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Episode Recap: Steve Carell Hosts, Usher Performs
Hey guys, it's Erin Fox, back from vacation. Thanks so much to Adam Bryant for filling in while I was gone. We always have lively discussions about SNL on Mondays, so I knew he'd be a fantastic addition to the recap blog. Yay, Adam!
So tonight is the season finale, and Steve "The Office and now big movie star" Carell is hosting. If I recall, last time he hosted wasn't all that phenomenal, but hopefully, that won't be the case tonight... especially with all the political fun to be had.
Cold Opening
Steve starts off giving an address to some graduates from the "Pounder School." The name is awesome, even though I don't get the reference yet. He talks about how this school is for outsiders, that no one, regardless of background or funny sounding names would ever be made fun of... this is a family. Now he reads the names of the seniors, which is every name Bart Simpson would use to crank phone call Mo (and much dirtier ones). Some of my favorites, "Jack David Mehoff," "Lotta Christine Semen," "Eaton Thomas Bush," "Dick Hurtz… Where's Dick Hurtz… Who's Dick Hurtz?" "Harry Nicholas Pairoftestes, the third." Does bathroom humor ever get old? No, no it doesn't.
Monologue
Steve talks about being a big deal as the season finale host. He also said he had about six Red Bulls and some sour patch kids to pump himself up. Then he does what he does best, crack up, make inappropriate noises and act like a maniac a la his possession in Bruce Almighty. He bolts off stage and sits on a dude from the audience's lap and asks for a head rub. He bolts out of the audience and runs into his awesome wife (Carol from The Office) Nancy, who gets him to admit he never drank Red Bull or ate candy... he's just nervous. Amy appears and asks if this happens often, and Nancy replies, "Every morning." Heh.
Split Screen Democratic Race Commercial
Fred as Obama and Amy as Hillary share a creepy split screen (as in one side of their shared face is Hillary, one is Obama) commercial about the democratic party. They speak in unison until they interject their points: "We have our weaknesses (Hillary says to Obama: Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama says: Bill Clinton)." Ha! It's pretty funny actually.
Deal or No Deal Sketch
Fred plays an awesome Howie, and Steve plays the contestant. He's about to open his suitcase after turning down 211K bucks. His belligerent dad played by Will Forte tells him he's not surprised since he always makes bad decisions. Howie tells "Rebecca" to open her case (super funny Kristen Wiig) and all she does is tease him by opening it a crack and closing it while she makes sad then happy faces. Steve looks like he's going to go postal between the case girl and his Dad screaming at him. It's funny until it gets sentimental at the end.
We get a special sneak peek of Get Smart, and unfortunately it looks really... well, not smart.
Karaoke Night Sketch
Keenan starts with "Everything I Do," and then the host, Steve, gets up on stage in a vest (ha!). We see Jason and Kristen dressed as douchey A-Holes doing karaoke. They both smack gum, she's texting and playing with her hair, and Jason says "babe" every two seconds while sporting a cell earpiece. They decide to do stand up instead of karaoke while Steve tries not to kill them. I'm getting bored now. They decide to do "Baby Got Back," but then just stand there and chew their gum. Not as funny as it could have been. Bummer.
SNL Digital Short
Ricky Gervais sits in a director chair and discusses the far superior British version of The Office. This is awesome... his timing is so perfect and dry. After bashing America for ripping off his version, he says he was inspired by the original Japanese version of the show and wants to show it to us now. Uh-oh, hold onto your hats. This is gonna be good, I hope. The beginning is perfectly redone, Japanese style. The best part is that they got Jason to look just like Jim and Bill to look exactly like Dwight... who pulls out the stapler in the Jell-O while cursing in Japanese. All the actors speak Japanese (I think) convincingly and I'm cracking up. This is brilliant! They go to a Japanese commercial which is Darrell Hammond playing Regis Philbin. He's plugging (ew... pun intended) Hello Kitty tampons. OMG, it's so true! Celebs always plug random crap overseas. Awesome. Back to Ricky who simply says, "It's funny because it's racist." My fave part is Kristen's Asian-girl giggle.
McCain Campaign Sketch
It's really McCain! Wondered when he's show up (not in a cartoon). He's totally making fun of the fact that he's so old. He wants to do the right thing and cut pork-barrel spending, like 160 million bucks to developing a gaydar jamming device. LOL. The rest is pretty funny too, including his frugalness in Arizona, like reducing paved roads from 23k to 900 miles. Heh. Nice job.
Usher performs
I loves me some Usher, but this song is mostly heavy breathing, and his funky dance moves. He pretty to look at though.
Weekend Update
Yay! They start off with political stuff as usual. "John Edwards officially endorsed himself for vice president this week." Hee! That's what I thought when I saw that as well. McCain is back! The real one, even! He wants to thank Republican voters because he's honored to be their choice. He wants to reach out Democrats to say "Don't pick out a candidate too soon." Seth and Amy begin to bicker, and McCain says, "That's right, fight amongst yourself." Hehehehe. This is actually really funny... better than his first bit. Besides saying that he thinks keeping two people on the ticket through and even after the convention is crazy! Crazy exciting!" Ha! He also suggests John Edwards has good ideas and they should consider, "Kicking the tires on that idea a few more times." Awesome. Well, played. Keenan and Darrell play Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Hammond's Jackson is spot-on. He's an amazing mimic. Keenan, not so much. But they made him look like Al, which is funny in itself. A little. Hey, I'm trying here, people!
