October 24, 1987 – Sean Penn / LL Cool J, The Pull (S13 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Fatal Attraction II- former prison lover Alex (L.L. Cool J) stalks host

— A good Fatal Attraction turn this has taken.
— Very funny use of LL Cool J.
— An overall pretty solid cold opening and a good way to spoof Sean Penn’s time in jail. For some reason, though, this didn’t feel like I was watching SNL. After a while, I had kinda forgotten what show I was watching until they cut to the opening montage.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Love how Don Pardo immediately goes “During this program, the taking of photographs is strictly forbidden.”
— Funny mock-dramatic turn when Sean’s about to explain why he hates photographers.
— Good monologue overall.
STARS: ***

WALL STREET WEEK
Future Man (KEN) had no trouble with Black Monday

— Our first of what I’m assuming will be several mentions tonight of the infamous disastrous stock market crash (a.k.a. Black Monday) that happened earlier that week.
— During the opening sequence, I like the casual announcement of someone named Future Man being a special guest.
— An online SNL fan once had a theory that the blonde female extra shown talking to Jon at the beginning might be the now-notorious Brynn Hartman. (screencap below) I can’t confirm whether this is true or not, as I have no familiarity with what Brynn looked like, besides having blonde hair.

— I love Phil’s panicky characterization. He’s reminding me a little of Martin Short’s Nathan Thurm. He even threw in a “I know that!” at one point.
— Jan’s speech had a really funny payoff.
— Some noticeable audio issues right now as Sean has begun speaking. I guess this is another result of the technicians strike.
— Sean’s utterly bizarre performance…. oh my god. I once read this performance of his be described as “so bad, it’s good”, and after watching it now, I’d say it’s definitely living up to that description.
— Funny visual of Kevin as Future Man.
— Sean’s character asking for the nearest “porcelain convenience” was a good line, again made funnier by Sean’s horrible acting in this.
— I got a really good laugh from Future Man explaining that his reason for not stopping Sean’s character from committing suicide is simply because “I didn’t like him.”
— Overall, this had some strong moments and was well-written, though I felt the execution of it came off a little slow and awkward, at least in the live version I’m reviewing of this episode. Maybe this sketch comes off a little tighter in reruns.
STARS: ***½

CHURCH CHAT
host punches Church Lady after she takes his picture

— This season’s first appearance of last season’s biggest breakout sketch.
— The interview with Jon was very good.
— I like Church Lady’s various ways of egging Sean on to lose his temper.
— I’ve been noticing throughout tonight’s episode that whenever its mentioned that Sean is married to Madonna, you can hear a guy in the audience exclaiming “Yeah!” in response.
— Great moment with Jon’s Iranian diplomat character offering Sean foreign money for “the dancing woman” after a racy Madonna music video clip is shown.
— And there goes the legendary moment with Sean suddenly punching Church Lady in the mouth, knocking her out of her chair.
— Wow, this has built into an epic and hilarious fight between Church Lady and Sean.
— Perfect way to end this sketch.
— Overall, this Church Lady installment was freakin’ classic.
STARS: *****

PITMAN AND BULLOCK
Pitman & Bullock investment firm has the tenacity of a ferocious dog

— A bit unusual how they’re showing a pre-taped fake ad right after a commercial break in the first half of the show.
— Decent overall ad, and the pitbull footage served as a nice analogy.
STARS: ***

TEENY CAFÉ
in the Teeny Cafe, Babette & (JOL) perform skewed “The Way We Were”

— Not excited at all to see this sketch again.
— Some more audio issues tonight, this time during Kevin’s long-winded detailing of how the veal is prepared.
— Sean’s DeNiro impression is funny, and I’m enjoying his dialogue.
— Loved Sean-as-DeNiro’s line about how he had two vertebrae removed to make him shorter for a movie.
— I like how Nora and Jon’s song is introduced as being translated from English to French and back to English.
— I’m enjoying this song a little more than the song Nora and Jon performed in the first Teeny Café sketch, as this one has some really amusing re-re-translated lyrics.
— Overall, an improvement over the first Teeny Café sketch.
STARS: ***

WEEKEND UPDATE
KEN uses cliches to illustrate the lesson of Black Monday

— After sporting an even more 80s hairstyle than usual in the season premiere, Dennis surprisingly has his hair neatly combed tonight.
— Great bit with Dennis displaying a stock market chart to explain Black Monday.
— Not sure I’m too excited to see Kevin’s topic-changing commentaries return this season. I started getting a little tired of these towards the end of the previous season. However, these usually always have some funny lines.
— Kevin’s overall commentary tonight indeed turned out to have some funny lines, especially about it being a coincidence that Lou Gehrig contracted Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and the story about Kevin’s farmer relative owning a whole bunch of cattle and just half an acre. I’ve realized that I would like these Nealon commentaries more if he would just stick to the funny lines and ditch the topic-changing portions, which lost its novelty for me after a few iterations.
STARS: ***½

AFTER THE DATE
Don (PHH) & Marge Keister frustrate (host) with their poor memories

— The second appearance of Marge Keister’s family.
— Some pretty good laughs from the story about accidentally backing over the family dog with a car.
— The “manly” part between Phil and Jan actually had heart to it and was a sweet moment.
— Overall, this followed the same structure as the Keister family’s previous appearance with Steve Guttenberg, but this was still decent.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
L.L. Cool J performs “Go Cut Creator Go”

DISCOVER
Peter Graves (PHH) is clueless when it comes to snakes

 

— I like the visual of Sean sitting very stiffly in the snake pit while repeatedly warning Phil’s Graves in a quiet monotone manner so as not to disturb the snakes.
— Good part with Phil’s Graves ignorantly banging on the outside of the snake pit.
— Overall, this was shorter than most Discover installments, though still quite funny. However, I don’t think any of these Discover follow-ups will ever top the first one.
STARS: ***½

JOEY COMES HOME
Eddie Spimozo’s WWII vet brother (host) wants to work at The Jungle Room

— Interesting change of setting for Jon’s Eddie Spimozo character.
— Does Jon have a cold tonight? He keeps coughing all throughout tonight’s episode (it was especially noticeable during the Wall Street Week sketch whenever the camera was on somebody else).
— Some really funny lines from Jon.
— Overall, some pretty solid work here, even if I didn’t find this one quite as memorable as past Eddie Spimozo sketches.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
The Pull performs “This & That”

CAT DENTIST
Peggy has a cavity filled by Dr. Daniel Rudolph, Cat Dentist (TOD)

— I like the unique concept of this.
— Funny use of an obviously stuffed cat while we see the cat having its cavity filled.
— I see from the film’s ending credits that Andy Aaron was involved. He made a few SNL shorts in the past, usually involving the demolition of a building (e.g. the Push Button to Explode Building short).
STARS: ***½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A consistently good episode. While I didn’t find this to be quite as strong as the season premiere, and I had an unusually hard time coming up with things to say about the post-Update sketches, this didn’t have any subpar segments at all and there was at least one very memorable sketch in Church Chat.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Steve Martin):
— a slight step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Dabney Coleman hosts SNL’s second of only three episodes that fell on Halloween