Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
The Tonight Show- Johnny Carson (DAC) interviews VIJ & Nancy Reagan (JAH)
— The first of what will be several Johnny Carson Tonight Show sketches in this late 80s/early 90s era. This is also the debut of Dana and Phil’s Carson and Ed McMahon impressions.
— Already, Dana and Phil’s impressions are coming off memorable, and I like the part with them going on and on about Victoria’s weirdness.
— I got a laugh from the bit with Jan’s Nancy Reagan refusing to shake McMahon’s hand, even if I don’t get why that happened.
— Carson’s reaction to Nancy’s “She was just a bitch!” outburst was really funny.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
police surround the stage after a home viewer identifies criminal host
— I like how after James claims that the psychos and weirdos he’s known for playing in movies are not really him, we immediately cut to home viewers and cops watching the show on TV and recognizing James from crimes he’s committed.
— Great touch with a police report ticker showing up on the bottom of the screen.
— Love how further and further this is escalating, with us now seeing Lorne in the control room sending a SWAT team out to the studio, but not before worried telling them “I just can’t take the chance you might shoot Dana Carvey.”
— Funny how James is now bringing a very reluctant Nora Dunn up to the stage.
— An overall fantastic monologue. Great use of James’ creepy onscreen persona and I love how they went all-out for this.
STARS: ****½
YARD-A-PULT
get rid of garbage by flinging it into someone else’s yard
— Hilarious concept. I’ve always found this commercial to be a quintessential example of how great SNL’s fake ads in this late 80s era were.
— I’m getting a lot of laughs from the visual of the Yard-a-Pult flinging dog droppings, car batteries, air conditioners, and the like into the neighbor’s yard.
— An absolutely priceless ending with the family’s dead dog being the next thing that’s flung into the neighbor’s yard.
STARS: *****
DRACULA ’89
Dracula (host) screens (JAH), (VIJ), (NOD) for AIDS risk factors
— A very good gradual, subtle reveal that Dracula is worried about contracting AIDS from his victims’ blood. Only in the 80s could a sketch like this exist.
— Dracula’s reaction to finding out that Victoria lived in Greenwich Village was really funny.
— The Keith Richards reveal was hilarious.
— I love the sequence with Dracula going through the extensive trouble of bringing Nora’s blood to a doctor to have it tested.
STARS: ****
PRIMETIME LIVE
Sam Donaldson (KEN) & Diane Sawyer (JAH) banter awkwardly
— I always love Kevin and Jan’s Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer impressions.
— Some good laughs from the bad banter between Donaldson and Saywer at the beginning.
— I like how they keep cutting to live footage of empty places where nothing interesting is going on.
— Funny repeated bit with Donaldson overemphasizing that the show is indeed live.
— Good part with Donaldson’s interview with Dana’s Kirk Cameron just turning into Donaldson complaining about the quality of this season of Growing Pains.
— Hmm, Dana’s Kirk Cameron brings out a little girl who he says will be a new Growing Pains cast member, which Donaldson replies to with a cynical “Oh, sure, let’s just wheel in another cute kid every time we can’t think of a good plot.” SNL predicted the future with that, as just a year later, Growing Pains really DOES end up trying to spice up the show’s declining quality by adding a new child actress to the cast.
— I love the “Are you coming on to me, Ms. Sawyer?!?” bit with James.
— Hilarious part with Donaldson randomly blurting out “Diane, you’re a stinky whore!” as yet another attempt to prove the show is live.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Last Worthless Evening”
WEEKEND UPDATE
VIJ reports from Costa Rica after practicing her Spanish pronunciation
AWB offers views on Ronald Reagan accepting money from Japan for speaking
DEM & Dennis Miller (DAC) recite the Weekend Update oath
— Victoria’s commentary was okay. The premise of overemphasizing the Spanish pronunciation of words like Nicaragua and Costa Rica would later be turned into a full-fledged sketch when Jimmy Smits hosts next season.
— I loved Dennis just screaming in horror in response to an announcement that Corey Haim is releasing an “A Day in the Life Of”-type video of himself.
— A. Whitney seems to be doing an Update commentary in almost every single episode this season so far. Usually, he appears more sporadically than that.
— I really liked A. Whitney’s description of what he imagines the Ronald Reagan Library will be like.
— Great ad-libs from Dennis while reapplying his fallen clip-on mic after angrily spitting on the news screen during his negative review of a bear movie. After taking a long time reapplying his mic, Dennis adds “All that for the bear joke?”
