The Girls of SNL

Wednesday night I attended “The Girls of SNL” comic event. The night started with a stand up routine by a lesser-known comic, Nick Vatterott. Nick started with some slightly edgy jokes that were not necessarily funny enough to warrant their controversial content. This immediately turned the audience off, with minimal laughter and scattered applause. But Nick surprised me, he may have used the cheap trick of shock value to grab the audience’s attention initially but, he worked his way into hilarious content. The only issue I take with his story telling ability is that his routine was made up of disjointed and fairly isolated jokes as oppose to being a well-integrated story that flowed from one joke into the other. A good comedian makes you forget that you’re listening to individual jokes and that they have written all their material beforehand. A truly talented comedian should sound like he’s just telling you a story that happens to be incredibly hilarious.
Kate McKinnon is an excellent stand up comedian. Everything that Nick did wrong, she did right. Her routine was personal, fluid, and was well composed. She entered to the sounds of Britney Spear’s “Work B****” and danced with reckless abandon, told highly personal and embarrassing stories from her own college experience, and did an intelligent bit parodying the names of Senior Theses.
Vanessa Bayer, however, never stopped reminding me that she is a sketch comedian, not a stand up comedian. She did humorous individual bits, where she used character’s that have been featured on Saturday Night Live that were packaged slightly different so that they fit the context better. She even exposed an embarrassing experience. But, she lacked flow and I never forgot that she was telling individual jokes as oppose to a humorous story that flowed from one topic to the next. Although, I did not have a positive feeling towards her stand up and storytelling ability as a whole, I must give a nod to her impersonations of ALL SIX of the main cast of “Friends.” That bit in itself was well done enough to make me forget the fact that she awkwardly made her way through the entire rest of her routine.
Kate and Vanessa closed with an improvisation routine in which they interviewed a young couple while taking on the persona of mom’s that are trying to “be cool” while they talk to college kids but who are also constantly trying to offer motherly wisdom and advice. It was a great way to close out the show and to finish out a hilarious night.