Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Bill Clinton (PHH) tells what the health care plan will & won’t cover
— Funny reference to the infamous then-recent Lorena Bobbitt incident (the first of many references this season).
— Some really good laughs from Phil’s Clinton delivering such a serious rundown of which circus sideshow freaks are covered by his health care plan. (“Japu, the Indian rubber man, you are covered. Lobster Boy, I feel your pain!”)
— Funny part with Clinton’s sly smile before saying breast augmentation is covered by his health care plan.
STARS: ***½
OPENING MONTAGE
— Same montage from the last three seasons, making this the first time in SNL history where an opening montage was used for more than three seasons. I wonder if SNL fans at the time were disappointed to have to see this montage being used for YET ANOTHER season. I find it funny that right before tonight’s montage was cued up, Phil Hartman’s Clinton set up his “Live from New York…” by saying there are certain things they’re too afraid to change. That exact same statement could be made about this opening montage.
— Ellen Cleghorne, Melanie Hutsell, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, and David Spade have all been promoted from featured player to repertory player.
— After the 1990-1993 experiment of having two separate categories of featured players, we now go back to the traditional format of only one category of featured players.
— The shot of Julia Sweeney from the last three seasons (first screencap below) has been updated to a new shot (second screencap below).
— There are no new cast members yet. We will eventually get three of them added within the following two months.
MONOLOGUE
host goes one-on-one with Godzilla stand-in Barney
— Considering Charles Barkley’s evident greenness here, it’s probably a good thing he threw to a pre-taped video fairly early.
— Hilarious idea of Charles going one-on-one with Barney the Dinosaur. New writer (and soon-to-be new cast member) Jay Mohr came up with the idea of this monologue.
— This film is priceless, especially when it gets to the point where Barney has an eye hanging loose and stuffing popping out of his head.
— Too bad 9-year-old me at this time in 1993 hadn’t discovered SNL yet, because I would’ve gotten a huge kick out of seeing Barney getting pummeled, considering my seething hatred for him at the time (which was probably typical for boys around my age during Barney’s overexposure in the early 90s).
STARS: ****½
NCI
NCI Long Distance Company will do whatever you want to get your business
— The visual style of this commercial is a dead-on recreation of these types of phone commercials from this era.
— The customers’ increasingly bizarre requests are funny, as are the key words being flashed onscreen in response to every request being accepted (e.g. “Pretty girls”, “Extra long phone numbers”, “Ponies”).
— David’s doing a solid job in this spokesperson role, though the fact that he’s being cast in this role while Phil has a small supporting role as a customer is our very first sign that this season is a changing of the guard, with the new guard (Spade, Farley, Sandler) receiving more and more focus while the old guard (Hartman, Nealon) gets phased out. If this commercial had aired even as then-recently as the preceding season 18, I bet David and Phil would’ve been cast in each other’s roles.
— Speaking of Phil, I’ve always noticed that something about his face looks a lot different in this final season of his. Maybe it’s just sudden aging. His hair looks different this season too.
STARS: ***½
LARRY KING LIVE
divorcee Burt Reynolds (PHH) takes truth serum
— Kevin’s Larry King impression always makes me laugh, as does Phil’s Burt Reynolds.
— I liked Phil-as-Burt-Reynolds line, “She’ll be back; she’s like the clap.”
— Feels odd unexpectedly hearing Sarah Silverman’s now-instantly-recognizable voice as one of the callers. Sarah is one of the new writers this season and, like Jay Mohr, will soon be added to this season’s cast.
— I love King and Reynolds’ simultaneous goofy laughter, which seems to be inspired by the then-newly-popular Beavis and Butthead.
— Some of the truths King blurts out after drinking truth serum are pretty funny.
— Overall, the sketch was fine, but feels unfitting and kinda odd as the lead-off sketch of a season premiere (which is also a gripe I had with the preceding season premiere’s lead-off sketch: Tiny Elvis).
