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
Does Steve ever host a good episode again? I mean, obviously the 1994 one is a trainwreck…. and his returns in recent years have been very obvious cases of “Steve is putting about 10% effort into this.”
His 2006 episode is the inverse of this 1991 go-around: a mostly strong episode in a mixed-quality season. It does nosedive a lil post-Update, but there are a number of solid pieces to punctuate his return to hosting (Sabotage of Baldwin, Don’t Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford, Hamas party, Two Inches digital short, Quick Zoom Theater)
But, yeah, his 1994 and 2009 episodes are full of lame material. Hopefully he can host at least once more to end strong.
I thought ’06 had its moments, but I actually liked ’94: funny cold open (Clinton tryouts), OJ trial sketch, P*nis beauty cream (New formula!), another buh-bye, Nut-rific were all entertaining if memory serves. And I think the Ron Wood Show and basebal strike were decent as well. Plus, we got a good musical guest and the debut of Norm on WU
The 06 episode is strong with the exception of the fact that it has multiple digital shorts that would have worked just as well or better as live sketches. It’s a little weird in that way.
The 94 episode is not too great, but it has enough highlights to keep it from being a total waste. The cold open is fantastic and the penis beauty cream sketch is funny too. Even Nutriffic kind of works conceptually.
They kind of blow their wad with the opening of the 91 episode. You can see everything sag as the monologue gets going. Oh well, it’s worth it. That said, I like some pieces far more than Stooge, including the slapping cowards sketch, which is short and dumb in the right way, and the Regis sketch, which I think is operating on a couple different jokes.
My thoughts exactly, Emily Prager.
Yeah, I agree I wonder what happened this week. I wonder how the table read went. Maybe the cold open song was a joke on this week’s episode quality after all.
I don’t know what went wrong in this episode. It’s a holiday episode, which almost none of the sketches reference. You have Steve Martin, who is a funny host and who can play more than straight men as he does in a few sketches here. It does improve I think from restructuring as you allude to–the Energy Brothers thing, in particular, strikes me as something that works as a late-show random gag, not an early-show sketch.
As for Steve’s other shows, I agree they are weak. His most recent episodes had a couple brilliant moments (Don’t Buy Things You Can’t Afford and the NFL Films sketch about The Gun), though.
I have no memory of anything after grandma cat lady, so I probably turned this off early… not a good omen. Maybe they put so much time into the cold open, they had nothing left. Even the usually-reliable Nat X and Regis sound like they was kind of a mess. Why couldn’t Julia just play Kathie Lee? Remember the revolving door for Hoda Kotb a few years ago?
Dana may not have wanted to have Kathie Lee without Jan (when he did a Regis and Kathie Lee sketch on his show several years after this, Jan played her again). Beyond that, Kathie Lee never did much in these sketches that didn’t involve squealing “OH REEG!!!” and talk about Cody and Cassidy. I think having Joy take her place wasn’t a bad idea. The sketch just wasn’t that good as it was one of those Carvey pieces where he does the same thing over and over and over and over, which is only amusing so many times.
I enjoyed this episode more than the reviewer and commenters did, most likely – it helped that stuff like the “knockout” game show and Steve slapping people reminded me of some of the loose, ridiculous stuff from the early years of the show. Most of the rest was decent to great, aside from the Regis sketch, which I just didn’t care for. Aside from the cold open, my favorite was Theatre Stories, mostly because Julia Sweeney is absolutely hilarious. I just wish they had not had Dana Carvey doing his Mickey Rooney catchphrase 500000000000 times.
Unfortunately Farley’s presence casts a pall for me, both because of how uneasy I feel about the show making a joke of his substance abuse issues when they were a part of enabling said abuses (which would, sadly, be a recurring theme in the writing for him over the next few seasons), and because the bit with Sandler, which was presumably meant to parody brain dead, lazy laugh getting exercises, was a harbinger for what they’d be doing in their last few seasons on the show.
The cold open really is a masterpiece overall though, and as someone who is fond of this particular cast, ridiculously oversized as it is, I like getting to see them all together. Victoria Jackson (one of the old guard, on her way out) and Farley (the most popular of the new crop) at the front with Steve is oddly moving. And then the extended focus on Phil and the joke of how people wouldn’t be able to accept him being himself (when many loved him for being himself), and Tim Meadows (who would go on to be a much more important player for SNL than anyone likely expected) – it adds so much weight to what was at the time just a fun little number.
Topher Grace talked about why he loves this cold open and this period of time so much.
https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/topher-grace-saturday-night-live-hot-zone-my-favorite-episode-podcast-1203226223/
No doubt. “Not Gonna Phone it in Tonight” is the best cold open the show ever did. Such a great use of the cast and so much fun, it’s incredible to watch. I love Phil’s “I hide behind these wigs and this make-up” to truly reveal himself, and how quick Steve shuts it down.
