Saturday Night Live/Johnny Knoxville/System of a Down

Johnny Knoxville/System of a Down
Season 30, Episode 18
Airdate	May 7, 2005
Production Number	1400
Written by	Tina Fey Andrew Steele (head writers) Doug Abeles Leo Allen James Anderson Alex Baze Liz Cackowski James Downey Charlie Grandy Steve Higgins Joe Kelly Erik Kenward John Lutz Lorne Michaels Matt Murray Paula Pell Lauren Pomerantz Frank Sebastiano T. Sean Shannon Eric Slovin Robert Smigel JB Smoove Emily Spivey Jason Sudeikis Rich Talarico T. Sean Shannon (short)
Directed by	Beth McCarthy Miller
← 30x17 Tom Brady/Beck	30x19 → Will Ferrell/Queens of the Stone Age
Saturday Night Live — Season Thirty

Johnny Knoxville/System of a Down is the eighteenth episode of the thirtieth season of Saturday Night Live. It is the first appearance by both the host and musical guest on the show.

Guest Stars: Johnny Knoxville (Host), System of a Down (Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Paula Abdul (Herself), Patti Forte (Herself)

Episode Breakdown

• Primetime Live: Abdul introduces a re-enactment of herself allegedly having an affair with a former contestant of American Idol on Primetime Live. Corey Clark (Mitchell) is finding he has more information to give reporter John Quiñones (Armisen), including a receipt for a fish sandwich and clips of the show where Abdul (Poehler) said she'll "see him at home" between mystified looks from Randy Jackson (Thompson) and Simon Cowell (Parnell). Clark continues by claiming he's not doing this for publicity, even though he has a book, a record and t-shirts coming out. Primetime Live also uncovers evidence Abdul may have had affairs with contestants Mario Vasquez and Justin Guarini (both Rudolph), as well as Constantine Maroulis (W. Forte). Also appearing is Ryan Seacrest (Meyers) before the real Abdul returns to give the cast notes on their performance.
• Johnny Knoxville's Monologue: Although he found success in Jackass, Knoxville has promised his mom he won't do dumb stuff anymore. To show how different SNL is from his show, he shows a few clips from his week on the show, but it isn't really much different from usual. In wardrobe, he's hit in the crotch by Riggle, and in the SNL offices, Armisen snaps a mousetrap on his ear, and Poehler hits him with a folding chair. Later on in the week, Sanz shaves off a lock of his hair and Michaels' daughter shocks him with a tazer. Finally, just an hour before the show started, he met Don Pardo, who kneed him in the groin. When they come back to home base, he's tackled by Meyers before going to commercial.
• Mom Jeans: A line of jeans designed specifically for aging mothers is advertised with several mothers (Dratch, Fey, Rudolph, Poehler) modeling the different cuts, much to the disapproval of one of their husbands (Parnell). The jeans, specifically, are unfashionable and are made to accommodate inactive mothers with huge asses.
• The Needlers - Sally & Dan Harrison: The Couple That Should Be Divorced: At a small get together hosted by Jack (Knoxville) and his wife (Rudolph), several couples arrive, including Ted (Parnell) and his wife (Dratch) and Sally (Poehler) and Dan (Meyers) Harrison. The Harrisons, as expected, ruin the mood with their incessant fighting. They try to bring the mood back down with wine, which they promptly spit out when Sally mentions their desire to have kids. The two go into the kitchen, and a loud commotion ensures. Jack goes to check on them, and they're having sex, not trying to kill each other.
• Donald Trump - Domino's Ad Shoot: Donald Trump (Hammond), wearing a giant pizza costume, is recording an advertisement for Domino's Pizza with a director (Meyers), but he keeps pronouncing words wrong. Each take goes progressively worse, especially when he starts to "wing it" and sing the jingles for other restaurants. Eventually the director settles with what Trump gives him.
• Donatella Versace - Mother's Day Special: Donatella Versace (Rudolph) is hosting a Mother's Day special from her mother's home in Italy. Her mother (Dratch) is brought out so she can give her a metal bikini. Elton John (Sanz) and David Furnish (Knoxville) crash the special in order to make sure she remembers that she's designing their wedding clothing. She throws them out so she can go back to spending time with her mother.
• Channel 5 Late Night Movie: In the movie Visitors from Another Planet, Zarton (Knoxville) brings Zebulon (Parnell) an earthling (W. Forte) he abducted earlier in the day. They claim to have built the pyramids but take no responsibility for crop circles. When the subject of anal probes comes up, Zebulon and Jackson (Thompson) question Zarton, who is suspended from the fleet when busted. They apologize for his behavior and send the earthling into the library with Jackson to purportedly get the solution for hunger, but he is just probed again.
• B.Y.O.B.: System of a Down song.
• Weekend Update:
  • W. Forte is introduced in order to deliver a very special message on Mother's Day, particularly to his mother Patti. After bringing her out, Will sings her a song about how much he'll miss her when she's dead.
  • Deaf comedian Ritchie B (Armisen) and his interpreter Marcus (Thompson) start out telling harmless jokes, but it quickly deviates into racist humor which Marcus is forced to repeat. He refuses to say the punchline to the second racist joke and won't explain the third at all, instead opting to tell a joke about Ritchie B's tiny penis.
  • Former Weekend Update producer Herb Sargent is given a short tribute at the very end of WU due to his death the day before.
• Mother's Day Brunch: Three families attend Mother's Day brunch, including Jeremy (Sudeikis), his brother (Meyers), their mother (Dratch) and their father (Knoxville). But their father is insisting he be called "Tiffany" to prepare for his upcoming sex change operation, which is also being assisted by him wearing jewelry and a dress. Their mother and brother are disgusted by the idea, although Jeremy is strangely accommodating until it's revealed Jeremy is flunking out of law school. Meanwhile, Diquonte (Thompson) and Kyle (Mitchell) are struggling with their grandmother's (Rudolph) failing memory, and an overly enthusiastic couple (Poehler and Riggle) with a newborn is constantly speaking in babytalk and applauding their child's every action. In all, the waiter (Parnell) is the one who's given the sympathy for having to deal with all three families.
• Helping Hands Telethon: In a telethon for Helping Hands, the emcee (Knoxville) attempts to drive people to call in and pledge money to help them out. In the background, Andy (W. Forte) answers the phone and starts shouting a pained "Oh no!" over and over again until he's confronted by the emcee and told to hang up and not pick up again. The "Funtown Trio" (Thompson, Armisen and Poehler) are introduced to sing a song, and Andy is forced to pick up his phone again, which causes the wailing to ensue again. The director (Sudeikis) lets them go to break but not before the emcee says that he doesn't believe in the telethon. After coming back, the emcee fires Andy, unplugs his phone and chases him around the studio with it.
• Merv the Perv - Irvin: Mervin Watson (Parnell) appears in a lingerie store to hassle three customers (Rudolph, Dratch, Poehler) with obtuse come-on lines. They leave to get the manager, but he turns out to be Merv's little brother, Irvin Watson or "Irv the Perv." The two start making more and more inappropriate remarks until they admit they've sniffed all of the panties in the store and Irv is just impersonating the manager for Victoria's Secret. They then rip off their pants and try one last time to seduce the women.
• Aerials: System of a Down song.
• Action News: The "Action News" team is introduced, starting with anchors Hunt Linear (Knoxville) and Jennifer Tuttle (Poehler) and going through the entire cast along with their news beats: Gifford McGill (W. Forte) with sports, Albert Jarmon (Riggle) with weather, Dr. Courtney Phelps (Rudolph) with health, Stuart Tisdale (Armisen) with movie reviews, Craig Balderston (Thompson) with market watch, Evan Martin (Hammond) with a technology report, Anne Hasenzahl (Dratch) with fashion, Ernesto Diaz (Sanz) with a Puerto Rican round-up, Deborah Shea (Fey) with celebrity birthdays, Gary Stevens (Meyers) with parakeets and monkeys, Elliot Winslow (Mitchell) as a budget gourmet, Jim Sizemore (Parnell) with "I'm going to burn down a clock factory" and Andrew Donnelly (Sudeikis) with the Washington report. After all that, Linear reports on a clock factory arson, and everyone in the cast shares a laugh over a joke he makes. They go to commercial, but not before introducing more people as their field team.
• Bear City - Barstool Blues: The bartender at a bar gets a phone call from the wife of one of his patrons. The patron attempts to stop him from handing the phone over, but he does anyway. That patron endures being screamed at by his wife and nonchalantly leaves the bar while the bartender mocks him.
• You Might be a Gay Redneck If...: Jeff Foxworthy's gay half-brother Todd Foxworthy (Knoxville) is riding the coattails of his half-brother's fame by telling similar jokes to "you might be a redneck," instead offering jokes with the twist of "you might be a gay redneck." To advertise his DVD further, a gay redneck (Thompson) gives his testimonial on why people should buy his DVD.

