Well, at least Kevin Hart became the third actor from Party Down to host SNL? Hart doesn't really do it for me (my feelings on him are similar to Danger's), but in many ways, he's the perfect SNL host. He's high energy, a professional stand-up comedian, and game for anything, as clearly seen in the unfortunate "Quvenzhané Wallis as Pope" sketch. He's also ridiculously popular — Hart's most recent comedy album, Laugh at My Pain, has sold over five million copies, and his last movie, Think like a Man, brought in $33 million during its first week of release.
And honestly, he was good last night. A few tripped-over lines here and there, but that's to be expected when you're lapping Donkey from Shrek in the "words per minute" race. He blended into the cast seamlessly and by 12:37 a.m. on a Sunday, sometimes you need someone as overexcited as him to keep you awake. But as is the case time and time again, the writing was just, well, it was as if the writers took Hart's advice seriously. Sketches ended without going anywhere, especially in the first half of the episode, and the long-awaited Walking Dead parody was pointless (/refuses to make zombie pun). Things got better in the last half-hour, but...now I want some exotic soups.
Where was I? I dunno, let's get to the clips...and SCENE.
One of the better cold opens in recent memory (meaning, it's a C+, not a C-). Jay Pharoah's Obama isn't charismatic enough to carry an entire sketch by himself (JUST LIKE NOBAMA IN REAL LIFE), so it helps when he's surrounded by a navy man, cop, construction worker, and Native American, or as you know them, the Beatles.
I'm not that familiar with Kevin Hart's stand-up material, but apparently the Panera story is a routine he's done before, including on Leno. That's totally fine (Louis C.K. told a pre-existing bit when he hosted last year, although that was its first TV debut), but I wish the joke was stronger; it just kind of...ended, without making a point about anything. And the "trying out for SNL" anecdote went nowhere. Good Denzel, though.
Speaking of just ending. No clue why this was the first post-monologue sketch, nor am I sure why the whole wasn't just dedicated to "Dogglegangers." Do that for 90 minutes next time, SNL.
Yeah, no. This was not a way to combine two huge news stories. It felt like an idea pitched by someone who had just started taking improv classes, although they did leave off the "...on the MOON" part of the premise.
Bitch? Bitch. Bitch! Bitch?!? #bitch
(That's another way of saying despite myself, I liked this sketch and think Bobby and Cecily killed. Bitch.)
I miss this Rodman.
Pretty funny ("Really?!?" works so much better when Seth has a partner to bounce off of), though Hart's flubs at the beginning took away some of its impact, and possibly elicited some FCC attention, which, goddammit.
For a much better "Walking Dead black people" bit, see Key & Peele. The problem with this sketch, other than most everything, is that outside of the character's names and references to Carl's mental state (which, OK, was pretty funny), it had nothing to do with The Walking Dead. It used the show's name to grab viewers' attention, but then never did anything with it, unlike SNL's Homeland parody from a few months ago. That one worked because it was clear the writers are fans of the show; this one could have been Generic Zombie Movie #48, and end up no different.
Except Maggie. R.I.P. Maggie.
It was late, I was tired, and really needed something with energy to spare, like cocaine or Y SHIRT?!?! Nope. Like Z Shirt?!?!?!!??##?@!?!%#@$%&&*!? Yup. Lasted for just the right amount of time, even (especially) with the callback at the funeral later on in the episode. Where IS Brooklyn at?
I'm not going to embed the horrific Shark Tank "parody," because I don't want to divert any attention away from "Recording Session," easily my favorite sketch of the episode. Expect "black guy does voice-over work for white people things" to be the plot of a Eddie Murphy film in 2017.
For more on smushed-face Win Butler, yo.
Collect all the Saturday Night Live badges!
The more Saturday Night Live related content you read, discuss, and share on Facebook or Twitter, the faster you earn the best show moments in badge form. First Up: "Drunk Uncle". More details
How To unlock:
Log into UPROXX or create an account and participate.
