Sarah Palin Live!

... So Kates and I just got done watching last night's Saturday Night Live premiere ...

... Kates and I were at a wedding yesterday and last night (... This one was for one of many cousins. Always great fun with the family ...) ...We returned home in plenty of time to catch the show live, but we were terribly exhausted. So we decided to let the DVR do the work and we caught the recording this afternoon ...

... But let's back up a little ... Kates and I had been waiting for this premiere for weeks. Who wasn't -- given SNL's dream team cast for this fall's elections. Granted, I've only been a fan watching SNL since the late '90s, but based on the clips I've seen of older shows, I'm not sure SNL has ever had a group who perfectly plays the day's political characters as well as this current cast ...

And with that in mind Kates and I have eagerly waited for weeks to see who would take on the Sarah Palin role ... The obvious choice was Sarah Palin look-a-like and SNL alum Tina Fey. Kates argued no one else could play Palin, while I figured it'd be too hard for SNL to bring Fey back for the fall and the show would have to settle on Kristin Wiig as Palin ...

... So when we got home last night, despite our exhaustion, the excitement level was, shall we say -- palin-pable.

Kates and I couldn't not at least watch the opening skit ...

And there, lo and behold, was Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler doing her classic Hillary Clinton -- and the real Sarah Palin was watching!. Barely a few seconds in Kates and I were clapping hands in the air and loving it ... Tina Fey hit Palin dead-on. The exaggerrated northern American accent also was a nice touch. And by the end, Kates and I were laughing so hard or sides were hurting ...

We can only hope Fey stays with SNL through the election to do more Palin-isms ...

Watching the rest of the show today wasn't nearly as fun. But that was expected ...

I didn't have high expectations for Michael Phelps ... Although I was super-pleased to see Fred Armisen do his Nicholas Fehn character, which has to be one of my favorite SNL characters of the last few years ... I had been thinking going into last night's show how good it would be to see Armisen do Nicholas Fehn again ...

In case you missed the opening Sarah Palin-Hillary Clinton sketch ...