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Another Case Of Mistaken Identity

I can’t believe that this show makes two in a row where I mixed up the host’s true identity. Where yesterday I confused Alan Cumming with Adrien Brody based purely on roles from their resumes where I only mixed them up in my mind, tonight the confusion came from pure unfamiliarity. Though I’ve heard the name Julianna Margulies a lot, for some reason, I always confuse her with Cindy Margolis based on the similarity of the last names alone.

It doesn’t help that the only movie I’ve seen of hers is an indie film called The Darwin Awards, but you could give me a lifetime and I don’t think I could remember her role without watching the movie again. This, combined with the fact that this was around the time where Cindy Margolis was always running around claiming to be “the most downloaded person on the internet,” I figured they might have booked her as a novelty host to capitalize off the peak of her recognition.

When I found out Julianna was mainly famous for her role on ER the mistake was instantly cleared up thanks to my on-going hatred of hour-long shows because they were a childhood sign of bedtime. I’ve mentioned this hatred in many reviews so I’m going to move on and talk about the show.

After clearing up the confusion, my expectations were still low because not only am I not a fan of hour-long drama’s host from the realm often annoy me with their melodramatic acting that comes from them spoofing the genre that makes them famous. Thankfully, this was a bigger issue back in the Dynasty days because it seems like the more modern these shows get the more well-rounded all of the host seem to be.

Right out the gate, I found our host to be pretty funny during her monolog especially when she got a little feisty with one of the writers who interrupted her scene but then she really won me over when during her first official sketch which turned out to be a classic routine where she ended up feeding Chris Kattan like a bird. This sketch always stood out to me for its shock value to the point where I tried it nearly a decade later where I was really into doing stunts.

This level of fun continued throughout the night to the point where I’m surprised that her resume isn’t filled with more comedies since I found her to be that good. If that were the case, this episode would have been enough to inspire me to check out more of her work since I do now plan to finally check out Snakes On A Plane and Ghost Ship to see what she does in these roles.

With that, it’s now time for me to move on so that I can attempt to track down these movies and in order to do so, I now give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with A Message From the First-Lady Of The United States where Ana Gasteyer as Hillary Clinton checked to officially announce that she was running for the New York Senate. Meanwhile, as she tried to awkwardly pull off being human in order to sell herself to the public, Darrell Hammond as Bill wondered around the background eating pizza and goofing off. After a while of goofing off, Bill checked in to say hi which sent Hillary into one of her rages that I personally didn’t realize was as big of a thing until I saw her blowing up at voters when she felt she was losing to Trump. Anyways, she went on selling this new her until Bill Clinton stole the screen one more time in order to announce, “Live from New York…”
Julianna Margulies then officially opened the show with a monolog about how this was her last season on ER which led her to complain about all of the medical jargon she had to learn for the role and understood why people thought she was crazy for quitting such a high paying job. She then reassured the audience that she was on to better things before she showed a clip from her fictional new show which was a veterinary version of ER. Then one of the writers stood as if she were a member of the audience as usual only this time she admitted to her real role and called out our host by saying her new show was the same. This led Margulies to share a different clip where an ER castmate joined her in the scene with a dark mustache and could only speak in Spanish.
This was followed by a repeat of the Litter Critters ad from earlier in the season which was a kitty litter that clumped in a way that made it possible for kids to play with their pet’s waste as if it were Play-Doh.
The Bird Family was the classic sketch that had Chris Parnell bring Julianne Margulies, as his girlfriend, home to visit his family where she was shocked to find that due to a medical deficiency Parnell only ate pre-chewed food. This didn’t go over all that well until Julianne gave into the pressure and fed her boyfriend’s brother, as played by Chris Kattan, with this momma bird feeding technique.
This was followed by a parody of E! Fashion Week that had Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell impersonating the real show’s hosts in order to make fun of the show in order to bicker a bit before throwing to a segment about Fashion week where cast members portrayed influential fashionistas from the time with Molly Shannon as Donatella Versace as our guide.
Augustus General brought us to an emergency room but not really to parody ER. Instead, this hospital trip brought us another visit from Cheri Oteri’s Nadeen character who tells everyone to “Simmer down now!!!”
We then got a parody of The Crocodile Hunter where Chris Kattan and Julianna Margulies played Steve and Terry Irwin in order to host a show out of Oregon where right away The Crocodile Hunter was bitten by a rattlesnake and then spent the rest of the sketch getting attacked by various other forms or wildlife while his wife/sidekick watched on.
Once again, Colin Quinn gave us the news. This week, Cheri Oteri as Joy Lipton dropped by to share some of the products she was selling for Valentine’s Day at her New York City Erotic Boutique store even though she looked and sound more like someone who would be running a comic book store.
DMX then took to the stage to perform Party Up.
We then got the behind the scenes look at an Erectile Dysfunction Ad where Will Ferrell played an actor who felt that the voice over guy was getting way too personal while trying to describe their drug. Meanwhile, Tim Meadows played a director who felt pushing people buttons was the best way to get the performance that he wants. After this embarrassing scene was played out and Tim Meadows and the voice over guy got Ferrell to truly break-down it was revealed that this wasn’t an erectile dysfunction ad at all but instead was for Tootsie Rolls.
Savin' It had Cheri Oteri as, goodie two shoes Jessica Simpson in a parody of her talk show where she interviewed a collection of virgins who were waiting for marriage to have sex, only it seems that the female guests where the only to be really into this deal. Meanwhile, the men are so pent up that they can barely sit still. It turns out that the reason the girls were so calm was that they were still getting their sexual release since they were only technical virgins which really blew the guys’ minds.
DMX then returned to the stage to perform What's My Name?
The Bloder Brothers had Jimmy Fallon and Chris Parnell as two free-associating loser brothers, with curly red hair and constant nervous laughs, who tried to pick up on Julianne Margulies while she was just trying to enjoy a drink following a high-stress out-of-town work convention. After a while of failed flirting, Margulies decided to play along after being humored by the two laughing morons. When she started to flirt back and asked the brothers to join her in her room, they got super scared because they didn’t know how to handle not getting rejected.
This was followed by a fake ad for priceline.com where Darrell Hammond as William Shatner sang a few songs Shatner-style with pitching the priceline.com product.
Finally, Julianna Margulies closed the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

Though I was a bit confused at first, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really liked this episode, especially with the help of these three sketches that contained my favorite moments of the night. First, I loved The Bird Family sketch because this sketch apparently stood out to the point where I was on the reviewing end of this bird feeding stunt about a decade after watching this episode. Next, I really liked The Crocodile Hunter because even though it’s sad the Steven Irwin’s gone, I still find Crocodile Hunter parodies from the time to be funny to me. Finally, I was a fan of the Erectile Dysfunction Ad because it reminded me of the days when I worked in film and there were directors who truly believed that they got their best work by being an asshole to the cast and the crew, thinking that people work better under pressure.