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Random And Weird With A Hint Of Hot-Hostitis

Freddie Prinze Jr. is another one of those actors who I’ve been aware of throughout most of his career but I haven’t seen much of his work. The movies of his that I have seen I feel like I watch to be ironic or because it was a pop-culture hit from the time that I would watch to keep up with my references. That, and when I first moved back home from Seattle a couple of years ago, I saw a lot of him in Scooby-Doo because, for a while, it was my little nephew’s favorite film.

From what I know of Freddie, he’s always seemed fun so I wasn’t all that nervous about his ability to host the show, other than the fact that I am always nervous about actors who are known for their looks because, if you’re playing along at home, you already know, my least favorite thing is when a host gets the hot host treatment, meaning multiple sketches where they are treated like props for cast members of the opposite sex to harass or make out with.

Unfortunately, that’s sort of what happened tonight which really sucks because Freddie seems competent enough to be funny without focusing so much on his looks which was the same issue I had earlier this year with Heather Graham who is just as skilled in the comedy field but you wouldn’t guess it based on their SNL appearance.

At least, since this happens with both men and women it feels more like lazy writing than anything to do with sexism. By this, I mean how they treat the host because sexism definitely is involved which is why I don’t like this brand of episode. Take tonight for example, there was only one sketch where Cheri Oteri attempted to make out with Mr. Prinze so it wasn’t the case where he was treated like meat or a prop but there were several sketches where they used his looks as an excuse to make some terrible jokes about women.

I mean the boy band sketch made fun of women’s weight and hinted at underage cybersex with the band’s fans. Then the next sketch that he was in was called Ugly Models and granted this may not have been the title given by the show but the basis of the joke was that ugly women had no right to be overly confident. Next was a sketch with Freddie as Enrique Iglesias being interviewed where the joke wasn’t sexist but was a bit boring because it was looks-based and made fun of the fact that Iglesias was so good looking that he didn’t have to put effort into interacting with the host of the show, which highlights why I hate the hot-host episodes.

Thankfully, there were enough fake ads and cast heavy sketches that kept the show being fun, with one or two sketches with Freddie at the wheel that I didn’t really mind. Oh yeah, there was also one Freddie Prinzeless sketch with Will Ferrell as a doctor that seemed to take up most of the night because it was so random and weird without being clear what the joke was that time seemed to slow down as I tried to figure out why I might like it since I am an uber fan of random and weird and desperately wanted this sketch to scratch that itch.

Oh well, that’s all I’ve got on this episode. With that, it’s now time for me to shift gears and share what I saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with parody coverage of an Elian Gonzalez Press Conference where Chris Parnell as Tom Brokaw threw to a press conference where Chris Kattan played little Elian who when asked by his uncle, as played by Horatio Sanz, if he wanted to go back to Cuba, freaked out and said no as if he were terrified. This was because, as the English subtitles revealed, Horatio actually asked in Spanish if he wanted to go back on the innertube where he would have to deal with the sharks again. This wasn’t enough for the members of the press who wanted to hear more from the little boy. Elian then obliged and went on to admit that he wanted to piss all over the people of America. Uncle Horatio then corrected the boy who went on to bash America a little more while throwing in a few jabs at Cuba as well until he eventually admitted that he preferred to be a boy without a country. He then went on to sing a song about how both sides involved in the conflict where misguided, ending on the line, “Live from New York…”
Freddie Prinze Jr. then officially opened the show with a monolog about how he was worried that his visit was almost canceled when he learned that the rest of the cast was trying to do the show while each and every one them was sick with the flu. We then learned that the cast continued out of contractual obligations and not the showbiz spirit of “the show must go on.”
This was followed by a fake ad for Colonel Belmont's Old Fashioned Horse Glue where Will Ferrell played a pitchman who took pride in his family’s tradition to use four entire horses to make a single bottle of his family’s branded glue.
We then got another parody of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? This time Well Ferrell played a high-rolling contestant who was so excited to win a hundred bucks that rather than risking to lose it all, he decided to take the money and run which Darrell Hammond as Regis found extremely hard to grasp.
Boy Band Blowout 2000 had Cheri Oteri and Ana Gasteyer as overly excited teens who hosted an MTV style show where they interviewed Freddy Prinze Jr. and a handful of the male members of the cast who portrayed a Backstreet Boys-style boy band. After the interview, the boys sang a song called Girl, You’re Still Phat where even though they were spelling fat with a “ph” it still sounded like they were talking about weight. They also sang a song called AOL which was about chat rooms and cybersex.
Jenny Craig Dinners had Molly Shannon as Monica Lewinsky who, in the world of the sketch, became the new spokeswoman for Jenny Craig and pitching her new line of phallic-shaped meals.
Ugly Models had Cheri Oteri and Rachel Dratch as the titular ugly models who were unaware of how unattractive they are. This led the two girls to think that their blind dates, Freddy Prinze Jr and Jimmy Fallon, were fully into them simply because they were models. It turns out their attitude matched their looks but the fact that they were so arrogant tricked the guys into thinking that they had to be hot after all since an ugly girl wouldn’t act with such confidence.
This was followed by a parody ad for The Sopranos that was all voice over that hyped the show with critic’s quotes that got stranger and stranger as the commercial continued on.
Dr. Beaman's Office had Will Ferrell as a doctor who had to call one of his patients to apologize to them for leaving a signed baseball in his chest during surgery. After the apology, we learned that he was mainly calling because he wanted to ball back and not really to say he was sorry. We then got to see him deal with more patients in person and got to see how horrible his bedside manner was in person as he got every detail wrong while making bizarre diagnoses. At one point, Tim Meadows joined the scene to do the robot for no reason. This led everyone else in the scene to struggle until it got to the end.
We then got a parody of Charlie Rose where Darrell Hammond as the PBS host attempted to interview Freddy Prinze Jr. and Chris Kattan as Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin who were all that helpful at all because they both acted as if their only job was to look good.
Once again, Colin Quinn gave us the news. This week, Cheri Oteri dropped by to talk about the age gap between Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones and it turned out that not only was she fine with it but she was also involved in a May/December of her own, only in her case, she was dating a little child.
Macy Gray then took to the stage to perform I Try.
The Giffords At Home had Darrell Hammond as Frank Gifford and Cheri Oteri as Kathy Lee who welcomed Freddie Prinze Jr. into their how to babysit their boy Cody so that they could go out on a date, which led to a whacky interaction between Freddie and the dysfunctional Gifford family.
Macy Gray then returned to the stage to perform Why Didn't You Call Me?
Flacko And Teddy's World Of Martin Luther King Day Trees had Freddie Prinze Jr. and Tracy Morgan who were trying to start a new MLK holiday tradition by selling abandoned Christmas trees for fifty bucks a pop.
Finally, Freddie Prinze Jr. closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

I wouldn’t say that I liked this episode but at the same time, I wouldn’t say that I hated it because I feel that these three sketches which contained favorite moments really saved the night. First, I loved One Question And Done, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? because the idea of someone taking the hundred dollars from the first question and calling it quits was always something that I wanted to see back when Millionaire was a prime time show. Next, I really liked the fake ad for Colonel Belmont's Old Fashioned Horse Glue because I found it funny how this companies biggest selling point was that they were the only company out there to kill as many horses as needed in order to make their high-quality glue. Finally, I was a fan of Flacko And Teddy's World Of Martin Luther King Day Trees because it was the funniest sketch of the night that actually featured our host.