Saturday Night Live/Tina Fey/Carrie Underwood

Tina Fey/Carrie Underwood
Season 33, Episode 5
Airdate	February 23, 2008
Production Number	1496
Written by
Directed by	Don Roy King
← 33x04 Brian Williams/Feist	33x06 → Ellen Page/Wilco
Saturday Night Live — Season Thirty-Three

Tina Fey/Carrie Underwood is the fifth episode of the thirty-third season of Saturday Night Live, and the six hundred and thirty-second episode overall. It is the first appearance for the host and the second by the musical guest.

With: Fred Armisen, Will Forte, Bill Hader, Darrell Hammond, Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, Kenan Thompson, Kristen Wiig

Featuring: Casey Wilson

Guest Stars: Tina Fey (Host), Carrie Underwood (Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Amber Lee Ettinger (Obama Girl), Steve Martin (Himself), Mike Huckabee (Himself)

Episode Breakdown

• CNN Univision Dem Debate: Campbell Brown (Wiig) moderates a combination CNN/Univision debate between Hilary Clinton (Poehler) and Barack Obama (Armisen), along with questions from John King (Sudeikis) and Jorge Ramos (Forte). However, the media clearly favors Obama and says outright that Ramos is stalking him. To introduce the two candidates, they play up Obama and shut down Clinton by saying she rode into the senate against a weak Republican opponent. The first questions from the two are if they can get Obama anything and if he's comfortable. The next question is posed to Clinton, when they ask if she really thinks that she can win now that Obama has started to take away from her support and has become the frontrunner. She comments that it was "always our intention to lose Virginia" and that she's only lying in wait. After Clinton finishes her answer, Brown calls "at random" on a regular person from the audience to ask a question: Obama Girl (Ettinger). Obama Girl lip-syncs to a song about how much she likes him, which Clinton severely disagrees with. After she's done, and after Clinton is threatened with ejection if she interrupts her once again, Ramos gives a rambling, creepy question that boils down to asking if Obama is mad at him. To sum up, Obama agrees that news people are allowed to take sides if they wish and Clinton isn't allowed any time for her own speech.
• Tina Fey's Monologue: Fey goes on at length about the writers strike and the terms of their new contract, hoping out loud that there's no hard feelings from the crew for being out of work for so long. Clearly, hard feelings are there since a boom mike hits her in the head twice. Fey mentions that she always though of herself more as a writer than a performer, but she's interrupted by Steve Martin, who demands that she be a performer and not a writer. He asks her if she can be a performer and, when she shows indecision, he slaps her. He also criticizes her posture and makes her shout "I can do it!" in a variety of different ways like if she were a cartoon mouse or a drunk Chinese woman. Then he slaps her a couple more times for fun.
• Annuelle: Four women (Fey, Wiig, Poehler and Wilson) display interest in a series of hormones called Annuelle which allow them to only menstrate once per year. But the announcer warns that when their periods come, "hold on to your fucking hat." All four women are shown in grainy black and white terrorizing their coworkers, children, families and pets at the time of their yearly period. A disclaimer also warns that the pills may cause some women to grow an extra vagina or cause them to birth fire monsters. It suggests that they ask the local authorities to temporarily detain them, like a werewolf.
• Amber - Rock of Love II: Washed up rockstar Bret Michaels (Sudeikis) complains about how difficult it is to choose a girl on this season of Rock of Love. In a moment of weakness, he wishes that he weren't Bret Michaels sometimes, but recants quickly because he gets to hit on strippers crashing dirt bikes in a mansion. In another room, he gathers the final contestants, including Daisy (Fey), Peyton (Wiig) and Kristy Jo (Wilson). He sings "Every Rose Has a Thorn" while Peyton complains about how Michaels won't make out with her. Before he makes his final choices for this episode, Amber (Poehler) hobbles up, "rocking one leg" and throws Chicken McNuggets at him to get attention. Big John (Armisen) aids Michaels in handing out the passes, which go to Kristy Jo (who he makes out with), Peyton (who he doesn't) and Daisy (who is in between somewhere). Amber isn't too bothered by being rejected, however, because she's going to be approximately every other reality program anyway.
• SNL Digital Short - A Message for Old People: An old man complains about how movies these days confuse him because of all the strangers on the screen. To make him feel better, his wife superimposed his grandsons Kevin (Samberg) and Thomas (Hader) into popular movies like There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men and Juno. They do a number of things, mainly waving at him from the movie, but also telling him what's going on in the movie when it gets complicated, what people are talking about when they use new slang and to make sure he doesn't answer a phone that's ringing in the movie.
• What's That Bitch Talking About?: Gregory Dubois (Thompson) hosts a game show called What's That Bitch Talking About where challenger Richard Dimwitty (Hader) and returning champion Katherine Bagwell (Fey) play for a canary yellow 1992 Mazda Protege. To play, Dubois pulls back a curtain to show a woman complaining on the phone about something vague (Poehler) and bids them to answer "What's that bitch talking about?" Dimwitty struggles with all three women (including Wilson), including one (Wiig) who only says "Ok," but even when he talks it through he can't figure out what they're talking about. Bagwell, on the other hand, has no trouble at all determining what they're talking about and soundly beats him. She moves on to the next round, "Who's that bitch think she is?" In this round, DuBois brings back the first woman to say a few things so Bagwell can determin who that bitch thinks she is. She answers "Queen of Shiba," "my dad" and "Heidi freakin' Klum" to win the car.
• All-American Girl: Carrie Underwood song.
  

