Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Paul Rudd/No Musical Guest

December 19, 2021

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SNL: Charli XCX, Paul Rudd, Ego Nwodim (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

This Paul Rudd-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live was supposed to feature Charli XCX as the musical guest, but instead there was no musical guest. (Although Charli did show up in a pre-recorded sketch!) Changes were made at the last minute, but the show had to go on, so it did go on! There were some new bits, but several of the sketches were classic Christmas-themed selections, along with new intros from Rudd and/or Tina Fey, Kenan Thompson, and Tom Hanks.

Rudd was in town presumably to promote his new flick Ghostbusters: Afterlife (which also features some SNL alums in its cast) and his new Apple TV+ show The Shrink Next Door (which also co-stars an SNL alum). But I also must mention that he has a recurring voice gig on the terrific new Netflix show Saturday Morning All Star Hits!, which stars and was co-created by current SNL cast member Kyle Mooney.

In the spirit of persevering, I will stick with the reviewing plan I had for this episode, which was to list the sketches in order from least Christmassy to most Christmassy. I’ve determined this according to the number of times we hear spoken in the sketch the word “Christmas” (or its derivatives, like “Christmassy,” “Christmastime,” etc.). I have included in the counts those Christmases spoken in the intros.

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Billie Eilish/Billie Eilish

December 12, 2021

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SNL: Billie Eilish, Kate McKinnon (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

The eighth episode of Saturday Night Live Season 47 features the same person as both host and musical guest, and that person is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell (or just Billie Eilish, for short). This is the first time this season that the same person has been both host and MG. If you were worried that this sort of double duty was never going to happen again, then that was quite an overreaction.

Last episode, I listed the sketches in order of running time, from longest to shortest, so this time I will go from shortest to longest.

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Simu Liu/Saweetie

November 21, 2021

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SNL: Kyle Mooney, Saweetie, Simu Liu, Cecily Strong (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

This year I am thankful for new episodes of Saturday Night Live. And the NEWEST new SNL is the one hosted by Simu Liu with musical guest Saweetie. He’s the self-proclaimed “first Chinese host to be the fourth Chinese host,” while she’s the Santa Clara native who sure seems to rap a lot.

For this review, I will be listing the sketches in order of running time, starting with the longest.

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Jonathan Majors/Taylor Swift

November 14, 2021

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SNL: Bowen Yang, Taylor Swift, Jonathan Majors, Aidy Bryant (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

In case this is the first of my SNL reviews you’re reading this season (or if you just need a refresher), I’ve been mixing up the order in which I list each sketch. This time, I’ve listed them in order of how long my notes were for each sketch, starting with the most notes. (You’ll have to trust me on this one.)

Anyway, Jonathan Majors was booked as the host, while Taylor Swift managed to be the musical guest. This is his first time entertaining us from Studio 8H, while she’s been here multiple times already. Maybe she gave him some advice.

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Kieran Culkin/Ed Sheeran

November 12, 2021

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SNL: Heidi Gardner, Kieran Culkin, Chris Redd (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

I ran the New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 7, 2021, which made it a little difficult to post my review of the 11/6/21 SNL on Sunday as I normally do. Sorry, Kieran Culkin and Ed Sheeran! (They were the guests of this episode.) So I decided instead to write this review over the course of the week, at a rate of a few sketches per day. Anyway, maybe it was the post-marathon glow, but I really enjoyed this episode!

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Jason Sudeikis/Brandi Carlile

October 24, 2021

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SNL: Alex Moffat, Brandi Carlile, Jason Sudeikis, Chloe Fineman (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

Jason Sudeikis used to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live, but now he’s the host. Not permanently, just for this episode (although possibly also future episodes as well). Brandi Carlile is the musical guest. Rock ‘n’ roll!

This time, I’m assembling my review in order of the birthdays of the first person to speak in each sketch. Just the dates and not the years, though. So, for example, someone born January 1, 1980 will go ahead of someone born on January 2, 1970. (For the musical performances, I’ll organize them according to the introducing person’s birthday.)

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Rami Malek/Young Thug

October 17, 2021

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SNL: Bowen Yang, Young Thug, Rami Malek, Ego Nwodim (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

This is a review of a very special episode of Saturday Night Live, because all SNL episodes are special, because they’re put together by special people, because all people are special. The particular special people this time are host Rami Malek and Young Thug.

This season, I’ve been playing around with the order of the sketches in my reviews, and this time, I’m going to list them in order of length of what I’ve written (in terms of number of lines and the length of the last line, as written in Times New Roman on Google Docs), from shortest to longest. Here we go!

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Kim Kardashian West/Halsey

October 10, 2021

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SNL: Halsey, Kim Kardashian West, Cecily Strong (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

For last week’s premiere episode, I reviewed the sketches in backwards order, and now this time I’m going to review them in alphabetical order. This can potentially be a little tricky, because sometimes I think certain sketches should have a different name than what’s listed on SNL‘s YouTube page. So I’ll say this to make sure that we’re all on the same page: I’m going with the sketch names that I think make the most sense.

But first, a first word on a couple of the new cast members: the “h” in “Aristotle Athari” is silent, so his last name sounds like a certain video game system, and I think that’s pretty cool. And there’s also Sarah Sherman, whose name sounds VERY similar to “Sarah Silverman,” who was also once upon a time a brunette SNL cast member.

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Jeff’s Wacky SNL Season 47 Premiere Review: Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgraves

October 3, 2021

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SNL: Kacey Musgraves, Owen Wilson, Kenan Thompson (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

Hello, readers, you are now about to read my review of Saturday Night Live‘s Season 47 premiere, which was hosted by Mr. Owen Wilson with musical guest Ms. Kacey Musgraves. I like to mix up my review style every once in a while, so for this episode, I will talk about the sketches in the reverse order in which they aired. I don’t think I’ll be doing that for every episode this season; instead, I’ll be mixing it up … we’ll see how it goes!

Also, I should mention that I’m in the midst of training for the New York City Marathon, so if it feels like my review was written after running double-digit miles, now you know why.

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The Best of SNL Season 46

May 29, 2021

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CREDIT: Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC

Oh my god, Saturday Night Live Season 46 is already complete?! It’s already late May 2021?! Okay then, I guess it’s time to let you know what I liked the most about the past year of Studio 8H’s offerings in various categories. If you want to know my absolute favorite hosts, musical guests, episodes, etc., then get with it and keep reading! The number of entrants varies by category, because that’s just what I felt like doing, lol.
(My favorite ketches get their own post, which can be found here.)

Most Valuable Cast Member
I don’t think I’ve ever picked Pete Davidson as the MVCM of a season, so I’m going to go ahead and do that now. Why not! After all, he appeared in several of my favorite sketches this year. Can you believe he just finished his seventh season?
Pete Davidson
Runners-Up:
Kenan Thompson
Kate McKinnon

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