Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
God (host) shows up in Oral Roberts’ (PHH) office looking for his money
— Jan’s wearing Ana Gasteyer’s future Bobbi Mohan-Culp dress, which Julia Louis-Dreyfus also seemed to favor a lot back in the Ebersol era.
— Perfect casting of Charlton Heston as God.
— A very topical cold opening. The only reason I “get” it is because of the many jokes this season’s Weekend Updates have been making about the Oral Roberts/money/God situation.
— Funny performance from Phil.
— I liked Phil’s “Oh, father, who art in my office” line.
— The way Jan ran when hurrying to the phone cracked me up.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Huge extended applause break for Charlton to start this monologue off.
— Funny line about him aging 10 years just this one week.
— I’m getting some good laughs from his disapproval of the “new school” way of doing things, as he details the laziness he’s witnessed behind the scenes at SNL.
STARS: ***
THE FRUITING
a horror movie about a house under siege by citrus
— I love how what seems to be a fruit commercial is slowly turning into a horror movie with people being attacked by fruit.
— Overall, a strong fake ad that I had completely forgotten about until now.
STARS: ****
THE NEW PAPER CHASE
a professor (host) teaches future croupiers at UNLV
— Good reveal that this “tough” course turns out to be for blackjack.
— I like Charlton as the very stern professor.
— I got a cheap laugh from how after Charlton says “If you have time for basketball…”, the camera does a cutaway to the one black student in the class.
— The jackpot questions that Phil’s being quizzed on are pretty funny.
— Good line about Phil’s uncle being Jimmy The Greek.
— Boy, this ending scene showing a “preview” of next week’s episode is almost as long as the main part of sketch itself was.
— A well-written and well-performed sketch, though the ending scene could’ve used some shortening.
STARS: ***½
THE PRESIDENT HAS MUSTARD ON HIS CHIN
sloppy leader (host) in miniseries
— Funny concept.
— I’m getting some amusement from the seriousness of the talk between Charlton and his aides, all the while the camera is on a close-up of him with that ridiculous mustard stain on his chin.
— Pretty good sketch. They would later do a follow-up to it in Charlton’s next hosting stint in season 19, titled The President Is Illiterate, though that sketch is more fleshed-out than this one was.
STARS: ***
CHURCH CHAT
Jim (PHH) & Tammy Faye (JAH) Bakker discuss their troubles
— A lot of laughs from Church Lady breaking down Jim Bakker’s 15 minutes in the motel with Jessica Hahn.
— Jan’s hilarious detailing of her hallucinations gives us the classic line “Demonic raisins, I rebuke you!”
— Jan’s Tammy Faye crying with mascara running down her face is very memorable. There are some versions of this sketch that show an accidental early shot of Jan applying the fake running mascara onto her face, and some versions that don’t show it. The version I’m watching is the latter. I think the former version can be seen on Dana’s “Best Of” special.
— Phil’s pleading to viewers is really funny.
— Great ending with Church Lady’s message to anybody currently involved in a famous scandal.
— Overall, one of the best Church Chat sketches of all-time.
STARS: *****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “J Mood”
WEEKEND UPDATE
VIJ lies on the newsdesk & recites her poem “The Life Of A Rug”
— Loved Dennis’ opening bit about Jim Bakker and Jessica Hahn.
— Good bit with Dennis explaining various religious terms.
— The first half of Victoria’s commentary with her laying on the desk while rambling about nonsense was very off-putting to me, but she won me over in the second half where she, while still laying on the desk, recites a poem about the life of a rug.
— Nice random bit with Dennis doing an impression of the lead singer from The Bangles, which just involves him shifting his eyes in a tight close-up. (last screencap above)
— Overall, the second Update in a row where Dennis was on fire with his jokes.
STARS: ***½
BROOKFIELD ZOO BANQUET
Sweeneys sing a medley to celebrate the opening of a new primate house
— This sketch is rough so far. Phil’s obnoxious rambling story isn’t working for me at all, as much as it pains me to say ANYTHING negative about something performed by Phil Hartman.
