December 14, 1985 – Tom Hanks / Sade (S11 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Entertainment Tonight- Brooke Shields (JOC), George Michael (RDJ), others

 

— Right at the beginning of his first SNL appearance, Tom Hanks is ALREADY coming off funny by humorously vocalizing along to the Entertainment Tonight theme song.
— The cutaway to Terry nodding (in drag, of course) made me laugh.
— The various inane polls are pretty funny.
— The repeated cutaways to the same shot of Terry nodding reminds me of the joke they always did with Harry Shearer’s Robin Leach in the preceding season.
— I’ve always liked the part with Anthony, on the set of his movie “Out of Bounds”, explaining that the reason he wasn’t in the previous week’s SNL episode is because his parents grounded him. A good way to get humor out of Anthony’s absurdly young age for an SNL cast member. Also, this ends up being Anthony’s only appearance tonight, meaning he wasn’t there live in the studio that week either.
— I got a big laugh from Tom doing a sad vocalization of the Entertainment Tonight theme during the in-memoriam part.
— Okay, the constant cutaways to Terry nodding are gradually losing their humor.
— Boy, this cold opening is long. They seem to be going out of their way to work in every cast member.
— Okay, the “Terry nodding” cutaway has made me laugh again, only because of the absurdity of how it was shown during an interview with Terry playing another role (Joan Collins).
— Overall, parts of this could’ve been better, but this had a fun energy that I really liked.
STARS: ***

OPENING MONTAGE
— Finally, after the overly-simplistic, low-budget, still-photos opening montage used in the prior episodes from this season, we get a new live-action montage.

 

— The opening overhead shot of the city (first screencap above) is different from the one that would be shown in the modified version of this montage in this season’s subsequent episodes.
— Dennis casually hopping onto the back of a passing garbage truck has always been my favorite part of this montage.
— The text showing the cast members’ names looks a bit different from how it would soon look in the modified version of this montage in later episodes. In tonight’s montage, the lettering of the cast’s names aren’t bolded, which makes some of them kinda hard to read, especially in Danitra’s shot (third-to-last screencap above).
— For the first time in SNL history, the host isn’t the first person announced in an opening montage. Starting tonight, the repertory cast is announced first, then the host, then the rest of the night’s guests, and then lastly, the featured players.
— Overall, a solid set of opening credits, and I like the unique format, showing the perspective of the host traveling in a limo from the airport to Rockefeller Center.

MONOLOGUE
host wants to watch himself on TV while doing the monologue

— Lots of good little lines from Tom so far.
— Funny how he’s achieving his desire to watch himself on TV while hosting SNL by excitedly looking at himself in the monitor.
— The compact mirror bit has made this even funnier.
— Overall, a good first monologue for Tom Hanks, and he handled this with ease.
STARS: ***½

TROJANS
a message about the importance of freedom from Trojans

— The sudden Trojans reveal at the end after all the noble freedom talk was pretty funny.
STARS: ***

LIARS
Tommy Flanagan & brother Earl (host) visit mom (NOD) for the holidays

— Interesting premise, showing Tommy Flanagan’s family.
— Jon’s mention of Pathological Liars Anonymous receives some scattered recognition applause from the audience.
— I like Nora listing off various lies of Tommy Flanagan’s childhood, all of which Nora believes as true.
— Good casting of Hanks as Tommy Flanagan’s similarly-lying brother.
— I like Jon and Tom ganging up on Robert, calling him out as a liar. I remember in my first viewing of this sketch years ago, I hated Robert’s part because I had felt that he ruined the flow of the sketch, from the great chemistry we were seeing between Jon, Tom, and Nora, and I felt that Robert couldn’t measure up to their solid performances. Watching this sketch again now, I see that I was too harsh on Robert back then. He’s fine in this sketch and isn’t “ruining” anything.
— Pretty solid sketch overall.
STARS: ***½

THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
how to hail a cab; Louis Farrakhan (DAW) cries

— Man, between Tommy Flanagan and Pat Stevens, this season has been relying on the same recurring sketches an awful lot so far (and it only gets worse as the season goes on).
— Pat Stevens’ cab-hailing demonstration was okay, but not as funny as her past demonstrations in prior installments of this sketch.
— Damon as Farrakhan: “I like a woman so black, she’s blue! With blonde hair.”
— Haha, Damon clearly keeps trying not to crack up throughout this sketch. He keeps lowering his head whenever he starts smirking.
— Damon’s emotional breakdown was pretty funny.
— Funny bit with Nora-as-Pat’s reaction to the napkin that Damon blew his nose into.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest sings “Is It A Crime”

WEEKEND UPDATE
DEM tries to explain the GE-RCA-NBC merger with a fridge, dog, peacock
DEM’s Sports Fantasy- fulfilled wish to be a boxing referee goes wrong

 