— Interesting bit with Dana as Dennis Miller helping the real Dennis reaffirm his Weekend Update oath. Dana’s “repeating” of the oath is a riot, especially his comments about Zsa Zsa Gabor.
STARS: ***½
FALLING IN LOVE
by TOS- reunited (JOL) & (VIJ) sing & plummet
— Hmm, here’s a Schiller’s Reel I’m not familiar with.
— Oh, wait, I do kinda remember this. The visual look of this film seems vaguely familiar to me.
— Is Schiller going for a “Love Is A Dream” knock-off with this? Hmm.
— After playing out like a serious film for the first minute-and-a-half, this suddenly takes a comedic turn with the wind blowing Jon’s tie into his face while he’s in the middle of singing romantically. That was pretty funny.
— Another comedic turn with Jon and Victoria falling off the balcony, which wasn’t all that funny to me. I did get a laugh from the shot of the piano player quickly chugging down two glasses of wine while Jon and Victoria were falling.
— Overall, not one of Schiller’s best or most memorable films.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Boys of Summer”
THE RAVEN
Tonto, Tarzan, Frankenstein recite “The Raven”
— I always love these, and this particular one is coming off even funnier than these usually do.
STARS: ****½
VENTRILOQUIST
club owner (PHH) suggests changes to (host)’s inane ventriloquist act
— Funny opening bit with Jan’s bad singing.
— I like how an upset audience is beginning to walk out on James’ non-stop repetitions of “No, you’re the dummy!” with his ventriloquist doll.
— I love Phil’s characterization here. I can’t think of any other time I’ve seen him do a voice or character like this.
— Hilarious how the “big change” James makes to his act just turns out to be merely adding a monocle to his dummy while still endlessly repeating the same “No, you’re the dummy!” shtick.
— Decent ending.
— Last time I saw this sketch years ago, I remember finding it absolutely TERRIBLE. I dismissed it as a surprisingly horrid one-joke sketch from this otherwise great era of SNL. After watching this sketch again just now, I found it to be a lot better than I previously did. I can appreciate what they were going for with this, and James and Phil both gave fantastic performances that made the material even better.
STARS: ***½
HELMSLEY SPOOK HOUSE
— Rerun… from three seasons ago, oddly enough. Guess they’re just repeating this particular commercial because it’s around Halloween again. Or maybe also because Leona Helmsley was in the news for being in jail at this time (as spoofed in the great “The Big Bitch BullDyke Bustout of ’89” sketch a few episodes ago).
THREE DUDES HOLISTIC AUTOMOTIVE
Three Dudes Holistic Automotive gives a New Age approach to car care
— Pretty funny premise, and funny performances from Dana, Jon, and James as idiot surfer-type guys.
— For some reason, this kinda reminds me of the Two Guys Who Are Lawyers sketch with Dan Aykroyd and Fred Willard, from back in season 4.
— I like the listed-off car enhancements that the Three Dudes’ service offers.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A strong episode, particularly the first half of the show. I also loved James Woods as the host. Though he seemed kinda underused, he delivered greatly with every performance and had a vibe that reminded me of other great oddball hosts SNL has had over the years (particularly Steve Buscemi). James is definitely on my list of one-timers who should’ve hosted much more.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kathleen Turner)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Chris Evert
And in the “people who will NEVER EVER HOST AGAIN” category….. XD
You know, this sounds stupid, but I’ve seen that Dracula sketch numerous times yet I couldn’t have told you Woods was Dracula.
James Woods was great but… yeah I’d hate to see what a monologue from him would be nowadays.
SNL could use a lot more cast members and hosts these days like James Woods, Dennis Miller, Jon Lovitz, Victoria Jackson, Rob Schneider, Adam Sandler and Norm MacDonald. Their political sketches have long since stopped being satire and started being propaganda for the Democrat party. Also have to give credit to decent liberals like Dana Carvey who did not seek to humiliate George Bush in his impressions and ended up being the man’s friend in real life and speaking highly of him.
Eh, it was a different time. People weren’t in a position to leverage their political identity the way they do today. Woods, Jackson and Miller have all pivoted to a completely toxic form of blabbering conservatism and it’s not a very viable approach. It was easier in the 80s to be apolitical because the culture was different. But it’s a different time and Trump is a different brand of president. I can’t stand SNL’s political humor today, but I don’t know what the solution is. It’s certainly not kowtowing to a fascist-leaning regime like a “decent liberal,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.
