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The Curse Of The Hot Host Returns

When I was in my early twenties and living in a party house, there was a pretty boy amongst us uggos who everyone jokingly called Josh Hartnett because he had a similar look. I feel that if it wasn’t for this phase, I’d have no idea who Josh Hartnett was at all. If this episode aired earlier in the season before the shows started to be consistently good, I’d have extremely low expectations for this episode but with things going so good, I went into this viewing with an open mind. That said, I was still on guard because this is also a perfect time for the show to fall into a second-half slump.

Unfortunately, this ended up being a hot host episode where every single joke had to do with our host’s looks and mainly focused on the members of the cast trying to hit on him which has just never been funny to me, no matter the host’s gender. Fortunately, there were enough sketches throughout the night that didn’t involve Hartnett that kept this viewing from being a complete bore-fest.

Since I have absolutely no connection with tonight’s host, this review is going to be rather short, since I can’t even share my history or thoughts of his career. Even the kid that I mentioned above who we used to mockingly call Josh Hartnett was a person who I didn’t interact with all that much even though there was a period of time where he was always around.

It would have been fun to share some of my party house stories from that time period but I just can’t think of any that would fit with any relevance. So, just like this episode, I can fully understand if this review is seen as a dud. Part of me is willing to bet that Josh Hartnett will be another host who I couldn’t care less about only to find that he still has a huge following on the internet, which seems to happen every time the hot host is a male that I know very little of their career.

Thankfully, Jack Black is tomorrow’s host, so I don’t think this slump will last all that long. Oh well, with all that said, it’s now time to move on and share what I saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with C-SPAN Coverage Of The Buddy The Dog Memorial Service which started with Tracy Morgan as a Reverend who introduced Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton to offer a eulogy for his recently deceased dog, Buddy who was his White House pet and saw it all, and I mean ALL. Of course, with this being the opening sketch it eventually led to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
Josh Hartnett then officially opened the show with a monolog about how he was going to be a new Josh Hartnett that we haven’t seen before which led Jimmy Fallon to join him on stage and advised our host not to adopt a new image since he did the same thing a year ago only to look like a total schmuck.
Maya Rudolph’s High School produced morning talk show sketch, Wake Up, Wakefield then returned for another installment where this time, her and her nerdy sidekick, as played by Rachel Dratch, interviewed Josh Hartnett who played a kid who had a growth spurt over the winter break which piqued Rudolph’s interest in the former pip-squeak.
Hello Stepson, Now Let’s Go To Bed: I Went To Bed With My Stepson: The Laura Bengal Covington Story was a parody of a Lifetime Original that had Ana Gasteyer in the titular role in a story where, as the title suggests, she found herself falling in love with Josh Hartnett who just happened to be her stepson.
TV Funhouse then gave us a mash-up of the X-Presidents and the Ambiguously Gay Duo who all teamed up to take on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.
The Shout Out! Show was the parody of a new MTV talk show where Tracy Morgan played an old-school rapper named Grand Master Freddy who did nothing but offer unnecessary shout outs to random members of his community while his guest, Josh Hartnett tried to speak.
Pink then took to the stage to perform Get The Party Started.
Once again, Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey gave us the news. This week, Tracy Morgan dropped by as Maya Angelou in order to espouse off-topic birthday card greeting that she created. Horatio Sanz also stopped by as a Vaudeville-style comedian who missed his flight and therefore wasn’t able to make it to Kandahar to perform for the troops. To make up for his absence, they teamed him up with his comedy partner via satellite where the two struggled through their quick-witted routine because of the satellite delays.
This was followed by a parody of HBO First Look that gave us a parody behind-the-scenes look at Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones featuring N*Sync.
Josh Hartnett then played an airline pilot known as the Captain Of Impressions who stalled all the passengers during a take-off delay where everyone was stranded on the runway by doing a set of horrible impersonations.
My Best List for 2001was a new Jack Handey segment where we were promised a best of list, only due to the fact that he had Wax and Dracula as sponsors, really hindered the legitimacy of the list items.
Pink then returned to the stage to perform Don't Let Me Get Me.
Playboy's Movie Showcase had Maya Rudolph and Rachel Dratch as two Playboy Playmate who introduced a movie called Burqua Baddie that featured the faces of Yemeni woman in burquas who only revealed their faces yet it was still treated like porn.
Finally, Josh Hartnett closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

As I said up above, this was far from a favorite episode but there were still sketches like these with my three favorite moments that kept the show at least somewhat entertaining. First, I loved The X-Presidents Meet The Ambiguously Gay Duo because it was a funny colliding of the two worlds. Next, I really liked HBO First Look At Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones Featuring N*Sync not because it was all that hilarious but the references were kind of cute. Finally, I was a fan of Captain Of Impressions because it featured the only moment of the night that got me to laugh out loud which was when Tracy Morgan was the only one on the plane who found the pilot’s impersonations to be hilarious.