(S32E17) I was tremendously surprised -- and pleased -- to hear that Shia LaBeouf would get to host SNL. Back in middle school, I would watch his Disney show, Even Stevens, all the time, because I thought LaBeouf was pretty much the funniest guy ever. I haven't seen anything he's done since Holes, but it looks like he'll soon be tough to avoid. Now, he has a new movie, Disturbia, along with Indiana Jones IV in the works. A rising star, he is. His enthusiasm and natural goofiness worked really well with the other cast members and, even though he wasn't given the best material, LaBeouf did a fantastic job.Cold Open ("To Don Imus..."): This was okay, I suppose. I liked the photos of Imus' punishments, but everything else was kind of "blah". This just reminded me that the SNL folks don't use Darrell Hammond well enough to justify keeping him on the cast for such a long time.
Monologue: I thought this was sloppily put together, but enjoyable. "Disney, Nickelodeon! Disney, Nickelodeon!" Yes, it was strange to see two kids' show guys on SNL together. I suppose not every Disney Channel star is doomed to performing crappy pop ballads for all time. And, dude, was that a llama in the back when Shia was talking to Amy? Awesome.
"Hathaway Moustache Ride Company": Alec Baldwin! Awesome facial hair! Moustache ride jokes! Umm... Yay?
"Prince Show": Prince's Spiderman impression was precious and Nancy Grace's booty-dancing was fierce. Oh, and it feels like every time they air this sketch, the hair and make-up people try less and less to make Maya Rudolph look like Beyonce. Honestly, this is very important, since her impression isn't that strong in the first place.
"ID": As soon as I saw Andy Samberg walk in with that ridiculous, crooked moustache, I knew what that sketch was going to be about. I thought this was a very funny sketch, but the abrupt ending felt like kind of a cop-out... Or maybe it was just too typical of a punchline for me to appreciate.
"The Dakota Fanning Show": The Suite Life of Zack and Cody! Kill me. And Avril Lavigne as little(r) Fanning! Double kill me. On a more positive note, Kenan's facial expressions get better and better.
"SNL Digital Short": Oh, dear. I could not stop laughing at this. It was like every bad "hip" indie film I've seen in the past three years. Sweeping, over-dramatic moments paired with Imogen Heap music ("Hide and Seek", in case any of you were wondering). Hilarious.
"Sofa King": I'm sure I would have found this a lot funnier if I hadn't already seen that "I'm sofa king we todded" sketch from Kids In The Hall. The family's unibrows were pretty sweet, though.
"Weekend Update": Apparently, all gay people from Connecticut sound like Thurston Howell, III from Gilligan's Island. For the most part, this was a mediocre WU.
"Knives": Ahh, blood spray is easy for laughs. It was during this sketch that I felt the evening begin to draw to a close and, as I watched LaBeouf scurry off-screen and leave Will Forte to bleed to death, I wished that they had used him a bit more prominently.
"An Intimate Moment with John Mayer and Jessica Simpson": Wiig did Jessica Simpson's weird baby-like voice perfectly. And Hader's facial expressions were perfect. And that was about it. This was insanely short! Y'know what? I'm just going to pretend the brevity was a reflection on the shallowness of the relationship and not because the writers couldn't think of any more material.
"Maya/Shia": Wow. What? How desperate were they to fill time?
Avril Lavigne: Her music makes me want to hurt small mammals. However, I must admit that I like how her current music is annoyingly pop-y and pretty much the opposite of all that she so adamantly stood for a few years ago.
Next time: Scarlett Johansson and Bjork. Sweet.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-15-2007 @ 2:51AM
mike m said...
Middle School? wow. I don't mean for it to be taken the wrong way, I'm not criticizing for age. I'm just shocked because I was teaching Middle School when Even Stevens was on......
I feel old. lol
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4-15-2007 @ 4:30AM
BigTed said...
I thought this episode was okay, but nothing really made me laugh. LeBeouf still looks 14 (the slicked-back hair doesn't help), and he was perfectly pleasant but had very little charisma. (Which is the problem with most of this year's cast.)
