Daniel's TV Blog

SNL season 44 starts on Saturday. Here is my list of best sketches from season 43.


10) Kumail Nanjiani - The Nursing Home
Would it make you feel any better if I said no?


9) Jessica Chastain - What even matters anymore?
A perfect portrayal of what watching too much news feels like right now. Sponsored by Little Ball.


8) Saoirse Ronan - The Office Race
This sketch is very odd and gets odder at the end.



7) Chance the Rapper - Wayne Manor
Batman, someone gotta do something about him



6) Larry David - Celebrity Price is Right
Bernie Sanders on Price is Right could never fail. But everyone on this sketch hits it out of the park.



5) Amy Schumer - 'Lil Rent
Let's just change HIV/AIDS to diabetes and everything will be fine.



4) Natalie Portman - My Little Stepchildren
Sadly this was cut for time and never aired. But it will live forever on the internet.



3) Bill Hader - The Californians
I can never have enough of The Californians.



2) Chadwick Boseman - Black Jeopardy
Karen, keep your bland-ass potato salad to yourself



1) James Franco - The Spelling Bee
Easily the funniest sketch of the season with words like Urophiliac



Best Weekend Update Character - Angel, the boxer's girlfriend
She's going to take her kids to her sister's

Best Monologue - John Mulaney
Prove, prove, prove you're not a robot!

Best episode - Bill Hader
Lots of other great sketches and the return of Stephan

Labels: SNL

Thanks to the bizarre world we live in, the recent season of Saturday Night Live had record ratings. Here is my list of best sketches. But first...


Best Monolog - Kristen Stewart. There were a lot of good monologs this year, but Kristen Stewart explaining how the president used to tweet about her love life was so weird it had to be true. Also she dropped the f-bomb.

Best Musical Performance - Katy Perry Swish Swish. With all the drag queens and the bizarre teenager doing a weird backpack dance, I couldn't get enough of this.


Best Weekend Update Character - Weather girl. Vanessa Bayer ended her great seven season run with the amazing TV meteorologist character Dawn Lazerus. How she is able to spew complete gibberish so well just amazes me. It almost makes up for the most annoying weekend update character ever, Jacob the bar mitzvah boy.

5. Dirty Talk (Aziz Ansari)
This was the real introduction the new player Melissa Villaseñor. She is the naughtiest girl in the 6th grade.

4. Totinos (Kristen Stewart)
I love Vanessa Bayer's put upon housewife character trying to keep her hungry guys happy during the Super Bowl. But this year she stepped it up a notch with a French lesbian love story. Anything for her hungry guys.

3. Cherry Grove (Scarlet Johansen)
There are five miracles of home water birth asleep in this house!

2. Wells for Boys (Emma Stone)
I really want to have the balcony for when I want to announce something. I keep watching this and laughing.

1. Haunted Elevator (Tom Hanks)
Of course the best sketch of the year was Tom Hanks as David S. Pumpkins. Any questions? Yes! This was probably the best sketch in years.



Best Episode - Kristen Stewart. I was never much of a Kristen Stewart fan before this episode. I never watched the vampire movies and her public relationships never interested me, unlike the president. But this episode was packed with great skits. I hope they invite her back even though she dropped the f-bomb on live TV.

Labels: SNL

Labels: SNL

I think a lot of people have unfairly given up on SNL.  Yes it's not super funny from start to finish but was it ever?  But there's often one great sketch per episode.  Here is my top ten favorite skits from last season.


10. Waking Up With Kimye (Lady Gaga) - Kim wore it better.  Lady Gaga gets to make fun of her over-the-top outfits.

9. Johnny Weir on Ellen (Jim Parsons) - You don't get gays doing impressions of gays too often.  Here we get two at once with the delightfully normal looking Jim Parson doing a great outrageous Johnny Weir to Kate McKinnon as Ellen.

8. The Bird Bible (Andrew Garfield) - Kate McKinnon is unsettlingly creepy as the religious mom reading The Bird Bible with her son.

7. New Cast Member or Arcade Fire (Tina Fey) - What probably started out as actual confusion in the studio turned into a great gameshow where both Tina and Lorne could make fun of themselves.  And when Lorne finally retires or dies, it's clear that Tina Fey should take over as Executive Producer.

6. Do It On My Twin Bed (Jimmy Fallon) - All the awkwardness of visiting family for the holidays all rolled up in one nasty song.

5. Your Love by The Outfield (Josh Hutchinson) - Let's go to the 80's mall and get some leg warmers!

4. Manolo Blahnik (Tina Fey), Lamborgini (Jonah Hill), Bvlgari (Andy Samberg) - They're not porn stars anymore but they are the best recurring characters of the season.

