App: YouTube
Ad: Saturday Night Live
Targeted: Yes
Last week, YouTube tried to make me buy sofas and watch long movies. Let's see what it wants this week!
The top of my feed is an ad from 'Quixotic Blog' and it's a promoted video. It's in one of YouTube's most popular genres: gaming videos. I'm not a gamer - we had a Dreamcast with Sonic Adventure when I was a little kid and I have Guitar Hero now which I occasionally play on easy mode, but that's all my video game experience - so I've never been able to understand the appeal of watching other people play games online. Looking at this video, I've got no idea what the game is or what I'm supposed to be looking at. Rather than advertising the game itself, I think it's meant to be an advertisement for the channel itself. As the ad means nothing to me, I'm not going to click through and try to make sense of the channel. By the way, if I do get games advertised to me, and I'm sure I will, I won't be buying them since I don't have a console to try them out on...
On to the videos YouTube is recommending to me. Today it's not one of the daily mixes that's at the top of my feed - instead it's a compilation of Ricky Gervais' intros and monologues at the Golden Globes. I clicked and there's no ad, but I'm not actually sure why YouTube thought I'd want to watch this video anyway since I don't like Ricky Gervais. I guess it's probably because I'm interested in movies and comedy in general.
While I was typing this my phone actually went on standby which closed the YouTube app, and when I reopened it the feed had refreshed, so I won't ever know what else was in store for me originally. Upon reopening, I've now got a sponsored video called 'Nail Your Maths GCSE'. Definitely not targeted, since I took the Scottish equivalent of GCSEs 12 (!) years ago. The first non-sponsored video on my feed is a Saturday Night Live sketch called 'Floribama Shore', which is a parody of terrible reality show Jersey Shore set during a hurricane.
I watch a lot of Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube and there are so many of them that I'm not surprised YouTube is always throwing more into my recommendations. This one in particular makes sense today as I just watched their Love Island parody sketch, which I suppose is the British version of America's trashy reality TV. As far as SNL sketches go I'd rank it somewhere in the middle - it didn't really make me laugh but it was a pretty spot on recreation of the type of show it was lampooning. I watched the episode when it came out - the host was Saoirse Ronan - but I didn't remember anything about it, probably because everything else in that episode is overshadowed by the song from Saoirse's monologue about how to spell and say her name (which is one of those songs that's stuck in my head all the time!).
There wasn't an ad attached to the clip but under the video I was invited to buy Season 36 of SNL (not the season that this video came from). Season 36 is the one that ran from 2010 to 2011, which is a couple of years before I started watching the show so I don't think I've seen any of these episodes but it's possible I'll have seen some of the sketches from this era on YouTube. Rather than follow their suggestion to buy the whole season, I thought it would be fun to pick an episode from this run and review the sketches. Looking at the names of the hosts is like a time capsule of the era - there's Bryan Cranston while Breaking Bad was on, Jane Lynch at the height of Glee-mania and Jesse Eisenberg promoting The Social Network. As for musical guests, this season has Katy Perry and Lady Gaga at their chart-topping peak, debuts from Ellie Goulding and Florence + The Machine, plus legends like Paul Simon, Paul McCartney and Elton John.
I've chosen to watch Episode 5, which was broadcast on 30 October 2010 and hosted by Jon Hamm with musical guest Rihanna. I picked this one because I'm interested to see what sort of Mad Men parody they do with Jon Hamm - he's promoting the series of the show where they introduce Megan to the cast - and also because Jon Hamm is hot so I'd like to spend an hour looking at him. This is also the year that Rihanna put out 'Loud' which is one of my favourite Rihanna albums and aesthetic eras so I'd like to see which songs she sings and of course what she wears to perform them.
The cold open to this episode sets the scene politically with Jason Sudeikis playing Vice President Joe Biden. He talks about an election, which I assume must be midterms as we're in the beginning of Obama's first term, before giving a lot of his time to talking about the rescue of the Chilean miners. I don't know about you, but I can't believe that the Chilean miners story was ten years ago! A lot of my understanding of US politics comes from the SNL opening scenes so even on new episodes I miss a lot of the jokes, so even though this one is from a decade ago I don't feel like I'm watching something that I don't understand because of the time period.
Next up we're introduced to the cast, which at this point features stars like Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg. The only cast member from this season who is still on the show is Kenan Thompson but there are a few who I remember seeing when I've watched the show in the last few years, and a couple of faces in there who I don't remember but who I've seen in sketches. The one thing that did strike me is that there are far fewer women in the cast in 2010 than there are in 2020.
Jon Hamm is hosting the show for the second time and for his monologue he calls on the power of Don Draper to come up with advertising slogans for common household items. It's a fine introduction; not hilarious, but he's very charming.
The first proper sketch is an 'SNL Digital Short', which they don't do very often these days but they were big when Andy Samberg was in the show. To my surprise, Rihanna is in this one and it's a music video where she and Samberg play "Ronnie And Clyde". Rih is a confident gun-slinger robbing a bank with Samberg's 'Shy Ronnie' whose part of the song is an incoherent mumble which confuses the tellers and customers. Rihanna's Clyde gets away with the money (and Jon Hamm) while Ronnie accidentally shoots himself. It's no 'Natalie's Rap' or 'Dear Sister' but it's alright - Rihanna singing phrases like "they can't hear you, use your outside voice" was the highlight.
