Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Dan Quayle (host) plays Graduate to Nancy Reagan’s (JAH) Mrs. Robinson
— Good entrance from Jan as Nancy Reagan.
— Great turn with this turning into a The Graduate parody.
— And there goes a recreation of The Graduate’s classic leg shot.
— Jan is always fantastic at playing seductive.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host outlines monologue rules- vulnerability, craziness, plug, wash hands
— I really like this Ferris Bueller-esque “Tips For The Monologue” format, with Matthew’s asides to the camera after going through each typical monologue cliche.
— Pretty solid monologue overall.
STARS: ***½
MCDONNELL-RAND
medical waste isn’t all bad- it can also improve your life in small ways
— Pretty funny concept.
— The casual everyday use of medical waste has some really good laughs, especially the part with Dana happily using syringe needles as corn cob holders.
STARS: ***½
THE FIVE BEATLES
flashback reveals why former 5th Beatle Albert Goldman (PHH) is bitter
— Funny gag with a screen ripple effect appearing when Phil throws to a flashback, only for the screen to immediately cut back to Phil still in present time, which he responds to by saying “Oh, concentrate harder, for goodness sake!”
— The Beatles performance with Phil as an out-of-place Beatle is pretty funny, especially him breaking out into a trombone solo, which kills the teen crowd’s enthusiasm.
— Dana’s Liverpool accent is very funny.
— Good casting of Jon as young Ringo, as I can see a resemblance.
— Kevin’s pretty funny as Elvis.
— I like the irony of Elvis telling Phil’s character to never let his weight get out of hand.
STARS: ***½
COOKING WITH MONKEY
(DAC) gives helpful hints for primate preparation
— Love the audience groaning when Dana reveals he’ll be cooking a monkey dish.
— Dana’s casual delivery of “Guests can be intimidated by the sight of a flaming monkey” was very funny.
— Another great bit with Dana showing a picture of baby monkey he’ll be preparing, and talking about how good a sample of that baby monkey tasted.
— This sketch is priceless so far.
— A lot of laughs from the restaurant guests’ various requests for which live monkey they’d like that’s on display in a glass cage.
— Dana, in a voice-over: “As we bid adieu to the French Monkey House, we……. say……. goodbye to the French Monkey House.”
— A big laugh from Dana’s line about one of his “patented monkey de-boners”.
— Clever detail with “Cooking with Monkey”’s mailing address being “Top of the Empire State Building”.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Birthday”
WEEKEND UPDATE
AWB is worried about the high animal extinction rate
— Wow, this Update opens with a particularly HUGE extended applause break for Dennis, even moreso than he usually gets. Even he himself looked kinda surprised.
— Liked the random baseball bit with Dennis, and it resulted in his trademark “Ha-HAAAA!” laugh that always kills me.
— Fantastic joke from Dennis regarding Dan Quayle holding a pumpkin.
— Hmm, a Trump joke.
— A. Whitney’s hair has really grown out over the summer.
— A decent overall commentary from A. Whitney tonight, with my favorite line being his comment regarding us needing animals for medical research.
STARS: ****
NUDE BEACH
at a nude beach, (host) & some other guys talk about their penises
— Funny use of a strategically-placed beam to hide the guys’ nudity.
— We’re surprisingly seeing Dennis making a lot of non-Update appearances tonight.
— Kevin, upon greeting Dana: “Hey, penis looks great today.”
— Love Kevin casually telling Matthew he has a pretty small penis.
— The frequent casual use of the word “penis” in general is freakin’ priceless.
— Holy hell, this Penis Song they’re singing is hilarious.
— Kevin’s mock-serious message to the camera has some really funny lines, especially him saying he’s disheartened by the snickering he heard from the audience throughout the sketch, and telling those of us who missed the point of the sketch to “grow up”.
— An overall absolutely fantastic, classic sketch. You can tell by the energetic audience applause at the end that they loved it too.
— This sketch was originally cut after dress from the previous week’s Tom Hanks season premiere. I’m aware that version of this sketch is available in the extras section of Hanks’ SNL “Best Of” DVD, but I’ve yet to see it. While the sketch was classic enough with Matthew Broderick in the role, I can only imagine how EVEN BETTER it must’ve been with Hanks, who would’ve been PERFECT for this sketch.
STARS: *****
THE THUMPER FAMILY
fundamentalist clan threatens damnation for hassles
— Interesting intro from Don Pardo’s voice-over.
— Not sure if I’m going to like this sketch. This is a point I’ve brought up before (when talking about The Loud Family and The Widettes sketches from the original era), but I’m usually not big on sketches where the premise is everybody in a family having the same distinctive trait. More often than not, I find that type of sketch pretty groanworthy, though there are some exceptions, of course.
— I will say Jan is giving a great performance.
— Excellent outburst from Phil upon his entrance.
