Episode 120 — Jalen Brunson (Season 52)

[00:00:06] It's The Ten to One Podcast with your host Brad Oman featuring Ben Conowitz and Nate Lauchs and here's the podcast. Back for another one of those. What the? What? I'm kissing. Who? You. No, don't kiss me. People send videos. They wanted me to send videos. Why are you kissing me then? Because I come kissing people. Everyone's tuned out.

[00:00:35] They emailed from the last episode. They have one crazy listener. He's not crazy. He's crazy sexy. You're putting the cart before the horse too. Just wait until we get to it, you weirdo. Love you. Hey guys, we're back. It's like a prison hooker. What does that even mean? You're like, hey boy. I didn't say hey boy. You might as well with the way you're making those sounds. Fresh meat. No, I'm not doing that.

[00:01:04] But scared straight. It's another new season of SNL, everyone. Welcome. It's good to have you back. Season 52. Yeah, we've been doing this for a long time now. Are we five seasons into it? That's a good question. I think so. We're going to say we're four. I'm going to say four. I'm going to guess four. Four or five? Yeah. I think this might be the fifth season. Yeah, we're working into five. Yeah. I think you're right. Every year declining in listenership. So thank you. That is absolutely not true. Oh, it's not true. We're gaining listeners. We are.

[00:01:32] And it's good to have you with us for another season. Sorry we didn't do anything over the summer. We did not. I'm not sorry. I'm not. The people deserve good content, and we weren't going to provide that. Well, but we did forget to do our usual season end recap where we pick our favorite sketches. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. That's honest. And we promised it. We also, we did promise something else at the end of our last episode. Free handjobs. No, stop. This is not that show. This isn't Go Flicks Yourself. No. Oh. This is a more professional. Sorry.

[00:02:02] Affordable handjobs. Stop it. Darn it. We said this year was going to be different, Brad. We were going to be a little bit more PC. Handjobs aren't politically correct. Okay. At the end of the last episode, Brad, you promised something to our listeners. What did you promise? If you sent an email, Ben would send you a video blowing you a kiss. That's true.

[00:02:26] You said it as a throwaway line, and one of our listeners took it pretty seriously. Yes. So those of you that know, we do have an email address for this podcast that we don't ever check. We're the worst podcast hosts in the world. And Andy Toholski, long-time listener, A. Andy, wrote us emails. He says, greetings, pod gentlemen. Thank you for another season of hilarity and escalation.

[00:02:52] In the final 10 seconds of the Will Ferrell episode, host Brad for Omen indicated that this is where we should send requests for videos of Ben blowing you a kiss. I assume that when this takes off, you will monetize it on Cameo. But in the meantime, I'd like to get in on some of that free kiss video action. We're talking smooches. We're talking smooches. This exactly.

[00:03:20] But with Ben, I am only asking for what was promised. Oh, sorry. This is the second email. Oh, okay. Good. So that was the first email. Yeah. Shortly after that, we get a second email. How much time passed between? Do you have the dates between? No, but it was maybe a week. Okay. Yeah. And then he sends a gif of Ryan Gosling. What was the champagne one where he's at a wedding, I think? He was on SNL sketch. I can't remember that one.

[00:03:50] Do you remember? Oh, the Ryan Gosling one where he holds up the glass? Yep. Yeah. He says, this exactly, but with Ben, I'm only asking for what was promised. The longer this goes on, the more awkward it is for you. I just love the fact that these are falling completely off. No one's checking this. This is just, we just were alerted to this yesterday. Yeah. And then another email that just simply says, I haven't forgotten.

[00:04:21] Kiss. Yeah. Then the last email. Okay. I'm really just seeing how often you check this email at this point, and the answer is never. Subtext. Kiss, please. Well, hey, you'll be happy to know, Andy, Andrew, Anderson, if you decide to check your Facebook. Oh, you said it on Facebook? I said a Facebook messenger. That's how we communicate. I don't think I have his number. Oh. So I sent him a Facebook message with a big old video of me giving him a big old smooch.

[00:04:50] And you know what? You deserve it, buddy. You're one of the best fans we have out there, and we really appreciate you. I love you, buddy. I love that. And then we did actually get another email that I just found. Friends. Was it another requit? Re-kissed? No. Re-kissed? Don't do that. Sorry, I'm trying. Don't force a portmanteau. I don't even know what a portmanteau is. No, nobody does. But this is from Kevin Kuhl. K-U-H-L. He says,

[00:05:17] I just wanted to say, I appreciate you guys doing this podcast and trying to be a decent example of non-toxic men having a discussion about comedy for others to see. I've been watching religiously since 86. My mom introduced me, and I usually get pissed when casual viewers make comments about my show. I feel a kinship with you three about the show and trust you to make sincere comments about something we all really do love and want to be successful. So keep it up. Please have a great week. Hell yeah, dude. That's great. That's a great comment. Thanks, Kevin. Cool. Yeah, that's a cool comment. That's a cool, Kevin.

[00:05:46] Everybody be more like Kevin. Yeah. Yeah. So I should probably check the email more often. Yeah. Geez. Well, hopefully nothing bad has happened to Andy or Kevin, and they could get my ... You know what? I'm going to find Kevin online. I'm going to kiss him. Oh, here's the- You know what? I'm going to take that back. I'm sorry, Kevin. Here's another piece of reader email that we got. I'm dying of cancer as my last wish. If you could please call me. Sorry about that. Oh, yikes. This is really on us.

[00:06:16] But really, it's kind of on you. We're pretty obvious about- Yeah, you should know we're really shitty at this by now. So if you record ... There was some metric. If you would literally record and put out 10 episodes of a podcast, you're in the top 1% of all podcasters because people start podcasts- Well, it's not quite that big. No, no, but yes. The idea is meaning volume-based. Yes. It's a pretty big deal because- If you reach a certain number of episodes, you're already in the upper echelon. Exactly.

[00:06:43] And so for a podcast show that has been going for now five years, we are still the worst at the interaction and posting stuff on Facebook. We're not good at it. This, we get together because we love SNL. We love talking about it with each other. And we hope that you do kind of ... Not doing a bit here. Find that kinship because there's enough out there of, again, toxic masculinity to talk about SNL and what comedy is and bro comedy and blah, blah, blah.

[00:07:11] And we do think that it does take somebody decently nuanced to bring that to you. That's us. We're the nuanced people that talk about hand jobs, I guess. Cool, Brad. Brad does. Yeah, actually, Nate and I are really on this side of the couch. There's a reason you have your own chair. Yeah, they do the feet stuff. Well, let's get the heck into it. Welcome to season 52 of Saturday Night Live. Lauren Michaels still going strong.

[00:07:41] We don't know that. He wasn't on the episode. Well, he's still pretty strong. He's still pretty strong. Did you watch the Lauren documentary, Brad? We didn't really talk about that on this show. We don't really talk about that too much. I think we might have, though, because I did see it before it came out. I saw it as well. I really liked it. Obviously, it's out now, guys. For fans of SNL, there's definitely enough in there. Oh, it's great. You don't need to be a movie lover to watch a documentary about Lauren Michaels. It is fantastic. There's a lot in there.

[00:08:09] Especially because it's very closely tied to the production of SNL. Exactly. And you probably won't learn a lot of new stuff if you've watched other previous SNL documentaries, but it's still very fun to watch because of the talking heads they get. Oh, so good. And you get to see a bunch of different episodes go through the production process. It also, just again, another clear example of why of the talking heads, of the SNL alum, John Mulaney stands alone as one of the best storytellers. Oh, yeah. And the person that people look to as like, oh, yeah, we should let John tell that. Yeah.

[00:08:38] Mulaney has a great breakout story about having dinner with Lauren. Incredible. Yeah, it's so good. So check that out for sure. But Nate, take it from here, buddy. What are we getting into? Well, let's talk about who joined the cast and who left. Well, yeah, let's do the departure first. To recall, Bowen Yang left in the middle of season 51, so he is not back this season. Over the summer, Chloe Fineman left the show. Yeah, that was a big decision for her to leave. I feel like she's moving on, though. She's got a career. She's got plenty going on. She'll be okay.

