Lifestyle
'SNL' just wrapped its 49th season: It's time to cruelly rank its musical guests
Bad Bunny performs on SNL on Oct. 21, 2023.
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Bad Bunny performs on SNL on Oct. 21, 2023.
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Saturday Night Live‘s 49th season was a typically mixed bag, as the show continued to adjust to cast departures, the relentless pace of current events and the usual constraints and limitations of live TV. At least the 2023-’24 season wasn’t truncated by outside factors, be they COVID-19 or last year’s Writers Guild of America strike.
Season 49 also featured an array of musical guests that included massive stars and up-and-comers alike — each of whom is about to get ranked with bloodless scientific precision, in ascending order of quality, based in part on their ability to withstand Studio 8H’s notoriously unforgiving sound mixes. This is our seventh straight year doing this (here’s 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018), so consider this ranking to be not so much one man’s subjective opinion as incontrovertible truth.
That said, we’ve linked to every performance that’s still (legally) posted on YouTube, and every one of these sets is available for streaming via Peacock in case you wish to double-check my work. You know, for science.
20. Ice Spice, “In Ha Mood” and “Pretty Girl (feat. Rema)” (10/14/23)
Ice Spice and Rema.
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Ice Spice and Rema.
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Ice Spice has been a welcome presence on countless pop singles in the past few years, but her laid-back style — low in the mix, with little wasted motion — doesn’t lend itself to onstage dynamism. Aside from a bit of half-speed hip-swiveling, her debut as an SNL headliner amounted to little more than a vibe: coy, lightly suggestive, vaguely indifferent.
She was also extremely ill-served by a muddy sound mix — as well as rote, thudding backing tracks — that threatened to drown her out completely. And that was before Ice Spice returned for “Pretty Girl,” in which guest Rema (due for his own SNL headlining spot, but also mixed way too quietly here) showed up to assume the lion’s share of vocal duties. Ice Spice has charisma, star power and famous friends — Taylor Swift even popped up to introduce her the second time around — but these sluggish two-minute performances felt like afterthoughts even as they were happening.
19. Jennifer Lopez, “Can’t Get Enough (feat. Latto & Redman)” and “This Is Me… Now” (2/3/24)
Jennifer Lopez.
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Jennifer Lopez.
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These two performances of songs from Jennifer Lopez’s weird, misbegotten concept album This Is Me… Now presented two sides of the same lavish spectacle. “Can’t Get Enough” fed us the chaotic side, complete with guest raps from Latto and Redman, plus lots of Lopez kicking at the camera as the lights behind her flickered and raged. The gloopy title track, on the other hand, fed us a cloying diet of gigantic roses and clouds of pink smoke, as portions of Lopez’s nude form peeked out from behind a flower sculpture that resembled nothing if not a bulging heap of meringue.
Neither song ranked among Lopez’s choicest cuts to begin with, but at least “Can’t Get Enough” had energy to lean on. “This Is Me… Now,” on the other hand, called for absolute stillness, and not just due to the considerable risk of wardrobe malfunction; consequently, all the pressure landed on Lopez to oversell the vocal. The result felt deadly dull and old-fashioned — a would-be showstopper that landed with a big wet plop.
18. Kacey Musgraves, “Deeper Well” and “Too Good to Be True” (3/2/24)
Kacey Musgraves.
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Kacey Musgraves.
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In this year of pop-cultural grievance, Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well hits like a welcome antidote: a softly rendered self-help reflection on ways to recover, repair and otherwise emerge from destructive patterns. It’s not, however, the stuff of onstage rambunctiousness.
So while Musgraves returned to SNL accompanied by a fully-stocked band, it was still — as in the late-night performances that accompanied her moodily undercooked 2021 album star-crossed — hard to get sucked into these motion-resistant performances. Trading the tastefully concealed nudity of her last SNL set for a folksier quilted bathrobe, the singer did a nice job conveying the hard-earned wisdom of “Deeper Well.” But “Too Good to Be True” barely registered on a disappointingly low-energy night.
17. Reneé Rapp, “Snow Angel” and “Not My Fault (feat. Megan Thee Stallion)” (1/20/24)
Renée Rapp, accompanied by Megan Thee Stallion.
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Renée Rapp, accompanied by Megan Thee Stallion.
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Not just anyone gets to be a headlining musical guest on SNL: Those spots are almost exclusively reserved for major stars in pop, hip-hop, R&B, rock, Latin music and country. But exceptions can be made for lesser-known performers who just happen to star in new films produced by SNL‘s Lorne Michaels. Michaels really wanted you to see the film adaptation of the musical adaptation of the 2004 film Mean Girls, so he booked star Reneé Rapp to perform a pair of songs: one from Rapp’s 2023 album Snow Angel and one from Mean Girls‘ closing credits.
