SNL Season 30 – REVEALED!
Episode 14: David Spade/Jack Johnson (
The
Rating System: Totals:
4 Coneys –
Best Ever 0-10
Coneys – Garbage
0 Coneys –
Worst Ever 11-20
Coneys – Needs Improvement
21-29
Coneys – Average
30-39
Coneys – Above Average
41-49
Coneys -
Instant Classic
50+
Coneys - Unparalleled SNL Genius
1. Cold Opening:
CNN: Martha Stewart Homecoming
Premise: Stewart lays new ground rules for her company
Jason: 2
Coneys Heather: ½ Coney
Jason: 2
Coneys Heather: ½ Coney
Jason: 1
Coney Heather: ½ Coney
Premise: Preview of new TV shows
Jason: 3 Coneys Heather: 2 Coneys
5. Sketch: Stunt Double
Premise: David Spade adjusts to having a female stunt
double
Jason: 2 Coneys Heather: 1 Coney
6. Commercial Parody: Woomba
OAD:
Jason: 1 Coney Heather: 1 Coney
7.
Sketch: Cell Mates
Jason: 2 Coneys
Heather: 1 Coney
8. Music:
Jack Johnson “Sitting,
Waiting, Wishing”
Jason: 1 Coney Heather: 2 Coneys
9.
Weekend Update
Jason: 1 Coney Heather: 1 Coney
10. Sketch: Sean Penn’s Celebrity Roast
Premise: Sean Penn
(Seth) hosts a roast for Clint Eastwood (
Jason: 2
Coneys Heather: 2 ½ Coneys
11.
Sketch: Office Delivery
Premise: A UPS delivery man tries to pick
up an office worker
Jason: 1 Coney Heather: ½ Coney
12. Sketch:
CeCe and Roger Barry
Premise: Two aging jingle writers perform their
“greatest hits”
Jason: 1 Coney Heather: 1 Coney
12. Film:
Premise: A look at a town where Bears have
replaced people
Jason: 3 Coneys Heather: 3 Coneys
13. Music:
Jack Johnson with G. Love “Breakdown”
Jason: 2
Coneys Heather: 2 Coneys
14. Sketch:
Dirtball and Burnout Convention
Premise: Infomerical on an upcoming white trash
convention
Jason: 3 Coneys Heather: 2 ½ Coneys
Final Coney Order (out
of a possible 56):
Jason: 27 Heather: 21
Episode Comments:
Jason: Stop the press. Wake up the
kids. Call Tom Shales. Tina Fey has gone a whole 90 minutes without
making one George W. Bush joke! What
seemed to be mandatory humor for Season 30 has temporarily gone by the
wayside.
Tonight we got
a look at David Spade’s first return to the SNL stage since his cameo during
the Alec Baldwin episode back in 2001.
And although he had hosted before that, Spade seemed a bit different
tonight. Throughout the episode, Spade
seemed to have an attitude towards the other cast members. It was almost like he felt better than them
and therefore didn’t have to try as hard.
During each sketch, Spade was extremely laid back and if something
happened that caught his eye, he made no reservations about briefly stopping to
point it out. This is the kind of
behavior one would expect from an SNL legend like Bill Murray,
I formed this
impression about Spade right during the cold opening. After Spade became the sixth cast member to
portray Martha Stewart, it felt as if he was doing a stand up routine instead
of a characterization. As supporting
characters in the scene attempted to add a comment, it was almost like he
wouldn’t even let them finish before jumping back in with his next line.
Should any of
this behavior surprise me? Probably not. Spade
isn’t the first cast member to come back acting like a big shot. With hits like Tommy Boy and Black Sheep
under his belt when he left SNL back in 1996, I’m sure Spade expected continued
success on the big screen. He probably
never guessed that by 2005, his whole monologue would revolve around a character
he plays on a Capital One commercial. So
did all this ruin the show? Not
completely. Seeing Spade back on SNL was
still a nice break from the norm and I’m sure it reminded many of SNL days
past.
