February 9, 1985 – Harry Anderson / Bryan Adams (S10 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
while Ronald Reagan is addressing Congress, Robert Latta (RIH) wanders in

— LOL at the random walk-on from Rich as Robert Latta, with his name professionally being displayed on the bottom of the screen as “Robert Latta, wanderer”.
— Interesting how they’re puling this off, greenscreening Rich’s Latta into actual footage of the State of The Union address. This is the type of thing they SHOULD’VE done with that Reagan Inauguration cold opening from a few episodes earlier.
— I got a pretty good laugh from Rich’s Latta randomly presenting Reagan with a birthday cake.
— And just now, the Alka Seltzer bit was even funnier.
— An overall pretty funny, short, and unique cold opening that made interesting use of Rich’s impression.
STARS: ***

MONOLOGUE
despite promising “no more geek stuff,” host eats Skippy The Guinea Pig

— I liked the callback to some of his previous SNL appearances, accompanied by a picture montage of those appearances. One of the pictures shown was of Harry’s gruesome “needle through the arm” trick that I remember made me wince like CRAZY.
— Ha, the audience groans at his mere mention that the guinea pig does acrobatic tricks.
— Harry, regarding the guinea pig: “He can’t work with a caucasian drummer.”
— Wow, holy hell at Harry stuffing the guinea pig into his mouth and chewing it. Amazing. How in the WORLD did he pull that trick off?
STARS: ****

THE KATE & ALI VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL
a Valentine’s Day Special for Hepburn (MAS) & Muhammad (BIC)

— I enjoyed the first Kate & Ali sketch, but I’m not sure it needs to be recurring.
— I like the random detail of their Valentine’s special being three hours long.
— The bed scene is pretty funny and is taking this into a different direction.
— Overall, not bad.
STARS: ***

AMERICAN PROFILES
Herb (CHG) & Al (BIC) Minkman at Mets Fantasy Camp; Bud Harrelson cameo

— I love seeing the Minkman Brothers again.
— Strangely, I laughed at how their first names (Al and Herb) were displayed on the bottom of the screen in quotation marks for whatever reason.
— This is the first pre-taped short we’ve gotten in a while. I’ve been noticing that this season (especially the second half) hasn’t been as heavy on pre-tapes as legend has it.
— I got a good laugh from the part with them explaining that their fake plastic vomit now comes with “40% more peas”, and how they named the vomit “Mr. Queasy”.
— This baseball training footage with the Minkmans is fun.
— Good trick with the Minkmans’ remote-controlled baseball.
— Pretty solid film overall, even if it doesn’t measure up to the Minkman Brothers’ 60 Minutes short from earlier this season.
STARS: ***½

DUELING MAGI
host & Doug Henning (RIH) try to out-illusion each other

— Clever premise for a Dueling Banjos parody.
— Something about the look of Rich’s Doug Henning is even funnier than usual in this one.
— Once again tonight, I’m stumped over how they pulled off a certain magic trick; this time, it’s the trick with Pamela magically appearing inside the fake house box.
— Great ending with Harry just bluntly shooting Rich’s Henning in the back of the head.
STARS: ***½

WHILE YOU WERE GONE
after coming home 20 minutes late, (JIB) finds his wife (MAG) remarried

— A man’s life changing drastically when he’s only been out for 20 minutes is a good premise, even if it reminds me of some sketch premises I’ve seen other times over the years (not just on SNL).
— I liked the hard, overemphasized “t” Mary pronounced at the end of her line “Life is for the prompt!”
— Pretty good sketch overall.
STARS: ***

RONALD REAGAN JEANS
guaranteed to voluntarily shrink by five percent

— A fairly funny idea presenting footage of a Reagan speech as a Calvin Klein Jeans ad.
— Good tagline: “Guaranteed to shrink by 5%”.
STARS: ***

OSCAR TALK
Ricky & Phil play Trivial Pursuit, predict Academy Award winners

— Billy’s “underwear/waistband” insult to Christopher made me laugh out loud.
— I’m liking the idea of these guys doing Oscar picks.
— Great look on Christopher’s face when being told that the character Pinocchio is just a cartoon.
— This sketch is going on for an awfully long time.
— Like last time, Christopher and Billy start cracking each other up at the end (at one point, Christopher almost spit out what he was drinking when Billy made an apparent ad-lib).
— Overall, a kinda hit-and-miss sketch and wasn’t consistently funny like these characters’ last appearance was. This one still had its moments, but the sketch desperately needed to be shortened. The tedious lengthiness of this sketch is another sign of Ebersol giving Billy Crystal too much freedom in doing whatever the hell he wants to on the show.
STARS: **½

SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Caspar Weinberger (RIH) is holding his breath until he gets $285 billion
a montage shows the Reagans & other prominent people kissing & embracing
Buddy Young, Jr. describes his unpleasant Hawaiian restaurant experience
Buddy Young, Jr. & Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Christopher Reeve [real]

 

— Good lord, Christopher’s hair looks fucking TERRIBLE. He had his hair greased back in the last sketch, so I’m guessing the make-up people hurriedly tried to un-grease and comb it back into its normal style, but weren’t able to make it in time before the show returned from commercial, thus leaving it looking like THAT. Yikes. He would’ve been better off just keeping the greased-back style from the last sketch.
— Also, right before saying his intro, Christopher noticeably looks up at his hair in the monitor and makes a “WTF?” squinty-eyed look. (first screencap above)
— For some reason, even just the initial sight of Rich as Casper Weinberger is making me laugh. It’s something about Rich’s wig combined with his usual skinniness and lankiness.
— I like Rich deciding to childishly hold his breath until he gets his 285 billion dollars. Nice touch with him occasionally looking at his watch during the breath-holding.
— Oh, no, a lengthy picture montage of political figures being affectionate? Ugh, I see Saturday Night News STILL seems to be occasionally relying on leftover Brian Doyle-Murray “SNL Newsbreak” scripts from season 7.
— Haha, great visual of a still-holding-his-breath Rich now having fake, cartoonish bulging eyes.
— Good payoff with a balloon of Rich’s overinflated head popping.
— Billy’s Buddy Young Jr. character from that short film earlier this season returns in a live setting this time.
— Billy’s doing good at playing off of the audience reactions.
— Interestingly, Billy now goes into the studio audience, where he interacts with some of the celebrities in the front row: Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. Good to see the latter on SNL again, as I found him to be a fun host back in season 7.
— And now, we see in the row behind Jennings and Cash is Christopher Reeve (who ends up hosting the show a few episodes from now).
— After almost bumping crotch-first into the desk as he’s making his return to the Saturday Night News set, Billy ad-libs “Whoa, I was almost Jewish AGAIN.”
— Another ad-lib, with Billy calling out Christopher’s disheveled hair by asking him “Who does your hair, Chris, a tornado?”
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Somebody”

SALEM WITCH TRIALS
during Salem trials, (MAS) tries to defend (GAK) against witch charges

— Rich is coming off particularly Norm Macdonald-esque in this sketch, with his humorously casual, uncommitted, “I don’t give a damn”-type performance. Speaking of Rich, he’s surprisingly been getting a lot of airtime tonight, which is great to see considering how underutilized he often is.
— Martin’s giving a strong performance as an anachronistic 20th century-style lawyer in a colonial setting.
— Haha, I got a huge laugh from how Jim’s big speech, after a long, silent, dignified build-up, just turned out to be him pointing at Gary while shouting “WIIIIIIIIITCH!!!”
— The whole goat bit with Pamela is hilarious.
— Funny ending with Gary’s devilish chanting as his hand burns through the bible it’s placed on.
STARS: ****

HATS
host shows how a ring of felt can be shaped to make many kinds of hats

— Nice self-made baseball cap trick.
— I’m liking the many varieties of hats he’s making out of the felt piece.
— Fairly charming ending.
STARS: ***½

SMALL TIME AGENCY
singer (JLD) can’t go solo because Aunt Helen (MAG) saved her life twice

— I like the look of Gary’s old-timey agent character.
— Amusing characterization and performance from Mary here.
— Very funny ridiculous use of stock footage in the flashbacks of life-saving events.
— Mary fighting with the fake snake is hilarious.
— An overall strong sketch.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Run to You”

GOODNIGHTS
host proves Skippy’s OK, brings Carol Burnett [real] on-stage

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Good episode with a lot of solid material, especially in the second half of the show. Nothing much to complain about, though Billy Crystal’s freedom to do overly-long, loose bits was very apparent tonight and had varying degrees of success.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Alex Karras):
— a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Pamela Sue Martin