Here's a summary for the foreigners: Guys sells Gitmo torture materials like its one of those wacky local "Going-out-of-business" sales. Repeat same joke for two minutes.
It's all in the execution. I love it for the pacing and all the great touches, the visual and the sound effects, and the actor (his name escapes me) nails it perfectly. SNL has been on for 34 years. People have been complaining that it's not as good as it used to be since Chevy Chase left 33 years ago, and their complaining has been pretty tiresome for about 32 years. I think it's always been uneven with great moments. It's not like a TV show that's polished and edited. It's more like a comedy baseball game. There are good seasons and bad. You're going to see more strikes than home runs... but there are home runs. You can watch it with that understanding and forgive the man lulls, or you can catch the internet highlights, or you can just shut the fuck and go read the New Yorker, Mr. Smarty Pants.
Jason Sudeikis -- there's something about him that makes him hard to recognize.
People have bitched about SNL forever, but the fact of the matter is, it's always sucked as much as it does today. For every modern unfunny "Target cashier" bit there was an original unfunny "chee'burger chee'burger chee'burger" bit. Heresy, I know; but the alternative is to insist that "no Coke -- Pepsi" was a triumph of jokesmithing, and that would just be stupid.