Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
George Bush (DAC) gives Saddam Hussein a preview of the sounds of war
— Dana’s adding a lot of funny new little touches to his usual hand gestures as Bush.
— Great line about the simple lesson America learned from Vietnam: “STAY OUT OF VIETNAM.”
— Love the part with him doing imitations of various types of falling bombs.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— SNL would later replace both the theme music and monologue with the dress rehearsal version in reruns.
— A good laugh from Quaid demonstrating how his uncontrollable smile cost him a part in the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ”.
— Didn’t care for the ending, with his “I know what’s in tonight’s show, and frankly, we’re in trouble” joke. His iffy delivery of it didn’t help either. I wonder if that’s the reason why reruns of this episode show the dress version of this monologue. IIRC, he delivers that line a little better there.
STARS: **½
A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY CHRISTMAS
album of holiday songs for troubled clans
— Here’s an absolute classic that’s deservedly been aired in many SNL Christmas compilation specials.
— So many laughs from the dysfunctional song lyrics, especially how they’re being delivered so cheerfully. I also like the various song titles that are scrolled by.
— And there goes my favorite part of this classic sketch, with Dana repeatedly singing the lyrics “Leave me alone, please go away, I’m doing fine, just go away” to the tune of “Carol of the Bells”.
— According to GettyImages, Jan didn’t wear a wig during the dress rehearsal version of this sketch (pic here). I can see why they ended up giving her a wig for the live show, as it makes her look much more convincing as a mother to Julia, Victoria, Mike, and Dana than how she looked with her real hair.
STARS: *****
SALLY
narcoleptic hunks (host), (PHH), (MIM)
— Despite the fact that she’s supposed to be playing one of the cheering ladies in the audience, Julia has a strangely unenthusiastic look on her face throughout this sketch, as if something was bothering her. She also keeps looking up at herself in the monitor for some reason.
— Not too great of a premise, but I did laugh at Phil falling out of his chair as he dozed off.
— The audience member in the black dress who asks a question (last screencap above) is Mike Myers’ then-girlfriend and future (ex-)wife.
— I liked Jan’s Sally Jesse Raphael getting overemotional when mentioning Mike’s character never having finished school.
— Jan as Sally: “I gotta admit, this is getting a little tiresome.” Is that meta commentary there? Because that line sums up this tepid sketch pretty well.
— I think the scene with Kevin as a narcoleptic exotic dancer is going on slightly longer in the live version I’m watching than it does in the rerun version.
STARS: **
EX-BOYFRIEND
members of (VIJ)’s family still adore her ex-boyfriend (host)
— Looks like the same kitchen set from the previous week’s Gross-Out Family sketch.
— Very good reveal of Kevin and Jan being the parents of Quaid’s ex-girlfriend, after the set-up of this sketch made you think they were HIS parents.
— Writer/pre-castmember Adam Sandler gets another early onscreen role, and almost steals the whole sketch as the little brother.
— Loved Quaid’s blunt “No” answer to Victoria after she pours her heart out to him (complete with background music) when asking if they can get back together.
— Victoria’s comical crying outburst (last screencap above) right before running out of the kitchen cracked me up.
— Great ending with the parents’ love for Quaid getting to the ridiculous point where they now decide to let him run the family business.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Brother Jake”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Annoying Man shows DEM how to make a coffee cake
Grumpy Old Man rails against shopping malls, Christmas carols, safe toys
— The photos of an angry George Bush (first two screencaps above) shown during Miller’s opening joke were a riot.
— Ha, Jon Lovitz making a cameo for the second episode in a row!
— Miller, when complaining to Annoying Man about his various habits: “The most annoying thing of all: you and Lovitz quit the show and then you’re back every damn week!”
— Great ending to the Annoying Man commentary, where Miller asking him how he’s able to sometimes use a dignified deep voice is answered by him exclaiming a Master Thespian-esque “ACTING!” I also noticed that right afterwards, Jon says “Goodbye, everybody, goodbye!” in his Evelyn Quince voice (his character in the “Tales of Ribaldry” sketches).