[00:09:07] She did seven years, which is a great career in SNL. She's still posting funny stuff on Instagram. She posted a really funny thing because she got to take the Sydney Sweeney boobs with her when she left, and she put them on and was doing a bit tied to the controversial, quote-unquote, Sydney Sweeney sports band ad, which was really funny. What do you think we're going to miss most about having Chloe Fineman on the show? I'm hoping not a lot because I do feel like Veronica Slowikoska has picked up some of the slack that there might have been from Chloe Fineman, and same with Ashley Padilla.

[00:09:36] If there's anything that we'll miss, there might be some impressions that go left unfilled for a little. She's a great impressionist. Yeah, but Veronica specifically is picking up a lot of what she left behind. Very similar energy. Not to say that ... I'm not trying to slight Chloe Fineman. No, not at all. Chloe's amazing. But the show itself, if you're looking at it as sliding in roles, we're very happy to have an African-American cast member again, a woman, because that role was just missing.

[00:10:04] It's just awkward, because you don't want to have somebody put on ... It's 2026. You're not going to put blackface. No, exactly. They want to do something weird. But also, it just pigeonholes the kind of sketches you can and can't do. And also, certain people that you can't parody. Exactly. And so having a diverse cast just in the first place is good for comedy in general, but also, if we're talking about it just in those very specific terms, there are two women on the cast that can fill that kind of role. Yeah. Right?

[00:10:32] And again, not to besmirch Chloe Fineman, she did a great job, but then again, she's a Scientologist, so whatever. Two questions for you guys, or one question for two characters here. Bowen Yang did leave middle of the season, but let's talk about him for a second. Bowen Yang, do you include him in top 50 cast members of all time? Yeah. Yes. I'm sure he'd be there. Do you include top 25 cast members of all time? So that's a more nuanced conversation. Yeah. I'm not asking you to ... I'm not going to hold you to it, but ...

[00:10:59] I think he might have a good chance, but I'd really have to sit down to figure it out. I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay. I think it's 25 to 50 for sure. Okay. What about Chloe Fineman? Does she break your top 50? That's going to be close. Yeah. That one's more close, because as talented as an Impressionist as she is was, there are just so many good ... Even in the Impressionist category, there's tremendous talent on this cast. Maybe an honorable mention? Yeah. I mean, we have to sit back ... It's been five years.

[00:11:27] It's probably time to go back through it again and re-rank them as far as that's concerned. Really think about it again. But man, I think that's a good placeholder. It would be Bowen for me would be between 25 and 50 somewhere, and Chloe would be maybe top 50, but I'm not sure. I'd have to really run the numbers. Roughly the same for you, bro. Yeah. I think so, probably. That makes sense to me. Because especially when you're talking about ... That first cast, I mean, pretty much every single person in there is top 50, no matter what. Just kind of by default.

[00:11:56] And so then you're doing ... There's seven to 10 names that are just immediate. So now you've only got 40 left, right? And so since it's been ... Since the late 70s, now you've got 40 over 40 years. That's crazy. It would almost be a fun task for us to do a top 50 of the seasons that we had been watching SNL, right? So you don't include that first season or the first 10 seasons or whatever. Well, no. Don't discount. No, what I'm saying is since we've started watching ...

[00:12:25] You could lock the pantheon of greats before a certain time and say more ... Because Rolling Stone and the New York Times does the best shows of the last 20th century. They'll do cutoffs and things. Well, but they're doing that, though, because there's enough time has passed in the 21st century now that it's worth doing. There's enough time has passed with SNL that maybe it's okay to say ... It's 52 seasons. ... it's a different show than it was enough from the 70s and 80s that maybe you just start in 1992 and go forward or something like that. I'm just saying, it's just got to be a fun exercise.

[00:12:52] We could even just do who were the 10 best cast members of the 21st century. I mean, because we could do the top 52 cast members in 52 years, and you can't ... If they were on the show in that first year, you could pick one. That'd be fun. That'd be fun. The next one ... So you do Chevy Chase the first year, and then he's gone the second year, so then you do Bill Murray, and then you ... Ooh, yeah. Ooh. That was pretty good. Anyway, let's get going. There's one more ... One more departure, yes. Did we do? Slow your roll. Martin Hurley, who was not ever really officially a cast member other than being with Please Don't Destroy.

[00:13:21] But he did some good stuff last season. Yeah, he did some great pre-tape sketches, and unfortunately, he decided to leave the show over the summer as well. So, Please Don't Destroy is gone. Well, Ben Marshall's still there. I know, but what I'm saying is they just seem as a comedy group, they're just done. They were gone last year. I know, but I just feel like this is almost a nail in the coffin to ... I don't know. I just feel sad for them. They've gone on to ... They're doing okay. They have their own stuff going on. Yeah. So, they're doing okay. I just feel like I hope they're still friends.

[00:13:51] I mean, this is a Foggy Mountain Boys movie or whatever that was. It was good. I think Higgins just joined Scrubs, actually. Didn't he? Oh, good. Oh, nice. I'd love the new Scrubs movie. Yeah. I'd love that. Yeah. So, we had those departures, and then, Brad, I'm going to let you say the names of the new cast members. Yeah, who's the new ... Because I don't want to butcher this. Yes. We have two new ladies who have joined the cast. We have Saida Bello Asagie and Grace Ryder. Saida is somebody who I wasn't super familiar with, and even looking online at her stuff,

[00:14:21] she does have a presence, and she is a filmmaker, but Grace Ryder is the one who is ... or Grace Ryder. Ashley knew who that was. Yeah. And was like, oh, I follow that person. She has a very big following on TikTok and Instagram. She's very funny. Yeah. Extremely funny. And so, yeah. Those are the only two new cast members who joined this season. They're featured players. And with them joining the cast, Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline were promoted to repertory players. So, they are now officially part of the regular cast and no longer featured players.

[00:14:48] With Saida as the first black woman cast member since Ego Wodum, right? Yeah. So ... Also, I believe ... I forget which one, but one of them is the first cast member to be born after the year 2000. That's great. Yeah. So, we're just going to skip right over that part, because that's the most sad thing. That's the most sad thing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm bucking old. But no. So, with this addition ... So, basically, yes, Bowen Yang, gone, right? Yes, Chloe Feynman.

[00:15:17] And then we're not counting the writer, because he's not a cast member. But it's the exact same size, then, of cast. You lose two, you gain two. Right. Right? So, it's the same size, which these days, unless something significant changes, this is the size of the cast that you're going to get. Yeah. They're about to ... Occasionally, they've added people mid-season, like Kate McKinnon was one of those people. I guess what I'm saying is, the last five years or so, it's just been a very large cast. Yes. It's grown, and now ... It's still pretty big. It's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:44] But I also, as we've talked about before, older cast members or people in the 90s or whatever before that would argue that Lauren didn't let them leave. Exactly. They didn't ... And so, there seems to be a little more permission that they can have a slightly different career or some other commitments and Lauren's okay. Is it because there's a larger cast, that means that Pete Davidson could leave when he needed to and Bo Nian could go do things when he needed to because there's a large cast? Yeah.

[00:16:12] Or did they get a larger cast because people really wanted to leave and they weren't willing to be on SNL anymore? It could be a little column A, column B. I can't imagine there are a lot of people who would turn it down. Would turn it down. Yeah. On SNL. Exactly. But yeah, I would imagine that the larger cast probably ... It allows that, obviously. Yeah. And yeah, it makes it easier just to work. Yeah. Well, I'm too excited. Let's get into it. All right. Let's do cold open Mondani's Northeastern TikTok.

[00:16:37] Mayor Zoran Mondani films a TikTok update about the Northeastern hitting the sea. By the way, did not know anything about this. A bit that plays it straight for about 30 seconds before President Trump shows up, which I know Brad was very excited about. And he is fixated on Mondani, which is true. There's something about they have some kind of connection. I don't know if you followed this at all, but Trump loves Mondani. So Mondani was played by Rami Yusuf.

[00:17:07] Obviously, James Johnson does Donald Trump. And actually, Padilla plays Natalie Harp. And did you guys know much about Natalie Harp? Is that in the zeitgeist of non-political? Yeah. There's a whole ... I don't know if it's non-political, but a lot of people know that there's some weird thing happening between them. So it seems ... It's a very ... I know probably less than you two about it, because I haven't really seen too much news lately. But the narrative was that she's pretty ... At the best case, just sycophantic.

