Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
army general Mr. Subliminal briefs the press about the Gulf War
— Second episode in a row with a cold opening starring Kevin as someone giving a military briefing to press reporters, and both openings also have an intro from Phil setting up the appearance of Kevin’s character. In my early days of watching reruns on Comedy Central, I used to get these two cold openings confused for each other all the time.
— Good to see Kevin doing his subliminal routine in the cold opening slot again this season.
— Overall, while Kevin’s subliminal lines in tonight’s opening wasn’t as consistently strong as his ones from the Tom Hanks episode and no particular lines tonight stood out, they were still reliably funny as usual.
STARS: ***½
OPENING MONTAGE
— Adam Sandler’s photo from his debut in last week’s montage (first screencap below) has been changed to a new pic (second screencap below).
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Fun part with her excitedly announcing she’s officially overexposed.
— Great self-deprecating line from her at the end about being an “insecure ego-driven megastar who cannot deal with rejection”.
— A pretty high-energy monologue overall.
STARS: ***½
METROCARD
operator (host) & customer (PHH) remember a call for help
— A lot of laughs from Roseanne giving a comically out-of-place Roseanne-esque performance as the phone operator, with her blunt comments throughout her stories.
— Very funny contrast between the tone of Phil and Roseanne’s testimonials, with my favorite part being Phil kindly recalling a harsh comment from Rosanne telling him what he can do with a personal check as “She gave me several options.”
— Supposedly, there was some kind of bad technical error during the live broadcast of this. While the version I’m reviewing of this episode is live, it’s a Canadian west coast airing, where they apparently fixed whatever the bad technical error in this sketch was.
STARS: ****½
MISERY II
DAC’s biggest fan (host) makes him keep Church Lady alive
— Dana announces he’s retiring Church Lady, which is a promise that he’d end up keeping for the rest of his SNL tenure.
— The camera does a casual reveal of Jon Lovitz sitting next to Dana in the car, which receives absolutely no audience reaction. It may be because they already saw him sitting there, but it’s funny to imagine that it’s because Jon’s cameos have become so commonplace that the audience has no reaction to them anymore.
— I like Jon asking if he can take over Church Lady.
— Perfect casing of Roseanne.
— Absolutely hilarious visual of Dana’s banged-up legs.
— Am I crazy, or whenever Roseanne enters and exits the room, you can see the back of Jon Lovitz standing in the hallway (screencap below)? Why is he there? Waiting for his cue to enter at the end of the sketch?
— Great visual of a reluctant Dana dressed as Church Lady when the camera cuts back to the bedroom scene.
— The scenes with Lorne in his office are very good. I loved the part with him saying he doesn’t need Dana’s characters or impressions anymore because he has the next big thing: a character who calls people by a bunch of nicknames, and as Lorne gives an example of that, you realize he’s talking about Richmeister. Considering the last two episodes featured Richmeister’s first two appearances, and now he’s being mentioned in this sketch tonight, this shows how much they were really trying to push that character and/or how quickly popular he became.
— I love Dana using his Church Lady catchphrases in an angry manner when trying to kill Roesanne (“Isn’t THAT special?!! Isn’t THAT convienient?!?”).
— Dana: “Jon, I thought you were dead.” Jon: “ACTING!”
— Great ending with Jon fulfilling his dream to play Church Lady.
STARS: ****½
SALLY
host & Tom Arnold [real] respond to TV movie
— Another good use of Victoria’s great Roseanne impression, as well as a welcome return of Farley’s Tom Arnold impression.
— Feels a little weird seeing Tom Arnold so fat here.
— Once again, Jan is really good at doing the Sally Jessy Raphael overdramatics.
— The end of the restaurant scene was priceless. This is the first of two times in the calendar year 1991 where Victoria Jackson gets humped on a restaurant table during a sketch. A hint on what the second sketch is: it’s a very famous one that features a whole bunch of Italian characters.
— I love Farley’s demented “I! DON’T! TAKE! NO! CRAP! FROM! NO! BODY!” yelling during the dramatic close-up of him kicking a photographer to death.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “World Clique”
WEEKEND UPDATE
propaganda tool Iraqi Pete (ADS) spouts anti-American sentiments
— Adam Sandler gets his first-ever big role, and his performance here as Iraqi Pete is freakin’ priceless, made even funnier by the chorus of audience boos throughout the segment.
