Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
L.A. Law- Richard Laymer creates nicknames for Grace Van Owen (host)
— Victoria’s whispery delivery is making me laugh.
— Hilarious reveal of Richmeister out of nowhere, after such a serious beginning.
— I like how Richmeister is getting meta, now referencing Susan Dey’s Partridge Family past.
— After Rob delivers “Live from New York” (his very first solo one, by the way), it looks like the wall behind him already starts to be disassembled by the crew right before the opening montage even starts.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Nice turn with her unveiling her more casual, revealing wear to differentiate herself from her TV characters.
STARS: ***
LEEVI’S 3 LEGGED JEANS
— Rerun from the Linda Hamilton episode
HARRASSMENT TRIAL
(PHH) fails to convince jury that Mike Tyson’s penis size isn’t relevant
— Boy, that extra playing Mike Tyson doesn’t look a thing like him.
— An absolutely hilarious turn with Mike Tyson showing his “evidence”, represented off-camera by a loud thud sound after he unzips his pants. Phil, Myers, and Susan’s speechless reactions are great, as is Susan saying afterwards “I’ll allow it.”
— Lots of very funny frozen-faced shocked reactions from the jury while Phil slowly walking past them as he gives his statement. I especially like Farley’s thumbs-up gesture and Ellen’s unimpressed look.
— Phil’s speech about penis size has so many funny lines, and I also like Julia and Melanie’s simultaneous head-shaking whenever they disagree with him.
STARS: ****½
THE ARAKAWA GROUP
Japanese version of McLaughlin bashes lazy Americans
— Much like The Sinatra Group, we get another variation of The McLaughlin Group.
— I can look past the very broad Japanese stereotypes here and enjoy the discussion, funny lines, and general silliness, but I’m probably biased because I’ve always enjoyed this sketch, long before it would’ve been considered too un-PC by modern standards.
— Mike’s “You’re killing me. Oh, my sides” when laughing at Rob’s joke is cracking me up.
— Funny line about the laziest Americans being postal worker on drugs.
— The panelists’ discussion of Barbara Bush has a lot of funny lines about her.
STARS: ***½
THE SENSITIVE NAKED MAN
The Sensitive Naked Man (ROS) tries to find out what’s bothering (host)
— Already starting off hilarious with the opening title and the subsequent casual cutaway to a naked Rob greeting Susan.
— The execution of this is very funny, especially with Rob’s insistence on getting Susan to open up about what’s REALLY bothering her. Rob’s performance here is great.
— A priceless nonchalant reveal of Rob’s uncensored behind at the end, which gets a great audience reaction.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Here We Go Let’s Rock & Roll”
musical guest performs “Gonna Make You Sweat”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Crystal Blue Persuasion (ELC) talks about the refugees sent back to Haiti
Cajunman (ADS) gives KEN a rhyming overview of Mardi Gras
KEN gives a subliminal editorial on the Japanese & the economy
— Very hot audience tonight. Some of Kevin’s jokes are getting big reactions from them.
— Ellen attempts a new character, Crystal Blue Persuasion, who never ends up becoming recurring.
— Ellen’s characterization is decent, but the commentary itself is not interesting and has nothing that’s jumping out at me as really funny. I can definitely see why this character never ended up recurring.
— A lot of comedic random one-line asides from Kevin (e.g. “You know, there are a lot of people out there…”).
— The debut of Cajunman, a character that actually DOES end up becoming recurring.
— I really like the format of Adam’s Cajunman commentary, with his dialogue consisting only of words that end with an “own” pronunciation. Adam’s raspy voice and accent are also adding a lot to the humor.
— Adam’s Cajunman delivery in tonight’s debut is a little faster than it would go on to be in subsequent appearances.
— Among Cajunman’s lines, I especially got a laugh from him saying he got an “infec-shown” from an exotic dancer.
— Kevin’s strong night ends with him doing a Mr. Subliminal editorial, for the first time since he took over as the new Update anchorperson.
— As usual, some very funny Mr. Subliminal lines, especially “Maybe we could learn something from the Japanese (sneak attack).”
STARS: ***½
PARTRIDGE FAMILY VS. BRADY BUNCH
Laurie (host) & Partridges vs. Jan (MEH) & Bradys in battle of the bands
— Here comes the centerpiece of this particular episode, a very fun and all-time classic sketch.
