November 10, 1990 – Jimmy Smits / World Party (S16 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
George Bush (DAC) emphasizes that Mario Cuomo has a foreign-sounding name

— Love Dana-as-Bush’s ways of demonstrating how down his approval rating has gone.
— Some good laughs from him emphasizing how un-American Mario Cuomo’s first name is.
— Memorable part with him using infrared night vision goggles, especially him getting scared by Little Dan Quayle sneaking up on him with night goggles of his own.
— Interesting how they let the child actor playing Quayle (Jeff Renaudo) deliver “Live from New York…” this time.
STARS: ***½

OPENING MONTAGE
— Season 16’s growing cast continues to increase in size, as Julia Sweeney and David Spade are added to the cast tonight as featured players, the former of whom is a new SNL hire and the latter of whom was already working on SNL as a writer and had made many uncredited onscreen appearances.

MONOLOGUE
DOP provides a Spanish translation of host’s story

— Nice energetic entrance from Jimmy Smits.
— Pretty fun idea of Don Pardo translating Jimmy’s dialogue into Spanish.
— Boy, this bit ended up running out of steam and dying off pretty fast. At least they seemed to be fully aware of that.
STARS: **

CHIA HEAD
an organic alternative to traditional baldness countermeasures

 

— Priceless and very memorable concept.
— I love them showing the process of Kevin planting his about-to-grow hair, as if it’s perfectly normal.
— The testimonials are all very funny, especially Rock’s.
STARS: *****

GAME CHALLENGERS
(host) competes to reclaim Native American artifacts

 

— Pretty funny how one of the contestants is a Native American coming to reclaim the Indian artifacts that are being presented as gameshow prizes.
— Funny reveal of the skeleton on display being Jimmy’s great-grandfather.
— As usual in his portrayal of gameshow hosts, I love Phil’s overly-cheerful demeanor in this.
— Heavy reliance on Don Pardo tonight, between the monologue and now him being held hostage from off-camera in his announcer’s booth at the end of this sketch.
STARS: ***

SPANISH PRONUNCIATION
NBC News employees overdo their Spanish pronunciations; Bob Costas cameo

 

— This is a fleshed-out, sketch version of a commentary that Victoria did on Weekend Update a year earlier, where she kept using a heavy accent when pronouncing the names of Spanish nations.
— Dana is particularly funny at doing the Spanish pronunciations here.
— Decent Bob Costas cameo.
— Jimmy’s angry outburst at the end was good.
STARS: ***

SIMON
while in the tub, neglected English boy Simon (MIM) shows his drawings

— This Mike Myers character makes its debut.
— I like the opening announcer’s passing mention of the show having been preceded by 5 hours of The All-England Sheepdog Trials from Bridlington.
— Good theme song.
— I’m enjoying Mike’s characterization and unique pronunciation of certain words (particularly “draw-rings”).
— I like the New York hotel window drawing with the window washer blocking the view.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Way Down Now”

WEEKEND UPDATE
in Central Park, JAH interviews New York Marathon last-place runner (CHF)

— A very rare Update appearance from Jan, though as usual, it’s not behind the Update desk.
— The marathon runner commentary is featuring a very early display of Farley’s extreme energy. Unfortunately, there’s not much for him to work with here in terms of material. A fairly tepid Update commentary.
— Dennis, in a meta comment about Farley after the marathon runner commentary has ended: “At least we didn’t see his ass this week.”
— Dennis goes on a jokingly xenophobic-esque rant, but it fell flat for me.
— I’ve been noticing lately that Dennis’ trademark arm-swipe when scribbling off the sheet of paper after his “I… am… outta here” tagline hasn’t been as energetic as usual this season. A sign that he’s starting to get burned out as an Update anchor, which unfortunately ends up only getting worse as this season progresses.
STARS: ***

FIRST DATE
(host) is frustrated by ditzy (JUS)’s short attention span & bad stories

— Julia Sweeney gets her very first big showcase, right in her first episode.
— Feels strange in hindsight seeing Julia playing such a ditzy character like this, considering this is VERY different from the roles she’d end up typically being cast in for most of her tenure.
— Not caring for where this sketch has been going so far.
— Okay, I did chuckle at the part just now with Jimmy demonstrating to Julia the proper way to tell a story, after all of her bad attempts.
— Ha, I loved Julia’s abrupt “I gotta go” immediately after hinting to Jimmy that she wants to sleep with him.
— For a sketch that dragged and didn’t make me laugh much, this had an actual funny ending. Not sure it was worth sitting through this entire sketch to get there, though. Not the greatest way for Julia Sweeney to make a first impression, which I hate to say, as I like Julia as a performer and have the benefit of hindsight to know that she goes on to do some good things on the show.
STARS: **