[00:17:37] And at worst case, that they're banging. Yeah. Like, it's just weird. That's kind of the rumor. Okay. Fair enough. She loves him. I think they released some maybe letters or something. Weird. Weird, weird stuff. But anyway, so ... I ... I didn't love it. Can I say something that I think you guys are going to both disagree with? I don't think Rami Yusuf does a great job.

[00:18:05] I think he can do a great job. I don't think he did a great job in this particular sketch. I think he was just not great in this. And I didn't laugh. I don't know if ... Obviously, you've got Trump, James Russell Johnson doing Trump, and that's always going to overshadow a lot. But I don't think Rami Yusuf really brought anything to this. I mean ... Actually, Padilla made me laugh. Yeah. But ... I don't think there was anything special that Rami did. I also think that the timing, as far as just their banter, felt like it was a little

[00:18:35] bit off, and there was a little bit of too much waiting in between lines to react So I'm going to throw that to you. This is the first episode of the year. Yeah, absolutely. And new writing staff comes in. Getting back into the swing of things. And then if you don't remember, if you've never heard this part of it before, the writers aren't just writing the sketch. They are blocking it. They are showing the actor where to stand. They are directing that sketch. And so if you have a first ... A good comedy writer is not automatically a good director. Yeah. And you are kind of a mini director in this way. So that's the first sketch of the entire year.

[00:19:04] I chalk up the timing issues to that, but you have to be really good with the timing to make it funny. I'm not going to be that forgiving because ... I'm not either. Since this is the cold open and it's political stuff, they have someone seasoned doing this. Sure. That's fair. That's fair. So I think that this is something ... This is often like a Colin Joe sketch. Exactly. Yeah. And so I don't think ... All right. Well, get it together, SNL. You suck. I mean, honestly, a little bit. I do feel like this is the beginning of a new season. This better hit. I was so disappointed. No. Actually, it's the exact opposite.

[00:19:31] In recent years, as I've come to understand more about the show and know what they do and what their timeline is and kind of how things work, I don't expect the season premiere to be very good anymore because ... Me neither. ... they're rough coming back from hiatus. They're not fully on their A game. They're still easing back into it. And so ... The audience doesn't really know what to expect either because they've been off for a while. They have new cast members. They do have some new writers. I don't expect the season premiere to be a huge hit right out of the gate. No. And then tack on, it's an athlete. Yeah, exactly. Which is also a tough ask.

[00:20:01] But you don't put the show on because it's ready, right? Exactly. It's because it's 1130. So you were going to get a lot of that in this episode. It was unfortunate, though, because we love the show so much. I want it to always go well. You never watch it going, I hope for this train wreck. But man, if people tune in and they see that, they're like, oh yeah, SNL sucks. And you're like, yeah, well, that's a really hard defense to make right now. I don't know. I just feel like you have all summer. I know, but that's the how it works. And they're not planning all summer.

[00:20:30] I know, but are you telling me that the writers there aren't thinking of things and this was the one you went with? But ... Also, is there a nor'eastern right now? I don't even know that they're having a weather problem in New York. Well, you don't live in New York. Yeah, Nate. Okay, then make it so where there's something that we all know is going on. It's SNL. You know they do local New York stuff from time to time. That's probably why they had Jalen Brunson on, because he sucked. I appreciate your complaints, but at the same time, I think that ...

[00:21:00] Yeah, what are you, Brad? I think that you have to understand that even though they have stuff, I'm sure they've saved up over the summer, they don't know what's going to get picked. They don't know what things they're going to have to rewrite. They don't know whether the host is going to be able to execute their vision and make it work at the table read. You're absolutely right, though. This is my fault, because when SNL comes back, I get excited. Of course. And then they disappoint me every time. It happens a lot. So this was not a good cold open. This was not a good political cold open. This was a middling at best sketch.

[00:21:30] The saving graces of this sketch, to me, are the same as they always are in the political cold opens. It's a good turn of phrase, and it's a good pun, or it's a good delivery of one line that's a good joke. These are well-written jokes that hit in an otherwise middling sketch. It's never enough to save it, but it's enough to elicit a small smile or a little chuckle from me. But that's not the same as a great sketch. No, exactly. But I agree with Nate. I think Ashley Padilla was the funniest part of the sketch, for sure. For sure. All right, moving on.

[00:22:00] Monologue, Jalen Brunson. We didn't really even talk about Jalen Brunson being the host. Sorry, so the host, Jalen Brunson, is the guard for the New York Knicks. I like that Ben is the one that feels like he has to pick the game. I know, because he's like, I played basketball in high school. Jesus Christ. No, not at all. He won the championship with the New York Knicks, and that's why he's hosting the show. That's all I was going to say. He wasn't going to let us say that, though. We don't know anything about sports. We're just not men. I mean, you would call it sports ball? Oh, you are one of those guys. I haven't called it sports ball in a long time. You are one of those guys.

[00:22:30] You're a pretentious prick when it comes to sports, and you know you are. I'm not pretentious. I just don't like it. Yeah, you're pretentious about sports ball. But you don't like it when people do like it. No, that's not true. Oh, you're like, go team. That's Brad. Why can't I root for the team? All right, so Jalen Brunson compares hosting SNL to a Knicks finals game. He says the first three quarters are going to be god-awful, but the last sketch is going to be amazing.

[00:22:58] I would say maybe the cut-for-time sketch is going to be okay. There you go. His Knicks teammates take questions from the crowd. Honestly, I might argue some of them should host. I actually would have preferred whoever was the final Knicks player to host it instead. He was fantastic. I would have even taken the first guy that answered the questions because he threw his glasses off and he was all in. Actually, you know what? I wish Patrick Ewing would have hosted. Patrick Ewing. That's amazing. This was awkward. Not good. So they saw- Actually, no.

[00:23:28] His teammates were actually- They made me laugh a little bit. So this is a Gen Z phrase, Brad. I'm sure you know what it is because you're of the young people generation. It's nice to see them getting their flowers, right? Oh, true. They literally won the championship for the city of New York. It's a cool thing to have four people in the audience and a guy up on stage, right? Five New York Knicks players. They get up on stage. They get their flowers. It's amazing, right? That's a cool thing.

[00:23:58] It's a softball question and answer monologue, which is typically what they do for people that aren't very experienced on stage. Great. Jalen Brunson just is a poor host because of one issue. He in no way, shape, or form was willing to go for it ever. Yeah, he- Ever. And we'll talk about a very specific sketch later that he could have easily turned the side and you know exactly what I'm going to say. I think I know what he's talking about. But this is- On top of that, too, he also just had a hard time enunciating-

[00:24:26] He was constantly mumbling and I just wish he would have brought a little bit more charisma to the people. So conversely, I don't know if you guys saw Hot Ones with- And again, I'm going to sound like a homer here because we're in the shadow of Chicago, but Caleb Williams- Chicago's the best city, though. Caleb Williams is the quarterback of the Chicago Bears. Yeah. He was on Hot Ones and he's the most dynamic, charismatic person. He could definitely host us. I want- He should have hosted us. Yeah. It's incredible how amazing that dude is at being basically a talking head. Yeah. Incredible.

[00:24:56] Jalen Brunson is almost the opposite of that. I can't believe how piss poor he was at this. Yeah. Longtime listener Brock Heasley commented, we asked what you thought of this episode and he says, there have been better episodes. Personally, I prefer it when the hosts are awake and enunciating, but maybe that's just me. Yeah. It was just- And it's not- Again, I don't think he was phoning it in. I think he was very excited to be there. Yeah. I just think that's who he is. No, and he seems like a perfectly nice guy. Yeah, absolutely. This is just not his forte. It's not his forte. But good for him for trying.

[00:25:26] But they don't have to have him on, though. That's what bothers me. Well, they kind of- No, they don't. They have somebody on from the New York Knicks. That's the thing. They don't have a person from every NBA championship. It's the Knicks, man. First time since, what, 65 or 72? Okay. Then have one of the other four that were in the- But he's not the same thing, though. He's not as well known. Yeah. Yeah, Jalen Brunson is the star player on the New York Knicks. He's the most famous Knicks. That's why they- Carl Anthony Towns is a pretty well-name. He's pretty big. I've literally never heard his name. Carl Anthony Towns, though, didn't start off as a Knick, though, either.

