‘Saturday Night Live’ review: ‘What Does the Fox Say?’ parody, Charles Barkley, and Kerry Washington

Kerry Washington hosted “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, and for the first thirty minutes, we really thought that this was a heck of a good show. We had a great host committing to everything in Kerry Washington, some funny impressions, and one of the better video parodies that we have seen in quite some time.

However, from pretty much this point on the show started to slowly descend into something derivative and not particularly funny, and we can really chalk it up to one thing: “SNL” going too much into one race joke after the next. For whatever reason, this happens sometimes with a minority host. Do we get all white-people jokes when there is a white host? No, and a little bit of race-related humor can be really funny when executed properly. But when more than a couple sketches contain more or less the same jokes about tough neighborhoods and other stereotypes, the laughter that the sketches originally had soon turned to boredom.

The highlights

Obama Cold Open – For about two seconds, we groaned loudly when we thought that this was going to be yet another President Obama Cold Open. but, it instead was a brilliant send-up of all the criticism “SNL” has received for not having a black woman in their cast. It was a great way for them to show that they are aware of it, and they know it is not perfect; but at the same time, it also reinforced their interest in casting only the right people for the job.

Heshi – Nasim Pedrad and Washington combined to make an idea that was pretty stupid, as we saw a “motivational speech” from a terrible motivational speaker, actually work. It’s almost strange that Nasim is getting the chance to create a new character now, given that this is probably her last year thanks to “Mulaney” getting picked up from Fox.

What does my girl say? – Yes, this happened: A parody of “what does the fox say?” performed mostly by Jay Pharoah and Kerry. We were about to say that we weren’t sure if it was really funny or really sexist, but eventually it turned and started stereotyping guys as much as it did women. We always enjoy equal-opportunity offenders, so there are no complaints here from us now. A very creative, different, and funny pre-taped bit.

Weekend Update – This was a bit of an uneven update, but we will give some credit to Kate McKinnon for a pretty hilarious take on a certain German chancellor. Kenan Thompson’s Charles Barkley and Pharoah’s Shaquille O’Neal, meanwhile, was a good example of something that was funny in spite of itself. There was really nothing in these impressions that was particularly good, but their facial expressions made us laugh. Also, this was the first time that Cecily Strong handled a guest on the show … which is another sign of Seth Meyers’ impending exit. A sad thought, really.

Date or Diss – It really wasn’t that funny, but in the latter half of this show, it felt like a gem. It mostly served as a nice little satire of how MTV tends to manipulate their reality TV shows (and contestants) into the ground.

The lowlights

Kerry Washington monologue – Not a great monologue by any means. Basically, this was Kerry basically having to do a series of “Scandal” gags that were probably put together at the last second. We usually find this opening to be pretty terrible, though, so don’t paint us too surprised here.

Political talk – It was funny for two minutes, but it then became annoying and just a series of quotes about how African-Americans will apparently support President Obama no matter what he does. We get it, already.

Miss Universe pageant – A funny idea, as you have a bunch of representatives from under-developed countries on the show causing trouble. The problem with it was just that most of the women who were brought on did not have that much to do. Kerry was actually the funniest as Miss Uganda, and she just repeated the same lines again and again.

Cartoon catchphrases and that school sketch – Can we just pretend like these sketches never happened in the first place? We imagine that we will be so much happier of that is the case. These started unfunny, ended unfunny, and forced us to sit there and watch for a really long time.

Ice cream – Some of the new “SNL” cast members have come up with some funny stuff at the end of the show, but this was just too weird … and not really that funny.

In the end, this is proof of one thing: Just because you are a funny host with a couple of good sketches, it does not mean that you are going to have a funny show. Not in the slightest. Grade: C-.

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Photo: NBC