Jerrod Carmichael

This week's “Saturday Night Live” saw comedian Jerrod Carmichael step into the hosting hot seat, promoting his recent HBO standup special.

The only sketches where Carmichael really got to play up a character were in “Shop TV” and “Scattering Remains,” and even then, both were low-key and low-energy — in a way that was necessary to the comedy of the sketch. The pre-tape sketch “Baby Clothes” (which did have some really good bits in it) really highlighted this, as Carmichael and Bowen Yang played a couple in the sketch and seemed like they would be working as a duo… Overall, this was an unmemorable episode, and that’s even despite having three separate comedic takes (the monologue, “Seat Fillers,” and Weekend Update) on a very memorable current event. As one of the two sketches of the night that really gave Carmichael something to do as host — the other being “Scattering Remains” — the only real knock on “Shop TV” is that it was slightly longer than it needed to be. Her Senator Marsha Blackburn (much like Kenan Thompson’s O. J. Simpson) on Weekend Update kind of fell into the same holding pattern the rest of Weekend Update features have been in lately, but at the same time, “SNL” clearly put her in that position because it knows for a fact she can deliver — and she did. But the “rainbow bush” really got the live audience going, and the visual comedy that came from it worked, as juvenile as it was. But a cut for time Please Don’t Destroy sketch, “Three Normal Goths,” was easily the highlight of this week’s sketches. Meaning: a great beat and a less than great flow from Davidson… but making up for it in both content and execution and the rapping from both Chris Redd and other more established rappers. His aloofness in this sketch really worked to sell the chaos and absurdity. “Post-COVID Game Show” (with the game show being “Is My Brain Okay”) ended up being the next game show sketch. It’s an openness and honesty that one could imagine would inform Carmichael’s role as the latest first-time celebrity host in “SNL” Season 47. Perhaps, for that reason, the monologue won’t age well out of context, but there’s something to be said for subtlety.

Jerrod Carmichael is the sort of host who suggests that SNL is going for quality, Q rating be damned.

And, just to anger the right people, a political climate where the GOP is actively peddling hateful nonsense about LGBTQI-accepting parents being pedophiles and “groomers” really isn’t the place to end a show with such an unfocused, lazy sketch. Not to hold this half-written sketch to the highest standard when it comes to corpse-defilement humor, but if you’re going to do something comically outrageous with a dead body, you really have to commit. (The actual final pre-tape was just meh.) Here, Andrew Dismukes and Carmichael show flashes of what this darkly outrage-courting sketch could have been, as their officiously polite undertakers—solemnly awaiting a family’s ash-scattering speech to end—instead hurl the decidedly un-cremated deceased bodily over the waiting cliff. As for the people who were actually in the building, Aristotle and Melissa were shunted to goodnights-only waving. Redd and Pete are so good at these, and the film nerd in me responded to the litany of under 100-minute watches like Evil Dead, Punch-Drunk Love, and Good Time like the sketch was written just for me. Jost and Che took a typically scattershot approach to the irresistible Rock-Smith story, with the pair hitting and missing in equal measure. Written by Streeter Seidell and Mikey Day, the ill-fated shopping network sales pitch of doll maker Carmichael is in the long and storied tradition of SNL going for the cheapest, loudest belly-laughs, and it sort of works. McKinnon pegs just the tone of hazy, fatalistic bemusement that a game show about the accumulated mental and physical effects of this never-ending pandemic is on the air. Nobody’s going to top Bill Hader at making something out of the thankless game show host roles, but Kate was very funny as the brain-fogged Lisa Something, riding herd over a trio of similarly lockdown-addled contestants in Carmichael, Sarah Sherman, and Bowen Yang. Apart from being a very good stand-up, and the creator of an intriguing (if divisive) documentary series about his family, Carmichael is the sort of host who suggests that SNL is going for quality, Q rating be damned. Shame, then, that when it came time for SNL to wheel out its own take on the Oscars kerfuffle, he was reduced to playing straight man to a big heap of nothing. “If you’re gay in New York, you get to host Saturday Night Live,” Carmichael joked in response to the Studio 8H crowd’s warm embrace, an echo of the conflicted emotions that have greeted his coming out between his New York friends and his loving but disappointingly judgmental North Carolina family.

Let's revisit some of the best moments from the April 2 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Jerrod Carmichael.

From the moment he walked onto the stage, he disarmed the audience with the charm and conversational humor that his fans know and love. He was a scene-stealer in the Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, and Zac Efron comedy Neighbors in 2014, and that same year, delivered his first stand-up special Jerrod Carmichael: Love at the Store, which was directed by Spike Lee. He followed that up with another HBO special 8 and a documentary series Home Videos, in which he interviews his family about their lives and different events in the world. In 2015, NBC premiered The Carmichael Show, a multi-camera sitcom following Jerrod as a fictionalized version of himself navigating everyday life with his argumentative and insightful family. Talent, perseverance, and a strong work ethic are three reasons why Carmichael was able to achieve his childhood dream before the age of 30. The “must-see TV” era of television was what he hoped to contribute to one day and to do that, he realized he’d probably need to quit his job at the shoe store and make the move to Los Angeles. After a nudge from a customer in the store, Carmichael moved across the country and never looked back. “I arrived [in Los Angeles] on Friday, went to the Comedy Store, watched the whole show, stayed until 2:00am, and then that Sunday night I was doing an open-mic there.”

How Did The SNL Guest Host Jerrod Carmichael Do? Where to Stream: Saturday Night Live. IMDb TV ( ...

