Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
host gets the It’s A Wonderful Life treatment from Mephistopheles
— Nice fake-out at the beginning with a Pat Stevens title card showing up, only to have the sketch’s usual voice-over (Mark McKinney) say “The Pat Stevens Show will not be seen tonight”.
— I really like that they’re opening the show with a meta sketch, immediately addressing the controversy regarding the boycotting of the show.
— Another “It’s A Wonderful Life” parody this season, even using the same bridge set they used in the last parody.
— Good joke about Dice’s fanbase still being in high school.
— Dice: “Man, look at all those homeless people. Did I have any effect on THEIR lives?” Mephistopheles: “No! (muttering) Idiot.”
— Another funny use of Dana’s Frank Zappa (another infamous host), this time having him hilariously go off on an anti-censorship rant that we’re told lasted for 70 minutes.
— Very surprised at the gag revealing that Nora was crushed by Sinead O’Connor’s amplifier, which even gets enthusiastic applause from the audience. I admit to getting a laugh from the gag, but I feel bad. I mean, the woman is still employed on the show at this point, and they’re doing a mean-spirited gag like this about her?
— Funny exchange after Mephistopheles brings up the name Jon Lovitz. Dice: “That Liar guy?” Mephistopheles, in an offended manner: “Wasn’t his ONLY character…”
— Great devilish smile from Jon as Mephistopheles after saying “Live from New York…” (screencap below)
STARS: ****
OPENING MONTAGE
— It sure feels odd seeing Nora Dunn still being credited and announced in tonight’s opening montage (I assume they left her in for contract reasons). IIRC, this is later lampshaded during the goodnights where Don Pardo’s voice-over comically addresses his confusion over the fact that he still had to announce Nora during the opening montage. As usual for Don Pardo’s goodnights voice-overs, that would later be removed in reruns.
MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up & announces he’s donating his pay to Comic Relief
— I admit to getting a laugh right at the beginning with Dice’s first words being a loud and hammy “HOW ARE YA!” and then following that up with “That’s about all I can say tonight.”
— Things go awry fast as a group of protesters in the audience are suddenly heard loudly heckling Dice.
— I’m a little torn on what to think of Dice’s responses to the hecklers. On one hand, he impressively handled it with complete ease (then again, he probably has a lot of experience dealing with hecklers), but on the other hand, his “clever” comebacks to the hecklers were pretty cringeworthy (e.g. “Just ’cause I don’t wanna go out with ya, pal, doesn’t mean that I don’t dig ya!”).
— The whole heckling portion of this monologue would later be replaced in reruns with the dress rehearsal version, which goes along more smoothly without any audience interruptions. SNL would experience a very similar heckling incident two years later during Sharon Stone’s monologue (which would also be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns). For any of you readers wondering why Sharon Stone, of all people, would be heckled, I’ll go into more details when we reach that episode.
— Dice’s bus joke had a bad and baffling punchline. I did kinda chuckle at him punctuating it with a half-assed “Bada-bing!”, which sounded like even he was aware how bad his joke was.
— Interesting ending with him announcing he donated his SNL pay to the homeless, since he wasn’t able to appear at that night’s Comic Relief special.
STARS: **
DICEMAN EMPLOYMENT AGENCY
host’s employment agency offers jobs dealing with illegal activities
TV Guide “jeers” SNL for the sketch
— Funny brief appearance from Jon.
— A laugh from Dice offering Kevin a job as a crack dealer.
— This is starting to kinda drag.
— Okay, I finally got another laugh, from Dice offering Kevin a job where he just has to hold a guy while a thug beats him up.
— Mike’s threatening delivery of the line “The man wants his MONEEEEEYYYYYYY!!!” absolutely slayed me. The fact that it was followed by tense silence from the studio audience (I guess due to the fact that a non-comical fight scene had just occurred) makes it even funnier to me, for some reason.
— We get another TV Guide “Cheers and Jeers” sketch ending this season, leading us into a funny brief scene with Dana as a ranting Adolf Hitler spouting off Dana Carvey catchphrases (e.g. “Isn’t that special?”, “Wouldn’t be prudent”) among German gibberish.
STARS: **½
COOKING WITH THE ANAL RETENTIVE CHEF
anal-retentive Gene & his mother (JAH) prepare to make ladyfinger cake
— Nice addition of Jan as this character’s mother, to commemorate Mother’s Day.
— Good callback to the tape dispenser cozy that Phil’s character showcased in an earlier Anal Retentive Chef sketch.
