Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday (October 23, 2008) - VIDEOS

Well, that concludes Saturday Night Live's three week run of "Weekend Update Thursday." There were some good jokes here and there, including tonight's especially strong cold open, but looking back, we really could have done without these three episodes. Most of this material, election-related and otherwise, could have been bumped to the regular Saturday program without any problem. I'm sure we could come up with a list of sketches in the past few SNLs that deserved to be replaced. Someone fix my time machine and let's get this job done. I don't want to hear any of that "There's no such thing as a flux capacitor" bullcrap.
Cold Open (George W. Bush endorsement): It's been a while since I've seen a Will Ferrell movie that I've liked, so I was tremendously excited for his return as Bush. Will Forte and Jason Sudeikis are both super-funny guys, but neither of them have quite nailed Bush the way Ferrell has. Sure, his impression isn't spot-on, but Ferrell embraced the character enough for the audience to overlook that, unlike the performances of Forte and Sudeikis. Anyway, the combination of Tina Fey's Sarah Palin and Ferrell's Dubya was absolutely amazing. This whole cold open was strong.
"Weekend Update": I'm not sure if anyone that doesn't watch 24-hour news networks got Fred Armisen's map thing. Personally, I got the joke, because I've often fantasized about geeking out over a giant touchscreen. I guess the folks at SNL felt the same way and wheeled in one from, like, MSNBC or something. Kenan Thompson brought back his "FIX IT!" guy, who wasn't as funny the second time. The first time was just barely okay anyway.
I'll laugh at people talking about throwing up, but I didn't think Andy Samberg's "Jam the Vote" was quite as funny as it could have been. The real beauty of vomit jokes lies in the moment before it actually happens. Just check out this super-old clip of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell from The Dana Carvey Show, in a sketch called "Waiters Who Are Nauseated By Food." In other news, giant cell phones are hilarious.

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