Episode 83 - Dave Chappelle (Season 50)

[00:00:06] It's the Ten to One Podcast with your host Brad Olman, not featuring Ben Conowitz, but featuring Nate Lauchs. And here's the podcast! Hello friends, welcome to the podcast where it is just Brad and I right now. We have fired Ben.

[00:00:30] Yes, Brad and Nate. Ben is on a little bit of a forced break after some HR issues. I'm sure you can guess what they are and you're probably right. We'll be releasing a statement shortly, but I did get a letter. I asked Ben, can you send us a letter because you're not on the podcast and with your permission I'd like to read it. Yes, please do.

[00:00:53] All right. Dear Brad and Nate, this is from our co-host Ben Conowitz again, not here right now. Dear Brad and Nate, I just wanted to take a moment to express my admiration for your work on the Ten to One Podcast. You guys are genuinely the titans of the podcasting world. I'm in all of your legendary, transformative and irreplaceable contributions.

[00:01:23] Let me be clear. I'm about as valuable to this podcast as Laurie Metcalf was to Studio 8H during her single 1981 appearance. Wow. Meanwhile, Brad and Nate, you guys are like the Will Ferrell and Tina Fey of podcasting. Your skills are legendary, transformative and again, irreplaceable. Wow. Does anyone remember Luke Knoll? That's basically my podcast contribution level.

[00:01:53] Brad and Nate, they're more like Kenan Thompson, institutions that define the entire medium and their influence is undeniable. Emily Prager, who appeared in one sketch in the 80s before being fired by NBC standards and practices. She has more podcast credibility than me right now. Brad and Nate are delivering comedy gold while I'm delivering family vacation mediocrity.

[00:02:22] And this is from him. Marwena Banks, the British performer on SNL for approximately 37 seconds in 1995. She's got more podcast energy than I currently possess. Wow. Brad and Nate are surgical in their comedy dissection. I'm fumbling around like a confused substitute teacher. Send help. Send comedy. Send Brad and Nate. They are the best at everything. And I am the worst.

[00:02:49] Pathetically yours, Ben Conowitz. Wow. If any of the listeners notice my absence, which is highly unlikely, please let them know I will return next week. Wow. I appreciate him being so vulnerable and honest and complimentary. It's really hard to acknowledge one's own flaws while recognizing the greatness in others. Yeah.

[00:03:14] I think we can both say he said stuff in there that I think we all knew to be true, but it's good to hear it from him in that way that's in writing. Yeah. Because, you know, sometimes our listeners might not know this, but before and after the podcast, we have conversations that are off the air and stuff like that. And these are the types of things Ben would say, you know, off the air, but it's nice to actually put them on air. Yeah. Yeah. So our listeners know the way in which Ben feels about his co-hosts. Exactly.

[00:03:44] So he will be back in our next episode. Right now, he's on a family vacation. It's just Braddy Bear and Nate. Yeah. You ready? Yeah, absolutely. I will say there was a good contribution to at least the conversation leading up to this episode because Ben did make sure to send us a picture that he took of his TV of Dave Chappelle's crotch bulge during his opening monologue. Yeah, so he did watch the episode. So he did watch the episode. So that's good to know, at least.

[00:04:13] That was a bulge. It was. Yeah. His pants were definitely hugging it. Did that make Twitter? Was that a big deal? Oh, yeah. It was definitely. It was on the SNL Reddit. It was on the Twitter. It was definitely out there. All right. So our host this week was Dave Chappelle. Indeed. Fourth time hosting. Typically brought in right after an election, right? Isn't that usually what it is?

[00:04:43] This is a little later than because it's usually in November where they bring him in, I think. So November 12th, 2016, November 7th, 2020, November 12th, 2022. And so this is much later than two months later than it usually is for a post-election episode. Yeah. Which was something he addressed in his monologue. Yeah. And controversial, I thought, to bring Dave Chappelle in because he is obviously one of the most successful.

[00:05:12] And I will say this, one of the most historically significant comedians of the last many, many, many years. But in the last couple of years anyway, has said some things that I think have put him at odds with many people. Yeah. Were you a little surprised that they brought him? I wasn't surprised they brought him back because, I mean, Lauren's made some questionable decisions before when it comes to, you know, as far as who's hosting and when and whatnot.

[00:05:41] Is it safe to say Lauren doesn't care? Yeah, I don't think he cares. And plus, Chappelle's, his position in his career and whatnot is to the point where he's not been completely vilified or like banished or even canceled. You know, he's said some things that have ruffled some feathers and stuff that is not good, you know, especially when it comes to his comments about the trans community and whatnot. But he hasn't been, you know, exocommunicated from the industry or anything. It's not like Louis C.K. or, you know, anything like that.

[00:06:10] So I'm not surprised. I'm a little surprised that, you know, that they didn't get him for the election, which obviously they tried and he just didn't want to do it at that point. But we'll talk about what I was surprised about when we talk about his monologue. All right. We'll get there in a second. But have you noticed that this is season 50 as, you know, historic season as it is? This is the season of comedians. Have we ever had so many comedians hosting SNL? Right.

