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Saturday Night Live TV Review
by Matthew Toffolo
May 16 2009 Show
Season Finale
Host - Will Ferrell
"The Nostalgia Episode"
Will Ferrell went into his closet and brought out all of his past SNL characters: George Bush, Harrey Carrey, Alex Trebeck. And Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels brought back his past favorites too to make cameos throughout the episode: Tom Hanks, Paul Rudd, Norm McDonald, Maya Rudolph, Anne Hathaway and Amy Poehler, who did her last stint on the weekend update desk. Or was it? Because that's what they said last time.
So this was the new episode and with original skits about old skits and past characters. And it was a pretty fun episode.
The highlight of the night was the Celebrity Jeopardy skit where Will Ferrell does we he usually doesn't -- playing the reactor and not the reactee of comedy. Ferrell is known for being the wacky confident character and the one who gets the laughs in his films. But playing Alex Trebeck, Ferrell is reacting to the laughs that the celebrities give us. This skit brought back Trebeck's (the Ferrell version of Trebeck) nemesis Sean Connery, plus his past nemesis #2 Burt Reynolds. And Tom Hanks appears as himself, playing a stupid version of who he is and really doing what most people like to see out of celebrities: Making fun of the insanity of him being a celebrity and actually really being important!
That skit was so good you sort of wanted him to do a best of Will Ferrell and just play every single one of his past SNL characters. I wanted James Lipton Will Ferrell, Neil Diamond Will Ferrell and Robert Goulet Will Goulet. They gave us Harry Carrey back from the dead, why not Robert Goulet?
Watching Will Ferrell got me really nostalgic. For some reason the Jeopardy skit reminded me of who I once was way back in my early 20s. I did laugh a lot watching the skit but then I got sad because I realized how much of an idiot I was when I first saw Ferrell being Ferrell. I don't know why I thought the worst of myself after laughing at something that gave me a lot of pleasure, but it did.
I also noticed how much stronger Will Ferrell is as a performer than almost all of the current SNL cast. He just has charisma that makes us like him and follow him.
The ending skit of Ferrell performing Billy Joel's 'Goodnight Siagon' song was a great way to complete Saturday Night Live's 197th season. Bring on a lot of celebrities to play the various instruments in the song and have Ferrell perform his heart out and then walk off into the sunset once again.
I am biased because he appeared during the time I was in my most TV watching days, but I think Ferrell is the best Saturday Night Live performing in history.
One of WILDsound's Columnists, Daren Foster, is probably rolling his eyes after reading that last paragraph as I give him the mantle over Belushi and the original gang of not ready for prime time players. But not one past or present SNL performer can make you feel as much as Ferrell can.
I looked back and thought of the many performers who became famous on the show and earned a lot of recognition. A lot of them felt a sense of entitlement after a while and just assumed the laughs would come no matter what. Think of all the past greats who are named in the poll question on this page. They all were fantastic in their first couple of years and then most of them got by on their remaining years on their fame and charm.
But only Will Ferrell and Phil Hartman always played each skit like it was either their first or last. They never assumed the laughs would come and tried their best every single time. They never took a skit off so to speak!
And that's where feeling comes in with comedy. Ferrell and Hartman make us laugh more because we care about them more.
So next year I hope they bring on more comedians that have that Ferrellesque heart. And a lot more female comedians too. Saturday Night Live is craving for more female comedians. There are a lot of comedy teams out there all over the world and many of them have a lot of extremely funny females. And why isn't Lorne Michael's bringing them into the show?
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