{"id":228,"date":"2024-10-02T21:58:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T01:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/?p=228"},"modified":"2024-10-03T11:31:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T15:31:25","slug":"half-a-century-soldier-snl-kicks-off-season-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/half-a-century-soldier-snl-kicks-off-season-50\/","title":{"rendered":"Half a Century, Soldier: SNL Kicks off Season 50"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saturday Night Live turns 50 this season and it can kick, stretch, AND kick! With a solid cast in place for this milestone year, including veteran Keenan Thompson returning for his 21st season, Colin Jost and Michael Che in their 10th season as Weekend Update anchors, I\u2019m looking forward to what the show has in store. The SNL season premiere, hosted by Emmy-winning comedy legend, Jean Smart with musical guest Jelly Roll<\/a>, aired on September 28, 2024. Here\u2019s my take on the episode.

Election coverage was pretty much a given for SNL’s cold open, but I couldn\u2019t wait to see what their angle would be. They went with handsomely-unbiased ABC News coverage of the respective Harris and Trump rallies. Maya Rudolph is back as Kamala, and this sketch was chock-full of cameos starting with an unexpected, but actually perfect choice with Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz, bringing the BDE (Big Dad Energy), and Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff.

Cut to the Trump rally (in its third hour) with James Austin Johnson and his spot-on Trump impression, referencing some of the most cringey moments of the past few months. Moving the bullet-proof glass out of the way when JD Vance came out was probably the funniest moment of the Trump piece. Bowen Yang, who does dry, robotic delivery so hilariously, is a great choice to play Vance \u2013 a man born with zero rizz or personality. And while Bowen played Vance with more energy and inflection than the real one, I can\u2019t wait to see how he develops it in the coming months.

Back to the Harris rally, and I\u2019ll admit that while I usually prefer to see the cast playing these roles, Dana Carvey as Biden made this whole episode for me! I\u2019ve heard him do Biden on his Fly on the Wall <\/em>podcast and I feel like he\u2019s gotten it down to a T, albeit a little mean-spirited. I couldn\u2019t help but notice the way Maya was looking at him, smiling, and I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s part of the bit – how Kamala looks at Joe, or was it really Maya watching Dana? He\u2019s such a legend, and it felt surreal to watch. \u201cAnd guess what, and by the way\u201d, in a special Fly on the Wall<\/em> announcement on Sunday, Dana confirmed that he will be playing Joe Biden throughout Season 50!

The show went with the musical monologue which tends to be hit or miss. I thought this was a nice one with Jean recalling the beginning of her career in New York around the same time as SNL premiered. The jokes peppered throughout were funny \u2013 like fall in New York, with the garbage on the street turning colors; and a jab at the trope of the show not being funny.

They kicked it off with \u201cCelebrity $100,000 Pyramid.\u201d The sketch was pretty short, which didn\u2019t make me feel optimistic about the rest of the show, but maybe since the cold open was a long one, it had to be quick. Jean Smart as Tonia Haddix from Chimp Crazy was the best part. Honestly, I groaned at the fact that they\u2019re doing Hawk-Tuah girl. I thought (okay, hoped) that her 15 minutes of fame was over. I know they\u2019re catching up on things that happened over the summer, but I would have preferred \u201cvery mindful, very demure\u201d or @GirlontheCouch, if they needed a TikTok moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SNL takes on Spirit Halloween<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Next was a Spirit Halloween commercial. While pretty accurate, I actually thought that SNL had done this before, but I must be thinking of one of the other many times this has been done. Overall, it was okay. The costume names were perfect, tweaked just enough to avoid lawsuits, like \u201cblonde singing woman\u201d as their Taylor Swift costume. The realistic take on some of the employees who work there being creepy, not in a fun Halloween way, but in a probably-has-a-criminal-history sort of way, was sadly relatable.

We got a break from the pop culture references that were prevalent throughout the show, with Jean playing a romance writer coming out of retirement to write a math book for Scholastic Books. I didn\u2019t get the \u201cwe don\u2019t wear t-shirts here\u201d comment early on, which felt very random, but it got better after that. Jean was fantastic as she read some of the word problems and saw no issue with the inappropriate content she had written for an AP Algebra book that also has absolutely no algebraic component to it. The twists were pretty good, with Keenan\u2019s character getting into the story, and the end where schools are calling and math scores are through the roof. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weekend Update<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Weekend Update<\/strong> had solid jokes, from Trump saying he has a better body than Joe Biden (ok, the actual clip of Trump was the joke in this case), to the inevitable cat jokes, the cleverer being a topical tie-in to the story of the cat who returned home from Yellowstone National Park. I feel like Colin and Che are really leaning in to jokes that get groans from the audience, and loving it! This feels reminiscent of Norm MacDonald, and I\u2019m totally here for it. Also, Che\u2019s reaction, \u201cWhat? It\u2019s the 90\u2019s.\u201d, makes me believe that this is their tribute to Norm.

Update closed with Bowen Yang as Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo gone viral, as a superstar who just wants to set some boundaries, not have shellfish thrown at her, and to drink hose-water. I always love how Bowen personifies normally non-speaking characters, and this was no exception. I still laugh when I think about his take on the iceberg that was hit by the Titanic.

\u201cHistory of the Sitcom: I Love Lucy,\u201d imagining if Lucy was played by a dramatic stage actress. An ironic take on the show with \u201cLucy\u201d asking Ricky if he\u2019s gay, and eventually pulling a gun on him. I liked the brevity of this one, it was well-written, they set it up, made the jokes and closed it out saying they recast Lucille Ball which made more sense because her name was Lucy and she was married to the lead actor.

\u201cReal Housewives of Santa Fe\u201d was one of my favorite sketches of the night. It was on point with the cattiness and yelling about some random thing, in this case who is, or is not, a business woman, as Andrew Dismukes unsuccessfully attempts to put two trays of sizzling, steaming hot fajitas on the table. Ego Nwodim\u2019s line \u201cThis isn\u2019t what I ordered, I ordered fajitas\u201d, after being told they are fajitas, she says \u201cWell then fajitas are not what I thought they were, please send them back!\u201d The ridiculous chaos of this sketch was such a fun way to end the show.

Parting Thoughts<\/strong>
Overall, I thought the season premiere episode of SNL was good. It had some really funny moments and its fair share of meh ones. Jean Smart was fantastic, a total legend, talented, and enjoyable to watch. I probably won\u2019t go into a review on the musical guest at this point as I\u2019m not familiar with Jelly Roll, but overall thought he was very good. Next week\u2019s SNL host will be Nate Bargatze, who hosted one of the best episodes of last season, and Coldplay is the musical guest. I expect we\u2019ll see more election material and special guests. Thanks for reading!
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday Night Live turns 50 this season and it can kick, stretch, AND kick! With a solid cast in place…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16],"tags":[14,25],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedy","category-entertainment","tag-commentary","tag-saturday-night-live"],"yoast_head":"\nHalf a Century, Soldier: SNL Kicks off Season 50<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Saturday Night Live kicked off its landmark 50th season and showed glimpses of the SNL past that generations of viewers have loved.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/danjkroll.com\/blog\/half-a-century-soldier-snl-kicks-off-season-50\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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