S41.E11: Ronda Rousey / Selena Gomez

[BatmanBeatles]

 

I had to keep reminding myself that it's only Tina Fey, that's not Sarah Palin up there.

So did I. Her facial expressions were the same.

[Yolapukka]

I thought the pacing was off in the cold open, Both Tina and Daryl had funny lines and delivered them well but something about the way the cameras cut between them destroyed the momentum of the bit and as others have mentioned, the content wasn't nearly crazy enough in comparison to the real-life what-the-fuckery that actually has been said by these people in recent days.

 

The monologue was Ok, I was amused, it wasn't cringe-inducing and the bit with Kate as Beiber made me laugh. Overall, I was fine with Ronda as host, maybe they could have used her more throughout the show, but she did well with what she had, better than many past hosts and better than those who wear out their welcome before show's end with too many mediocre contributions. She stumbled badly in the town council sketch and even then, at least the intended humour came through. 

 

The SAG awards sketch was funny as hell. I knew where they were going as soon as it started but instead of being the exact same joke oversold 5 times over, it had a build with each nominee being even more egregious and ridiculous than the last and the epic stink-eye from the un-nominated actors was perfect.

 

Loved "Love Struck". Again, another sketch going to an obvious place but delivering genuine laughs due to Vanessa's great delivery and an excellent use of Ronda. I was trying to place who she was channeling but I couldn't, whoever said she resembled Julia Stiles hit the nail on the head, not only in looks but also a similar line delivery. I don't know if it was conscious imitation or a happy accident, but either way it really worked.

 

Bland Man had it's moments, especially Cecily, Aidy and Sasheer.

 

Week-end update was good. I've gone from hate-watching or ignoring Colin and Che to actively enjoying them. I always love Willie, "It's like my mama always said, you should have saved your brother Willie!" Leslie was hilarious, her WU appearances have been her best work on the show and this was a high point. Having said that, her sketch work has improved greatly, she's stopped stumbling over her lines and she's doing more to fill out her characters than simply turning up the volume while being blunt and amazonian. 

 

The sex with teachers skit is lame and dated. I could see this being outrageous enough to be funny forty fratty years ago, but now it's just stale and slightly repulsive. It might work if they were a bit more meta about it but even then it would be touch and go. If they are going to present something so one-note, start with a better note.

 

Super Crew was mostly filler. Mmm sawdust.

 

Loved the guys in a club, it was vulgar in the way that makes me snort like a malfunctioning chainsaw especially Beck's character, who was insanely pathetic and increasingly weird.

 

Aidy as Jan Krang was the highlight of the city council meeting. I like it as a recurring sketch.

 

The party guys sketch was weak, The writing just wasn't there. I think the last bit of the night needs to be either better developed or a quick blackout sketch. I prefer not to be left with something so flat to end the evening.

Edited January 25, 2016 by yuggapukka

[Princess Sparkle]

Leslie posted some pictures on Instagram of a sketch cut after dress, where it appears it was some type of boxing sketch where she was Don King, Keenan was Mr. T, Beck looks like he's dressed as Stallone in Creed, and Ronda was dressed as a male boxer.  She said she was bummed it got cut, so hopefully it shows up as one of the "cut for time" sketches they release.

[helenamonster]

Tina definitely looked even more eerily like Palin during the cold open, but I thought the resemblance was even more terrifying in this BTS picture.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BA6JLyisNLA/

 

I wonder if it's just a result of her aging? Tina is currently 45 and Palin is 51, so 8 years ago when the original sketch aired, they would have been 37 and 43. So maybe now that Tina is closer to the age that Palin was when she first did the sketch, she just happens to look more like her? Idk. Obviously the hair/makeup people are doing a great job as well cuz Tina on her own, even with her glasses, only slightly resembles Palin.

[morgankobi]

 And I thought she looked eerily like Julia Stiles in the Lovestuck skit.

 

Actually, I kept thinking (starting from the monologue) how much she resembles Hayden Panettiere.

[Blakeston]

I can't say that I was impressed at all by Ronda Rousey. She was better than someone like Nancy Kerrigan, but that's an incredibly low bar. There have also been athletes like Eli and Peyton Manning, and Dwayne Johnson, who have been really good.

