Saturday Night Live: Dave Chappelle / Foo Fighters

November 8, 2020 2:00 PM - Season 46, Episode 6

"...like a 1970s penis raw-dogging the Earth."

• Cold Open - Biden Wins: Beck Bennett, Alex Moffatt, Jim Carrey, Maya Rudolph, Alec Baldwin, Chloe Fineman
• Monologue: Dave Chappelle
• Aunt Jemima & Uncle Ben: Dave Chappelle, Alec Baldwin, Maya Rudolph, Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, Kenan Thompson, Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson
• Mario Memories: Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang, Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, Kenan Thompson, Melissa Villaseñor
• Take Me Back: Beck Bennett, Ego Nwodim
• Foo Fighters - Shame Shame
• Weekend Update: Colin Jost, Michael Che
  • Rudy Giuliani: Kate McKinnon
• Albany News Hail Storm: Ego Nwodim, Alex Moffatt, Heidi Gardner, Kate McKinnon, Kenan Thompson
• DC Morning - The President Leaves the White House: Ego Nwodim, Dave Chappelle
• Foo Fighters - Times Like These

posted by rhizome (26 comments total)

Whoops, forgot to click "Post" last night.

My expectations were unreasonably high given the news of the day. Elsewhere, someone pointed out that they only had like six hours to react, so they can have all the slack they want as far as what actually made it into the show. Whenever the next episode is will undoubtedly be much more filled out, topicwise.
posted by rhizome at 2:04 PM on November 8, 2020

Short episode because of the length of Chappelle’s monologue? Eh, fine by me. We loved Albany News!
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:30 PM on November 8, 2020

Oh, I thought Take Me Back was brilliantly constructed in terms of its heightening.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:32 PM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Take Me Back killed me, literally gasping for air.
posted by rhizome at 2:46 PM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Wondering for real if the main reason Lorne cast Jim Carrey was for "loser" joke.
posted by Frayed Knot at 3:31 PM on November 8, 2020 [7 favorites]

Normally in skits with couples, they tend overwhelmingly to be skin tone matching. Both (I thought there was three but) skits with couples (Nwodim/ Bennett, McKinnon/ Thompson) were mixed.

I liked Chappelle's monologue.

Lots of breaking/ corpsing. Felt like a lot of emotional release for just about everyone.

Che seemed more chill than normal. His "kidnapping Jost" joke broke me.

In the Aunt Jemima/ Uncle Ben sketch; took me a second to recognize Davidson as Count Chockula - and the comment about his lips got another actual lol from me.
posted by porpoise at 3:36 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

It aired late on Canadian TV, no idea why, so I only got the first 30 minutes or so on my PVR (up to exactly halfway through "Take Me Back"). Liked Dave Chappelle's monologue a lot - I'm not familiar with his work, so I don't know if this is typical for him, either the material or the structure. Ie, he pocketed the lighter at the end of the monologue, not sure if that meant anything or just he wanted his lighter back.
posted by Mogur at 4:09 PM on November 8, 2020

The Foo Fighters' rendition of "Times Like These" was gorgeous.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:46 PM on November 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

Alec Baldwin singing Hallelujah would have been a pretty fucking great cold open, they'd only have to have done it for a few seconds before interrupting with some shenanigans. Anyway, recycling a 25-year old catch phrase from an old Jim Carey movie works too, I guess. When the audience is in that good a mood, you don't have to kill yourself to make them laugh.
posted by skewed at 7:09 PM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Forgot to link the Times Like These number.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:37 PM on November 8, 2020

It seemed kind of weird that they put framing around the Aunt Jemima/Uncle Ben sketch (Chappelle introducing, pulling out to see the edges of the set at the end)

It aired late on Canadian TV, no idea why

For me, anyway, it was delayed by a college football game going into overtime. I had assumed they performed at the regular time and delayed the broadcast, but I never actually checked.
posted by ckape at 7:50 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'll settle for Alec Baldwin slow-singing Macho Macho Man. I did chuckle.
posted by ishmael at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

It seemed kind of weird that they put framing around the Aunt Jemima/Uncle Ben sketch (Chappelle introducing, pulling out to see the edges of the set at the end)

I noticed that as well and for a moment I thought the episode was going be formatted like Chapelle's Show.