— The negative tension between both characters is pretty enjoyable, though this sketch is turning out to be a little too average. Perhaps they’ve gone to the “chef” well a little too often for this character. I liked it when they kept changing his occupation in each installment.
— This would end up being the last time we ever see this character of Phil’s. They were actually going to bring both him and his mother back in the following season’s Kevin Bacon episode, but the sketch got cut after dress rehearsal. IIRC, in the Shales/Miller “Live From New York” book, there’s a story from Jan about how during that Kevin Bacon dress rehearsal, she broke out into emotional tears shortly before the Anal Retentive Chef sketch started, because Rockefeller Center had been receiving terroristic bomb threats or something like that (this was during the Gulf War). As she was crying, Phil went over to her and comforted her, giving her the courage to go ahead with the sketch.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Spanic Boys perform “Keep On Walking”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Annoying Man previews a free symphonic concert held in Central Park
Michael J. Fox (DAS) discusses his planned sequels to Casualties Of War
— This is the very first Weekend Update that opens with a dancing Statue of Liberty during the Update intro sequence, which would go on to be a tradition for the remainder of Dennis’ tenure as anchorperson. When I was younger, I used to think most of Dennis’ Updates had that dancing Statue of Liberty intro. I was surprised to later learn that it wasn’t introduced until the end of his penultimate year as anchorperson.
— Ha, while I have no idea what was up with Annoying Man taking a red ball thing and squeezing it under his neck while screaming twice (does anyone know what exactly was he doing?), it had me laughing so much.
— Annoying Man’s zit-popping sequence was hilariously gross.
— Hmm, this is unfortunately another Update this season where Dennis is relying on a few too many corny “misinterpreting a photo” jokes for my likes, though not too much so in tonight’s case.
— I liked the meta joke about Andrew Dice Clay being the first male enrollee at an all-women’s college that’s now gone co-ed.
— Writer David Spade gets his first big onscreen SNL role, playing Michael J. Fox in his own Update commentary. Since the audience would’ve had no idea who David Spade was at this time, as this is a good while before he gets added to the cast, I have to wonder what was going through their minds during this commentary. Were they all wondering “Is that Carvey???”
— Fantastic Michael J. Fox impression from David.
— I liked David-as-MJF’s random “Mallory?” at the end of the commentary, as a Family Ties reference.
— Dennis’ Pepsi joke completely bombed.
— Good ending to this Update with Dennis making a mock announcement that he’s going to boycott next week’s Candice Bergen episode (“And I think you know why”).
STARS: ***
DAD, WHAT’S SEX?
(host) uses slang to teach son (MIM) about birds & bees
(PHH) of Planned Parenthood critiques language used in “Dad, What’s Sex?”
TV Guide is tricked into giving SNL “cheers” for “Dad, What’s Sex?”
— I got a pretty good laugh from Dice’s line to Mike about “popping a boinger or two”.
— The muting-out of dirty words during Dice’s sex talk is coming off VERY sloppy in the live version I’m watching. Instead of only muting the dirty words, they mute almost the entire sentences he says them in, which is hurting the joke. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the rerun version of this episode, so I have to ask: do they censor the dirty words in that version, and if so, how? Do they add bleeps over the dirty words instead of just sloppily muting them out?
— Heh, now the timing of the word-censoring has gotten even worse, with them not muting the word “poontang” in time. NBC censors must’ve been sweating over the fact that “poontang” got out on the air uncensored in 1990.
— Cute ending with Mike jokingly asking Dice about the Mets.
— Ah, we get a rebuttal from Phil as a Planned Parenthood member.
— Phil’s suggestions for naughty word substitutes are very funny, especially his use of the term “the silk igloo” as a euphemism for the vagina.
— The TV Guide “Jeers” bit at the end was awful. It made no sense and fell completely flat.
STARS: **½
TALK RADIO
deejay Tony Trailer’s commentary cuts into songs, ads, guests
— This is using the same joke as the last appearance of this character, which was fine as a one-off sketch but I’m not sure lends itself well to a recurring sketch.
— Never mind, it turns out there’s an actual escalation to the joke this time, with Kevin going so far as to interrupt non-music things like a George Carlin comedy album excerpt, an Emergency Broadcast Test, and the report from his guest Victoria.
— For some reason, Victoria’s appearance here is where I start to really notice Nora’s absence tonight. Having an episode with only two female cast members is something I have to get used to, as we’re going to be seeing it for quite a while early on in the following season (and it even gets briefly addressed in a certain famous Kyle MacLachlan-starring sketch), before Julia Sweeney gets hired in November.
— Is that Spade I hear as one of the callers?
