Jon Bon Jovi/Foo Fighters (10.13.2007)

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?

Amy Poehlers' House

On this day in 1986, a teenage Amy Poehler vents in her diary about her horrible life when suddenly she falls into a hairspray induced delirium and hallucinates a long haired 80s Jon Bon Jovi coming down from his poster on her wall to inspire her to pursue her dreams of acting like her pursued his dream of being a rock star. He goes on to promise her that twenty (well...twenty one, really) years from now, she will be in the cast of Saturday Night Live when he hosts.

• Hmm...is is just me or does this cold open remind any one else of Seth MacFarlanes' "Ted" series on Peacock? Y'know, because of all the 80s fashion mixed with thick Boston accents?

• Anyway, most of the humor in this came from Amy's thick Boston accent paired with her dramatic 80s high school teen angst. In fact, I think her look here may have been based on an actual high school yearbook photo of hers.

• I can't really pick out one particular line that stood out the most aside from her saying she needed to get her hair higher before passing out, her dreams of shopping at "The Limited"instead of just working there and renting her own apartment to invite friends over for beers to and her mentioning that her monologue that got a lot of laughs at school was from "The Diary Of Anne Frank". 

• Amy really did the most with the material she had to make sure that this just BARELY got over. Fortunately for her, this cold opens shortcomings weren't her fault at all.

• Tonight's host, Jon Bon Jovi, makes his first appearance here and immediately exhibits near Steven Segal levels of mumbling his lines in the most flat barely audible way possible which, unfortunately,would continue throughout every segment he appears in for sure.

• I will say that this cold open does suggest that Mr. Bon Jovi was at least slightly easier to deal with backstage and less difficult than Mr. Segal was but still...he looks like he would rather be anywhere else but here through much of this episode (even in segments like this one that come across like one big exercise in stroking the hosts' ego). 

• As a huge SNL nerd, I gotta agree with a take I saw from Stooge after this episode first aired that it would've been better had Amy been surprised to find that SNL would still be on the air in 20 years rather than just Bon Jovi merely being the host instead of the musical guest and also having cut his hair. 

• After all, this would have been just after the infamous season 11 had concluded and the show was seriously on the brink of cancellation for the first of only two times in its now 50 year history. Realistically though, I can see the show in 2007 thinking it too "Inside Baseball" to include a joke where Amy says something like "I mean, have you SEEN that show lately? It sucks bad and it's wicked boring now." 

• Plus, October 12, 1986 would've been the day after season 12 premiered which did pretty much save the show but no one would've had any idea that would happen yet if they didn't watch the show last night or just read any TV critics reviews of it. This raises an interesting question of why a teenage Amy Poehler would be attending school on a Sunday? She does open this sketch by writing in her diary that she had gotten her period on the balance beam that day but even if she were on her schools'gymnastics team I doubt they would have practice on Sunday.

• Oh well, I'm sure I'm just splitting hairs and putting much more thought into this cold opening than the writers' did. I'll just faintly praise the unique nature of this rare non-political cold open and move on. C+  

Monologue

Jon Bon Jovi confirms that as host he will only be acting and not singing tonight to which audience members (Liz Cackowski, Steve Higgins) express disappointment. Jon's band mate Richie Sambora (himself) reminds him they have a new album out and expresses hurt feelings on behalf of the rest of the band which convinces him to preform.

• Yeah, there wasn't much to this monologue. It's only purpose was to set up Bon Jovi as our "unofficial" musical guest of the night (because how else can Jon Bon Jovi endear himself to the SNL audience at the top of the show and bring us into his own comfort zone with him, right?)

• I liked Liz and Higgins here essentially acting as literal audience surrogates (especially the way Higgins delivered his line "Who wants to see Jon Bon Jovi sing? I want to see him act! This will be the greatest night of my life! Let's go, honey.")

