With the Christmas episode in the can, I'm calling this the halfway mark of the Saturday Night Live season, and boy has it been a good one. Each year SNL is dissected because of its past glories as a barometer for cool. It's history has been filled with great comedians who have gone on to having their own success outside of the show, and the past few years, particularly with Seth Myers as head writer, the show has taken some lumps.
This season has the same cast as last year so there haven't been any breakout, new cast member like Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island years ago, or Vanessa Bayer last year. Despite not adding any new players this year, to Lorne Michael's credit, the show's first time hosts this year have been varied and terrifically funny for the most part, most notably Melissa McCarthy, Charlie Day, and Jason Segal. The funniest show this season though was from a one time player, and now first time host, Jimmy Fallon with musical guest Michael Buble, a funny person himself (the Hamm and Buble sketch is awesome).
This past weekend, Fallon's first hosting gig appropriately had a cold open featuring a famous alumni returning to his old high school stomping grounds, a sketch that also brought back Rachel Dratch and would set the tone for the returns of other SNL greats from Fallon's time on the show. The episode brought back Horatio Sanz, Chris Kattan, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Tracy Morgan, and even a bee costume Jim Belushi reportedly hated for the goodnights, from the ice rink at Rockefeller Center no less. It had nostalgic sketches like the song "Christmas Today" and a joke-off on Weekend Update with the past 4 anchors. Fortunately despite the comedic glory of these rehashed sketches, the best of the night was the final of the night, featuring only current cast members in which Jesus visited the Broncos locker room to talk some sense into them in advance of their beat down by the Patriots today.
The show has built up some good will recently among critics and fans alike with its choices of funny, new people to host, as well as having great sketches, and will hopefully keep it going into 2012. Sadly I have to have low hopes for the next new episode featuring Charles Barkley and Kelly Clarkson as both will probably suck at their respective jobs, particularly since Barkley is funny for his gaffes as a result of his idiocy, things that are hard to script.
Matt Brickell is a frequent writer and continuous day dreamer.
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