Saturday Night Live/Steve Carell/Kanye West

Steve Carell/Kanye West
Season 31, Episode 1
Airdate	October 1, 2005
Production Number	1421
Written by	Tina Fey Andrew Steele (head writers) Doug Abeles James Anderson Alex Baze Liz Cackowski Charlie Grandy Steve Higgins Colin Jost Erik Kenward John Lutz Seth Meyers Lorne Michaels Matt Murray Akiva Schaffer Frank Sebastiano T. Sean Shannon Robert Smigel JB Smoove Emily Spivey Jorma Taccone Bryan Tucker Robert Smigel Adam McKay Matt O'Brien (cartoon)
Directed by	Beth McCarthy Miller
← 30x20 Lindsay Lohan/Coldplay	31x02 → Jon Heder/Ashlee Simpson
Saturday Night Live — Season Thirty-One

Steve Carell/Kanye West is the first episode of the thirty-first season of Saturday Night Live, and the five hundred and eighty-ninth episode overall.

Guest Stars: Steve Carell (Host), Kanye West (Musical Guest)

Special Guest: Mike Myers (Himself), Adam Levine (Himself)

Cartoon Voices: Wendy Dillon, Sam Kaufman, Billy Mira, Robert Smigel

Episode Breakdown

• NBC Special Report: Tim Russert (Hammond) interrupts programming for a press briefing and press conference from President George W. Bush (Forte). He tells the press that he knows how bad it is in the Gulf States, but he's been there seven times and insists that he's in total control of the situation. He takes questions from Terry Moran (Sudeikis), who asks him about where the money for reconstruction efforts is going to come from, Wolf Blitzer (Parnell). who asks why the White House response was so slow, and Nora O'Donnell (Poehler), who asks about members of the Republican party. With each person she asks about, he tells her that he can't talk about ongoing investigations, then shifts attention to 9/11.
• Steve Carell's Monologue: Carell reminisces about the time when he auditioned for the show ten years ago and they decided to pick "the other guy," Will Ferrell. He boasts about the popularity of The Office and his movie The 30-Year Old Virgin. Because his movie made so much money, he sings a song about how he's so rich that money falls from his ass. He boasts to Thompson, Poehler and Sanz and gives the latter two money to buy a sail boat.
• Morgan Stanley: A man (Forte) picks up a teenage girl (Poehler) and her boyfriend (Samberg) at school and tells her she dresses like a whore. When the boyfriend asks what her dad's problem is, she tells him the man is their Morgan Stanley guy. Her real father, Frank (Armisen), asks if they want ice cream, but the Morgan Stanley agent demands that he "grow a pair."
• Jet Blue Flight #292: On their Jet Blue flight back from Burbank, a couple (Carell and Poehler) attempt to get comfortable while the flight is clearly having issues. The wife flips to CNN, where Aaron Brown (Hammond) is reporting that the landing gear of the plane has malfunctioned. The plane is going to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles, but her husband refuses to accept the reality of their malfunctioning gear. Back on CNN, Brown is reporting that the passengers are facing "almost certain death," he throws to Greg Benedetto (Forte), a specialist who shows that the plane will likely burst into flames and explode. He also talks to Daniel Lane (Hader), a psychiatrist who tells them that the passengers watching the news report on television are going to be scarred by the incident. The plane lands successfully, however and everyone safely departs.
• Anderson Cooper 360 - Rebuilding New Orleans: In New Orleans, Anderson Cooper (Meyers) covers the rebuilding efforts of several celebrities and Mayor Ray Nagin (Mitchell). He tells Cooper that he's happy with the celebrity outpouring of help, except for "Sean Penn and his boat full of guns." The celebrities include Tony Danza (Armisen), Sharon Stone (Poehler) and Al Pacino (Hader). Mamie Thibodeaux (Rudolph) and her son Gartrell (Thompson) express their gratitude for the celebrities, despite their lack of building skill. After Pacino walks off to save a dog from a tree, Ray Romano (Carell) tells Cooper that the gun shots he heard is Penn shooting at FEMA helicopters. Thompson also finds Aaron Neville (Sanz), who accidentally hits Cooper with his hammer. Geraldo Rivera (Hammond) bursts into the room to steal Cooper's spotlight and talks about how he saved a bunch of babies until he hears gunshots and runs away.
• The Needlers - Engagement Party: Neil (Carell) and Karen (Dratch) sit down to dinner at a table for four where Karen laments about how Neil invited Dan (Meyers) and Sally Needler (Poehler). The four order from a waiter (Sudeikis) and fight for the rest of the night, even when Neil and Karen announce their engagement. They storm off into the kitchen, where they wind up having sex.
  