STARS: ***
DAILY AFFIRMATION WITH STUART SMALLEY
Muggsy Bogues [real] lends support to host
— Unless I’m forgetting something, this is the first time a Daily Affirmation sketch has ever appeared in the pre-Weekend Update half of an episode.
— The idea of tonight’s Daily Affirmation sketch was obviously inspired by the success of the one with Michael Jordan from two seasons earlier.
— Charles already has some funny lines early on in this interview.
— Great part where, after Charles brags about being the best basketball player, Stuart innocently says “If you’re the best basketball player in the world, I guess you’ve won a lot of championships”, which Charles then embarrassedly admits he hasn’t.
— A Muggsy Bogues cameo!
— When Charles is supposed to start getting choked up, you can tell he’s stifling his laughter, which comes off looking hilarious.
— Muggsy’s heartfelt “I love you” to Charles is very funny.
— I love Stuart eagerly getting up to hug Muggsy because he finds him adorable.
— Overall, though I feel this doesn’t hold a candle to the Michael Jordan one, this was a strong Daily Affirmation sketch.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Heart-Shaped Box”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Hollywood Minute- DAS gives his thoughts on summer showbiz happenings
— We’re seeing the wrong camera angle during Kevin’s joke about the Olympics. Either that, or Kevin’s just delivering the joke into the wrong camera.
— Oof, some of Kevin’s jokes are getting a really tepid audience reaction. This is setting the tone for what a rough season this is going to be for Kevin’s Updates.
— Though he stumbled through the set-up (as usual), Kevin finally had a great joke that got a big reaction tonight, with his joke about how Michael Jackson celebrated his 35th birthday with “a 13 year old…………….bottle of champagne.”
— During David’s Hollywood Minute, I loved his “It gets worse” aside to the audience when some of them are going “Ohhhh” after the Andrew McCarthy slam.
— The usual solid stuff from David’s overall Hollywood Minute tonight, with my favorite parts being his Homer Simpson/Skipper “d’oh/dip” back-and-forths, him riffing on Chevy Chase’s disastrous new talk show, and his comments about Billy Idol.
— Another wrong camera angle during one of Kevin’s Update jokes.
— Two Update commentaries were cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal: one in which Ellen’s Queen Shenequa character talks about taxes and President Clinton (pic here), and one in which Adam as Eddie Vedder (an impression that will make its on-air debut a few episodes later) sings about world events to the melody of the Pearl Jam song “Evenflow” (pic here). The latter sounds like a variation of Adam’s Operaman commentaries.
STARS: **½
THE GAP
Gap girls Kristy & Lucy recall unpleasant experience with Skid Row [real]
— Interesting how they completely changed David’s character’s hairstyle, which has been acknowledged within the sketch.
— The Heidi Fleiss scandal must’ve recently broken out, as we’re getting a lot of mentions of her in tonight’s season premiere.
— And now, much like David’s character, Farley’s character’s hair also looks different from the preceding installments of this sketch.
— Farley’s whispery “You two are terrible!” cracked me up.
— Random pre-taped Skid Row cameo out of nowhere.
— Oh my god at the sight of Charles Barkley dressed like… that.
— Charles is wearing flesh-colored makeup over his mustache to hide it. Also, he keeps holding his head down in this weird way. Is he doing that to make the flesh-colored makeup less noticeable onscreen?
— That’s the end of the sketch? Why was Charles’ appearance so brief? Seemed like a waste of our host.
— Not the best Gap Girls sketch overall. I didn’t care for the Skid Row scene and the sketch as a whole felt too disjointed, like I was watching three Gap Girls sketches in one.
STARS: **½
COFFEE TALK WITH LINDA RICHMAN
Linda takes some calls on Yom Kippur
— The first of what will unfortunately (for me) be an EXCESSIVE amount of Coffee Talk sketches this season.
— As usual, the material is boring me and I’m getting pretty much no laughs, but I did like Linda Richman’s long run of Yiddish during a rant just now, which was impressively delivered.
