Saturday Night Live did their first quarantine episode and it wasn’t terrible? It takes a minute to get used to the Zoom stuff, but honestly, I’m proud of the SNL writers, actors and production team for managing to put together a half-decent show and several good-ish skits from lockdown. They got Tom Hanks to “host” from home as well, and it’s great to see Tom looking healthy. The whole Zoom intro with the musicians playing from home was awesome too.
Pete Davidson had a surprisingly good bit called “This Is a Drake Song.” This honestly sounds like half of Drake’s songs. It completely checks out.
And here’s a kind of dumb Pete skit called “Andre 2000.”
This was a funny one about how lonely people are and how we need physical contact and how every lady has basically broken their vibrators.
And they broke up the Weekend Update segments into several different videos. Here are the best ones.
Chris Martin performed a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Shelter From the Storm.” I mean… it’s okay for quarantine? But it’s not really a good cover.
Photos courtesy of SNL.
The Zoom call was kinda funny. When Aidy took her laptop into the bathroom it was like my worst nightmare come to life!!!
hahaha I loved that too, loved when the camera was angled at her crotch, that happened to me on a call early on, so particularly eek-inducing funny!
I think the Zoom call is a parody of something like that actually happened last week – there is a video out there about it. There was a Zoom call happening with a largish group of people and one lady was so into it she went to the bathroom with her laptop and didn’t switch the camera off. Her whole team watch her do what she needed.
I thought that was a really funny skit, highlighting the two funniest people on that show.
I love Kate doing RBG with the shoelaces for jumprope, the Q-tips for barbells, and the batteries for weights! lol
yes that was awesome! she was brilliant!
That was my favorite. I actually loved the whole show.
I was touched by the effort, and I am not American! 😀
Andre 2000 was actually great, I thought.
Zoom call was so so funny because it’s TRUE.
The “Perfect Day” tribute to the late Hal Willner was touching and beautiful.
…double post
I cried through that. I remember when the AIDS epidemic took so many talented people from the NY artistic scene, then when 9/11 took so many others, and this felt like that. I’d been following various threads on Hal Willner too and he sounds like a really decent, original, one of a kind talent. So beautifully done.
It also reminded me that we don’t have Lou Reed to get us through this one.
Agree, this was very good.
The tribute to their fellow employee who passed was lovely.
We really enjoyed it. I don’t know if the format will hold up every week (not sure if they plan to keep doing these) but it was funny and I think its going to be the kind of episode that, in 20 years if someone bothers to watch it, will serve as a good time capsule of what this time has been like.
I think it can, I think it can be ballast for us in the storms ahead, I hope they keep doing it, digging into their collective artistic soul to help us all navigate these times. Since it aired in Feb, I keep singing the David Byrne/John Mulaney song’ “we’re on a plane to nowhere…” How prescient and insightful artists can be…
They are rerunning that show next Saturday and that skit was brilliant.
Are Tom and Rita still in Australia?
It’s been interesting to see how celebrities handle the backdrop for their videos.
No, they’re back home.
Ah, thank you.
Maybe it’s their pool house kitchen.
Or a kitchen off the “man cave” or screening room. WAY too small for his “main” kitchen.
OMG, I’m so glad someone commented on that. Tom’s kitchen looks *a lot* like my kitchen (even the same keurig) – and I was like “how is that even possible?* My house is basically a cottage, and our kitchen is nice but sized for a humble home. Good explanation that it’s just the pool house or man cave kitchen. Like, no way is that kitchen used by staff to prepare meals for celebrity guests.
Really, that can’t be Tom’s primary kitchen!
Silas, my first laugh of the morning. It can’t be their kitchen. I mean, it must be a pool house or man cave, or more likely his “office” kitchen. Spent way too much time thinking about this.
It was actually very comforting to everyone in my family. The tribute to Hal Willner was beautifully done as well.
Oh, and the sky sports segment, I just LOVED that one!
Yes! Sky News Sports by Alex Moffat was my favorite!
It’s comforting to see new shows being made and life going on despite the pandemic. The quarantine has lowered my bar for what’s funny anyway, so I laughed at most of the skits. I even enjoyed Tom’s “audience” questions.
Weekend Update was garbage as usual and the creepy piped-in laughs made it even worse. I can do without jokes about Fauci being the only person with an accent who’s smart, and the Trump bit was awful and just kind of racist – “Trump” telling them didn’t make them less so.
That was producers on the zoom call that we just didn’t see-not canned laughter. Although they over laughed at everything which made it awkward.
Skits that poked fun of internet culture- the Zoom call, online gamers, YouTube reviews and tutorials – were great. The rest of it just did not work at all, and Weekend Update with five people gaffawing loudly in the background was absolutely awful. Oh! Pete Davidson’s work was good since it was presented like low budget hip hop videos. Overall: A for effort, C- for content.
Ok but that Drake Song is actually good
That was horrible. But at least they can laugh at their own jokes. Man, no shame.
I watched a couple of the clips from Youtube, was glad to see Tom Hanks standing and looking good! I can’t say I laughed at any of the clips I saw but they were amusing and I give SNL props for trying to come up with some content during this difficult time to entertain us all. I think the biggest thing for people on Twitter was getting a glimpse inside the SNL’s cast members homes. People were heavily dissecting Colin Jost’s living quarters (like the not very casual placement of the guitar on the couch in the background–nobody just leaves their guitar lying around on a couch!) because they were trying to figure out if it was Scarlett’s house/apartment. There was a picture of a bathroom in Colin’s living quarters going around captioned “Scarlett would not have a bathroom like this” which made me LOL.
I totally paused the Weekend Update to scope out Colin and Michael’s respective homes, not gonna lie.
Tom was a bit awkward but it was soooo good to see him. I’m glad he’s leaning into the Everyone’s Dad bit because it’s particularly true right now. The taped on mustache was cute, too.
Props to all of the SNL cast for putting themselves out there. Like for a lot of changes right now, you’ve got to try it out and modify and not be afraid to get it wrong in the beginning. I like their spirit.
My question is – where was Melissa Villasenor? She has been doing comedy nonstop on IG since quarantine began, but they didn’t use her? She clearly has a lot of ideas. The guy who shows up every five episodes and says “okay” got more airtime?
Where was she?
I should have been more clear – she was home and available! She even tweeted something about feeling down after the episode and everyone started a hashtag to cheer her up. She was obviously shafted, just have no idea why.
I was thinking the same thing. She’s talented and she’s in barely any sketches during the regular season.
But none of it was live, was it? I was a little disappointed by that. I think an entire live broadcast on Zoom would be hilarious. The cast are trained in sketch improv. Would love to see what they can do with topics thrown at them.
Andre 2000 and drake song killed me 😂
I enjoyed it, especially the zoom call. Yeah, some of their skits are better than others, but we all need a laugh right now. I’ll take it however I can get it.