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A Double Dose Of Fun For This Season Closer

Though I did watch Hull House enough to get it as a pop culture reference, I was never a really huge fan, even ironically, like I was for cheesy shows like Fact Of Life, Golden Girls, or Saved By The Bell. I don’t think that I realized this until this viewing when there was no sense of nostalgia triggered by these two tiny hosts. Though there were no nostalgic feelings tied to tonight’s host, I still felt that they did a good job.

The main thing I like was how the show actually treated Mary-Kate and Ashley the age that they were instead of oversexualizing them like they did back with Lindsay Lohan. This was kind of a surprise considering that they used the countdown clock to legal maturity joke, back when Lindsay was on while I first heard this joke made by creepy guys about the twins. I’m sure this type of joke go back even further but thanks to the internet, the Olsen Twin’s Countdown Clock was the first for me to see in reality via early versions of computer apps and web pages.

Yeah, there was at least one moment when Will Forte tried to hit on one of the girls, but that was just during the opening monolog after the girls announced that they were there instead of their prom and Jimmy and Will tried to help the girl see what they were missing. Both Jimmy and Will acted as if they were high school aged kids where Will made an incredibly awkward attempt to score, making fun of young men and not seeming serious in his effort to hook up with a kid, as opposed Lohan who was given stalker vibes from Chris Parnell’s character. Again, with Parnell, I do think it’s the character and not that he’s a real creep like Mr. Mike used to seem.

I know the show’s not entirely to blame since I’m fully aware that even the young hosts have some involvement in the writing and the Olsen Twin seemed to have more strict control over how they handled their image leading them down a safer road. I mean, Mary-Kate and Ashley were there to promote New York Minute which I haven’t seen but assume it’s for much younger kids than the Mean Girls audience that Lohan was trying to bring in.

I bet if the twins had different handlers, this would have gone the Lohan route because when the girls were saying their goodnights, Mary-Kate made a special announcement that they’d be legal in just four weeks. This, at least makes it seem, that would have been down for the exact same jokes. I’m glad that wasn’t the case because I feel this episode is better this way.

Not only did I like the girls and find them fun. I also liked how this had aspects of a real season finally. Sure, part of this came from the fact that they acknowledged this was Jimmy’s last show, so they added a bit of a special closing moment that celebrated the season as a whole to build up to Jimmy’s farewell. That said, it still wasn’t the closure event that I’ve grown to expect.

As always, I can’t wait to see what next season has to bring but until then, it’s now time for me to shift gears and share what I saw to do so. And with that, I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with another parody of Hardball where once again, Darrell Hammond played Chris Matthews, this time to interview Seth Meyers as John Kerry who let Kenan Thompson, as Al Sharpton, speak on his behalf on the topic of the recent Iraqi prison scandal. Kerry opted for this route after noticing that his presidential polling numbers would drop whenever he opened his mouth to discuss any topics making headlines. Of course, with this being the opening sketch, it eventually led to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
Mary-Kate And Ashley Olsen then officially opened the show by sharing a story about how one was happy to host and the other was bummed because it meant they were missing out on their prom. The happy one then called Jimmy Fallon and Will Forte to join them on stage to reenact a stereotypical prom evening so that the two mini-millionaires wouldn’t have to miss out on the experience. Things started out pure fun but then got weird as the night started to wind down and Maya Rudolph threw-up on the happy one who lost the prom queen crown to Amy Poehler.
We then got another installment of Paparazzi Photographers this time the Olsen Twins where the main paparazzi photographers to be focused on as they got to play the other side and ask the craziest of questions while making even crazier requests to any celebrity who passed by.
We then got a fake ad for Mary-Kate And Ashley Perfume that is marketed as a perfume combo that will fit your mood whether you’re a Mary-Kate or an Ashley. The central joke of the fake ad being, the announcer’s breakdown of the differences in the girls’ personalities getting more and more extreme as it went on.
This was followed by a visit from Jimmy Fallon as his morning zoo radio DJ character for another round of Z-105 Morning Crew. This time, he kept knocking the twins’ movie New York Minute through his many character while also pretending that Mary-Kate and Ashley kept farting whenever they chime in to respond.
We then got a parody of the reality show The Swan where they attempted to make over a unibrow having buck toothed Mary-Kate as well as Amy Poehler one legged raunchy character who kept goofing off all the way up to the reveal. During the beauty pageant aspect of the show, Mary-Kate was turned into the beautiful Ashley, which led to a “twins in a mirror” routine and Amy Poehler showed up with a giant spider web tattooed across her face.
J-Kwon then took to the stage to perform Tipsy.
Once again, Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey gave us the news. This week, Jimmy Fallon gave a review of the movie Troy but couldn’t stop slipping and sounding gay while explaining the action no matter how hard he tried and how often Tina kept pointing out his unexpected lisp. Horatio Sanz also played the contractor who won the task of building the venues for the upcoming Olympic and how he planned to meet the looming deadline after explaining how he got so far behind. After Jimmy and Horatio got to play, Jimmy held back a few tears while announcing this was his final night.
This was followed by a fake ad for Pat And Patti's Backpack Shack with Horatio Sanz and Maya Rudolph as the titular Pat and Patti who pitched a backpack stack while using crazy Minnesota accents and an overabundance of rhymes.
Access Hollywood had Jimmy Fallon as Pat O’Brien once again, this time to interview the Olsen Twins as themselves who were there to announce that they were actually triplets before going on to introduce Fred Armisen as their third sister named Betty Faye. During the interview we got to see a couple of “cut scenes” from New York Minute that featured Betty Faye.
Chris Parnell and Jimmy Fallon then returned as the always giggling, ginger head brothers The Bloder Brothers. This time the two brothers tried to pick up on Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch who played twins who the boys were oblivious to the fact that they hit on these same twins as teens back in a roller disco. This led us to flashback to the day where the Olsens took over for Poehler and Dratch to show us how that interaction played out when it happened.
Camcorder Dad had Chris Parnell as the titular dad who just wanted to take home videos while at a family BBQ, only to be yelled at by everyone he passed as he tried to navigate the crowd.
The Adventures Of Harold was a short film that followed a twelve-year-old balding boy as he navigated his way through an average first day of school where he got along with the teachers better than his peers because of the confusion caused by his receding hairline.
Summer Nights was just a fun little bit that took place in the cast locker room where the cast sang a fun song to commemorate the end of another season. Not only were they celebrating the end of another year. They also sang their farewells to Jimmy Fallon, which evolved into a parody of Grease with Jimmy and Tina as the main characters singing a parody of Summer Lovin’ with references to their time together doing the news.
The Olsen Twins then closed the show by thanking the audience and saying their goodnights.

I keep talking about how this season had many ups and downs, but really, it was just the middle of the first half of the year that left me unimpressed. Aside from that, a majority of this season has been really good thanks to episodes like this that contained sketches like these that contained my three favorite moments of the night. First, I loved Access Hollywood: The Olsen Triplets because not only was it hilarious to see Fred Armisen as the third Olsen Twin, but it was also funny to realize if Fred Armisen were to take his drag serious, he could contend on RuPaul. Next, I really liked The Olsen Twins as this week’s Paparazzi Photographers because this is the sketch that’s always stood out in my mind not only from this episode but also from the Paparazzi series in general. Finally, I was a fan of The Adventures Of Harold because it was such a fun little short film that I’m surprised didn’t become a feature film or TV series.