Peyton Manning / Carrie Underwood
March 24, 2007
RATING SYSTEM:
***** - Future classic
**** - Almost perfect
*** - Average in every way
** - Eh
* - Is this 1994-95 again?
COLD OPENING: A Message from President Bush
- First time in a while that they’ve used Sudeikis as Bush.
- Fred as Alberto Gonzales making those nervous expressions when Bush was talking about him possibly going to jail were funny, as was him eventually walking off.
- The transition to LFNY was kinda abrupt.
RATING: ***
MONOLOGUE: Peyton Manning
- The Tom Brady/rings joke was hilarious.
- It was nice seeing his parents and Eli there and everything, but there wasn’t anything all that funny about this monologue. It just ended without there being a main joke or premise to it. I did laugh at him saying how his mom is a let down to the family for not being in football, though.
RATING: **1/2
COMMERCIAL: United Way
- Great parody of these “athletes working with kids” commercials. Peyton badmouthing and swearing at all those kids and hitting them with a football was hilarious. The tattoo part was the best part.
- I think I saw during the end credits that Akiva from Lonely Island directed this.
RATING: ****
SKETCH: Bronx Beat with Betty and Jodi
- Okay, this sketch is officially getting old. It was very good the first time, not quite as good the second time but still enjoyable, and now by the third time, the whole thing is wearing out. That’s what happens when you use the sketch three times in three months.
- I only laughed a few times, like at the birthing comments. But other parts like the phone call to Maya’s husband and all the other usual stuff in these sketches just felt tired this time around.
RATING: **
SKETCH: ESPN’s NCAA Tournament Pool Party
- Amy’s silly reasons for picking each team was funny at first, but then when it started getting old, they brought the laughs back with using “Peyton Manning” as a negative term and Peyton’s character getting miffed over it and eventually walking off the set. Sudeikis yelling for him at the end and saying “Don’t be a Peyton Manning!!” was good, too.
RATING: ***1/2
SKETCH: One-Upper Penelope
- Kristen was hilarious as this character, with her increasingly bizarre attempts to one-up others’ comments. I especially liked the part when Peyton intentionally said something outrageous about himself, and Kristen still wouldn’t stop talking about herself.
RATING: ***1/2
TV FUNHOUSE: Maraka
- First TV Funhouse in a long time. Obviously, Smigel’s been really busy this year.
- This was a hilarious Dora the Explorer parody. I loved all the random questions she would ask the audience. All the drawn-out pausing for the viewers to answer questions like all these children’s shows do was dead-on, too.
RATING: ****1/2
SKETCH: Dancing Basketball Coach
- Like I always say, you know the sketch is going to be very funny when you see that Forte has a leading role in it.
- Peyton talking about being so scared of the other team that a little pee came out of him got a big laugh out of me. Then it got even funnier when Forte talked about wetting his pants.
- Forte’s hilarious dancing had me dying so much, and it was also funny when Peyton joined him and he played Forte’s leg as a guitar. Forte’s dancing also broke up most of the castmembers in the background as you could see most of the guys trying not to laugh, especially Kenan and Peyton who tried to hide by putting their towels to their face. Even Hader was laughing a bit, which is very rare for him since he never breaks character. Armisen didn’t even try to hide his laughing. Only Sudeikis and I think Samberg were able to keep a straight face.
RATING: ****1/2
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
WEEKEND UPDATE: Poehler & Meyers, with Tim Calhoun and Sanjaya
- Best jokes: Slaves, McJob, Kosher Coke, Grand Canyon, Cat replacement, Chinese food
- When Amy started introducing the Tim Calhoun segment, she threw me off by talking about Al Gore and making me think that Darrell was going to do a commentary as Gore (where has Darrell been these last two weeks anyway?), but instead, we got Tim Calhoun!!!! He brought huge laughs as always, especially the Jack Abramoff and same sex position comments.
- Zoo News with Seth was a good segment and I really liked his Abigail Breslin comment.
- The random appearance of Samberg as that American Idol guy was a hilarious bit, especially when they cut to the audience and showed Dan Aykroyd(!!!!) as one of the crying audience members.