  

  Mike Myers and Kanye West
• Girls Gone Wild Katrina: A commercial for the Girls Gone Wild series of videos, this time set in New Orleans in post-Hurricane Katrina conditions. The video is hosted by Doug Stanhope (Sudeikis), who trades clothing and water and clothes for girls to go topless.
• Backstage: Backstage, Lorne Michaels is insisting that he can't tell that Rudolph is eight months pregnant. When Mitchell passes by, Michaels asks him to check on West so that he doesn't say anything crazy. West walks down the hall to the stage, where he sees Myers. They chat briefly about how things are going, and Myers tells him that the government revoked his US citizenship after the incident on the hurricane relief telethon.
• Gold Digger and Touch the Sky: Kanye West songs.
• Weekend Update:
  • Sanz gives an editorial about how he believes that George W. Bush is a genius. He explains by saying that he gets out of something crazy by doing something even crazier and distracting everyone. He tried the same tactic by showing up late to rehearsal, being drunk, punching Dratch in the neck and ordering 50 pizzas without paying for them.
  • Nightlife correspondent Mitchell talks about going to clubs and picking up a girl who turns out to be far uglier than he thought she looked while in the club. He realizes that the girl he picked up turns out to be a guy when he let the car drift into oncoming traffic and started speaking in a manly voice.
  • The two new featured players, Hader and Samberg, are introduced by Poehler. They decide to have a friendly impression-off. Hader does well done impressions of Peter Falk and James Mason, but Samberg just says "I'm Christopher Walken, wazzup?!" Although Samberg's impressions make Poehler laugh more, she still declares Hader the winner.
• The Lundford Twins Feel Good Variety Hour: During the TV Land "Variety Vault," a variety show hosted by Henry (Armisen) and Lucas (Carell) Lundford airs. They sing songs on the banjos before being interrupted by Granny Crabtree (Poehler). They also introduce singers Connie Brenda (Rudolph), who sings about feminism, and Dimothy Daniel (Thompson), who accidentally sings about sex to his girlfriend's mother. They also throw to the "Lundford Twin Dancers" (Forte, Dratch, Parnell) who do a dance about the 1920s.
• TV Funhouse - Fun with Real Audio: John Roberts Confirmation Hearing: Using audio from the confirmation hearings of John Roberts, Roberts refuses to answer any questions, no matter how mundane they are including questions from the McDonalds drive-thru and The Rolling Stones asking "Washington, D.C. are you ready to rock?" Even when being sworn in, he refuses to answer.
• Heard 'Em Say: Kanye West song.
• Debbie Downer - Bob Bummer: At the wedding reception for the Landersons, a group of people (including Poehler, Sanz and Armisen) sits at a table with Debbie Downer (Dratch). She makes several depressing comments followed by the trademark muffled trumpet comedic sound. They're joined by Bob Bummer (Carell), a friend of the groom's who's just as bad as Debbie Downer. Debbie and Bob hit it off, despite driving away the other people at the table.

Notes

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

• Will Forte as President George W. Bush.

Music

• Gold Digger, performed by Kanye West: "Gold Digger" is the second single from Kanye West's 2005 album, Late Registration. The song reached #1 on the Billboard singles charts and originally featured Jamie Foxx on the album version. It was also nominated for "Record of the Year" at the Grammys.

• Touch the Sky, performed by Kanye West: Immediately following "Gold Digger," West performed his fourth single "Touch the Sky," which featured Lupe Fiasco. The song was the center of some controversy due to the similarity of West's video to a stunt performed by Evel Knievel. The former stuntman claimed that West's star-adorned jumpsuit was trademark infringement on the costume he wore during the Snake River Canyon jump.

• Heard 'Em Say, performed by Kanye West: Written by West and Adam Levine, the singer from Maroon 5, "Heard 'Em Say" is the third single from Late Registration and features Levine on back-up vocals. Although the additional artists from the other two songs did not appear during West's performance on Saturday Night Live, Levine did appear for his part on this song.

Trivia

The Show

• First Appearance: This is the first appearance of the recurring Anderson Cooper 360 parody starring Meyers as Anderson Cooper.

• Fill-In Anchor: Sanz took Tina Fey's place at the anchor desk for Weekend Update because she was on maternity leave from the show. It was rumored that Sanz left the show at the end of the season because he did not get the permanent gig after Fey vacated the position.

Behind the Scenes

• Milestone: This episode was the first in the series' history to film in high definition.

Allusions and References

• The Telethon: The "backstage" segment is in reference to comments made by Kanye West during the Concert for Hurricane Relief telethon. During the telethon, he took the stage with Mike Myers and deviated wildly from the original script. Although Myers attempted to move back to the original script, West delivered the defining line of the controversy, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."