Wednesday’s Torpedo Bat-Free Newsletter

SNL Recap

Mikey Madison is the epitome of the term rising star but she has yet to have established a clearly defined persona, unless you consider being set on fire in two different movies as a persona. (As she pointed out in her monologue, that shows range.) As a result the writers didn’t come up with material specifically geared towards her, she was much more a part of the ensemble rather than a host who dominates the evening. In addition, there were much more repeat bits than have been the norm in the past couple of seasons. This week’s show was a nice change of pace, not an all-timer but a pleasant 90 minutes.

The episode featured one of the better cold opens of the year. The issue with cold opens is that they almost always comment on current events, but since current reality is so preposterous how can one possibly come up with a premise that doesn’t simply regurgitate that reality? Last week’s major story was the Signal clusterf***, so it was no surprise that the show began with a trio of teens (Madison, Ego, & Sarah) in a group text chat only to be joined by Pete Hegseth (Andrew,) JV Vance (Bowen,) Lil’ Marco (Marcello,) and eventually Jeffrey Goldberg (Mikey.) The jokes were fairly predictable - Madison’s date for the evening was Matt Gaetz - but amusing.

The first post-monologue sketch featured the return of Marcello’s delusionally condescending commercial acting coach. I know that SNL is trying to make Domingo a thing, but that character doesn’t do it for me. This one is a better showcase for Marcello’s talent for playing things big. It featured the usual array of hapless students and this time Madison took over the role of the star pupil.

My pick for Top Sketch Of the Week wasn’t exactly a repeat, instead it’s a new take on a recurring sketch template. Ego played a judge interviewing a parade of potential jurors trying to get out of jury duty. Each cast member gets to step up and make their one joke. Among the highlights were JAJ as a shock jock, Heidi as a woman who sends nudes to Luigi Mangione, Emil as Mangione, and Chloe as herself using the time to demonstrate her Parkey Posey in The White Lotus impersonation. I related to this one; every time I have ever been called to jury duty it always strikes me to see how increasingly exasperated the judges get as they have to listen to the lame excuses people use as they try to get out of serving.

This week’s Please Don’t Destroy was too much of a rehash of the Bad Bunny as Shrek video, this one had Madison dressed up as Squidward which led into a whole SpongeBob as an HBO series concept. A better pre-taped sketch was the music video - featuring a Joe Jonas cameo - about New Yorkers waiting on long lines to try the latest trendy food item that only turned out to be just OK. There was also a new version of a premise that may have run its course; a serious conversation held while insanity takes place in the background. In this instance a Fort Lauderdale spring break scene featured projectile vomit, pepper spray, a live alligator, and a drunken fall from a hotel balcony.

Both Update desk pieces were good. In the first Devon responded to a current viral video in which some dude films his morning workout routine. Devon’s included lots of product placement and lots of digs at Che. In what I believe was her first Update appearance Ashley played Joann of the now bankrupt Joann’s Fabrics bemoaning the demise of her business. Of the 3 rookie featured players Ashley shows far and away the most potential; she has a real Heidi-esque penchant for strong character work.

As for the post-Update highlights, I liked the mafia sketch in which Andrew’s mob boss was gunned down and in his dying breaths he revealed that his one regret in life was that he never became a standup comedian. He started to do his act, which was filled with dumb dad jokes and a dumb catch phrase. The animated short that ended the episode was a good one as well; Dutch explorers voiced by Bowen and Michael plot out the layout of Manhattan Island.

My usual strategy when watching SNL when I’m home on Saturday nights is to go to bed after Update and then catch up on the final half hour some time on Sunday. So by the time I watched the end I was fully aware that musical guest Morgan Wallen bizarrely walked off stage as the closing goodbyes began without acknowledging anyone else other than Mikey Madison. It gave me a chance to act as an amateur Kremlinologist, closely watching the cast reactions to see who was perturbed by his actions. Ego looked to me to have been the most shocked.

That, along with her anchoring role as the judge in the jury duty sketch is enough for me to award Ego the Employee Of the Week award. But really this was a solid showcase for virtually the entire ensemble. Next week Jack Black will host with Elton John & Brandi Carlile serving as musical guest. It will be Black’s 4th time hosting, the first time in more than a decade.

