"Saturday Night Live" Recap & Review - "LeBron James/Kanye West"

Saturday Night Live
"LeBron James/Kanye West"

Original Air Date: September 29, 2007

PG Ignacio - TwoCents Staff Writer

The 33rd season of Saturday Night Live began with a star-studded performance by host LeBron James and musical guest Kanye West.

LeBron did a great job hosting the sketch comedy show. His monologue featured “The LeBron’s”, in which he acts as all the characters – a grumpy old LeBron, a GQ pretty-boy LeBron, and a mini-youthful-LeBron, previously seen in Nike ads. LeBron then appeared in seven skits as the following:

• Himself, being auctioned at a charity fund raiser that is ruined by Kristen Wiig’s character that lies to make herself better look better than the person that just finishes speaking.

• The New Kid, in a satire of the Disney Channel’s High School Musical.

• Himself, in a Read to Achieve PSA, ultimately playing one-on-one against a stage-hand played by Jason Sudeikis.

• Tim, a dorky young man who is a guest on The Lyle Lane Show, a boring BET talk show hosted by a nerdy white kid (Will Forte).

• Alexander, a Solid Gold Dancer with jheri curl hair style.

• Himself, on a satire BET’s 106 & Park television show discussing Kanye West’s blow-ups at a Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards, Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, local fair’s pumpkin contest, and backstage at SNL.

• Himself, in a skit titled Great Moments in Guidance Counseling, where Mr. Baines (Jason Sudeikis) advises young LeBron to go to the NBA instead of college.

The rest of the show was filled in with skits that included an “Angry Dog” dog food commercial poking fun at Michael Vick; a SNL Digital Short starring Andy Samberg singing a love song to Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Fred Armisen); Weekend Update starring Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers; and TV Fun House’s Ambiguously Gay Duo animated short. Kanye West performed twice with four short versions of songs from his new album, Graduation. The songs were Stronger, Good Life, Champion, and Everything I Am.

PG’s TwoCents: The writers at SNL did a great job of putting LeBron’s outgoing and humorous personality on display. LeBron wasn’t stretched too far with the characters he acted as and it was evident that performing live isn’t anything new to him. The best skit LeBron performed in was the PSA with Jason Sudeikis, playing one-on-one with a disgruntled stage-hand (Sudeikis). Although I do think LeBron was outperformed on that night by Kanye West’s musical performances and his 106 & Park skit in which at one point he is seen blowing up back-stage on SNL because LeBron was chosen as host over him. More important, a new Digital Short was unveiled that is sure to be forwarded and viewed a million times over – Andy Samberg’s love song to Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Armisen), featuring Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and cameo by Jake Gyllenhaal. If this premiere episode is any indication of how the upcoming season will be for SNL, then tune in next week for host Seth Rogan and you won’t have to read that you missed out on another entertaining late night. You can laugh and remember those great skits as you read my Recap & Review of SNL, next week. See you then!