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/679/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/bill-hader-this-150x150.gif)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/bill-hader-puppet-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/the-7-best-snl-season-38-musical-performances-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/snickers-affleck-150x150.gif)
Watching SNL is like chopping off your dick.
You sharpen your knife during the cold open. The host comes out and does his spiel while you’re drawing a line with a magic marker. Then, the very first sketch sets the pace for each stroke. If you don’t get a funny fake commercial or if its a repeat of an unfunny commercial you’ve already seen you’re a quarter of the way through your pecker already. You throw in a few sketches based on shitty premises and look at all that blood on the floor. By the time they cram in the edgy or fringe sketches in the last 15 minutes you’re too weak to tap 9-1-1 on your smartphone.
Now guess what. You’ve made it through another episode of SNL! Timberlake next week, so rest up and keep those stitches moist.
You really could have come up with a better analogy that was not cringe-worthy. Your analogy was worse than the Daniel Craig episode of SNL.
Successful engendering. *high five*
wow, that was lame.
womp womp
I regret nothing!
Except the hangover.
Perhaps it’s because this season has been a train wreck in terms of quality, or maybe it’s because I thought JT wasn’t the best last outing, but, I have a really bad feeling Timberlake is going to bomb next week. It’d pretty much sum up this season for me if he does. I hope I’m wrong.
I think the biggest story coming out of SNL last night were the 15 second clips for a new Daft Punk album.
Z-Shirt and the recording session skit were funny. Aside from that, sheesh. And Mackerelmore, or whatever the fuck his name is? Double sheesh.
NBC does need to start working on the pilot for Dogglegangers, though.
recording session was pretty great eh?
I’m gonna add a little “eh” to the end of every sentence for the next two weeks, at least.
I actually liked the barnes and noble sketch the first time they did it when they worked at a fast food place. Not sure why they did the exact same thing again.
Doesn’t seem like the circumstances for repeat characters. So these two keep thinking they’re fired from somewhere and go off on everyone else?
it worked the first time…so of course SNL has to run it into the ground. Just like they did with the Californians.
Now hold on JG, the Californians never, ever, EVVVER worked. It was Gigli from the beginning.
I thought this was a lousy episode and the few plots that had potential just never quite hit the mark. The Steve Harvey, walking dead, Z shirt, and tv commercial were potentially good, there was no real laugh in any. Or they could’ve gone further with them. The Starbucks commercial was in an episode a month ago. It was a complete replay, which I thought was odd. The bookstore employees were funny the 1st time and I hope we don’t see them again for a while.
Overall I just didn’t laugh at the episode and found myself saying skits could’ve been funny.
Kevin Hart ain’t funny. That is all.
I laughed at the Slest.
hilarious
This was my first exposure to Kevin Hart. He was alright.
This may be a dumb question, but given that all anyone in the comments section does is complain about how bad SNL is every single week, why are you watching it? I’m forced to believe you just like to complain.
^ THIS
The reason I still watch is because I’ve been watching almost every week for 25 years. Old habits die hard. But, I think this cast is really good. It’s just disappointing to see such a funny, talented cast suffer at the hands of piss poor writing.Hence the complaining. But it’s not all bad. There are some genuinely funny skits almost every week. I just wish they could all be zingers.
Ditto that Chimpo, I too think some new cast members are great but they need better material…need more stuff like the Russian lady and “the girl you wish you hadn’t started a coversation with” on the Update seg.
Like my betters say – long time watcher; I find the funny; I rage at the awfulness in-between. With every Murphy there’s a Piscopo.
Not that you are anyway looking for my approval, but I do at least get that logic. It’s not as if I think SNL is consistently great either, but it’s not awful on the whole. Sure the pope sketch was dumb for the most part and the musical guest was freaking turr’ble, but it’s that way most weeks. I think I’m still trying to deal with the nonsensical worship of Waltz hosting a few weeks back. Kevin Hart was finnier Christoph Waltz and you can have my hipster ID card if need be.
that was fucking awful.
are people being nice about him/it because he’s black? i find something to like in most snl shows but this was poor from start to end.
What the what? Him/it? Just…what?