Rapp herself does fine, but the sound mix makes an absolute hash of her vocals; for all its musical-theater staging, it’s hard to make out more than a few words of “Snow Angel.” “Not My Fault” fares a bit better, in part due to the presence of A-list ringer Megan Thee Stallion, who gamely turns up for a guest verse. Still, just four months removed from this performance, it already invites the question, “Why was this on SNL again?” Synergy, baby!
16. 21 Savage, “redrum” and “should’ve wore a bonnet (feat. Brent Faiyaz)”https://www.npr.org/”prove it (feat. Summer Walker)” (2/24/24)
21 Savage.
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21 Savage.
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21 Savage gets points for working a fair bit of collaboration into his performances: “redrum” placed him in the middle of a smokily lit scene populated by a violinist, two singers handling the hook and two black-clad ballerinas, while his medley of “should’ve wore a bonnet” and “prove it” brought in vocal ringers Brent Faiyaz and Summer Walker, respectively.
The problem is that Savage himself rarely seemed invested in being there. It’s hard to miss, for example, how much of the first song consisted of the rapper standing around and listlessly chanting “redrum” while everyone in his vicinity compensated with maximal energy. As for the medley, it was nice to see the SNL spotlight shine on Faiyaz and Walker, but the low-energy headliner couldn’t help but get lost in the din of it all.
15. Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” and “Feather”https://www.npr.org/”Nonsense” (5/18/24)
Sabrina Carpenter.
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Sabrina Carpenter.
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Sabrina Carpenter is an actress and former Disney Channel star who’s riding the pop charts with a cryptically worded earworm called “Espresso.” If that’s all you knew of Carpenter going into her SNL debut, her two performances — of “Espresso,” naturally, but also a medley of her songs “Feather” and “Nonsense” — were there to tell you that she’s also extremely aware of her haters.
In the opening frame of her performance of “Espresso,” newspaper headlines screamed about Carpenter while making light of the song’s puzzling grammar. (See? She knows!) Then, her conversational asides in the medley — “I’m on SNL and you’re not!” — seemed engineered to dull the sting of critiques that hadn’t even been written yet.
By the end of “Nonsense,” Carpenter seemed to lose steam, vocally, but her notes of defiance weren’t terribly necessary to begin with. There’s nothing wrong with just being fun, especially this year, and Carpenter is a welcome, agreeable presence, on the pop charts and beyond.
14. Billie Eilish, “What Was I Made For?” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (12/16/23)
Billie Eilish, accompanied by Finneas.
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Billie Eilish, accompanied by Finneas.
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Billie Eilish has a history of dominating SNL‘s Studio 8H with inventive staging that maximizes the space around her. This Barbie– and holiday-themed set was bound to be more subdued than that, though, as neither “What Was I Made For?” nor “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” call for much in the way of motion.
Instead, this set placed Eilish in mournful-chanteuse mode and left her there alongside her brother, Finneas (on the piano), and for the holiday number, guest bassist Christian McBride. Vocally, she did a typically lovely job, though she does get dinged half a point for going with “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” instead of “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” We “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” stans are sticklers that way.
13. Travis Scott, “MY EYES” and “FE!N (feat. Playboi Carti)” (3/30/24)
Travis Scott.
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Travis Scott.
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Give Travis Scott credit: The man is willing to attempt some big swings. Take his SNL performance of “MY EYES,” which opened with the rapper lying in repose as a Bon Iver sample rolled behind him. Giving the track time to build, Scott hung back as the song bloomed into something disorienting and wild and full of motion — in its lighting, in the screened projections behind him and in his own frenetic physical presence.
Then, in “FE!N,” that willingness to experiment took him almost entirely off the rails. Thanks to thick smoke, strobe lights and herky-jerky camera motions — courtesy of a pair of hydraulic arms that swung wildly and kept pulling Scott and guest Playboi Carti out of frame — the song was rendered almost entirely incoherent, both sonically and visually. At one point, the only clear image on the screen was of one of Carti’s white boots, which … wasn’t a lot to go on.
12. Chris Stapleton, “White Horse” and “Mountains of My Mind” (4/13/24)
Chris and Morgane Stapleton.
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Chris and Morgane Stapleton.
