By David Gordon
It received its best season premiere ratings since 2001. It was the most watched episode since December 17, 2002, when Al Gore hosted. Yet, one wonders whether this was due to the popularity of the host or the all the speculation surrounding who would appear to open “Saturday Night Live’s” thirty-fourth season.
The top market was Baltimore, host Michael Phelps’ hometown, but Phelps certainly wasn’t the greatest host the sketch comedy show has ever had. Credit must be given to the eight-time Olympic gold-medalist swimmer (who proclaimed during his opening monologue that it was the “ninth highlight” of his life). He’s not an actor or a comedian, he doesn’t have much in the personality department, and he looked like a deer in the headlights for much of the show-but he took the risk.
Phelps wasn’t the only unfunny part of the episode; virtually everything except the opening sketch managed to go even further to prove that SNL’s glory days were the ’90s. The much-ballyhooed opening sketch I refer to featured the return of Tina Fey, playing who else but Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin engaging in a “nonpartisan message” with Hillary Clinton (played by the always wonderful, and very pregnant, Amy Poehler). This provided for the only real belly laughs of the entire episode, from “I can see Russia from my house,” to Poehler’s reference of Palin’s gaining popularity by wearing “Tina Fey glasses.”
Fey and Poehler, who were the best anchors of Weekend Update since Colin Quinn, no doubt wrote the sketch, as it contained humor unseen in the show since Fey left to write, produce, and star in the exemplary “30 Rock.” You could tell in the brief five minutes they love playing off one another, and I hope that they have more opportunities to appear together more often, especially before Poehler leaves the show to allegedly star in the spin-off of “The Office.”
Maybe it’s the actors who aren’t funny? Sure, Kristin Wiig is. Darrell Hammond can make a rock laugh with his impressions. But beyond them? Seth Meyers is no Adam Sandler. Will Forte and Bill Hader look so remarkably alike that you can’t tell them apart. Keenan Thompson was great on “All That,” so many years ago, but has he really had his time to shine?
Perhaps it’s the writing staff, led by Meyers, that’s run out of ideas. No political sketches this week (aside from the opening); Barack Obama was supposed to appear, but cancelled due to the hurricane; and they blatantly re-ran a sketch that’s been used already.
Set in a locker room, they replaced the name “Peyton Manning,” and the sport “football,” with “Michael Phelps,” and “swimming.” Originality not at its finest and Phelps managed to suck all the humor out of it.
I long for the days of “The Ladies Man,” “Marty Culp and Bobbi Mohan-Culp,” “Opera Man,” and even as far back as “Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger” and, quite frankly, anything that Eddie Murphy was featured in, as that was back when he was still funny.
Perhaps they need to go off the air for a while and retool. Re-audition actors and writers. Find people who are funny. But, seeing the height of the ratings, it’s obvious that I’m in the minority?
Tina Fey (l) as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler (r) as Hillary Clinton in the opening sketch of Saturday Night Live’s 34th Season. While Fey has not been on the show since 2006, she returned to play the Republican vice presidential candidate. (cbsnews.com)