Episode 90 - Jack Black (Season 50)

[00:00:06] It's the Ten to One Podcast with your host Brad Ullman, featuring Ben Conowitz and Nate Lauchs. And here's the podcast! That's a Victorian ghost that you just did. That was a very spooky version. I've been very supportive of you lately in the way in which you do our introductions. I've never heard any of your support. No, in my mind I've thought...

[00:00:34] I was mindfully supporting you. But this one wasn't your best work. That's a little rough. You wanna try it again? Did something happen buddy? Yeah, I'm dealing with two shitty friends every single time I have to record a podcast. Constructive criticism. I come here, I want to talk about a comedy show, and all of a sudden you're like, Oh, your voice sounds like a Victorian ghost getting fucked by a vibrator. I didn't say that last part, and I think you know that. And you also know for... It's the implication. For years we have talked about how your voice annoys us.

[00:01:04] That's also very true, but the implication was that he was in sexual congress with a sex toy? Yeah. That's a weird implication. As a Victorian ghost. Yeah, that's a weird implication. I guess it could be a jackhammer, but jackhammers weren't around during Victorian times. So you tell me what logic you're working with and I'll try and stick around. You know what? Fair enough. Speaking of Jack Black. Yeah! Nice, nice segue buddy. Welcome to the 10 to 1 podcast. He's back!

[00:01:33] We are a review and recap podcast for new episodes of SNL and also movies and everything that's happening in the Saturday Night Live universe. And we have a new episode, right Brad? We do. It's hosted by Jack Black, which is crazy that it's the first time in 20 years that he's hosted Saturday Night Live. Which is, if you were to tell me before he was announced, hey, how long has it been? I would have guessed maybe 10, 5. Yeah. He just feels like something he just would have done. But 2005. Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:02:03] That's a whole era ago. And it's tragic because after this episode, you're going, why is Jack Black? Oh, he's just so talented. Because here's the thing. When I was watching Jack Black, especially, and we'll get to it in the monologue specifically, but throughout the whole episode as we're getting to all of this, I'm like, Jack Black is obviously an actor. I don't know if he's a comedian or not, but he obviously does comedy stuff.

[00:02:29] But the thing that I would describe Jack Black as, he's an entertainer. He's a performer and an entertainer, first and foremost. Yep. And so... He's a man for all seasons. And so he brings this showmanship. He's a jack of all trades. Shut up. Oh, sorry. He brings this showmanship to the show that is very unique. A jack of all charades? No, just that. No, he's not. It's not a quiet sketch show. You're embarrassing all of us right now. Like literally, people are watching on YouTube going, I won't do this anymore.

[00:02:58] Most comedy is in the red, Jack is in the black? Black Jack. Okay, well, I was right there for the taking. Swing and a miss there, Ben. Now, here's the thing about Jack Black. I hate both of you. So I want to talk about this because Saturday Night Network, which they do a lot of great coverage on Saturday Night Live, I want to talk about this because they posted a little diagram talking about the last time Jack Black hosted SNL, which was in 2005. And they were asking whether or not that was one of the greatest episodes of all time.

[00:03:28] Because here's a rundown of the sketches from that episode. I don't remember all of these, but I definitely remember some of them and you will too. First of all, Lazy Sunday. Jack Black's not in it. That's where Lazy Sunday happened. Christmas time for the Jews. Yeah. I remember that one. One of my favorite Christmas sketches. Spelling Bee. When was this? No, that's Will Forte, 2005. Okay. So that's Will Forte, spelling thing, P, X, U, Q, Q, Q. And then Tenacious D comes out and sings the spelling bee. Yeah.

[00:03:58] So Will Forte, probably one of the most Will Forte sketches ever. Perfect Will. The debut of The A-Holes with Jason Tate's Kristen Wiig, Appalachian ER, Santa Chaney, which I don't remember. I did not remember that one. A Christmas edition of Debbie Downer. Okay. A sketch that takes place at a Sbarro. I don't remember this one. No. I need to refresh myself. Ice skating good nights, which was a fun thing they did at the end of the thing. Oh, cool. And then King Kong song-a-log, which I don't know what that is either. Well, Jack Black was in Peter Jackson's King Kong, right?

[00:04:28] Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's something tied to that, but I don't remember what the bit was, but it's obviously during the monologue. We would admit, even at a passing glance, you've got four probably stellar sketches there. The introduction of the assholes, Lazy Sundays, literally an all-timer. Christmas time for the Jews is classic. Christmas time for the Jews. And then A Christmas Debbie Downer, I'm sure, was very funny at the time. Right. I think I remember Stuart Little Mouse Removal Kit, too. That was in there. Apparently not. That might have been his 2003 episode. I mean, on SNL archives. Oh, is it? That is in there. Yep.

[00:04:57] Oh, well, they didn't put it on his dagger. Stuart Little Mouse Removal Kit with Jason Sudeikis, Chris Parnell as the spokesperson, and Kristen Wiig as a wife was in that as well. And I remember that sketch being very funny. Okay, fair enough. So yeah, I would agree that's an all-time episode. That is pretty great. And we have an all-time episode with a really good host if they're not coming back anytime soon, you know, in the next year, year and a half. Now, they didn't do the same thing like, you know, Brigazzi hit and they're like, let's get him back on the very next year.

[00:05:23] They didn't necessarily do that back then, but they also didn't wait, you know, 20 years to have somebody back out. Yeah. Normally, there would be a falling out with that person. And Jackpot clearly just didn't have a falling out or anything. He just hasn't hosted in a while. Yeah. I wonder what the thing was because it's not as if he ever disappeared or wasn't busy and wasn't in big movies. So, you know, maybe there's scheduling, timing. It is honestly because he's a legit big movie star. Yeah. If he's not doing a movie, he's probably doing something with Tenacious D, you know.

[00:05:49] And also, though, I mean, for a long time, if you weren't an A-list leading man, they didn't really give the side actor. So, yeah, he's not going to get it maybe for, you know. Jumaji or something. Yeah. Because he's not The Rock. He's not Kevin Hart. But so, yeah, a lot of, you know, secondary characters that he was playing back then. I don't know. Maybe that's it. Yeah. And again, there's this balance between obviously you want to bring the big names in, but SNL has always prided themselves also bringing new young talent, new young people in. There's only so many slots a year, you know. And scheduling and all that stuff goes into it as well.

[00:06:19] So, yeah. We were just very happy to see him back. I think I probably haven't been as excited about an episode in quite a while. Like, I was very excited to see him. And plus now he's got four episodes in. Yeah. Let's get him as five-timers. I hope so. Do they make a, as a big guy, do you think they make like a quadruple XL jacket, five-timers jacket? Jack Black's smarter than you think. No. Actually, I thought he's got a big belly. Oh, he's got a big belly, but like. No, he's probably only like 5'5". Yeah, he's like a short dude. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. But still though, he's got a good.

[00:06:49] Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, all right. We ready for this? All right, let's get into this. We are going to recap and review each sketch. If you've not watched the 10 to 1 or listened to the 10 to 1. Welcome. We'll give our opinions, talk a little bit about it. But again, we'd love to hear from you. Comment in the comment section of wherever you're listening or watching from and let us know what you think. Or send a handwritten letter. Yeah. Stale mail. Wherever you want to. Stale mail. Just put the 10 to 1 and it'll get to us.

[00:07:18] It will find us somehow. Yeah. Yep. All right. Trump to tariff cold open. The show kicked off with James Austin Johnson back as Donald Trump giving a speech about his tariffs and their market impact. The big surprise was another cameo from SNL alum Mike Myers reprising his Elon Musk from Is that a big surprise? Previous episodes. I mean, he's not always in it. So, again, you get him back doing his Elon Musk. Cat in the hat. Do you like his Elon Musk? I think it's okay. It's Cat in the hat.

[00:07:47] We talked about this. I know, but I feel like he's just kind of, I don't know. He's replaying some of the, like, he's trying to recap a magic that happened in the first episode that he's not doing now. I think that he's good at doing the voice and I like how he's lampooning him only because I think that there's only so much you can do to make Elon Musk seem more ridiculous than he really is because he's such a piece of shit, douchebag, dumb fuck.

[00:08:15] So, like, I think I like it in that way, but I do think that there is a, maybe a bit of an outdated way that he approaches the impression that feels very 90s Mike Myers. That's exactly what it is. It's the robot thing that he does where it's like the reboot. That and also the constantly saying legalized comedy. Like, that's something that he did a long time ago that he has said, but like, it's not like it's like a current thing that he keeps saying, you know? And there wasn't, like you said, in the 90s, Mike Myers, all this kind of, in this era, repeating the joke constantly. Yeah. And so you get the laugh.

[00:08:43] Dana Carvey, right, very famously has those go-tos with Biden, right? I think that, I think Mike Myers pulls it off better. I think Dana Carvey over, and this is me as an amateur fucking hack compared to two legends, but I prefer. We're right here, thank you. But I prefer Mike Myers' take on it where I don't feel like he puts him in there all the time, whereas Dana Carvey does kind of rely on those a little bit more in his, the consistency of those one-liners is pretty standard, right?

[00:09:11] I think I like Dana Carvey's Joe Biden better than Mike Myers' Elon Musk. I do. I don't know. I think we've had more time with him. I think that there's maybe more variety for Joe Biden to play with. Yeah. Because he's got those little idiosyncrasies that James Austin Johnson does with Trump, right? He did capture some of those. I just think, I think lampooning Elon Musk is more enjoyable because he's such a fuckface. Yeah, I know. We had like two conservative listeners and now they're not even listening anymore. What do you have to say about that, Brian? Drive your cyber truck into a wall.

