COLD OPENING
a drill sergeant (PHH) assigns unwieldy nicknames to the new recruits
— Phil’s bad insults and terrible nicknames are absolutely hilarious.
— I love Kevin as the snickering soldier.
— Phil: “You think the army is one big…. joke…. building!”
— Some of my favorite bad nicknames so far are Mr. Eyes-In-Face Man and Mr. Feet-Attached-To-Legs.
— The army song is priceless, especially Phil dividing the word “army” into two different lyrics (“aaaaaaaa” and “rmyyyyyy”).
— One of Phil’s overall absolute funniest performances of all-time.
STARS: *****
OPENING MONTAGE
— Halfway through the montage, something seems to go seriously wrong with Don Pardo’s mic. His voice keeps cutting in and out for the rest of the montage, and some of the featured players and guests’ photos go by entirely without their name being announced at all.
MONOLOGUE
movie stills supposedly show host acting in various Oscar-winning roles
— Some laughs from the pictures he’s showing of “himself” in movie roles that he obviously wasn’t actually in.
STARS: ***
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
there’s now room for minorities & blue collar workers in the GOP
— Funny contrast between the GOP’s small number of minorities and insanely large number of interchangeable white men with glasses.
STARS: ***½
THE LIBERAL
he’s (host) a fugitive on the run in a conservative world
— I’m getting some pretty good laughs from how the theme song is mostly just saying “run” over and over again.
— I like Jon coming out in crutches as the son who Phil accidentally shot in an earlier incident.
— Very funny line from Phil saying he was only eavesdropping on Matthew and Victoria’s conversation to pick up some stock tips.
— An overall well-done sketch, even if not every second of it was intended to be laugh-out-loud funny.
STARS: ****
CHURCH CHAT
Church Lady beats Morton Downey, Jr. [real] at his own game
— Church Lady mentions this is the first time we’ve seen her her in a while. It’s true; I’m surprised they waited this long to have her make her first appearance of the season, considering her popularity.
— A monkey replacing Geraldo Rivera as Church Lady’s first guest is really funny.
— Morton Downey Jr. is doing a good job getting the audience hyped up.
— I like Downey’s sudden outburst at Church Lady.
— A freakin’ epic moment with Church Lady standing up to Downey and going off on a bleep-filled rant at him.
— I love the shocked look on Downey’s face after Church Lady’s rant.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “What I Am”
WEEKEND UPDATE
based on celebrity reports, ALF says Dukakis will win electoral college
AWB blames election indifference on the lack of good candidates
— Odd moment where a white board-carrying stagehand suddenly walks in front of the news screen, only to immediately leave. (screencap below) A confused audience laughs out loud, and an amused Dennis ad-libs to the camera “TV vérité”.
— Okay, now that Al Franken’s segment has begun, we now see what the earlier stagehand blooper was all about. The stagehand mistakenly started setting up Al’s white board in front of the news screen too early.
— Impressive map-drawing from Al.
— Some good laughs from how seriously Al’s taking the political opinions of celebrities of the likes of Justine Bateman, Ally Sheedy, and Lisa Bonet.
— Strong overall segment from Al. The particularly enthusiastic audience applause at the end of his commentary shows they agree with me.
— A. Whitney: “The time will come when Jimmy Carter will look like a great president.”
— A. Whitney: “Maybe it’s perfectly safe to hand out the destiny of our nation to a pack of maple syrup-swilling squirrel worshipers.”
— Dennis ends tonight’s Update with an “Hey, Audrey, get well.” I wonder if that’s referring to long-time SNL staffer Audrey Peart Dickman.
STARS: ***½
DUKAKIS AFTER DARK
the doomed candidate (JOL) throws a cocktail party
— Oh, here’s a classic.
— Some really good laughs from Jon’s Dukakis admitting he’s aware how badly he’s going to be beat in the election.
— Fantastic premise with Dukakis giving up in regards to the election and throwing a party for everybody involved in his campaign.
— Very funny part with Dukakis admitting to Lloyd Bentsen that he was going to raise taxes “through the roof” if he got elected.
— Always love seeing Phil’s Ted Kennedy.
— Feels like we’ve barely been seeing Jan these last two episodes.
— Love Dana’s Jimmy Carter voice, and and I’m enjoying the part with him giving Dukakis advice on how to deal with losing an election, especially his line “I was oooonnnne pissed-off cracker.”
