Named For: Chris Farley, Saturday Night Live performer from 1990-95 Awarded To: The best sketch show performer from June 1, 2009 - May 31, 2010 Last Year's Winner: no award
Place. Performer (Show) Points (My Vote)
5. Jason Sudeikis (Saturday Night Live) 3 points
4. Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) 8 points
3. Kenan Thompson (Saturday Night Live) 12 points (1st)
Runner-Up 2. Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live) 14 points (2nd)
and the Poolie goes to... 1. Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live)
23 points (3rd)
Here with his thoughts on Bill Hader is Poolie voter, T-time...
Last year, Bill Hader was just one of a young ensemble cast. This fall, like Aykroyd in season two, Hader emerged as the star of SNL. He began popping up everywhere, impersonating James Carville, hosting an Italian talk show and displaying alarming reactions on Hollywood Dish. He sold the small bits, such as his acceptance of being bumped yet again by D'Andre Cole. He nailed the signature skits like Greg the alien. The highlight is his impression of Dateline's Keith Morrison who becomes overly interested in the news stories and attempts to delve deeper into irrelevant details.
It's a sad state of affairs when my favorite Saturday Night Live episode of the season so far did not have a single sketch with Andy Samberg in it. Zach Galifianakas brought comedy to the SNL stage last night in a ways that no other has done here in season 35. When you think about it, it makes sense because he's actually a comedian. Stop putting on famous people just because they're famous. There are enough famous funny guys out there to fill an entire season of the show.
It didn't start well, as they again bored me to death with a political Cold Open. Things quickly turned around as Zach killed his Monologue as he went straight to what seemed like his stand up act. It was very jokey but it worked great, especially after some of the disaster monologues we've seen. Now don't get me wrong it wasn't nearly as good as Joseph Gordon Levitt's dance number, but not much could be.
Throughout the ep we got three SNL recurring sketches that didn't disappoint. The Vogelcheck kissing family moved the side show to a funeral home this week and the make out session between Fred Armisen and the dead grandpa was both disgusting and awesome. What Up With That? once again showed that Kenan Thompson is the best man in the cast this season. Kathy Lee was back with the fourth hour of the Today Show and Zach dropped by to spice things up.
Then there was the Bidet sketch that was good and all but the highlight of the night was definitely Zach Drops by the Set. The idea of somebody dropping by all these different tv shows is funny on its own, but when you make that person a fat bearded man it gets that much better. They started you off slowly with Zach just being in the background of Brian Williams, but they slowly made him more infused with each tv show he visited. Hard to beat him asking "You guys doing a tv show or something?" to Jenna and Kenneth of 30 Rock, but the fat man managed to when he came up behind Anthony Anderson on Law And Order, takes a picture of him and then hands him the phone and says, "It's my aunt Louise."
As Al Donnelly's chief of staff would say, do you know what people should call me when I'm not around? The idiot! My inability to realize that the late football game was going to push the local news back and therefore move Saturday Night Live past my DVR recording makes me quite an idiot. As I was only able to watch half of last night's episode on the television, it became a bit confusing to me about how good the ep actually was.
After I finished watching individual clips from the second half of the episode, my first impression was that Charles Barkley delivered the best episode so far in this 35th season of SNL. That's not to say that his performance was that fantastic, but he delivered his parts well and didn't detract from what were finally a good group of sketches.
Top Five Sketches of the Night
5. Basketball Commentators- Definitely not as good the original "That'll move the chains!", but this "Nothing but the bottom of the net!" version got the job done.
4. MacGruber- No matter the situation, I always enjoy the MacGruber clips. Although all of the MacGruber being a racist stuff was funny, they could've done the exact same thing with Kenan in Barkley's place.
3. Barkley Golf- Here Sir Charles showed his ability to do some physical comedy. Every time he showed a hitch in an every day activity it was great.
2. Reel Quotes- This was the one sketch that Barkley was the major source of the comedy. His deadpan delivery as the Block Busters manager who knows nothing about movies was great.
1. Scared Straight- Once again Scared Straight is on its way to going down as my favorite recurring sketch in SNL history. This week's version did not disappoint. Charles's ability to play Lorenzo MacIntosh's father made it so that he did not detract from Kenan Thompson's fabulous performance. (unlike Taylor Swift who dropped the likeability of the sketch in half).
I knew that this was a bad idea as soon as it was announced, but then I thought maybe the people at Saturday Night Live knew something that I didn't. Maybe this singer, who had done one episode of CSI, was a perfect choice to host this weeks show. Alas my original thought that she would be terrible was correct. That's not to take anything away from this week's episode, because everyone was else was terrific, and there were some great moments. Taylor Swift was bland, boring and definitely couldn't act. On the positive side for Taylor, I liked her music. Both songs were good, the first one I had heard before. By the way, how do they think to go with a young singer as musical guest/host and not pick Miley?!? She would be fantastic on SNL...I'm just saying. Also it was funny that one guitarist in her band had the Kate Gosselin haircut, and they played shortly after the jokes about Gosselin's hair on The View sketch.
The View sketch was decent as always, with Fred Armisen killing it with the "Who cares?" "So whats", but why did they bring Andy on as Nic Cage for like two seconds?
There were three recurring sketches this week. Penelope and Nicholas Fehn both have run into the same problem. I enjoyed them the first couple times they were on, but the same thing over and over again has worn out the comedy. The exact same format every single time they do it just gets tiresome. Now you may want to call me a hypocrite, but Kenan can do the exact same thing every time he does Scared Straight, and I would fall to the ground laughing each and every time. Without a doubt it is climbing the charts as my favorite recurring sketch of all time on SNL. Don't get me wrong the addition of Taylor Swift greatly hurt this week's rendition, but anything Kenan said was solid gold.
Other parts I hated...Roomies. Sometimes annoying doesn't come across as funny. It comes across as annoying. New cast member Nasim Pedrad and Swift were brutal in this one, as Andy Samberg was relegated to sitting there with no good material. Swing and a miss. And then we had the always terrible Really with Seth and Amy?! How are they still doing this? Hasn't every person on the street gone up to every SNL castmember and writer and told them that this makes them want to throw up every time they see it? No? Some people actually like this? What a joke.
Last two sketches that I enjoyed a good amount. The Firelight trailer. We all know I love a good fake trailer. This was funny just from seeing commercials and previews for Twilight. I imagine it must have been even funnier if you had seen the movie. Am I right JJ? (boom!) And then we had the Swine Fever commercial. Just watch below and enjoy.
