SNL Sketch Analysis: John Mulaney: "Sitcom Reboot"

"For the first time ever, we're please to announce a crossover episode." "With who?" "Dateline."

It's been a long time since I've talked about Saturday Night Live, but John Mulaney just makes things happen, alright?

Not many people probably remember, but way back when, I used to do full-fledged reviews of SNL, but I quit for two reasons. One, it was exhausting. SNL is a beast to watch and an even more difficult one to evaluate, and while there's always highlights and lowlights that are particularly fun to discuss, there's always plenty in the middle that don't really warrant a need to be discussed in large. Two, the amount of work those took definitely didn't match up with the outcome, and they've since faded off without anybody really caring.

Hence, I devised this, where I'll choose one sketch from every episode of SNL—be it spectacular or absolutely terrible—and break down how it works or doesn't work, all while providing a general evaluation of the night. It's also just a good way to flex some good old-fashioned sketch analysis.

The first sketch we'll be discussing is "Sitcom Reboot."

There's always something exciting about a former writer hosting. To have Mulaney return to the show was already a complete surprise, and one I'd argue is only topped by the next host (Donald Glover with musical guest Childish Gambino?! My dreams are coming true!), but with that comes expectations. It's insane to think about Mulaney's legacy on the show and how many phenomenal sketches he formulated during his tenure, including the incomparable Stefon, so tonight, I was hoping to see Season 43's leanings towards more conceptual and writerly ideas converge with the host's genius. And for the most part, it did, and he unleashed the best out of the cast and the writers (including Simon Rich and Marika Sawyer, Mulaney's most frequent collaborators).

I mean, I can't think of any other host who would allow the show to unleash a sketch where a lobster breaks out into a Les Mis musical number over being ordered at a diner, but here we are.

"Sitcom Reboot" is probably one of the night's more standard sketches, but its success lies in its simplicity and how it gradually gets more and more twisted. It takes the form of a discussion between Jay Paultodd, the creator of hit '80s TV show "Switcharoo," and an interviewer (Cecily Strong), but it quickly barrels out of control as the show reveals its crux to be about the more unsavory half of father-son body-switching: the son having sex with his father's mom.

On one level, it's a silly spoof on the recent trend of bringing back shows that nobody really wanted from the grave (Will & Grace? Roseanne?). But it uses that to ask the question of what happens when you recreate a show that's far too dated for its own good to the point of poor taste? Even the reboot hasn't learned a lesson and is just hideously and unequivocally worse—as Paultodd puts it, "The opening shot is a close-up of a newspaper that says 'Trump is President,' and then we widen out and we're like, 'Forget all that,' and then the mom switcharoos with a dog and I don't need to tell you what happens next." If that's not a burn on other shows trying to make up for lost relevancy by forcing itself into the contemporary era, then I don't know what does.

But what really makes the sketch work is all of the strange details peppered throughout, making the project even more horrifying. For instance, the original child actor couldn't be re-cast because he turned out to be serial murderer Andy Cunanan, and among Paultodd's influences are I Love Lucy, Dick van Dyke, and "my mom who would wash my penis with scalding hot water." 

In fact, the sketch actually bears a striking resemblance to another of Mulaney's best sketches on the show: "Rocket Dog," where an interviewer (Kristen Wiig) is presented with clips of a director's (Tracy Morgan) demented film, Rocket Dog, with repeated cuts to "in memoriam" tributes scattered throughout the movie as the whole cast slowly dies. While the original is certainly better (with a great assist from overusing the chorus from "Life is a Highway"), "Sitcom Reboot" explored the show in a modern context and focused more on the shadiness of the project and creator. However much the joke is about a show where a kid has sex with his mom, it ultimately becomes an exploration of taste, and Paultodd's menacing psyche is a delight.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS: a lobster singing Les Mis in a plea for his life; John Mulaney's unsurprisingly killer monologue discussing a gazebo built during the Civil War, robot-detection computer methods, and waving at departing ships; a cut-for-time sketch documenting the life of a fishman pushed out of the part in The Shape of Water. 

EPISODE GRADE: A-.