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Chris Stapleton has built a tremendous career — and won countless awards — working from a foundation of no-frills, guitar-forward country-rock. But while that sturdy songcraft makes Stapleton one of the most reliably compelling figures in modern music, a resistance to stagecraft can make it harder for SNL performances to reach towering heights.
Instead, Stapleton settled for cranking out two absolutely stellar songs — one with his band (“White Horse”) and one with just an acoustic guitar (“Mountains of My Mind”). The former labored to overcome an iffy sound mix — Stapleton’s wife, Morgane, was almost inaudible — but the latter song got stripped down enough to let listeners hang on the singer’s every word. Sometimes, shining a light on exceptional raw material is enough.
11. Justin Timberlake, “Sanctified (feat. Tobe Nwigwe)” and “Selfish” (1/27/24)
Justin Timberlake.
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Justin Timberlake.
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Justin Timberlake is nothing if not a committed maximalist — this is, after all, a guy who turned up at the Tiny Desk backed by 14 other musicians — and that commitment to grandiosity served him exceptionally well in his SNL performance of “Sanctified.” The arrangement leaned on take-’em-to-church energy from the jump, but the whole thing got more viscerally exciting as it went along — especially once Tobe Nwigwe and a team of dancers showed up for a full-blown strobe-lit spectacle.
“Selfish,” on the other hand … hoo boy. You could make a strong case that it’s the most uneventful single of Timberlake’s solo career, and it was done no favors by flat staging that stranded the singer at the center of it all. Timberlake is a superstar, no question, but the vibes here were giving “low-energy Robin Thicke.”
So there you have it: dizzying highs, deadening lows and nothing in between. There isn’t much choice, then, but to grade this one squarely in the middle.
10. Bad Bunny, “UN PREVIEW” and “MONACO” (10/21/23)
Bad Bunny.
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Bad Bunny.
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Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny pulled double duty as musical guest and host, which can often lead to scaled-down performances. In the case of “UN PREVIEW,” that held true, as the artist rapped over a prerecorded track in front of a spare white set and a gyrating mechanical rocking horse — visually striking yet not terribly memorable, unless you really like gyrating mechanical rocking horses.
For “MONACO,” the production value improved considerably, as Bad Bunny sat on a table while flanked by a frenetic coterie of seated, bug-masked dancers. A pair of string players even helped flesh out the instrumentation — a step up from the rote backing beats of “UN PREVIEW” — but neither performance made the absolute most of Bad Bunny’s weapons-grade star power.
9. Foo Fighters, “Rescued” and “The Glass (feat. H.E.R.)” (10/28/23)
Foo Fighters and special guest H.E.R.
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Foo Fighters and special guest H.E.R.
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It feels silly to refer to a Foo Fighters appearance on SNL as “long-awaited,” given that Dave Grohl’s band has been a featured musical guest nine times in the past three decades. But this was actually a makeup date, as the group was supposed to close out the previous season, before said season got truncated by the Writers Guild of America strike.
Even six months later, Foo Fighters’ performance of “Rescued” and “The Glass” marked the band’s first TV appearance since the death of Taylor Hawkins in 2022. And, given the themes of the group’s newest album — last year’s excellent But Here We Are reflects on the loss of not only Hawkins, but also Grohl’s mother — the band invested this performance with considerable, long-pent-up emotion.
Surrounded by vintage electronics — low-tech radar screens, black-and-white TVs, that sort of thing — Foo Fighters’ members bashed their way through “Rescued” with abandon, as Grohl pushed the limits of even his own vein-bulging intensity. “The Glass” felt more contained, bringing in H.E.R. to lend the band a fourth guitar (complete with solo) and transform the song into a ragged but moving duet. Not unforgettable, but solid, for sure.
8. Dua Lipa, “Illusion” and “Happy for You” (5/4/24)
Dua Lipa.
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Dua Lipa.
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Dua Lipa may have inspired the “go girl, give us nothing” meme, but she’s evolved into a flashy stage performer who’s unafraid of cardio-intensive choreo. Aided by a phalanx of men in mesh tank tops, “Illusion” went all-in on synchronized grinding, complete with body rolls. Though the overall effect felt a little robotic, it’s difficult to argue with the effort level.
“Happy for You,” which closes Lipa’s new album, Radical Optimism, didn’t go quite as hard on the SNL stage, but that’s not all bad: A refreshingly generous breakup song, the track stood up well to the sparkly staging Lipa gave it. Flinging her hair against a barrage of smoky white high beams, the singer looked and sounded for all the world like an icon of dramatically lit magnanimity.
7. Vampire Weekend, “Gen-X Cops” and “Capricorn” (5/11/24)
Vampire Weekend.
