A little late this week so let’s get right to it:
We get it Gwyneth, you can sing! You already proved it with Country Strong, your appearance on Glee and your CMA performance (and with Huey Lewis in Duets ten years ago). But you had to show us again in your monologue, as Taylor Swift in this My Super Sweet Bar Mitzvah sketch, and by joining meandering songsmiths Kat and Garth on “Weekend Update.’ Listen, Gwyneth, WE GET IT. It’s a wonder they didn’t hold off the “Worst of Soul Train“ sketch another week so Paltrow could play some kind of disco queen. But they probably thought that would be overkill.
Also, Cee-Lo, we get it. You’re a big deal right now. Gwyneth Paltrow covered your hit song, and hugs you and treats you like her best friend. But we don’t need to see the you also singing during the monologue and in the Bar Mitzvah sketch and also appearing in the “Record Label Meeting” sketch that was just a device to introduce your musical performance. What’s that we said about overkill? We mean, c’mon, it’s not like the guy is Paul McCartney. And, sure, we admit, “F*** You” is one of those songs we heard about ad nauseam before we ever actually heard it (much like “Umbrella”), because the only radio we listen to is sports talk and NPR. But it is good, at the very least, it’s dangerously infectious. However, isn’t “F*** You” just like “Hey Ya,” but not as good. Seven years later we still think the former is a great song, not sure if the latter will fare so well in 2018. Will it be a classic or a novelty? Only time will tell if it stands the test of time. But, until then, we could have done with at least one less Cee-Lo appearance.
However, I won’t pin this past weekend’s thoroughly average installment on Law. He made Sean Penn good on 
It was an up and down decade for Saturday Night Live, but then again it’s been an up and down 34 years for Saturday Night Live. The show started gangbusters in 2000, taking advantage of the 2000 election and perhaps becoming more relevant than it had at any point during the previous decade (media and communication majors and political scientists will be analyzing SNL‘s Gore-Bush debates for years to come, studying how the show interpreted the real events and how the sketches then in turn affected the election). Then the show kind of treaded water until the 2004 election when it once again made the best of the political fodder, although with the relatively benign John Kerry as a central character the political satire was not as entertaining or as incisive as 2000. But With a mostly new cast then the beginning of the decade the show returned to prominence in 2008, most notably mining the comedy goldmine that was the renegade Sarah Palin. However, although SNL’s strongest seasons were during the election years, the best sketches were scattered throughout the aughts, with a fair share of political material, but also crazy characters, inventive monologues, traditional bits and the now ubiquitous Digital Shorts. Here, in a particular but not necessarily meaningful order is a very subjective list of the top ten (and then some) Saturday Night Live sketches of the decade that was.*
Jumped The Snark 