Last night may have been the first time I saw someone who was too excited to host SNL. Sweet Gabby Sidibe (I haven't seen Precious but I have pretty much drank the Gabourey Kool-Aid) seemed so psyched to be there, so primed to give it her all that several times her mouth ran ahead of her brain and she stumbled over her lines. But I'm not holding it against her: I think Sidibe deserved an A for effort last night and definitely has budding comedic chops. Add that to an episode that was blessedly light on repeating sketches and characters and I was a pretty happy camper.
The monologue got things off to an exuberant start as Sidibe posed like a superhero once she reached the stage and sang a song called "I'm Gabourey" to the tune of "It's in His Kiss," illustrating how she's not Precious. It had just the right amount of weirdness to it, like Bill Hader crossing the stage in a carnival barker's costume: "Balloons?" "Of every color!" I couldn't hear all the lyrics but the ones I did hear were funny like "Movies are not real life, that's something you should know." If it wasn't hilarious it was infectious.
There were several sketches last night that went that way, maybe not comedy gold but something about them was just silly enough that I went along with them, like Kenan Thompson as Steve Harvey mispronouncing everything as he hosted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I think somewhere around Thompson's fourth big-teethed eye-bug I went "What the hell," and started laughing. The Digital Short, "Cherry Battle," was also bizarre, as Andy Samberg and Gabby both appeared to shoot maraschino cherries into each others' mouths in slow motion. It was gorgeously shot and I loved her facial expressions but of course the singing cherry stole the show (how often have I typed that sentence?)
Not everything was great but I'm not filled with rage about it. The address from the President might have been a cutting commentary about the government's relationship with Wall Street but it wasn't funny. I could have lived without another installment of "The Suze Orman Show" (except the lines about her hair looking like a sleeping chicken and "Meredith Baxter Pony.") I'm also done with sketches that involve Fred Armisen playing a Danish (or Finnish or some unspecific European nationality) person trying to appropriate American culture. And I thought the "2010 Public Employee of the Year" awards ran on too long. Also, even though I've been aware of MGMT for a while I never heard them play: I think I like the music but wasn't so much a fan of the singing and lyrics although it was remarkable how half the band looked like Elvis Costello and "Weird Al" Yankovic. I also liked the faces the guitarist made.