Saturday Night Live-S34E18.Tracy Morgan-Kelly Clarkson.TruHD720p

Saturday Night Live-S34E18.Tracy Morgan-Kelly Clarkson.TruHD720p-x264.mkv



In general, this was a very good show this week. This week's show is hosted by former SNL regular Tracy Morgan, and the musical guest is Kelly Clarkson.



This video is recorded from over the air broadcast HDTV 1080i. Enjoy Saturday Night Live in stunning true 720p (ie 1280x720 progressive) HDTV and Dolby Digital 5.1. The high quality DD5.1 surround sound is direct from the Transport Stream. The commercials have been edited out, of course. Using X264 codec 2-pass high quality, result is better video than you would expect from 1500KBPS. X264 encoding to keep the file size small, reduced and deinterlaced from 1080i to 720p.



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Live from New York, it's... Tracy Morgan!



Sketches include "Tracy Breaks In" (film), "Chewable Pampers," "Brian Fellows' Safari Planet," "The View," "Scared Straight," "Dateline," "Astronaut Jones," "Big Love," "Party Guests" (Digital Short), "Suppressex," "High IQ," "Family Flix," and "Gas-Right."



Kelly Clarkson performed "My Life Would Suck Without You" and "I Do Not Hook Up."



CAST AND CREW



Director:Don Roy King

Stars:Seth Meyers (Himself)

Andy Samberg (Himself)

Kristen Wiig (Herself)

Darrell Hammond (Himself)

Bill Hader (Himself)

Will Forte (Himself)

Fred Armisen (Himself)

Bobby Moynihan (Himself)

Michaela Watkins (Herself)

Kenan Thompson (Himself)

Don Pardo (Announcer)

Jason Sudeikis (Himself)

Casey Wilson (Herself)

Abby Elliott (Herself)

Recurring Role:Tracy Morgan (Himself)

Tina Fey (Herself)

John Lutz (Numb-Nuts)

Guest Star:John Cena (Himself)

Emily Spivey (NBC Security Guard)

Kelly Clarkson (Herself)



With this episode, Tracy Morgan becomes the 25th former cast member and third African-American former cast member to host the show.



As much as I love Tracy Morgan on "30 Rock," I don't need to be reminded that he was a mixed bag on SNL. By having him host (or any ex-cast member, for that matter) we'll be subjected to a reprise of beloved recurring characters from years past, maybe a celebrity cameo or two.



The musical guest is Kelly Clarkson, here to promote her hodgepodge of a fourth album, "All I Ever Wanted." Reviews have been mostly positive, but when you consider that nine different people produced the disc –including former SNL Band guitarist Lukasz Gottwald- you wonder if it's not so much an artistic statement than an expensive potluck dinner to appease the demands of Clarkson's label.



And now, the sketch-by-sketch analysis:



COLD OPENING: In a mostly pre-taped segment, Tracy stands out in the 30 Rock plaza boasting of the building that has done so much for him and his career. When he's denied entry for lacking an ID he goes on a punching frenzy, a slap-happy action-movie sequence whose victims include two security guards, a page (not Kenneth, mind you), wrestler John Cena, and Tina Fey. What saved this piece from being utterly impractical was that Tracy is fully capable of doing something like this in real life.



MONOLOGUE: Tracy addresses all the heresy involving the electrical fire that nearly wiped out his collection exotic fish last month. After pointing out the latent racism of the entertainment media, Morgan explains that he was enjoying a simple evening of feeding fried chicken to mini-sharks, playing old-school Nintendo, and playing with Japanese swords before everything went horribly wrong.



"Chewable Pampers": Somebody on the show must be infatuated with this ad spoof, because airing this unfortunate commercial for the third time makes no sense whatsoever.



"Brian Fellows' Safari Planet": I should've bet twenty dollars that the first proper sketch after the monologue would be a revisiting of Tracy's most beloved alter ego, zoology-loving dimwit Brian Fellows. Tonight, a baby cow from New England instigates a typical Brian daydream in which the bovine refuses to invite our hero to a snooty party. Somehow, a red-tailed hawk and a competitive-eating feline from Japan get thrown in the mix. There's no question that if you've seen one Brian Fellows sketch you've seen them all, but Morgan seemingly adores this character and will revive him at any given opportunity.



"The View": Live from Disney Studios, the five hosts hem and haw about current events while not fully detaching themselves from their

caricature-ish personality quirks. Whoopi (KT) shamelessly promotes herself, Joy (FA) gripes about menopause and aging, Barbara (MW) is long-winded, Elizabeth (KW) is incredulous and thinks everything is a political issue, and Sherri (Tracy) has absolutely no idea what's going on. Need I say more?



