Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
EDM asks the home audience to call in to decide Larry the Lobster’s fate
— Heh, immediately, we open on Tony doing the most Italian-est Italian stereotype ever.
— Eddie ‘s “You people are sick!” rant to the viewers is really funny.
— Very interesting and fun gimmick for tonight’s show, having viewers call in and vote to either save or kill Larry the Lobster. I wonder how they came up with the idea for this.
— Amusing how an “unbiased” Eddie speeds through the “Save Larry” number and then slowly reads the “Kill Larry” number.
— Tony: “(Italian accent) Let’s boil that sucker, eh?!?”
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host’s recognizability helps a policeman settle a domestic dispute
— A kinda interesting-seeming pre-taped sequence with Daniel taking a ride in a cop car.
— The Spanish couple’s excitement at recognizing Daniel from “Hill Street Blues” is fairly funny.
— Overall, this was a bit of a letdown. It wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be, and came off kinda dull.
STARS: **
WHINERS
Doug (JOP) & Wendy (ROD) Whiner go out to eat on their anniversary
— Ohh, no. The debut of The Whiners, two characters that I’ve been dreading having to review. These characters seem like they’re going to be unbearable.
— Tony’s funny as the straight man, especially him yanking the wine bottle off of the passing-by waiter’s platter. He’s been my only enjoyment in this sketch so far.
— Another laugh from Tony giving the Whiners the keys to his own car just so they won’t stay at the restaurant.
— Overall, if it weren’t for Tony’s funny straight man performance, this sketch would’ve been completely worthless. I fear any of the future Whiners sketches that may not have as good a straight man for them to play off of.
STARS: *½
EVERYBODY DOES MERMAN
(TOR) tells Ethel Merman impersonator (CHE) that her skill isn’t special
— LOL at Tim as a “Tim Kazurinsky lookalike”, and Tony telling him that nobody’s interested in the real Kazurinsky, let alone a lookalike.
— Christine’s Ethel Merman impression is cracking me up.
— Loved Tony’s angry “Everyone does Merman!!!” outburst.
— Whoever that is as the Woody Allen impersonator is pretty funny.
— This sketch is getting even better, as they’re now breaking the fourth wall by having Tony take Christine off the set and show her SNL staff members (including Dick Ebersol) doing a Merman impression.
— During Tony and Daniel J. Travanti’s conversation, you can see someone in the background wearing the same fish costume that Blythe Danner wore in the goodnights of the last episode.
— This sketch is getting even better and better, with Tony having a breakdown by seeing a Merman impression everywhere he goes backstage. Tony’s been delivering a lot of strong performances tonight in general.
— Great Twilight Zone twist, and Brian is doing a dead-on Rod Serling.
STARS: ****½
VOTING SO FAR
host gives a Larry update- a slight majority says “boil him”
— We get an update on how the Larry the Lobster vote results are going so far.
— Funny part with Daniel saying “Eddie’s right, you’re sick” when some of the audience applauds the fact that “Kill Larry” is getting a higher number of votes.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hurts So Good”
SNL NEWSBREAK
MAG interviews bogus Prince Andrew (Leo Yoshimura) en route to Falklands
TOR gives a realistic version of the Emergency Broadcast System
a frozen JOP silently indicates that it’s too cold for baseball in April
the many photos depicting the Reagans waving are documented
TIK has some suggestions regarding how to improve the Academy Awards
BDM gives an update on Larry’s fate
— LOL at Akira Yoshimura as “Prince Andrew”.
— The monotone delivery that Yoshimura always uses on the show cracks me up.
— Tonight’s SNL Newsbreak is having lots of mentions of the Falkland Islands situation going on at the time.
— Tony’s emergency broadcast test (him just screaming a whole bunch of panicked things) was too obvious a joke. Also, it was something I can picture John Belushi doing in the original era, and I feel like he would’ve done it funnier. I mentioned in an earlier review that I once heard Tony was supposedly hired to be a Belushi type for the cast, which never really ended up panning out.
— Haha, this whole bit with a funny-looking frozen Joe Piscopo silently doing his SNL Sports report via subtitles is freakin’ hilarious to me. I especially got a big laugh from the “Froze my #&%@$x’s off!” subtitle.
— Ugh, a variation of SNL Newsbreak’s dreaded “long screen crawl” gag, showing a long series of pictures of Ronald and Nancy Reagan waving. How the hell is this supposed to be funny?
— Man, the Reagan waving montage is STILL going on. THIS IS TORTURE.
— Interesting seeing Tim doing a commentary as himself.
— I like Tim’s list of improvements to make to the Academy Awards. Some of his complaints are still relevant today.
— God, tonight’s SNL Newsbreak is looking to be one of the longest news segments in SNL history. Feels like tonight’s Newsbreak been going on for 20 minutes. Maybe I wouldn’t complain about that if Brian and Christine’s jokes were actually funny.
— The mushroom cloud picture bit seemed like it could’ve been interesting, but ended up coming off fairly weak.
STARS: ** (mostly just for the guest commentaries)
HILL STREET BLUES
Furillo (host) & Belker (Bruce Weitz) at the station
— The reveal of the bedroom being in a police station office didn’t come off that funny to me.
