Saturday Night Live/LeBron James/Kanye West

LeBron James/Kanye West
Season 33, Episode 1
Airdate	September 29, 2007
Production Number	1492
Written by	Seth Meyers Andrew Steele Paula Pell (head writers) Doug Abeles James Anderson Alex Baze James Downey Charlie Grandy Steve Higgins Colin Jost Erik Kenward John Lutz Lorne Michaels Matt Murray Marika Sawyer Akiva Schaffer Robert Smigel John Solomon Emily Spivey Jorma Taccone Bryan Tucker Robert Smigel Andrew Steele (TV Funhouse)
Directed by	Don Roy King
← 32x20 Zach Braff/Maroon 5	33x02 → Seth Rogen/Spoon
Saturday Night Live — Season Thirty-Three

LeBron James/Kanye West is the first episode of the thirty-third season of Saturday Night Live, and the six hundred and twenty-eighth episode overall. It is the first appearance by the host and the second appearance by the musical guest.

Guest Stars: LeBron James (Host), Kanye West (Musical Guest)

TV Funhouse Voices: Stephen Colbert (Ace), Steve Carell (Gary)

Digital Short Guests: Adam Levine (Himself), Jake Gyllenhaal (Himself)

Episode Breakdown

• Address from All-But-Certain-to-be-Next President Hilary Clinton: Hilary Clinton (Poehler) addresses the nation, although her husband Bill Clinton (Hammond) is sitting in her chair when she appears on camera. She gives her acceptance speech long in advance, although the election isn't for another year. She also viciously insults the seven Democratic candidates who she is currently running against, including Barack Obama and certain losers Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel. She also assumes that she'll be voted into a second term with the possibility of a third term if they change the term limits law. But she does encourage the Democratic candidates to run for president in 2016 when she's UN Secretary General and Bill is Pope.
• LeBron James' Monologue: As a gesture to the people in the audience who don't follow basketball, James explains who he is and how his team, the Cavaliers, shut out the San Antonio Spurs in the last season. After the introduction, James laments about how his family couldn't be there to support him at SNL. Suddenly, it cuts to three characters played by James on a series of Nike commercials watching him on television. Wise LeBron, the older man, spends this time mocking James and saying that his wishes were all lies. Also there are Business LeBron, who's busy talking on the phone, and Kid LeBron, who thinks that James is doing a good job. When it goes back to James on stage, he's by a chalkboard and tells the audience that he solved the health care situation with an unseen explanation.
• Angry Dog: Two kids and their mother (Wiig) are gathered around their dog which has gotten into a fight with a neighborhood dog that's frequently fighting with her. The announcer explains that the only way for their dog, Daisy, to stand up to the bully is to do it herself with the aid of "Angry Dog" brand dog food. The food, which has Michael Vick's picture on it, is jammed with steroids and other chemicals which increase aggressiveness in dogs. When the kids come back inside, Daisy is baring her teeth and the little girl is missing an eye, but she did maul the mailman.
• Penelope at the Charity Auction: Rick Foster (Armisen) is chairman of the Children's Hope Foundation and has organized a fundraising event for the foundation. Alice (Rudolph) and her friend (Poehler) are at the event to offer their support, as well is Penelope (Wiig), who does everything she can to one-up everything that anyone else says. When everyone takes their seats, the moderator (Hader) explains that the fundraiser is a date auction where the winner gets a night out on the town with James. He explains who he is, including his basketball achievements and charitable donations. Through out his speech, Penelope stands up and makes impossible claims to make her seem better than he is. Eventually the bidding starts and she bids an equally impossible amount of money, citing a "treasure chest" she owns. James tells her that he invented the potato and can grow a foot long beard just by dreaming about it over night in an attempt to shut her up, but she keeps going, even though his claims are absurd. James is so upset in the end that he leaves the stage. When it cuts back to her, Penelope really does have a 3-foot long beard and everyone leaves.
• Disney Channel's High School Musical 3: In the third sequel to the wildly popular Disney musical High School Musical, Zak Efron (Samberg) reprises his role as Troy Bolton. Bolton, now a senior, is forced to cope with a new student (James) trying out for the basketball team. But the new student reconsiders when Bolton and his friends start singing a song about equating skills in dancing and singing to basketball. But, the student reconsiders one more time when Gabriella Montez, played by Vanessa Ann Hudgens (Rudolph), appears nude and declares her love for him. He decides to play on the team as long as he can have sex with Bolton's girl.
• SNL Digital Short - Iran So Far: Samberg sings a song about how much he loves Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Armisen) along with Adam Levine from Maroon 5. Samberg poses a situation where they could be together while Ahmadinejad was in New York to speak at Columbia University. In Samberg's words, "I know you say there's no gays in Iran, but you're in New York now, baby."
