Well, because…

(Oh, how can I say this?)

Because…

…because I just laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did on SNL.

There!  I said it!  Are you happy now?!?

SNL Weekend Update Thursdays 2×2

Of course, when I say I “just” laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did, what I actually mean is that over two hours ago, I laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did, but you get the idea.

Nah, like, the opening skecth on SNL was of President Obama doing interviews with various lower-tier cable networks like Bravo and the Food Network, and Moynihan showed up playing that ultra-douchey dude with the spiked blond hair from the Food Network.  He did a pretty good job of it, and I guffawed.  There, now it’s out and I don’t have to feel so awful anymore.

It was a pretty funny show, all in all.  Fred Armisen did his David Paterson schtick, which is always good for a laugh; I’m a big fan of when he gets right up in the camera, which he did while the closing credits ran.  It’s not exactly sophisticated humor, I guess, but it tickles me for reasons I cannot fully explicate.

There was also a moderately amusing Darrell Hammond/Bill Clinton bit, which was capped by a decently amusing “cameo” by Megan Fox, who hosts this Saturday on the season premiere of the regular show.

Pretty good chuckles, all in all.  I can already sense that I’m going to miss this when its time slot is taken up by Community.

Parks and Recreation 2×2, “The Stakeout”:

Heh.  When I wrote down the title of this episode on my notes, I wrote it down as “The Steakout.”  Boy, am I dumb.  Mmmm … steak.

Another strong episode from this supposedly much-improved series.  Dear America: watch, won’t you?  Thanks ever so much.

Leslie has planted a community garden at the bottom of the pit, and she and Tom discover that somebody is growing marijuana in it, so she diecides they should stake — steak? — the place out to catch the perps in action.

This just so happens to be near Ann’s house, and Leslie does the requisite amount of spying on Ann as Mark picks her up for their first date (which seems to actually go relatively well).

Best laughs probably go to Nick Offerman.  Ron has aggravated a hernia, so he’s sitting at his desk literally trying not to move either his head or his torso.  Now, that’s funny enough, but slap a mustache and a grimace on top of it, and you’ve got gold.  Throw Aubrey Plaza into the mix as an intern who — either through neglect, malice, or ignorance, and it’s hard to tell which — decides to make things even worse by “helping,” and you’ve … well, you’ve still got gold, but it’s now gold co-starring Aubrey Plaza.

Andy shows up to his new home in the pit, and Leslie and Tom invite him into their van to help with the stakeout.  He eats a candy necklace whole and goes into a weird sugar-high sort of fugue.  Big laughs again.

Coming home from their date, Ann and Mark see what appears to be a thief breaking into a van and call the cops.  It’s actually Tom, who is quite belligerent to the officer who arrives to investigate.  That officer is played by Louis C.K., who hauls Tom off to jail, and it’s up to Leslie to turn into a hardassed government official in order to get him out of dutch.  Amy Poehler gets her biggest laughs of the episode in this scene.

It’s always nice to see Louis C.K.  I still miss Lucky Louie, one of many shows HBO cut down far too early over the past few years.  Here, it looks like maybe he’s being set up as a potential love interest for Leslie; that’d be an interesting new direction.

I’m still loving this show, and if you ain’t with me, then yore agin me.

The Office 6×2, “The Meeting”:

David from corporate shows up to have a private meeting with Jim, and of course, this makes Michael go into full-on paranoia mode.  Long story short, Jim ends up getting promoted to co-manager of the Scranton branch alongside Michael.

This is a major plot development, to the extent that a show like this can have major plot developments, and I find that while I certainly enjoyed the episode, I have almost nothing to say about it.

“Almost,” I said.

Michael asking Oscar for advice on how best to about enjoying a colonoscopy; Michael enlisting Andy to help him infiltrate the secret meeting by hiding inside a makeshift cheese cart; this episode’s “that’s what she said.”  If it had nothing else going for it, this episode would be worthwhile for those moments alone.

