Saturday Night Live (SNL)

I'll be honest, I would really have preferred Tobin Bell of Saw to host. Or Deborah Ann Woll of True Blood and Daredevil (2015). Or even Lewis Tan of Iron Fist and the recent Mortal Kombat (2021).

I think these choices would have been way better than Musk. I don't understand why SNL doesn't give these actors a chance to host and show off their comedic talents. It would be far more interesting than having controversial figures like Musk host.

Edited by clemont107 on May 1st 2021 at 10:30:49 AM

If I had to WAG it, I'd say it's because of all the recent successes SpaceX has had, but I have no idea if the show's producers think people care about that or if it's purely about Musk's "celebrity" status. Like it or not, he is quite famous.

My first reaction was also "WTF are they thinking?"

Edited by Fighteer on May 1st 2021 at 10:51:43 AM

I fully believe it's No Such Thing as Bad Publicity. When was the last time the mainstream public gave SNL this much attention, especially since the election?

I wonder if they bring on certain powerful hosts like Trump or Forbes with the expectation that they'll be able to write some funny sketches making fun of them... but then when they actually get to work with the host, they're too scared to make any really edgy jokes about them? I know the big complaint about the 2015 Trump episode (and other episodes, like the Paris Hilton one) was that the episode spent more time targeting the host's own opponents than showcasing the writers' usual beliefs.

Edited by mightymewtron on May 1st 2021 at 10:56:24 AM

The problem with Musk as a target is it's just rehashing stuff people already know or think they know. There isn't a wealth of material there. It might make some folks guffaw who already hate him, but... blegh.

It'll be very hard for SNL to toe the line between aping all the attack lines that are already out there, which is what many people will want, and doing insightful commentary on him that's reasonable and nuanced and therefore not funny.

Conversely, I don't know which "enemies" of Elon they could hypothetically go after like in the Trump episode. Making jokes at TSLAQ's expense would fly over the heads of 99% of the audience.

If I were them I'd probably take the angle of "Elon is super nerdy", playing off of his appearances on The Big Bang Theory, South Park, and Iron Man 2.

Edited by Fighteer on May 1st 2021 at 11:10:08 AM

"Rehashing stuff the target audience already knows" tends to provide a lot of SNL humor in recent years, at least when it comes to their political material. But then again, there was far more content with the political material than with Musk.

Final host/guest duos of the season:

• May 15: Keegan-Michael Key & Olivia Rodrigo
• May 22: Anya Taylor-Joy & Lil Nas X

Well, that actually wasn't so bad. I heard that all the people watching it online crashed the NBC site. There were a few cringeworthy moments but overall Elon did quite well. My favorite skit was "Murdur Durdur", and my second favorite was the "The Astronaut". Chad was a brave soul...

The dogecoin bits struck about the tone I hoped they would, and he low-key apologized for being a Covidiot. The "self-driving horse" bit is an old joke, but it works. Also, Lucid, Volkswagen, and Audi got their electric vehicle ads in, which is kind of hilarious in the context of all the free advertising Tesla just got.

I didn't know Elon had Asperger's. How did I miss that?

Edited by Fighteer on May 8th 2021 at 1:42:36 PM

I don't know if he was ever open about having Asperger's. I feel I'd have heard it before. Not looking forward to the way the mainstream talked about it.

I swear some parts of that episode had to be cringe on purpose, like the "Gen Z Hospital" bit. Also, I have to assume giving all the Mario characters Italian accents was part of the bit and not just bad research because I don't think I've ever seen somebody unironically assume Princess Peach has an Italian accent.

Overall, it's leagues better than the Trump one, and Musk was actually a decent actor... but man, I wish they'd been just a little more critical towards him. It's so much weirder seeing people use a host's business as a source of sketch material as opposed to works of fiction starring them.

Edited by mightymewtron on May 8th 2021 at 1:18:51 PM

The "Gen Z Hospital" skit was all the cringe concentrated into a tiny package of pure meme. That was the point.

