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Should That Be Done With A Minor?

Though I could sense how this episode could have been pretty fun, especially back in the day when Lindsay Lohan was on top of the world, knowing how the chaos that came from her childhood career has played out made this viewing more of a bummer. It didn’t help that the very first words out of her mouth were that she was only seventeen yet that didn’t stop the hot host tropes like Chris Parnell claiming that he had a timer that would go off as soon as she turned eighteen.

Thankfully, I chalk this joke from Parnell as being a sign from that time when many of us would still resort to shock value to get laughs, but unlike the older creeps, our comedic actors didn’t seem like they’d actually act on it. Then again, with all of the #MeToo news over the past couple of years, maybe there’s been no change at all, the creeps are just better at learning from the past to make them, at least seem, a little less harmful.

Take Mr. Mike from the first batch of Not Ready For Prime Time Players, I found him to be twisted in a way that was fun when I was young while watching him during the start of the challenge, I felt concerned for every girl who crossed his path. There was one sketch that I still can get out of my mind where a fourteen-year-old Jodie Foster was forced to sit on Mr. Mike’s lap while she looked like that was the last thing that she wanted in the world.

That era got really weird at times considering how often the pedophile jokes felt way too real, and the perverts in question were rarely made out to look like dangerous men. At least in this era that I’m currently on, whenever anyone does make this sort of joke, it’s clear that they are creeps who should be avoided and not someone to emulate, fall for, or excuse.

Yeah, seventeen might be a little too old to be throwing around the word pedophile when it comes to the joke from tonight but, I’m now one year younger than the show and now hard to see someone over half my age as anything but a child. Again, the fact that she stated her age right at the top of the show, along with know what will become Lohan’s history made that joke where Parnell flirted with the teen, not all that worth a laugh.

The first couple sketches that followed the monolog weren’t actually all that bad, but then we got a Harry Potter parody where not only was Lohan literally almost falling out of her shirt, they had her holding a garbage can lid sized magnifying glass up to her chest to give us an even better view. Other than that, there were other hot host aspects to this show that even rubs me wrong when the hot host is an adult and whether they are a woman or a man.

This makes me wonder if this era actually was better at pulling it off, or if this is just from me making these type of offensive jokes during this period when this level was acceptable as we were attempting to adjust from the past. We were raised on Blazing Saddles when it was already over a decade old and did love the jokes but knew damn well that it couldn’t be made again, even then. When we started to be offensive, we were doing it right.

Now, I could fully see a kid with the same age gap looking at our jokes from the late ‘90s, early 2000s and thinking we were just as extreme as our parents. Meanwhile, these fucking kids have plenty of offensive content that they will one day have to own. The big difference is that the window of time for our references are no longer as generationally spread out making it much hard for the youth to fully understand the evolution of offensiveness throughout time.

Wow, I can’t believe that I wrote this much about this episode and the things that managed to come up considering, I’ve only seen Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, and know there was a while where she was often in the news even though I couldn’t tell you a single detail as to why. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m bipolar and prone to meltdowns that leads me to feel that I can relate to certain aspects of what seems to be a crazy life.

Oh well, this episode may not have been the most fun, but at least it left me inspired to write. With that said, it’s now time to wrap this thing up by moving on to share what I saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with even more parody coverage of a 9/11 Briefing where once again Darrell Hammond played Dick Cheney. This time he briefed Will Forte, who just took over for Chris Parnell as George W. Bush, about what to say once he got to the stand to at least create somewhat of an illusion that he is actually the person in charge. An interesting side-note, starting with the Trump episode, it really seems like the show’s had a Truther angle to most of the jokes on the topic with most of the jokes being that, at least Dick Cheney, was fully aware of these planned attacks. Aside from this observation, the rest of the opening sketch went the same, ending with the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
Lindsay Lohan then officially opened the show with a monolog about how she was only seventeen and the gossip about her wasn’t true, mainly focusing on the rumored feud between her and Hillary Duff who dated one of Lohan’s ex-boyfriends around this time. She then called Rachel Dratch as Hillary Duff to the stage to apologize to her which led “Duff” to apologize to Amy Poehler as Avril Lavigne, who then apologized to Maya Rudolph as Whitney Houston who refused to apologize to Chris Parnell for not saying hi while at the airport because she was just still too big of a diva.
This was followed by a fake ad for Turlington's Lower Back Tattoo Remover where Chris Parnell played a pitchman who sold a highly acidic tattoo removal lotion to moms like Amy Poehler who had a wild youth and a tramp stamp she was starting to dread.
Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz then gave us another installment of the dorm room webcast, Jarret's Room. For this installment, Jarret and Goby were forced to move out of their room, for being too old to still be in college, and then went on to interview Lindsay Lohan as the co-ed who was there to replace them.
Hogwart's Academy was a parody of Harry Potter where Lindsay Lohan played Hermione’s who was that girl at school that hit puberty before everyone else and the development of her breast really messed with Harry as well as all of the other boys’ minds.
Horatio Sanz then played a drunk Billy Joel who drove a group of teen girls, played by Lindsay Lohan, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Rachel Dratch, to a Russell Simmon’s party on the Hampton. This sketch played off of a recent DUI from the piano man and the fact that these young girls had no idea who the New York legend actually was.
Usher then took to the stage with Ludacris to perform Yeah.
Once again, Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey gave us the news. This week, Horatio Sanz then played a recent G.E.D. graduate who shared his tale of triumph that landed him the Good Enough Degree.
This was followed by the debut of Debbie Downer where Rachel Dratch as the titular dumpy downer would bring down even the most uplifting story by sharing the alternate worst case scenario for every single thing. To make matters worse, for this installment, she even managed to make a vacation to Disneyland be unfun.
The Euro-Trash MTV-style talk show Club Traxx then returned for another installment where once again, Seth Meyers and Maya Rudolph played the two Euro-Trash hosts who had on Lindsay Lohan and Rachel Dratch as a lesbian group named D.A.D.I. who were a parody of the band T.A.T.U.
The Sleepover was a sketch where Amy Poehler played her lispy, spastic child character who bit off more than she could chew when she invited the most popular girl in school, Lindsay Lohan over for a sleepover. Though Lohan was very demanding, the high energy Poehler and her mullet headed stepdad Rick, as played by Horatio Sanz, eventually won her over.
Usher then took to the stage alone to perform Burn.
This was followed by a parody of 17th Annual Adult Movie Awards where due to the sensitive nature of this first-ever network broadcast of the event, the entire award show was cut short to where nothing was seen at all.
Finally, Lindsay Lohan closed the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

Maybe it was a bad idea to keep track of how long the streak of successful shows from this season ran because it makes a step back like this seem like it may be worse than it actually was. Though I wasn’t a huge fan of this show, these three sketches that contained my favorite moments, at least made it tolerable to watch. First, I loved The Debut Of Debbie Downer because I’ve been waiting for this character’s day ever since Rachel Dratch joined the cast, and am blown away that it took this long. Next, I really liked, The Sleepover because I liked how they set up Lindsay Lohan to be the popular girl who wouldn’t be caught dead with Amy Poehler as a nerd, only, as demanding as she got while wanting more luxury, it never got to the point where she seemed cruel. Finally, I was a fan of this week’s Club Traxx sketch, not really because I thought it was all that good but I found it funny that the sketch contained a parody of the lesbian Russia duo T.A.T.U.