• Underballs Directs NBA PSA: James is starring in a public service announcement advocating reading to children directed by Mike Underballs (Hader). After one take, Jeff (Sudekis) passes the ball too high to James and is criticized by the director for his throw, but James tries to calm him down by instructing him on making the pass to the chest. Jeff is clearly offended by this because on the next take he throws it far earlier than he should. On the third take, he throws it early again and aims for James' head. On yet another take, Jeff throws a book at James instead of the basketball. James threatens to walk off the set, which Jeff reponds by saying Dwayne Wade should be doing the commercial instead. Jeff tries to prove himself by taking James one-on-one in basketball, but winds up getting his nose broken and can't make a single shot.
• The Lyle Kane Show: Lyle Kane (Forte) hosts a talk show on BET, even though he's a white guy with another white guy named Daniel (Hader) playing the flute as his house band. He also keeps calling referring to BET as "Black ET." He awkwardly continues his show by doing a joke that doesn't make any sense before introducing a guy he met at the bank named Tim (James) who is almost exactly like him, except black. After a single question about how working at the bank is, Kane makes Tim take Daniel's flute so that he can interview his band leader. Kane runs out of questions and guests early in the show, so Tim volunteers the question, "Which member of the BET staff did you have to give a BJ to in order to get this show?" He says it was a man named Brian Wilbur.
• Stronger/Good Life: Kanye West song.
• Weekend Update:
  • In the wake of the alleged robbery in a Las Vegas hotel, OJ Simpson (Thompson) appears to defend himself and explain exactly what happened. Simpson plays it off like it was no big deal, although Poehler says that he sounded very aggravated when trying to get his things back from the man in the hotel room on the audio recording. Simpson tries to explain the logic behind wanting back some things he sold 5 years prior, but neither she nor Meyers can understand what he's talking about. Simpson simplifies his argument down to two quotes: "What happens in Vegas, you must acquit" and "If the glove don't fit, stays in Vegas."
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Armisen) comments on his recent speech of Columbia University, along with his translator (Rudolph). Poehler questions him about Iran's policies on homosexuality and its draconian punishments against women. Ahmadinejad, through his translator, claims that there are no homosexuals in Iran before going to an explanation of the Iranian women that he loves, which exactly describes a man with a mustache.
• Time Life's Best of Solid Gold: C. Micah Kring (Thompson) acts as spokesman for a new television collection by Time-Life featuring the best of Solid Gold. Kring shows the intro to that show, which features the Solid Gold Dancers—Beverly (Wiig), Jamillah (Poehler), Mark (Forte), Darcel (Rudolph) and Alexander (James)—dancing awkwardly in skin-tight leotards. Kring talks about how great it was in the time when America thought they were the best dancers ever and shows clips of them dancing slowly to the most undancable songs ever made, like "We Built This City on Rock & Roll." He also shows off an interview with the band which plays out more like brief dating videos.
• TV Funhouse - The Ambiguously Gay Duo: Big Head has hatched yet another scheme to finally out Ace and Gary as homosexuals once and for all. He gathers all of the duo's greatest foes for an Indian barbecue laced with laxatives, along with the Minneapolis airport undercover officer who caught Senator Larry Craig soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom. At the cook-out, Ace (Colbert) and Gary (Carell) don't eat anything while the villains all wind up desperate to enter the bathroom stalls set up to catch the duo. When Gary finally eats something, Big Head tries to shove him into the bathroom, only to find that it's locked. He blows the door off the stall and finds the officer and one of the reptilian villains having gay sex.
• 106 & Park: On the music news program 106 & Park, Rocsi (Rudolph) and Terrence J (Thompson) interview Kanye West about his notorious unsportsmanlike behavior when losing at awards shows. He plays it off like the media editing things to make him look bad, but they show several examples of West overreacting to losing awards he wasn't eligible for. At the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, Dakota Fanning (Poehler) presents the award for Best TV Show to the stars of Drake & Josh (Forte and Sudeikis), only for West to come in and steal the award since he's "the best show on Earth." They also show clips of him acting in a similar way at the Nobel Prize ceremony, at a state fair where a little girl won the blue ribbon for best pumpkin and, finally, backstage at Saturday Night Live. He's show ranting about not being host and how he deserves it more than LeBron James. When he throws a chair in his dressing room, the camera moves to James and Lorne Michaels standing by, assuming that he's talking about a different LeBron James and Lorne Michaels.
• Champion/Everything I Am: Kanye West song.
• Great Moments in Guidance Counseling: In a meeting still talked about by guidance counselors, Larry Baines, counselor at an Akron, Ohio high school, met with LeBron James towards the end of the school year. In this meeting, James told Baines that if he declared his intentions to go into the NBA, he'd basically be a shoe-in for the first NBA draft pick. But, he's considering going to college and passing up the NBA entirely. Baines is shocked by this consideration, because a NBA contract would be worth far more than a college scholarship. He says that he has a college diploma and is a failure in life who has to share an office with a guy named Glenn (Forte). He suggests that if James didn't know something, he should Google it and not worry about having a degree.

