Scot Bertram

Budget Cuts, a New Director, a New Bush, and Things in Boxes

Real-world Saturday Night Live events are dotting the calendar at this point. Season 50 officially kicked off on September 28 (did you like Maya Rudolph, Dana Carvey, Andy Samberg, and Jim Gaffigan?) and the new SNL film Saturday Night is in theaters on October 11. Reviews for the movie so far are … well, let’s not talk about that right now. But you can be certain your two co-hosts will be seeing it soon no matter what.

Back in our SNL universe, we are tackling Season 32, the 2006-2007 season. Before the year began, NBC enacted budget cuts across the board. Officials told Lorne he could choose fewer episode or a smaller cast this season. He chose the second option, which meant we said goodbye to a handful of cast members.

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Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz, who had both been on the show for eight seasons weren’t brought back. Finesse Mitchell was let go after three years. Longtime cast members Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey both left the show on their own terms to begin work on the 30 Rock. Unfortunately for Dratch, her role would end up being given to Jane Krakowski. No new cast members were added and the show had no featured players at all.

We still got the full allotment of 20 episodes, however.

There were additional changes, of course. Seth Meyers assumed the role of co-anchor for Weekend Update, meaning you see even less of him in sketches. During the season, the role of George W. Bush is passed from Will Forte to Jason Sudeikis. George Roy Hill supplants Beth McCarthy-Miller as the director of the show.

Season 32 is well-regarded by many for a couple of major highlights. First is the episode hosted by Justin Timberlake, one that Christian considers an “all-timer” but Scot likes a little less. The standout moment? A little Digital Short called “Dick In a Box.” Does it hold up? You’re darn right it does. Second is the episode hosted by Peyton Manning. Both of your hosts think this one doesn’t quite have the quality that its reputation suggest. The “United Way” PSA is fantastic, but there are some other sketches that we agree leave us wanting more — Locker Room, we’re lookin’ at you. Meanwhile, Scot makes the argument that the best episode of the year actually is the Alec Baldwin show.

Musical guests include Beck, The Shins, Keith Urban (the rare country artist making an appearance), The Killers, and Arcade Fire. And we try to figure out why an episode hosted by John C. Reilly, someone we both like, ends up such a mess.

We discuss all these things, plus a lot more in this episode of Wasn’t That Special. Please subscribe and join us for a trip through every year of SNL. And consider joining at the Executive Producer level, where you get a whole load of extra commentary and clips that will help you become an SNL expert.