Lucy Liu / Jay-Z
December 16, 2000
Hi, I'm Stooge, and if you're sitting down, then stand
up, fall on the floor, roll around, and sit back down
again. Here's tonight's review:
The second week in a row we went through a live
episode without Sean Bradley posting sketch spoilers
to his page. As a matter of fact, his page hasn't
been updated since Thanksgiving. He hasn't even added
any reviews for the Val Kilmer episode that I'm sure a
lot of people, including me, sent him. I hope he's
alright. Has anyone here e-mailed him?
Overview:
Lucy Liu is hosting. It's kind of surprising that
she's hosting since Calista Flockhart, who is
currently from the same show Lucy Liu is on (Ally
McBeal), hosted a few episodes ago. I'm not very
excited about the host. I expect either a Charlie's
Angel's spoof or an Ally McBeal spoof with Rachel
Dratch playing Calista Flockhart. I also expect SNL
to do a spoof of Bush being our new president.
COLD OPENING: Gore and Bush at Chi-Chi's:
- Man, they could put Bush and Gore anywhere. Next
thing you'll know, they'll put these two at Chuck E.
Cheese's.
- Too bad Gore lost the elections. I was hoping he
would win for Darrell's sake since all he ever really
does is impressions of Clinton and Gore. I don't
think he'll leave mid-season like I said a long time
ago on this board, but since he can't do Gore
frequently anymore, he'll probably be underused.
- On the other side, I'm happy that Bush won because
Will Ferrell's Bush impression is hilarious and never
gets too boring like Darrell's Gore. This is most
likely Ferrell's last season, so I wonder who they're
going to get to play Bush after he leaves.
- Darrell really has his fans. The audience applauded
when he just walked on-screen as Gore.
- Chris Kattan always plays waiters. This season
premiere's Blind Date sketch for example, and there's
countless other examples.
- Will Ferrell said "Live from New York" as Bush in
nearly every episode this season.
- Your usual great Gore and Bush sketch.
Rating: *****
MONOLOGUE: Lucy Liu's Behind the Scenes Video:
- When they showed Lucy polishing Lorne's nails, I
noticed on the clipboard behind Lorne, there was some
pics of bumpers of hosts. Most noticable was the
bumper of Brendan Fraser.
- This was funny. I always like to see what it's like
behind the scenes of SNL, and to see what the cast
members are like as themselves.
Rating: ****
COMMERCIAL: William Shatner  Priceline.com
- One of Darrell's few terrible impressions. John
Travolta is his other one.
- At first, I thought this was going to be the same
William Shatner commercial from the Julianna Margulies
episode, but I think this one is different. They both
were weak.
- I didn't like this at all, nor did I see anything
funny about it.
Rating: *
SKETCH: TRL
- I've seen this real show a few times in between now
and the last time SNL did this sketch in the Charlize
Theron episode, so I understand this sketch a little
more.
- Maya messed up on the word 'journey'.
- This was okay, but not any much different from the
other TRL spoof done. The only difference is Lucy's
character. I didn't think they'd bring this sketch
back since Charlize Theron was one of the Gemini's
Twins.
- Maya looked sexy in that outfit she wore in the
music video.
Rating: ***
During the commercials, when they showed the set being
assembled, I heard the announcer lady say "Jeopardy,
please set yourself". Could it be??? A celebrity
jeopardy sketch? Oh, please, let it be!
SKETCH: Celebrity Jeopardy:
- Yes, it is a CJ sketch! I always love these
sketches. I know some people here think SNL does this
sketch too much, be c'mon, they only twice a year.
- Jimmy's Robin Williams impression was hilarious and
almost dead-on, but, like most of his impressions, he
didn't look a damn thing like him, but he sounded and
acted just like him.
- I'm not sure how accurate Lucy's Catherine
Zeta-Jones impression was since I've never saw her
before.