— Boy, while watching these early 90s episodes during this SNL project, I’ve gotten VERY sick of hearing that “I’m feeling verklempt… tawk amongst yuhselves” catchphrase. It never makes me laugh, and what makes it worse is that it’s always delivered two or three times in each Coffee Talk sketch.
— I’m starting to notice that my absolute least favorite Coffee Talk sketches (which is certainly saying something) are the ones with no guests, like tonight’s installment.
STARS: *½
DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
CHARLES BARKLEY’S BIG, TALL & BLACK MEN’S STORES
host’s store offers clothes for big tall black males; Muggsy Bogues cameo
— HUGE technical issues as this sketch starts. The soft background music for this sketch instantly cues up, but the screen just stays black for a VERY long time. Then, while the sketch’s background music is still heard playing, an SNL bumper photo of Barkley is shown onscreen for a while, as if this is SNL’s way of telling us “Technical difficulties; please stand by”. Then the sketch FINALLY starts. Wow, what the hell was going on?
— Decent concept for this sketch.
— A few minutes into this, and I haven’t been finding this hilarious, but there IS a charm to it.
— Funny visual of Muggsy Bogues entering in oversized clothes.
STARS: **½
OUT OF AFRICA
tribal art dealer (ROS) touts the weed-holding abilities of artifacts
— OH, NO. Here’s the debut of a soon-to-be recurring sketch that I’ve always despised.
— Only 40 seconds into this sketch, and “You put your weed in there!” has already been said about three times and is clearly going to be the only joke of this whole sketch.
— It’s now a few minutes later, and yep, nothing has changed. “You put your weed in there!” remains the ONLY joke.
— Okay, one part of the scene right now with Barkley’s cop questioning Rob gave me a “so stupid, it’s funny” chuckle.
— Overall, a rare miss at the time for the usually-solid Rob Schneider. Unfortunately, this season ends up having a number of Rob Schneider sketches that don’t land with me. This is only the beginning.
STARS: *½
WHAT’S THAT?
contestants guess the sex of crossdressed men; RuPaul cameo
— What’s with the crossdressing theme in tonight’s episode, between the Gap Girls sketch, Coffee Talk, and now this?
— This is the first time in tonight’s episode where I’ve noticed Chris Rock’s departure. Adam being cast as one of the contestants in this urban gameshow makes it obvious that SNL now only has two black cast members. Adam is cracking me up in this role, though.
— What the…? Charles’ voice has suddenly become very hoarse mid-sketch, making it very hard for him to get through the line he’s currently trying to deliver.
— Not the funniest concept to this sketch, but it has a very goofy, silly atmosphere that’s working for me.
— Bea Arthur being shown as one of the “man or woman?” clips gave me a laugh.
— Another technical error tonight, this time with the opening “It’s time for What’s That” announcement accidentally being played during the ending when they were supposed to play the What’s That ending theme music.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Rape Me”
DONKEY BASKETBALL CAMP
host stresses importance of human-ass cooperation in donkey basketball
— Uh… what a concept.
— Big night for David Spade, who’s been very prominent in this episode. Probably the most airtime he’s gotten in a single episode thus far.
— Ha, this sketch has started going off the rails, first with Charles’ donkey starting to move around when it’s not supposed to, and then one of the other guys’ donkey just walking right off the set.
— The “Slipping on donkey urine” bit gave me a good laugh.
— Ha, now Farley’s basketball bouncing has scared the rest of the donkeys, causing them to leave the set with the guys still on top of them.
— Farley looked like he had no idea when to exit the scene. Maybe Charles was supposed to tell him to go, but forgot.
— Overall, there was a weird kind of fun charm to this random sketch, though it pales in comparison to a far-superior and more memorable later sketch that also involves people sitting on donkeys in an unlikely situation: the Ridin’ My Donkey Political Talk Show sketch from the Will Ferrell era.
