Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
in host’s dressing room, the cast is upset she was selected to do SNL
— A decent laugh from the look of Drew’s dressing room.
— LOL at Eddie’s slam at Tim for working with monkeys and kids.
— Tim, in response to Eddie’s aforementioned slam regarding monkeys and kids: “Be nice to ’em; who do you think is buying your album?”
— What’s this? Robin Duke with actual lines? Wow, I almost forgot what that’s like, given her non-existent presence these last few episodes.
— A reference to Dick Ebersol’s on-camera appearance the previous week where he supposedly trashed Andy Kaufman. As I mentioned in my last review, that Ebersol/Kaufman segment (among other things) is missing from the rerun version I reviewed of that episode. It’s notoriously difficult for anyone to find a copy of the live broadcast of that episode.
— Loved the part where it’s said that a Frontier Gynecologist sketch has been cut, which a disappointed Gary responds to by angrily yanking off the doctor gloves on the cowboy outfit he’s wearing. I like how it’s become a running gag in these backstage sketches for hapless Gary Kroeger to be told a sketch of his has been cut.
— Here’s the arrival of SNL’s youngest host ever.
— Drew Barrymore’s delivery is what you would expect from a 7-year-old on a live TV show. However, it hasn’t been TOO cringeworthy so far.
— Hmm, maybe I spoke too soon. Drew completely blanked at the end when she was supposed to say “Live from New York”, and during that long awkward pause, the theme music abruptly began, THEN Drew finally said her “Live from New York” while the screen did an unusually very slow crossfade into the opening montage. Awkward ending to this cold opening.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
TIK helps host answer some questions from the audience
— Interesting how Drew is making her entrance with Tim alongside her. Between the cold opening and this, they seem to have established Tim as Drew’s chaperone for the night. Did they pick him because he’s the shortest member of this cast (I think even tiny little Julia Louis-Dreyfus is slightly taller than him, judging from sketches where they stood next to each other)?
— Very nice interplay and chemistry between Drew and Tim throughout this monologue.
— The bit with the monkey was a fairly decent ending.
STARS: ***
THE WEB
stops the burglar before he can leave his own house
— An okay punchline with stopping a burglar before he gets out of his own house, after the setup of this commercial made it seem like he was robbing someone else’s house. Kinda reminds me of that Sleepy Boy 2000 ad I reviewed in the last episode, only that one was funnier.
— This commercial originally aired in the season premiere, but it wasn’t in my copy of that episode, so this is the first time I’m seeing it.
STARS: ***
E.T.
after Gertie (host) kills E.T., Mr. T (EDM) comes looking for his boy
— Here’s our obligatory E.T. sketch of the night (or the “host sketch”, as Susan Saint James worded it in her season 7 monologue).
— Tim as Elliott is perfect casting.
— In that blonde wig, I initially mistook Gary for Brad Hall.
— Drew’s cruel comments about the dead E.T. are pretty funny, especially her suggesting “Stuff him” when the boys are wondering what they should do with E.T.’s body.
— Great inclusion of Eddie as Mr. T, here to fetch his boy “E”. You gotta love the 80s pop culture explosion here, with Mr. T being in an E.T. sketch.
— In response to Drew finally saying one of her lines after awkwardly pausing, Eddie says to her “Very good” in his normal voice, then he and others in the scene start cracking up.
— Eddie to E.T.: “Atari’s coming out with a game about you!” Heh, funny hearing that in hindsight, if you’re aware that that game would infamously end up being SUCH a disastrous flop that a frustrated Atari buried thousands of unsold copies in a landfill. (read about it here)
— Overall, despite some awkward timing issues throughout, I found this to be a pretty fun sketch.
STARS: ***½
VOTE FOR ANDY
GAK announces phone-in contest to decide Andy Kaufman’s SNL fate
— Gary receives a strong amount of audience applause when introducing himself at the beginning of this, which is kinda surprising considering how new he is at this point.
— Gary sets up tonight’s contest where viewers will decide if Andy Kaufman will appear on the show again.
— Strange how they picked THIS of all episodes to do this vote-in contest. Now we have TWO unconventional gimmicks on the same night.
— Gary managed to get some laughs here overall.