The other
sketches tonight were a mixed bag of recycled premises and ideas nobody had
time to think up proper endings for.
Making up the recycled column was Art House Neighbors, Stunt Doubles,
Sean Penn’s Celebrity Roast and CeCe & Roger Barry. Art House Neighbors (Maya and Armisen) was a
sketch originally seen in the Topher Grace episode and actually became one of
that show’s strongest moments.
Unfortunately, tonight’s second appearance was almost a 100% retread of
the last time. The premise is clear: Art lovers can’t pronounce common names, they have odd chairs and even stranger food. We get it.
Please don’t show us again.
Remember the
“Air Commander” sketch during the Jude Law episode? Or maybe the “Movie Accent” sketch from Colin Firth’s episode? If those episodes are too old, how about the
“Seasons of Love” sketch from the last live episode hosted by Hilary Swank? If you answered yes to any of the above, you
are officially smarter than Seth Meyers thinks you or anyone in the audience
is. I can’t think of another reason he
could have for continuing to use this director behind-the-scenes premise. Credit is given to Horatio’s totally best Vin
Diesel impression, but the rest of Seth’s “Stunt Doubles” sketch was
worst. Don’t tell me you’ve exhausted
your bag of tricks in only your fourth season Seth.
Sean Penn’s Celebrity
Roast also had the “been-there, done-that” feel. Sketches like this are little more than a
chance to throw a ton of celebrity impressions into one ring. It is just too bad Seth’s extremely weak Sean
Penn character got the lead. Penn
impressions on SNL are nothing new. In
years past, people like Jay Mohr, Jim Breuer and Robert Downey Jr. have all
took a stab at Jeff Spicoli, but
Seth’s was easily the worst. On the plus
side, Armisen’s George Carlin and Spade’s Owen Wilson were scary accurate. I’m still questioning why one of them weren’t
made the host over
The final recycled
moment came courtesy of Maya. For the
100,000th time, Maya has created a character for herself that is one
half of a singing duo. To her credit, the
concepts behind them are usually pretty funny.
Take tonight for example: here we
have a singing team who are performing their greatest commercial jingles to
adoring fans. This would be funny until
you realize Maya uses the same voice, movements, facial expressions and
reactions every single time. If it
wasn’t for David Spade’s comments between songs, this sketch would have ranked
among the season’s worst.
The remaining sketches
had potential until you realized they were missing endings. Both Cell Mates and Office Delivery ended
before you were able to figure out what was supposed to be funny. Cell Mates especially, aside from Spade’s
lines like “Spider comin’ back”, what was the punchline we were building
towards? Were Spade’s characters
expected to be so funny that we wouldn’t notice the sketch isn’t going
anywhere?
This leaves
With the
music, I hoped Jack Johnson would have been a little better. His first song sounded like a million other
songs on the radio and even G-Love’s appearance during the second song only
bumped the whole thing up one coney. Oh
well. At least it wasn’t more rap.
Similar to Dan
Aykroyd (the last SNL alum to host), Spade has proven you can’t always turn
back the clock for a sure thing. Can
next week’s host Ashton Kutcher deliver something other than an average score
for the season? Stranger things have
happened.
Episode
tidbit: Tonight’s episode was delayed in
Heather: So, I’m thinking that instead of SNL, this week’s episode should’ve
been called The David Spade Show featuring some other people from SNL. Look, I’m well aware of the fact that Spade
used to be a cast member and he does have some experience hosting the show, but
must that really keep him from at least trying to expand beyond, well, just
acting like himself? Maybe I was unintentionally
expecting too much, but I found myself far from pleased with Spade’s
performance this time around.