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Vampire Weekend.
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On paper, Vampire Weekend’s assignment didn’t seem tough: Veteran rock bands on the SNL stage are generally expected to bypass the high-tech stagecraft expected of younger pop, hip-hop and R&B stars. But Vampire Weekend’s fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, doesn’t translate to the stage easily, with complex, unsettled, frequently abrasive songs that pour on the clutter.
Praise is due, then, for pulling off the new tracks “Gen-X Cops” and “Capricorn” without sacrificing their layered intricacy. It helps that the band filled the stage with supporting players to help bring these tracks to life, and it’s a testament to Vampire Weekend’s diligence that everyone involved stayed on the right side of the blurry line between “ornate” and “chaotic.” Ezra Koenig’s vocals didn’t always pop the way they should, but he and his band pulled off performances that were considerably trickier than they may have looked.
6. Tate McRae, “greedy” and “grave” (11/18/23)
Tate McRae.
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Tate McRae.
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Canadian pop singer and dancer Tate McRae first achieved prominence as a finalist on So You Think You Can Dance, so it’s only natural that she’d lean into physicality in her SNL debut. Clad in short shorts and a small cape made out of what appeared to be tattered rags, McRae performed her ubiquitous hit, “greedy,” on a set of bleachers, flanked by dancers in an arrangement that poured on the choreography — particularly later on, when McRae handed off the mic for a positively gymnastic bit of solo gyration.
It’s a performance that scored maximum points for effort, while still standing on its own, vocally. The ballad “grave” proved less eventful, as it brought McRae to a literal standstill, but by then, she’d already demonstrated that she belonged on that stage.
5. Noah Kahan, “Dial Drunk” and “Stick Season” (12/2/23)
Noah Kahan.
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Noah Kahan.
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Remember that scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home where a portal opened and a bunch of the villains from past Spider-Man movies poured out? We’re having a moment like that in music, except replace “villains” with “earnest, oft-bearded folk singers” and “past Spider-Man movies” with “a folk-rock sound that was hugely popular a decade ago.” Noah Kahan, Benson Boone, Teddy Swims … heck, Hozier is back! Mumford & Sons released a new single earlier this year; this is not a coincidence, people.
Kahan offers a winningly gregarious variation on this new old sound, and his SNL debut leaned hard on the stomp-and-clap agreeability of it all. You want a banjo? We’ve got a banjo! You want man-of-the-woods set dressing? The sticks dangling from the ceiling are there to threaten everyone in sight with impalement from above! This folk-pop sound had left the public’s consciousness for a while, and both “Dial Drunk” and “Stick Season” could hardly be catchier, so … why not? Kahan is your lovable-everyman time traveler, here to remind you that 2012 wasn’t too bad in hindsight.
4. Ariana Grande, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” and “imperfect for you” (3/9/24)
Ariana Grande.
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Ariana Grande.
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If you’re among those who left Ariana Grande’s recent album, eternal sunshine, feeling underwhelmed — if its synth-pop airiness crossed a line into seeming lightweight — then these performances ought to help bring its themes and charms into focus. It helps that each song was accompanied by a visual feast, as vast screens conjured up vivid plant life, celestial wonders and, during a particularly striking moment in “we can’t be friends (wait for your love),” an all-engulfing tidal wave. Grande was essentially performing in front of the most awe-inspiring karaoke backdrop of all time, but damned if it didn’t work beautifully.
Just as importantly, her voice has grown deeper and richer over time: Grande’s been working in musical theater, not to mention filming the Wicked movies, and that experience has clearly carried over to her day job. It wasn’t just the special effects that made the stage seem bigger than it was.
3. RAYE, “Escapism.” and “Worth It.” (4/6/24)
RAYE.
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There’s an everything-everywhere-all-at-once quality to the music of British pop star RAYE, who dominated this year’s BRIT Awards and has been breaking out in the U.S. after writing hits for the likes of Beyoncé and Rihanna. RAYE’s own songs mash together elements of jazz, blues, R&B, gospel and timeless big-band pop, with grand arrangements that make use of strings, horns and choirs.
It’s a lot to digest, and she brought every scrap of it to her SNL debut: “Escapism.” and “Worth It.” each made full use of a small city’s worth of supporting players. But at their center was the rich voice, impeccable style and easy charisma of RAYE herself. Given its strength as a promotional vehicle for huge stars, SNL doesn’t get a chance to feature many discoveries. But for those who might still be unfamiliar with RAYE, this marked a grand introduction.
