Once upon a time, I was a hardcore SNL fan. I’m talking back in the days of Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Chris Kattan and Molly Shannon. Towards the end of the 90s, I drifted away and only recently have started to watch again on any regular basis.
Still, the show on a whole just doesn’t make me laugh like it used to. Maybe that’s because I’m no longer 14, but I like to think I’m as immature as I ever was, at least where comedy is concerned. This is probably why the one and only skit out of this entire season to make me literally convulse with laughter, tears streaming down my face so hard I could barely see, was The Lawrence Welk Show from episode four, with Anne Hathaway hosting.
Almost the entire episode was good — for this I give credit to Anne Hathaway for really selling her characters — but in this particular skit featuring Amy Poehler, Anne Hathaway, Casey Wilson and Kristen Wiig as a group of singing sisters gone horribly wrong, it was Kristen Wiig in all her baby-handed, big-foreheaded glory that really did it.
Honestly, I can’t for the life of me explain why it’s so funny as to turn me into a teary, shaky, hysterical mess every time I watch it, but the fact that it does is good enough for me. I don’t question miracles, and The Lawrence Welk Show is nothing if not a heavenly gift bestowed upon us by a higher power. Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you — you’re going to need at least one tissue to wipe away all those tears of hilarity.
Clacked by Cate Cropp
on May 12, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
The Anne Hathaway episode was very good. Until Justin hosted last weekend, I would have said it was the best of the year.
I liked the Lawrence Welk sketch (I’m a sucker for almost everything Wiig does), but I liked the Mary Poppins sketch more. Very cleverly written and acted — one of the season’s best.
P.S. This was also the episode with “Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals,” i.e. “Say hi to your mutha for me.”