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Along with a brief promo, Adult Swim announced that "Rick and Morty" spinoff President Curtis will start hitting screens beginning in July.
Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl
SNL Returns with 90-Minute "Five-Timers" Party for Jack Black: Review
SNL returned this weekend with what vibed like a 90-minute party celebrating Jack Black's "Five-Timers" milestone - and we're good with that.
Article Summary
- SNL celebrates Jack Black's Five-Timers milestone with a fun, party-like episode that worked.
- Jack White joins as musical guest, boosting the high-energy vibe and popping up in sketches.
- Standout sketches include "Kathy," "Husbands," and a sharp NCAA Post Game Show Cold Open.
- Weekend Update brings edgy jokes and strong features, including a hilarious Harry Potter take.
NBC's Saturday Night Live returned this weekend, with Jack Black returning to host, claiming his "Five-Timers" jacket, and turning SNL into a 90-minute celebration of his personal milestone – fueled by the guitar greatness that is Jack White. Once we got past the SNL Cold Open and into the star-filled musical monologue, it became clear this was going to be a show about going big and having fun. The monologue theme about the "Five-Timers Club" needing to be revitalized from its doom-and-gloom with some serious rock was pretty much telling us what we were going to get, and what we got was a return episode that had no interest in taking itself seriously. That relaxed, let-it-all-hang-out approach worked, and worked well. As great as White was as the musical guest, having him during others segments and sketches helped feed into the party vibe. No misses this week; all hits to varying degrees ("Words to Live By (Country Song)" is sticking with me), with some serious standouts:
SNL Season 51: Jack White & Jack Black Highlights
"NCAA Post Game Show Cold Open": I wrote about this in more detail last night, but overall, it was nice to see SNL take a different approach to tackling the headlines that didn't have to default to James Austin Johnson's Trump. Seeing Kenan Thompson getting in on the Cold Open action with some nice shots at Pam Bondi (bonus points for Ashley Padilla's portrayal), Kristi Noem, and Trump's war with Iran was a refreshing change.
"Kathy": Black, Thompson, Mikey Day, and Sarah Sherman are co-workers who get interrupted by their overbearing colleague (Padilla), so they unite to ignore her until she goes away. They never stood a chance. This sketch was a perfect example of a little going a long way; basically, letting the silences carry the humor. Padilla was annoyingly relentless in all of the right ways, driving a nail into her co-workers' last nerves until they had no choice but to crack.
"Husbands": Sherman, Padilla, Chloe Fineman, Sarah Sherman, Jane Wickline, and Veronika Slowikowska portray girlfriends whose husbands (Black, Thompson, Johnson, Andrew Dismukes, and Tommy Brennan) are meeting for the first time. I love silly, over-the-top sketches, but this one worked on that level in any number of ways (like each of them having rock outfits on under their clothes). But I like that it also plays with the assumptions some women have about what guys do when they hang out together (with bonus points for "Carry on Wayward Son" by Kansas, which really does rule).
"Weekend Update": There's nothing better than when "Weekend Update" anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che are on their game, and the feature interviews hit hard – and that's exactly what we got this weekend. Jost and Che gave up on the idea of taking prisoners right out of the gate, with Che dropping a particularly hard-hitting joke about Trump going to the theater.
Along with the headlines, Sherman hit the anchor desk as Noem's husband, Bryon Noem, who was revealed to be a member of a "bimbofication" fetish community, and included images of Noem wearing pink hot pants and a flesh-toned spandex top stuffed with balloons to resemble large breasts. Sherman, Che, and the SNL writers had a narrow line to walk between satire and kink-shaming, and they pulled it off by focusing on the absurd hypocrisy of right-wingers preaching about "family values" and "being moral" when their own backyards have issues of their own. Bonus points to whoever made the decision to have Sherman call out the entire studio to see if they have a problem with him (with the empty and spinning chair representing Lorne Michaels, a very nice touch) – and to Che, who really did look like he was struggling not to look.
Kam Patterson had his best segment and moment from his SNL run so far, portraying Professor Snape from HBO's upcoming "Harry Potter" series. And Snape wanted to make one thing very clear: as far as he's concerned, "The Proud Boy Who Lived" and the whole wizarding world are racist. "We got this new kid. His name is Harry Potter, and he's racist as hell. Harry Potter — or, the Proud Boy Who Lived — spent the whole year telling everybody that the school's only Black teacher was secretly evil," Patterson kicks off the segment with, setting the perfect tone.
The sketch was also another example of silly-making-a-point. "The whole wizarding world is racist," Patterson continued. "There's one other Black guy, Kingsley Shacklebolt, a name I'm guessing they got out of the Wu-Tang name generator. Everyone's in these dignified robes. They dressed him up like he was selling cocoa butter incense out of a barbershop" (with Patterson adding that the character looked like "a Haitian cab driver" and calling out why the Black character had to have "shackle' in his name). Is he wrong?
Saturday Night Live Season 51: Jack Black & Jack White
8/10
NBC's Saturday Night Live returned this weekend, with Jack Black returning to host, claiming his "Five-Timers" jacket, and turning SNL into a 90-minute celebration of his personal milestone - fueled by the guitar greatness that is Jack White. Once we got past the SNL Cold Open and into the star-filled musical monologue, it became clear this was going to be a show about going big and having fun. The monologue theme about the "Five-Timers Club" needing to be revitalized from its doom-and-gloom with some serious rock was pretty much telling us what we were going to get, and what we got was a return episode that had no interest in taking itself seriously. That relaxed, let-it-all-hang-out approach worked, and worked well. As great as White was as the musical guest, having him during others segments and sketches helped feed into the party vibe. No misses this week; all hits to varying degrees ("Words to Live By (Country Song)" is sticking with me), with some serious standouts.
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