2. Olivia Rodrigo, “vampire” and “all-american b****” (12/9/23)
Olivia Rodrigo.
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Olivia Rodrigo.
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Sometimes, artists pour all their creative resources into their first SNL song of the night, then dial it back for a closer that feels like a time-filler. Not so with Olivia Rodrigo, who led with a stately, piano-forward reading of her hit “vampire” before committing to full-on berserkitude in “all-american b****,” complete with a stomped cake and a ruined dress.
As with much of Rodrigo’s catalog so far, it’s easy to draw a straight line from this reading of “all-american b****” to a footnoted catalog of alt-rock influences — in this case Courtney Love, whose odes to trashed beauty are emulated with perfectionist precision. But it’s hard to argue with the result, which pairs brash theatrics with a vocal that’s unmistakably on-point. Rodrigo is great at this.
1. boygenius, “Not Strong Enough” and “Satanist” (11/11/23)
boygenius.
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boygenius.
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In a performance that checked every box, boygenius came to SNL armed with high-concept presentation — Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus dressed as The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, complete with a Beatles-esque logo on the kick drum — as well as a pogoing backing band, wicked ear-to-ear grins, flinging hair, the occasional light show and, in the case of “Not Strong Enough,” the best song of 2023. How could this set not work?
Aside from a muffled vocal here and there, this was a master class in how to maximize the SNL stage while having an absolute blast in the process. All it needed was a guitar flung into the abyss, and Baker checked that box with a vengeance at the close of “Satanist.” Every imaginable mission: accomplished.
Kars4Kids advertisements, like this TV commercial on a hot-pink set, feature children turning the charity’s phone number into a catchy jingle. But they do not disclose that most of the proceeds go to a Jewish nonprofit that supports programming for young adults.
Kars4Kids/Screenshot by NPR
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Kars4Kids/Screenshot by NPR
The “Kars4Kids” jingle — with its chipper melody and high-pitched, pre-tween singers — has been wedged firmly in many Americans’ heads for two decades. But it may soon go off the air in California after a judge banned it for being “deceptive.”
Judge Gassia Apkarian of the Orange County Superior Court ruled earlier this month that the ad violates California’s laws against unfair competition and false advertising because it does not disclose Kars4Kids’ religious affiliation.
The case has put the jingle — and the charity behind it — in the headlines. And it inspired us to check in on some other nostalgic favorites (more on that below).
The Kars4Kids case, explained
Kars4Kids says it gives most of its proceeds from used-car donations to Oorah, an Orthodox Jewish nonprofit based in New Jersey that provides opportunities like summer camps, adult matchmaking services and trips to Israel.
Kars4Kids makes the connection to its “sister nonprofit” clear on its website, though not in its infamous jingle: “1-877-Kars4Kids / K-A-R-S Kars for Kids / 1-877-Kars4Kids / Donate your car today.”
That omission prompted California resident Bruce Puterbaugh to sue Oorah in 2021.
According to the judge’s order, Puterbaugh testified that he donated a 2001 Volvo station wagon after hearing the Kars4Kids advertisement “over and over,” believing the money would benefit California kids in need. Puterbaugh, a self-described “not a computer person” in his 70s, said he never visited the charity’s website and only learned the truth from a casual conversation with his Lake County neighbor after the car was picked up.
“He testified that he felt ‘taken advantage of’ upon discovering — only after the donation — that the funds did not stay in California but supported a specific religious mission in the Northeast,” Apkarian wrote.
The neighbor, Neal Roberts, is a lawyer who went on to represent him in the case. Roberts told NPR that the ad — which has aired on the radio since the turn of the millennium and on TV since 2014 — is ubiquitous in California. But he said Apkarian, the judge in the case, doesn’t watch TV and hadn’t heard the jingle until it was played at the four-day trial in November.
“She heard it the first time, and then she heard it the second time, and then the rule in the court was, ‘Do not play that jingle again,’” he said with a laugh. “So I thought that gave us some idea that we might have a chance.”
According to the judge’s order, Kars4Kids’ Chief Operating Officer Esti Landau confirmed at trial that the charity’s primary function is not helping economically disadvantaged children but “Jewish kids and families throughout their lives.” She said the charity has “no functional programs in California beyond a ‘backpack giveaway’ characterized as a branding exercise,” the judge wrote.
Landau confirmed on the stand that in 2022 — among other expenditures — Oorah transferred $16,500,000 to North Africa and the Middle East, and spent $16.5 million to purchase a building in Israel. She testified that while the Kars4Kids ad features kids ages 8 to 10, the programs Oorah funds “often target young adults (17-18) and matchmaking as well as Jewish families.” And she conceded that a donor would “have to go to the website” for that information.
