Tag: snl

BREAKING: Ryan Gosling and everyone else on ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 49

Saturday Night Live
Ryan Gosling & Chris Stapleton
April 13, 2024

Somehow this is only Ryan Gosling’s third time to host Saturday Night Live which … just doesn’t feel right. But according to my sources, the first time he hosted was in late 2015, and then in 2017, and now this week. Which begs the question — HOW DID WE GO SEVEN YEARS WITHOUT RYAN GOSLING HOSTING SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE AGAIN? LORNE?

Because here’s the thing: especially following Barbie, I’m pretty sure the entire world agrees that Ryan Gosling is not just a pretty face, he’s genuinely hilarious, and clearly delights in being funny. But maybe he delights a little too much in being funny, especially if you’re one of those people who hates when the host and/or cast begins breaking mid-scene. Because Ryan Gosling Can. Not. Keep. It. Together.

Hating it when the cast breaks is a legitimate complaint that many people have — I’m old enough to remember Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz making each other crack up which felt like a cheap way to make the audience laugh with them when the sketch wasn’t otherwise working. That said, Gosling’s giggles seem genuine, and they are, like it or not, highly contagious.

Bring him back sooner THAN SEVEN YEARS FROM NOW, Lorne.

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Kristen Wiig receives a star-studded induction into ‘Saturday Night Live’s’ Five-Timer’s Club

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 49

Saturday Night Live
Kristen Wiig & Raye
April 6, 2023

Kristen Wiig is arguably one of Saturday Night Live‘s greatest former cast members — which is why it is no surprise that she is one of only five cast members who has hosted enough times to be inducted into the Five-Timers Club. (Can you name the other four?)

But despite her greatness as a cast member and her success off the show, Wiig has not had the most successful run with hosting the show. In 2016, I said the episode “was the equivalent of putting on an old sweatshirt: comfortable, familiar and warm, but not something you’ll remember even two days from now”; in May 2020 — which was in the middle of the pandemic and one of those difficult at-home episodes — Wiig only appeared in two bits, one of which was a “weird-and-not-weird-in-a-funny-way-just-weird monologue”; and in December 2020, I found the material to be “mediocre” and gave it a B-. (I don’t have her first episode from 2013 here in the Foolish archives, unfortunately.)

So I am happy to report that for this momentous occasion, the writers gave Wiig some good material to work with and supported her with a bevy of superstars, and as a result, Wiig finally hosted the Saturday Night Live episode that her talents deserved.

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Clearly, ‘SNL’ didn’t get the memo that ‘SNL’ doesn’t hire “hot” women

by Therese Odell, posted in watch this

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Ramy Youssef charms an otherwise forgettable ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 49

Saturday Night Live
Ramy Youssef & Travis Scott
March 30, 2023

Ramy Youssef is one of those interesting characters who it doesn’t feel like has had his big breakout moment yet, despite being the creator and star of an Emmy-nominated Golden Globe-winning series that is named after him; being the co-creator of a different Peabody Award-winning show; the star of two HBO stand-up specials and being the co-star of a multi-Oscar-winning film this year. And yet, I don’t think he’s quite a household name … yet.

So I’m pleased he hosted last night’s Saturday Night Live where he was able to show the country his careful, clever, empathetic style of comedy. Last night, Youssef was saddled with an otherwise mediocre set of sketches; there wasn’t an obvious stinker in the group, but there wasn’t anything in here (aside from his monologue) that is going to be remembered in a couple of months. Still, he was able to add to the show a little bit of his culture and comedy about being Muslim-American, introducing it to a new audience during a particularly fraught moment in geopolitics.

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Stephen Colbert wishes Kate Middleton well but does not walk back any of his jokes (because he shouldn’t)

by Therese Odell, posted in watch this

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Josh Brolin gives his all in a serviceable ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 49

Saturday Night Live
Josh Brolin & Ariana Grande
March 9, 2023

I never think of Josh Brolin as being a particularly funny actor. Which is strange, because he stars in one of my all-time favorite comedies, Flirting with Disaster, and is genuinely delightful in it. (You’ll never look at armpits the same way again.)

But here he is, hosting SNL for the third time in sixteen years, and he is as engaged, game, and hilarious as he was in Flirting with Disaster 28 years ago. You can’t accuse Brolin of not being enthusiastic: he readily strips down twice in the episode, seemingly unprompted at least one of the times; plays against a cat puppet; and finds himself unable to hold it together against the likes of one recurring character. Brolin is a solid host who appears to be enjoying himself — it’s no wonder why he was invited back, I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened more often.

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‘Saturday Night Live’ traps Sydney Sweeney in the hotness bubble

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 49

Saturday Night Live
Sydney Sweeney & Kacey Musgraves
March 2, 2023

I don’t watch Euphoria because I have had teenage children and it was just A LITTLE TOO MUCH for me, so I was formally introduced to Sydney Sweeney in the first season of The White Lotus, as the bitchy, entitled teenage daughter of a mogul, full of woke ideas and oblivious privileged behavior, and I found her both hilarious and compelling.

Unfortunately for Miss Sweeney, based on purely anecdotal evidence, many of my male friends find her compelling for …. other, mostly prurient reasons. And it felt like with this episode, the SNL writers fell into a similar trap, focusing largely on her physical attributes, despite Sweeney being both hilarious and game and a natural at comedy. The protective older woman in me wants to fold Miss Sweeney under a wing and tell her that she deserves better, that she can demand better than just being reduced to being a pretty blonde with big boobs. But the realist in me also recognizes that the reason she is hosting SNL at all is because she’s a pretty blonde — who also happens to be a talented actress and comedian — and that sometimes (a lot of the time) she will be expected to lean into the pretty blonde thing to just survive in this business.

HAPPY WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH, EVERYONE!

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Jimmy Kimmel brilliantly exposes the shameless hypocrisy of the MAGA cult

by Therese Odell, posted in watch this

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Shane Gillis’ not-so-victorious return to ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 49

Saturday Night Live
Shane Gillis & 21 Savage
February 25, 2023

There is going to be (has been) a great deal of digital ink spilled on who Shane Gillis is, and why it’s both a big and weird deal that he hosted this week’s Saturday Night Live. The shortest answer I can give is that Gillis was hired to be on SNL in 2019 (the same year Bowen Yang joined, for a little bit of context). But a couple of weeks later, before Season 45 began, Gillis was fired after clips of his comedy emerged in which the material was deemed to be racist, sexist, and homophobic. This became the best thing for Gillis’s stand-up career, as you can imagine, as he became a poster boy for the anti-cancel culture crusaders. Gillis went on to have two popular Netflix specials. And, in his attempt to prove to someone, anyone, that he’s not a liberal shill, Lorne Michaels invited Gillis to return to Saturday Night Live as a host. (Vulture has a very good explainer on the whole situation, including a solid theory on why he was invited to host, if you need more.)

So was his debut on Saturday Night Live as disruptive and offensive as his fans wanted and his detractors feared? Well, no, not really, and frankly, that’s not a win for anyone. Gillis’s monologue was messy and bombed with the studio audience; and a majority of the sketches, playing on his reputation, seemed to dare the audience to be offended, even when they weren’t that offensive. The most offensive thing about them, in fact, was Gillis’ inclusion in them.

All in all, the episode felt like watching a 15-year-old getting messy drunk for the first time: he thinks he’s being naughty and dangerous, but the rest of us just see a mess that needs to be cleaned up.

Finally, the thing about Shane Gillis is that now that I’ve seen this episode, I genuinely understand why he was originally cast: he fills a certain role — he slides right into “middle-aged dad” and “beer-drinking sports guy” just fine; and, I have to admit, his impersonation of Former President Dipshit is quite good. The problem here is that once SNL fired him, the only way to have him be on the show was to have him host it. By hosting it he was able to show off his stand-up, something that he wouldn’t have been able to do as a cast member. And by featuring his stand-up, as they did last night, the show not-so-passively endorsed it. And that, as you will see below, was somewhat regrettable.

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After a brief detente, a new battlefront has opened in the endless Britney/Justin war.

by Therese Odell, posted in watch this

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