Once a fixture of “Saturday Night Live,” we haven’t seen much of The Ambiguously Gay Duo — Robert Smigel’s innuendo-heavy cartoon — since Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert (who voice the skits) attained comedic superstardom. But Ace and Gary returned in a big way during this weekend’s “SNL,” an otherwise unremarkable episode hosted by Ed Helms. Thanks to a “flesh ray,” Ace and Gary become live-action heroes played by Jon Hamm and Jimmy Fallon, while Carell, Colbert, and Helms play the bad guys trying to out them (for what it’s worth, Fred Armisen plays the lizard guy).
You can watch the Hulu video below — unless you live outside of the United States, of course. Consider it your punishment for daring to live outside our borders, you commie scum. (Just kidding, foreigners: you can watch the live-action part of the sketch here.)
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Nothing is more painful than the absense of laughter from an SNL sketch. Terrible.
I liked most things about this episode. It may not have made me laugh out loud, but it felt classic-er than most recent ones. Like, from an era that was pretty decent but not brilliant, maybe a transitional period where they had Dana Carvey, but hadn’t yet gotten Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, and Chris Rock.
I love Paul Simon, but that motherfucker was a deer in headlights. I’m really tired of not laughing at SNL. It’s slowly creeping toward resentment.
Agreed, esse. Especially since Simon performed “Rewrite” on Jimmy Fallon’s show and did it much, much better than he did it here.
As much as I adore Ed Helms, this was not a great episode. I wouldn’t blame him, though. They didn’t seem to be writing for him so much as shoe-horning him into stuff that could’ve been done with any male host.
I wanted to love live action Ace and Gary, but I’m kind of ambivalent.
I kinda liked the Ann Margaret sket, but that’s probably because it reminded me to google pics of young Ann-Margaret…mmmmmm..young Ann-Margaret.
Not even dancing Sudekis could save this episode.
The Ambiguously Gay Duo still keeps it up. What’s everybody looking at?
Howabout Steven Colbert hosts? Or is a grudge held against past writers?
If it wasn’t for disappointments, I wouldn’t have any.. something something.
Speaking of Sudekis, I wish there had been a Sudekis vs. Helms dance-off.
Saturday Night Live is to sketch comedy what ESPN is to sports.
Monopolies suck.
The Helms episode was particularly awful.
You can’t judge SNL like other shows. It’s 90 minutes of (mostly) live sketch comedy and impossible to judge as a whole. Watch a complete “classic” episode from any era and you will find at least 2 terribly unfunny sketches. You just need to look at the 2 best sketches and weekend update. If they were good then the show is fine.
Watch a complete “classic” episode from any era and you will find at least 2 terribly unfunny sketches
Yes, but those two unfunny sketches aired at 12:45 am and 12:50 am respectively, after more than an hour of good stuff.
Watch a complete episode these days, and that sort of shit is the lead-off hitter. This week’s opening sketch didn’t have a laugh in it, and they only got worse.
If you watch an entire SNL episode you start to just feel bad for the people performing. The sketches are so drawn out and so terrible. Do they really need a 15 minute “What’s Up With That?” every single show? OK we get it, he sings and dances and doesn’t let his guests get a word in. There is nothing clever or funny about it. It just f*cking sucks.
Has Ed Helms been in anything besides the Hangover?
This Ace and Gary live action skit is the best skit of 1997!
Helms was ridiculously underused. I think he went a half hour without even appearing – he was barely in the “What’s Up With That?” sketch, then they had a digital short, Paul Simon, and Weekend Update. By that time we were about an hour into the show and all the guest host had done was a stupid monologue and a minute of banjo playing. I could understand if this was Michael Phelps, but you have one of the funnier men in comedy with a background in sketch comedy – USE HIM!!!!
Also, they should have Fred Armisen in the Lizardo costume more. Not being recognizable made him tolerable.
While it was great to see the real life AGD, I thought SNL bringing back all their borderline terrible characters back on one episode was poor planning. Especially since Ed freaking Helms was hosting. I didn’t care for this show.
I’m an SNL apologist, but that was really bad. The novelty of Ace & Gary aside, it was all overly-long unfunny retreads. My favorite was actually Helms as the every-Republican towards the end of the show.