• I will say the one genuinely funny thing Jon did here was bail out his most well known band mate during his little deer in headlights moment by blatantly feeding him his big laugh line when he just straight up lost track of his own cue card. That alone probably made this about ten times funnier than if would've been had this part gone as smoothly as it was supposed to. C-

Bon Jovi Performs "Lost Highway"

• Eh, I've always liked "It's My Life" and "Livin' On A Prayer" just fine and passively tolerated "Dead Or Alive" but besides those...I've just never been a Bon Jovi fan.

• The fiddle in this song in particular really adds to the "completely indistinguishable from every other adult contemporary/country pop hit that came out in 2007" sound here.

• Pretty ironic that this song contains the lyric "farewell to mediocrity", huh?

Ohhhhhhhhh!

Host Johnny Vincente (Hader) hosts an Italian themed New Jersey based game show where the object is to see which of the three contestants (Armisen, Bon Jovi, Hammond) can produce the best outraged response to a minor shock or distressing situation for an every day Jersey resident. The game concludes with a speed round with prompts from a woman (Wiig) who is revealed to be the hosts goomar

• Ok, for the podcast this may seem like a cheat since this is one of the two sketches from this episode that Deej and I have previously discussed on the fifth episode of our podcast together...but I haven't talked about it on this blog yet, so in case you didn't listen to that episode, I'll get into that one again real quick here.

• Right off the bat, Bill is a solid anchor of this sketch in only his second game show host roll of his SNL tenure. Not only is he wearing the nicest suit he's ever worn on the show here but he's also giving the most entertaining performance in this.

• He's the second most convincing as a Jersey Italian (right behind the actual born and raised Jersey Italian who's hosting the show and keeps delivering all his lines in a too subdued fashion). Armisen's just trying a bit too hard. 

• Hammonds' just doing his James Gandolfini impression to justify his presence here because it's the only thing he actually can do with the material he is given. I did like his lines about his wife being fat and lazy and being a Tony Soprano impersonator that seems to perform exclusively at car washes and Bills' brief comment of "ay, all right" when he exited the scene in bills' shot when he apparently wasn't supposed to do that) more than I liked his constant shouting over the mere mentions of the word "homosexuality". 

• Wiig made a good pissed off mistress, though. Speaking of this sketches' treatment of women in general, I liked how none of the guys had any offended response to the idea of getting serviced by a prostitute and suddenly remembering today is their wifes' birthday.

• One small detail I liked were the low quality prizes here (gift certificate to Sal De Antonis' undershirt emporium, seats to Devils home game, slightly worse seats to a Devils' home game).

• Anyway, I'm sure I had more to say about this sketch in the podcast episode I linked to above, so...go listen to that one, why don't you? B+

A Visit With Former Vice President Al Gore

Al Gore (Hammond) takes you on a tour of his personal trophy room where he shows off various awards he won for all the different versions of "An Inconvenient Truth' that have ever existed.

• At first I thought that going right from "Ohhhhhhhh!" into this sketch must've been quite the rush of a quick change for Darrell until I remembered that there was a whole commercial break in between these first two sketches.

• Speaking of, one thing this sketch has going for it is that by this point, Darrell Hammond actually looks more like Al Gore than he did when he started doing this impression regularly on the show eight years earlier (mostly due to the way that the real Al Gore has aged in that time). That plus SNLs regular audience just being used to seeing this impression on the show by this point...helped make this sketch work, I guess?

• Apparently, the real Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize this week which is what spawned this sketch. Somehow, I doubt that this had anything to do with "An Inconvenient Truth" like the rest of these awards do as they don't give those out for movies (especially not ones that are more than a year old at this point).

• Odd that the joke about Al Gore winning "The Poppy" (for winning the popular vote in an election without actually getting to be president) would get the applause it did in 2007.

• While this did start off a little repetitive, there were a few odd awards here that I did get a kick out of like his Harvard mention getting no applause, the AVN award a porno version of "An Inconvenient Truth", a participation certificate for the National Punt, Pass and Kick competition, the small, framed measles vaccination certificate, the "free DVD player or touring a time share"framed flyer and, of course, O.J. Simpsons former Heisman Trophy.