[00:09:41] They probably don't even drive cyber trucks. So let's get to the actual content of this sketch. What did you guys think of it? I thought it was solid. You can't go wrong with James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump. Usually it's the framework of the sketch and what they're covering that is a thing. I think it's a bit of a cop-out that the framework for this one is, oh, it's an encore presentation of the speech they already gave so that they have an excuse to lampoon it. Because, but I think that there was enough funny stuff here and you know, Johnson is just good enough at it.

[00:10:10] I did love the Morgan Wallen reference when he was talking about McDonald's Island saying get me to God's country, which was just hilarious and perfect. Yeah. And I think the one thing that I liked about this was that they didn't do any of the typical formulas they do where he starts like going through like the list of, you know, nonsense things or anything like that. Like it was a, it was just a straight up speech of him saying, you know, ridiculous shit amplified from the actual speech. I liked the touch of doing the big cardboard diagram. I like that a lot.

[00:10:38] And also I'm sure that person's a real person of this character. Yeah. And he like, do you want to stay here? Let's get up here for this. I'm good. Yeah. Like everybody knows how toxic it is to be around that. Yeah. Howard Lutnick is a real person, but except in the real life, Howard Lutnick would definitely would have been there's a camera there. He's there. Oh yeah. He's right under the podium sucking his dick. Yeah. He's right there. But I did like how, actually this was one of my favorite parts of this. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you want me to be nice to the people that are fucking everything up? No. Just like this, this is not the go flicks yourself.

[00:11:08] Our other podcast, which was a little bit more raw and blue. We try to know this one to not be as crass on this. You're right. I'm sorry. He would be under the podium performing fellatio on the penis. Okay. I cleaned it up. We got a spicy Brad, everyone. We got a spicy Brad. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I stand up for America. Sorry. Sorry. I stand against Nazis and fascism. The opinions of Bradford Oman do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Ben Conowitz, Nate Mouse or the 10 to one pod.com. Well, speak for yourself. Nate, Nate knows. All right.

[00:11:37] Moving on. Monologue by Jack Black. Jack Black hit the stage for his fourth hosting gig, emphasizing how long it's been and calling it a life highlight. He then launched into a classic Jack Black high energy song about returning joined briefly by Keenan. What did he call Heidi? Was it Helen? Yeah. And then Marcuzio or something like that. Marcelo Hernandez. And we saw cameos by Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin.

[00:12:07] Yeah. That was crazy to see them in the audience. I mean, and Bill Burr is looking at it like, ah, really? You're going to do it right up here? Like, this is classic. So on top of that, did you also notice there were like three grumpy kids in the upper balcony where when the camera's on there, they were like, I don't want to be. Like, what's going on? My dad's a producer. Like, I don't know if they were annoyed by Jack Black or if they didn't want to be seen on camera for whatever reason, but like. I'll take those seats, boys. Yeah. It's like, hey, don't give seats to those people. Like, we'll take the tickets. I mean, come on. You don't want grumpy frump teens on the fucking stage.

[00:12:37] Grumpy frump teens is my favorite band. You can actively hit my toes with hammers while I'm watching SNL and I will have a better face than those guys. Like, do you know what? It's a magical. One of them was like actively shaking his head like, fuck you. Do you know why Bill Burr was there? He just likes comedy. He is actually doing a play in New York City. Oh, it's Glengarry Glen Ross. Yeah. And so he's been talking on his podcast. I listen to his podcast and he's been talking a lot about it.

[00:13:07] And so it was really interesting. He generally probably didn't have anything to do and went to SNL just to watch it. That's great. And so that's what I'm going to guess is I'm sure he'll talk about on Monday. He's got the Monday morning podcast. Kieran lives in New York. And so, yeah, I'm going to guess he didn't have a show to do. And he decided I'm going to go to SNL and watch because he's a big fan of SNL. And he's hosted, obviously. And so they're going to bring him in. And that was just fun to see. I expected him to bring him in. But it was just like, no, there's Bill Burr.

[00:13:36] There's a guy in the audience that happens to be Bill Burr. There's Bill Burr. And I don't know this for sure, but at the very least it's super rare. I don't think that they have often taken the host up into the bleachers when they've done monologue stuff like that before. That's fair. I don't remember the last time that would have happened. I agree. Yeah, no, I mean, you knew it was going to be probably high energy. And that's a very high energy way to kick off the show.

[00:14:00] And it just it shows you even if you don't know Jack Black outside of the Minecraft movie or outside of Jumanji or some of his bigger stuff. His musicality is at the forefront of his comedy. He is an entertainer. Yeah. And if you love School of Rock, you know he can rock an ACDC song like crazy. Yeah. And for a big dude, too, I mean, that performance would have killed me. Yeah, you've been done for the rest of the night. I would have been. That's one of the things that I am always impressed by with Jack Black. He's 55.

[00:14:28] It's how agile he is, how strongly he can sing and how physical he is without like getting out of breath or like feeling like he's struggling. Yeah. Yeah. He's still got it. Give me give me that. Yeah. How do I get some of that Jack Black? No, I watched this and it was good. Right. I think his performance was even better than the content, though. Oh, yeah. Because watching the performance itself was just like, jeez. You watch that from another, even somebody who can sing, they're not gonna, I'm sorry, nobody's bringing that level of energy.

[00:14:58] Just nobody. He's one of the rare ones that brings absolutely everything. The best joke, I think, again, for me and the whole thing was the naming of Heidi and Marcelo. That got me to laugh the most because again, Keenan had been there since the last time because Keenan's been there for 68 years. And so, you know, these two new cast members, though, it's kind of funny to think Heidi's new because Heidi, I feel like has been on the show forever. Yeah, but new to Jack. New to Jack for sure. Have you seen those Instagram videos of like the overweight dude that is on rollerblades?

[00:15:27] Yes, I've seen your rollerblade on Instagram. All right, point never. Hey, everyone, go follow Ben. Yeah, Ben Blades. He's looking for so many likes and watches on his rollerblade reels. Instagram slash Ben Blades. It's Ben in line of wits. Ben in line of wits, nice. No, there's a chubby dude. He puts his hands in his pockets. He's shirtless and he rollerblades and he does tricks and like jumps and shit and like flips and stuff. Yeah, I've seen this. And he does it all with a super casual demeanor. He's not pumped at all.

[00:15:56] And it just says, ladies, this is what peak male performance is like. And that reminds me of Jack Black like that. That's peak male performance right there. Take it or leave it, ladies. True. All right. Moving on. Indiana Jones. This was a dating game show sketch called Love Match hosted by Todd Brough. Chloe Feynman played a contested blindly choosing between three guys, Jack Black, James Austin Johnson and Marcelo Hernandez with some pretty comedic results here.

[00:16:24] Bowling Yang was also in this. Let's first start off talking about the game show itself. So game shows are part of SNL universe. They use game shows often. Let's I want to get your opinion first, Brad, because I think you have stronger opinions on who is a good game show host on SNL and who is not. What did you think of Andrew Speaks as the game show host? Solid, especially considering what the show the host had to do in this game.

[00:16:52] And I always think that's key in figuring out who's going to be better in that role. And so having this be the guy who is like getting annoyed as somebody who won't acknowledge that they know what Indiana Jones is and that they're dressed like Indiana Jones. And his increasing frustration was hilarious. It was great escalation. Really good, really good escalation. This is actually when he is Indiana Jones's real name and he answers it. That's when it really takes off. He's like, well, I was just assuming. Come on, man.

[00:17:20] This is actually a sketch I will argue is better on the second watch when you watch it again. And you it's it. I really enjoyed the second watch of this because I was able to see where they were going a little bit more. And I understand the construct because a game show for SNL could take so many different formats. Right. And so I appreciated so much of what Jack Black and Andrew just makes for doing in this. I like this one better than I thought I would.

[00:17:45] If you said there's a game show sketch, I typically don't love them anymore. Quick shout out to a couple of things that can derail a sketch. But but here were perfect. The sound effect with the whip was perfect. Both times he did it wasn't even off by a millisecond, which actually made it sound real. Yeah. And so that can really throw off a sketch. And that really dialed it in for me. I was like, oh, shit. I thought that maybe he actually did it. That's how good it was. So props to the cuts.

[00:18:12] And we'll talk about another scene later where there was a lot of complicated cuts and they didn't really screw it up either. Like that one was a little harder. We'll get into that. But it is so important. This is very important for the behind the scenes stuff. It's like you got to get those cues correct if you want the sketch to really hit. And that's one thing that went really well. That is the extra layer. Right. So we live kind of in the shadow of Chicago. We have a lot of sketch comedy around us in Chicago to go see. And when you go there, right, it is literally just a stage and people performing.

[00:18:40] I mean, SNL adds that level. But you also have the camera. Right. Which is a whole nother character that you have to play for. And several cameras. Yeah, exactly. And so. Not just the one. They run. Sometimes the sketches are good sketches. And if the technical work isn't as perfect as the performances are, it can make a bad sketch. Which has to be just the most frustrating thing for a writer to be like, I did, man. Right.