— Big audience reaction as soon as the Partridge Family opening credits and theme song starts playing.
— Good to see Melanie’s Jan Brady impression officially become recurring, and it’s nice seeing it crossed over into a Partridge Family sketch.
— A cringeworthy line flub from Melanie just now, which causes her to nervously laugh her way through the rest of her line.
— Melanie recovers nicely from the blooper mentioned above, by getting very good laughs with her spot-on delivery of “Marsha , Marsha, Marsha!”
— I love the cutaway to Farley’s Reuben Kincaid just observing the Partridges playing music while he has that big grin with his hand resting under his chin.
— This is now starting to get epic as the rest of the Brady kids have shown up.
— Adam’s constantly-cracking voice as Peter Brady is a riot.
— Excellent turn with a battle of the bands between the Bradys and the lip-syncing Partridges.
— Ha, Dana is getting REALLY into his lip-syncing and guitar miming.
— A very funny and outrageous part with Farley’s Reuben Kincaid wildly making out with Julia’s Shirley Partridge.
— The part right now with Phil as Sam the Butcher and writer Christine Zander as a covered-in-snakes Alice would later be removed from reruns. I have no idea why.
— Phil’s Sam the Butcher voice is hilarious.
— What’s with Susan’s stiff, monotone delivery of “I hate you” to the Brady kids? Perhaps that was just her way of making fun of her own acting on Partridge Family.
— Great random inclusion of Rock as… uh… Mushmouth? Dumb Donald? I’m confused over which Fat Albert character he was playing, because, while Dana’s Keith Partridge refers to him as Mushmouth, and Rock was certainly using the Mushmouth voice, I’ve heard during online discussions of this sketch that Rock was actually dressed as Dumb Donald. I wouldn’t know for sure, as Fat Albert was before my time and I’ve never had the fortune of seeing reruns of it. I am vaguely familiar with the show, but only through clips and hearsay.
STARS: *****
GESTURES
on a blind date, (MIM) & (host) make their points semi-verbally
— Pretty charming premise with everyone’s cartoonish physical descriptions of their emotions.
— Very funny part with Susan’s spittake into Mike’s face.
— Mike is particularly great at pulling off the cartoonish physical descriptions.
— Was Mike’s “I think I love you” to Susan supposed to be a subtle Partridge Family reference?
STARS: ***½
BACKSTAGE
Zoraida confuses host’s L.A. Law love scene with real life
— At the beginning as they show Susan walking backstage, I noticed on the SNL home base stage behind her that you can see stagehands disassembling a set and carrying away a desk that has mannequin heads wearing wigs (screencap below).
This was actually going to be a sketch called “Phil Hartman Creations”, where Phil as himself advertises a variety of his trademarked wigs. The sketch seemingly got cut at the last minute tonight and ends up airing later this season in the Sharon Stone episode.
— Despite an okay line or two, Zoraida’s whole shtick of mistaking host’s TV characters with real life is getting increasingly tired with each passing sketch she appears in.
— I did like the ending, with an angered Zoraida yelling to a walking-away Susan “Your family used to sleep in a bus!” and calling her an “una puta”.
STARS: **
BOSS & JANITOR
(MIM) & (DAC) discuss irony & repeatedly trade janitor & executive roles
— Always interesting seeing Mike and Dana being paired together in non-Wayne’s World sketches.
— I like Dana and Mike’s exaggerated cheesy laughter at the end of every scene.
— I’m loving the escalating absurdity in this, with Dana and Mike’s constant back-and-forth job-switching with each other, and them explaining the circumstances that led to it.
— Ha, now this has taken an even more bizarre turn with them both being janitors simultaneously.
— I like the meta part with Dana and Mike’s characters openly mentioning the back-less businessman suit that they kept changing into earlier in the sketch.
— Phil got some good laughs at the end as the angry boss and added to this sketch’s silly vibe.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “A Deeper Love”
ART MUSEUM
museum visitors make personal admissions while contemplating a painting
— Mike Myers has been having a HUGE night. It feels like he’s had a big role in almost every single sketch.
— Mike, in a deadpan response to an odd statement from Susan: “You remind me of my mother. I’m leaving the museum.”
