'Wasn't That Special' Season 32 Bonus Materials
As the Wasn’t That Special co-hosts watch each season of Saturday Night Live, they compare notes on each episode, chatting back and forth about both popular and long-forgotten sketches. Some of the topics they discuss make it to the final podcast; others are left on the cutting-room floor.
But for those of you who join at the Executive Producer level, you will have access to Christian and Scot’s behind-the-scenes notes, as well as bonus materials the co-hosts used to prepare for the episode.
Below is the Season Thirty-Two bonus notes section, with the clips coming soon.
So please help keep the podcast advertisement-free and upgrade to the Executive Producer level, which will keep these emails coming in the future!
Episode One: Dane Cook
George W. Bush (Forte) campaigns for Republican comptroller of South Carolina (Sudeikis). Nobody wants him to campaign for them.
Christian: Single joke (that Bush is unpopular) stretched to full sketch length.
Scot: This is bad, bad, bad.
Dane Cook monologue - Negative people, how to tell when women are lying, people commit suicide, watching online videos.
Christian: Exactly as funny as I expected.
Scot: Cook accurately describes Debbie Downer to begin this act.
Poland Spring employees (Forte and Cook) caught stealing water
Christian: Wiig's deadpan makes this. Coda at the end was unnecessary, but still worked. A great sketch.
Scot: The water bottle version of Spelling Bee.
Farrah Fawcett (Poehler) does ad for environmental group, walks to next sketch
Christian: Very Monty Python-like to blend it with the sketch about to happen.
Scot: New director making his presence felt?
Whitney Houston (Rudolph) and regular guy (Samberg) do ad for Geico
Christian: Rudolph seems rejuvenated.
Episode Two: Jamie Pressly
Christian: The people who joined the show in the past year have commandeered the ship. And it just seems livelier.
Scot: Smaller cast but sketches seem more full. Wiig is just simmering, waiting to break out.
Dennis Hastert (Hammond) discusses the Mark Foley gay scandal
Christian: Prescient: Hastert says there are no more Republican pedos and we would later find out there was at least one: Dennis Hastert.
Scot: This is boring as all get-out.
Monologue: Pressly sings as the cast performs southern stereotypes.
Christian: Flashback to the Gabriel Byrne/Irish bit.
Nancy Grace (Poehler) on the Foley scandal - Samberg is a congressional page, Pressly is tech support, Kenan is janitor forced into interview for moving her chair
Christian: It's sort of meh but I liked the Kenan bit.
Scot: Only satirizing news shows, never prime time drama/comedy - Poehler pretty good here.
Jon Bovi - Sudeikis and Forte pitch their new band
Christian: A rare Forte groaner.
Scot: I can see how this might kill at table read but it's really flat live.
Hands on a Hard Body - Wiig interviews Pressly, contest winner, falls in love with her
Christian: Wiig is very good at this SNL thing.
Scot: Wiig spotlight piece.
The Nascarettes (and Randy) - keep getting hit by cars
Christian: Took a while to get going, but Wiig trying to dance and look for her earring on the track made me laugh.
A moment with the out-of-breath jogger from 1982
Scot: I believe Samberg auditioned with this bit.
Episode Three: John C. Reilly
Christian: Light on Hader and Wiig and it shows. Pretty poor effort with Ferrell in the building. Just collapses in the back half.
Scot: OK, so still not clear of an era where an episode can end up with the same value as the gum under your shoe.
Brit Hume (Hammond) interviews GWB (Forte)
Christian: We have to talk about Hammond. Why is he on the show at this point? He's just doing nondescript talking heads that they could get anyone on the cast to do.
Scot: The pacing in these Opens so far has been criminally bad.
Swimming instructor (Reilly) teaches Forte how to swim by strapping themselves together
Scot: Ron Burgundy in a pool - Fun fact: I was once suspended while serving as producer on a show on which a host repeated the punch line "If there's grass on the field, play ball."
Kim Jong Il (Poehler) television show
Christian: The rare Poehler misstep.
Scot: Everything about this is trying 10X too hard.
Girlfriends eating lunch at Mexican restaurant, Reilly tells tales of relationship troubles
Christian: The whole joke is that Reilly is dressed as a woman?
Scot: "I'm (not) Carol!!!" - This is absolute comedy death.
Operation Bearshark
Christian: The "explaining a bad sketch with a coda" is getting concerning. Write a sketch with an end.
Episode Four: High Laurie
Christian: Hugh Laurie has a long sketch history back in Britain (with his partner Stephen Fry) but it never really came through here.
Borat opens the show - a lot of recycled jokes from movie and Sacha Baron Cohen's TV show.
Christian: I mean, I love Borat, but...what is this doing on SNL?
Scot: Don't love Borat. Never did.
Laurie explains he is from England and what to expect from the show
Christian: Workmanlike, if not hilarious.
Scot: I've been watching old House stuff occasionally. Laurie really is brilliant in that. - Listen at 7:43; were they sweetening the applause? It shuts off immediately somehow.
Most Haunted - Laurie hosts a paranormal show - farts and his crew thinks it's a ghost
Christian: Been a while since a good fart sketch.
Scot: Good for a fart sketch!
Pamela Bell (Rudolph) sings national anthem at the World Series
Christian: I will defend this.
Scot: It's not awful and there's a certain skill in imitating all those styles. But, no, I did not like it.
Laurie - protest song
Christian: British comedians always come to SNL with bits they did in England because U.S. audiences had no way of seeing them over there.
Kenan in hospital, Laurie is his cross-dressing wife.
Christian: Finally I get to claim one for "never happening today."
Laurie and Armisen are impressed by Poehler's law firm job interview
Christian: The "ewww" they are doing is from Sanz's "Carol."