Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Iran’s Most Wanted- Salman Rushdie (DAC) re-enactment with Mephistopheles
— Second episode in a row with a sketch that’s an Iranian version of an American TV show (Iranian People’s Court being the previous one). I like that this seems to be becoming a weekly theme lately, though it doesn’t continue after tonight’s episode.
— I like how Phil’s playing his foreign Iranian host character with a very American, John Walsh-esque accent.
— Some good laughs from Jan’s intentionally bad acting in the re-enactment.
— Good use of Jon’s Mephistopheles.
— I like all of Phil’s various different “If you see him, kill him” warnings.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Interesting mention of how he used to be a dramatic actor before things like Airplane, Police Squad, and Naked Gun led to him mostly playing funny roles in goofy comedies. It’s true. I’ve always said to myself that his and Tom Hanks’ movie careers went in the exact opposite direction of each other.
— Some decent examples of the non-difference between his serious and comedic delivery.
STARS: ***
NEUBURG’S BLEU CHEESE COOLER
— Rerun
SUBLIMINAL TECHNIQUE
in a bar, (host) uses Mr. Subliminal’s technique incorrectly
— Surprisingly, this is the first time Kevin’s subliminal routine is appearing since his VERY FIRST EPISODE. I wasn’t aware that it took them so long to make this bit recurring.
— Lots of great laughs from Kevin’s subliminal lines, especially during his back-and-forth with Jan.
— Kevin’s “spank me” line when exiting the scene was great.
— Strong ending with Leslie’s terrible attempt at using the subliminal routine on Phil as the cop.
STARS: ****
SNAP DECISION
contestants try to deal with arbitrary game show rules
— Funny intro with each contestant.
— Love how increasingly confusing this gameshow is getting, as it appears Leslie’s character is making up stuff as he goes along.
— Very impressive delivery from Leslie here.
— Good bit with Jon getting disqualified for working at Price Waterhouse.
— I loved Nora’s softly-delivered, deadpan “Shut up” after Leslie asks her “Can you come back tomorrow?”
STARS: ****
THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
Kim Alexis, Beverly Johnson, Cheryl Tiegs [real]
— A bit of a change of pace in this installment with all the real-life models as guests.
— Funny inclusion of Leslie as a lesser model.
— I liked Nora line to Leslie regarding rubbing Grecian formula.
— Very funny part with Leslie recalling a childhood incident with a man offering him a modeling contract but turned out to be something different.
— All the cutaways to the facial expressions of a silent Leslie are getting good laughs.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sweet Jane”
WEEKEND UPDATE
ALF tells political reference-heavy jokes for MacNeil-Lehrer viewers
— Hmm, wonder what Al Franken’s “Jokes for MacNeil-Lehrer Viewers” segment is going to be like.
— Al’s Ted Kennedy joke made me laugh, though the rest of the segment wasn’t all that special to me.
— I liked Dennis’ random “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” Jimi Hendrix bit.
STARS: ***
THE 1960’S MOVIE
film contains farcical elements typical of the genre
— Pretty fun opening credits sequence.
— Leslie to Victoria: “By the way, I’m terrified of gorillas, so please don’t dress like one.”
— Love the part with all the characters being surprised to run into each other in the same room.
— I enjoyed the randomness and goofiness of this overall sketch, especially the gorilla appearance at the end.
STARS: ***½
GERITECH
host pitches Geritech products Blotch-Off, DripMaster, Bungking, Solidex
— Leslie’s opening line: “Hi, I’m Leslie Nielsen, liver spot sufferer.”
— This is starting to get especially funny with the shift to bladder control issues.
— The “I’m relieving…….myself right now” part is great.
— The “Bung King” hemorrhoid cream is hilarious, and has always been the part of this sketch I’ve remembered the most.
— This is getting funnier and funnier.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Misguided Angel”
SAYING THE WRONG THINGS
on a date with (JAH), (host) always finds the exact wrong thing to say
— I’m getting good enjoyment from Leslie constantly saying inappropriate things to Jan.
— Funny part with Leslie refusing to believe that Jan isn’t drunk.
— I liked the “You can just owe me” ending.
STARS: ***½
WAYNE’S WORLD
Wayne’s (MIM) guests are buddy Garth (DAC) & his dad Beev (PHH)
— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring character debut! Can you believe that Wayne’s World, a sketch that would go on to be larger than life, debuted at the end of an episode, in the 10-to-1 slot? Then again, at this point, Mike Myers IS an unproven new featured player who’s in only his fourth episode, so I guess that makes sense.
— Funny to see how different the intro sequence is in this first installment. The usual Phil Hartman-announced “You are watching Cable 10: Aurora, Illinois’ community access channel” is played during a different shot (first screencap above) than the one it’s usually played during, and the shot that it IS usually played during is instead shown right afterwards during an additional announcement of “Cable 10 is not responsible for the views of… etc.”, which is an aspect of this sketch that I believe was dropped after this debut installment.
— The “Wayne’s World” theme song sounds lower key than how we’re used to hearing it.
— Phil’s look is very funny. By the way, it feels like Phil surprisingly has barely appeared in any sketches tonight.
— Phil has a little bit of Paul Lynde going on with the voice he’s using here.
— Another oddity in this debut installment is that the Top 10 list is a very quick segment that Wayne speeds through. I’m so used to the Top 10 list being a much longer, more fleshed-out, and important segment of later installments of this sketch.
