September 28, 1991 – Michael Jordan / Public Enemy (S17 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Wayne’s World- Wayne & Garth pick the best & worst of the summer of ’91

— A very fun and promising way to kick off the new season, with a Wayne’s World cold opening.
— Great topic for this installment, having Wayne and Garth cover the best and worst of summer 1991.
— Some of the highlights here include Wayne and Garth’s “coo” bit, their whole fragrance commercials bit, their making fun of Demi Moore’s nude pregnant magazine cover, and them trying to one-up each other on large animals that something bad “sucks”.
STARS: ****

OPENING MONTAGE
— Same montage from the preceding season.
— Chris Farley, Chris Rock, and Julia Sweeney have all been promoted from featured players to repertory players.
— Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, and David Spade are still featured players, but have gone from being in the second category of featured players who only get credited sporadically and have a still-photo shot in the opening montage to now being in the first category of featured players who are credited every week and have a live-action moving shot in the montage.

— Ellen Cleghorne, Siobhan Fallon, and veteran SNL writer Robert Smigel have joined the cast tonight as featured players.

MONOLOGUE
douche, porno commercials featuring host didn’t make it to air

— Fun premise with Michael showing unaired commercials that he regretted filming.
— Hilarious soft-focus “Feminine Secret” ad with Michael relating to Julia’s “not-so-fresh feeling”.
— The pre-taped “Feminine Secret” ad ends up being Julia’s only appearance tonight, meaning she doesn’t make any live appearances in what’s her first episode as a repertory player.
— Another hilarious ad, with Michael touting hardcore porn and saying you know a porno is good if it has a Michael Jordan label on it.
STARS: ****½

SCHMITTS GAY
homosexual guys (CHF) & (ADS) live a pool fantasy

 

— Here comes an all-time classic.
— I like how the first fake ad of the season is starring two of the newer guys in the cast.
— I believe this is our very first on-camera display of the chemistry and real-life close camaraderie between Adam and Chris.
— This is priceless and the montage is excellent, especially the shots of Adam and Chris’ various excited reactions to the men in the pool.
— Great use of the Van Halen song (I believe) “Beautiful Girls” (which would later be replaced in some reruns with generic guitar music).
STARS: *****

THE FIRST BLACK HARLEM GLOBETROTTER
(host) helps integrate basketball

— Some good laughs from the original white Globetrotters doing a very tame version of the later black Globetrotters’ famous basketball stunts when standing in a circle.
— Phil is very funny listing off examples of derogatory names Michael’s gonna hear, all of which just consist of “blackie”.
— Love the scene with Michael’s clean sweep during his first Globetrotters game, where he shows up everybody on the court.
— Funny cutaway to David looking down in shame when Michael asks him “Pee-Wee, you too?”
— Phil continues to crack me up in this sketch, now listing off many variations of green when saying he doesn’t care what color Michael is.
— Ellen Cleghorne’s overdramatics are getting a good audience reaction.
— Phil once again steals the sketch, this time with his casual reveal that he and Ellen have been having an affair behind Michael’s back.
STARS: ****½

BILL SWERSKI’S SUPER FANS
host joins Bob Swerski & other Super Fans in a Bulls good luck ritual

 

— Ha, only one episode after hosting the preceding season’s finale, George Wendt makes a cameo in a reprise of his Bob Swerski character. Fun to see Wendt again.
— By this point, Farley has now begun playing his Super Fans character in a more comedic, more stand-out manner than the lower-key manner he played him in the prior installments of this sketch.
— I liked the insane prediction of the Bears winning a game 31 to negative 7.
— To go along with Farley’s characterization being more fleshed-out in this installment, we get our very first mention of him having a heart attack, which would go on to be a running gag with him in these sketches.
— I like the visual of the two-sided caps the Super Fans are wearing, with one side being a Bears cap and the other being a Bulls cap.
— Siobhan Fallon makes an unnoteworthy debut, taking over writer Christine Zander’s recurring bit role as the Super Fans’ waitress.
— Great part with Farley suddenly pounding his fist against his chest repeatedly and then casually announcing he’s “just” having another heart attack.
— The inner thoughts of each Super Fan during Michael’s long speech are very funny, especially Farley’s thoughts being “Polish saaaaasage, Ditka, saaaaasage– etc.” while having a hilarious longing expression on his face. I remember one of the first times I ever saw this sketch (in Farley’s “Best Of”), I almost choked from laughing so hard at that part.
— Farley ONCE AGAIN steals the sketch, this time with his classic hula skirt ritual dance.
STARS: *****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Can’t Truss It”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Jesse Jackson [real] reads from Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs & Ham

 

