Back in the early-to-mid 2000s, when I was first living in New York City, some friends maintained a standard weekly attendance at the free late Sunday night ASSSSCAT show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Chelsea. Because Amy Poehler was one of UCB’s founders and the group was beginning to serve as a major feeder for Saturday Night Live, there would often be a bunch of SNL performers and writers there, doing a free show for the sheer love of comedy. Though we also enjoyed our weekly SNL viewing, it was also sometimes frustrating to see hit-and-miss sketches on Saturday night and then watch some of the same people improvise funnier material the very next evening.
Some of it was the excitement of seeing a live show and freedom from network standards, of course, both of which gave ASSSSCAT an unfair advantage. But it was still a little surprising to see how little of that spontaneously generated material became something more polished on SNL. Once in a while—maybe once or twice a season—a joke or idea we recognized from ASSSSCAT would make its way to network, but even when the performers would come up with something pretty traditional, it often stayed in the basement next to the Gristedes. Maybe the energy eventually flowed up to SNL anyway in less tangible ways; initially in a mild post-Will Ferrell slump, the show built itself back as Poehler in particular emerged as a veteran anchoring the show, with Will Forte, Bill Hader, and others coming into prominence alongside her as the decade pressed on. (For the record, because when else will I have the chance to write this down, frequent SNL-to-ASSSSCAT attendees of the era alongside Poehler were Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Horatio Sanz, Rachel Dratch, and Jason Sudeikis.) You can see why this all was on my mind during this week’s Amy Poehler-hosted episode of Season 51, coming off a classic boy-was-that-it season premiere.
For all of Poehler’s success on SNL—one of the best to ever do it, I’d say—she hasn’t been a huge presence as a host. She did it once in 2010, then a second time a decade ago with co-star and pal Tina Fey; cameos have been more her speed, compared to Fey’s recurring roles and many hosting gigs. But her all-timer status made her a perfect choice for the show’s actual 50th anniversary, even if the episode mentioned that to-the-date occasion only in passing, during a short-and-sweet monologue. (I’m sure some diehards would wish for one of the original cast members to host or cameo for the occasion, but that’s vanishingly unlikely for so many reasons.) And I bring up her UCB history specifically because a lot of tonight’s sketches played almost shockingly like UCB material, for better and worse.
For worse, there’s something like “The Rudesons,” which barely got by on strength of performance, and maybe the mildly nostalgic buzz of it also seeming like something that could have aired in 1993 with a few language tweaks and probably a 40% increase in runtime. Still, the game of the sketch did feel like something that could have been good for a few laughs during an improv show. For better, there’s the one-upping energy of the sketch about the “work birth,” which kept heightening the joke at a steady clip until Bowen Yang was emerging fully suited from his mother’s birth canal. For best, there was the ad with the law firms competing over their combined years of legal experience. The latter was especially improv-coded; I could practically see the tapping-in process someone would use to instantly recruit a batch of lawyer clones from the bare-stage ensemble. Poehler was just one small part of that sketch, but the way she busted through the wall with muscular insanity felt key to the spirit of the whole thing.
Poehler’s energy doesn’t mean that the whole episode was a nonstop blast equivalent to watching the fastest comic minds in the business having fun on the fly. In fact, some of these sketches skewed corny; maybe it’s arguable that a perimenopausal woman acting out like a surly teenager would use the signifiers of rebellion she remembers from a bygone era, but it read a little generic in the actual sketch. On the other hand, there’s something weirdly poignant about seeing Poehler apply the brattiness she so often embodied during her time on the show (when she played all manner of teenagers and teenagers-at-heart) to something that’s presumably a bit closer to her current lived experiences. Poehler, with an assist from Tina Fey, even managed to jolt some retro life into the wheezy political cold open, simply by playing Pam Bondi as a mean, sneering idiot—with some additional productive one-upmanship through Fey playing Kristi Noem as, well, moreso. It’s a small thing (especially when SNL can’t find more than the mildest satirical angle on any but the most self-caricatured sitting senators), but it beats Trump Interrupts Again.
