Saturday Night Live -- Dana Carvey & Linkin Park -- Sketch by Sketch Review -- 2/5/11

A beefy Mike Myers and an oddly unchanged Dana Carvey show up to do a creepy middle aged Wayne's World, cracking jokes on Winter's Bone, Mila Kinis (I'd make a Mila out of her Kunis), Anne Hathaway (Anne Hath A Way of giving me... the bone), and other Oscar nominees. Good to see them, but kind of scary to know that kids born the year Wayne's World came out are now old enough to vote.

MONOLOGUE -- DANA CARVEY -- 5

Dana talks about his old days on SNL, asserting that '86 to '93 was the best cast in a song that highlights his characters. Jon Lovitz shows up to help back him up. Nice to see both, but honestly, not really funny.

SHARPER IMAGE iSLEEP PRO -- 7

A repeat of a former commercial of a machine that plays "black" noise instead of white noise. Amusing.

CHURCH CHAT -- 6

Dana Carvey reprises his signature character, the Church Lady. Tonight's Church Chat finds him dissing popular culture, includd Two and a Half Men ("One and a ½ Men with a Whoremonger") and other shows. He brings on the Kardashian twins, Snooki from Jersey Shore ("Jersey Whore"), and Justin Bieber in what is reminiscent of the classic sketch of the 80s and 90s, but doesn't have the laughs, other than some really uncomfortable jokes by the Church Lady about having the hots for Justin Bieber. What seemed fun and edgy years ago simply seems quaint now. SCARY THOUGHT: Justin Bieber was never alive to see an original Church Chat.

VH1'S CELEBRITY TEEN CRISIS CENTER -- 4

Ice T (Fred Armisen), Mickey Rooney (Dana Carvey), Eddie Murphy (Jay Pharoah), Anna Farris (Abby Elliott), and Alan Alda (Bill Hader) take calls from teens. Another sketch created strictly to have the cast do impersonations. Armisen's Ice-T is funny, the rest fail to connect.

THE ROOMMATE -- 5

Justin Bieber is Andy Samberg's roommate in this spoof ad. Not sure what Samberg's obsession with pixelated crotches is, but it would be nice if he and Lonely Island would try something new.

LINKIN PARK -- WAITING FOR THE END -- 6

Not a bad song, but seems trapped in another decade (the early 90's with Dana, perhaps).

WEEKEND UPDATE -- 4

Tonight's special guests are James Franco (Paul Brittain), who will be not only hosting the Academy Awards, but also making the statues and working the coat check, as well as trying to do everything on Weekend Update. Kristen Wiig shows up as Angela Dixon, another in her continuing series of identical dumb characters with annoying voices. Lots of lame jokes in this one, but the idea of James Franco as a hyper renaissance man is funny.

Funny Line: "You cannot punch the handsome off of Anderson Cooper's face."

LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY -- 1

Dana Carvey plays Regis Philbin with a head cold. Nasim Pedrad chooses to play Kelly Rippa as herself. The writers choose not to write a sketch.

LITTLE MISS LITTLE GIRL REVIEW -- 1

Kenan Thompson and Dana Carvey play hosts of a child's beauty pageant in a sketch that should be performed after 3 AM when the show is no longer on.

DEIDRA WURTZ DOWNSIZING EXPERT -- 4

Abby Elliott plays a valley girl type character who breaks bad news to people in an annoying valley girl voice. A one note sketch that highlights SNL's continuing reliance on funny voices to put over what little humor is there.

LINKIN PARK -- WHEN THEY COME FOR ME -- 5

Rap/rock hybrids wear me out. The percussion riffs are catchy, but the song's a bit of a mess.

PACKERS FANS CELEBRATE WITH THE FINGERLINGS -- 1

Fred Armisen and Dana Carvey play a New Wave band at a Packers bar who play a set while the game is on. It's not clear why SNL's writers think that bad bands and singing duos are funny, but week after week they keep coming up with variations on this same sketch. Time to clear both cast and writing staff, methinks..

OVERALL -- 3

Honestly, tonight's episode turned out as I expected. I loved Dana Carvey back in the 80s and 90s, but when you're still pushing the same shtick 20 years later, it makes you wonder why you found it funny in the first place. Carvey seems to be trying too hard, and the writers gave him nothing to work with. Not unexpected, but a disappointment anyway. Of course, Justin Bieber fans probably thought it was the best episode ever.