[00:25:55] He played for the Minnesota Timberwolves first, I believe, and then transferred. So it's like Jalen Brunson is a New York Knick thrown through. And SNL does have a history of being loyal to New York sports and bringing in their players, especially after championship games. So I saw this coming, and it was just unfortunate that that's who that guy is. Yeah. And it's a season premiere. Like, this is a double whammy, guys. Yeah, exactly. It's tough. But it was nice to see them, again, get their kudos. Maybe also at least they got it out of the way. Yeah, hopefully. You know?

[00:26:23] And also, I guess maybe the good thing was that the Q&A portion was the best part of the monologue. Exactly, yeah. And there was a fun Chris Farley reference in there as well, which was enjoyable to see. So yeah, there was, again, not a great monologue. Jalen Brunson, as we'll get to, is not a great host. Again, not everybody's going to be Peyton Manning either. Yeah, or Charles Barkley for that man. Or even Eli Manning. Eli Manning was a little bit funny. Eli Manning was fine. Yeah. You know, he didn't shit the bed. The courtroom sketch with Eli Manning, it was pretty great. Mm-hmm. All right.

[00:26:53] Office shooter, office worker Darius is terrible at shooting. Is that the name of the sketch? I think so, yeah. Crumpled wrappers into the trash can until his exasperated co-worker finally snaps and slaps him and Darius reveals he's actually Jalen Brunson. What did you think of this one, Brady Burr? This was mildly amusing, at least. You know, this was the first of several sketches where it's just like, man, Jalen, if you just

[00:27:20] like gave a little bit of like theatricality to your performance, this might be fun. Wake up. Yeah. Yeah. Just go for something. Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah. It was like, that was pretty much it. Like, this was just like a... It just felt like, okay, guys, we have an athlete. Like, the writer's like privately talking. Okay, guys, we have an athlete this week. Figure out a sketch to put him in. And like, you know... One of the things that they did... We'll make Mikey be the funny guy. In this sketch, the slapping stuff was a good escalation.

[00:27:50] I liked it. I actually went back and re-watched the final shot multiple times because you got all this paper and then they clearly put like a cush ball or a weighted ball in something that he could actually shoot. And my biggest question, I actually looked up to see if the dress rehearsal was different. Do they have something... If he misses, did they write a different ending? Because if he misses that last shot, it's a good 10 to 15 feet away. He's a professional basketball player. He's going to make it. But if something goes wrong and he misses the shot, do they still celebrate like he made it?

[00:28:19] Do they act like he did? What happens there? I did wonder about that. And I also wondered so far as to think about whether or not there was some forced perspective with the trash can and that it was wide enough that no matter what, he was going to make it. Right. I don't think there was. I think obviously he's a professional athlete and they probably just gave it to him and said like, hey man, try this three or four times to make sure you're pretty good at it. Right. Right. And then if they did miss, then maybe somebody had a throwaway line at the end. Yeah, I don't know. But I just found that interesting because that's more of a technicality type thing. Exactly.

[00:28:47] And it's a very interesting logistical problem that they would have. Yeah. I wondered that as well. Yeah. It's interesting to think about. Yeah. But yeah, that was the most interesting thing. When the most interesting thing about the sketch is what would happen if it went bad. Okay. Well, we can move on. Yeah. The office shooter line was funny. Office shooter line. I don't think we should say that. Yeah. That's good. All right. Moving on. Dream Academy season two. A parody of the reality show that assembled Cat's Eye. Yeah. Okay. I don't know any of this reality show. Did you?

[00:29:17] So I didn't know about the reality show. And the only reason I really know anything about Cat's Eye is because Slash Film that I write for, something they're trying out as a formula to try and see if people are interested in this kind of coverage, is that a lot of people search for on a Saturday, is SNL new tonight? And so every week we're doing Is SNL New Tonight that we're publishing on Saturday. And so I'm writing that since I'm the SNL expert. Sure. And I had to look up who Cat's Eye was because we have a slide that says, who's the musical guest? Right.

[00:29:44] And so yeah, Cat's Eye is a, they're called a global girl group because they were all assembled on this Netflix reality competition show, Dream Academy, to basically form a girl. Was Dream Factory taken? To form a group of women who are all from different countries around the world. There's actually six of them, but two of them are on mental health hiatuses right now. So there's only four who performed on the show. But that's how I found out who Cat's Eye was. And that's why they're the focus of this sketch. Got you. Okay. Makes a lot of sense.

[00:30:14] So this is season two. And the premise of this sketch is there's essentially two contestants that are played by Jane Wickline and Grace Ryder or Reader? Ryder. Ryder. Who are friends in real life. They actually have done comedy before, sketch comedy before, or I guess, is it sketch comedy if it's online on TikTok? I mean, yeah. You still do sketches. It's the definition of what, it doesn't turn into a skit, Nate. No, no, no. I'm just saying, like, I don't know if there's a different name for a digital kind of version of what a lot of people do. It's still sketch comedy. Okay.

[00:30:44] So anyway, so they're back together. This is Grace's first sketch. What did you think of this one, Brad? I liked this one a lot, actually. I thought this was probably one of the better sketches of the night. Yep, I did too. Agreed. Very funny. Great, great use. Because of Grace. A lot of it. She was hilarious. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Grace and Jane, honestly, were both very funny as Duff and Meagle, I think that was. So good. But yeah, a very good use of Grace for her first time out. Very funny in this sketch. And also- Shout out to Veronica Slowakowska, who can actually- Those pipes, man.

[00:31:12] Veronica Slowakowska has legit pipes, and she's also doing something interesting. I don't know if you follow her on social media. No. I'm not sure if she's legit trying to create a pop persona from the ground up, but she started posting this thing from a different Instagram account that she was also reposting on her own Instagram account, where she's wearing a blue wig. She's singing a real new original song, and it seems like she might be trying to do a real musical thing. I don't know if it might just be a big bit that she's doing as well. But yeah, she can sing-

[00:31:41] Saronica Bowikowska? She's very talented. But yeah, she's great in this sketch as well. But also, the use of cat's eye was very good. And I also really liked that there was a shift from doing the reality parody into doing the music video from the song that they were- I actually kind of thought it was too short. Yeah. Like, I kind of wanted that to turn into the full-on music video the whole way, because it was good. Yeah. It was fun. It was really fun. It was kind of a banger. Mm-hmm. Which we do talk about that.

[00:32:09] When there's a music video, if it's a banger of a song, it really does add that extra layer that you need to make it kind of not an all-timer sketch, but like a really, really solid one that you can watch over and over again. Exactly. That's one of the reasons I like Twin Bed so much. Yeah. The Christmas sketch. Yeah. That's so good. But no, if this is what we're going to get out of the newcomer and Jane Wickline stepping up from feature to repertory, wow. Yeah. I was very impressed by this.

[00:32:37] So, does Grace remind you of any previous cast members? There's a little bit of Aidy Bryant in there, for sure. A little Bobby Moynihan? A little bit? What's their last name? Molly. Molly Shannon. No. No. No. Oh, my goodness. Crap. No, it's not Molly Crap. That's a weird last name, buddy. Kearney. Molly Kearney. Thank you. You got it. Yes. Yes. But yeah, no.

[00:33:07] It's enough standalone that she's got her own brand, for sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. But there's hints of people we love. Yeah. And if you go watch her stuff, she's got plenty of things on YouTube and TikTok and whatnot. She definitely has her own community. But she seemed ready. Oh, 100%. Actually, she has a hilarious thing that she did. I forget which birthday it was, but for her birthday- For mine? She got a bunch of her friends together to remake The Hunger Games from memory. Oh, yes. Oh, that's funny.

[00:33:37] Yeah. And it's hilarious. I gotta check that out. That sounds good. It's a 50-minute thing. Yeah, it's a legit thing. It's really funny. Do they shoot it like the movie, or do they talk about it? No. Yeah, as best they can, they shot it like a real movie. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Yeah. So no, I was very happy. This is the first sketch of the night where I'm like, okay, this feels like SNL again. Here we go. All right, moving on. Men's support group, an anonymous support group for men whose partners get pulled on stage at Usher and Chris Brown concerts.

