Saturday Night Live/Lindsay Lohan/Usher

Lindsay Lohan/Usher
Season 29, Episode 18
Airdate	May 1, 2004
Production Number	1350
Written by	Tina Fey Dennis McNicholas (head writers)
Directed by	Beth McCarthy Miller
← 29x17 Janet Jackson	29x19 → Snoop Dogg/Avril Lavigne
Saturday Night Live — Season Twenty-Nine

Lindsay Lohan/Usher is the eighteenth episode of the twenty-ninth season of Saturday Night Live, and the five hundred and sixty-sixth episode overall. It is the first appearance by either its host or its musical guest.

Guest Stars: Lindsay Lohan (Host), Usher (Musical Guest)

Special Guest: Ludacris (Himself)

Episode Breakdown

• Cheney Briefs Bush on 9/11 Hearings: Vice President Dick Cheney (Hammond) directs President George W. Bush (Forte) on how to answer questions from the senate subcommittee which is investigating the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The two go over Bush's testimony, which Bush has written on his hand and other parts of his body. Cheney realizes the president hasn't read any of the notes that he prepared for him, so they move on to body language and one final difficult question about whether or not he planned the Iraq War from the beginning of his presidency, to which Bush doesn't respond.
• Linday Lohan's Monologue: Logan says she has worked through her feud with teen star Hilary Duff (Dratch), whom she brings out as proof the two are friends now. The two make up, even though Duff sent a slanderous e-mail to Disney about Lohan being addicted to laxatives. Duff also brings out Avril Lavigne (Poehler), with whom she had been feuding because she said Lavigne "doesn't respect her fans." Lavigne refuses to accept Duff's apology and decides to bring out someone with whom she has been feuding, Whitney Houston (Rudolph). Houston accepts her apology and decides to apologize to her husband Bobby Brown and the entire nation of Israel when Parnell appears and demands an apology as well for the time when she didn't say hello to him on an airplane.
• Turlington's Lower Back Tattoo Remover: Dr. Edward Turlington (Parnell) describes his new product which removes inappropriate lower back tattoos from middle aged women. A parent (Poehler) gives an example of how the roll-on remover burns away her tattoo with a great deal of pain and scarring.
• Jarret's Room - Skyler: On his webcam, Jarret (Fallon) introduces his "house band" DJ Jonathan Feinstein (Meyers) and his roommate Gobi (Sanz), who invented a robot called Smokatron 3000 (voiced by Forte) that smokes weed. Jarret announces he's being forced to move off campus and introduces Skyler (Lohan), who will be moving into their room after they're evicted. Skyler turns out to be essentially a female version of Gobi. They decide to end the show when Gobi's robot gets paranoid and jumps out of a window.
• Hogwarts Academy: In the new term at Hogwarts Academy, Harry Potter (Dratch) and Ron Weasley (Meyers) meet up in their hall. Potter announces Voldemort is trying to kill him again, so they look for Hermione Granger (Lohan), who has hit puberty. The two wind up gawking at her breast size. Ron's brothers Fred (Parnell) and George (Fallon) run in suddenly to tell them about something involving Malfoy, but they are stopped dead in their tracks by Hermione as well. The two try to put the moves on her with a magic couch and Barry White, but she pushes them away when she fails to realize what exactly is going on. They leave, and the same situation occurs with Professor Snape (Forte), who gets flustered and takes points away from their house when he realizes he's hitting on a student, and once again with Hagrid (Sanz).
• Driving with Billy Joel: A group of friends (Poehler, Rudolph, Dratch and Lohan) get into a car where they will be driven to a party hosted by Russell Simmons in the Hamptons. The "old guy" that one of the girls coerced into driving them turns out to be a very drunk Billy Joel (Sanz). Although Joel claims to be a great driver, he winds up hitting trash cans and mailboxes because he gets distracted singing his songs and looking for liquor in the back seat. Their car ride ends when he hits a brick wall outside of Russell Simmons' house.
• Yeah!: Usher song, featuring Ludacris.
• Weekend Update:
  • Jorge Rodriguez (Sanz) gives his own "personal story of triumph" about studying for the GED. Rodriguez lost his job at the postal service and decided to get serious about getting his GED so people would hire him. However, he failed the test six times and is only on the show because he's looking for his friend Pepe, who told him he passed by marking "C" for all of the questions.
• Debbie Downer - Disneyland: At Mickey's Breakfast Jamboree, the waiter for a group of people (Thompson) attempts to take their orders, but is interrupted by Debbie Downer (Dratch) who warns one family member (Fallon) about getting the steak and eggs. She also ruins the moment for Uncle Frank (Sanz) and a girl who was hugged by Tigger (Lohan) when she brings up a tiger attack on Siegfried and Roy. The father (Armisen) and mother (Poehler) attempt to bring the conversation back around by talking about what rides they want to go on, but Downer interrupts again. The sketch devolves into the cast members laughing uncontrollably, including Downer, who is supposed to be the straight character.
• Club Traxx - Chichi Chi/Vidal/D.A.D.I.: On a show about European pop music, Beertie van Beers (Rudolph) and Leonard (Armisen) count down the top European music videos, including Chichi Chi (Poehler) performing "Neon" and Vidal (Forte) performing "Don't Forget to Dance with Me." They then introduce D.A.D.I., a Russian group who pretends to be lesbians. Katya (Dratch) and Natasha (Lohan) explain they formed the band when their manager Yuri (Parnell) told them they could make a lot of money by singing about being lesbians. They sing their hit song, which alludes to them making out, but it never quite happens. After the song, they talk about their plans for the future, and Leonard poorly attempts to sing the blues.
• Kaitlin - Kaitlin's Sleepover Party: Becky Bazarak (Lohan) is coming over for a sleep-over at Kaitlin's (Poehler) house, under the pretense that Kaitlin has an indoor pool. The two share secrets, sing songs and generally annoy Kaitlin's stepfather Rick (Sanz). When she asks about the pool, Rick covers for her by saying the pool is closed for cleaning. Eventually, they annoy Rick so much that he leaves to get drunk.
• Burn: Usher song.
• 17th Annual Adult Movie Awards: NBC presents the 17th Annual Adult Movie Awards, hosted by Ron Jeremy (Sanz). He begins his monologue, but it is suddenly cut and replaced with a message from the network saying the threat of FCC fines has caused large portions of the broadcast to be cut. When they cut back to the show, everything in the awards show has been cut out.