STARS: ***
OFFICE SPACE
by Mike Judge- disgruntled worker Milton stews
— A lot of Beavis and Butthead connections tonight. First, the SNL Band played the Beavis and Butthead theme music during one of the band shots earlier tonight (and IIRC, they do that again right after this Office Space cartoon), then the Larry King Live sketch had Kevin and Phil’s Larry King and Burt Reynolds constantly laughing simultaneously in a goofy manner, then David did a Beavis and Butthead imitation at one point during Hollywood Minute, and now we get this Mike Judge cartoon. This really takes me back to how Beavis and Butthead took pop culture by storm around this time. I remember my mom didn’t allow me to watch Beavis and Butthead’s show back then because she felt I was too young for it (I was 9 years old, as mentioned earlier in this review), but I would still sneak in viewings of it when she wasn’t around, and I eventually got in a bit of trouble when she caught me watching it.
— Needless to say, this Office Space cartoon is an interesting change of pace for SNL.
— This is already cracking me up early on. This Milton character is hilarious.
— For some reason, it feels weird hearing audience laughter during an indie-type cartoon like this.
— I love the part with Milton’s boss.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— While not a terrible season premiere, this season’s drop in quality from season 18 is already evident. The first half of the episode was fine, but the second half was pretty rough, though there was a bit of an upswing towards the very end. As for Charles Barkley, while I feel his comedic sensibilities are better in more modern times where there’s more of a self-aware quality to his humorous personality, he had his moments tonight and wasn’t too bad for an athlete host.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1992-93)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Shannen Doherty
More dress cuts:
Some sort of talk show with Charles and Phil:
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/episode-1-air-date-pictured-basketball-star-charles-barkley-news-photo/138446632
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/episode-1-air-date-pictured-basketball-star-charles-barkley-news-photo/138446631
Melanie and Charles in a hotel or apartment:
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/episode-1-air-date-pictured-melanie-hutsell-charles-barkley-news-photo/138446633
As always, love reading these. Just curious where you get your dress rehearsal info from, as these last couple of seasons, you’ve provided synopses for many cut Update pieces. Getty Images has a lot of pics, but how did you find out about the content? (i.e. Queen Shenequa talks about Clinton/taxes)
Thank you for finding those. I wish poor Melanie had gotten that on the air – I wonder what it was about.
FeaturingEmilyPrager, my dress rehearsal info comes from an old SNL episode guide that a fellow SNL fan obtained and sent to me. The episode guide mainly just consists of detailed descriptions of most aired sketches from 1975-1995 (the guide abruptly ends with the Courteney Cox episode from the homestretch of season 20), but starting in the middle of season 18, the guide also includes descriptions of cut dress rehearsal sketches for most episodes until near the end of season 19, and then there’s two episodes from the middle of season 20 (Jeff Daniels and David Hyde Pierce) that also have cut dress sketch descriptions.
Here’s the description the episode guide has for the two cut sketches you linked to pictures of:
“Pro Sports Shopping:
Charles and Phil host a show, in the style of the home shopping network, that sells skulls and bones of famous athletes. Their manner is so cavalier, they act as if they were selling baseball card.”
“Hotel:
Melanie is a college student and adoring fan of Charles Barkley, she accompanies him back to his hotel room to make sure he is comfortable. Melanie’s character is a very monotone and a little thick.”
Thanks for the info, Stooge! What’s the episode guide called? Probably not available anywhere, but I am obsessed with dress rehearsal material, and am endlessly frustrated that the show doesn’t release “lost” sketches from the vault more often. Always interesting to see what gets cut and especially in cases like Melanie Hutsell or other underused cast members, to see what they actually produced but never made it to air. Any dress info is forever appreciated.
FeaturingEmilyPrager, check your email.
Norm wrote the Burt Reynolds sketch. Apparently the next week Lorne said in front of everybody he didn’t like the sketch because it was “too Carol Burnett”. Norm then wondered why it made air in the first place.
Rob’s “you put your weed in it” character would be reprised in the movie “The Hot Chick” with Sandler in the role.