As for the "Wario Trial" skit, you may have noticed the end gag about the "Italian Anti-Defamation League" or whatever, so yeah, the accents were part of the joke.

Edited by Fighteer on May 8th 2021 at 1:23:36 PM

Honestly it's almost not as fun when the sketches are meant to be cringey in concept. Then not only is it not that funny, you can't even feel high and mighty pointing out how "bad" it is.

The punchline did help save the Mario sketch, at least. And I did like the question block gavel gag.

I might be biased towards snark since I was streaming with my college Discord and we were riffing on the whole thing. But I was actually one of the more positive people in the group.

Edited by mightymewtron on May 8th 2021 at 1:35:32 PM

I do appreciate that Musk was able to lean into his sketchiness with his skits (by playing Wario and the "What is Dogecoin" gag).

I swear to god, that Wario sketch wouldn't be out of place in a Doug Walker show. JHFC

It was more Smosh or Dorkly shit, honestly. Right down to the "haha mushroom drug" Stock Parody Joke.

I went in with a smile on my face and a positive outlook of "you know, this can't be too bad".

And I came out understanding the mindset of Trent Reznor while he was recording The Downward Spiral.

I more-or-less gave up completely around the Gen Z Hospital sketch. Let me tell you, as a zoomer, neither me nor any of my fellow zoomer friends have EVER spoken like that in real life. Online, maybe once or twice, but NEVER in real life.

Edited by Risdio51 on May 10th 2021 at 11:37:31 AM

I'm fairly certain that the "Gen Z Hospital" sketch wasn't aimed at actual Gen Z'ers, although I saw a few people in the YT comments admitting that they do indeed talk like that, so YMMV. The target audience for SNL is people who think that Gen Z talks like that.

My take is that it wasn't too inaccurate to how Gen Z people talk... but I also would have liked if there were more jokes besides the slang and the supposed absurdity of using it in a serious situation. That's why the Supreme urn was funny.

Also I figured they had to know some zoomers would be watching because I thought Musk had a zoomer fanbase?

Edited by mightymewtron on May 10th 2021 at 1:14:56 PM

Elon Musk is receiving backlash for claiming he's the first person with an ASD on SNL and for using the term "Asperger's".

Granted, much of the noise being made is from Autism Speaks, and we all know what a collection of clowns and charlatans they are, but there seems to be anger coming from other, more reputable people as well.

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. Dude builds rockets and cars; I wouldn't expect him to be keeping up on ASD terminology. The public pile-on that is occurring is more than a little shameful considering that he shared something really private about himself for the first time.

I suppose that because of who he is people can't resist.

Edited by Fighteer on May 11th 2021 at 4:34:49 AM

Can I just say that SNL has gotten hilariously good at representing LGBT culture lately? First the "It Gets Better" sketch and now the Pride Song sketch.

Oh, my goodness. I couldn't breathe during the joke swap segment of Weekend Update. Funniest shit I've seen in a long time.

Yeah. Colin lost that won hard though. Michael basically annihilated him.

Hard to beat making the likeable white guy tell racist jokes. Seth Meyers does a regular bit that's kinda like that on his talk show, called "Jokes Seth Can't Tell," where he brings in two of his writers (both women, one black and one a lesbian) to tell jokes that he can't get away with.

I'm well aware of that skit.

It always ends the same way: they tell Seth to try one, he seems unsure, but they tell him it's ok. He tells the joke, and gets chastised by them. He complains they said it was ok and then declares black women and lesbians liars.

Never gets old.

But yeah, the only reason they get away with this is because we know ahead of time that they are just reading the jokes, and that it was written by the other guy. Colin especially, would probably get lambasted if not for that detail.

They say they only learn these jokes as they are reading them, but I do wonder. These guys have to really good friends to be able to do this stuff and know the other guy won't resent them.

So... Pete and Cecily really gave off "I am probably gonna leave after this season" vibes during Update, right?

The Celtic Woman sketch just seemed mean. It essentially amounted to "this is so lame, and the people who like it are lame" territory; they even out and out said the Celtic Woman audience were "karens."