the comic's comic: Will Ferrell

The 34th season of Saturday Night Live certainly brought a lot of buzz and attention back to the show, and Lorne Michaels and company celebrated the end of that year with a bang that included plenty of starpower and nostalgia, plus a heavily implied farewell to Darrell Hammond, who completed his record thirteenth season as a cast member by returning for multiple sketches. We got to see Hammond reprise Dick Cheney and Sean Connery one last time on the show, and it's only surprising that we didn't get to also see him pull out his Donald Trump as well -- considering how much Trump was in the news with a certain Miss California (who could have been played by newbie Abby Elliott). But with star and SNL veteran Will Ferrell hosting, we saw just how much Ferrell mattered to the show earlier this decade, as he dominated the finale's proceedings from beginning to end. Even with all of the celebrity cameos and returning SNLers. Did I mention them yet? OK. We saw (take a deep breath now): Tom Hanks, Norm MacDonald, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Anne Hathaway, Paul Rudd, Elisabeth Moss and Artie Lange. With all of this happening, the current cast had much less on their plates to worry about. Good? Bad? It'll almost all make sense soon enough.

But first, a cold open from an NBC studio, and in the makeup chair getting ready for Meet the Press is one disgraced newly former VP Dick Cheney (Hammond), with Abby Elliott playing the makeup specialist. Ferrell shows up as his now Tony-nominated caricature of George W. Bush, trying to surprise Cheney and confront him about his newfound desire for media attention. Surprise fails because W. whispers too loudly: "That is one of the many reason I am no friend to libraries." Zing. We get it. They also poke fun at the current administration when W. asks why Cheney couldn't have been more like VP Joe Biden, going out for burgers and saying dumb things in public to make him look smarter. W. implies he has been watching a lot of Dr. Phil with his free time this spring. An OK, utterly predictable sketch, held together by the performances of the leads.

Ferrell's monologue attempts to re-establish his cred as a dramatic actor with roots in the theater, also with predictably disastrous results. Again, it's only Ferrell's sheer persistence that sells it. "Line?"

Talk about nostalgia. Our ad spoof for the night goes deep into the vault (Season/episode #26.11) for an oldie in which Ferrell sells his services as Wade Blasingame, Esq., attorney at law. Blasingame has sued more than 2,000 dogs. Because would you let a human do the things dogs get away with every day? Chris Parnell simulates the dog in scenes with Hammond, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Tracy Morgan and Horatio Sanz. If you want to look for such things, you might even notice that the way Ferrell, in particular, delivers his lines can suggest that SNL knew how to deliver lines awkwardly before a certain Tim & Eric came along (instead of the other way around). Anyhow.

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Last summer, the Funny or Die team (Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Chris Henchy and Judd Apatow) received a big vote of confidence in the forms of capital investment and broadcasting agreements from HBO. They had just worked together on the production of Eastbound & Down -- and if you have not watched this surprisingly magnificent miniseries starring Danny McBride as washed-up pitcher Kenny Powers (the sixth and final episode aired this past Sunday), then you should find yourself a TV with HBO and watch it right this very moment and it will make your weekend that much more enjoyable. Anyhow. So, yes, of course, seeing how well that went, HBO agreed to invest in the FOD guys and commission 10 original half-hours of programming from them.

We're starting to see this come to fruition this week.

Paul Scheer (MTV's Human Giant) announced he'd begun production on "a MINI mini series" with Rob Riggle (Comedy Central's The Daily Show) called Designated Driver.

And fans of Brett Gelman will be heartily pleased to know that his catstravaganza, "1,000 Cats," will be filmed on Saturday afternoon for FOD/HBO. At The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. (Fun fact: The same stage to be used in May for NBC's America's Got Talent) As Gelman says in his Facebook event invite for the event: "Pleases come. And if you can, please come dressed in some sort of formal wear. For we will be getting some shots of you, and plus how else would you come dressed for 1000 Cats." How else, indeed. Seriously, though: Read my review of Brett Gelman's 1,000 Cats if you need further proof. So that's at least another of the 10 half-hours.

Sounds like the FOD guys already are living up to the promises they made back in June 2008 when they first announced the deal with HBO. Here's what Ferrell told Variety then: "We do know we want it to be in the same family of the comedy that we're doing on the website -- just a wide range of anything from a funny offbeat talkshow to a maybe more-traditional-type sitcom to a show with puppets," he said. "We don't want to limit ourselves in any way, which is what we love about the stuff that we do for Funny or Die. The spitballing on these ideas is going to be the fun part of all this." And this is what McKay said: "Our idea in going into Funny or Die was that it would be a kind of clubhouse for us and friends of ours who could come and try stuff that they couldn't do as easily in movies or TV. And it was also about us getting to find new talent." If this is how they're starting, then I cannot wait to see what else makes the slate of HBO/FOD programming to come in 2009-2010.