"What [are] we gonna do now?" "What else? We're Greeks. We...
dance!"
--
With Season 3 being, by all accounts, the best of the original era—and by
accounts that I stand by—I was apprehensive of the season that followed. We've
hit critical mass; John Belushi is a bonafide star, and alongside Dan Aykroyd,
he's on his way out. At the same time, the show's become more self-satisfied
and secure with its place in television, a trait that suggests promise but so
often translates to SNL as poison. This season is also one of pronounced
experimentation, with its interests shifting more towards slice-of-life
sketches, epics, and full ensemble affairs... though that daring spirit
doesn't quite translate to its slim rotation of special guests (Father Guido
Sarducci, Franken & Davis, Mr. Bill).
Does it persevere through these radical changes, or does it succumb to its
fleeting desires? Here's what I thought, episode by episode!
For my reviews of the preceding season, Season 3,
CLICK HERE!
"I never watch television. Never. I don't even own a television.
Electricity is evil. It kills the creative mindset."
--
Of the first five seasons of the show, I've been most curious about Season 3. Beyond the fact that it's well-regarded as the finest of the original era, it feels like all of the wonders of the show are coming in at a fevered pitch. There's some legendary episodes here, from Charles Grodin, to the atomic lobsters, to the quintessential Steve Martin gig. There are points of intrigue, like Hugh Hefner, returning alum host Chevy Chase, or Miskel Spillman and the Anyone Can Host competition. Gary Weiss is on the way out, and Tom Schiller's on the way in. And there's also O. J. Simpson. Basically, there's a lot to look forward to, and also O. J. Simpson!
Does Season 3 live up to its mythical status in the pantheon of Saturday Night Live? Scroll down and find out!
For my reviews of the preceding season, Season 2, CLICK HERE!
"We're just packaging what the kids want, ya know?"
--
I greatly enjoyed watching the first season of the show, especially with how experimental and loose it tended to feel, but I also felt like the show was still frequently unsure of itself and what sort of show it wanted to be. I was greatly looking for to the second season, then, to see how the show would continue to develop and solidify. Did it live up to those expectations? See for yourself!
In case you missed it: for my reviews of Season 1,
CLICK HERE! Now... onwards!
"Let us begin. Repeat after me. I would like to feed your fingertips
to the wolverines."
--
I'm Matt. Few people would know this, and indeed, a part of me hopes that nobody does,
but I used to write reviews of SNL as it was airing in 2015/2016. They're all
bad and have been lost deliberately to the sands of time, but they served to
germinate all of my writing endeavors up to this point, and everything that
I've accomplished with this blog. So it feels fair to pay back my dues a bit.
I wasn't actually intending on doing anything like this, but I've been
watching the show from the start for the first time and commenting on episodes
with some buddies I've made working on the "One SNL a Day 2.0" revival
project, and they were so eager to hear my takes that it sort of became a
whole, big thing... eventually so big that they suggested I find some way of
posting them outside of our private groupchat. So I've decided that I'll
compile all of my little write-ups for every season here while adding some
fun, extra things! I don't think I'll write these all the way up to the show's
current season—I'm not very interested in writing long-form about the seasons I saw as they
aired, and I'm already writing about some of the modern seasons per the
aforementioned "One SNL a Day 2.0"—but I'm looking forward to covering up to
at least Season 30, at which point I'll have seen every episode of SNL ever
produced.
Also note: I'm transplanting my write-ups over here with minimal changes,
except for assisted clarity. They'll get longer and more comprehensive as time
goes on; it's a bit of a slow start, but I think especially by the time we get
to the final stretch of this season, my write-ups start to get pretty sweet.
Hope you enjoy!
I apologize for taking you to a secondary location.
I realize that this is an amazingly late recount of an SNL line-going experience. It's almost a month past when the episode actually took place, and I went back and forth on if it was something I should even write about at that point... but then all of the COVID-19 stuff happened. SNL got shut down, probably for the season. And that made the experience of seeing the show so close to its unexpected closure all the more special as a moment in time to reflect—I was a lucky audience member for an intimate, one-night only comedy show led off by John Mulaney and David Byrne.
For some reason, the prospects of a leap day episode of SNL immediately piqued my interest; it would be a first for the show's history (and very potentially this could be the only episode to land on such a date), and I'm all for that incredibly niche but ultimately meaningless specificity. Then I found out that episode would be hosted by none other than Mulaney with musical guest David Byrne—because truly, what combo of individuals would be more suited for such a strange date—and I knew that I had to go.
This wasn't my first time seeing the show; the season prior, I got into the Awkwafina episode (and, likewise, wrote a little piece on it). But the stakes for this go-around were far different on account of the host being John effin' Mulaney, a guy who's proven himself to be one of SNL's most reliable hosts in recent history, scoring two out of two instant classic hosting gigs in the span of less than a year. Add in the fun new factor of this trip taking place during the winter as opposed to on a cool, autumn evening and you've got a lot of strange and frightening variables floating around in the air that I had to make sense of quick.