[00:34:08] Each member processing it a little bit differently. This has Ben Marshall, Marcella Hernandez, and other cast members in it. Ben, what did you think of this one? So this is one of those where, to me anyway, it falls in the category of a couple of writers sitting around being like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if, and they have this good premise, and then there's just almost no escalation, and it's just rinse and repeat, and it's like, what are we doing here? Yep. Again, Jalen Brunson brings nothing to this. No. It was just not funny.

[00:34:35] By the time they get to kind of almost a turn with Ben Marshall's character, it's not even that much of a turn. Yeah. It's just kind of like, what would have been honestly surprising if Usher would have made an appearance or something like that? I was honestly thinking, it's a big enough show. They probably could have got him. That would have been neat, but no. Yeah. The premise was funny, because this is something that you see videos from the concert a lot of just women getting all hot and bothered and wet and wild at Usher and Chris Brown concerts.

[00:35:02] The only thing that was at least clever was I liked that Kenan kept going about, like, chairs are out of season. Yeah. And just kind of going down there, like, where would you even get chairs? That's funny to me, but not funny enough to carry the whole sketch. I agree, yeah. I think Kenan and Ben Marshall were the high points of this, but otherwise it was just not great. Yeah, no. No, that's it. All right. What did you think, Nate? No, I just didn't think it was funny. Do you know who Usher is? It's Ersher. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, do it my way.

[00:35:32] All right. My way or the highway. Limb Biscuit. No, no. He's a big limb guy. Well, we're going to move on from all that. All right. Next was a high school musical parody called North High. This was a new kid played by Jalen Brunson joins the basketball team at a high school musical style school and turns out to be a ringer, not only in his basketball skills, but also with singing and all these kind of things. As the basketball expert, let me talk through this one. So there's more sports.

[00:36:03] The reason this sketch was great and it worked so well is because Jalen Brunson didn't have to do shit. He just got to be a little physical and then everybody else took it from there. He had to play basketball. He had to do the thing he's good at, but also the physicality worked. Yeah. Because the whole thing is I'm going to push Jeremy Coltrane into the chairs, which was John Coltrane. It was hilarious. Like watching him just get beat up was really funny and I was there for it. Yeah.

[00:36:30] And also there's a director that can be like, all right, Jalen, if you could do that again, but like. Exactly. The pre-tapeness of it helps tremendously. But Jeremy Coltrane is very funny. Gosh darn, he's funny. Physical comedy was so good. I feel like he's just a, I love that he's a part of the cast. You know, there's some in that year. I can't even remember some of the names of some of the guys. Hey, listen, Tommy Brennan is funny. He's funny. He's funny.

[00:36:59] But I think Veronica Kosciuszko is from the same year. Yeah, she is. Yeah, but Tommy Brennan was the one. Tommy Brennan was the one I was thinking of. Tommy Brennan's funny. He is funny though. He hasn't broken out in the same way that Colhane has, but he is funny. He's funny. Broken out meaning like been funny on the show. No, what are you doing? You're being very unfair. Tommy Brennan has been funny on the show. Yeah, his weekend update bit was very good. Okay, but what's your favorite sketch he's done? That's what we're saying. He hasn't broken out yet, but he's been funny on the show. Yeah, I agree. No, I genuinely think Tommy Brennan's very, very funny.

[00:37:29] But he is not. Tommy's a listener. I'm sorry, Tommy. We love you. He's not a listener. How do you know? He's not had this experience that Jeremy Colhane has had where he's actually, I think, forming for him a very unique comedy persona on the show. No, no, I agree. I think that as you'll discover or you would have discovered if you keep watching the show, is the reaction alone to Jeremy Colhane coming back as Tucker Carlson later in the show, that just proves that he has. That's staying power already. Exactly. Exactly. But no, Tommy will get there.

[00:37:57] I really feel like there is, I won't say, he's not very clearly an heir apparent to a Mikey Day. I think it's a good comparison. But he's very close to getting right there. He plays the everyman, but he's weird enough. Yeah. And I think that there's so much room for him to grow in the show. And he is a good writer, too. He is. I see his stand-up clips pop up every now and then, and he's very funny. He's very good. Yeah. We're going to be just fine with good old Tommy. I really do hope he gets a breakout this year. Yeah, me too.

[00:38:24] But to go back to the sketch, though, I think what I also really appreciate is it did capture that High School Musical style very well. The songs even. Yeah, the songs were great. The songs were very well done, the breaking into them and then having them be interrupted by Jalen Brunson playing basketball. And of course, the Veronica Sloikowska bit at the end, too, also added to it. But yeah, this was probably, this and Between Dream Academy, probably the top sketches of the night. For sure. Yeah. So I thought, oh. Which doesn't bode well for the rest of the episode. Right.

[00:38:53] But we'll get there. All right. Airport massage chairs. Two guys in airport massage chairs can't stop making increasingly inappropriate noises. Well, no, no. One guy. One guy. As the chairs work them over. So I kept on watching. This is essentially just a Mikey Day Jalen Brunson sketch. No, it's not, though. It's just a Mikey Day sketch. Yeah. This was so disappointing. So you think at some point the writer's like, Jalen, we need some more from you.

[00:39:20] So this smacked of I just don't want to be uncool. Like that's all this was to me. That was the first thing I thought. You're not committing. Yeah. You're not committing at all. He wasn't willing to make goofy orgasmic sounds. Exactly. Because that's gay or that's weird or I'm not doing that. There's something there. Well, don't brand him as homophobic. I don't know. I'm just saying at the end of the day, he was not willing to be uncool, which is what you have to be on SNL if you're going to be cool. No, commit. I'm sorry. And if there's one thing I will give credit to someone like Travis Kelsey for is that like he was willing.

[00:39:50] He was willing. Buddy. Buddy. Buddy. Hey, good for you, Brad. Good for you. You know what? You've never done that before. No, but you have kudos for kudos because then you see something like this and you're like, there's no reason you should be on the show. No, exactly. You know that you had every opportunity to make fun of yourself here and be cool. And Mikey fucking went for it. Yeah. He went hard. There is a part of me that does wonder though is maybe even if it's not that negative of a thing where like he didn't want to be uncool and maybe he was just nervous to do it

[00:40:19] and didn't feel like he could do it in a way that was funny because at some point you realize that the sketch did kind of become Mikey trying to break Jaylen. Oh, of course. And I think that that's Mikey pivoting in the moment. Like this is dying. I have to do something. But was it dying because of Jaylen or was dying just because the sketch still wasn't that great? I can see the past and changed past. If he would have gone for it, this would have been, he wouldn't have been trying to break him. He wouldn't have needed to. Yeah. You might be right.

[00:40:48] So I was just very frustrated at this because this had an opportunity to almost be like Mikey was basically going full. Is there a spider on me? You know that, that we had, you know, he was doing that spasticness. Of it all. And if he would have had anybody matching his level, it would have could have been almost an all timer. Like that's a great premise. Yeah. And it went nowhere except for Mikey trying his best. So good job, Mikey. Jaylen, you kind of sucked it up there, buddy. All right. Next is a big, big moment for us. Brad, get your computer out.

[00:41:18] Don't make computer noises. You actually have to get your phone out and make this. This is my computer. No, but get the phone out so we don't get cheating. It's also a big anniversary. It's a big anniversary. Colin Jost reaches his 250th sketch or 250th episode. And that is fourth all time. Wow. Fourth all time. Colin Jost is fourth all time. Okay. Do you have the ones that are higher? No. But we can't think of them.

[00:41:48] I mean, it'd have to be Keenan. Keenan for sure is number one. And it's going to be, that's like Cal Ripken. It's going to be really hard. Daryl Hammond. Probably. And maybe Tim Meadows. Yeah, I would say. I mean, is Michael Che above or below Colin Jost? Has Michael Che done 250th? I think below. A season maybe? Yeah. Okay. I'm not sure. They're close. Fred Armisen, how long was Fred on the show? He was on for a while. Eight or nine years maybe? Something like that. Anyway. While we're on the subject of Colin Jost,

[00:42:16] shout out to his hosting stint for Pop Culture Jeopardy. Oh, wonderful. The second season's on Netflix. The first season was on Prime Video. And Netflix, I felt like he loosened up a bit more. Yes. And he's having a lot more fun. And it's, I mean, it was enjoyable the first season. But his banter with the audience or the contestants is wonderful. Very funny. Yeah. He's very talented. That guy's got a career ahead of him. Yeah. All right. Let's talk a little bit about the Predometer real quick. In seven seconds, let's explain to our new listeners what the Predometer is.