Neither Kars4Kids nor Oorah responded to NPR’s requests for comment. But in a lengthy statement on its website, Kars4Kids said the judge mischaracterized its work and its testimony at trial.
“Kars4Kids’ ads have one purpose: to remind listeners that Kars4Kids offers a quick and easy way to dispose of an unused vehicle,” it wrote. “The ads are targeted to vehicle owners, not specifically to people considering donating to charity.”
The charity said “helping children often means engaging parents and families as well,” and stressed that its mission and religious affiliation are prominently stated on its website.
But the judge ultimately sided with Puterbaugh, writing that “a reasonable consumer is not required to be ‘computer savvy.’” She gave the charity 30 days to stop airing the ad in California unless it is updated to include an “audible disclosure of its religious affiliation and the geographic location of its primary beneficiaries and the age of the beneficiaries.”
The judge also ordered the charity to pay Puterbaugh $250, the value of the car he donated, though acknowledged that “money cannot ‘un-donate’ a car or restore the donor’s belief that they were helping a local, needy child.”
Kars4Kids says on its website that it plans to appeal the ruling, which it said is “deeply flawed, ignores and misrepresents the facts that were presented at trial, and misapplies the law.”
The charity also called the case as “a lawyer-driven attempt to siphon off charitable funds for their own gain.” Roberts dismissed that accusation, saying the only money his client stands to gain is the $250 for the car and lawyers’ fees. The bigger win, he said, is putting Kar4Kids — and potentially other charities nationwide — on notice about the consequences of false advertising.
“I think anyone who knows the facts would think that there was wool being pulled over people’s eyes,” Roberts said.
Where are they now?
J.G. Wentworth’s catchy “Viking Opera” commercial, featuring elaborately costumed, structured settlement-winning opera singers in need of cash, has been airing on and off since 2008.
J.G. Wentworth/Screenshot by NPR
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J.G. Wentworth/Screenshot by NPR
This story sent us down a head-bopping rabbit hole of nostalgic jingles, confirming they never truly leave the depths of your brain. And it turns out, some of them are — in a sense — new again.
Remember Zoo Pals, the early-aughts, dipping sauce-friendly paper plates shaped like animals (pig, bee, frog, duck) that, per their peppy theme song, “make eating fun!”? Hefty discontinued the onetime birthday-party staple in 2014, but brought the plates back in 2023 — and has also introduced disposable cups and plastic bags in the years since. No word yet on whether the commercial might make a comeback too.
Folgers, the coffee brand, has had people humming “The best part of wakin’ up / is Folgers in your cup” since the cozy jingle first aired in 1984. Its various iterations have managed to hold viewers’ attention in the years since (the 2009 sibling version inspired a slew of parodies and fan fiction). In 2021, public performance royalties for the song — which is actually titled “Real Snowy Morning” — were auctioned off online. The winning bidder, identified as “Josh C.,” paid $90,500.
And earlier this year, the brand released remixed versions of the ad, fusing the original jingle with several popular wake-up songs spanning genres and generations (including the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie” and “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence).
Just this week, comedian John Oliver parodied JG Wentworth’s Viking opera (“877-cash-now”) jingle for an episode examining the structured settlement factoring industry. Oliver’s version, warning people to be skeptical of such companies, features stars like singer Megan Hilty, actor Victor Garber and Larry David, in a nod to the original earworm’s prominent cameo in the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Sometimes a jingle outlives the very thing it’s advertising. Consider: “I’m a Toys R Us Kid,” the toy store ditty belted enthusiastically by generations of trike-riding kiddos since the 1980s. The franchise shuttered due to bankruptcy in 2018, though it has since been partially revived through a partnership with Macy’s. The jingle has staying power — much to the delight of prolific thriller author James Patterson, who helped write the lyrics in his early career in advertising.
“That’s a big moment in my life,” Patterson said when asked about it in a 2024 appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark. “That’s a fun one, and kids obviously loved it. And we do remember it, which is great.”
The Bob Baker Marionette Theater was about to debut its first new production in 45 years, and it was uncertain whether one of the show’s signature new puppets would even work. A pelican, with an oversized bucket-like beak, was in need of last-minute maintenance.
This gangly bird, designed to hop, skip, soar and sing to Clarence Henry’s mid-’50s rhythm and blues hit “Ain’t Got No Home,” was supposed to surprise the audience, as its elongated bill is actually hiding a frog. Getting the pelican-frog duo to perform in unison was a feat of mechanical artistry for the team, not to mention the choreography needed by the puppeteer.
