Saturday Night Live, January 10th, 2009

Saturday Night Live
January 10th, 2009
Host: Neil Patrick Harris
Musical Guest: Taylor Swift

First off: Thanks to my wife, Raina for blogging the last few episodes before the break!
Sadly I missed the first two sketches of this week's episode too. I was watching the end of the Carey Grant movie "His Girl Friday," which was too hilarious not to finish up!

Broadway meeting.
A few years ago it seemed like every week SNL would do a sketch that was just an excuse to show off the cast's celebrity impressions. This was like that except with Broadway characters. It's just about the viewer going, "Wow, he looks just like that guy!" Or "She sounds exactly the same as her!" But if you are a hardcore fan of Broadway shows, I'm sure this sketch would have been AMAZING. As a moderate fan I'd say it was cute.

Penelope the Bragger in group therapy.
I'm sure at some point I'll get tired of this reoccurring character, but it hasn't happened yet.
Kristen Wiig manages to get a lot of mileage and genuine laughs. Showing up at the door as the girl was trying to leave was my favorite moment. "I'm having a panic attack, too." That, and having Liza Minelli show up with their friend the tomato.

Doogie Howser M.D. Orchestra
Another sketch I'd summarize as cute. I'm sure a lot of people who grew up watching the Doogie Howser Show will be sharing the clip on Youtube from here till eternity. I did grow up watching the show, but don't really have any nostalgia for it, ironic or otherwise. But I liked that the cast for the most part played it straight--or pretended like they were having fun and smiling. Neil Patrick Harris' lone tear at the end helped the endeavor.

Taylor Swift.
Another musical guest I've never heard of, so I'll assume she's from American Idol.
She gets 10 points for playing an instrument. Sorta like Jewel-light, with hints of Scarlet Johansson.

Weekend Update.
Another song from Will Forte. When will he realize he's not Adam Sandler? They're okay sometimes. But, only SOMETIMES. This was not one of those times. But I did like him asking if we could switch over to HBO for a sec so he could curse. Also bee jokes are usually good.

A repeat of the SNL presidential bash on Sunday? At 9PM prime time? Is NBC that desperate? Do they really expect the ratings to be that good? Who hasn't seen those sketches by this point?

Two First Names.
I'm glad someone had to produce a song parody of Destiny's Child's "Say My Name."
This sketch was another example of the cast just showing off their celebrity impersonations just for one quick gag or word ("yogurt"). Most of the impressions were good (as they often are), so I'm not really knocking them--just the format. The ad for Kangols hats with Billy Bob Thorton and Joey Pants was greatness.

This Push movie looks like it has Airbending in it.

Two Ladies with long nails.
At first this reminded me of the Kids in the Hall Cathy/Kathie sketches, in part because of the drag aspect, but also just in the catty nature of Kristen Wiig and Neil Patrick Harris' characterizations. But once it started to focus more on doing things with long nails, it became more about the visual comedy. And there was something surreal about how the two of them kept doing parallel actions. So even though it never really got any big laughs there was an ambitious approach to whatever it was they were trying to do!

Frost/Other People.
Another series of random impressions. By this point in the episode it was feeling pretty sad.

Whopper Virgins
Parody of Burger King commercials I haven't seen but someone told me about. Seemed kind of funny. I'm kind of sickened by the idea of the original commercials, though. I like that McDonald's was okay with paying to advertise on an episode that basically gave free ad time to Burger King.