Meet the Nominees - The White Stripes

It is so difficult to accurately predict the results of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, and the ballot history of The White Stripes serves as a perfect illustration why. Nominated as first year eligibles 2 years ago, they seemed to be the biggest of shoo-ins, but they fell short. They were not even nominated the following year. After that one year ballot hiatus, they are back. Will this time be the charm?

Similar to Soundgarden, The White Stripes had already released a few albums and were a fully entrenched player in a specific scene when that scene suddenly gained mainstream prominence. The Stripes were lumped in with the so-called New Garage Rock aesthetic, when The Strokes among others gained attention as a response to the waning fortunes of the TRL era artists. The Stripes’ third album, which was initially an indie release, was picked up and rereleased by a major label and before too long their low budget Lego video for Fell In Love With a Girl got heavy play on MTV.

They stood out for several reasons. Jack & Meg White’s signature red & white fashion gave them a distinctive look. The inscrutability gave them an air of mystery - what is their deal, why do they keep changing the backstory about their personal relationship to each other? They initially told the press that they were siblings until it was finally revealed that they were a divorced couple still working together professionally. And then there was their sound. How could a band consisting of only two people create such a powerful sonic fury?

It was with their 4th album that they took it to the next level when Jack White came up with That Riff. It now seems unimaginable that there was a time when Seven Nation Army did not exist. Hard as it is to believe, it wasn’t until the 21st century that we were introduced to one of the most recognizable and intoxicating guitar lines in existence. It’s now a staple of every college marching band in the country and it has a position in heavy rotation for the DJ at every stadium and arena as well. If they produced nothing else than Seven Nation Army their place in history would be secure.

Thankfully they produced much more. They released a couple more kick-ass albums until their breakup later on in the aughts. Jack White has been a prolific producer and has maintained a thriving solo career. His reputation as The Last Rock Star is overblown, but it’s also true that he has helped keep that classic feel alive. I should also note this - his real last name is Gillis; he took Meg White’s last name when they married.

Which brings us to Meg White. Her musical reputation suffers from good old fashioned misogyny, but any listen to their music shows that the band would not have been anywhere near as great as they were without her. You cannot create a sound like that with only two musicians unless you have a drummer who knows how to fill spaces. It’s not just that her distinctive thump thumps added the bass lines that were needed, but her cymbals work was impeccable as well. All hail Meg White, her style was primitive, but she kicked serious ass on that drum kit.

Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hit: Icky Thump

My Personal Favorite: Perhaps it’s too obvious a choice, but it’s Seven Nation Army

If elected, will they perform at the ceremony?: Gosh, I hope so but I have my doubts. Meg White is one of the most introverted figures in rock history, and she has almost completely vanished from the public eye following the band’s breakup. Would she even show up, and if so, would she say anything more than a simple “thank you” from the podium? And if she refuses to perform, would Jack White try to put together an ad hoc version of The White Stripes for the evening, or would he consider it disrespectful to do so without her participation? I’m keeping my fingers crossed that a one night only reunion is possible, but my head tells me that it’s unlikely.

All the Chalk

We came so close to both Final Fours consisting of nothing but #1 seeds. After 7 regional finals in which the top seed prevailed, there was finally a Cinderella (sarcasm) when UConn defeated USC in the last Elite Eight game. It’s not as if the Huskies are interlopers either. They are good enough that they could have easily been a #1 seed themselves, and the Trojans were playing short handed once JuJu Watkins tore her ACL.

Those results come with mixed emotions. Top seeds means that the best players are still playing in the final weekend, and who would object to that? It’s still nice to have a surprise team sneak in. No one wants a repeat of 2 years ago when San Diego State, Florida Atlantic, and Miami all made it into the Final Four. That was overkill, but things are more fun when a Loyola or a George Mason comes out of nowhere and captivates the nation.

That said, it’s only one year. It’s premature to pull out the Jump To Conclusions mat. The NIL and transfer portal eras have been going on for a couple of years already, so the results are not entirely due to those factors. It’s certainly possible that conference realignment added to that has irrevocably changed the landscape of the tournament but we need to see how things play out for another couple of tournaments until we are sure about that.