— Nora’s Joan Baez song has some hilarious lyrics.
STARS: *****
WIN, LOSE OR TIE
collegians’ & celebs’ reading & writing skills tested
— I like the caricature drawings shown at the beginning.
— The debut of Phil’s Burt Reynolds impression. His laugh alone is priceless.
— Classic little moment with Phil’s Reynolds cutting off Dana’s long-winded line to say “Just gimme the damn pen.”
— Ha, I love how the “clue” Burt Reynolds draws for the secret word is literally spelling out the word itself, and yet his fellow team members STILL have a hard time guessing what it is until its fully spelled-out.
— Hmm, now they’re repeating the exact same joke with the other team. Ehh, not necessary.
— Okay, I admit, the bit with Victoria giving up on spelling “Louisiana” was pretty funny.
— The overall sketch as a whole wasn’t as strong as I though it would be, but it had such a fun atmosphere that I enjoyed it anyway.
STARS: ***
DUKAKIS
vote Dukakis to stop America from aging as horribly as Barbara Bush has
— Hilarious bit with pointing out how badly George Bush’s wife has aged, and then telling us if that’s what happened to his wife, imagine what he’d do the the country.
— Nice counter to the previous episode’s pro-Bush ads. Too bad this hasn’t been a runner throughout tonight’s episode like the Bush ones were in the last episode.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Little Miss S”
TWO SAMMIES
while watching hockey, (host) & Sammies exhibit more self-inertia
— These characters randomly make their return TWO YEARS after debuting in one of Dana and Kevin’s earliest episodes as new cast members. I’m sure all SNL viewers at the time had completely forgotten these characters by this point.
— Dana’s character voice sounds a little different in this one.
— Kevin’s idea of a Swiss army hockey stick is pretty funny.
— This overall installment wasn’t too bad, but not much happened in this one. It felt shorter than the first installment, and I enjoyed that one more than tonight’s.
STARS: **½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode. The quality died down a little towards the end, but even that didn’t hurt the overall show much. There were some really fantastic and memorable pieces in this episode, particularly the drill sergeant cold opening, Church Chat, and Dukakis After Dark. This season continues to really impress.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John Larroquette)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Demi Moore
That opening is one of my favourite sketches ever. Such a great performance from Hartman.
I don’t have this Church Chat highly ranked. It’s a great moment with Downey, but I’d still say the Jimmy Swaggart one is the real classic one after season 12
The opening was meant to parody “Full Metal Jacket.”
Also the “Liberal” theme song was similar to “Branded.”
“Republican Party” ad, third screencap: I believe bottom row, second from right, is then-SNL writer Greg Daniels.
I LOVE the opening skit. Phil is gold, as always. So fantastic. Dukakis After Dark is also another stone-cold classic. Unfortunately, the last we see of Lovitz’s Dukakis (one of more underrated political impressions in the show’s history)
After appearing as Church Lady so many times in his first two seasons, I wonder if Dana was kind of getting tired of portraying her and wanted to focus on other characters (like his Bush, which hasn’t…quite…yet gotten into it’s full form yet). I feel that by this time, he had pretty much mined all the comedic potential he could get from Church Lady. Indeed, Carvey only portrays her a few more times after this even though he is on the show for 5 more seasons.
And I mean during Carvey’s tenure (of course, Dana would appear as Church Lady a number of times as a special guest or when he hosted, as recently as 2016)
When they did use Church Lady, though, it was usually an inspired situation. I’m thinking of having John Goodman as her mother or (art imitating life?) having Dana forced to play her in the Misery parody with Roseanne.
When they did use Church Lady, though, it was usually an inspired situation. I’m thinking of having John Goodman as her mother or (art imitating life?) having Dana forced to play her in the Misery parody with Roseanne.
Who is playing Willie Horton in the Dukakis sketch? Looks and sounds really familiar
Victoria does a really good job in the “Liberal” sketch – similar to Laraine in the “Body Snatchers” sketch in season 5 (which this sketch reminds me most of – I believe Franken and Downey wrote both sketches.)
The Comedy Central edit from 2000 put both Edie Brickell performances back to back and popped in the Tammy Wynette “Stand By Your Man” commercial.
The drill sergeant sketch popped up on SNL’s Youtube channel tonight. Robert Smigel tweeted earlier tonight that he asked for it to go up. He also said he wrote the sketch, with an assist from Bob Odenkirk.
Where Edie met Paul.