[00:42:46] What's camaraderie between Che and Jost? Good equal high number. Yeah. Well, not just, but... Okay. He said in seven seconds, Brad. You took like three. So now you're wasting time. Well, then you cut me off. It's the combination of whether or not the jokes on Weekend Update land very well and are very funny or if Colin Jost and Michael Che have a good banter and camaraderie between each other. All right. That was nine seconds. This is a number that Brad comes up with and Ben and I try to guess. Between zero and a hundred. Yeah.

[00:43:12] And all time high, I think, you know, when you did, when they did joke swap like the third time, I think that was like a hundred. Did you pick a hundred? Did you pick a hundred? Probably. I might have even said a hundred. I thought we did a hundred and two. Yeah. Like this sucked. So I'm going to say the audience was cold fish. There was barely any talking back and forth except for Che mentioning a few things. Yeah. So I'm going to say, you know, 71. I'll go a little higher because when you look at the scope of the episode, I laughed some

[00:43:41] at this more than I laughed at some other things. So I'm going to say 74. You guys are way off. 59. Okay. Really low. This was a fucking cold weekend. It was horrible. Even the stuff that I thought was funny, I only like likely snickered at. Oh yeah. The audience was terrible. The audience was not having it. And like, uh, Che had a couple of good ones in there. And so the Benjamin Netanyahu joke about the UN and doing the, uh, relocation. Holy shit. That's a great joke. It was a great joke. Nobody's laughing at that. That's not an SNL joke. Yeah.

[00:44:11] Especially not a season premiere. Yeah. But, but I, but kudos, Michael, that's a good joke. Yeah. No, that was good stuff. There was a couple of good ones in there, but otherwise, yeah, it was just, they, they clearly didn't have the goods and like they, it just was, it was off for sure. Yep. All right. Let's go to the weekend update bits. Then we've got, um, uh, Jane Wickline playing Anthropic CEO, Dario Amadei. Sure. I think is what it's called. Um, and this is only going to be as good as if you've seen the guy in an interview. Correct. Well, uh, yes and no. No, but. I mean, listen, I haven't.

[00:44:41] No, no, no. I have. I liked it a lot. I have too. But is he, is he really that guy? Yes. In a way, yes. It's a pretty good impression. I would say that Jane has more of his presence, uh, and like, I don't know, posture down, but the impression isn't quite there. No, but, but yeah, some of the cadences though. Is this like Moffat doing Zuckerberg? Like he's got the caricature of it. Yeah. And it's just dialed up. To an extent. It's definitely an impression.

[00:45:08] It's not perfect, but there there's, it's actually for me, it was kind of funny because I've never thought of Dario Amadei like as an impression kind of thing. Right. And, and Jane did pull some things out of him. Like, oh, he does. Yeah. He does kind of, uh, repeat himself. He does these kinds of things. And I, for me, I am also against me. I think that this is less, uh, about the impersonation and also it was someone different to use to make jokes about AI. Sure.

[00:45:36] Because otherwise you have to do Elon Musk or you have to do, um, Sam Altman, Sam Altman or, uh, who's the other one we just said? Um, Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg. Yeah. And two of those have very famous personas that have already been lampooned on SNL. And Anthropik is really interesting too, because they kind of claim to be the moral AI, you know? Yeah. Um, and so, so this guy, spoiler alert, I don't think they are. No. Mm-mm. They're not. Nobody is. Um, and so like, and I'm not anti-AI, but I'm just saying like, they're all after the same pot of gold. Sure.

[00:46:06] Money. Right? Um, so, but what'd you think of Jane Wickline doing this? I thought it was funny. Yeah. It was solid. I didn't think they got anything. There was nothing, let me say this, there was nothing clever though. Yeah. It was funny, but it wasn't clever. Yeah. And I, I thought they could really do some really clever things with this. It's, is AI though, as a topic at the point right now in the kind of, in the zeitgeist that like saying the thing that we're all thinking is the joke right now and eventually

[00:46:34] it'll get more meta and it'll get easier to like go a little A to C. But right now, because it's such a new thing to lampoon, it is a little A to B. Is that, is there anything there? It could also be like the, the, the, it's kind of like what we talk about with Trump when, when James Austin Johnson does Trump and he just does essentially the same things Trump says. Yeah. It's just, there's, it's crazy that this is our life. This is a little bit of what Anthropic is saying. Listen, AI is going to kill us essentially. Yeah. It's kind of, it's like, but okay.

[00:47:02] So the funniest parts to me were the Smeagol voice. Yes. Yes. And like do the milk thing. We already did it. Yeah. Like the fact that his own persona wouldn't know that he did. Like I laughed at that. I thought that was very clever. The Smeagol thing is the best thing. But that, well that and the, the button, the two questions. Yeah. If you knew that if you, with milk and had a 10% discount, you'd still drink. You'd be like, no, you wouldn't. But then if there's a button that would kill everyone on earth, it wouldn't, would you push it? No. You wouldn't? Yeah. I loved those two. No, there's good stuff there for sure.

[00:47:32] But yeah, it's, I do agree with you, Nate, that it's a similar thing where like right now you can, you really, you can hit the obvious points of what there's talk about, but otherwise there's not much you can hit because it's not any more outlandish than what we're already dealing with. Yeah. No. And, and, and, and I don't know what to believe about AI. I don't know. You know, there's a lot of like, you know, uh, economists are saying they're trying to fear monger so that they can hedge, you know, essentially AI is overvalued right now as an

[00:48:00] industry and they're trying to hedge some things so they can get some government protection. I'm not, I don't know if that's true or if AI is going to overtake us. I don't know what much about that stuff, but I, I'm just a normal person that knows a little bit about financial markets. I just can't imagine that there's a world that these trillions of dollars of valuation have real value. Yeah. I just don't, I can't fathom that Warren Buffett is looking at that going, yeah, that makes sense.

[00:48:26] Well, cause especially cause it's all based on a hypothetical solution at this point. I don't know. It's just, it's, it's, it's a lot of fluff. I will give somebody who's curious out there if they want to do a little bit of homework and do find themselves wanting to know more about AI is I recently watched the documentary. It's called the AI documentary or how I became an apocaloptimist. I literally watched that about when it, right when it came out. Yeah. And it's, it's good. It's, it's very informative and it's from the perspective of a guy who is about to have a kid and he's an artist.

[00:48:57] And so he's asking questions as to whether or not he should be raising a kid in this environment and like what, like whether or not it's a good idea. And then getting both sides of like why AI is good, why AI is bad, all that kind of thing. And it's, it's a, it's a very even head and very ground level approach. I feel like AI doesn't have any evenness to it right now. Yeah. So yeah, it's a, I would definitely check that out. It's available on Netflix if you want to watch it. All right. Yeah. It's, it is. It presents both sides of the case very well.

[00:49:23] And it's also the talking heads they get are literally the leading experts in the world on this subject. They got Sam. They, they got, um, what's his name? That was just, that was the guy that they were talking about. Yeah. Dario. Yeah. But then they also got these like MIT and Harvard computer scientists and you know, it's the real people. And it's people who also previously worked for some of these companies and no longer do. Exactly. All right. The other bit was Jeremy Glane returned as Tucker Carlson to review the summer's blockbusters,

[00:49:50] including, um, uh, Spider-Man brand new gender. Um, that's the goal now. Obsession in Toy Story 5. Paw Patrol. Oh man. He's so good at this. This is so good. You can continue to bring it back a couple of times this season. Seriously. I'm fine with it. I'm not going to be mad. Do it twice in an episode. Um, an episode like this. Sure. Yeah. Honestly. Yes. Um, no, no, he, he can do no wrong with, with this Tucker Carlson stuff so far.

[00:50:17] Uh, and the fact that they did bring up that he's turning on Trump and this. And then I also liked the, the, the meta bit of the laugh and then Joe's being like, stop, don't. And then calling getting a little one in there. I love it when they do stuff like that. It reminds me of what Bo and Yang and him used to do too. Also a great quick reaction to the audience in character from Kohei where when they started to like react to me, he's like, stop, stop. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love him. Yeah. He's, he's very, very good. There's a comfort he had just in this episode. He just dialed in. He, he very much is.

