Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
OPENING MONTAGE
— For the second and (to this day in 2019) last time in SNL history, an episode begins with no cold opening. Tonight’s show just abruptly starts at the beginning of the opening montage.
MONOLOGUE
host points out former Dynasty co-star Joan Collins (JIB) in the audience
— I like the audience being heard murmuring “Show it!” when Sue Martin is hesitant to show candid photos of Joan Collins.
— Fairly funny, if cheap, sight gag of Jim as Joan Collins.
STARS: ***
STRATEGIC AIRBORNE CONTRACEPTIVE
— Rerun
THE JOE FRANKLIN SHOW
Jackie Rogers, Jr. & Red Skelton (CHG)
— Hmm, we get four guests this time instead of the usual three.
— Gary’s initial facial expression during his intro as the Alan Alda impersonator is really funny.
— Another initial big laugh, this time from the visual of Christopher’s great make-up as Red Skelton.
— As usual, Martin is hilarious as Jackie Rogers Jr.
— In that get-up, Pamela Sue Martin looks like future cast member Jan Hooks dressed in character.
— Haha, Gary’s Alan Alda voice is DEAD-ON.
— Sue Martin’s inane psychic shtick is quite funny. Good reactions to her from Billy as well.
— I’m liking Gary’s use of out-of-place M*A*S*H quotes.
— Great line with Jackie Rogers Jr. saying “Jackie’s getting a chubby” when holding hands with Sue Martin.
— Jackie Rogers Jr.’s dance and lip-sync sequence is a freakin’ riot.
— Overall, a particularly strong Joe Franklin Show installment that was even better than these sketches usually are. A lot of really funny performances, especially from Christopher and Martin.
STARS: ****
THAT WHITE GUY & HIS WIFE
half of A Couple Of White Guys & his wife (host) do some more white rap
— The return of Jim’s upper-class white guy rapping character.
— His and Sue Martin’s “tight walk” in unison is pretty funny.
— Overall, while I didn’t find this to have quite the infectious goofy charm that the first one with Alex Karras did, this one was still good and arguably had better-written lyrics than the first.
STARS: ***
NIGHT OF 100 STARS
Fernando talks to Teri Garr, Susan Lucci, Lynn Swann, Ann-Margret [real]
— Fernando in another new setting, though like I said last time, there’s only so much I can take of him.
— I did laugh at him pronouncing “herpes” as “jerpes”.
— Haha, Rich’s Robert Latta out of nowhere, wandering into another random setting! I like how it’s become a weekly gag on SNL for Rich’s Latta to pop up in a random place.
— Overall, this felt as tedious as I was worried it would, and the appearances from the various celebrities didn’t give this the boost that one might expect.
— During his live outtro, Fernando interestingly segues into a Rich Hall stand-up piece, which takes us to our next segment.
STARS: **
PLEXIGLAS
RIH does stand-up by employing various pieces of plexiglass
— Interesting idea of doing “plexiglass impressions”.
— I’m already loving this. Very funny so far.
— The bit with the oversized contact lenses is particularly funny.
— All of the variations of car windows are very good.
— Overall, a great segment. It’s amazing how Rich got this much humor out of a simple plexiglass prop.
STARS: ****
CALLED SHOT
(Clarke Gordon) tells of JIB making good on Babe Ruth-like promise to boy
— Interesting beginning, with (who I’m assuming is) an SNL crew member telling us stories about the original cast. I like the comical bit about how “Jane, you ignorant slut” was originated.
— Funny how Jim’s so-called biggest fan tells him “I love it when you do Buckwheat”.
— I like the extensive pre-taped scene with Jim at the children’s hospital. Turns out there wasn’t going to be any pre-taped portions back when this sketch was originally planned for a few episodes earlier. There’s a backstory from SNL writer Kevin Kelton about how he was confronted by a fuming Jim Belushi, who absolutely WENT OFF on him for suggesting that this sketch be postponed until a little later in the season in order for them to pre-tape portions of it. And then it turned out that the finished product of the sketch went so well that afterwards, Jim ran up to Kelton backstage and happily gave him a big ol’ bear hug.
— I really like how this sketch is getting even more extensive and ambitious, now showing the preparation of Jim’s “Aunt Willoughby” sketch, complete with shots of a (fake) unresponsive audience. I’m loving all of this.
— Great build-up to Jim’s big entrance as Aunt Willoughby.
— Good payoff with Jim’s dance routine receiving an absurdly positive reception.
— Overall, a fascinating, unique, and well-done sketch.
STARS: ****
MESSENGERS
messengers Willie & Frankie talk about pain while waiting for an elevator
— At least they waited a while since the last appearance of these frequently-used characters.