— I love the structure of this sketch, with each character giving a snobbish yet unflattering personal description of themselves before giving their critique of a certain painting. Phil especially had a very funny description of himself.
— Tim absolutely KILLED with his hilarious smugly-delivered line about tying his white girlfriend (Beth) up with a belt and making her moo like a cow. It’s so rare for him to get that type of great one-liner during this era; that’s the type of dialogue that he would later typically get during the second half of his SNL tenure, where he had a much bigger presence and impact on the show.
— Kevin is great as a random deranged guy who ends up deciding to pull down his pants and run around the museum screaming.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
host announces that PHH is now the daddy of Birgen Hartman
— A legendary moment right now: Susan announces the birth of Phil’s daughter Birgen. A joyed Phil’s eyes fill up with tears as everyone around congratulates him. One of the most genuinely touching and heartwarming moments in SNL history, especially in retrospect after Phil’s untimely death.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode. We got a lot of great sketches, one bonafide classic (Partridge Family vs. Brady Bunch), and a heartwarming special announcement during the goodnights. I’ve always felt this episode accurately represents this season, particularly how big the cast is, as we got several instances of SNL using this cast’s extremely large size to their advantage in sketches (Harrassment Trial, Partridge Family vs. Brady Bunch, and somewhat Art Museum), some of which could never have been done with, say, the small late 80s cast.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Chevy Chase)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Jason Priestley
Rock is indeed playing Mushmouth while dressed like Dumb Donald. I don’t know if this was an error, if they just realized that most people would remember Mushmouth’s shtick but Dumb Donald’s look. I had actually seen a Cosby Kids episode or two and completely forgot what the kids looked like.
I think they just didn’t have any black writers and they probably didn’t even realize they mixed up two Cosby characters.
Minor correction — They had at least one black writer this season and next: Warren Hutcherson.
That’s asinine.
Oddly enough, a ’90s South Park episode would make the exact same mistake during a Fat Albert parody- A character who was visually Dumb Donald but talked in the Mushmouth voice. They may well have gotten the error from this sketch.
Good episode and one of my favorites for this season.
Mike Tyson was found guilty of rape two days after this episode aired: https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/longform/the-decision-mike-tysons-rape-trial-25-years-later
It is always interesting when there’s any nudity on this show. Will Forte shows his butt in the digital short, Just a Couple of Homies. So, seeing Schneider’s uncensored butt was shocking because when he does this sketch again in the Woody Harrelson episode, he wears flesh color underwear. I also remember hearing about some sketch with Forte called Naked Court, but it kept getting cut after dress rehearsal.
Re: the Partridge family skit. I’m so glad you have the full version to check because I do not remember any appearance by Sam and Alice. I would have loved to have seen that now that I know Christine Zander (who co-created my favorite recurring characters of SNL, the Sweeney Sisters) made an appearance. And this is (oddly enough, along with the Copy Man cold open) not available on NBC’s site (due to music rights presumably) so I guess most of us will never see it. I found the first half of the sketch on an old tumblr post – it was from a now-defunct Melanie Hutsell site. In this there’s a goof where we see Jan standing in the doorway while they’re still delivering the lines about answering the door. Was this the live version or is this from dress rehearsal?
https://norewardisworththis.tumblr.com/post/30787696189/partridge-family-vs-brady-bunch-sketch-from
Arakawa Group – I’d be a complete hypocrite if I went on about “problematic” material, given that I could rewatch the Samurai sketches a million times. There are parts of this I enjoy (like the reactions to the monkey video, and also, Phil’s accent, which is less a ‘lol Asians talk funny’ and more parodying the bad dubs of kung fu movies), but the main reason I don’t care that much for it overall is because it just feels like another self-indulgent Mike Myers piece, padded out with too many repeats of the same catchphrases. Beyond the catchphrases you really just have a sketch that is there to laugh at “Engrish” for 5 minutes. It echoes how many times Myers would do this in his last season, which isn’t the best memory to flash back to when I’m watching what is a much better season.
I think Ellen may have gotten the “island” character on in part because In Living Color had a big recurring sketch in “Hey Mon!” in this period. There would be a more clear version of this type of character after ILC was off the air, in a 94-95 sketch she does with Tim (one of my favorites of that season, actually).