And Rousey is getting significant acting gigs now, so I expected her to be able to deliver her lines more competently than she did.

I wonder if it's just a result of her aging? Tina is currently 45 and Palin is 51, so 8 years ago when the original sketch aired, they would have been 37 and 43. So maybe now that Tina is closer to the age that Palin was when she first did the sketch, she just happens to look more like her?

I think that's exactly it. I had a reaction to seeing Tina as Sarah that I'd never had before - and I think it had to do with Tina aging a bit (especially in the neck area), which makes her an even better match for how Palin looked when her image was everywhere.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Watch The Most Notable Moments Of Ronda Rousey's Saturday Night Live Début
Yes, she was the host. But if you blinked, you probably missed her.

[Pete Martell]

I thought the pacing was off in the cold open, Both Tina and Daryl had funny lines and delivered them well but something about the way the cameras cut between them destroyed the momentum of the bit and as others have mentioned, the content wasn't nearly crazy enough in comparison to the real-life what-the-fuckery that actually has been said by these people in recent days.

 

I agree about the pacing. I'm sure on paper the idea of an increasingly annoyed Trump commenting on Palin's insanity was hilarious, but onscreen, it just felt leaden. I also don't think Hammond's Trump impression is all that great, and he was oncamera too much for it to have the impact it would have had with a few quick comments. 

 

I also felt like Lorne Michaels' ever-increasing caution significantly hobbled the sketch, as Trump was given an unearned invitation to basically say, "Hey, she's crazy...and not my kind of crazy either, really crazy." I think deep down, Lorne Michaels probably still sees Trump as just another quirky, funny guy they can harmlessly lampoon, and if not for the heavy backlash against the show for giving him a platform, I wonder if he'd even let the harsher WU jokes go through.

 

The only time I actually laughed was the joke about Palin's son, and then at the end when she said the line about being in a Cabinet, because she's full of spice and has a great rack. That is actually something ridiculous that Palin would probably say, and it meant less of her basically just being a joke with Trump as the straight man.

 

Deep down I felt like Lorne was reluctant to say much of anything about Trump or Palin and just couldn't resist the idea knowing it would get attention. And the unease helped undercut the sketch from start to finish.

[Blakeston]

I agree about the pacing. I'm sure on paper the idea of an increasingly annoyed Trump commenting on Palin's insanity was hilarious, but onscreen, it just felt leaden. I also don't think Hammond's Trump impression is all that great, and he was oncamera too much for it to have the impact it would have had with a few quick comments.

That's a gimmick SNL writers love - have one character say something really dumb and/or silly, and have the other character interject with some version of, "Boy, is s/he nuts or what!" to the audience. Like when Jay Pharaoh shows up on Update as Shaquille O'Neal and acts goofy, and Kenan Thompson as Charles Barkley has nothing to do but make vaudeville-ish gags about how Shaq isn't playing with a full deck. It's always felt pretty hacky to me.

 

I can see why they'd go for an easy gag about how Palin is too absurd for even Donald Trump - but I was really hoping they could do more than just make that same joke over and over. One of these days I'll learn.

[kassa]

I found it pretty disappointing.  Not the host's fault -- there was a lot of dead air even when the cast were running things. Half the dating show consisted of cast members dropping a punchline that got no response, and swapping out to the next castmember with a punchline that got no response.  

 

Leslie brought it with her Leo bit.  You just know the "washing his junk in the sink" line was NOT in any script that Jost had ever seen.  

[Traveller519]

I hated the HLN/sex abuse sketch. The first time they did this, it was bad too, though IIRC, I thought that one worked a little bit better than this one. The writers really need to turn this more into a critique of how wrong it is for people to think it's ok for adult females to have sex with underage boys, esp contrasted with adult men having sex with underage girls.

 

See, to me, that's exactly what they were doing with the set up of this skit. They're parodying how ridiculous the worn-out "You're the man, teenage boy!" joke is by playing it out if everyone was actually on board with that in the trial. They really fumbled Kate with this go around though, not sure what happened there.

