Saturday Night Live/Annette Bening/Gwen Stefani & Akon

Annette Bening/Gwen Stefani & Akon
Season 32, Episode 8
Airdate	December 9, 2006
Production Number	1479
Written by	Robert Smigel Scott Jacobson Rich Blomquist Matt O'Brien (cartoon)
Directed by	Don Roy King
← 32x07 Matthew Fox/Tenacious D	32x09 → Justin Timberlake (2)
Saturday Night Live — Season Thirty-Two

Annette Bening/Gwen Stefani & Akon is the eighth episode of the thirty-second season of Saturday Night Live, and the six hundred and sixteenth episode overall.

Guest Stars: Annette Bening (Host), Gwen Stefani (Musical Guest), Akon (Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Alec Baldwin (Himself/Valtrex Husband), Matthew Fox (Brad)

Episode Breakdown

• An Address from President Bush: President George W. Bush (Sudeikis) gives his impressions on the Iraq report and reads letters from Americans who have submitted their own ideas for how to solve the problem in Iraq. However, most of the proposals that Bush reads are from the elderly, children and a guy who thinks they can restore Saddam Hussein, write a check and forget that the entire war ever happened. He also explains that he intends to stay on as president until "the job is finished." He also puts forwards a plan to put Jeb and his daughters in charge if he gets sick.
• Annette Bening's Monologue: Bening answers questions from an audience member (Wiig) about her crazy character in American Beauty. A real estate agent (Poehler) also comments on how her character, a real estate agent, affected the lives of real life real estate agents. Another agent (Rudolph) comments on how the movie caused her divorce. Baldwin steps out to defend her, but he winds up talking about his film Glengarry Glen Ross and ignoring Bening's problem completely.
• Movie Trailer Re-Cut - Apocalypto: The trailer for Apocalypto is recut as an anti-Semitic film which blames the Jews for the problems of the Mayan Empire.
• Good Morning, I Hate This Town: Alan French (Sudeikis) and Samantha Collingswood (Bening) host a morning show where they muse about how much they hate the "dumbass town" they live in. They check in with the weatherman (Thompson) who warns the "dumbasses" to make sure they use an umbrella. The hosts go over to a cooking expert (Poehler) who teaches the viewers how to make edible Christmas tree ornaments. They stop her after cracking the eggs because they're worried that the people watching wouldn't be able to handle so much information in one sitting and go to commercial.
• TV Funhouse - DiDDy Kiddies: P. Diddy and a group of kids watch music videos made by Diddy, but they have a hard time figuring out what exactly it is that he does. They rule out rapper, producer, dancer, comedian, conductor and several other professions because he hires everyone else to do his work for him. They come to the conclusion Diddy is a fraud, and he accepts that.
• English Teacher: In a poetry class, the teacher (Bening) stops Daniel (Samberg), an apathetic student with whom she is having an affair. She talks about spending three hours in line to buy him a Nintendo Wii, but he winds up breaking up with her because he'd rather spend more time with his friends. The teacher sings a song about finding a "16-year-old she can really trust" before another student, Peter (Hader), comes in, and the cycle repeats.
• Two A-Holes - In a Live Nativity Scene: The A-Holes play Mary (Wiig) and Joseph (Sudeikis) in a live nativity scene. They talk about 24 and how Jack Bauer is a pimp while the director (Bening) attempts to get them to look down, adoringly, at the baby Jesus. When the three wise men present the gold, frankincense and myrrh, and the A-Holes keep asking what myrrh is, the director kicks them out.
• SNL Digital Short - Anger Problem: Armisen brings several fast food employees into work at 10AM to give a teamwork speech. The employees (Poehler, Thompson, Samberg and Fox) attempt to have a conversation with the manager, but he keeps making bizarre threats about fighting them. He calms down momentarily, but when another employee comes in late, the manager's head explodes. He then appears again behind his headless body. "Happy Holidays" in the style of the Lost logo appears on screen.
• Buyer Beware: Mason (Thompson) and his neighbor Trudy (Rudolph) host a consumer advice show where they complain about having to spend money on all of the accessories for the "Bentendo Wee Wee" and how the peaches at the farmer's market are disgusting. A caller (Poehler) asks if it's worth the money for a membership at Sam's Club or Costco. Finally, Mason puts forward a conspiracy theory about how the reason why Phillip-Morris airs anti-smoking commercials because the company that owns them wants people to stop smoking and buy more cheese.
• Wind It Up: Gwen Stefani song.
• Weekend Update
  • Al Gore (Hammond) comments on a conversation he had with Lindsey Lohan in which she attempted to talk about An Inconvenient Truth, but recounts it differently. He explains that she called him "Vice President Cheney" and "Mr. Ambassador," then threw up on him and threatened him when he told her that he wasn't in Happy Feet.
  • Gloria Patrick (Wiig) comments on her attempt to "cover her own flatulence" by lighting matches on an airplane. Meyers tells her that the passengers probably would have rather dealt with the smell than the forced landing, but she insists that he's wrong. Suddenly, she tells Seth that he should run. When he questions why, he gags on the smell and runs off set. The smell eventually gets to Amy and she throws Patrick off the set.
  • Meyers mentions that a study says that cell phones do not cause cancer. Poehler cheers and attempts to start smoking her cell phone.
  • Forte comments on the sanctity of marriage in regards to an African country which legalized gay marriage. He sings a protest song about gay marriage with Armisen playing guitar. The song gives few reasons why he doesn't think that gays should get married, and winds up spending most of the song gloating about his victory over the gays. At the end of the song, he starts to show pictures of happy couples, but most of his cards have been replaced with pictures of failed celebrity marriages.
• Monster Under Bed: A girl (Poehler) has a nightmare and calls her parents (Bening & Forte) in to her bedroom. She says that she thinks there's a monster under her bed, which they take very seriously. They all freak out and leap onto her bed. The girl tries to say that it was maybe her imagination, but they only manage to make her feel worse. When she admits to "bringing chocolate into the monster's lair," her mother starts to choke her until the father stops her. He pulls out guns and they all make a break for it. When they're out of the room, a monster (Hader) comes out of the closet and starts singing "It's a Holly Jolly Christmas" until the father shoots him dead.
• Valtrex: An advertisement for a genital herpes medication featuring a couple (Baldwin & Poehler) who "mysteriously" develops genital herpes, but it's obvious that the husband has been sleeping around, caught it from some woman and spread it to his wife.
• After-Work Sketch: Three boring co-workers (Forte, Wiig and Bening) go to a restaurant after work and make neurotic comments about being afraid of dancing. They order eggnog from the waiter (Hader) and time passes on the clock. When they come back to the three, they're talking about how they intend to have a wild threesome.
• I Wanna Love You: Akon song.
• Cat Attorney: A lawyer, Monica Stanfield (Bening), and her partner (Hader) advertise their law-firm for cats that inherited the houses of their crazy old lady owners. The attempt to explain the practice while keeping the cat's attention with bells, meowing and a video of a cat playing ping-pong.

