SNL: S24E13... HOST: BRENDAN FRASER... DATE: FEBRUARY 13, 1999

or...

A Night Of Ups And Downs That Were All My Fault

 

As I said last time that Brendan Fraser hosted the show, I’ve always been a fan of his comedic work since Encino Man came out during the perfect time of my youth. I never really liked him as an action man but that has more to do with my hatred of the genre and is not his fault at all. That said, since I do find him to be funny, I was looking forward to tonight. Then again, I wasn’t a huge fan of his first appearance since I felt that the cast was coasting by in their comfort zone which has also been an issue this year.

It didn’t help that I went into this viewing in a pretty bad mood from a day-long struggle with my computer. This thing that I type on is getting kind of old and has started a new trend where ever time it shuts down, I’m not always sure whether or not it will start up again. Normally, I have a couple recovery technics that take about an hour to get through the process and when I’m done my system is stable for at least a couple of month. This morning, however, the thing went down and it took me over fourteen hours to finally get it back up.

The thing that really sucked was the fact that I woke up at six o’clock in the AM with a specific plan to fit in as much work as I can. Thankfully, the crash happened right after I finished writing my Gwyneth Paltrow review and had it published so I didn’t lose any work, but then I ended up getting the bare minimum done when I was originally on pace to put in an amazing day.

Since I needed to fit in two reviews in order to take the next day off, there was no way that I could make it through the day and not fit in this second viewing. Luckily, I have a laptop, so I was able to work on my day job while trying to get my desktop to work. I was hoping to have it all figured out before I had to resort to watching the show on my laptop because I don’t really like typing long piece on my laptop keyboard since I find the positioning of laptop keyboards to be weird in general.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case so I was a little grumpy during the first sketch or two that I was really hoping would put me in a better mood. It’s not that the show was bad but considering the circumstance, I was extra annoyed by all of the Bill Clinton blowjob talk and Darrell Hammond acting as our former president bragging about how he could get away with murder. I remember at the time, being a Clinton fan, I would cheer this sentiment on, but now it seems to real so it only added to the annoying theme of the day.

I finally started to calm after the monolog when finally saw that my desktop was making progress. After that, I started to settle in, and though I still had doubts about the night over the fake that there were fewer sketches with some of them feeling extra long but to my surprise, even though some sketches were long, I didn’t feel any were dragging on and was entertain throughout the entire night, making this episode a nice end to an otherwise crummy day.

Now that it’s over, it’s time to switch gears from sharing my problems throughout the day in order to share what I saw on my laptop, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

  1. This week's show started with more parody coverage of The President On Trial where Chris Parnell, as Tom Brokaw introduced the segment before throwing to the White House where Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton simply announced, "I am bulletproof," as a mic drop of a statement before walking off like a boss. We then returned to the studio, where Brokaw then threw to the next news segment which was an interview where John Goodman returned as Linda Tripp who was now being tagged as the villain for bringing to light the damning evidence that the Lewinski affair was real. As always, with this being the opening sketch, this all built up to the announcement of, "Live from New York..."

  2. Brendan Fraser then officially opened the show with a monolog which started with the usual host pleasantries before continuing on to promote his new movie Blast From The Past. During his talk up he took us backstage to show off a time capsule where Tom Davis of the SNL writing team Franken and Davis has been hiding for all of these years since he was last seen on the show. It turned out that while Tom Davis was locked away, he put on shows of his own using New York City rats as his hosts and cast. This rat version of SNL ended up being an idea that Lorne Michaels seemed tempted to steal when he dropped in to get our human host back on the stage.

  3. This was followed by a fake ad for the Bio Flex which had Will Ferrel as a customer who was willing to step up to the challenge and fight the Bio Flex Total Workout Creature which turned out to be the way the product worked.