Pat McAfee’s Crap

My God, this story. It exemplifies everything wrong today with cyber bullying and hot take media. It’s behind a paywall, but I’ll briefly recap for those who do not subscribe to The Athletic. A freshman student at Ole Miss was unjustly accused on a college message board of having a relationship with her boyfriend’s father. Bad enough, but Pat McAfee (of course) brought the story up on his show and it was subsequently picked up by many of the usual suspects: a couple of Barstool personalities, some sports talk hosts, etc.

This young woman’s life - and I remind you again that the story is not true - is in ruin. Trolls have been targeting her and her family, including a swatting incident. She has been forced to move from her dorm to an undisclosed location and has been forced to attend her classes online. Terrible all around, but in a story with a plethora of villains, the big one is McAfee. What purpose did it serve to fuel this fire? True, he did not use her name but he threw the story into the sports talk ether, and it did not take much for internet trolls to find the source of the UNSUBSTANTIATED rumors and go to town.

This is just so depressing. There need to be consequences.

The DC Comics IP - Watchmen

Anyone who doubts that comic books/graphic novels can also be highly acclaimed literature need look no further than Watchmen. It routinely shows up on listings of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Just because it was accompanied by illustrations of costumed superheroes does not mean that it’s lowbrow, and it certainly was not meant for kids. This is art.

The Zack Snyder directed film version of the original miniseries (not to be confused with the recent animated adaptation or the HBO series which was set in the same universe several years after these events took place) is polarizing to say the least. I get it; I personally can’t stand the unnecessarily dark tones that Snyder placed on his movies set in the standard DC Universe. I did love his take on Watchmen, however. It is difficult material to translate to live action, and even though I may not have agreed with all of his story choices he probably did the best possible job that one could have with the source material. A lot of that is due to some perfect castings choices that he made.

The series, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, had an interesting origin. DC had acquired the IP of the defunct Charlton Comics line and was intending to introduce those characters into the DC Universe. Moore’s storyline would have entailed too many drastic changes, so he pivoted to creating an entirely new set of characters instead. Watchmen was the result.

The story was set in an alternate universe in which the existence of costumed heroes - notably only one of whom had actual superpowers - had serious ramifications on American history. For example, as a result of some of the actions that took place the 22nd Amendment had been overturned and Richard Nixon was still President in 1986. By this time superheroes had been outlawed, so they had all either retired, gone underground, or worked for the government. The vigilante Rorschach was stealthily investigating a murder, the victim being one of his former colleagues. That led him to cross paths with the other Watchmen and also uncovered all sorts of Cold War era conspiracies.

Rorschach became an iconic character, and his “you’re locked up in here with me” line is one of the most famous in comics history. And anyone who has spent any time on the internet has seen any number of Dr. Manhattan memes. The storytelling structure of the series was highly influential as well. Jumping back and forth in time and filled with flashbacks that flesh out the backstories of the characters, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof often spoke of how heavily the storytelling structure of Watchmen had inspired Lost.

As I said, the complexity of the story was too much for a movie to adequately cover; Snyder fast forwarded through much of the 1940’s portion of the story in the opening credits sequence. And no squid? But the stuff that he kept was as strong as I had hoped it would be. This was made shortly after Jackie Earle Haley’s comeback began, and you couldn’t have asked for a better Rorschach. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was so ideal as Edward Blake that if you didn’t know better you would almost think that Moore & Gibbons had him in mind when they conceived the character. And Billy Crudup gave Dr. Manhattan the sort of blank slate lack of emotion that the character’s tragic story needed.

I am not going to defend the rest of Snyder’s DC work. The Superman/Batman movie was a complete mess. He did succeed with Watchmen. It doesn’t match the quality of the graphic novel - what could have? - but with so many poor comic book adaptations out there it’s comforting to know that Hollywood did well with what was arguably the greatest triumph of the genre.

Closing Laughs

Time to roll the gate down for another day. Thanks as always for the clicks. Have a great day and see you all on Friday.