• This reminded me a lot of a sketch from the January 1993 Harvey Keitel episode called "An Insane Idiot And His Descending Size Collection Of Deer Heads". C-

Digital Short: People Getting Punched Just Before Eating

Andy Samberg lands a series of wild near-flailing punches on various people (Forte, Sudeikis, Jorma Taccone, Bon Jovi, Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins) just before they take a bite out of whatever food they have in their own hands. Suddenly, he runs from a group of zombies (Armisen, Danielle Flora) and then dances with them.

• Like most early digital shorts of this era, this was just pure silly goofy fun designed to bring a much needed boost of energy to this episode right when it needed one.

• The beepity-boopity techno soundtrack of this short somehow complimented this well (especially when Andy would follow every other punch by doing a goofy tongue wiggling, finger pointing jig).

• It was good of Jon Bon Jovi to get in on this but him suddenly jumping back up with a guitar and the caption "full recovery" was a little off-putting to me. Given Bon Jovis' reputation, I do genuinely wonder if he insisted on that?

• I do like the gag immediately following this when Andy has to bring his whole body to a screeching halt to stop himself from punching Jason until his sudden cell phone call he answers is over.

• I especially liked the return of a black eyed Forte threatening to punch Samberg back causing him to back off, then suddenly sneak up behind him and strangled him followed by Sambergs' goofy dance to a caption of "murder"

• The "zombies" ending may seem a bit "lol random" to the untrained eye but if you look closely you'll see that the reason Andy is suddenly holding a severed human arm is because that's what the last person he punched was eating. I commend The Lonely Island for sneaking this little "blink and you'll miss it" detail in there. B-

TBS Postseason 07 Promo

Dane Cook (Sudeikis) hypes up the upcoming MLB Playoff match between the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians

• This is the debut of Jasons' Dane Cook impression which he would only do one more after this episode. I'd say it's a pretty accurate one as he's got a decent handle on the voice and he's got Cooks' physicality and joke delivery style down pat.

• I remember these Dane Cook TBS World Series promos from around this time and this really does a great job of mocking how odd and inexplicable they felt back then. This truly felt like TBS equivalent of ABCs' hiring of Dennis Miller as a Monday Night Football color man back in 2000/01 or (more accurately) ESPN hiring Hollywoods' Robert Evans to do any kind of promos for them whatsoever (which is something I'm only familiar with from Patton Oswalt describing it).

• I liked his line about then Cleveland Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia: "This C.Cs' not a music factory, he's a pitching factory." as well as "there's only one logical spokesperson for baseball, Dane Cook". C+

La Revista Della Televisione con Vinny Vedecci

Italian talk show host Vinny Veddecci (Hader) struggles to conduct his interview in English as he and his spaghetti eating crew (Armisen, Forte) are in utter disbelief that a man with the last name "Bon Jovi" isn't perfectly fluent in Italian (which is why they never even bothered to arrange for a translator for this interview). Talk of The Sopranos, childrens' cigarettes and robot horses ensues ending with a unique and rousing cover of "Livin' On A Prayer".

• This is the third appearance of this character as a talk show host after debuting in the previous seasons' Julia Louis-Dreyfus/Snow Patrol episode as well as the Zach Braff/Maroon 5 finale. He's one of my favorite early Bill Hader characters as evidenced by how Deej and I based the entire third episode of our podcast on his appearances (and I wrote a whole 'nother accompanying blog post just to go with that one where I apparently ranked this sketch as my favorite of all of this characters appearances).

• Again, I realize this may seem like a bit of a cheat given how this is the second segment from this episode alone that we've talked about on a previous episode of our own podcast...but I'm trying to shake off this nagging feeling that I have unwittingly cheated myself and my audience out of a better blog entry and podcast episode by going along with a plan that involves reviewing this episode in full, so...bear with me here, please.

• Anyway, feel free to read what I already wrote in that above linked podcast post for a more in-depth analysis of this sketch. For now, I'm just going to gloss over a few highlights.

