S43.E12: Will Ferrell / Chris Stapleton

[Psychobunny]

I don’t get why everyone loved Heidi’s teenage girl so much. She does a good impression but I’ve seen it done better and the skit had no point. So she can imitate a whiny teenager-so what? After ten seconds it was just annoying to me. 

[Nellise]

1 hour ago, peeayebee said:

I always like the Good Neighbor sketches --- well, except for one... last week? -- but anyway, I like that kind of humor. This one was a good one.

Was this week's a repeat of one from before except with Will Ferrell? It felt really similar to other stuff they've done: take something really mundane and make it slightly absurd. I wish Kyle Mooney would stop with the fake bad acting reality voice he uses. I know he can sound normal so he's doing it on purpose. It was maybe funny at first but after the 50th time it's not funny anymore since it feels like that's all he knows how to do.

 

Which leads into another thing being beaten into the ground: singing monologue. Even Will commented during the song on how they do it too often. Knowing something is annoying people enough to comment on it yourself and yet you keep doing it is obnoxious. "Haha we know you're tired of this, but here it is again." Was anybody really dying to hear Will sing?

 

Weekend update is the only thing recently I can count on to actually have some laughs. I think maybe I laughed once or twice during the regular sketches last night. It's really disappointing since I thought last year almost every episode was consistently good and this year has been a lot of blah with some really good hosts which makes it all the more disappointing.

[Mason proffer]

Anybody else feel like Chris null stole the show with his modest beatbox bit? His first season has been tough but I could see him getting more stuff to do after all the laughs he got. If he doesn't figure out a way to get in more sketches I'm afraid to say he will most likely get cut 

I mean luke...

[applecrisp]

I liked the BBQ, I really like Cecily. I will begrudgingly say Farell was good too.  They realy looked weird.  Otherwise a bad episode.

[vb68]

Mike Ryan said on his twitter that the Reality Stars sketch was originally done for the last Jimmy Fallon episode, where it didn't make it past Dress. 

[charmed1]

This is the first episode I’ve really, really laughed out loud at in years. Will Ferrell, in those tight, distressed, stone washed jeans and his botoxed face in the BBQ sketch was so freaking funny. With WF being an SNL alum, it was refreshing to watch a host not have to rely on the cue cards as much. I’m also not a fan of Kate McKinnon, so it was refreshing to not see her in every sketch. If that’s what it takes, I’m all for bringing back alums to host much more often.

[ichbin]

Sure, not all the skits were winners (never have been), but overall this show felt like a return to old school SNL.  I liked that a lot of cast members actually got a chance this week.  When the reality stars skit started and I saw the barbecue I first thought it was going to be a revisit of "Get off the shed!".  Part of me is kind of disappointed that it wasn't.   The dinner skit about the Ansari issue was my favorite though.  Most weeks I've been lucky if I find one skit somewhat funny.  This week there were a few that actually had me laughing out loud.  

[Mumbles]

2 hours ago, charmed1 said:

With WF being an SNL alum, it was refreshing to watch a host not have to rely on the cue cards as much.

My understanding is, they *expect* both the cast members and ten guests to rely on cue cards, given that scripts change frequently.  (This understanding is from that legendary New York mag article years ago where Chris Elliot, Janeane Garofolo and others complained about their time on the show. Garofolo related a story where she was screamed at by a higher-up for learning her lines and not looking at the cards.)

That said, working on the show means you learn to read the cards subtly. Some guests, like former cast members, are good at it as well, and it’s noticeable when a guest hasn’t mastered it (Gal Gadot was a charming host, but her cue-card reading was very obvious.)

[VCRTracking]

A thing I love about Will Ferrell is he's always been great partners with female cast members, whether it's Cheri Oteri in the cheerleaders, Ana Gasteyer as the music teachers, Molly Shannon in the "Dog Show" sketch and Rachel Dratch as the "lovahs". Here with Kate in the diner commercial and Cecily in the "reality stars" sketch. As vb68 Mike Ryan said the latter was in the dress rehearsal in Jimmy Fallon's show last year but got cut and I can imagine Fallon ruining it by trying to steal attention and breaking. Ferrell broke a little too but it wasn't much, plus he was generous with Cecily.

Loved in the restaurant sketch Kate wearing a little stage on her head and drawing curtains.

Watching Heidi's character Bailey Gismert, I love how not over the top it is like other impressions of teenage girls and more accurate. The nervous laughing and playing with her hair and her trying not to cry was so much funnier than if she was sobbing. My favorite line "I have to go bowling with my dad!"

Edited January 29, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Irlandesa]

I often read this thread before I get a chance to watch the show. Sometimes that means some skits get ruined for me but that Aziz Ansari Dinner Skit held up so well.  The reaction when Keenan said the race line was brilliant.

