Cameron Diaz / Jimmy Eat World
April 6, 2002

OVERVIEW
Cameron Diaz is hosting for her second time. She did a great job last time, and that was the first SNL episode I ever saw, and it's one of my favorites. It's not only one of my favorites just because it's the first one I saw, it was an excellent episode, and that episode had a lot more sketches and commercials than usual, like they had back in the 70's.

Will Ferrell will finally return this week, and it'll be great to see him back. I'm still wondering if this will turn out to be his last season or not.

I saw Tracy Morgan on Conan yesterday, and man, he was hilarious. He should appear on talk shows more often.

By the way, it's good that E! is now airing SNL episodes, but I'm disappointed that the episodes from the 70's are only 60 min. versions. Which makes me wonder, when E! airs episodes from 1980 to present, will they also be 60 minute versions, or will they be uncut? Of course, I'm hoping for the full-90 minute versions, but if they are 60 min, I hope they're different from the Broadway Video ones that Comedy Central has, since a lot of their 60 minute versions are horrible and very badly edited and butchered, especially episodes from 1998-99. It would be nice to see better versions of episodes from that season.

 

(11:30) COLD OPENING: The Kulps at a lamaze class
- Welcome back, Will Ferrell!! Too bad it has to be a Kulps sketch, I can't stand these characters.
- When they showed that school at the beginning, at first I thought this would be another Terrence Maddox sketch since those sketches opened up with a shot of the same school. But that character hasn't been used in ages, it was really funny back then.
- They found another way to write in Ana's pregnancy into a sketch.
- At least this wasn't a political opening.
RATING: 2/5

 

(11:35) OPENING MONTAGE
- Didn't Don Pardo's voice sound echo-ish when he said "It's Saturday Night Live!"?

 

(11:38) MONOLOGUE: Cameron Diaz
- This was great. Hell, this could've been just Cameron shaking her butt for the entire monologue, and I'd give it a great score, but Will Ferrell made this even better with his hilarious performance as Cameron's butt choreographer.
- Ferrell looked like he was wearing the same bowl-cut/Moe Howard-esque wig from
the New Happy Birthday song sketch with Jack Black.
RATING: 5/5

 

(11:44) SKETCH: The 17th Annual Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards
- Refreshing to see Dean Edwards finally starring in a sketch.
- Was that Tina Fey shown in one of the pictures of the Auto Show Spokeswomen? It looked a lot like her.
- Chris Parnell's part was hilarious, especially his facial expressions.
- Jeff Richards' only part in this whole episode, and it was a really small, non-speaking role. This is disappointing, after he was given a lot more bigger roles in the last few episodes.
RATING: 3.5/5

 

NEXT WEEK: The Rock / Andrew W.K.

 

(11:54) SKETCH: MTV Spring Break
- I'll say this once again: Maya looked sexy in that outfit. Hmm, mmm.
- This sketch was alright, but not much to really talk about.
RATING: 3/5

 

(11:58) INTERLUDE: Oscar hosts' commentary on previous sketch
- Wow, this was really out-of-nowhere. Not often do they do these interlude segments after a particular sketch, but I guess they wanted to take advantage of the Oscars. That being said, this was clever.
- I found it funny that Ana was drinking NyQuil in a wine glass.
- What was the point of Lorne even being in this, he was only shown briefly and he didn't say anything. Strangely enough, this is only his 2nd appearance all season. He usually appears more than that.
- Was that Seth Meyers as the violin dancer? It looked like him, and if so, it was his only sketch tonight. He and Jeff were really wasted tonight.
RATING: N/A (not really a sketch or anything)

 

(12:02) SKETCH: Astronaut Jones
- Why the hell are they bringing this back? The first time they did Astronaut Jones in the Britney Spears episode from a few months back, I hated it and in my review, I gave it a 1/5. However, it grew on me a lot since then, but that sketch seemed better off being a one-shot sketch. This "follow-up" was nothing but an exact copy of the first one, and it basically used the same script.
RATING: 1/5

 

(12:05) COMMERCIAL: Celine
- It's been ages since Ana last played Celine Dion. It's good to see the impression again.
- I notice Ana was only on camera from the chest up, as an obvious attempt to hide her pregnancy.
RATING: 4/5

 

(12:07) SKETCH: Gorgeous Living with Prunella Watson
- "Gorgeous Living"? Are they TRYING to sound like a rip-off of Pretty Living? However, this sketch was MILES funnier than Helen freaking Madden.
- Every sketch done so far in this episode was in the form of a TV show.
RATING: 3/5

 