— Though this is still paling a little in comparison to the first few Willie and Frankie sketches, I’m getting more laughs than I did in their last appearance. I especially like the line from Billy about shoving an Empire State Building statuette up his nose, as well as the bit about him sitting in the garbage disposal.
STARS: ***
SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
CHG & Dwight MacNamara have different explanations of how ChromaKey works
— Christopher is seen casually drying off and combing his hair at the beginning, as if there was a close call with there almost being a repeat of what happened in the last episode, where Christopher was stuck anchoring Saturday Night News with horrible-looking disheveled hair.
— Christopher’s Orson Welles joke was pretty funny.
— Funny how the kiddie letter asking about pictures on the news screen turns out to be from David Letterman, right after Christopher refrained from doing a viewer mail segment because “That’s what David Letterman does”.
— The return of Gary’s educational film narrator character from that assembly sketch last season.
— Boy, that hilarious warbly narration voice Gary does gets me every time.
— Fairly funny bit after Gary’s commentary, where Christopher’s doing a news story but the picture on the news screen is out-of-focus, so Christopher taps the side of the screen to correct it.
— Whaaaa? Saturday Night News is over ALREADY??? Wow, this was short as hell and featured no actual guest commentaries at the desk.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Some Like It Hot”
— Hey, the group’s saxophone player is Lenny Pickett, mere months before he ends up joining the SNL Band in season 11!
FIRST DRAFT THEATER
how The Holy Bible came to reach its current form
— Fairly funny bit with the narration beginning in a Star Wars-esque manner, only for the author (Gary Kroeger) to dismiss it as being no good.
— Uh-oh. Here’s an infamous blooper, where off-screen narrator Christopher Guest accidentally drops some of the pages of his script right when he’s in the middle of a sentence, resulting in about 15-20 seconds of PAINFUL dead air while he retrieves the script and tries to find where he left off. Yikes! As you can imagine, this is BAD; actually kinda fascinating in a trainwreck-y way. Heh, at one point, you can even hear Christopher embarrassedly whispering an out-of-character “I know” to someone.
— The sketch awkwardly carries on when Christopher FINALLY continues his narration. Needless to say, the blooper has really thrown this whole sketch off.
— I’m liking Gary’s various different ways of “erasing” his typos on the stone he’s carving his script into.
— Ugh, they’re REALLY overdoing the gag with the camera cutting to a close-up of Billy just shrugging at the camera with a puzzled look whenever he gets called out on something. He’s done it about 4 times in this sketch so far, and it’s less funny with each repetition.
— Okay, I like the ending with Billy’s Adam and Eve story getting all raunchy and pornographic, as well as the accompanying shot of said raunchy story being frantically written (or carved, rather) by Gary.
— Overall, a letdown. This sketch was nowhere near as well-written as the prior First Draft Theater sketches were, and it goes without saying how much this was marred by Christopher’s dropped-script blooper.
STARS: **
DYNASTY’S GREATEST FIGHTS
Linda Evans (host) & Joan Collins (PLS) feud as they plug catfight album
— Wow! Pamela Stephenson sure is giving us a nice eyeful of her… uh… well, you know…
— Loved Stephenson’s funny over-the-top scream when Sue Martin pulls her wig off.
— Overall, the two Pamelas were fine in their performances, but the sketch itself was really weak and felt underwritten.
STARS: *½
TOM, DICK AND HORNY
teen sex comedy stars Hanks, Hulce, Cruise
— Okay, wow, well, that sure was short. No idea what to say about the overall piece other than it didn’t make me laugh, came off as filler, and in hindsight, only serves as an interesting snapshot of a time when the now-known-for-starring-in-big-Oscar-bait-dramas Tom Hanks was known for mostly just starring in silly, raunchy comedies.
STARS: *
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Get It On”
SHOOTOUT AT THE ZEPPLIN CORRAL
a high-society party exists inside a wild westerner’s bullet
— What the hell is this?!? I actually thought this was a real commercial at first, before realizing this must be an SNL piece.
— I can’t understand where this is going. Seems to be a whole bunch of random, indiscernible things happening, with some weird kind of tie-in to the Hindenburg disaster.
— And it’s over. Yeah, I have no idea what in the world I just watched, nor do I know what this was going for.
STARS: ??????