— The debut of the Kevin Nealon era of Weekend Update.
— I really like the opening title sequence with Kevin’s head superimposed over a spinning earth.
— As I expected, it feels weird reviewing a new era of Update after getting so used to reviewing Dennis Miller for six straight seasons.
— Kevin’s jokes so far are only okay, but nothing noteworthy or laugh-out-loud.
— Okay, we finally got a strong joke from Kevin, with the one about how people never return a certain suicide book to the library.
— Great bit with Kevin beginning to tell a Pee-Wee Herman joke, only to immediately stop and say “Nah, why beat a dead horse?” This is in reference to Herman’s recent infamous arrest at an adult movie theater, which people joked about relentlessly.
— After a slow start, Kevin’s jokes have gotten better.
— Jesse Jackson reading from “Green Eggs and Ham” in his typical powerful, dramatic preacher delivery is such a brilliant idea, and it’s being executed perfectly. Fantastic that SNL got Jesse to do this. I’m being reminded of how much I liked him as a host back in season 10.
— Kevin’s mock-serious newsman delivery is an interesting change of pace from Dennis Miller’s delivery, and definitely feels like a throwback to the original Update anchor, Chevy Chase.
— Kevin both begins and ends tonight’s Update by simply saying “Morning”. That intro and tagline would not last beyond this episode, and I can definitely see why.
— According to GettyImages, David Spade had an Update commentary that was cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal (pic here).
— Also according to GettyImages, the new Update set didn’t have the big “Weekend Update” logo on the back wall during this episode’s dress rehearsal (see the Spade link above and a pic here). Odd. I guess they were making changes to the new Update set right until literally the last minute. Maybe they made the last-minute addition of the Update logo to the back wall because they felt the wall looked “naked” compared to the big map on the back wall of Dennis Miller’s Update set. They would eventually remove the new addition of the Update logo from the wall anyway sometime in November, among several modifications to the set.
STARS: ***

DAILY AFFIRMATION WITH STUART SMALLEY
Stuart unnecessarily instills confidence in host

— I liked Stuart Smalley’s opening talk, apologizing for a recent anti-Pee-Wee Herman episode he did titled  “Here But For the Grace of God Go I”.
— For the first time, Stuart has a guest!
— I’m enjoying all the exchanges between Stuart and Michael.
— Classic part right now with Stuart having Michael do an affirmation into the mirror. I especially love Michael’s hesitance before saying the “Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough… etc.” catchphrase.
— Great part with Michael giving Stuart a hug to make Stuart feel better after emotionally beating himself up.
— Overall, the first really memorable Daily Affirmation installment, and one of the best.
STARS: *****

BACKSTAGE
NBC page Zoraida (ELC) accosts host- she wants to play “one-on-one”

— Right in her first episode, Ellen Cleghorne gets to debut what would go on to pretty much be known as her signature character.
— No idea what to say about this overall sketch. Ellen immediately had a good handle on her character, but I found the sketch itself nothing special. I didn’t find this too terrible either, but maybe I’m just going somewhat easy on it because it’s Ellen’s first episode.
STARS: **½

THE DARK SIDE WITH NAT X
LaToya Jackson (VIJ) & Spike Lee [real] visit

— I liked one of the lines from Phil’s opening voice-over: “A man so black, he could be navy.”
— A very funny “What would’ve happened if they were black” segment from Nat (why didn’t that end up becoming a recurring part of this sketch?), saying that if Pee-Wee Herman were black, he would’ve gotten an extra 10 years added to his prison sentence for blocking the movie screen with “his big African-American penis”.
— Odd but strangely fitting casting of Victoria Jackson as Latoya Jackson.
— Nat X to Latoya: “Sit your no-talent ass down!”
— Great part with Nat giving Spike Lee a black version of the Oscar, known as the Buster, complete with an afro.
— All of Nat and Spike’s insults towards Latoya are hilarious.
— When telling a story about someone who had a rough upbringing, I loved Nat’s line about how this person’s mother was a maid for homeless white people.
STARS: ****

TALES FROM THE BARBECUE
how grilling pork helped defeat a Nazi submarine

— A nice rare occurrence of two big Chris Rock showcases back-to-back.
— Lots of airtime for newbie Ellen Cleghorne tonight (which is more than I can say for her fellow newbie Siobhan Fallon), though it’s obviously helped by the fact that we have a black host and there’s lots of black-themed sketches tonight.
— This sketch began slow, but I like the sudden outlandish addition of Nazis to the story.
— Tonight has surprisingly been a light night for Phil, it feels like.
— Phil and especially Mike’s German accents are cracking me up.
— A lot of charm during the scenes with Tim telling his family the obviously made-up story. Very strong performance from Tim as well.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
in memoriam of Miles Davis, three seconds of silence are observed
musical guest performs “Bring Tha Noize”

ELEVATOR
one of Sting’s elevator fans sings “The Star-Spangled Banner” for host

— Unlike the other two Elevator Fans sketches, this one is not well-known at all.. and rightfully so.
— Dana breaking out into an exaggerated version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” isn’t all that funny and pales very badly in comparison to the memorable versions of this sketch with Sting and Michael J. Fox (even though I wasn’t a big fan of the latter’s installment).
— By the way, where is Kevin in this? Odd how this has Dana as the only elevator fan, though I don’t think even the addition of Kevin would’ve helped this particular sketch.
— At the end, the crossfade to the SNL bumper photo of Michael came off rushed, as if the show was running long.
STARS: **

GOODNIGHTS

---

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong way to start the season, as this is an all-time memorable episode that’s always been my personal favorite episode hosted by an athlete. The quality of the show was very high up until the last sketch, a good number of segments were classics or near-classics, and most of the recurring sketches that appeared each had one of their best installments ever (Super Fans, Daily Affirmation, Nat X).

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1990-91)
a slight step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Jeff Daniels