Also, Dave was in only two sketches I think? I don't know quite how many sketches others hosts typically do per episode, it just felt like he was somewhat absent.
posted by alouts at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don't make a habit of watching SNL and Take Me Back is why. The skit ends with a white guy (a self-confessed criminal BTW) running away after pushing his contraband/evidence and gun(?!) into the hands of a black woman. Who is now surrounded by cops. An innocent woman, BTW.

Because we've apparently learned nothing as a nation.
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 11:57 PM on November 8, 2020

My first impression after watching it: the jokes were good. But also scary. And sometimes too long, just to make you squirm that. much. more. Chappelle is in his own world, he's just kinda confused but tolerant of the rest of us and our tics. I mean, he has some sort of special license to smoke cigarettes, on stage, and he's not a drunken musician. Maybe a bit high but... still, none of this excuses an opening monologue that takes up more than a quarter of the entire show, and ends with NOTHING like a, "we have a great show, the Foo Fighters are here and we'll be right back!" I mean, strange times but dude you're funny but the show isn't about you.

I like the Foo Fighters. I don't really care enough about them to explore, but I know when I like a song, and I liked the first song a LOT. The second one, not so much.

Also: the cast continues to be stretched waaaay too thin, and what was with Ego playing two separate news anchors in a row?

ALL THAT ASIDE, I think it was a much better post-election show than 2016, in spite of ATCQ being the musical guest last time. It was much more "I'm not here to make you feel cozy, folks," and more like, "Wellp,"
posted by not_on_display at 12:08 AM on November 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

I did not like this episode at all, starting with Chappelle's monologue. "These hamburgers is mine" made me laugh, and was part of a great point, but I'm tired of him pandering to 14 year old edgelords and punching down at women and the LGBTQI community. He's not even original about it. He also brought back that tired "everyone get along" stick he beat us with back in 2016.

Foo Fighters sounded like a band small municipalities hire for a rib fest or something.

The sketches were also not great. I tapped out after WU and went to bed.
posted by Stoof at 6:29 AM on November 9, 2020 [6 favorites]

Because we've apparently learned nothing as a nation.

We really haven't, tho.
posted by nayantara at 6:41 AM on November 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

Macho Man made me chuckle.

As did the Trump White Ford Bronco sketch. Yes, it was stupid, but I laughed.

I thought the Aunt Jemima/Uncle Ben sketch was strong. Everything else was a bit ho hum. Weekend Update, as usual, did a great job - they've consistently been really on point this season. Che openly drinking and taking off his clip tie, making Jost crack up, was super funny. They both seemed giddy and happy and it was a nice vibe.

I love Dave Grohl. That is all.
posted by nayantara at 6:45 AM on November 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

I know enough that when Chappelle is talking my job is to shut up and listen, so that's what I did. There was some powerful stuff in there but it was tainted by the crack about women making too much, followed by that hacky "oh, did I trigger you?" and then what the fuck was with the Freddie Mercury AIDS joke? Is this a 1983 Eddie Murphy special? Even if I read it in the best possible light he's still saying "yeah, we all know Mercury was a homosexual so it's no surprise he died of AIDS amiright?" Come on, dude.

And how jarring is it in 2020 to see a guy on stage smoking a cigarette like he's Johnny Carson in the 1970s? Is that even legal anymore? I know that's kind of Dave's thing but it's just kind of weird to see.

The rest of the show was funny enough but a lot of it just felt weird and a bit off. Chappelle was hardly in any sketches. I couldn't tell when he commented on Pete's lips if that was a break or not. It seems a bit strange for it to be written that way.

The Foo Fighters are just kind of bland now. They remind me of Aerosmith or RHCP or so many other bands that were really good at one time and now have just sort of slipped into mediocrity. I still love Dave though and think he should be elected president of Rock and Roll.

Kate doing Rudy is always funny. She hardly needs to exaggerate his creepiness. I loved Che's crack about kidnapping Colin.