Anyway, it’s too bad the episode is slightly sub-par, apart from Theater Stories. (Although overall, I think I like the episode quite a bit better than Stooge). I will say that Beth looks amazing in that black dress in the cat grandma sketch. Wow!
Just re-watched the cold open for the millionth time, and a few things I’ve noticed over the years: 1) Nice to see Victoria really getting into this piece as they march through the studio. 2) One of the Teamsters is a dead ringer for Ernie Sabella. 3) I love Chris’ dancing and hand movements as they approach the stage. 4) As everyone is scrambling into position, Melanie bumps into Farley… and he does not look happy for a few seconds after that. 5) Just as the camera is zooming out to show the whole cast, you can see Mike say something to Siobhan, then she stops singing, laughs, and say something to him that looks like “I know!” Wonder what that was about.
I enjoyed reading this summary! I have to be in the minority, though, about the opening. I watched it live and remember thinking at the time that it was pretty desperate. Not technically; it’s good in that respect. But at the same time, it’s definitely a harbinger of future bad seasons. I still don’t care for it, even as a meta – commentary upon the writing, a much too huge cast, etc. I have to note, though, that I was also never a fan of SNL Bad Boy comedy, so that’s another reason I kinda dread these specific seasons. (My husband lovingly disagrees and especially adores Farley and Sandler in SNL!) Thanks, Stooge, for your work!
I loved, loved, loved the “Tonight” cold open when it aired live. I was 13, had been watching for a couple years, and it was one of my favorite things I’d ever seen on SNL. It had a great contagious energy that I really bought into – I remember thinking during the montage, “This is gonna be the best show EVER!” Then the whole rest of the show disappointed me, greatly. So in that sense it was definitely a harbinger of seasons to come.
As lackluster as much of this episode is, though, just imagine this cold open tacked onto Steve’s Season 20 premiere episode. That would be cruel and unusual punishment, not to mention horribly false advertising.
In my 20s, single, childless and drunk almost every night, I used to pull out my SNL best-of DVDs over and over and cue them to the same favorite sketches. This cold open, on the Best of Steve Martin (the older one, pre-2006 hosting gig), was something I’d play two or three times a week. Loved it every time. I still play the audio of it through my Bluetooth via NBC.com while driving alone, and I always sing/recite along with it. It still gets me in an energetic, happy mood no matter the circumstance.
Interesting note, this is the last episode of SNL that was live before the USSR collapsed. I don’t have a joke here, I just want to point that out.
The only part of this entire episode I remembered was the cold opening. And I still say its the best one they ever did. I don’t think they could top it honestly. It was perfection. Probably why the rest of the show was so show seemed to subpar. You have perfect from the top where can you go but down?
I just noticed in my most recent comment about things I noticed from the cold open… I mention “Chris’ hand movements.” I meant Chris Rock. Also, @Rusty, I always appreciate your interesting comments! The entirety of SNL is such a time capsule, even when we think about the events that happen between episodes.
“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).”
Mike would also reuse the joke in this sketch about being “unable to control the VOLUME OF MY VOICE” in the first Austin Powers.
I’m so glad that Peacock didn’t cut the cold open for this one. I’d have thrown something through my TV if it was missing.
Is that Audrey Peart Dickman doing the voiceover at the start of Theatre Stories?
This was possibly the greatest cold open in SNL history, I’ve probably seen it 50 times LOL.
It’s crazy that almost as much time has now passed between December 2007 and now as had passed between the live show in December 1991 and the re-air in December 2007.
That Energy Brothers sketch is the very first omen of season 20. Farley and Sandler behaving like buffoons with no clear comedic conceit.
I hear so many fans regard this episode as a classic yet the only thing that stands out as classic is the cold open. The rest of the episode is pretty bland, but not outright awful. Also, for a Christmas episode it doesn’t feel very Christmassy. Up until season’s greetings, you would think that you were watching another run of the mill episode. Like Stooge said, Who’d guessed that M.C. Hammer would host a better episode than Steve Martin?
Re: “I wonder why Adam and Farley didn’t do this during the live version.”
I’ll take an educated guess and say that one of them hurt themselves during dress, so they decided to tone it down for the live show. But I agree, the dress version looks more fun.
Oh wow, I just remember something during the cold open. Someone once pointed out that despite being huge stars Bill Murray and Steve Martin have only shared 5 minutes of screen time. The dentist scene from Little Shop of Horrors.
Also weird that so soon Chris Farely is a raging alcoholic and the show has decided to make fun of it.
They’re still using live cats for the cat sketches. And yes this was an overall poor episode, notable because the cold opening was amazing.