S44.E06: Steve Carell / Ella Mai

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Steve Carell hosts, and Ella Mai performs musically.

[vb68]

Any predictions?

If they aren't letting Alec come back as Trump, I could see a Melania Cold Open where she takes over the White House and starts firing everyone.

I would personally love another live-action Ambiguously Gay Duo sketch, from the Ed Helms episode a few years ago, but I seriously doubt that will happen, though. But a boy can wish.

I really just hope they don't waste Steve Carell.

ETA: And they don't even mention Melania. Shows how much I know! 

Edited November 18, 2018 by vb68

[JZL]

Has he hosted before?

[GoldenGirl90]

Cecily Strong as Jeanine Pirro is excellent but she needs to be a little louder and a bit more angry... I mean really angry...

OMG... I am a HUGGGEEEE fan of 'The Office' and this monologue is killing me... and then the band playing the theme song... it's too much!! I love you Michael - erm, I mean Steve!

[Galileo908]

Cold Open: Laura Ingraham opens us up. "Feel Facts" just, well, sums up Fox News in a nutshell. "Santa is Jesus's Dad" was my favorite. It's really refreshing to see how they work around Alec Baldwin's Trump. That Mark Zuckerberg is gonna come back, I'm sure of it.

Monologue: Man, has it really been ten years since the last time he was here?! And it's another Q&A monologue, this time with cameos wondering why they won't reboot The Office. Hi Ellie Kemper, Jenna Fischer, Ed Helms, and former castmember & wife Nancy Walls. I'm with Steve, I'd rather let The Office stay dead.

7 hours ago, JZL said:

Has he hosted before?

This is his third time. I can't believe it's only been three times.

Kids: "Oh my god, is our dad dumb?!" This was just so freaking silly. Didn't get a lot of laughs out of it, but Iiked just how far Steve Carrell was going with this bit.

Amazon: Yes, the Amazon HQ is gonna be horrifying, but this ad was great. Yes, Jeff Bezos has "Fuck You, Trump" money, and Trump knows it. I know it's all satire, but 1) This all makes sense and 2) It's terrifying.

Thanksgiving Songs: I got Garth & Kat flashbacks from this (and I've said my thoughts on Garth & Kat). I wasn't a fan of this. I'm convinced that there's a writer that just writes the songs and has successfully managed to stick a song in every episode. Come on, Adam Sandler made TONS of Thanksgiving songs.

Live Ginsburg: Here's the RBG tribute I've been waiting for. I liked this.

NASA TV: "Okay, how is this something gonna go wrong?" And we got floating, frozen monkeys. I lost it at the faceless cat, and Kate just bouncing around just added to all that. I really liked the floating acting in this.

WU: "Sounds like a good deal, but sounds like a trap" sums up anything remotely positive coming out of this administration. And making fun of the bigfoot erotica congressman was fun, if an easy target. Will be seeing the real Denver Riggleman on the show on the December 1st show? I'm pretty sure "Bigfoot Erotica Guy" is an acceptable target for mockery. The Disney MAGA bits were great, as was "Ruby Chocolate." I'm not too hot on Kenan's LaVarr Ball. He's definitely no Big Papi, I'll tell you that.

Guardian Angel: This was weird. A...guardian angel appears to give advice to a girl/hit on her, and it's one of the other girls' dad?! The sketch is set in 1957 yet Steve Carrell looks like Mr. Brady in the Brady Bunch Variety Show?

RV: Heidi was great in this. "Did you know a dog can punch you?" Other than that...meh. Whole lotta nothing.

Space Thanksgiving: This isn't a sketch, this is a Pete Davidson acid trip. Oh hey, the green screen failed at the end there, and THAT was weird.

GPYass!: This would've been a great opportunity for a Ruby Chocolate callback, but no. Interesting idea, but this didn't do anything for me.

How the hell do you screw up a Steve Carrell episode?! Steve was great, the material just sucked. We return December 1st with Claire Fey (I don't know who that is, apparently she's British)

Edited November 18, 2018 by Galileo908

[Mystery]

I thought the first 2/3 or so was pretty good, but the end was flat; it seemed like none of the sketches had actual endings but just dwindled away. 

