With deft comedienne Zooey Deschanel as its host, Saturday Night Live turned in a particularly sharp effort last night. A trilogy of ads skewering Clint Eastwood's angry-old-pitchman routine in that politically loaded Chrysler Super Bowl campaign stretched the confrontational spots to absurdist lengths. Bill Hader hilariously channeled the director as a sort of geriatric Batman with a steadily rising waistline, who lambastes Americans for laziness ("[The Chinese] are busy making the Jazzies that you ride around Disney World, because you're too fat to walk") while pledging political neutrality, except in certain, fat-headed cases ("I don't care who's driving, but I know it won't be Gingrich, because his fat head won't fit in the f**king car!").

And in another great sketch, Taran Killam debuted his impression of CNN talk show host Piers Morgan, portraying the former America's Got Talent judge as a high-pitched, hiccuping nitwit, fumbling his way through interviews with the stars of the Super Bowl halftime show. First Nasim Pedrad played a defensive M.I.A., then Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen donned tank tops and afro wigs to play Top 40 novelty act LMFAO, and Kristen Wiig trotted out a winning Madonna, still installed on her Roman throne. But the sketch was stolen by Deschanel and Andy Samberg: Deschanel was an outraged member of One Finger, One Million Moms, there to protest M.I.A.'s display of "the M-finger" and promote the use of an anti-bird-flipping "decency strap." Samberg, looking like a human Muppet with a pair of fake, floppy legs, closed things out playing a tightrope-bouncing halftime show performer with a superhuman ability to withstand genital pain.

Finally, the show paid a brief, silent tribute to Whitney Houston (via Buzzfeed):

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Seth Abramovitch