Kenan Thompson-related stories
Posted Nov 22nd 2009 12:38PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews
(S35E07) I imagine it played out like this: Joseph Gordon-Levitt was at home last week, trying to mentally prepare for his first go as
Saturday Night Live host by watching
January Jones. Her performance turned out to be wooden and incredibly low energy and, consequently, the laughs were minimal. This struck fear into Mr. Gordon-Levitt's heart, and, terrified, he dropped the pint of Phish Food that he was eating in my imagination. "I won't let this happen to me," I bet he said. "I'm going to eat two fistfuls of Pixi Stix at 11:25 p.m. Saturday night and have someone inject me with a near lethal dose of adrenaline. I'll also wear a lot of vests."
And that's how Joseph Gordon-Levitt managed to exhaust a seated audience through sheer enthusiasm and volume alone. Maybe.
Continue reading Review: Saturday Night Live - Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Dave Matthews Band
Posted Nov 15th 2009 12:32PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S35E06) There was a strange moment of nodding recognition at the end of the night, as I watched Jason Sudeikis and January Jones in the cloud-gazing sketch. Throughout, the man pauses to consider the woman's weird behavior and then concedes, "Ohh, you're a very pretty, pretty woman." Yup. That's pretty much how I reacted the entire night, especially during really bad sketches like the farting Grace Kelly (take a moment to think about that: Farting. Grace. Kelly.)
Jones was kind of a stiff host with not particularly daring material, but, goodness gracious, her real-life 50s Barbie prettiness was mesmerizing. Her performances in the mid-century instructional video and the aforementioned cloud-gazing sketch were the best of the evening, but that's not saying much since the rest of her appearances were strange and wooden. Even her good night felt like it had been programmed in and auto-tuned for maximum polite insincerity.
Continue reading Review: Saturday Night Live - January Jones/Black Eyed Peas
Posted Nov 8th 2009 9:40AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Video, Celebrities, Episode Reviews
(S35E05) I had to talk myself through being allowed to criticize Taylor Swift. Ever since Kanye West VMA outburst turned everyone in America into Swift's over-protective mom, she's been shown even more as an innocent country-inspired sweetheart. Every time she messed up in this episode, I felt the need to hold back any not-super-great remarks because, well, she's a teeny-bopper! Teeny-boppers are just kids goofin' around!
And then I have to pause and remind myself that she's almost 20-years-old, around the same age as Shia LaBeouf and Ellen Page when they first hosted and Abby Elliiott when she initially joined the featured players. Screw it, there's no need to hold back. Swift is a musician, so we can't expect her acting skills to be super-good, but the fact I keep thinking she's only 14 shouldn't affect anything else.
Continue reading Review: Saturday Night Live - Taylor Swift
Posted Oct 18th 2009 2:03PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Video, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S35E04) I remember sitting down and staring at Gerard Butler as he made funny, smarmy faces at the camera. And then I blinked, only to see Butler was thanking the cast and viewers for a wonderful show. I looked on the computer screen. There were half-remembered notes haphazardly tapped out at some point.
Somehow, I had jumped forward ninety minutes. Had I finally mastered short-term time travel? Or did I just watch an incredibly forgettable episode of
Saturday Night Live? Probably the latter. However, I vaguely recall a destructive robot adorably struggling through a wall. If that was actually a dream and not real life, please don't tell me.
Continue reading Review: Saturday Night Live - Gerard Butler/Shakira
Posted Oct 11th 2009 10:29AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S35E03) Drew Barrymore is energy. Pure, almost-scary energy. It's disorienting to watch when one is bleary-eyed and staring at a tiny TV in the wee hours of the morning, but this trademark makes for consistent television-viewing. While the quality of
Saturday Night Live's writing may waver from episode to episode, every time Drew Barrymore returns, one can safely expect absolute enthusiasm and a palpable willingness to step back and laugh at herself.
All right, little Ms. "I Extra-Love Female Empowerment," prepare for me to work that ego.... Especially when one compares her to the typical "hot girl" host (see: Megan Fox's
SNL premiere), Barrymore doesn't box herself in and offers a lot more opportunity for fun characters. Would someone like Fox ever be willing to bolo it up to play Nina Wilkes Booth? I doubt it.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Drew Barrymore/Regina Spektor
Posted Oct 4th 2009 2:38PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: TV Royalty, OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Reality-Free
(S35E02) After that Jenny Slate f-bomb nonsense and Megan Fox's not terribly original hot girl material from the
season premiere, it was exciting to see a really solid episode (and a star-studded one, at that). Ryan Reynolds did a fantastic job as host (snaps for his wavering voice during the porcelain fountains sketch and accent in
SYTYCD), though he didn't have any major stand-out roles. Did I miss the memo that Lady Gaga wasn't just musical guest but co-host as well? Such a role is normally left up to Ryan Reynolds' giant biceps.
It's been a while since we've seen such consistently enjoyable writing in an episode. Usually, there's a distinct lull during the course of the 90 minutes, but I didn't feel it this time. Hopefully, this is a good indication of the rest of the season.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Ryan Reynolds/Lady Gaga
Posted Sep 27th 2009 3:03AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S35E01) Alternate title for this post: "New girl's f-bomb overshadows Megan Fox's slammin' bod."