Yeesh the signs are definitely here although if I recall there are some rather good stretches in this season (not many but some)
I knew that had to be Norm because they said the word “whore” about 5 times and it involved two characters he’d go on to impersonate (so well that he’s actually the main person I associate Larry King and Burt Reynolds with). I’m genuinely bewildered at Lorne saying the sketch was “too Carol Burnett.” Did he mean all the laughing? I thought the sketch, while funny at times, had an incredibly bitter, coarse tone that bore little resemblance to her show, or most of the recent seasons of SNL before this point. To me it was a real neon sign for what we’re going to be getting for the rest of the decade.
Some random thoughts:
– not counting political content, the 92-93 premiere has no recurring sketches, beyond Queen Shenequa (which had never been a sketch to that point), whereas this episode has three (and one that is clearly intended as a future recurring sketch)
– episodes with black hosts in the few seasons before this had many contributions from black cast members, whereas this episode has thankless bit parts in everything beyond that cruddy game show sketch where Tim and Ellen just play stereotypes all the way through (Tim was never particularly good at this yet he would be stuck with in for years to come)
– the fake phone commercial perfectly captures the annoying phone ads of this era, and Spade is actually perfectly suited for it
– the pointless Skid Row cameo (to a mostly dead audience) reminds me of the 94-95 premiere, where a pointless Brian Austin Green pops up to a dead audience
– Spade deserved a much better audience response for his “wigging out” joke about Burt Reynolds
– Mike Myers looked really out of place in that donkey sketch, as by this time he has little to no rapport with most of his costars.
– Krist Novoselic reminded me a great deal of Andy Kaufman in the goodnights, and I have no idea why
– the sad sight in the goodnights was Phil standing off on his own, not looking very happy, until finally Julia walked over to him
(regarding Phil’s appearance, his hairstyle this season is…unfortunate)
Charles Barkley had a great deal of presence in the hosting role. While his work did not add anything the show in terms of performance (only the monologue and to a degree the fun Stuart Smalley sketch), he was likeable enough to where the episode would have been much worse without him.
I’ve felt that for whatever reason, David Spade tried harder in the Gap Girls sketches, and that was also true here. Farley is much more…animated in these than he was last season. Sandler is about the same. This Gap Girls sketch is actually fascinating to watch because I have no idea what the hell it’s meant to be, and I’m not sure they know either. Moving away from the easy beats (repeating “just cinch ’em” 5000 times; Rob Schneider trading putdowns with the other “girls”), we instead have Christy being sexually assaulted and Lucy realizing she is attracted to women. None of this is seriously used as something to laugh or jeer at, so…is this meant to be a slice-of-life piece buried in a recurring character segment?
Random thoughts:
*For some reason, I have a hard time recognizing Julia Sweeney in her updated cast photo this season.
*You’re right that this season unfortunately is a bad one for Rob Schneider and I think colors a lot of people’s perceptions of his SNL tenure, which was really solid and underrated to this point (he’s a borderline sneak MVP last season!).
*The only thing I can think Lorne meant by “too Carol Burnett” was that the sketch was predicated on Hollywood impression(s), although the content is of course nothing like the Burnett show.
*Barkley is always Barkley when he hosts, but I have to confess that while I don’t really like the overall episodes he does, he makes me laugh in a lot of the sketches. He’s certainly not the main problem here.
*I agree that there are a lot of warning signs–the reliance on recurring stuff, so many rather tacky cameos (Skid Row???), and poor ideas about what to put on the air (who, looking at this sketch lineup, thought this was a great idea?)
*Was Coffee Talk even that popular at the time? I remember finding it a mildly okay palate cleanser type sketch, but I didn’t realize it was on THAT much until reading these reviews. At the time, I kinda lumped it and Stuart Smalley together as basically the same sort of thing, but Smalley is definitely more consistently funny and also easier for me to stomach since it wasn’t like Franken was all over the show anyway.