Community 1×2, “Spanish 101″:

I said in my review of last week’s episode that I was going to give this series a minimum of four episodes, and I intend to stick by that cavalier and ill-judged comment, but I gotta level with you: I regret those words a bit, and wish I could just go ahead and pull the ripcord on this one right now.

Here’s the thing: this show is just not funny.  I appreciate that humor is a subjective thing, I accept that fact and live with it, like the knowledge of my own mortality and the fact that no matter what I do, people are going to continue to watch VH1 reality shows.  I’d stop all of these things if I could, but hey, it’s an imperfect world.

What Community wants to be — what it desperately wants to be — is 30 Rock.  It wants to be the kind of show where there is no real need for the plot or the setting to make any but the loosest kind of sense, thereby allowing the characters to go into hilarious flights of randomness that are designed to showcase how wacky life can be, and how wacky people’s ideas can be, and how wacky people’s ideas about humor can be.

Community, you are not 30 Rock, and odds are, you never will be.

Whay do you expect me to accept the idea that all these people like Jeff so much?  What has he done to earn even the vaguest semblance of this sort of adulation?  What, specifically?  And, see, I wouldn’t care about that if you were funny, Community; I wouldn’t care at all.

I’ll give you points for at least trying to give Checy Chase something funny to do this week; you failed, but at least you recognized the necessity.

I’ll also give you very tiny props for making me chuckle about twice during Senor Chang’s monologue.

Starburns, though?  Fairly lame.  I get that community colleges are probably full of peole who think they’r ecooler than they really are, and I’d guess that out of all of those posers, a few of them probably have an undue amount of vanity over their sideburns.  But “Starburns”?  Fairly lame.

Because I was reckless enough to commit to four weeks in a public forum, you’ve got two more chances to impress me, Community.  Don’t squander them.

SNL Weekend Update Thursdays 2×1 (?)

I’m not entirely clear whether or not this technically counts as a separate series from Saturday Night Live, so that “2×1″ designation might not actually be accurate.  However, I am entirely clear on the fact that only nerds give a shit on that subject, so, moving on…

Those election-year Thursday-night SNL specials were apparently such a big hit for NBC last season that they decided to have another go at it and see if they could make it work on a semi-regular basis.

Judging from the first episode this season, the answer is about 50% “yes” and 50% “no,” which qualifies as a win in SNL terms.  Almost always uneven even during great stretches in its history, the long-running series has been such a mixed bag in recent years that almost nobody knows whether they should actually be watching anymore.  But there were some decent laughs tonight, including a hilarious bit in which Bill Hader — almost always worth admiring — played James Carville.  Less funny…?  Kristen Wiig’s Madonna.  Blame the writers for that, though, mainly because if I catch you saying anything bad about Wiig, I will come stomp a new gap in your teeth, American History X-style.

The bit in which “Jimmy Carter” debated “Michael Steele” also fell mostly flat, but that’s counterbalanced by the fact that it’s always awesome to see Amy Poehler on Weekend Update, and there were enough good moments that I certainly feel like my time wasn’t wasted.  It’s an odd concept for a show, and the series has as awkward a title as I’ve ever seen, but still, it’s better than acid in your eye.

Parks and Recreation 2×1, “Pawnee Zoo”:

I’ve been a fan of this show since the first episode, and have occasionally found myself having to defend it to people.  Hopefully, this episode — which is pretty darn chuckleicious — will win a few more converts over to my side.

Here’s the thing: any episode that has a cold-open in which Amy Pohler does an a capella rendition of “Parents Just Don’t Understand” is an episode that I am 100% in favor of.  This is that episode.  From there, it contains other such hilarity as gay penguin marriage, a girl whose boyfriend has a boyfriend who she hates, and Aziz Ansari.  And no, I still haven’t seen his stuff on LaughYourDickOff.com; need to, haven’t, will.  Soon.  Not tonight, though, as I’ve still got an episode of Fringe to watch and review.

