Tonight Saturday Night Live returns for yet another season.  The long-running sketch comedy series is starting with a risky choice for host, Olympian Michael Phelps.  While he certainly is one of the most recognizable faces of the summer, athletes rarely make great hosts for the sake of comedy.  But with the presidential election heating up, Saturday Night Live has more than enough material some hilarious entertainment.  Sarah Palin alone should provide fodder for several sketches.

I'll be updating as the episode goes.  With rumors swirling that Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph and even Barack Obama could appear, there should be high hopes.

Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin: Hey, it's Tina Fey as Sarah Palin!  And Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton!  They joke about sexism in politics, and Fey's Palin is dead on, from the accent to the hair and glasses.  It's great they're finding ways to keep Poehler's stellar Hillary impression.  These two women are very funny together, with the highlight being Poehler calling out Palin for wearing "Tina Fey glasses."

The opening credits feature the new guy, Bobby Moynihan.  Let's see how he does.

Michael Phelps Monologue: Michael Phelps struggles through his lines, but thankfully he's saved by lots of audience interruption.  Poehler is his overly enthusiastic mom, Will Forte offers Phelps an endorsement deal for "My First Meth Labm" then William Shatner pops up to promote Pricelin.com.  Oh, and Phelps' real mom is in the audience too.  Phelps was pretty bad, but thankfully everyone else made it funny.

Quiz Bowl: A normal high school faces off in a quiz bowl against a group of home schooled religious people.  Moynihan is there, and Phelps is a strange religious kid.  We get good stuff like the claim that the last war on U.S. soil was the "caveman-dinosaur war," after which the cavemen built the White House.

Jar Glove Commercial: A new jar opener can prevent you from struggling with the jar, having it hit your husband and kill him, forcing you to bury his body and serve time in jail.

Swim Meet Dance: Will Forte tries to pep up an awful swim team.  Michael Phelps says he got so scared he thought he "fudged his Speedo."  Ah yes, it's basically the same sketch from the Peyton Manning episode where it ends with Forte and Phelps doing a ridiculous dance for about two straight minutes.  Whether you find this funny depends on your love of Forte's absurdly genius physical comedy.

Next week on Saturday Night Live: musical guest Kings of Leon and host James Franco.  That's an odd choice, since he's not usually known for comedy, but I won't complain with any Freaks and Geeks cast member hosting.

Weird Kids: Yet another repeat, because last year Kristen Wiig and Seth Rogen played a pair of weird little kids who do stupid things when company is over, and now Phelps plays their equally strange cousin.  It's pretty dumb, especially Phelps' poor man's Napoleon Dynamite impression.  I'm hoping the writers just didn't want to waste their good material on Phelps, so they just picked up some sketches from past episodes and wrote Phelps' name over whoever the host was before.

Lil Wayne: Maybe some people like this, but I've never been a big fan of the whole musical guest aspect of Saturday Night Live.  If you don't like the performer, it essentially means a five minute bathroom and snack break.

Weekend Update: For now, Meyers and Poehler are still behind the desk, though Poehler's pregnancy will change that during the season.  Will Forte busts out "Alaska Pete," a rugged Alaska resident who proceeds to mockingly defend Sarah Palin, calling her a "Super MILF" and a soon-to-be "GILF."  Unfortunately, the momentum is killed by Fred Armisen's "political comedian" Nicholas Fehn.  Honestly, are there people who find this nonsensical rambling funny?  The day is saved by Andy Samberg doing a segment as Cathy, the comic strip character, delivering plenty of random Cathy-isms, particularly "Ack!"

The Charles Barkley Show: Ooh, a new sketch with Kenan Thompson's funny Barkley impression.  The topic is the Olympics.  Darrell Hammond does a Bela Karolyi impression that sounds like a Romanian Regis Philbin.  Phelps gets to play himself, and then it's over.  Hmm, there weren't many jokes there, but Kenan was pretty funny.

T-Mobile: They recreate the T-Mobile commercial where the brother has the same Top Five as his sister, causing the dad to say the solution is for his daughter to get friends who aren't so hot.  Then SNL provides the rest of the conversation, where the mom yells at the dad for thinking teenage girls are hot.  This is an absolutely brilliant premise for a sketch, and it's probably my favorite thing from the night.

Digital Short: Andy Samberg does a weird techno song about the Space Olympics in 3022.  It's the most surreal thing I've ever seen, and I can't decide if it's genius or awful, but I might lean towards genius.

Loud Waiter: Bobby Moynihan plays a loud, obnoxious waiter.  That's a big swing and a miss for his first attempt at creating a catchy, funny character.

Lil Wayne 2: The problem at this point is there's usually a short, funny sketch between this final musical performance and the end of the show, so rather than turning off the TV now, I get another break.

Michael Phelps Diet: The Olympian encourages people to eat like him to lose weight, including a bathtub full of fettucini alfredo for dinner.  Inexplicably, Jared from the Subway commercial makes a cameo.  It would be a lot funnier if Phelps could actually read a cue card.

The icing on the cake of Phelps' very poor hosting job is, at the very end, when he says goodbye by wishing everyone "a good Saturday."  I can only assume he's hoping that next week's host is funnier than he was, because this Saturday is over.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of NBC)