[COLD OPENING] Department of Defense

Highlights:

· A few of the dick/fart jokes were funny, and it's still funny to hear DeNiro delivering them.

· The still photos of Fred, Horatio, and Forte as the terrorists made me laugh.

 

Lowlights:

· Not as funny as the last time they did this with DeNiro, and unlike that one which stayed funny the whole way through, the bathroom jokes in this one got old after a while.

 

Miscellaneous:

· Did anyone notice that DeNiro made a reference to "Dirty Dan the Garbage Man"? That was the name of Ben Affleck's character in the Z105 sketch when he hosted last season.

· What was up with that Christmas bumper picture they cut to for a split second towards the end?  Technical glitch, I guess.

 

Grade: C

 

 

[MONOLOGUE] Robert DeNiro sings with Kermit the Frog

Highlights:

· Nice to see the actual Kermit there. At first, I thought it was Forte doing the voice again, but after a while, you could tell it was the real voice of Kermit and it looked like the real puppet, too.

 

Lowlights:

· I was hoping this would have a funny punchline like the classic Kermit sketch with Justin Timberlake. Instead, it was just a serious song, which got boring.

 

Grade: C-

 

 

[COMMERCIAL] Woomba

Highlights:

· Finally, a new commercial! A pretty funny parody of the Roomba commercials.

· Maya being chased through the woods by the Woomba.

 

Lowlights:

· None.

 

Grade: B

 

 

[SKETCH] Pranksters

Highlights:

· The video with DeNiro cutting Parnell in half with the chainsaw.

· The Pac Man sound effect being used at the end to describe Seth's disappointment.

 

Lowlights:

· The rest of the sketch was pretty much laughless and this was nowhere near as funny as the original with Walken. There’s no way they can ever top that, so they should have at least changed the format of this installment and added new stuff instead of just doing a carbon copy of the Walken one.

 

Grade: D+

 

 

[SKETCH] Effeminate Son at Wedding

Highlights:

· Seth and Finesse suggestively dancing on each other.

· DeNiro's flashback.

 

Lowlights:

· Another lazy gay stereotype sketch.

 

Grade: D+

 

 

[NEXT LIVE SHOW] January 15, 2005: Jennifer Garner

· I'm not all that happy about her coming back. She herself wasn’t that bad of a host last time, but that episode was really bad and one of the worst episodes from 02-03. Let’s hope the writing is better this time. And they better not bring back that annoying Wal-Mart sketch she did with Amy. I seem to be one of the few people who couldn’t stand that sketch.

 

 

[SKETCH] Prince Christmas Special

Highlights:

· Prince's DeNiro "impression".

· Some of the other weird actions Prince did.

 

Lowlights:

· I used to like this sketch, but it's getting stale and formulaic. They could be doing a lot of crazy stuff with this, yet they always keep it in the same dull format each time and the guests are never really that funny.

· Where the heck was the real Beyonce? I figured the only reason they were doing this tonight was because Destiny's Child is the musical guest and I assumed they were going to do something special with Maya doing her Beyonce impression next to the real deal, so it seems pointless to not have Beyonce appear in this.

 

Grade: C

 

 

[TV FUNHOUSE] Santa skips the red states

Highlights:

· The "Dumbf***istan" joke.

· The scene with Rush Limbaugh.

· The kids' gifts being Margaret Cho and Al Franken CDs.

 

Lowlights:

· Dragged during a few parts, and I wish for once this season, Smigel would do a non-political cartoon.

 

Grade: B

 

 

[SKETCH] Donald Trump's Christmas Promo

Highlights:

· A great follow-up to the Trump Halloween promo, which is one of my favorite sketches of the season so far.

· Darrell's Trump impression.

· Trump pronouncing Chanukah "Cha-noo-kaha".

 

Lowlights:

· None.

 

Grade: A

 

 

[MUSICAL PERFORMANCE]

 

 

[WEEKEND UPDATE] Fey & Poehler, Leviticus, Brad & Abe Scheinwald

Highlights:

· Amy's Barbara Bush joke.

· Rob was hilarious in his Leviticus segment. He really needs roles like this more often to show off his stuff instead of getting stuck with small straight man roles all the time.

· Tina's Madonna joke.

· Amy's Mike Tyson joke.

· Rachel's facial expressions and voice as Abe Scheinwald always make me laugh.

 

Lowlights:

· Tina's Zell Miller joke.

· Tina's Abraham Lincoln joke.

· Tina's Barbra Streisand joke.

· Amy's Tom Cruise joke.

· The Scheinwalds bit mostly fell flat and wasn't as funny as the sketches they did with them last season.

 

Grade: C

 

 

[SKETCH] Undercover in the Italian Mafia

Highlights:

· Horatio talking about playing stickball with Rocky Balboa, The Mario Brothers, etc. 

