I thought the BeeGees sketch was awful. After the first thirty seconds, my son turned to me and said, “Well, they’ll only be doing that joke for another six minutes.” I didn’t even find it funny once.
Much as I’d like to be all cynical and curmudgeonly and anti-cool, I have to admit that Jimmy Fallon’s Barry Gibb impression just plain cracks me up.
The third guy in the Target sketch is usually halfway amusing. Anyone remember the guy – I think it might have been the Stellan Skaaarsgaaard show – who was like, “Oh my God, this is the BEST coffee break I have had in my entire LIFE.” That was semi-amusing. Kristen Wiig’s character, however, is not. Wiig is hysterical in most of the sketches she does, but when they let her do a “funny voice” it just sucks the life right out of the skit. Her “Aunt Gladys” or whoever on Weekend Update is similarly unfunny. When the Target opening came on, the group of people I was with just groaned. It is a singularly unfunny skit (except for the one or two lines they give the other clerk), and I’m with the rest of you, I don’t understand why the studio audience was laughing so hysterically. It’s just not that funny.
But with that exception (and Nancy Grace, which is another seriously unfunny skit), I think this was the best show of the season so far. Justin Timberlake is an outstanding host. The “Cup O’ Soup” skit was one of the rare repeating sketches that actually made me laugh harder than the original. (“Soup, dey it is! Soup, dey it is!”) I also dig the Barry Gibb talk show and was glad they got Fallon to come back and do Barry Gibb for it. Weekend Update was good throughout, I liked the opening musical skit, and I don’t even need to say that “Dick in a Box” (I thought it was “Cock in a Box” originally too) was side-splitting. Overall a pretty damn good show.
I’d rather just be entertained by a sketch comedy show, myself. If you found something funny in it, god bless you. I found it to be one unfunny gag that has been done by SNL a couple hundred times, only with a different impersonation. If I never see another fake roundtable show sketch, or another “Great White North” ripoff, it will still be too soon.
I thought it was the best SNL in years. Alec Baldwin and Justin Timberlake should be added to the cast at this point. Darrell Hammond was unwatchable; missed the Nancy Grace sketch.
MadTV was also rather funny - I liked the “White Elephant” gift exchange. Did anyone catch the Maury Povich skit with the pig that crapped and pissed everywhere, dismantling the sketch? Damn funny.