I was actually looking forward to Avril Lavigne -- her earlier hits were guilty pleasures of mine -- but both of these new songs sounded more like cheerleaders' chants than catchy pop tunes.
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4-15-2007 @ 5:10AM
Joe said...
Hey! Hey! You! You! I don't like your music!
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4-15-2007 @ 6:04AM
matthew said...
Good blog. Thanks for including the name of the Imogen Heap song, too. I thought the episode was ok. The digital short got my biggest laugh.
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4-15-2007 @ 7:35AM
Clint said...
I thought it was a decent episode, but nothing spectacular. Unfortunately that seems to be the norm now for this show. Thank you very much Seth Myers!
http://www.tvdeuce.com
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4-15-2007 @ 8:53AM
Jim said...
I missed the first half hour but thought the rest of the show was pretty darn strong (relative to the rest of the season). I was hoping to come on here and read that I only missed another Deep House Dish or Nunis.
I'm sure it will be rerun in two or three weeks.
P.S. What's with the Digital Short vote? Is there any doubt that Dick In A Box will win in a landslide?
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4-15-2007 @ 9:51AM
allen said...
Middle School!?!?!? Even Stevens debuted in 2000. So,seven years ago you were in middle school? Not even high school? So, you are, what, 20?
I am not commenting on your age, fine, everyone has to be young at some point, but, rather, I am not sure that the critical voice of comedic subjectivity ought to be someone whose frame of reference goes back to barely yesterday.
Comedy is hugely subjective.
I am confused. You don't like the Dakota Fanning sketch? Because Pohler is fantatstic. Subtle and over the top at the same time. And the premise of the the sketch, while not often changing, if stil funny.
The thing about this edition of SNL that got me was who it was aimed at. Pairing Lavigne with LaBeouf is not by accident. This was an installment of SNL directed at the youth market.
Referencing the Suite Life of Zack and Cody (Don't get me started, shouldn' that be Suite LIVES??????? for god's sake. They aren't one person), and other comments like the Nickelodeon/Disney, made it apparent that a) they didn't bring their "A" game cuz, who gives a crap, it's Nick Jr. viewers and "B", there is no B. This was a tossaway SNL. Shia has two movies coming out, Disturbia and Transformers, two big movies and Indiana Jones. It was 90 minutes of promotion. There would be no reason to do great material, since they know that the only people watching are Shia LaB's fans and the rest of America saying, "Um....honey? What the f*ck is a Shia LaBeouf?
This is what dissapoints me about TV Squad. Sometimes the writers seem to know what they are talking about and feel like they are on the precipice of journalism. Other (most) times, it feels like a high school newspaper.
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4-15-2007 @ 10:50AM
Annie W. said...
I didn't say I didn't enjoy the "Dakota Fanning Show" sketch... On the contrary, I found it quite funny. I just don't like "Suite Life" or Avril Lavigne. They make my skin crawl.
And I fail to see why my appreciation and understanding of comedy programs cannot be accepted just because of my age. Would it have been better if the review was written by someone older and completely unfamiliar with LaBeouf, wondering, "Honey... What the fuck is a Shia LaBeouf?" If it soothes your soul, feel free to imagine that I entered school late or failed 7th grade multiple times and was actually much older than the average middle school student. Say I'm actually 25 years-old now... Or older. Whatever you care to imagine.
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4-15-2007 @ 10:54AM
automag5 said...
Whine whine whine. There are too many middle aged "critics" out there who think their perspective on entertainment is handed down from god (or at least it seems that way). This is a young world. Gonna have to accept that sooner or later.
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4-15-2007 @ 11:06AM
Pamela said...
I'm 59 years old, and when the guest host was announced, I did say, "Who the fuck is Shia LaBeouf?" to my husband. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought he was very funny and charming, and a great fit on on SNL.
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4-15-2007 @ 11:21AM
mike m said...