Or, just don’t watch Saturday Night Live.
You forgot Tim Allen & Chris Pratt
Tim Allen never hosted SNL.
SNL’s political material has been, by and large over its run, easy and safe, with some moments of brilliance and many more of dross. The brilliant moments have been few and far between for a long time, for many reasons, but I wouldn’t say liberalism is the reason why, as much of the true decline of modern SNL political writing began with someone who may not have described himself as very liberal (Jim Downey). The real problem is a corporate viewpoint, fear, and a general lack of overall competence in headwriting.
I do appreciate that Dana Carvey was able to be friends with the politicians he lampooned, and went for a gentler type of performance, but that ended when he left the show. The material against the Clintons through Hartman’s last few years in the cast and for Norm’s Update was incredibly vicious (and I never liked Bill Clinton so I am not saying that from sympathy), with material which not only went after him, and Hillary, but (until Hillary intervened), even their young daughter. The Real Highway Stories/COPS sketch from ’94 is likely the most virulently hostile bombardment against a President SNL has had since Michael O’Donoghue left in the early ’80s – if that type of sketch had ever been done about Trump, or those fever dream Norm Update jokes, or even the extremely pointed but increasingly interchangeable TV Funhouses had looked his way, there’s a good chance the show would have been canceled the very next day.
It just shows how much times have changed, how much power politicians constantly telling us how victimized they are by “the liberal media” has, and how, even as social media becomes more and more extreme, television comedy at large has mostly congealed into clapter and lazy, empty, frightened hot takes.
Yeah, and it kinda feels like the people writing the jokes now kinda WANT Trump to win a second term just so it would make their writing easier and pretend to care about PoC and LGBTQ+, just because they (or rather, their corporate sponsors) don’t want to make fun of the politicians they like, even though they’re honestly not that different to the Republican party, if you’d ask me. Although I’m an anarchist, so take what I said with a grain of salt.
SNL can’t really win nowadays, and while they could stand to write better material half the time, the other half is all on the current climate. They get ripped by the far-right base and pundits for their sketches against conservatives, but when they make the slightest off-color joke or something that might go against liberals’ sensibilities, they get the equivalent of being ratioed on Twitter.
I think Bill Burr’s monologue from this past season kind of summed the current state of SNL best: He came on stage, said some edgy stuff that wasn’t entirely untrue, and acknowledged he would probably get cancelled for it. Was his monologue offensive? You could say so. Was it tamer than most of what SNL put on air in the past? Absolutely. Did Bill still get beaten over the head for it? You betcha.
I would like for SNL to bring on more “edgy” folks like Bill, though. No, they shouldn’t spout off wild conspiracy theories or use the show as a platform for bigotry. They should know how to toe the line, as folks back in this Golden Era did so well.
As for Kirk Cameron, the real reason Growing Pains went downhill was because he found religion and became more and more difficult to work with, changing scripts to align with his values and even getting a case member fired for posing in Playboy.
Not really. I was watching it in real time back then, and it entered into a gradual decline after the first three seasons. Those first three are definitely my favorite of any ’80s family sitcom, and were without a doubt funnier than most Family Ties or Cosby Show. Season 4 started to have some irritating episodes with some cheesy stuff, but still had strong episodes like the famous one where Matthew Perry drives drunk.
Part of the problem was that Mike had graduated high school at the end of season 3, and the character became less appealing as an adult loser who couldn’t get his act together and was still living at home. In season 5 he got pushed further into “new job” syndrome and they increased the number of episodes they did based on gimmick ideas, some that worked, some that didn’t. Another problem is little Ben grew up fast and lost his cuteness by the end of season 4. Same exact thing happened to Jennifer over on Family Ties. And they also couldn’t figure out how to write his character in a likable way after his growth spurt. They tried to make a him a horny teenager, which wasn’t too interesting. Yet another problem, Andrew “Boner” Koenig left the show in the middle of season 4. He had been a hilarious sidekick to Mike Seaver where almost everything he said was funny. And, the producers did the spin-off Just the Ten of Us which ran concurrently with seasons 4 and 5. So they may have been spreading themselves too thin, or devoting too much time to that show over Growing Pains.
