Sometimes, when we’re watching Saturday Night Live, we play a game–“What drugs would you have to be on for this skit to be funny.” I felt that way watching Tim McGraw dressed like a turkey. By the time we got to the skit with Ludacris, T-Pain, and some Vanilla-Ice wanna be, it was clear that the problem is less than that you need to be on drugs. It’s not that Ludacris and T-Pain were sorry.
It’s that the skit wasn’t, even in concept, funny. If there’s going to be something weird going on, everyone in the skit needs to be in on it (except, if you don’t trust the audience, you could have one person in the skit who doesn’t get it, to cue the audience that it is indeed ludicrous) and you let the absurdity ensue.
But I thought that Tim McGraw did a fine job. Not great, but fine. And I thought his opening was nice.
The overly-nice prank phone call skit was middlingly funny, but it made me realize just how much I kind of miss Hee Haw.
Tiny Cat Pants 
SNL lost it once they had to go to established pros (like Billy Crystal) to try and keep the spark.
Kids in the Hall and even Mad TV were/are better.
You heard it here first — Kristen Wiig is the future of SNL. To me she’s as funny as Fey and Poehler combined. Just about every single skit she carries leaves me giggling. Penelope, the one-upper, in particular.
The turkey thing was stupid — the white rapper thing was stupid, even thought I love Andy Samburg. His rendition of Cathy (from the comic) puts me on the floor.
I second Beth in that Wiig is the best thing they’ve got.
And it’s sad that they’ve got to keep Darryl Hammond around after all these years, simply because they don’t have anybody else who can do a decent impersonation.
I’ll hand it to — er, what’s his name… did a spot-on Barney Frank last night and normally does Obama. He’s a good impersonator. I mean, he’s no Darrell Hammond (who’s getting long in the tooth and mostly looks bored when he’s onstage now), but he’ll do.
yeah, but you know what had me literally in tears? The Zell Miller skit in Weekend Update. GUH-Faw
gando…. OMG I completely forgot about that Zell Miller thing… it was HYSTERICAL!
That was Fred Armisen as Barney Frank. And he’s just as good or better than Kristen Wiig.
Tim McGraw really didn’t have any business being a host. I have a hard time believing he was the best they could do when Justin Timberlake had to drop out, but there have been far worse performances. He actually seemed to learn his lines and not rely on the cue cards too much. Not like Robert DeNiro (one of the worst hosts ever).
They missed a huge opportunity, though. Anybody else notice how McGraw looked startlingly like George Michael in that last sketch? Oh, the things they could have done with that…
I forgot about the Zell Miller thing, too, but that was damn funny as well. I thought that McGraw did fine. No, he wasn’t great, but I’ll give him this. it improved my opinion of him 100%. I had always gotten a kind of ooky vibe off him and I found him to be very charming and funny.