Seth MacFarlane and Frank Ocean on ‘Saturday Night Live’

Frank, Seth and Fred

'SNL' has started its 38th season, if you can believe it, kicking things off with 'Family Guy' creator Seth MacFarlane and crooner Frank Ocean. I can't say I was expecting much from this opener but I hope it isn't a preview for the rest of the season.

There have been lots of changes. Popular cast members Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg are gone, and there are a couple of newbies ready to take their place. Of course they weren't going to let the Freshmen roll with the Seniors right off the bat, but at least one of them is showing some promise.

In case you are lucky enough to not have to suffer through ad after political ad, yet, you might have missed that this is an election year. The cold open had Fred Armisen as who I think was supposed to be Julian Castro literally handing over the keys to the playing the President car to Jay Pharoah. His Obama impression is much better than Armisen's, but I didn't appreciate the pancake makeup they threw on him.

MacFarlane got through his monologue by giving us a look at what goes on in his head with all of those voices. Seth has a great singing voice so it was only natural that his first SNL monologue was with a song.

Funniest Sketches

Naturally most of the funnier sketches happen before the first musical performance. There was the "Obama Politcal Ad" where Kenan Thompson's J.J. talked about how Mitt Romney, played by Jason Sudiekis who decided to stick around for at least one more year, and Bain Capital had screwed him over. Kenan has been on the show for almost 10 seasons now, and for the longest even after he became a featured player it still felt like he was just a supporting one. With the recent cast changes I do hope he gets to do funnier characters like this.

The "Introduction To Puppetry" sketch started off kind of slow, but by the time they got to Bill Hader and his Vietnam vet puppet Tony I knew that this would be a solid sketch. Hader brings it as usual, and it ends with a puppet triple kiss that was way more gross than it should have been.

Weekend Update

There wasn't much to WU this weekend. There was an appearance from Honey Boo Boo Child and her "Mama" played by Vanessa Bayer and Bobby Moynihan respectively.

Then Seth MacFarlane as Ryan Lochte gave his opinion on the new Fall shows. "If you hold your ear up to my ear you can hear the ocean." There weren't nearly enough "jeahs" or shrugs, but "It feels so weird to be dry" is exactly something that dolt would say.

Making her first appearance towards the end of the segment was newcomer Cecily Strong with a character called Mimi Morales who talks with Seth about the Dream Act and voting. She actually made me laugh and I wouldn't mind seeing that character again.

Worst Sketches

Alright I don't know who Psy is and nor do I care because I'm too old for this mess, but this guy is everywhere at the moment with his "Gangnam Style" which made it's way into the "Lids" sketch. I honestly can't even remember what this was supposed to be about. But the dancing, the dancing. Please make it stop.

Sigh, so remember the "Two A-Holes" skits that Jason and Kristen used to do? I think this is what they were going for "Blind Date" but it just wasn't funny and went on for about 2 minutes too long.

Frank Ocean also made his 'SNL' debut playing songs off his latest album Channel Orange. Now look kids, I'm just not that into Ocean, he seems cool otherwise, but I'm not a fan of his music. Both performances of "Thinking About You" and "Pyramids" featured John Mayer's gangly ass on guitar and Frank surrounded by a couple of arcade games. He actually played a bit of Donkey Kong during Mayer's solo, proving that boys never grow up, I suppose.

So, we'll give the SNL Premiere a meh--we'll see.