THE DARK SIDE
Nat X (CSR) discusses race with host & Gerry Cooney (KEN)

— Two sketches in a row starring a new cast member. Cool.
— Loved the opening line from Phil’s voice-over: “A man so black, he goes to funerals naked.”
— The set is a bit different from how it would look in subsequent installments of this sketch. There’s no window behind Nat X in this one.
— I love the idea of this character for Chris Rock, and he’s giving a strong performance. This sketch comes off so refreshing to see on SNL after the lack of urban humor during the late 80s era.
— Great line about how “the man” made the black jellybean the worst tasting candy on earth.
— I liked the Top 5 list, even if this one kinda pales in comparison to some of the later ones.
— Nat X to Gerry Cooney: “This the only time you can get THIS close to a black man without gettin’ ya ass kicked!”
— I liked the number total shown of how much money white people lost betting on Cooney.
— Something seemed to go wrong at the end of the Gerry Cooney interview. There was a long awkward pause, and then the ending Nat X theme music was cued up, but played way too loud, causing Rock to have to practically SHOUT his lines over it as he wraps up the show.
STARS: ***½

DOORMEN
doormen (ROS) & (KEN) discuss building tenants behind their backs

— Wow, THREE sketches in a row with a new cast member in a lead role. I love it!
— This would go on to be a semi-recurring sketch. Rob Schneider and Kevin’s characterizations and interplay in these sketches are fun, and have always kinda reminded me of the characterizations and interplay between Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest in those Willie and Frankie (the “I hate when that happens” characters) sketches from season 10.
— After the initial reveal of the comedic hook, this overall sketch didn’t go anywhere too interesting and ended with kind of a flat feeling. I liked this sketch more for Rob and Kevin’s chemistry and delivery than for the material itself.
STARS: **½

MANHATTAN MOBILE HOME PARK
(host), (VIJ), (CHF) live in a mobile home in NYC, with some difficulty

— I absolutely LOVE the setting of this with everything in the home being sideways. Something tells me Conan O’Brien is the writer behind this, and not just because he ends up making a brief appearance at the end (though that DOES kinda help my theory).
— Odd technical error just now, where they accidentally cut back to the establishing shot of the mobile park while Jimmy was in the middle of speaking.
— Another blooper, this time a funny one: Victoria’s release of the vacuum she was holding causes its handle to lightly bump onto Jimmy’s crotch.
— What the…? Is that freakin’ CHING CHANGE as the delivery boy?!? Oh, god.
— The overall sketch ended up being kinda average, which is a little disappointing considering how great it could’ve been with its creative setting. This fizzled out a little towards the end, especially with Dana’s god-awful Ching Change character hijacking the sketch.
— This sketch would later be removed from reruns and be replaced with a Schiller’s Reel.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ship of Fools”

DETECTIVES
(host)’s clever-sounding verbal reversals irritate fellow policeman (DAC)

— Jimmy’s habit of reversing verbs in Dana’s statements to sound “deep” and philosophical are increasingly funny.
— I like the sudden “I’m going to have to kill you” turn.
— Funny casual delivery from Farley with his “Killed your partner, huh?” line.
— I love the ending with Farley’s “Let’s let a bite get us something to eat” and the enlightened “Ah!” face that he and Dana make in unison afterwards.
— A short and sweet sketch. I don’t think this is a well-liked sketch among SNL fans (every review I’ve ever read of this episode gave this sketch a low rating), but I personally have always dug this sketch.
— SNL would later use a similar premise in a 1998 sketch with Jimmy Fallon as the ghost of John Lennon speaking to fans at a Lennon Memorial.
STARS: ***½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very, very average episode. So average, that it was forgettable. Almost nothing stood out as great, and most of the show just hovered around the “okay” range. Barely anything to remember in this. I will say I did like the fact that the newer cast members got a lot of focus tonight, especially in the post-Update half of the show.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Patrick Swayze)
a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Dennis Hopper