Wow. Am in sick tonight (I swear!) and so far this is a damn good episode! The opening was hilarious, and The Arcade Fire managed not to ooze pretentiousness. Even the silly skits were entertaining (e.g. Peeping Tom). Rainn must have helped with the writing.
“If you’ve never made a snow angel, don’t worry, it’s easy – all you have to do is murder a snowman.”
Didn’t get a big audience reaction, but it cracked me up. 
Yep, he’s doing pretty well. I liked the office-within-the-office skit too, the Pam was especially great.
I was totally expecting Andy Samberg to play Jim tonight, but at least they got Jason Sudeikis to do it.
I have to admit, this has been a very funny episode tonight. I LOVED the Digital Short with all the quirky characters chiming in at the board meeting.
I liked how it took that guy three tries to break his guitar. Pete Townshend would be appalled.
What was that big instrument being played by the woman in the Arcade Fire? It looked like an enormous zither with a crank on the end.
That instrument was a hurdy gurdy. Apparently the crank is what acts as the “bow.”
The Arcade Fire are known for having a great live show, and I thought they did well tonight. As for that guitar smash… 
Admittedly, I recorded the show an skipped ahead to the musical performances. I did catch the cold open, though, and the CNN ticker was really funny.
Why it was a hurdy-gurdy. Everyone knows that. Geez.
RW was great! Seems like he was in more of the sketches than most hosts.
I like Arcade Fire alot but don’t see them perform very often … anybody else find their show a bit much? What next… I almost expected somebody in back to fart into a megaphone?
What were the words on the guitar that got destroyed… French I assume.
I thought it was a pretty good episode overall… but what was the deal with having a skit based on the preview for Black Snake Moan? I’d never even heard of that movie, or seen its preview, before seeing it parodied… has it had a lot of buzz or something?
Where are you tht you haven’t been innundated with Black Snake Moan buzz?
Come on Sam Jackson chains up Christian Ricci!
I only saw Weekend Update on… Eh… The sketch with the three droning office people was just weird… and I wasn’t sure if Rainn was supposed to be british or if he accidentally slipped into it continuously.
The New Age band fight sketch was awful.
The Black Snke Moan parody didn’t make any sense.
The Opening Situation room was great.
And then
It continued,
and Continued,
and Continued.
Seriously, they should have stopped it right after the head in the news crawl bit. It had me thinking that ‘old’ SNL writing was back.
Lots of places. I’ve never seen so much as an ad for it, I had no idea what the movie was about until last night. All I knew was that it has the same title as a PJ Harvey song, and that it was something coming out this year.
This was the first episode I’ve seen in over a year, and of all nights, they had The Arcade Fire on 
There’s only one of their songs I can stand to listen to, and of course it wasn’t one they played. They’re less irritating live, though.
I thought maybe from seeing a couple of their digital shorts that they’d gotten funny again. I guess not.
I usually only stay up long enough to catch Update, but WOW was this one of the best episodes I’ve seen in years. They should be very pleased with themselves and I even told my SO that it seemed to have been written by the Office or 30 Rock people rather than the old crew.
Rainn was great and threw down like a cast member, not a deer-in-headlights hose we’ve been stuck with for years. (Matt Dillon, anyone?)
Update was good, but Aunt Linda - can’t stand that character. I just realized today she’s supposd to be another Emily Litella type, which I didn’t find funny either. Amy and Seth do a great job, but their pairing is less edgy than Tina and Amy.
Peeping skit was good, Goofy Office people w/ Fred was good and felt improvised which was great. Don’t know how they got her shirt off and on again so fast?!
I wish like hell they’d use Kenan more often, his deadpan style is awesome and appeals to my enjoyment of British humor.
Overall, SNL blew me away last night and I hope they can keep it up.
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It goes back a leeetle further than that.
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What were the titles of the songs Arcade Fire played? I’ll need to hear them again before I can decide if I like them or not.
Intervention and Keep the Car Running.
I love Intervention but I haven’t heard Keep the Car Running enough to figure out how I feel about it.
I know the thread is slightly old, but I just wanted to chime in because I was at the dress rehearsal for this episode (after sitting in the freezing cold for 7 hours for standby tickets!).
What’s weird is that some of the skits that got cut from the dress were funnier than some of the ones they kept in, particularly the “Nuni” sketch and the New Age band fight. The “Even Though We Ain’t Got Money” sketch and the peeping Tom sketch were both in the middle of the dress, but got moved up cause they got big laughs.
What’s funny about going to the show, esp. when you’re in the standby seats, is that there’s so much equipment and sets all over the place, that you’re usually better off just watching the monitors anyway. At the same time, it doesn’t feel like you’re just watching it on TV.
I was there for Arcade Fire, with which I have an almost scary obsession (and I have a crazy crush on their violinist - the short one). They did the same two songs that all of you saw, but I obviously didn’t see the guitar smash. What freaking kills is that, after the live show, they did three more songs at the request of Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Fred Armisan and Andy Samberg, who are all huge fans, apparently. But there’s no way I could have landed seats for the live show, so c’est la vie.
Oh, and the words on Win Butler’s guitar are a Haitian Creole proverb (his wife, the girl playing the hurdy gurdy, was born there) that means “An empty sack cannot stand.”
I think it was a reference to the rushed-to-release Snakes on a Train, which was just as bad as you imagine.
Actually, Black Snake Moan has been getting a lot of hype around here. I see posters for it in all sorts of odd places. Pretty simple premise: Christina Ricci is a slut. Samuel L. Jackson is a fire-and-brimstone spewing angry man who chains her up until she stops being a slut. In between, she writhes around a lot in cut-offs and a halter top. And Justin Timberlake is in there somewhere, probably to get women to go see the movie.