[00:06:39] Just to give you if you're not thinking of the host yet this this season, we've had Nate Bregazzi, John Mulaney, Bill Burr, Chris Rock, Martin Short and Dave Chappelle. Although I will say Martin Short is not the same kind of comedian as the other ones. But still a comedian, though. Still a comedian. But Martin Short doesn't do stand up like the other ones. And I would argue that him and Steve Martin, what they do in their traveling show is stand up. It is. But Martin Short isn't doing stand up when he's doing the monologue in the same way that we're going to comedians.

[00:07:09] For sure. But it is. He is a comedian. Anyway. I would say Martin Short and Steve Martin stuff is a little more sketch comedy based than it is stand up. It is certainly kind of genre bending because they get up and they, if you've ever watched any performances that they have together, they do get up and they do a monologue together. Yeah. But it is just them essentially razzing each other. Yeah. It has a variety show quality about it. Doing the shtick. It's the shtick they do. Right?

[00:07:38] But anyway, it's a lot of comedians, though. Yes. I think more than we've ever seen in a season. I think that's probably right. Intentional? Maybe. Maybe it's just how it's worked out. Part of me wonders if they might be having some trouble getting certain people, certain big names. And some of it I think is A, there's not as many movie stars as there used to be. It really does seem like that. Yeah.

[00:08:08] And there's not a lot of big movies. We talk about this, like what movies are huge right now that they're going to even pull from? Yeah. And I also wonder if maybe it's the kind of thing too where maybe there's a little added pressure this year because it's the 50th season. And so maybe some people are like, ooh, I don't know if I want to jump in there and try and make that work right now. Well, let's get on to the show. So we've got our first sketch of the night, the cold open, MSNBC special coverage.

[00:08:38] Rachel Maddow, played by Sarah Sherman, leads a panel discussing Donald Trump's latest antics. The panelists include Ari Melber, played by Marcelo Hernandez. Joy Reid, played by Ego Wodum. Stephanie Rule, played by Chloe Fineman. Chris Hayes, played by Andrew Smukes. With appearances by, did you know that James Austin Johnson could do such a good Donald Trump? No, I've never seen it before. And Bowen Yang. I will never be mad if Bowen Yang brings his George Santos back. Oh, of course. So we're back.

[00:09:08] We're back to, A, new episodes in 2025, but we're back to political cold opens. Yes. Thankfully, I think this one worked a little better. There were times that I laughed at this for sure.

[00:09:22] This felt like they leaned a little more into the parody and caricature as opposed to letting the, like a recap of the events, like, or something that happened in the headlines, act as the punchlines. Because so much of what has been at the center of their political satire has just been, like, repeating stuff that is already ridiculous.

[00:09:46] In this case, they took a panel of people from MSNBC and basically turned them all into caricatures, you know, and used that to their advantage. And there was a little bit of Trump in there, which, you know, and James Austin Johnson was good at it. He was great. Yeah. I agree. I think what I did appreciate about this is this was a satirical take at a phenomenon that's actually happening right now, right? So here we are getting ready for another four years of Donald Trump.

[00:10:13] And, A, I think people have fatigue, right, of like, are we going to cover every stupid tweet he says? Right. Like we did in the first four years, right? Because I don't know about you. I'm tired. I know he's going to say dumb stuff. I know he's going to consistently say dumb stuff. Yeah. And it probably should get covered by the news, but I'm just tired of it, right? Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:39] And then on the other side of that, people know he says dumb stuff and they still voted for him, right? And so it's like there's this, like, I think a good kind of healthy take where MSNBC is being like, well, we've got to change, right? We've got to do something different. And how hard it is when Donald Trump does keep on saying dumb stuff. That was a good satirical take at, I think, a real dilemma that exists in the modern news era.

[00:11:07] I think what strengthened it too was aside from that central premise is the way that everyone played each of the pundits, you know, on the panel. Correct. You know, they each had their own little, like, weird shtick that they were doing. I liked confusing Chris Hayes for Rachel Maddow the couple times that it happened and even having Rachel call Chris Rachel. And people were like, oh, I saw some conservative, you know, ex-people were like, oh, look at this. SNL is making fun of Rachel Maddow.

[00:11:34] They're not making fun of Rachel Maddow as much as they're just being funny. Yeah, they're using, and they've done Rachel Maddow before. Exactly. This is not anything new. And so, yeah, I agree. In the Stephanie Rule, you know, seductive. Yeah. That's just a good observation of one of the writers who watches probably on MSNBC that is sometimes gone, what is she doing? Yeah. Right? And that's good.

[00:12:03] That is, I think, if SNL is going to be doing consistent cold opens that are political, those little catches, I think, make it better. Yeah. So, I didn't hate this. I'll say it. I didn't hate it. Didn't love it. Didn't hate it. All right. Moving on. Monologue. Dave Chappelle's standup monologue.

[00:12:26] Dave Chappelle delivers a standup routine covering hosting before the inauguration versus post-election, reflections on current events and societal issues, mention of public figures like Luigi Mangione, P. Diddy, and Jimmy Carter, and wishing the president luck in the White House. This is officially the longest monologue in SNL history. Oh, yeah. Do you know who has the second longest monologue? Is it Dave Chappelle? It is Dave Chappelle.