[00:19:10] I wrote a good sketch. Right. Everybody knows. And either the flubbing of the lines or the mic didn't work or the cuts were bad. And I'm sure that they all obviously understand, hey, I've written some bad jokes, too. We've all flubbed up. But that's a really cool thing to see when it all kind of comes together. I really enjoyed this. Yeah. I actually was enjoying it so much that when Bo and Yang turned around as Johnny Depp, as Jack Sparrow. I was hoping for a second and third one. And they were all characters maybe or something.

[00:19:39] I really wanted it to keep going. Yeah. First time in a long time I saw a sketch that was like, oh, they ended up too quickly. Yep. I also liked that they did make some extra jokes that involved the other two bachelors that weren't in the Jones. Oh, that was great. The first one was great because James Austin Johnson, when he was like, hey, I haven't answered any questions. Can we do something about that? That was great. And then having him be like, oh, you want me to say what you guys look like? All right. You look like you're 10 years old and you're like Jane Lynch. And he's like, yeah, accurate. Accurate. Yeah. Those were great. Again, you don't have to pipe in another joke there.

[00:20:08] You can just use it as filler. But when they do and they both land, it's great. I think what I also really loved about this sketch was how quickly it jumped into the confrontation and calling out what was happening. Because I was expecting it to slow roll and have them be like things leading up to like that he's dressed in the Joneses. But the fact that it just makes you like, I just want to let you know, I feel like I have to say this. I'm not supposed to. This guy's dressed like Indiana Jones. So and we talk about universe building in comedy all the time. You build a universe, which is a game show. The host would never normally do that.

[00:20:38] But it was so believable in the way that he does it because he said I would never normally do this. Right. It's little things like that in the writing, though, that make it pop. Because if you build an expectation for the audience that this is a game show and you're in, if we're taking the comedy seriously right now, he host would never do that. So giving the actual line, oh, I would never do this is important. So that's just it's just very clever writing. I was very this. This was a great sketch. I agree. I agree. All right.

[00:21:03] Flamin hot commercial, a pre-taped commercial parody advertising a fictional medication for the aftermath of eating Flamin hot Cheetos. Jack Black starred with introduced mucs voicing Chester Cheetah. Ben, you just recently did your own version of Hot Ones. It's so funny because I was thinking of Ben Zanis during this whole thing. Well, that's pretty standard, though, for you.

[00:21:28] One of the things that my buddy Mike Flores and I did, we did the season 25 of Hot Ones where we, if you don't know what that is, you can YouTube it. It's a very popular show where the guest gets asked questions by the host while they eat increasingly hotter wings. The thing that they don't tell you is by the time you reach, I don't know, a hundred million of the school units, your tongue is about to fall out of your mouth and you're questioning if there's a God. And then the next morning, you wake up and you've got some significant, the term is fire hole.

[00:21:58] Did you have fire hole? I had fire hole, my man. It was raw. Did it give you anal bifida? It hurt so bad the next morning on the way out. It was so uncomfortable. So would you have put some Flamin hot? I think that would have been preferable to what was coming out. It was like I dipped my asshole in lava. And I know that I got on you for the language earlier and I'm sorry, listener, but that's honestly how it felt. It felt like somebody had just taken sandpaper to my butthole. It was that hard. It hurt. It hurt so bad.

[00:22:27] Is one of those where it hurts to like wipe even? Oh yeah, I didn't want to. I took a shower. Yeah. I took a shower and cried. Why do I do this? Why do I do this? It was funny. That's the thing is you only have you to blame. Exactly. And it was great because I got to ask my questions and we were playful and it was, it was, we recorded it and Charlie Young, our good friend, recorded it with like thousands of dollars worth of recording equipment. He's cutting an edit together. We're going to release it. We called it not ones. It's a fun thing, right? You didn't even do this for charity, right? No, no, no.

[00:22:55] This was just something that Mike had interviewed me, you know, four years ago doing this as a surprise for my, for a present. So I got him the hot ones gift set for Christmas. I said, we're going to do it again. And this time I'm going to interview you. One of my favorite parts about this is you should, and again, if you've ever seen the show, do it with your friends. Honestly, it's so fun. And I interviewed his dad and his childhood friends and like came up with questions based on the deep dives that Sean Evans did. It was just great. But all that to say, going back to the sketch, my favorite part about the sketch was so simple.

[00:23:22] It was when they showed the, the animation of the cooling thing. And in my head, I thought they're going to show a version of the hot thing that makes it somehow better, but it exploded. And I was like, they just leaned into the fact, this is going to be bad. You know, I also love the, how Chester, the cheetah slowly gets uncomfortable with what's happening. Oh man. I don't know. I don't think you should be doing this, bro. Two sketches in a row that Andrew just makes was fantastic. Oh, absolutely. And he just played a voice role.

[00:23:49] But again, as we know, that is a, that is a skill that you actually need to do. And hats off to Jack Black going all out. I mean, his pants are literally down. He's like, who wants to look like that on camera? I mean, he's sweating and horrible. Jack Black, I would imagine, wanted to look like that. Yeah, he was absolutely all in for it. I've looked like that on camera. I've looked like that on camera. By default. I was on camera about a week ago looking like that. Put your hand in your ass. Yeah, it is hard sometimes to do a commercial parody that hits.

[00:24:18] We've seen a couple that have been really good, but then some, I feel like oftentimes they're just, they're fine, they're fine. This one was pretty good. I rewatched it again today because I was laughing too much when I watched it live that I couldn't hear the second joke sometimes. That's always a good, you know, a good response. Yeah, I think we're going to all agree at the end of this that this was a good episode. It's a pretty darn good episode. All right, moving on. One-uppers. A group of friends are catching up over lunch, but the conversation devolves into competitive one-upmanship.

[00:24:47] Heidi Gardner plays the waitress in this one, and it's just a bunch of people around a table. Brad, what did you think of one-upping? I like it as a premise. I don't think the execution was particularly great. I felt like this one was one of the ones that was one of the weakers. Yeah, and one of the things that was kind of distracting was that it seemed like Jack Black was constantly missing which camera he was supposed to be looking at. I felt that.

[00:25:15] Granted, he quickly recovered, and it did make it almost a little funnier because of how quickly he went his head around. I felt that there were some timing issues in this one. Here's my defense of this sketch. I can't imagine how hard it is to deliver your line, and you can't even look at the cue card anymore because you've got to scramble. And everybody's looking at different cameras all the time. And this is one of those things, after watching the documentary especially, how quickly he had to probably learn all this. I gave him all the grace of the world.

[00:25:42] And plus, when he did screw it up, if you look, I watched the sketch three times. If you look at every other actor, they're dying. They are dying to try to keep it together. In the background, Bo Yang is about to lose his shit because Jack Black can't find the camera and gets there. This is one of those things where an error made it infinitely better to me. And the audacity, or not audacity, the weirdness of having the actual eagle come in, it all worked for me. I really like this. The eagle thing didn't work for me. I don't know why. It's just the sound effect didn't work for me.

[00:26:11] I would almost rather the Debbie Downer kind of sound effect or something like that. But the eagle, and then they bring Heidi out with the eagle. I don't know. That part didn't work for me as much. I think the reason that I was also kind of lukewarm on it is it's just a different version of Debbie Downer, just with everybody doing it. But it's not though. It is. Someone is saying something, and they're immediately looking at the camera, and they're zooming in and making a sound effect. And that's fine.

[00:26:39] But you can say that I completely disagree there because the whole purpose of Debbie Downer is everybody else reacting to a negative thing, right? And I get that the actual physicality of here is the same. But this time around, this is the thing I really liked about this is that even though they are competitively doing it, it never felt like, oh, yeah, well, I. It was just them being fake supportive the whole time. And it could have been easily written as, well, I.

[00:27:07] What's the Kristen Wiig character that went up? I forget. Oh, what is it? You remember what I'm talking about though, right? Penelope? Yes. Yeah, well, I live on a spaghetti noodle. Exactly. And those are audacious, crazy things where this was just, I got it at a goodwill that I volunteer at. These are real things. And so they kept it based in reality. The camera cuts were, and that's again, that was so technically hard to do. It was not the camera's fault. It was the edge's fault.

[00:27:37] I like this a lot. You guys are wrong. I think the one thing that I did like about it at least that I admired was when they would dramatically change the camera angle to like a high angle shot looking down upon them or something. And then they started changing the sound effects, especially when they did the bow and yang point. Wah! That was great. That's so funny. Yeah. And the bow and yang pointing up at it. Yeah. Like that's awesome. That's silly. There were some good bones here. I think I wish it would have been a little more polished. You're wrong.

[00:28:04] Maybe two after having such good, there was a couple of really good ones in a row in this one. So this did feel like a dip a little bit, but it was not bad. It was not a bad sketch. No, it's not. It's a good sketch. But it felt a little bit like a dip because of the other ones being so, I think, good. Yeah. And then I feel like we went back high again on this one, the first play. I mean, we stayed high. Uh, set in ancient Greece. The sketch featured a group attending the world's first theatrical play with all the awkwardness and confusion that might entail.

[00:28:32] Uh, this also featured Emile Wackham, Jane Wickline, Bowen Yang, James Austin Johnson, and Michael Longfellow. Uh, I liked Jane Wickline in this, I should say, cause I've been critical of her. She made some funny things in this. Just being the, like, shut up Ben. I'm gonna nitpick. I'm gonna Brad nitpick in a little bit. Wait, wait, wait. But, uh, Jack Black was hilarious in this. He stole the sketch. He was so in the premise of this. I love this idea cause I've never thought about, at one point there had to be a first play.