— Funny read-off statement from Kevin: “Sorry about last night, but those were my sister’s panties.”
STARS: ***
PROTEST
JAH reveals she’s been giving a lackluster performance to protest host
— Nice, well-deserved applause for Jan after introducing herself. The applause is especially coming off nice to hear after the amazing episode Jan just had in the preceding episode (Alec Baldwin).
— Funny reveal that Jan’s subtle way of protesting tonight’s host is by not giving 100% in the sketches.
— Amusing turn with Jan trying to take advantage of this extra time by breaking out into a Sweeney Sisters-esque song.
STARS: ***½
COOL MITE
tiny troublemaker (host) tells buddies of his latest exploits
— Another uncredited appearance from writer Rob Schneider. We’re clearly at the beginning of a transition into the many big changes we’re soon going to gradually see over the course of next season.
— This sketch feels like a precursor to the Tiny Elvis sketches from the early 90s. Considering Rob Schneider would play the title character in the second of the two installments of that sketch (the first installment had host Nicolas Cage playing the character) coupled with the fact that Rob has an onscreen role in this Cool Mite sketch, I have to wonder if he’s the writer behind both Cool Mite and Tiny Elvis.
— The scene with Victoria was executed too awkwardly.
— The dog attack was the first actual laugh I got from this sketch.
— I like Phil’s brief appearance as a wiseguy cop.
— When Cool Mite is supposed to suffer a second attack from the dog, the dog apparently misses its cue, resulting in dead air and leaving Dice to awkwardly break the fourth wall by ad-libbing in character “Hey, where’s the dog? It’s supposed to bite me!” SNL would later fix this in reruns by showing the dress rehearsal version of this portion of the sketch, where the dog attacks Cool Mite on cue.
— Weak sketch overall.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Julee Cruise performs “Falling”
RIDICULOUS BULL
Jake La Motta (host) asks brother (JOL) to beat him up
— Jon’s been getting tons of airtime tonight (serving as a sad reminder that we’re in the homestretch of his SNL tenure).
— A fairly thin, one-joke sketch, but I’m kinda enjoying the escalation of the type of objects Dice requests to be hit with, and I actually feel Dice’s performance is complimenting the material nicely. This sketch has a type of silliness that you often hear me say I always love to see in this SNL era.
— I like the looseness of the sequence with the sledgehammer.
— In the recording I’m watching of this episode, the visual quality of this sketch is strangely choppy and wonky. It causes a particularly bad glitch at one point during the part where Jon is asked by Dice to hit him with the microwave; the glitch causes us to miss a joke where Jon’s character was seemingly going to address the anachronism of a microwave being available in this old-timey setting. Jon began incredulously saying “Microwave?!? It’s 194–”, but whatever 1940s year he was going to say suddenly got cut off as the scene abruptly jumps to him walking over to pick up the microwave.
STARS: ***
PROTEST
KEN says his lack of inclusion in sketches is his protest of host
— After Kevin introduces himself, you can hear one sole audience member try to start a round of applause like Jan got earlier, but it doesn’t take because Kevin immediately continues speaking.
— Funny reveal of Kevin refusing to appear in all but three sketches tonight, which he feels would make more of a statement against tonight’s host than Jan’s making.
— I was expecting a little more from this overall piece, but this was a decent display of the type of humor that Kevin is always great at selling and making relatable.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— As no surprise, this was a pretty meh episode, especially for this era’s standards. I didn’t HATE this episode like I’m sure some people do based on their general dislike of Andrew Dice Clay (I personally have never had an opinion of him either way; I’ve always been completely neutral towards him), but I wasn’t crazy about the episode either. It began strongly with the meta cold opening, but immediately went downhill starting with the monologue and, despite some highlights here and there in the remainder of the show, the episode as a whole never fully took off. Aside from the cold opening, there was nothing in this episode that I feel stands out as strong, and we got a higher number of tepid material than we’re used to seeing this season. As for Andrew Dice Clay himself, much like my feelings of the episode, I didn’t HATE him as the host, but I didn’t exactly laugh all that much at him either. One problem I had is that he never stepped out of his comfort zone; he basically just played himself all night. He could have at least TRIED to play against type in one sketch, by comically doing a character that’s pretty much the exact opposite of his famous stand-up persona.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Alec Baldwin)
a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Nora Dunn returns to the cast for what ends up being her, and Jon Lovitz’s, final episode, which itself ends up being the final episode of the 1986-1990 renaissance years. Season 15 comes to an end with host Candice Bergen, the second consecutive host to have the word “dice” in their name.