[00:50:47] And, and, and we all hope and pray that Tommy Brandon gets there. All right. Um, moving on a parent teacher conference, a mother shows up to her son's elementary school conference accompanied by the many men in her life. Uh, chaos ensues. Now, Ben, I was wondering like how you felt about this one. Can we just, and I was, my joke was going to be like, I don't want to talk about this because it was just so bad. I just want to move. So close to home.

[00:51:15] Or yeah, no, uh, this is so absolutely a non-starter boring. Like I don't even care about this at all. Move on. Like I don't care. So there's nothing here at its core. I think the main premise is funny. They just didn't do much. There's nothing here. I'm not even sure the main premise is that I don't think that it is either. I think that it's, it would be if Ben Marshall's character is by far the funniest thing in here and it's not even close. It's just his genuine reactions. And he finally gets the point where I don't even care. No, that was the best part of that was like, you know what?

[00:51:45] I'm not going to get into this. But that's kind of how I felt about the whole sketch. Like it doesn't, none of this matters. So I think that this, this also does come from, uh, I'll say maybe an uneducated perspective in that there is some of this that is happening because of how much relationships have evolved and how strange. But a very rare, fine, fine. Yeah. But sure, sure. But, but also at the same time, like that's why I say is I do think that there is something

[00:52:10] that could have been funny here if the characters were more, uh, interesting and better defined to allow for escalation and comedy. I felt like, like, I guess maybe Kenan Thompson has done maybe even this bit, this character or whatever. This is a go-to for him in a lot of ways. Yeah. And this is, he's done this as a lounge singer. He's done this as a, this is just an old standby for Kenan and it feels really, really worn by now. So that's kind of where I was coming from. Like, I'm just bored by Kenan's character here. I don't need this anymore.

[00:52:41] Yeah. I just didn't think it was funny. Um, and yeah, no, it wasn't very good. And I say that out of love for Kenan Thompson who does everything he can all the time to save a lot of sketches. But this one is just like, let's, let's go ahead and retire that character. I don't need to see that bit anymore. I won't go that far because I think let's go ahead and retire that character. I don't need to see it anymore. No, that'd be like saying Chris Farley needs to stop yelling and falling onto things. Oh, he died? No, that cause Kenan Thompson does so. He died. He can't do that anymore though. He died. That's what you think.

[00:53:11] Brad, he's gone. Uh, anyway. All right. Moving on. Shark Tank. Uh, two investors or two inventors pitch smart glasses that sound an alarm every time they'll wear looks at a woman's chest. Um, Brad, would you? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to ask, but you got a thing for Sarah Sherman. One joke premise. How do you like one joke premises? Um, I, I think that I, this was Brad's actually just looking at a picture of Sarah Sherman

[00:53:40] right now. Amen. Uh, no, unfortunately though, that was kind of distracting because you could tell that they put a prosthetic thing on her. Like, cause it didn't match her skin tone very well. No, of course not. I actually didn't notice that. I didn't, I didn't either. I was trying to help, I was really odd to it, buddy. I was trying to help Brad there cause I didn't notice that at all. I didn't notice it. I love though. I'm not, I, I love that you did. I'm not even going to be embarrassed by this because it's, it's, it's, it's simple product, it's simple production value. And so Louie, Louie. I know you're looking at this as an academic.

[00:54:12] Louie, Louie, Louie, Louie, Louie, who does the, the, Louie, Louie, Louie, who does the makeup effects out there. You can look him up. I think it's Louie FX on, on Instagram. Which is a legend. He's great. Yeah. I wish he would have spent a little more time matching Sarah Sherman's skin tone. But is that his fault though? Or is that more of like the blending of the makeup department? I'm sure it's not specifically him, but like. Maybe not. It's probably oversight. How dare you? Louie is a listener. Yeah. So that was, that was a little bit distracting, but. I love that you, you noticed.

[00:54:40] Just did not match the skin tone. It was hard to give myself a hand job. I don't think that you guys, you said I couldn't talk about a hand job. Yeah, but it's a callback. You're a hypocrite. Yeah, you're a hypocrite. A hand job callback is funnier than just saying a hand job. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah, hypocrite. Exactly. Hypogrip. Okay, but. Okay. You wish. So I would have loved to have seen this sketch. A shark tank. And you could do this recurring even. A shark tank with a bunch of different crazy things. No, it's funny. Different crazy characters.

[00:55:10] And it made me think, try to. I didn't go look or anything because I'm not responsible enough to do that. But I did wonder if they had done that premise before where you just have a bunch of people come in with bad inventions. See, that's funny. And that would be great. And some of them would be funny. At least some wouldn't. But this was a one note joke. Yeah. And the note wasn't necessarily that funny. It wasn't that funny. Yeah. You know? I will say, I think that this was the one time though where I think that Jalen Brunson did give me a good laugh because his delivery after he was like, I would be into this if there was one for ass.

[00:55:40] And they were just like, no, we don't have that. It's like, all right, I'm out. Nope. That was the best line of the night for him. Because it's written as deadpan and no emotion. Oh my God, he nailed it. Yeah. Also, I did appreciate the Marty Supreme reference for Mr. Fantastic's line where he talked about being a vampire, which was a very funny. I forgot about that. Holy shit, dude. That's a deep cut. By the way, James Johnson Johnson, great. Great. Yes. Very good Mr. Fantastic. Yeah. Very good. So that was whatever.

[00:56:08] I mean, again, one note, whatever. Production value, pretty good. I like their outfits. I thought that was funny. I bet you did. No, their outfits, you idiot. Bullseye. I like that they came back. I thought that was funny that they actually walked back into frame and in front of camera. There were a couple clever things. We'll give it credit where credit's due. Yeah. Not terrible. Not great. All right. Old friend, a man pretends to be Jalen's old basketball coach in order to ask him for a handout. This is with Jalen. Not a hand job.

[00:56:41] So another basketball sketch. This is so bad. What did you think about that? I'm not asking you. I'm asking Brad. I'm sorry. You know what? Hey, Brad, what'd you think, buddy? Not great. Okay. I'll ask myself. Carried by Keenan. Yeah. And yet carried a dead sketch. Yeah. There was nothing there, man. This is probably the worst of the night. I think that there was a slight uptick and a turn when Grace Ryder's character came

[00:57:09] in and she was like, Spider-Man? When she- Rolled her hair back and went to get on her knees? Again, hilariously played. Perfect. Good for her. Yeah. But that's not enough, of course, to say it's just, but it was the best moment of that sketch and it's not even close. Absolutely. Yeah. I agree. That is the sketch. Spider-Man? That is the episode. We have one cut for time sketch called Young Rell's Crew. At least that we know about. There might be more by the time. It almost always is.

[00:57:38] There's something that goes on afterwards. We're going to hang up the mics here. We're recording this Sunday night. What fun came out? And just to let you know, we don't ignore them on purpose, but there is one out now. And if you're not subscribed to the SNL YouTube channel, please do. Because not only just the cut for time, they often put little featurettes on there too. It's worth your time. That are really fun to watch. If you're listening to us, it means you care enough about the show to subscribe to that channel. I promise you. That and their Instagram. Really just great stuff. But I assume you already do.

[00:58:08] But if you don't, please do. All right. So this is Jalen Brunson plays Young Rella rapper whose accountant delivers bad news. His enormous entourage is costing him more than he earns. But he refuses to fire anyone. And so you just kind of go through the sketch learning about all the people that he has hired. This actually, when you look at all of the other sketches we had to watch. It's better than half the sketches that made it on the air. It's better than more than half the sketches. I'd probably rank this as third best sketch. This was third best sketch of the night. Yeah, that's probably fair.

[00:58:38] For real. And it wasn't amazing, but it did enough. It wasn't amazing, but they still had some kinks to work out. It could have maybe even been a little bit better by showtime. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Chill. That was a great callback. It's a telegraph joke that you don't even see coming, which is a hard thing to do. And if I heard she reminds me from where I come. Oakland. Oakland, California.

