SNL: S30E01... HOST: BEN AFFLECK... DATE: OCTOBER 2, 2004

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Oh No, Another Election Year

 

Holy crap, the opening sketch rambled on for literally thirteen-minutes, with a parody debate between George W. and John Kerry. Though I bet this was really fun to watch at the time since I would‘ve also watched the debates and the topics were fresh in my mind. This would have made it easier to invest in the humor but with so much time passing and new politicians to hate this parody almost felt like I was watching real archived footage from C-SPAN, especially as it dragged on and on.

That said, this opening was interesting because as it did drag on, it got me thinking about the current state of the world and thanks to this episode, I now feel that Trump will win again in 2020. If you remember, before he became a silly old man who makes paintings that everyone loved, George W. Bush was the Antichrists who wasn’t accused of just colluding with the enemy, he and his administration were blamed by many for literal involvement in 9/11, even Weekend Updates seemed to paint it this way, yet Bush still beat Kerry with ease.

It’s not just Bush’s second victory that concerns me, it’s the Democrats inability to select the right candidates during pivotal years that makes me feel they will screw up once again. I mean, it wasn’t until the start of this episode that I remembered that John Kerry turned out to be their pick for this one. You would think is a country of lesser of two evils voting that the person running against the Antichrist would at least be inspiring enough that the close call defeat would at least stand out somewhere in my mind, but no, we all just kind of shrugged our shoulders when that election was over and collectively said, “Oh well.”

I feel that the same exact thing will play out with Trump, with so much arguing over what the Democrats even stand for anymore, it going to be a bloody fight over who’s right and unfortunately, the candidate with the money will win to face the latest Antichrist. Don’t worry, after Trump is finally entirely gone, six years from now, some new savior will come along to bamboozle us into rooting for what we’ve been against for so long, and the cycle will continue.

Sorry to get so political but, with this being another Presidential Election season, over half of this first episode was devoted to how horrible bother parties’ selections were so it was impossible to avoid the subject. This highly political episode has me nervous about the rest of the year because, up to this point, though the show does get more political during Presidential Election years, I have you to see a show this political and hope it’s not the trend.

Oh well, we’ll see what happens with tomorrow’s episode. Until then, it’s now time for me to wrap this one up by sharing what I actually saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

  1. This week's show started with parody coverage of the First Presidential Debate between Will Forte as George W. Bush and Seth Meyers as John Kerry, where we got to witness Bush be an idiot as usual, and Kerry be the whitest white guy robot with no charm. Of course, with this being the opening sketch, it eventually led to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”

  2. Ben Affleck then officially opened the show with a monolog about how this isn’t a repeat considering how close in time this show was to his last visit. He then went on to start his next joke only to be interrupted by Alec Baldwin who accused our host of stealing his moves, including breaking up with famous women, choosing bad movies to act in, and hosting SNL especially now that he’s one show closer to joining the Five-Timers Club.

  3. This was followed by a fake ad for Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice where May Poehler played a pitchwoman who was promoting a boner juice that claimed to keep men sexually active for up to four hours.

  4. Debbie Downer then returned to the show to bum everyone out during Ben Affleck’s birthday party.

  5. Swift Boat Veterans For Truth was a parody political ad where John Kerry’s former military crew confirmed he was actually part of the team only to go on to share that he was terrible in ways that synced up with his political standings.

  6. Florida Stop had Ben Affleck as James Carville and Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton to try in vain to get Seth Meyers as John Kerry to act more human while on a campaign stop in Florida.

  7. Nelly and Jaheim then took to the stage to perform My Place.

  8. This week, Amy Poehler took over for Jimmy Fallon to join Tina Fey and the two gave us the news. This week, James Gandolfini made a surprise visit as a New Jersey resident to comment on his states newly elected gay governor. Ben Affleck then got a segment to comment on recent criticisms of Matt Damon who recently criticize blockbuster only Hollywood actors as opposed to those who actually pick scripts that they love. Horatio Sanz then wrapped things up as Elton John who was filled with hate over a run-in he had while traveling to Taiwan around this time.

  9. The Escalator was a play on the old joke about an escalator never being able to break down they just become stairs, only in this world, the transition plays out in a disaster film-style parody.

  10. Ben Affleck then played a Wedding DJ who was obnoxious and disruptive throughout the entire event.

  11. Nelly then took to the stage alone to perform We Can Leave Her.

  12. The Family was a short film that gave of a voyeuristic look at “the Bush family” while partying it up at Camp David. This short seemed interesting, but like Camp David, it’s now hidden from the rest of the world.

  13. Finally, Ben Affleck closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

Aside from the fact that there were only thirteen segments to this episode with eighty-five percent of the sketches being political, it was still at least somewhat fun with the help from sketches like these that contained my three favorite moments of the night. First, I loved The Escalator action film parody because it is one of the two sketches that I remember from this sketch from the night that it originally aired. Next, I really liked this week’s Debbie Downer because it was sketch number two that I remembered because it introduced me to jokes about cat AIDS. Finally, I was a fan of Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice not because it was all that great but because I loved it as Rob Riggle’s introduction to the show.

 
 

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