Notes

"Live from New York, It's Saturday Night!"

• Jason Sudeikis as President George W. Bush.

Music

• Wind It Up, performed by Gwen Stefani: "Wind It Up' is the first single off Gwen Stefani's second solo album, The Sweet Escape. The song was produced by The Neptunes and features samples from "The Lonely Goatherd," a song from The Sound of Music. The song is most recognizable for prominently featuring yodeling.

• I Wanna Love You, performed by Akon: Although it was expected that Akon would perform with Gwen Stefani on "The Sweet Escape," the title track from her 2006 album, he instead performed a song off his own album. The song, entitled "I Wanna Love You," is his second single off Konvicted and originally featured Snoop Dogg.

Trivia

The Show

• Spillover: The SNL Digital Short features Matthew Fox, who was the host of the previous week's episode. The Digital Short had been filmed for that episode, but due to time constraints, was cut and aired in this episode.

• Repeat Sketch: The "Valtrex" sketch originally appeared in 32x05 - Alec Baldwin/Christina Aguilera.

• Out of Time: During the original airing for this episode, the final sketch, "Stanfield & Partlow," was abruptly cut off because they ran out of time before the scheduled commercial break.

Quotes

• Amy Poehler: Many mothers are disappointed that the Yellow Wiggle, Greg Page, is leaving the children's music group The Wiggles, as they see him as a major sex symbol. Also disappointing these women: Their husbands.

• Casey: I'm sorry! I'm sorry!
  Daddy: Yeah, I'd be sorry, too, if I had to sit on a bed and watch my parents get raped by a monster! Because it will happen!