3. Bikini Beach Party (Charlize Theron) - I couldn't stop laughing when I first watched this.  This is so dense with jokes and there's a dead whale!

2. The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders (Ed Norton) - Dear homeowner, Can we kill you? -The Murderers.  Dear Murderers, No you may not. -The Homeowner.  It's also Alec Baldwin's final cameo before his public meltdown last fall. It was the best skit of the season until...

1. Dongs All Over the World (Anna Kendrick).  Are you from Istanbul? No, I'm actually an International Nasty Girl and me and my friends are doing every dong in the world.  This tops my list because I too am an International Nasty Girl.


With special mention to the two greatest Weekend Update performances: Kate McKinnon as Angela Merkel (new mobile, who dis?) and Taram Killem as 19th Century critic Jebidiah Atkinson.

Labels: SNL

The last two weekends I was at parties and separate friends asked me if I liked the show Catfish.  I hadn't heard of it nor the movie.  Well maybe I had I just didn't care enough to remember.  Then SNL did a great skit about it so Sunday I added a few episodes.  I love when I get to watch a spoof of something before the real something.  I did that with Ghost Whisperer.  Whenever I watch Catfish and someone comes out the side door I laugh my ass off.  SNL and Adam Levine were great.

Labels: Catfish the TV Show, SNL

JT has become the biggest friend of the show this season on SNL. He has popped in many times this season (including the unforgettable Single Ladies skit) and finally hosted for his third time on the penultimate episode of the season. I wanted to post the Single Ladies skit from the Paul Rudd/Beyonce episode but it is not on Hulu anymore. I'll have to rip that from the rebroadcast on 07/11. In the Immigrant's Dream skit, JT makes fun of his career, personal life, and numerous SNL appearances.

Labels: SNL

This was one of my favorite moments of the season. It's just so out there.

Labels: SNL

Sometimes the skits that make the least sense are the funniest. For instance an early season skit about Mark Walhberg talking to animals. I don't understand where it came from but it is hilarious. A few weeks later, Mark Walhberg came on the show and repeated the joke. He's a good sport.

Skits like these usually appear late in the show because not everyone believes they will be well received. Another great odd late-in-show skit was Gilly and that went over well. Another favorite of mine was Rocket Dog from Tracy Morgan's episode. This isn't even on Hulu. What's that all about? The Tracy Morgan episode will be on again on 07/25, be sure to look for that.

Labels: SNL

I was talking at lunch with Friend of DtvB Sean last week about how funny SNL was this year. The season finale had one of the funniest sketches ever with the return of Will Farrell and Celebrity Jeopardy. It's a must watch with some great cameos.

I'll be posting about SNL all this week so stay tuned.

Labels: SNL

On the season finale of both SNL and the Family Guy they had jokes about fake show promos. Here's the Family Guy one from Hulu with the fake show Shovin' Buddies.

SNL had a whole skit with an identical joke about a fake show "Mark" that kept interrupting a sports talk show. Family guy went on to run this joke into the ground with "Crossed Armed Opposites" and "Slowly Rotating Black Man". This reminded me of some great fake TV shows.

• On an old episode of Married: With Children, Peg got the Fall Preview issue of TV guide and read the show descriptions. The only one I remember was "Nunsense" which I think stared Suzanne Somers as a nun getting into crazy adventures.
• On an episode of the Simpsons, the family watched a series of bad TV show based around catch phrases. These included "Talk to the Hand!" and "Don't Go There!".
• But the best fake TV show EVER is MILF Island. Watch this clip:
  

Labels: 30 Rock, Family Guy, SNL

The first time I watched this SNL digital short last fall, I found it a mildly amusing spoof of the Olympics. They needed to do something since that swimmer guy was the host. But my friend Awesome Gary had me watch it again over the weekend and I now appreciate the genius of it.

Space Swords is totally cancelled!

Labels: Saturday Night Live, SNL

I say yes. It's not very highly rated online. It's not as popular as Jizz in my Pants or Mark Wahlberb Talks to Animals. I think it is worthy of discussing.



Most SNL skits have just one joke, and it's drawn out way too long. The Gilly skit had many jokes other than just Gilly being a very dangerous pre-teen. The kid with the step dad and the kid with broken arms are both hilarious. Very surprising character development. Also there's a great new catch phrase "Sorry". I can't stop saying it. Then it has a fun little theme song, "Knock, Knock. Who's there? It's Gilly!" But the best part is the best redirection joke of the season. "I apologize in the bum's ass." This was real genius comedy writing and it shouldn't be overlooked.

Labels: SNL