S41.E17: Russell Crowe / Margo Price

[AriAu]

The Leslie Jones ninja sketch saved the episode for me.

 

Horribly unfunny episode and that sketch COULD have saved it if it had been better written so that it had some funny lines or even decent acting by anyone other than Leslie. This was a skit that Crowe really pulled down.

I just don't get the Bruce Chandling bit and figured I was just not cool enough, especially watching Che crack up.

[theatremouse]

As for the white Oprah skit, if the rules of said world is that white men play black females, shouldn't Tom Cruise have been played by an African-American woman?

No because if they were lampooning what I'm led to believe they were lampooning, the point is not that race and gender are reversed, but rather that white people play everyone, even characters that are obviously not white. And doing the gender swap on top of it just piles on sexism as part of the joke too, to add to the absurd-factor.

[peeayebee]

The other part that made no sense is that he was just hitting on a black woman, yet he acts surprised to see keenan's character.

I guess for this Henry VIII, sex trumped race.

[Tara Ariano]

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

 

Watch The Most Notable Moments From Russell Crowe's Saturday Night Live Hosting Début
What's most notable of all might be how little he was in it?

[AdorkableSars]

I think this was my least favorite episode of the season (except for the Trump episode). And I do not attribute that to Russell Crowe in any way. He seemed game for anything they threw at him, and was trying his darndest. I don't know if it was the sketch concepts or the writing in general, but this episode (like Deenie's brussels sprouts) was kind of a stinker.

 

Things that I did like? 100 Days in the Jungle was pretty good if only for Russell Crowe yelling "Oh hell yeah, player!" before eating a duck's vagina, followed by Pete saying "He yelled 'Oh Hell Yeah, Player' and scarfed a duck's vagina." Also loved Deenie in Weekend Update. Been seeing a lot of mixed reviews in regards to the Deenie appearance on this episode, but I thought it was just as funny. The rest of WU was only OK to me. (But on a shallow note, I'm digging the longer hair on Jost.) I think I need to rewatch the Bruce Chandling bit. I kind of tuned out for that.

 

I also really liked Margo Price. I just bought her album last week. I think she's amazing, and I'm always happy when SNL acknowledges that country music exists!

[Ottis]

I could tell from the monologue they had no idea in the world what to do with Russell Crowe,

 

 

Crowe has that stiffness that is sort of reminiscent of John Cleese but devoid of any absurdist humor. Every skit with Crowe featured "act-ing!" more than comedy.

 

Matchfinders should have ended with Cecily picking the professor. At least it would have connected the dots.

 

Ninja was sort of funny but went on too long. I pretty much FF through any "New Yawker"-type WU guests, so I didn't see the Bruce bit.

 

I don't think I laughed at anything else. Most other skits were simply exaggerated versions of actual people and their typical actions (Hillary, Sharpton, Oprah). I enjoy WTF humor more.

[Princess Sparkle]

Crowe has that stiffness that is sort of reminiscent of John Cleese but devoid of any absurdist humor. Every skit with Crowe featured "act-ing!" more than comedy.

Matchfinders should have ended with Cecily picking the professor. At least it would have connected the dots.

Ninja was sort of funny but went on too long. I pretty much FF through any "New Yawker"-type WU guests, so I didn't see the Bruce bit.

I don't think I laughed at anything else. Most other skits were simply exaggerated versions of actual people and their typical actions (Hillary, Sharpton, Oprah). I enjoy WTF humor more.

Cecily did pick the professor at the end - when Keenan asked who she picked, she said "That student of genitals guy sounded hot", referring to Russell Crowe's character, since that's what he just called himself. Edited April 11, 2016 by Princess Sparkle

[BoogieBurns]

"That student of genitals guy sounded hot"

 

She said, "The guy with the glass eye sounded hot." Maybe we watched different versions. I deleted it off my dvr, but I remember thinking I'd go with glass eyed Beck too.

[Princess Sparkle]

I watched it on the app, and just rewatched it to make sure I wasn't going crazy/my hearing isn't going, and in that version, she definitely says "the student of genitals guy sounds hot.", so maybe there are two different versions. Are you on the west coast by any chance? In the app version, you can hear an audience member clearly say "he's alive!" at the Michael Douglas joke (right after Keenan says it), so maybe in the west coast version, they switched it out for the dress rehearsal? I guess that means they would've had to change the ending joke as well, but in the app version, after Cecily picks Russell Crowe's character, Keenan says "Every time!", which would make sense with the rest of the skit. But to be fair, I didn't see it live, so maybe the app version is the dress rehearsal.

I have noticed that once or twice, the app version differs from what ends up on Hulu (how I usually watch the show). For example, in the Adam Driver episode, there was an extended version of the Star Wars Undercover Boss sketch.

[vb68]

The thing I noticed about the Match Finders sketch is that Kenan messed up the ending.  He said something like "This has been The Dating Game or whatever the hell it's called."  I don't think that was scripted.  I think he was genuinely over the sketch.

[Princess Sparkle]

So, that didnt happen in the version on the app either, so the dress rehearsal must've been what they put up. So, for what it's worth, she did pick Russell Crowe in that version, which makes entirely more sense for the sketch than picking Beck does.

[possibilities]

I heard her pick the glass eyed guy, too. I remember thinking it was a big surprise, because I was sure the joke was going to be that she would choose the professor. I watched the East Coast version. I don't actually think it's funny either way, though, so maybe they used different versions in different places, hoping at least one of them would hit.

 

Thanks to those who tookt he time to answer my question about why Chandling is funny. It was really helpful to me-- and you all make the character sound like one I'd be likely to find funny, so all I can think is that I must not have seen a lot of the stuff he's essentially commenting on, and that's why I didn't get the  joke.

[BoogieBurns]

I heard her pick the glass eyed guy, too. I remember thinking it was a big surprise, because I was sure the joke was going to be that she would choose the professor. I watched the East Coast version.

 

Weird! I am in Texas, so I watched the first airing. Wonder why they changed the answer?

[kassa]

In more Historical Nitpicking news, there were Black people in Henry VIII's court.  His first wife's Lady of the Bedchamber was Black.  And he had Black musicians.  

[Traveller519]

I liked this episode more than most it would seem. Though Russel wasn't in much, he threw himself into it.

 

Plus a week that has Good Neighbour and Mike O'Brien is a win for me.

[Ottis]

I watched it on the app, and just rewatched it to make sure I wasn't going crazy/my hearing isn't going, and in that version, she definitely says "the student of genitals guy sounds hot.", so maybe there are two different versions.

 

 

There definitely were two versions. I'm in a Mountain state and she said glasses, which threw me because how would she know he wore glasses? That could have been a subtle dig, that she could see all of them the whole time, but nothing in the skit until then indicated that so it came out of nowhere.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Ottis

[helenamonster]

There definitely were two versions. I'm in a Mountain state and she said glasses, which threw me because how would she know he wore glasses? That could have been a subtle dig, that she could see all of them the whole time, but nothing in the skit until then indicated that so it came out of nowhere.

 

She said the guy with the glass eye, and she'd been told that Beck's character had one at the beginning of the sketch.