December 7, 1985 – John Lithgow / Mr. Mister (S11 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Ronald Reagan (RAQ) won’t heed Dr. Lizardo’s (host) Halley’s Comet alert

— John Lithgow’s energy and accent in this is great.
— Geez, Randy looks as un-Reagan-like as ever in this sketch. I believe next season is the first season where SNL finally made it an unwritten rule to always make the performers look like the celebrities they’re playing.
— The science lab set in this sketch looks like the one that I once pointed out was used in a few sketches from late in the Ebersol era (Robin Duke’s Turkey Lady sketch being one of them).
— Randy’s getting some laughs with his performance.
— I’ve always loved Lithgow’s wild “Live from New York…” delivery in this.
— Overall, while this cold opening wasn’t too bad and featured mostly solid performances, a few parts here and there kinda disinterested me.
STARS: **½

MONOLOGUE
host sings “Getting To Know You” to cope with stress caused by live show

— Lithgow thinking this is dress rehearsal is a really good concept.
— Funny reveal that the reason for Lithgow’s mix-up is because he forgot to change his watch from L.A. time.
— Lithgow is doing an excellent silent gradual descent into horror when realizing he is indeed live.
— I have to wonder how they did this monologue in the actual dress rehearsal earlier that night, since the premise obviously wouldn’t have worked as well there.
STARS: ***½

WHERE YOU’RE GOING
— Rerun

POSTERIOR ARTHROPOD
(host)’s outlook improves after getting the bug removed from his butt

 

— Already, this is coming off as a perfect role for Lithgow.
— Funny little gag with Damon leaving from his doctor’s appointment with an uncomfortable stiff walk.
— LOL at the audience already laughing as soon as Lovitz puts on gloves for what appears to be a rectal exam.
— Some good laughs from the bug-removal from Lithgow’s “posterior”.
— I like Lovitz’s list of bug-up-the-butt symptoms, especially “Are you an attorney?”
— Overall, this was a pretty well-written sketch, and had a well-structured format that feels rare for this season.
STARS: ***½

MASTER THESPIAN
Master Thespian (JOL) has an acting duel with mentor Baudelaire (host)

 

— The debut of one of Lovitz’s signature characters. Debuting this in a John Lithgow-hosted episode is great, considering Lithgow’s soon-to-be recurring Baudelaire character is the perfect scene partner for these sketches.
— I love Lithgow’s constant “I was merely… acting!” reveals after playing various tricks on Lovitz.
— Funny fencing match between the two of them.
— Great line with Lovitz revealing “I am dead and merely ACTING alive!”
— Overall, this was a fantastic debut.
STARS: ****

DOUBLE R ROLLS
Double R (RAQ) & son (RDJ) sell the Rajneesh’s Rolls-Royces

— Pretty funny premise, and good characterization from Randy.
— Robert’s walk-on is pretty funny, though I recall his character being a little funnier in the subsequent installments of this soon-to-be recurring sketch.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Broken Wings”

AD COUNCIL
Wasting Your Time In Various Ways For No Good Reason

— Nice cinematography in this, especially the opening shot of the energy plant.
— The constant scenery shifts are a good parody of the type of ad cliches from that era.
— The close-up of the spokesman delivering a random “Mmm! That’s cracklin’ good!” is the part that I’ve always remembered the most from this ad.
— Good “wasting your time” tagline at the end.
STARS: ***½

CLICHES
(host) can only offer his daughter (JOC) cliches in her time of need

— Another perfect role for Lithgow tonight. He’s pulling this off well with his cheesy dad-type delivery of cliches in response to everything Joan says to him.
— I got a laugh from Lithgow’s absurd “windshield sneaking up on a bug” analogy.
— Pretty good ending with Lithgow’s character mixing Joan’s name with the name of one of his other daughters.
STARS: ***½

WEEKEND UPDATE
DAW discusses Reagan-Gorbachev summit & where the arms race will lead