Poehler’s Leslie Knope finds herself in a two-pronged sticky situation, in which she is unwittingly thrust into the limelight as a gay icon when she accidentally marries two male penguins, and then takes some heat from a Family Rights protester who thinks she should resign from her job as punishment for pushing a gay agenda.  All of this leads to Leslie debating the protester on a local tv talk show, “Pawnee Today”; turns out that Tom (Ansari) is a regular guest, and the montage of him chatting up host Joan Calamezzo is by itself better than most series’ entire episodes.

But wait, that’s not all!  There’s also a gay bar named The Bulge.

And really, if that’s not enough to get you to watch this series, well, I don’t know that I can be of further use to you.

The Office 6×1, “Gossip”:

I’m gonna rip off the Band-Aid and just come right out and say it: this series has probably seen its best days come and go.  This is probably the weakest season premiere the series has had since the pilot episode, but hey, let’s all look on the bright side: that don’t make it bad.  Not by a long shot.

Truth is, this show could be about half as good as it currently seems to be and still be well worth my time, so the mere (unsubstantiated) fact that the show might have seen its glory days pass it by is not necessarily a cause for concern on my part.

The setup for the season premiere is that Michael hears a rumor about Stanley, tells it to the entire office, finds out that the rumor is true, and then proceeds to make up false rumors about everyone else in the office so that nobody will actually believe the rumor about Stanley.  It’s an idea that is a bit better on paper than it proves to be in the execution, but at least one series of great moments comes out of it: when Andy hears the rumor that he himself is gay, he immediately starts to more or less believe it, and seeks advice from Oscar and Jim; later, he pleads with Michael to tell him whether or not he is gay.  Will this plotline continue?  One can only hope; there’s probably more gold nuggets to be mined from that particular vein.

The episode is sort of framed by Jim and Pam having not yet announced to their co-workers that she is pregnant; that plotline comes to a conclusion that is typically sweet, and continues to prove that the Jim/Pam dynamic is one of the show’s best accomplishments.

Not a great beginning to the season overall, but these actors are all so good in their roles that at this point, even an uninspired episode is kinda wonderful.

Can I also mention that I’m happy to see Ellie Kemper still hanging around as Pam’s replacement?  She purty.

Community 1×1, “Pilot”:

“Not impressed” is my initial reaction to this series.

The writing — it’s from Dan Harmon, who also wrote the not-liked-by-Honk Monster House as well as numerous episodes of the not-as-funny-as-it-thinks-it-is The Sarah Silverman Program – is the problem: it’s mostly weak, forced, not-as-funny-as-it-thinks-it-is, and trite.  Breakfast Club jokes?  Really?

However, the cast is pretty good, and while I won’t keep watching if the scripts don’t improve, the players are strong enough that this show earns a provisional four-week commitment from me.  Joel McHale plays the lead, and he’s smarmily convincing as a lawyer whose degree doesn’t actually count for anything.  Hence, he’s in community college.  (It’s as flimsy as concepts get, but that’s okay by me as long as they bring the funny; here, they really don’t.) 

Chevy Chase — who you’d expect to have some funnier lines — is also on hand, obviously hoping like hell for the show to be a hit, and while you might not know some of the other folks by name, you might have seen some of them before.  Yvette Nicole Brown, for instance, has been in everything from House to The Office to Tropic Thunder. 

And when I saw Alison Brie — she plays Trudy Campbell on Mad Men – I actually caught myself shouting out loud something along the lines of “Hey, who’s that?  I know her!  OOOH!  Is that Trudy from Mad Men?”  It was.  She’s awesome on that show, and might have some potential on this one, too.

But the truth is, I chuckled only a couple of times, and those were just chuckles; I expect at least one guffaw.  IMDB tells me that future episodes will feature Ken Jeong playing a character named “Senor Chang,” and if that’s the limit of this show’s wit — see, it’s funny ’cause he’s Asian but people call him “Senor” — then odds are good that my Alison Brie fix will be restricted to AMC before much longer.