‘SNL’ Recap: ‘Grouch’ Is The Gritty Sesame Street ‘Joker’ Parody You Didn’t Know You Needed

HOST: David Harbour
MUSICAL GUEST: Camilla Cabello
EPISODE: SNL Season 45, Episode 3
DATE: October 12, 2019

BIG PICTURE: This week’s perfectly fine SNL didn’t quite have the spark of last week’s episode, but was still considerably funnier than the season premiere. Stranger Things star David Harbour proved a worthwhile host, pouring himself into every sketch, and Pete Davidson returned, taking on STDs at the Update desk.

The political cold open looked at the recent LGBT-themed Democratic debate, and wisely didn’t attempt to represent every candidate, giving the sketch room to breathe Given the topic, Alex Moffat’s Anderson Cooper received assistance in moderating the debate from special guest Billy Porter. Colin Jost returned as Pete Buttigieg, saying “There’s no wrong way to be gay, unless you’re Ellen this week.” Kate McKinnon brought her Elizabeth Warren, telling the crowd, “I’m not a lesbian, but all the ingredients are there,” then did a flat-out roast of homophobes, saying, “If someone doesn’t wanna serve gay people at their small business, I bet that’s not the only thing that’s small.” Woody Harrelson returned as Joe Biden, getting a little too aggressive and Bideny in trying to win over the gay audience, asking Bowen Yang, playing a voter, “If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?” Lin Manuel Miranda also appeared as Julian Castro, saying, “As a Democrat, I want to apologize for not being gay.”

MONOLOGUE/HOST: Harbour talked in his monologue about his role on Stranger Things, saying he loved working with the kids, even though they were “all going through puberty at the same time,” but noting that he wants to be seen doing other things as an actor. Preferring to do a monologue where he walks around the studio and banters with the cast instead of just talking about his show, he starts to walk backstage, but is immediately confronted with the Upside Down, where he finds Lorne Michaels working as a page and Kenan Thompson in charge of the show. A few laughs here, but this just petered out.

Harbour had a solid outing as host, playing a goateed folk singer in a trio with a song that relays mundane confessions of everyday life , a dad in a commercial parody who can only talk to his son when pretending they’re hosting a podcast together, and an Italian grandmother to McKinnon’s overly randy grandad, a sketch made funnier by their significant height difference (see above). McKinnon here dropped lines like, “Sometimes when you get angry at me, you make my thing work again” in front of their disgusted grandkids, and Harbour finally broke when McKinnon put her sauce-filled finger in his mouth.

NOTABLE SKETCHES/PERFORMANCES: In addition to the cold open, the highlight for me was a commercial parody of Joker, but instead, it was Oscar the Grouch’s origin story, with Harbour as the garbageman turned Grouch. From “Todd Phillips and the writer of P is for Potty,” this gritty version of Sesame Street, also from DC Comics and “the twisted minds at Sesame Workshop,” gave us Ernie (Mikey Day) stabbed in the street as Bert (Moffat) wails in horror; Snuffleupagus, played by Thompson, as a pimp; the Count (Beck Bennett) as a pill addict and Big Bird (Heidi Gardner) as a peep show dancer. Also, Elmo (Melissa Villasenor) is seen being taken away in handcuffs for selling crack. Grouch is the dark twisted movie I didn’t know I needed.

WEEKEND UPDATE: Colin Jost and Michael Che had some fun with the mugshots of the two Ukrainian Rudy Giuliani associates who were arrested this week. Che said the two men “look like they use vodka as cologne” and “have definitely worn track suits to their daughters’ wedding.” Jost spoke of how the president justified abandoning our Kurdish allies this week because he said they didn’t help us in World War II. “Though with World War II,” he said, “it’s kinda hard to know who Trump means by ‘us.'”

Gardner brought her frighteningly realistic awkward teenager Bailey Gismert back to the desk, supposedly to review movies, but really to shrink in embarrassment at her every opinion and life event. The movie Judy seems thirsty, she thought, saying, “I’m in jazz choir too, but I didn’t make a whole movie about it.” Also, she has a crush on the Joker, who she will only refer to as Arthur. When Che accuses her of liking him, she replies, “I don’t like him. I just think I could help him.”

Pete Davidson also returned to the desk to discuss the rise in sexually transmitted diseases due to dating apps. “I get STD-tested regularly because I look like I have all of them, and might have created my own.” Another solid line: “Does everything in my generation have to be a reboot? The clap and Rambo came back in the same year, and neither of them were wanted.”

THE 10 TO 1 SLOT: Cecily Strong played a Judge Judy-type in “Dog Court,” held in the dog park on 110th and Amsterdam and featuring an all-dog jury. As McKinnon accused Harbour’s dog of pulling too hard on her shirt, revealing her breasts, Strong dropped lines like, “It’s a courtroom, not a kennel!” When a dog wearing glasses looked over at McKinnon, Strong admonished him to “put your lipstick back in your holster.” By the end, a dog Strong was holding went a bit nuts and climbed all over her face, leading Strong to break.

NEXT EPISODE: SNL returns on October 26 with host and musical guest Chance the Rapper.

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.

Stream all the clips from the David Harbour-hosted episode of SNL on YouTube