lot more sense to have the guy who originally performed it almost 40 years ago perform it here. Did he have a sore throat during the special? Does he hate this now? I'd doubt it. It just doesn't make sense to me. Miley did have really good vocals here, and she did a great job, but it still didn't make any damn sense to me, especially because the man himself is here. Plus, she sounded like her dad in his "Achy Breaky Heart" days.


Audience Q&A

"Mr. NBC" Jerry Seinfeld took to the stage to answer questions from the audience.
Before getting to the video, this segment has been a part of the show for decades. The host being asked questions by members of the studio audience (usually cast members). And it's pretty funny at times.
Now, the people asking questions were Michael Douglas, John Goodman, James Franco, Larry David, Dakota Johnson from NBC sister company Universal Pictures' big-selling film "50 Shades of Grey" (at least that's how I see them treating this part), former cast member Tim Meadows, Sarah Palin and Ellen Cleghorne, one of the first and few African American female cast members in SNL history (seriously, they can be counted on both hands, if not one).

This segment was really funny, and seeing Miss Cleghorne in this segment and on SNL in a very long time was wonderful, even though she wasn't as well-known or popular as Eddie Murphy at the time. In fact seeing her there lasted longer and was more satisfying than Eddie Murphy, and I barely know who she is or was. Super ironic, I know.


Then after a short introduction by Christopher Walken, Lord Obnoxious himself performed one of his biggest songs "Jesus Walks"...upside down...on his back, in a dimly lit part of the set.
Why this? Well, because it's Kanye. Although this is a step up from "Bound 2", so yeah, it's good. After a verse of the former, he sings (yes, SINGS.) his latest single "Only One". Apparently, he didn't care the he sounded like he just had a wire removed from his jaws. But his vocals were terrible. I felt that he wanted to sound weak and close to tears. He can do that, but chose not to here. But like his performance at the Grammys, it was personal, powerful and made me tear up. Then...uhh...

yeah, he sang "Wolves" with Sia and a guy named
Okay, why is he performing? No, this has nothing to do his dick moves recently, but because this is the SNL Anniversary. I think there should be enough for everything about the show, and not to have Kanye here. I mean, Kanye did appear like 4 or 5 times and that's good enough to be memorable and appear in the special, but if you want to invite a guy who wrote a line in one of his songs which goes "Fuck SNL and the whole cast, tell 'em Yeezy said they can kiss my whole ass/ More specifically, they can kiss my ass-hole/I'm an asshole? You niggas got jokes" on a special like this, yeah you've got a problem. Especially with people who don't like him as a person. So yeah, I thought this performance was really good, but I really wouldn't put in up there with the best parts of the Special. Yeah, I guess it kinda does relate to the recent dick moves.


Next, as presented by Louis CK, a perfect collection of SNL short films that were made legendary. Including the forever infamous "Don't Look Back in Anger". You know, the short films really made
this show great, too. Taking cast members out of Studio 8H and into the streets of New York (or an off-city-limits studio) and do whatever the hell they want, whether related to whatever was popular at the moment or whatever was in the writers' minds. And they were awesome; everything was a good laugh. All you see for the past 40 years either made you laugh, made you cry, or both. Because they were beautiful. The short film will always be my favorite part of the show for these reasons.


And now for my favorite one of all, the In Memorial segment, presented by Bill Murray. It is here that cast members, crew members and people who have been a huge part of Saturday Night Live since its humble beginning that have passed on sometime during its almost 40 years on-air will be memorialized and remembered for the huge, amazing and memorable contributions they have made to this series. I pretty much felt how everyone else felt from this. Emotional, teary-eyed, and full of gratefulness, because we have witness comedy magic being made on SNL and we took it for granted, and we can't thank all of these contributors for their service to SNL and the comedy world. The reaction when Don Pardo's name appeared was well-deserved. SNL is Don Pardo. Oh, and that part at the end where Jon Lovitz's name appeared made me laugh my ass off.

And finally, it was long overdue, but we finally made it, as we take a little trip to...

In this segment, Wayne & Garth give us a Top 10 list of the things that make SNL amazing for past (almost) 40 years. And every single one of them was great, especially the crew. Thanks to each and every single member of the SNL crew, they have spent as much of their lives as possible working to make SNL as tip-top shape and as fast and lucrative as possible, without incident or screw-up. And they did it (and still do it) amazingly. Doing live television takes a LOT of hard work, but to watch these guys pull it off so very well after all these years, and now to get the recognition and praise they truly deserve is just heartwarming and beautiful. You know what's also beautiful? Watching the two mock Kanye West HARD; it's hilarious. Also hilarious? The fact that they STILL haven't left the basement.


And this Special could not end without like how every show ends, with everyone on the main set, thanking viewers for watching the special, and for watching Saturday Night Live for almost 40 years. The man who began it all, Lorne Michaels, came on stage to thank everyone and to join in the celebration. And this caps off a fantastic special celebrating 40 Years and Seasons of a simple TV series pushing the limits of comedy and television, making lasting impressions on the world, keeping it going on NBC (already seen as a joke to a lot of people), and never looking back.



Favorite Moments:
-Monologue
-Celebrity Jeopardy!
-Weekend Update (rest in peace, Gilda Radner and Chris Farley)
-The Music (especially when Nick the Lounge Singer and the Culpps appear)
-Wayne's World
-In Memorial (especially when Jon Lovitz's and Generalissimo Francisco Franco's names appear. One of the biggest laughs of the night.) (rest in peace, Everyone who has been a part of SNL throughout its' history)

Worst Moments:
Miley and Kanye

Everyone wasn't overused or underused, the jokes landed great, everything made me smile, I was a hit on Twitter (at least to my friends), all era of the show were used here amazingly, and the music was fantastic. I couldn't ask for a better special celebrating the history of SNL, and I think I'm so very grateful to live on Earth at this time to watch it. I'm so grateful for Saturday Night Live.

Well, thank you all joining me for this review, and join me on February 28, when Dakota Johnson will host the show, with Alabama Shakes joining as musical guest. See you then!!
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