SUNDAY MORNING LIVE: Samuel L. Jackson Drops an F-Bomb, and Bill Hader Prepares to Check Out Kate Middleton's Downton Abbey

Welcome to the tenth edition of Sunday Morning Live, Popculturology's look at the latest edition of Saturday Night Live. All of your questions about the Martin Short-hosted episode will be answered after the jump.

How'd Martin Short do?

SNL is in a rut. While the show hit its creative high with the Jimmy Fallon-hosted Christmas episode last season, this week's episode rivals last week's Jamie Foxx-hosted show as the worst of the season. I don't care how enthusiastic a host is, if he doesn't have good material, the episode's gonna sink. Or stink. Or, probably, sink and stink. This weekend's SNL was lifeless, a show too caught up in Paul McCartney performances.

Short is a man who has built his career in comedy, so I was hoping for a great Christmas episode. This didn't happen. It was bizarre to see Short relying heavily on the cue cards, especially in early shorts. This is a guy who shouldn't have to get over nerves on the SNL stage. He isn't Daniel Craig or Jeremy Renner.

It was awesome to see SNL greats Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey (and honorary great Tom Hanks) hanging around during Short's monologue (which NBC didn't post online), but they couldn't stick around to show up in a sketch at some point? There's a concept called Chekhov's gun, and it basically says that if you see a loaded gun early on in a play, you should expect that gun to go off in a later act. If you show an SNL legend like Wiig, Fallon or Fey during a monologue, you better put them to use during that show. Fallon's episode last season was a master class in not only how to get past SNL castmembers back but in how to deliver them in ways that the audience would love.  SNL failed to do that this episode.


What's this about Samuel L. Jackson dropping an f-bomb?



Returning to Chekhov's gun for a moment, I guess one loaded gun from the monologue did go off later on during the show. During his monologue, Short passed by Samuel L. Jackson in the NBC hallways, and the Django Unchained star showed up as a guest on Keenan Thompson's What Up With That? show. I used to not like What Up With That?, but the sketch has really grown on me, especially now that SNL uses it with moderation. This was actually the first time the sketch was used during Season 38. The joke is always that Thompson's character uses up all of the show's time with his singing asides, stiffing the celebrity guests who showed up.

Well, apparently Jackson got a bit too into the part, responding to Keenan with a "Man, fuck!" Thompson was noticeably shocked, murmuring "C'mon, Sam ..." in response. Jackson didn't stop there, responding with, "That's some bullshit." Another thing you're not supposed to say on network TV. "C'mon, Sam ..." Thompson said again. "That costs money ..." Thompson is right. SNL is probably preparing itself for a fine now, and I'm sure Lorne Michaels won't be asking Jackson back on his show anytime soon.

Jackson turned to Twitter to defend himself after the sketch, tweeting that he "only said FUH not FUCK! K was sposed to cut off da BULLSHIT, blew it!!" While Jackson apparently tweets like a 14-year-old girl texts, I think he's saying that he only said "fuh," apparently self-censoring himself, and that Thompson was supposed to cut him off from saying "bullshit." I don't quite understand how this is Thompson fault — how was the SNL castmember supposed to stop Jackson from saying "bullshit"? Punch Jackson in the face before he could say it? It seems like the actor had every intention of saying it no matter what Thompson did.



It looks like NBC not only censored Jackson's f-bomb in the video clip, but they cut out his "bullshit" exchange completely. Check out the above clip of the incident from YouTube. I'm not sure how long NBC will let this one remain online.


What were the best sketches of the night?



After Michaels gets done paying the fine the FCC is going to hit SNL with for Jackson's f-bomb, he needs to focus on something much more important. Lorne, you need to start using Cecily Strong more. For weeks, she was in every sketch, but for some reason the freshman standout has been largely absent from this episode and last week's episode. Thankfully, this episode gave us The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation with at a Party, Strong's most iconic recurring character, during Weekend Update. This character is probably the closest thing SNL has to a female counterpart for Stefon, with Strong delivering hilarious lines like "I’m sorry, why can’t Secret Santa just be openly gay?" and "It’s origami. That’s Spanish for goose."



While Bill Hader cracking up didn't make it past dress rehearsal last week, Hader had to fight to keep it together in this sketch. Playing the OB/GYN who would be taking care of Kate Middleton, Hader endured a bombardment of ridiculousness from Short's Buckingham Palace official in charge of prepping the OB/GYN for the special patient. I will never be able to hear the phrase "her Downton Abbey" the same again.


How about the cold open? Politics again?



Nope. Not even close. In a classy and touching move, SNL turned its cold open over to the NYC Children's Chorus and their rendition of Silent Night to honor the victims of the Newtown school shooting.


Any good Pseudo Digital Shorts?



Well, there was a Pseudo Digital Short. Whether or not it was good is another question. SNL tried to do too much with this one, cramming a bunch of celebrity impressions and an attempt to give Charlie Brown a dark twist into the same sketch. Celebrities doing A Charlie Brown Christmas would've been funny. An actual dark version of A Charlie Brown Christmas would've been funny. Both at the same time? Not so funny.


You don't usually talk about the musical guests, but how was McCartney? Did Dave Grohl show up?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again — you always manage to ask the right questions, Sunday Morning Live. It's as if you know exactly what topics I have in my notes. To answer your question, yes, Dave Grohl showed up and, along with Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, joined McCartney to play Cut Me Some Slack, the song the four played during the 12-12-12 Concert earlier in the week. What are we calling this new version of Nirvana? Fauxvana? McNirvana? 101 Ways to Piss Off Courtney Love? (Sorry, NBC didn't post this one online either.)


What's next?

SNL is back on Jan. 19 with Jennifer Lawrence hosting and The Lumineers as the music guest.


Previous editions of Sunday Morning Live

Dec. 9, 2012: Jamie Foxx
Nov. 18, 2012: Jeremy Renner
Nov. 11, 2012: Anne Hathaway
Nov. 4, 2012: Louis C.K.
Oct. 21, 2012: Bruno Mars
Oct. 14, 2012: Christina Applegate
Oct. 7, 2012: Daniel Craig
Sept. 23, 2012: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Sept. 16, 2012: Seth MacFarlane