Etched by Sketch: SNL Season 44 Episode 19 (Adam Sandler)
By: Dean Berry
Tags: Saturday Night Live, SNL, Sketch, Adam Sandler, Comedy

Original Air Date: May 4, 2019

Cold Open: Family Feud

Grade: D+

Whoa, a completely non-political cold open?

Seems like a regular sketch that got pushed up when everyone came up empty on a political sketch

Ego putting in good work

Leslie damn near steals the sketch with just 1 line

I don’t watch Game of Thrones, but I know the main characters, and…I don’t recognize any of these characters?

Just like with all these Family Feud sketches, once the mechanics of the show start, things really drag

Little jokes (Barry Bonds chin, calling Okoye ‘Oprah’) not landing

Audience REALLY not getting these Game of Thrones references

No real ending, and no real point

Who says Live From New York? Beck, Alex, Ego, Kenan, Kate, Melissa, Cecily, Mikey, Kyle, Leslie

Monologue: Adam Sandler’s ‘I Was Fired’ Monologue

Grade: B

Adam working with some good nervous energy

Concept of the fired song is strong, shows a personal connection to SNL history

Crack about nbc hating Jews is genuinely funny

Song is slow enough so that Sandler can take his time to ensure lines land properly

Great cameo by Chris Rock

Pete Davidson with a short punchy appearance

Good solid ending and a bit touching, good omen for the show

War Zone Reporter

Grade: C-

Familiar setup, SNL has done a lot of these “studio reporter interacting with remote reporter” news bits this season, and none of them have been great

1 joke sketch alert!

Funny enough concept with applying Snapchat filters to deadly serious reporting, but not much beyond that

So Mikey said he couldn’t see the screen because it shattered, but Adam’s character can? I mean this isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it’s just annoying when sketches fail to recognize their own internal logic

Sandler using cross-dressing as a drive-by gag, in a (bad) 90’s throwback

Final heightening as a hot dog is underwhelming, kinda boring actually

Studio reporters add nothing, just annoying straight men

Holes

Grade: C-

Aesthetic for this video is really incongruent with the style of the song…are they going for 80’s monster ballad theme…I guess?

Starts slow, takes a while to set it up and get to the chorus

I think they thought if they just said the word “holes” a lot, it would pass for humor

Becomes a tad complicated to follow given the silly concept

Sandler tries to save it, only adds to confusion

Doesn’t really “hole”d together (GET IT??)

Romano Tours

Grade: B+

Classic Sandler setup, where he monologues as a relatable but strange character

Dumb little Italy jokes keep things running along, Sandler is delivering well

The turn of “if you’re sad now, you might still feel sad there” hits hard, and audience is on board immediately

Graphics that drive the point home really deliver

Little lines like “seeing different squirrels” helps capture the spirit of the sketch and underlines how ridiculous travel really is to certain groups of young people.

The “Can” and “Cannot” graphics put it over the top and squeezes out all the laughs from this concept

The joke about not liking your own photos is hilarious and very real

Sandler’s delivery stays strong throughout, hitting laugh lines hard

Herlihy Boy-esque (look it up, younger folks)

A throwback in all the right ways

Sandler Family Reunion

Grade: B-

Recurring bit for hosts with distinctive quirks (Christopher Walken, etc)

Somewhat predictable but fun to see all the cast members take their shot at doing their best outrageous Sandler impersonation

Mikey & Kyle doing fine work as Billy Madison-era Sandler

Pete as Little Nicky Sandler is good, unexpected

Melissa as Waterboy Sandler delivers, as expected

Leslie continues her string of fine sketch acting as Chubbs

Kristin Wiig and Jimmy Fallon cameos don’t really add much, apart from getting big audience reaction

Sweet moment at the end with the photo

Rectix

Grade: B

Clean simple setup

Oh lord, here we go with the ass jokes

Coming out and just calling it a butt plug is a good 2nd beat, as is Sandler’s insistence on calling it a pill

Sandler and Aidy’s expert delivery is drawing more laughs than expected

The quick cut after “Don’t put your mouth on that” is perfect

Another successful 90’s throwback-style sketch

Weekend Update (Excluding Desk Pieces)

Grade: C

Again, Che’s jokes hit a little harder than Jost’s, but both are relatively weak

Jost’s “Whoa aren’t things crazy right now?” joke falls flat

Non-political jokes not particularly sharp but passable

Applebees jokes always appreciated

Weekend Update Desk Piece #1: Senator Elizabeth Warren on College Debt Forgiveness