So with what we got, the MVP for the night had to have been Cecily Strong, bringing as much gusto as she could muster with her two impersonations (Jeanine Pirro and Marsha Blackburn), plus her home-shopping TV anchor’s squeals both at the doll hair and the “Squeal Deals,” and for voicing the final sketch of the night. As for Blackburn’s excuse for asking for the definition, Cecily quipped: “If you don’t know what a woman is, how are you gonna take her rights away?” This would’ve given a nice slot to Ego, and also to Aidy Bryant as idiot-box Ted Cruz, although since Aidy didn’t make it on the show at all, perhaps that wasn’t an option this night? The restaurant “Story” sketch in which Jerrod is introduced by Heidi and Ego Nwodim as a great storyteller gets twisted no thanks to Kyle’s out-of-towner aloof character, who becomes overly excited at all the wrong details of Jerrod’s pretty banal story. Pete went spoken word to describe his amazement at how Sex and the City 2 could be longer than Jurassic Park, only to have him reminded that so, too, was his movie, The King of Staten Island. Does this make up for Rex getting snubbed for his star turn in Red Rocket? You tell us. Kicking off the final half-hour of the show, Jerrod joined Andrew Dismukes as mortuary men carrying out the last wishes of a family (JAJ, Heidi and Kyle Mooney) “Pop Pop” has died by scattering his remains into the sea. SNL used the actual audio from Chris Rock, and then bleeped Chris Redd as he uttered Smith’s profane shouting back at Rock. This didn’t add much to the already overcooked topic, and most certainly did not heal the nation. “He said the nation needs to heal.” But the comedian would rather have Barack Obama come back to politics for the nation-healing part. Jerrod was game to compete on this post-COVID game show “Is My Brain Okay?” as a former IBM marketing director now mostly on mushrooms. They invite Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (Kenan Thompson) and his wife Ginni (Kate McKinnon) on to disavow their participation in the Jan. 6 plot to overthrow the 2020 election, with Kate’s spin on Ginni as “the Yoko Ono of the Supreme Court.” But they quickly ditch all of that for two extra swings at a cold open. Of the Oscars kerfuffle, Carmichael noted that for just six days ago, that whole thing felt like it happened way back when, “between Jamiroquai and 9/11.” He didn’t want to talk about it. Strike three: James Austin Johnson calling into FOX & Friends as Trump, still in pajamas in bed perhaps, and definitely admitting not only to a coup, but also to “quite an arm on Hitch” vis-a-vis the slap, and he even tries mentioning his “hole-in-one” playing golf this past week?

Jerrod Carmichael made his hosting debut on Saturday Night Live this weekend just days after coming out as gay in his new comedy special.

After an eventful week for pop culture—and this episode's host—SNL fails to rise to the occasion, delivering a bland (and sometimes tasteless) show.

It was a cute concept (but not much more) elevated by the sight gag of Rex appearing as Jim Varney in every one of the Ernest movies. (Sure, not every game-show sketch can be “Black Jeopardy” or “Meet Your Second Wife,” but this didn’t even rise to the level of “Word Crunch” from last month.) In “Is My Brain OK?,” the host (Kate McKinnon) quizzes contestants on how they’re reacclimating to society after COVID. It was all very meh and felt like it could have aired six months ago or last year, and I wonder if the script was in fact resurrected from the slush pile. There were a couple of good lines—the winning contestant was offered a two-week trip to Hawaii or the chance to “go back to your apartment and stay there,” and of course he chose the latter—but I saw sharper stuff about COVID-era social anxiety on Instagram today. On this week’s “Weekend Update,” Colin Jost mostly sat back while Michael Che delivered blast after successful blast on the Will Smith incident. Will the host—so perceptive and inventive in his standup—push the show to go afield on gay themes (a direction that led to one of the most laugh-out-loud-funny sketches of season 45)? Are both of these questions setting up unrealistic expectations? It’s a fun sideways premise: Two seat fillers (Kyle Mooney and Carmichael) interact with Will Smith (Chris Redd) around the infamous moment. (Seriously: watch Rothaniel and his two other HBO specials, and give The Carmichael Show a whirl if you haven’t.) He acknowledged both big stories at hand (“I’m not gonna talk about it … do you want me to talk about it?”) and nailed how news coverage and incessant viral bloviating tends to expand time: the Oscars and The Slap occurred six days ago yet feel like they happened “somewhere between Jamiroquai and 9/11.” He got in some good digs at himself and Lorne Michaels’ insistence that he address the incident—”I have to be the least famous host in SNL history … I’ve been gay for 48 hours. Oh, but there’s more (yet less): Dismukes crawls down the cliff to retrieve an unrelated corpse, while Carmichael pulls out an urn which contains his soup lunch. Carmichael may be lesser-known to a nationwide audience, but the monologue established his bona fides as a sharp and exceptionally appealing comic voice. One piece, of course, was Will Smith clocking presenter Chris Rock (an SNL alum) at the Oscars, a true record-scratching, WTF cultural moment.

It didn't have to be this way. The host, Jerrod Carmichael, a thoughtful and sardonic stand-up comic who recently released his third HBO special, Rothaniel, ...

By putting all its energy into an incident that felt edgy and shocking nearly a week ago, the show just felt stale. When not talking about the Slap, this episode’s sketches largely felt random and unconcerned with giving Carmichael an opportunity to insert his personality. “The nation don’t even know me,” Carmichael quipped in his monologue. I have to be the least-famous host in SNL [history].” Last night probably didn’t change that fact. In the unfocused sketch, Carmichael played an initially starstruck seat filler at the Academy Awards witnessing an erratic Smith (Chris Redd) unraveling. After a week in which every opinion has already circulated, SNL struggled to find anything fresh to say.