[00:12:56] Yeah. So, this monologue went just short of 17 minutes. Ooh, man. The one in 2020 went 16 minutes and nine seconds. Damn. I kept on waiting to hate this monologue or for him to say something to be like, yeah, see, he still is the way he is. I didn't hate this monologue. I didn't either.

[00:13:19] I was very surprised in how reserved he seemed both in how he carried himself except for there were a couple times I was like, like where he like kind of was like eye rolling like that a certain joke didn't get a strong enough laugh and it's like, oh, that just means the joke's not that good. You know, the audience is judging it in the moment. But I appreciate what he had to say. I thought that the serious things that he touched upon were meaningful. Yeah. The Jimmy Carter stuff really worked for me. Yeah.

[00:13:48] I thought that was fantastic. That and commenting on, you know, saying, you know, from the Palisades to Palestine, like, you know, creating a sense of unity. Yeah. And the thing, yeah, the thing about wishing the president luck because we all we all need good leadership. Right. And I think the point where he's making that Donald Trump should be the president for all was a good point. And so some people might not like the wishing Donald Trump well, but in the end. Right.

[00:14:18] I mean, we should all hope that Donald Trump is a better president than many of us predict he will be. So I don't have any problem with wishing Donald Trump that he will be better than that we predict because we want presidents that are the presidents for everyone. And so I actually thought this was more reserved than I expected it to be. Yeah, definitely more measured.

[00:14:39] It was not, you know, because right now this is the time where a lot of people are, you know, maybe even rightfully bringing up to Democrats about their failures, maybe their miscalculations and stuff. And there's a lot of comedy that you could write around that. Mm-hmm. And I thought Dave Chappelle might do that. Right. Yeah. And he didn't.

[00:15:02] And actually the turns he took, I thought were funny for sure, but also just surprising. I didn't expect it. Yeah. And he managed to do some good topical stuff about the LA fires and the Diddy trial and all that stuff. Yeah. The idea that Carl Winslow, that guy. Yeah. That was so good. That's such a good bit.

[00:15:27] And so the idea that I'm not good enough looking to get invited that I had to realize, that's a great bit. And so it did make me like Dave Chappelle more than I've liked him recently. Yeah. And this is when Dave Chappelle's good. And so kudos to him. Great stuff. And I really like this monologue. Yeah, I agree. All right. Here, moving on. Immigrant Dad Talk Show number two. They've done this in the past.

[00:15:54] I forget who was the first time they did this with. Oh, that's a good question actually. I forget. This is a sequel to the previous sketch featuring an immigrant dad. This is the immigrant dad's play by Marcelo Hernandez and he hosts the talk show. He's joined by his neighbor, Richard, Dave Chappelle. Well, the guests include a dad and school counselor, Mikey Day, playing the awkward guy. Mikey Day's wife, played by Chloe Feynman.

[00:16:24] Mikey Day's son, played by Andrew Smukes. And Richard's son makes a very brief appearance, played by Devin Walker. And so this is, I don't know who wrote this, but I know Marcelo Hernandez is one of the writers of this. But this is Marcelo Hernandez and some of the writers kind of pointing out the cultural differences of fathering and fatherhood in particularly Latin American, but also immigrant culture.

[00:16:53] Yeah, the first time they did it with Remy Youssef. Thank you. Yeah, I knew it was somebody. But like, so I thought the first one was pretty funny. It was solid. It was solid. What did you think of this one? I thought this one was actually better. I thought so too. I didn't think it was great. Yeah. But I thought it was better. Yeah, it felt like the punchlines were stronger. I think that Dave Chappelle's character as a guest was stronger.

[00:17:18] The kind of the slight clash like of black culture and Hispanic culture there. I also thought what they gave to Mikey Day. I don't know if Mikey Day was the foil in the first one. Yeah, I don't remember. I don't remember that. But I remember thinking this one was better. Yes. Like what they did there was really good. Yeah. Really funny. Yeah. The kissing on the lips. So awkward.

[00:17:44] And I also like the bit too of Dave Chappelle bringing his son in and meeting him for the first time. So yeah, in general I think this one worked out a lot better. But do you feel like, I feel like this one was better than the first one. I feel like the third one will even be better. Like they're figuring it out a little bit. Yeah. I think it, honestly I think it hinges on who they can bring in to like, to be the guest, you know. Sure.

[00:18:10] Because it feels like it probably works better when the guest is somebody else of a different cultural background. Sure. Unless maybe you end up doing it with someone like, you know, Pedro Pascal and you do a double team, you know, just like really. But yeah, so maybe next time it's an Asian person or something like that. Yeah, it's a different set of jokes based on the cultural expectations of following in there. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I like this. I thought it was very funny. I thought Dave Chappelle did well. I thought the whole thing went better, like you said, than the first one. Yeah.

[00:18:39] And you know, I think we joked about this the last time Dave Chappelle hosted is they did a lot of sketches where they were able to figure out how to allow him to smoke during the sketches. Yep. So I'm glad that it didn't really carry as far as it did the previous episode that he hosted. This time it kind of felt like he was able to, you know, hold off on needing a cigarette so often. That dude's going to have lung cancer any day now. All right. Evacuation alert.

[00:19:05] Amid an emergency evacuation, a man played by Dave Chappelle confesses secrets to his family. Also in the sketch are Dave Chappelle's family members. There's his wife, Ego Wodum, his son, Devin Walker. And then there's additional characters. Michael Longfellow plays a neighbor and Chloe Feynman plays... A secret French wife. Yeah, exactly. I don't even know how to describe her.