That said, I liked the Thanksgiving Song, loved the Amazon commercial, loved NASA TV. Poor Svetlana just bouncing, bouncing against the window. 

The green screen fail seemed appropriate, since everyone was breaking from the moment the sketch began, for some reason. 

Better than last week, for me. 

Edited November 18, 2018 by Mystery

[MVFrostsMyPie]

I loved that Amazon commercial. Burrnnnnn. 

[vb68]

Easily the best host of the season. Steve needs to come back more than once a decade. The Jeff Bezos Sick Burn and NASA sketches were probably the best stuff I've seen this season. Poor frozen monkeys! He even sells the weaker ones. I couldn't stop giggling at that Grease parody.

And Pete didn't have to apologize to anybody on Update, so Yay. 

1 hour ago, Alexis2291 said:

OMG... I am a HUGGGEEEE fan of 'The Office' and this monologue is killing me... and then the band playing the theme song... it's too much!! I love you Michael - erm, I mean Steve!

I also love the Nancy "Hey I was on this show for a season too" Walls cameo. ;)

Edited November 18, 2018 by vb68

[MVFrostsMyPie]

"Cat ain't got no damn face!" I don't know why that cracked me up, but it did make the cat on my lap wake up.

[opus]

Any ABBA fans here? I thought the Thanksgiving song had the same melody as “When All Is Said and Done”.

[Peace 47]

Maybe I’m grumpy, but my hot take on this episode would actually be:  make whomever wrote the NASA sketch head writer, put everyone else in the penalty box.  I thought the writing fell short again and again, even on something like the monologue, where it was fun to see some Office cast members, but the writing didn’t feel that solid for it.  But the NASA sketch might be my favorite of the season.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Peace 47

[opus]

22 minutes ago, Galileo908 said:

We return December 1st with Claire Fey (I don't know who that is, apparently she's British)

Edited 20 minutes ago by Galileo908.

Maybe it’s Tina’s sister  :)

[Mystery]

1 minute ago, Peace 47 said:

Maybe I’m grumpy, but my hot take on this episode would actually be:  make whomever wrote the NASA sketch head writer, put everyone else in the penalty box.  I thought the writing fell short again and again, even on something like the monologue, where it was fun to see some Office cast members, but the writing didn’t feel that solid for it.

I was expecting John Krasinski to show up and say "No, I'm good doing movies." Maybe that would have been too mean. 

[SHD]

NASA TV skit FTW. I hated all the WU guest spots - that Bigfoot guy bit went on waaaay too long.

I love Steve Carell, but they have to give him something to work with.

Edited November 18, 2018 by SHD

[Mystery]

1 minute ago, opus said:

Maybe it’s Tina’s sister  :)

They should do that on the show. Poor Claire Foy. 

[possibilities]

20 minutes ago, Galileo908 said:

How the hell do you screw up a Steve Carrell episode?! Steve was great, the material just sucked.

Same way they screw up every other episode this season: hire a crap writing team.

That said, I loved "GPYass," RBG, and the Amazon commercial. And I liked the "Dad Angel" Grease one, too, but it lost a lot because they'd already gone to the "teenagers horrified by pathetic dad" well earlier in the episode.

[vb68]

13 minutes ago, Mystery said:

I was expecting John Krasinski to show up and say "No, I'm good doing movies." Maybe that would have been too mean. 

Yeah, he was too busy to show up for that. I was waiting for Stanley and/or Phyllis.

Meh on Claire Foy. Gives me flashbacks to Felicity Jones hosting, who I would bet anything had never seen the show. 

 

Quote

And I liked the "Dad Angel" Grease one, too, but it lost a lot because they'd already gone to the "teenagers horrified by pathetic dad" well earlier in the episode.

I  started thinking during that one how Aidy seems to always get stuck playing either kids or grandmas. There's really not much of an in-between.

Edited November 18, 2018 by vb68

[MarquisDeCarabas]

I hope who ever watches this on the west coast tells how the alien thanksgiving sketch is supposed to end, assuming they filmed a version in the dress rehearsal that worked

[Ms Blue Jay]

That first sketch, with the dad whose wife left him, what in God's name was that.  A horrible 12:55 sketch aired at like 11:40?  Wow.  Ballsy.