— Good part with Wayne breaking out into the song Dream Weaver in an attempt to impress Jan.
— Hmm, they’re taking viewer calls, which I don’t remember them doing in later installments.
— Funny call from Jon talking about how his girlfriend blew “gnarly” chunks on him.
— Wow at the turn that Jon’s call took, with what Wayne and Garth subtly suggested that Jon should do to his passed-out girlfriend. That’s one of several things about this sketch that would never fly nowadays.
— Overall, it was so fascinating to witness the birth of this sketch. You can definitely see all the potential, though this first installment feels so low-key compared to what the sketch would later become.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Yet another in a long line of solid season 14 episodes, and I liked pretty much everything tonight. There were some very memorable sketches like Snap Decision and Geritech, we got an important recurring sketch debut at the end of the show, and Leslie Nielsen was as funny and reliable a host as you would expect.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ted Danson)
about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Glenn Close
I can’t believe Leslie Nielsen only hosted this one time. He was incredible. His delivery and character in the Game Show sketch is just so great. Leslie is so perfect at playing the pompous buffoon. Phil probably wasn’t in this episode too much, because the characters he likely would have played we’re taken over by Leslie. They both kind of have the same acting and comedic style.
Wow, the modest beginning of Wayne’s World was fascinating to watch. Who’d a thunk that it would become one of the most beloved SNL recurring sketches of all time?
The 1960s Movie sketch is forgotten, but great – it perfectly encapsulates the tropes of the movies from that era that used to play on television Sunday afternoons back in the 1970s and 1980s! (Think Conan and/or Smigel wrote that one)
The cues are credited on ASCAP to John Bowman and Jack Handey.
(Work ID #440178274)
I have to believe Mike Myers had a hand in it. The sketch was like a first draft of Austin Powers.
According to the “SNL: First 20 Years” book, Myers’ original draft for the first Wayne’s World sketch did not include Carvey’s character. By coincidence, Carvey had written a sketch for this same episode which featured a Garth-like character (“Brad”) hosting a science show from his bedroom. At read-through, Lorne suggested they combine both sketches/approaches/characters, and the rest is history.
I like how whoever taped the live copy of this episode that’s circulating online left in the commercials (taped off of Bangor, ME affiliate WLBZ); an interesting time capsule of the era in which this episode aired. They even left in a bit of an editorial (remember those?) at the beginning!
Both Dana and Mike were guests on The Tonight Show last Thursday, and it was revealed that their very first Wayne’s World sketch was filmed at the “dead corner” of Studio 8H, breaking its SNL curse about that area where all the “sketches go to die”:
Just watched this episode for the first time in years. I had remembered not really liking Wayne’s World in the first couple of installments, and now I remember why. That first WW sketch was really off-putting, with the rapey advice, homophobia, and general mean-spiritedness. Thankfully they managed to fix all that and eventually make Wayne’s World a classic.
But on a positive note, the rest of the episode was really good – especially liked the 60’s movie. They nailed the tone perfectly.
This Wayne’s World sketch had a feel that I wish the brand had been able to maintain more of as it went on. This one truly felt like a couple of kids hosting their own public access show in their basement. They interviewed their family and friends from school and didn’t talk about anything of national significance. Some of their humor was also authentically tasteless and immature, as opposed to them being polished up into likable, heroic figures later on. This had a low-key charm that the sketch lost some of later on, after they started having celebrity guests on and making sophisticated pop culture observations that could rival any on Letterman or Carson. I’m not sure if the characters ever felt more honest and real than they did here.
It’s too bad Leslie didn’t get a part in that sketch because he was a lot of fun to watch. He handled a lot of complicated lines very well in the game show and dinner date sketches. I think the dinner date sketch had the best writing of the evening. They perfectly nailed the worst possible thing to say without having him using outright insults. Having him do Mr. Subliminal was more of a stretch for him, because that’s the role Nealon was born to play. Not a huge fan of the concept of the Geritech ad, and it progressed a little too slowly. The ’60s sketch had a bunch of good setup but feels like they bungled the payoff a little.
The Pat Stevens sketch was just awful. Nora Dunn is terribly wrong for this part. She doesn’t look like a model and she’s not good at playing dumb. Victoria Jackson would be an infinitely better Pat Stevens. Aside from that, they didn’t explain the premise of this one well, didn’t make it clear who we were supposed to like or dislike, didn’t have any really humorous asides, didn’t build to anything and completely wasted the cameos of the models. They didn’t say anything memorable and didn’t really poke fun at their images.
Miller was very solid in Weekend Update. I love how he doesn’t get too political or too silly but somehow seems to be making sophisticated jokes without being too intellectual about it. Franken came on and ground it to a halt like he usually did on Update with an ill-conceived one-joke bit.
I liked the Energizer Bunny ad and the Jay Leno Doritos ad that’s in the circulating copy of this episode. Never saw the ad with the former cigarette spokesman talking down cigarettes before. Never saw that Judy Tenuta Dr. Pepper ad either. I forgot all about her. I recently watched the 15th Anniversary Special though and, being in prime time, that was packed with many more of the really top ads of the day.
Coincidentally, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure came out in theaters the same weekend as this episode. Some people have accused Wayne’s World as being a rip-off of Bill and Ted. I know that’s not true since Mike Myers created the character of Wayne before he started on SNL. Just kind of fun that they both started at the same time.