[00:19:32] So this is a, this is almost Monty Python-esque, I thought. Oh, really? Just absurd, right? Absurd, also like what's behind door number two kind of thing, right? Yeah. And so there was, for me, this almost was British element. Interesting. Like this is really silly, really absurd. I don't know if it fully worked for me, but I didn't hate it. I enjoyed it. I actually really liked this sketch.

[00:20:03] And this was the sketch that I was like, oh, Chappelle's not phoning it in. No. His timing on this was fantastic. He was fully dedicated to this sketch. He knew the script. He knew everything. Yeah. He brought great energy to it. He was, he was just like, you know, unhinged enough, you know, and just like the, the way he played it off was, was really well done. Had good physical comedy to it. I thought the blood stuff worked really well. I wasn't expecting this to be one of those sketches where it suddenly got very gory.

[00:20:31] Um, I also thought it was particularly darker than I anticipated because I wasn't expecting him to cut open the dog like that. Um, but yeah, I actually really liked this sketch a lot. I thought it worked out really well. It was a great, absurd way of dealing with the fires too. Yeah, exactly. Um, to, to bring something culturally, um, relevant into a silly comedy sketch. Uh, really, really thought it was, it was good.

[00:21:00] All right, moving on. It is time for the weekend update with Colin Jost and Michael Che. During this time, uh, we do a thing called the breadometer and the breadometer is, uh, Brad's guess. Or it's his, it's his judgment of how he thinks the hosts interacted with each other. Uh, a higher pedometer score between zero and 100 means he thought the get, or the hosts had a lot of chemistry. The jokes were good that they played off each other.

[00:21:30] Well, and that it was kind of a magical moment. A lower score means not, not that great. Now, Brad typically doesn't go below 80. It's usually, you know, higher than 80. I feel like this season he's been pretty, pretty high, honestly, on a lot of, like high, like on drugs? No, you haven't done a lot of edibles, but like, like it's just been pretty high scoring. And so did you put it in your calculator? I did.

[00:21:59] And I want to let you know it's 2025. So I've recalibrated. The breadometer got a recalibration? I recalibrated the engine a little bit. Mainly because the end of the, the joke swap at the end of 2024 was so good. And like, it was so high. I feel like we need to get back to like, maybe being a little more stern with our scoring. Yeah. I feel like you've been a little easy lately. Yeah. I think, I think I agree with that. So, so I want, I want to let you know that it's been recalibrated.

[00:22:29] All right. Somewhat. And so we might, scores might be a little more realistic this time. All right. For those of you that have not listened to Weekend Update yet, the headlines covered Mark Zuckerberg's visit to Mar-a-Lago, Steve Bannon's remarks about Elon Musk, Israel and Hamas reaching a ceasefire agreement, New York City installing spikes on subway turnstiles, police searching for

[00:22:53] the mugger known as the Hagler after midnight and projected rise in dementia cases by 2060. Um, I didn't think this had a lot of chemistry between the two main hosts. I thought the jokes, there were some good jokes. I didn't think it was bad. I just didn't think they had a ton in between them. So with the recalibration, I'm going to go 78.

[00:23:24] Okay. I went 70. Oh, okay. All right. So the recalibration is going lower. And granted 70 isn't bad. It might seem bad compared to the other scores, but I think you're right. There wasn't a lot of like, there wasn't a lot of back and forth. A lot of back and forth this time. Actually any. Was there? I think there was a couple of times where like they, they had like a little, just one quick side remark or like there was like a, you hear Che laughing or something. Yeah, exactly. But it wasn't anything, any direct interaction or, or any like, uh, taking jabs at each other or anything like that.

[00:23:53] But I did think that it was a pretty good addition of weekend update. I actually really liked the, the new, and I hope it becomes a recurring thing if they can figure out other ways doing it. The hear me out thing about the child born was really funny. It was, I couldn't believe he was going there quite frankly. Yeah. Um, and, and I'm sure there's been a lot of people that like thought somewhat similar and then he goes through the, ah, I can hear it now. Oh, now I hear it. Because, because what he says at first is like, oh yeah, I guess that's kind of, oh

[00:24:23] no, no, there it is. That's the problem. I got it now. Yeah. But yeah, I, I didn't think it was a decent, uh, addition of weekend update, but yeah, as far as, uh, the, the camaraderie between Jost and Shay, it was not up to, up to the standards. Maybe we would have a lot more fun seeing. All right. Let's move on to the weekend update segments. Michael, let's do this one first. Michael Longfellow discusses TikTok being shut down indefinitely. Now we are recording this on Sunday night and TikTok is now back up. Yes, it is.

[00:24:51] It was not down for very long. And, uh, I don't know why, but they're, they're trying to give Donald Trump so much credit for bringing it back, even though it was his idea to ban it in the first place. So it is, you know what? To massage an ego goes a long way. Yeah, for real. And so, uh, Michael Longfellow, I don't even know how old he is, but he's 30. Okay. He's 30 years old. I actually looked this up because someone asked me there, how old is he? And I was like, I think he's in his like mid twenties or something like that. So he's 30, but he looks very young. He looks very young.

