I love Tracy Morgan on 30 Rock, used to laugh at his "Brian Fellows" sketches when he was an SNL regular, but, boy, that was one pretty-lame edition of Saturday Night Live last night. From the opening segment in which he punched out a quick-cameo Tina Fey to the final family-movie sketch in which he was a filmmaker who killed most of his cast, this edition was either one lousy idea or one-good-idea-gone-bad after another. Maybe the truth is simply that Morgan is a terrific supporting player, but his range isn’t wide enough to carry a whole show.
The disappointments arrived early on, when Morgan, as the sweetly simple-minded, hallucinatory animal-lover Brian Fellows, failed to elicit more than a few chuckles from this edition of "Safari Planet."
The parody of The View was the funniest, but by no means a great sketch. In the past, the problem has always been that, while the SNL cast has Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and Joy Behar down cold (Fred Armisen has me laughing every time just by plucking his shoulders pads and snorting out Behar’s "Who cares?" refrain), they never had a convincing Sherri Shepherd (read: not enough black cast members to play her well), and Morgan captured perfectly Shepherd’s rattle-brained why-doesn’t-everyone-do-positive-things inanity. But the writers had few good punchlines to match the performances.
The sketch that had the most promise was the Big Love parody, timed perfectly just as that series moves toward its season-end. Kristen Wiig as Jeanne Tripplehorn, Abby Elliott as Chloe Svigny, and Casey Wilson as Margene were all excellent, but bringing Morgan on as the new fourth wife just fell flat.
I’ll wrap it up quickly: "Weekend Update" seemed endless (a Barbie-turns-50 segment with a joke about the Ken doll’s lack of equipment? really? that’s all they could come up with? really?).
On a positive note: while I doubt you liked it as much as I did, Morgan’s "Astronaut Jones" sketch — one of those out-of-nowhere salutes to 1950s TV in the same vein as Bill Hader’s wonderful Vincent Price parodies — was a very pleasurable sight, if not exactly roll-on-the-floor funny. (And BTW, nice Malkovich impression last night, Mr. Hader.)
Oh, and here, I’ll give you another opportunity to quibble with my musical taste: As resolutely anti-American Idol as I am, I thought Kelly Clarkson sounded great on both of her songs.
So what did you think? Did you like the "Digital Short" that took literally all the cliches guys spout at bad parties? Did you enjoy the elaborately-produced "High IQ" game show sketch (all that work, so little humor…)? Agree? Disagree?
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The show was horrible. I didn’t laugh once.
The only saving grace: Kelly Clarkson. She sounded great and I actually liked both of her songs. (I may actually buy her album now.)
Have Clarkson host the show and do away with Tracy Morgan.
Show was very unfunny, but Kelly Clarkson brought the goods. I kinda liked the extra rasp in her vocals, intentional or not. Also, it’s good Kelly’s providing employment for all those out-of-work “alt-rock” musicians from the 90s!
I respectfully disagree with your synopsis of the episode. I thought this was one of the best episodes since back when we were graced by Tina’s Palin. I thought the Digital Short was incredibly clever yet simple, and I was dying laughing when Hader and Samberg couldn’t keep straight faces in the Scared Straight sketch. I do agree with you that Kelly Clarkson nailed both of her songs! Overall I was highly entertained.
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Were you watching a different show than me? I thought this was a great episode. Ok, the last few sketches after weekend update were kind of lame (except big love) but everything before that was great. And seriously, how could you not laugh at the cold open? Tracy punching Tina with such perfect comic timing? Genius
And couldn’t you at least give a little credit to Bill Hader’s perfect John Malkovich impression?
yea kelly clarkson was the best part of the night and her new cd is awsomeness!
and don’t let a few clunkers judge the whole show. just remember, snl really is a hit-or-miss show. last night, was mostly hit
Mr. Phillips–you’re right: Hader’s Malkovich was very good & I shd have mentioned it. Done. Thanks.
FIRE ALL THE LOUSY WRITERS!!!!
As usual, one of my favorite sketches doesn’t make it onto either Hulu or NBC.com. While there were a lot of clunkers, the Big Love parody was spot on, esp Nicki — but try finding it online anywhere.
Loved Kelly Clarkson. She looked better and sang much better than her appearance on American Idol. Rock on Kelly!! I must admit that I TIVO all programs I am remotely interested in watching including SNL, so there are some skits I just don’t waste my time watching but did find the View segment funny and felt that Kristen as Barbie showed how truly talented she can be when given even minutely entertaining material.
I have always laughed at the Astronaut Jones sketches. Yeah, there’s only about 60 seconds of real sketch, but the opening and closing credits to it never get old.
Big Love and The View parodies were funny. Kristin Wiig as Barbie was a pleasant surprise, as I usually want to punch her in the face in skits where she’s prominent.
