SNL / Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday -- 10/23/08 -- a Review

The premise of the sketch is that Bush (played by Will Farrell) is meeting with McCain/Palin for an endorsement. Palin shows up to meet the President, but McCain is a no show, fearing what an endorsement might mean.

The sketch was pretty funny, with Tina Fey continuing to nail Palin's vacuous nature, Farrell doing his always expert spin on Bush's cluelessness, Jason Sudekis' funny turn as Todd Palin (who uses his hunting skills to find McCain and bring him into the visit). The funniest part may have been Darrell Hammond's John McCain. Hammond has the odd grimaces and boiling rage down cold, and his attempts to pull away from W. to avoid his endorsement were funny.

Still, it seems as though they could have done more with the skit. It was lacking in the venom that would have made it killer.

Great lines:

Palin -- "Nice to meet you Mr. President. I've seen you on TEE Vee."

Bush -- (Regarding finding John McCain, who refuses to be seen with him.) "George Bush always finds his man, except for one HUGE exception."

Palin -- "I'd like to think I'm one part practiced folksy, one part sassy and a little dash of high school bitchy."

Palin -- (Correcting Bush after Bush says the VP role is the most important office in the land.) "Actually Mr. President, I don't want to go all Katie Couric on ya'."

Weekend Update -- Part 1 -- 5

How is it that the Daily Show makes this so easy? The opening jokes fell flat, but Fred Armisen's usage of the electronic election map solely to demonstrate the cool features was inspired. But then Kenan has to come in with yet another lame character to do "commentary". The commentary seems to be that Lorne Michaels needs to fill time, and he's going to do it with a guy who bats .100 in the funny department.

Weekend Update -- Part 2 -- 5

Andy Samberg's "Jam The Vote" sketch in which he eats a hot dog and then proceeds to throw it up on everyone he talks reminded me of everything he does on SNL, juvenile, repetitive, and not very funny. But I have to admit that I laughed when he was about to throw up on a tough looking black guy and instead turned back and tossed his cookies on his sound guy. Also, the increasingly silly "JAM THE VOTE" sound cue had me giggling. Damn you, Andy Samberg! The jokes surrounding it were filler and not very funny.

Overall -- 6

The ratings for these shows have been pretty good, but overall, I think that SNL's Weekend Update Thursday needs to be killed. The show is treating what little gold it has like Deal or No Deal, running it into the ground. What is funny in small doses becomes strained twice a week.