SNL with Jonah Hill, Mariah Carey

Anyone else watch 60 Minutes last night and realize the immense and intense power of sleep? Anyone not get a good night sleep last night and forget about that? Just checking. I can recall that this past weekend’s edition of Saturday Night Live, however, was perhaps the best of the four consecutive new episodes. Even with an underwhelming Jonah Hill hosting.

They had a gift in the Spitzer scandal and wisely ran with it in the cold open, with Bill Hader as the New York governor already embarking on a new career, and Kristen Wiig making the most out of her nonspeaking role, which also earned her a final facial remark after Hader’s "Live, from New York, it’s Saturday night!"

The song-and-dance monologue: Unnecessary. The return of MacGruber! Necessary. What’s Your Situation? Waiting for the next sketch, that’s what. And then the first commercial break.

A Benihana sketch with Jonah Hill as an overbearing chatty 6-year-old with his dad started off very slowly but gained strength and ended up a winner, just through sheer force of Hill’s nonstop dialogue. "Hey, I’m 6!" MacGruber’s second taped bit, funnier than the first. Wiig oddly amused as Suze Orman. The SNL Digital Short this week proposed that Jonah Hill was gay for Andy Samberg’s dad. Jonah Hill, gay? Who’d ever guess? Fast-forwarding through Mariah Carey…

Weekend Update finally delivered with jokes within the news segments and not just for its guests, although Tracey Morgan returned to tell Tina Fey that "Black is the new president, bitch!" In jest, of course.

The Target lady returned, with Jonah Hill as a coworker. Blah. Darrell Hammond made his only appearance of the night as John McCain in a sketch that says…wait for it…McCain is old! Get it? Hammond did have the McCain voice down. Jonah Hill cracked up during the next sketch, about two musicians in a brief commercial wherein Forte and Wiig did all the heavy lifting, and singing. Another fast-forward through Mariah Carey…

And the final sketch once again goes to newcomer Casey Wilson. It appears the night belonged to Forte, Hader and Wiig. Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Jason Sudeikis and Hammond relegated to bit parts.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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