Saturday Night Live 40 Review: Sarah Silverman & Maroon 5

Welcome back to my Review catch-up of SNL 40.
After such a great start to the season last week, I couldn't wait to see who would continue the wave of excitement, awesome and hilarious.

Then I saw the title card for the second show and thought..."Ehh, okay?".
I have heard of Sarah Silverman before, especially with her old Comedy Central show "The Sarah Silverman Programme", but I wasn't completely sold on her humor. It was childish and immature, even for a female comedian. So looking back, I at least thought I could adjust my standards (coming from a guy who found "Imma butter them biscuits and flap them jacks" & "CRACK-CRACK-CRACK" gut-busting) so I could watch it and enjoy it as much as the last episode.
Well, let's check it out.

(Some of the sketches do not have a clip on YT or Yahoo, so here is the full episode from Hulu below with the dress rehearsal version used instead of those of the live show)

The episode begins with the Cold Open in the form of Steve Croft's (Beck Bennett) "interview" of President Obama (Jay Pharaoh) on CBS' 60 Minutes. Obama talked about ISIS and terrorists spending their days on the Internet, mostly on Twitter. For once, this political CO was hilarious! The responses Obama made were really good and the use of Twitter tweets was genius! (and on a side note, I wondered how Bennett quickly went from the green screen used for the 60 Minutes set to the White House interview set that quickly, but I won't get into that.)


After the usual, first-time host Sarah made her first appearance on SNL since 1993, when she was a featured cast member, but was fired after that one season. During her monologue, she also mentions that some jokes she wrote got censored, which was hilarious.
She then grabs a mic, goes to the audience and sit on the lap of a female member named Lindsay (that's the spelling I'll use here). She tells Lindsay some wonderful things about her, and then gives the mic to Lindsay, asking her to say good things about her. This was also hilarious, especially when she threw it to Lindsay.
My favorite part of the Mono was when Sarah took questions from the audience. And by audience I mean her when she was usually planted in the audience during her stint as a featured member. What makes it genius is using the old clips unedited and melded them into it, as if she's being asked by herself. That was just perfect.
This Monologue really funny and enjoyable.

The Ebola in Our Everything Pre-Tape
Straight after was a pre-taped sketch spoofing the hit teen film adaption of the hit teen novel, "The Fault in Our Stars". But instead of cancer, the beautiful lady here has Ebola.

Okay, the fact that the show was spoofing the film was funny enough, but taking the very-recent Ebola outbreak and using that as the twist of the pre-tape was genius. Silverman and Taran Killam made it work as the lady looking for love while battling the somehow-not-airborne disease and the guy who does love her but is trying to get away from her as possible. Kenan Thompson also did a great job as Terrance Howard (the voice works to his advantage).

Heaven/Joan Rivers
The Sketch After the Monologue takes place in Heaven as some of the most influential figures in history (at least some that the producers can find for resemblance with the cast), Eartha Kitt (Sasheer Zamata) as hostess, celebrate as another influential figure joins them in spirit. Her name: Joan Rivers (Sarah). Ms. Rivers then proceeds to roast on the figures joining her on the celestral stage: Richard Pryor (Pharaoh), Steve Jobs (Kyle Mooney?; couldn't tell), Ava Gardner (Cecily Strong), Benjamin Franklin (Bobby Moynihan), Freddie Mercury (Adam Levine, frontman of musical guest Maroon 5 and unfortunate previous host) and Lucille Ball (Kate McKinnon).

This sketch was a wonderful tribute to Ms. Rivers, who was the comedienne who paved the way for other comediennes to be who and where they are today. I will say that this sketch was funny, and would've been hilarious had Silverman not flub some of her lines. I did think this intentional because Rivers did flub lines sometimes, but I wasn't very sure. And of all the people who that did talk in this sketch, why did it have to be Mercury (Levine)? The impression was terrible, the slip-in of a line from one of Queen's songs wasn't needed and Levine only remotely looks like him. The plus here All in all, beautiful.

Whites Pre-Tape
Later on, another pre-tape; this time about...White people.

I didn't know why this exists, but it does. Even though I'm black, I did find it hilarious, more because of how awkwardly accurate it was; that the White race will no longer be the dominate race in America in the next few decades. The first time I saw this, I was weirded out that a pre-tape like this was made. But now I get it; and I can laugh at it. Especially at how nonchalant and happy they are.

After this, a skit about "Forgotten TV Gems", TV shows that no one watched and have been discovered today and brought to us by host Reese De'What (Kenan, of course). The show reviewed is "Supportive Women"

There were a few good laughs here and there, but it wasn't the best for me. Honestly, if they want to talk about "Forgotten TV Gems", they should take a look at NBC for a bit. (Hey-O!)

River Cruise
Next, on a steamboat cruise, passengers are treated to the performance of a "lunchtime" (no, not a typo; the guy really said that). The host (Kenan) introduces the crowd to Tina Turner impersonators (Silverman, SaZam and CecStrong). During their performance of "Proud Mary", their reveal some embarrassing moments previously in their lives. It's not pretty.
No, seriously. It's really not a pretty sketch. I was bored throughout the whole thing, and the jokes were really flat. A few were hits, but I was being generous here, because this one may have been the worst of the bunch, especially days after the show aired. I watched a report on Inside Edition that reveals that the writers and producers may have stolen ideas from a similar sketch by legendary comedy troupe The Groundlings. Ian Gary, a writer for the troupe, claims that the show swiped elements from a sketch they did not too long during the summer. Including wigs, costumes and concept (Tina Turner impersonators recount their pasts and how they became Tina Turner impersonators). But the jokes are different. Here's a quote from an article on The Hollywood Reporter's website:

"...over the years I have seen MANY, MANY sketches flat out stolen from my friends by Saturday Night Live. Nearly verbatim. Word for word... And everyone in our community goes 'Oh man. That sucks.' and nobody says anything because I guess SNL is still some dream for some people or they don't want to get involved, or a million other reasonable things that stop people from standing up for each other when things are blatantly wrong. This is fucked up. This is stupid. And we have the means to make people aware of blatant rip offs of other peoples material. It doesn't need to be a witch hunt. It doesn't need to be pointing fingers, assigning blame, or taking sides. But a simple case of what's right and wrong."