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And in the minutes before showtime, director Alex Evans was trying to stay calm. In such moments, he would say later, he only need remind himself of an old adage in the puppet arts.
“Puppets,” he says, “break all the time.”
With that, he was ready to embrace the unknown.
“I always say I love the chaos of live theater,” Evans says. “We got to believe in this thing.”
“Choo Choo Revue,” the latest in a long line of song-and-dance productions, is arriving at a momentous time for the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Just last month the troupe announced its intent to purchase its venue on Highland Park’s York Boulevard for $5 million, doing so as it was gearing up for performances at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The latter went viral, a fact Evans attributes to many of the first week shows of “Choo Choo Revue” selling out.
An organist plays while people file into the premiere of “Choo Choo Revue” at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater.
In many ways, “Choo Choo Revue” is a statement piece. Evans, who also serves as co-executive director with Mary Fagot, wants to place the spotlight on the theater’s current crop of artists, fabricators and collaborators. While the show pays tribute in many ways to the theater’s legendary namesake founder, perhaps most notably in its use of his vintage record collection, it’s time, Evans says, for the Bob Baker Marionette Theater’s next generation to shine.
Evans was instrumental in the decision to shift the team away from the previously announced production of “Arabian Nights,” a project once spearheaded by Baker, who died in 2014. Just ahead of the arrival of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the theater had gone so far as to print an “Arabian Nights” program, and had finished sets and puppets ready to go.
“Choo Choo Revue” is the first new Bob Baker Marionette show since 1981’s “Hooray LA!”
During the forced closure, however, the team began to rethink its future. “It was a deep-breath time to do some internal thinking about who we are and what we want to prioritize,” says Evans, who joined the company in 2007 as a volunteer and became a staffer in 2009.
“The first new show in 40 years — us finishing one of Bob’s shows would have been deeply personal and meaningful, but it would have kept the narrative, internally and externally, that this was one person’s vision,” Evans says. “‘Choo Choo’ is the culmination of so many different ideas and people. It was purposefully about opening the floodgates, that Bob Baker could be more than just the person of Bob Baker.”
It wasn’t a sure thing the Bob Baker Marionette Theater would even reach this milestone. For much of the past decade — since about the death of the theater’s patriarch — the narrative surrounding the theater was one of survival.
In 2019, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater needed a lifeline. Forced out of its edge-of-downtown home of more than 55 years, the beloved troupe with its thousands of handcrafted puppets — a saucy black cat in heels, a fish out of water that can’t help but wiggle — ultimately found a new location in a Highland Park theater, where it signed a 10-year lease.
Then came the pandemic, when the theater relied heavily on community fundraising to cover its rent. California, and Hollywood in particular, has a rich puppetry tradition. Bob Baker Marionette Theater likes to refer to itself as the largest ongoing puppet theater in the U.S. The oldest puppet space in the country resides up north in Oakland at amusement park Children’s Fairyland. And in 2020, Bob Baker found it had many fans, asking at one point to raise $365,000 over the course of a year. It did so in four weeks.
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1. L Castro twirls a marionette. 2. The audience gives a round of applause after the premiere of “Choo Choo Revue.” 3. People stand in line for the premiere of “Choo Choo Revue” at the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre. (Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)
Old favorites, including the theater’s famed black cat marionette, make appearances in “Choo Choo Revue.”
But it was the long process of buying its home, namely the belief that it would be in Highland Park to stay, that gave the company the confidence that it could go forward with a new show. The obvious question, of course, is why it took 40 years for a completely fresh Bob Baker experience. Evans gives a long answer, pointing to numerous hurdles, be it the shift in locations, the cost of preserving its historic puppets and collection, as well as just managing priorities.
“It’s not necessarily a financial hurdle,” Evans says, noting “Choo Choo Revue” cost $300,000, with about half of that sum dedicated to the creation of new puppets and scenery.
“I think it was more about priorities,” Evans says. “Like, do we get the staff healthcare first, or do we do a new show first? So we got the staff healthcare. Or do we give the stage better lighting.”
As for how and why the team settled on “Choo Choo Revue” as its first production since 1981’s “Hooray LA!,” Evans says not to overthink it.
“It made me giggle,” he says. “It was a jumping off point to imagination. ‘Choo Choo Revue,’ by name itself, I thought to giggle.”
The show is a fantastical representation of a cross-country train trip, filled with adorable puppet trains.