It's almost 2019, and it's been, in my opinion, a pretty darn good year for television. Unfortunately, there were a lot of shows I would've loved to talk about more that sadly never got written about on my part, either because I was too busy, or because my ability to write about them was far outside of my normal range of "shows at steady moderation of intensity." However, I thought I would just make a short list of the episodes of television, and their respective shows, that really stood out to me. There are, of course, plenty of shows that I missed that would've probably made it on here if I had more time, and this list is far from definitive (especially since it only really consists of comedies by some definition of the term), but I just want to pin them down here as recommendations.
The shows will be listed chronologically in regards to their air date instead of ranked by some hierarchy of my enjoyment, because that would make all of this far too difficult (aside from a very clear #1 and #2). Further, I'm only writing about one episode per show, even if there are multiple episodes of one that are far better than those of another. Without further ado, here are the episodes that made my year.
"The Vegging" - The Amazing World of Gumball Air Date: January 15th, 2018 - Cartoon Network
Look, it was inevitable that Gumball would come up at some point, and anyone who follows my reviews would probably be able to very easily figure out which episode would be my favorite of the year. This past season has been an interesting one, starting out stronger than ever but quickly falling into a midseason slump which, while conceptually daring, often struggled to truly elevate the premises making up each episode, and while there was plenty of charm, it often felt like the writing was on autopilot. "The Vegging," though, is an episode that takes a simple premise, and proves that Gumball—when its heart is in the right place—can make anything magical.
In this case, the entire episode is pretty much about Gumball and Darwin's struggle to do absolutely nothing, and a day that refuses to let them. Every minute of the episode is comedy gold, including perhaps one of the funniest gags that the show has ever produced, with Gumball and Darwin repeatedly tuning their brains out for so long that the post-apocalypse happens around them, then they save the universe, then Gumball gets married to an alien... all in the span of less than a minute. "The Vegging," as a whole, is relentlessly rapid-fire.
All of this culminates in Gumball and Darwin having to get out of their house and rescue their family, who is dangling near-death off the edge of a bridge in the family car. Even then, though, our protagonist's vegetation knows no bounds, and they do everything they can to ensure that their lethargy remain uncompromised, all the way down to mailing themselves to their family in swivel chairs. Even at the point when the car is about to go off the edge, Gumball prioritizes his veg, and his ability to ultimately save the day just goes to show that his apathy knows no bounds.
Other highlights: "The Faith," "The Founder," "The Spinoffs."
"Tips" - Apple & Onion Air Date: March 2nd, 2018 - Cartoon Network
It's somewhat hard to describe what makes Apple & Onion so appealing. It's the sort of show that elicits reactions ranging from "surprisingly charming" to "excruciatingly unemotive," but I think the easiest way to describe the show is just that it's different, in a very simple and sweet way. Never overly-saccharine, it's a show that rides on an incredibly deadpan sort of optimism, with each episode monitoring the day-to-day life of two dudes who live in an apartment together, Apple (show creator George Gendi) and Onion (Richard Ayoade), in a city inhabited by talking food. Nothing is overly complex nor narratively-charged, instead serving as a thoughtful, slice-of-life sort of show with visual panache and musical sensibilities. It's basically an animated Flight of the Conchords, to those familiar.
"Tips" is a perfect example of the show's tone and overall vibe, involving Apple and Onion trying to get money to go on a hot air balloon ride, eventually getting a job at their friend's pizza restaurant and chasing after tips. The pair go through an expected level of trial and error due to their eclecticism and varied idiosyncrasies (one attempt to get tips has them hanging over and whispering into customers' ears repeatedly to ensure they're dutifully taken care of), but the show finds its identity in its witty visual presentation and songs. The episode's main musical number is all about tips, and that's where my ability to describe it begins and ends. Elsewhere, "Tips" finds fun ways of making every shot enjoyable, featuring a number of silly sequences, establishing shots, and montages. If Apple & Onion isn't overly-funny, it's a show with a voice that lets it find an admirable little niche.
Other highlights: "Block Party," "Bottle Catch," "Hot Dog's Movie Premiere."
Sooo… this isn't something that I usually write about, but I saw Saturday Night Live last Saturday. Seeing the show has always been a dream of mine since I started watching at the age of 12, and it's something that's been incredibly influential in my perception of how comedy works and my future aspirations of becoming a comedy writer.
The first episode of the show I watched was Christina Applegate's 2012 stint as host, and one sketch in particular always stood out to me: "Tech Talk." Taking the form of a show discussing technology, it found several phone critics complaining about the latest Apple product before the host (played by Applegate) brings out three Chinese employees to effectively shame the privileged reviewers for the audacity of their complaints. It's a hilarious and fairly sharp sketch, but it underlined Saturday Night Live's diversity problem rather frustratingly; this is a show that has never had an East Asian castmember, and here were three people effectively performing some variant of yellowface for the sake of the joke.
As an Asian-American person myself (I'm half-Chinese), I've found SNL's struggles with diversity to be particularly frustrating, but when Awkwafina was announced as host— hot off of a fantastic summer in two blockbusters (one being the first movie with an all-Asian cast in 25 years), I knew I had to get out there. This was someone like me (let alone the first host of East Asian descent in 18 years) hosting the show that fostered my love of comedy; I didn't have to look at Aziz Ansari or Kumail Nanjiani as a sort of proxy hero, and that felt good.
"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.