- A good bounce back after last week’s mediocre Update.
RATING: ****
SKETCH: 300
- A really, really stupid premise and this went pretty much nowhere. Despite that, there were still a few chuckles. Sudeikis got a few laughs out of me as the angry director, and I laughed at Peyton saying “I’m not an idiot, you know” and then later bizarrely calling out orders on the set at the end like he was the director. But really, I was expecting a funny punchline out of the whole refusal to throw the boulder, but got pretty much nothing.
- Forte as the impatient-looking actor who played a dead body in the background cracked me up, too, for some reason. He can make even silent roles funny (like in last week’s Italian Talk Show sketch where he just sat there eating meatballs and still made me laugh).
- Armisen really needs to cover up. Nobody needed to see his man boobage.
RATING: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
SKETCH: Coffee Chatting
- This also did this sketch when Jaime Pressly hosted earlier this season, but they were drinking cider instead of coffee in that sketch.
- This was still funny like the first one and all of Kristen and Peyton’s random disturbing comments in between sipping are a nice throwback to Bill Brasky, especially the pig’s vagina line at the end.
RATING: ***1/2
COMMERCIAL: Meatloaf Lovers Dream
- Another commercial parody starring Peyton tonight? I guess they’re doing all of these to make fun of all the commercials he’s been in this year.
- This started out kinda lame with the meatloaf oven in the car and the ketchup in the trunk and had me wondering what was supposed to be so funny, but then it got really funny with the pants-less and toilet seat parts.
- This kinda reminded me of the car for crazy people commercial with Will Ferrell.
RATING: ***1/2
COMMERCIAL: Air Force One
- Yet ANOTHER new commercial parody tonight? Wow.
- As expected, there’s been a lot of sports-related stuff tonight.
- I heard about this commercial getting cut from dress rehearsal before. Anyway, this was a good parody of those Nike commercials. The lousy basketball playing and the “With the way you play, you don’t need these shoes” tagline was great.
RATING: ***
GOODNIGHTS:
- Giving Peyton a birthday cake on stage was a really cool thing they did. I also like how the birthday cake had a replica of the SNL home base stage.
___________________________
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:
- Dancing Basketball Coach
- Maraka
- United Way
- Weekend Update
- Coffee Chatting
SHOW LOWLIGHTS:
- 300
- Bronx Beat
- Monologue
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Pretty good show, and a big step up from last week’s disappointment. Peyton Manning was actually very good for an athlete host and didn’t do badly at all. Most of the sketches were funny, and even the worst sketches weren’t too bad.
CASTMEMBER/HOST COUNT DOWN:
ARMISEN: 5 sketches (A Message from President Bush, Dancing Basketball Coach, Weekend Update, 300, Air Force One)
FORTE: 4 sketches (Dancing Basketball Coach, Weekend Update, 300, Air Force One)
HADER: 4 sketches (United Way, Penelope, Dancing Basketball Coach, Air Force One)
HAMMOND: 0 sketches
MEYERS: 1 sketch (Weekend Update)
POEHLER: 4 sketches (Bronx Beat with Betty and Jodi, ESPN’s NCAA Tournament Pool Party, Penelope, Weekend Update)
RUDOLPH: 2 sketches (Bronx Beat with Betty and Jodi, Penelope)
SAMBERG: 3 sketches (Dancing Basketball Coach, Weekend Update, Air Force One)
SUDEIKIS: 5 sketches (A Message from President Bush, ESPN’s NCAA Tournament Pool Party, Dancing Basketball Coach, 300, Air Force One)
THOMPSON: 3 sketches (Dancing Basketball Coach, 300, Air Force One)
WIIG: 4 sketches (Penelope, Weekend Update, 300, Coffee Chat)
PEYTON MANNING: 9 sketches (Monologue, United Way, Bronx Beat with Betty and Jodi, ESPN’s NCAA Tournament Pool Party, Penelope, Dancing Basketball Coach, 300, Coffee Chat, Meatloaf Lovers Dream)