{greener}

So I almost lost hope when January Jones, who was so clearly nervous/unfunny that they barely used her, hosted “Saturday Night Live” 2 weeks back.  And I was a little apprehensive when Joseph Gordon-Levitt took the stage, launching his monologue as if he was on at least three different uppers…until about 40 seconds into the song-and-dance number he did.

His zealous schitck played nicely into the whole musical comedy thing he was going for.  And he gets bonus points for the back flips off the walls.  NBD.

This episode had three major strikes against it in my book:

1. Dave Matthews

I don’t even feel like I have to explain this.

2. What Up With Dat?

I hate this bit.  It’s like the writers never thought about how to deal with the problem of writing an annoying character without annoying the audience.

3. Al Gore

Regardless of how much you care about global warming, it’s NOT NARRATIVE ENTERTAINMENT.  It’s not even docu-tainment.  Did you see “An Inconvenient Truth?”  It was a power-point presentation. A POWER-POINT.  I will have an Oscar someday.

And with all of that, the show still managed to be one of my favorites, largely due to THIS.

They managed to endear Dave Matthews by not only poking fun at him, but getting him to declare his own voice makes him want to throw up in his hands.  Fantastic.

Also, how great is JGL’s Jason Mraz voice?

Also, how great is it when Andy Sandberg almost starts laughing?

Also, frosty horchata.