— Hmm, this sketch isn’t too bad. It’s so ridiculously over-the-top that it’s hard for me not to laugh.
— Decent ending.
STARS: ***
LEARNING TO FEEL
Denise Venetti gives frightened patients simple answers
— OH, NO. Not this again. I was hoping they left this in season 13.
— Hmm, no “look at yourself” advice from Nora to tonight’s first guest? Maybe tonight’s installment of this sketch is going in a different direction after all.
— Jon’s pretty funny as a paranoid guy who’s convinced he’s always being followed by someone.
— Hmm, Nora didn’t give a “look at yourself” advice to tonight’s second guest either. However, the advice she’s substituting it with isn’t any funnier.
— Okay, with this third interview taking place right now, I’m noticing the pattern where Nora’s advice to tonight’s various guests is making them realize “You’re frightened”, which automatically solves their problems. Yeah, not funny.
STARS: *½
LAURIE HAS A STORY
(LAM)’s yarn is sidelined; Catherine O’Hara cameo
— Hmm, a random Laurie Metcalf/Catherine O’Hara film.
— IIRC, this must’ve been around the same time the sitcom Roseanne debuted.
— Is SNL doing this film to make up for the fact that Laurie Metcalf has the dishonor of being an SNL cast member for only ONE episode, in Dick Ebersol’s hastily-retooled SNL a mere month after Jean Doumanian’s firing?
— Seeing Catherine O’Hara alongside Laurie Metcalf reminds me that they were almost SNL castmates. In the aforementioned hastily-retooled SNL at the end of season 6, Catherine O’Hara was originally one of the new cast members hired. However, she immediately quit after being scared off by Michael O’Donoghue’s berserk antics behind the scenes. Upon telling Ebersol she quits, O’Hara recommended fellow SCTV cast member Robin Duke as her replacement, which is how Robin got hired for the show.
— The brief Andy Warhol story was pretty funny.
— I liked the whole choking part at the end.
— Pretty good film overall.
STARS: ***
HOLLYWOOD SALUTE
gangster film actor (JOL) extended persona to western
— Wow, this is now Dennis’ FOURTH non-Update appearance of the night. This has got to be an all-time record for him.
— Jon and Phil playing their General Custer and Indian roles as 1920s gangsters seems fairly funny.
— This sketch hasn’t been all that great so far, though I’m liking it more for the performances than for the writing. Phil and Jon are playing off of each other very well here.
— The joke with Jon’s unconvincing Indian war-whooping as he made his exit was pretty funny.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Motorcrash”
BABY
baby (host) & fairy (PHH) nonchalantly answer others’ taunting questions
— Boy, this is kind of a strange sketch.
— Some good humor from Matthew’s deadpan delivery while casually explaining his baby traits to his obnoxious teasing peers.
— Fun random walk-on from Phil as a fairy.
— Like Matthew, Phil’s lines explaining his fairy traits to the teasing peers are made funnier by his casual, proud delivery.
— Overall, this was one hell of a goofy, silly sketch. I’m kinda not sure what to think of it, but it had a weird charm that I liked. I feel like only this SNL era could make a sketch like this work.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A comedown from the phenomenal season premiere, but that was to be expected after how ridiculously high the bar was raised by that episode. I still enjoyed tonight’s episode, even though it was just average as a whole. The first half of the episode was fine, but there was a noticeable drop-off in quality during the last half-hour or so. However, we at least got the classic Nude Beach sketch tonight, as well as an underrated, forgotten gem in Cooking With Monkey.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tom Hanks)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
John Larroquette
I think you’re massively underrating the Five Beatles. A low key classic in my estimation. I also think you’re going too hard on the Learning To feel sketches. They’re not amazing but are a good example of the kind of self-confident inanity that Nora does so well. The masterpiece of these kinds of sketches is obviously Attitudes, but Learning To Feel and Pat Stevens are better than people give them credit for.
This episode comes close to the premiere. The Beatles and Baby sketches are frickin’ classics. I also second the fact that the Learning to Feel sketches are much better than they’re given credit for here.
https://www.vulture.com/2013/08/catherine-ohara-says-michael-odonoghue-didnt-really-scare-her-away-from-snl.html
I think I would like the Beatles sketch more with a better ending.
I’ve never liked Learning to Feel; I think Nora does a good job in the role and that it’s an accurate parody of these types of shows, but I don’t like the SNL sketch trope of “person gives bad advice in repetitive fashion.”
I always liked Pat Stevens, but I didn’t realize she was on so much. I do think that if they hadn’t burned the character out so much in 1985-86 she would get better ratings here.
The main reason the penis sketch was created is because NBC stopped using censors just before the beginning of the season. The only rules SNL had to follow were the FCC rules, and it was OK to say the word “penis” on the airwaves in certain contexts and at certain hours of the day (after 10 PM). So the SNL writers decided to use the word “penis” as many times as they could in a sketch.
