#THE PRETENDERS 2019 UPDATE#

He has a lot of funny lines here, but I’m put off by his particularly lazy and half-assed delivery here, which is serving as an unwanted reminder of the bad, mailed-in performances he would often give in the upcoming season 20.

#THE PRETENDERS 2019 UPDATE#

David, who’s apparently gotten tired of doing Hollywood Minute, debuts a new recurring Update segment in which he gripes about concerts he’s recently been to. Wow, this Update oddly starts with no audience applause AT ALL. Musical guest performs “Night In My Veins”ĭAS dislikes bands that have the balls not to play their hits at concerts I love Phil-as-Charlton-Heston’s delivery of the line “Let’s clean it up and put it on the grill.” I got a good laugh from the visual of a cow blowing up. Farley’s certainly no impressionist, but I kinda like his Rush Limbaugh. His impression works much better in a supporting role like this than in those terrible sketches they would later give him a starring role in the following season, where he interviews equally-unintelligible celebrities. Mike’s unintelligible Ron Wood impression is cracking me up in this sketch. Rush Limbaugh (CHF) & Ron Wood (MIM) hunt I love the visual of Phil wearing a goofy lobster hat while having that trademark straitlaced Phil Hartman smile (last screencap above). There’s some good humor in the fact that they’re holding such a big pledge drive for something as silly and mindless as a Captain Jim & Pedro piece. The post-sketch bit with Phil doing a PBS-esque pledge drive is actually an improvement over the post-sketch bit they did with Michael McKean in the first Captain Jim & Pedro sketch. I guess as tired as I feel Adam’s goofy shtick has been starting to get at this late stage of his SNL tenure, there’s still an innocent charm left in it at times. I admit to smiling at Pedro’s ending line “A monkey will eat dirt… if you make him!” Don’t know why it just made me smile. Kelsey Grammer made a much better straight man in the first installment of this sketch. I hate to ever criticize John Goodman, but he’s kinda bland as the straight man here.

Nice continuity with Captain Jim mentioning recently getting hired at Foot Locker, which is a reference to the previous sketch these characters appeared in. These sketches have the type of goofy charm that I usually get a kick out of, but like I said in my review of the first installment of this sketch, Adam’s silly-humored, goofy-voiced shtick has officially reached the point in his SNL tenure where it’s run out of steam for me. Much like these characters’ previous appearance, I’m not caring much for tonight’s installment so far. Did we need these characters returning after only TWO episodes? Also, why in the world is this the lead-off sketch of the night this time, especially when their previous appearance was in a more fitting spot late in the show? PHH asks for pledges to support Captain Jim & Pedro programming I like the bit regarding John’s mom once leaving him on the side of the highway when he was a kid.Ĭaptain Jim & Pedro go on a date with (host)’s daughters (MEH) & (SAS) After a slow start, this monologue has been getting funnier. Okay, I finally got a laugh from a confession of his, with the one about grandma being kept locked in the basement. His confessions to his mother are not particularly funny so far. A shame they aren’t making a bigger deal of that. He mentions in passing that this is his fifth time hosting. John is sporting his dark Fred Flintstone-type hairstyle during tonight’s hosting gig, as he’s promoting the live-action Flintstones movie. Host comes clean to his mother about things he did as a kid Is this a sign of the SNL Band getting prepared for new SNL theme music next season? The SNL Band would also use this different sound for the theme music in the following week’s season finale. The theme music sounds quite different. An overall good sketch, but not quite as strong as I had remembered. A pretty funny and accurate spoof of Stern’s behavior. Considering he’s playing the foil for Michael McKean in this cold opening, maybe this is intended to be a passing of the torch between the two of them. I guess it wouldn’t be a season 19 episode without Phil Hartman being poorly utilized. I always love Phil’s Mario Cuomo impression, but he’s just being used in a boring straight role here. Easily the best thing he’s done during his SNL tenure so far. Fantastic Howard Stern impression from Michael. This seems like the type of role that Julia would normally play. New York governor hopefuls Mario Cuomo (PHH) & Howard Stern (MMK) debate

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

The pretenders 2019