SUNDAY MORNING LIVE: Bruno Mars Shines as 'SNL' Host with Help from Stefon, Tom Hanks and 'Sad Mouse'

Welcome to the fifth edition of Sunday Morning Live, The Bill Kuchman Chronicle's look at the latest edition of Saturday Night Live.

How'd Bruno Mars do?



After lackluster episodes with Daniel Craig and Christina Applegate hosting, SNL needed its next host to come up big. Bruno Mars didn't disappoint. When the singer asked, "Can I be like Timberlake?" in his monologue, I laughed. Well, once we got past the monologue and the sketch that followed it, Mars had me laughing, and I barely stopped laughing as the episode went along. Mars wasn't just a good SNL host for a singer — he was a damn good SNL host, period. This was the best episode of Season 38 of SNL.

Mars did everything during this weekend's episode. He sang. He danced. He played all kinds of characters. I didn't catch Mars reading the cue cards, giving his episode a very smooth flow.

What were the best sketches of the night?

I had a lot of trouble justifying any of last week's sketches as "best sketches," but there wasn't any shortage of deserving sketches in Mars' episode. The three here are just the ones that I'm going to kick the rest of the article off with, but everything mentioned from this point on could have been in this answer.



We had to wait until the fifth episode of SNL's latest season to finally get reunited with the great Stefon, but (surprise, surprise) it was worth it. I'd love to share some of the names of the clubs that Stefon recommended on Weekend Update, but I have no idea how to spell most of the hisses and sound effects. As Bill Hader has revealed on various late-night shows, the writers often change up Stefon's lines between rehearsal and the live show, and it looks like they got Hader good on this weekend's show. Hader cracked up as Stefon like he hasn't in a long time.

Early on in the show, Mars was featured in a sketch based on the idea of an intern singing all kind of artists to replace broken Pandora stations.   When this sketch started, I groaned at the idea of Mars doing singing impressions. I was wrong. So wrong. This sketch was hilarious. Mars' character sang Green Day, Aerosmith, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Louis Armstrong after Pandora's computers went down, but he brought the sketch to another level when his character broke out the Michael Jackson. Does anyone actually know the words to Jackson's songs? Due to musical right, NBC didn't post this one online, which is a shame.



A yeti having his way with Hader. That's all you need to know. If anyone has figured out who was in that yeti suit, please, please let us know. I really hope it was Tom Hanks, who had showed up to be in a few sketches, because, well, if you're Tom Hanks, you get to do that kind of thing.

Sad Mouse? That's not even a question, but Sad Mouse?



Yes, Sad Mouse. Sad Mouse is the answer to your question. In a post-Digital Short world, SNL has struggled to figure out how to replace a key segment of the show. Sad Mouse was art, television art that should contend for an Emmy. It was poignant, and, for the most part, wordless. Nice work, SNL.

Any good fake commercials this week?



Well, Sunday Morning Live, you seem to have a knack for asking questions that are perfectly suited for the episode we're discussing. Yes, there were good fake commercials this week. Brad Pitt's recent/bizarre commercial for Chanel was ripe for SNL parody, and the show unleashed Taran Killam's Pitt impression. I do miss Abby Elliott's Angelina Jolie, but getting to watch Killam's Pitt endorse Chanel, Taco Bell, Franklin's Dog Condoms and Dr. Zizmor is still pretty great.







How about politics? Did SNL poke fun at the second presidential debate?



Does SNL ever NOT poke fun at presidential debates? The show boiled the second presidential debate down to the idea that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama clearly do not like each other now and often appeared to be on the verge of blows during their exchanges last week. Aidy Bryant's Candy Crowley spent her time keeping Jason Sudeikis' Romney and Jay Pharoah's Obama from attacking each other. Best moment of the sketch? Obama's mic drop after Crowley jumped into the debate and claimed that Romney was wrong on Libya.

So Jason Sudeikis is still around?



Yup, not only is Sudeikis still playing Romney, but he was in almost every sketch this weekend, playing leads and bringing back his DJ Super Soaker in a Underground Music Festival sketch. Keenan Thompson and Fred Armisen were absent from this episode, though, something that, in Armisen's case, was a good thing.

What's next?
SNL is back on Nov. 3 with Louis C.K. hosting and fun. as the music guest.

Previous editions of Sunday Morning Live 
Oct. 14, 2012: Christina Applegate
Oct. 7, 2012: Daniel Craig
Sept. 23, 2012: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Sept. 16, 2012: Seth MacFarlane