 

Overall the show seemed a little off, probably due to the blizzard. Who knows if it was a full house and I'm sure a bunch of the staff were slow on the uptake. Unfortunately it means it was the second week in a row that the show felt off. I wasn't a big fan of the re-used sketches tonight. I'm fine with them taking a Bachelor dig, especially if the guy is as bland as they made it out to be here. But to recycle the Farm Hunk premise felt stale. Though I defended the joke above, I don't think they really needed to re-do the Courtroom sketch. Town Hall is okay, as a recurring sketch. I'm glad they mixed up the towns people at least.

 

I did like the monologue, Screen Guild, and Love Struck skits. I like a Good Neighbor skit, but everyone seemed just ready to get it over with by that point and there wasn't a lot of energy. The small unit rap was a good premise, but I think Beck's bad wrapping took away from what could have been a good joke. The bad singer joke took over. I find the raps and musical skits work best when the song is tight, and sends up the joke. Of course, the fact that I had listened to the Will Sasso episode of the Nerdist Podcast where he and Chris Hardwick did a spectacular job of making up Van Halen covers about David Lee Roth compensating for a small dick earlier in the day.

[Blakeston]

See, to me, that's exactly what they were doing with the set up of this skit. They're parodying how ridiculous the worn-out "You're the man, teenage boy!" joke is by playing it out if everyone was actually on board with that in the trial. 

 

I don't think that's what they were going for - if it was, they screwed it up badly.

 

If the sketch showed that Pete Davidson's character was really screwed up by the whole thing, but the men insisted on congratulating him, then that would have been mocking that kind of attitude.

 

Instead, they went out of their way to show that the kid was just thrilled about the whole thing, and that he didn't suffer any negative consequences. It came across like they were mocking the idea that he'd been wronged in any way.

[kassa]

Contrast their handling of that with the brilliant "Meet your Next Wife" skit, which managed to use actual children to bring home the ick factor.  

[JTMacc99]

See, to me, that's exactly what they were doing with the set up of this skit. They're parodying how ridiculous the worn-out "You're the man, teenage boy!" joke is by playing it out if everyone was actually on board with that in the trial. 

I agree with you. The best, most biting satire in my opinion is the stuff played as straight to the point where people who don't understand they are being mocked are nodding in agreement with what is being said. 

 

I guess your judgement of this one would have to depend on whether you think they were satirizing the situation or if you think they were cracking themselves up with my man and it brought my estranged father and grandfather back together again with no regard to real nature of the crime.

Edited January 26, 2016 by JTMacc99

[vb68]

 

I agree with you. The best, most biting satire in my opinion is the stuff played as straight to the point where people who don't understand they are being mocked are nodding in agreement with what is being said.

 

I also agree.  Maybe it was too subtle, but to me that's exactly what they were doing and that made it so biting IMO.

[Blakeston]

If the purpose of the sketch was to subtly call out the sick attitude that it's okay for women to sleep with underage boys, then why did they go out of their way to show that the victim had no regrets? And that it improved his life, and that he didn't suffer from the ordeals typically associated with molestation victims?

I get that the writers were having a laugh at how obsessed men are with fantasies about having sex with their hot teachers. But that doesn't mean that they weren't also laughing at the idea that boys are hurt by having sex with hot teachers.

And if the goal was to mock people for not taking rape seriously enough, then that means they were mocking a victim for being in denial. And that's pretty messed up.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Blakeston

[VCRTracking]

Pete's character was old enough to drive a car so he he's at least 16, probably 17, about the age most teenagers have sex(I'm not speaking for myself unfortunately).

 

To me I look at all these women and I think they've obviously been probably abused themselves when they were younger and are now using their position of power to become the abuser.

Edited January 28, 2016 by VCRTracking

[helenamonster]

I think we're putting more thought into the sketch's implications regarding sexual abuse than anyone in the writers' room has.

[VCRTracking]

Reading about Thurgood Marshall and I didn't know when he went to college and his classmates were Langston Hughes and Cab Calloway and that he was suspended twice for hazing and playing pranks on fellow students! That would make an actually fun movie like Animal House and not just serious Oscar stuff.