[00:25:22] I, I love this because there's been a lot of people really upset. Right. Yeah. About, I mean, I've, I have seen on social media, people are like, I voted for Biden, but now I'll vote for Trump and the Republicans in the future because of TikTok, like stuff like this. Right. And this idea that TikTok is a, a thing, right? That, that people decide whether or not they're going to be politically active because their

[00:25:51] TikTok was banned. Of course. Um, and, and I, I liked this as cultural commentary because I have been perplexed about this during this whole 24 hour period of it being, being banned. Right. Um, maybe because I understand why it was banned. I get the geopolitical realities. I get why the United States, including Donald Trump, including the Trump administration and

[00:26:17] the Biden administration, including Republican senators have said, it is not good for China to have that level of influence over Americans. Mm-hmm . Plus there's no reciprocity. Facebook, all these kinds of things, um, can't be, um, uh, in, in China unregulated. So why should we allow a Chinese site in America? These kinds of things, reciprocity is a big deal. I got the political realities of it. Most people seem to not.

[00:26:47] Yeah, exactly. So, uh, I like this as cultural commentary. What did you think? Yeah, absolutely. And I think Longfellow's dry delivery, um, like was the right approach for doing it to kind of a perfect person to do it where he sounds confident, but what he's saying doesn't really make much sense, you know? Uh, but the, the, the confidence is what makes it that much funnier. He's so cynical too, when he does his stuff. Yeah. And so that, that, that is, it perfectly encapsulates because even if you make a point,

[00:27:16] like even if he's the type of, of comic that even if you make a point like Colin Jost or something, we'll say, well, what about this? His, I don't care. Yeah. It is very appropriate. Yeah. So, uh, so I just, he makes me laugh. It was good to see him back behind the weekend update day, uh, desk doing some, I don't know, what'd you call this standup? It was a little bit of standup. Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit of performance. Yeah. This kind of, it always feels like standup a little bit when you're playing yourself in a way.

[00:27:45] So yeah, it was, uh, it was definitely very enjoyable. Now this next bit was not standup. It was the original Nosferatu played by Sarah Sherman shares thoughts on the new Nosferatu film. Have you seen the new Nosferatu film? I have seen the new Nosferatu film and I've talked about it on our other podcast, uh, Go Flix. We have another, we have another podcast. Yeah. You should, you should check it out. I will. It's pretty fun. And we talk about movies and stuff. It's called Go Flix Yourself. All right. It's a real hoot and holler. Subscribe, rate and review that one. Yeah.

[00:28:15] Um, but yeah, the new Nosferatu movie is in theaters and it's doing surprisingly well at the box office. Uh, I was not expecting to see something like this and I certainly wasn't expecting it to turn into one of Sarah Sherman's bits where she mocks Colin Jost. Uh, cause it felt somehow just like even more elaborate and a strange left turn even than the previous animal ones that she's done. Yep. And so I was not expecting it and as soon as she started doing it, I was like, oh, wow. Well, that's just great.

[00:28:45] Yeah. I thought this was a rare weekend update where the bits were better than the weekend update part. Right? I thought the bit, both of these were very good. Um, Sarah Sherman was just hilarious in this. Yeah. The fact that they kept doing the old school cut to her and putting her in black and white. The, the fact that her, the fingers were long and wiggly and weird. No.

[00:29:09] And you just know she loves, like I, I just, I, I obviously don't know Sarah Sherman, but I just feel like she loves wearing this stuff. Yeah. Right? Like she just gets joy out of it. It reminds me a little bit of Kate McKinnon when she's doing stupid stuff on weekend update, wearing stupid stuff. Like she just, she is a sketch comedian at heart, right? Yeah.

[00:29:33] This is silly, absurd and the sillier and more absurd, the more she is who she is. Yeah. And I just love it. Uh, she's just having fun. Yeah. Being who she is. So I love it. It was really funny. And I, I feel like just making fun of Colin Jost every few episodes with some kind of random character like this is a real blast. Yeah. And he is so easily made, make fun of. Yeah. So. All right.

[00:30:00] Moving on police station, uh, a man played by Devin Walker reports his missing girlfriend to police officers. Uh, the officers were played by Bowen Yang and Mikey Day. Um, with Kenan Thompson playing the janitor who's offering help, unhelpful assistance in the background. Fantastic physical comedy by Kenan Thompson in this. Yeah. And what's, what's interesting about it is I wasn't fully like sure about what the real premise was.

[00:30:28] Like, is it really just based around this old guy trying to tell this dude, Hey, don't guess the woman's weight. The girlfriend never comes in. Right. Yeah. And so like the fact that that was the whole bit, I was like, is this really all it is? But at the same time, Kenan was so good in his reactions and trying to lead like silently what Devin Walker was saying. It ended up working really well. I thought so too. I thought, like you said, there wasn't a ton of escalation.

