Saturday Night Live/Shia LaBeouf/Avril Lavigne

Shia LaBeouf/Avril Lavigne
Season 32, Episode 17
Airdate	April 14, 2007
Production Number	1488
Written by	Seth Meyers Andrew Steele Paula Pell (head writers) Doug Abeles James Anderson Alex Baze James Downey Charlie Grandy Steve Higgins Colin Jost Erik Kenward John Lutz Lorne Michaels Matt Murray Marika Sawyer Akiva Schaffer Robert Smigel John Solomon Emily Spivey Jorma Taccone Bryan Tucker
Directed by	Don Roy King
← 32x16 Peyton Manning/Carrie Underwood	32x18 → Scarlett Johansson/Björk
Saturday Night Live — Season Thirty-Two

Shia LaBeouf/Avril Lavigne is the seventeenth episode of the thirty-second season of Saturday Night Live, and the six hundred and twenty-fourth episode overall. It is the first appearance by host Shia LaBeouf and the third appearance by musical guest Avril Lavigne.

Guest Stars: Shia LaBeouf (Host), Avril Lavigne (Musical Guest)

Special Guest Star: Alec Baldwin (Leonidas Hathaway)

Episode Breakdown

• Wings of Hope: Rev. Jesse Jackson (Hammond) and Rev. Al Sharpton (Thompson) appear to shame disgraced radio host Don Imus once again and to announce that they are both still relevant. They respond to critics who say that racism is still existent in mass quantities in the music of rappers like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent by saying that a wave of fear will shoot through the industry now that a 66-year-old white man has lost his job. But, Imus is in luck, because the two have started the "Wings of Hope" Racist Rehabilitation Center to steer his life back on track. They promise to at least get his picture off BET's home page. They run through the steps of the program, including going on an "apology tour."
• Shia LeBeouf's Monologue: LeBeouf takes the viewers backstage to show that everyone is as excited about doing the show as he is, even though the cast and crew do this every week. But no one seems to be nearly as amped about doing the show as he is, including cue card guy Wally Feresten, Sudeikis, Thompson (who's smoking a cigarette in the hall), Hammond and lighting designer Phil Hyms. Poehler takes LeBeouf aside to tell him that he needs to chill and focus his energy on the show and that it's not "Disney shizz." Just when he's nearly entirely down and out, he goes through a couple of doors to find Wiig dressed as a Glinda the Good Witch. She beams about how happy she is to be playing the character and sends LeBeouf off to do the best show ever. When he runs off, Lorne Michaels appears and tells her that the Wizard of Oz sketch is cut.
• The Hathaway Mustache Ride Company: In Philadelphia, the board of directors (including Hader & Hammond) at Hathaway's Ladies' Tonic & Health Restorative gathered to hear a pitch from CEO Leonidas Hathaway (Baldwin), who proposes that instead of tonics, they offer free mustache rides. Today, the company is the sixth largest in the world and their modern offices are shown with a man (Meyers) aiding a customer (Wiig) in choosing a mustache (Forte) before she goes off with him and a nurse (Rudolph). Following this is a montage of people with elaborate mustaches (Sudeikis, Armisen, Samberg, Thompson) and the title card for the company.
• Prince Show - Tobey Maguire: Prince (Armisen) and Beyoncé Knowles (Rudolph) introduce Tobey Maguire (LaBeouf), who just complains about how bad his allergies are while Prince attempts to show him an impression of Spider-Man that he's been working on. Eventually, Maguire is told to stop whining and sit on a giant cupcake. The two bring out Nancy Grace (Poehler), who goes on at length about eating free shrimp and singing a Sheena Easton song, which scares Prince. She goes on to ask about Howard K. Stern, which Prince answers through his guitar while petals fall from the sky. Maguire complains about his hand swelling up and Prince takes that time to end the show.
• Buying Beer: Two obviously underage men (LaBeouf and Samberg) walk into a convenience store and talk loudly about how long they've been working at "the factory" and in "the office" in an attempt to fool the clerk (Thompson) into selling them a couple cases of beer. He asks for ID, but neither of them can come up with identification. They continue on with their elaborate ruse, but the shopkeep refuses to sell them beer. A man claiming to be ATF Agent Parker (Hader) enters to say that he passed the test that the ATF was running on the store. They try to buy the beer now, but he still won't give it up without ID. A "robber" (Forte) comes in to take Parker's wallet and declare that it is a valid ID for a 24 year old man. After all that, they wind up bribing the guy with $5 to get the beer.
• The Dakota Fanning Show: Child actor Dakota Fanning (Poehler) mocks her bandleader Reggie (Thompson) before introducing her first guests, Dylan Sprouse (Samberg) and Cole Sprouse (LaBeouf) from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. The Sprouse twins are completely unable to related with Fanning, who belittles them and throws them off the set after they talk about Charlotte's Web instead of listening to her talk about Hotel Rwanda. She brings her little sister, Elle Fanning (Lavigne), who is wearing the same thing she is and has apparently been taking the jobs which Dakota turns down. They both throw a tantrum, but Catherine (Wiig) quells it and reminds them that they can just call her "Mom."
