Much of the program appears in clip form on the Hulu, which is where I'm
catching up.
Of what I've seen, I'm pretty much with M-D, except for the spelling of Paul
S.'s name. For my taste, you can't take the piss out of Lorne enough, and you
can't take the piss out of li'l Jimmy enough, but some folks sure tried.
First Take, a late night weekend offering for (I think) NBC affiliates, had an
SNL episode, talking to many of the recent cast, Kevin Nealon and Paul Shaffer.
It's a nice complement, if you can stand the host (she used to be on one of
the MTV 'reality' programs around LA).
David
From: M-D November <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2015 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] S(unday)NL to go long
Personally, I was happy to see that they didn't go with the standard clip show
format that previous SNL anniversary specials have favored. In a nutshell,
here's what I thought of the non-retread/non-musical performances:
- Fallon/Timberlake cold open: I appreciate the fact that they did a song &
dance to work in other cast members (like Drach & her "Debbie Downer"), I feel
like the open was more reminiscent of their 'history of rap' segments from
LNWJF than anything either did on SNL. I would have much rather had them do
"Barry Gibb Talk Show", since it's a sketch that only gets done every 3 years,
and it would have allowed past & current cast members to do some political
impersonations.
- Steve Martin & friends monologue: spot on, except Miley Cyrus had no
business being on stage with 5+ timers.
- Super Bass-O-Matic 2150: Almost perfect, and I like how Ackroyd handled
the blender's failure at the end of the sketch. (Could the props department
not afford a VitaMix? It's the SBOM2150, not the BOM76, for chrissake.)
- Celebrity Jeopardy: YES. ALL OF THE YES. (And I'm kicking myself for
missing the jokes in the category names.)
- The Californians: Betty White saves the sketch. Godddamn that woman is
game for just about anything. Complete waste of time otherwise. (Although a
decent idea to have David Spades' snarky flight attendant kill the sketch,
Graham Chapman style.)
- Weekend Update: I would have liked more of this and less of the
Californians.
- Marty Short/Maya Rudolph: Loved this except for the aforementioned
Garth/Kat appearance. G&K were redeemed by Murray as Nick Ocean (with Paul
Schaffer!) and, as much as I hate to say it, "What's Up With That?" (Sudekis in
the tracksuit FTW.) Again, the lack of Fallon & Timberlake as Barry & Robin
Gibb was a big oversight here, if you're not going to do BGTS.
- Digital Short ("That's When You Break"): a nice way to use both Sandler &
Samberg that highlights the challenges of live TV. Also, an entire verse of
"Here's another one of Fallon & Sanz" - yep.
- Wayne's World: it was good to see Wayne & Garth again, but I wish they'd
done more than just a top 10 list. (Again, swap this for the Californians in
both placement & timing.) Would have preferred to see W&G interact with some
other SNL talk show hosts - the "Girlfriends Talk Show" girls, Jarret & Gobi,
Dieter (oh, wait - never mind), Barry & Robin Gibb (damn it!), Steve Harvey,
Fernando...well, you get the picture. I did like the shout-out to the crew at
the very end of the sketch.
I also really liked that the band got to have a moment of their own as he
introduced the memorial reel, which also featured cast, crew & band alike. And
seeing Jan, Phil & Chris all in a row during memorial reel was like three hard
shots to the gut. That was the one that got me.
Musical performances? Sir Paul needs some Ricola (and probably should have
been scratched in favor of another performer/sketch), Miley actually did a nice
job with 50 Ways, Kanye & his 'genius' can eat a bag of dicks, and Paul Simon
was great, but I was disappointed that Lorne didn't have Paul perform "Still
Crazy After All These Years" in the turkey costume for old times' sake.
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