Notes

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

• Paula Abdul as herself.

Music

• B.Y.O.B., performed by System of a Down: "B.Y.O.B." (or "Bring Your Own Bombs") is the first single by System of a Down off their fourth album, Mesmerize. The song, like much of System of a Down's catalog, is a politically charged song which protests the Iraq War. Despite this, the song was the band's first top 30 hit and was performed a full 10 days before the album was officially released. Although the song features a great deal of profanity, censors managed to mute every instance of the word "fuck" except for one instance towards the end of the song when Daron Malakian shouted "fuck yeah!"

• Aerials, performed by System of a Down: The second song performed by Armenian-American artists System of a Down is "Aerials," from their third studio album, Toxicity. The song is their most successful hit, as it topped the Modern and Mainstream Rock Billboard charts, and it is also one of their most subdued.

Trivia

The Show

• Breaking Tradition: Typically, the host or a member of the cast introduces the band before they play. However, the second performance by System of a Down was introduced by special guest Paula Abdul instead of host Johnny Knoxville.

• Recycled Sketch: The "Mom Jeans" commercial parody originally aired in episode 28x19 - Adrien Brody/Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder.

Behind the Scenes

• Switched Out: Originally, Paula Abdul was meant to play herself in the cold opening American Idol bits. She went as far as performing in the dress rehearsal but felt too uncomfortable to reprise the role in the live broadcast. As a result, the writers re-wrote the sketch to Amy Poehler's strengths and added the short introduction and closing by Abdul.