Saturday Night Live

Unfortunately, not even Lady Gaga’s presence could save the underwhelming reunion of J.T. and A.S. in “3-Way,” a song that wasn’t only musically boring (if Justin Timberlake and Gaga can’t get some interesting harmonies going in your song, there’s a problem), but about as tepid as a number about having sex with Lady Gaga  could be. 

Reprising their “Night at the Roxbury 2.0″ characters from previous songs, the manscaped Timberlake and Samberg give a halfhearted performance that only shines in a beginning sequence with Patricia Clarkson and Susan Sarandon (leftovers from “Motherlover”). The rest of the number they phone in, letting the costumes they stole from the set of “In Living Color” do most of the work. Gaga gets a couple of good cat howls in the background to make up for the lack of musical gusto, but even the song’s theme (a magic rule stating that it’s “not gay” to be freaking with another guy if there’s a chick in the middle) could have been stretched farther and funnier to make it a true Lonely Island digital short.

Ah well, I guess they can’t all be “On a Boat.”

The first Mad Libs is from Liana Maeby over at Crushable, who provides you with the context surrounding your nouns and adjectives for more coherent results:

The Stefonerator works more like a traditional Mad Libs, where you put down your answers before seeing the rest of the script, so the results can be somewhat nonsensical. But isn’t that the point?

Here’s my Stefonalogue:

Seth: So, Stefon, if someone is coming to the city and wants to have the full New York experience, where should they go?

Stefon: If you’re looking for a wholesome vacation, look no further. New York’s hottest club is ding-dong.

2-year old pecking Yugoslavian club promoter Dirk Terrific is back with a club that answers the question, SHIATSU?????!?!?

This club has everything: anesthesiologists, twine, James Cameron, a daycare center, battleships…

Seth: ‘battleships’? What are those?

Stefon: Oh you know, it’s that thing where associate professors have tuxedos and they sweat on ketchup packets and they whittle with their little pretty molars…

Seth: Yeah, that’s definitely not a thing.

Stefon: No, it is.

Seth: Okay, Stefon, we were looking for some fun activities that a mom, a dad, a grandma, grandpa and some kids could enjoy…

you, instead, took us on a tour of a coked-up gay candyland.

Stefon: Accurate. That’s accurate.

Seth: But I know that you honestly want people to have a good time, so you know what? I think we’ll have you back!

Stefon: Yay Stefon!

Now it’s your turn!

This might change with “Turtleneck and Chain,” especially after this weekend’s mind-blowing performance with Michael Bolton for the “SNL” digital short “Jack Sparrow.” I’ve been singing this song nonstop for the past 48 hours straight. It’s some of the group’s best work, and I’m pretty sure it’s the best thing to happen to Michael Bolton’s name since “Office Space.” If you haven’t seen the video, you need to fix that immediately:

Note: This song is best watched on a continual loop after first viewing so that you’re able to get all the background interstitial dialogue. (Jorma, Andy and Aviva’s reactions are the best, even when they’re just shaking they’re head and going “What?” Although, again, Bolton wins with his pirate’s hat when he pops up singing, “Now back to the good part!”)

Despite pulling huge names like Beck, Snoop Dogg and Rihanna (“Shy Ronnie” runs a close second for best video these guys have come up with since their last album) for “Turtleneck,” there is a reason that “Jack Sparrow” premiered the weekend before the CD release. Bolton is far and away the best guest track in the lot, and he succeeds specifically because he’s not what Lonely Island fans think of as cool. Sure, Justin Timberlake singing “Dick in a Box” is funny, and Akon lending a verse to “I Just Had Sex” gives the song a much-needed shot in the arm, but “Jack Sparrow” works because it’s so far outside these guys’ comfort range. This really is a Michael Bolton song, carried entirely on the strength of his voice and not, like most of the other numbers on the album, by auto-tune. If the mashup of hip-hop and a Michael Bolton hook wasn’t funny enough by itself, the song’s numerous blockbuster references make it an instant classic.

And I’m not alone in feeling that way: The video has been viewed over 2.5 million times on YouTube since Saturday. Michael Bolton himself isn’t ruling out a tour with Samberg and company, telling Entertainment Weekly that he would gladly reprise the role of himself. One character Bolton doesn’t want to do again, though? Erin Brockovich in drag:

“I was terrified to look in the mirror. I tried to avoid it. I noticed when they were finishing me up as Erin that the crew started reacting in this really uncomfortable way. As I walked past, people were clearly uncomfortable. At one point I was breast-feeding the baby … With Erin, I just kind of wanted to get those clothes off and take a shower.”

But let’s back up to 2001: Tina was already head writer at “Saturday Night Live,” the first woman Lorne Michaels had ever hired for that position. So, you know, score one for the ladies. This was also the year that Tina’s crew won a Writer’s Guild Award for their 25th Anniversary Special. Behind the scenes, Tina was killing it.

And then Lorne gave her the role of co-hosting “Weekend Update” with Jimmy Fallon, which traditionally only kept female anchors on to play the straight man (or woman) to their raunchy male counterparts. TV Guide called the pairing the best since “Dan Aykroyd called Jane Curtin an ignorant slut.“

Tina and Jimmy’s relationship was much less tempestuous than the point/counterpoint segments that Jane and Dan used to do (where, it should be noted, the joke of the sketch involved Jane and Dan calling each other terrible names while making their cases). Fallon was the goofball younger brother to Tina’s staid, “smart girl in glasses” prude. While Jimmy ended “Update” by throwing pencils at the ceiling, Fey would make her own callback to her predecessor Curtin by using her and Chevy Chase’s original closing line, “Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.” But it was still hard for Tina, a comedian trained at Chicago’s Second City, to only play one part on the show. Even Lorne noted that he was placing his head writer in a box:

The audience isn’t seeing Fey’s whole range, Michaels said, noting that she’s somewhat restricted by the “more contained presence” required by “Weekend Update.” But there’s more there than just humor, said her boss, who admires her tenacity.

Of course, later that year, when it became obvious that Tina was becoming “the hot one” (of the women on the show), Lorne totally changed his idea of why he put Tina with Fallon. In an article for the Observer in March 2001 called “Meet Four-Eyed New Sex Symbol, ‘Weekend Update’ Anchor Tina Fey,” Lorne commented on the duo’s dynamic:

“The old Hollywood thing was that she gave him sex and he gave her class … the rhythm and timing of that is just a chemistry thing: either it works or it doesn’t …. We saw the beginnings of that working.”

Fey’s admitted rocky relationship with her own sexual presence (and that of all female comedians, basically) didn’t start in the writer’s room where she may have been outnumbered, but was still boss. It began when the comedian was put on air and immediately stopped being the head writer and started being part of the “Astaire-Rogers combination.” (Another Lorne-ism.) Though no one ever stopped calling Tina brilliant, smart and funny — in short, her credentials and intelligence were never in question — that added ingredient of the camera immediately commodified Tina in a way that it commodifies any actor or actress. Maybe that’s why her early “Weekend Update” pieces were more about giving Fallon the room to ham it up than it was to prove her own comedic chops:

Post-Fallon, Tina and Amy Poehler had their all-girls club on “Update,” another first for the show, and it was easier to see Tina’s success on-screen as part of a feminist comedy movement. But back in 2001, despite all her achievements and success running the show, Fey was still wrestling away from the image of being just another pretty face. Even if that face was wearing glasses that were only being used for TV appearances.