— Excellent delivery from Dennis during his long-winded set-up of a joke about a character from Thirtysomething dying.
STARS: ***½
PAT
(host) fails to figure out whether androgynous Pat is a man or a woman
— Pat officially becomes recurring. I believe according to the “Live from New York” book, it was Roseanne’s idea to bring the character back, as she was a fan of the first Pat sketch and asked Julia if they could do another installment of the sketch.
— Julia’s wearing less padding than she wore last time she played this character.
— I like the mysteriousness of Pat’s answer to Roseanne saying accounting is such a male-dominated field: “Why do you think I took this job in the first place?”
— Like last time, there’s some good laughs from Pat’s gender-unspecific answers to questions asked by others.
— Funny appearance from Dana as the equally androgynous Chris.
STARS: ***½
A PRESIDENTS’ DAY REMEMBRANCE
Abraham (PHH) vs. Mary Todd (host) Lincoln
— A big laugh from how Mike’s dignified set-up of a typical evening with the Lincolns is casually followed by a scene with them in an insane, wild fight. Phil’s loud outbursts during that scene are especially hilarious.
— Funny how an unfazed Mike casually continues speaking to the camera while the Lincoln’s fight gets carried over to right next to him.
STARS: ***½
HAPPY FUN BALL
Happy Fun Ball comes with a bunch of scary-sounding disclaimers
— Here’s a Jack Handey classic and one of my all-time favorite SNL pieces.
— Priceless contrast between the playful tone of the early scenes with the kids and the serious disclaimers that take over the commercial afterwards.
— Some of my favorite parts of the disclaimers are the long list of symptoms one might suffer from Happy Fun Ball, the mention of Happy Fun Ball being dropped from war planes onto Iraq, and of course “Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.”
STARS: *****
IRAQI PETE
Iraqi Pete further eggs on the audience; TV Guide “cheers” SNL for him
— Another hilarious goofy villain-esque performance from Adam as this character.
— We get another TV Guide Cheers & Jeers ending. This one was okay.
STARS: ****
COMEDY KILLERS
stand-up comics on a game show about audience turn-offs
— Great concept.
— Some good laughs from the list of categories on the board.
— A particularly strong part with Roseanne’s self-referential story about doing a jokingly bad rendition of the National Anthem.
— I’m loving Kevin’s delivery throughout this, especially his reading of the example sentence “I hope you get rectal cancer” and the way he said “Ted Kennedy: not a respected figure.”
— The lightning round with Roseanne is fun.
— Funny reveal that the greatest comedy killer of all time is the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Power of Love”
VICTORIA’S SECRETS
VIJ tells all about her dumb blonde image
— A creative and different setting.
— Victoria’s revelations are providing some solid amusement. This has an almost Deep Thoughts-esque feel.
STARS: ***½
OPPOSITES ATTRACT
movie about a millionaire (MIM) & a prostitute
— This feels very different from what you typically see in this era.
— Good disgusting make-up on the prostitute.
— I liked the lobster/crabs joke during the dinner table scene.
STARS: ***
WHITE TRASH HISTORY MINUTE
how tuna noodle casserole was created
— During the opening shot of a bookshelf, one of the book titles seen is “The Big Picture by A. Whitney Brown.”
— Rosanne’s constant slaps to Farley’s head are fairly funny. Not much else to laugh at here, though.
— An overall weak way to end the show.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mostly very strong episode, and had some really memorable pieces, particularly MetroCard, Misery II, Happy Fun Ball, and Comedy Killers.
— The aforementioned Canadian west coast live airing I reviewed of this episode was missing a fake ad for McIntosh Jr. (“The power to crush the other kids”).
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kevin Bacon)
— a mild step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Alec Baldwin
For one of the musical performances, I think I remember the audience started clapping just as Roseanne tried to add “featuring Bootsy Collins…” and I forget what else. Could you make out everything she said? Other than that, another very strong episode. “86 to 93 was the bessssssst.”
Kubelsky, it was Bootsy Collins & The Rubber Band.
what is it with much-maligned female comedians playing Mary Todd Lincoln in SNL sketches? I will say that this sketch was a lot better than Amy Schumer’s..
Why did so many sketches at this time end using the Cheers and Jeers joke? I don’t know if somebody on the show was amused by a real-life Cheer/Jeer the show got or something.
