Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
George Bush (DAC) gives status report after his first 100 days in office
— Surprisingly, this is the first time we’ve seen Dana’s Bush impression in months. I think his last appearance was in January right after Bush’s inauguration.
— Hmm, the long break seems to have done Dana’s Bush a lot of good, as it’s come back as a fully-formed version of the characterization that everyone today remembers his Bush as. After witnessing his characterization slowly begin to take shape over the past two seasons, I find it great to finally arrive at the official version of his Bush impression.
— We even get our very first “It’s baaad, it’s baaaad!” and “Dan Quayle, still gaining acceptance”.
— Lots of pretty solid Bush lines all throughout this.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
in style of a French chanteuse, host sings a song about being miserable
— An okay set-up to the song she’s about to perform.
— The French accent she’s singing with is pretty amusing, even if I’m not sure if the song itself is supposed to be comedic.
STARS: ***
THE BOB WALTMAN SPECIAL
celebrity tears make interviews successful
— Great to see the debut of one of my favorite semi-recurring pieces from this era.
— Also great to see Victoria’s dead-on Roseanne make its first return.
— Love the ways Kevin keeps pushing to find ways to make his interview subjects cry.
— Kevin’s bizarre, sleazy smile into the camera at the end of every interview is hilarious.
— Very funny reveal of Kevin cutting onions to make Phil’s Burt Reynolds cry.
STARS: ****
FROST WHITE AND THE SEVEN L’IL MEN
alterations to Snow White story were made to avoid lawsuit from Disney
— The blatant knock-off version of Snow White is getting some good laughs.
— I like how they keep overemphasizing the few differences from the original Snow White (e.g. “It’s not a mirror, it’s a plate!”).
— Very funny turn with an angry Jon yelling on the phone, especially the part with him picking back up the hanged-up phone to add “Disney! We’re talking Disneeeeyyy!”
— I love the part with Jon waving off the “Someday My Prince Will Come” similarity by saying the song was using the word “prints”, not “prince”.
STARS: ****
ATTITUDES
an interview with the owner of a vintage clothes shop (host)
— The opening joke-telling bit with Nora and Jan had some good laughs.
— Again, a lot of funny little details in Nora and Jan’s characterizations here.
— Geena’s “I look for things without stains” explanation was funny.
— I like them exaggerating how long ago the late 70s were (at the time).
— This isn’t quite as strong as the previous Attitudes sketch with John Malkovich, but I’m still getting a lot of enjoyment.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pop Singer”
THE PALMER BUNCH
Robert Palmer (PHH) with his “Addicted To Love” models
— I like the opening Brady Bunch theme song parody.
— Some pretty good laughs from the details in how the back-up dancers do every little thing while moving exactly like they do in Robert Palmer’s music videos. The part with them all exiting the kitchen in unison especially got a good response.
— Something about the way the sketch ended felt kinda empty.
STARS: ***
WEEKEND UPDATE
during review of Rain Man, MIM & BES help form each other’s opinions
DEM attempts to explain nuclear fusion using the Mouse Trap board game
— We get a Tommy Flanagan “Yeah, that’s the ticket” reference during a joke from Dennis about Oliver North lying.
— Boy, a lot of Dennis’ jokes are surprisingly getting a very tepid audience reaction. I guess I can’t blame the audience, as the jokes honestly aren’t too hot.
— I did like Dennis’ joke just now about Donald Trump’s plan to build better genitalia, called “Trump’s Little Tower”.
— An awkward, stumbly intro from Dennis to Mike and Ben’s commentary.
— I love the fact that we’re seeing a commentary from the two new guys. It’s absolutely fascinating as a future viewer to see a young Mike Myers and a young Ben Stiller paired together as themselves.
— Just now, Mike said “Here’s a quarter, buy a clue”, which is a joke he’d later go on to use quite a bit in the Wayne’s World sketches.
— Ehh, I’m not getting too many laughs from Mike and Ben’s commentary. I did like the “Greenland” mix-up, though. And this commentary is still preferable to the last time two new young guys appeared together as themselves on a Dennis Miller Weekend Update to review a book or movie (*coughAnthonyMichaelHallRobertDowneyJr.cough*).
— Loved Dennis’ meta comment right after Mike and Ben left: “Nice to have the new guys aboard to infuse the cast with a newfound energy in the form of job paranoia.” Though in Ben’s case, the cast doesn’t have much longer to suffer from job paranoia.
— I loved the audience disappointedly groaning in unison when Dennis’ Mouse Trap/fusion bit fails to work on cue. Dennis ad-libs “Now this is a two-part process….” and then tries it a second time, where it fails even EARLIER. This is hilarious.
— Great conclusion to the Mouse Trap bit, with Dennis just going ahead and finishing the trick by hand when he can’t get the mechanism to work properly after multiple tries.
— Dennis’ very random Sununu/hunting bit cracked me up.
— After a string of jokes that received very little reaction from the audience, Dennis finally got one that landed, with a joke about Bryant Gumbel’s ego.
— An overall surprisingly underwhelming Dennis Miller Weekend Update. If it weren’t for the Mouse Trap bit, this Update would’ve been completely forgettable.
STARS: **½
SUSPENDED ANIMATION CHAMBERS
despite explicit warnings, idiots “rescue” people in suspended animation
— The group always immediately finding signs that answer a question they had just asked is kinda funny.
— What… the… hell?!? The sketch is over already? I have no idea what I just watched. Most of the humor in this didn’t work for me, and it had no real ending.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Jackie Brown”
SPOKESMODELS
potential game show models learn the essential gestures from (host)
— A funny sudden turn with the use of Don Pardo’s gameshow voice-over and it being revealed that the dance class students are taking lessons on how to be a gameshow spokesmodel.
