web counter
 

All the "Highlights" (Hahahahaha) from Last Night's "Saturday Night Live"

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (22)

barkley-snl.jpg

Charles Barkley hosted the year’s first “Saturday Night Live,” last night; it was his third stint, and while I don’t remember his first two, if they were anything like last night’s show, I have no goddamn idea why they’d ask him to come back. Even by “Saturday Night Live” standards, last night was a bad show. Barkley spent the entire night badly reading from cue cards in a very dull, monotone. Given the long break in between shows, you’d think that the writers might have come up with something decent. Instead, they wrote the entire show around Barkley, which is weird because many of their much, much better hosts are typically relegated to supporting roles. A lot of the skits were sports-related, and clearly, the writers aren’t all that knowledgeable of sports, and even when they came up with a decent idea, it was poorly executed by Barkley. And Jesus Christ! It was one of the biggest weeks in politics in a while, and all they could come up with for a cold open was a bad Santorum skit about how he plans to visit every house in America (even in hostile areas) to stump for votes.

Seriously, it was a mess; I figured, because they knew that there’d be an NFL game on NBC that would push back the start time, that they’d phone this one in. But they didn’t even pick up the phone. They faxed in it on one of those 1984 doohickeys. It was truly a dreadful exercise in not only pain management, but in how long you could stay awake for a show that ran until past 1:30 a.m. knowing after the first three skits that it would only go downhill from there.

Here are the highlights, and I’m being generous in calling it that.

——-

THE REST OF THE PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

———









Each Time You Like, Share, Tweet or Stumble a Pajiba Post, An Angel Does the Paul Rudd Dance

← House of Lies Review - Because Look, The Pod Remains Convinced There's A Burning Platform But We Just Don't Have The Bandwidth To Go Into a Black Factory and Blow Up The Paradigms With A White Paper | Trailer Trash: Greg Kinnear and Billy Crudup Are on Thin Ice →









Comments

The Santorum opening was downright depressing.

Posted by: Burnsy at January 8, 2012 10:38 AM

Painfully bad. Drunk Uncle was a small relief. I gave up after Weekend Update with no regrets.

Posted by: Optimus Rhyme at January 8, 2012 10:41 AM

The Santorum opening was downright depressing.

Posted by: Burnsy at January 8, 2012 10:38 AM

Posted by: BierceAmbrose at January 8, 2012 11:34 AM

The White People Problems made me cringe. Stuff white people like in a condescending sketch? They could do much better.
And Barkley read off the cards the other two times, too. It was semi-funny the first time.

Posted by: nat at January 8, 2012 11:55 AM

I watched the whole thing because I was trying burn the GOP debate out of my mind. The impression I got was that the cast was having a good time and there was a lot of behind-the-scenes joking but none of that made it into any of the skits. The Fred Armisen thing in Weekend Update, for example, seemed genuinely funny to them but it was painful and overly long. It made it so tiresome to watch and I should have just turned it off but I didn't and now I have a sad.

Posted by: Monica at January 8, 2012 12:08 PM

OK, my Paji-lookie-thingy is now officially possessed. How the hell did it decide to hit "post" by itself? I wasn't hardly started, let alone done.

Oh shit. They've enabled precrime filtering on the InterWebs. It knew what I was going to say.

Read fast before it goes away ...

SNL's real problem is leaving material on the floor. Along with a talent-deficit and focus-aversion there's vast funny territory where they just won't go. Santorum? Really? The guy's a one-joke joke that's been passe since Dan Savage Savaged him. Real political satire goes after pretense in power. Pretense is universal, and we know where the power is.

Along with being, you know, the president, President Obama has the most mannered delivery in a political figure since William F. Buckley, and that's saying something. They won't touch that.

Hey, that's an idea. President Obama faces off with congress over, let's say recess appointments since that's current. Back / forth, ultimatum / countermove. Throughout, President Obama maintains his vaunted cool, tossing in the occasional mannered-jab. "There are those ..." "Now let me be clear ..." The metronomic back and forth from prompter to prompter if they want to get a little riskier. After frustrating the republi/congress-critters for the 14th time he breaks into a M. C. Hammer dance & "You can't touch this."

Now that bit is kind of lame. Comedy isn't my job. They ought to do better. The problem is ... they won't touch that. (Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Dah-dunt, Dah-dunt.) To put it plainly What the hell are they doing spoofing a bit-player in the farm-team clown-show? You spoof actual power, but ... they won't touch that!

Posted by: BierceAmbrose at January 8, 2012 12:12 PM

I'm still amazed anyone spends any amount of time watching that dogshit. Even when its "good" it's pretty much awful.

