Saturday Night Live
“Cameron Diaz/Bruno Mars & Marc Ronson”
Season 40, Episode 7
Cold Open: Two weeks in a row we get semi original cold opens. Of course they’re both super political but the jokes are better and made for a better sketch as a whole. We are treated to a School House Rock parody with Kyle Mooney as the sad child, Kenan Thompson as the iconic Bill and Jay Pharaoh as Obama. A song is sung by Thompson who is repeatedly pushed down the stairs by Pharaoh. It’s all in good fun at the expense of nothing. Hard hitting commentary on national politics is what SNL does. And they’re doing the satire right.
Monologue: Diaz’s monologue is run-of-the-mill to say the least. This is the first time this season we get the classic audience interruptions. Although, sadly, there are no classic ones here. It felt short (and for good reason too). Nothing of interest happened here.
Front Nine: Things looked promising for the return of a somewhat popular sketch. All of the girls come back for another female based music video. The sad part is that this one is extremely forgettable. With the addition of Leslie Jones, though, the video adds another layer with an actress that can earn a laugh in the same vein as Thompson by just being there. The audience was quiet for this one and for good reason. These sentiments are echoed throughout the rest of the night beginning in the next sketch. An HBO First Look at Annie was a small highlight on a dim night. Diaz played her character from the movie. Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Vanessa Bayer played the orphans with the latter as white Annie. Jones came back as black Annie, a clearly older orphan that wants to be adopted by Pharaoh’s Jamie Foxx (not the character; he actually says his name is Jamie Foxx). The worst part about this sketch is that the writers clearly couldn’t find an ending for it. They had Kenan run in and do a song. I just can’t even…ugh. Following that we get a commercial for something called a Nest-Spresso that has Taran Killam and McKinnon hatching eggs as urban farmers. It’s bland but a neat idea to say the least. Up next is the Woodbridge High School Theater Showcase with Bryant, Diaz, Mooney, Killam, McKinnon and Beck Bennett as actors in a play. The premise is that these people are against corporate America. Thompson and Bayer are teachers in the crowd watching with the same disgust as the audience should have. They found nothing good about the performance and neither did I.
Weekend Update: More jokes about Bill Cosby and Ferguson. McKinnon did her Angela Merkel. I’ve never heard her talk before but I’m sure that’s how the politician sounds. McKinnon hit it out of the park on this one. The same can be said about Killam’s Charles Manson that came to the desk next. So many different routes were taken with the character like how he tricked his wife played by Strong into believing that he’s going to prison for a blue collar crime.
Back Nine: Two sketches took up the last half of the episode. Sasheer Zamata and Thompson go to Boss Baby’s house for an important dinner. Finally, we get to see Bennett work his man toddler magic outside of the office. Diaz played Boss Baby’s wife which got my inner detail catcher flustered. Why introduce Diaz as the wife? That would limit us to exploring Boss Baby as a character. It would’ve been better to have her play Thompson’s wife and let Zamata play the wife. That way, we can get return visits to BB’s home. But I don’t know if SNL is about canon. It would be nice though. The final sketch was written and performed well but execution could’ve gone better. Thompson took over as a host in Dr. Dave and Buggles’ Animal Hour. He had his dick and balls ripped off by his cohost who is a monkey. The joke should’ve worn off by the third time but Thompson is so damn committed to getting the line out that it all works. But an obvious switch out of the monkey “escaping the cage” in the last few seconds of the sketch kind of killed it.