November 15, 1986 – Sam Kinison / Lou Reed (S12 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
mad that host is doing SNL, Church Lady confronts him & Seka [real]

— Another Church Chat sketch already, for the second episode in a row?
— I believe this is the first time Church Lady’s “Isn’t that special?” catchphrase has received recognition applause from the audience.
— Interesting meta premise with Church Lady announcing she won’t be appearing on SNL this week because she’s protesting guest host Sam Kinison for his most recent SNL stand-up segment where he, as Church Lady puts it, “said naughty things about crack and Christ.”
— I really like the fourth-wall break with her walking off the Church Chat set and heading to SNL’s backstage to confront Sam Kinison.
— Funny turn with Sam giving Church Lady “what she needs”, which is a big raunchy kiss.
— Great “Live from New York…” delivery from Sam, who’s trademark scream is absolutely perfect for SNL’s LFNY sign-on.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
after host plays guitar with SNL Band, cops on horseback monitor language

— Wow, fantastic entrance from Sam, joining the SNL Band’s theme music-playing by jamming out on an electric guitar. This is the first of what would end up being a few instances over the years where upon entering for their monologue, the host joins G.E. Smith and the SNL Band in an extended version of SNL’s theme music. Other instances would be Kevin Kline in 1988 and Rick Moranis in 1989. Not sure if there are any others I’m forgetting.
— I like the callback Sam’s making to some of his topical jokes from his appearance in the Jimmy Breslin episode last season.
— LOL at the entrance from two policemen on horses, to keep Sam on watch.
— I’m surprised by how short this overall monologue was, and how it ended without him even doing any actual stand-up, but I enjoyed what this contained.
STARS: ***

ADOBE
the little $179 Mexican import car is made out of clay

— Very funny concept of a car made of clay.
— I like Phil demonstrating the features of the car.
— Great montage of various people using the clay cars, especially the part with Nora molding a dent in her car back into shape, and the tennis couple exiting from their car with the backs of their outfits being clay-stained.
— A solid and memorable commercial overall.
STARS: ****

PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE
at parent-teacher meeting, (host) tells (JAH) & (KEN) their kid is stupid

— Already a laugh just from Sam walking on as a school teacher.
— Hilarious part with Sam’s theory of why he can’t get through to Jan and Kevin’s daughter, which is him bluntly saying “she’s so stupid”. Great reaction from Jan and Kevin as well.
— Love the part with Sam showing Jan and Kevin the sun outside and asking them if they see a smiley face on it.
— I’m enjoying how worked up Sam’s getting when talking about a disturbing Vietnam story he wrote for his students.
— An okay reveal at the end that Dana’s the real teacher, leading Sam to jump out the window. I probably would’ve enjoyed that ending more if it didn’t end up becoming a go-to ending that SNL would sometimes have a tendency to use as a lazy cop-out (e.g. the Park Ranger Tree Slice sketch with Tom Arnold).
STARS: ***½

JUNGLE ROOM
Chick Hazard (PHH) keeps an eye on ’40s club owner Eddie Spimozo (JOL)

— Here’s this era’s very first instance of a black-and-white sketch set in an earlier decade, which is a type of sketch this cast would go on to really excel in.
— There’s especially a strong part right now with all the back-and-forths between Jon and Phil, reminding me of their great chemistry in the memorable Johnny O’Connor sketch from earlier this season.
— Another sketch that showcases Jon’s fantastic singing voice. I especially loved the long operatic note he held at the end of this number. Speaking of which, I think this is the musical number they show during the ending credits of Jon’s Best Of special.
STARS: ****

FRESH BREAD
those plastic things keep bread fresher than those twisty deals

— Wait, what the heck did I just watch?  This segment was so random and brief, I almost missed it. This seemed intended as a quick, throwaway, going-to-commercial bit, being only 5 seconds long, which makes this one of the shortest segments in SNL history.
— This also ended with awkward silence from the audience, as if they were like me and didn’t know what to make of this segment.
STARS: N/A (too short to rate)

PET CHICKEN SHOP
Ching Change (DAC) doesn’t want to part with the chickens in his pet shop

— OH NO. The debut of… THIS character. Oh, how I had long been dreading having to eventually cover these sketches.
— As if I ALREADY hadn’t been enjoying where this sketch was going, now Dana breaks out into a song. (*groan*)
— Overall, yikes. Really don’t know what else to say here, other than the fact that I shudder at how many more of these Ching Change sketches I have to put up with these next few seasons.
STARS: *

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Love You, Suzanne”

