Ludacris (11.18.2006)

The following blog post is a companion piece to the newest episode of the We Heart Hader Podcast. Give us a listen, won't you?

Presidential Address

President George W. Bush (Sudeikis) has just returned from an economic summit in Southeast Asia to announce that while he has made progress on many global trade, security and environmental issues…he has inadvertently gotten the United States into ANOTHER war in Vietnam (for which he has no strategy for).

• This is mainly notable for being Jason Sudeikis’ first appearance as George W. Bush (an impression he auditioned to join the cast with in 2004) after Will Forte…apparently asked to be let go from the role? 

• Jason's is more of a “traditional” G.W. Bush impression than Fortes’ and it's far from the worst or most awkward we've seen on the show (it is probably the least remembered simply by virtue of not being Ferrells’ or Fortes’) but its’ serviceable and still works just fine.

• This got literal “clapter” from the audience when Sudeikis/Bush mentioned that this may lead to the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He also mentioned wanting to cut taxes while fighting this war just to try it. Other than that, it felt like a string of typical Bush-isms from the time, so…not a lot stood out here.

• I wouldn't say it's TOO “lost to the time fog” because while an economic summit is very specific to the exact week it happened, comparing Vietnam to Iraq will always seem like an evergreen premise for political satire of its time given how heavily the Iraq war dominated the news around this time (especially in 2006 when the press had officially declared it the unwinnable quagmire it became). C-

Monologue 

Chris “Ludacris” Bridges explains which situations he uses his stage name (in the studio, in the club meeting girls and getting pulled over by BLACK cops) and his given name (applying for bank loans and meeting girls’ parents…as well as getting pulled over by WHITE cops). Suddenly, he gets confronted by his old friend Rick “Rickdiculous” Barnes (Thompson)

• I got a slight kick out of Don Pardo calling out host “Lou-DAY-Cris” twice.

• Luda handled the “Ludacris/Chris Bridges" stuff well. 

• It was clear he was leaning bit on presence and swagger a bit to get through the show (especially since director Don Roy King had to help reassure him to get through some nerves about doing the live show after a shaky, stumbly dress rehearsal). I wouldn't say he was truly poking fun at himself here, but he was able to handle some light comedy mined from his own image without seeming too full of himself early on. 

• This is the type of thing that gives the viewer confidence that THEY'RE going to enjoy this episode.

• Kenan's character was the true highlight of this (even if most of that was visual gags). I liked him basically being dressed as “temu Flava Flav” while beat boxing very badly and brandishing the biggest cellphone 1985 had to offer with the longest antenna 

• I also liked the “N.W.A./Northwest Airlines baggage handler” joke. That might have been the true highlight of this for me. (who calls someone at 11:40pm on a Saturday to tell them they've just got a new job anyway? I mean, I've seen a job interview take place at a table at Starbucks but THAT’S ridic..uh, nevermind. Let's move on). B-

Young Douglas: Hypin The Classics

Legendary rap “hype man” Young Douglas (Ludacris) releases a new album of himself backing up/shouting over the adult contemporary hits of such established artists as Harry Connick Jr (Sudeikis), Barbara Streisand (Rudolph), James Blunt (Samberg), Dolly Parton (Poehler) and Louis Armstrong (Thompson).

• This doesn't quite hold up as well as I remembered (well, it may hold up the BEST out of the sketches that don't hold up well from this episode) but Luda did his damndest to put it over by sheer energy. He played up the ridi…uh, the absurdity of this premise expertly.

• Out of all the impressions in this sketch, I'd say Jason's Harry Connick, Jr and Mayas’ Streisand worked the best for me and they're the ones that Luda played the best off of, too.

• Sambergs’ Blunt and Poehlers’ Dolly…left quite a bit to be desired, honestly (but I did like Andy's doe-eyed sad expression as James Blunt). Kenans’ Louis Armstrong was…somewhere in the middle for me.

• I see they used the Blunt/Parton segment to satirize the low-key misogyny and high-key body objectification of women in 2000s rap & hip hop. The way they went about it didn't quite work for me, but I'll admit to getting a shameful chuckle out of the Beyoncé joke here. 

