(S33E09) The weird thing about Christopher Walken's legendary Saturday Night Live performances is that they all suck. Seriously, think about it. His delivery is jaunty and weird, and when he's not awkwardly staring into the middle distance, he's just glaring directly at the cue cards. All these elements combined should throw him in the realm of the crappiest hosts.... And yet he consistently pulls it off and makes even the worst sketches absolutely brilliant. How is that? Walken is just inherently awesome, I suppose. It's really the only logical explanation. This episode in particular was very poorly written; I'm sure most of the sketches look absolutely pathetic transcribed on paper. However, Walken's aforementioned jaunty awesomeness made it one of the best episodes of the season. He's done it again, folks. I expect a second "SNL: Best of Christopher Walken" DVD is in the works.
"Cold Open": Darrell Hammond and Amy Poehler brought back the Clintons to quickly address the tax returns situation. This was probably the fastest, most straight-forward Cold Open in a long time. It was mildly amusing, but I took the brevity as a sign that there was a lot of Christopher Walken goodness coming up and they were saving all the best material for him.
Monologue: This was a crappy monologue, but Walken made it hilarious. I remember the last time he hosted, he had to sing alongside Jimmy Fallon, and even that sort of worked out. It's actually kind of nice how Walken has a character carved out on SNL, like a more absent-minded, kooky version of himself. Even Alec Baldwin doesn't have that.
"Annuale": I can't remember the last time a commercial featuring another host got used in someone else's episode. Maybe it was okay because it was Tina Fey. Anyway, this was still funny, just because women getting angry on their periods is a universally hilarious concept.
"Grease": Oh, man. In 9th grade, I was in a production of Grease and I distinctly remember the director forcing us to change many of the phrases in "Greased Lightning". It kind of butchered the song and I think I prefer the SNL version of the song. "Have you ever seen a dragon?" is so much better than whatever "draggin' wagon" crap we got stuck with. Anyway, this was a decent sketch.
"Eric": Was this episode's substitute for "The Continental"? Walken plays creepy obsessives very well, as demonstrated by that final tongue-in-ear moment. Speaking of creeps, I was super-surprised that there was no Continental. Wowee-wow-wow. The Continental is to Christopher Walken as Mr. Schweaty is to Alec Baldwin.
"SNL Digital Shorts: Laser Cats in 3D": This was a fairly weak SNL Digital Short. The best part of this short was -- no, not Chris Dodd's totally random cameo -- the tiny, tiny puppy duking it out with the laser cat. Also, I actually had 3D glasses on-hand (pathetic, I know) and the action sequence wasn't particularly exciting, not that I thought they had made the video expecting anyone to be lame enough to have 3-D glasses all the time.
"Surprise!": Ladies and gentlemen, this is why Kristen Wiig is absolutely fantastic. Her voices and facial expressions carry this damn show. It's further proof that strong actors can do wonders for simple or weak sketches. The way that she kept turning her head right before dropping out the window was perfect.
"Weekend Update": The design snob in me is dying from all those news graphics. Has no one in the "WU" graphics department ever studied typography? Seriously, come on.
"Walken Reunion": This was an interesting idea, and it was fun to see the various Walken impressions. I was really thrown by Fred Armisen's voice, though. He's usually been a pretty strong impressionist, but his Walken was just terribly weak. It sounded almost nothing like the real thing. I'm pretty sure even my Walken sounds better, and all I do is drop my voice a little lower and quote "The Continental" a lot. Who do you think did the best?
"Indoor Gardening Tips from A Man Who's Very Scared of Plants": This is another example of one of those sketches that must look absolutely terrible on paper. I mean, Walken played a guy who can't trust grass because his googly-eyes won't stick. It shouldn't have worked, but it totally did. Bless Christopher Walken.
"Top Chef": Ahh, it just wouldn't be Top Chef with high-strung chefs with faux-hawks. Perfect. This sketch was actually kind of adorable, just because of Walken. He should consider keeping those frosted faux-hawk tips. It's hip!
Panic! At the Disco: Why are these guys still around? Seriously. Their second song wasn't even new. At least they weren't quite as obnoxious as usual... But maybe I'm only saying that because my TV was on mute half the time they were on.
Next time: Ashton Kutcher and Gnarls Barkley. Umm... How... cool...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-06-2008 @ 1:36PM
Caroline said...
I thought laser cats was hilarious.
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4-06-2008 @ 1:40PM
Chris said...
Been watching SNL for decades now. I was really, really surprised by how bad this episode was. I love Christopher Walken as much as the next guy, but his delivery just wasn't enough to really amuse me during this episode. It's strange how bad the writing has been this season. It's not as bad as the period after Sandler/Farley/Schneider left, but it's been bad. There's occasional flashes of brilliance, and they have a very talented bunch of performers, but overall it's been marred by weakness. Unsurprisingly, the Tina Fey-hosted episode was the strongest one.
The one big laugh I had during this ep was the Seth Meyers line about how Germany managed to out-German itself. THAT was funny.
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4-06-2008 @ 1:41PM
JW said...
I loved Gardening Tips from a man who is scared of plants. Christopher Walken is one of my favorite hosts of SNL, I missed seeing the sketch where he talks to the camera as if it is a guest lady at his house.
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4-06-2008 @ 1:53PM
Rob said...
Why was he starring directly at the cue carts the whole sketch? He wasn't even looking at anyone he was talking to. Does he not know his lines?
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4-09-2008 @ 2:39PM
sitruc said...
Did you ever watch In Living Color, kevjohn?
4-06-2008 @ 2:01PM
Thomas said...
Really, why is this show on the air? The writing is uniformly awful.
