Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PLANET OF THE APES
host finds himself transported back to The Planet Of The Apes
— I like Charlton’s delivery of “Why the hell didn’t somebody wake me up?”
— Fantastic gradual reveal that the entire studio has been taken over by apes.
— This cold opening is amazing and extremely fun to watch.
— When a wandering Charlton stops near a big scarecrow-looking “X” thing in front of the musical guest stage, he’s supposed to say “What kind of a show is this?!”, but instead, there’s awkward dead air as he just stands there silently for a VERY long time, looking kinda lost before he finally delivers his line. I think he was just waiting for his cue, not realizing that he was already given it. Needless to say, this gaffe would later be removed in reruns.
— An ape version of a Richmeister sketch!
— For some reason, the way Ape Rob Schneider angrily pounds his fists on the desk while repeatedly going “Ooh-ooh!” in an ape-like manner cracks me up.
— Hilarious bit with Charlton seeing a silent, dopey-smiling Chris Farley and thinking his brain has been removed like Phil’s, only for Tim to reveal “Chris is fine; he’s always like this”, followed by Chris saying “Ten Commandments was awesome!”
— The ending shot, in which Charlton gets a net thrown on him, quotes his famous “damn dirty apes” line, and says “Live from New York…”, would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. Not sure why. The most noticeable differences between the live and rerun version is that the rerun has the (human) audience audibly applauding after Charlton’s “damn dirty apes” line and Charlton uses a different delivery for his “Live from New York…”
STARS: *****
OPENING MONTAGE
— Oh, I love this! SNL is going all out on the “apes taking over the studio” premise by having it carry over into the opening montage, with the show going through all the trouble of recreating the opening montage by doing an ape-ified version of all the human shots.
— So much attention to detail in these recreated shots (some side-by-side comparisons below), right down to a blonde female ape’s swinging earring during the recreation of Phil Hartman’s sequence.
— This really makes you wish SNL played around with their opening montages more often like this.
— Excellent touch with musical guest Paul Westerberg being introduced as “singing human” and Charlton Heston being introduced as “captured slave”.
MONOLOGUE
captured host tries to explain to audience monkeys- “I’m not a mutant”
— More fantastic commitment to the apes premise, by having it continue into the monologue, reminding me of what they cleverly did in the Macaulay Culkin episode from two seasons earlier.
— Great touch with even the SNL Band wearing ape masks. According to an old report I once read on the SNL newsgroup from someone who attended this episode’s dress rehearsal, the ape version of G.E. Smith was actually played by a double. The real G.E. stood off-camera while conducting the band.
— Oh, no. Even this ambitious piece is succumbing to the recent trend of “audience members each ask the host the same dumb question” monologues, which makes this the THIRD consecutive monologue with that premise, and the fourth one of this overall season so far. I was going to dock some serious points in my rating for this monologue, but that probably wouldn’t be fair of me. The whole ape thing is at least a fresh and fun spin on this monologue trope, and I’d like to think that this is SNL’s self-deprecating way of mocking their own overreliance on this type of monologue.
— I mentioned in a recent review that a portion of Sarah Silverman’s monologue from her season 40 hosting stint cleverly features her answering questions asked by herself in out-of-context old clips from various season 19 questions-from-the-audience monologues. A brilliant bit, but one glaring omission was a clip of her from tonight’s monologue. It would’ve been freakin’ priceless if, after seeing normal clips of 1993-1994 Sarah Silverman asking questions to 2014 Sarah Silverman, we suddenly got a clip of 1993 Sarah as an ape asking 2014 Sarah “Are you some kind of talking mu-tant?”
— Hmm, maybe I wasn’t wrong in my initial urge to dock points for this monologue. All of the “Are you some kind of talking mutant?”-type questions from the ape audience aren’t all that funny after about 20 seconds.
— Norm Macdonald giving a very Norm Macdonald-esque performance in an ape mask is hilarious in itself. I love how, even if you don’t listen to his voice, you can still tell that’s him under that mask just from his eyes and the way he has his head tilted back.
— Nice addition of a captured-and-chained Lorne.
— Too bad the ape theme of tonight’s episode ends after this monologue. As a huge fan of conceptual SNL episodes (e.g. Charles Grodin and George Wendt/Francis Ford Coppola, two of my favorite SNL episodes ever), it would’ve been amazing had the ape theme continued for the entire night, but that’s probably wishing for too much. It would’ve been hard for SNL to pull off an entire live show in that manner, plus the gag might’ve gotten old after a while.
STARS: ***
INFINITI
Jonathan Pryce (MIM) shows off features of the Infiniti Q45 Toilet
— Pretty funny subject matter, a solid Mike Myers performance, and a spot-on parody of the real Jonathan Pryce commercial from this time.