[00:29:01] And he had to explain how it works. And like, no, no, there's no chicken, sir. Did you find your chickens? Or like, I'll go get the king? Yeah. Just, just, just, just, just, I'll go, I'll go get him Andrew just speaks. He just walks off. Just right off the bat too, the, when he comes out on stage, hello! Yeah. It is me! Uh, it is, it is a very funny sketch. Yeah. And, and performed perfectly. Like, uh. I got that, that's where I'm, I'll stop. Okay, alright, come on. Alright.

[00:29:31] You do this all the time, I can't do it once? Alright, well, I mean. We'll see how good the point is. Let's see, let's see. Bring it, bring it to the table, we'll judge you. So, here's my nitpick. Uh, in. Your Brad pick? Here's my Brad pick. In the, in the sketch. I'm sure you all saw it. I loved it. Uh, who kept telling Jack Black and the others, shh, be quiet. This. The usher, Jane Wickline. Right. And so Jane Wickline knows what a play is. Yeah, cause she's, she, like today I went to,

[00:30:00] a performance of a play that my son is in that opens next week, but they did a parent showing. So I got to see it before everyone else did. So, Jane Wickline's character understands what the play is, and is course correcting the audience and be like, that's, no, you don't get it, it's a, it's fake and it's a performance. But then, when they all, when they, they point and say, the, the, the, the war is coming in and the, the Trojans or whatever are coming at us, Jane Wickline also turns around and looks with the rest of the audience.

[00:30:29] But she's in on it. She would be the only one not looking because she knows it's fake. But, so, is Jane Wickline telling, trying to explain the concept, or is she just getting, trying to get them to be quiet? So, the idea would be, if you're telling them to be quiet, why are you doing that? Because she understands it's a performance and we're putting on a play together and do it be quiet, you're not supposed to talk to them. So that means she understands what the play is. But maybe only to a certain extent. Yeah, maybe only kind of in a primitive way. Like, if you're, I understand you're not supposed to talk to the people on stage.

[00:30:58] The actors and the people working there would all be on one side of it and she turned around with whatever. So now you're a theater director? Yes, and I think that that's wrong. To be fair though, only Jack Black and a couple of the other ones were talking to the people on stage. Well yeah, because in the sketch you can't have all the extras actually talking. I'm just saying though, it didn't seem like they were trying to say- Well but Ben, according to your logic though, if not everyone knows who the play is, maybe everyone should be talking in the sketch. Not the three characters. They should be, but maybe Jack Black was, hey, good for him, he's the mouthpiece of our organization. I appreciate that. Why'd you nitpicking about that?

[00:31:27] I feel like that was a very pedantic nitpick and it did not work for me. What about you, Bram? I agree. Thank you. Because it's a Brad nitpick. It is a Brad pick. So you did not like the sketch? I liked it a lot. It was very funny. I thought it was very, very funny. I would re-watch the sketch. There's more room here too. Yeah. I think they could bring this back. They say the first play on the road, the next one or whatever. We've learned some things from last time so we're going to make sure that we actually have real chickens or whatever. There's a lot they could do with this.

[00:31:56] There's so much they could do. I love that. I loved it. And they've done, I think in the previous stuff, haven't they done like the first phone call and the first things like that? I think so. Yeah. It's good comedy. All right. Brad, were you ever a goth kid? Oh, God no. Ben? No. Did you ever have JNCO jeans? I did, but I thought I was more like a punk skater guy, which I never skated.

[00:32:25] I just thought they were cool and I wore them. He saved his skating for his later years. Yeah. Pete Male Performance, baby. Check me out on Instagram. All right. Goth kid on vacation. Gosh darn. Kenan Thompson and Ego Wodham starred as a reggae duo performing a song about a goth kid awkwardly on vacation with his family. Jack Black also appears doing a song by what was that? My Chemical Romance. Yeah, My Chemical Romance. Very funny. This is a musical sketch.

[00:32:54] I'm a couple in this episode. What did you guys think of this song? Did it work for you? Did the concept work for you? Oh, absolutely. Did the song itself work for you? Yeah, 100%. I think that it was a really funny way to approach it. Michael Longfellow is the perfect person to play the goth kid on vacation. Yeah, I wonder if he had a hand in writing this too because he felt very, very fitting in this. This is something that like is pretty prominent online too of like you'll constantly see like

[00:33:22] awkward family photos of where like the goth kid is in a full goth phase in a Sears family portrait, you know? So yeah, doing a musical like this where they're on vacation, the contrasting imagery, all the funny things that would happen to someone when you're dressed like that. And then actually using- I've got a couple of friends that have kids. They're not because goth is not a thing anymore, but they're artsy and they don't let themselves enjoy life. Yeah. And so- When they're at the table and he's like, what do you want to do? Go home. Yep.

[00:33:52] And that's so perfect for that kid. Yeah. Right? Has no wherewithal that this is an amazing opportunity to be on vacation and whatever. And it probably costs his parents a shit ton of money. I don't know. Go home. Oh, Jesus. You know what? Cry Me a River, Devin, or whatever your name is. Yeah. The My Chemical Romance song really sealed the deal for it too, I think. Yeah. So again, that's something where any other host can't come in with that energy and do that, but Jack Black fucking nailed it. Yeah. He's a performer. All right.

[00:34:22] Moving on. I believe he said entertainer. Yeah, he is. Well, he's a performer too. Okay. Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che. Oh, yeah. Today covered the week's news, including Trump's tariffs and a grim story about a toddler eating ashes. I'm going to, while Brad does his scoring for the breadometer, I'm going to give Ben about 28 seconds for you to explain to our listeners, our first time listeners, what the breadometer is. The breadometer has been recently recalibrated.

[00:34:50] And it's a score, like a Rotten Tomatoes score, zero to 100% of how much Colin Jost and Michael Che interact with one another. Little side jokes, little nods to one another, actually talking to one another, making each other laugh, and or there is a factor in there, was Weekend Update overall a good version of Weekend Update? Yeah. It doesn't necessarily include the players, but it can. Yeah.

[00:35:20] So let's you and I talk a little bit, Ben. I thought this was a very good Weekend Update. So even though the breadometer has been recalibrated, this has got to be an all-time-run. That's what I'm saying. It's got to be high, right? The Ego stuff just in and of itself, watching them look at each other in the background and joke. Because that has to count. That's huge. But then also, the Weekend Update overall was great. Yeah, because Che did some jokes that were certainly his type of, like, ug, you know. And then also, it's the 90s.

[00:35:50] He avoided that. Good. And then, yeah, but then the actual back and forth that they had with each other, they talked. I felt like there was a lot of chemistry. Oh, yeah. I felt that they were just- They were dialed in with each other, man. They were dialed in. Yeah. So the hard thing is it has been recalibrated. Exactly. I'm going to say, I'm going 95. That's exactly what I was going to go with, 95. Okay. 95. Oh, okay, fellas. Right. If it's 95, this is the last episode of the show ever. It's 92. What? What the fuck?

[00:36:18] Now, it's 92 because while- What could be- Did you need them to get under a podium with each other? So if all-time best is them doing joke swap, that involves- Which is 100. Yeah. That involves a lot of interaction, a lot of, like, jesting, laughing, good bits, that kind of stuff. You didn't see that in the same? You saw none of that in the same? No, no. There's definitely some good interaction between them, but it's not directly between them and it's not like that level of interaction. So it's still very good. However, this higher score is mostly rely on how good-

[00:36:47] It's not a high score. It's an out-toe. It's a higher score. I think- A 92. What was it last week? An 85 or an 86 or whatever? It was higher than it should have been. And this is what? This is only a few points higher than that? Mm-hmm. Get out of here. Here's the thing. This is a predometer. It's not a Ben fuck-o-meter and it's not a Nate dick-o-meter. So, like, don't worry about it. It's just- It's just, it's challenging to put up with. And it's just symptomatic of, like, where our country is right now.

[00:37:16] Yeah, you speak for the people, but you don't speak for all people? Yeah, it's just dumb. It's just a really sad state of affairs when something so, honestly, so easy to do well is done so poorly. So then, Ben, you and I actually liked Weekend Update. Loved it. Brad did not, but we did. Let's start then with Brad. Why did you hate Weekend Update? What about Weekend Update did you really despise this week? What went off the rail? Did you not like the audience saying shit? It's a 92. Yeah, which is a bad score for what this is.

[00:37:45] A 95, you know it is. Here's the thing. You know what I mean? Redo your score. Redo it right now. If you want to talk about things that people are doing poorly, Ben, those shorts are terrible. Ashley's mom got me these shorts. Where? At the Jinko store. At the Jinko store. At Walmart. All right. So let's talk a little bit then about, because this is going to play into this, let's talk a little bit about the Weekend Update bits, okay?

[00:38:11] So we have Marcelo Hernandez and Jay McClain coming back to do Grace and Alyssa, the couple you can't believe are together. Grace and Alyssa? Grace and Alyssa? Isn't it Grace and Alyssa? No, what are they? Was his name Grace? Oh, Grant. Grant. There we go. Grant and Alyssa. My bad. Sharing relationship tips, right? So good. It's very good. I thought this was very, very funny. So Brad, why didn't you like it? I did love this. I did love this. But you only gave it an 82.