NASA sketch was brilliant.

The choice of musical guest was like when Mims came on the show.

I love Ed Helms so much.

Kenan lost a lot of weight.

I've become a fan of the raps that Chris Redd and Pete Davidson do together.  I look forward to them.  They're doing some great musical stuff this past year.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Ms Blue Jay

[ottoDbusdriver]

28 minutes ago, Mystery said:

I was expecting John Krasinski to show up and say "No, I'm good doing movies." Maybe that would have been too mean. 

And he doing Amazon's Jack Ryan series as well.

Speaking of Amazon, I liked the Bezos ad.

[vb68]

I also don't know if the Laura Ingraham material is strong enough to lead with it two out of three weeks.

[sheetmoss]

1 hour ago, Mystery said:

 

The green screen fail seemed appropriate, since everyone was breaking from the moment the sketch began, for some reason. 

 

 

Something fell down to the floor at the very beginning of the sketch and I think that set them off, - It was  the shiny thing  under the table to the left

I said to my sister, the show felt like a collection of the offbeat skits  you'd see at 11:55

Edited November 18, 2018 by sheetmoss

[Mystery]

9 minutes ago, sheetmoss said:

Something fell down to the floor at the very beginning of the sketch and I think that set them off, - It was  the shiny thing  under the table to the left

Oh, you're (of course) right! I just watched it again. 

[tomsmom]

I thought for sure since Ed Helms was there we’d get some kind of “Ambiguously Gay Duo” sketch! 

[VCRTracking]

The "Grease" sketch was my favorite. I love it when SNL takes something from an old classic movie and puts a comedic spin on it like when Robert Downey Jr hosted back in 1996 and they did the "West Side Story" spoof. The dialogue between Steve Carell as the Frankie Avalon-like character and Aidy Bryant as the daughter was hilarious.

3 hours ago, Galileo908 said:

Guardian Angel: This was weird. A...guardian angel appears to give advice to a girl/hit on her, and it's one of the other girls' dad?! The sketch is set in 1957 yet Steve Carrell looks like Mr. Brady in the Brady Bunch Variety Show?

How can you know about the Brady Bunch Variety Show but not Grease?

Yeah, Frankie's perm wasn't exactly 50s

2 hours ago, opus said:

Any ABBA fans here? I thought the Thanksgiving song had the same melody as “When All Is Said and Done”.

Holy crap, you're right.

Edited November 18, 2018 by VCRTracking

[SFoster21]

I hardly ever laugh out loud at this show, but that Thanksgiving sketch was too much.

 

I liked the Grease sketch so well, but not because it was funny.  Aidy broke my heart.  

 

That GPS sketch was so lavish.  Costumes and dancing everywhere this ep.  Nice.

[Pete Martell]

I don't have anything that good to say about the show but it was nice to see Nancy Walls again. I think she's been back before but it was still nice to see her. I always thought she got a bit of a raw deal as Molly Shannon was heavily pushed at the time and Cheri Oteri wasn't far behind her. I remember her bug-eyed CNN reporter/impression, which (sorry Kate) entertained me a lot more than dredging up Laura Ingraham over and over and over. 

I have no interest in an Office reboot, but the mini-reunion was cute...aside from some of the dead spots in audience reaction because people are probably sick to death of these types of monologues.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Pete Martell

[rmontro]

I thought it was a strong episode.  There weren't any really great spots, but there weren't any really weak ones either.  So I thought it was overall pretty good.  The NASA sketch was my favorite.  It was kind of horrifying, but also kind of funny.  I liked all the space puns Carell kept sneaking in.

7 hours ago, Galileo908 said:

That Mark Zuckerberg is gonna come back, I'm sure of it.

"Mark Zuckerberg" was featured before on Weekend Update.  And as has been said, the guardian angel sketch was a parody of "Beauty School Dropout" from Grease, sung by Frankie Avalon.  As such, I thought it was pretty funny.

Didn't care about the musical guest.

[nickp1991]

Hysterical Amazon ad with Bezos addressing Trump! Needed a good laugh!

[SHD]

5 hours ago, tomsmom said:

I thought for sure since Ed Helms was there we’d get some kind of “Ambiguously Gay Duo” sketch! 

