Because the talented Anna Kendrick first starred on Broadway, they made sure her hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live“ was filled with song — with no less than four musical numbers and a dance sketch.
Her monologue about being excited to host was lifted from “Belle” in “Beauty and the Beast.” A costume heavy sketch later was a parody of another Disney musical, “The Little Mermaid” (in a bit in which Ariel can’t really sing but performs in the annoying voice of Ke$ha, Britney Spears or Iggy Azalea).
Kendrick was one of several women enlisted to sing one of the dimmest songs in recent SNL history, “Dongs.” As if that word for penises was funny enough to inspire a single laugh let alone sustain a sketch that briefly featured Icona Pop.
A scene late in the show had her teaming with Vanessa Bayer for a sister act singing “Take Me or Leave Me” from “Rent” in order to audition for Pharrell Williams, the actual musical guest on the show (who only got to sing two songs by comparison).
The dance bit was a revival of the wordless French TV jukebox dance show “Les Jeunes de Paris.” They couldn’t squeeze too much new out of that piece, which has been done at least twice before. But at least she could briefly refer to her “Cups” act from “Pitch Perfect” by breaking some coffee cups.
It’s not that comedy writers had the week off. The show — second of three consecutive new episodes this spring — had some of the best material in weeks, it turned out.
The cold open of Kate McKinnon as the embattled General Motors CEO Mary Barra before a Congressional hearing, saying “We have to look into that” to just about every question including “When did you personally learn about the defect?” didn’t seem like it would work as well as it did, but it did. When she leans in to say “I don’t know what else to say but LIVE from..” Taran Killam’s Congressman character broke her off, admonished her, and eventually said the tagline himself.
It may have worked because of McKinnon, who commits fully to her characters and then turns the dial to make them even crazier than we’d think. That was the case when she returned during “Weekend Update” as German chancellor Angela Merkel, who in her German accent talked a little like Dieter from “Sprockets,” but she took that character to its loony extremes as well.
Every time SNL does its Fox & Friends bit is worth comedy gold, they have so nailed its three hosts and their inane Obama blaming and, in the case of Bobby Moynihan’s Brian Kilmeade, sublime idiocy (That Bayer plays Elisabeth Hasselbeck just as easily as she did her predecessor Gretchen Carlson served as sly commentary over interchangeable blondes on the network).
Saturday’s version used Kendrick briefly as a Obamacare complainer who, we learn, brought most of her problems herself. Most of the episode was given to Kenan Thompson as “Cosmos” host Neal DeGrasse Tyson (Moynihan’s Kilmeade complimented him on biting the ear off Evander Holyfield; but no, Killam’s Steve Doocy reminded him, that was a different Tyson).
The bit is so full of humor it’s capped by a long roll of “corrections” from the past hour, each one of them worth a laugh “Ukraine was not Fraiser’s brother on “Fraiser” waste “Game of Thrones” is not an adult version of musical chairs” was another.
Not every returning premise was so well executed. The school where Jay Pharoah plays an elderly principal making announcements went to a zoo where Kendrick was a volunteer didn’t pay off.
In another sketch whose purpose seemed to kill time, Killam played “Big Joe,” a guy in platform shoes who would be asked to use his strength to save people (ultimately he proved to weak to do much of anything). A fake ad for a March Madness video, “Best of the White Guys” seemed a little premature, considering how well Wisconsin was doing in the Final Four earlier in the night.
For all the singing by Kendrick, the performances of Williams were of note. First he was joined by a dozen and a half young dancers for his hit “Happy.” Later, he seemed to have turned them into string players for his second song “Marilyn Monroe” (no, of course it was an entirely different crew of young musicians).
Williams rocked a green version of the famous hat he’s worn since the Grammys; in the auditions sketch both Thompson and Killam mocked him with their own oversized mountie hat.
Next week, Seth Rogan hosts. And probably won’t sing.