[00:38:41] No, it factors into how good Weekend Update is, but it's not as big of a part as the comradery between Jost and Shay, which is a big part of the phenomenon. So what did you like about this thing? I mean, first of all, Jane Wickline is hilarious in this. Her low-key responses to Marcelo's energy is perfect. But also her, I've got a man kind of thing. Exactly. The quiet way she says things that are- I'll break it off like a kid can. Exactly. Yeah. I just love this. I hope they keep doing it forever. Do you guys know any couples like this where you sometimes go-

[00:39:13] What do they have to talk about? I used to know one. Go on. I think that people probably talked about my ex-girlfriend and I like that. I was like, really? Are they together? Are they together? That person is extremely introverted and very shy and doesn't really want to be a member. They've been married to a very introverted person. I think you and I both know a couple of those, but now- But I don't think anybody- I don't have that problem anymore. This is clearly a very, very widely different one reads the other doesn't.

[00:39:42] I have met a couple people where it's like, then you find out, oh, they got together in high school. Right? And maybe the commonality was they shared classes together, but they've really- But I just love the way they do it. Marcel Hernandez is so funny in this. Like you said, Jane Wickline doesn't have a ton to do, but what she does is perfect and smart on. It's like, it's the lack of what she has to do which actually makes her character funnier too.

[00:40:09] And so I will give her a lot of props here because we all know, like anybody who is a performer at all and has ever performed anything, it feels very good to be the center of attention. And she's not the center of attention in this bit. Yeah. And she's not. But what she does, she does so fucking well and you believe it and it's real and it's hilarious that, you know, it must have been hard to be around Chris Farley as David Spadey, even though he's very funny. He wasn't going to be the focus. He was the second guy. Exactly. And so, you know, Ab and Costello, everybody laughed at the fat guy.

[00:40:39] Laurel Hardy, everybody laughed at the fat guy. Like, it's really hard to be that second banana, the loud person and then the other one. Man, dialed in and wonderful. Like, I really enjoyed this. Again, like you said, I hope they bring this back quickly. Like, I like this dynamic a lot. But what I liked about this was they didn't just bring it back. They actually had a premise to this. Yeah, they had a good reason. And so, which I really liked. Like, here's our relationship tips. Let's go to the next one that we can update. So before we get that and get, before. Let's start Word Wednesdays.

[00:41:09] What? Can we start Word Wednesdays like they have? So they didn't, we didn't talk about like the specific jokes in Weekend Update. Okay, you want to get to a couple of those? I just wanted to. I didn't figure you liked any of them. I just wanted to mention. Properly, he wanted to gloss over them. This was the second time they made a joke about Morgan Wallen. Yes. Which was hilarious. Yeah. And I love that SNL is the kind of show that can quickly react to stuff like that. Exactly. And by the way, to your credit, Brad, thanks for pointing that out.

[00:41:39] But SNL isn't just the show that can do that. The writers are chomping at the bit. Oh, yeah. I got 20. Which one do you want? And they will also be self-deprecating too, right? Exactly. Well, and like they did. Making fun of themselves. Didn't they do that in this episode with the Chris Brown thing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That was the other thing I was going to talk about. Is like, is calling out how weird it is that they had an episode hosted by Russell Brand where he introduces Chris Brown. Hilarious. He sure can pick them. Yeah. Or we can pair them well together. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

[00:42:08] Let's move on to the next bit. But still, just 92, Nate. I know. It was so good. Disheartening. Discussed the White House Correspondents Association canceling their comedian, which is absolutely true. It's so dumb. So dumb that they're doing this. Do we expect anything less? From the reporters? Yeah. I would hope that the Correspondents Association, which is not the government, it's just reporters that they would actually, but they're all afraid. They're all afraid. Was it the reporters that made the decision? Yes.

[00:42:37] Can't Trump say, I won't come if you do a comedian? Well, Trump doesn't go anyway. He hasn't gone anyway. I could have sworn that it was the administration that chose not to have a comedian. No. Because if Trump doesn't go anyway... This is the White House Correspondents Dinner. I didn't know that. That's insane. If Trump's not going to boycott anybody, fuck him. Get Bill Burr then. Get somebody aggressive that'll make fun of him. I was listening to Pivot, which is hosted by Kara Swisher, who's a tech reporter and everything.

[00:43:01] And she was saying that, essentially, the media right now is owned by people, right? You've got Jeff Bezos. Who don't want to rubble feathers. They've got... And so this is not... Well, that's really upsetting. This is not coming from the reporters. This is coming from... The White House Correspondents Association is essentially a board made up of the conglomerates of media reporters. And they're like, nope, let's not do this. That sucks. Yeah. You know, that's... That's what I'm saying. I'm disappointed in that.

[00:43:29] Because, again, they don't want to be combative and partisan. We talk about this all the time, like, not on this podcast, but like, when people go on Facebook and they have a comment deleted, they're like, well, what about my free speech? And you're like, well, that's not free speech. I mean, they had Amber Ruffin scheduled to do it. Yeah. This feels more like an attack on free speech, though, because it is because of these oligarchs that own the papers that are not allowing it, you know? And that was Kara Swisher's point in the Pivot podcast was this... Actually, this is the point of it.

[00:43:57] We are purveyors of free speech. We are the reporters of news, right? We should not be afraid. We should speak boldly, these kind of things. All right. So, Ego Wodum comes and it's been a while since Ego Wodum has done... Honestly, I don't even know if she's done herself before. I have not loved all of Ego's latest weekend update bits. They've only been okay. Like, they're looking for stuff through the purse and being overwhelmed or whatever. Like, I don't know. It didn't hit for me. Welcome back. But my God, this was amazing.

[00:44:27] Welcome back. She was brilliant. I loved every minute of this. I love her, you know, saying, okay, I'm going to be the comedian on this. She does, you know, kind of... It's so great because they literally, who is this version of you? You see Che and Joe's in the back. They're talking to her directly. The camera pulls back and they're having fun. That's what I'm saying. This was so much fun. And then... You see them just, you know, shaking their heads. They're loving it and they're interacting with her as she's this character.

[00:44:56] Like, Ego, you're not 50. Like, what are you talking about? Who the hell is Eggie? Yeah, I loved how it evolved from her actually doing bits about making fun of the food and then it turned into just a general 1980s Def Jam comedy bit. Yeah. Because the persona she put on, the joke she was doing... The walk? The way Joe's and Che reacted to it. Her... She's sticking her butt out and doing that. Yeah. I mean, everything about this was pitch perfect. Yeah. And then... And then... Explain what happened to Fred.

[00:45:24] So, what's interesting is I'm very curious. I'm sure... I'm hoping someone gets like the scoop on like what happened and how this came about because the way she reacted to the first audience participation bit, was like she was surprised that they knew what to say. Like it wasn't supposed to be something that they did know. So then the second time it happens and like they were infinitely surprised, I think, because they weren't anticipating participation again because she says...

[00:45:53] Because men ain't... And the whole audience goes, shit! And the reaction from Jost and Che and Eggie, especially Colin... Whoa! No! What are you doing? Don't do that, please! Please! There's a screen cap on the SNL subreddit of Michael Che just like looking like... Sitting up in his chair. Like eyes wide open. Some dude put... That was not planned. That was not planned.

[00:46:21] Some dude had that screenshot and said, I've never seen Che's posture better. Yep. Because he was dead straight up and Jost was literally like the kindergartner is walking to the toilet with the hamster gonna flush it. Yeah. Like, oh no! And Eggo handled it so well. She was perfect. She was perfect. They're gonna fine us on this... Lauren's mad at you. She said, they're finna fire us for that. Oh, I thought it was... Y'all gonna pay for that and then Lauren's gonna be mad at y'all.

[00:46:50] And all that's obviously improv and right off the... But then right back into the character, like she's a fucking pro. So SNL subreddit said... She didn't say fire, she said fine. Fine. Fine us for that. Oh. Because it got through because they said the shit was... Oh, I thought she said fire. They're gonna fine us for that. Yeah, yeah. And Lauren's gonna be pissed about it. Gotcha. Like... Oh man, that was so good. I heard fire for the first... I heard fire as well, but it does make sense that they're gonna fine us.

[00:47:15] But yeah, because that will cost them money, I'm sure, because you can't say shit on network television. Mm-hmm. But it was just... The comments... Sorry. The bit by itself was already funny. That just took it to another level. Stratosphere. And good for that happened because then it's gonna put people... It's gonna put the people that wouldn't normally watch that onto it. Yeah. And then they get to see how good Ego is in this and how good SNL can be. And I also just love that it's something that like the cast members weren't in control of it. No. It's the audience.

[00:47:44] It had nothing to do with anybody in the show and, again, the reaction to the thing that was unexpected was handled pitch-like fucking perfectly. From what I understand... He could have scripted that better for her. I would love... I wish there was their... Like, they had a camera on Lorne Michaels to capture how he reacts to things like that. I mean, I'm sure at this point he loves it. He's gotta love it. Especially right after... If it happened right away and then it cuts and he doesn't see what happens, he's nervous. But when he sees what Ego does with it and how they move on, he's like, oh, well, this is just ratings. Yeah.

[00:48:14] From what I understand, what Ego was trying to go for is nothing. Right? So she's like, you know, doing kind of like you said, a Def Jam comedy and the audience doesn't respond. And she's like, that's right. You know, like, because she's fighting through the thing, right? Right. And so they do respond. Gosh. It's just... It makes me also think that... It's so good. Did they not respond at dress? Right. Because they must not have. No, they probably didn't. Because you're not supposed to, right? And then...

