piping hot content for your sexy bod
| whatevs (dot org) piping hot content for your sexy bod |
|
|
whatevs.org presents... by Jason Nummer Episode 20 - Zach Braff / Maroon 5 (5/19/07) | ||
|
CONEY RATING SYSTEM |
 |
0-10 Coneys – Garbage OAD = Original Air Date* (*To be fair, coneys will be awarded the same as they were the first time they aired) |
| PRE-SHOW COMMENTS |
|
The last episode of Season 32 is here. Will the season go out with a bang? History says no. Over the five seasons I’ve covered SNL for whatevs (dot org), we’ve yet to get a finale that ranked above the average range. Kevin Spacey’s episode last May perhaps came the closest with that great Usual Suspects parody from Samberg (not to mention a time traveling Falconer, Neil Young’s anti-war CD and the legendary history of Phillip Sarc). Still, often times the sight of that finish line after 20 long episodes proves too much to ignore and the writing gets sloppy, the music gets boring and the show turns into an absolute mess (see Season 29’s Olsen Twins/J-Kwon finale).
Looking to buck this trend, Zach Braff and Maroon 5 have been booked to close out 2006-2007. Braff, who’s latest film “The Ex” debuted at #12 on the box office chart last weekend, is great at getting a few geeky laughs here and there, but I doubt he’ll prove to be as effective as Molly Shannon was last week. With this in mind, I’m curious if SNL went after any stars from the May box office blockbusters? I would have loved a Mike Myers, Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley or hell, even a Thomas Haden Church episode to send the season out in style.
Still, for a season that can probably be viewed as the strongest since the departure of Will Ferrell, maybe they can pull off one more memorable show. Afterall, we are coming off the best episode since Piven stopped by in January. As for this being anyone’s last show? No solid rumors are floating around, but I’ll again guess Hammond and/or Maya. Both have been overdue for years. |
| THE GOOD | THE BAD |
|
Broken down, Maya and Poehler’s new “BJ and BJ” sketch was essentially a transformation of their snotty Bronx Beat characters into snotty high school girls, but damn those accents were funny. The assortment of timeless high school clichés used for their classmates (Forte’s Lionel Kane and Armisen’s Mets fan especially), were also surprisingly well done. If Maya and Poehler are both back for Season 33, look for this one to show up every few episodes. Funniest bit of the night.
Tonight was also a good episode for Bill Hader. Not only did he get to lead a sketch by himself again with the return of “La Rivista Della Televisione” (now with an intro featuring ALF and Brian Austin Green), but he also had some speaking roles in “Subletting Dog”, “Brian’s Assistant”, “BJ and BJ” and “Friends at the Bar”. With Season 32 now behind us, I’m surprised Hader didn’t log more air time than he did. After his wonderful “Al Pacino Balances his Checkbook” sketch from the season premiere, I thought he was well on his way to anchoring sketches on a semi-regular basis. Here’s hoping ’07-’08 is Hader’s breakout year. The talent is certainly there. |
Tonight’s episode was the very definition of “phoning it in”. As mentioned in my preshow comments, season finales often suffer from sloppy writing and bad music - both of which were strongly represented tonight. Starting with the comedy, five of tonight’s sketches were pulled from the recurring pool, Weekend Update used two often seen guests (Maya as Whitney Houston and Wiig as Aunt Linda) and the monologue was just another sing & dance cop out. In a season that gave us some truly memorable moments, apparently the worst was saved for last.
NBC’s Thursday comedy night mainstay Zach Braff didn’t do much to help the show either. To be honest, portions of the show felt like Braff was still stuck in 2004. Did anybody else notice how many times he brought up Garden State? It was at least three (once in the monologue, then in two sketches). Braff also played himself in two sketches, which for a comic actor, never bodes well in terms of creativity.
Speaking of Braff, I’m not sure why SNL bothered labeling him as host. Tonight’s show seemed to be all about one person: Maya Rudolph. Whether or not this signaled tonight as her last show remains unclear, but man, she was everywhere. Maya got her hands in 8 of the show’s 11 non-musical segments. Granted she was good in “BJ and BJ”, but the rest of her contributions were anything but funny. Did she really say “I’m comin’ to get you Bobby B” again? Give us a break. Maroon 5, in their second SNL appearance, also did nothing to get the show moving into high gear. When they weren’t stealing guitar riffs from The Police during “Won’t Go Home Without You”, they were busy continuing their quest to sound exactly like the poor man’s Jamiroquai (a critique I pointed out during their first SNL visit back in 2004). |
| THE BOTTOM LINE! |
|
It certainly didn’t go out with style, but Saturday Night Live’s 32nd season is now complete. Many speculated on the show’s future after the late Summer ‘06 purging of Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz, Chris Parnell and Finesse Mitchell, but as I predicted back in September, this move was a God send.