  

  Gov. Mike Huckabee appears on Weekend Update.
• Weekend Update:
  • Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee tries to explain to everyone why he hasn't conceded even though it's mathematically impossible for him to win against John McCain. He says that no one has bothered to explain to him what "mathematical impossibility" means, which Meyers does. Huckabee agrees that it sounds bad, but he brings up super-delegates and how they'll definitely help him. Meyers goes on to explain that super-delegates are only involved in the Democratic race, to which Huckabee responds with "Uh oh." Huckabee says that he's going to focus on the miracle part, not the math, but assures everyone that he'll step out with class and grace. But, when Meyers thanks him for his time and everyone applauds, a signal for him to leave, Huckabee sticks around for way too long.
  • Fey acts as a women's news correspondent to introduce light stories about Lindsay Lohan, middle aged women having strokes and Kirstie Alley before moving on to what she really wants to talk about: Hilary Clinton. Fey defends Clinton, appealing to Ohio and Texas by saying that some women are just doing what Oprah tells them to do and the Bill Clinton as a "co-president" wouldn't be so bad. She also agrees that Clinton is a bitch, but so is she and "bitches get stuff done."
• NBC Thursday Nights: Now that the writers are back, NBC excitedly advertises their brand new Thursday line-up, which amounts to a slew of different versions of Celebrity Apprentice. Donald Trump (Hammond) talks to several different groups of pairs in the board room, firing them all. Among these groups are Ted Allen (Sudeikis) and Jennifer Tilly (Wiig) who failed to design an adequate new Gusher flavor and Rachael Ray (Wilson) and Charles Barkley (Thompson) who failed to market Barefoot Cruises without cliches. On Celebrity Apprentice: Special Victims Unit, Mary Joe Budafucco (Fey) and John Mark Carr (Hader) were supposed to make a sex tape, but Trump wasn't impressed. Neither was guest celebrity judge Gene Simmons (Armisen). Lastly, in Celebrity Apprentice Goes Commercial, Matthew Lesko (Samberg) shouts about the government money people can get and the Creepy Old Dancing Guy from the Six Flags commercials dances after criticism from Trump and guest Judge Lance Ito (Forte).
• Allie and Billy's Reception: At the reception of Allie (Fey) and Billy's (Forte) wedding, Jenny's friend Jenny (Wiig) gets off the end of her tearful speech and brings up Billy's best man, Ed Mahone (Sudeikis). Mahone gives a loud, unpleasant and drunken toast to the two, which grows more inappropriate by the second. He talks about how they did mushrooms and how they made out once, which Allie is not happy at all about. Eventually, he wraps it up by saying "50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. And the other 50 end in death. I hope you all die."
• Virginia Horsen's Hot Air Balloon Rides: Virgina Horsen warns people about the risk of terrorism and the inconvenience of airport security in a poorly made commercial for her hot air balloon ride company. She promises that she won't talk much and could even read a book while they travel to not be annoying.
• I Drink Your Milkshake: Oilmen Daniel Plainview (Hader) and his son H.W. Plainview (Poehler) host a television show on the Food Network called I Drink Your Milkshake. In each episode, the two visit famous ice cream parlours and soda shops to drink other peoples' milkshakes, as demonstrated by when Daniel goes up to a couple (Thompson and Wilson) and drinks their milkshake with a giant straw. He's then joined by Anton Chigurh (Armisen), his special guest, and the three hassle an old man (Forte) for his milkshake. When the old man won't give it up, Chirgurh challenges him to a coin toss that ends in the man's death by cattle bolt stunner. In the next episode, Plainview go to the Moo Shop in Wisconsin with special guest Juno (Fey), who chatters in a slang that doesn't sound like English to Plainview.
• Flat on the Floor: Carrie Underwood song.
• Lady Business: From the creators of Sex and the City and Lipstick Jungle comes another show about unrealistic women in New York. Entitled Lady Business, the show follows three friends (Poehler, Wiig & Wilson) through their lives as powerful, beautiful women in the workforce, as well as their friend Nan Winters-Rodriguez (Fey), who knows them but works to remove dead animals from beneath homes.

Notes

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

• Kristen Wiig as Campbell Brown.

Music

• "All-American Girl," performed by Carrie Underwood: The first song performed by musical guest Carrie Underwood was "All-American Girl," from her second album Carnival Ride. The song is the second single from that album and is considered to be somewhat autobiographical, about the "all-American lifestyle."

• "Flat on the Floor," performed by Carrie Underwood: Carrie Underwood's second performance, "Flat on the Floor," is the lead song from her 2007 album Carnival Ride. Unlike the earlier performance, it was not partially written by her.

Trivia

The Show

• Bumper Homage: The last bumper featuring host Tina Fey depicts her biting into an apple and looking off to the side at something off screen. This bump is a homage to a photograph taken of original cast member Gilda Radner taken by Edie Baskin.
• First Appearance: Casey Wilson debuts as a featured player in this episode, replacing Maya Rudolph whose contract ended in 2007 and did not renegotiate by the time the writers guild strike was over.