Season 5 did drop Mike’s girlfriend Julie McCullough, but it’s totally unclear whether that was Kirk’s doing or the producers. He was set to get married to her in season 4’s cliffhanger, but it’s highly unlikely the producers intended them to be married. They could’ve continued on dating after not getting married, as I believe happened over at Family Ties with Mallory and Nick. But the new girlfriend Mike eventually got was also funny and beautiful (and Kirk ended up marrying her in real life, in a strange parallel to Michael J. Fox marrying Tracy Pollan, who played his girlfriend for a while on Family Ties). But the writers kept writing her off and on the show, missing an opportunity to develop a good relationship there.
Season 6 was the big red flag where they magically increased the age of the Seaver baby to that of a toddler, with a big head of red hair, strange since none of the other Seavers have hair like that. This magic kid was never developed into a decent character and just stuck out like a sore thumb. The gimmick episodes also got more frequent and the situations in the episodes more contrived. Then the final season 7 was a disaster, adding Leonardo Dicaprio to the cast as a random homeless kid who goes to live with the Seavers, and giving him a lot of “very special episodes” with lessons to be learned. Basically, the show fell victim to a lot of the typical problems that family sitcoms faced, but actually hit them a little earlier and harder than some other shows did.
I think the first four seasons are still really worth watching. There was a lot of funny stuff in there, some good stories, some really likable characters, actors who had great chemistry and even the “very special episodes” were kind of touching. You can stop after Mike’s wedding falls though at the beginning of season 5 and not miss much.
I just got a big kick out of your growing pains synopsis’s. I remember watching it when it had reruns on and I’d come back home from school, maybe around 7/8 Yrs old, I actually had no idea that it started in the 80s, as I assumed when I was watching it it was still on but that was in the very end of 90s.
I remember reading an article about the reason why the show ended from Alan Thicke a couple years before he passed away. And you aren’t completely wrong, but Anton’s post isn’t wrong either, as it seemed to be a combination of the two.
From what I recall in the article Kirk Cameron had become a born again Christian and suddenly started to censor his character. The reason why he never married the girl he was supposed to or continued to date on the show as you mentioned Mallory in family ties did (I never watched more than 2-3 eps of that show and that was only within the past two years or so, i wasn’t born when it was on but it was something my parents and bro watched before I was born. (I know of the infamous Tom hanks vanilla extract alcoholic episode).
But back to growing pains, the reason why the female he was engaged to never took place had nothing to do with the writers, it was all kirks say. That girl did an issue of playboy, she might have even been on the cover I can’t remember, as Anton Mentioned, but Kirk was really upset about it so he was able to make demands since he was the star of the show, despite how old he was, and understandably yes, you can’t keep a high schooler on for a dozen seasons, but that wasn’t the reason. But it allowed him to have the girl fired off the show and then he ended up his meeting his future real wife soon after who went on the show as his love interest after the failed engagement on the playboy girl (I want to say her name was Julie on the show but maybe that was the one he ended up w). It did become very much about his Christian beliefs and I agree with you that if you watch the first 4 seasons they are really solid (best episode is TGIF in season 2, what astonishes me is that Growing Pains was before saved by the bell, yet they allowed the use of cocaine, but on saved by the bell they couldn’t use speed or pills or coke, only these drug store energy pills in the infamous Jesse I’m so excited episode, but that’s just going off track…still confused why the cocaine episode pre saved by the bell on growing pains was fine, as was also featured in at least two episodes I saw when getting into all the great shows before I was born (facts of life) and that was on nbc too. I know growing pains was I think abc but none the less it’s weird that nbc wouldn’t allow the use of a stronger drug when it was used in the 80s on an episode where Blair’s dates a Coke head. And there’s another episode about blow too..).
But yeah, in the article, a lot of it did had to do with Kirk, and his clout kinda pulled the show in a downfall, but you bring on some solid points that definitely aren’t wrong. The little kid/new baby is typically a bad sign in tv, as that’s been used so many times and it never saves a tv show. There’s even a phrase for it but I forget, but remember reading about how diff strokes went downhill after they brought on the red head kid in replacement of Kimberly…and that just blowed.
You did leave out Tracey Golds huge struggle with anorexia. It’s really hard to tell in the first couple of seasons, I don’t even see a difference at the end but that’s also cause she’s hiding in baggy clothes and such, which is what most anorexics do, and I read some stuff about it, where she’s even called fat or eating a lot as bro sis jokes in the earlier seasons (at least the fist 3-4), but this drove her to a strict diet, to the point where she had to leave the show and only to return to get even worse. In the Leo episodes I never all of them but remember him being refreshing, I didn’t mind him I thought they needed someone like him, but I read something about why he left…it might have been due to a movie role or something about the show.