I guess I expected a bit more from this episode though I imagine they were rewriting it up until the last minute, given the events of the day.
posted by bondcliff at 7:53 AM on November 9, 2020 [8 favorites]

I only saw the first few sketches, and was mostly impressed how well they replicated the Vice President elect's suit.

So here's a link to a popsugar.com article on that very topic.
posted by the primroses were over at 1:46 PM on November 9, 2020 [6 favorites]

I quit watching SNL back when they let Trump host. I may have watched a few sketches on YouTube in the years since, but it was long-canceled from my dvr. As I was catching up in the 4th election thread (I managed to have been out on a Costco run when the news broke, of all things), it was mentioned that Chappelle was hosting, and for the first time in 4 years I found myself curious to see the show, and able to imagine being amused by it rather than finding it depressing or complicit.

So I watched! And it was, as ever, a great big mess with the odd chuckle here and there. So, yay, I'm back on the SNL train(wreck).
posted by oh yeah! at 4:02 PM on November 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

I tapped out after WU and went to bed.

I tapped out shortly after the anti-woman and AIDS "jokes."

This makes three male hosts who've done either misogynistic or ageist monologues.
posted by NorthernLite at 4:12 PM on November 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

The rest of the show was funny enough but a lot of it just felt weird and a bit off.

It was a weird episode. None of the new cast was in it. No Cecily or Aidy (I know, they're doing stuff) or Chris Redd. Baldwin and Rudolph in sketches like they are cast members. Carrey doing a very Carrey Biden which was just not what I was after. I did appreciate Rudolph's outfit (great link primroses!). Chapelle's monologue was interesting but all over the place, and in some of the usual places (smoking, anti-woman, Freddie Mercury) and it was really long and didn't fit the usual format which I always find strange just because I'm so used to it ("It's so great to be here hosting SNL..."). I assumed people from his small town (which is smaller than mine, I was surprised) were maybe watching it and he dragged them also.

And yeah, Take Me Back was bad/wrong for a number of reasons. It was basically a Beck-as-manchild showpiece (which he is very good at) and that's never great for anyone else, except maybe Kyle. Ego had a lot of good other bits in this piece, the back-to-back news anchor roles was strange. I laughed at Mario Memories and it was the only time we got to see Bowen or Melissa. Weekend Update was great and after last week it was good to see them have some good news to riff on for a change.

Everything just felt odd pacing-wise. With the combination of a lot of people watching it late because of football it just had a strange vibe. Foo Fighters continue to be pretty great, though neither song grabbed me in a big way but I've loved Dave Grohl since Nirvana days.
posted by jessamyn at 8:27 PM on November 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

I found most of the monologue to be really off. He was putting out such a weird energy: mumbly and morose but also defensive and self-aggrandizing.

On top of the other problematic aspects of the monologue already mentioned, there was also the fact that about 35% of it was him airing personal grievances about the neighbors who dared to try to push back on him doing whatever he wants. I don’t know if the root cause was Narcissism or just celebrity, but that whole section was deeply unfunny and frankly Trump-like.
posted by Ian A.T. at 8:35 PM on November 9, 2020 [6 favorites]

I feel like the pacing might have been off because they spent the week not sure if the election was going to be called by the time the show aired. And then of course, when the election was called in SATURDAY, I imagine they had a lot of last minute tweaking to do to the sketches and that contributed to the general "off-ness". This show felt unpolished.
posted by nayantara at 7:35 AM on November 10, 2020

I don’t know if the root cause was Narcissism or just celebrity

[those_are_the_same_picture_meme.jpg]

I haven't tried to watch a full episode of SNL in far longer than I can remember, but knowing that Chappelle was hosting was enough to get me to at least try.

I'm already tired of Carrey's Biden. Aunt Jemima/Uncle Ben made me laugh, I chuckled a little, cringingly, at Mario Memories and Take Me Back, and bowed out after WU. Which means I missed the Foo Fighters encore, the only really worthwhile piece of the whole show ("Shame Shame" did nothing at all for me).
posted by hanov3r at 10:35 AM on November 11, 2020 [2 favorites]