· The way Fred kept saying that one line cracked me up.

 

Lowlights:

· Dead in most parts and could have been much funnier.

· The Goodfellas "How am I funny?" parody was just lame and lazy. Was that the best the writers could do tonight for a parody of one of DeNiro's classic movies? That's just sad.

 

Miscellaneous:

· Did anyone notice at the end when Horatio started cracking up as usual, Seth seemed visibly annoyed with him and actually muttered an out-of-character "You blew it" under his breath, then rolled his eyes?  I find this interesting.  It seems that even the CAST is now annoyed by Horatio's unprofessional crack-ups. Is the cast secretly members of this board???

 

Grade: D

 

 

[MUSICAL PERFORMANCE]

 

 

[SKETCH] Christmas with the Cat Lady

Highlights:

· None.

 

Lowlights:

· What the hell was the point of this and why was the audience laughing so much? This wasn't funny at all and only seemed to be an excuse to have DeNiro in drag.

 

Grade: F

 

 

[FILM] Bear City

· I'm not even gonna bother with this.

 

 

[MISCELLANEOUS] Season's Greetings from Saturday Night Live

Highlights:

· I was wondering how they were going to do this song tonight without Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, or Tracy Morgan there anymore, but having Horatio do it with the Muppets in Jimmy, Kattan, and Tracy's places was a great idea. This was really fun to watch.

 

Lowlights:

· None.

 

Grade: A

 

________________________________________

 

Overall Episode Grade: C

 

Overall Highlights:

· Woomba.

· Donald Trump's Christmas Promo.

· The Leviticus commentary on Weekend Update.

· Season's Greetings from Saturday Night Live.

 

Overall Lowlights:

· DeNiro once again did a lousy job of hosting. Just like last time, he didn't look happy to be there at all, didn't show any range, kept staring right at the cue cards, and flubbed a lot of lines.

· Monologue.

· Beyonce not being written into the Prince sketch.

· Undercover in the Italian Mafia.

· Christmas with the Cat Lady.

· Bear City.

 

Best Lines:

· Darrell Hammond as Donald Rumsfeld: "I'll be taking your questions, provided that nobody here is a member of the United States military."

 

· Robert DeNiro as Craig Fenton: "It seems that the Diyah Reyah dirty family business runs in their genes."

 

· Amy Poehler: "It was reported that while at the White House Christmas party, first daughter Barbara Bush smashed her head on the dance floor when a friend she was dancing with dipped her too low. That friend? Captain Morgan."

 

· Tina Fey: "It was reported that Guy Ritchie has cast his wife, Madonna, in a small walk-on role in his new movie 'Revolver'. Madonna will play the part of the woman who ruins the film."

 

· Amy Poehler: "Mike Tyson this week completed 100 hours of community service hosting kids in a Brooklyn gym.  'I'm so glad the 100 hours is up and now I can relax and get on with my life', said one of the kids."

 

· Horatio Sanz as Sanders: "We used to play stickball together behind the Olive Garden with Pauly Walnut, Rocky Balboa, the Mario Brothers…they were all there! Donkey Kong, Vinny Testaverde...”

 

CASTMEMBER COUNT DOWN:

ARMISEN: 3 sketches (Department of Defense / Prince Christmas Special / Undercover in the Italian Mafia)

DRATCH: 4 sketches (Department of Defense / Woomba / Effeminate Son at Wedding / Weekend Update)

FEY: 2 sketches (Woomba / Weekend Update)

FORTE: 2 sketches (Department of Defense / Undercover in the Italian Mafia)

HAMMOND: 2 sketches (Department of Defense / Donald Trump’s Christmas Promo)

MEYERS: 6 sketches (Department of Defense / Pranksters / Effeminate Son at Wedding / Donald Trump’s Christmas Promo / Weekend Update / Undercover in the Italian Mafia)

PARNELL: 2 sketches (Pranksters / Effeminate Son at Wedding)

POEHLER: 4 sketches (Woomba / Effeminate Son at Wedding / TV Funhouse / Weekend Update)

RUDOLPH: 4 sketches (Woomba / Effeminate Son at Wedding / Prince Christmas Special / TV Funhouse )

SANZ: 3 sketches (Department of Defense / Undercover in the Italian Mafia / Season’s Greetings from Saturday Night Live)

MITCHELL: 3 sketches (Department of Defense / Effeminate Son at Wedding / Prince Christmas Special)

RIGGLE: 3 sketches (Department of Defense / Weekend Update / Undercover in the Italian Mafia)

THOMPSON: 3 sketches (Pranksters / Prince Christmas Special / Undercover in the Italian Mafia)

 

Seth stood out the most tonight. 

 

See ya in '05.

 

 

THE END

Back to Season 30 (2004-05)