I remember the “verkemplt” being very popular with the general public, and so was “talk amongst yourselves.” I’ve seen other fans say Myers considered a Coffee Talk movie (which obviously didn’t happen). I don’t think it was ever on the level of Wayne’s World of course.
I too have been confused by Julia’s hair in that shot. I think because of her headgear and because of the way her hair is positioned. And also because it’s extremely rare for credits shots to change when most of the opening stays the same.
At least the three writers later turned into feature players are all stand up comics: Norm MacDonald, Jay Mohr, and Sarah Silverman.
I love this episode. I remember watching it live. I was 10 years old. I thought it was so cool that Charles Barkley was hosting. He had just finished his first year with the Phoenix Suns and taken them to the Finals (I’m from Arizona, so we we’re big time fans). I loved the Charles Barkley vs. Godzilla commercial, so it was awesome that they parodied it with Barney the Dinosaur. It’s a really funny video.
Barkley does pretty well here. And you can see his comedic chops here, that will become much better (he’s gotten a lot of practice goofing it up on TNT) Also, I don’t mind the “You put your weed in it” skit. It’s pretty funny, and not too long. There was no need to make it a recurring character however (I think they only did one other time anyway).
John, you bring up a great point. Although Mike Myers tenure on the show matches up with the “Bad Boys”…he’s definitely not really considered a part of that group. You nailed it when you said that he didn’t really have a lot of rapport with Chris, Adam, David, Tim and the gang. Does anyone have anymore insight on why he didn’t? Even if there was no personal animosity between Mike and those guys, it’s obvious that Mike didn’t have good chemistry with them. Mike really kind of did his own thing on the show. He didn’t really feel comfortable as an ensemble player, all of his characters were really driven to just be about him. Indeed, is only good pair-up was of course Wayne’s World with Dana. Just my observation.
I think Myers is just one of those performers who, as you say, isn’t really an ensemble guy (as you said, Dana was his only famous pair-up). I don’t think that’s a bad thing, per se, and I’ve never heard Myers called a jerk or stuck-up (and he never like unprofessionally ruined sketches by being self-centered), but I can’t think of too many prominent cast members who didn’t have obviously comfortable collaborators. I don’t know if it’s an ego thing, but I suppose he did play almost all of the funny roles in Austin Powers himself.
I think Mike Meyers knew Tim Meadows from Second City. I don’t know if they were close or not.
Who would have thought Charles Barkley would host the show again after this? I remember when he came back to host in 2010 (after 17 years) and I was in complete shock. Then he came back in 2012 and 2018. But every time he comes back, it works somehow.
There are moments in the goodnights where you can see the fondness with Mike and others in the cast, like when he jumps on Chris Farley’s back. It’s very sweet. There’s just such an increasingly manufactured, clinical air to his onscreen work, and it gets to a point where it becomes unwatchable for me. It’s a shame as my memories of his first few seasons are much more positive and it’s hard to not have them spoilt a bit, especially by his work in the first half of 94-95.
It’s true that Mike doesn’t have chemistry with guys like Adam, David, Rob or Tim BUT from all accounts he was friends with Farley and DID show decent chemistry with him (Middle-Age Man, Japanese Game Show…). He talks about him alot in the Farley documentary and how Farley would always ask him to write him stuff.
I think it makes perfect sense that Mike gets along with Chris and Tim, the other two Second City guys, the same way that Dennis Miller and Dana Carvey befriended and mentored Spade and Schneider when they were new.
The sketch/improv people always tend to stick together as do the stand ups and that’s why Mike never really develops a rapport with the stand ups in the cast like Sandler, Spade, Rock, and Schneider.
First episode with Don Pardo’s name is credited at the end of the credits
Yeah, I noticed that too when this ep originally aired.
I’ve really been enjoying all of these reviews and learning a lot, but the big response to this episode (and Kevin Kline) shows how passionate everyone is about the end of the second golden age.
