Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
the cast is inspired when host sings “Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight”
— Already starting off good with Farley doing his Chris Farley Show shtick to Steve when reminiscing about some of Steve’s classic sketches.
— Steve Martin, regarding the King Tut costume: “This was back when the show meant something.”
— Excellent turn with Steve breaking out into a song about not phoning it in tonight.
— I’m enjoying spotting the sets for tonight’s sketches all through the studio.
— I love seeing Julia removing her Pat wig and glasses.
— Tim making fun of his own lack of airtime is great (“I don’t have any liiiiines, I’m not in the shooooow…”).
— Hilarious song from Farley about not getting liquored up tonight.
— This is getting more and more fun as more and more cast and crew members join in.
— Lorne lip syncing to an operatic voice is priceless.
— Here’s what puts this cold opening over the top as truly epic, with the leg-kicking chorus line onstage at the end, involving Steve and the the entire cast. Just seeing that really makes you fully realize just how LARGE this season’s cast is.
— Even the “Live from New York…” ending has a good laugh, with Steve blanking in the middle of the tagline and having to be shown on a cue card what to say.
— Overall, an absolutely perfect and legendary cold opening. One of the best in the show’s history.
STARS: *****
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Some good laughs from Steve listing off the supposed names of the newer cast members: Ramone, Tina, Biff, Frosty, and Spunky.
— I loved him detailing his method of pulling down on genitalia as a way of giving people an autograph.
— This went downhill with the “Father of the Bride” story, which just led up to a photo of Steve in a wedding dress that didn’t really make me laugh much and wasn’t worth the long set up. Our first sign of trouble for tonight’s episode.
STARS: **½
SCHMITTS GAY
— Rerun from the Michael Jordan episode
SUCKERPUNCH
(host) delivers blows to contestants without warning
— Pretty funny concept.
— Okay, after about a minute, this is already starting to get old.
— I like Kevin flinching in anticipation of a punch whenever Steve comes anywhere near him.
— The sound effect when Ellen punches Kevin is played a few seconds too late. Steve ad-libs “Beautiful delay on that”, which receives a big audience reaction. SNL would later replace this portion of the sketch with the dress rehearsal version in reruns.
— I like Ellen’s prize being a wallet she stole from a knocked-out Kevin.
STARS: **½
DOORMEN
doormen (ROS) & (KEN) fantasize about wearing building tenants’ panties
— The return of a forgettable sketch from the preceding season’s Jimmy Smits episode.
— The premise is slightly funnier than the first installment of this sketch, but this is still nothing great. Like last time, I’m enjoying this more for the entertaining way that Kevin and Rob play off of each other than for the material itself.
STARS: **½
DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
on what a human snail shell is made of
THE ENERGY BROTHERS
lack of material defines The Energy Brothers’ (CHF) & (ADS) comedy
— During Steve’s intro, I liked his line about the Energy Brothers changing the face of comedy in the 90s just like he did “in the late 70s and first four months of 1980”.
— Well… that Energy Brothers bit certainly just came and went with no real laughs. Adam and Farley’s energy was fun, but this was just randomness with no payoff… which I guess was the point, but it wasn’t funny to me.
— Boy, aside from the classic cold opening, tonight’s episode has not been off to a good start.
— In Farley’s “Best Of” special, during a montage of his pratfalls from various sketches, you may recall seeing one particular clip where Adam is on top of Farley’s shoulders and they’re running around the home base stage screaming, then they both fall down (screencap below).
That appears to come from the dress rehearsal version of this sketch. I wonder why Adam and Farley didn’t do this during the live version.
— On a similar note, one of GettyImages’ pictures from the dress rehearsal version of this sketch shows Adam swinging on a chandelier (pic here), which is another thing that didn’t happen in the live show. It appears that SNL either shortened or re-wrote most of this sketch between dress rehearsal and the live show. I wonder why, as the dress version actually looks a little more fun.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Stop Thinkin’ About That”
WEEKEND UPDATE
ADS spent his Disney World vacation in his hotel room & at McDonald’s
— Funny brief bit with Kevin demonstrating freedom of speech by yelling a whole bunch of crazy nonsense, ending with “Your grandmother’s underwear!”