— The visual of a deadpan Dennis Miller in a monkey mask provided a laugh. (second screencap above)
— This is the second time a Sweeney Sisters sketch had a long, misleading beginning before they appeared.
— The Sweeney Sisters appeared one week too late. I’m still of the opinion that they should’ve been paired with Nick the Lounge Singer in the previous week’s Bill Murray-hosted episode.
— The Sisters’ overall medley of monkey-related songs was particularly good tonight. If only the pre-Sweeney Sisters half of this sketch weren’t so bad…
STARS: ***
THE HUSTLER OF MONEY
a movie about flamboyant young bowler Wince (BES)
— Out of nowhere, we suddenly get a random short film starring a young Ben Stiller, two years before he would begin a (very short-lived and forgotten) featured player stint on the show.
— We also get an appearance from John Mahoney.
— Stiller’s Tom Cruise impression is funny, especially the facial expressions.
— Did I just see Danny Aiello in a quick cutaway? (last screencap above)
— Overall, a well-done and entertaining film. Just from this one piece, I can see why SNL would later hire Stiller as a cast member (too bad that doesn’t end up working out in the long run, though).
STARS: ***½
THE SLAVE DRIVERS
(host) debriefs the guys after the pyramid is complete
— The concept of this is tickling me.
— Funny part with Kevin being presented with the Golden Bullwhip Award.
— I liked Dana saying his named is spelled “owl, wavy lines, falcon”.
— Decent part with Charlton’s accidental creation of a right-side-up pyramid.
— Overall, a hard sketch to figure as a whole. I know I pointed out several highlights above, but don’t let that fool you: there were long stretches where things just dragged, and the sketch as a whole felt very long. While the performances were solid and, again, there were several highlights, they weren’t enough to justify the tedious long length of this sketch.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Juan (E. Mustaad)”
UNLV
KEN clarifies- UNLV not a good school, Rebel cagers not good students
— Why is Kevin speaking into a microphone? Seems kinda unnecessary in the setting of this sketch.
— Kevin’s defense of the Paper Chase sketch is providing some pretty good laughs.
— I like Kevin’s “to sum up” recap at the end.
— Overall, Kevin was perfect for this. This wouldn’t have worked as well with most other performers. Kevin has a type of delivery that always makes material like this funny.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty average episode. There were good things and we got one classic sketch (Church Chat), but the overall show wasn’t as strong as it felt like it should’ve been. Some sketches suffered from their length (particularly The Slave Drivers) or from having too many different unrelated things going on (Sweeney Sisters).
— Charlton was a decent host and his performances came off much more slick than his performances in his second hosting stint years later in season 19, where he was kinda sloppy and came off lost at times (though that’s understandable; after all, he was quite old by then). That being said, I feel his season 19 episode is the stronger and more memorable of his two episodes, which is kinda surprising because SNL was in much worse shape in season 19 than they were in season 12.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Bill Murray):
— a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
John Lithgow
Many of the cast and bit players (like Aiello and Julie Hagerty) in “The Hustler of Money” were cast members of the Broadway production of “The House of Blue Leaves.”
The Fruiting scared me big time when I was a kid. 🙂
The Church Chat from this episode is amazing. Jan Hooks absolutely knocks it out of the park as Tammy Faye. Hilarious!
Here’s a NBC Sports feature/plug for the UNLV which aired when they were in the NCAA Final Four. The uploader suggests someone at SNL must have watched as the UNLV material in this episode aired the very next week.
Thanks for posting this, John. The New Paper Chase sketch and Kevin’s piece at the end reference UNLV’s rise to basketball prominence amid questionable recruiting practices. The hotel management program was recognized as one of the best for people wanting to get into the hospitality industry but the other courses were considered below par.
I enjoyed Phil’s performance and the reveal that he’s Jimmy The Greek’s nephew and has a family name to live up to much like Franklin Ford III in the tv series. Dana & Victoria also give good performances in smaller roles but it’s Charlton Heston’s take on John Houseman’s Prof. Kingsfield (Kingsley in the sketch) that really sells the parody for me. The weird part of the sketch is Lovitz’s Jerry Tarkanian impression, some effort is made towards an actual impression. The sweat-stained dress shirt with the loosened tie and the towel biting are there but Lovitz isn’t wearing a bald cap and is using his own voice, his dialogue is funny though.