[Galileo908]

27 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

A thing I love about Will Ferrell is he's always been great partners with female cast members, whether it's Cheri Oteri in the cheerleaders, Ana Gasteyer as the music teachers, Molly Shannon in the "Dog Show" sketch and Rachel Dratch as the "lovahs". Here with Kate in the diner commercial and Cecily in the "reality stars" sketch. As vb68 Mike Ryan said the latter was in the dress rehearsal in Jimmy Fallon's show last year but got cut and I can imagine Fallon ruining it by trying to steal attention and breaking. Ferrell broke a little too but it wasn't much, plus he was generous with Cecily.

I could not see this sketch working with Jimmy in Will's role at all.

[themadman]

Are all of Leslie Jones's impressions just her wearing different wigs? Because it sure feels like it. And how do you not manage to do a single sketch without flubbing? "Popcorn" isn't that hard! 

[timeywimey]

15 hours ago, msrachelj said:

i guess i am the only one that hated the teen critic.

You weren't. I actually started checking my phone during that.

[Tachi Rocinante]

18 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

Are Villasenor's days numbered? It is her second year already and she never gets a major role in the sketches. Too bad. I like her.

Maybe it's because she can't enunciate for shit.  Even when she's playing a normal character it sounds like she's struggling through a Kermit the Frog impression.

[Inquisitionist]

16 hours ago, msrachelj said:

i guess i am the only one that hated the teen critic.

I'm on that train, too.

16 hours ago, Psychobunny said:

I don’t get why everyone loved Heidi’s teenage girl so much. She does a good impression but I’ve seen it done better and the skit had no point. So she can imitate a whiny teenager-so what? After ten seconds it was just annoying to me. 

Exactly. She did it well, but I didn't laugh. at. all.

Ferrell's cold open as Dubya was brilliant.  No economer.  Supreme Court, like Americans.  I call this one "Doggy Goes into Space."  Shoe me twice, I'm keeping the shoes.  So good.

BTW, for those of you who don't remember the "shoe me twice" reference, here's a primer courtesy of The Daily Show in 2002.

(Good lord, I can't believe that was almost 16 years ago.)

[peeayebee]

9 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

A thing I love about Will Ferrell is he's always been great partners with female cast members, whether it's Cheri Oteri in the cheerleaders, Ana Gasteyer as the music teachers, Molly Shannon in the "Dog Show" sketch and Rachel Dratch as the "lovahs". Here with Kate in the diner commercial and Cecily in the "reality stars" sketch. As vb68 Mike Ryan said the latter was in the dress rehearsal in Jimmy Fallon's show last year but got cut and I can imagine Fallon ruining it by trying to steal attention and breaking. Ferrell broke a little too but it wasn't much, plus he was generous with Cecily.

Good point. He's great on his own, but he's also a great partner with others. He listens and reacts to what others say and do, playing off of them and allowing them to play off of him. 

[heatherchandler]

17 hours ago, Nellise said:

Was this week's a repeat of one from before except with Will Ferrell? It felt really similar to other stuff they've done: take something really mundane and make it slightly absurd. I wish Kyle Mooney would stop with the fake bad acting reality voice he uses. I know he can sound normal so he's doing it on purpose. It was maybe funny at first but after the 50th time it's not funny anymore since it feels like that's all he knows how to do.

 

Which leads into another thing being beaten into the ground: singing monologue. Even Will commented during the song on how they do it too often. Knowing something is annoying people enough to comment on it yourself and yet you keep doing it is obnoxious. "Haha we know you're tired of this, but here it is again." Was anybody really dying to hear Will sing?

 

Weekend update is the only thing recently I can count on to actually have some laughs. I think maybe I laughed once or twice during the regular sketches last night. It's really disappointing since I thought last year almost every episode was consistently good and this year has been a lot of blah with some really good hosts which makes it all the more disappointing.

I actually love Kyle Mooney's fake bad acting voice.  

Agreed on your other two points though!  I HATE the singing monologue and I really do not understand why they do it all the time.  I have to ffwd it every time.  I also find Weedend Update to be the best part of every show.

 

11 hours ago, Mumbles said:

My understanding is, they *expect* both the cast members and ten guests to rely on cue cards, given that scripts change frequently.  (This understanding is from that legendary New York mag article years ago where Chris Elliot, Janeane Garofolo and others complained about their time on the show. Garofolo related a story where she was screamed at by a higher-up for learning her lines and not looking at the cards.)

 

Is that the article from 1995?

 

5 hours ago, themadman said:

Are all of Leslie Jones's impressions just her wearing different wigs? Because it sure feels like it. And how do you not manage to do a single sketch without flubbing? "Popcorn" isn't that hard! 

I really cannot stand her.  I don't think she is funny.  I do not get her.