One of those writers was Conan O’Brien.
That speech Nealon gave at the end of “Nude Beach” actually glossed over a little truth in there; he casually mentioned that NBC had eliminated their Standards & Practices department. This was no joke, as all the Major networks did away with their censors for various budget saving reasons around that time (I’m guessing because they were still hurting post-Writer’s Strike).
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/20/business/nbc-and-cbs-reduce-role-of-self-censors.html
Suffice to say; if it weren’t for this happening, “Nude Beach” would probably Never have existed.
The name “Albert Goldman” seems to be a reference to the author who infamously wrote a slanderously untruthful biography of John Lennon.
1) Prior to his Lennon biography, Albert Goldman wrote an unflattering Elvis Presley biography, which accounts for Nealon’s Elvis impression in this sketch. I always enjoyed this sketch – one of my favorite Hartman showcases.
2) Whoever wrote that “Learning to Feel” was precursor of some of Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen’s later-period sketches was spot-on!
Also playing the other guests on Laurie has a Story are former SNL writers Douglas McGrath (season 6 ’80-’81) and Adam Green (season 9 ’83-’84) and writer/comedian Fred Newman (whose 1980 book Mouth Sounds I would always see in the humor section of a B Dalton or Waldenbooks back then…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cspcuIXwpeo )
Can’t stop thinking of this Sugercubes performance without imagining the other members telling the bugle boy “Shut it! This is Bjork’s band!!”
McGrath co-wrote and co-directed the film with Liz Welch, who came back to the show as talent coordinator that season. https://www.austinchronicle.com/screens/2006-10-20/412315/
RIP Douglas McGrath
The hairdo/wig Nora sports in Learning to Feel makes her look almost exactly like Edie McClurg (who played the school secretary in Ferris Bueller!)
Fred Newman? I believe that’s the guy who did all the mouth sound music from the Nicktoon “Doug”, as well as doing all the songs of The Beets, that show’s Beatles-type band.
I’m surprised Victoria was willing to do the Thumper Family sketch, since she’s a born-again Christian, and has gotten very hardcore in recent years.
I admire how A. Whitney Brown is able to balance sincere viewpoints with a wry sense of humor in his commentaries, all without coming off too preachy and with a gracefulness that’s hard to describe . Definitely a tricky combination and something I haven’t seen the show do much of since he left. I guess some of Colin Quinn’s commentaries and anchor work on WU come the closest to that style. It’s a tough needle to thread.
I just saw the Tom Hanks version of the nude beach sketch, and I think the Broderick version is actually preferable. It may be an unfair comparison, since they’d had an extra week to refine the script and the performances are definitely tighter — for example, Kevin’s famous “pretty small…” line is delivered much better here. However, the biggest difference is that the Tom Hanks version does not end with the mock-serious speech from Kevin. The other big difference is casting: in the Hanks version, Tom plays Dennis’ role, Robert Smigel plays Lovitz’s role, and Lovitz is in Broderick’s role. There’s also a bizarre walk on from an older gentleman (whose name escapes me) to tell a joke.
The audience reaction is less enthusiastic, and so I’d give that version 4 stars while Broderick’s definitely deserves the 5.
I def would be interested in seeing that version, though I feel like Broderick did this justice. I watched this on the archives website but for some reason I feel like the Catherine o hart sketch is missing along with another so I mite try and rewatch it.
I thought Matthew Broderick did a great job hosting, I liked his monologue, but I’m gonna look for the hanks version of the nude beach sketch! Thanks for the info!
So we have Matthew presenting who has killed 2 people OJ ,Robert Blake and Alec Baldwin anyone else?
Tom Hanks mentions in LFNY that he did a sketch called “The Penis Song”, but that it ended up on the air with a different host. Is he referring to the Nude Beach sketch?
Yes, Stooge even mentions it in the review.
I did not know Bjork was with The Sugarcubes before she went solo. And holy sweet jesus is that song ever terrible. Why did they put them on SNL? was Lorne looking to be edgy and experimental.
My version still has the original commercial spots, with unknown actors like Tiny Lister Jr, Mario Van Peebles, and Guy Jasmine.
I think the purpose of the Penis sketch was to show they could say the word on the air as much as they liked. I’m guessing standards and practices had to double or triple check with the FCC and when they learned it was OK, they went overboard.
That short movie was not even moderately funny. But I like they brought in Laurie Metcalf and Catherine O’hara.
And yet another perfect example of the worst sketch being moved to the very end of the show. That baby thing was dumb. Did they believe anyone would laugh at it? Mathew Broderick doesn’t do live sketch comedy well. Or improv. He didn’t know how to fill 30 seconds at the end. Once gain Victoria Jackson got nothing fun to do. I think they just wanted a blonde girl on hand for optics, not to actually use her.