Bill Burr Tackles Cancel Culture For His ‘SNL’ Debut, While ‘The Fly’ Has Jim Carrey Bidin’ His Best Jeff Goldblum

Last week felt like an exercise in futility, as Saturday Night Live went through the motions of producing and critiquing a sketch comedy show as if the real-life events of the preceding 24 hours weren’t more ridiculous than anything they already had prepped for broadcast.

This week, we needn’t worry about such nonsense, need we? Shhh, we’ll get to Morgan Wallen in a moment. But first, a casual observation: What did President Trump’s rally Saturday afternoon from his White House balcony have in common with SNL‘s taping? They both had to pay their audiences! Jokes. What, you’re going to cancel me, now? That reminds me of a running theme we’re about to all explore together…

What’s The Deal With The SNL Cold Open for 10/10/20?

Last week’s season premiere opened with an interminably long 14-minute cold open about the first (and perhaps only) presidential debate between President Trump and former Vice President Biden, and everybody knew the first and definitely only VP debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris would kick off this episode. Only suckers would bet against SNL swatting at that fly on Pence’s head, but what about his pink eye?

As the episode’s voiceover intro set up the premise that the debates would change absolutely nobody’s minds politically, it’s also fair to say that the SNL parody of the debate wouldn’t win anyone over on the show’s approach to satire who wasn’t already on board. When Tiny Fey first parroted Sarah Palin’s actual speech and interview transcripts in 2008, it was fresh and funny. Twelve years later, this particular SNL tactic has worn out its welcome and then some. And yet.

With Kate McKinnon version of moderator Susan Page having even less to do than Page herself, and Pence’s dullness (which may work strategically well in debates and interviews, but also provided little wiggle room for Beck Bennett comedically) killing the mood, it’s left to Maya Rudolph’s facial expressions to carry the sketch. Especially after the writers made only one attempt to heighten the actual political discourse, yes-and-ing Sen. Harris’s line asking if we kept calm when we had to buy toilet paper. But eight minutes in, they cut to Jim Carrey as Biden, watching from home (with Heidi Gardner as Jill Biden), and wanting to teleport into the debate. Did someone say cue the teleport chamber scene from Jeff Goldblum’s 1986 movie, The Fly? Carrey dropped whatever Biden impersonation we think he thinks he’s doing to spoof Goldblum instead, and before I could begin to tell you my theory on SNL‘s advertorial content, Kenan Thompson is forced to show up as the late Herman Cain reincarnated as a second fly on Pence’s head, and suddenly we’re all doubly glad there might not be any more debates this election season to sit through or try to parody.

How Did The ‘SNL’ Guest Host Bill Burr Do?

Stand-up comedians generally shine on SNL thanks to not needing the writers to craft them a monologue, but 2020 has made even the best stand-ups rusty, as we all saw with Chris Rock last week. Certainly Bill Burr would be ready, right? Then again, he’s a first-timer on SNL, so everything is new to him, whether or not 30 Rock was on lockdown.

My Twitter feed served up an extremely split decision on Burr, reminding me that even a comedian who has sold out Madison Square Garden, released four Netflix specials, acted on both Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian, as well as being lauded for his turn as a firefighter in Pete Davidson’s movie, The King of Staten Island, can somehow still be unknown to many viewers who aren’t voraciously consuming pop culture. Burr’s monologue opened with a play on one of his most consistent premises over the past decade, as he dreamed about thinning the herd to prevent overpopulation for years before COVID-19 came along. So you not wearing a mask only helps him. He also used the sucker-punching of Rick Moranis as a literal punchline to boast: “New York is back, baby!” with the city reclaiming its grittiness to balance out the M&M store replacing seedy porn houses of Times Square.

Where Burr started to lose the social media followers he never had in the first place came after he joked about cancel culture going after the likes of John Wayne now, saying “God did that 40 years ago” and that anyone born in Wayne’s era espoused uncomfortable opinions about race and religion. With a pause to note the silence in the studio, and a “Plowing ahead!” reference for fans of his Monday Morning Podcast, Burr pivoted to mock white women, claiming they had “hijacked the woke movement” and told them to “shut up, sit down next to me and take your talking to” for cooperating in racial injustices over the centuries. Comedians in my feed loved it. White women, not so much. Burr certainly was attempting to thread a needle here, needling not just women for co-opting social justice from Black Americans, but then by trying to make the same case against the LGBTQ+ community. Maybe saying you’re 52 and had never heard of Gay Pride month before 2019 despite having performed stand-up in Greenwich Village throughout the 1990s and 2000s, just maybe that might not help an audience listen to what you have to say next on the subject. Even if your subsequent points have any humorous validity to them. Not that anyone will actually cancel Burr over any of this, because they won’t.

That said, every live sketch Burr appeared in dealt with the idea of being reprimanded for not staying current with language and cultural norms. Since the SNL guest host usually has more sway than most people outside of Lorne Michaels in what sketches make it to air, cancel culture was something the show and Burr really wanted to call out this week.