Lovitz’s Tarkanian mentions a player named Clarence Briggs, the black extra of whom Kingsley says “If you have time for basketball, you have time for blackjack”. This is in reference to the Lloyd Daniels recruiting scandal. Daniels, who had his admission to UNLV and schoolwork rubber-stamped because of his basketball ability, was kicked off the team in February of ’87 after being caught buying crack from an undercover police officer. Daniels finally got his chance in the NBA with the Spurs in ’92 where his coach was Jerry Tarkanian. Also, Lovitz’s Tarkanian mentions his team just lost to Indiana by four points, referencing UNLV’s loss to Indiana in the Final Four 97-93 which happened earlier on the evening of March 28th, the night this episode originally aired.
Lastly, a slight correction. The first part is a CBS Sports feature, CBS being the long time TV home of the Final Four.
Jan later said that she was already familiar with Tammy Faye, being from Atlanta and all, and she’d been trying to get an impression of her on the air for a while. Lorne rejected it at first, saying that nobody would know who that is, but then the scandal happened, and he let her do it.
In the what could have been file, we could have had “The Tammy Jean Show” rather than “Church Chat.” Jan’s excellent, but Bonnie Turner steals these sketches.
Re: The New Paper Chase – amazingly enough, Jon Lovitz’s first tv acting job was in several episodes of the early 80s Showtime revival of the “Paper Chase” tv series
I’m pretty sure Jerry Stiller (Ben’s Dad aka Frank Constanza) is one of the two old guys that briefly appears in The Hustler of Money short film.
You’re right. Also, Ben’s mom Anne Meara plays the bartender. And William Stiller (Jerry’s dad, Ben’s grandpa) is the guy who says “not me” when Ben’s character asks “C’mon. Who’s next? You wanna bowl?”.
Here’s my review of the musical performances.
J’s Mood
— Loved Heston’s introduction.
— Yes! Some actual trad jazz on SNL. This is quite the rarity.
— I like the head of this tune, nice “cool” feel to it.
— I’m absolutely loving Wynton’s solo right after the head.
— The pianist is doing some awesome work with his tricky chords.
— Great sound mixing job, I can clearly hear the upright bass and the other instruments are well balanced.
— Excellent sax solo.
— The piano solo is stunning. Perhaps the highlight so far. Not surprising given the astonishing work the pianist was doing just on the backing chords.
— What a special treat.
STARS: *****
Juan (E. Mustaad)
— Faster pace to this one. Like that it started very abruptly with Wynton’s melody.
— Ooh, there’s a tricky half-time manuver they’re pulling off midway through Wynton’s solo, and then they cut right back to the original tempo. Impressive.
— The walking bassline is fantastic.
— Great accent work by the drummer on the cymbals
— Somewhat short, but still inventive, sax solo.
— Pumped to hear this pianist solo again, and he’s delivering.
— So much energy to this performance.
— Cute ending.
— Man, this really makes me want to look further into Wynton’s work around this period. I’m already familiar with his superb classical work but didn’t realize his trad jazz chops were quite this good. What a special, versatile talent he is.
— I’ll admit my bias here, I love well executed trad jazz. But I feel like both of these performances are tight and fun enough to appeal to folks who aren’t particularly big fans of the genre. I couldn’t catch any flaws in either of the performances, and the playing was inventive without being too outre. I can’t really think of a much better introduction to the trad jazz genre for a broad audience than these two succinct yet fully realized pieces. Hence the five star rating for both, they’re great representatives of the genre for folks who may not get that much exposure to it.
STARS: *****
I thought Jan was Gilda when she was crawling onto the set in The Slave Drivers. For a second I forgot what era I was watching.
Julie Hagerty’s cameo in The Hustler of Money made me wish she had appeared in Robert Hays’ terrible season 6 episode.