Shut it down, Lorne.

Posted by: DJ Shovelpants at January 8, 2012 12:33 PM

I hate Hulu. I want to see the videos, dammit.

Posted by: SHumphreys at January 8, 2012 1:15 PM

Drunk Uncle and Lord Wyndemere were the only highlights. Man that was a bad episode. But I have mild hopes for next week!

Posted by: ChristianH at January 8, 2012 2:58 PM

But BierceAmbrose, he basically tied the Iowa caucus, and he's a horrific douche. I hope they tear him apart every fucking week. Easy or not, it's a necessary joke right now.

Posted by: ChristianH at January 8, 2012 3:04 PM

They did Lord Wyndemere again?! Now I have to find it.

Posted by: Optimus Rhyme at January 8, 2012 3:15 PM

Weirdly, I didn't hate it. Barkley is terrible and just read from the cue cards but some of the jokes from his cold open were funny. Also, I liked the basketball sketch with Kenan...I busted out laughing when he said his joke about Free Willy 2 and Shazaam. After that it was pretty much terrible. I HATE when they do that stupid political thing with Fred Armisen. Lorne and the writers really dont know what to do with Armisen because he can be funny sometimes but not on that show.

Posted by: apsutter at January 8, 2012 3:34 PM

I was amused by the White People Problems sketch until I remembered that Louis C.K. did a much better job with the same material last year.

Posted by: Jerry at January 8, 2012 3:43 PM

Yeah...I totally fell asleep. Woke up to infomercials.

Posted by: MRod at January 8, 2012 4:05 PM

Truly awful. Barkley is terrible. As in, he becomes terrible in that existential sense. Is.

What's his face, Robert Picardo's ADHD cousin, his little sketch, political commentor dude, was clever and interesting for the first 20 seconds, but the 17th minute in, I started to drift.

Posted by: Protoguy at January 8, 2012 4:15 PM

But BierceAmbrose, he basically tied the Iowa caucus, and he's a horrific douche. I hope they tear him apart every fucking week. Easy or not, it's a necessary joke right now.

Posted by: ChristianH at January 8, 2012 3:04 PM

The part I underlined is the problem. When agenda-mongering overtakes the funny, guess which one loses?

That Santorum bit was a particularly lazy kind of pseudo-humor. Sitting with like minded folks, laughing at those people isn't funny. It's making someone the green monkey that it's OK to torment and abuse.

George Carlin brilliantly said his job is to take his audience someplace uncomfortable, and have them be OK with it. Lenny Bruce knew this. Bill Maher, in contrast, hasn't taken his audience anywhere uncomfortable to them in what, a decade?

Laughing at or laughing with? SNL is funny when it remembers to be the latter. The "laughter" in "laughing at" isn't about humor; it's something else entirely.

Posted by: BierceAmbrose at January 8, 2012 5:00 PM

Come on- you have to give it up for the "White People Problems" sketch:
"Why you have five spare bedrooms? Do you have five Grandmas?"
I laughed out loud for sure.

Posted by: JB at January 8, 2012 5:20 PM

I can definitely see your argument. You're right. But I personally thought the Santorum sketch was bad because they chose the wrong joke, not because there isn't more to say about Rick Santorum.

Posted by: ChristianH at January 8, 2012 6:46 PM

Posted by: DJ Shovelpants
I'm still amazed anyone spends any amount of time watching that dogshit. Even when its "good" it's pretty much awful.
Shut it down, Lorne.

This. WTF people.

Posted by: sunny at January 8, 2012 6:49 PM

Been dealing with a terrible flu and ended up awake and miserable so for the first time in forever, watch SNL.

The problem with the show is institutional. The sketches that make air are the ones that get pops in the rehearsals. The audience for rehearsals are idiot tourists who have nothing to do at 2pm in New York city. They end up creating a show for an audience that will never actual stay up to watch the show. This is how you get bits that never die and comedy that is as subtle as a brick to the back of the head.

Posted by: Diablo at January 9, 2012 10:22 AM

Diablo,

So according to you, every single tourist who has EVAR visited NYC is a fuckin' retard moronic retard. If this was in fact true, then how come the news isn't filled 24/7 with stories of the thousands of said tourists who have been killed every day by walking in front of buses/taxis/subway cars.

And how do you know that the ONLY people who have EVAR seen the 2pm SNL rehearsal are retard moronic retard tourists unless you are one yourself and therefore a complete and utter SPAZZ LOSER DORKOID.

Posted by: Snackpit at January 9, 2012 6:19 PM

Thanks all

Posted by: Christopher Marlowe at January 18, 2012 2:22 PM