• I did get a kick out of new song titles such as “It Had To Be You (Hell Yeah)”, “The Way We Were (Get Ya Damn Hands Up)” and “Let's Call The Whole Thing Off (Gangsta Anthem)

• Hearing Luda suddenly chant “take that, take that, take that” hits a lot different given what we now know about Diddy. B-

The Bitchslap Method

Samantha Hawkins (Rudolph) and Dr. Archibald Bitchslap (Ludacris) both plug their booklet and video series in this infomercial. They detail their, uh…unique communication method for saving your marriage or relationship with testimonials from real couples Pete & Donna Longhorn (Sudeikis & Wiig) and Jody & Debra Preston (Hader & Poehler)

• I don't even think this sketch held up that well the moment it aired, but it has inspired me to do something a bit different with this review and add on a section where I rank each sketch by how well it holds up in 2025. Stay tuned.

• Anyway, this sketch does seem to make light of spousal abuse and domestic violence. I'd almost say it trivializes those subjects if it weren't for how lightly the writing and execution of this sketch dances around those topics.

• Maya did a great job anchoring this sketch. I say this because she provided a warmth and a charm to this premise that was DESPERATELY needed to counteract the insidious, lingering menace exuded by Luda, Jason and Amy. She especially shines through in the pretaped montage of her and Luda applying “the method” to their mannequins.

• Of course, Kristen and (especially) Bill effortlessly sell the “now living in constant, perpetual fear” vibe of their characters. I liked Bill's flawlessly timed response of “Why? I mean, yes. I love you” to Amy's line about how “the method” should be used daily in their marriage.

• I guess one thing that this sketch has going for it is how it encourages both partners in a relationship (man AND women, husbands AND wives) to apply “the method” to each other. That's not necessarily a great thing, but it makes this sketch feel a bit more playful and less mean and nasty, so…because of that, at least you can't make TOO strong a case against this for “punching down” (pun definitely not intended, but phrasing sadly unavoidable). 

• Thankfully, this was executed in a way that didn't make it seem so harsh it would've played better on Chappelles’ Show or say…season 7 of MADtv or God forbid Season 19 of SNL.

• I did get a slight kick out of this sketch ending with a still, doctored image of the fake booklet and DVD set that plays over just muzak and nothing else because whatever voiceover that was supposed to play over it clearly wasn't working. C+

The O'Reilly Factor

In his “no spin zone” Bill O'Reilly (Hammond) grills Def Jam Records VP Michael Dantley (Thompson) and FOX News Legal Analyst Anthony Brooks (Ludacris). Dantley isn't phased by the threat of a boycott led by O'Reilly and his audience after a similar boycott got Luda fired as Pepsis’ spokesperson. Brooks agrees to join Bills’ Ludacris boycott despite not knowing his work.

• I wasn't exactly excited to see this sketch in this episode's rundown because parodies of Bill O'Reilly & FOX News in general felt a little played out by this point. 

• I don't say this just because Stephen Colbert had just entered the “truthiness” phase of his career and found a fresh new way to satirize right wing cable news punditry in general at this time. I say this because SNL (and MADtv to a lesser extent) had been parodying The O'Reilly Factor for about five years at this point. 

• While MADtvs’ Michael McDonald was just portraying O'Reilly as an extremely arrogant egomaniac, SNL had Darrell Hammond (and Jeff Richards several seasons earlier) doing more technical and speech focused O'Reilly impressions portraying him as a man who shouts down his guests with made up assertions as they calmly insist that their easily proven facts are the truth.

• This sketch, however, began a bit differently by addressing a real life O'Reilly boycott of Pepsi over Ludacris being named their spokesman over his less than family friendly lyrics and image. So, unlike other O'Reilly Factor sketches produced after 2002, this one actually made sense as an inclusion in the episode it was in.

• I liked the reveal that Hammonds’ O'Reilly character doesn't get that a boycott is ONLY supposed to hurt the sales of the organization being boycotted and that the goal shouldn't be for them to just affect sales either way (positive, negative or neutral) and Kenan's underplayed bewilderment at the situation worked perfectly.

• This sketch seemed to have serious pacing problems, though. It felt like it was taking forever to set up an actual Ludacris cameo that the audience was no longer expecting by the time it finally happened. Darrell Hammond is a talented impressionist but by this point his impressions have always been very dry because he mostly aims for technical vocal accuracy over finding any hooks to a character he can expand on. 

