S43.E09: Kevin Hart / Foo Fighters

[Mystery]

I grew up in Massachusetts, and sometimes for gym class in the winter we went to a local rink to fool around. My neighborhood also had a dad-made ice rink at the end of a dirt road every year, that was pretty awful, with rippled ice (they just flooded a dirt depression with their garden hoses). Any of the cast who grew up back east might have been on skates at some time. Kenan's hockey skates made me smile. I also noticed, as a few other posters here did, the people who were helping the others skate. It was a fun finish to the show. I wonder how long they kicked off the other skaters for. 

[VCRTracking]

I found this pic of Kate in the dress rehearsal of the "Active Jack" sketch.

I wondered why her character turned out to be so old in the present when she seemed to be a little girl only 40 years ago. I guess originally that was the case but they probably thought her being elderly now would be funnier so I'm assuming in the aired sketch her character was an adult dressed like a little girl in the 70s.

Edited December 18, 2017 by VCRTracking

[Phishbulb]

16 hours ago, peeayebee said:

Active Jack had a promising start, but the reunion part wasn't funny. I guess they had Kenan do the old Active Jack because there wasn't enuf time to get Kevin into old-man makeup. That's unfortunate because I think the sketch would have been better w/ him instead of Kenan.

The sketch was originally written way back in 2012 when Bruno Mars hosted. So the construction was the same. Bruno played the young Active Jack (and probably sang the song WAY better than Kevin Hart did) and Kenan was the old Active Jack. Kenan brought this sketch up on Seth Meyers' show when he was on there over the summer. So it's nice they finally got to do it, although it's pretty bad that this ended up being the funniest sketch in the show when it wasn't even really written this week. 

[Peace 47]

10 hours ago, rmontro said:

I was surprised how interesting it was to watch everybody skate.  It was also surprising how many of them were actually halfway decent at it.  I would be on my butt in five seconds. 

There were a lot of comfortable skaters out there.  Keenan, obviously, also Beck and Mikey.  I was wondering if the reason Leslie didn’t skate was her knee injury from that ninja sketch awhile back.  I severely injured my own knee this summer (probably need surgery after the new year :-( ), so I was idly curious if Leslie still had some lingering issues.

[helenamonster]

This week I was thinking it was a shame we didn't have Sasheer anymore because I felt like she could have done a great Omarosa (did she ever? I can't remember) but Leslie was fantastic. Sasheer fits Omarosa better physically but Leslie was great at the perpetual stank face that woman has had since 2004.

Kevin's whole monologue was just a lateral move from "women be shoppin'." Seriously, for how many people is "mommy does literally everything for the kids and daddy's just there to play after a long day at work" still the reality? It certainly wasn't for my parents and I was a baby 20 years ago.

I was on the phone with my dad this morning and he reminded me of the millennial version of the Pandora charms: Alex and Ani bracelets. He's getting one for me, my stepsister, and my stepmom as well as a Pandora charm for my stepmom (I don't know if he saw the sketch so I cautiously asked him if my stepmom even has a Pandora bracelet). Seriously, they are the new thing to get when you have literally no other idea. I was gonna do my usual "please just write me a check for whatever amount you were going to spend on gifts" but then he said Alex and Ani have a Wonder Woman bracelet and I actually want that so...otherwise yeah men please stop buying these, we hate them! Except my stepmom, apparently!

This show's lack of internal consistency on their stances bothers me. They wanna have a whole rant on a previous Update about why "happy holidays" is just a nicer thing to say and then wish everyone a Merry Christmas not once but twice? It's not even the Merry Christmas that bothers me, it's that it goes against their own mic-dropping bullshit. Also, Michael, Ajit Pai was an Obama appointee so your joke doesn't work. Does anyone in the writer's room read any actual news or just headlines?

Congrats to the SNL llama for finally moving up from featured player to the main cast!

On 12/17/2017 at 1:08 AM, Lantern7 said:

Who are we to stop Leslie Jones from mocking Omarosa? Twice? During the Weekend Update bit, I kinda wanted "drywall" to fall on her head, but I doubt most viewers' memories go back that far.