- Darrell's Connery is still funny, like when he
messes up the titles (The Penis Mightier, Ape Tit,
Famous Tities, and our new one today, Anal Bum Cover)
and his always making fun of Trebek's mother, but he
always plays Connery. I think the only other person
he played on CJ was Phil Donahue. They have to give
him some other people to do, because there is hardly
anybody he can't imitate perfectly (John Travolta and
William Shatner being the exceptions).
- Will's Alex Trebek is always welcome, but it isn't
accurate at all.
- Did anybody notice that after Will read off the
"Make Any Noise" title, somebody in the audience made
a "yeee" noise?
- The part where Sean Connery called Robin Williams
"Legally retarted" was hilarious.
- You could tell that Jimmy's hand with a pen through
it was fake since you could see his real hand holding
the fake hand in his sleeve.
- Your usual excellent Celebrity Jeopardy. I'm glad
they brought this back.
Rating: *****
NEXT WEEK: SNL's Christmas Past. I thought they would
tell us who would be the host of the next live
episode, but maybe they don't know yet.
During the commercials, I heard the announcer lady say
"Please set youself for Joyology". Oh, no!!!! Not
Pretty Living! Not Helen Madden!! Please don't let
it be..aw, what the heck, I know it is.
SKETCH: Pretty Living:
- At first, I thought that was Maya instead Lucy.
- Your usual terrible Pretty Living skit. Not even
Lucy saved this.
Rating: *
SKETCH: Jarret's Room:
- You know this is going to be recurring, and it
shouldn't be because it's weak, but you know SNL.
- This sketch was weak. I hardly laughed at all.
Chris Parnell's character was the only funny thing.
Horatio was mildly funny.
- I noticed something about Jimmy Fallon. When he
says corny, unfunny lines, he always stops and looks
at the camera and expects the people in the audience
to laugh, and guess what, it doesn't happen, and after
a few seconds, they laugh a little bit just to be
nice. I saw this happen lots of times with him,
especially in this sketch, like after he made a corny
joke about Hampshire College, and after he said
something about coming out of the shower and watching
his stepmom, he stared at the camera expecting the
audience to laugh, and they didn't. The same thing
happened during this episode's WU. Read my WU review
for further details.
Rating: **
WEEKEND UPDATE with Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey:
- Is it me, or did Tina's hair look different?
- Jimmy's first joke about Bush bombed (mostly cause
he mumbled some words), and the audience laughed after
a few seconds of silence, just to be nice. You can
see Jimmy's awkward response when he looks nervously
at Tina. That was what I laughed at.
- Why'd they get Rachel to play James Madison? I
think she's played more guys on SNL than she's played
girls. There was Elian Gonzales, the British urchin
last year with Jennifer Aniston, that singer with
Sting in the Music Awards sketch from the Dana Carvey
episode, and I'm sure there were more that I can't
remember now. Rachel's part wasn't funny, and it
would've been funnier if they got a guy doing this. I
would laugh more if it was Chris Kattan as James
Madison.
- What the hell was with Chris Kattan's part? This
was random, but it had no point. It was sort of funny
to see Chris Kattan in a diaper and wearing a
pacifier, but the overall sequence was bad and very
strange. Also, it looked like Kattan tripped on the
floor when he walked away.
- Ever since the "New Years Bit" with Kattan, Jimmy
had a piece of confetti stuck in hair for the rest of
WU, and it's funny how he didn't even notice it.
- Hmm, John Goodman's sitcom got cancelled. Who
didn't see that coming? Most new sitcoms nowadays
suck.
- What was with Jimmy's guitar song? It would make
sense if Jimmy was just a correspondent instead of an
anchorperson. And also, I don't like it when Jimmy
does these songs. I didn't like it when Adam Sandler
did it when he was a cast member, and I don't like it
when Jimmy does it now. The only kick I got outta
this was seeing Jimmy go into the audience while he
was singing. Reminded me of Bono's performance last
week. But I noticed that when NBC showed a commercial
of this episode a half hour before it began, they
showed a clip from the dress rehearsal version of this
WU and Jimmy was wearing a blue sweater during his
song instead of a red one like he wore during the live
version. Wonder why they changed his sweater.