• Yes, he's made notable and memorable “characters” out of impressions like Clinton, Connery, Koppel and, uh…that guy that used to host “The Apprentice” but that just goes to show how of the time he needs the right material and writing behind some impressions to not make them feel so dry as to test the audience's patience.

• Anyway, at this point Ludas’ character debates Hammonds’ O'Reilly on his support for a judge for naming a local businessman “man of the year”. Hammonds’ O'Reilly insists that this man murdered an eight year old girl when in actuality he awarded a veterinary scholarship to a 25 year old service woman returning from Iraq. Then, O'Reilly reads letters from viewers who alternately praise and challenge him on statistics regarding the largest rivers in the U.S.

• So, the last two thirds of this sketch are essentially identical to SNLs’ other previous O'Reilly Factor sketches.

• I admire this sketch for starting out doing something a little bit different but it must've been written by someone who thought that the mere concept would get a much bigger reaction than it ended up getting. It's a dry political piece, so naturally it has “late period Jim Downey” finger prints all over it.

• Part of me thinks this sketch would've worked better as one of the Nancy Grace parodies that Amy Poehler used to this season, but whoever wrote this probably just chose O'Reilly for the real life boycott and the fact that O'Reilly also used to frequently criticize rappers on his show (because…y'know, reasons) in ways that would certainly come back to bite him in the ass after FOX News fired him for sexual harassment, so…yeah. C+

Booty Bidness Workwear

Ludacris hawks his new line of women's business casual wear with all the trendy, hypersexualized slogans of women's club wear for today's working women (Poehler, Rudolph, Wiig) to get the “right” kind of attention.

• See, it's funny because if you wore something like this to an office job in real life, you would probably get sent home for the day and/or fired. Get it?

• Well, Ludacris was known for some pretty hypersexual lyrics himself around this time. If nothing else, this was as good a way as any for Luda to actually poke fun at his own image (whether he was actually in on the joke or not) and the show to effectively satirize the general “Girls Gone Wild” culture of oversexualizing women in these years that he no doubt helped contribute to. 

• Y'know, I think I may have Mandella Effected myself into thinking that this was a parody of an actual women's clothing line that Ludacris released (because yeah, that makes sense) when it was probably just based on the trend of girls everywhere wearing pink sweat pants with the word “Juicy” on the ass so, yeah…this was probably just a wild exaggeration of that. 

• Actually, I had just reread Stooges’ One SNL A Day review of this episode and he says he heard this was “repurposed” from a different pretape that got cut from a bunch of different dress rehearsals earlier in the season. So, yeah…it makes even more sense that this was originally something slightly different that they pretaped new footage with Luda for since it might play into his image better. C+

Blizzard Man

In the studio, Ludacris struggles to convince his agents (Sudeikis, Rudolph) and engineer (Thompson) to include freestyles from his good friend The Blizzard Man (Samberg) on his new album.

• I've always loved these sketches for the most part. I may not laugh as hard at these as I did in high school but they still give me a chuckle today.

• I remember Blizzard Man being a pretty divisive character in this era and feeling like I was his lone defender, but I always liked Samberg in general for his sheer goofiness and this works well as a purposely goofy deconstruction of ‘90s/’00s party & Gangsta rap.

• The Vanilla Ice/Parker Lewis “stuck in the early 90s” vibes from this character are icing on the cake here (although we would get a sketch from Samberg that puts his love of early 90s r&b to much better use a month later…and it seems to be a real crowd pleaser, but I think I'll have more to say on it later…) 

• You might get a kick out of the Lonely Island deep cut easter eggs on the Billboard “least bought albums” charts if you pause the sketch at the end long enough to read them. B+
  

Ludacris Performs “Money Maker” & “Runaway Love” (w/Mary J. Blige)

• The women of the cast introduce “Money Maker” dressed in turkey costumes. Kenan introduces “Runaway Love” in a turkey costume of his own. These may have been for an early version of the turkey chase sketch that got cut from this episode and was done in Tim McGraws’ episode two years later (which Ludacris would ALSO be a co-musical guest of).

• I don't have much to say about “Money Maker” other than it sounded pretty typical of Luda and of party/club rap in general from this time period.