  4. We then got another parody of Judge Judy with Cheri Oteri as our Judge and Tracy Morgan as her Bailiff/sidekick. This week Brendan Fraser attempted to sued Horatio Sans, claiming that the defective helium canisters he used while working his day job at Horatio’s balloon shop ruined his nighttime career as a Bruce Springsteen impersonator. Throughout the case, Fraser's voice kept going high pitched after every other line. It soon became clear that this actually happened because Fraser kept taking hit from the gas while filling up kids balloons which led Judge Judy to rule in favor of Horatio Sanz.

  5. Just Enjoy The Ozzy was a sketch that took place at a restaurant where Brendan Fraser and Molly Shannon were out on their very first date. Before they could even order, they kept getting interrupted by Horatio Sanz, who played a singing waiter and insisted on singing nothing but Ozzy songs which almost ruined the special night. What made things worse was these weren't pleasant acoustic covers of Ozzy's songs, no, Horatio went whole hog.

  6. Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri then returned as The Zimmermans where once again they went overboard with their public displays of affection, only this time they weren't on a double date as usual. Instead, they were in a gym and got Brendan Fraser all hot and bothered by their antics only to get super offended by any efforts he made to play along, which confused the hell out of our host.

  7. TV Funhouse then brought us another installment of Fun With Real Audio where this time Robert Smigel animated a chapter out of a poetry book written and read by Jewel. The animation had a tiger and a unicorn in the background that both got confused by all of the new age hippy talk and ended up attacking the animated folk singer.

  8. You're A Champion, Charlie Brown was a sketch where Brendan Fraser portrayed Charlie Brown who was once again tricked by Ana Gasteyer as Lucy when she pulled the football away while the round-headed boy tried to kick it. Though this was supposed to be a harmless joke as always, this time, Charlie Brown missed so hard that he ended up flying through the air and cracking open his head so bad that blood was gushing out and led the rest of the Peanuts gang to fear that he might end up dead.

  9. Once again, Colin Quinn gave us the news. This week, Tracy Morgan dropped in as a U.S. Vet named Private Larry who shared his Oscar picks, mainly focusing his attention on the war flicks from that year while rolling a joint as if he were completely unaware that he was on live television. Darrell Hammond also got a segment as Jerry Falwell in order to discuss the real Falwell's claims that Tinky Winky from the Teletubbies was a gay. Finally, since it was close to Valentine’s Day, Jimmy Fallon got a segment to sing a few cover song in his effort to get more chicks considering that his Halloween songs landed him a bunch of candy.

  10. Busta Rhymes and The Roots then took to the stage to perform Gimme Some More.

  11. Two Fat Ladies was a parody of a Food Network show with the same name where Darrell Hammond and Brendan Fraser played the overweight female hosts in order to attempt to show us how to cook a healthy meal. Even though all of the recipes started out with nothing but healthy ingredients, the prep work required ingredients that were so extremely unhealthy that you'd be better off eating nothing but dessert.

  12. Carrie Donovan's Escort was a sketch where Brendan Fraser played a male escort, with Tracy Morgan as his pimp, who had an evening planned out with fashion designer, Carrie Donovan who was featured in all of the Old Navy ads from that time.

  13. Busta Rhymes and The Roots then returned to the stage to perform Tear Da Roof Off.

  14. Finally, Brendan Fraser closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

With how horrible this day started, I am extra happy that this episode turned out to be so fun thanks to sketches like these that contained my three favorite moments of the night. First, I loved Just Enjoy The Ozzy because I love how Horatio Sanz really belted out the Ozzy tunes instead of was I was expecting to be acoustic covers that might be more appropriate to sing during dinner. Next, I really like You're A Champion, Charlie Brown because I liked how Lucy’s playful prank finally created a horrific accident that made her feel like the jerk that she is Plus, it cracked me up how the cast looked in their Peanuts attire.  Finally, I was a fan of the monolog because I really like the movie Blast From The Past but I also liked how they brought back Tom Davis to make his special appearance.

 
 

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