— Adam’s commentary is a rehash of an earlier travel review he did on Update.
— Like the last time he did this travel commentary, you can tell Adam is nervous.
— Unlike when he rehashed his one-sided dinner conversation Update piece, Adam’s travel piece tonight isn’t all that great and should’ve been left as a one-time thing.
— Okay, I did like the odd turn just now during Adam’s commentary, with him going into a deep hypothetical of what he would do if he were Mayor McCheese.
— Pretty strong night for Kevin overall. Lots of good jokes from him.
STARS: ***½
THEATRE STORIES
British actors & Mickey Rooney (DAC) talk about the past
— This soon-to-be-recurring sketch makes its debut.
— Very funny characterization from Mike here. Lots of funny little quirks in his mannerisms.
— Julia’s demented character is providing some good laughs.
— Dana’s washed-up Mickey Rooney is a riot.
— Just now, Steve said “…a certain, as the French say, I don’t know what.” Mike, who obviously wrote this sketch, would later reuse that line in one of the Austin Powers movies (I think the second one).
— Very funny part with Steve revealing he soiled himself just now during his story.
— Overall, we finally got an actual FUNNY sketch tonight. Reruns of this episode move this and, I think, one of the sketches from later tonight to the first half of the show, while moving the Doormen and Energy Brothers sketches to near the end of the show where they belong. Clearly, SNL realized how poorly they arranged the first half of this episode in the live show.
STARS: ***½
LIVE WITH REGIS & KATHIE LEE
Joy Philbin (JUS) & host sidelined
— It feels a little sad and bittersweet seeing pictures of Jan Hooks as Kathie Lee during this sketch’s opening credits. I didn’t fully realize until now how much I miss Jan in the cast.
— The usual funny angry ranting from Dana’s Regis.
— Okay, after a while, I don’t like how this sketch is focusing way too much on Regis’ angry rants. It’s basically becoming the only joke. The previous Regis and Kathie Lee sketches had actual material around his rants. This sketch is missing a lot without Jan’s Kathie Lee there to bounce off of Dana’s Regis. Julia as her replacement, Joy Philbin, has no chemistry with Dana and is being given NOTHING to work with (even if that’s the point).
— Adding to this sketch’s laziness, now they replay a clip of Dana-as-Regis’ “All My Children” cameo that was originally aired in the preceding season’s Susan Lucci episode. Why was this necessary tonight?
STARS: **
DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
on which part of a child’s face says it all
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Shed A Little Light”
GRANDMA PUGGA
(BEC) & (CHF) visit cat fur-covered apartment of his Grandma Pugga (host)
— A pretty good laugh from the initial reveal of the cat hair-covered apartment.
— Funny disgusting visual of cat hair on the meal Farley and Beth are eating.
— An overall fairly thin sketch, but provided enough laughs.
STARS: ***
DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
on what tears families apart
COWARDS
CHF’s case of nerves spurs host to a Patton-esque coward-slapping spree
— Bah, a weak one-joke bit. Steve just going around calling everyone a coward and slapping them isn’t that funny, especially considering we already had a fairly tepid sketch earlier tonight with him punching everybody.
— The way some of the extras that Steve slaps are dressed seem to be a reference to the previous episode. There’s an extra wearing the same alien makeup and shiny outfit that Dana wore in the last episode’s Dick Clark’s Receptionist sketch and there’s a black extra dressed as Santa, much like Hammer in the last episode’s Tales From The Barbecue sketch. (comparisons below)
— Okay, I did get one laugh just now, when after Steve got slapped by Phil, a slap sound effect played when Steve tapped his own helmet in shock.
STARS: *½
THE DARK SIDE WITH NAT X
Nat X has some words with Michael Jackson (CSR)
— Phil’s voice-over intro saying “A man so black, he urinates oil” was hilarious.