I’ve always looked at 85-95 as an elongated version of the first five seasons. For me, ’85-’86 is like a rudderless version of season 1. ’86-88 feels like season 2, ’88-90 feels like season 3, ’90-93 is like season 4, and then we get a long, slow slide with occasional high points from ’93-95, just like season 5. Bob Newhart hosted in both season 5 and season 20, so let’s blame him.
Now that we’re officially in season 19, I’m waiting for the episode that finally signifies that the slide has begun. And by “slide” I mean when the show goes way too far toward pointless Bad Boy sketches. I remember back then feeling like they were phoning it in for things like Schmee the Bee or this episode’s Gap Girls sketch. A Nirvana-obsessed friend thought this episode was the final passing of the torch from hair metal to grunge (since it featured Skid Row, too, but in a cheesy cameo).
I haven’t watched much of this season in a long time, but I think the slide finally kicks in with the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger episode. We’ll see.
One other note that some of the other comments have touched on… I think the huge turnover in the writer’s room had a lot to do with this season feeling strange. Based on what I’ve seen – and someone correct me if this is inaccurate — not only did The Turners and Christine Zander at the end of season 18, but I also see that Jack Handey and Warren Hutcherson were not credited as much in 19, and Smigel (as mentioned before) was getting busy working with Conan. Fred Wolf also returned after a hiatus, it seems.
But the biggest change was the hiring of so many stand-ups to the writing staff… Dave Attell, Norm, Sarah Silverman, Lew Morton, Jay Mohr and Adam Sandler’s buddy, Tim Herlihy. I’ve liked a lot of the work I’ve seen from all of them — and Norm is a legend — but maybe adding all of these folks while simultaneously losing so many veterans is a big part of what skewed the show. The change wasn’t gradual as it had been around 1990-91.
Kubelsky, I’ve always felt that the episode where the slide fully kicks in is Jason Patric, the first episode of the 1994 half of this season. That’s also the episode where they start openly acknowledging that this season isn’t going so well.
haha, sad fact about Bob Newhart, even though his hosted episodes were some of the best of those seasons!
Hey Stooge I like a copy of that link myself
here’s Norm talking about the Burt Reynolds/Larry King sketch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52LgvHbzGDE
3:45 in
Yes, there was a huge writer’s exodus at the end of S.18. I noticed that too. Jim Downey was/is an amazing sketch writer, but he wasn’t Superman. He couldn’t carry the entire show on his back.
That New York piece from 1995 paints such a depressing picture of what Downey was going through at the time – there’s the suggestion from the piece that Lorne played mind games with him, and also that he was nearly fired (or nearly quit) at the end of this season.
http://nymag.com/arts/tv/features/47548/index4.html
There is a rather famous picture of RuPaul holding baby Frances Bean Cobain. I always wondered if that happened here, or if it’s at least how she met Kurt.
NBC recently reran a 60-minute version of this episode and I wondered why they cut the RuPaul sketch because RuPaul’s Drag Race is an Emmy-winning juggernaut, but I realize now it’s a premise that doesn’t hold up in 2019.
Which brings me to the Gap Girls, because I agree with John’s comment that at some point they go beyond catchphrases. Later sketches reveal that David Spade’s character has an abusive boyfriend and Adam Sandler’s character has a predatory stepdad. But they’re in drag and playing it for laughs. Are they punching down? Or are they trying to humanize teenage girls but in a way that’s funny? It’s rather fascinating to me.
In the early 1990s, I could never figure out why the recurring Stuart Smalley and Coffee Talk sketches kept being aired. I never found either of them to be funny and they both seemed to always run far too long.
I always loved the stuart smalley sketches but do think that they lost the heart they once had within the finale year or so, but some are gems…
I never liked the original coffee talk, but liked coffee talk when it was shorter, and had cameos, or used the guest star, whether it was rosanne, or someone stopping by like Madonna. I also appreciated that the intro always stayed the same, you know daughters and dogs, etc, I find that funny. Having a Jewish mom, I know it’s a far fetched stereotype but there’s def some truth to his character, and I’m not a fan of mostly Any other myers sketches written for him aside from Wayne’s world and I didn’t mind middle aged man, (sprockets I don’t know what the big wooop is there but diff strokes for diff folks)…but this one doesn’t stand out. They do tend to overuse them I notice as the season progresses or from last season running over, so I could see people getting sick of it.