[00:30:56] The escalation was found in the, you know, just the, the increased level of absurdity from Kenan with his. Miming. Yeah. Miming and stuff. You know, the, his girlfriend doesn't come in these kinds of things that the, the absurdist kind of thing there doesn't happen, but it still worked for me. This is also a sketch that Dave Chappelle wasn't in. Isn't that weird? Like he is. Yeah. He wasn't in this at all. Yeah. Um, and you could have put him in this, but he, he, he wasn't. Uh, Devin Walker played what I would think the role that Chappelle probably could have

[00:31:26] could have played. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this was Kenan being Kenan and having so much fun. It did seem like the cast was having fun this episode and maybe, maybe they were just happy to be back. They felt rested or something, but Sarah Sherman had a lot of fun. You could tell Kenan was being just fantastic here. Um, yeah, he had a lot of energy, a lot of charisma. He always does, but I mean, just seemed like a little bit extra.

[00:31:56] Um, I thought the cold open group was, was on fire there too. Um, so kudos to this. This was not a groundbreaking sketch, but it worked for me. Yeah. And I think there, there was my, my favorite moment I think was, uh, when Devin said, um, he like said, Oh, but you forgot the crown. And just Kenan's like, look like, like his mind, like, Oh man. Um, and just, and, and again, even with the ending, the fact that the whole bit was just

[00:32:25] about him, like trying to not get him to say, you know, the woman's weight. But then also I liked the twist at the end too, where it's like, it's like he was trying to get him to realize, Oh yeah, she's not coming back, but you'll find someone a lot better. Yep. All right. Moving on. Pop the balloon. Women participate in a live dating show where they pop a balloon for unattractive men and leave it for those they find appealing.

[00:32:50] This has a Heidi Gardner, Jane Wickline, Sarah Sherman, Ashley Padilla and Glorilla. Is that how you pronounce it? Glorilla? Yep. Have you seen these videos before on? No, this is the first I found. Oh, you've never seen these before? I've never seen them and I found that they were real though. Oh yeah. They're very real. It's like a YouTube show. Yeah. Um, and I've seen this before. They do it with Ben as well. Um, it's silly.

[00:33:18] Like the actual premise of it for the real show is silly. Right. This, this was fine. This did not work for me as well. I didn't really feel like it like dug any more into what you would expect of a parody. Exactly. Of this kind of show. You know, like. Do you know what this is on the, I mean, I guess the, the absurdist thing or the, the, the most fun thing was Dave Chappelle doing his character. Yes. Um, that was, that was fun. Um, and he brings in, who's the other guy. Do you remember?

[00:33:47] Is, uh, what's his name? Is it Donnell Rawlings? Yeah. Donnell Rawlings. Yep. Uh, and so, yeah, that was, uh, that was particularly fun. You know, I thought that the way the women reacted to the men was, was amusing as well, you know? And I did think they did a good job of cutting it together where like the, the popping of the balloon off screen, like in succession was pretty funny. Yeah.

[00:34:09] But at the same time, it still felt like an obvious parody of that kind of show where you just bring in, you know, increasingly weird or undesirable men and having them, you know, react to them in the way that you'd expect. So, some stuff worked for it, worked for me, uh, but otherwise it still felt kind of like a surface level kind of sketch. That is the show. It is. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Not a ton of sketches.

[00:34:34] This was very similar to the Mulaney episode where we didn't, there were longer sketches, there was longer standup and so we didn't get a lot of sketches. Between the cold open monologue and everything, uh, weekend update, seven. Yeah. That's all we got. I believe there was no pre-tape here. Yes, that is correct. Which if, if, if. Although, if, if.

[00:34:56] Actually, the, the pop the balloon sketch might have been pre-taped because they did fast forward through the YouTube thing and I think it was pre-taped actually. You're right. Now that I think about it. Yeah. I was gonna say, cause I didn't think of that. Um, cause they've done pre-tape in every episode I think back to 2019 was the last one I think they didn't have a pre-tape in it. Interesting. So it'd be very rare not to. Yeah. But yeah, I think you're right. I think, I mean, unless they were going back and forth. Right.

[00:35:26] But I think you're right. Yeah. It had to have been a pre-tape. Yeah. Which was weird too because the fast forward YouTube thing, I don't know, was that necessary? I mean, I think that it worked for what they were trying to do because there's, if they're recreating the show, there's the resetting of the balloons and stuff like that. So like you can't show, you know, all of that stuff. And so like you're just jumping ahead to the next guy after it's reached its, you know, logical end point for the joke. So Dave Chappelle's at four. Mm-hmm. He had four episodes, or four episodes of SNL.

[00:35:55] He's knocking on the door five timers. There is one other host that has hosted more than Dave Chappelle since 2016. Who is it? It's Mulaney, isn't it? Correct. Yeah. It's John Mulaney. John Mulaney is the only person that has hosted since 2016. Yeah. Has hosted more than Dave Chappelle. Yeah.

[00:36:21] And so it'll be interesting if in two years, the next major election, if Dave Chappelle comes back. Yeah, we'll see. All right. Let's go to MVP of the night. Who is it going to be? Obviously, we got, we don't have a ton of sketches to choose from.

[00:36:40] So as you're thinking of your MVP at home, are you going to go with somebody like Sarah Sherman, who was Rachel Maddow and Nosferatu, or maybe Marcelo Hernandez, who does the Immigrant Dad talk show. And he was also in the cold open. Uh, Devin Walker, he did evacuation alert and police station. Uh, Kenan Thompson didn't do a lot, but he did a lot in police station.

