The big surprise on “Saturday Night Live” was supposed to be Paula Abdul’s cameo mocking the Corey Clark scandal. But System of a Down managed to upstage the embattled “American Idol” judge.
During a performance of their new single “B.Y.O.B.,” both singer Serj Tankian and guitarist Daron Malakian were seen – in close-up – mouthing the song’s profane refrain, “Where the f– are you?” with the expletive bleeped out by the show’s censors. But near the end of the song, Malakian screamed “F– yeah!” and the profanity made it by the censor.
At least one fan rejoiced in the slip, boasting on the band’s message board, “The censors missed at least one “f– you”. Which was nice.”
As expected, Abdul made a cameo on the show, portraying herself during a sketch that spoofed Clark’s appearance on “Primetime Live” on Wednesday. With cast member Finesse Mitchell portraying a dimwitted Clark, the show revealed that there was enough material for a second “Primetime” special, in which Clark shows an increasingly unimpressive batch of evidence that he and Abdul had an affair, including a cash receipt for a hamburger.
Later in the sketch, a string of cast members portrayed previous male “Idol” contestants such as Mario Vazquez and Justin Guarini in fake flashback scenes as Abdul (played by Amy Poehler) applauded their performances and visibly came on to them to the surprise of her fellow judges.
“Corey, that was beautiful,” Poehler said to the fake Clark, nailing Abdul’s signature perky critiques. “You really blew me away. It’s like [when] I rolled over and said to you this morning, ‘You have real star quality.’ I’ll see you at home.” Recently, in times of scandal, “Saturday Night Live” has become the go-to place for celebrities to laugh off their troubles, from Janet Jackson’s parody of her Super Bowl slip to Paris Hilton’s cameo mocking her sex tape.
And near the end of the show-opening sketch, Abdul came out to critique the actor’s takes on the judges, telling “Randy” that he needed more “dawgs!” in his act and advising Poehler, “You need to perfect the clap a little more and be a lot more sexier so contestants will be willing to sleep with you.”
Abdul released a statement on Friday thanking fans for support and reacting to Clark’s allegations, which read, in part, “All my life, I have been taught to take the high road, and never to dignify salacious or false accusations,” she said. “And I have been taught never, never to lie. Not only do I never lie, I never respond to lies, no matter how vicious, no matter how hurtful. I do trust my fans who can see through attempts at character assassination, and I do trust the essential fairness of the American public.”
Clark made an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show on Friday morning, in which he repeated his allegations and revealed even more graphic, intimate details of the alleged affair.