For me my fav bits of the show were the NCI commercial,
the spade hollywood moment
I really loved the gap girls episode this time around, I did find it strange to see skid row making a cameo when it feels like they didn’t play that long ago, also it would have made much more sense w nirvana seeing that they were the musical acts…
But I also know that when they were doing the movie “Singles”, Cameron Crowe Wanted nirvana along side Matt Dillions character but Kurt Cobain turned it down and said something like they’d be selling out…sure enough he found another popular band willing to do it, which was Pearl Jam. I found it a bit ironic that KC was a bit salty to people in the music industry, I think he made fun of them, said they were sellouts for doing that movie and I just don’t think that’s respectful.
Aside from that rant, I still didn’t mind seeing skid row as roughhousing with Sandler and spade, I thought it was a nice change of pace to the skit, and Barkley showing up at the end as the “girl” Sandler kissed and and then “flirting” with Spade, its a funny ending.
Never was an office space fan but I do find this cartoon by MJ very funny and would later be so accurate in the movie version.
Someone mentioned Hartmans Unfortunate haircut and I agree, it seemed too short and like his eye brows were dyed or maybe over plucked something looked a bit different…but also the man was promised his own show if he stayed on SNL, that was never delivered, and he stayed for so long. So I feel like at this point he’s gotta be burnt out from playing a faux game show host and a dad every week…
Last I know music isn’t rated but was surprised to see Nirvana again in such a short span of time since they last played but happy none the less. Forgot how much of a killer song heart shaped box is, and then rape me came on at the end and it sent shivers down my spine. I was too young for that period of music, but when I grew up I was able to appreciate them, (occasionally I’ll break out a lyric from “Penny Royal Tea” (I’m anemic”).
I still prefer GNR and Motley Crue to a lot of the 90s grunge acts like sound garden and Alice In Chains but Nirvana and Pearl Jam are exceptions..I loved the Smashing Pumpkins & REM but they are more alternative than grunge to me…
I also thought it was funny at the good nights watching Cobain eating what appeared to be some kind of big Oreo or Moon Pie with a slight smile, it was endearing.
Overall not the best but not the worst start to a season, solid host and great music performances.
Hey Candy, a user named Blue and I have tried to slowly review the musical performances in a similar way that Stooge reviews sketches, in the comments. It’s a tough job, there’s so many episodes and sometimes it’s hard for me to think up things to say about a performance. We’re not doing them in a particular order, just cherry pickin’ usually.
In the 2.0 one snl a day, Blue reviews all the musical performances.
Awesome Frederick, I will def check that out. I agree there’s so many episodes and I’m making my own little music reviews but as you mentioned in no particular order, basically what has caught my attention. There’s so many, I’m getting ready to post on the later season 19 episode w Pearl Jam…
Thanks for the info 🙂
Why did Mike never appear with Adam was it cause of their personality’s?
Just saw it mentioned earlier in the thread but Fred Wolf is gone for the first part of this season because he was a writer on the ill fated Chevy Chase talk show
I mainly remember how hilarious Charles Barkley was with Barney, that Larry King sketch with Burt Reynolds (which I recall laughing in spots) and that Mike Judge cartoon which I don’t think I remember thinking was funny at all. Before I saw this in its original airing, Comedy Central aired the very first show. In that one, I finally saw Dick Ebersol’s name on it after years of seeing the previous VHS version that edited his name out because he violated a network code that forbade an executive from taking a credit on a show. That resulted in his name also removed from being listed in the Emmy show when it won for that initial season. He wanted his name on the show because when he worked at ABC Sports, the president of that division, Roone Arledge, did put his name on programs produced by that department. Anyway, Comedy Central had shown a marathon of eps during that week leading up to this 19th season premiere…