Jmunney's Blog

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — “Aziz Ansari” Episode 1716 — Pictured: Aziz Ansari as Dave during the “Five Stars” sketch on January 21st, 2017 — (Photo by: Caroline De Quesada/NBC)

This review was originally posted on News Cult in January 2017.

Love It

Peppy Ronnie’s Pizza Party – This scene about a late-night arrest at a Chuck E. Cheese-style pizzeria is similar to last season’s “Space Pants,” insofar as a kitschy performance threatens to derail a criminal situation. This does not quite reach the stellar heights of Jonathan Comets, as the Peppy Ronnie’s crew is a lower-stakes distraction. But animatronic bands are hilarious enough on their own, and reactions from Kenan Thompson provide just the right sort of flavoring.

Aziz Ansari is a seasoned stand-up, which pretty much always guarantees a solid Monologue; I appreciate his advocacy for news reports of brown people eating nachos and changing scary-sounding Islam music to something Benny Hill-style… Bobby Moynihan’s Ganz, of Broderick & Ganz, is a kidney-less personal injury lawyer whose incompetence knows no bounds or predictability…The police Interrogation of a man who only kind of liked La La Land wins special recognition for clever comic exaggeration…Michael and Colin are on fire, post-Inauguration…Leslie Jones is more on topic than usual (despite Che’s hilarious “that was about Hidden Figures?” comment) as she examines where else African-American accomplishments are hidden and points out that the Predator is from space…Five Stars is an understated take on five-star culture, perhaps a response to a hysterical (though pointed) Black Mirror episode.

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