— Joe’s making me laugh, even though I’m not familiar with who he’s impersonating (I have no memory of ever watching Hill Street Blues). The audience seems to think he’s doing a good impression.
— I know Robin already kinda resembles future cast member Cheri Oteri, but she is looking PARTICULARLY Oteri-esque here. I swear I remember Cheri once wearing the exact same wig that Robin’s wearing here.
— Ha, another Akira Yoshimura appearance! His walk-on was pretty funny.
— The bit with Tony as the Gypsy King was really weak.
— I would probably enjoy the various walk-ons from the cast members if I were actually familiar with Hill Street Blues. Since I don’t know who’s playing who in this and since the references are so specific, a lot of the humor is lost on me. Is Christine playing Betty Thomas’ character?
— Now we get a cameo from what appears to be an actual Hill Street Blues actor. Why in the world is he acting like a dog?
— Travanti: “That’s another thing that’s been getting my Mediterranean goat!” That line is so bizarrely cringeworthy that it’s funny in itself.
— Overall, I couldn’t wait for this sketch to end. It went on SO long and almost everything in it went over my head as someone who has no familiarity with the real show.
STARS: *½
LARRY’S STORY
Larry’s life history is told
— “Save Larry” is now in the lead.
— The video package showing Larry’s biography is fairly funny if nothing great.
STARS: **½
BAVARIAN BUTTERFLY DANCE
by Josef Sedelmaier- a demonstration of the Bavarian Butterfly Dance
— What the hell is this?!?
— Ha, the ending with the guy suddenly crashing through the floor caught me off guard and made me laugh out loud.
STARS: ***½
CAREER CORNER
Tooth Fairy (EDM) wishes to change his profession
— Promising concept with Eddie playing a very Eddie Murphy-esque Tooth Fairy.
— Overall, while there was nothing much to say about this, it was a pretty solid sketch and featured the usual good amount of funny Eddie Murphy lines.
STARS: ***½
IF LARRY LIVES
EDM announces that Larry will live large if the callers spare him
— A pretty decent video package, showing exaggerated examples of what Larry will be treated to if he lives.
STARS: ***
REAGAN BRAND ECONOMICS
“where the D.C. stands for don’t care”
— First time we’re actually seeing Joe’s Ronald Reagan impression instead of just hearing him as a voice-over in those Hail to the Chief sketches.
— LOL at the poverty-stricken family’s meal being “rat tail gumbo”.
— An overall pretty biting parody of Reagan’s economics.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ain’t Even Done With The Night”
FINAL VOTE
the final count is in- Larry lives by a vote of 239,096 to 227,452
— Eddie reveals the results: Larry lives!
— The cast and extras (including Fake Woody Allen from the Merman sketch) come out to celebrate while confetti drops down. Nothing else to this. For a second when the cast first showed up, I thought this would segue to the goodnights, but nope.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Decent episode, helped a lot by the Larry the Lobster gimmick, which added a fun, unique feel to the episode. The rest of the show was pretty hit-and-miss, though things got better towards the end of the episode. There were a few terrible things earlier on that really got my Mediterranean goat (sorry, I had to use that at least once), such as The Whiners, the non-commentary portions of SNL Newsbreak, and Hill Street Blues.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Blythe Danner):
— somewhat of a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Johnny Cash
Didn’t Rosato do that same chef character when he was on SCTV. Cooking with Marcello? It’s been a couple of dozen years since I’ve seen this episode on cable.
Wow, Joe Sedelmaier (filmed piece). He went on to direct many of the most iconic commercials of the 80s, including “Where’s the Beef.”
If you were familiar with Hill Street, trust me, that was an excellent parody. The monologue, though, was lame. As for The Whiners, i found this first one pretty good. If they’d left it at one, we would never have got sick of them. The Danny DeVito sketch with them wasn’t bad, but the rest were boring.
Does anyone remember around 1999 (for SNL25), Entetainment Weekly (I think) had a list of SNL’s “lowest moments” or something, and they included Larry the Lobster? Makes no sense. And I do NOT think the list included kicking Andy Kaufman off the show. Weird
Barry Mitchell was the Woody Allen impersonator. Also known for doing the “World News Polka” song on the overnight ABC news from the mid-90s.
I’ve always liked The Whiners though I’m glad they only lasted a few seasons.
Christine is very tall
I’ve been looking forward to this episode because I’ve heard about the Larry the Lobster bit. To me it was the exact right amount of escalation for a runner and kept the episode interesting. I always thought that Kill Larry won though, so I was surprised to find out he lived! Is it bad that I kinda wish Kill Larry had won?
Well, Francis, Larry died that night in the studio. A second lobster was used for the rest of the show and next week.
As one currently going through all of Hill St Blues, I find the parody sketch being mostly underwhelming. Impressed with Mary’s Davenport and Joe’s Esterhaus, disappointed with Robin’s Fay (there’s so much to pick off Bosson’s portrayal) and Christine’s Lucy, Eddie and Brian were fine as Washington and Hunter but brought not much. Heck, even Travanti was overplaying his Frank (he played the fierce underbreathy delivery of Furillo better in Merman). One last thought: I could envision Kazurinsky playing Renko hilariously.