I came away from the first episode of SNL Season 48 wishing that Miles Teller was a new cast member because he was so great at playing the boring generic white guy. In many cases he was carrying the cast, which feels a little foreboding.
There was a moment in the cold open when Peyton and Eli when they put up a graphic about how poorly the cast was doing.
It was obviously tongue in cheek, but I wondered if there was any way to quantify an SNL episode. So, for this season, I’m going to try to track the laughs, give them a value, and see if it’s any indication about the success of the episode, cast member or host. Part of me thinks it might be the most terrible thing I’ve ever done, but the other part of me realizes that at the end of it all, we’ll have charts, and everybody loves charts.
Manningcast Cold Open
Concept: Inspired, meta, and clever as hell
Execution: Home run
s – Miles Teller “I’m Peyton Manning”
s – Miles Teller “Oh good, Trump sketch, way to mix it up!”
S – Miles Teller “He’s just fully panicking”
S – Andrew Dismukes “That may be the only time we see him tonight”
s – Michael Longfellow panicking
s – Heidi Gardner “I want to take your abortion rights”
I – Miles Teller “And she let me down”
s – Andrew Dismukes “Those are all Kate McKinnon”
S – Bowen Yang – wincing after Corgis
s – Miles Teller “Sarah Sherman is peekin in the window”
s – Sarah Sherman peeking
l – Andrew Dismukes “Oh god look he’s saying to to camera now”
L – Bowen Yang “It is what it is”
l – Jon Hamm “I don’t know but it’s not comedy.”
S – Miles Teller “Shawn White? That is just gratuitous stunt casting.”
l – Jon Hamm “Sometimes they need to bring in a celebrity when the host isn’t that famous.”
L – Miles Teller “They rarely put the host in cold opens, so when they do, it is special”
Monologue
S – Miles Teller “Nope, Rachel Maddow”
s – Miles Teller “My instructor was J.K. Simmons”
s – Miles Teller “I was 9 and I had the frame for it”
S – Miles Teller “Now they’re here watching me host Saturday Night Live!”
Send Something Normal
Concept: Solid, Tried & True
Execution: Good
S – Miles Teller “And you win a hundred million dollars”
s – Kenan Thompson “Why am I here?”
l – Kenan Thompson “Divalent Magnesium”
S – Bowen Yang “Oh, uh…being gay.”
S – Miles Teller “Gotta say Adam, I don’t like that hand motion.”
l – Kenan Thompson “Calculating”
L – Kenan Thompson “I have an alternate response”
S – Bowen Yang “Me too”
l – Bowen Yang “oh noooo”
Be Real
Concept: Fun and Timely
Execution: Tight
S – Bowen Yang – “It’s time to Be Real”
s – Mikey Day “Stop engaging”
S – Miles Teller “Y’know what that is crazy.”
s – Mikey Day “no no no no no!”
Charmin Bears
Concept: Twisted and interesting
Execution: Uneven, bordering on wonky
s – Kenan Thompson “My son is going to TPC”
s – Miles Teller “Then take the Charmin out of your ears dad!”
s – Kenan Thompson “Now listen to me, boy!”
s – Miles Teller “I don’t want a Bachelor of Flushing Arts”
L – Miles Teller “why does everything in our lives have to revolve around going to the bathroom?”
l – Heidi Gardner “and we shoot it out”
s – Bowen Yang “Your son is good.”
Rooftop Bar
Concept: Familiar
Execution: Earnest but doomed
s – Miles Teller “The girls in here tonight? Decent.”
Nicole Kidman AMC Ad
Concept: Timely
Execution: Fine. Solid work by Fineman but not ha ha funny.
s – Chloe Fineman “Oh god no”
l – Kenan Thompson reaction to ‘together’
L – Kenan Thompson standing
L – Kenan Thomson “what the fuck just happened?”
Weekend Update
s – Michael Che “A gig is a gig”
s – Michael Che “it’s such an historic tragedy that Desantis won’t let them teach about it in Florida schools”
l – Colin Jost “Ginny Thomas, who’s begging you to notice the scarf.”
S – Michael Che “Huh. So we have had a gay president.”
s – Colin Jost “We’re too lazy to do this.”
S – Colin Jost reaction to Che’s CIA Afghani wedding joke
l – Michael Che “Trombone Champ is also the nickname of a very popular lady in my neighborhood.”
s – Colin Jost “No, don’t applaud that.”
s – Michael Longfellow “If you can get in trouble for what your parents think…it’s been a good run.”
S – Colin Jost reaction to Longfellow Simpsons porn joke “That’s tough.”
S – Michael Longfellow “You shouldn’t cut anti-vax people out of your life. They could be dead tomorrow.”
s – Michael Longfellow “Get in the will.”
l – Michael Longfellow “No, he’s not one of those anti-vax Arizona liberals you’re always reading about.”
S – Michael Longfellow “ah, shoot.”
S – Michael Longfellow “Just you?”
S – Michael Longfellow “Right, a republican.”
s – Michael Longfellow “I said get your hands off me!”
s – Kenan Thompson as Herschel Walker “Let’s go team, alright.”
S – Kenan Thompson “Oh, Che. I’ll slow down so you can understand me.”
L – Kenan Thompson “Why there still apes out there?”
s – Kenan Thompson “Thank you, Stitch.”
s – Kenan Thompson “Benjamin Frankenstein.”
s – Kenan Thompson “When I’m the government, we gon’ see.”
Grimace
Concept: Tangential but good
Execution: Weak
s – Miles Teller “Yoked up.”
l – Kenan Thompson reaction to Grimace interior monologue
l – Kenan Thompson “Outside on the street was the ugliest woman I ever seen.”
S – Keenan Thompson “She was busted.”
Caribbean Queens
Concept: Derivative and tawdry
Execution: Terrible
s – Miles Teller entrance
l – Kenan Thompson “I don’t remember if it was fun or like uh-oh.”
s – Devon Walker “Yo I keep tellin’ you we are not related.”
