Andy's Photobomb face=my feelings on Karmin
There were 14 sketches in this weekend's lively Zooey Deschanel-hosted "SNL," including the Opening Monologue and three-part commercial series. Of those 14, at least nine were keepers, while the other five ranged from pointless ("We're Going to Make Technology Hump") to obnoxious ("CRABBBBS"). For "SNL," 9 out of 14 isn't a bad ratio (and most of the terrible sketches were buried in the second half), which is why this cameo-heavy episode was one of the best of the season.
One of the reasons why it was so good: the writers didn't make it "silly." It would have been easy for an episode hosted by Zooey, lover of all things sparkly and pretty and vintage, to be centered on "adorkable" and "quirky." But with the exception of the subpar monologue, the episode mostly restrained itself from the obvious. Even "Bein' Quirky with Zooey Deschanel," the sketch I most dreaded, was wisely placed in the post-Weekend Update slot and found a clever way of making fun of Zooey's polarizing persona. And she looks like Blossom!
But even surprise appearances from Nicolas Cage and the French Jon Hamm, Jean Dujardin, couldn't make up for Karmin. Every time the singer rapped, a little part of me died, not unlike the rodent that rested on her head.
We get it, "SNL." Mitt Romney is stiff, robotic, and cold. The only thing that saves this sketch from the other 12,385 just like it is the dog. He's quite the handsome bastard.
Too often Nasim Pedrad is cast as a young child or old lady, so I always like when she's able to play someone her age, like MIA or later, Arianna Huffington. She's a gifted impressionist, though Kristen Wiig's Madonna steals this sketch. The accent's spot-on.
"SNL" hasn't had the greatest success with multiple-part gags of late (remember Glenda Okones?), but these Clint Eastwood pimping for Chrysler spoofs were great, each one more ridiculous than the one before it. Hader's ridiculously talented, and someone saying, "I'm Batman" is never not funny. Ditto old people with their pants pulled high.
I'm seeing double here — four Nicolas Cages! This was the obvious highlight of the night, and one of the best sketches of the season. "[Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance] is not to be missed, for it has the two key qualities of a Nic Cage action film: number one, all the dialogue is either whispered or screamed; and of course number two, everything in the movie is on fire."
One thing: people used to poop on Jimmy Fallon all the time for laughing — why doesn't Seth Meyers ever get called out for the same thing? I get that it's tough not to laugh at Double Cage, but there's something off-putting about a head writer laughing at his own jokes, while Cage and Andy Samberg remain in character. It comes across equal parts arrogant and unprofessional, and he nearly ruins the Declaration of Independence joke. And that's the true meaning of Black History Month.
But where's Uggie?!?
This was the sketch where Zooey played most against type; it was also one of my favorites. It'd be easy to cast her as a fast-talker from the 1940s — it's funnier to have her play someone who can't keep up with fast talkers from the 1940s. Sudeikis and Wiig do a fine job of never tripping over the rapid-paced, screwball comedy-like dialogue, and Bobby Moynihan's reckless typing reminds me of when Kramer was on "Murphy Brown."
Michael Cera is just hipster Mickey Mouse.
This was bad in a different way than Lana Del Rey was bad — I'm tempted to say it was worse. Karmin steals many styles (1940s looks, 1990s swagger, 2010s pop), and does NONE of them well. There's nothing original about the group; they're the kind of act that people who enjoy them now will wonder "WTF were we thinking" in, oh, three years. It was embarrassing for white people everywhere.
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Dennis Miller laughed at his own jokes, as did Norm MacDonald. This is nothing new, and hell, it’s live, and should be lively. I’d like Myers a lot less if he pretended to be a news man having to put up with crazy characters on his news program.
Also, I don’t know why SNL is hitting up YouTube for it’s musical guests, but this Karmin shit has got to stop.
Usually the laughing doesn’t bother me, but it does when it’s coming from the head writer and at the expense of the joke. You can hear Seth start giggling before Cage says the line of the night. Not cool.
Verizon Guy: Are you a small business owner.
Customer: No, I live off a settlement.
Verizon Guy: So, you’re a Native American.
I liked this very muchly.
This was easily one of the best episodes of the season. I groaned when they started doing the French thing again, but Jean and Andy saved it. Plus, Clint Eastwood and Nic Cage were perfect.
Karmin should be banished from TV, though. NOBODY WANTS TO SEE THEATER KIDS RAP.
Wow, I got 90 seconds through that Karmin song. The chick singer is obnoxious. I can’t remember the last time I wanted to punch somebody so hard.
I groaned when they did the French sketch too, but they immediately revived it.
See, that’s when doing a recurring character makes sense – when you have a different take on it. Doing the exact same Gilly sketch with different actors is not funny.
My fiancee was horrified “she’s doing a…Nicki Minaj…type…thing…but but…REALLY GLEE-ISH”
(still one of the best episodes in quite a while though)
I’m just glad they found an excuse to use Bjork.
