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Election Week Fun And Games

I’ve always been a fan of Charlize Theron because of her commitment to really dig into her roles and the way that she bounces back and forth between indie and mainstream films. I can’t remember if I always found her to be funny, especially early on in her career but that changed after her role in A Million Ways To Die In The West. Though the movie wasn’t much of a success I found it to be quite fun, but it was also after this movie that I started to hear more about Theron’s off-camera sense of humor in random interviews.

I can’t remember who brought it up but they were saying that Charlize was hilarious while sharing stories about what happens at a typical Seth MacFarlane Hollywood party. The fact that this person was talking so highly about her humor while not even promoting a project they were working on. This somewhat new information had me excited to revisit tonight’s episode with Charlize Theron as the host, especially considering how disappointing this season has been so far.

Though I wasn’t quite blown away like I was last season with Jennifer Aniston after hearing how she turned down being a Not Ready For Prime Time Player, opting to work on Friends instead, but I did find this to be by far the best show that I’ve yet to see this year. As usual, I felt this was a case where her enthusiasm was infectious and it felt like she was genuinely having fun.

It also really helped that this week, the show broke away from the fewer but longer sketch format. As I’ve said in the past, I feel that sketch is meant to be more rapid-fire so as far as I’m concerned, the more sketches they cram into a night, the better, especially during seasons like this where the writing is a bit weaker than usual. I wouldn’t say that the writing is this year is horrible but it feels a bit safe while not stepping too far out from anyone’s comfort zone.

These quicker sketches had us in and out of each sketch before they felt repetitive or like they were droning on. That combined with the energy brought by the host made what would probably otherwise be just an average episode into a pretty fun night. With that, it’s now time to shift gears in order to share what I saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with a Glimpse Of Our Possible Future where we got to see a prediction of what America would look like if George Bush Jr. were to win the Presidential Election that had Will Ferrell as Bush freaking out by the fact that he somehow managed to set The Great Lakes on Fire and started a Civil War after only two weeks in office. Of course, with this being the opening sketch, it eventually led to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
Charlize Theron then officially opened the show with a monolog about how she was born and raised in South Africa which got Tracy Morgan to join her on stage to share how thrilled he was to find out that technically she was a fellow African-American.
This was followed by a parody of Total Request Live where Jimmy Fallon as Carson Daley introduced the SNL world to Maya Rudolph, Cheri Oteri, and Charlize Theron as the Destiny’s Child parody female group named Gemini’s Twin who didn’t get why their group name was weird considering that they are a trio. In the sketch, we saw a music video, a TRL-style interview and it finished with them singing the song, Don’t You Go Messing With My Bling Bling, live.
A Glimpse of Our Possible Future then returned for another segment where this time we saw a future America with Al Gore as president where mainly he quizzed the nation about economics and politics on a regular basis.
Blair Witch Tour had Charlize Theron as a local from the town where The Blair Witch Project was filmed who was capitalizing on the movie’s success by giving a rip off of a tour. This brought back the Goth Talk duo who fell for Charlize’s trap.
TV Funhouse then returned so that Robert Smigel could give us another installment of The All New Adventures Of Mr. T where T continues to look for work so he becomes a scab when he crosses an acting picket line in order to steal the role in a Kotex commercial.
Jimmy Fallon then played a jealous Joe DiMaggio in a dramatized scene from his memoir that showed how he got angry at anyone who stared at his wife Marilyn Monroe, as played by Charlize Theron, during her skirt flipping scene from The Seven Year Itch especially since it took a ton of takes while the crew to get the air pressure to blow the skirt up correctly.
Paul Simon then took to the stage to perform Hurricane Eye.
Once again, Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey gave us the news. This week, Rachel Dratch dropped by to propose to Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey broken down how broken the Electoral College is, and SNL writer/one of my favorite ‘80s comedian, Hugh Fink stopped by to talk about Gore’s running mate Joe Lieberman as a fellow Jew.
Bedtime Stories had Mr. Peepers and Charlize Theron in a Skinemax softcore porn.
A Glimpse of Our Possible Future then returned to complete the rule of three by showing us a world filled with flying pigs and a frozen hell and Ralph Nader as President.
The Chrises then brought back their dancing DeMarco Brothers to audition to dance for tonight’s musical guest, Paul Simon and failed to win him over with their brand of interpretive dance.
The Coconut Bangers Ball was a fake ad where Will Ferrell played Robert Goulet in order to pitch his new rap album that was being marketed to stuffy old white people who are out of touch with the youth.
Paul Simon then returned to the stage to perform Old.
Horatio Sanz and Jerry Minor then played two horny members of the Buena Vista Social Club and the two old-timers sang their Cuban songs in Spanish which Will Ferrell had to interpret to his wife Charlize Theron. With each new song, the lyrics grew more and more sexual and directed toward our host, ending with her joining the two on the stage
Finally, Charlize Theron closed the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

As I said up above, this was definitely my favorite show from this season so far, thanks to sketches like these that contained my three favorite moments. First, I loved the Bedtime Stories sketch, even though I usually don’t like this brand of hot host-style sketch that usually seems like just an excuse to let the cast grope the good-looking host but this sketch was funny to me because Charlize seemed like the one who was out of control and handsy. Next, I really liked The Coconut Bangers Ball because Will Ferrell always cracks me up when he plays Robert Goulet. Finally, I was a fan of Marilyn Monroe: Behind The Scenes because it was an impressive impersonation and a funny reenactment of Monroe’s famous skirt in the subway scene.