• I will say that “Runaway Love” is…heartbreakingly catchy. I do appreciate that Ludacris at least tried to turn a “sincere message” song into a hit at this point in his career.

Weekend Update w/Poehler & Meyers

John Mark Karr (Hader) condemns OJ Simpson for his “If I Did It” book and falsely confesses to additional crimes.

Coach Bobby Knight (Sudeikis) berates Seth Meyers for a bad joke

Editor of “Sixteen & ½” Magazine Anoosa Rosenfeld (Rudolph) angrily pressures teen girls to donate ALL of their food to those less fortunate while eating lip gloss and commenting on the “generosity” of Hollywood's most dangerously thin actresses

• Joke-wise, Seth's “Trent Lott/Minority Whip” joke stood out because I remember it being a news story that was jumped on by political comedians at the time for the “low hanging fruit” of it all. Even Jon Stewart did a whole segment on it called “Ebony & Irony” where he actually interviewed Rev. Al Sharpton for it (not as his main guest that night, just for that one segment).

• Bills’ John Mark Karr commentary is funny enough. He puts over the creepiness of it well enough, but it probably requires a bit of background information.

• You see, John Mark Karr (now a Trans woman known as Alexis Reich) had falsely confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey that summer, but police saw right through his claims and eliminated him as a suspect at this time.

• Being a Coloradan and being from Boulder County myself, this was a pretty big story in my own neck of the woods but the above paragraph is all one needs to know why it's funny that he would also claim to have killed 50 Cent, Nicole Brown Simpson, Bambis’ mom and thrown a cell phone at the head of Naiomi Campbell's maid.

• Anyway, moving on to a lighter subject…Amy and Seth breakdown the seating chart at the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes wedding. A bunch of Scientology/alien/nutjob jokes here. Feels like something Tina would've done four years earlier. Meh. On the plus side, Amy really sold that priest/celibacy joke.

• Sudeikis as Bobby Knight was probably my biggest laugh of the whole show so far. They probably lingered on that last beat a bit too long, though. Seth sold that Google sex site joke for me.

• Speaking of Weekend Update commentaries where someone just yells angrily, Mayas’ thing also worked just fine for me. She put it over on sheer deranged energy alone. It was an effective satire on the extreme weight shaming of young women and general “anorexia chic” trends of this time.

• I was at the exact right age to understand most of the teen buzzwords Maya was shouting throughout this so I did actually get what she meant when she uttered the phrase “wasn't Degrassi on The N super Crunk last night?” In fact, I'm pretty sure this was the first mention of Degrassi anywhere outside of “The N” or Canadian media before Drake's rap career took off.

• Oh, and by the way, apparently Mayas’ character is a parody of a real woman named Atoosa Rubinstein who was the actual editor of “Seventeen” magazine at this time. Why they found it necessary to change the names completely…I dunno. It's not like they're protecting the innocent here. They're not exactly Mr. Show, are they? C+

Pool Watch

A lifeguard (Ludacris) is too preoccupied with removing his expensive jewelry, clothes, Timbalands and gear to save a drowning victim in time much to the chagrin of his co-lifeguard Malik (Thompson) the elderly pool goer (Rudolph) who alerted him to the drowning. Also, he can't swim and he and Malik refuse to give another male drowning victim (Armisen) mouth to mouth.

• Ok, wow. This was just one long buildup to a slightly hackier racial stereotype than the one that preceded it.

• Also, this is framed as a new show on the new CW network. Now, this was The CW's first year in existence after UPN merged with The WB…and this sketch seemed to be written under the assumption that the CW would be more like UPN than The WB of the 2000s when this wouldn't be the case.

• I did get a kick out of Kenan's angry thousand yard death stare into the camera in his intro shot, though (and out of Fred's appearance as an unconscious drowning victim being his only appearance of the night). D+

Hair Transplant

Mr. Plotner (Forte) is eager to see the results of his hair transplant surgery. Dr. Schultz (Ludacris) is eager to put on his running shoes so he can get to “the opera” on time…with his passport and briefcase before undoing the bandages. Nurse Hamilton (Sudeikis) brings him some tinfoil (suspiciously the only reflective surface in the entire medical trailer) to reveal that the doctor merely switched his own natural black hair for Mr. Plotners’ Elton John-like hair top he desires so much as a black Elton John fan. Mr. Plottner confronts the doctor on the ruse when he comes back to retrieve his passport, so to make amends he gasses Mr. Plotter for one more free and honest session.

