February 20, 1988 – Tom Hanks / Randy Travis (S13 E12)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Dick Buttons (PHH) loves (host)’s cowboy-themed figure skating routine

— Love Phil’s look in this.
— Funny use of Tom Hanks.
— Amusing little part with Tom skating to the Bonanza theme.
— A good laugh from all of the low scores Tom receives.
— Tom being too out-of-breath to speak during his interview is a bit that would later be reused in another Olympic ice skating cold opening starring a host: Jason Priestley. Never realized until now that that Priestley cold opening was basically a variation of this one, though that one is still good in its own right.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— I like Tom’s excitement over his freedom of being able to do whatever he wants on live TV.
— Some pretty funny reasons from him for not wanting to vote.
— When listing off this year’s presidential candidates who’s names he can’t remember, I love how he referred to Jesse Jackson as “Jermaine Jackson”.
STARS: ***½

THE BEAN CAFE
customers at The Bean Cafe narrowly avoid telling jokes about flatulence

— Funny concept of a cafe that serves just beans.
— I’m loving all the fake-outs with a potential fart reference turning out to be something innocent.
— Characters: “Beans, beans, good for your heart… beans, beans, GREAT for your heart!”
— Hilarious part with Tom using a lighter by a bending-over Kevin to make sure his pants don’t have wet paint on them.
— Great sketch overall.
STARS: ****

GIRL WATCHERS
desensitized losers (host) & (JOL) take female rejection in stride

— The debut of Jon and Tom’s Girl Watchers characters.
— Nice touch with Jon having a unibrow.
— Jon and Tom’s confident, smug, slow delivery when putting themselves down is freakin’ great.
— Didn’t care too much for the ending with Kevin by himself.
STARS: ****

THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
GOP wives Elizabeth Dole (JAH) & Barbara Bush (PHH)

— I thought Phil’s Barbara Bush didn’t debut until a Pat Stevens sketch from the upcoming season 14 premiere, where Pat interviews both Barbara Bush and Kitty Dukakis.
— Hilarious exchange with Pat telling Barbara, regarding George Bush, “You must be so proud of your son”, and Barbara having to inform her that George is her husband. Again, that’s an exchange that I mistakenly thought was in the aforementioned Kitty Dukakis sketch.
— Some pretty funny unintentionally insulting comments from Pat towards Barbara.
— Okay, after watching this entire sketch, I’m now both curious and wary to re-watch the upcoming Kitty Dukakis sketch, to see if it’s a carbon copy of this sketch.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Forever & Ever, Amen”

WEEKEND UPDATE
KEN fumbles for words & gets numbers wrong during Olympic report
sick of dumb blonde image, VIJ recites “serious” poem about Daniel Ortega
JOL strays from budget topic to declare viewers should “Get to know me!”

— This is SNL’s very first mention of George W. Bush, or “George Bush Jr.” as Dennis referred to him tonight. Funny seeing how young GWB looked back then. (first screenap above)
— Oh, please don’t tell me Kevin’s commentary is going to be yet another one of his topic-changing bits. The set-up has me thinking this is going to be different.
— I was right. Thankfully, Kevin’s commentary is going in a completely different direction from his topic-changing routine.
— Funny part with Kevin confusing the word “preliminaries” for “suppositories”.
— The rest of Kevin’s commentary has had other pretty funny bad guesses for words/names he can’t immediately remember, especially him naming Connie Chung as the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.
— Another Victoria commentary with her doing a “The Life Of A (insert object here)” poem.
— Oh, wait, it turns out this is the famous commentary where Victoria removes her blonde hair, ditches the high-pitched voice, and reveals she’s a dark-haired, normal-pitch-voiced, intelligent woman who’s only been doing the dumb blonde bit as an act. I’ve always wondered what episode this came from, after seeing a clip of it in the “SNL in the 80s: Lost and Found” documentary.
— For some reason, I love how Victoria’s poem is titled “Ortega’s Mustache”.
— Victoria’s performance here is great. She’s very committed to the bit and is coming off SCARILY convincing in her characterization.
— Hmm, interestingly, Victoria’s commentary ends with her removing her dark-haired wig and going back to her high-pitched voice, revealing the dumb blonde bit IS her true self after all. I almost feel that was unnecessary, though I have to laugh at the absurdity of the fact that Victoria was wearing a wig under a wig.
— Boy, this is an unusually long Update. Probably the longest one Dennis has ever had so far.
— Feels weird seeing Jon doing a commentary as himself.
— The debut of Jon’s memorable “Get to know me!” routine. This is another thing tonight that I thought wasn’t performed until next season.
— I like the reveals of which celebrities wrote the letters that Jon reads from people who were nothing before they “got to know me!” Funny enough, one of the letters is revealed to be from Donald Trump, which makes this the second SNL episode in a row that mentioned him.
STARS: ***½