— I had this same thought when watching the Larry the Lobster vote-in episode last season, but I wonder how they did this in dress rehearsal. Since they obviously couldn’t have gotten calls from viewers yet during dress rehearsal, what did SNL do for these vote-in segments? Did they just not include these in dress?
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
WHINERS
Doug & Wendy Whiner decide always-complaining (host) is the kid to adopt
— Mary Gross plays yet ANOTHER nun.
— Funny blooper when Mary accidentally gets her nun habit caught in the door and ad-libs her way out of it.
— Oh, lord, here comes the Whiners…
— It IS kinda interesting, though, how this seems to be picking up where the last Whiners sketch left off, where Ron Howard as a doctor tried convincing the Whiners to adopt a child. It’s kinda rare to see a story arc in a recurring SNL sketch.
— I got a laugh from a fed-up Mary quickly paying the Whiners to take Drew home as soon as possible.
— The sketch is over already. Overall, this was one of the more tolerable Whiners sketches by default, only because we barely saw them in this.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Annie Get Your Gun”
SHOULD ANDY KAUFMAN BE ALLOWED ON SNL?
answers to “Do you think Andy Kaufman should be on SNL?”; Ed Asner cameo
— Funny to see how polarizing Andy Kaufman is among the general public.
— Wait, was that a mustached Ed Asner I just saw as one of the people being interviewed? (second screencap above) [ADDENDUM: It is indeed Asner. How random.]
— LOL at one guy’s answer to the question being “I think he’s really hot”.
— Overall, some funny answers from some of the interviewees here.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
VOTING SO FAR
preliminary voting says “dump Andy,” EDM says viewers should reconsider
— For the second episode in a row, Eddie oddly wears an open leather jacket with no shirt underneath. Was that a thing back then in the early 80s, or was Eddie trying to make it a thing?
— I like how Eddie made a reference to the famous Larry the Lobster vote-in.
— Yikes, Andy’s ALREADY losing by a wide margin.
— After the audience’s positive reaction to “Dump Andy” being ahead in the votes, I liked the comically taken-aback look Eddie gave the audience before saying “You people are sick”.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
TIK warns Boston Herald-American readers by showing more Post headlines
BRH looks at real-life celebrity couples who could play the Reagans
JOP is sad the NFL strike is over- he liked coverage of alternate sports
— For the first time this season, Brad starts a Saturday Night News without wearing glasses. Hopefully, he’s gotten rid of them for good, because I really can’t understand his habit of wearing glasses at the beginning of each SNN, only for him to take them off after a few jokes, and then randomly put them back on after a guest commentary.
— Brad’s long bit about widowed public figures isn’t that great, and reeks too much of the type of dreadful “long photo montage” bits that Brian Doyle-Murray regularly did on SNL Newsbreak last season.
— Awkward moment during Tim’s “Salute to Journalism” commentary, where he mistakenly got mixed up with two of the papers at one point and had to backtrack. Unlike a blooper he made in a Dr. Jack Badofsky commentary earlier this season, this one wasn’t funny and it’s kinda thrown the segment off.
— Tim’s overall journalism commentary tonight was nowhere near as good as his previous one. Some of the supposedly “ridiculous” newspaper headlines he displayed were reaching, and the whole thing seemed to REALLY die down towards the end. The aforementioned blooper didn’t help, either. Also, between this recurring segment and the Badofsky bits, I’m starting to wonder why Tim seems to have a thing for doing Saturday Night News bits where he shows a series of titles to the camera one-by-one.
— Brad’s bit about which famous married couple will play the Reagans in a biopic had some laughs, and a good payoff with the chosen “married couple” turning out to be Jim Nabors and Rock Hudson.
— Joe’s rundown of what temporary televised sporting events we’ll miss now that football is back is funny due to the random clips shown as examples of replacement sports. Rubik’s Cube competitions were really a televised event back then?!?! Ah, the 80s…
STARS: **
BRAIN SURGERY
(JLD) gets the interesting date she wanted by helping with brain surgery
— There’s Julia wearing Ana Gasteyer’s future Bobbi Mohan-Culp dress once again.
— Ha, the sudden brain surgery twist came out of nowhere and is quite funny.
— I like Eddie’s various “He’ll never (insert random function here) again, you idiot!” to Julia.
