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Videos: Jim Carrey Hosts Energetic Halloween-Themed <em>Saturday Night Live</em>
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 26, 2014
Modified Oct 27, 2014
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 26, 2014
Modified Oct 27, 2014
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Jim Carrey's still-elastic face graced Saturday Night Live last night. It was a Halloween-centric evening, with at least five sketches devoted to scaring up some spooky laughs. But it was a very enjoyable episode because SNL went down the weird rabbit hole, and thankfully stayed down there all night.
The best sketches of the night saw the show channeling Carrey's weirdest instincts—that included a brilliant and hilarious monologue about a room filled with 250 men named Dennis and one named Brian in the excellent Secret Billionaire sketch. It was one of the funniest, strangest things to be on SNL so far this season. Carrey was also fantastic in the last sketch of the night, Geoff’s Halloween Emporium, which was sort-of a variation on the recurring porn stars sketch...only with Carrey's character possessed by the devil.
Carrey showed off a pretty good Matthew McConaughey impression in three short sketches throughout the first half of the show that parodied those Lincoln car ads (philosophical musings about boogers are always welcome). As was expected, Carrey got to do some dancing and singing in several sketches, including the energetic Halloween Party, which was enjoyable for the ridiculous physical comedy of Carrey and the otherwise underused Kate McKinnon. Carrey Family Reunion was a trip through some of Carrey's best (and most grating) characters, with much of the SNL cast unleashing their own wacky Carrey impressions (A+ to Vanessa Bayer and Cecily Strong). And no one could forget Paul and Phil, the lovable regular guy ghosts who keep interrupting the flow of the music in Haunted Graveyard.
While this was an episode dominated—in a good way! except for the awful Walking Dead/High School sketch—by the host, there were some standout moments for the regular cast as well: Kenan Thompson's Al Sharpton saved an otherwise tepid cold open on Ebola; Vanessa Bayer got to awkwardly flirt with Michael Che on Weekend Update; and new castmember Leslie Jones brought a loud (and welcome) vibe to the otherwise dead-in-the-water Ghost Hunters sketch.
Show MVP Bobby Moyniham did his usual wonderful scene-stealing in the very weird monologue (Satanic Elvis...aka Helvis...loves eating pie...) and as The Mask in Carrey Family Reunion, but his big moment was the return of still-hilarious word-jumbler Drunk Uncle, who made a grand entrance getting freaked out by Che.
Click through for all those sketches, plus musical perofrmances from Iggy Azalea that comes across as a parody of what a person who has only vaguely heard of Azalea might think her music is. Chris Rock will host next weekend, with musical guest Prince (!!!).
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jim carrey
saturday night live
snl
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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