With the exception of just a small number of
sketches, Spade basically just dominated the screen time with barely any regard
toward creativity or the fact that there were other people on the set. The cold opener was, by far, the best example
of this. In that skit, we find Spade
playing Martha Stewart, except, wait a minute…he’s merely acting like David
Spade with a blonde wig, which crazily enough, highly resembled his own head of
hair. What, did he mistakenly accept
some comedic pointers from Fallon when rehearsing for this character? He acted nothing like the recently freed
Stewart! Apparently, Spade couldn’t even
come up with an impersonation of her voice so he just ended up using his
own. Not only that, he seemingly also
felt the need to ramble on and comment of everyone else’s lines as well.
Needless to say, it was not a good start to the show and, unfortunately, it
didn’t end there.
Next came the monologue, where Spade actually boasted about an
upcoming Best of David Spade SNL DVD, which admittedly had me wondering what
the hell Spade did to deserve a best of disc?
Luckily, though, it appeared to be a joke as he went
on to say that they still needed two more sketches and that hopefully
they would pick them up during this episode. Disappointingly, however, the
monologue went on to be just another boring question and answer session with
Spade assuming his normal condescending self.
The series of
sketches that followed the monologue were essentially of the same caliber as
the majority of the skits we’ve seen thus far this season. Save for a few amusing instances, the night
was pretty much filled with played out and pointless ideas and Spade certainly
did nothing to add any real humor. To
me, sketches like Art Dealers, Stunt Double, and CeCe & Roger are
completely worthless for laughs. Art
Dealers might have stood a chance if it hadn’t utilized the exact same concepts
as it’s debut two months back. While Sanz’s ridiculously funny Vin Diesel
impression was definitely worth noting, the behind the scenes view that we saw
in Stunt Double seemed to have become a staple in practically every episode
this season. As for skits like CeCe and
Roger, all I can say is, “CUT IT THE FUCK OUT, MAYA!!” On the same note, Cell Mates, Office Delivery
and Weekend Update were totally uneventful and never really amounted to
anything substantially funny.
So, with all
of this negative criticism, how exactly did Spade’s episode NOT end up ranking
at the bottom of the list? The answer to
that lies within Bear City, Sean Penn’s Celebrity Roast and Dirtball &
Burnout Convention.
In regards to
Jack Johnson, I don’t exactly prefer his music, but I have to say he did sound
pretty damn good. In comparison with the
previous musical acts that have taken the SNL music stage, he’s certainly one
of the better acts we’ve seen so far.
Well,
obviously I was hoping for a much better show this week with host David Spade,
but it’s evident one can only accomplish so much when
there’s so much ego right from the get-go.
Oh well, I’ll just close by saying I’m not exactly holding my breath to
see Spade back on that set again.
SNL Coney Rankings: Season 30 – REVEALED!
Jude
Law/Ashlee Simpson – 41
Paul
Giamatti/Ludacris (with Sum 41) - 33
Luke
Wilson/U2 – 29
Robert
DeNiro/Destiny’s Child - 28
David
Spade/Jack Johnson - 27
Liam
Neeson/Modest Mouse - 25
Ben
Affleck/Nelly - 23
Queen
Latifah – 22
Jason
Bateman/Kelly Clarkson - 20
Kate
Winslet/Eminem – 21
Topher
Grace/The Killers - 21
Colin
Farrell/Scissor Sisters - 18
Hilary Swank/50
Cent – 16
Heather:
Jude
Law/Ashlee Simpson – 35.5
Paul
Giamatti/Ludacris (with Sum 41) - 29
Robert
DeNiro/Destiny’s Child – 26.5
Liam
Neeson/Modest Mouse - 23
Luke
Wilson/U2 – 23
David
Spade/Jack Johnson - 21
Jason Bateman/Kelly
Clarkson - 19
Kate
Winslet/Eminem – 18.5
Colin
Farrell/Scissor Sisters – 18.5
Topher
Grace/The Killers - 17
Ben
Affleck/Nelly – 16.5
Hilary
Swank/50 Cent - 15
Queen
Latifah – 14.5