[00:48:40] And so then they didn't have to say on the live show, hey, by the way, audience, there's going to be a bit and we need you not to say anything. Do they do that? Do you think they preamble and say like... I can't imagine that there's any instance other than this where they've had to worry about that. Because there was more than one person that said shit. Yeah. It was collective. Yeah. And then the first time... So what was the line that she said the first time where she was not... Was it funny or like, what was the line? What was the word that... Oh, I think it was play or something like that.

[00:49:08] You know, I don't play and a lot of people said play, which only just took her aback because she's like, how the hell did you know that? How did you know that? How did you know that? And that's also, by the way, that's a weird thing to everybody collectively think. Right. So I just... This is like a perfect moment in time for comedy. The idea that like you have that bit and you do that and they say play and so it's not crass. They're not in trouble yet. It's almost like the audience knew what was going on and was going to escalate to the next thing. Like, that's crazy how that worked out.

[00:49:37] Here's the thing though is I'm going to chase this back to Jack Black because I believe he brought an energy to this show and the audience was having fun. You know what? And so they were having so much fun. I don't know that I'd give a white guy credit for black comedy, but hey, that's not who I am though. No, setting the tone of the episode. Yeah. No, you're right. And so the high energy tone of the episode, the opening number or the monologue in the all of these things. It was high energy all the way through. And so the audience I think was just having a blast.

[00:50:05] The only three guys that didn't respond to Ego. Those three college douchebags. Grump Frump Teens. Grump Frump. I couldn't remember. I was trying to remember it so hard. The Grump Frump Teens. All right. Moving on. Making Love. A musical sketch. Another musical sketch featuring Jack Black and Sarah Sherman as a couple performing a song about making love for the first time. Boyang also featured in musical guest Brandi Carlile made a cameo appearance. This is certainly an awkward song format.

[00:50:34] You don't see a lot of wires on SNL. What did you think of this one? Let's go with you, Ben. What did you think? So this one, I'm probably going to get a lot of shit for this. I didn't love this one as much as the other stuff I watched overnight. I agree. All night. I thought it was fine. I also thought that it's very hard to pull off and so I give them kudos for trying it because it's literally a high wire act. I feel like they were trying to capture some magic with the physical bits of this. Exactly.

[00:51:04] That even just like getting Sarah Sherman, it just didn't get there. So I'll give again credit to Jack Black. If you notice, he's physically grabbing the wires, moving people, putting them back in camera front. I mean, if that's not a professional, a comedian, I don't know what the fuck is. You have somebody that's hosting the show. Could you imagine any other host, really, other than people that have really done it before? He hasn't done it in 20 years and he said like, nah, I got you on the wire. Like, he really saved it because it could have been, if they twist it around, maybe then

[00:51:34] it goes bad and then maybe it's even funnier. That's the thing is, this sketch is one thing away from being really funny but it's not because of the sketch as written. It's because of what could have went wrong or right with the physical bits of it. Talked about how big Jack's belly is and did they purposely use something that I thought that the bit was going to be he busts out of it because the buttons were literally stretching and I go, oh, this is going to be one where he shows his belly and they never did. And I go, he just wore a small shirt. I think some of that is just the harness too.

[00:52:03] Sure, sure. What did you think, Brad? I thought this was funny. I didn't think it was laugh out loud funny. I liked the premise. To me, actually, the thing that I kept coming back to is this felt kind of like a tenacious D song. Well, sure. And I almost wondered if it was something that like, I don't know, I don't know who was written by it. Do we have any of that information? I don't yet, no. But part of me wonders if it was something that like, maybe like Jack Black was sitting on or something like that because like I could have imagined Kyle Gass being the Bowen Yang role and coming in as the third, you know?

[00:52:33] But either way, I think what I liked about it is the interaction between Jack Black and Sarah Sherman because she was clearly having the time of her life doing that. Oh, exactly. Yep. So yeah, I thought it was pretty funny but like, yeah, I think it could have been better. I feel like Sarah Sherman would be someone though that would say, I have to get into a sketch with Jack Black. Oh, yeah. Like his level of physical comedy is probably something she really admires, right? Like as a physical comedian. I don't know that we needed Brandi Carlile. No. As the tack on there.

[00:53:01] I think seeing her in that kind of position though is funny in itself. It's awkward and funny. Sure, sure, sure. And then the one thing I did like is at the very end when they pull back and you can see all the people who are there. Hoisting everybody. Yeah, holding the harness. It was great. Yeah, fun to see them. And again, you know, everybody, like Jack Black's a big boy. So good for them. I didn't love the song either, which maybe it was part of it. I just didn't think it was a great song. Yeah. I mean, musically, it wasn't anything impressive. It was more funny than it was musically impressive. All right, moving on.

[00:53:30] Bass Bass Lake, but I like to call it Bass Lake. So Jack Black, Kenan Thompson, and Andrew Schmukes played Big Ricky and the Minnows, hosting a potluck jam session where others were invited to join in. Again, another musical sketch. Not shocking having Jack Black on the show. This was a jam session. Again, bassists coming up. I was reading the comments on YouTube. A lot of bassists love this sketch.

[00:54:00] I thought it was just fine. I mean, bassists are going to be the most self-deprecating because if you play bass in a band, you've got to be out on the joke that it's the role that like, you're not the lead guitarist, you're not the cool drummer, you're just the bassist. It was pretty funny that everyone that came up to jam was a bass player and they're the ones who really want to show their stuff. I did like how complex it got by having pretty much everyone come out and playing a different kind of bass. So the sheer number of basses involved. There's a lot of basses. Ever since the behind the scenes, it makes me think. Yeah.

[00:54:30] I'm like, so you had to source 12 basses and did they just fucking have them? Part of me thinks they just have a storage closet full of- I'm going to guess the musicians there have them. And they also made an awesome keyboard carrying case for that one. Oh my God. That was probably the funniest thing for me. Yeah, that's props all day long. For a freaking three minutes, five minutes, whatever, to be able to- Come on. Yeah. That's just not fair. So the sketch itself, I didn't think it was that great. Actually, my fiancee Brittany actually said that she thought it was like more cowbell, but worse.

[00:55:00] Yeah. That's right. It's- There's a lot of like, if you're going to do the same joke over and over again, there has to be some sort of escalation. There was not. There was not really- The escalation was the absurd of the characters. There's more and more, yeah. But still. But it didn't hit enough though, right? No. Ben, did you have to hide your groin when Heidi Gardner came out? Yeah. So here's the thing. I watched it with my girlfriend, Ashley, and we're sitting there. And Heidi comes out. And she just looks at me.

[00:55:29] And she goes, that's not- Because we- And Ben grabs the scrunchies, don't look at me! Shhh, shhh, shhh, shhh. Shhh, shhh, shhh, shhh. You shut your mouth. You shut your mouth. So I muted it. No. And paused it. It said, I'm going to need some time alone. If you take the sexual nature of it away, the costuming is- It looks real. I mean, good God! It's so weird. Here's what I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell if they gave her just an impressive push-up bra or if it was a prosthetic. No, that's a prosthetic.

[00:55:59] Those things are enormous. Hold on. I'm sure we're going to see those. I don't want to get into the weeds with women's bodies here at all. But hold on. Let me explain why though. Because Coley Feynman. No, no, because I thought it was a prosthetic. But here's the thing. Heidi Gardner does have- Coley Feynman doesn't have a big chest. Sure. Heidi Gardner has a normal-sized chest. Oh, I haven't noticed. I don't look. Yeah, I don't look either. So it's weird to see them. So it can be pushed up like that. The reason I ask is because I initially thought it was a prosthetic too. It's a prosthetic. I was like, there's no way. But if you watch later when she's dancing, the bounce that is coming with them looks very natural.

[00:56:29] And this is why I don't want to talk about this. I'm so uncomfortable right now. I don't. The fact that you said, if you look at it, the bounce is pretty natural for what real teeth look like. I don't even want to have this. I'm serious though. I know you are. And that's the problem. We know you are. But I want to talk about it because you studied to McBride. I want to talk about it because- I've studied this in detail. Well, you know what my bonometer says? It's at 110. I think it needs to recalibrate. It's because it's an impressive prosthetic. It's an impressive prosthetic already!

[00:56:56] If they were able to do that, there is a- When she was dancing, there was a natural bounce and it wasn't moving- Okay, okay. Stop. No, I'm being serious. I am too. It's fine. We get their point. It didn't look like a prosthetic. You get the point, Brad. You've said it nine times now. But it didn't look dick. It looked real. No, but realistically, with Chloe Fineman's thing, because she says in her behind the scenes, and obviously, I don't have a large chest, so this prosthetic is what we used. Right.

[00:57:25] I'm pretty sure they did the same thing, but you mimic the natural shape and curvature, whatever. And so when action does happen, it's just going to mimic what was there anyway, but it's more pronounced because it's larger. I'd just be curious to know how they were able to do it to make it loose enough and not look super fake. I mean, again, if we're taking everything and putting it to the side, props to props, because that's a crazy, well-done thing. It made Ashley and I stop and be like, wait, what? Yeah. And what do you think the nipples look like?

