Saturday Night Live – Zooey Deschanel / Karmin

After the shocking news of Whitney Houston’s death, I was looking forward to having a few laughs to take my mind off of all that, but the one thought I has was that Maya Rudolph was not going to be able to do her Whitney impression anymore. And in some awful bad timing, Rudolph is the scheduled host next week!  Ouch.  But on to this week’s show …

I like Zooey Deschanel, so I was looking forward to her hosting gig on this week’s Saturday Night Live. She killed it with her opening song and as Mary Kate Olsen, but the writers seemed to have completely run out of ideas after that sketch, so a show that started out on a pretty high note ended pretty badly.  Here’s a recap of the sketches, and be sure to come back Sunday to check out the clips.

Cold Open: Mitt Romney — The audience is as tired of these sketches as I am. The dog stole the sketch. But with Paul Brittain gone, they have no one to play Ron Paul.

Monologue: Zooey Deschanel — Of course she had to favor us with a song, which was very cute … and who knew she could play the uke?

It’s February, the day is fourteen
But from the look on your face
You don’t know what that means
Don’t even try it, don’t try to deny it
You forgot it was Valentine’s Day

You try to scramble and whip something up
But your ballons say Happy Birthday
Your card says Mazel Tav
There’s no mistaking, don’t bother faking
You forgot it was Valentine’s Day

I bought you a sweater
And baked you some cupcakes
And put on some nice lingerie
You gave me your iPod
And the cash in your pockets
And a USA Today
(and it wasn’t even from today, it was from an old hotel)

You said you made plans but it didn’t seem right
When we went to Olive Garden at 11:15 at night
Your reservation should be in quotations
You forgot about Valentine’s Day

I know I’m angry
But later I’ll be fine
You’re just a moron
But at least you’re mine
And you can bet I’ll never let you forget
When you forgot about Valentine’s Day

Half Time for America — Three spoofs of the Eastwood Super Bowl commercial that went from Chrysler to condoms to Batman. I don’t think Hader was in any other sketches, but his Eastwood is good and the pants were great!

Piers Morgan Tonight — Almost everyone made it into this sketch which poked fun at the Super Bowl Half-Time Middle Finger controversy.  Deschanel’s upset housewife with her organization “One Finger, One Million Moms” and the Decency Strap (a rubber band) to keep the Devil out of their fingers was funny and topical, but Andy Samberg as the Tightrope Guy was hysterical!

Les Jeunes de Paris — I still don’t get the point of this sketch, but how cool to see Academy Award nominee Jean Dujardin make a surprise appearance to spoof The Artist?!

Daily Post, 1941 — I was wondering what this spoof of a screwball comedy was about, but loved how they poked fun at the fast talking associated with those movies. Deschanel’s slower speaking character asking if everyone was high on cocaine was pretty funny. Wiig and Sudeikis had the classic banter down pat.

Musical Guest: Karmin — Finally, a musical guest that I liked! First song was light and poppy and really fit well with the host. But the sudden rap break seemed like it was from the 1941 sketch, and the singer’s hair was distracting. Wait, I spoke too soon … wasn’t liking the second song as much.  Was she even saying anything? Almost made me wish for a return performance from Lana Del Rey.

Weekend Update — Arianna Huffington comments on women’s issues which you can read all about on HuffPo because they copied and pasted it from the NY Times (our CC crew should get a few laughs from that one); Get In the Cage with Nic Cage and Nic Cage! Really … Nic Cage! Awesomely Brilliant!

Bein’ Quirky with Zooey Deschanel — Abby Elliot as Zooey, Zooey as Mary Kate Olsen, Taran Killam as Michael Cera, Kristin Wiig as Bjork.  I love Wiig’s Bjork impersonation, and Elliot has Zooey down pretty well, but Zooey’s MK was hysterical!  For a minute, I thought she was the real deal. Just a hilarious sketch that the rest of the show could never match … it was crash and burn pretty much after this point.

Verizon: It’s an Old Person’s Nightmare – Yes, it seems like there is a new phone and some new cell service introduced every minute.  Doesn’t mean it makes for a funny sketch.

Crab Legs — Much like the crab legs that never appeared, this sketch went nowhere. Brought down the whole show and then to make things worse they had to show a picture of Whitney Houston from an old Mary Catherine Gallagher sketch. Like, they couldn’t have just mentioned her sudden passing at the end of Weekend Update?

Technology Hump — This has to be one of the weirder sketches, but the label maker printing out “yes yes yes yes” was funny. I have to wonder, though, if there isn’t a real fetish group out there who gets off on sexualizing machinery.

England, 1860 — Was this sketch conceived just to let all the male cast make idiotic faces? And then it turned out to be about Prop 8?? What the fudge?!?!

So what was your favorite sketches of the night?  Vote below (you can pick two).

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Feb 12, 2012 @ 02:10 EST5EDT