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Jesse Eisenberg Meet Mark Zuckerberg

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (33)

Mark-Zuckerberg-Jesse-Eisenberg.jpg

Last night’s “SNL,” was short on highlights, basically another waste of a perfectly good guest host. But Mark Zuckerberg showed up, there was a good “Mr. Wizard” skit, and Tyler Perry’s news segment was the night’s highlight.

Here are the “highlights.”

MICHELE BACHMANN COLD OPEN

So much promise frittered away. That’s the best you can do with Michelle Bachmann?



JESSE EISENBERG MONOLOGUE

Mark Zuckerberg makes an appearance. Funny, a little awkward, and Zuckerberg’s a terrible actor, but then, he’s Mark Zuckerberg. He doesn’t need to know how to act. He has more money than NBC.



MISTER WIZARD

Oh, Sweet Maria. This one was funny. And Mr. Wizard!



HERB WELCH

Briefly funny, but only when Hader loses it.



SNL DIGITAL SHORT: THE CREEP

John Waters introduces this week’s Digital Short, but it’s not otherwise worth watching. It’s not only bad, but it’s painfully ear-wormy.


WEEKEND UPDATE: TYLER PERRY

“… and Cicely Tyson as Bill Gates.” This was probably the best segment of the night.










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Comments

Yeah, they could have done a lot more with The Bachmann. Actually, they could have done a cold open consisting entirely of a montage of her verbal gaffes.

Recall the old saying "It's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt?" That's Crazy Michelle to a frelling T.

A commenter on Al Jazeera's website said that the SNL portrayal of Mubarak was premature. I disagree; humor is a defense against inflexible and authoritarian behavior - I just wish it would be deployed more often for Certain People here in the good old U.S. of A.

Posted by: The Wanderer at January 30, 2011 11:40 AM

I thought this ep was surprisingly solid across the board, and I am SHOCKED you hated the Digital Short that much. I thought it was even better than "I Just Had Sex." Especially Nicki Minaj's part. "Get your arms T-Rexin'"? 'Twas great!

Also thought the "Don't Forget the Lyrics" bit was golden - "It's Not Unusual To Get A Boner at the Movies - It's Not Unusual if it's Toy Story 3" and "Doctor Doctor! Give Me The News! I got One Extra Testicle" both made me chortle. And making fun of Mark McGrath is always funny.

Also, no love for Nicki Minaj's Bride of Blackenstein? It wasn't a great sketch, but she was solid. I dig when musical guests can hold their own in a sketch.

Posted by: Tammy at January 30, 2011 11:48 AM

I agree with Tammy. Based on her performance, Nicki Minaj deserves a shot at hosting.

Posted by: Pope Buck I at January 30, 2011 11:59 AM

I loved the Creeper thing. It was terrible, but I found it hilarious and was singing it for hours afterward. It was the only thing worth watching!

Posted by: Figgy at January 30, 2011 12:04 PM

Yes, I somewhat enjoyed the Creep also. Made me wish they threw in a Vincent Price reference somewhere.

The Don't Forget the Lyrics spot was wayyy lame. And I get annoyed when there's really no effort at all the imitate a real person - just calling yourself Mark MacGrath without actually attempting to mimic him is nothing.

Fell asleep during Weekend Update. Yay, sleep timer.

Posted by: Sara Tonin at January 30, 2011 12:37 PM

Seeing Nicki Minaj in the Creeper short and the Bride of Blackenstein got me thinking: when was the last time SNL had a black female cast member?

Posted by: spoobnooble at January 30, 2011 12:43 PM

I'd just like to say, as the resident SNL apologist, people so easily forget that the early seasons of SNL featured a lot of great skits, but virtually no great episodes. I mean, have you actually watched the first season? They averaged 1-2 funny sketches a night with a longer show than they have now. Getting only a few highlights is par for the course in SNL history. But no one ever remembers the bad sketches over time. If they're anything like the people I know, they'll quote the good ones so much they'll forget they're even quoting a TV show. And that's what makes SNL lasting, not the perfection or imperfection of any given episode.

Posted by: ChristianH at January 30, 2011 12:55 PM

P.S. "The Creep" is amazing. Nicki Minaj actually took it from funny to transcendent.

Posted by: ChristianH at January 30, 2011 1:09 PM

Why does the creep look like the pupped master dance that Elijah Wood does on Yo Gabba Gabba? I feel like these two things should not be related.