Grade: C

Kate’s Liz is technically good, but struggling on how to capture her essence

Writing is a tad lackluster, but Kate’s selling the material well

A little overlong, material drags near the end

Weekend Update Desk Piece #2: Opera Man Returns

Grade: B+

Back after about a 24 year hiatus

Adam in fine form, although seems a tad reluctant to do some of the more cheesy lines

Recaptures the silliness and likeability of his early SNL days

A good mix of timeless jokes and of-the-moment, like Operaman bits of old

Great dig on Seth Rogan (and himself)

Also just like Operaman of old, sprinkles in some relevant social commentary

Once he starts rolling with the political bits, audience jumps fully on board

Last Call With Adam Sandler

Grade: C-

Recurring…I’m not a huge fan of prior iterations, but maybe Adam can inject some life into it

Kate leaning hard into the character, as usual

Adam’s lines getting a little lost in his silly voice

Low energy sketch, Kristen Wiig shows up to try to liven things up

Sketch relies hard on the writing, which is wordy and lacks hard punches

Kenan’s asides not adding much

Physical gags work on paper, but in actuality they’re muddled and only work as shock value

I don’t really get why Kenan feels the need to blow up his own bar because 3 people (albeit 3 gross people) are kissing?

Chris Farley Song

Grade: N/A

Same song that appears on Adam’s recent Netflix special

Extremely touching tribute to one of the all time great comedy performers

Creates an inadvertent revaluation of the 1990–1994 SNL seasons, often both beloved and derided, depending on your style of humor

Adam struggling to keep it together, as is everyone else in the audience (and myself)

Although Farley was most associated working with David Spade, his greatest work on SNL was paired with Sandler…there is no better person to sing Farley’s praises.

Average grade of all sketches: C+

A little more about…

Adam Sandler.

Among SNL fans, Adam Sandler has held a bit of a mixed legacy on the show. At the time, his hiring class (along with David Spade, Chris Farley, and Rob Schneider) was seen as part of a youth surge and as so, they served as a “junior squad” with more seasoned cast members like Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, and Kevin Nealon having seniority. As the seasons progressed, the junior squad eventually dominated the show, although critics at the time derided their humor as sophomoric, immature, undeveloped, frat-boyish, unprofessional, and just plain stupid. It’s hard to disagree with some of their critiques, as these were the years that gave us such characters as Orgasm Guy, “Makin’ Copies”, The Gap Girls (which leaned HARD on cross-dressing tropes), and Chris Farley just generally screaming at anyone and everyone, sometimes for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

Of course, these years also produced inarguably some of the best sketches SNL has ever delivered. The original Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker sketch is maybe the greatest comedy achievement in SNL history. In addition, the Herlihy Boy sketches are amazing pieces of anti-comedy, the Zagat’s Couple is timeless humor that still holds up today, and Adam Sandler’s desk pieces almost always delivered. Today, it’s hard to think that Sandler and crew did anything other rescue SNL from falling into a slump after senior players left, but at the time it seemed like the inmates were taking over the asylum, replacing well thought out pieces like “Love Is A Dream” with stuff like “crazy hot dog hands”.

Today, in a time where comedy is SERIOUS and demands itself to be TAKEN SERIOUSLY, Sandler again works as a breath of fresh air. Recent seasons of SNL seem to be hamstrung by the politics of the day, being expected to both satire the atrocities of the Trump administration and serve as a distraction from said atrocities. It’s a delicate line, and as a result it seems like their comedy has “stiffened”. Afraid to poke fun at the wrong people, but needing to poke fun at someone, the writing at SNL has become a bit gun shy and takes less chances. In the process, it has lost a whole lot of silliness and fun that players like Sandler brought once upon a time.

This is strange to me, because it’s obvious from tonight’s episode that an injection of silliness and fun is exactly what could help SNL break out of this mini-funk. The humble goofiness of Sandler’s humor (and seemingly bottomless well of losers and misfits he embraces) really shows a different side of humor that doesn’t take itself so seriously or cares about making a statement. Nearly every character he played this episode represented either a laid back guy who was in on the joke (Sandler Family Reunion, Rectix, Opera Man) or an oddball/loser who is completely humble in his approach (War Zone Reporter, Romano Tours, Last Call).

There was a time when this style of humor dominated comedy (I’d say from about the mid 90’s to the late 00’s, when Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, and Will Ferrell dominated box offices), but has since taken a back seat to the Tim & Eric’s and Daily Show’s of the world, where deliberately ironic and preachy political tomes rule the day. I feel as though in the current political and cultural climate, where it is seemingly toxic to talk about any group of people (through both the left eating itself and Republicans learning how to claim victimhood), Sandler’s style of deliberately goofy and dada-adjacent humor is ripe for a comeback. After watching a season where SNL tries to have it both ways in their humor, it would certainly be a welcome relief.