# Was the '22 SNL season opener as awful as it appeared? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** talk-variety-show\ **Created:** [October 2, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590 "2022-10-02T19:49:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2022, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/121 "2022-10-30T12:04:40Z")
I did not know of Jack Harlow the rapper. He has good comedic timing. Cecily Strong is back. Tom Hanks as David **S** Pumpkins returns. Terrifying! > **[David S. Pumpkins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Pumpkins)** > > David Simon Pumpkins is a fictional character played by American actor Tom Hanks, first appearing on the October 22, 2016, episode of Saturday Night Live in a sketch written by Mikey Day, Bobby Moynihan, and Streeter Seidell. Pumpkins developed a cult following amidst the positive reception, served as the basis of a 2017 animated Halloween special, and has subsequently returned to SNL multiple times. > The character was created by Bobby Moynihan, Mikey Day, and Streeter Seidell. Moynihan said they... ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2022, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/122 "2022-10-30T12:11:45Z")
I thought that was really Kari Lake! Holy crap, that was more scary than the Halloween stuff! I watched the whole episode and laughed quite a bit. Jack Harlow was very funny! Drunk Uncle too! Really good episode. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2022, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/123 "2022-10-30T14:31:47Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I am. The accents were ridiculous but the obsession with traffic directions were spot on. Also, our use of THE before numbered highways is apparently hilarious outside of Southern California. Not really hilarious–more like stupid. That’s why it’s so easy to mock it. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/124 "2022-10-30T14:51:18Z")
I think SNL goes to the combined guest host/musical guest _far_ too often. (Last week was Megan Thee Stallion, who did the same thing. I think it should be a _rare_ privilege for someone who can manage both comedic acting and has musical talents. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/125 "2022-10-30T16:11:09Z")
Enough musical stars have managed to cross over into movie and television roles as well that likely many others fancy they got the chops and can do it too. Some probably only agree to appear if they are granted both. (Of course some of the crossovers went the other way, first rising to fame as Disney comedy stars then becoming pop sensations … they’ve been the combined host-musical guests too.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/126 "2022-10-31T00:41:40Z")
Jack Harlow’s opening song had such amazingly stupid lyrics that I actually thought it was a parody he was teasing before his real song. That was his real song. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/127 "2022-10-31T02:03:55Z")
Am I really meant to believe Lorne Michaels actually knows who these hosts and musical acts are?? _I_ don’t know who they are, and I don’t have 4 hours a day to commit to name-dropping stories about Paul Simon and Paul McCartney! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/128 "2022-10-31T02:45:13Z")
I assume they have talent bookers to suggest and arrange guest hosts and musical guests. At the same time, though, Lorne Michaels’s position is such that he’s probably more hip to the current culture than you’d think for a man of his age. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/129 "2022-10-31T03:42:16Z")
I think they should’ve done the David S Pumpkins sketch before Tom Hanks and Bobby Moynihan appeared in other sketches. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/130 "2022-10-31T08:44:27Z")
> [@Pavelb1](#): > > Am I really meant to believe Lorne Michaels actually knows who these hosts and musical acts are?? I know who the vast majority of the guest hosts are, and I have a full-time job doing something unrelated to show business. I do watch movies as they come out in the theaters though. I don’t have time to watch much television. I don’t have time to listen to new music either. For that reason, the musical guests often aren’t familiar to me. The guest hosts are actors, stand-up comedians, musicians, athletes, politicians, and miscellaneous celebrities. They often aren’t people who have just become famous but ones that have been known for decades. Sometimes the guest hosts are known to me only because when I shopped in the supermarket and looked at the cheap celebrity magazines as I passed them in the line to pay for my food, I saw their names. (And I never buy those magazines. I don’t even pick them up to glance through the articles. I just have the sort of memory that seeing names once in a glance makes them stick in my memory.) I can easily imagine that it only takes a small team of talent bookers to know who the appropriate guests are. Also, note that frequently the guests are ones who have a movie coming out that week or a television show renewed again or an album dropping that week. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/131 "2022-10-31T13:34:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > _Jack Harlow’s opening song had such amazingly stupid lyrics that I actually thought it was a parody._ I had the same reaction. When I see white people doing rap I half expect the lyrics to be complaints about not finding a good parking space at the mall and having to wait for a tee time at the country club. His performance reminded me of the 1992 political satire **Bob Roberts** , a mockumentary about a wealthy, popular folk singer who runs for the Senate. The joke is that while Bob Roberts sings his protest songs with great earnestness (a la Bob Dylan and others), the lyrics are extremely conservative right-wing rants. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/132 "2022-10-31T14:11:16Z")
**Bob Roberts** was produced by Tim Robbins and first appeared on SNL [Bob Roberts Book Burning - Saturday Night Live](https://youtu.be/pTINF7JjxkE) ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/133 "2022-10-31T15:19:01Z")
[quote=“Coriolanus, post:132, topic:972590”] _ **Bob Roberts** was produced by Tim Robbins and first appeared on SNL_ _[/quo_te] Thanks for that link, Coriolanus. I knew it was originally an SNL bit that Tim Robbins had expanded into a movie, but I wasn’t watching SNL much at that time and never had seen it. That bit sums up “Bob Roberts” perfectly. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/134 "2022-10-31T18:56:51Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > When I see white people doing rap I half expect the lyrics to be complaints about not finding a good parking space at the mall and having to wait for a tee time at the country club. From SNL, no less [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/DeCLIwqKrMI/maxresdefault.jpg "A Couple of White Guys - Saturday Night Live") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeCLIwqKrMI) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/135 "2022-11-04T13:36:14Z")
This is the promo for this week’s SNL. It’s usually just the guest host, the musical guest, and one cast member standing on stage looking toward the camera and making snide comments about each other. In this case though, it’s the guest host and one cast member in a little sketch. The musical guest doesn’t appear at all. Another cast member appears at the end: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7wYSKSgy1M) ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/136 "2022-11-04T20:50:07Z")
I love Amy Schumer so I’m looking forward to tomorrow night. She’s fantastic at sketch comedy. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/137 "2022-11-04T23:07:16Z")
_Train Wreck_ would be in a top five all-time comedies list for me. But for the whole cast really. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2022, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/138 "2022-11-05T00:39:27Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I love Amy Schumer so I’m looking forward to tomorrow night. She’s fantastic at sketch comedy. I just hope that the writers have good material for her to work with. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/139 "2022-11-06T16:03:34Z")
Her opening was strong. Some really good jokes. The weekend update was especially good too. In my opinion, of course. I skipped the music and most of the sketches, but might get back to them this week. Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/140 "2022-11-06T22:55:04Z")
The Covid taped sketch was funny. For a show with Live in the title, the fact that all the best sketches for the last decade or so have been prerecorded says it all. Schumer’s monolog, which appeared to be leftover Rodney Dangerfield jokes about how she don’t get no respect, was deadly. Weekend Update had some good gags. Every week this thread gets more ironic, since the “awful” season opener was better than any that followed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590.md?page=8)