Yes,
Saturday Night Live new girl Jenny Slate's f-bomb was the most thrilling part of the show's otherwise bland 35th season premiere. It's not like we've never heard that word before, and it's not like accidental verbal naughtiness has never happened on
SNL (I still distinctly remember my extra-young self watching Cheri Oteri cringing as she contributed to the swear jar), but the pain still felt fresh with hot embarrassment.
This was partially due to the fact that it's just a generally bad thing to have happen on a player's first show (and in such a mediocre sketch, at that) but mostly because of this face that she made after she caught her boo-boo.
Twitter exploded with people's camera phone pics of this one moment.
Jenny Slate, welcome to the big time.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Megan Fox/U2 (season premiere)
Posted Jun 27th 2009 12:21PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Celebrities, Children, Reality-Free
This installment of
Sketch Comedy Saturday holds a very specific goal. On one hand, it's to serve as a minor aid in the quest to overcome
Saturday Night Live withdrawal. It's also a very effective excuse to feel nostalgic for the 90s. Believe it or not, the 90s were almost 20 years ago. Take a moment and let that sink in to your old, old brain, dinosaur.
This week, we will be touching upon a little show called
All That, which some of you may remember as Nickelodeon's attempt at a kid version of
SNL. Also, the theme song is by TLC, so you know it's 90s-crazy.
Continue reading Sketch Comedy Saturday: All That
Posted May 17th 2009 12:40PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E23) Wow. Way to go, Will Ferrell. Maybe they should just bring back
Saturday Night Live alumni for season finales from now on, because this episode was spectacular. Ferrell brought back some old favorites and a slew of famous faces, from the familiar to the inexplicable, including Amy Poehler, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway and Artie Lange. Here are some video highlights from the evening (Hulu vids are US only. Sorry, kids... you can also watch these videos
at NBC's website).
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Will Ferell/Green Day (season finale)
Posted May 10th 2009 3:32PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E22) Justin Timberlake returned for his third turn as host and it was tough not to keep expectations pretty high. I mean, if an vengeful warlock were to suddenly put a crippling curse on his music career (like they do), Timberlake could definitely fall back on being a professional
SNL host. Yes, this would become a real profession, just for him.
As usual, some sketches fell a bit flat, but Timberlake's over-confident, hammy swagger made things a little more interesting. This particular episode also gave us another legendary musical Digital Short with Timberlake and Andy Samberg and a couple of all-around MILFs. It's tough to top a surprise appearance by Leonard effin' Nimoy, but "Motherlover" was certainly the highlight of the evening. Here are some other notable video moments!
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Justin Timberlake/Ciara
Posted Apr 19th 2009 9:31PM by Kona Gallagher
Filed under: Animation, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S01E01) I still stand behind the
early look of Sit Down, Shut Up I did a few days ago: the pilot was underwhelming. For everything that works about it, there seem to be at least two things that don't. However, before I did this review, I decided to watch the pilot again, so it would be fresh in my mind. What I found is that the show definitely grows on you.
While I didn't really laugh at all the first time through, re-watching it allowed me to pick up on some of the more subtle things that I missed. That, combined with the fact that I've seen the second episode, which is much better, really made me appreciate this episode more.
Continue reading Sit Down, Shut Up: Pilot (series premiere)
Posted Apr 12th 2009 12:35PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E21) When it came to everything unrelated to jazz hands, my expectations for Zac Efron were pretty low. Then again, there was part of me that kept thinking back to Justin Timberlake's first time hosting; he was just another song-and-dance good guy but the enthusiasm and craziness he brought to his performances blew everyone away. Okay, so Efron didn't do as well as Timberlake, but as the evening progressed, Efron seemed to get a little more comfortable and delivered a not-too-cingeworthy performance. Consider that a massive victory.
Here are some video highlights from the evening.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Zac Efron/Yeah Yeah Yeahs - VIDEOS
Posted Apr 5th 2009 1:44PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E20) Seth Rogen returned to host for the second time to promote his new mall cop movie (yeah, I know). Unlike
last time, when there were one or two stand-out sketches, this episode didn't have any particularly memorable moments. However, there were Muppets, Mogwai and a thinner Seth Rogen involved, so maybe things weren't too horrible.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Seth Rogen/Phoenix - VIDEOS
Posted Mar 15th 2009 12:45PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E19) It's a great, big homecoming party for
Tracy Morgan and he brought enough jaunty delivery for us all. I'll admit, if anyone else were to try and pull off this type of delivery, I'd be pretty annoyed. However, it's Tracy Morgan and he's got this choppy, unrealistic speech down to an art. It has
become him, I guess. This episode had a few strong moments here and there, but overall, it was an "all right" episode. At least we got to revisit some old favorites from Tracy Morgan's featured player days.
Now, check out some video highlights from the evening. Also, note to self: I will stop typing "Tracy Jordan", I will stop typing "Tracy Jordan"...
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Tracy Morgan/Kelly Clarkson - VIDEOS
Posted Mar 8th 2009 12:02PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E18) When I heard The Rock -- I mean, Dwayne Johnson -- was hosting again, the first image that popped into my mind was him in that Mr. Peepers sketch with Chris Kattan back in the day. I believe red overalls, apples, and aggressive humping was involved. Though Mr. Johnson traded in his red overalls for a sequined black halter top in this episode, he still did incredibly well. I had forgotten: Those aren't muscles; the guy has had charisma surgically inserted into his upper body over the past decade for easy access. Anyone else would have looked like an idiot trying to pull off The Rock Obama. Check out some video highlights and see what I mean.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Dwayne Johnson/Ray LaMontagne - VIDEOS
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