Tracy Morgan’s Saturday Night Live Appearance this past Saturday was one of the best in recent memory.
Tracy got his start on the show and was famously underused. After leaving, he’s become one of the most in demand comedians around. His character on the hit show 30 Rock, aptly titled Tracy Jordan (wakka wakka), is basically an extension of himself. He’s fucking brilliant. Truly onto some next level stuff.
The show started off in fine form with a killer opening monologue that included not one but THREE fights, an incredibly badass footslide-kick, and Tracy punching out Tina Fey (who used to be the head writer during Tracy’s time there). His story about the fish tank was inspired by true and recent events for Tracy: a faulty light bulb above his shark(!) tank blew and caused huge damage to his 16th story condo on New York’s Upper West Side.
Next up was my own personal character Brian Fellows. The character is seemingly retarded zoologist who has wild fantasies about the animals he’s interviewing. It’s hard to explain. The guy wears a pith helmet and lip gloss. It’s that kind of comedy. The cop station sketch was overlong, but he came back swinging with the Dateline sketch that has Saturday Night Live’s current secret weapon Bill Hader. Now, Bill is one to watch. He’s fucking HILARIOUS and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was SNL’s next breakout star. Tracy and Bill had amazing chemistry together.
The ‘Big Love’ sketch was hard to gather if you didn’t quite get into the HBO show: Tracy did a few wakka-wakka’s (the “church of more man” line in particular), but ultimately the sketch fell somewhat flat.
It was at this point I got somewhat drunk as I was watching the show with friends so bear with me and my notes. But the game show sketch was brilliant (if somewhat too random for the friends I was watching this with), as was Rocket Dog. Rocket Dog is definitely something they should bring back. Rocket Dog was HYSTERICAL.
In short: Lorne Michaels took a chance giving Tracy full rein on the show and it paid off in spades. Not only did it boost Tracy’s spotlight but it helped boost the show which has suffered this season despite having a strong beginning. I look forward to more of Tracy. He’s an absurdest, that’s for sure, but if you’re willing to go along with the ride it’s well worth the trip.
Tune in next week as we’ll be rounding up next week’s SNL featuring host Steve Martin and musical guest Jason Mraz.
(Photo By: Alex Erde)
Comments
steezy
March 16th, 2009 - 12:07:17 PM
i didn't catch this episode, but i agree, tracy morgan is one funny motherfucker. constant laughs from that guy