[vb68]

Was this Leslie's first "Live From New York..." opening the show?  As far as I can recall, I think so.  Good for her.

As someone noted last week ( Lou Ann B?), I kept thinking in the pot pie sketch that Alex is quietly becoming "the glue" who can always hold a sketch together, whether he's the star of the sketch or not. 

Quote

Are Villasenor's days numbered? It is her second year already and she never gets a major role in the sketches. Too bad. I like her.

She's gradually gotten more to do than she did last year.  I feel like she's actually part of the ensemble now (even if I still wonder why she never does any of her impressions on Update).

[Mumbles]

2 minutes ago, vb68 said:

I kept thinking in the pot pie sketch that Alex is quietly becoming "the glue" who can always hold a sketch together, whether he's the star of the sketch or not. 

I agree.  Moffat is a great utility player and I mean that in the best sense - like Bill Hader or Taran Killam. I still laugh at his delivery as the custodian in that infamous sketch in Saoirse Ronan's show about the new kid coming to class, a sketch that was circling the bowl because the audience didn't know what to make of it. 

[charmed1]

I have got to incorporate, “My wife. Cannot. Have. Chick-on!” into my daily conversation somehow.

[themadman]

3 hours ago, Tachi Rocinante said:

Maybe it's because she can't enunciate for shit.  Even when she's playing a normal character it sounds like she's struggling through a Kermit the Frog impression.

Which is ironic for someone whose specialty is doing good impressions of others. 

[Phishbulb]

I recall in the Tiffany Haddish episode, in the "Last Black Unicorn" sketch, Melissa was doing a typical Valley Girl-ish type teenage girl voice and she sounded reasonably normal. So she can control it when she wants to. 

[Katmai]

14 hours ago, Mumbles said:

My understanding is, they *expect* both the cast members and ten guests to rely on cue cards, given that scripts change frequently.  (This understanding is from that legendary New York mag article years ago where Chris Elliot, Janeane Garofolo and others complained about their time on the show. Garofolo related a story where she was screamed at by a higher-up for learning her lines and not looking at the cards.)

That said, working on the show means you learn to read the cards subtly. Some guests, like former cast members, are good at it as well, and it’s noticeable when a guest hasn’t mastered it (Gal Gadot was a charming host, but her cue-card reading was very obvious.)

I usually come here to read about the shows before watching them, too. Being a fan of Will, I was looking forward to this one, but I was disappointed and didn't find any skit funny. And I thought it looked like he was reading his cue cards very obviously, which was a distraction due to his experience.

[VCRTracking]

15 hours ago, Galileo908 said:

I could not see this sketch working with Jimmy in Will's role at all.

Yeah, the premise is that the couple were just regular people like their neighbors until they went on a reality show and became outrageous caricatures. You believe that Will Ferrell was just an average guy before more than Fallon.

Edited January 29, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Ottis]

On 1/28/2018 at 2:02 PM, msrachelj said:

i guess i am the only one that hated the teen critic.

Nah, you’re not. It was another too-long skit that was entirely dependent on the one-note character she was playing. When that one note is annoying, the skit is annoying. Teen girls are annoying, ipso facto.... I contrast that with Cecily’s “Girl at a party you wish you never started a conversation with” because the mangled stuff she says is just flat out goofy and often funny, and she delivers it with such assurance. 

[helenamonster]

On 1/28/2018 at 1:50 PM, madpsych78 said:

Also, Luke. He's been on SNL for who knows how long and all I know about this guy is that he can beat box. He was probably the only one who could do it so that was how he got into that sketch. He doesn't show up much in sketches even as a supporting character. He could have been in other sketches. Does the cast not like him or something?

From what other cast members have said over the years, your ability to get sketch time--especially in your first season--is entirely dependent on your ability to hustle in the writing department. Either you need to make good friends with a writer, or come on board with a writer, or be a writer yourself to make sure you get written for. If you're not in good with a writer or a good enough writer on your own, nobody's gonna write for you and/or the sketches you write for yourself won't get picked.

Sort of related, I think it also depends how well you work with everybody in general. If people are having trouble writing for you, and you're not really gelling with any of the other cast members either on a personal or comedic level, you're going to get shut out.

[ichbin]

14 hours ago, Tachi Rocinante said:

Maybe it's because she can't enunciate for shit.  Even when she's playing a normal character it sounds like she's struggling through a Kermit the Frog impression.

Yeah.  I can't figure out if that's her genuine voice or if it's some unappealing character's.   I'm still waiting for her to shine in something.  Anything.  They usually give the newer cast members a moment to do the thing that probably got them hired.  They gave Heidi Gardner some big chances this past week and she's been there a year less than Melissa.  I could understand if they held her back a bit in the beginning because of the twitter controversy, but that was when she first started.  IMDB isn't showing her as a writer on the show, but maybe she is?  

