Surprised no thread on this yet. Anyone watch?
I laughed at a lot of the sketches. Melissa McCarthy is just so great at physical comedy, she can take even the most mundane and unfunny of sketches and elevate them to insane levels of hilarity. The office/balloons sketch and the falling down the staircase sketch made me laugh harder than most anything I’ve seen on SNL in ages. I also really enjoyed the complaints sketch at the end with her and Samberg.
What say you?
I thought it was funny and actually watched every sketch, however most of the humor involved sex and/or eating which got a little old. It’s like her saying “Yes I’m fat and horny, and I’m not ashamed of it”, over and over.
I’ve heard that the Arlene sketch (in the office) and the Hidden Valley Ranch sketch were both old sketches from McCarthy’s Groundlings days, and involved a lot of improvising.
The HVR sketch might have been my favorite… Had forgotten it when I wrote the OP.
We were wondering what she was drinking, looked like some sort of cream or something. Not ranch dressing I hope!
I found this episode of SNL very weak. I didn’t care for MM in it and didn’t think she was very funny. I also don’t care for Mike and Molly. I’ve yet to see Bridesmaids.
I really thought it was terrible. But I did like the one skit about the TV show with the people that make comments on YouTube and etc.
BTW: Seth Meyers is not funny and is the worst News Anchor ever. He needs to go away.
This cast has some funny people but they rarely pull together a good show anymore.
The best word to describe MM’s performace is “fearless”. She was clearly enjoying herself, and that kind of infectious spirit goes a long way in elevating the comedy.
Having said that, several of the sketches were weak (the “Comments” one being the grand exception), and I’ll agree with Bob Ducca that there seemed to be a lot of improv going on.
Not bad; pretty funny in places.
I agreed about McCarthy elevating the material. Shooting herself in the face with a bottle of ranch dressing made that sketch. She even elevated the Lawrence Welk sketch, which I admit that I laugh at every time despite the fact that it’s the same skit every time. They went with the fat jokes a bit, but they didn’t lean on them as much as you think they would.
I still think they need to do something about the writing. The detractors are going to say that it’s tired and lame and though I still like it, it still seems like something needs to be done about it.
If you think about it, seth Meyers is barely even an anchor. His job seems to be to tell a couple of warm-up jokes, then introduce whatever bit (Khaddafi’s best friends, Stefan, whatever impersonation Jay Pharoh polished that week) the writers couldn’t figure out how to make a full sketch out of.
I started fast-forwarding about ten seconds into that sketch because it was so obvious that she was going to end up with the stuff all over her. Predictable and yet so annoying.
The comments sketch wasn’t bad. The video short was funny.
McCarthy did fat jokes. They weren’t courageous. They were fat jokes.
Everyone involved with that tired Lawrence Welk bit should be shot, repeatedly. The program was DOA before the opening credits.
What were the fat jokes? Because if you just mean that the characters were fat… Well, not sure how they could get around that with a heavy actress hosting the show. The HVR bit didn’t end with her covered in ranch dressing because she was fat, but because she was insane.
In the opening Lawrence Welk bit (a scenario that sucks), her character ate everything she could.
In the office sketch, part of the ‘funny’ was that she was making sexual advances which were odious because she was fat.
‘Comments Section’ wasn’t about her being fat.
After Weekend Update, I turned it off, so I can’t comment on other stuff.
I didn’t watch it, but years ago McCarthy did a series of myspace videos (remember myspace?!?!) as a character I believe that was called “Mumbles.” She was a community college professor with a page boy haircut. I was hoping she’d use the character on SNL.
Guess you missed Kevin Nealon and Colin Quinn in the anchor seat.
That sums it up well.
Nope, he’s worse.
This.
I didn’t care for the slapstick gargling, but her character was fantastic.
Kevin Nealon was fine, not great, not terrible.
Colin Quinn, however, was the absolute worst ever. Completely wrong before he ever sat down. I can’t remember who else was in the cast with him at the time, but someone else had to have been better. I don’t even remember whether the jokes were any good or not, I just remember that he himself was all wrong and I never responded to him. If nothing else his voice and accent are completely wrong for that role; you have to have someone believably anchor-y.
Seth Myers has been absolutely brilliant in the past, but it’s he’s gone quite awhile with some pretty pedestrian stuff.
I think he just needs someone to work off of. I seem to recall laughing at Poehler and Meyers although I may have just been laughing at Poehler, I can’t remember.
I was disappointed; the show seemed humdrum. I didn’t think any of the skits were that fantastic. My roommate stopped by and watched the office one. We agreed that if that’s what they’re leading with, it must be a stinker of a show.
“She died as she lived–with three closeted gay actors staring at her ass.” That line shouldn’t work with me, but it did.
Some of you might enjoy Melissa McCarthy’s old alter-ego, Marbles Hargrove.
I agree with most of the above.
Quinn could be funny, but he basically did current-events themed stand-up from behind a desk. He didn’t even try to emulate a news format, and what he was doing just didn’t work in that context.
I wouldn’t say Myers was ever “brilliant” at WU, but yeah, he used to be sharper and funnier. I liked him with Amy and for maybe a year on his own, but it’s almost like he seems bored with it now and is just going through the motions.