A meticulously detailed log with windows, for instance, or a car that seems to balance natural, mountainous wonders on its back. They’re colorful playthings, at least until the background scenery starts depicting various locomotive styles. Puppeteers will whisk train cars out into the open, each often housing a fantastical creature — a moose, for instance, who takes a break from knitting to prance around to a rendition of the on-theme traditional blues ditty “Midnight Special.”
Behind it all are tens of thousands of hours of handcrafted proficiency. Each new puppet is a work of art. Take, for instance, a swarm of bats that seemed to glow in the dark (the creatures, created for “Choo Choo Revue,” made their debut during last year’s Halloween season).
The Bob Baker Marionette Theater created more than 100 new puppets for “Choo Choo Revue,” including a pelican hiding a frog in its beak.
Or an intricately detailed cicada band. They’re each playing tiny instruments — one a half-open sardine can, another a stringed matchbook. Their wings deserve a close inspection, as the translucent curved fixtures are inspired by stained glass windows. There are trees that ski, and train whistles with big lips and high heels, modeled after harmony group the Andrews Sisters. Wait till the latter toot off their tops, as each of the 100 new puppets is full of surprises.
“We get a bunch of different artists together, and we all brainstorm,” Evans says of the creation process. “Like, ‘Let’s all think for a second about anthropomorphizing trains.’ We did a series of sketches and showed them to each other. I honestly probably have a thousand different fascinating ideas for train movement.”
On opening night, the crowd claps along to the numbers, cheering with delight at each new piece of whimsy that rolls or soars onto the floor-level stage. And as for the showstopping pelican, the frog erupts out of its beak right on cue, a moment that indeed inspires a round of laughter and childlike awe.
As the imaginary train whisks the puppets around the country, the show manages to build anticipation just by making the crowd wonder what comes next. Say, for instance, a fluffy Sasquatch, or a crooner of a moon in pajamas singing an old-timey lullaby to all the little ones seated cross-legged on the floor.
Puppeteer Ginger Duncan twirls a marionette named Comedy.
Much of “Choo Choo Revue,” like the yawning, serenading moon, is rooted in the music of the past. That was a decision made to ensure the show feels in line with earlier Bob Baker works. Yet Evans says the team is emboldend after Coachella to start tackling more contemporary songs at its Highland Park headquarters. The crowd at the Indio festival, for instance, went wild for the puppets swooning to Ben Platt’s cover of Addison Rae’s hit tune “Diet Pepsi.”
“Honestly, if we had done Coachella last year, it would have pushed ‘Choo Choo’ further,” he says, noting he initially feared pop music could distract. “I didn’t think it could work in a way that wouldn’t throw you out of the show.”
And yet Evans doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He nearly teared up at the end of the “Choo Choo Revue” premiere, saying the following afternoon that seeing this show come together after multiple years was second only to his 2025 wedding in terms of creating an “overwhelming feeling of pride, love and care.”
“Choo Choo Revue” culminates in a look toward the future. That’s when a sleek, silver, oversized high-speed bullet train arrives on the scene.
It can be read as a metaphor.
While the nonprofit is still seeking donor help — at the premiere, Fagot said the company now has secured $4.7 million toward its $5 million goal of buying the theater and it also hopes to raise an additional $2 million for building upgrades — its future is more secure than it has been at any time over the past decade.
At long last, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater can relax and look toward new horizons.
Evans, for instance, can’t help himself excitedly tease a potential next Bob Baker show. He says twice in the interview that the Olympics are on the troupe’s mind.
“We’ve got two years,” he says. And now the permanent home to house it.
Are psychedelics the next big thing?
Psychedelics include the drugs LSD, magic mushrooms, peyote, and often ketamine and MDMA too, among others. And some of these drugs have a history of spiritual practice spanning millennia. Then many of these drugs became synonymous with hippies and 60s and 70s counterculture. But now, psychedelics have new cheerleaders: tech bros and CEOs. So why the rebrand?
To get into it all, Brittany is joined by Maxim Tvorun-Dunn, PhD candidate at the University of Tokyo, and Emma Goldberg, business reporter at the New York Times, to discuss what it means that these drugs are getting championed – and sometimes financially backed – by the tech elite, and how might that affect our culture’s relationship with psychedelics.
This episode originally aired on March 24, 2025.
Interested in hearing more of Brittany’s series “Losing My Religion?” Check out these episodes:
Goodbye, church… Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
Am I a god?! Why “manifesting” your reality is easier than ever
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This episode was produced by Liam McBain. It was edited by Neena Pathak. Our Supervising Producer is Cher Vincent. Our Executive Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
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