S41.E15: Ariana Grande

[BatmanBeatles]

I about died when Steve Harvey said Jennifer Lawrence was "Annoyingly relatable".

[VCRTracking]

What the hell was that Shakira bit? That didn't sound like anything.

 

Did you mean Rihanna because I hadn't heard her new song either and was like "WTF?" so  I looked it up  and damn, they were not exaggerating! What the hell is she saying?

 

Edited March 14, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Kromm]

Count me in as one who audibly groaned last week at the announcement of Ariana Grande as host. I don't care for her music and thought she was no-personality "celebrity". I was pleasantly surprised by her hosting abilities. (although I still FF'ed through the musical performance). So, why doesn't she sing like that on her own music? She does that breathy, no-oomph style that I can't stand. The monologue alone was better than her singles.

I don't care that her own music is breathy. And she actually doesn't glory note things up most of the time. What I despise almost beyond reason in Ariana's own music is the nightmarish enunciation. She sings in a great tone but the words are usually one big slurred together mess where you can actually understand what they are (or often even where one word ends and the next begins). I knew she did dead on impressions before that too (she used to post them on YouTube) so I always wondered if she couldn't enunciate as herself why she didn't just do an IMPRESSION of herself singing lyrics intelligibly (because when she's singing as another person, if the other singer is understandable so is Ariana).

[Dejana]

Tidal System Check: We've seen this Tidal sketch before, haven't we? Some singer sings music on a stream so no one notices. But it was for Pandora. Loved having everyone dance to the singing. What the hell was that Shakira bit? That didn't sound like anything. The twist that Jay was Jay Z the whole time was so stupid but I laughed anyway.

 

The Shakira song was "Whenever, Wherever".

 

 

Ariana's impression seems pretty good to me!

Edited March 14, 2016 by Dejana

[izabella]

Oh, I'm so disappointed Leslie didn't come out as another Bachelor contestant, and ask to steal Colin for a moment.  Would have loved to see the showdown with Drunkest Contestant while Colin sweats in the background.

 

This turned out to be a great show, and I laughed my way through it. 

[Traveller519]

I totally agree with Bees This felt a lot like the Josh Hutcherson episode to me. I didn't really know the host or expect much out of them, but they were game and the episode had a lot of good sketches.

 

The only outright bad sketch for me was Celebrity Family Feud, but that's more because I'm fed up with that concept and the Hollywood Game night ones. I thought we were done with this after the perfect button was put on it during the Tracy Morgan show. I feel like Grande had that Jennifer Lawrence impression in her pocket and they were trying to come up with an easy way for her to showcase it. However, a whole sketch of Jennifer Lawrence trying to appear relatable would have been way better, though may have stretched the impression a bit much.

 

This was probably the best Update we've had. Only two guests, and one was fresh, and the other was Riblet. And erstwhile the jokes were coming fast and hard. Colin finally feels totally comfortable and can switch between his own persona delivering the jokes, and the awkward dorky-guy character he needs to be at times.

[cpcathy]

Excellent point about the Jennifer Lawrence sketch being fleshed out, perhaps they didn't want to be too mean, as she is a former host?

[Tara Ariano]

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

 

Watch The Most Notable Moments Of Ariana Grande's Saturday Night Live Hosting Début
Who knew she was a gifted non-singing impressionist, too?

[VCRTracking]

Excellent point about the Jennifer Lawrence sketch being fleshed out, perhaps they didn't want to be too mean, as she is a former host?

 

The impression while increcibly accurate, was also restrained because Jennifer Lawrence on talk shows is very giggly, and has a very distinctive laugh. If Ariana copied that people would accuse her of being too mean AND over the top.

[Kromm]

The impression while increcibly accurate, was also restrained because Jennifer Lawrence on talk shows is very giggly, and has a very distinctive laugh. If Ariana copied that people would accuse her of being too mean AND over the top.

A lot of people seem to already know (via fairly constant rumors for years) that Ariana is mean. I suppose the danger is everyone knowing it, vs. just anyone who bothers to look.

[kassa]

My least favorite was the blobfish, just because I'm not a fan of humor that turns on "woe is me, the poor dude is forced to be with the ugly chick" but I still liked it for other reasons

 

 

I liked it, but I certainly did have the "oh, poor guy forced to be with the ugly chick" reaction as well.  It would have been far funnier to have the three mermaids debating who would have to kiss/rescue the least attractive guy. Maybe in mermaid land the blobfish lady's the hottest -- who are we to say?

 

As for the Feminist Song, aside from the excellent response given above, it's also been fascinating to watch the Kesha story play out in social media.  Pretty much every female celeb who has come out with any kind of support has been attacked in some fashion for "doing it wrong."   How dare they tweet support?  Twitter support is cheap - they should be DOING something!  Taylor Swift gives Kesha a quarter million dollars and how dare she monetize it, throwing her money around like that?  Kelly Clarkson speaks up -- too late!  Some other random woman speaks up -- she's not famous enough for her support to matter - she's just trying to jump on the bandwagon!  

 

It's a minefield out there. Best to just cavort on the beach.

[VCRTracking]

Cut for time:

 

 

Vocally Ariana's Judy Garland sounds okay but I like Kristen Wiig's impression from one of the Vincent Price sketches more. The problem is Grande is playing young and innocent Wizard of Oz era Judy while the sketch is written for incredibly boozed and drugged up middle aged Judy.

Edited March 17, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Kromm]

Hmm, agreed. That would be dead on if it was a Wizard of Oz skit. It's not.  Older Judy was gravlier, with even more affected pronunciation, the hair was very different, you could tell she was always minutes away from a martini, etc.

[possibilities]

Besides all that, I kept waiting for the chicken to show up.

[BatmanBeatles]

Hmm, agreed. That would be dead on if it was a Wizard of Oz skit. It's not.  Older Judy was gravlier, with even more affected pronunciation, the hair was very different, you could tell she was always minutes away from a martini, etc.

'Aaaaand she's on the floor. Am I the only one who sees this?"

[vb68]

 

Besides all that, I kept waiting for the chicken to show up.

Ha!  That made me laugh!  Thanks for that.

 

I think the chicken got eaten.  Though I guess we don't know for sure. 

[formerlyfreedom]

Cut for time:

 

 

I think the highlight for me was Beck and Jon chooch a booching...

[peeayebee]

I think my favorite part was right at the start of the chooch a booching, Jon Kuditnsky (sp?) does a kind of moonwalk dance in the background.

 

I thought the singing was ok for a young Garland, but her speaking voice was even better. However, the character certainly was supposed to be older. Also, Ariana just isn't very funny in this. Even in the streaming music skit where she does all the impressions, she sometimes made the impressions funny thru exaggeration or whatever. Here, she plays it straight.

[BatmanBeatles]

I finally saw the Sound Of music skit. Ariana's clapping got on my nerves quickly.