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Jake In Drag??
MaineWriter:
Hi everyone,
Here I am, a day late and a dollar short since I watched Saturday Night Live on Sunday (we taped it). My 2 cents...
I thought the drag thing was funny, but not hysterical. Maybe if I had seen it cold, without knowing it was coming on, it would have been funnier. Who knows? Since I haven't seen Dreamgirls (the movie or the show) the actual meaning of the song went right past me, but I certainly knew what the reference was to.
No one else had mentioned it, but do people really believe that the "cowboys" in the audience were real audience members? I mean with the goofy grins and the hamming it up...I think they were there on purpose (a plant, or whatever the term would be) specifically to react to the "my new fanbase" joke. In other words, I don't think it was a coincidence that there was a gaggle of guys in the front row in cowboy attire. My thought is that it was engineered by the producers.
In terms of who would be offended...the skit that left a bad taste in my mouth was the wheelchair one, near the end. To me, that one was not funny, even remotely so, and I didn't appreciate Jake's leering behavior. Yuck.
I had a very good laugh at the Brooklyn girls and their book guest, Frank O'Connor. I also laughed at the "President" at the beginning and the Donald Trump press conference (but Jake wasn't in either of those).
All the other skits...nothing particularly memorable, nothing side-splittingly funny, but the show didn't put me to sleep (it probably would have if I had been watching it at 11:30 pm, though).
For those of us who remember SNL in the old days, we have this wonderful memory for skits we can quote verbatim: landsharks, killer bees, Samurai Delicatessen, "baseball has been bery, bery good to me!" But I think we need to keep in mind that in between the funny stuff, they had their fair share of duds...which we don't remember now, nor can we quote. Just like the singing meatball will soon be gone from my memory, so is the singing meatball of yesteryear.
I think the other things going against Jake were 1) his youth and relative inexperience in hosting a show like this and 2) the fact that he is not a comedian. My memory of the really funny shows were the ones with hosts who were really funny...like Steve Martin. Jake got plunked in a bunch of so-so skits and doesn't seem to have the experience or skill (at this moment) to really pull it off and turn it into something funny. Then again, some of those were not turnable. He did the best he could with what he was given.
Last, the ensemble (do they still call them the Not Ready for Prime Time players? I don't think so) didn't seem to have a whole lot of comedic talent, either. Maybe they are all new and young and need to hone their craft a bit, but until they get a core of funny people...or even one really funny person (Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell come to mind) the show will never hit the peaks that we remember from the past.
Leslie
ednbarby:
Gee, Leslie. Tell us how you really feel. ;)
I thought Jake did very well, actually. Yes, I'm biased, but at the same time, I was anxious for him to do well and so was probably set up to be more hyper-critical than most. I haven't watched the show in years, so I don't know how he did compared to, say, Justin Timberlake or Natalie Portman or even Alec Baldwin last week. I think it's a little unfair to compare him to a comedian like Steve Martin. None of these guys they have hosting these days are comedians. Considering how young he is, I think he did great.
I'm with you, though, in that I didn't care much for the wheelchair skit. I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt and see it as satirizing people's stereotyping of other groups. But at the end of it when they hit it off anyway, it sort of left a bad taste in my mouth.
And I thought Weekend Update sucked out loud. In that case, it's hard not to compare it to incarnations of it from the past - of course Chevy Chase and Jane Curtain were the classic hosts, with Gilda Radner doing her Emily Litella and Rosanne Rosannadanna bits. I still say "Never mind" like Emily when I mishear someone and say something stupid and realize my mistake and I still every now and then say, "It's always something - if it's not one thing, it's another..." a la Roseanne. And Dennis Miller was a riot, too, when he took it over (back when he was still funny). Even Kevin Nealon and Norm McDonald were funnier than those two. It turned out to be a good time for a bathroom break, it was so lame.
I won't be watching again unless they have another guest host or band I really like. But overall, it wasn't nearly as lame as I expected it to be. I thought the sketch after the monologue was hilarious, and I also really liked the Bronx Chat sketch. That's more than I expected to like considering how the writing's been in recent years. I stopped watching altogether, really, once Dana Carvey and Mike Myers and that group were no longer on it. I don't think it's been funny at all, except in fits and starts, since then.
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: Ellemeno on January 15, 2007, 08:06:37 am ---"This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner NBC Universal because its content was used without permission"
:(
--- End quote ---
Here's a link to the IHJ page from which you can download his sketches (and monologue): :)
http://www.iheartjake.com/tvappearances.htm
BBM-Cat:
--- Quote from: MaineWriter on January 15, 2007, 09:38:59 am ---No one else had mentioned it, but do people really believe that the "cowboys" in the audience were real audience members? I mean with the goofy grins and the hamming it up...I think they were there on purpose (a plant, or whatever the term would be) specifically to react to the "my new fanbase" joke. In other words, I don't think it was a coincidence that there was a gaggle of guys in the front row in cowboy attire. My thought is that it was engineered by the producers.
--- End quote ---
I too had that immediate perception - that the 'cowboys' were all planted actors - a parody of JG's own request for 'no Brokeback jokes'.
Kelda:
Oh yeah, they were def actors - no doubt about that. Think it would be obvious to everyone that watched - even the homophobes.
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