Paul Rudd & Lots of Gay Jokes [SNL Recap]

Posted by Double M



Paul Rudd hosted SNL this week and overall it was a pretty good episode. I love Paul Rudd. Ever since I first fell in love with him during Clueless Friends Anchorman, I have made sure to watch everything he's in (I'm going to watch Role Models later this week). He makes me laugh, although about half the time I feel like I'm watching my buddy who's really good at imitating Will Ferrell before he flipped to "I'm Ron Burgandy only with a different character name and job" guy.

In any case, there was a bazillion "gay" jokes on the show this week. Not really any jokes making fun of gay people, but lots of dudes kissing/talking about gay sex style jokes. I assume the writers were taking their shot at Prop 8 legislation in Cali. We avoid politics here on IR (except for that one time), but the jokes not involving Prop 8 made me laugh.

In any case, to me the show was interesting because I wanted to see how they would handle Obama. Turns out they really didn't. Instead they went after Biden in the intro (with the Biden Blunder Scale open). It was funny, but it seems like they will leave Obama alone until they have something to legitamitely use for comedy purposes.

After the open, they had a generic commercial for a Viagra rip-off Sproingo and then they got right down to business with the kissing family skit. The premise of this skit is that this family shows too much affection for each other.

The male kissing was just beginning at this point. When I was watching it, I wrote down "so much male kissing." Turns out that could have been the theme for the show.

At this point, I've was scared because the show had been good, but not great through 3 skits and then we get stuck with a Keenan feature. Not only that, but it is a "recurring" character, so you know it's bad. Keenan did the Scared-Straight skit where he is a convict that scares high-school criminals with stories of being raped in jail and other stories that end up being movies plots like "Teen Wolf." Really, I can only assume this skit was included because the name could be considered a shot at prop 8. This skit flopped the first time and only did better this time because Keenan wasn't laughing while saying his lines.

The show came back strong with a digital short entitled Everyone's a Critic.

I feel like they had a really funny concept/start to the script and they couldn't figure out how to end it (*cough*Anchorman*cough*) and so they just decided to covertly shot at Mark Wahlberg and The Happening (not really). Either way, the first part made me laugh even (but it still appears to be another "gay" joke).

Next Rudd and Kristen Wigg (look they both have four letter names that end with two of the same consonants!) did a open mic folkish song about a UPS deliver. You want more evidence that Rudd is a Ferrell imitator? This skit was basically a new version of the Clup skits that Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer used to do (none of which are on Hulu). Funny concept but just OK in delivery. Not on Hulu for a reason. The line "Made love through their blue jeans" was said during this song though, and that made me laugh a lot.

There was a road trip skit next featuring Rudd, Sudekis, Hader, and Forte in a car. Could have been great, but is turned out to be a different take on the recurring bar joke they've used before (where the guys get together and reveal intimate things about their lives). This skit featured a couple "gay" jokes and Rudd enjoying his cell phone up his ass (that's not really a gay joke, it was just funny). Turns out this kind of skit is great filer - it's something that can make a good episode great, but it can't make an episode great by itself.

The news is rolling without Amy Poehler, so it's just Seth Meyers. Seth is fine with the news, but he doesn't have a good flow - he just seems to rattle off the jokes. Bobby Moynihan did a Snagglepuss impression that was spot on (not funny at all though) the latter half of which was a big gay joke.

Then, Justin Timberlake showed up. He said he as there because he pulled out of SNL next week and was apologizing for it. Then he ran through what it would have been like. It was ok, but I've included it because there were some funny lines.

That's it for Hulu, but there's one more video floating out there that I've included below. Its a video shoot for Beyonce's (more on her in a sec) new video. This may have been the best skit in the episode (and featured kinda gay dudes in minimal clothing).

There were 3 more skits to close the episode: Paul Rudd is a jumper and Will Forte/Bill Hader try to talk him down (and also confess their love for each other), a Prop 8 skit where Rudd and Hader make fun of the gay lifestyle until Rudd proposed to Hader, and some other skit that I'm fairly certain was an inside joke for the staff.

And that was it. Overall, a decent episode. If you like "gay" jokes (where they aren't making fun of gay people but more of the dude-on-dude action variety), then you probably loved this episode.

Two notes:

1) There are 2 new cast members. They no showed (they were in the background at the end). I'll reserve my judgment for them until they actually do a skit. Then I will update the SNL rankings (Part 1 & Part 2)

2) Beyonce was the musical guest this week. Her new song, "If I Were A Boy" is awful (not to mention it seems to be grammatically incorrect). If she were a boy, I would punch her for making that song. That said, the 2nd performance of the night featured Beyonce in no pants and wearing a Michael Jackson glove. I muted and watched it. Take that as you will.

[UPDATE: You can see the Road Trip and the Folk singing skits here.]