Posted by: CrookedTree at January 30, 2011 1:34 PM

I found this episode surprisingly good. Except for the opening monologue and the spa skit to a lesser extent, I thought everything was pretty funny--though I watched on Hulu, which didn't include the Don't Forget the Lyrics skit people seem to be mentioning. The Creep was hilarious, as was Bride of Blackenstein and the Herb Welch segment (though I go to Columbia, which was the school that was recently busted for drugs, so maybe that made it extra amusing to me). This show was way better than most SNLs lately.

Posted by: Two Left Shoes at January 30, 2011 2:05 PM

I actually thought the entire HERB WELCH sketch was funny, from Jesse Eisenberg staying in character the entire time looking like a college student delighted by everything happening to the "fully integrated" crack. At this point, considering last season, I don't know what it would take to satisfy Dustin.

Posted by: brdkelli at January 30, 2011 2:34 PM

"The Creep" digital short deserves a lot of loving simply because it is a HILARIOUS send up of the hundreds of generic, disposable "dirrty south" songs a la: this type of song

The Blackenstein sketch was hilarious simply because Jay Pharaoh did his best Bootsy Collins impression, Jesse Eisenberg was hilariously out of place and the whole mocking of blaxploitation films was pretty well done. It also didn't hurt that Nicki held her own.

Mark Zuckerberg earned my respect if only because he had enough of a sense of humor to show up and also because he obviously knows a great marketing opportunity when he sees one.

Posted by: Slappysquirrel at January 30, 2011 2:49 PM

I liked this episode. It must be due to my deep, deep love for Jesse Eisenberg, because the show seemed extra heavy on the Keenan, which normally ruins most skits for me.

Posted by: nosio at January 30, 2011 3:13 PM

The Tyler Perry skit was good, but the line of the night has to be "the twig I used to swat you with is also from a bush".

Posted by: Three-nineteen at January 30, 2011 3:24 PM

Meh. It was a pretty terrible episode by all accounts. I personally think that Seth Meyers needs to go as head writer; ever since he took over the show has been on life support.

I think a fresh writing staff would certainly help. It seems like the current writing team has pretty much fallen into a routine and can't come up with anything interesting. I see the stuff coming out of The Onion team and can't help but believe that there are people out there who can turn SNL around.

And I gotta get this out there: the political sketches are NOT funny.

The Michelle Bachmann skit was flat out stupid. It shouldn't have even made the cut let alone be the cold open. Only one news channel broadcasted Bachmann's speech, and it was on a cable network that nobody even watches. Furthermore, when you actually know the story as to why she wasn't looking at the camera, it loses its humor.

Michele Bachmann was speaking on behalf of the Tea Party Express, making the rebuttal speech to Obama's SOTU address. It was to be a webcast on the TPE website, so she was actually looking at the correct camera the entire time. CNN decided to film it as well, and placed their camera off to the side. She was looking at the correct camera the entire time, and CNN made her come off as a fool.

80% of the audience probably doesn't even know WTF they were spoofing, anyway.

Fred Armisen's Obama is absolutely horrendous. Jay Pharaoh needs to take over this role as soon as possible.

The political sketches that SNL comes up with are what happens when your entire writing staff watches MSNBC and has Media Matters as their homepage. We have a president that most Americans dislike and instead of harnessing that and making SNL relevant again, they decide to go after politicians nobody even fucking knows instead of the popular figures in the ruling political party.

Posted by: Allen at January 30, 2011 3:32 PM

"made her come off as a fool" She really doesn't need the help. On the other hand I am so glad I stopped watching this POS show back in the 80's

Posted by: clancys_daddy at January 30, 2011 3:51 PM

Jesse Eisenberg is really coming into his own.

He's still awkward but he OWNS it.

That's the only part I deigned to watch.

Posted by: grace b at January 30, 2011 4:23 PM

i was cracking up throughout. i came here to decide if it was really funny or if i was just high.

after reading allen's comment, however. i think i might be high right now, and that's not possible.

amusing that anyone thinks the leno crowd is watching a show that was in its finest form when tina fucking fey was head writer.

and this?

It was to be a webcast on the TPE website, so she was actually looking at the correct camera the entire time. CNN decided to film it as well, and placed their camera off to the side. She was looking at the correct camera the entire time, and CNN made her come off as a fool.

confirms that i'm high. no one who reads pajiba would write such a comment. michelle bachmann is a proveable idiot, which begs the following questions:

who are you? where do you come from? take me to your leader?

wait, let me grab my lipton teabag hat.

ETA: insert perfunctory michael cera joke.

Posted by: Angry Black Lady at January 30, 2011 4:30 PM

i heartily chortled at the blackenstein sketch, if only because of jesse eisenberg's "keep a ho in her place" and because of the double-shot black girl/jewish girl slam.

also, i might have been high.