I was hoping Jon Stewart or Colbert might pop up at some point. And I was surprised they didn't work him into WU somehow, what with his fake newsman resume (Daily Show, Anchorman,  Bruce Almighty).

Edited November 18, 2018 by SHD

[Inquisitionist]

Tough crowd here.  This was my favorite episode of the season.

[hendersonrocks]

NASA TV and Ruby Chocolate are all I'll remember from this one, even though it was pleasant enough in the moment. Steve Carell just seems like such a good dude and if I ever hear otherwise I'm going to be so, so sad. 

[Fostersmom]

8 hours ago, Mystery said:

I was expecting John Krasinski to show up and say "No, I'm good doing movies." Maybe that would have been too mean. 

I wasn't expecting John, but it wasn't lost on me the 3 cameo people are also 3 people who are actively working and let's be honest, not really needing the work or money. It would have been funnier if Phyllis, Stanley, and Creed were the ones wanting the reboot. 

This episode was just odd. You had amazingly strong sketches and then just put WTF was that sketches. The Amazon and RBG parts were so strong, but then you have a show of random last sketch of the night sketch like someone else mentioned. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

2 hours ago, rmontro said:

  I liked all the space puns Carell kept sneaking in.

"I Apollo-gize"

29 minutes ago, Fostersmom said:

I wasn't expecting John, but it wasn't lost on me the 3 cameo people are also 3 people who are actively working and let's be honest, not really needing the work or money. It would have been funnier if Phyllis, Stanley, and Creed were the ones wanting the reboot. 

Yeah.  I agree.  My first thought watching was thinking, Ellie Kemper has Netflix money and now that it's a brand new day, Ed Helms has Hangover money.

[Ohwell]

That musical guest was awful, whoever she was.  They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with talent. 

[ahisma]

Colin chiming in with “I HATE Jeff Blakey!” was the perfect button on the Sasquatch bit. 

I also loved Ruby Chocolate, and the floaty acting (and Kate's window bumping) in the ISS sketch.

[Ms Blue Jay]

Yeah I thought the Sasquatch thing was pretty funny.  The actor (Mikey Day) really committed.

I think his name was Jake Blakely.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Ms Blue Jay

[ottoDbusdriver]

8 hours ago, rmontro said:

Didn't care about the musical guest.

 

6 hours ago, Ohwell said:

That musical guest was awful, whoever she was.  They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with talent. 

The musical guest was ok and could actually sing, though her songs were a tad repetitive.  And at least she wasn't auto-tuned to death -- I'm looking at you Migos and Lil Wayne.

And there were not dancing water bottles or prolonged moments of silence when there should have been singing ..... cough, cough, Kanye.

Edited November 18, 2018 by ottoDbusdriver

[helenamonster]

Bold choice to only be six episodes into a season and already doing a second Laura Ingraham cold open, Show. Though Volkswagen still being a sponsor ("You know why!") did make me laugh. Wonder if they're gonna be pissed about that (whether they have the right to be is another story).

Jenna Fischer is still cute as a button, y'all. I also wish they would have had Nancy Walls reference being on The Office as well, something like, "Everybody would love the triumphant return of Carol!"

I guess I'm in the minority of not liking the Amazon taped bit? I just found it kind of bizarre. Was "Bezos picked Queens and NoVA to mess with Trump" a take that literally anybody had on this news?

Speaking of weird Amazon takes...Colin's little lecture that New Yorkers shouldn't be mad about the new HQ being in Queens was definitely coming from a man who can afford higher rent than he already pays (or maybe he owns his place) and hasn't taken the subway since he became a cast member. Guess you can take the guy out of Staten Island and take the Staten Island out of the guy. Shut up, you sentient jar of mayonnaise.

Science question: I thought that if animals were exposed to the conditions of space sans suits, they, like, disintegrated? Not freeze up like they got caught in the second Ice Age? Pedantry aside, this was my favorite sketch of the night.

Just realizing now there were two sketches set in space in one show...come on, y'all.

