Saturday Night Live/Tom Brady/Beck

Tom Brady/Beck is the seventeenth episode of the thirtieth season of Saturday Night Live. It is the first appearance by quarterback Tom Brady and the fifth appearance by musical guest Beck.

Guest Stars: Tom Brady (Host), Beck (Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Martin Short (Jiminy Glick)

Episode Breakdown

• A Message from Tom Delay: Congressman and House Majority Leader Tom Delay (Parnell) addresses the public about the indictments and "false" accusations which he has been the target of lately. Delay admits that he did everything that he was accused of, but also claims that it's mostly the liberals trying to disrupt the Republican majority. He explains to Americans that his job as majority leader is to make sure all of the Republican representatives follow the party line exactly, or else suffer his wrath. Clips are shown of dissenters being thrown out of windows, being blown up in their cars and on fire.
• Tom Brady's Monologue: Brady, a quarterback for the New England Patriots, starts to sing a song about his many talents beyond football but several members of the cast (Thompson, Armisen, Dratch, Meyers, Mitchell, Poehler) rush out to stop him. The music starts up again and he goes forward with his song anyway. He also dances for them, claims to speak fluent Japanese and slowly gets more absurd with his claims as the song goes on. For instance, he claims that he can kill a horse with his bare hands and that he can read people's minds. The cast members all join in to sing the last verse again.
• Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice: A woman (Poehler) shills for "Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice," a new erectile dysfunction drug that her husband (Riggle) is using. Her monologue quickly devolves into adjectives which crudely describe her husband's penis. An announcer comes on at the end to state that if an erection lasts for less than 4 hours, the user is free to up the dosage as much as they like.
• Touchdown: At a carnival, Kurt (Riggle) and his wife (Dratch) are with their friends Alan (Brady) and his wife (Rudolph). Alan's wife suggests they go on a ride called the "Screaming Barrel," but because Kurt's wife is pregnant, they can't do it. Instead, they overhear a barker (Forte) advertising a teddy bear to anyone who can throw a football through the hole. Kurt tries his luck and gets it on the first try. Alan tries twice but misses by a wide margin both times. Both of the wives make it in on the first time. He misses three more times and a gay couple (Armisen and Meyers) both win bears. To make it even worse, an arthritic elderly woman driving a scooter makes it in. Alan gives Earl $100 to keep the balls coming. He throws the football aside and knocks over a couple of milk bottles, finally winning a prize.
• Dr. Phil: Dr. Phil (Hammond) welcomes the audience back and says that on this episode of Dr. Phil, he'll be talking to men who lack emotional intelligence. He shows an "audition" video of Jamie (Dratch) and Ken (Brady), who is completely unchivalrous. He, for instance, said "Yes" to the question "Do these pants make my butt look big?" The two are brought out so that Dr. Phil can give a series of odd folksy metaphors. He tells Ken to look his wife in the eyes and give her three compliments, but he botches that exercise with compliments like "I like your boobs." Dr. Phil rattles off more folksy metaphors and tries to get Ken to identify emotions, which he fails miserably at. Dr. Phil eventually gets fed up and slaps Ken. He goes to commercial and teases the next couple: Gary (Meyers) and Vanessa (Poehler), who haven't had sex since their (now teenage) son was born.
• The Falconer - Body Switch: The Falconer (Forte) laments about how much he misses candy bars, especially Snickers, even though the woods sustain him without a problem. He and Donald get into an argument that ends with the Falconer saying "You wish you were me? Well, I wish I were you!" The two mysteriously switch bodies after a bolt of lightning. A hiker (Brady) stumbles across the Falconer and offers him some Snickers bars. Ken (now in the body of the falcon) flies to the old Chinese medicine man's (Sanz) shack where he's entered into a cockfight to pay for the antidote. Don King (Thompson) gives his rooster a switchblade to finish off the falcon with, but he gets the upper hand when he flies the rooster into a deep fryer. Ken flies back with the root only to find that Donald has eaten all of the candy bars. The two switch back and the Falconer finds out that there are no Snickers bars left.
• TV Funhouse - Sexual Harassment and You: A parody of 1950s sexual harassment videos shows Frank (Armisen) approaching a woman (Poehler) in a somewhat forward manner and winding up with a sexual harassment lawsuit. The right way, with Greg (Brady) in his place, is shown. Greg does the exact same thing as Frank did, plus groping Lisa's breast after she agrees to go out with him. This is fine because Greg is handsome. Frank tries again with someone else (Fey), more stand-offish this time, but is escorted out of the building by police. Again, Greg does it the "right" way, by appearing pants-less in her cubicle.
• Tom Brady's Falafel City: Brady advertises his chain of affordable Middle Eastern restaurants, Tom Brady's Falafel City. He's joined by two men (Thompson and Meyers) and two women (Poehler and Rudolph) who sing a parody of "Babara Ann." After they leave, he talks about how he started up the restaurant in an old veterinarian's office and, after another song break, brags about being in the top five of NFL player owned Middle Eastern restaurants in the South Plainfield, NJ area. Dennis DeYoung (Sanz), singer for Styx, also endorses Brady's restaurant even though he has gruesome food allergies. DeYoung also claims that Brady will be donating half of his profits to help him build a house.
• E-Pro: Beck song.
• Weekend Update:
  • Celebrity Interviewer to the Stars Jiminy Glick (Short) appears on Weekend Update to talk about how much he misses Jimmy Fallon and that Fey and Poehler are an inspiration to young lesbians everywhere. When Fey asks him why exactly he's here, Glick explains that he's promoting the last (and certainly least) volume of The Best of Jiminy Glick, volume 57. The (fictional) DVD includes interviews with Urkel, Robert Blake and Lorne Michaels (Forte) circa 1975. Fey shows a clip of the interview which involves Glick falling asleep during Michael's answers and choking on a donut. Towards the end of the interview, Glick starts to cry and demand to know why Michaels is so boring and declares that he'll be fisting beavers before long. The clip ends on Glick hitting Michaels with a potted plant.
• Kaitlin - Uncle Scott's Wedding: Kaitlin's (Poehler) uncle, Scott (Brady), is getting married and she's excited about being part of the wedding. She tries to get Rick (Sanz) to let her wear her dress before the wedding, but he doesn't want her to get it sweaty. Uncle Scott shows up a little later even though he has a hangover. She asks him if he's nervous about his wedding and he shares his wedding vows with them, which is just lyrics to a Sammy Hagar song. After another long, meandering story, Kaitlin puts on her dress and comes back to wail the lyrics to the theme from The Bodyguard. Scott starts to have doubts, but Rich talks him out of it and tells Kaitlin to go to bed.
• Behind the Music - The Super Bowl Shuffle: The 1985 Chicago Bears are profiled in a VH1 Behind the Music episode about "The Super Bowl Shuffle." Bears Quarterback Jim McMahon (Brady) was interviewed and claims that no one was doing rap in 1985 and that's why they were successful (an interviewer (Parnell) corrects him). Also interviewed were William "The Refrigerator" Perry (Thompson), who's now working in a Subway sandwich shop, and Willie Gault (Mitchell), who comments on their unorthodox band. Mike Ditka (Sanz) uses his interview time to endorse Levitra, an erectile dysfunction drug. According to the narrator, the Bears blew off training camp to record the "Stay in School Shuffle," a commercial failure. The band eventually hit rock bottom when the were down by over 40 points and performed in their own halftime show. McMahon later hit a "subterranean trench" when he recorded a solo "shuffle" and they all finally gave up on music and Super Bowls for good.
• Girl: Beck song.
• The Oak Room: Pianist Tate Biggums (Parnell) introduces the notoriously drunk lounge singer Charli Coffee (Rudolph), who sings a song about everything she can do, until she falls off the stage trying to get more alcohol. She brings out her boyfriend, a saxophone player named Jamal Taylor (Brady) to do another song with her about being in love. While Taylor plays a solo, Coffee berates two people in the audience (Thompson and Dratch) for letting their dog (Dratch's purse) sit on their table. She sits on the edge of their table, which collapses under her weight. She gets up again to sing a song called "Diamond Street," but she trips and destroys Biggums' piano.
• Why Brady?: Backstage, Riggle tells Brady he's doing a great job and that Peyton Manning (Meyers) is looking for him. Manning, clearly bitter over not being picked to host, asks him why they chose him to host, when he passed more yards and threw more touchdowns in a year. Wilma McNabb (Thompson), mother of Donovan McNabb (Mitchell), also questions why Brady is host because she's the spokesman for a soup company and thinks her son would be better suited for the role. After he leaves to get on stage, McNabb suggests that they beat him down and take his three Super Bowl rings.