The rest of the show was meh. Brian Fellows fell flat, but I’ve always liked how they’ve brought real animals for those segments.
It wasn’t a great sow. Kelly Clarkson sounded good. They could have used Justin Timberlake again.
How come Tracy Morgan is so funny on red carpets and Howard Stern but falls flat on SNL? It has to be the writers.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned that when NBC came back from commercial Kelly was already singing her second song! I’m sure her handlers were not too happy about that. Unless that was a local break that ran long and it was only here in Atlanta that happened. Did anyone else notice that?
Jen, it happened in Toronto too, on a Canadian feed. So it must have been NBC, not your local station.
I thought the funniest sketch was the Scared Straight program. My frequent complaint about sketches is that great characters/impressions are wasted in a skit with too few good punchlines (eg The View; impressions are spot-on but beyond that, there’s not much to keep me laughing), OR there’s a good premise and they don’t do enough with it. A sketch really works for me when it’s funny on multiple levels. With Scared Straight, the characterizations and catchphrases are funny, the retelling of the movie plots is funny, and the inevitable segue into an off-color joke about prison is funny. The sight gag of Barbie’s useless hands was good, even if the scene went on a little long…Kelly Clarkson was fantastic. Nice to see a pop artist who can hit her notes live. I’m hoping we’ll see more Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott soon. I love Kristen, but I’d like to see them play a more prominent role (they were great in The View and Big Love)…Agreed that High IQ was lots of effort, few laughs.
Hmmm. I dunno, I guess the show just tickled me. I was laughing wall-to-wall, starting with Tracy’s 30 Rock-esque “I am not the droids you’re looking for!” Brian Fellows was only ok, I was disappointed in The View if only because I wanted Tracy to be STAR again (“I’m a LAWWWYA!”) Scared Straight was middling, but Bill Hader’s near-break after Morgan’s mouth caress made that one. No comments on Hader’s hilarious “Dateline” sketch? We were peeing ourselves here, as were we during Kristin’s “funnier-the-long-it-went” attempt to open the whiskey bottle as Barbie. Malkovich was great. “Party Cliches” won’t have the viral appeal of many Digital Shorts, but crescendoed into a nice couple of laughs for the night. And finally, Will Forte simply saying “Now is not the time for an erection” made his brief appearance quite funny.
Just as everyone predicted, the show stinks now that there are less conservative targets to go after. No Bush, No Palin, no nothing. I’m surprised they haven’t gone after Rush Limbaugh at least. The only thing helping this show limp in are the digital shorts.
Something was off – several cast members, including Tracy were obviously reading from cue cards – it threw the timing off. If the timing was there, the skits could have been more entertaining. I thought the Big Love skit was big boring.
I don’t know what you guys were watching, but I thought it was hilarious. Maybe I just love Tracy Morgan/Tracy Jordan too much. And Kelly Clarkson ROCKED. Great episode!
Jen…it must have been your local affliate that took an extra long commercial break. Where I live, they came back from break in time for her to be introduced again before she started the second song.
Tracy Morgan has never ever been funny! I went to a comedy festival a few years back where he was the headliner and a majority of the audience left 5 minutes into his set. Again, Tracy Morgan is NOT funny!
Clarkson sounded very good as per usual.
Were you watching the same show I was? I thought the entire show was great. The last skit had me in tears, just because of how ridiculous it was. Like it or not, that was Tracy Morgan being Tracy Morgan. I thought the bum skit of the show was “Big Love”, but other than that, I think it was great to show how someone can come from the bottom of the ranks to hosting SNL. I loved it.
I also love Astronaut Jones but agree last night was not its best. I liked Tracy Morgan, but most of his sketches did fall flat. For me, part of the problem is that Amy Pohler is gone. Kristen Wiig is just two one note and grating to pick up the slack with Amy gone.
The only really funny-ironic thing was the digital short. They finally zinged themselves. I was hoping for some “Scare Tactics, Fear is Funny!” skits. They could have redeemed Tracy. I also expected more 30 Rock-style skits. Retreads of Astronaut Jones & Brian Fellows only showed how much weight Tracy has gained over the yrs. Especially his face. They should have stretched him further than they did. I loved Weekend Update last week – Seth Meyers is getting better solo, but last night was just average. I think Bill Hader & Kristin Wiig are the comedic geniuses of the show.
Did anyone else notice Keenan mouthing Tracy’s lines as he said them in the scared straight sketch? What was up with that?
I thought the last sketch about the family friendly film gone wrong was so funny. Everytime “Life is a highway…” came on I was cracking up. I agree with everything else though, that Ken doll joke was so lame. And Bill Hader always does great impressions, I have a ridiculous crush on him.
I thought Morgan was great. It’s bad writing thats dragging the show down