11 hours ago, Galileo908 said:

We return December 1st with Claire Fey (I don't know who that is, apparently she's British)

Claire Foy is currently starring in The Girl in the Spider's Web, and is best known for playing Queen Elizabeth II in the first two season of The Crown. I do find the timing of her hosting a little odd, as by that point Girl in the Spider's Web will have already been out a month (and has gotten a pretty lukewarm critical reception) and she won't be returning to The Crown this season, since they're aging up the main cast and she's been replaced by Olivia Coleman.

My main beef is once again not knowing who the musical guest is. They had a random period in their name, which makes me angry. I blame Portugal. The Man for this nonsense.

[VCRTracking]

6 hours ago, Pete Martell said:

I don't have anything that good to say about the show but it was nice to see Nancy Walls again. I think she's been back before but it was still nice to see her. I always thought she got a bit of a raw deal as Molly Shannon was heavily pushed at the time and Cheri Oteri wasn't far behind her. I remember her bug-eyed CNN reporter/impression, which (sorry Kate) entertained me a lot more than dredging up Laura Ingraham over and over and over.

Yeah I liked Nancy Walls when she was on 1995. "Wake Up and Smile" with Will Ferrell and guest David Alan Grier is a classic. Seeing her again brings me back to fond memories of Darrel Hammond's Ted Koppel, Tim Meadows' OJ, Ferrell and Oteri as the cheerleaders.

Edited November 18, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Princess Sparkle]

I actually really enjoyed the episode. These may not be sketches that I remember at the end of the season, but I laughed when I was watching them, which is more than I can say for a lot of the episodes so far this season. I must admit, I actually had an audible loud laugh at “This is truly a loser’s fantasy” in the high school sketch. 

And as a Drag Race fan, I loved GPYASSS and seeing Miss Peppermint and Jiggly Caliente. 

[Ohwell]

57 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

The musical guest was ok and could actually sing, though her songs were a tad repetitive.  And at least she wasn't auto-tuned to death -- I'm looking at you Migos and Lil Wayne.
And there were not dancing water bottles or prolonged moments of silence when there should have been singing ..... cough, cough, Kanye.

I agree she wasn't the absolute worst performer that's been on the show, but I still didn't like her voice or her songs.  YMMV, of course. 

[Steph J]

Somewhat random question, but did anyone catch the title of the middle book from the Sasquatch erotica bit?  The one he read from was called "Forbidden Forest" and the one at the bottom of the stack was called "Son of Squatch" but the print on the middle book was too small for me to read.

Overall I thought it wasn't a great episode, but Kate banging against the window in the NASA bit killed me, as did Heidi's determination to pretend that everything is okay in that RV sketch.

[JZL]

Who else among you saw that Ella Mai was slated as musical guest and immediately thought, "Clampett!!"?

I guess I'll keep ragging the MG's until SNL gets a clue.  Ella Mai was just so average.  I'm thinking they could have gone to five or six clubs within 10 blocks of the studio and found a more talented and interesting performer than her. 

I agree with the sentiment that the whole ep seemed like a collection of 10-to-1 sketches.  This may've been the most bizarre episode ever.  Sentient curn?  Vegans were twitching all over TV-land.  I also agree it was too soon for another Laura Ingraham, but after they did Baldwin/Trump so many times in a row, they probably don't care about repeating CO's.  They should.

This was maybe the weakest WU of the season.  The LaVar Ball bit isn't funny.  Plus please stop laughing at your own jokes; it's amateur grade school BS.

ETA: Claire F*y also plays Janet Armstrong in First Man.  It's all I've seen her in, but she was great. 

Edited November 18, 2018 by JZL

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

The musical guest was ok and could actually sing, though her songs were a tad repetitive. 

Yeah, she could sing, I just didn't think there was a lot of substance there.  I've been watching this show on PBS called Bluegrass Underground, it's a half hour every week, they play in a cave in Tennessee, most of the bands I've never heard of, and only about 25% of them play bluegrass.  I don't know how they do it, but I'm impressed by nearly every band they have on there.  Compared to Saturday Night Live, where half the musical guests are just meh.  I think the difference is on Bluegrass Underground, the instrumentalists in the bands are really good, while SNL focuses mainly just on the singer.  Which is the current state of pop, I guess, so it's not really SNL's fault.  It's more about the current state of popular music. 