— Dana seems PARTICULARLY animated in tonight’s Grumpy Old Man commentary.
— Some truly great stories from Grumpy Old Man tonight, particularly how Christmas carols in his day only consisted of people screaming gibberish at the top of their lungs until they coughed up blood, and how children opening up Christmas presents in his day would immediately result in them either bursting into flames or losing a limb.
STARS: ***½
TALKING THROUGH TOUCH
Ernie Hitchens (MIM) & other massage students have personal problems
— Good characterization from Mike, even if he’s not particularly making me laugh here.
— Kevin’s eagerness to “touch” other couples is providing some good laughs.
— Loved Phil’s teeth-gritted delivery of “Let’s be careful not to piss around.”
— I like Farley’s pained groaning during his massage.
STARS: ***
MUSTANG CALHOUN
renegade pilot’s (host) reckless stunts aren’t limited to airplane tricks
— I love the cutaways to Quaid whooping like a maniac in the cockpit.
— Absolutely hilarious how the reckless actions Quaid is doing in the cockpit now involve him investing in shares, putting tin foil in the microwave, etc.
— More and more as it progresses, this sketch is getting freakin’ priceless. Phil’s angry outbursts in reaction to hearing what crazy stunt Quaid is now doing are killing me as well.
— This sketch would later be moved to the first half of this episode in reruns, which I definitely understand. One of my personal favorite sketches, even if it’s probably not widely considered a classic.
STARS: *****
SPROCKETS
Dieter sings Silent Night; Bavarian TV stars (host) & (CSR)
— Dieter: “I have become so jaded that someone should strike at my genitals with a toffee hammer.”
— I like the picture shown of each guest’s TV show, such as “Black American With a Gun”.
— After getting many big opportunities to shine in his first few months on the show, this is clearly around the time where Chris Rock’s airtime has taken a turn for the worse. He hasn’t had a lead role in weeks by this point and it’s starting to feel kinda rare to see him in any sketches (in fact, he didn’t appear AT ALL in the previous week’s Tom Hanks episode).
— I loved Rock’s angry delivery of “I’d whip that ASS!”, as well as his line about being the only black man in Germany.
— An overall disappointingly average Sprockets installment.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “River of Life”
SCHILLERVISION THEATRE
1952 holiday special is full of ads
— The human hair yarmulke ad was worth a good laugh.
— The mall Santa whiskey ad was okay.
— I usually can appreciate Schiller’s knack for recreating 1950s TV, but this overall film was a little meh. Kinda uninteresting and forgettable. A weaker version of the Schiller film from the Dennis Hopper episode a few weeks earlier, and I wasn’t even crazy about THAT one.
STARS: **½
THE SPECIALTY SONGS OF CAL MCLANE JR.
a jingoistic country album
— The idea was initially fairly funny, but this has gotten old fast and the redundancy of it isn’t working.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An average episode. There were a few fantastic pieces, but a lot of the show was merely okay, and a few parts were pretty disappointing. I can’t complain too much overall, but this was unmemorable for a Christmas show. One can’t help but wish that the previous week’s far superior Tom Hanks episode was the Christmas episode of this season.
— With this being the one-year anniversary of me starting this ‘One SNL a Day’ Project, I just want to say that it’s been an amazing journey so far. It’s been such a fascinating experience chronologically going through SNL’s timeline episode-by-episode on a daily basis. This was a HUGE task to take on; in fact, when I first started this project, I had an undisclosed slight feeling of uncertainty and worry, not knowing if I would be able to commit to the project like I wanted to. Cut to a year later, and I’m now so proud to see how successful the project has been. It’s hard for me to believe the fact that it’s already been a full year since I’ve started this project, and the fact that I’ve gone through so many SNL episodes and eras in such a short amount of time. I’m also very proud and appreciative of the large number of followers and regular commenters that this project has gained. I look forward to continuing this incredible ‘One SNL a Day’ journey.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tom Hanks)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
We enter the year 1991, with host Joe Mantegna
Not a whole lot of Christmas-themed sketches, which surprises me.