Posted by: stopthemadness aka Angry Black Lady at January 30, 2011 4:33 PM

Allan - if you look at Bachmann's speech on the Tea Party website, you can see she's not looking at that camera either. The current theory is she was looking at a teleprompter.

Posted by: Three-nineteen at January 30, 2011 5:56 PM

"I've only dated Jewish girls."
"Oh, so you do know what I mean."

Also, I don't know what you're talking about, Dustin! I was a big fan of the Creep. And Nicki Minaj was awesome.

Posted by: denesteak at January 30, 2011 6:03 PM

I thought Eisenberg & Minaj (dat ass!) did a great job. Way too harsh of a review.

Posted by: nicole at January 30, 2011 7:43 PM

Yeah, SNL's political sketches are not funny. The only decent segment was Jon Hamm as Scott Brown, but that had mostly to do with the Hamm. Possibly because they aren't willing to see Obama as flawed comedic material, but even then they don't have anyone who touches the kind of impersonation that Ferrell did of Bush. Just bag it already.

But hell yeah, I thought The Creep was great, and I was quite impressed with Nikki Minaj going all in for it.

And maybe I'm just easily amused, but every time Hader hit Eisenberg with the microphone I laughed.

Posted by: Parker at January 30, 2011 11:25 PM

I'll jump in here and say I thought it was the best episode of the season. Aside from the flat Bachman opening, the rest of it was pretty good.

Relative to the rest of the year's episodes, I'll take it!

Posted by: anderbot at January 31, 2011 10:04 AM

On the day

Posted by: click free6 at January 31, 2011 11:44 AM

Really Allen? You're going to defend Michelle Bachmann as not worthy of parody because she's in "the ruling party?" As someone who's literally on the border between her district and Erik "Asshole" Paulsen's third, I can tell you, there's nothing about her that's worth taking seriously. She gets elected in a district where a Nazi skinhead could club a baby seal on live television, but as long as he's a Republican, he's still got a good shot. And by all means, I hope they make fun of everyone in the Tea Party, including the voters. Because as much as they love talking about the Constitution, they forgot the provisions that basically say "anything we forgot, you can take care of that in the future." People who want to strip everything that's not in the Constitution out of our government are 2 steps from anarchy and are also assuming that our current society would be half as advanced if we'd stuck strictly to a piece of parchment written in 1787 by slave-owners whose best level of protection was a musket that could fire one round at a time and required you to pour powder into the chamber with each shot. Unless of course they had a bayonet. Then they were safe.

As for your Obama crack, the most recent Gallup poll (released today) has his job approval at 50%. That's after the usual SOTU bump. So "most of the american people" don't dislike the president. He's also a very difficult president to parody. Bush was stupid. Clinton was sexual. Bush Sr.'s rhetoric was downright silly. What are they parodying when they do Obama? That he's black? That he speaks slowly in interviews? The day something comes out that they can play on, they'll be all over it. For now, it's not like they can make him fuck up.

But I do agree with your initial point: The political sketches have not been funny. Part of it's because of the cyclical nature of American politics; they did sketches on all of this stuff already, and the new stuff they're coming up with just isn't landing. Weekend Update is funny because it's one or two lines at a time and they can pick any weird ass news story they want. The problem is, despite what you say in your comment, the show's writers are actually playing it too safe and down-the-middle. Yes, they attack the right more than the left, but that's only because the right is more vocal. Someone on the left needs to actually do something before they can make fun of them. But even their bits about the right are tip-toeing. With each joke, I can hear their thought processes: "We don't want to offend anyone by saying this, so let's compromise and say this." The reason they didn't go harder after Michelle Bachmann is either 1) They're too lazy to research her (all of her insanity is a Google search away) or 2) They're too chicken-shit to take her on, because that would mean taking on every Tea Party whackjob who votes with her, and they simply don't have the guts or the energy to make that funny.

Posted by: ChristianH at January 31, 2011 12:00 PM

Wow, that was long. I didn't realize while I was typing it.

Posted by: ChristianH at January 31, 2011 12:05 PM

"amusing that anyone thinks the leno crowd is watching a show that was in its finest form when tina fucking fey was head writer."

WHAAAA?!?!?!

Tina Fey killed the last Golden Age of SNL. The late 90's were some of the best years of SNL (next to the Phil Hartman era). The show's quality dropped off a cliff when Fey became head writer. It is only now showing signs of trying to pull itself back up.

Posted by: Bubba at February 1, 2011 9:41 AM

BTW, I'm not a Fey hater. I love 30 Rock. But the skit quality on SNL sucked when she was head writer.

Posted by: Bubba at February 1, 2011 9:43 AM

ChristianH

I disagree! *speeds away*

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