[00:57:54] By the way, by the way, from r slash- Do you think it had salami areolas? Oh, stop. Or like the little baby toes? Are we cutting all this? Are we just canceled? All right. So I do want to say- You love big areolas? The views expressed by Brad Perlman do not reflect the personalities and or opinions of Nate Lamspan or the 10to1pod.com. First of all, for Nate, that's true. For you, that's a straight lie. On r slash- I respect my name. Live from New York.

[00:58:23] On r slash live from New York. Which is the subreddit. That's the biggest SNL subreddit. Go on. It says, were those Heidi's real boobs? That is one of the things. Thank you. And it says- Props to props. This is TheraPhotos. I can't believe that we're talking about this. It says, in the too much bass sketch, if those were real, why ain't I never noticed them before? Sweet Jeebus. Wait, wait.

[00:58:52] Why ain't I never noticed them before? Yep. And then the first comment, the top comment says, um, no. No. The next comment says, prosthetics, my guy. The third comment says- Where do I get them? No. The third comment says, heavy naturals, 100%. Oh my God. See? It's so terrible. It's so atrocious. So we're not the only ones talking about it. No, I mean, it's gonna make the headlines. I get it. Oh my gosh.

[00:59:18] But realistically, of course, my very first reaction was, after whatever the next commercial break- His first reaction after- I turned to Ashley and was like, well, they're either Nate or Brad or both of them are just gonna look at me and be like, well, what'd you think? Like, that's exactly what's gonna happen. I knew it was gonna happen. All right. Moving on. Times Square- And by the way, yes, I was happy. Okay? If that's what you wanna hear me say, Brad, I liked it. It was fun. I enjoyed it. You know, let me have something. So they did look real. Yeah.

[00:59:48] You know what they did? Okay? And I was happy for once in my life. Let me have something. All right. Moving on. Times Square kiss. Set during the VJ Day celebration in Times Square, Heidi Gardner played the iconic nurse being kissed by a sailor while her actual boyfriend reacts poorly right beside her, played by Jack Black. Also featured Andrew Smukes, Kenan Thompson, Sarah Sherman, Mikey Day, and James Austin Johnson. This is a period piece humor where they do sometimes. Hold on. That was just... I gotta go back.

[01:00:18] That's the most uncomfortable I've ever been on this podcast. I'm flushed. My face is red. I don't feel good. Like, I feel like... We always talk about... And it's a little inside baseball here. Because we're just three, like, schlubby white dudes, we do actively try to very much not comment on women's bodies, not be, you know, weird about that kind of thing. And this wasn't about... No, I know. I know. I'm just... I literally kind of want to put a disclaimer out there. Like, I hope nobody takes offense to that because, seriously, it's a fun thing to talk about on the show, but realistically...

[01:00:47] And I was legit impressed by the press that... Okay. Calm down. Again, I'll just keep talking. You know what, Brad? Actually, I think you should probably stop talking. Yeah, just... You're done. Okay, cut his mic. Okay, cut his mic. Because in all honesty, the last thing I want is for anybody to think for us that, like, we are thinking that Heidi Gardner is, you know, anything more than an incredibly hilarious comedian because I respect the fuck out of her. Of course. That's all. So I just want to put that out there that I'm very uncomfortable right now. But that's why... Is my face fucking red?

[01:01:17] It feels red. But then the reason I will say, because I did want to, like, address it is because the prosthetic is made to be a prominent punchline and, like, a fun part of the bit. Of course. And so she's approving that and she's all in. SNL in 2025 is not making anybody do anything they don't want to do. It might have been her fucking idea. And so lean into it. It's fine. But I want to be very clear that I'm very uncomfortable. I'm a pervert. And actually, I'm glad that you brought up the Chloe Fineman thing where she posted on the thing because that is what made me think... Exactly.

[01:01:46] I wonder if they just did get a good push-up for her because it looked more real than that one. Again, you've got to stop talking. Again, you're not helping. You're just not helping. That's now the 17th time you've said that exact same fucking thing. I want to make sure it's a genuine thing. 18. I'm not talking about it because I'm like, oh, I need him, I need him. And every time, babe, feels like I've got to comment again just to let people know. I'm fanning myself like fucking handier. Like, okay, moving on. Sorry. That's how he was when he first saw the sketch, too. Fanning himself with his hand.

[01:02:15] Apologies, Heidi, and anybody else. I'm sorry. I'm trying to get us out of this. Yeah, let's go. I'm sorry. I'm trying to get us out of this. I keep bringing it back in. All right. Times Square kiss set during the VJ celebration in Times Square. Heidi Gardner played the iconic nurse being kissed by a sailor while her actual boyfriend, played by Jack Black, reacts poorly right beside her. Also featured Andrew Smukes, Keenan Thompson, Sarah Sherman, Mikey Day, and James Austin Johnson. This was a period piece humor. You've probably seen this picture before.

[01:02:45] Kind of fun to think what was the setting going on at this point to add a little absurdity to the contextualization of the photo. Brad, what did you think of this sketch? Good premise. Good premise. Some funny moments for Jack Black. I feel like it maybe went on a little too long. Agreed. But I love the fact that he comes back and he has four hot dogs. Oh my God, it's so good. And none of them are for Heidi. What? You didn't tell me you wanted one. And he's so sincere about that.

[01:03:13] I think it's the voice that he put on that really helped sell it. He does really well in this sketch. Like you said, it could have gone about half as long though. Yeah. But also, if we're going to say anything about it going too long, it's the extended lips touching. It's not a kiss. But that was really funny though. And you could see Heidi and Mikey almost breaking while they had it. What I'm saying is if we're going to say something good about how long it went is, you get the opportunity to see real long, awkward kisses between best friends basically that are not like that.

[01:03:42] Like brother and sister kissing and Heidi's dying. She's really trying to keep it together. I really liked that. It was so funny to me. Yeah. There was definitely some funny stuff here. There were some high points in this. Yeah. I felt like though there were some low parts that are not low points, just just low, low points. There's enough to like this. But again, there's so much different things that could have happened that would have made it better and or shorter, whatever got to the point a little faster, whatever. Jack Black did a great job here though. The four hot dogs thing was awesome. The fifth one. You know, like, oh gosh, it's just funny. All right.

[01:04:12] We have one cup for time sketch to get to. If you are new to SNL, uh, SNL actually. Actually creates quite a few different sketches that never get to the actual show. Um, so they pair them down from writing to, uh, you know, all the way to the live show. And so some of the sketches that they record, um, during dress rehearsal, they occasionally put them on their YouTube channel for us to enjoy.

[01:04:41] Now, typically that will be if they can't recycle them. And so this one they chose to, they could have recycled this because they could have redid the voice on this, but they didn't. This is a, uh, an SNL animated short called The Great Battle. And this featured the voices of Jack Black and Keaton Thompson as two men trying to fight during a battle. This was pretty short. Was it about two and a half minutes maybe? Yeah. Yeah. It follows the suit of the previous animated shorts we've gotten recently. The one about God and the creation of New York. And we talked about this before.

[01:05:10] We really love that they're doing, that they're bringing an animated element to this. And this one, again, like it feels like another Adult Swim kind of thing. And part of me thinks like all of these almost could form some kind of like, uh, animated history of the world kind of show on Adult Swim. Like it really has that kind of vibe to the point where it doesn't really feel like SNL, you know? Like you don't, we've never really gotten animated shorts like in this style or had repeated shorts like that.

[01:05:38] The closest that would come, but it's a completely different kind of a framework is TV Fun House. Right. But that, you know, that was, you know, a very distinct animation style and a certain kind of comedy. And this does have its own distinct animation style. But like if so far, you know, I'm, I guess if you were to like figure out, you know, what the framework is, it's like, it's all stuff based somewhere, you know, in history. So part of me wonders if this is something that comes from like, uh, maybe. One writer.

[01:06:07] Well, not just like I am just addicted to explaining shit from back in the day. And maybe like someone who like, oh, maybe wanted to do like an animated series, but like it didn't, you know, I'm here for it. I love it. Anytime SNL reinvents themselves when they do the, the, any sort of cartoon pre tape again, uh, you know, you go all the way back. Not that it was animated, but from the Muppets beyond on the show to they're just, there's a lot of, well, I know we're a sketch comedy show, but what else? Yeah.

[01:06:35] And they're always fostering new environments for people to have fun, the digital shorts. And now you've got Dan Bulla and now the, like, there's just so much going on and I'm, we're all here for it. Yeah, I know. Especially when it's funny. Yeah. And this is hilarious. Good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned something, Brad, that I think is really interesting because you said this doesn't feel a little bit like SNL, which kudos to them then. Yeah, exactly. Because again, reinventing what they're doing, especially for a new generation is really important.

[01:07:00] Anytime you can say it doesn't feel like SNL, but it's hilarious means it belongs on SNL. Yeah. Yep. Um, so I enjoy this. If you have not watched it, go to and subscribe to the Saturday Night Live, uh, YouTube channel and you'll be able to see it there. And any of the sketches that you, you maybe didn't see, or you want to go back and rewatch as well. Because there's a couple of them that are worthwhile. Which you won't see. And in case you're, you were confused by this, I should have mentioned this when we talked about it.

[01:07:26] But if you watch the show on YouTube or you watch it through clips on social media, you will not hear the audience saying shit in the crowd. No, they believe that. They completely muted it. So if you want to see that, you have to like go to Reddit, find a pirated clip of the actual live show where you can actually hear it. Which is really interesting because I don't think you, do you have to on YouTube? Like there's, they don't have the same. No, you don't have to, but I imagine they probably just didn't want the, uh, inconsistency. Yeah, that's fair.