(12:15) WEEKEND UPDATE: Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey
- Tina's opening rant was the usual great stuff, though I was wondering why poor Jimmy didn't get anything to say until about 4 minutes after Update started.
- The funny thing is, I had a feeling that Maya would play Halle Berry tonight. She did a really funny impression of how Halle Berry acted as the Oscars. Dean was pretty good, too, as Denzel Washington. Dean had two big roles tonight, which is surprising for him.
- They're doing the "Oh snap - No you di'nt" thing after an Update joke again? But this one was even funnier, with the broken-down robot thing at the end.
- I'm not a very big fan of Darrell's Geraldo impression. Darrell's impression is, of course, dead on, but I don't care for Geraldo himself to really enjoy the impression.
- Jasper Hahn again? YESS!!! The new direction they took this character was great and a nice change.
- Dang, this Update was LONG. 16 minutes. Even longer than the Ellen DeGeneres Update.
RATING: 5/5

 

(12:34) MUSICAL GUEST: Jimmy Eat World

 

(12:39) SKETCH: Mr. Peepers and Ms. Peepers
- No! No! No! We almost went the entire season without seeing Mr. Peepers.
­ Was Chris Parnell playing the same character he played in the Mr. Peepers sketch with the Rock from 1999-2000? I would've expected them to do this sketch again next week since the Rock is coming back then.
- Yet another strange coincidence, I always thought to myself that they should do a sketch where Mr. Peepers meets a female half-monkey/half-human like him who acts the same way, and now it's finally been done. The last female host I would expect to do this was Cameron Diaz, but she did surprisingly good.
- Ferrell's hair is cut shorter.
- Seeing Ferrell in that doctor's uniform reminded me of Idiot Doctor. I'm still waiting for them to do that sketch again.
- I hate to admit it, but this was an actual good Mr. Peepers sketch.
RATING: 3/5

 

(12:46) SKETCH: Japanese female band
- Another MTV sketch?
- What a bizarre, yet funny sketch.
- The female cast members are getting a lot of attention tonight.
- It's great that Tina is in sketches regularly now. This has been the 4th straight episode in a row where she was in a sketch besides Weekend Update. Keepin' the streak alive.
RATING: 4/5

 

(12:52) MUSICAL GUEST: Jimmy Eat World

 

(12:58) MISCELLANEOUS: My Big Thick Novel by Jack Handey
- Only 4 more shows to put up with this

 

(1:00) GOODNIGHTS

 

CONCLUSION: Another good, solid episode. This season continues to do great. Cameron Diaz did a great job hosting, got really involved in the show, and was even better than her last time. Overall Rating: 3.5/5

 

BEST SKETCH OF THE EPISODE: Celine; Japanese female band
WORST SKETCH OF THE EPISODE: Astronaut Jones
MOST BIZARRE SKETCH: Japanese female band
BLOOPERS: Jimmy Fallon cracked up as usual at one part during the Jasper Hahn bit
SKETCHES THAT'LL PROBABLY BE CUT ON COMEDY CENTRAL: Japanese female band; Weekend Update; Gorgeous Living; Celine

 

CAST MEMBER COUNT DOWN

RACHEL DRATCH: 2 sketches (Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards, Japanese band)
JIMMY FALLON: 2 sketches (Gorgeous Living, Weekend Update)
WILL FERRELL: 4 sketches (The Kulps, Monologue, Oscars Interlude, Mr. Peepers)
TINA FEY: 3 sketches (Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards [?], Weekend Update, Japanese band)
ANA GASTEYER: 4 sketches (The Kulps, Oscars Interlude, Celine, Japanese band)
DARRELL HAMMOND: 1 sketch (Weekend Update)
CHRIS KATTAN: 1 sketch (Mr. Peepers)
TRACY MORGAN: 2 sketches (MTV Spring Break, Astronaut Jones)
CHRIS PARNELL: 3 sketches (Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards, Celine, Mr. Peepers)
AMY POEHLER: 6 sketches (Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards, MTV Spring Break, Astronaut Jones, Gorgeous Living, Weekend Update, Japanese band)
MAYA RUDOLPH: 6 sketches (The Kulps, Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards, MTV Spring Break, Astronaut Jones, Weekend Update, Japanese band)
HORATIO SANZ: 2 sketches (Weekend Update. Japanese band)
DEAN EDWARDS: 2 sketches (Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards, Weekend Update)
SETH MEYERS: 1 sketch (Oscars Interlude [?])
JEFF RICHARDS: 1 sketch (Auto Show Spokeswoman Awards)

Tonight was like a Ladies Night for the cast, as the female cast members dominated the whole show tonight, especially Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler. It was very good to see this since this season has one of the show's best female cast, and it's great to see Maya in more than 4 sketches in an episode for a change. A lot of the male cast members were underused, though, and I thought Will Ferrell would be used a lot more on his first show back but he was still great in all his appearances.

That's all for my review. Thanks for reading.  I'm outta heah...