Mine does. I wish it didn't. If you had told me even 3 years ago we'd still be talking about Omarosa in 20-forking-17 I would have had you committed.

On 12/17/2017 at 1:09 AM, saoirse said:

Was it a board? I thought it was a cardboard box flattened. I also spent way too much time trying to figure out how they got out there (stood on the box and were dragged by a zamboni? laid on the box and flippered their way over?)

http://funnyhalloffame.tumblr.com/post/98799774178/unsuccessfulmetalbenders-if-u-think-that-there

On 12/17/2017 at 0:35 PM, Mumbles said:

I don’t know how Jost managed to snag ScarJo.  

He also used to date Rashida Jones. The mind, it boggles.

11 hours ago, Mystery said:

I grew up in Massachusetts, and sometimes for gym class in the winter we went to a local rink to fool around. My neighborhood also had a dad-made ice rink at the end of a dirt road every year, that was pretty awful, with rippled ice (they just flooded a dirt depression with their garden hoses). Any of the cast who grew up back east might have been on skates at some time. Kenan's hockey skates made me smile. I also noticed, as a few other posters here did, the people who were helping the others skate. It was a fun finish to the show. I wonder how long they kicked off the other skaters for. 

The rink closes at midnight, so they didn't have to kick anybody off.

[possibilities]

8 minutes ago, helenamonster said:

http://funnyhalloffame.tumblr.com/post/98799774178/unsuccessfulmetalbenders-if-u-think-that-there

So good. So great. There really isn't anything else to say about that clip.

This season of SNL shows how  much the show really does depend on the writing team. The cast gets all the credit, and the blame, but the cast hasn't changed that much and the quality of the show has dropped dramatically.

[VCRTracking]

12 hours ago, rmontro said:

I was surprised how interesting it was to watch everybody skate.  It was also surprising how many of them were actually halfway decent at it.  I would be on my butt in five seconds.  Since they have the skating rink right next door to their workplace, maybe they often go there after rehearsing or writing or whatever and practice.

I love in The Office episode of Michael's birthday where they go to a skating rink and we see how awesome Steve Carrell is at ice skating! He was in a hockey uniform weaving in and out like a pro.

[cpcathy]

I LOVED the ice skating. It was interesting to see who can skate and who didn't even try. Alex is a pretty good skater, he can go backwards! Che wasn't goofing on his phone, he was filming, it's on his Instagram. You can also see Jost and Scarlett holding hands.

That said, I pretty much disliked this episode. Kevin is not funny, and I'm such a standup fan, I admit when someone is just not cup of tea, I'm not big on saying what's funny and what's not funny. The monologue had no jokes in it! Is this what he usually does onstage?

Foo Fighters were great, of course. Who doesn't love Dave Grohl?

[Mystery]

VCRTracking, thanks for that picture of Kate in dress rehearsal. It reminded me of something I thought during the show, which was that that outfit looks like it came from one of the catalogs my mother gets. 

[JZL]

On 12/17/2017 at 7:53 PM, RobertDeSneero said:

Are you asking about Robin Roberts saying "bye, Felicia"?

Yes, thanks-- So that goes all the way back to Friday.  I haven't seen that movie in ages.

[rmontro]

9 hours ago, cpcathy said:

I LOVED the ice skating. It was interesting to see who can skate and who didn't even try. Alex is a pretty good skater, he can go backwards! Che wasn't goofing on his phone, he was filming, it's on his Instagram. You can also see Jost and Scarlett holding hands.

Wow, lucky Jost  :)  

As long as we're talking about the ice skating though, there was a blonde girl who had fallen on the ice and was being helped up.  I was thinking that it was one of the backup singers that performed with the Foo Fighters, is that right?  That would make sense if you thin about it, because she doesn't normally work by the ice rink.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

That was Heidi, I believe.

