Saturday Night Live (TV Series) Dave Chappelle/A Tribe Called Quest (2016) User Reviews

Dave Chappelle's Welcome Return

[Mucceroo · 9/10 · 20 November 2016]

I rarely write reviews on here, but I think this episode needs a positive review to replace the negative four-star review.

Dave Chappelle hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time and brought a lot of his trademark humor from his classic sketch comedy show, Chappelle's Show, to his hosting gig. I was worried Dave would be under-utilized like some other hosts, but this was not the case: The show served him very well. Chappelle opened with a monologue that I suspect was lifted from or at least very inspired by his recent standup routines, but it was funny and big-hearted at the same time. It was great to see a sketch that packed a ton of Chappelle's Show references into it (Walking Dead sketch), as well as another sketch that thoroughly broke the fourth wall in a similar way to many of Chappelle's classic sketches (Jheri's Place).

Add in an absolutely excellent Weekend Update (with some of the best jokes I've heard from Colin and Michael) and an absolutely absurd ten-to-one sketch, and you have an all-around excellent episode on par with Larry David's episode from last year, another great first- time hosting gig.

Hey Alec....why were you a no show for this episode which aired after the successful campaign of President Elect Donald Trump?

[Ed-Shullivan · 4/10 · 13 November 2016]

So much for democracy and comedy on SNL aligning to bring their audience humorous insight in to what is the "reality of the peoples will" in this the 2016 USA election that commenced on the evening of November 08th, 2016 and was eventually realized by the voters in the early morning hours of the next day.

For anyone who was asleep this past week the next president of the USA was decided and the electoral vote was decided and went in favor of the Republican candidate Donald Trump. Over the past several episodes of SNL, Alec Baldwin has been portraying Donald Trump against the Emmy winning prime time regular Kate McKinnon who portrays the Democratic representative Hillary Trump.

I was so looking forward to what I thought would be the possibility of one of the all time SNL greatest episodes over the past 42 seasons because of the endless supply of comedy skits that could have been presented by the win by Republican President Elect Donald Trump, and the resounding loss of not only Democrat Representative Hillary Trump, but by the Republican party also controlling both the House and Senate. Heck, this was a perfect opportunity for the SNL writers to redeem themselves and come up with a show that makes fun of the overwhelming failure of all the news stations, national polls, and more importantly make fun of the SNL cast themselves because of the bias they showed towards Donald Trump the past two months.

I can imagine three skits myself that would have been hilarious such as the following:

Skit 1. Hillary finally holding her first open forum press conference in which she answers the questions she has been avoiding the past year.

Skit 2. Donald announcing the members of his cabinet played by various SNL regulars.

Skit 3. Donald and Melania moving into the White House and finding Barcak and Michelle refusing to move out...as well as Hillary and Bill already had moved their furniture in to the White House.

The list of skits were endless that SNL could have used to make this a great episode, but instead Alec Baldwin who has been portraying a very negative and pouty-looking Donald Trump the past two months leading up to election night was a no show.

Instead, the show opened with Kate McKinnon resembling a very sombre looking Hillary Clinton alone on stage playing the piano, to the recently deceased Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah. Now that was by no means a funny scene but more of SNL's left leaning political stance rearing its bias to the bitter end.

Guest host was Dave Chapelle whose opening monologue had a few good one-liners that referenced the surprising election results. Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock were in one skit which took place on the evening of the U.S. elections, and this skit compared how there were these two black guys listening to all their so-called white friends looking forward to celebrating the victory of their first Democratic female white president. Instead, as the election results steadily streamed in and so did their reality that Donald Trump was going to be their President Elect these white friends were displaying their own racist image by asking what happened to the black and Latino vote for Hillary? The continued non-surprise looks on the faces of Dave Chapelle and Chris Rock after being subjected to this type of racism their entire lives just did not tweek my funny bone.

In summary, I can only surmise that Alec Baldwin may have been a no- show on this episode because the producers would not allow him to display his continued brand of pouty-looking humor as the "winner and President Elect" which would mean they would have to admit that the Democrats were not adequately represented by Hillary Clinton even with the prime time Emmy winning Kate McKinnon playing the losing Hillary. So maybe the SNL producers instead of opening this episode should have closed this episode with Kate McKinnon singing recently deceased Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah.