A Very GOOPy SNL

I'm always late and sporadic with these things. But doesn't that give Becklectic a shot of unpredictability? And people love it when they can't predict things. I know in advance that I always do!

GWYNETH + CEE-LO WILL NEVER "FORGET YOU"
This Saturday Gwyneth Paltrow hosted SNL and almost all my notes end in "totally funny and worth it." Ok, that's it, that's the recap.

ONLY I'M JUST KIDDING! Unpredictability.

The show opened with a Greta Van Susteren spoof with James Carville making it hard for a few Conservatives to maintain a level-headed convo. That darn James Carville. The Cajun Clown! After that Gwyneth, Kenny Rogers, and Cee-Lo sang "Islands in the Stream" together, which is easily my favorite Dolly Parton duet. Everyday this week I've had it stuck in my head and that is not a complaint. Happy birthday yesterday Dolly!

The first sketch after Gwyn's monologue was "Secret Word," starring GP herself and who else but Kristen Wiig. My favorite part was Gwyneth incorrectly assuming that her partner was her "game butler." And with Kristen Wiig, I'd be lying if I didn't say I thought everything she did was really, really funny. But as I'm sure I've written before, I've noticed just how much she appears in sketches (a lot). But here's what I was thinking on Saturday: if you were an archer (go with me here) and you had ten pretty great arrows in your thingie but one of them always hit the bullseye, wouldn't you use that one a WHOLE LOT? I mean, other people in the tournament might be like "Hey, buddy, use other arrows why don't you?" and you'd have to deal with that, particularly if like, the judge says that. Which would be akin to...blog commenters? But they're so miserable. I have a great compromise: more Vanessa Bayer!!

The Digital Short: MY ULTIMATE PEE WEE HERMAN FANTASY. I get the feeling that maybe the way the Lonely Island guys come up with material for the shorts is by illustrating whatever their ultimate dreams are. To live large on a boat! To charmingly seduce your friend's mother! To punch people about to take a bite! These are dreams, and where better to store your dreams than in a short film that doesn't even use film.

Upcoming Guests: Oh my god oh my god oh my god Nicki Minaj is coming! All I've heard from her is (1) her part in Kanye's "Monster" and (2) what she said and did when she appeared on Ellen recently. I TOLD you Gaga would be important. To me it looks like this: Lady Gaga took everything we've seen before from female sex-symbol singers and subverted it into a new, playful-yet-high-concept, acknowledging-materialism-more-than-Madonna-really-ever-did genre. And Nicki Minaj is like the 2.0 version of that. She does CHARACTERS. She's INSANE. And she's COMING TO SNL.

Next came "Jacob's Rocking Bar Mitzvah," where tons of famous musicians came to sing Weird Al songs about Bar Mitzvot. My favorite part of this one was Gwyneth-as-Taylor Swift having to qualify "Jap" with "not like Japanese" because I'm forever having to do that even though at this point it's like, Look at me. I was born in the 80s, not the 30s. If I say "jap," it's literally 100% impossible that it's shorthand for a Japanese person. When you look at me, do you see Roger Sterling? Or do you see a half-Jew who is therefore half-allowed to poke fun at Jewish princesses? (PS interestingly enough, Gwyneth herself is half-Jewish. POINT PROVEN!)

"Recording Execs" had an inevitable and really straightforward game: in its world, "Forget You" is the unrated version of Cee-Lo's amazing single and they've got to figure out a less offensive option. Unfortunately I didn't write down any of the punchlines, but I remember feeling like this was such a simple idea that there was no way for it to be bad. And then it led into the musical act! There's nothing like an all-girl band. Really, nothing like it in the world. And these grrls weren't even rioting.

WEEKEND UPDATE UPDATE: The "I agree fully" Edition

• That's pretty right, it would've been more offensive if Sarah Palin actually knew what blood libel was.
• For real, you can't make taxes better by making them phone-accessible.
• Rent Is Too Damn High Jimmy McMillan came back:  "Do you have a platform yet?" "You mean, like where I sleep?" And he's all set to go back to Vietnam and finish what he started. I'm noticing something about Jimmy McMillan - what's up with the gloves? Are his hands disfigured? Is it just him knowing better than to leave fingerprints everywhere? What's up?...with that!
• "Keep looking, the guy with the pet skunk definitely has weed."
• Don't actually try to do a Cher impression or anything, Bill Hader. He visited because Chaz Bono is hitting the news again. This bodes well for my Modern Family spec. 
• Garth & Kat: They were in Harrisburg so they couldn't get ready for their gig, but on the flip side they keep calling Seth "sir." I don't care how many times they do it. Trying to sing or talk the same words as someone else is no-fail hilarious,even if only to the people doing it.

The rest of the night was blurry because it was Saturday after all and I try to have fun at least one day a week. But here's what I can remember (you see, my notes are all nonsense words and exclamation points from this point on so they're useless):

Shakespeare Coming Attractions. Again with the really straightforward, successful games. NICE. And interestingly enough I was thinking about the Dust Bowl yesterday for some reason and was hoping that the next movie that comes out about it will have the tagline "It's about to get DUSTAY!"

Fresh Prince. This was a great way to start sneaking the new guy's impersonation talent into sketches that are also about things. Most of the jokes I remember are spot-on Will Smithisms like "Arooo?!" and "HuhHA!" and "Cha Ching!" I was wondering how they were going to get Goop on there since Hillary Banks was the only real option and that would've been like "AROO??!"

ESPN Deportes. This was another simple idea but what was really interesting about it was how great everyone's accent and speed were. With this talent they could easily do one of those sketches someday where somebody just goes off in Spanish and everyone else is like "duhhh whatttt?" On second thought that might not be a particularly strong sketch idea.

Spitzner needs a new partner! Gwyneth Paltrow did look a lot like Heidi Klum. And Paterson does need a new job. And with that, all loose ends are tied and we can finally go safely to bed. WHICH I DID!