"Saturday Night Live" Rainn Wilson/Arcade Fire (2007)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Directors:

Don Roy King
Akiva Schaffer

Writers:

Seth Meyers (head writer) and
Andrew Steele (head writer) ...

TV Series:

"Saturday Night Live" (1975)

Original Air Date:

24 February 2007 (Season 32, Episode 14)

Genre:

Comedy | Music

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Actor Playing Multiple Roles | Satire | Actress Playing Multiple Roles | Saturday Night Live | Spoof

Cast

Fred Armisen	...	Various
Will Forte	...	Various
Bill Hader	...	Various
Darrell Hammond	...	Various
Seth Meyers	...	Himself - Weekend Update Anchor
Amy Poehler	...	Various
Maya Rudolph	...	Various
Andy Samberg	...	Various
Jason Sudeikis	...	Various
Kenan Thompson	...	Various
Kristen Wiig	...	Various
Arcade Fire	...	Themselves - Musical Guest
Rainn Wilson	...	Himself - Host / Various
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Will Butler	...	Will - Board Room Meeting Member (as Arcade Fire)
Win Butler	...	Win - Board Room Meeting Member (as Arcade Fire)
Régine Chassagne	...	Régine - Board Room Meeting Member (as Arcade Fire)
Jeremy Gara	...	Jeremy - Board Room Meeting Member (as Arcade Fire)
Tim Kingsbury	...	Tim - Board Room Meeting Member (as Arcade Fire)
Lorne Michaels	...	Lorne Michaels
Sarah Neufeld	...	Sarah - Board Room Meeting Member (as Arcade Fire)
Richard Reed Parry	...	Richard Reed - Board Room Meeting Member (as Arcade Fire)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

NBC Universal Television

Quotes:

Rainn: The guy's pee came out of my nose!

Movie Connections:

References Pulp Fiction (1994)

Soundtrack:

Danny's Song

Rainn Wilson/Arcade Fire is one of the better SNL episodes

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The cold opening of this February 24, 2007 edition takes us to CNN where Wolf Blitzer (Darrell Hammond) is reporting on the Iraq War. The crawl at the bottom, however, keeps wanting to report on the Anna Nicole Smith case. "Anna! Anna! Anna!" the crawl keeps saying as it moves. Ms. Smith's face then keeps appearing in place of Blitzer's who is now moving with the crawl as he says, "Stop!" Rainn Wilson then appears with two fake Smith reports, the second time as he gets held up by a cameraman! After cutting in to Larry King (Fred Armisen), Hammond says, "Live From New York, It's Saturday Night!" Wilson comes on stage and shows around the studio which suddenly turns into a parody of his series "The Office" with Kirsten Wiig looking and acting like Pam, Jason Sudeikis as Jim, Keenan Thompson as Stanley, Amy Poehler as Angela (Wilson at this point hilariously becomes Dwight) and producer Lorne Michaels doing Michael complete with "World's Funniest Boss" cup. Rashida Jones also appears as her character, Karen, from the series. First sketch after that has four men (Wilson, Sudeikis, Bill Hader, and Will Forte) at a bar listening to Loggin and Messina's "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" and recounting increasingly bizarre tales of what happened when they first heard that song. Wilson's tops them all when he mentions having anonymous sex in a bathroom and having "pee coming out of the other guy's ear" as the song was playing in the intercom. It ends in Pulp Fiction style with all four sticking up the bar. An SNL Digital Short has Rainn as an executive trying to cut corners with an increasingly bizarre group meeting with characters like invisible man and sub sandwich. Even Arcade Fire gets in the act! The building their all in then gets demolished. Next is the Nuni sketch with Wilson and Wiig playing a magazine staff encountering a toast chair with mayonnaise, a disco ball chair that keeps spinning, and son Andy Samberg's cotton candy hair, beard, and lower body! Yikes! Then there's a police room ID sketch with Poehler and Mya Rudolph as the detectives trying to get peeper Wilson to find a criminal. He keeps asking to make more like he's peeping to no avail. In the end, Amy and Mya kiss while peeper watches behind a locked door... Next, Arcade Fire performs "Intervention" ending with a Pete Townshend-like guitar smashing finish. On Weekend Update, Amy mentions, "The British are leaving, The British are leaving!" upon news they're taken out of Iraq. Judge Larry Sedlin (Armisen) cries about getting no respect. Prince William (Andy Samberg) vomits after finding out what fighting a war is about causing Seth to ad-lib "This always happens when Andy Samberg, uh, I mean Prince William comes here." Following that three office workers (Wiig, Forte, Wilson) blandly discuss various oddities involving sex, drugs, and crime. We then get a commercial parody of Black Snake Moan with Keenan and Rainn. Next, a New Age music group trying to beat Eyna for the next award without falling apart. Finally, Arcade Fire performs "Keep the Car Running." Most of the sketches worked because of Wilson's presence as he kept performing to the best of whatever character's ability. This was one of the better shows of the season. My favorite was "The Office" parody. Come back, Rainn, when you're next available.