‘SNL’ Recap: Vince Vaughn And Miguel

It’s fitting that last night’s SNL, hosted by Vince Vaughn, was one of the season’s more aimless episodes. Vaughn has no movie to plug, no upcoming TV shows to promote (is his Brady Bunch reboot still a thing?); he was just there, presumably because who SNL wanted was unavailable, and while he’s not as unlikable as some people want him to be, Vaughn never really made an impression, positive or negative, last night.

The episode never really found its footing, and was unsure of how best to use Vaughn. He was at his most impressive during the monologue as a fast-talking MC (more on that later), but otherwise, his characters, whether as a recently dumped weather anchor or creepy rich man on a hill, were sufficiently lackluster.

Oh well, at least we’ve got Zach Galifianakis to look forward to on May 4th.


Yet another tame political cold open with an intended goal of not insulting anyone. No more, please.

Vince Vaughn would do well for himself hosting a beauty pageant at a casino, or bikini contest in a ballroom. Something to do with bossing around scantily clad women. His monologue, which basically consisted of him flirting and schmoozing with the audience, was impressive in how you weren’t sure if the crowd was in on the rapid fire, high energy jokes, or if they were the joke. That’s Vaughn at his best (like in Dodgeball).

Plus, hey, at least he didn’t sing.

Any excuse to let Bill Hader do his Al Pacino impression is a good one. Hader in blackface, too.

As an idea, a soap opera starring weather anchors is amusing. The execution, however, not so much. The line readings sounded lethargic, which I suppose is the point, but it’s still tough to make intentional phoniness funny, when there’s not a straight man to bounce off of. This is a pretty good joke, though.

Guarantee this was pitched by punk enthusiast Fred Armisen. “History of Punk,” as seen through the eyes of Ian Rubbish and the Bizarros, did all the little things right, from the way the sketch was shot to the design of the sets to getting the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones to agree to play along. I know it seems as if the writers were once again afraid to make a strong political statement (see: the cold open, every cold open), but there’s no way I’m not going to like something called “C*nt in a Crown,” sung by a nasally Armisen with just the right amount of disaffectedness.

Maybe its last night’s whiskey sours talking, or the comedy goodwill that was left over after Louis CK’s Oh My God, but I didn’t hate “Short-Term Memory Loss Theater.” I thought I was going to, but it was brief enough to never become an annoyance, and Armisen’s fake tough guy accent made me pull a Hader.

/watches it again

Yeah, was probably the whiskey sours.

Points for “This is how I answer the phone, Seth. Hello? I’ll do it.” Otherwise, tough to be funnier than the original.

Kate McKinnon should be bumped up to a repertory player for the flawless way she added monkey inflections here.

Beautiful.

Eight hours later, and I’ve still got “Ba-ba-ba-ba basketball! Gimme gimme gimme the ball because I’m gonna…dunk it!” stuck in my head. I blame Nelly. Also, for about the fourth time this season, an episode’s best sketch isn’t online because of copyright laws, so you’ll have to settle for:

If Kate wasn’t already a lesbian, she would be now.

The notoriously brutal SNL sound was none too kind to Miguel. He still pulled it off, though.

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