Notes

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

• Chris Parnell as Representative Tom Delay.

Music

• Barbara Ann by The Regents: The song that Poehler, Rudolph, Thompson and Meyers sing during the "Tom Brady's Falafel City" sketch is a parody of "Barbara Ann," originally by The Regents. A more famous version of the song was made by The Beach Boys in 1965 and was released as a single that peaked at #2 on the U.S. charts.

• E-Pro, performed by Beck: The first song performed by Beck was "E-Pro," the lead single from his 2005 album Guero. The song's bass and drum tracks are taken entirely from a sample of the Beastie Boys song So What'cha Want and was the song which knocked Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day of its 16 week occupation of the Billboard Modern Rock chart's top spot.

• Girl, performed by Beck: "Girl" was the second song performed by Beck, also from his album Guero. The song was the second single from the album, but wasn't nearly as successful as the lead single. It was later remixed several times, once for a digital album on iTunes, and was featured heavily in Apple's retail stores.

Trivia

The Show

• Foreshadowing: In the last sketch of the night, Peyton Manning (as played by Seth Meyers) complains about being passed up for the hosting gig on the show. Manning would later host an episode of the show in the 32nd season after the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl.

Behind the Scenes

• Original Host: This episode was originally meant to be hosted by Alec Baldwin in order to gain momentum off of his role in the film The Aviator. However, this idea was eventually nixed and Baldwin wouldn't host again until December 2005.