GIANT BUSINESSMAN
Giant Businessman (PHH) deals with noisy neighbors without using his size

— Yes! I’m very excited to finally see this sketch, as I’ve always read great things about it.
— I’m already loving this, just from the interesting greenscreen work in the opening scene, and the opening credits sequence & theme song.
— Great visual of Phil in that tiny living room set.
— Tom is perfect for this role as a rowdy neighbor.
— Tom’s threatening delivery of “I’m not gonna forget this, Giant Businessman!!!” cracked me up.
— Funny ending with Giant Businessman fearfully calling the witness relocation program simply because Tom yelled at him.
— I loved the silliness of this overall sketch.
STARS: ****

APPLE SUPPORT SYSTEMS
tech support operator (KEN) guides (host) through computer confusion

— Tom’s panicky demeanor is making me laugh.
— A good laugh from a confused Tom freaking out when the computer turns on.
— Nice ending.
STARS: ***

CASEY KASEM SINGS THE BEATLES
countdown king (DAC) covers the Fab Four

— Hilarious concept.
— I love the part of Helter Skelter where Dana’s Kasem vocalizes the guitar and “boing” sounds.
— SNL seems to get quite a lot of mileage out of doing these “out-of-place people cover Beatles songs” ads, with other examples being the Cuban Beatles ad from season 5 and the “Beatles Songs You Kind Of Know The Words To” ad that appears next season.
STARS: ***½

DELIVERY ROOM
expectant father (DAC) misinterprets sounds coming from the delivery room

— Funny premise with Dana constantly hearing something from the delivery room that makes him think his wife has given birth, only for him to find out that what he heard pertains to something completely unrelated. This sketch has a silly, charming feel that I find very representative of this SNL era. Also, something about this premise almost feels like a companion piece to tonight’s earlier Bean Cafe sketch.
— Great meta turn with Tom revealing they can’t come up with an ending to this sketch, and then proceeding to bash this sketch’s quality.
— Good ending line with Tom’s “Goodbye, you poorly-developed characters, you.”
STARS: ****

SENTIMENTAL VALUE PAWN SHOP
a pawn shop owner (PHH) pays full sentimental value for personal items

— I’m liking the trivial things that Phil gladly pays full sentimental value for.
— Funny bit about Kevin’s tiny piano being worth more when Kevin’s mother is dead.
— I’m enjoying Phil’s voice and characterization in this.
— Another funny little bit, with it being revealed that a bronze shoe Nora chooses is from an adopted baby.
— Pretty good ending regarding the ashes of a phone caller’s father.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “What’ll You Do”

STAND-UPS
(DEM) & other observational stand-ups continue their act backstage

— Oh, yeah, I had forgotten that they briefly continued this recurring season 11 sketch two seasons later.
— I’m glad to see them doing this sketch in tonight’s episode, because out of all the performers in the earlier installments of this recurring sketch, I found Tom Hanks to be the funniest at doing the Seinfeld-esque delivery.
— Great bit about “What do you say to God when he sneezes?”
— I liked the cream/milk fight between Jon and Dennis.
— The whole Gilligan’s Island “three hour tour” bit is very funny.
STARS: ****

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A consistently solid episode, and definitely one of my favorites of the season. As I said in my last review, I had never seen this (nor the next) episode before, but I’ve always figured this must be a good episode, knowing 1) how well Tom Hanks usually works with this particular cast, and 2) how soon they bring him back for his next hosting stint. I was not let down tonight. And I like how some of this episode’s one-off sketches were so perfectly suited for Tom Hanks, to the degree that it’s hard to imagine another host pulling off those sketches as well as he did. Also, something I always love about Tom’s hosting stints from this era is that his chemistry with this cast is so good that at times, he comes off as an honorary member of the cast, basically being to this late 80s cast what Steve Martin was to the 70s cast.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Justine Bateman)
a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Season 13 comes to a premature end, thanks to a writers’ strike. Judge Reinhold hosts.