Saturday, September 15, 2012
SNL -- SEP 15, 2012 – SEASON PREMIERE! -- SETH MACFARLANE WITH FRANK OCEAN
Seth MacFarlane has the honor of hosting the season (38!) premiere of Saturday Night Live. (Tonight! 9/15/2012!) The Musical Guest is Frank Ocean.
THE HOST: SETH MACFARLANE
Seth is possibly not that well known as a performer; he’s better known as the writer-director of TED (the teddybear film) and on TV for creating Family Guy and co-creating American Dad and The Cleveland Show.
He voiced Ted, the bear, himself, and also, many, of the characters on his TV shows.
With a strong interest in science fiction, he has appeared – in person – on FlashForward and Star Trek and other shows. He has also appeared at Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall.
He’s an Emmy winner and a Webby winner.
SETH MACFARLANE ON WIKIPEDIA
SETH MACFARLANE ON IMDB
SETH MACFARLANE ON AMAZON
THE MUSICAL GUEST: FRANK OCEAN
The Musical Guest is Frank Ocean New Orleans
FRANK OCEAN ON WIKIPEDIA
Some comments on the show:
COLD OPEN - One of the best and funniest, best written and best acted cold opens ever! A campaign speech by Obama, with help from Romney & Ryan. (One could say, with enemies like these, one hardly even needs friends.) The torch is passed from the old Obama to Jay Pharoah as (the new) Obama. Jay has been one of my favorites ever since he joined SNL.
MONOLOG: A weird moment at the outset when Set invokes farrah Fawcett. A weird moment some time later with a strange remark about Jews. Rest of the monolog was pretty good. He has a nice old-fashioned voice, and he's REAL good at voices. He did a kind of ventriloquist routine with multiple characters and no dummies.
FAKE CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL - Not memorable.
DR RENE -- She gives sex advice, but she didn't show up, so a really crass producer fills in. Amusing.
CLINT EASTWOOD AND THE CHAIR -- This was a hilarious riff on Clint's performance at the RNC.
LIDS -- Hat salesman with a cheer-up button. PSY Gangnam Style has a gazillion hits on YouTube. So here it is on SNL. (See below for an embedded video of the original -- 181M views and counting!)
PUPPETRY - A very funny skit with three new puppet-makers, one of whom is very serious. Plus a little puppet-makeout scene.
OCEAN -- He has a different sound, but this is kind of a normal SNL music interlude. Also it's very hard to make out the lyrics.
WEEKEND UPDATE -- The jokes are good. Alana Honey BooBoo Child & Mama is not funny. Ryan Lochte is hilarious. Mimi Morales is amusing, and terrific eye candy. Best line of the show: Ryan Lochte (who, of course, is an Olympic swimming champion): "It feels so weird to be dry."
REAL COMMERCIALS -- Too many. Too many boring commercials. Too many boring commercials repeated too many times. Only saving feature: there were a lot of interesting previews of interesting films & TV shows.
ARMY TRAINING -- How do you respond "Yes Sir" and "No Sir" when the question has no yes-or-no answer? How do you tell the Sergeant that he is stuttering?
STEVE HARVEY -- Nice concept: The Style Makeover makes the makeover-ee into a copy of the makeover-er. On a big drooping mustache: "When you smile, it's a big surprise!"
BLIND DATE -- The waiter and the thief were funny.
ELIJAH AND EZEKIAL -- A new way to explain the letters in a URL.
I always hope for another super (and raunchy) skit to end the show. I'd like that to be as regular a feature as the Weekend Update!
Seth was a skilled host and fit right in. Jay could be the next break-out star. We need a break-out female. I missed some of the old cast.
All in all, it was a much funnier and better written show than usual. A good start to the year!
CLIPS
PSY GANGNAM STYLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0
Labels: Family Guy, Frank Ocean, Saturday Night Live, Seth MacFarlane, SNL, TED
