December 21, 1985 – Teri Garr / The Cult, The Dream Academy (S11 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Cabrini Green takes a Christmas gift to a rapper wrapper (DAW)

— Damon’s rapping started out okay, but this bit has quickly gone downhill, especially once Danitra joined in on the rapping.
— Why is Danitra dressed as her Cabrini Green character? Nothing about Danitra’s role in this sketch is specific to that character; she might as well be dressed as a generic unnamed character.
— Okay, I did get a laugh from Damon’s jokingly-awkward “…yeah…” ad-lib after he messed up a verse.
— Overall, a weak way to start tonight’s show, even if the rapping in this wasn’t QUITE as cringeworthy as I had remembered it being.
STARS: **

MONOLOGUE
host & Father Guido Sarducci do “I Got You Babe” as Popes Lois & Maurice

— A continuation of Father Guido Sarducci/Maurice’s People’s Catholic Church commentary from Weekend Update.
— This monologue hasn’t been working for me, especially now that they’ve broken out into a rendition of “I Got You Babe”. Meh.
STARS: **

CRITIC
— Rerun

A DOZEN EGGS
island residents (RAQ) & (host) discuss the latter’s price in eggs

— Nice opening overhead camera angle.
— The opening egg/bacon conversation between Randy and Jon has some laughs.
— Boy, this sketch sure has looooong stock-footage transition shots between scenes.
— Overall, despite some okay lines, I didn’t care much for this sketch. Perhaps this would’ve come off better in the 10-to-1 slot, but certainly not as the lead-off sketch of the night. This doesn’t bode well for the rest of tonight’s episode (and we’ve already been off to a bad start with the cold opening, monologue, and this sketch).
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Dream Academy performs “Life In A Northern Town”

TIME MACHINE TRIVIA GAME
(AMH)’s time-travel excursions affect his parents’ Trivial Pursuit game

— What’s with Jon’s gray hair dye?
— Anthony Michael Hall makes his first live appearance in weeks.
— Pretty good premise, with some funny altered trivia question answers after Anthony’s constant history-changing.
— After Anthony picked up the phone, the camera seemed like it didn’t know who to follow, first following a walking-away Randy before immediately awkwardly panning over to Anthony talking on the phone.
— Overall, a pretty good sketch, even if the execution felt a little sloppy, not to mention a typically weak performance from Anthony. (Thankfully, tonight’s the last episode we’ll be seeing Anthony for quite a while, as he misses the next two months of episodes)
STARS: ***½

HILDY
the Deavers’ maid (TES) rewards herself for saving Christmas

— This sketch has the same living room set that was just seen in the Time Machine sketch that preceded this. I’m aware, however, that the sketches didn’t originally air in this order; the order has been shuffled around in the rerun version I’m watching. In the original live airing, the Time Machine sketch was the final sketch of the night.
— Yet another drag role for Terry. This particular one seems to be a parody of the 50s/60s sitcom Hazel.
— I liked Joan’s line to Hildy just now: “Without you, I’d have to get my life together and be a real mother.”
— Is that a real blooper with Terry having an extended amount of trouble finding Robert’s gift under the tree?
— I got a laugh from Jon slapping Robert on the head after Robert says “Yeah, we knew you’d like it” to Hildy.
— This audience is liking this sketch a lot more than I am.
— The ending was actually okay, but most of the rest of the sketch didn’t work for me (I feel like I’m saying that a lot in this review).
— It kinda feels like this was set up to become a recurring sketch, but thankfully, it ended up never returning.
STARS: **

WEEKEND UPDATE
poorly-obscured mob informant (DON) doesn’t have interesting information

— Tonight’s Update opens with the theme music from Bonanza.
— Always weird seeing Don Novello in a non-Father Guido Sarducci role.
— Some laughs from the censor bar that the camera is superimposing over Don’s eyes, and how it’s doing a bad job of following him whenever he moves his head.
— Man, this Novello commentary going on WAY too long, and the censor bar gag has completely lost its novelty.
— Okay, Novello’s Ted Koppel comment made me laugh.
— Overall, kind of an unnoteworthy Update for Dennis Miller standards, though he still got in a few of his usual random one-liners that made me laugh.
STARS: **½

