Happy 40th Birthday, Sia!

What I’m Listening To

Here are six songs that I can’t get enough of, to listen to each song click the title.

Review: SNL 40th Anniversary Special

Last night Saturday Night Live took over Sunday for 3 and half hours to celebrate 40 years. As a SNL fan I watched it all and kept track of everything. While the special was a great tribute to the many hosts, cast members and artists who have been on the shown, they couldn’t include everything to please everybody, but boy did they try. Here are the surprises and disappointments from Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary special. 

 Best Friends Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon opened the show in the best way possible, a history of SNL rap; which included Debbie Downer and Mary Catherine Gallagher. 

 The biggest disappointment was Eddie Murphy; word starting spreading that Murphy was coming back to SNL after being away for 30 years. Chris Rock gave a great speech about how Murphy saved SNL in the 80s and their will never be another comedian like him. Then Murphy came out to applause and a standing ovation and then he said it felt good to be back and cut to a commercial break. He didn’t tell any jokes or reminisce about his experience on the show. I was hoping after the commercial break he would’ve done a sketch, the one sketch I praying for was Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood sketch.

 Another disappointment was Kanye West’s performance. He started the performance lying on the floor rapping “Jesus Walks”. He might have been in a lazy mood because he has been wearing sweatsuits lately, plus all the ranting he’s been doing has to be exhausting. Besides Jesus Walks, West performed “Only One” and “Wolves” which features Sia and Vic Mensa who joined him on stage last night. The performance was mediocre to say the least. 

 While the show was 3 and half hours long, only one part seemed to drag on. Martin Short hosted the SNL songs segment and it just went on forever. Maya Rudolph as Beyonce couldn’t even save this segment and her Beyonce impression is spot on. That being said their were a few good parts of this segment. My favorite part was Dan Akyrod and Jim Belushi coming about and performing as The Blues Brothers. It was perfect that Jim came out and performed as his brother who passed away many years ago. Bill Murray reprised his role as Nick the Lounge singer and sang the Jaws theme song, which was hysterical. Adam Sandler reprised his role as Opera Man and Steve Martin came out as King Tut. One last segment that was a disappointment was the two seconds allotted to honor Tracey Morgan. Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey came out to introduce the segment and say that Morgan wished he could’ve been there. They played about five seconds of a Brian Fellows clip and then went to a commercial. 

 A great surprise was the Weekend Update segment, which was hosted by the women of Update, Jane Curtain, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. During the Weekend Update segment Melissa McCarthy, Emma Stone and Edward Norton all came out to do impressions of well known SNL characters. McCarthy did a spot on impression of motivational speaker, Matt Foley which was made famous by the late Chris Farley. Emma Stone did a great impression of Gilda Radnor’s character Roseanne Roseannadanna. Norton’s impression of city correspondent Stefon was horrible but was saved by Bill Hader, the real Stefon who gave him a few pointers, before a very jealous Seth Meyers came out. If you didn’t know Meyers and Stefon are married and have kids. 

 The best performance goes to Miley Cyrus who performed Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” Simon performed “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” when SNL was still trying to get it’s footing on NBC. Cyrus made the song her own and really showed that she can sing. If this performance didn’t convince you, check out Cyrus’ cover of Jolene on youtube. 

 The best sketch of the night hands down was Celebrity Jeopardy. Will Ferrell reprised his role as Alex Trebek, Darrell Hammond came back as Sean Connery and Norm MacDonald came out as Burt Reynolds. But the cameos didn’t stop there, Kate McKinnon came out as Justin Beiber and Jim Carey did his impression of Matthew McConaughey. Plus Kenan Thompson came out as Bill Cosby. What made this my favorite sketch of the night was it blended old cast members and new cast members for a flawless and hilarious performance. 

 Another great sketch was The Californians. Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Kristen Wigg reprised their roles. Plus Kerry Washington, Bradley Cooper and Betty White had parts. But Taylor swift was the best and her California accent was perfect. Former cast member Laraine Newman joined in on the fun as well during this sketch. The funniest part was David Spade and Cicely Strong who “hijacked” the sketch as the buh-bye flight attendants and said rude things to each of the actors as they left the set.

Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey came back to do Wayne’s World. The best part of the sketch was that they made fun of Kanye West intruppting and had people standig by West who was the audience to make sure he didn’t rush the stage

 There were many clip segments ranging from politics to SNL shorts. Robert Deniro introduced a segment that honored New York, which has become the most important part of SNL over the past 40 years. Plus there was a montage of cast and crew members that passed away over the years. One segment that was unexpected but awesome was the audition tapes. We saw tapes from cast members doing impressions and characters we have grown to love over the years, such as Kristen Wigg’s Target Lady. We also say audition tapes from people that didn’t make SNL, such as Kevin Hart and Stephen Colbert. 

You can catch up on everything from last night’s SNL 40 by visiting NBC.com. Plus relive your favorite sketches by downloading the SNL app.