[00:59:03] And Ashley Padilla's delivery after the second chill, she'd be like, okay, I can see what you keep doing. There's enough here, right? Yeah. What was the Jeremy Culhane's joke that he has behind? Oh, come on. Pause. No, no, pause. But then it was like. She says something and he's like. He did what? Wait. You got what on it? Yeah, in what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, guys, or something. Yeah, you got what on him? Yeah, it was a cum joke. There was some really. Whoa. It was, though. But you can't say it like that.

[00:59:33] Well, they did. No, they said income. Income. That's what it was. Yeah, it was covered in what? Yeah. Income. But there was some really good humor in this. I can't say it. Okay. Some really good humor in this. I actually, you know, even telling the jokes, this is what happens sometimes when we retell the sketch between us. I start liking it more. Yeah. I thought this was pretty funny. Yeah. And I love that it was an ensemble sketch. Yeah. Everyone got to do something a little bit fun. It was more than an ensemble sketch. They had extras in there as well. Yeah, 100 extras in there, yeah. Well, and that's a cool reveal.

[01:00:02] You open up the blinds and there's 30 people there. It was pretty funny. The one, I think, shortcoming there was to this is that it did feel like that the Lonely Island already kind of did something like this in Popstar, if you remember that little runner that they do. Sure. But I mean, that's- They introduced Connor's entourage and it's a list of people who do a lot of useless things for him. And that's fair, but this stood on its own enough where it was- Yeah, yeah. It's different enough. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. All right. So that is the episode.

[01:00:29] Let's talk about what you guys- I want to do a new one. All right? New one. One to 10. How would you rate this? One to 10? Ooh. Whole episode, I'd give it probably like a four. Three. Yeah. I'm going to do a three and a half. So that's, I think, about where we're at. Three to four, somewhere in there. Not a great episode. But again, there's only up from here, boys. Let me say this, though. It's going to be fine. We've been hard on Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson seems delightful.

[01:00:58] There's nothing wrong with him. Not a bad guy. Not a bad guy. He doesn't seem like a bad guy. I would like to very much clarify. I was thinking about this since I said it. But I said he didn't want to come off as gay. There's been nothing at all about the man that would make me think he's homophobic whatsoever. That was me putting words in somebody else's mouth, though. So I don't want to do that. He just- I definitely would stand behind the- It sounded like he just didn't want to be uncool. Yeah. That's how it came across. I can understand. Again, like, wait, do you not want to make big orgasm sounds in front of a live audience? Yeah, it's hard to do. That's a big ask.

[01:01:27] Nate, would you do it? Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I do it on the subway. Yeah. That's the whole thing. No, we don't have a subway. It's a subway sandwich shop is where I do it. I think you guys are- I think you guys have, in your framework of SNL, I think you guys accept a bad episode at the beginning. I get disappointed. Sure. No, that's fair. I'm still disappointed. I want us to start hot. Yeah.

[01:01:51] Like, I want us to be like- but also, the fault wasn't- you bring in a great cast, or you bring in a great host. You know Jalen- I mean- Yeah, it's tough. You know Jalen Bruston's not going to be- It's a tough ask. Right? Yeah. So- If anything, maybe I'm a little grateful that they got this one out of the way. Sure. And we combine having the rough around the edges use of an athlete host, along with the rough start for season premiere, and maybe we move on from this- Yeah, NBA season starts soon. Who's next week?

[01:02:20] So next week, we'll see how much of an uptick it really is. Not that she's the worst, necessarily, but she's also not the most versatile performer. Dakota Johnson is coming back for her third time as host. Yeah, and without the Nepo babies of, you know- Yeah, exactly. The best sketch that she did last time she hosted was with Please Don't Destroy, and I That's really the only one I remember. She's another very deadpan personality, so that could be tough. But then- But then- But then- But then- But then- October 10th, my birthday, we have who? Shane Gillis is coming back. Which- I am so excited. I love me some Gilly.

[01:02:50] I do. Oh, Shane Gillis has Gilly. Ugh. And then after that, we also know the fourth episode coming. We're actually getting a Halloween episode on Halloween. Yeah, buddy. And it's being hosted by Indy Navarrete, the breakout star of Obsession. Nate's wedding day. The 24th? October 31st. All right. So let's do MVP of the night. I'm going to go with Jeremy Culhane. Who do you go with? I'm going with Grace.

[01:03:21] I was going back and forth between Jeremy and Grace. I really am. Yeah. And it's only because you said Jeremy, so he gets his due. Okay. All right. Because he was, I mean, probably, but for a very first performer, featured player, to make me laugh that hard right off the bat in two sketches, hell yeah. You get it. Good for you. I think it's where they didn't mention her. Yeah, for sure. I would still give it to Jeremy. She even had a little breakout moment in the Cut for Time sketch, too. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:47] But yeah, I think giving it to Grace is probably because Jeremy's been there before. He knows what he's doing. But still, it's still worth it for sure. Yeah. Jeremy definitely had the most prominent roles in the best sketches. But I was more than pleasantly surprised with how Grace did. Yes. Yeah. All right. Sketch of the night. High school musical basketball thing for me? I'm going to give it to Dream Academy, actually. Okay. Yeah. The Cats Eye sketch I thought was the best. What about you, Nate? What's the tiebreaker? High school musical I thought was the best. Yeah, it was. I thought Dream Academy was the best. No, it was still right there.

[01:04:17] Honestly, the only two. The cover time, maybe you can make an argument. Not as the best, but those three sketches are the only sketches. I support women. You guys wanted them. Fuck off. Even though we don't really delineate between or differentiate between, was there, other than the cover time, was there a good live sketch? A good live sketch? I don't really think there was a good live sketch to pick from. That's the problem. No. I didn't really see one other than Mikey trying so freaking hard.

[01:04:46] Yeah, that's about as close as we came, I think. But there really wasn't a good live sketch, man. And that's tough. I think you're right. So next week should be better. We're hoping. It should be better. You know what? Because we're going to want one good live sketch is all we're looking for next time. Yeah. Come on, Dakota. You can do it. All right. That is your episode. Hey, Brad, where can people find you online? You can find me at slashfilm.com or maybe the Slash Film Weekly Podcast. Hey, and if you want to know if SNL is new this Saturday, all you got to do is go to Slash Film on Saturday and they'll have a whole article about it.

[01:05:14] Yeah, you'll find out every Saturday whether or not it's new. When are you actually going to publish that? Is it Friday or Saturday? As of now, it's getting published at 5, 10 Eastern time every Saturday. Okay. There you go. So you can check that out. And I do more research to kind of give you an idea of who each host is and who the musical guest is. What's the connections? Who's the musical host next week? Turnstile, which I'm not familiar with them, but they are a rock band apparently. Just making up names. After that, it's Hootinanny.

[01:05:43] And then Nickelback. Oh, sorry. Everyone knows it's real. All right. Do you want to give your other one? Oh, yeah. Sorry. If you want to check out, also there's a pop culture podcast that I'm on. Not that. What are you talking about? We're talking about your junk. Your junk. Yeah, I'm going to eat there. Don't worry about it. Let's go. Our competitors. Everyone, check out Brad's Junk if you want to find out about snacks and soft drinks and collectibles and not my penis. Hey, do us a favor. Like this podcast.

[01:06:12] Review this podcast. It helps us, again, as we start a new season, get into some people's algorithms. Share it if you can. Let people know. If you know of anybody that likes SNL, we'd love to continue to build it. Ben was joking. We actually get more and more listeners every year, and it's a lot of fun. We are into the high hundreds, if not the sometimes a few thousand listeners, for real. We're very appreciative of the time that you guys spend 45 minutes to an hour with us to recap SNL, and it does. It kind of feels like we're all in it together.

[01:06:42] We want the show to be successful. Every single time that we say something negative, it is literally just an honest opinion. We don't mean to disparage the show that we love so much. We know how hard they try and how hard it is to do comedy in the first place, so we love the show, and we love that you're a listener. And if you comment on Spotify or our YouTube page or our Facebook, I will try to put you in our mailbag each week and give our comments. So let us know what you think. Give us your hot takes, and we're just glad to have you listening. Also, I'm going to start my own podcast.

[01:07:11] I'm going to be doing a solo venture, not about anything other than business. So I'm doing some 10-minute episodes that will be coming out pretty soon. Pass. We've not talked about that, but we'll see. That was so dismissive. All right. That was so absolute. Be good to yourself. Be good to others. We'll be back next week.