Saturday, May 05, 2012
SNL -- MAY 5, 2012 -- ELI MANNING WITH RIHANNA
Eli Manning is the quarterback of the Superbowl winning New York Giants football team.
Singer Rihanna has been called the "Most Beautiful Woman in the World"
The show was a mid-level SNL. It was good humored. Eli was a good sport, and appeared in many sketches, but his flat delivery, which was the impetus for many of those sketches, tamped down most of the results to humorous, from what might have been hilarious.
Here's a brief summary of the show --
COLD OPEN - FOX & FRIENDS -- in a quick and efficient segment they effectively skewered the Fox Morning Show, an easy target to be sure. What would comedians do without Fox? But Fox never changes. (Ridicule, humiliation, and the like may once have been instruments of change -- not so much, anymore. In fact, some careers are built from it.)
OPENING MONOLOG -- Good humored but a bit stiff. “I finally feel like a real New Yorker. “ “I play for the NY Giants and all my games are in NJ”
AMAZON COMMERCIAL – Funny advertising parody. As the family brings in Mother’s Day gifts, the moms are all discovered reading Fifty Shades of Grey. They should get it on their Kindle.
EA SPORTS MOTION CAPTURE STUDIO – The studio is looking to film a signature Touchdown Celebration Move. Eli Manning can’t deliver anything but bland. This is the first of several humorous, but not terribly funny, parodies of Eli’s personality.
REAL KINDLE COMMERCIAL “Light my fire!” (Nice when they parody a commercial before the real commercial.)
TRIAL – Eli Manning gives murder testimony – zillions of messages to women to establish an alibi. But when it gets to revealing his search requests, he’d rather confess to the murder. Humorous.
LITTLE BROTHERS – Eli defends little brothers against their bullying big brothers. “Treat your younger brother with respect, Peyton.” (Note to the sports-clueless: Peyton Manning, Superbowl winning quarterback for the Denver Broncos, is Eli’s older brother.)
WXPD NEWS NY – The Old Reporter on site at Occupy Wall Street. The concept is better than the sketch. They’ve done versions of this sketch before. It’s not funny. Never was. And this version's even less funny than other times.
RIHANNA -- I like the look, but the sounds don't do it for me (baby).
WEEKEND UPDATE – OK jokes. Special appearances by the Tanning Mom (“You look like a baseball glove.") and Admiral General Almadeen, the Dictator (who brought along Martin Scorcese to provide a good review for THE DICTATOR under torture).
WHAT IS THIS? – THE WORLD’S EASIEST GAME SHOW -- This was the best sketch idea of the night, but the execution was a bit lame. Game Hostess is a pretty woman who introduces the 3 contestants and mentions she's been dating contestant #3 (Eli). Contestant #1 is shown a picture of a tree. Q – What is this? A – Tree. Contestant #2 is shown a picture of a house (or anything). Q – What is this? A – A house. Contestant #3 is Eli Manning. Q – So we’ve been going out for 4 months, what I want to know is What is this???
HELGA LATELY - Swedish gibberish. Simple gibberish with an occasional English word (usually about sex). Eli’s flat version of gibberish was actually the funniest.
RIHANNA – “Where have you been all my life?” -- Kind of a ridiculous song and a ridiculous dance, but silly enough to be fun.
DRAGWORLD -- Eli is the second runner up in the DRAG WORLD Pageant. Not winning, he storms off. Host: Where’s your dignity? Eli “I've disappointed my fan.”
TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES: Cheech & Chong’s 3rd member, Richard Armstrong. -- Excerpts from Cheech & Chong’s stoner movies with Eli as Richard Anderson, who bales out whenever the dope comes in.
All in all I enjoyed the show. The musical segments looked and sounded better than usual. Eli was a good sport and really did a lot of sketches, most of which poked fun at him.
SNL -- BEST CLIPS FROM OLD SHOWS HERE
ELI MANNING ON WIKIPEDIA
RIHANNA ON WIKIPEDIA
Labels: Eli Manning, Rihanna, Saturnday Night Live, SNL
