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Jake Gyllenhaal: Saturday Night Live

 Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter liked to write in an ostentatiously clever way; they weren't always in a "simple and direct" state of mind.


The climax of the plot
Should be the marriage knot...
But there's no knot for me...

And:

When Missus Ned McLean (God bless her)
Can get Russian reds to "yes" her...
Then I suppose.....
Anything goes.....

A special treat for Cole Porter--a gay man--was to insert sex wherever possible:

Birds do it....
Bees do it....
Even educated fleas do it....
Let's do it. Let's fall in love....

And:

If, Baby, I'm the bottom....
You're the top!

I think Sondheim found this tiresome--and, also, he could do the work better than Porter and Gershwin. He wrote in that same style, for "Follies," and it's as if he were channeling the spirit of a dead artist:

Careful--
Here's the home of...
Beautiful girls...
Where your reason is undone....
Beauty...
Can't be hindered from...
Taking its toll...
You may lose control!

It's the genius of "Saturday Night Live" to parody Sondheim--and thus to write a parody of a parody. Bowen Yang just puts the sex on the table. "I don't know about you," says a particular spectator, Broward, as he observes the girls...."I don't know about you, but I'm as hard as a car door." The emcee then parades an assortment of boys for the women in the crowd. "If you have your pick, choose the one with the biggest dick...." "While you're taking stock, find the one with the fattest cock...."

It's also worth noting that--from minute one, all the way through the end--Jake Gyllenhaal gives a flawless performance.

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