I don't know. I kind of see both sides. As I was the first to be shocked that you were in Middle School when this show came on, I'll throw my 2 cents in the pond.
It isn't that I don't trust what you say. It's that I imagine most readers of TVS are slightly older than you...say mid 20's to late 30's as a demographic.
That said, your perspective on comedy is slightly skewed by the fact that its likely you haven't lived long enough to perhaps experience the greats. If you were in MS in 2000, then you never saw Seinfeld really, and thats a major contemporary. Let alone Cosby, Pryor, Carlin, Married with Children, The classic SNL's with Belushi and Murphy, Chase, even Sandler and Mike Meyers, Dick Van Dyke, The Bob Newheart Show, MTM, the list goes on.
I'm not actually criticizing. I think that anyone these days could write a weblog and I don't think you do a bad job at it. However, for anyone over the age of 23, this show was stale, by about 7 years. You could have had LaBeouf and Avril on back when you were still in MS, and it wouldn't be much different than now, because both are "child stars that won't go away".
He's a "rising star" because of some movie that no one except the 12-25 crowd will see....that being Disturbia
and he was in I-Robot with Will Smith, but he's still trying to land roles, so I'm not confident that IJ4 is going to help either.
My point is, you're seeing it from some other perspective, so when you make comments like that, it's no wonder others would question your objectivity.
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4-15-2007 @ 11:23AM
Nick said...
No videos?
My Tivo is broken, so I was unable to watch it. It didn't sound all that funny, but being an agnostic, I need to have something to do Sunday morning.
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4-15-2007 @ 12:43PM
Ross Gould said...
Hey leave Seth Myers alone! He's too cute and besides hes my new gay boyfriend :)
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4-15-2007 @ 11:40AM
Annie W. said...
Actually, 'The Cosby Show' was one of my favorite programs when I was little. My eyes were glued to TV Land and Nick @ Nite for many years. I would watch 'Married with Children' whenever I spotted it during channel-surfing. And I went through a crazed 'Seinfeld' phase in late middle school, right after my "I must learn everything about SNL" period. I wanted to be an SNL cast member, so I read up on the entire history and watched every old episode I could get my hands on (I knew everything from "Jane, you ignorant slut" to "Hello, my name is Simon, and I like to do drawwwwings..."). In eighth grade, my friends and I discovered George Carlin and wouldn't shut up about him.
And that's just elementary and middle school.
Sorry, Nick, but there are no videos for this post. NBC didn't put any of the sketches on YouTube this week, and if I add someone else's videos, they'll just get taken down anyway.
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4-15-2007 @ 11:47AM
mike m said...
well as I said "its likely you haven't lived long enough to perhaps experience the greats" Even if you have, your perspective may seemed skewed to some. Which is why I said, I'm not really criticizing, trying to see it from both angles. I trust you have a zeal for comedy...but even that doesn't quite equate to cultural understanding of the time if I'm honest. And while it may still be "funny" It is a different funny 20 and even 30 years later than it was when it was originally on. However, it is nice to know you have such a zeal for comedy.
As a historian, I'm cautioned to try to be objective. And as I stated in my first post, I'm just shocked because I was teaching MS when you were in MS and I feel old.
My point still stands though on LaBeouf and Avril. They are 5 years ago...at least.
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4-15-2007 @ 11:48AM
Mandy said...
The only time I laughed last night was during Weekend Update (the one-liners, not the Imus and Connecticut stuff), which is unusual for me. But overall I didn't think the episode sucked, I just didn't think it was good. So even though it didn't make me laugh, it also didn't make me wish I had an icepick to gouge my eyes out. I guess that makes it a pretty good episode for this season.
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4-15-2007 @ 12:21PM
allen said...
My intent wasn't really to attack you and I apologize for that. But, on the topic of age, maturity and reference, I think we are right here. Just because I think you are too young to have adequate comedy reference points doesn't mean that the answer is someone "middle aged". Actually, age doesn't matter, but a sense of the history of the medium you are writing about is.
