SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE 40TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

I know this informal review of this past week-end’s Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special is a bit later than expected, but I really hadn’t planned on reviewing it all. But many of you readers kept asking me to share my thoughts on it, so here they are.

I woke up about thirty hours after the show ended, thinking about what I would have said if I had written a piece on it, and it all came flowing out. So, here are my thoughts on the show, in the order that they came to me two mornings ago, which is in no particular one:

The three best segments were the Jimmy Fallon-Justin Timberlake opening number, Martin Short and Maya Rudolph, (as Beyonce,) and the last skit, Wayne’s World with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, showing they hadn’t lost a step since they were in the cast.  (Just a thought–wouldn’t it have been fun to have Maya open the show, as they do with special sports shows, with her crazy wonderful rendition of the National Anthem?!)

The several musical numbers were soooo unnecessary, but Paul Simon’s closing one, (and my personal theme song,) Still Crazy After All These Years, was very appropriate. But “poor Paul” (as my friend Carol Rampino called him in an email to me) McCartney’s song was an awful choice. As soon as he played the first note, Mr. X said, “Oh no!,” because he said that Paul would have a hard time pulling it off. How correct he was! It pains me to say it, but Paul sounded horrible! He sounded horrible! And the song itself, Maybe I’m Amazed, was apropos of nothing! Also, though good, Miley Cyrus’ rendition of Paul Simon’s Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover was a waste of our time. Speaking of wastes of our time, we certainly did not need Kanye West on there! We needed more cowbell!!! (And by that, I mean more comedy.)

They also needed much more of the “golden oldies,” the hosts from the early days. They should at least have involved all the members of the five-timers club, like Elliott Gould, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Danny DeVito, and Buck Henry. I don’t know if any, or all, of them were there, but the ones I just mentioned were the only at-least-five-time-hosts who were left out, and I, as an ardent fan, resented it.

They certainly didn’t need a comedian, like Bill Murray, to intro the In Memoriam section. It seemed wrong. It should have been one of their more serious actor hosts, like Elliott Gould, whose voice has the proper gravitas for the assignment. [Note #1: I do realize that, since they showed just regular cast and crew who are no longer with us, and no guest hosts, perhaps they wanted the intro-er to be a former cast guy.]

Speaking of In Memoriam, until I researched the subject, I thought that they should have also included deceased hosts in the tribute, such as the very first one, George Carlin, and then Richard Pryor, Peter Boyle, Dudley Moore, Jill Clayburgh, Madeline Kahn, Ruth Gordon, Frank Zappa, and Ricky Nelson. But then the list would have been way too long. I counted at least forty-four now-deceased guest hosts when I checked! Wow. How’s that revelation for making us all be grateful?!

If I had to choose just one highlight, it would be Bradley Cooper throwing the mack on Betty White! Now I love him for that. What a great duo!

Perhaps the show could have used a bit more color. They needed Charles Barkley.

The special was supposed to be celebrating the past forty years, so they needn’t have wasted even that one second on promo-ing Dakota Johnson’s upcoming hosting gig. That stupidity sort-of took me out of the nostalgia that was the whole purpose of the evening! That almost ruined the whole thing for me.

I was surprised at the extent to which some of these people had aged, like Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman, and Mike Myers. (Maybe Mike just got fat.) At least Jane Curtain always looked old to me!

Maybe they should have had all the past hosts parade across the stage, because they should have acknowledged them in some small way, especially the multiple times ones. (I know I wrote about this topic a few paragraphs ago, but that’s how much it bothered me.)

With all the peeps they should have shown, they definitely should not have doubled-up on some, like Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy.

The worst bit was Dan Aykroyd reprising the stupid Bass-O-Matic skit. It wasn’t funny then, it was way worse now. What a supreme waste of time that was!!!

The biggest revelation of the whole night was during the arrivals. Mr. X and I were both shocked to find-out that what we thought was an era with Billy Crystal, Martin Short, and Christopher Guest, was actually just one season!!! How did they repeat their characters enough in that short time to leave such a lasting impression??? Major, major, major kudos to those guys!!!

The show should have featured more classic bits, like Cheri O’Teri and Will Ferrell’s Cheerleaders, instead of music. [Note #2: I know that Cheri said the omission was because she wasn’t available to rehearse, but I cry baloney. What else is she doing?!]

It would be interesting to know who specifically wasn’t invited, besides Sinead O’Connor.

The tribute to Eddie Murphy was a tad weird and unnecessary. Even he seemed a tad uncomfortable by it! I think this must be what happened with that: it must have been the deal with Lorne Michaels in order for Eddie to agree to put in an appearance on the show, but as the evening wore on, Eddie realized how self-serving it was, but it was too late to un-do it. But, any time I get to see Chris Rock say even a few words is a happy time for me, so I’m not really complaining too much about that segment.

And that’s all I got! I’m sure more things about SNL‘s Anniversary Show will occur to me from time to time, but isn’t that what Twitter is for? If it’s something major, I will tweet it out, @MajorCelebrity. I’m planning to live-tweet the Oscars (including the arrivals,) on Sunday, so you may want to follow me before then anyway. “May” being the operative word here!