LOVE CONNECTION
host relives his hellish date with a pair of lesbians

— I always forget that Sam’s a former minister. I can’t picture him in that position at all.
— We get the return of Jan’s Marge Keister character from the Quiz Masters sketch in the season premiere. I’ve always felt this was one of Jan’s more underrated recurring characters from her overall SNL tenure, and I like how they always work her into a different random setting in each of her appearances.
— We also get the return of an even lesser-known character: Nora’s butch Dr. Norma Hoeffering character from the Donahue sketch earlier this season.
— I got a huge laugh from Sam’s eyes-rolled-up possessed facial expression when its mentioned that his two dates took him to a horse farm.
— What’s with the audio all of a sudden? During the interview with Nora and her female partner, Sam and (especially) Kevin’s dialogue keeps occasionally sounding strangely echo-ish?
— Sam keeps stepping on Nora’s lines with his screaming ad-libs, which completely drowned out one of her lines at one point.
— Overall, this sketch got some good laughs out of me. But if you’re not a fan of Sam Kinison’s screaming outburst routine, I can definitely understand why you wouldn’t like this sketch, as that’s basically all this sketch turned into after a while.
STARS: ***

WEEKEND UPDATE
footage of VIJ’s undercover Central Park mission to look for terrorism

 

— Dennis begins this Update by randomly ad-libbing “Never let ’em see ya sweat”, which receives a great amount of applause from the audience. There’s actually a backstory to this. According to an old SNL newsgroup post from someone who claims they were at the show the night of this episode (read the post here, though you may have to scroll down to see it; also, it’s a bit confusing, as the poster remembers the incident as happening in the Justine Bateman-hosted episode from next season… who knows, maybe it happened in both the Kinison and Bateman episodes), SNL’s stagehands took longer than usual assembling the Weekend Update set and barely made it in time before the show returned from commercial. This is supposedly what prompted Dennis’ “Never let ’em see ya sweat” ad-lib. I think this story is legit, because I noticed that when the camera first showed Dennis at the beginning of this Update, you can see the clock in the background winding around VERY fast, as if the stagehands weren’t finished setting the correct time on it.
— Another Victoria Jackson video clip that just turns out to be her playing with her baby.
— Fairly funny how Victoria is heard cracking up in the middle of her voice-over during the video.
— After the video ends, Dennis mocks Victoria’s aforementioned laughing, which was a cute moment.
— Kinda sad that these baby home video Update commentaries have been the ONLY big things Victoria has done so far in her SNL tenure. She’s definitely been struggling to leave a mark this season, unlike her fellow newbies who have all gotten a significant number of things to do so far and have all made a strong impression on audiences.
— Strong joke from Dennis about Ted Turner wanting to colorize the first 20 minutes of The Wizard of Oz.
— Dennis’ random suggestion for everybody to cough tomorrow at 10 a.m. to mess with people’s heads initially receives silence from the audience, then a few boos for some reason. Weird.
STARS: ***

DANCING LORD
(JOL) uses reverse psychology to sketch portrait of a dancing king (DAC)

— Funny seeing Dennis dressed as an 18th century character at the beginning of the sketch.
— This hyperactive foppish character seems like a role that Dana Carvey was born to play.
— Clever turn with Dana dancing himself to the point of collapse, which was a ruse by Jon to keep Dana still so he can sketch him.
STARS: ***

KRYPTON SURVIVES
after Jor-El (host) sends Superman to Earth, Krypton doesn’t blow up

 

— First time we’ve really seen Sam in character and in a wig all night.
— I got a laugh from Sam telling Nora “You know, there’s still time to squirt one off if you want.”
— When the phone ringing sound effect continues to play even after Sam has picked up the phone, he ad-libs into the receiver “Yeah, I answered the phone, will ya stop ringing it?”, which gets a great audience reaction.
— Okay, here’s where the decision to turn practically EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight into a Sam Kinison scream-fest is starting to take its toll on me. His screaming isn’t working for this sketch at all.
— An unintentional laugh from seeing A. Whitney Brown of all people (in his ONLY appearance all night, by the way) in a non-speaking bit role as a tough criminal.
— Overall, a sketch that started out okay but slowly died a terrible death over the course of four minutes. Bad sketch as a whole.
STARS: *½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Original Wrapper”

SAM KINISON STAND-UP
host does stand-up about how he’s misunderstood- he actually loves women

— Oh, looks like we DO get some Kinison stand-up tonight after all.
— Some laughs from him talking about his bad knack for choosing women who he knows will “bust him up good”.
— Good risque humor from the bit about guys trying to crack women’s “combinations”.
— Decent stand-up set overall.
STARS: ***

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— This appears to be a fairly polarizing episode, and I suppose which side you fall on depends on your view of Sam Kinison. As someone who’s always enjoyed Sam’s comedy, I used to absolutely love this episode in my past viewings. Hell, I used to consider this and the following week’s Robin Williams-hosted episode the point where this SNL era officially took off. Looking at this episode through a more critical eye now, especially after recently discovering that Sam’s stand-up performances in his earlier SNL appearances were surprisingly hit-and-miss, I still enjoyed this episode, but can see that there were some things that really didn’t work, and I can also see that 90 minutes of Sam’s screaming shtick DID start wearing thin towards the end of the night. So overall, I’m no longer as big on this episode as I used to be, but I’d still call it a good show as a whole.

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

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Robin Williams