Here's the video of the Groundlings's sketch (starring Kimberly Condict and Vanessa Ragaland) for comparison: Wow. As much as I wanna elicit sympathy for the Groundlings, because the sketch was stolen, I will say that at least SNL improved on the concept, because that was bad. Really bad. I know the singing voices were intentional, but the slow music made it brain-burning boring. So...at least they could sing.

Home From Vacation
At least this next skit was original (I hope) and (I swear). A woman (Sarah) has come home from Amsterdam and reveals some shocking news to her brother (TKill) that, while there, she met a guy and cheated on her fiance Jeff (Moyni). [ouch] What makes this painful, is that Jeff is in the back seat, waiting to propose marriage to her. [ouch] Jeff is understandably pissed, and will continue to be now that a radio report (voiced by Kenan) gives the three news that after going to or coming from JFK will be bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles ahead, leaving them stuck for hours. [ouch] Then her parents (Kate Mc and Beck Benn) come from behind, hoping to celebrate a new marriage [OUCH], and Adam Levine also pops out, planning to sing "She Will Be Loved". [OUCH] So now, -- is left in her own conundrum, horrified and humiliated that the man she loves now knows she's a cheater. Okay, this was bitingly hilarious. How this was crafted together and executed made it well-done. This is my favorite of the night.

Vitamix
After that, a spoof on the informercial on kitchen appliances; this one a high-powed blender. The owner (Nessa B.) talks with her friend (Sarah) about how it works, and the amazed aquaintance then asks how much it costs. The woman tries to evade the cost topic to mention the blend options speeds and gets sidelined by the friend every time. She then says some out-of-left-field shit about her friend's income. A spat ensues. This sketch really puzzles me; not that it was terrible, but that this show is mostly humor, not melodrama. And this skit happens to be melodrama. It really grabbed me and almost made me feel sorry for the friend and see the blender owner as a bitch. Then the ending came in, and made me remember that it's a comedy show. It's not a bad sketch, but it wasn't great either.

This time around, the musical guest is Maroon 5. The partial namesake of the blog returned to the SNL music stage for the fifth time. The set-up (many strobe lights grouped around a huge V [named for their fifth album Five] [Why it isn't pronounced V like the roman numeral puzzles me.]) looked awesome as hell. The songs they performed were not. How they performed them, however, were. First up, "Animals". As you remember, I named this song as my pick for the third Worst Pop/Indie Song of 2014. But the performance of the song was...admittedly great. Especially at the end. The energy from Levine and the 6 guys who are also members of the band that still probably play, give off a vibe that can touch you and--no, that's sick. They had that energy you can feel--ew. Well, they just had that energy. Their second performance is "Maps". I was surprised when I realized that the song I liked more than Animals had a less than better performance than the former song. It was good, but somehow I like "Animals" better. Don't get me wrong, I still hate that song, but that performance was better. Overall, Maroon 5 did great for their fifth performance.


Update Time:
Part 1:

Part 2:


Well, Jost & Che have gotten better. While Che has gotten his act together and gotten more comfortable in his role, Jost, however, is still the same. He's slow, boring and has a blank stare that'll either put you to sleep or put you to death.

Kenan makes an appearance as Reverend Al Sharpton, discussing how African Americans believe that President Obama isn't protected well enough by the Secret Service. This part dragged on a bit, but Kenan did good as Sharpton. He kept it up and made it watchable to not bore me. Although the joke about mispronouncing words like MSNBC wore thin. Really thin.

The next segment involving Jost & Che asking each other which words they can't say, like Bae (stupid ass word!), toodle-loo (unless you have a death wish), In Da Club (which makes you look like a damn fool), and "Thank You for Your Help, Officer" was hilarious. It did give Jost more of a nicer vibe when interacting together.

The final segment featured Kate Mc & Silverman as a female music duo named Garage & Her. (And I don't give a damn what the true enunciation is, Garage; it ain't funny) They are here responding to news that Marvel has created a new female version of superhero Thor, so they sing a song about it about female identity and appreciation, which is basically saying that some things are a woman. The song was funny and sweet, and could be a good song to play to show that women are just important in the world. Sorta.
And with that from now on, my thoughts on Update will be shorter to something like "Jost is still boring me" and "Che is not", because why am I wasting my time with this; it's the same opinion over and over again.

Best Sketches:
Heaven/Joan Rivers
Home from Vacation
Vitamix
Whites
honorable mentions
Ebola in Our Everything
Obama/60 Minutes
Worst Sketches:
Forgotten TV Gems
River Cruise

So this was a pretty good episode. There were some jokes that made me really laugh and Silverman did a very good job doing her best being funny in the sketches, but shined in the monologue where she was the only one there. Most of the sketches were so-so some that were funny left a lot to be desired and the ones that fell flat fell flatter than the the new iPhone that gave many Asian carpel tunnel. Too bad.
The cast do get some chances to shine, but fall flat, too, except Pete Davidson. He didn't show up at all this week. I guess that "Would You Go Down on a Guy" bit he did landed him some sort of bye week; Poor guy.

Fortunately, there is the next review to lift us up. Tune in tomorrow when former Bill Hader returns to the SNL stage for his first time as host. You KNOW it's gonna be funny. I mean, STEFON!!
See you then!