It feels like an easy way to end a sketch they don’t know how to end, similar to a few years later when they’d start saying, “This was on behalf of (blah blah association).”
Roseanne’s personality, appearance, and overall comic ability would undergo garish changes over the relatively short timespan of her hosting stints (91-94), which new fans will get to document through your blog. It’s unfortunate what became of her comedy, because this episode has some terrific moments from her, especially the Metrocard sketch, which is an all time classic.
One thing that did remain consistent is she seemed to try to support and help other women get their work on the air, as shown with Julia here, and her 94-95 episode, which was one of the very few that had women in central roles.
Happy Fun Ball is SNL at its best. Firing on all cylinders. And what a voiceover from Phil. Why that is not on SNL’s Youtube channel I genuinely don’t know.
They did post it on their channel a month after you wrote this. Looks like an unofficial copy had been out there for 10 years before and is still there. They don’t have as many hits as I would expect for a commercial I considered one of their best. But one problem is just how insane the disclaimers on commercials have truly gotten in modern times, especially on prescription drug ads. Happy Fun Ball’s disclaimers don’t seem as absurd as they used to.
I’m old enough to have read tv guide cheers & jeers and I was always highly amused by their placement on the show
It’s funny how the Sally/Roseanne and Tom parody would air, not knowing that three years later as the Arnolds’ marriage implode, there would be not one, but TWO made-for-TV movies on them – one on NBC (“Roseanne and Tom: Behind the Scenes”) and the other on FOX (“Roseanne: An Unauthorized Biography”).
Of course, during Roseanne’s third hosting stint on SNL in ’94 (during the horrible Season 20), they made fun of those movies, along with Fox’s made-for-TV movie on Madonna (“Madonna: Innocence Lost”) into a super parody with the newly former Mrs. Arnold as Rosie O’Donnell. I’m sure that will be covered when this site gets to 1994-95.
I loved Misery II with the whole Dana-quits-as-Church-Lady bit and even with Lorne touting the Richmeister even though I was never crazy about that mostly-one-note character…
I think I figured out what the technical error in the Metro Card sketch is. For some reason, the “Previously Recorded” copy that’s floating around out there has the original audio, where Phil calls it the “Mastercard” hotline. The official copy that NBC had posted online has it dubbed over with Metrocard. It’s not different video, it’s definitely a dub of dialogue. And I think they just dropped in that one word as a replacement, they didn’t have Phil recite the whole thing. It’s done well and you wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t looking for it. Of course Phil had a whole side hustle going in looping dialogue for films before he was on SNL, so he knew how to do it. It’s more of a “legal” error than a technical error, as they spend the rest of the sketch trashing “Mastercard.” Although you see a picture of Metrocard during that, I don’t the word Metrocard gets spoken again until the end.
Just an FYi..You are missing the McIntosh Jr. Commercial that aired after the Its Pat sketch. There are no SNLers appearances it so its an easy one to miss.
I already mentioned in the conclusion of my review that the McIntosh Jr. commercial was missing from the copy I watched of this episode.
Comedy Killers was written by Al Franken and James Downey per Franken on Conan’s podcast a few months back.
Wasn’t this episode nominated for an emmy?
Ah, the MetroCard sketch. As someone who has spent a lot of time working in call centers, I can really relate to this. Roseanne’s character sounds like so many of my former coworkers it’s scary. And, by law, every customer service horror story must contain the phrase “and I haven’t had a break for two hours”.
Misery 2 is a classic. Actually most of these are pretty good. Roseanne works great with the cast. This is another episode which showcases the new guys really well, but also demonstrates Victoria and Jan aren’t getting as much screen time because of it. And you know their tenures are ending soon. Jons cameos are nice. He always worked well with just about everyone, and he also held things together during the weaker seasons.
Its hilarious that in 1991 some fool actually thought Bart Simpson was out. Even better knowing in a year Conan will leave SNL and go to The Simpsons then write some of the very best episodes they ever had. I still don’t like Pam or the the Pam sketches. This character is just annoying, not funny. That brunette girl in the movie spoof is Paula Marshall, about a year or two before she was on an episode of Seinfeld. I do not know who played the blonde hooker. And again, the last sketch of the episode was the weakest. Looks like more of a just-in-case sketch, if they needed to fill a short time slot. which they did. Overall good episode but Victoria did not have much screen time. At least she had a sketch written specifically for her. And Jan didnt get too much time either.