I never watched every episode, I think it did get bad when Ben got way tall and not cute (though I never thought he was a cute kid), but if Kirk had been less demanding on his personal beliefs, I think it could have gone on a better way, if you look at 90210, they kept them going into college, and then some! But watching a boring Mike sever live in his parents garage and teach, which just seemed like a totally random way to go, but clean, then it’s very boring and unwatchable, even w the Leo parts. And the last episode shows how sick Tracey gold still is, they all are eating pizza and she’s literally just picking at it not ever eating it, which she later mentions and says how embarrassing that is to watch.
Also Kirk Cameron distanced himself from the cast after becoming a born again Christian, and remembering I the article I think Thicke felt upset about his behavior, and it wasn’t until years later when he made amends with many of the others on the show.
… What the f**k?
Well put. I thought we all came to the SNL site to read the capsule history of “Growing Pains”? Not mentioned: Cameron had producers Steve Marshall and Dan Guntzelman removed… and the former would have a tough time after the show.
The background music in the Dracula sketch is from Werner Herzog’s classic Nosferatu the Vampyre. Nice touch!
I haven’t seen the Primetime Live sketch, but that last screencap looks like it could be a fleeting reference to Woods’ role in Videodrome. (eh, maybe not)
It’s criminal Woods wasn’t in more skits this episode. A rerun of a skit from three seasons ago? Stupid.
I’ve been thinking of that “You’re the dummy/No you’re the dummy” bit for years and I’ve never been able to find it to watch again. I thought it was hysterical when I first saw it. Do you know any way I could watch it online? The SNL archives don’t have it. Thank you!
It can be seen around the 54 minute mark in the following video: https://archive.org/details/saturday-night-live-s-15-e-04-james-woods-don-henley
They don’t have full versions of all of the season 15 shows on that site ( unless I’m missing them}, unfortunately, such as the Tom Hanks and Aerosmith one.
Thanks. I guess the follow up question is obvious but I fear there may not be an answer. Do you know any way I can get to hear that particular bit?
The sound in the video isn’t working for you? It works for me, but it only comes out in the left speaker/headphone. Obviously, I wouldn’t give you a link to a video with no sound. Were you listening through just a right speaker/headphone?
Try the following link instead, though you have to download the episode to view it: https://archive.org/details/SaturdayNightLiveOctober281989S15E5Most
Oh my goodness, thank you so much! I appreciate it more than you know!
I can’t remember everything from this episode, I watched it for the first time a couple weeks ago when finding this blog. But I do remember finding James Woods to be very amusing and thought the Dracula sketch was very memorable as I wrote in the dreaded season 20 season of the John Travolta sketch which definitely is nothing alike. But thought that this one in particular was super funny and watched it twice. I always thought James woods was super underrated and loved his work in The Boost & the real life based movie HBO did on the McMartin Preschool Trial. He’s role as a lawyer is amazing.
I think they definitely should have used him In more sketches, his monologue seemed weak to me, I know he did bigger roles than I mentioned so I’m just surprised that’s what the writers and him had come up with as I expected something stronger, but I did like this episode and the Dracula sketch is def one I won’t forget anytime soon!
me and my friends… my friends and i what have you used to watch snl religiously two years prior to two years after this episode. i came across this blog searching for the ‘three dudes automotive’ commercial sketch to show my son, forest. thanks for reminding me of how great this show was back it’s hey-day prime. the best episode i’ve ever seen to the day though was approximately four to nine years ago when dave chappell hosted… brilliant! jusayin’
oh… and of all the great comedians out there, i would like to state my favourite: rick moranis
thanks for all the entertainment guys/girls… laughter is the fruit of the soul
God bless
Peacock Streaming
Cold Opening (cut)
Monologue
Yard-A-Pult
Dracula ’89 (cut)
Primetime Live
Musical Performance (cut)
Weekend Update
Falling in Love (cut)
Musical Performance (cut)
The Raven (cut)
Ventriloquist (cut)
Three Dudes Holistic Automotive (cut)
Goodnights
Not a terribly funny episode. James Woods can be funny but he needs good scripts. And that stand up comedian bit was just annoying, its not funny to do something unfunny and then make a joke about it. Thats just lazy writing. Or burnout.
The three stoner mechanics sketch could probably have been funny if they fleshed it out more. Like a precursor to the Waynes World movie.