Season 32, for me, was defined by two people: Kristin Wiig and Will Forte. In Wiig’s case, the past 20 episodes saw her introduce great new recurring characters like Penelope, Aunt Linda and the cider/coffee on the porch lady as well as expanding on a few she introduced last season (Target Cashier and her half of the A-Holes and Awkward Co-Workers pair). She also had great one-off moments like February’s “Sloths” digital short and Baldwin’s driver in November’s “Carpool” sketch. Perhaps her biggest achievement was swiping the unspoken ‘Queen of SNL’ title away from the once bullet proof Amy Poehler. When Poehler hit the scene back in 2001, her presence was undeniable as all eyes began shifting from Will Ferrell to her. Jump ahead to 2006 and Poehler’s reign seems to be winding down. This past season saw her pre-occupied with movies (Blades of Glory, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, The Ex, Spring Breakdown, Shrek the 3rd, to name a few) and animated TV shows (next year’s Mighty B). As a result, most of her sketch work clearly went south – I mean, those Nancy Grace, Dakota Fanning and Kim Jong Il segments were almost unwatchable. What’s the moral here? While Poehler was away, Wiig played in a big way. A text book example on how someone early in their SNL career can successfully make a splash. Like Bill Hader, I can’t wait to see more of her in ’07-’08.
Of the seasoned players, the ’06-’07 episodes belonged to Will Forte. He could save a bad episode with things like “Slice Co.” (LaBeouf 4/14/07) as well as make great episodes like Molly Shannon or Jeremy Piven even better with his MacGruber trilogies. Things only got better last November when SNL’s resident George W. Bush job shifted to Jason Sudeikis – a role Forte never seemed overly comfortable with. Now free from spending a portion of each week prepping for his latest Presidential cold opening, Forte could once again retreat to his odd sense of humor and focus on devising bizarre sketches like “Half Time Pep Song” (Manning 3/24/07) or more “Awkward Co-Worker” segments (Bening 12/9/06 and Wilson 2/24/07). Season 32 marked Forte’s 5th season which is often times when cast members start slacking off a bit by getting too comfortable with their recurring characters. Not the case with Forte. He’s the most creative cast member Lorne has and it’s impossible to predict what he’ll come up with next. Easily SNL’s MVP.
As a whole, the season had some rough spots (notably an extremely inconsistent Spring ’07), but for the most part, it was the best batch of episodes SNL has seen since the 2001-2002 season. I’d also like to call for a raise for whoever booked the musical guest this past year. Last season had a strong musical presence as well, but Beck, Arcade Fire, Bjork, Tenacious D, Carrie Underwood and Lily Allen really put Year 32 on the map as far as live acts are concerned. Back in 2001, a few “best of” SNL musical guest live CDs were released. I think they definitely have enough new material to produce another batch. Nice work.
SNL will now go dark for about 4 months. In the meantime, go out and buy the Season 1 box set if you haven’t already. ABBA lip synching, Chevy Chase’s non-stop Francisco Franco jokes, Belushi’s hilarious “H&L Brock” sketches and those brilliant Albert Brooks films are a great way to quench that SNL thirst over the summer. |
|
CONEY COUNT |
| SKETCH | RATING |
1. Cold Opening: George W. Bush Address |  |
2. Monologue: Braff |  |
3. Digital Short: Subletting Dog | |
4. Sketch: BJ and BJ |  |
5. Sketch: Deep House Dish | |
6. Sketch: Cartoon by Robert Smigel: Decision ’08 – Spring Cleaning ‘07 | |
7. Sketch: Friends at the bar | |
8. Music: Maroon 5 “Makes me Wonder” | |
9. Weekend Update | |
10. Sketch: La Rivista Della Televisione | |
11. Sketch: Bronx Beat | |
12. Music: Maroon 5 “Won’t Go Home Without You” | |
13. Sketch: Brian’s Assistant | |
14. Linkin Park “Bleed it Out” | |
15. Sketch: Trump’s Steaks | |
16. Filmed Segment: MacGruber #3 | |
TOTALS | 23 /52 Coneys |
= John Belushi
= Amy Poehler
= Tim Meadows
= Melanie Hutzel
= Charles Rocket
= Self-Explanatory