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Highlights from Last Night's "Saturday Night Live": Zoolander Underwhelms

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 9, 2011 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 9, 2011 |


Last night’s third episode of the season featured host Ben Stiller, and it started out somewhat promising, but faltered after the fourth skit. It often seems that the bigger the host, the worse the show. That was certainly the case last night, as Ben Stiller didn’t add much to the proceedings.

The two big highlights of the night were actually two of the least amusing skits, but the guests are too big to ignore. One of them isn’t yet embeddable, which means you’ll have to surf through the entire show to see it on Hulu later this afternoon. (It’s the fourth skit). It’s an Andy Samberg skit, in which he appears as Hugh Jackman and Hugh Jackman appears as Daniel Radcliffe. It’s only worth seeking out if you’re bored.

It may be that it’s election season, but the political cold opens are improving, and last night’s actually had me wishing that Chris Christie would change his mind and run for President, if only for the Chris Christie skits.

Stiller’s monologue isn’t embeddable, and it’s just as well, as the Jewish Willy Wonka was better in spirit than in execution. The “Fox and Friends” skit, however, was fantastic, mostly for Jason Sudeikis’ Hank Williams and the fact-check scroll at the end of the skit.

The Digital Short I’m including only because it’s a Digital Short. It’s not worth sitting out the pre-roll to watch Samberg and Stiller engage in a Zoolander-esque V-Neck off.

That takes up straight to Weekend Update. The headlines were lacklaster, but Update did feature the other big moment from the show, which was Stefon and his guest, Derek Zoolander. The reveal is better than the segment itself, I’m afraid. This doesn’t exactly provoke a thirst for another Zoolander film.

Remember Shanna from last year’s Bryan Cranston episode? Kristen Wiig’s super hot woman with disgusting habits? She returned last night for a Halloween party. The skit is far too long and not particularly amusing, but the final minute is stomach-churning so I’m included it for lack of other highlights.

Finally, as always, I love the Juggalo commercials. Ass Dan!