— A pretty accurate take-off of gameshow models’ various cliched moves, especially the “consolation head tilt” for whenever a contestant loses.
STARS: ***
LAST MAN ON EARTH
after the apocalypse, last woman (host) still won’t date last guy (JOL)
— Interesting set-up.
— A lot of good low-key, realistic humor out of the the conversation between Jon and Geena. I’m enjoying the slice-of-life feel of this sketch.
— A pretty heartwarming turn with Jon trying to win Geena over by playing romantic music on the radio.
— A good laugh from Jon finally flat-out admitting he thought that since he’s the only guy left on Earth, he’d finally have a chance with someone like Geena.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
— We get a nice mention of it being Jan’s birthday tonight.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— I came into this episode kinda cautiously because I recall hearing that it’s subpar for this season’s high standards (I’ve seen the episode myself a few times in the past, but remembered very little from it), and if that turned out to be true, then it would sadly ruin the season’s flawless streak of no subpar episodes (in my eyes, at least). I ended up finding tonight’s episode surprisingly decent as a whole. In fact, the first half was actually pretty strong, with 3 four-star sketches in a row (Bob Waltman, Frost White, and Attitudes). The show hit a rough patch in the middle with Weekend Update (surprisingly) and Suspended Animation Chambers, but things slowly got better afterwards. The overall episode was fine, which keeps this season’s perfect streak alive.
— After being in the cast for only four episodes, this ends up being the final night for featured player Ben Stiller. I don’t know the exact story, but I believe he left by his own choice because he was frustrated by his lack of noteworthy roles and felt his talents were being wasted. He DID seem to get stuck playing straight man most of the time and I’m sure it didn’t help when he saw all the great opportunities that fellow newbie Mike Myers was getting. However, Ben should’ve understood that it takes time for some cast members to break out. When you’re a new featured player in an already-established, close-knit cast, you can’t always expect to immediately break out within a mere FOUR EPISODES. And it’s strange that Ben didn’t at least finish out the season; after all, there’s only two episodes remaining. The fact that he couldn’t even be bothered to stay two episodes longer proves that he must’ve REALLY hated working at SNL. At least he doesn’t end up holding a grudge against SNL for TOO long, considering his first hosting stint is just 10 seasons later, and he would then host again a decade-and-a-half later, not to mention the countless cameos he’s made and continues to make to this day.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Dolly Parton)
a mild step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Wayne Gretzky
I seem to remember hearing something about Stiller wanting to make more short films (a la “The Hustler of Money”) for the show and SNL not being interested being a reason why he left?
Jurb, I think that was on Howard Stern. I remember it, too.
I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt that. His Wikipedia said he started making Super 8 films at a young age. It was his short film Hustler of Money that got him hired for SNL. After SNL he immediately made two more short films (one with an appearance by Mike Myers). Those got him a gig on MTV in 1990 producing his own show that was a mix of films and other content. That led to his Fox show, and by 1994 he directed his first feature film. It’s pretty clear his ambition was to work in films, and as far as I can tell he was never involved in stand-up or improv like most SNL cast members. Maybe he was more confident in pursuing the career he had in mind because he was from a showbiz family and had already had bit parts in several films. I think Stiller is still one of a pretty small number of SNL cast members who’ve gone on to direct feature films, him and Chris Guest being the two most prolific.
Many of those former cast members only directed a movie once: Bill Murray-Quick Change, Eddie Murphy-Harlem Nights, Dan Aykroyd-Nothing But Trouble. Billy Crystal directed Mr. Saturday Night and Forget Paris. I just also remembered that former “SNL” filmaker James Signorelli made Easy Money starring Rodney Dangerfield. And Gary Weis made Holy Moses which Larraine Newman appeared in…
Apparently Geena Davis was considered for the open female slot in the final Ebersol cast (Season 10) which ultimately went to Pamela Stephenson. While she’s definitely more of a traditional “actress” than is typical for SNL, she does a good job in this episode and it helps keep the “hot streak” of s14 alive.
This was the 2nd time they tried that “Mouse Trap” joke on Update; the first one was back in Season 11 w/Paul Simon.
Ben Stiller might be the biggest “what if?” in the show’s history.
Agreed… though I think if we’re including people who auditioned and didn’t even make it, Jim Carrey would be higher up
Is John Cougar/Mellencamp the only musical guest to appear on “SNL” under two different surnames?
Garth Brooks and Chris Gaines?
IIRC, when Mike Myers was on WTF w/ Marc Maron, he talked about his first weeks on SNL. He basically referred to Ben Stiller as (I’m paraphrasing) being already fully formed and not really needing SNL, thus his short tenure on the show. I’m fairly certain by that point Ben had already been part of that very successful Broadway revival of John Guare’s House Of Blue Leaves (co-starring alongside John Mahoney, Swoosie Kurtz, Christine Baranski, and Richard Portnow) and it would become clear very quickly that his ambitions lay elsewhere.
At about 46:40, Mike tells about his first meeting with Lorne and then being hired alongside Ben Stiller: https://youtu.be/jNHY029EhMo
There is only one key reliable formula to making Saturday Night Live work: Establish your premise immediately and START TELLING JOKES!
Stop fooking around with the setup and the other bullshit. Get to the friggen jokes! That’s why people tune in. They wanna laugh. They wanna feel good. They are not interested in horse crap.
The worse SNL sketches pretty much all follow the same pattern: They take forever to make their point and they don’t do anything funny.
This episode was notable in that only a handful of premises were good and few of those actually delivered jokes. Complete waste of everyone’s time. Don’t bother putting on a show unless you have something funny to say.
Make time to tell jokes and then get to the damn jokes.