• I liked that Vinny starts off the English portion of this interview by over pronouncing hiswords as much as possible and just generally struggling more to speak in English than he was in his previous sketches (despite what a major backslide in basic language competency and literacy this represents for the character).

• Bills' Silvio/Van Zandt impression along with Freds' Paulie Walnuts worked well for me here. I especially liked the kids' cigarette commercial set to "Blaze of Glory" (especially Paula Pells' appearance as a smoking nun and Vinnys' defense of the commercial being that the smokers were not "little kids" but rather "seven...eight year olds...MEN!").

• The robot horse gag and "Livin' On A Prayer" cover were just silly enough to work for me. Hell, I even liked Jon Bon Jovi calling out Vinny and his crew for not speaking using any of the same Italian words that his grandmother used (despite it now being so obvious that both of them are so much more fluent in English than they are in actual Italian that it makes one question why either of them would need a translator for this interview and thus decimates the logic of this entire sketch). B+

Weekend Update w/Poehler and Meyers

NBC employee Rosa Santiago (Rudolph) pitches in with a few jokes in the face of an upcoming WGA strike

Publicly nude cellphone user Josh Drimmer (Samberg) walks by the Update desk from a nearby Tads' Steaks

Political comedian Nicholas Fehn (Armisen) tries to riff on todays' headlines but cannot get a word out edgewise

• Seth's Best Jokes: Blackberry vibrations, cadaver scalps, Dirty Lou

• Amy's Best Jokes: Che Guevara tribute, Rubiks' record, boy found in Amazon, robot facials

• Hmm, I don't quite know what to make of this odd anti-comedy bi Mayas' doing. I don't mind her telling purposely bad jokes but having her do so as a, um...latina custodian, seemed a bit iffy to me. 

• I did like the brief bit of improv with the loose desk, Seth's reaction to the naked driving joke and they way she delivered the Pam Anderson/Rick Solomon joke (Jesus, why did she agree to marry HIM?)

• I guess this got on the air because it was mutually understood that Maya already had a foot out the door for the last two seasons at this point and since there was a strong possibility that either this or the next show could be her last she just wanted one second to last chance to goof around with Amy. 

• Speaking of goofy, Sambergs' naked guy bit was just brief and silly enough to get by for me.

• Here it is, folks; the debut of Armisens' Nicholas Fehn character. 

• You know, this character has fully earned its bad rap but I think I can cut his first appearance some slack since I do remember liking the first one and this was before Armisen jumped the shark and hadn't burned off any Goodwill he had earned from exhibiting a brand of off-kilter anti-comedy that actually did work. Plus, this would end up being FAR from his absolute worst character in the long run.

• I had heard Fred tell Marc Maron that this character was essentially based on David Crossand was supposed to mimic his speech patterns when trying to make a point but not having his words handy to explain his point and yeah...I've seen enough footage of David Cross to be able to see exactly what he was talking about there. C-

Foo Fighters perform "The Pretender"

• Hey, it's our ACTUAL musical guest! All right!

• Unfortunately, this is the only song the Foo Fighters get tonight.

• The musical guest only gets to do one song post Update tonight? I thought I was reviewing season 33 not season 23!

• Yeah, this is a pretty solid performance much like the most of the rest of their performances. Normally, I like the Foo Fighters and this song in particular, but...something seemed a little off vocally with Dave, like he was having a little trouble staying on key or losing his voice or something.

Where's My Purse?

A doddering dowdy old spaceship captain (Wiig) is too distracted by thoughts of her missing purse (which turned out to be right next to her captains' chair where she left it) to properly fend off a boarding and attack from hostile aliens (Bon Jovi, Thompson, Samberg) who have set out to kill her first officer (Forte) or her crew (Armisen, Hader Rudolph)

• Yeah, my memory of this being the worst live sketch of the night (well, worst sketch of the show in general, really) still definitely holds up. 

• This does feel like one of those sketches that is a harbinger for things to come as far as Kristen playing annoying, self-centered characters between seasons 34-37 goes, but at least this one fells somewhat grounded.

