October 20, 1990 – George Steinbrenner / The Time (S16 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
in a dream, host manages the Yankees & plays every position on the field

— I like Victoria and Kevin’s little comments about how peaceful George Steinbrenner looks when sleeping.
— Very funny concept with George being every position on the Yankees.
— A lot of fun visuals throughout this, especially the convincing shot of an entire dugout of players with Steinbrenner faces (which used to kinda creep me out the first few times I saw this episode in Comedy Central reruns).
— The dress rehearsal version of this cold opening had George dreaming a completely different scenario; something to do with him giving a speech at Yankee Stadium. A video of this dress rehearsal cold opening (along with various other cut dress rehearsal sketches from this season) is/was available online at, I think, NBC.com, but I’ve been having trouble finding it lately. If anyone can find it and give me a link, I’d be very thankful.
STARS: ****

MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Funny opening announcement from George: “I bought the Cincinnati Reds.”
— Him listing off things he won’t do since he’s not an entertainer isn’t that funny, though I did like his line “I’m not gonna catch a bullet in my teeth… I hope.”
STARS: **

MIDDLE-AGED MAN
Middle-Aged Man counsels (JAH) on whether her husband is having an affair

— Good to see this back.
— Love the addition of Chris Farley as Middle-Aged Man’s sidekick Drinkin’ Buddy, as well as the explanation that Middle-Aged Man gives as to what the difference between him and Drinkin’ Buddy is: “I have a life.”
— A good laugh from Middle-Aged Man’s response to Jan telling him she’s had the same hairstyle for years: “What are you, Betty Rubble? Change it!”
STARS: ***½

CARL’S QUIK-STOP
convenience store owner (host) can’t bring himself to fire any employees

— Very memorable sketch with George playing a boss with an aversion to firing people because “it’s not in my nature”. A great self-deprecating way of George satirizing his infamous reputation.
— I’m loving how George is going on and on about how asinine it would be to fire people at the drop of a hat (“Only a JACKASS would run his business that way”, etc.)
— Great ending line from Phil: “There goes the opposite of a horrible man.”
— One of the best “host plays a character who’s the exact opposite of themself” sketches SNL has ever done.
STARS: *****

SLAPPED BY BEAVER TAILS
guests relate run-ins with angry dam dwellers

 

— Funny opening animated title graphic.
— The video of Victoria getting slapped on the face with a beaver tail provided a pretty good laugh.
— I didn’t get the whole bit with Phil’s cowboy character misunderstanding the show’s title.
— The sketch is over already? Not sure where else they could’ve taken this, but this felt underwritten.
STARS: **½

WINSTON-MCCAULEY FUNERAL HOME
Winston-McCauley Funeral Home has a no-necrophilia guarantee

 

— Hilarious concept of a spokesman guaranteeing their employees will never have sex with the dead body of your loved one, made even funnier by the soft, professional presentation of this ad.
— Great scene with Mike getting busted when he’s about to have sex with a dead woman.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Jerk Out”

WEEKEND UPDATE
CSR believes boxing prowess is proportional to discrimination from whites
Roseanne (VIJ) & Tom Arnold (CHF) explain National Enquirer lawsuit

— Starting off tonight’s Update with an awful lot of corny “misinterpreting a picture” jokes.
— Second episode in a row with a Chris Rock Weekend Update commentary.
— Loved Rock pointing out how “the lower you go on the social ladder, the better you fight.”
— Chris Rock: “I feel so sorry for the Indians, because we took… well, we didn’t take, YOU people took their land.”
— Rock’s overall commentary was fantastic, even better than his one from the preceding episode. He’s carving out a great niche for himself with these stand-up commentaries he’s been doing on Update.
— The Roseanne/Tom Arnold commentary is funny so far, and Farley’s Tom Arnold impression is a riot.
— There’s the famous moment of this commentary with Farley flashing his asscrack, the very first display of his fearlessness as a performer.
— Dennis, addressing the aforementioned asscrack flash after the Roseanne/Tom Arnold commentary has ended: “Did I just see what I think I saw? It was like I was above the Grand Canyon in a helicopter.” In the “dress rehearsal bloopers” section of Chris Farley’s “Best Of” DVD, they show a portion of the dress rehearsal version of this commentary (which includes Farley’s wig falling off at one point) where Dennis has a different comment about the asscrack flash: “Did I just see the new guy’s asshole?”
— Something seems to have gone wrong with the news screen after the Roseanne/Tom Arnold commentary has ended. The pictures that’s been shown on the screen since then look strangely enlarged (it’s noticeable during the last two above screencaps of Donald Trump and the New Kids on the Block, respectively).
— Dennis’ deconstruction of the “brooding” member of New Kids on the Block was fantastic.
— Dennis: “In a ceremony at City Hall this week, the stench of urine was named New York’s official smell.”
— After a bad start, tonight’s Update ended up being a strong one for Dennis;  his best in a while.
STARS: ****

