TV Funhouse: Kobayashi - The cartoon seemed lost on the studio audience, but this was a great parody of both Dragon Ball and Kobayashi Takeru's folk hero status as champion hot dog eater. My favourite moments included Refrigerator Perry's cameo "appearances" (basically saying "damn" at Kobayashi's hot dog eating prowess), redrawn Dragon Ball Z characters (hi, Dr. Gero), Kobayashi dipping his hot dogs in flood water and plenty of "repurposed" Dragon Ball Z clips in the background of the live-action segments. Remember, when you see a downed power line eat a lot of hot dogs very quickly!
One niggling question, though: if Toriyama Akira's artwork is being parodied here, why isn't Refrigerator Perry in white-lipped blackface? That's an in-joke I'm sure only the millions of people who watch Cartoon Network and/or know about Dragon Ball's existence will ever get.
Platinum Lounge, Featuring Some Cameos - There's the Five-Timers' Club and the Platinum Lounge (you have to have hosted twelve times to be accepted there.) I think they invented the Platinum Lounge just to keep Buck Henry out of the building. This was much better than usual for a Five-Timers' Club-type sketch due to the Baldwin/Steve Martin interplay - they're trying to kill each other, so they play a series of checks and balances with drinks - but the Martin Short and Paul McCartney cameos made sure this was more a series of amazing SNL moments than anything else.
Short played drink server here, and humiliating roles like this are what happens when you appear on MADtv. Why should Short play favourites, though? He was on Saturday Night Live for one season, so he's not going to show favouritism to anyone.
Christina Aguilera performs "Ain't No Other Man" - This song is overexposed on Top 40 radio, but she is getting better as a musician and this was a good performance for her. The Madonna-baiting look (although I can't identify which Madonna era Aguilera takes her look from - I'm assuming the Dick Tracy era) is unoriginal, but at least she's not a self-parody like Gwen Stefani.
Weekend Update - Stronger-than-usual Weekend Update. At the time this episode first aired (I'm reviewing the rerun, in case you're reading this fifteen thousand years after I'm dead), Poehler and Meyers were becoming more of a cohesive team and the political humour started to become less slanted than during Fey's tenure on Weekend Update.
I'm starting to really like the Poehler/Meyers pairing - Meyers has finally found his role on Saturday Night Live and the banter is not forced like it was with Fey and Poehler. The only duff routines here were Wiig's role as "Aunt Linda" (although her liking Saw III and rating it a "Watch and Learn, Martin Scorsese" is a nice touch) and Andy Samberg playing an incompetent waiter. It's nice to see WU dance around the non-news items involving Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but Samberg needs to escape being pigeonholed into the "dopey student" role. I don't want to see him become Adam Sandler at his worst.
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
Watching it again a few days after Hussein's execution, I particularly enjoyed his lawyers explaining that yes, they were really going to hang him. That they were explaining this specifically to Alec Baldwin, the greatest actor of them all, was particularly gratifying.
And I especially liked Aunt Linda. That's one twisted Auntie.
2 - lori
christina aguilera wasn't faking her crying, that night she learnt her granma had died. that last performance was really botched, but it's ok at least she's not like ashlee simpson. alec baldwin was brilliant.
3 - dave d
what was the song and who was the actual artist for the brazilian bar scene?