I’ve always loved Mustang Calhoun too. Some of the premise slightly reminds me of the more recent Twilight Zone “Gremlin on the wing” sketch with Jude Law, in which he reacts to the Gremlin doing increasingly goofier things on the wing of the plane.
Odenkirk wrote “Cal McLane Jr.” per the BMI database.
I think in the bonus featurette on the SNL in the ’80s doc DVD, Nealon remarked that anytime his parents were in the audience, he was always doing something embarrassing, mentioning “Nude Beach” and another sketch where he played a narcoleptic Chippendale stripper. I always wondered which sketch he was referring to with the latter, but now I see it’s the “Sally” sketch here.
Congrats on reaching the 1 year mark, Stooge! I have enjoyed this project and seeing you cover SNL eras you haven’t covered before. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Jurb!
Makes sense Odenkirk wrote that- I thought of the Cal McLane Jr. bit when I saw his C.S. Lewis character on “Mr. Show”‘s “America Blows Up the Moon” sketch in 1997
Really glad you enjoy the project, I’ve been reading these reviews since day 1 and they are incredible.
Thanks, Vax.
Congrats on managing to review exactly 15 years worth of SNL in one year, Stooge! I’ve enjoyed reading your reviews of these classic eras as well!
Thanks, Casey.
Odenkirk attended the College of DuPage (the setting of Talking Through Touch) back when; idk if that’s an indication he wrote this (could be a collabo with Smigel and/or Conan…)
John and Jim Belushi also went to DuPage.
Judd Apatow submitted the ex-boyfriend sketch to Sandler, who then submitted it without Judd’s name attached (Juss just wanted to see if it would get on).
Michael Anderson, who played the Man from Another Place on “Twin Peaks”, is the small person sitting in Santa’s lap during the Schillervision Theatre pretape. Makes sense, as this was Dec. 1990 & “Twin Peaks” was white-hot back then.
Ah, so THIS is the episode where Dennis Miller chewed out Jon Lovitz on Weekend Update for still hanging around. I was going crazy trying to remember where he did this!!
Of note: If I’m not mistaken, the first SNL best of Christmas sketches compilation made its debut on Dec. 22, 1990.
Yeah, with only the Bill Murray monologue from ’81 (in which he tells Santa “I Love You Man”!) and Eddie Murphy’s “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood” (in which he sells a doll with a cabbage as a head as a Cabbage Patch Doll!) from his return engagement as host in ’84 being the only Ebersol sketches submitted in that first holiday special…
An abridged version of “Merry Christmas Damnit!” and “Dysfunctional Family Christmas” were among the sketches added for the updated special, which I think came in 1998.
A Reddit user gave a rundown of the 1990-1997 special:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/kint28/saturday_night_live_christmas_past_the_first_xmas/
According to Judd Apatow on the Fly on the Wall podcast he wrote the ex boyfriend sketch and Sandler submitted it that week
Buzz Kulik was a real TV (and sometimes film) director who has tons of credits, including several episodes of “The Twilight Zone” and Steve McQueen’s final film, “The Hunter.”
Would any of the knowledgeable commenters here happen to know who wrote “Mustang Calhoun”? It feels like a Jack Handey sketch, but I don’t know for certain whether it was him. If anyone could let me know, I’d appreciate it.
It feels somewhat like a Handey sketch but also feels like other writers too. There should definitely be a website listing the author for every SNL sketch, in so far as we can track them down.
Family Christmas was great and they should consider doing more ensemble sketches. The narcilepsy premise was good and might have been funnier if the men were not just sitting around asnwering questions on a daytime talk show.
I hate annoying man. And its worse they brought back Lovitz for just this.
ADAM SANDLER! He’s good as a minor character. You can already see he’s going on the main cast soon.
A lot of the jokes in the massage sketch arent getting any laughs. Audience asleep?
50’s black and white sketch wasnt funny this time, like last time. They should end it.
Once again Victoria is dressed pretty for the good nights. I guess this must have been her thing, she producers seem to like it too.
Overall solid episode but not great. Quaid is trying so hard to be funny he ends up not being too funny.