This is a wonderful episode. Another example of an installment from this season that knows how to properly use the host – mostly in straight roles, but also some sharp comments and one sketch (the date with Mike) where she gets to be goofy. You can see how much Susan enjoyed the experience (she can barely stop from laughing in the Partridge Family sketch) and that adds something special. It’s also interesting to see a number of sketches where all the female cast members are together – they aren’t in the main roles (aside from Melanie as Jan Brady), but still, seeing six different women (plus Susan as host) being utilized and all their different comic styles on display feels different, and is something we won’t be getting again for a very long time. The best use is the Mike Tyson jury piece where we see their reactions to his equipment. (that sketch is also a classic for Phil). But there’s so much else to enjoy in this one – the art museum is probably the most unique, and a great example of when the show still knew how to pitch high-concept pieces to viewers.
The goodnights, with the announcement of Phil’s daughter being born, can break your heart, especially seeing Phil in tears. It’s also a beautiful moment. I don’t know if his daughter ever would be able to bear the pain of watching it, but at least she will always have that glimpse of just how much he loved her.
The one thing that hasn’t been mentioned about the Arafat’s Group sketch is, judging from this episode’s context clues, there was clearly an incident where a Japanese official blamed the US economic downturn on lazy American workers. Nealon makes reference to it on Update. So yes, the characterizations are all predictably problematic, but I don’t think it’s some kind of Mike Myers vanity piece at all. Also, I know Myers does a lot of Japanese characterizations, but between the Nude House of Wacky People and the Japanese Game Show, there are some great sketches.
I never knew Hartman appeared in the Partridge Family sketch. I’ve got to track that down.
Ugh, that should say Arakawa. I need to stop typing these responses on my iPhone.
John, the blooper with Melanie’s Jan Brady being seen standing in the doorway was from the live show.
Here are the promos from the episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkMPatdD6lk
Your first link is dead, but someone recently posted this different video with a promo with Susan Dey and the musical guests. Not sure if that’s the same as the one in your dead link. I forgot how much I liked some of these promos!
I think the Mushmouth/Dumb Donald thing was intentional, just for comedy purposes. They took the funniest looking character and gave him the funniest voice. And figured few people would notice or care that it was inaccurate.
Also, if anyone can post the full version of the sketch or episode anywhere, please let us know where to look. I’m dying to hear Hartman’s Sam the Butcher impression. Even a guy on Reddit who’s collected every alternate sketch, promo and dress rehearsal he can find doesn’t have the unedited version of this sketch.
I realized I did a Donald/Mushmouth thing of my own with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Don’t know much about them, but when looking at one of the group musician song sketches, I saw people saying Norm was playing Flea. I always thought Flea was the Chili Pepper with the long hair that goes shirtless. When you’re only vaguely familiar with a group of people like that, or you’ve forgotten about them over the years, your mind tends to naturally combine the most memorable-looking person with the most memorable name.
The Brady/Partridge sketch is one of my all-time favorites. It just nailed all of the things people remembered from those shows and touched on the ways they were already being made fun of. The rest of this episode was really heavy on originality. Outside of the sketches based on Susan Dey’s shows, most of this is not based on celebrity impressions, pop culture references or major recurring characters. There were a lot of great concepts and most of them were based on clever writing, not physical comedy. The only part that dragged was the overly long intro at the beginning before we get to Richmeister. Just about everyone in the cast had a moment to shine tonight. Susan Dey herself didn’t wow me too much though. Her best acting was in the Naked Man sketch. The returning characters Jan, Zoraida and Richmeister were all very solid. Weekend Update was above average also. I think Sandler’s delivery with Cajun Man needed some work, which he did improve on in later appearances.
I’m pretty sure I saw this live originally. Aside from the unforgettable Partridge sketch, I remember the Arakawa Group, Naked Man and the Janitor sketch pretty strongly. Really didn’t remember that museum one and surprisingly not the courtroom one, but I could see how the humor in those might’ve gone over my head when I was young.
Revealed on the latest Fly on the Wall podcast that Melanie Hutsell wrote the Brady Bunch/Partridge Family sketch.
Man I can’t even with the goodnights..Miss Phil to pieces.
I agree totally. How absolutely heartbreaking 🙁