It’s not as if the cast was suddenly pared down for Poehler, and it’s certainly not as if parts were distributed equally. How can they be, dividing into seventeenths? Poehler just had a way of commanding “her” sketches without taking up so much space, the way a bigger star (or a host less experienced in sketch comedy) often has to. As a result, silly, fast-paced sketches felt roomy enough to accommodate multiple players. Sometimes when SNL brings back an old cast member, it has the obligatory, bogged-down feel of a greatest-hits set. Poehler, reprising zero recurring characters besides her ever-game self, pushed forward.
What was on
Besides the experienced law offices of Billson & Lieberman, Poehler as the fast psychic with the “hard out at 7” was as punchy as its silly premise, with her blunt and supposedly clairvoyant Miss Lycus running through who’s dead, who’s merely drowned, and who has undiagnosed diabetes.
What was off
Honestly, in retrospect “The Rudesons” was probably the worst sketch of the night, which isn’t too shabby. Sarah Sherman and Andrew Dismukes both did some strong pratfalls. And it was fun to imagine who would have done this sketch in 1993, when it would have been equally middling, possibly slightly worse. (Phil Hartman, Julia Sweeney, and Rob Schneider as the family, sans the second woman; Melanie Hutsell and Mike Myers as the couple.)
Most valuable player (who may or may not be ready for prime-time)
The episode was pretty even-handed and, as such, hard to call for anyone in particular, but isn’t it nice to see James Austin Johnson’s non-makeup face in multiple sketches?
Next time
Sabrina Carpenter pulling a double, and I fear the Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, and Charli XCX episodes may have created undue expectations about how good this is supposed to be. I’m not immune, either. I’m fully assuming her episode will be really good! High hopes are the enemy!
Stray observations
• Having Charli XCX turn up in the middle of Role Model’s first song sets a dangerous precedent. Going forward, I might start to expect every musical guest that I’m mostly not enjoying to be augmented by a pop star I personally like. That’s a notice for Morgan Wallen to pre-book Carly Rae Jepsen next time he has to leave God’s country. (Just kidding. You keep away from her, Morgan Wallen!)
• We’ve all likely had the experience of feeling faintly baffled by an SNL parody of a show we haven’t actually seen and/or don’t know much about. But I honestly feel like I better understand the deal with that Hunting Wives show (of which I was vaguely aware, but no more) after the pretape spoofing it, so thank you for your service, ladies. Last time I admitted to not knowing a show SNL was spoofing, I was informed by a couple of commenters that as SNL reviewer, I should make it my business to know every single thing the show could ever possibly spoof, and that was just about the balloon-popping show, so have at it, guys!
• The Weekend Update Joke-Off returned, along with Poehler, Fey, and Seth Meyers re-entering the jacketed world of fake newsdesks. Having an old Update anchor turn up to do some honorary jokes was something the show did more a few decades ago, and often struck me as a little self-satisfied, but the sheer fun all five (!) anchors seemed to be having buzzing in to riff on the birth of a 13-pound baby was pointless to resist, especially on the show’s 50th birthday. Weird trivia: That segment included the four longest-tenured Update anchors in the show’s history; Poehler is tied for sixth. Number five was about as persona non grata as Brutus at Octavius’s birthday party, ah cha cha. Et tu, babe?
• How’d the new guy do? This is tangential, but I wonder if the four actual new cast members (who were all fine if unmemorable tonight) feel about Ben Marshall being grouped with them for the sake of the gag. Marshall has worked at the show for multiple years, including many on-camera videos; it seems like probably a bit less is at stake for him in terms of succeeding as a Featured Player.
• As long as I’m being an annoying New Yorker, Sarah Sherman’s Update spot as the typical anti-Zohan Mamdani/pro-Cuomo voter (repeats vacuous lies; actually lives in Long Island) was good, but while her posture and mannerisms did capture some of this, I’m not sure if she made it clear enough how much of these folks’ worldview is governed by a deep and irrational fear of city living in general. She should have sounded way more terrified about the very idea of the subway, is what I’m saying.
• Poehler’s character in the work-birth sketch seemed insufficiently grateful that she gave birth to Bowen Yang rather than Ted Brogan.
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