• I mean, after all...haven't we all encountered an older woman exactly like this just talking your ear off about personal grievances in life?

• It speaks pretty poorly to Jon Bon Jovis' presence as a host here that his simply wearing the most basic, run of the mill alien/martian head prosthetic was the moment when he seemed the most "game for anything" as a host (even while STILL mumbling his lines just as flatly disinterested as ever)

• Bill does have a funny moment in this as the crew member running in to warn everybody about the boarding aliens in a panic before being zapped with a ray gun by Kenans' character and simply whining "aw, man".

• I did get a small kick out of Kristen's character finding her purse right where she was just sitting and casually taking a ray gun out of it to nonchalantly shoot Kenans' character in the face and the ending cutaway to Fred and Mayas' characters fighting off Sambergs' alien and the next cutaway to them being a shot of them slumped over their control panels dead. C- 

TBS Postseason 07 Promo II

Dane Cook (Sudeikis) hypes up the other upcoming MLB playoff match between the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks

• Ah, the second part of tonight's two part runner. This one I did like much better than the first since Jason did make mention of my home team, the Colorado Rockies (who miraculously made it to the actual 2007 World Series but lost to the Boston Red Sox of all people who managed to win it three years prior...but yeah, it was fun as a Coloradan to watch that series)

• I appreciated the "Brandon Webb/Spiderman reference" (a nod to another odd reference to an actual thing Dane Cook said in these promos) the line "I'm pretty sure one of them's a hockey team" and the line about how Rockies player Todd Helton "shouldn't have a batting average, he should have a batting outstanding". B+

Notre Dame Football on NBC

This was a fake promo that's somehow neither on the Peacock edit not the non-Peacock live air copy that I am using for this review, but it's basically just stock footage of actual Notre Dame football games set to a voice over by Steve Higgins mocking how badly they play and saying that NBC is the only place you can see this highly disappointing action.

• Man, it is hard as hell even finding a rigging TRANSCRIPT of this sketch, but what I have read about sketch its basically very "Inside Baseball"but for...well, football about what a crappy team Notre Dame is.

• One of Higgins' lines that seems to stand out among those who saw this when it aired was "Touchdown...other guy!" so, at least there's that.

What To Call The Band

As he and his band mates hold a vote, Jon Bon Jovi has a hard time convincing band mates Richie Sambora (Sudeikis), Tico Torres (Armisen), Alan Jon Such (Forte) and David Bryan (Samberg) to name the band after him instead of calling themselves "Natural Disaster"

• Well, at least we KINDA get to see Jon Bon Jovi poke fun at the idea that he has a huge ego?

• It's a little strange that this is the second sketch of the whole night where our host plays his previous, long haired 80s self but the first was the cold open which probably wasn't written until Friday at the earliest and it was decided that this was a slow enough news week/month politically that they could get away with it (unless the Al Gore thing was supposed to be the cold open at one point?)

• Anyway, this did go on a bit too long and meander, but I gotta say Jason sold his frustration just right, I liked the sequence where Jon Bon Jovi said he didn't remember the names of Will and Andy's bandmates and Will line about only wanting to stay for the first 25 years.

• I gotta say though, the ending didn't quite work for me as its' not that odd now for new up and coming artists to self title their albums. C-

Iconoclasts on IFC

IFC continues its proud tradition of having a show where two random famous people say words at each others' faces in public locations by filming singer Bjork (Wiig) and former athlete Charles Barkley (Thompson) talking about God knows what a Cheesecake Factory.

• This was a fun little goofy note to end this episode on. The timing of this is interesting because it comes right after the actual "Iconoclasts" show had Lorne Michaels and Paul Simon featured together (as well as Maya Angelou and Dave Chappelle in a completely separate episode) but you could tell this was done in good spirits (not mean ones) after NBC and Lorne gave them behind the scenes access to SNLs' production schedule.