— This is the second Weekend Update in a row to use a famous TV/movie theme during the Update intro (we get the Mission: Impossible theme tonight), which makes me wonder if I was wrong in my last episode review where I said it’s not until next season where it becomes a weekly thing for each of Dennis’ Updates to open with a different song.
— The bit with Dennis breaking down the G.E./RCA merger using toys is pretty funny, especially his various ad-libbed side comments.
— Even though it got a good audience reaction, I didn’t like Dennis’ corny Sardi’s joke.
— Dennis’ mini-rant about record censorship labels was okay and made a good point, even though I normally abhor preachiness in comedy.
— Hmm, a follow-up to the “Dennis Miller’s Sports Fantasy” bit from the season premiere.
— Tonight’s Sports Fantasy segment is basically using the same joke of the first one, presenting stock footage of a real sports injury as something that happens to the Sports Fantasy participant. This one wasn’t as funny.
— I did like Dennis’ funny comments about the Sports Fantasy participant during the live outtro.
— I didn’t get the punchline of the “alternate ending to Clue” joke. Maybe because I haven’t seen that movie in ages.
— Loved the Bernard Goetz joke.
— No guest commentaries in tonight’s overall Update. One of the things I like about this season’s revamped version of the news is that it’s been light on guest commentaries so far, which is refreshing after I’ve had to deal with the Ebersol era being so overly reliant on guest commentaries, often focusing far more on them than on the actual news jokes from the anchorperson.
STARS: ***

FANTASY
(host) has thought about what life will be like after his wife (JOC) dies

— You can already tell this sketch is going to get good just from Tom’s “Well… here’s something…” in response to Joan saying that nothing about Tom’s fantasies will shock her.
— Great line with Tom bluntly telling Joan “I sometimes have this fantasy that… you die.”
— I love how overly detailed and lecherous Tom’s fantasy is getting.
— Good facial reactions from Joan as well.
— Also some humor out of Tom trying to downplay how often he thinks about Joan’s death.
— Funny breakdown from Terry after accidentally stabbing Joan.
— Great ending.
— An overall fantastic sketch that was so perfect for Tom Hanks. Reportedly, this sketch was originally attempted with every male host this season (well, I’m guessing not Pee-Wee) prior to Hanks, but always kept getting cut after read-through. Definitely a good thing in hindsight that it didn’t make it on the air until Hanks came along. Lithgow would’ve been fine in this sketch, but probably not quite up to Hanks’ level. And as for Chevy? NO. Well, I admit 1975 Chevy probably would’ve killed with this sketch, but certainly not 1985 Chevy.
STARS: ****½

STAND-UPS
stand-up comics (host), (JOL), (DAW) do observational humor backstage

— I’m really liking the Jerry Seinfeld-esque delivery from Tom and Jon.
— Great addition with Damon now getting involved in the Seinfeld-esque musings.
— Genuinely funny observational humor here, especially the Miami Vice part.
— A strong, fun sketch overall.
STARS: ****

STEVEN WRIGHT
Steven Wright [real] does stand-up & sings a song about his girlfriend

— Our first (and only, I think) returning stand-up guest performer from the Ebersol era.
— Some of my favorite random one-liners so far tonight are the ones about his girlfriend doing her nails with white-out, him asking what’s another word for thesaurus, and his revelation that he stole all the erasers to all the miniature golf pencils in the world.
— Nice change of pace with him doing a guitar song now.
— I love the (false) title to the song about his girlfriend: “They’ll Find Her When The Leaves Blow Away, Cuz I’m Not Raking Till The Spring”.
— Another one-liner that made me howl was the whole bit about his girlfriend having poison ivy on the brain.
— Great explanation of how having sex with his girlfriend is like being at a concert.
STARS: ****

HOLIDAY MOMS
(NOD) & (JOC) take a break from shopping for their kids’ Christmas toys

— Some pretty funny realistic humor here during Nora and Joan’s conversation.
— I’m surprised this sketch ended as early as it did.
— An overall decent slice-of-life piece with good performances from Joan and (especially) Nora. I can easily picture this sketch being done with Gilda and Jane in the original era.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest sings “The Sweetest Taboo”

FISHERMEN
fishermen (host) & (RAQ) react after the sea gives them a treasure chest

— Some laughs from Tom and Randy’s angry Italian gestures when “cursing” the sea.
— Half of Randy’s fake mustache has peeled off, causing him to start laughing.
— Haha, Randy’s mustache is now gradually coming off even more. This is causing the audience to laugh through Randy’s long speech right now. This sketch is getting completely derailed in a good way.
— Good ad-lib with Randy’s “I think I can hear the sea laughing already”.
— The very end of this sketch seemed to get cut off in the live version I’m reviewing. The show must’ve been running late.
— Overall, thank god for that mustache blooper, because this sketch would’ve been pretty much completely worthless without it.
STARS: **

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Another great episode, which makes this three in a row now. Aside from the weak final sketch, the segments in this episode ranged from good to fantastic. And just from this episode, you can see why Tom Hanks would go on to be one of SNL’s greatest recurring hosts of all-time.
— The fact that we’ve now had three very solid episodes in a row must’ve lulled then-current viewers into a false sense of security, making them think that after a slow first two episodes, this season has officially taken off and things are going to be alright. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. The trouble this season was in during the first two episodes soon returns.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John Lithgow):
— a slight step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Teri Garr hosts the Christmas episode