The Charlie Flitt Show
Steve plays a weight loss phenom that looks like Lumbergh from Office Space. Amy joins him onstage as another weight loss success story. She lost weight on Subway... and she's met Jared! (He's just as hot in person... ew). Her fiancé played by Bill has the reverse story. He was thin and then gained it back. Everyone has to break through paper images of themselves. This skit just doesn't do it for me at all. I think it could have been funny, but it's missing something. Oh yeah, funniness!
CPR Sketch
Steve sticks his chest out as any good Red Cross volunteer CPR teacher would do. He demonstrates CPR compressions on Andy who tells him to do it harder. Steve presses all the way into his chest cavity and blood starts spurting everywhere. Ew. He begins mouth to mouth and a balloon inflates every time he blows. Andy dies, Usher enters and does a mini PSA about how CPR is fun but can kill. BOO.
Usher Performs Again
This time he's wearing black and has a dancing partner who is more like a stripper with those moves. Ooh, now there's a blonde stripper! The song is less annoying though.
Random Musical Sketch
Steve and Kristen do a strange "Bless This Child" song and dance number with a baby doll. It's very weird and only a little funny. Let's just think back to the Japanese Office.
What did you guys think? Was it a good season finale? Do you miss Tina Fey like I do?
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May 18, 2008 2:50 PM
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This was the first time, in a long time, that I turned SNL off before the 1st musical performance. TGFDVR, because in fact I turned it off right before things got good. Steve Carell was awful! John McCain rocked! Weekend update was hilarious! 10 great minutes out of 66, is a rather sad way to end the season. Here's hoping everything picks up with next years election.
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May 18, 2008 3:59 PM
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This was a so-so episode, last week's was a lot better.
BTW, the split face bit with Obama and Hilary was a parody of the NBA playoff commercials where they show two players saying the same thing. I thought the spoof was brilliant how they had them saying different things.
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May 18, 2008 4:53 PM
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I know I'm alone, but I think Steve Carell is the most overrated comical actor ever. His comic high is when he shouts emotionlessly. Really.
Last week was so, so much better.
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May 18, 2008 6:05 PM
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While I think Steve Carell can be funny, it surprises me that Hollywood keeps casting him in lead roles, when he is clearly strictly an ensemble actor.
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May 18, 2008 6:40 PM
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this episode was OK. I honestly do not think that the Japanese The Office, was that funny.
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May 18, 2008 8:46 PM
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Just Awful, really. The above poster had it right. The political stuff is hilarious, and nothing else is (excepting Hader who is gold). The Offis sketch was not funny without Gervais's comment at the end.
Looking toward next year, I am really bummed. The election will be funny, but it is over the first weekend of November. What will they mine once that is done?
On a related note, I hope Samburg moves on. He is only good for 2-3 digital sketches PER YEAR.
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May 18, 2008 9:03 PM
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I knew there was a reason I don't watch "The Office" and tonight's host might be the reason. I rather watch "Back to You" but the schmucks at Fox cancelled a potentially funny show with very good comedic actors. I thought the finale was not as good as a last show of the season should be. The writers are really not doing the best that they can or....just get better writers. I always DVR the show and wasn't thrilled with Usher either. Maybe he should work in a theater showing people to their seats (get it people? an usher in a Broadway theater?) See you in September.
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May 19, 2008 12:18 AM
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Wow.
I really liked the whole show, which never happens. To me, this was the best episode since the writer's strike was over. So much better than last week.
I didn't fast forward through anything but Usher. and I usually fast forward through at least a third of the show.
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May 19, 2008 1:42 AM
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John McCain was good. The rest of the show was horrible.
Perhaps SNL can hire some new writers during the off season.
And Usher? What has happened to him? The songs were terrible, he hit more bad notes then good and even his dancing sucked. It was like watching a very bad American Idol audition.
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May 19, 2008 8:31 AM
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Every year I tune in to a couple of episodes of SNL. I thought with the season finale and Steve Carell that this would be legen---dary. But, NO, it was HORRIBLE. The first skit with the dirty names would've been funny if done on Wayne's World, but this was juvenile and went on for much too long. Carell's monologue was pathetic. The political stuff and McCain were somewhat amusing, but only in comparison to everything else.
Don't they have any writers on this show anymore? I believe my daughter's freshman high school English class could've come up with funnier skits during one 50 minute class period!
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May 19, 2008 12:18 PM
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I mainly liked the John McCain bits, the cold open, the Obama/Hilary face ad, that "PSA" skit, and Carell's wife (and former SNLer) Nancy's appearance. It was a bit better than last weeks show but not by much. Hope the presidential election provides much good humor in the fall and, yes, I miss Tina Fey here. I hope Amy's pregnancy doesn't take her away from "Weekend Update" too much as I can't imagine any of the other cast members having as much chemistry with Seth as she does.
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May 20, 2008 2:25 AM
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SNLfan, damn you're good. I remember Nancy Walls as a correspondent on "The Daily Show", but I would never have guessed she were an alumna of SNL from the '95-'96 season. I'm impressed.
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May 20, 2008 12:37 PM
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