• We also get the debut appearances of two notable SNL impressions here: Kristen Wiigs' Bjork (another in a long litany of sketch impressions of this woman focusing solely on how weird and quirky she is as an artist rather than anything else about her as a singer) and Kenans Charles Barkley (an impression of his I've always liked and found very funny).

• This being the debut of Kenans' Barkley means we are seeing an early, primitive version of it before Kenan decided he needed to tighten it up which means he has slower speech patterns that are closer to the way the actual Barkley speaks. This also somehow gives his Barkley a more distinctly effeminate and flamboyant vibe that brings it closer to his "DJ Dynasty Handbag" character from "Deep House Dish" or Little Richard.

• Among the standout lines and moments for Wiig here were her making it "snow" by throwing salt up in the air and bringing along a single bicycle wheel claiming she used it to get here today. Among the stand out lines and moments for Kenan were his calling Bjork "Bork" and comparing her to Dennis Rodman "if he were a tiny white lady". B-

Goodnights

Jack Nicholson (Himself) introduces hosts' second performance

• Wow, this guy must really hate doing television because not has he only never hosted SNL in 50 years (despite making the odd cameo now and then) but I can't say I've ever seen him as a guest on that many American talk shows either.

• In fact, what did he even have in common with Jon Bon Jovi around this time? I vaguely remember hearing that they were both part owners/investors in arena football teams or something?

Bon Jovi Performs "Who Says You Can't Go Home"

• Well, it's at least nice that Jon Bon Jovi could thank "Lorne, Marci and Steve"or having him on...before closing out the show with a song that sounds exactly identical to the first one he did instead of a monologue. I guess he just named those he had to negotiate with to get to be billed as host and still do both these songs with his band?

Ranking Season 33 From Best To Worst

1. Lebron James/Kanye West (09.29.2007)
2. Seth Rogen/Spoon (10.06.2007)
3. Jon Bon Jovi/Foo Fighters (10.13.2007)

Overall Thoughts

• Revisiting this episode, I have discovered that that is wasn't quite as "bad" as i remembered...just a rather uneven show that is sightly weighed down by a lackluster host. I'm slightly tempted to put him in the same category host as Steven Segal or Robert Blake but he's not as big a monster as them (although not much here suggests that he wasn't difficult to work with at all.

• Jon Bon Jovi may not have actively bought down the show or anything but he didn't exactly go out of his way to elevate any of the material...or really play many roles besides some variation on himself for that matter. Thankfully, this current cast doesn't have that problem as they could easily elevate a lot of this material without even trying. This episode really shows a lot of the cast having to pitch in to pick up some of the slack from the host.

• The best way I can assess Jon Bon Jovi as SNL host is to compare him to an Early 80s Dick Ebersol era host because that is truly what he reminds me of. That was the era of hosts being more "hands off" and not in every single sketch the whole night. Hell, even the aforementioned Robert Blake was only in two sketches outside of his own monologue back in '82 (which might be due to him turning down every pitch that was presented to him).

• Yes, I know that Jon Bon Jovi appeared way more than four times in his own episode but his basic onscreen presence during non-musical sketches was such that he pretty much disappeared into the background so much that even him not appearing in a mere two sketches was enough to make you even forget he WAS the host.

• Like I said, this episode was more truly "uneven" than bad, but for the reasons I just stated it it still the weakest of this season so far by default.

Closing Thoughts

• Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed reading this review and listening to the podcast that went along with it. I also certainly hope you enjoy reading my review of the upcoming Connor Storrie/Mumford & Sons episode of SNL which I will have published by this Sunday evening.

• You know, I was thinking that if I could somehow find a way to watch/stream the upcoming premiere of SNL UK that I MIGHT just review that on this blog. If you'd be at all interested in reading that, please sound off in the comments below.

• Right now, there's three things I definitely know for sure that I will be reviewing. I've just mentioned one of them. The other two things will be the Kunuk Uncovered episode of Documentary Now for our next We Heart Hader episode and the Brian Williams/Feist episode of SNL Season 33 for the episode after that (which I will also publish a review of on this blog as well).

• See you then!