I don’t think I’ll ever be completely fair with Saturday Night Live. After being exposed to the great sketch comedy shows The State and Mr. Show, mostly anything SNL does will pale in comparison. But what can you expect from a show that has to run twenty 90-minute installments over an eight month span? Whatever, *I* didn’t tell them to do it that often, for thirty-five years, live every single time.
However, last night’s episode featured a set of bits that reminded me of Mr. Show in the happy happy joy joy way – a running gag occuring in more than one sketch. It started with Will Forte playing a Blue Man Group reject playing a “Closed Organizer” and my god is this ridiculous. Forte never writes enough. Jon Hamm’s non-sequitur involving his late night escapades with a male Beyonce did it for me.
But as a commercial like that would say, that’s not alllll. About two segments and fifteen minutes later, host Jon Hamm meets the Closet Organizer at the bar.
Don’t you love the rhythms of the 12:50 “Writer’s Sketch”? Basically a whole show of this would be the shows I mentioned earlier.
The only other time I can think of SNL having a running gag outside of the seventies was when Will Ferrell as Kenneth Starr repeatedly subpoenaed characters from different sketches. Other than that, this was brand new territory.
In honor of Hammbone I organized the three types of sketches by Don Draper (quality goodness), Pete Campbell (mediocrity), and Dr. Rapey haha Vietnam (terrible).
Don Draper aka Grade A Hamm
In the opening monologue, Jon Hamm claimed to have been in a Saved By The Bell type show called Late For Class in the early 90’s. We see footage where it turns out his character was just like Don Draper. A vintage QVC clip shows Hamm as another Draper-esque man. He slaps Kristen Wiig and even calls her a “little girl”, just like in the episode Liz and I just reviewed! He then claimed he was on Def Comedy Jam. “You seen these big bottom girls? With their booties?” asks Hamm, in Draper’s cadence. My friend Lauren, who doesn’t watch Mad Men asked, “Ha, is that really what mad men is like? punching ladies?” Yeah, basically.
The Digital Short for once didn’t involve singing but was funny! It was Samberg as an ignorant Western businessman who gets cursed by a Native American. Samberg is interrupted at work, at home with his lady, and at the shrink’s office by Sergio, a sexy Saxophone player who gets hairstyle tips from Fabio. The end was pretty good. I have an acquaintance named Sergio, which should be interesting. If anyone still watches anyway.
Pete Campbell mediocrity
It’s no longer Jon Hamm’s Ham, its Hamm and Buble! One of the restaurant’s main features is Bubled Ham, a wine with chopped ham in it. Buble sings that he’s being forced captive. Another joke involving Hamm slapping people. He’s like Bing Crosby, except not really.
Weekend Update made a lazy but funny joke about the iPad being a mix of other preexisting apple products. Sotomeyer appearance bluhbluhbluh haha hipster beards on the Park Slope pigeons. I also liked the Tim Tebow joke because I know what sports is. Bobby Moynihan as Snooki always makes me laugh. Her claiming to replace herself at times with a red traffic cone and a wig seemed all too believable. Apparently “The Solution”’s mother is named “The Predicament”. “You can call me Spalding, because I’m orange, leathery and get passed around by sweaty dudes.”
New Senator Scott Brown is basically Mango
CNBC features a historical reenactment of the original Barnes and Noble coming up with an idea for a store. “We need a place where homeless people can go to the bathroom!” Oh they do have terrific bathrooms! One-note joke, but that note was a D major – bright, but not as good as E, and not as universal as C.
Doctor Rape have fun in Vietnam jerk terribleness
State of the Union address sketch where Obama talks about how unqualified Martha Coaxley would have been to take over for Ted Kennedy. The two funny things about this sketch were Jason Sudeikis finding everything Armisen said as hysterical, and the random viral clip of Brendan Fraser’s awkward Golden Globes clapping. Apparently other people liked this bit so I’ll embed the video.
1928, New York City. Kristen Wiig plays a character who is “forced” to sing. She can never quite figure out when to begin to sing with Hamm’s piano accompaniment and blahblahblah.
Third installment of Game Time with Randy and Greg with Kenan Thompson and alien Bill Hader doing a sports talk show. Jon Hamm plays the Colts quarterback coach who Greg turned into an alien. There wasn’t much humor going on, and Greg ends up figuring out how to multiply. The ending isn’t funny, it’s scary! Well scary to me – when I was a kid certain Twilight Zone episodes kept me up at night.
Fred Armisen plays a rather shitty stenographer. Second SNL in a row Armisen has a “character piece”. He’s like the male Kristen Wiig.
While dining with your date at Hamm and Buble, be sure to say…
“Don’t make me sing.”
“They need to wash they ass!”
“I can’t offer you the public option, but I can offer you the…pubic option.”
“When Tim Tebow runs the option, he’s always going to keep it.”
“We may be stupid, but WE’RE NOT FREAKIN STOOPID!”
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