- The worst WU of the season. A lot of jokes bombed,
and all the correspondents were bad.
Rating: **1/2
SKETCH: Ornaments on the Christmas Tree:
- This was poor. Not one laugh out of me. This was
too cheesy and not funny.
- At first, I couldn't tell who that was playing the
California Raisin, then I realized that was Horatio.
- Was that Darrell Hammond as Santa? I couldn't tell.
Rating: *
SKETCH: Robert Goulet
- As soon as this began, I knew this was going to be a
Robert Goulet sketch. The other one from earlier this
season also opened up with the announcer interviewing
old people. Well, Will's Robert Goulet is funny,
though, so I'm not complaining about this being
recurring.
- This was good. Adding Jay Z and his rappers here
was a nice touch.
- Did Will say "fuck"? I swear he did. But it also
sounded like "fluck". I'm not sure. I guess we'll
find out when this episode is rebroadcast. If he did
say "fuck", all I have to say is 'Wow!' Last time
they did this sketch, he got away with saying the n-word,
and now he said fuck? I have to wonder what they'll get
away with in the next Robert Goulet sketch.
Rating: ***1/2
MISCELLANEOUS: Happy Holidays from Jimmy Fallon and
Tina Fey:
- This was random. At first, I thought it was going
to be serious, but then the hobo came on screen, and
Jimmy said "Who the f*** are you?" That part was
funny, but I can't really grade this because it wasn't
a sketch or anything.
MISCELLANEOUS: Christmas Time is Here
- Why the hell did they bring this back, after they
did this last week? I love SNL, but they make
recurring sketches out of everything nowadays. This
was the exact same thing they did last week, with
Horatio singing the same lyrics, Jimmy playing the
piano and doing a terrible job of keeping a straight
face, Kattan holding the piano, and Tracy running in
place. The only difference was there wasn't a
Christmas tree in the background and Horatio, Jimmy,
Chris, and Tracy were wearing green instead of red. I
still don't know how to grade this. SNL is running
out of ideas.
GOODNIGHTS: What's the use? You know they didn't run
the full credits. There has yet to be an episode this
season with the full ending credits.
Overall Grade for Tonight: C
This episode has some really good sketches (CJ, Gore
and Bush), but then the rest of the show really bad
sketches (Ornaments, Pretty Living, Jarret's Room).
This show was weak and heavily weighed down by the bad
sketches. There weren't really much surprises
tonight, except for maybe if Will Ferrell really said
the "F" word during the Robert Goulet sketch. Lucy
Liu was good here and played a good variety of comedic
roles, but they should've gave her better material to
work on. Where were the Charlie's Angels and Ally
McBeal spoofs? I'm glad to see that even though Gore
lost, Darrell is still in a lot of sketches. I
mentioned before that there was a rumor going around
that this is Molly Shannon's last show. I'm almost
sure it isn't true, but we'll wait in the next live
episode to find out. I'm sure this is Molly's last
season, though.
Cast Member sketch count:
Jimmy Fallon: 7 sketches
Will Ferrell: 4 sketches
Ana Gasteyer: 3 sketches
Darrell Hammond: 5 sketches (I think he was Santa in
the ornaments sketch)
Chris Kattan: 4 sketches
Tracy Morgan: 2 sketches
Chris Parnell: 2 sketches
Horatio Sanz: 3 sketches
Molly Shannon: 3 sketches
Rachel Dratch: 3 sketches
Tina Fey: 2 sketches (she hardly appears in anything
else other than WU)
Jerry Minor: 1 sketch
Maya Rudolph: 2 sketches
(yeah, I counted the pre-taped behind the scenes
appearances in the monologue as cast member counts
too, in case you're wondering).
Jimmy Fallon was the star tonight, and Will Ferrell
wasn't used much as he usually is. Darrell Hammond
was used more than Will, which is rare. Please
correct me if I'm wrong on the cast member sketch
count.
Well, that's my review, everyone. Good night.