Nate Bargatze Lays Down The Laughs In Saturday Night Live's Decent Halloween Episode
While the kids were soaking up scares and beefing up the box office with "Five Nights at Freddy's" this weekend, stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze brought the laughs over at "Saturday Night Live." Of course, the viewers who found their way over to "SNL" for the first time in awhile because of Bargatze's presence may have been put off by the show's absolutely terrible cold open (more on that later). Hopefully, Bargatze was enough of a draw to keep them around, so they could see the comedian step into the sketch comedy realm with moderate success.
As with almost every episode of "SNL," there were some absolutely fantastic sketches, some fairly average sketches, and at least one awful sketch (it's that cold open). But with Bargatze's stand-up routines known for having a dry, laidback demeanor, I was interested in seeing how Bargatze would be woven into the show. Not unlike the Bad Bunny episode, the writers made great use of Bargatze's naturally wry personality and sense of humor throughout the Halloween episode. That means there wasn't a lot of variation for Bargatze's character work, but it did allow him to fit into a variety of original sketches pretty easily. Plus, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and beloved "SNL" host and guest star Christopher Walken showed up for some sketch fun too.
So let's dig into the Nate Bargatze episode of "Saturday Night Live."
What was the best sketch of the night?
After pre-recorded sketches topped the Pete Davidson and Bad Bunny episodes the past two weeks, this time a live sketch was my favorite. Nate Bargatze plays George Washington, leading his men in the Revolutionary War in 1777. While making camp, Washington gives a stirring speech to remind everyone what they're fighting for: choosing their own laws, choosing their own leaders, and choosing their own system of weights and measures.
But Washington's dream focuses especially on the United States' totally unnecessary use of the imperial system of measurement rather than the metric system. Speaking in a commanding tone, even when filled with uncertainty or complete ignorance, Bargatze's speech hilariously calls attention to all the inconsistencies and nonsensical nature of the imperial measurement system, such as measuring some liquids in gallons, pints, and quarts, while others are measured in liters and milliliters.
It's not just jokes about the measurement system either, as Kenan Thompson tries to get Washington to address the Black Americans and the unjust system of slavery, to which Washington continues talking about inches, feet, and yards.
Though Bargatze isn't really doing an impression of Washington, and instead speaks in his own voice with a slightly inflated sense of confidence, the sketch is a home run, and it feels right at home with the comedian's brand of comedy.
How was the rest of the episode?
Not far behind, we have the second best sketch of the night, in the form of a music video for a faux country song called "Lake Beach." James Austin Johnson, Andrew Dismukes, and Nate Bargatze play the band singing the song that's all about the fun had at lake beaches. The song takes a cue from all those country music party songs that talk about fishing and drinking beers, but pokes fun at the more unsavory traits of these so-called beaches next to lakes and the parties that happen at them, such as loaded diapers and tons of leaves in the lake. As someone who grew up in a small Northwest Indiana town with more than a few lake beaches, I can tell you that this song is painfully accurate, right down to Dave Grohl's competitive uncle getting upset at his nephew not knowing the rules of cornhole.
Fun fact: This sketch was actually inspired by a bit in James Austin Johnson's stand-up routine, where he mocks lake beaches and pop country party songs, but this is a much more polished version of the bit that works a bit better.
If there's one sketch that made the best use of Nate Bargatze's voice in a refreshing way, it's this chef show parody. You might be wondering if "Chef Showdown" is a real series, especially when "Taste the Nation" creator Padma Lakshmi showed up (a person I was completely unaware of until she appeared here), but it's just a riff on the myriad of cooking competition shows out there. The sketch finds the show's Black judges (Kenan Thompson and Punkie Johnson) assuming the Black contestant on the show (Ego Nwodim) delivered the best soul food dish, while the white guy (Bargatze) cooked up some highfalutin variation on the culinary staples. But they quickly learn that it's the white guy who crushed the competition, and while the judges are confused and disappointed, the chef in question couldn't be more apologetic about it at every turn. Kenan also has a great, potentially improvised bit where he flips the bad plate onto the ground, and it makes Heidi Gardner break. Good stuff!