Burr played one-half of a couple (with McKinnon) who, in their first gathering with friends out of quarantine, have their friends correcting them for their misheard terminology, whether they said “unpresidented” instead of unprecedented, or “Noon normal” instead of new normal. In a following sketch, Burr played a TV sports commentator so caught up in his winning bet on the Bears-Bucs game from Thursday night that he’s not up to speed on the most recent Black man killed by police, and how torn up his Black co-hosts are about it. And late in the episode, Burr played the head of an Italian crime family whose lieutenants chastise him for describing the ethnicity of the criminals who have taken over their turf, for calling them a bunch of “queers” over that, and for questioning the addition of a “Black chick” to the family (played by newbie Punkie Johnson). Somehow, #MafiaSoWhite made it onto the show a week after a W.A.P. “Woman As President” joke. I really think Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip was ahead of its time, and 30 Rock was behind it sometimes.

How Relevant Was The Musical Guest?

Morgan Wallen was so relevant, he partied his way out of the gig this weekend by drunkenly kissing coeds in Alabama last weekend.

Insert hero substitute musical Jack White. Fun fact: White’s record label, Third Man Records, has put out a Burr stand-up comedy album on vinyl.

White’s trio may not have included Meg White on drums, but his first performance medley included a cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s 1928 recording “Jesus is Coming Soon” — a song about the pandemic of 1918-1920, with lyrics such as “Great disease was mighty and the people were sick everywhere. It was an epidemic, it floated through the air. Well, we done told you, our God’s done warned you, Jesus coming soon.”

And for his second song, “Lazaretto,” White deployed a customized Eddie Van Halen guitar in tribute to Van Halen, who died this past week at age 65.

View this post on Instagram

i thought it could be a nice gesture for me to use this blue eddie van halen model guitar for one of the songs tonight on SNL. the guitar was designed by eddie (with a few customizations i had added). eddie was very kind to me and saw to it that this guitar was made for me to my specs. i wont even insult the man’s talent by trying to play one of his songs tonight. thanks again eddie for this guitar and rest in peace sir.

A post shared by Jack White Live (@officialjackwhitelive) on Oct 10, 2020 at 1:03pm PDT

Which Sketch Will We Be Sharing?

Undoubtedly, “wenowdis” is entering the lexicon at least for the Twitterati, if not also for people off the socials, once they get a load of McKinnon’s latest character, cooked up especially for her own mental health. Her medical expert, Dr. Wayne Wenowdis, dropped by the Weekend Update desk to talk presumably about Trump’s recovery from COVID-19. But not really. She mostly threw around a bunch of “we know dis” answers before adding a “why do dis” or “he do dis” here and there, and finally cracking up Colin Jost before she, too, ultimately cracked.

Jost giggled uncomfortably, almost as if McKinnon had gone off script, even breaking the fourth wall to ask: “Kate. Kate. Are you OK?” To which she chortled, and replied: “I’m obviously not.”

“This is such a crazy time,” she told us all, and confessed that she was playing with her wigs and accents and came up with this doctor to put herself at ease, since she has no idea what’ll happen with the election, the pandemic, or anything else for that matter. Ultimately, this was all pretty much scripted, as even Michael Che shook his head in disbelief afterward. But it certainly got our attention, didn’t it?

Who (Else) Stopped By Weekend Update?

In addition to McKinnon, Pete Davidson stopped by Update for another chance to deliver commentary as himself. But first, he also provided a timely update on his own status, considering Saturday was World Mental Health Day. “We out here and we crazy. Go Giants! Season starts tomorrow!” he said of his New York NFL team, currently 0-4.

But that’s not why SNL gave Davidson screen time, was it? No, no. Speaking of cancel culture, Davidson wanted to let us know to count him among the many Harry Potter fans disappointed in author J.K. Rowling for her history of transphobic comments.

What Sketch Filled The “10-to-1” Slot?

It was no Casey Affleck Dunkin’ Donuts, but Bill Burr’s Bostonian representation for Sam Adams beer was a spiritual sequel to Affleck’s instant classic 2016 Dunkin ad for SNL, with Burr as “Real Bostonian Sean S.” being the lone local to spit out the brewery’s pumpkin ale. I do want to know more about his character’s backstory, though. I bet he exists in the same TV universe with the guy who plays “your cousin from Boston” in the actual Sam Adams ads.

Who Was The Episode’s MVP?

Bennett may have racked up the most screen time of any cast member this Saturday night (from playing Pence in the cold open to his own starring video about a wannabe IG star to multiple supporting roles), but McKinnon’s fourth-wall breaking on Update proved that she remains the show-stopping star of this show for now.

Next week, Issa Rae hosts with musical guest Justin Bieber!

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch SNL Season 46 Episode 2 on YouTube