[peeayebee]

14 hours ago, SHD said:

NASA TV skit FTW. I hated all the WU guest spots - that Bigfoot guy bit went on waaaay too long.

I may be wrong, but I thought the book he was reading from was real, i.e., a book that guy actually wrote. I don't know why, but knowing/thinking that made it hilarious to me.

4 hours ago, ahisma said:

Colin chiming in with “I HATE Jeff Blakey!” was the perfect button on the Sasquatch bit. 

Loved that, and then, "As a joke!"

 

13 hours ago, vb68 said:

I also don't know if the Laura Ingraham material is strong enough to lead with it two out of three weeks.

I say it's not strong enough. A big meh to me.

 

3 hours ago, helenamonster said:

Claire Foy is currently starring in The Girl in the Spider's Web, and is best known for playing Queen Elizabeth II in the first two season of The Crown. I do find the timing of her hosting a little odd, as by that point Girl in the Spider's Web will have already been out a month (and has gotten a pretty lukewarm critical reception) and she won't be returning to The Crown this season, since they're aging up the main cast and she's been replaced by Olivia Coleman.

1 hour ago, JZL said:

ETA: Claire F*y also plays Janet Armstrong in First Man.  It's all I've seen her in, but she was great. 

I've seen her in The Crown and Wolf Hall, and she was great in both. I've also seen her on The Graham Norton Show, and she is delightful. I'm sure she'll do fantastic as host.

As far as this ep goes, I liked Steve Carell even when the sketches don't work, and mostly they didn't. The NASA sketch was great. Everything was funny and everyone was good. Loved Steve's space puns (not to be confused with space pants).

I was hoping that the alien Thanksgiving sketch would be more about tongue-twistery alien words. I was starting to get a Danny Kaye 'The Court Jester' feeling when the four people were conferring about what was going on. 

The Dad-as-Guardian-Angel sketch could have been better. I think the show relies too much on characters pointing out how stupid or strange another character is.

On the other hand, I liked the turn that the Thanksgiving-song sketch took. I'm pretty sure I've seen something like that before, where people honestly don't know a ridiculous song but suddenly get it. Here I got a big laugh out of Beck saying, "I think she stabbed me!"

The RV sketch was... It was. The best part was when Heidi says, "Did you know a dog can punch you?"

Oh, and another little favorite part was during the monologue when Steve called everyone from the Office up on stage, but when the random audience member came up, he said, "No, not you." Not sure why that was so funny.

[SomeTameGazelle]

12 hours ago, tomsmom said:

I thought for sure since Ed Helms was there we’d get some kind of “Ambiguously Gay Duo” sketch! 

Stephen Colbert was in the Ambiguously Gay Duo with Steve Carell, not Ed Helms (unless I have missed something). I don't know whether Colbert might have participated if The Late Show weren't on a rival network, but I wasn't really surprised not to see him.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

Having slept on it, I think this was my favorite episode so far this year, even though there were no Eric Trump appearances (Moffat's Zuckerberg came pretty close to being as awkward/funny). However, it was my least favorite WU of the year, which has usually been my favorite part of the show. 

No lie, I rewatched that Amazon commercial at least 8 times. And I sent it to my parents. I just love that subtle smirk after he mentions the 4 Chapter 11's bit.

In terms of what I've shared most widely with friends and family, nothing has come close to "Welcome to Hell" from last season. 

[Nellise]

Going into this I was hoping it'd be a bunch of out there sketches since I feel like Steve Carrell would be someone confident enough to tell the writers "give me your weirdest stuff and we'll try to make it work". I was glad I was right. Not everything worked, but I wasn't bored which is a big change from the rest of this season.

[SHD]

1 hour ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Stephen Colbert was in the Ambiguously Gay Duo with Steve Carell, not Ed Helms (unless I have missed something). I don't know whether Colbert might have participated if The Late Show weren't on a rival network, but I wasn't really surprised not to see him.

Back when Ed Helms hosted years ago, Carell and Colbert showed up and they all did a live action AGD piece together. But you're correct, Carell and Colbert are the voices of Ace and Gary.

I wouldn't say I was surprised there was no Colbert sighting...but I was hoping.