Go see yourself to some new jeff dunham standup, never come back here again
The second part of the Z shirt made up for everything wrong with this episode. It was only like 45 seconds and completely unexpected.
Completely agree. Z shirt at a funeral killed. And also kind of explain Kevin Hart breaking with Timothy Robinson as “Carl” earlier in the episode.
And the award for “Worst Fucking Lip Synching” goes to……..Macklemore! (At least the first half of the first song. I couldn’t speak to the rest of his performance.)
Macklemore can and has performed live and he does so very well. I am not sure what was happening last night on SNL. Because it was a train wreck. That being said his second song ‘Can’t Stop Us’ looked far better.
yeah, his set was horrible. The SNL sketches may not be funny but I look forward to the live music performances. This was not one.
if u were watching anything other than the original live eastcoast broadcast, then the whole show was a few milliseconds off. its not that noticeable during the sketches but very noticeable during the songs because he was rapping at a fast rate. In the “recording sessions” skit hart say goddamn and god got cut out. i think that’s why the audio was off for other broadcast. Rewatch the songs on the web, there’s way too many “pft” sounds from the mic to be lip singing. In worst case scenario, he is being assisted with a prerecorded track but, it definably not pure lip signing.
I guess I underestimated the number of Macklemore fans on this site. I was watching the east coast feed. There can be a whole host of reasons why a group decides to use a backing track or lip synch and I’m not discounting them for that. All I said was that they did it poorly and I stand by that.
I’m not really a fan of Kevin Hart’s stand-up but judging from these clips he did a pretty damn good job! I also really liked his interview with Marc Maron on WTF, seems like a really nice cool dude.
agreed, there’s really nothing to dislike about the guy.
I don’t dislike the guy, he brought a ton of energy, but I just don’t find him very funny.
True dat…Hart has great energy but he is not that funny…only that got a laugh out of me was his “DeNiro face”
That wasn’t the best Avery Johnson impression. Not as good as his DeNiro.
For all those who say Kevin Hart isn’t funny, please watch some of his stand-up on YouTube before making such a blatantly inaccurate statement.
I’ve seen his stand up. It’s not funny.
PowerClashing is spot on. Guy does absolutely nothing for me
Yeah! Why are things that I don’t like so popular!?
Guess you people forget comedy is subjective
Kevin Hart wasn’t horrible. I’ve seen him live ones, though my first exposure was Scary Movie 3-
“Damn! that’s some quantum shit right there man! You should be teaching classes!”
i don’t know, i guess i’m just perpetually against the grain when it comes to popular SNL sentiment. i thought this episode was fine. most of it was in the “average” range for me, with only the Dove Chocolate voiceover bit standing out but it also only had one or two sketches fall flat completely IMO. not surprising really, i thought the Christoph Waltz episode was pretty bad and most reviews were raving about it. so whatever.
that Walking Dead sketch just fell flat. they had an opportunity to riff on the actual racism of that show with how they kill off their existing black character as soon as a new one is introduced but instead just took a much broader and cheaper approach to it.
I only saw the Walking Dead sketch and the Weekend Update. They were fucking awful. KEvin Hart is not funny. He’s like a less clever version of Dane Cook.
There’s a redneck comedy show of some sort that would suit your taste
And I’m sure Tyler Perry has a new show on TBS that you would just LOVE.
PowerClashing: THASS RAYCESS
I thought this was a fine episode. I laughed, which I can’t say about every episode. I don’t know why they repeated the Verismo commercial, especially considering it was called racist the first time they showed it. I didn’t think the McD’s/B&N idea needed to be repeated, but it was still funny the second time so I’ll let it slide.
Why did Macklemore have a horn section and hypeman if he was going to use a backing track?
They were friends of his from High School, I believe.
SNL rarely does callback jokes so having the Z-Shirt guy return in the funeral sketch was amazing and unexpected. I think the only other callback I can recall SNL doing was Will Forte’s commercial as the ‘closet organizer,’ followed later in the show by him sadly drinking alone and being recognized as the guy from that ad.
To this end, I was hoping we’d get a sketch where Kevin Hart showed up as Avery Johnson.
