overnights

Saturday Night Live Recap: Jonah Hill Does Great Self-Parody and Bad Enunciation

Saturday Night Live

Jonah Hill/The Shins
Season 37 Episode 17

Saturday Night Live

Jonah Hill/The Shins
Season 37 Episode 17
The Jonah Hill Oscar that almost was. Photo: NBC

In some respects, Jonah Hill is the perfect SNL host: Through Judd Apatow, he’s worked with some of the best comedic minds of our time. Because of his role in Funny People, he’s had experience performing comedy live on stage. And because he’s hosted before, he presumably wouldn’t be too nervous, and one imagines he’d be up for just about anything. So given all his strengths, why was his second SNL appearance so blah? Here are the episode’s highs and lows.

Best Self-Parody:
I had predicted that the monologue would acknowledge Hill’s recent Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Moneyball. This take on it isn’t what I would have guessed, however, and it’s pretty great.

Best Recurring Character:
In his first SNL appearance, Hill originated the character of Adam Grossman, a six-year-old boy with the soul of a sixty-year-old Catskills comedian. Last night, Adam returned to Benihana.

Best Meta-Acknowledgement Of A Rumored Dis:
When Tina Fey, who wrote Lindsay Lohan’s film Mean Girls, failed to appear last week in Lohan’s attempted comeback episode, rumor had it that she made up some sick kids in order not to seem like she was endorsing Lohan. Was the rumor the inspiration for Andy Samberg’s intentionally terrible Sarah Palin impression? Let’s say maybe.

Worst Recurring Sketch:
I don’t actually have a problem with the J-Pop talk show (particularly Jason Sudeikis as a disgusted advisor). But Hill’s choice to mumble through his performance made his dialogue impossible to understand.

Worst Use Of Relentless Repetition:
I love a character getting hit in the nuts. We ALL do. I never would have guessed that a comedy sketch could go to the nut-strike well too much, but his week’s Digital Short was a real education for me.

Second Worst Use Of Relentless Repetition:
JUST TURN IT OFF.

Saturday Night Live Recap: Jonah Hill Does Great Self-Parody and Bad Enunciation