— Instead of opening with typical news-sounding theme music that all of Dennis’ prior Updates have opened with, this Update opens with the famous music sting from Jaws. Seems to be an early glimpse of what will later go on to be a weekly thing where Dennis’ Updates each begin with a different famous song. I think it’s next season where that becomes a regular thing.
— Great “Punch Mary Lou Retton in the Teeth” lottery bit, which got a big audience reaction.
— I really like the whole bit about the body of Cap’n Crunch being found.
— Dennis is on fire tonight.
— Dennis even managed to save the “president stuffing the turkey” joke from being a typical bad photo-based gag, with his comments to the audience afterwards.
— Good to see return of Damon as Update’s political correspondent.
— Funny line from Damon about “terrorists hijackin’ the planet in the name of Allah”.
— Another amusing line from Damon, this time regarding rapping to women about what’s left of their hair.
— Loved the quick Mod Squad bit Dennis did with Damon after Damon’s commentary.
STARS: ***½

VEGAS NANCY
Nancy Reagan (TES) sings & dances “That Old Black Magic” Vegas-style

— Another President Reagan sketch tonight? And much like the cold opening, I see SNL still can’t be bothered to make Randy look a thing like Reagan.
— At least we get to see Terry’s Nancy this time.
— Interesting concept, with us now going into Nancy’s fantasy sequence.
— Terry’s interactions with the backup dancers during the number is pretty funny.
— Fun turn with Terry-as-Nancy’s skirt-lifting “Fire!” part.
— Amusing touch with Terry clearly being out-of-breath when the Vegas fantasy sequence has ended and we’re shown him as Nancy still sitting next to Randy’s Ron in the White House.
STARS: ***

SAM KINISON
Sam Kinison [real] does stand-up about bitterness caused by his breakup

— The debut of Sam Kinison as SNL’s newest stand-up comedian guest performer.
— I love his intro, explaining how he’s different from SNL’s other stand-up acts by suddenly going into the audience and screaming into one audience member’s face.
— Good interaction with the couple in the front row.
— The “Bloopers, Bleeps and Blunders” bit fell flat.
— I’m getting some good laughs from the whole bit about how Jesus was the only guy who didn’t scare people when coming back from the dead.
— Overall, some laughs here, though this was a lot more hit-and-miss than Kinison’s stand-up material usually is. Reportedly, the dress rehearsal version of this went much better, which would later replace the live version of this in reruns. (I’m reviewing the live version of this episode)
STARS: ***

U.S.S. CAMERON
captain (host) has valid reasons not to give in to mutineers’ demands

— I love the concept of this. Seems like this will be the type of solid writer-ly sketch that I always enjoy.
— I like how writer John Swartzwelder is playing a character with his same last name. I guess the name “Swartzwelder” DOES have a pirate shipmate-type sound to it.
— Love Randy’s off-camera angry yelling outburst to the other sailors.
— Amusing blooper where the rug in front of the door has become bunched up, making it hard for the performers to re-enter the room.
— Funny characterization from Lithgow, who I’m assuming is doing a Charles Laughton imitation. I’m liking the comments Lithgow keeps making about how cold his food is getting.
— Haha, there’s some good unintentional laughs from Randy’s real-life difficulty in closing the door, thanks to the aforementioned bunched-up rug in front of it.
— The ending didn’t work for me, but this overall sketch was pretty solid.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Kyrie”

THE LIMITS OF THE IMAGINATION
fish fry is literally “all-you-can-eat”

— Randy as the Floating Head demonstrating some of the “amazing” things they can do in his universe always makes me laugh in these sketches. There was especially a funny one tonight with him showing how he “can make you change the channel” by disgustingly digging in his nose.
— Good dark turn with Danitra explaining that the advertised “all you can eat” dinner is very literal.
— Funny visual of various tortured customers simultaneously being force-fed fish by waiters.
— Overall, a huge improvement over the Limits Of The Imagination installment from the season premiere.
STARS: ***½

GOODNIGHTS

— I just realized while watching these goodnights that Anthony Michael Hall was nowhere to be seen all night. Probably explains why Robert Downey seemed to get more airtime than usual. This is the first of what will be quite a lot of episodes that Anthony will be missing this season, due to a movie he was filming at the time.

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— While this didn’t have quite the fun vibe the preceding episode with Pee-Wee Herman had, this was still our second consecutive solid episode of the season. Aside from the cold opening, every single segment in this episode worked, though the only one that stood out as particularly great was Master Thespian.
— John Lithgow was a great host, and the show utilized him perfectly, giving him the type of roles that played to his strengths as a performer. I’m looking forward to his next two hosting stints from later this decade.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Pee-Wee Herman):
— a slight step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
The solid hosting choices continue, as Tom Hanks makes his hosting debut