• SNL Digital Short - Dear Sister: Keith (Hader) is writing a letter to his sister when Dave (Samberg) comes in and asks what he's doing. Keith starts to explain when Dave shoots him in the chest, Keith falls to the ground and shoots Dave, who also falls to the ground seemingly dead. Eric (LaBeouf) walks into the room and starts to pitch a joke, but Dave shoots him too. Keith's sister (Wiig) comes in with a suitcase and starts reading Hader's letter, but she's shot by all three. Two police officers (Armisen and Sudeikis) investigate the crime scene, and read the letter, which exactly describes what happened with the P.S. of "two cops will read this and shoot each other." Which, of course, they do.
• Sofa King: Katir Mutar (Armisen) and his wife Hasar Mutar have opened a discount sofa store spun off from their other store, Mattress King. They introduce their sons, Nasir (LaBeouf), Onan (Samberg) and Nasir II (Hader) before cheesily describing their sofas and using their "Sofa King" name as an adjective because, said quickly the two words sound like "so fucking."
• Girlfriend: Avril Lavigne song.
• Weekend Update:
  • Rudolph speaks with Howard K. Stern (Samberg) following the trial, as if it were a sporting event which he lost. Stern says that Birkhead's sperm "wanted it more," although it's encouraging just to "make it to the finals" of the Anna Nicole Smith paternity suit.
  • A gay couple from Connecticut (Armisen and Hader) comments on the possibility of Connecticut allowing gay marriages after legalizing civil unions long ago. The two have generally the same schtick as the "gay couple from New Jersey," in that they make inappropriate innuendo laden comments followed by "Oh, rather" (as opposed to simply "Oh!"). Meyers asks them how they met and they relate a story of crashing their $40 million yachts together as a way of flirting. Their parents were fine with the homosexuality, according to one, but they were upset about him wanting to marry "a Princeton man." Meyers cuts them off when they go too far.
  • Don Imus (Hammond) appears to talk about his recent firing and apologize for what he said. Even though the Rutgers women have accepted his apology he refuses to stop calling himself stupid and that his comments were awful. He also refuses to comment on the hypocrisy of hip-hop using the same language that he did in more demeaning ways, leading Meyers and Poehler to see him as a changed man until he adds that his friends who didn't raise to his defense are "fat bastards" and "ugly terrible bastard pussies." He goes on to say that the can all "line up and kiss—" when he's cut off by Meyers.
• Knife Salesman: Two door-to-door salesmen, Blade P. Cutsworth (Forte) and Bernard Throttlehunt (LaBeouf) attempt to sell a woman (Wiig) 1000 knives, but she says that she's "pretty well set in the knife department." The three get into a chorus of "Are not!" and "Are too!" until she explains that she's Melanie Ginsu, wife of the man who invented the Ginsu knives. She does gain interest when she says she'd be interested if he effortlessly cut off his biggest finger. Throttlehunt refuses, so Cutsworth does it himself and she winds up not buying the knives after all. Throttlehunt abandons him and Cutsworth is savaged by a dog.
• An Intimate Moment with John Mayer & Jessica Simpson: John Mayer (Hader) and Jessica Simpson (Wiig) share an awkward moment which Mayer attempts to get out of by playing the guitar, but Simpson is unimpressed and sings poorly in response. Mayer tells her that he likes her highlights so the two decide to have sex.
• I Can Do Better: Avril Lavigne song.
• Shia & Maya: Backstage, Rudolph is in make-up when LaBeouf comes by and mentions that their first names rhyme. Rudolph kicks out her make-up artists and drags LaBeouf into her dressing room, which has been made up for a romantic dinner. She continues to try to seduce him with smooth jazz, alcohol and being uncomfortably close to him. LaBeouf stops her and goes through her whole plan, which he's heard countless times, but decides to take her up on moving to a Mexican fishing village where he'll earn 10 peso a month.

Notes

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

• Keenan Thompson as Reverend Al Sharpton.

Music

• Hide and Seek, by Imogen Heap: The song that starts playing whenever someone gets shot in the Digital Short is "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap off her 2005 album Speak for Yourself. Only the refrain of the song is played during the short, which was recorded using a Vocoder and harmonizer, while Heap sang a cappella.

• Girlfriend, performed by Avril Lavigne: The first song performed by musical guest Avril Lavigne is "Girlfriend," the first single from her album The Best Damn Thing. It debuted at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and was translated into six different languages initially for international broadcast, a move that she was criticized for because of her poor accent.

• I Can Do Better, performed by Avril Lavigne: Avril Lavigne's second song on the show was "I Can Do Better," also from The Best Damn Thing.

Trivia

Behind the Scenes

• YouTube: NBC routinely uploads the Digital Shorts from the show onto the video website YouTube to curb bootleg copyright violations of their content. However, this video was not uploaded immediately because they hadn't licensed the song for internet broadcast yet. When they did receive the rights, a violent massacre at a college campus in Virginia occurred and the video was seen as in poor taste.