[00:37:09] So, Brad, I'm going to ask you, who did you pick for your MVP? I've been thinking about this a long time. And definitely not just during the past few seconds where you were running the game. And I was giving you some time because I know you hadn't thought of it yet. Yeah. No, um, I, I think that I want to give it to Sarah Sherman. That's who I have. Yeah. Um, her Rachel Maddow was solid, then Elsferatu, I think it was really good. And because no one really had like a big standout thing.

[00:37:37] I almost wanted to give it to Devin Walker, except he, he didn't necessarily have, have to like do much in his roles, but he was still good in them. You know, he was good in the evacuation sketch. He was good in the police station sketch. He had a good night too, but his, he didn't have as much of a showy performance as Sarah Sherman did, I think. Yep. Um, so I think that makes her, her stand out more. But, um, yeah, overall I think it was a, it was decent episode.

[00:38:04] So yeah, uh, Sarah Sherman, MVP for me. All right. Let's go to sketch of the night. What do you think was the best sketch of the night? For me, it's the evacuation sketch. I agree. Yeah. That was the, that was the one that landed for me. I felt like it was, it felt like most complete, uh, very, very funny premise, timely premise executed really well in a way that doesn't make it feel like it has to be timely to work. Yep. Um, lots of great physical stuff. Chappelle was fantastic in it. It felt, it felt like a good. He, he really hit a rhythm in that sketch.

[00:38:34] I thought though, uh, that was my, my sketch of that as well. But let me, let me say this. I thought top to bottom, this was a very good show. Yeah. I think you, I think it was pretty good. I don't think that there was like, uh, there's not a criterion collection in this. Yeah. Uh, I think the evacuation sketch was, was the peak for me. Um, but it's, it was, there wasn't a valley here. No, not at all. It was, it was a solid episode through.

[00:39:02] And, and Dave Chappelle's monologue exceeded my expectations. Yes. I thought the two weekend update bits were very good. Um, and cold open didn't bother me. Yeah. Right. And it was a political cold open. So, uh, based on a news hour, which is usually if you would tell me they're going to do a news parody of a political cold open and Donald Trump is going to be in there. You and I would say, oh, yeah, exactly. And this one didn't bother me. Yeah. It was okay.

[00:39:30] So, um, kudos to the writers. Uh, it was sad that I wasn't able to get their names beforehand, but, uh, do follow them on Instagram and Facebook, these kinds of things. And you'll find out who wrote them because again, the writers are just as important as cast powers. Indeed. So, uh, Brad, what do we have coming up? Uh, well, uh, the next episode that we know the host for has been revealed.

[00:39:54] Uh, it will be happening on January 25th and that episode will be hosted by none other than, uh, Timothee Chalamet. Uh, and not only will it be hosted by Timothee Chalamet, he's going to be pulling double duty as the host and musical guest. I mean, he's singing Bob Dylan songs, right? That's the assumption. I'm assuming that's what he would do. Um, it's odd though, that he's singing Bob Dylan songs. It is. And you want to know how odd it is actually?

[00:40:22] He's only the third person to host the show and also perform as a musical guest. There's never been a host who has been the primary musical guest on a show before that they've hosted. The only other two hosts who have done this and performed as musical guests with other musical guests are Lily Tomlin and Nick Nolte. So I'm confused.

[00:40:55] Taylor Swift hosted. Oh, sorry. Let me, let me, let me clarify. Non, non musician. Okay. Where they don't have a previously established. Because they've had a significant amount of musicians. That's the part that I forgot to say. A previously, without a previously established musical career. Obviously, obviously there are a ton of music. This season, right? A ton of music stars who have hosted and done musical performance. But this is the first actor who doesn't have a music career to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Because we genuinely don't know what he's going to sing.

[00:41:24] He's been in the most recent Bob Dylan film that you saw, I think, right? And he does great. He's fantastic. And he does own singing. But it's rare for an actor to come on and just sing songs. I don't know if that's ever happened. Singing songs from a film they're in. Yeah, in character. In character. Yeah. There's a part of me that wonders if maybe- Because like Joaquin Phoenix didn't do that for Walk the Line. Right. Right? There's a part of me that wonders if maybe he'll, he could do like a split.

[00:41:50] Like maybe do a Bob Dylan song and then also do one as his rap persona. Clink, clink, clink! Yeah. Skirt! And maybe something from Willy Wonka. There you go. Or he can do Willy Wonka songs as Bob Dylan. There we go. I am fascinated to see it. I do love him as a host. He's a good host. He is. He has a lot of fun. He fits in very well with the cast. Do you think they'll bring Pete Davidson back? For sure. Yeah?

[00:42:20] Yeah, for sure. Are they going to do a tiny horse? They'll probably have to do something- A horse. Yeah, in that van. I can't imagine they would miss an opportunity to do that now that they've made it like a regular thing for him. Oh man, when tiny horse- And I don't know if you like that sketch, but when that sketch came out, my kids and I sang that song. It's very catchy. For months. Very catchy. It was just so funny. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens there. That's the only one we know right now?

[00:42:49] That's the only one we know right now. They only announced the first two of the year. We haven't gotten any other beyond that. Hey, what about the Peacock series stuff? I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to bring that up. There's a new docu-series available now on Peacock. Four episodes. Peacock! The series overall is called SNL 50, Beyond Saturday Night. And each episode chronicles a completely different topic tied to Saturday Night Live. The first one is called Five Minutes. It digs into the audition process for SNL.

