Monday Morning Quaterback: SNL Season 34, Episode 9

Posted by Jesse November 24th, 2008 at 10:09am In SNL

In contrast with last week’s Paul Rudd installment, I can’t say my expectations for the Tim McGraw episode of SNL were particularly high. I’ll just put it out there: I’m prejudiced against mainstream country singers. It’s cool; they do fine without me. Even more confusingly, McGraw wasn’t pulling double duty; past host Ludacris was the musical guest. Why the hell couldn’t Ludacris just host again?

McGraw performed more or less as expected, often playing way too broad, like maybe he got psyched for the gig by watching Blue Collar Hee-Haw Hour or whatever that show was called, though some of his performances were reasonably straight-faced. But a couple of the low points still took me by surprise. Can anyone explain to me, for example, what the hell was going on in that sketch with the cast dressed up as turkeys? I am all for dressing up a large chunk of the cast in silly costumes and having them turned loose on a broad and/or ridiculous premise. I was ready to laugh when that sketch started. And then… nothing. One of the things I appreciate about Saturday Night Live is that it’s a viable source of mainstream sketch comedy, even if I tend to prefer the weirder material. Rarely do I see something that I’d describe with “I don’t get it.” But so help me, I didn’t get the turkey sketch.

I got the following bit, with McGraw playing a yokel who finds himself in a poker tournament with James Bond and a supervillain, and I wished I hadn’t, because I couldn’t stop thinking about how it seemed like the premise for one of those movies Larry the Cable Guy inexplicably gets to make. If anyone but McGraw came up with this idea, I don’t want to know, out of fear that I’ll subconsciously blacklist the remainder of his, her, or their career output.

So by the time I was fast-forwarding the first Ludacris performance (I was tired), I was ready to call this the worst episode of the season. The auto companies thing was OK, and I liked Kristen Wiig’s “commercial” for Clear Rite, but otherwise it had been a clunkier night than we’ve seen from the show in awhile.  The timing and direction just seemed off throughout.

Strangely, the episode was partially salvaged by a barrage of recurring characters (even stranger, they were all brought out post-Update rather than in the familiar post-monologue spot — maybe because none of them are particularly beloved by the culture at large). I can’t make any claims that the third Blizzard Man sketch featuring Andy Samberg as the dorkiest possible white rapper (see above) was much different than its previous editions, but its goofy concept, perfect execution by Samberg, and only occasional appearances — this was the first in a year and a half — really sell it for me. Not even McGraw’s awkward and unnecessary appearance as Blizzard’s manager could derail this installment. As much as I like this sketch, I’d love to see them take this character further, going into more detail about his career ups and downs, maybe a beef with another rapper.

Immediately following was Will Forte’s second go-round with upbeat all-purpose creep Jeff Montgomery, seen infiltrating a family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Forte is pretty much the master of the modern SNL recurring character, maybe because he always seems to reprise more out of love for the character than a desire for audience approval. In fact, the audience seemed downright appalled by one of the sketch’s best and creepiest jokes involving the fate of the family dog. Jeff Montgomery isn’t quite on the level of the Falconer or MacGruber or Tim Calhoun, but it takes a kind of cracked brilliance to make a character out of an overeager deviant.

After a weirdly amusing bit about exceedingly polite prank phone calls — the night’s best use of McGraw by far — we got the night’s third major recurring character: Bobby Moynihan’s Pizzeria Uno employee. I cringed a little when I saw they were following through on the obvious designs for this character to come back, but I have to say, I found this sketch far, far funnier than the version Moynihan gave us on the season premiere. Maybe because putting the dude (who SNL Transcripts informs me is called Mark Payne; no relation to Max, I assume) behind the bar wiped away the tired “bad waiter” format and left more room for Moynihan’s peculiarly worded near-non-sequiturs. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing this character again if they can keep it this fresh.

And lo, I understood the solace other audience members presumably get from recurring characters. Not enough to appreciate Target Lady or anything, mind you, but even Tim McGraw can’t work that level of miracle.

Episode Grade: C