A ROY ORBISON CHRISTMAS
NBC broadcasts the six unaired minutes of A Roy Orbison (RAQ) Christmas

— Nice use of the SNL Band.
— Randy’s doing a good impression of Roy Orbison’s singing voice.
— The sound mixing is pretty bad during the “Santa’s Little Surfer Girl” number, as you can hear the backup singing from the SNL Band much more than you can hear the actual main vocalists.
— The overall “Santa’s Little Surfer Girl” number was okay, but nothing funny even happened in it.
— Danitra’s Leslie Uggams reading a letter from a mental patient is really funny, especially as the letter eventually begins a descent into nonsensical madness. Also, a funny touch with Danitra turning the crazed letter in a slow, circular motion as she’s reading off of it.
— Good casting of Anthony as Edd “Kookie” Byrnes, as Anthony does have a pretty strong resemblance to him.
— Overall, this could’ve been a lot funnier. Most parts of this felt too much like a real holiday special. Danitra provided most of my only real laughs.
STARS: **

PENN AND TELLER
Penn & Teller [real] take turns being The Incredible Electric Boy

— Funny explanation from Penn about how Teller became the Incredible Electric Boy, and how lonely his life has been since then.
— Nice fire-eating stunt from Penn.
— Interesting turn with Penn calling out Teller for overplaying the bit and “ruining” the trick.
— Overall, this was fine, but I didn’t find this quite as enjoyable as Penn and Teller’s usual SNL stuff.
STARS: ***

THE BIG TREE
a disaster movie about a huge, unsafe Christmas decoration

 

— The long cast intro at the beginning of the sketch feels unnecessary and is ALREADY getting this sketch off to a bad start.
— Being familiar with Nora’s five-year SNL tenure, it feels kinda strange in hindsight seeing her playing a flaky high-pitched drunk in this sketch. Very different from the type of roles Nora usually played on SNL.
— Jon has wore gray hair dye in just about every sketch he was in tonight. Reminds me of how Dan Aykroyd would sometimes do that in some episodes from the original era.
— This feels like the very first non-Update appearance Dennis Miller has ever made.
— Boy, I am NOT enjoying this sketch so far.
— This sketch illustrates the problems of having such a young cast this season. I find it hard to buy Robert Downey in the high-profile role of a construction company owner when he looks like he’s still in high school.
— The repeated throwing-drinks-in-faces bit is just plain dumb and has come off under-rehearsed.
— Jesus Christ at Anthony’s VERY obvious cue-card reading after whipping off his sunglasses during his argument with Robert. There’s even an awkward brief pause while we have to wait for Anthony to actually find his line on the cue card.  This is almost unintentionally hilarious in how bad it was. In the “Live from New York” book, Anthony recalls a friend of his once humorously compiling a tape of Anthony’s most blatant cue card-staring moments from his SNL tenure. I’m guessing a clip of this sketch was DEFINITELY included.
— Now we get a sudden random gunshot ending, which is our “cliffhanger”. Bah. I only chuckled at that part because of someone’s (Joan, I think) loud scream after the gunshot goes off.
STARS: *½

MUSICAL GUEST INTRO

— Before segueing into an introduction to the musical guest’s performance, we’re comically told that due to audience disinterest, there will be no “part two” of the Big Tree sketch. All I have to say is: thank god.

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
The Cult performs “She Sells Sanctuary”

GOODNIGHTS

---

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Oof. A very rough episode. Pretty much as bad as I remembered it being from my past viewings. Very little in this episode was worthwhile, and even the better stuff wasn’t particularly great. It says something when even Penn and Teller and Dennis Miller’s Weekend Update weren’t as strong as they’ve usually been.
— After having just gone through three strong consecutive episodes, this episode was a hard crash back into the reality of the troubled season 11. This is the most negative review I’ve given in a long time; probably since season 6.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tom Hanks):
— a huge step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
We enter 1986, with host Harry Dean Stanton