[mtlchick]

On 28/01/2018 at 11:53 PM, VCRTracking said:

A thing I love about Will Ferrell is he's always been great partners with female cast members, whether it's Cheri Oteri in the cheerleaders, Ana Gasteyer as the music teachers, Molly Shannon in the "Dog Show" sketch and Rachel Dratch as the "lovahs".

I remember reading somewhere that Will was probably one of the most beloved cast members ever partially due to that.  I believe he is a big reason Chris Parnell was hired back after he was let go the year before. 

[Inquisitionist]

On 1/28/2018 at 12:24 AM, Pete Martell said:

I came away thinking they just desperately wanted Ferrell to reprise his GWB caricature but had no idea how to do it, so this was the end result. 

I've watched it several times now, and enjoyed it more with each viewing.  Ferrell hasn't lost a step as Dubya, and he pulled off some sharp barbs.  And "No Cake for Gays" Pence is probably how he'd view the guy -- can't make Dubya TOO astute, you know.  ;-)

[cpcathy]

His one-man show as Dubya was quite good, as well.

[Bruinsfan]

On 1/28/2018 at 1:22 PM, TV Anonymous said:

Who are the Asian family photographed with Ferrell?

Are Villasenor's days numbered? It is her second year already and she never gets a major role in the sketches. Too bad. I like her.

I hope not, she was awesome in that "Welcome to Hell" music video providing counterpoint vignettes to the girl group (sorry, the pack of women traveling together for safety!). I fell out laughing when she popped up as the woman from the We Can Do It! poster.

 

On 1/28/2018 at 3:37 PM, Psychobunny said:

I don’t get why everyone loved Heidi’s teenage girl so much. She does a good impression but I’ve seen it done better and the skit had no point. So she can imitate a whiny teenager-so what? After ten seconds it was just annoying to me. 

You had vastly more tolerance for that character than I; I think I hit the mute button in the middle of her second syllable. Heidi has't won me over at all yet with anything she's done. Though at least I remember her name, unlike that extraneous male featured player they hired to fill out the background in crowd scenes.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Bruinsfan

[VCRTracking]

17 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

You had vastly more tolerance for that character than I; I think I hit the mute button in the middle of her second syllable. Heidi has't won me over at all yet with anything she's done. Though at least I remember her name, unlike that extraneous male featured player they hired to fill out the background in crowd scenes.

Well I liked Heidi's WU characters so far. I think both are very well observed and realized.

As for the guy his name is Luke Null and whenever I see him I notice how much he looked like past featured players like Jon Rudnitsky AND Tim Robinson!  I liked him more recently in the airplane sketch in Will Ferrell's show where he played a passenger who could beatbox and in Natalie's show in the Stranger Things sketch where he played the experiment whose power was he could make fantastic chilli but the side effect was his brain would bleed. I thought his bleeding in excruciating pain while stirring a pot and then cheerfully yelling "Chilli's done!" was funny.

[JZL]

On 1/29/2018 at 7:41 AM, Inquisitionist said:

I'm on that train, too.

Exactly. She did it well, but I didn't laugh. at. all.

Ferrell's cold open as Dubya was brilliant.  No economer.  Supreme Court, like Americans.  I call this one "Doggy Goes into Space."  Shoe me twice, I'm keeping the shoes.  So good.

BTW, for those of you who don't remember the "shoe me twice" reference, here's a primer courtesy of The Daily Show in 2002.

(Good lord, I can't believe that was almost 16 years ago.)

There's that but in '08 an Iraqi literally threw his shoes at geedubbya.

[Inquisitionist]

On 2/24/2018 at 10:40 PM, JZL said:

There's that but in '08 an Iraqi literally threw his shoes at geedubbya.

Yes, the skit melded the two references brilliantly!

[JZL]

16 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

Yes, the skit melded the two references brilliantly!

Agreed.

[opus]

I hope no one planned their day around catching this one on NBC. Midnight Eastern  time, and the hockey game is heading into double overtime.

[meowmommy]

14 hours ago, opus said:

I hope no one planned their day around catching this one on NBC. Midnight Eastern  time, and the hockey game is heading into double overtime.

It was a rerun so probably not.

[ari333]

I dont recall seeing it the first time and I flove Will. Maybe On Demand will have it? IDK if they (On Demand)  show reruns. BAH. The DVR recorded it, but when I clicked it to watch, all I saw was hockey

Edited April 29, 2018 by ari333

[ItCouldBeWorse]

3 hours ago, ari333 said:

I dont recall seeing it the first time and I flove Will. Maybe On Demand will have it? IDK if they (On Demand)  show reruns. BAH. The DVR recorded it, but when I clicked it to watch, all I saw was hockey

All episodes are on the snl app and might also be on nbc.com.