Notes

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

• Will Forte as President George W. Bush.

Music

• Yeah!, performed by Usher with Ludacris: "Yeah!" is the lead single off Usher's 2004 album, Confessions. The song features rapper Ludacris and producer Lil Jon performing verses and background exclamations in the song. Although Lil Jon doesn't appear in the live performance, his parts in the song have been added to the instrumental track. The song was nominated for "Record of the Year" at the 2005 Grammy Awards and won the award for "Best Rap/Sung Collaboration."

• Burn, performed by Usher: Although "Burn" was released as the second single from Confessions, it was originally meant to be the lead single before the popularity of "Yeah!" caused it to be replaced. The song was nominated for "Best Male R&B Vocal Performance" and "Best R&B Song" at the 2005 Grammy Awards.

Trivia

The Show

• Ad-Lib: During Weekend Update, Jimmy Fallon is heckled by a random audience member. He responds to the situation by saying "I hate it when my dad gets drunk." He later ad-libs again during the segment with Jorge Rodriguez, saying that the random crowd member is Pepe, the man Rodriguez was looking for.

• First Appearance: This episode marks the first appearance of Debbie Downer, a sketch that seems to have only made it into further appearances because the entire cast broke character and wouldn't stop laughing.

Behind the Scenes

• Recycled Sketch: The "Kaitlin's Slumber Party" sketch was originally meant to air in the previous episode and went as far as dress rehearsal (with Janet Jackson in the role of Becky), but was cut before the live broadcast.