Yea I wish they did more callbacks but it was nice because I was definitely not expecting it. I remember that closet organizer one and I really liked that one too.
#SaveUsTimberlake
I want the sloppy swish badge. That’s all.
Now that song will be in my head all day. Anyone got an ice pick so I can let it out?
I thought the episode was alright, serviceable, and that Kevin at least really tried and the fault belongs with the dependably horrible writing of SNL. Macklemore I enjoyed, partly because he is from my State, and I think he wasn’t as good as he could have been because he was visibly a little nervous.
Macklemore is the real life Lil’ Kevin from It’s Always Sunny.
But does Macklemore have the strength?
I thought it was an overall decent show. Definitely liked the Z-Shirt ad and its conclusion (which was totally unexpected), and Macklemore was not bad. That “Walking Dead” skit, though… Yeesh
YEAH, SAX MAN BADGE!
This one’s on the writers. Hart was game and was even able to carry a few sketches, but he had very little to work with.
Seems to be the story of this season. Yet, we always seem to have the same damn writers writing the show.
Does Macklemore try to look just enough like Vanilla Ice to make you think about it or is it an accident? Either way, his jacket was just as dumb as Vanilla’s “Word to Your Mother” jacket.
i thought he was awful. i cant stand when hosts continually look at the cue cards. barnes and noble skit FTW. loved it the first time at the mcdonalds. #bitch
I like Kevin Hart, and it was nice to see a host who gives a shit, but there were flat sketches, and it pisses me off when they replay sketches. So goddamn lazy. I was irritated by Z shirts, but when it came back – total redemption. How was the Walking Dead sketch not about “We can only have one black guy?” I had high-ish hopes for this one, and feel a little let down, but what the hell, I watched it hungover this morning.
It’s almost like the writers were saving their A-game for Timberlake.
Stay tuned for next week when Timberlake gets a mailed in script.
Their A game is everyone else’s C game.
So another “meh” episode. Got it.
So, they get Macklemore, from Seattle, but not an actor on their network on a weekly show also from Seattle?
#freejoelmchale
Honestly, I get the impression Mchale doesn’t want to do the show.
He would be wasted on it.
What gives you the impression that NBC cares about promoting Community?
You are all right – I should have known better. It was the colonoscopy prep talking; I guess that’s where I was channeling the hope for recovery from..
I didn’t like it but I didn’t hate it. It was best as background noise.
Who the hell is Macklemore?
It was an above average show for this season. Last season was so much better for some reason. I wouldn’t dread having Hart back on again.
This was the worst episode of the season. I blame the writers. 3 weeks off and a nice pile of shit. Worse than Bieber and Craig.
Awfully written sketches (Steve Harvey, Walking Dead) and I felt bad for Hart who threw himself into the terribly unfunny pope sketch. My wife likes his Husbands of Hollywood show and I have to agree with her, he’s better suited to that format.
Meh… Hart wasn’t very good, IMO. But wait, Justin Timberlake is next week, so get ready for some fresh, new….no wait. He’ll probably just be in a new fry costume singing about breast implants again.
I liked the first half of the show, but his energy went off the hook for the second half and I had to turn the volume down. I think if he had played down the yelling in the recording sketch, it might have been funnier. Personally, I think it’s refreshing to have an opening monologue be stand up instead of a musical number. More of that please!
What was up with that Tilda Swinton lookalike rapper and her fake horn section?
If we do a drinking game based on all the JT past sketches that they revive, next week should provide a fantastic bender!
And it’ll be able to make up for our inevitable disappointment!
I actually enjoyed the Pope sketch. I know it wasn’t the smartest thing, but it was just silly fun. +1 to Hart for leaving his goatee on and being DA MAN.
Dogglegangers was amazing.
That will be all.
At least he was trying…
honesly SNL is the comedy show you watch because it has history when it comes to comedy and making movies stars,but honestly i dont know how the hell it outlasted in living color or even mad tv cuz i can see through snl and not laugh but just watch it cuz nothing else is on tv.