10 Worst Sketches of 'Saturday Night Live' Season 38

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http://www.hitfix.com/monkeys-as-cri...live-season-38

With the thirty-eighth season of “Saturday Night Live” in the books, it’s time to look back at the highlights as well as lowlights of the season that was. These represent not just the best/worst sketches, but also moments/trends throughout the season. This should help present a better picture of the show as it recharges its batteries over the summer months. Today, we’ll be looking at the ten worst things about this season. Next week, we’ll look at the ten best.

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/monkeys-as-cri...YvRTy7P7vDL.99

[robyrob]

- personally i liked the 'Australian Screen Legends' skit, and i really don't like all the political sketches; i can barely stand to watch the opening segments during an election year.

- all of the sketches that completely rely on the "straight guys pretending to be gay guys that is somehow shocking and that somehow makes it funny" bit are definitely getting tired and annoying. we get it, you think gay stereotypes are funny, move on.

- i agree with the return of the Kristen Wiig Lawrence Welk skit being terrible; of course I thought all of those Lawrence Welk skits were terrible and i just don't get the bit with her small hands and being disturbing...

- i didn't like the 'Construction Guys' skit either, I am not a big fan of Daniel Craig, he isn't funny at all and I have no idea why he was chosen to host the show.

- i do like 'The Californians', but i think they go to it too often and need to give it a rest for awhile (which it probably won't be coming back at all anyways with the cast changes)

- i don't even remember the "North Side Junior High Prom" sketch, re-reading it I can see why.

i also hate all these links where they make you click-thu twenty different pages just to read a simple list, all to bump up their page views

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For those who don't want to click one by one:

10) 'She’s Got a D$ck'

Justin Timberlake spent the majority of his night joining the Five-Timers Club rehashing sketches that he performed during his previous hosting stints. But this pre-produced short seemed more concerned with getting the specifics of a romantic comedy trailer right than actually subverting its content. Once it introduces the twist indicated by the sketch’s title, this segment did absolutely nothing with it. Neither “SNL” nor Timberlake’s character knew what to do with this revelation, so the segment simply stopped almost immediately afterwards. Timberlake’s protagonist neither accepts nor rejects his potential partner once he knows of her biological status, which makes one question why “SNL” thought “a chick with a penis” was funny enough to justify an entire sketch.

9) 'Engagement Picnic'

The most boring type of “SNL” sketch introduces a single premise and then hits that note repeatedly throughout its running time in monotone fashion. When the premise itself (in this case, cops unable to finish sentences without crying) isn’t funny, you have a three-minute sketch that feels ten times longer. Yes, one could make the argument that this was a way for certain cast members to get emotional with each other onstage one last time. But even allowing for that doesn’t make this anything other than a waste of precious sketch time.

8) 'Australian Screen Legends'

This gets the nod for two reasons. First up, and most important, it was amazingly unfunny from moment one. Secondly, it aired three days before a presidential election, making its placement within the show itself all the more baffling. Once THE place America got its political humor, “SNL” has seemingly ceded that space to “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report,” and numerous online entities that have the capacity and/or will to do such humor. If a sketch is funny, its inclusion is usually justified, even if its subject matter is non-topical. If it’s not funny, then its lack of relation to anything happening in the world indicates a show that is simply out of touch.

7) 'Fire Department Fundraiser'


It’s 2013, but apparently “flamboyantly gay men pretending to be straight” is still funny to some facet of the show’s writing staff. On top of that, the sketch’s key takeaway seems to be, “SCREAMING MAKES EVERYTHING FUNNY.” Much like a certain sketch which will appear later in this gallery, the in-studio audience ate this up, which only encourages the type of overacting the show resorts to when in need of cheap laughs. Rather than trust its own material, “SNL” will often mug to appeal to the person in the back row too busy tweeting to actually pay attention.

6) 'Restoration Hardware Reunion'

The Martin Short-hosted episode was actually one of the year’s strongest installments. But this attempt at absurdity never really clicked. It was a high-risk, high-reward strategy, one involving one of the most elaborately decorated sets all year to boot. But the sketch never established any type of internal reality, making the dialogue an Ionesco-esque series of non-sequiturs that might as well have been basic guttural noises. It’s a bravely conceived, but ultimately poorly delivered, segment. “SNL” should keep continue to try these out, since they add a welcome sense of danger amid its more middle-of-the-road efforts. But it’s all or nothing when it comes to these types of sketches, and unfortunately this one crashed and burned.

5) 'Danielle: A Free European Woman'

The post-“Weekend Update” slots offer the show a chance to be bolder with its sketches. Something too “weird” to air before midnight becomes fair game as 1:00 AM nears. But this sketch went beyond weird into some other realm entirely. An ostensible parody of a certain adult film series from the 1970’s, it captured the look and feel without adding any layer of comedy, irony, or any other distancing device into the mix. Simply noting the stilted nature of the acting, the poor nature of the overdubbing, and the low production of these films doesn’t make this a sketch. It makes it an uncomfortable homage.

4) The returns of Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig

Honoring the show’s past is a great thing, and part of a hallowed tradition of the show. But how can we honor something if we don’t have time to miss it in the first place? Samberg, along with his cohorts in The Lonely Island, ended the “Digital Short” era in almost immaculate fashion last spring, only to reappear with a new single during Adam Levine’s hosting duties. Wiig had one of the most emotional goodbyes in show’s history during last season’s finale, but returned ten months later only to bring back characters that were stale long before she initially left. There’s a way to incorporate a show’s past without overshadowing its present. In this regard, “SNL” missed the mark on multiple occasions.

3) 'Construction Guys'

This Daniel Craig sketch almost singlehandedly sunk the show before it even had a chance to get going, inexplicably getting the prime post-monologue slot and erasing any goodwill the audience had entering Studio 8H. Rather than lean into Craig’s strengths, the show strove to show his “goofier” side. Apparently, that side is incredibly unfunny, as was this sketch.

2) 'The Californians'

The departures of Fred Armisen and Bill Hader leave the show with many holes to fill. But it also means this practical-joke-posing-as-a-sketch has also seen its final days as well. It’s fine for sketches to be comedically confrontational. But “The Californians” is a different beast altogether: an inside joke on the part of the cast/ crew that they subject a national audience too on an all-too-frequent basis. If “SNL” wants to entertain itself, it has all week to do so. But during the show itself? The focus should be on the audience, not those onstage.

1) 'North Side Junior High Prom'

This sketch was the absolute worst one of the calendar year, being both singularly unfunny and morally problematic at once. Who knows what the writers/producers were thinking this one. But it would be fascinating to learn why anyone thought a sketch based around a barely-concealed pedophile funding a school dance in order to get close to its student body (pun sadly intended) was a good idea.