"Scared Straight": Lorenzo MacIntosh (KT) is joined by the equally male-rape obsessed Kendrick McEntire (Tracy) for the usual rehashing of old movies and bad sodomy puns. What makes this sketch stand out compared to the previous two entries is that Tracy's over-the-top hamming causes everyone except Kenan to crack up. You know I'm not the biggest fan of breaking character, and Tracy himself has given Jimmy Fallon the nth degree for constantly cracking up in sketches, yet Tracy's performance was the only breath of fresh air in a recurring skit that never should've been repeated to begin with.



"Dateline": Tonight on "Real Life Crimes, Bad Situations," Keith Morrison (BH) is still aroused by the pain and suffering of others, than meets his match in a serial killer (Tracy) in a moment of ironic schadenfreude. Once again, the writers refuse to rock the boat and in spite of that I still found this sketch (and tonight's show thus far) somewhat gratifying.



"Astronaut Jones": Ah, this brings back pleasant memories. The inane theme song, Tracy's phony spacesuit, the "simmering" sexual tension, all part of a crowd-pleasing throwaway gag. Tonight, Jones encounters a trans-gendered alien (AS) on the ice planet Krelgar. The premise was threadbare but it was enough to make me laugh, but for some reason this new wrinkle in the formula didn't sit well with me. MUSICAL PERFORMANCE:



"My Life Would Suck Without You" is… just that. Basically, it's the type of song that wants to rock but only kinda-sorta meets that goal, well-meaning in effort but pabulum in execution.



WEEKEND UPDATE: Bernie Madoff's decision to plead guilty this week was the dominant topic on tonight's Update, serving not only as Seth's opening joke but also as an excuse to give Bill's John Malkovich impression a test run. Tracy storms the news desk to bogart the really?" segment so he can dispute the $10 strip club tax. There was complicated explanation or verbose dissection, just a simple straightforward comment. The centerpiece of Update was an appearance by Barbie (KW), the beloved fashion doll whose 50th birthday is apparently being marked with chronic unemployment, a failed marriage, and quietly drinking alone. It's a cruel world for attractive women with no elbows, and the plastic figurine epitomizes this anguish.



"Big Love": On the cult-hit HBO series, Bill's (JS) newest wife (Tracy) is masculine and unkempt, which confuses and alienates Barb (KW), Nikki (AE), and Margene (CW). I tip my hat to the writers and producers for getting the look right and casting dead-on lookalikes to lampoon Bill Paxton, Chloe Sevigny et al. even if the tone of the characters was way off.



DIGITAL SHORT: Two party guests (BH, AS) comment on how everybody else at the shindig are literally what they are (Mr. Personality, mama's boys, numb-nuts, etc.). A rare example of a filmed piece –much like "Corporate Headquarters" from Rainn/Fire two years ago- with a simple premise enhanced by snappy editing and a zany execution.



"Suppressex": An alleged doctor (Tracy) endorses a pill that suppresses erections during inopportune times. Morgan is completely out of place as a straight man, and this might've worked better as a taped piece; however, Bill's part as a department store Santa was the figurative and literal tentpole of an otherwise average sex-joke sketch.



"High IQ": The bored host (Tracy) of an overly intellectual game show brings in obnoxious music and dancers to shake things up, much to the

chagrin of the three contestants (DH, JS, MW). Heavy on pure energy but light on plot, this sketch almost felt like one of the bad pseudo-sketches that we barely see on TGS, the show-within-a-show on "30 Rock."



MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: "I Do Not Hook Up" is slick in sound but logical and virtuous in message.



"Family Flix": A profile of the director of "Rocket Dog" (Tracy) goes horribly awry. I cracked up at this sketch, almost to the point that I was in tears. Maybe it was Tracy's nonchalant delivery, or the barrage of "In Memoriam" photos, or just the many layers of randomness unfurling before my eyes, but I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard at ten minutes to one.



"Gas Right": It's an obvious fart joke –and a repeat from earlier in the season- but I'll take this over "Chewable Pampers."



This particular broadcast might've been light on substance but heavy on fun. Tracy's seven years on SNL weren't perfect, and he's not the biggest star to graduate from the show, yet he really made tonight's broadcast his own. He even carried sketches that clearly weren't written for him, evidence for that for all his troubles Tracy is a team player first. Where Kelly Clarkson was underwhelming, everything else shined

brightly. If only every episode of SNL was thrown into one of Jack Donaghy's funcookers…



Segments That Probably Won't Appear in Repeats: "Chewable Pampers," "The View," "High IQ," and "I Do Not Hook Up."