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It's a Charlie Day Day on "Saturday Night Live"

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (16)

charlie-day-snl.jpg

Before “SNL” aired, I was bouncing off the walls excited that Charlie Day would be hosting, under the assumption that Charlie Day is so inherently funny that not even “SNL could mess that up. I was wrong, and it’s hard to argue that it was Charlie Day’s fault. After a fantastic monologue (with Danny Devito), Day was underused and misused, which is typical of “SNL” when they have lesser known hosts. Day was a supporting character all night (except for the last two skits); in fact, Adam Levine had nearly as much screen time as Charlie Day in the first half of the show.

The monologue, however, was great. It’s a Charlie Day Day.

I’m going to include all of last night’s skits in today’s highlights, if only to demonstrate how badly Charlie Day was utilized. However, with the exception of Crime Scene and Comedy Tour (plus the Weekend Update highlights), I wouldn’t recommend watching any of the rest, unless you’re curious about how poorly utilized Charlie Day was.

Charlie Day played the minor role of divorce attorney in this spectacularly unfunny Kardashian Divorce Special.

In Ask Dr. Oz (also not very funny), Day played a guy with a dead rectum, but he was the target of most of the “humor” and not the source.

He was well cast as Dionysus in the Greek Gods skit (one of the better ones last night), but he only comes in at the end.

Charlie Day didn’t even have a speaking part in Getting Freaky with Cee Lo; he just moved around in a weird costume. The skit wasn’t very good, either, with the exception of a few good Cee Lo insults (“I look like the baby of Elton John and a thumb.”)

My favorite skit of the night, Comedy Tour 2, was my favorite mostly because of Seth Meyers’ Boston Powers, the Boston version of Austin Powers. This one is actually worth watching, even though Charlie Day is barely in it and he gets the worst catchphrase.

Charlie Day was the star of the Dolphin Movie skit, but it was dreadful.

Finally, here’s Crime Scene, not the greatest skit of the night, but the best “Charlie Day” performance.

The Weekend Update headlines were pretty good, but probably my favorite segment in last night’s show — Seth Meyers explaining the Greek debt crisis — hasn’t been made available for embed.

Oh, and here’s Bill Hader’s Rick Perry on “Weekend Update.” Terrible, terrible Rick Perry impression (he’s closer to Stefon than Rick Perry) but nevertheless one of last night’s few highlights.










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Comments

Is that "Greek Gods" sketch on Hulu? I thought it was fantastic.

Posted by: Optimus Rhyme at November 6, 2011 10:23 AM

Yeah, the Greek Gods one was pretty funny.

About an hour before the show I realized that they would have no fucking clue what to do with him, so I had prepared myself for this.

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at November 6, 2011 10:27 AM

I enjoyed the Kardashian skit if only because of the Bruce Jenner impression, but it was a pretty weak episode. That monologue was terrific, and the Greek Gods sketch was kind of funny (Samberg, Pharoh, and Moynihan are a great trifecta, but the rest of the cast gets short-changed). That said, my favorite part of the episode was watching Charlie Day and Jason Sudekis playing off each other all night; they were clearly trying to make each other laugh in all the sketches they were together, and I only wish that would have been a bigger focus.

Also, fuck whoever wrote that dolphin sketch. Fuck them to death.

Posted by: ChristianH at November 6, 2011 10:38 AM

You're right - Charlie Day was totally underused and I cannot make a judgement about how funny he is from that. But when he came out as Freakasaurus, I thought to myself "OK, that's kind of funny". Then Bill Hader came out and I laughed.

Posted by: Three-nineteen at November 6, 2011 10:38 AM

Charlie Day was amazing as fake Dane Cook in that Kings of Catchphrase Sketch. It just sucked that they didn't bring Jason Sudeikis back as "White Bernie Mac"

Posted by: Ty at November 6, 2011 11:48 AM

Saturday Night Live takes us for granted. I didn't laugh once as far as I lasted. The Greek god sketch earned a couple smirks out of me. I fell asleep shortly after it.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at November 6, 2011 12:03 PM

Dustin - I gotta agree, the single best moment of the show was Seth explaining the Euro-Crisis vis a vis Greece. A WONDERFUL, simplistic economics course that kinda makes you question "what the hell were they thinking in the first place?".

And I kinda liked the Kardashian skit...

Posted by: Green Lantern at November 6, 2011 12:22 PM

Rick Perry was sounding a little like Stefan in real life when he was high on pills the other day. Perhaps that's what they were going for.

Posted by: John G. at November 6, 2011 12:54 PM

See I actually thought the Comedy Tour was one of the worst skits of the night. The only time I cracked a smile was when they referenced Regulators and Blaze of Glory back-to-back.

The Greek Gods skit was good and I liked the impressions of the Kardashians, even if the skit wasn't the best. But yeah, criminal underuse of Charlie Day. Criminal.

Posted by: Even Stevens at November 6, 2011 1:08 PM

I agree with John G. that the real Rick Perry (at least in his NH speech) is eerily similar to Stefan. I think the impression was hilarious.

Posted by: martin at November 6, 2011 1:15 PM

The monologue wasn't even that great! The first 4 minutes were just him saying hi, and then Danny Devito making jokes about him, and then finally 45 seconds of mildly funny singing. I didn't even bother watching the other skits.

Posted by: SaBrina at November 6, 2011 8:08 PM

Charlie Day dresses left, and does so well.

Just sayin....

Posted by: Tao at November 6, 2011 8:08 PM

Why do you continue to review this show every single week with it's own post if you obviously hate it so much.

I actually like modern SNL (though not every episode is good, and even on good nights there are still bad sketches) and I just really don't get why you do these posts. Every single one is exactly the same. "All the sketches sucked except that one weird one and that one character on weekend update. They totally under-used that host who is the the best ever."

Honestly, why bother? I'm not saying your opinion isn't valid even if I don't agree with it. I just don't get why you feel the need to post it again every single week when you could literally copy paste the whole article and then just replace the hosts name and embedded videos.

Posted by: FourtyJr at November 7, 2011 11:56 AM

I think it's because even though it's quality is very, very spotty and inconsistent nowadays, every once in a while they still put out a real gem. Plus, it's not like a whole lot of content goes up on the site over the weekend anyway. I like these posts, because if I didn't watch and there were some funny sketches, they're all compiled here and with a little blurb to help keep me from watching a painful one.

Also, wasting Charlie Day is a good enough reason to post on many things and not just just SNL.

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at November 7, 2011 4:17 PM

...even though its quality...

This is old enough that not too many people will see it, but that was going to bug me.

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at November 7, 2011 4:39 PM

...even though its quality...

This is old enough that not too many people will see it, but that was going to bug me.

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at November 7, 2011 4:39 PM

I'm always watching.

Posted by: Grammar Nazi #37 at November 7, 2011 10:28 PM