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— I came into this expecting an odd and pretty weak episode, after the reviews I had read over the years. After now watching the episode, I certainly agree about the odd vibe of the episode, with strange factors like the lack of a cold opening, the Called Shot sketch being so extensive and having a very non-SNL feel, a cast member (Rich Hall) randomly getting to do the type of stand-up segment that guest performers usually do, an unusually brief Saturday Night News, the infamous moment in First Draft Theater with Christopher Guest’s dropped-script blooper producing 15 seconds of horribly-awkward dead air, and the show ending with a bizarre artsy animated short that only succeeded in leaving me baffled. So yes, quite a weird vibe to the overall show. As for the actual quality, the first half of the show was actually pretty good and featured quite a lot of things that I liked, but man, the quality fell off a cliff HARD in the second half. Once Saturday Night News (which itself wasn’t all that great, though that’s nothing new) ended, there weren’t ANY good segments left for the rest of the show. Despite the things I liked in the first half, the overall show averages out to kind of a lesser episode for this season’s high standards.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Harry Anderson):
— a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Mr. T and Hulk Hogan
Where did you acquire your episode recordings? I’ve been wanting to see that animation at the 10-to-1 but I’ve only been able to find the rerun version of this episode.
Did you ever track this down? I’m looking for it too. Only one I can find is the rerun.
This may have been the episode that Jim Downey’s “Target Earth” sketch was originally planned for, which would account for a lot of the “off” timing in this episode once it was cut. That sketch would eventually resurface in the Jay Leno episode in season 11.
This was the only time that Robert Palmer performed live with the original Power Station lineup.
Lenny Pickett was credited as an additional musician on The Power Station’s self-titled debut album.
The only other time a “Dynasty” star hosted “SNL” was Catherine Oxenberg the following season with Paul Simon…
Which is kinda strange when you think of how huge Joan Collins was…or even Blake Carrington (im blanking on his name but he was pretty famous, he was in Charlie’s Angels), so I find it weird they never had Joan. Always hoped they would have had her in a cameo after this episode or during Catherine’s as the awful Joan Collins in Drag kinda made that monologue bad to me…but I’m a huge JC fan.
Due to unfortunate circumstances, the most recent episode (12.18.21) had no cold open or LFNY.
…or opening credit sequence with Darrell Hamond doing the cast announcements.
A kinda bizarre show–no cold opening, a host that was probably past her (mild) level of fame even at the time, weird segments, offbeat sketch ideas…while I agree not all of this works, I wouldn’t mind seeing the show try more like this.
I watched this episode mainly, okay the only reason was because my love of Pamala Sue Anderson on Dynasty, and her character Fallon. Dynasty aired before I was born but when I was in high school- college I got into it, as it aired on soapnet. I loved everything about it, except maybe the first season. But between Joan Collins And PAM Anderson, I always say I’m a mixture of Alexis and Fallon, but never thought of Joan Collins as a villain.
Anyways, I was stoked about this because I was a fan. I also like the band, and think they did a really great performance. But was hugely disappointed in this episode, I also think the one I watch is missing a sketch or two, but dont think that would make much difference as Pam doesn’t appear in those, I feel like I barely saw her and instead it was mostly generated by really bad sketches.
Def a depressing episode to watch when you want to see someone you love on a favorite show barely get any airtime!
(This leads me to rant & but wonder why so few NBC cast members in high rated shows like Miami Vice, Facts of Life, Saved by the Bell, Law & Order/ Law & Order SVU…just in general, hosted.
I know Richard Beltzer used to do standup and appearances in the older SNL seasons, but no one from the OG law & order or SVU has ever hosted which is kinda crazy when you think how many years Mariska Hargitay has been on the show, exceeding the original Law & Order, she ain’t getting younger, Lorne….).
Back to my Dynasty grievance, it would have been nice to see Joan Collins host, as well as a cast member from Facts of life, or a duo like Jo and Blair, more puzzling was Miami Vice was a hit tv show. The fact that Melanie Griffin hosts it a season or two later which is pretty forgettable to me, and just got to see Don Johnson at the end credits. It’s strange that neither him or Phillip Michael Thomas. But more so I would have loved to see Don host, esp since he also had more in his career post vice.
Ricky Schroder hosting during or post his NBC silver spoons era, same for Mark Paul (Zack Morris) & Tiffany Amber Theissen would have been fun hosts in the late 80s/90s era.
I was happy when I finally got into ER during the pandemic and saw George Clooney had hosted on SNL once, also saw Anthony Edwards did a season or two later but haven’t gotten there.
Anyways got way off tangent but just kinda weird cause if I had access to people on the same network I’d use them instead of old timers no body has heard of and washed up C listed actors).
True, SNL in the 80s should have brought in most NBC power players to host: Garrick Utley (NBC News), Bridget Dobson (producer of “Santa Barbara”), RJ Adams (who had a recurring role on “Blacke’s Magic”), and Punky Brewster’s teacher, TK Carter, who also guested on “A Different World,” and might have been on his way to the SNL 5-timers Club. Former castmembers Emily Prager, Yvonne Hudson, and extra Andy Murphy would have been great hosts, too.