• This episode needed some good, absurd Forte inspired absurdity at this point (especially since this would turn out to be Wills’ only appearance of the night leading to much speculation on his future with the show because no one knew yet that he voluntarily gave up the Bush role to Sudeikis at the time). Ludacris played along quite well.

• I particularly liked how Forte kept saying he felt safe and in trustworthy hands after he saw the doctors’ as spray painted on the side of an abandoned building. B+

Lesbian Cruise

Captain Ronald Huggins (Ludacris) is so “enthusiastic” about the lesbian lifestyle that he unsuccessfully tries to “mingle” with several lesbians (Wiig, Rudolph, a dozen female extras). Cruise director Arizona (Poehler) has to break it to him that none of these lesbians are in any way “bi-curious” and that what he has seen in lesbian pornos is not accurate to their real lifestyle. Suddenly, after offering to video tape some of their water sports, he is thrown overboard.

• Wow, some pretty hacky jokes about lesbians and horny ignorant men here.

• There's not much to say here as this sketch pretty much took too long to go absolutely nowhere.

• The only thing I got a slight kick out of was the mistiming of the pre-recorded “I love me some lesbians” voice over from Ludacris as his character is supposed to be falling overboard. D-

Two Old Men

Two Old Men (Hammond & Ludacris) ask each other questions about how life has changed over their soup in a Diner. 

• This was a nice, charming, genuinely funny sketch to end the show on.

• I liked Luda describing his love of land lines with a “long, funky, funded up cord”.

• I liked Hammond describing his love of TVs’ that are “big, chunky wooden bastards that get as hot as the stove”.

• It's especially nice of the show to give Darrell a chance to be genuinely funny in a non impression/non political role here (even if it is in the ten to one).

• I liked all of Luda & Hammond's rapid fire questions in the middle section on penis tattoos, smoking in JC Penny, picky prostitutes and chicken on pizza and no pee/stiffy medicine.

• I especially liked Luda addressing the elephant in the room on Hammonds’ loose mustache. I guess that didn't derail the sketch as much as I thought it did since it (and the episode) were pretty much over at that point anyway.

• Here's a question: why is it that each time SNL has ended an episode with a live sketch where an interracial pairing of old men complain about modern life, the sketch completely falls apart somehow? First Murphy & Piscopo in February 1984 and now this?

• Anyway, nice sketch. B+

Ranking These Sketches By How Well They Held Up In 2025 (Best To Worst)

1. Two Old Men
2. Hair Transplant
3. Monologue 
4. The O'Reilly Factor
5. Blizzard Man
6. Weekend Update
7. Presidential Address 
8. Young Douglas: Hypin’ The Classics 
9. Pool Watch
10. Lesbian Cruise
11. The Bitchslap Method
12. Booty Bidness Workwear 

Overall Thoughts

• Well, this was certainly a strange episode to review. It wasn't bad or dull, just quite uneven. 

• Ludacris was a solid host who proved to be game for pretty much anything and had the ability to elevate some of the weaker material. Most of what wasn't based around bad stereotypes to the point where it almost felt like a leftover season 30 sketch worked to some degree.

• Even cast airtime felt uneven. Maya and Kenan pretty much dominated the night (which is to be expected when a rapper hosts during this era). Jason, Andy, Darrell and Kristen got some assists in with everyone else forced to fight for scraps.

• I decided to review this episode when Deej pitched it to me for the podcast. At first, I was a little unsure about this one because Bill wasn't in all that much of it as it turns out. Once I started digging into it, I discovered there was enough here for us to review it as sort of a time capsule of the strange cultural moment that birthed it.

Closing Thoughts

• Well, at this point all I can confirm for certain is that the next “classic” episode I review for this blog will be Justin Timberlakes’ episode from this very same season of SNL.

• After that, I'm not sure. I will say you can expect a few more “classic” SNL reviews from me before season 51 starts. I just can't say which episodes those are yet because even I don't know which ones they'll be or when I will be reviewing them.

• See you then!