Saturday Night Live
Dave Chappelle & GloRilla
January 18, 2025
In his fourth time hosting (and third time following a Presidential Election, for whatever that’s worth), Dave Chappelle broke a Saturday Night Live record by delivering the longest monologue in the show’s history. It was 17 minutes long, though it didn’t need to be. And I’m sure, like everything to do with Dave Chappelle, that will be considered a controversial take: there are plenty of people who will defend to the death this man and his comedy, even when it runs too long or hurts others.
In the end, the monologue itself won’t be remembered for its content — which at times was very funny, and only once offensive — but for its excessive, indulgent length, which led to the cutting of at least two additional sketches and screen time for the young cast. And if the rest of the sketches had been A+’s across the board, the decision to let Chappelle do an almost entire stand-up set might have been defensible. (They weren’t. But then what else is new?)
Welp, here we are again, on the eve of another fucking four years of Former President Huckster-Elect dominating our newsfeed and anxieties. I don’t know what to tell you except that 1. I hope we all learned a lot of valuable lessons from the last time we did this including Not Letting Every Stupid Little Thing He Says and Does Drive You Crazy Because That’s What He Wants: To Exhaust and Demoralize You; but simultaneously, brace yourselves because 2. it’s probably going to be worse this time around as he will be surrounded by true believers, sycophants, and people with actual plans and agendas. It’s going to suck! Oh, it’s going to suck. Find ways you can fight back and resist, but also, don’t let it consume you; I know all too well how easy it is to allow the hate and fear consume you.
All of this is a long way to go to say that the episode’s cold open features a panel of MSNBC personalities: Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber, Joy-Ann Reid, Stephanie Ruhle, and Chris Hayes on Inauguration Weekend struggling with this very thing: how they are not going to get sucked in by every crazy thing Former President Attention Hog-Elect says … only to do exactly that. The sketch includes plenty of insane Former President Mango Menace-Elect statements that are indistinguishable from real statements he’s made in the past few weeks, some good zingers at both his and MSNBC’s expense, and a bonus appearance from that messy bitch, George Santos. All in all, a decent opener — especially if you, like me, watch too much MSNBC.
But I’m already so tired, guys.
View on Threads
Grade: A-
And once again, in the wake of an election, Lorne Michaels invites Dave Chapelle back to help laundry his reputation talk frankly to the American people about how we need to give the incoming President another chance or some shit. And in the process of doing that — which takes him more than 17 minutes to do in the longest monologue in 50 years of this show — he makes jokes about the Los Angeles fires, the Puff Daddy situation, and how hard it is to be famous.
But here’s the thing: this monologue is going to be very divisive with people because Dave Chappelle IS funny: he was one of my favorite comedians — until he wasn’t. And he’s funny here. Not every joke lands, but plenty do. I just don’t know that enough land to justify the length of the monologue and the loss of at least two sketches.
Grade: B-
We revisit the Marcello Hernandez “Immigrant Dad Talk Show” sketch that he first did when Ramy Youssef hosted last year. This time, Joaquin Antonio invites his neighbor Richard to join him to talk smack about their sons and make fun of white dads. It mostly serves as an opportunity for Dave to smoke on stage.
Grade: B+
As a family prepares to evacuate ahead of the Los Angeles wildfires, the dad, played by Chappelle, reveals that he’s hidden vast stashes of money, guns, mob ties, and an entire other family. It’s bloody. It’s fine.
Grade: B-
“Weekend Update” takes some broad swipes at Former President Document Thief-Elect, a brutal one at Mark Zuckerberg, January 6, Steve Bannon, and others. It’s pretty zingy.
Grade: A-
Michael Longfellow (who deserves more screen time) joins The Weekend Update desk to plead for TikTok to not be banned. In the process of defending TikTok, he proves all the criticisms of TikTok: that it’s full of disinformation, steals your data, and that it has a detrimental effect on attention spans.
Grade: A-
Sarah Sherman joins The Weekend Update desk as the original Nosferatu, ostensibly to whine about not being included in the new movie, but mostly to terrorize Colin Jost and make more jokes at his expense. It, as every time she does this bit, is great.
Grade: A
Easily the worst sketch of the night doesn’t include Dave Chappelle at all — chances are he needed another smoke break. Here, a young man files a missing persons report for his girlfriend at a police station, but at the advice of the janitor, declines to give her weight … because it might make her mad at him? I don’t know. It’s terrible. From what I’ve read, they had a full show at the dress rehearsal with four other sketches that were cut, surely one — AT LEAST ONE — had to be better than this, right?
Grade: D
Finally, a pre-tape spoofs the popular YouTube series, “Pop the Balloon or Find Love,” in which a man introduces himself to a group of women, and if they are not interested in him, they pop the balloon they are holding. Here the joke is the women pop their balloons for the nice guy; but don’t pop theirs for the guy who admits to being a cheating jerk, because “wOmEn HaTe NiCe GuYs.” Silky the Pimp from Chappelle’s Show also makes an appearance (along with Chappelle’s Show regular Donnell Rawlings) where he is confronted by the women for being a sex trafficker. I’m not mad at it, it’s just a little lazy.
Grade: B
Final Grade: Solid B.
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.