[01:07:53] Uh, overall, what a welcomed episode, like a lovely episode. I was so happy with this. In high energy from beginning to end. Yeah. It was, it did. They weren't all bangers, but it was a really good episode. But it felt nostalgic to me. It felt very just like having, like you said, it just felt like having a host that was excited to be there. I will. That was an entertainer and performer and, and the cast seemed, and maybe the cast feeds off the energy of somebody like Jack Black. Oh, I'm sure.

[01:08:23] And everyone's on it. How can you not? I swear to God, if you're in the room with that man, you just probably feel better about yourself. Uh, it becomes a lot more fun to perform. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's on their game and they want to be there. Um, if I, if I'm Brad picking again, uh, I think it really did peak with weekend update. I think the, the sketches that came after were like, these are fine, but, but not real amazing stuff. Yeah. Cause that's making love, uh, base lake or bass league times square kiss.

[01:08:52] Those are the three that came out. And so that times again, times square Chris is probably my favorite. This episode is very front loaded with the comedy as far as I'm concerned, but not bad sketches, but just the ones that were fine really did come after weekend update. Yeah. And I remember thinking that watching it live going, oh man, I wish they would have ended with like a really good one. But the cut for time is incredible. And my MVP, probably yours is, uh, Jack Black. I mean, to me. Oh no, actually I can give it to, uh, to Eggo. Really? Yeah. Only because I expect Jack Black to be good.

[01:09:21] Like it's not as if he went above and beyond, like he's every, he's every bit as good to me as he always is. You know, I think that he, he elevates the show because of his energy, but I also expected that from him. You know, I, I love Jack Black and I think he's great and he's, he is great in this episode. But, uh, for me, I'm that bit from Eggo, her recovery from the audience thing. Like for me, that, that was like the clincher for her being the MVP. For, so for my money though, it's because, uh, the monologue starts off super high energy. He hasn't done it in 20 years. There's gotta be rust there.

[01:09:50] There's gotta be something, uh, fixing the wires in the high wire sketch. Just like the, the host, you know, you're expecting a good performance, but going above and beyond like that kind of shit and really controlling. And then he didn't even, you know, even when he flubbed up and didn't know what camera, he still pulled it off and it made it even funnier. All the things that you want to host to be good at, he was not good at, he was great at. It really did elevate the show. So, um, because I have not decided yet. That's why you're wrong, Brad. I want to, I want you to at least build a little more for the Eggo case.

[01:10:18] Because other than the weekend update bit, was there anything there that you think she stood out in? Uh, no, not like in a, in a big way, but that moment was like the moment of this episode. And I think that it would especially made it work even more so is it was Eggo being herself doing a bit, you know, at the weekend update. It's not necessarily playing, she was playing a character, but it was a character of herself. You know what I mean? Um, and I think just the way she dealt with that like big gaffe, which is like, what do you do in that scenario?

[01:10:47] Listen, I will give it all day long that that one thing was incredible, but it didn't overshadow the entirety of, of what I thought was Jack Black's very good performance. And that's just the difference between like how we think the host earned the MVP. And I think that if Jack Black was like a mystery performer and we didn't know he had comedic chops or that he didn't have this energy. See, I don't think that's fair though, because we've had plenty of people that you, you were looking forward to and you expect something and they shit the bed. Sure. So that, that's why I don't think it's fair to be like, I know he's supposed to be perfect and excellent and I'm expecting that.

[01:11:16] No, but I, but he's hosted SNL before and he was great. 20 years ago. I know, but like, you don't, you don't lose that though. Yeah. I, I think, I think you both make interesting cases. I'm going to side with bed in that Lindsay Lohan, you don't lose it. So she hasn't hosted SNL since she was great. So we don't know what she hosted pretty recently and it was not great. Did she? Yeah. When she was after all the scandals and after everything she hosted when in like 2020, 2021, whatever it was, it was, she was not great.

[01:11:45] Post COVID she, she, she, I don't remember this. She's, she's hosted within the last 10 years. That's different than post COVID. I mean, but yeah, exactly. Look it up. Look at the last time that Lindsay Lohan hosted, she was an adult and it was way different. If it was during her rough period, I don't think that's necessarily fair. Why? The last time she hosted was 2012. It was 15 years ago. No, but she was terrible. And so you said, you don't lose it, you lose it. That was during her rough time though. Yeah. She lost it. How many times did she host before that, Nate?

[01:12:15] But Jack Black never had like a career like valley where he went down like that. It's exactly. I don't understand why we're on this Lindsay Lohan. Because Brad said, you don't, once you have it, you don't lose it. And I would point to the Lindsay Lohan episode. Yes, you do. She was terrible. It's not the same thing. Cause she, she, Jack Black has never lost the spotlight or like the power of who he is as a celebrity. All you were saying was that you don't lose the ability to host Saturday Night Live at a great level. Once you've already done it at a great level. And I'm saying, yes, you do. Wait, was Lindsay Lohan great? Yeah.

[01:12:43] The Hermione thing when she was younger? Yeah, but I'm not sure. That episode was awesome. She was great at it. That was eight years before 2012. And she had a career falling out by that point. Yeah. That's a completely different circumstance. Than having 20 years? He didn't fall out of the limelight or have a career downfall. All right. All right. All right. Moving on. Look, the prosthetic looked good. You son of a bitch. I'm going to go with Jack Black only because I think there were- Was it weak to stand up to Ben? No, no, no. I think there were sketches.

[01:13:13] Because also, if I go ahead and another sketch that I think she did really, really well in, I'd probably give you because she had the best single performance in this. The best single performance. Let's give another award to a white guy. But Jack Black elevated multiple sketches. Yes. And the sketch was funny. The first play. And the sketch was great literally because of his performance. Yes. And he saved the ones that were mediocre from being actually bad. Yep. Yep. And so I think that's it. I think they did. All right. What was the top sketch of the night for you guys?

[01:13:43] I think for me- Mine was first play. I think it's going to be first play. Yeah. Ooh. Guys. I hate to disappoint. If you say bass like, I'm going to kick in the nuts. No, it's not bass like. Get out of here. I have to say, I think the game show sketch because I haven't. Pretty great. I haven't thought about, again, go back to what I said about it when I was talking about it. I haven't wanted a sketch to continue as much. Like I thought there was so much more there to delve into.

[01:14:13] I'm hoping they bring it back because of that. I think that it was just such a fun thing and I just didn't want to attend. So yeah. Game show. All right. That is the episode. Now we want to hear from you. What do you think? Who was your MVP of the night? Do you think Eggo or Jack Black or somebody else? I actually think Andrew DeSmeeks had a very good night. He did. He did. So I think you can make an argument for him. And so I'd love to hear from you guys. What do you think? Also, what was the sketch of the night?

[01:14:43] Did you guys watch the cover time sketch? What did you think of that one? Let us know in the comments and comment a little bit just to kind of give us your thoughts of this episode. Now, we are in a line of two out of the three new episodes. So we have one more next week. Who is the host? John Hamm is coming back. Jonathan Hammerson. John Hamm's Hamm. Another exciting host. Another host who's beloved by the cast that he's worked with. Hasn't hosted since 2013? It's been a long time.

[01:15:12] It's been a long time. It's been rocked and rolled. It's been a long time. Been a long time. So I feel like I haven't seen, you know, really the tour schedule and I don't really know what he's up to. But if Michael Buble is around, I would just love to see another pairing of Hamm and Bubbly. It's been 15 years. There you go. October 30th, 2010. 2010. All right. So, yeah, Hamm and Lizzo is the musical guest.

[01:15:40] Apparently, she's ready to come back from a little bit of controversy. A little controversy. Do you think she'll be in a sketch? Because Lizzo was hosted before. Do you think she'll be in a sketch? It's certainly possible, but I feel like she might keep the focus on her music. I say no because she's recovering from kind of repairing her career's image. Yeah. And she probably doesn't want to be controversial, so she might just stick to the music. All right. Well, that is our episode. Again, thank you so much for listening.

[01:16:06] Whether you're listening to us on YouTube or Apple Podcasts, we'd love again to rate us, review us, like us if you're on, subscribe. Just help us out a little bit. Share this if you know of anybody else that loves Saturday Night Live and being a part of this conversation. It's a joy to make these and we appreciate you listening. Brad, where can people find you online? Oh, you know, I'm on the social media like the Blue Skies and the Twitter. Ethan Anderton is my pseudonym on Slash Film.

[01:16:35] Sometimes I'm writing about SNL. Sometimes I'm writing about other stuff on there related to movies and TV. Sometimes he's doing freeze frames on certain sketches just to see if the prosthetics were real. Yeah, sometimes the prosthetics look good and you really got to see. You don't have to do a freeze frame to see those. 25 mentions. And Brad is also at SlashFilm.com. You can find your writings on there, right? That's what I said. He didn't say it. Nate doesn't pay attention at the end of the show. He was looking at an image of the prosthetic. Exactly.

[01:17:03] I'm looking at his computer right now and that's an enlarged version. And Ben and I have not discovered the internet. We don't know what that is. So again, like us, review us, be back here next week in the same spot and we'll talk a little bit about John's Ham. We're gonna ham it up. Ham it up. So thanks so much for listening. Be good to yourself, be good to others. Bye bye.