— During Farley’s appearance as Sandman, he’s noticeably out of breath. Considering this sketch aired right after the Cowards sketch, with no commercial break in between, Farley must’ve had to go through a VERY hasty costume change from his army outfit to his clown outfit & makeup, and then had to rush to the set of this sketch while it was in progress, which would explain why he’s so out of breath here. He’s been having a very busy night in general, appearing in a prominent role in most of the sketches.
— Much like the Nat X sketch from the Steven Seagal episode, you can see Rock covering his mouth and trying not to laugh when Farley’s Sandman is reading a child’s letter in a hokey voice.
— Good bit with Nat X saying he sympathizes with Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer because the discrimination he received is similar to that of black people.
— Nat X: “Boy, I haven’t had that much fun since I was breastfed by Chaka Khan.”
— Seems to be a lot of instances tonight of cast members mistakenly speaking into the wrong camera, as Rock does that here after the “White Man Cam” segment, and Dana did it during one of his rants in the Regis and Kathie Lee sketch.
— The second episode in a row where Rock’s Michael Jackson impression appears, this time in obvious pre-taped form. Interesting how Chris Rock is basically interviewing himself here.
— Understandably, there’s some timing issues with the MJ pre-tape, as Rock is having some difficulty finishing his live Nat X dialogue in time before pre-taped MJ responds to him.
— When Rock’s MJ says that his controversial car-smashing scene in the “Black or White” music video didn’t hurt anyone, I liked Nat X responding “Didn’t hurt no one??? That was my car!”
— Despite the laughs, this overall sketch wasn’t one of the better or more memorable Nat X installments. It was still decent enough, though.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sweet Baby James”
SEASON’S GREETINGS
CHF, Tarzan, Frankenstein sing “Feliz Navidad”
— Wow, Farley’s busy night continues. He’s been ALL OVER tonight’s episode.
— The return of the traditional Tarzan, Tonto, and Frankenstein holiday greetings. I love the very random addition of Farley as himself replacing Jon Lovitz’s Tonto. This was the perfect way for them to work around Lovitz’s departure.
— This is great as always, made even more entertaining by seeing a comically uncomfortable and fidgety Farley singing in same broken English that Tarzan, Tonto, and Frankenstein always sing in.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
— Interestingly, right after the preceding Season’s Greetings sketch ends, they immediately go into these goodnights with no commercial break or Steve Martin bumper picture in between. Very rare for this to happen; it probably hasn’t occurred since the original era. I wonder if tonight’s Season’s Greetings sketch was going to be cut for time and James Taylor’s third musical performance was planned to be the last segment of the night (as that’s usually the case in the late 80s/early 90s years whenever a musical guest gets three performances), but then they realized they still have juuuuust enough time right before the goodnights to squeeze in the Seasons Greetings sketch.
— For some reason, when the scrolling credits are only halfway over, they suddenly stop running while the goodnights continue on. Must’ve been a technical error… or perhaps everybody in the control room got up and immediately took off for their Christmas break a little too early. The latter obviously isn’t the case, but it IS pretty funny to imagine.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A surprisingly subpar episode. Sure we got the classic Tonight Song cold opening, but look past that and you’ll see lots of material that was tepid and some that was overly average. Very ironic how after a cold opening where Steve and the cast sing about giving it their all tonight, we end up with an episode that had an air of tiredness to it. (Maybe the approaching Christmas break is to blame) There were only a few solid highlights in this episode, and overall, this was disappointing for a Steve Martin-hosted Christmas show in a great season like this. I’m one of the many SNL fans who used to be guilty of highly overrating this episode just because of the cold opening, until a December 2007 airing of this episode on NBC led to a live discussion of it on a (now-defunct) SNL messageboard I was a member of, and a lot of people in that live discussion made good points on how surprisingly weak a lot of this episode’s material was. That opened my eyes and made me realize that this episode is far from the classic that I had previously deemed it to be.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Hammer)
a step down (Who’da guessed in 1991 that M.C. freakin’ Hammer would host a better SNL episode than Steve Martin?)
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
We enter the year 1992, with host Rob Morrow