[JZL]

On 12/18/2017 at 0:34 PM, helenamonster said:

Also, Michael, Ajit Pai was an Obama appointee so your joke doesn't work. Does anyone in the writer's room read

Trump picked Pai as chairman of the FCC and if not for Trump's backing for a fresh term he would have been gone a couple months ago. 

[Kel Varnsen]

On 12/17/2017 at 0:27 PM, Katmai said:

I'd LOVE to see Dave & Taylor Hawkins, the drummer, host SNL. The Foos music videos are very creative ("Learn to Fly" is a fav), Dave & Taylor play off each other very well in interviews, Dave has said he thinks of Taylor as a younger brother and helped him get off heroin...sigh...

I think Dave hosting would have been a hell of a lot of fun. He seemed like an interesting guy in Sonic Highways. Plus Kevin Hart seemed weak, although a lot of that could have just been bad sketches. Although I do hate it when stand-ups just trot out their old material for the monologue, which is what I assume the baby bit was.  

[helenamonster]

15 hours ago, JZL said:

Trump picked Pai as chairman of the FCC and if not for Trump's backing for a fresh term he would have been gone a couple months ago. 

True. I guess I felt the joke didn't work because even though Trump picked Pai as chairman, and even though Pai is the kind of person who clearly revels in being the worst, his career track to FCC chairman makes sense. He wasn't unqualified for the job (Michael's "this guy looks like he likes computers") in the same way that DeVos, Carson, and Perry are for theirs. Idk, Pai is such an easy person to mock and they went with a joke that was borderline inaccurate. Suffice it to say I am not looking forward to Colin and Michael becoming head writers.

[JZL]

On 12/20/2017 at 11:34 AM, helenamonster said:

Suffice it to say I am not looking forward to Colin and Michael becoming head writers.

Wait, wut?  For the whole show?

On 12/18/2017 at 0:39 AM, Mystery said:

I grew up in Massachusetts, and sometimes for gym class in the winter we went to a local rink to fool around. My neighborhood also had a dad-made ice rink at the end of a dirt road every year, that was pretty awful, with rippled ice (they just flooded a dirt depression with their garden hoses). Any of the cast who grew up back east might have been on skates at some time. Kenan's hockey skates made me smile. I also noticed, as a few other posters here did, the people who were helping the others skate. It was a fun finish to the show. I wonder how long they kicked off the other skaters for. 

My take from my very limited ice skating experiences in college was that the skating part wasn't so tough but the STOPPING was a total bitch.

[helenamonster]

14 hours ago, JZL said:

Wait, wut?  For the whole show?

http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/micheal-che-and-colin-jost-become-co-head-writers-at-snl.html

[JZL]

On 12/22/2017 at 11:27 AM, helenamonster said:

http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/micheal-che-and-colin-jost-become-co-head-writers-at-snl.html

 

Quote

NBC has announced that Michael Che and Colin Jost will join Kent Sublette and Bryan Tucker on the head writing team of Saturday Night Live. Additionally, Sudi Green and Fran Gillespie have been named writing supervisors.

Good gawd this means four heads and two supervisors.  What a mess.  They have over 30 writers now it looks like. 

[Peace 47]

SNL put up a behind the scenes video on their YouTube channel about the ice skating good night.  They said that they only had 3 minutes to get downstairs from the studio and onto the ice.  I guess that there was no commercial break between the last Foo Fighters performance and the good nights or something?  Anyway, it was a cute video.

[Hanahope]

I'm so glad my husband never got into the Pandora scam.  The skit was hilarious.

Loved the opening too, though I agree that the Sessions bit is a little tiresome and makes him look like a good guy too much.  Leslie killed it as Omarosa

WU good as always, loved Omarosa again, and Guy who just bought a boat.  always funny.

Active Jack was good too (though yeah, I thought Kate's old woman was almost too old)

Foo Fighters were just great.  They'd better stick around longer, as I'll probably miss their summer tour with it being just one night in the smallest venue in my city (wtf), and only single tickets available for over $200 each.

[Sader87]

Kevin Hart is not funny....