Cold Open: O’Reilly/Obama Interview — Honestly the only thing going through my mind during this sketch was how much less awesome this cold open was to last week’s Wayne’s World.
Monologue: Russell Brand — The only thing I know Brand from is Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Other than that — and the fact that he’s starring in the remake of Arthur that Ken Levine will never see — I have no idea why he was granted a guest host sting on SNL. I guess Get Him To The Greek was good? Maybe being married to Katy Perry? Really?
Gublin & Green –This was pretty damned funny, and if you haven’t read or heard of what’d happened in the Spiderman Broadway musical, you’re missing out. Also, get it? Green Gublin?
Ultimate Vacation Giveaway — We’ve seen this sketch before, and it doesn’t really work all that well as a repeating skit. How many times can you show someone not excited for a prize, yet surprised about something insignificant? Alright, the guy peeing himself in excitement was funny.
Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro — I’m amazed at how legit some of the fake movie trailers SNL puts out look. This one was pretty awesome, though Brand’s character went a bit overboard — maybe because he’s a Brit trying to do exaggerated Brit? Unfortunately www.donyougorouninrountorero.com only goes to NBC.com right now. (UPDATE: Now it’s a trailer site! Nice!)
Royal Taster — This actually started out like classic, good SNL, but the final bit after the taster died was just … what? It had a lot of promise to it and it just fell flat.
Musical Guest: Chris Brown — Holy auto-tune on that first song Batman.
Weekend Update — Wow, I’m actually shocked Garth & Kat didn’t make an appearance in this episode! Taran Killam does one hell of an Eminem impression, I will definitely give him that. Word of the day: Jewpids. Thanks Stefon! I swear he doesn’t know what he’s going to be reading before he gets in front of the camera — it’s hilarious!
Livin’ Single — Brand definitely went all out in this one, and I’m only a little surprised someone didn’t remove some piece a clothing!
A Spot of Tea — Gee, did you notice that more than a couple of skits featured English characters in this episode? It’s like they couldn’t get more creative or Brand had a hard time ditching his accent enough to appear in more skits. And then this sketch was just … weird.
Presidential Time Machine — This one was really short and pretty damned weird, but for some reason I was cracking up. I mean, of course that’s what someone snatched from the past would do if they awoke in our time.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Feb 13, 2011 @ 01:00 EST5EDT
You know, I worked as one of the event blurb writers for a local indie magazine last year … while I don’t think any Indianapolis clubs have Jewpids (yet), there were moments of Stefan’s bit that felt strangely familiar.
Maybe I’ll get struck by Jewpid’s arrow today if I buy a gift from the store up the street from me called JEWlery. I swear that store exists.
I liked Brand’s monologue – largely because he did an actual monologue, and he’s a funny guy. That said, the episode as a whole was pretty weak. Any show that opens with a repeated skit, in that spot where they’re supposed to lead off strong, especially a skit that wasn’t all that funny in the first place (oh wow, Kristin Wiig is waaacky!), probably ought to be rethought. Taran Killam was a bright spot in everything he was in – he seems to be the next big thing for the show. I’d like to see more Paul Britton as well; I’ve liked him so far. The other two newbies haven’t really done it for me yet. All in all, I guess they can’t all be as good as Dana Carvey being on.
Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro
so good that I almost thought it was a Digital Short
I actually didn’t think the Royal Taster bit was too bad… maybe because my mom has asked me at least four times if I have seen The King’s Speech.
Stefon is my favorite. I tried to not laugh at one point like Seth Meyers tries to do, and lasted for about 5 seconds. So far it’s always been hilarious.
Funny you mentioned that you thought Garth and Kat were going to be on Weekend Update – I thought Seth was going to bring them out when he mentioned the musical duo…of Eminem & L’l whoever (I had my finger ready on the fastfoward button for sure, waiting for those damn matching sweathers of Garth and Kat to show up). What a relief. Stefon was by far the highlight of the Weekend Update for me this week. I was also surprised at how long the monologue was – guess I got used to the “three jokes, then call out to “random” people in the audience question/comment, long pause till we intro the music act” format they’ve been working lately. I was surprised at the minimal amount of Andy Samberg this week – except for that awful tea and earthquake bit.