Please Don't Destroy wasn't quite as strong as the previous two episodes, but their "Dawg Food" bit was decent. It's kinda the same joke over and over again, so it wears out its welcome a little too quickly, even for a two minute sketch, but there are a few amusing asides in there to pad it out. These guys have long been known for their fast-paced, shorter sketch bits, so this is still right up their alley, but I think it could have used some more time in the oven.
Finally, covering the rest of the sketches, there were three that pretty much went right down the middle of the road and didn't quite make the best use of their premises. "Airplane" featured an amusing conversation with plane passengers trying to figure out what the second best job is after doctor when a woman suddenly goes into labor on a flight, but an abrupt cameo from Dave Grohl at the end made for an awkward conclusion. "Trick or Treat with Fran Drescher" also had some chuckle-worthy ideas, but never quite reached laugh-out-loud levels. And finally, "Hallmark Horror" made a clever mash-up of Hallmark holiday romantic comedies with horror movies, but it could have used another pass on the script.
Not even Christopher Walken could save Mikey Day's debut as Joe Biden
Last week, my "SNL" review ended with a bit of a diatribe about how 90% of the political cold open sketches on "SNL" are awful, and at the very least, they should not be opening the show. Obviously, no one at "SNL" listened, as they provided more fuel for my hate fire.
In a sketch where it's hard to find the punchlines, Mikey Day made his debut as President Joe Biden. As good as Day is on "SNL," his Biden impression is easily the worst the sketch show has ever seen. James Austin Johnson previously played Biden, in addition to his stellar Donald Trump impression, so why change over to Mikey Day? They're likely anticipating that Trump will be involved with the presidential campaign scene for election season, and they probably want to get viewers used to Day as Biden so they don't have to do any trickery to have Johnson play both Trump and Biden. Unfortunately, that means we get this crappy version of Biden that basically sounds like Dana Carvey's impersonation of Mickey Rooney.
But beyond Day's disappointing impression of Biden, the driving force of this sketch is that Biden is old. Sure, that's a reliable source of humor when mocking Biden, but when compared to the plethora of other political ongoings that could be mined for comedy, this is undoubtedly the weakest. Admittedly, the bits about the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, were all right. But if you need any more evidence of how bad this sketch was overall, not even a surprise appearance by Christopher Walken as "Papa Pumpkin" could save it. Strangely, Walken sounds like he's trying to do an impression of himself, and while it's amusing to hear him recite "trick or treat, smell my feet," it felt like too little too late. But at least the in-studio audience enjoyed Walken's appearance.
How was Nate Bargatze as an SNL host?
Since Nate Bargatze is a stand-up comic who is selling out arenas across the country, he was given extra time at the top of the show for his monologue. Bargatze did nearly 10 minutes of stand-up, something that's become customary when comedians host the show, such as John Mulaney or Dave Chappelle. If you weren't acquainted with Bargatze's brand of comedy, hopefully you are now, and you'll seek out his stand-up specials streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. This was a great assembly of jokes from Bargatze, and it was all new material that isn't in any of his previous specials.
But how was Bargatze when it came to the sketch comedy? When it comes to playing characters, Bargatze doesn't have much range. Much of the comedy comes from how he dryly delivers lines, often as the straight man in the sketches. Only the "Hallmark Horror" sketch saw him doing something slightly different, but not dramatically. Honestly, I wish Bargatze would have surprised us all with some wild characters that we'd never expect, but the closest we can was seeing him partying it up with Andrew Dismukes and James Austin Johnson in "Lake Beach." However, Bargatze still managed to be rather funny, and the way he was written into sketches worked pretty well.
That's all for this week's episode, but we'll be back after the November 11 episode, which will be hosted by "Dune" and "Wonka" star Timothée Chalamet. For more on "SNL," be sure to check out "The Ten to One Podcast" wherever podcasts are available.