Saturday Night Live
Will Ferrell & King Princess
November 23, 2019
When it comes to judging hosts, it’s unfair to compare regular actors, sports figures, musicians or even other comedians to former cast members. For former hosts, this was their job for years — they understand how to play to the audience; they aren’t afraid of a live performance; they, better than probably most actors, understand comic timing. This is how they became household names. And among those who have been invited back to host Saturday Night Live, Will Ferrell might be one of the funniest and most talented cast members of all time. So to compare him as a host to a Harry Styles or a Kristen Stewart, it’s just not fair. They aren’t on the same playing field.
Will Ferrell returned to Saturday Night Live for his fifth time hosting and delivered easily one of the funniest — if not the funniest — episodes of the season. Ferrell’s big golden retriever energy makes every sketch just that much funnier, even sketches that by all rights should have just been mediocre. And while I can’t be certain, it certainly felt like the writers held back on the last couple of episodes so that they could give Will Ferrell the choicest material. And honestly? I don’t blame them in the least. He knocked it out of the park.
Saturday Night Live
David Harbour & Camila Cabello
October 12, 2019
David Harbour is famous now for Stranger Things, but he’s been around for a long time (fun facts: he was in Brokeback Mountain, that Fox/Greg Kinnear series, Rake, and The Newsroom before finding success as Jim Hopper). He also has a wicked sense of humor, and a willingness to both be goofy and play to type — which makes him an ideal guest host for Saturday Night Live.
While this week failed to live up to last week’s, it was still pretty good — particularly for this grab bag of a show. And though nothing this week was as brilliant or daring as the racial news sketch of last week, this week’s Joker spoof will probably go down as one of the best sketches of the season.
Continue reading “David Harbour and Oscar the Grouch keep a good ‘Saturday Night Live’ streak alive”
Saturday Night Live
Woody Harrelson & Billie Eilish
September 28, 2019
Welcome to the 45th season of Saturday Night Live, a season that was marred before it even began by a casting controversy after the show cast a “conservative” comedian whose “humor” involved making fun of Asians, women, and homosexuals. Hilarious! He was fired, but not before everyone and their racist uncle decried “cancel culture” for a solid week.
I’m just going to put this here for no particular reason:
them: COMEDY IS A FREE FOR ALL U PC POLICE PUSSIIIIIIEESS
carlin:pic.twitter.com/YeP1yRoUlM
— Jenny Yang (@jennyyangtv) September 28, 2019
The show returned last night with two new cast members, Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang, the show’s first Asian-American cast member ever, and both acquitted themselves quite nicely in the episode.
As for the episode itself: it was fine. It was fine! There wasn’t any one particular sketch that made me angry (with maybe the exception of Woody Harrelson’s monologue, but to use the word “angry” here is strong — it mostly just left me irritated), but there weren’t any knock it out of the park, A+ sketches either. Instead, everything felt comfortable and predictable — not boring, exactly, but also not memorable in the long haul, either.