I was reading an interview with Amy Poehler the other day talking about her improv background and I wonder why even if the writing is rubbish why they can't at least add something with their performance?
Each show has a couple of average buts and every couple of weeks you get something really good, but if this wasn't SNL and it was some new show coming on it would be cancelled within weeks.
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4-07-2008 @ 12:48PM
kevjohn said...
Thomas, you arent really allowed to go "off script" at SNL. I heard the last person who did that got fired immediately. I think it was one of the Wayans brothers. So in other words, no major loss.
4-06-2008 @ 3:40PM
Jimmy said...
A couple thoughts:
* Kristin Wiig was incredible -- as usual -- in the surprise party sketch. Aside from that and the "googly eyes" sketch, this episode was pretty lame.
* The concept of the Walken family reunion sketch was good, but it only served to remind me of how everyone's Walken impression pales in comparison to Jay Mohr's. Anyone remember his Skittles commercial?
* Laser Cats sucks -- so much so that I'd rather see The Nuni's instead. Or even Deep House Dish. Sorry, Lorne, but this is not a case of "It's so bad, it's good." In fact, it's so bad it makes me not want to watch anymore.
* And finally, Baldwin's Pete Schwetty is classic, but to compare it to The Continental is a discredit to Walken. The Continental has appeared six times; Pete Schwetty only twice.
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4-06-2008 @ 3:51PM
Hannah said...
Was Christopher Walken purposely staring at the cue cards? It was so obvious he was doing it so I thought maybe he was doing it on purpose. Please reply.
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4-06-2008 @ 3:59PM
Annie said...
He does that every time he hosts. I'm really surprised by people's reactions to this. I hope most viewers know that cue cards are used in every episode and hosts aren't expected to memorize everything...
4-06-2008 @ 4:05PM
BigTed said...
There's always a lot of cue-card reading on "SNL," partly because many of the sketches are written and rehearsed shortly before the show airs. But most of the performers have figured out how to alternate between looking at the cards and the person they're talking to -- or in some cases, they're supposed to be looking directly at the camera.
What made this show unusual is that Walken -- even more so than in past "SNL" hosting gigs -- only looked at the cue cards. And the camera angles made that really obvious, too. I found this very disconcerting, so it was difficult to enjoy his performances at all.
What's more, the writers didn't give him any of what he does best. No "The Continental"? No singing and dancing? This whole episode was a big disappointment.
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4-06-2008 @ 4:46PM
Beans said...
I try not to be a loser fangirl, but I can't help it. I just thought I'd let you know that Panic dropped the exclamation point from their name this year, so now it's just Panic at the Disco.
And IMHO, despite what they say in the opening track of their new album, they aren't really the same band that they used to be. If nothing else, at least they aren't angsty teenage boys anymore.
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4-06-2008 @ 4:47PM
CBXweb said...
I was vexed that Panic at the Disco was performing a two year old song instead of a second single, which they do have. What I noticed is that it was more of the Christopher Walken show featuring the cast of SNL. They really used him as the support for that episode.
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4-12-2008 @ 3:41AM
Matt said...
yeah, erm, they performed their biggest single off their previous record to remind casual listeners who they were. It's a very common thing for acts to do that when they had a huge hit in the past, but are releasing something new. It says "hey, you remember this song, now you know who we are"
4-06-2008 @ 4:47PM
nickmagoo said...
i'd stare at cue cards too if i was 70ish and had a couple of days to learn my lines...but that said, noone delivers like walken. while the cue card reading bothered me at first, it was just a pure joy to listen to his idiosyncratic voice.
he's so comfortable and easy with it that a younger host (like, say, ellen page who was obviously nervous) reading the cue cards just looked horrible in comparison.
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4-06-2008 @ 4:59PM
eugene said...
I love walken, can't belive it's been 100 episodes already. I thought it was hysterical that he used the gag line which superpower would you rather... is it kevin pollack that tells that joke?
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4-06-2008 @ 5:37PM
jordancda said...
I loved this episode. I think that whenever Walken hosts the writers come up with sketch ideas based on what words they think will sound hilarious when he says them. Hence the "Garden Tips" sketch. Who didn't laugh every time he said "googly?" I swear they imagined him saying the word "googly" and then wrote a sketch around it.
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4-06-2008 @ 6:10PM
0megapart!cle said...
If any other host had the complete lack of inflection and direct reading of the cards that Walken showed last night, he wouldn't be able to star in a high school musical afterwards, much less be praised for his performance. Yes, he has a funny voice, and is very laid back, but it would have been nice if he prepared beforehand AT ALL!!!!! Did he even fucking rehearse beforehand? At least one of his skits had to have been prepared in time for him to memorize the lines.
People need to remember when they give him slack, that he was a fucking actor, at one time. He should be able to memorize at least some of his lines and practice them beforehand.
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4-06-2008 @ 6:14PM
0megapart!cle said...
What is it exactly that you have against Panic at the Disco? You can't handle their awesomeness? While it wasn't the best performance of their songs, it was one of the better SNL performances I've seen in a while, and the band as a whole, rocks! Yes, both songs should have been recent ones, and it was kind of annoying that the lead singer couldn't really hit any of the highs that he does in the record, but I have heard a lot worse (live performances compared to the album version)
4-06-2008 @ 6:53PM
Sam said...
I thought this was one of the best episodes in AGES! Laser Cats, Walken Reunion, and Indoor Gardening Tips were amazing. Who cares if Christopher Walken stares directly at the cue cards? It's part of his "shtick", and it works. PATD, while not at their best, was still pretty great last night. I guess I would have been happier if they had performed 2 new songs instead of only one.
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