Strong SNL episode? #mayans #2012
killam’s michael cera was a highlight for me, but the nic cage’s stole the show
“that’s high praise.”
I think he got the physical/visual part right, but his voice was a little too over the top and high pitched. Abby Elliott’s Zooey was perfect though, as was Zooey’s Mary Kate Olsen.
Jean-Ralphio’s right. If he toned down the falsetto (maybe just talk in a higher register, not as high-pitched as you can go), it would’ve gone from cartoony to spot-on and a solid character.
Taran Killam has come a long way since his Wild ‘N Out days.
When she started rapping, “Karmin” got into perfect dumpin’-in-the-woods position. Gotta hand it to her for that.
I had no hope for this, but it was indeed the one of the best episode of the season (probably the best for me in terms of how many laughs I got off it).
The Clint Eastwood sketches were perfect, and they were clever to scatter them throughout instead of making one long winded sketch.
And Nic Cage was the bomb of course.
Would really like to see Clint Eastwood do a Little Caesers commercial for real. “Pizza, pizza!”
Karmin was a total rip off. They didn’t even get me the directions I asked for!
“Oh yeah, well when you were born, the doctor said you better think about butting that thing back in that thing… Oh my God, that was almost a thing, I think I’m going to fit in really well here!”
[awkward silence]
Pretty much describes my contributions to the WG comments section.
The fact that you changed “putting” to “butting” really sold me.
Average to good episode. Reminded me of why I used to like Zooey before that unwatchable show of hers came out. Watched the first 30 seconds of Karmin’s “performance,” then fast-forwarded when she started rapping.
SNL’s music booker needs to be fired. This season alone, they’ve featured Karmin (did you see the second song? WOW), Foster The People (they had Kenny G onstage with them… and they’re not nearly as good as everyone seems to think), Coldplay, Robyn, Lana Del Ray, and later this season: Justin Bieber. For fuck’s sake.
Word. I have been bitching about this for a while now. If Rebecca Black doesn’t show up on SNL, I will be shocked. I think the booker surfs YouTube way too much and probably does a weekly glance at the Billboard top 10, and then does an eeny meeny miney moe, to pick the “musical” guests.
I have a feeling Karmin could have went out there and sang a fucking masterpiece and it would have still be called awful. It wasn’t that terrible. I think you really want to be the first one to say “Del Rey was bad but not as bad as this!”
And I’m not a big fan of the French cafe sketch
Came across this board after entering “Karmin Fucking Sucks” into Google. I remember when Nsync and the boy bands and Britney Spears types came out and I thought to myself that music could never get any worse…Now these days with acts like Karmin and Florence + The Machine I stand corrected. Britney, Justin Timberlake and others from that era have become true-to-form pop stars and use varied production methods as of recently and use it well to their advantage. Karmin, Florence + The Machine and Drake are by far the absolute most god awful people ever to be given millions of dollars to “perform” pop songs. Karmin is an ugly karoke act. They should have gotten a show on the Disney channel like “The Wiggles” but to me “Fruit Salad (Yummy Yummy) is comparable to Beethoven’s 9th symphony in comparison to “Crash Your Party”. Drake is a half white jew funded canadian teen shitcom star that rips off lil wayne, VERY poorly I might add. Lil Wayne is about as deep as one of those 5 dollar kiddie pools at costco, how fucking pathetic must you be to fail at ripping someone like that off? I write and produce music myself (my passion in life, been doing it for almost 20 years) and listen to countless different types of music and production styles, and nothing is more aurally enjoyable as a well written pop song. In the same vain, nothing makes me want to rake my eardrums out with a blunt rusty object more than these three specific shit festivals known as Florence + The Machine, Drake (how about “Gayke”?) & Karmin. I should stop now because I could write a series of books each individually longer than the bible on how I would rather get scrotum cancer than listen to a millisecond of Florence + The Machine, Karmin and Drake.
*Pleasurable Sigh* That feels MUCH better. Thanks for that vent.
As far as SNL goes…that show should have been cancelled the second WIll Ferrel decided to leave. He was the last of the players who had the ridiculousness and seemingly almost angry zeal needed to make SNL edgy and very funny. Someone mentioned Dennis Miller giggling at himself, in attempts to show that it can still be funny if you laugh at yourself; Dennis Miller is about as funny as child rape. His arrogant ‘too cool for everything’ attitude is as easy to watch and funny as C-span.
Jimmy Fallon and his “I’m so cute and I know it so I’m gonna giggle all the time” schtick makes me lactate fecal matter. I wish that baby in the credit card commercial would have caught his carotid artery when he threw the guitar towards him. The only thing I would ever enjoy watching him do is bleed out slowly.
Kristen Wiig was actually a diamond in the rough on that program. Now that she is gone, Lorne Michaels should end the corpse called SNLthats been dead for the last 15+ years and spend the rest of his life shrimping jizz out of Paul Simon’s anus.