ATTACK OF THE COLOSSAL KILLER LINCOLN
budget impass unleashes evil statue (PHH)

— Very funny sudden turn with the Lincoln statue biting off Dana’s head.
— Jan’s exaggerated “Eeeew!” in reaction to the aforementioned head-biting incident makes me think that she and Dana are supposed to be playing the same teen couple they played in the similarly-titled Attack Of The Masturbating Zombies sketch from the preceding season. In that one, Jan kept saying “Eeeew!” throughout the sketch in the same manner as she did here, and Dana wore the same wig he wears here.
— Excellent premise.
— Entertaining footage of Killer Lincoln destroying the city.
— Phil’s grunts as Killer Lincoln are reminding me of his Frankenstein.
— I really like how we’ve been seeing plenty of the new guys Rock and Farley throughout tonight’s episode.
— Killer Lincoln’s whimper during Rock’s sad story was really funny.
— Good turn with Tom Davis entering as a giant Thomas Jefferson.
— I like the random “Oh my god, there’s busload of Japanese tourists out there!” turn with obvious stock footage from a Godzilla movie.
— Hilarious death scene with Killer Lincoln getting impaled by the Washington Monument.
STARS: ****½

ULTRA SLIM-FAST
LOM & ALF explain to host why he’s among dictators in a fake Slim-Fast ad

— Wow, Chris Rock continues to get more and more airtime tonight. His accent as Idi Amin is very funny.
— Great turn with George stopping the sketch to question why he’s paired with ruthless dictators.
— Lorne: “Most people don’t know Jerry Reinsdorf. They know Pol Pol.” George: “Sure they know Pol Pot – he killed a million people!”
— George: “Idi Amin – he ATE people!” Lorne: “Actually, I think that was Bokassa.” So many lines in this sketch are tickling the hell out of me.
— Good part with Al Franken and Lorne coming up with an obviously false explanation of why George is paired with evil dictators.
— Very funny touch with George being given a pointy dictator hat.
— According to GettyImages’ dress rehearsal pictures from this episode (you can view the whole collection here), Saddam Hussein was played by Phil in dress rehearsal (pic here). I wonder if the reason they had Kevin play him during the live show is because it took quite a while for Phil to remove his Lincoln statue make-up from the preceding sketch.
STARS: ****½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Chocolate”

— At one point during a restaurant act that’s performed during the song, Morris Day removes the platter covering his dinner, sees a plate of chicken, and says an uncensored-but-hilarious “Where the fuck this chicken come from? I thought I ordered ribs!” The expletive would later be muted out in reruns.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Shelley Long (JAH), Walter Mondale (DAC), host

— A lot of laughs from Phil grilling Jan’s Shelley Long over her decision to leave “Cheers”.
— I liked Jan’s Long timidly answering “yes” to the question of if she ever asked the “Cheers” producers if her Diane character can come back.
— Funny Walter Mondale voice from Dana, especially how he keeps pronouncing “I know” as “I knoo”.
— Great part with Phil going into excessive detail of how Mondale is the only candidate in history to run on a platform of higher taxes.
— For some reason, I always laugh at the little touch with a graphic of Mondale’s name randomly showing up on the bottom of screen during one long pause he makes before saying his usual “I knoo”.
— Love the casual reveal of George having women’s breasts, as well as Phil’s response to that being “I’ll get right to the obvious question……. why breast implants?”
STARS: ****

PAYING FOR DINNER
(host) insists on paying for fancy meals- it makes the others look bad

— Victoria’s ditzy lines are not really working for me here.
— This sketch is pretty dead so far and isn’t going anywhere interesting.
— You can tell Jan tried to save the sketch just now, with her comical emotional outburst, which was the first real laugh I got here.
— That’s it? The sketch is over? This felt kinda pointless.
STARS: *½

COMPLAINT
host hits on female reporter (JAH) complaining about a sexist ballplayer

— Funny reveal of George in his underwear.
— Some of George’s flirtatious comments to Jan are kinda funny.
— Another overall sketch that ended up being unusually short, didn’t go anywhere too interesting, and felt fairly pointless.
STARS: **

THE VISION OF VAN GOGH
by TOS- astigmatism yielded most famous art

— The montage of appalled reactions to the painting made me laugh.
— Decent payoff with the result of Van Gogh getting glasses leading to him painting bizarre, goofy animal art.
STARS: ***

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An enjoyable episode. While there were a few misfires and underwritten material (especially towards the end), most of what was good in this episode was great, including some particularly memorable instances of George Steinbrenner poking fun at himself. Speaking of which, George was a very good sport as a host and didn’t do too badly for a non-actor.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Susan Lucci)
a slight step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Patrick Swayze