For instance, regarding SNL a lot should be said about the way the show has changed. How it evolved or devolved. From the hip, anti-comic atitude of the late 70's. (Are you familiar with anti-comedy? Because it isn't against comedy. Instead, it was a reaction to the broad slapstick of the previous decades. Bill Murray, Steve Martin, David Letterman, these were all practitioners of the ironic, anti-comic persona.) And then, the more heady, smarter comedy of the mid 80's when Conan started writing and the show just seemed smarter. And the 90's when the dumbing down of america could be pointed to the SNL era of Sandler/Schnerider/Farley. Frat humor based less on being clever and more on debased comedy.
So, now here we are. SNL is an institution. It has survived for over 30 years. No one thought that would ever happen. It isn't the litmus test for highbrow humor anymore. Back in the day the Lampoon folks all wanted to work on the show. Now, the Onion guys would rather work on the cutting edge of The Daily Show.
So, it is with this eye that I look at last night's installment (its not really an episode since it doesn't have a continuing story). And I recognize that it is not really a "funny" show. It's a corporate clusterf*ck. The studios have a lot of money behind LaBoof right now. After weeks and weeks of interesting Indie Rock bands suddenly they trot out Avril (created by Machiavelli himself) Levine. It's perfect synergy. It's cynical and not for everyone. In fact, it was ONLY for the toddler set.
Perhaps Lorne is smarter than the rest of us. After all, new generations determine the marketplace. The Boomers are over. Gen X is now exiting the coveted 18-34 demographic. Gen Y (I guess that's you, right?) is entering their heydey, but the future is coming right behind them.
All I am interested in is persepective.
If you are going to review a program with a subjective eye and it is one that has such a rich and diverse history and influence on the pop culture landscape it's important that you know the difference between The Marx and The Ritz brothers. Sid Ceaser and his writers (Woody Allen, Mel Brooks). The glorious reign of MTM productions and Norman Lear and just why they were important. (Too many important shows to mention), not just what you have seen on Nick at Nite and not just Seinfeld.
Because more than anything, what we laugh at is a mirror on our society and is a testament to what our culture was all about at the time.
It's an honor to write about. Just give a little more care to your subject. Otherwise it's just blogging. And bad blogging at that. And, after Kimmel skewered that "editor" from Gawker, it's not a good time to be cavalier about what and how you write.
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4-15-2007 @ 12:59PM
KateG said...
I liked the last sketch, "...an old man will teach me to fish using guacamole and THEEESE..." I'm paraphrasing, but that had me laughing.
I'm almost 40 and I know who Shia is. He is definitely a star on the rise. Plus he just made me a lot of fake money on Hollywood Stock Exchange.
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4-15-2007 @ 12:59PM
ac said...
I'm in high school and I still said, "Who the fuck said Shia Labeouf?" when they announced his name. To the people who seem to want the reviewer to stop reviewing SNL due to being 25, remember critics have to start sometime. I've watched Seinfeld, Married with Children, and all those classics.
Now onto the show. With exception to Weekend Update I didn't laugh once. In fact the show tonight was Sofa King bad I changed the channel to see what else was on at midnight on a saturday. The answer: Ebert & Roper, thats it. Not one slightly funny sketch and Avril Lavigne is an awful singer (like most punk/pop blend singers except Blink 182) who should really realize that her is being furthered by the same people who think Sanjaya is a good singer because he's "cute" (I'm not gay and I could kick his scrawny ass so put it in quotes). All this episode did was make me realize that my generation needs better singers and actors *cough* those twins from suite life *cough*!
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4-15-2007 @ 1:15PM
CaliberSRT4 said...
I liked the show over all. Shia did a good job, but he didn't seem as goofy as he was on Even Stevens. I too watched Even Stevens when it was on the Disney Channel, I miss it too. I didn't quite get the digital short, and probably wouldn't have laughed if it weren't for the audience. Avril Lavigne is a sellout...didn't care for her.
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