Notes

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

• Amy Poehler as Senator Hilary Clinton.

Music

• Stronger, performed by Kanye West: The first song performed by Kanye West was a medley of two songs, the first of which being "Stronger" from his 2007 album Graduation. The song was West's second single from the album and features a prominent sample from the Daft Punk song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger."

• Good Life, performed by Kanye West: The second half of the first medley by Kanye West was taken up by "Good Life," also from Graduation. The song typically features R&B artist T-Pain singing along with West, although he did not perform during the medley in the episode. The song's backing track is mainly comprised of a sample from "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" by Michael Jackson.

• Champion, performed by Kanye West: In the second performance by Kanye West, the first song was "Champion," also off Graduation. The song, like many of West's songs, is made up of several samples, including "Kid Charlemagne" by Steely Dan.

• Everything I Am, performed by Kanye West: West's final song of the night was "Everything I Am," yet another song from Graduation. However, during the performance, West messed up one of the verses and launched into a freestyle that could be considered his fifth song. The freestyle included jabs at rival 50 Cent and casual mentions of SNL and host LeBron James.

"Iran So Far" Lyrics

They say true love comes only once in a lifetime
and even though we're from opposite ends of the earth,
my heart tells me you're the one for me.
Mahmoud

I remember when it started, saw you in the news
you were hating gays and I was eating food
I was feeling you, and even though I disagreed with almost everything you said
you ain't wrong to me, so strong to me, you belong to me
Like a very hairy Jake Gyllenhaal and me
Mahmoud make my heart beating out of my chest
my mind says no but my body says yes
Nuclear threat, the only threat I see,
is the threat of you not coming home to me.
Our love for each other’s like when atoms collide
Can't express how I feel
And yo Adam let's rhyme

And Iran, Iran so far away
is your home, but in my heart you’ll stay

He ran, for the president of Iran
we ran together to a tropical island
my man, Mahmoud is known for rilin'
smiling, if he can still do it then I can
they call you weasel, they say your methods are medieval
you can blame the Jews I can be your Jim Caviezel

S&M, nestlin' when we're wrestlin'
You can be the port that I put my vessel in
So I try to mute the TV but you can still see me
with your sleepy brown eyes, white pecan thighs
And your hairy butt...
Yeah.

And Iran, Iran so far away
come home, and in my arms you'll stay
Used to look at the stars and dream
round the world the same stars we've seen
And a twinkle in your eyes Mahmoud.

Talk smooth to me, without a tie
your pants high waisted damn so fly.
We can take a trip to the animal zoo
and laugh at all the funny things that animals do
Like Eugene you got me strait trippin' boo
hope you look at my eyes and say I'm trippin' too
you say Iran don’t have the bomb but they already do
you should know by now, it's you.

You crazy for this one Mahmoud
you can deny the holocaust all you want
but you can’t deny that there's something between us
I know you say there's no gays in Iran
but you're in New York baby
so time to stop hiding,
and start living

Trivia

Behind the Scenes

• Plagiarism: The piano part from the digital short, "Iran So Far," was taken directly from a song by electronic artist Aphex Twin called "Avril 14th." When this bit of sampling became apparent to NBC and Aphex Twin's publisher "Chrysalis Music," the video was pulled from NBC's website and YouTube while the appropriate clearance paperwork was being filed.