Saturday Night Live/Hugh Laurie/Beck

Hugh Laurie/Beck is the fourth episode of the thirty-second season of Saturday Night Live, and the six hundred and eleventh episode overall.

Guest Stars: Hugh Laurie (Host), Beck (Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat Sagdiyev), Ken Davitian (Azamat Bagatov), Jim Morris (George W. Bush), Robert Smigel (Dick Cheney)

Episode Breakdown

• Borat: Because of budget cutbacks at NBC, Lorne Michaels announces that the show has been forced to sell time to foreign governments in order to break even. He introduces a paid address from the Kazakhstan ministry of information. Famed "journalist" Borat Sagdiyev talks about how much they like SNL in his country and boasts about Kazakhstan's many industries and resources (like "human pubis"). He also promotes Kazakhstan's moviefilm industry, including his film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
• Hugh Laurie's Monologue: Laurie introduces himself and attempts to set himself apart from the character he plays on House, M.D. He tells the audience, whom he refers to as "sweet cheeks," that he's "daffodils" and a slew of other poetic images, including "the yelp of a puppy freed from the microwave." He also mentions that he's English, which is not just a language, and that they'll likely be getting humour (note the U) in the form of overly elaborate puns, bad teeth jokes, "by jove" and it will likely rain sometime during the show. He also mentions that he's on lithium.
• Most Haunted: In a parody of the Travel Channel series, Most Haunted, about paranormal ghost hunters, Derek Aucoin (Laurie) insists that he heard a child crying in Chillingham Castle. A team of ghost hunters including the host (Poehler), a sound man (Armisen) and a cameraman (Hader) investigate a noise they hear to a meticulous degree, which turns out to just be Derek breaking wind.
• TV Funhouse - Political Attack Ads: President George W. Bush comments on the negative attack ads that have been paid for by the Republican National Committee. He shows a real ad featuring shots of explosions and Osama Bin Laden, and then a series of fake Halloween themed ads involving a gay vampire Ted Kennedy making out with Osama and Barack Obama mimicking The Count from Sesame Street. Also shown is Hillary Clinton as an aborted fetus making out with her "mother" in front of trick-or-treaters.
• National Anthem: At game 5 of the World Series, Joe Buck (Sudeikis) and Tim McCarver (Hader) introduce the winner of a contest held by a local grocery store, who will be singing the national anthem. Pamela Bell (Rudolph) sings the anthem in a truly awful fashion.
• The Queen's Advance Man: Smythe Pennington (Laurie) meets with a representative (Wiig) from the hotel at which the Queen will be staying. They run through the normal requirements before Pennington goes into the more unusual items of the list. Among these requests are rubber sheets, bottles of vodka on every flat surface, a separate room of tiny furniture so that the Queen can pretend she's a giant, that all members of the staff should only make direct eye contact with her breasts, all television shows must be redubbed with British accents and hooks suspended from the ceiling.
• Hardball - Midterms 2006: On the recurring parody of Hardball with Chris Matthews, Chris Matthews interviews Ken Mehlman (Samberg), the Republican National Committee chairman, about how hopeless the Republicans must be in the face of several scandals and a nation that mostly hates them. He talks up a replacement candidate for a senator who turned out to be a wanted serial killer, John Wayne Gacy Jr. (the son of John Wayne Gacy). Matthews then talks to Howard Dean (Sudeikis), the Democratic National Committee chairman, who is riding high on the impressive poll number. Dean then challenges Mehlman to a fight.
• Protest Song: Hugh Laurie sings a protest song which originally appeared on A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
• Nausea: Beck song.
• Weekend Update
  • United States senate candidate Tim Calhoun (Forte) lays out a campaign speech which is marred by his poor timing and choices of words. He talks about his love of reading (illustrated child pornography studies), how he would like to know if Kim Jong-Il has a twin sister and his harsh 20-strike law against criminals.
  • A gay couple from New Jersey (Armisen and Hader) discusses what the new legislation which legalizes their partnership means for them. They mostly just exclaim "Oh!" a lot.
• Trust Your Physician: A man, Dallas Rivers (Thompson), in the hospital for a broken leg, and his masculine wife (Laurie) question the motives of a doctor (Forte) who attempts to treat his leg. A nurse (Rudolph) asks for his address and social security number but is denied by Rivers who assumes that being "in the system" would mean he would be tracked by the government. He tries to get up to leave but hurts himself and accepts medical care. Laurie then breaks the fourth wall to tell people to trust their physicians.
• Where's Frankenstein?: A mob of villagers with torches headed by Laurie attempt to destroy Frankenstein's monster (Hader). The monster sends them across the moor to Dracula (Sudeikis). Dracula tells them that Frankenstein was just messing with them and sends them back. Although Frankenstein's monster manages to convince them they he's not the monster one more time, one of his arms falls off and they beat him down. Other cast members in the lynch mob include Armisen, Poehler and Wiig.
• Clap Hands: Beck song.
• Job Interview: Rebecca (Poehler) is interviewed for a position at Linder & Bowles, a large law firm in Chicago. During the course of the interview, however Linder (Armisen) and Bowles (Laurie) make inappropriate "Ooh!" exclamations at whatever Rebecca tells them about herself. When she gets the job, Rebecca makes the sound but is fired immediately because the two think she is mocking them.

Notes

"Live from New York, It's Saturday Night!"

• Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev. He changes the usual quote to "Live from New York, home of the Jew, it's Saturday Night!"

Music

• All We Gotta' Do, performed by Hugh Laurie: The "protest song" that Laurie sings is a parody of musicians like Bob Dylan who have also performed similar tunes in protest of violence but wind up sounding incoherent. The song was originally performed on Laurie's British sketch series, A Bit of Fry and Laurie in the premiere episode of its fourth season.
  

  

  The puppet versions of Beck's band take a bow after "Clap Hands."

• Nausea, performed by Beck: "Nausea" is the first single from Beck's 2006 electronic/"hip-hop" album, The Information. The song peaked at #13 on the Billboard singles charts and was also often used as the opener for his 2006 tour. The band was accompanied by several marionettes on a separate smaller stage, which were first used during his performance at Bonnaroo in 2006.

• Clap Hands, performed by Beck: "Clap Hands" is a bonus track from the limited DVD release of Beck's previous album, Guero. The song is significantly different on the album, but the live performance mimics a style closer to how it is performed on tour than the electronic version. The dinner setting, percussion from the band and Beck's minimal guitar playing is pulled directly from the touring version. The puppets were also used for this song, including a miniature table on their "stage."

Trivia

The Show

• Haven't I Heard This Before?: The section of Hugh Laurie's monologue regarding the difference between British and American comedy bears a striking similarity to the monologue given by the first British hosts of SNL, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It is unclear whether this was a coincidence or a conscious homage to the beloved British comics.

Quotes

• Dean: Hey, Mehlman. You there?
  Mehlman: Yes?
  Dean: I want to fight you.
  Mehlman: What?!

• Mehlman: Chris, can you talk to him?
  Matthews: Howard, don't you think with these elections Ken's going to suffer enough?
  Dean: ... No. Not enough. He's got to fight me.