I Love Tina Tina Shanooz

Saturday Night Live last night continued its trend of leaving the goofiest but most creative sketch for last. This week, it was “New Doorbell,” which, unless I’m mistaken, is the first sketch Jenny Slate has led since she said accidently said fuck during the season premiere. Happy to see her getting the screen to herself once again. Here’s the sketch:

Why I like this sketch:

• For one, it’s good to know that Slate can lead a sketch without blurting profanities.
• For another, this sketch reminds me of In Living Color, especially if a Fly Girl were to have hijacked the stage and tried out her own sketch. Or if some entrepreneuse Fly Girl hijacked the stage and tried pitching her new personalized doorbell company.
• A simple concept well executed, with a character we have not seen before.
  
• Girl’s name is Tina Tina Shanooz.
• I feel as though I must have met women like Tina Tina, though I’m pretty sure I haven’t.
• The sketch began with Nasim Pedrad as the woman answering her door and then jumped to Slate as Tina Tina, allowing me to differentiate one from the other, finally.
• Slate’s character kind of reminds me of Amy Poehler’s impression of Rosie Perez, and that’s a good thing.

Last week’s episode also ended with the weirdest of the night’s sketches — and considerably weirder than Tina Tina Shanooz, though maybe not as funny. Though seeing Blake Lively lose her shit on the line “WAUGH! Potato chip thief!” stuck with me.

Points for “Potato Chip”:

• It gave Lively more to do than most of this episode’s sketches did.
• And it really reminded me of a sketch that I would have seen in a rerun of one of the SNLs from the first seven seasons of the show, though perhaps that’s just all the wood grain.
• The line “This did not end the way I imagined it, in my undry dreams. So I shall collect my hemorrhoid donut and bid you adieu.”

“Potato Chip” wasn’t the highlight of the Blake Lively episode. No, that would be the sketch that referenced someone named DJ Deuce Groan. But I still liked it. Hey SNL, maybe more like this instead of sketches where Kristen Wiig in a sweater can’t handle surprises?