— Wow, the audience is absolutely dead during this sketch so far. I’m personally liking this sketch just fine. Is it too fast-moving for the audience?
— Tim’s meek “I suppose I better be taking you home now” to Julia after the chaotic surgery scene has ended was pretty funny.
— Overall, a decent sketch. Something about this had a quintessential Ebersol-era feel to it. Maybe it was the frantic pacing of the whole thing. I can’t picture this sketch appearing in any other SNL era.
STARS: ***
VOTING SO FAR
MAG tries to help Andy Kaufman’s chances by showing a montage of his bits
— Mary rapidly reading off the “Dump Andy” number after carefully reading off the “Keep Andy” number was a gag that Eddie did during the Larry the Lobster vote-in.
— A fairly interesting Mary Gross-narrated montage of Andy’s previous appearances from SNL’s first seven seasons. Considering I reviewed all of those episodes during this SNL project of mine, I’m getting a nice nostalgic feel from this montage.
— Funny part where a section of pictures of Andy successfully defeating women in wrestling matches was followed by Mary saying “Then he wrestled a man” as we just see a picture of a humbled Andy in a neckbrace.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
OKLAHOMA
effeminate Mr. Blunt (JOP) unhappy with high school Oklahoma production
— Joe is spot-on in his portrayal of your typical drama queen-esque overbearing musical director.
— I liked Joe telling Gary “You’re an actor; now hold me like you mean it, dammit!”
— This was really missing a good ending. This had a very awkward, underwritten “conclusion”.
STARS: **½
DRESSING ROOM
babysitter TIK lets host dress him in women’s clothes a la E.T.
— First time we’ve seen Drew in a while. The last appearance she made was way back in the pre-Saturday Night News half of the show.
— Interesting Mommie Dearest “No more wire hangers” reference.
— That’s it? Wow, this was VERY short and felt kinda pointless. Tim and Drew do continue to have charming chemistry, however.
STARS: **
VOTE FOR ANDY
JOP reminds home viewers that there are only two minutes left to vote
— An incredibly short segment with Joe just telling us they’re running short on time and viewers have only two minutes left to decide Andy’s fate.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
MY FRIEND ZEUS
loser high school student (GAK) gains a powerful buddy
— Zeus making Gary say ridiculous things to his crush (Julia) is pretty funny, and the first laugh I’m getting from this whole sketch so far.
— Zeus to Gary: “Let’s go find a real woman, or maybe a goat or something.”
— A forgettable sketch overall, despite a few laughs.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pulling Mussels From A Shell”
SINGLE
career woman ROD says host makes her biological clock tick louder
— Good to see Robin getting a big showcase as herself, given how extremely underused she had been these last few episodes.
— Nice slice-of-life quality to Robin’s whole spiel.
— Drew responding to Robin’s idea of watching her own SNL appearances with “I’d rather watch Eddie” was a funny line on paper, but Drew awkwardly stopped in the middle of the line, before pausing and then repeating the whole line, which killed the joke and received awkward silence from the audience.
— Overall, I wanted to like this piece more than I did, but it was still nice to see Robin front-and-center as herself.
STARS: **½
GOODNIGHTS
by a count of 195,544 to 169,186, Andy Kaufman has been dumped from SNL
— Gary reads the final tally, aaaannnndd…. “Dump Andy” has received the most amount of votes, and thus, Andy Kaufman is officially voted off of SNL. In response, a lot of people in the audience happily cheer while some of the cast members are seen making exaggeratedly(?) unhappy faces.
— As a huge Andy Kaufman fan, I feel like I should be pissed off by the voting results, but it doesn’t bother me too much, especially since I’m aware he was actually the one who came up with the whole idea of this “Keep or Dump Andy” contest in the first place.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An interesting show as a novelty considering the age of the host, but the quality of the episode itself wasn’t all that great. There were still several highlights, of course, but nothing stood out as particularly strong, and the limitations in the type of humor they could do tonight was very apparent. Despite some flubs, Drew certainly did the best that a 7-year-old could be expected to do in a live sketch comedy show, and there were some fun moments here and there with her. This overall episode was nice as a little one-time experiment, but it’s probably wise that the show never went this young for a host ever again.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Robert Blake):
— a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
The Smothers Brothers