The next sketch sees Bill Hader impersonate Vincent Price for a Halloween sketch, "Vincent Price's 1960 Halloween Special". Celebrity impersonation sketches are probably my favourites on SNL and this one was particularly fun. Along with Price, we get Wiig doing a spot-on Judy Garland, Hamm playing a sexually-inappropriate Presidential candidate John F Kennedy and an even more inappropriate Liberace from Armisen. It's early days but I suspect this might be the highlight of the show.
I'm spoiled by a second celebrity sketch immediately after, which is a screen test reel for Back To The Future. Aside from Jay Pharoah's impression of Eddie Murphy, I don't think much of the impersonations, but it's cool to see that they've been doing the screen test skit for this long - there are versions of this sketch where the movie is Fifty Shades Of Grey and Star Wars (which also features Jon Hamm) and I've watched them more than once.
Next up, Kristen Wiig plays an unhinged woman auditioning for a play, with Jon Hamm as the husband called in to defend her when she doesn't get the role. Again, it's a fine sketch, but I have noticed that so far Kristen Wiig is the only woman in the cast who is getting to do any acting. We get a second part of the Back To The Future screen tests after this sketch and Taran Killam stands out this time with his impressions of Gilbert Gottfried and Pee Wee Herman.
Finally it's Rihanna time. The stage is lit up in red to match her hair and her band launches into a cool dancehall rhythm that I didn't recognise as 'What's My Name?' until she started singing. This version omits Drake's verse at the start of the song so we just get Rihanna, dressed in a bra and hotpants, with her backing singers. I'd forgotten how good this song is so it was a pleasure to see Rihanna singing it and looking like she was having such a good time on stage.
As is tradition, after the musical guest comes Weekend Update. In 2010 it was presented by Seth Meyers alone, and he goes through some political and quirky news stories. It was weird for me to see Meyers hosting the segment by himself, as I'm so used to the current duo of Michael Che and Colin Jost taking turns to cover each story. Some things in 2010 are the same as 2020 though - this edition poked fun at former New York Mayor (now Trump advisor) Rudy Giuliani. Hader came on to do a political impression and Wiig and Armisen did a turn as their characters Garth and Kat, who are singers that never prepare their songs ahead of the show so make up something terrible on the spot. Recognisable, but not the most iconic characters of the era.
After a saucy picture of Jon Hamm in the shower, we launch into the next sketch, 'I Didn't Ask For This', which is a talk show starring people who have become the subject of viral videos. Bobby Moynihan plays the host of the show, who has been the victim of a jumpscare and punches through his computer, Wiig plays a woman who gets hit by a hammer while trying to avoid a bee sting, and Hamm is a man who does a weird cry when reunited with his son. As good as she is, I'm sick of the sight of Kristen Wiig at this point. Jon Hamm is the star here and watching his face crumple as he does the cry which made his character internet famous is the first time I've really laughed during the show.
Another sexy shot of Hamm and then we're into a parody of a 70s buddy cop show. In this one, Hamm has to ride on the back of Sudeikis' motorbike and instead of going out to crime scenes they end up on romantic rides out in the countryside. The writing is so-so, but we do get to see the pair kiss at the end.
I expected Rihanna next but again, Kristen Wiig. This time, she and Hamm are playing a couple of lounge singers/comedians who keep arguing and then telling the audience these are fake arguments to draw in the crowd. Again, it's fine, but the chance to see any other woman from the cast would have been so welcome at this point.
Luckily Rihanna re-appears next to sing 'Only Girl (In The World)'. This time she's wearing a red prom dress and a big red bow in her hair and she twirls around the stage looking like an all-red version of Madonna in the mid-80s. The song is usually heavy on the electronics but it's being played by guitars and keys on the SNL stage which gives it a different sound. Unfortunately Rihanna can't actually sing it the way it sounds on the record, which has some soft falsetto in the verses. The chorus and middle-8 parts sound pretty good but, despite this being another great song, it doesn't work for her live.
There's one last short sketch, which is a cartoon chihuahua voiced by David Spade making cutting remarks about his owner and the celebrities at a party. I've never seen a cartoon on SNL before and I have no idea what this one is doing here; presumably they had a minute to fill and needed something short to fit the space, but as it features none of the cast and isn't funny it really sticks out. After this Hamm signs off with a Happy Halloween and the show is finished for the week.
A few things surprised me about this episode. Firstly, I can't believe they didn't do a Mad Men sketch, given its popularity at the time. Perhaps it was done when Hamm presented last time. I'm also quite surprised that the show didn't feel too dated for something that was ten years old - there was a Bill Cosby impression in there and references to Charlie Sheen and the Chilean Miners but because their celebrity parodies were set in the past it didn't date the show. The biggest surprise, of course, was the lack of female talent in the show. I'm used to seeing Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Heidi Gardner etc. featuring heavily so to have Kristen Wiig supported by one other female cast member (who got maximum of one line in a couple of sketches) was shocking. Vanessa Bayer joined the cast for this season and she became a bigger star later but isn't even seen in this episode except for in crowd scenes.
The best part of this episode was Rihanna's performance of What's My Name, with the Vincent Price sketch and the Jon Hamm interstitials coming in as runners-up. Despite the number of big names on the cast I was disappointed by the lack of variety - not nearly enough Andy Samberg moments - and I'm thankful that the show is a lot more diverse ten years on.
Let me know what your favourite SNL sketches are!
R x
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