[00:43:18] The second one follows the writers for an entire week from the beginning of the planning of the episode up through the night that the show is going on. And it follows Io Edabiri's episode, which is a lot of fun. The third one is entirely about the inception and the legacy of the Moore Cowbell sketch. That one's really fun because it digs into some stuff that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

[00:43:43] It's about the sketch, but it also digs into stuff with Blue Oyster Cult and the cowbell itself. And there's some really fun talking heads that you might not expect to see. It's really good. And then the last one is season 11, The Weird Year, which is the year that Lorne Michaels came back and kind of cleaned house and brought in a whole new cast. And they did a lot of weird stuff that year. And some people largely consider it one of the worst years.

[00:44:10] But it's really interesting to hear them dive into it and kind of focus on some of the actual peaks and interesting aspects that that season had, while also talking about what made it kind of strange and the stuff that didn't work and why it didn't work and all that stuff. It's really, really fascinating stuff. Yeah, I haven't had a chance to see it, but I cannot wait. I don't have a subscription to Peacock. Well, Peacock is free. No, it isn't. You say this, but I logged in and I tried to watch it and it does not allow me to watch it. So here's the thing.

[00:44:39] Peacock itself is free. However, there are certain things that are only available if you do the second less ad tier or the ad free tier. Yeah, I don't want to do that. I'm going to pay for it. Well, I'm sorry. But they're very good. I think that we'll probably do an episode in between one of the season 50 recap episodes where we talk about all four of the doc episodes. How am I going to watch it? Well, we'll get together with buddies. You can come watch it. All right.

[00:45:07] Hey, they did a memoriam for David Lynch. David Lynch. Yes. Which is interesting because David Lynch was never on the show. That's true. But he was quite influential as a filmmaker. There have been plenty of times where SNL has parodied stuff from his films and his TV shows like Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, all this stuff. And I'm pretty sure Lynch has been impersonated several times on the show as well. Once. Just once.

[00:45:35] By who? Oh, Fred Armisen. This is according to SNL archives. Fred Armisen? .net I think or .com. No. 1990. 1990. Hosted by Kyle MacLachlan. 1990 Kyle MacLachlan. Dana Carvey? No. It was just a voice impression by David Lynch. Oh.

[00:46:05] By Phil Hartman. Ah. That makes sense. Yeah. Late great. Yeah. Late great Phil Hartman did a David Lynch impression on a sketch. But just his voice. So interesting. But yeah, I saw that and I thought, huh? I wonder what the connection is to SNL. I think he was probably just such an influential. For sure. Yeah. Filmmaker that like, you know, there's so many things. Also probably friends with Lorne. Like, cause everyone is friends with Lorne. That's true. Like, so.

[00:46:32] Anyway, we'll be back next week for a new episode. Brad, where can people find you? You can always check me out on Twitter at Ethan underscore Anderton. I'm also on the blue sky. Are people still on that? Or is that done now? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it's going pretty well. They got a huge influx last year towards the end of the year of users, like millions of users actually. Are you on the TikTok? No, I'm not on the TikTok account, but I only have it just so that when people send me TikTok links, I can watch them.

[00:47:03] I'm not scrolling or anything. I let the videos find me. Are you more likely to scroll on the Instagram or the Tiki Taki? No, I honestly don't even scroll on Instagram. I scroll on Twitter. Because I share a lot with you on Instagram. Yeah, and I'll watch those, but I scroll on Twitter, I scroll on blue sky, but I don't scroll Instagram reels or anything like that. No? No. I'll watch stuff that people send me, and I post on Instagram because I have my Brad's junk page where I post about junk food. But I'm not regularly. So if you're scrolling, it's on Twitter?

[00:47:30] Or if I'm scrolling on Instagram, it's only from my snack page to see what other snack pages I've posted so that I know what I'm keeping up with and finding stuff. I'm not watching tons of reels or anything like that. Yeah, and speaking of snacks, we don't do snacks on the 10 to 1, but on our Go Flicks Yourself podcast, Brad always gives a sponsor, and we get to try a new snack. Yeah, fun treats. Fun treats. So if you're not listening to Go Flicks Yourself, Go Flicks Yourself. Yeah.

[00:47:58] And you can check out slashfilm.com where I'm not doing written reviews over there anymore, but we still do write about Saturday Night Live occasionally. And I'm not sure what we're going to be, if we're going to do anything as far as like big coverage for the big Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary celebration. I feel like there's more specials coming out in like, I'm seeing it in magazines, I'm seeing it in like, datelines, you know, like our 60 minutes kind of stuff. Yeah, we're getting close, February 16th, and we'll definitely have an episode following that special. So make sure you stay tuned for that.

[00:48:28] And yeah, we're having a good time. All right. Well, if you don't like us yet, please go to our Facebook and our Twitter account. If you want to know where those are, just go to the 10 to 1.com and you'll find all that stuff. And I want to thank our co-host Ben Conowitz for not being here and making this a better podcast because of that. So we'll be back next week.

[00:48:54] Timothy, be good to yourself, be good to others. Bye bye.