STARS: ***
COFFEE TALK WITH LINDA RICHMAN
Linda’s goy boyfriend (host) wants to get married
— Oh, here we go again. Three times in just eight episodes so far this season, folks…
— Thank god we at least get a guest in this one, as the last handful of Coffee Talk sketches featured no guests at all and were even more insufferable than usual.
— The odd pairing of Linda Richman and Charlton is actually coming off fairly charming.
— I liked Linda’s “He tries, God knows he tries” when Charlton makes a poor attempt at some Yiddish phrases.
— Once again tonight, there are some awkward pauses before some of Charlton’s lines. Mike Myers seems to be cueing Charlton on his lines during some of the pauses.
— An actual surprising and sweet turn with Charlton proposing to Linda.
— Overall, one of the more tolerable Coffee Talk sketches by default, even if that’s still not saying much by my standards.
STARS: **½
INFINITI
the Infiniti Q45 Toilet has a non-stick finish to guard against caca
— Decent follow-up to the first ad, and there’s some laughs from Mike’s Jonathan Pryce listing off excrement euphemisms in his dignified English accent.
STARS: ***
GANGSTA DANCE RAP SMASHES!
just the album to liven up white partygoers
— Rob’s dancing is hilarious.
— This humorously captures the essence of early 90s gangsta rap.
— I’m getting good laughs from the listed-off song titles, such as “We’re Coming To F*** Your White Ass, Mama” by Big Group Of Black Guys, and “Tadaaa! Bloody Whiteboy”, all made even funnier by the fact that they’re being read in Phil Hartman’s cheery, professional voice-over.
STARS: ***½
THE PRESIDENT IS ILLITERATE
the executive’s (host) secret is revealed
— Nice idea for a follow-up to the The President Has Mustard On His Chin sketch from Charlton’s season 12 episode.
— I like Phil giving Charlton a menu from a Chinese restaurant and convincing him that it’s an education bill. We then get a hilarious visual of Charlton intensely “studying” the Chinese menu.
— There’s some unintended awkwardness in Charlton’s delivery at times here.
— Ohho, boy, talk about Charlton coming off awkward. Just now, there’s a big gaffe during Charlton’s televised press conference where, after he puts a “Hello, I am a cretin” button onto his lapel and Kevin responds “Oh… my… god!”, Charlton makes a VEEEEEEERRRRRRY long and awkward pause before he delivers his next line, rivaling his aforementioned long and awkward pause in the cold opening. Poor Kevin and Phil are left to just stand helplessly while waiting and waiting for Charlton to finally deliver his next line. At one point during that insanely long pause of Charlton’s, the audience laughs out loud confusedly. Reruns of this episode replace this entire portion of the sketch with the dress rehearsal version.
— The Cat in the Hat ending scene felt a little too long.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Knockin’ on Mine”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Hollywood Minute- DAS says to Macaulay Culkin “you’ll end up like me”
— What was up with the beginning? This Update oddly opens with absolutely NONE of the applause that Kevin’s Updates usually open with. Then after Kevin’s “Good evening, I’m Kevin Nealon” sign-on, the audience finally applauds. I guess there was a delay in the studio’s light-up “applause” signs.
— During David’s bit about Madonna and Michael Jackson being in a race to see who can end their career first, he throws in a “Oh, what’s this? It’s John Candy out of nowhere in a photo finish!” as a photo of John Candy is shown onscreen. (By the way, how was John Candy ruining his career at this time? Bad movies?) Candy’s untimely death just a few months later would prevent SNL from being able to re-air that joke about him, and reruns edit it out in a very noticeable fashion.
— Some solid moments from tonight’s overall Hollywood Minute, especially the classic Macaulay Culkin bit, where David explains to Macaulay, “Here’s the thing: I used to look EXACTLY like you when I was 10” (complete with a side-by-side comparison of a pic of Macaulay and a childhood pic of David, seen in the fifth above screencap for this Weekend Update) and “This is where you’re headed, buddy; welcome to hell!”
STARS: ***½
CAREER DAY
King Solomon Junior High’s Career Day guests include false prophet (host)
— Rob’s mundane, dry description of his boring job is funny, as is his answering David’s question with “Good question! (pause) No.”
— The leper scene with Mike is tickling me.
— Funny bit at the end of Mike’s leper scene, with his handshake fake-out to Julia.
— Ellen has really been struggling badly for airtime lately. Tonight is the second episode in a row where she only makes one small appearance all night.
— The false prophet bit with Charlton is very solid, and I laughed out loud at his delivery of “God told me to say that!……No, he didn’t.”
STARS: ***½
INFINITI
other Infiniti Q45 Toilet features include a seat & a drink holder
— Decent visual of the toilet having a fancy cup holder.
— Was it really necessary to end this by repeating the “Oh, and tell them you already know the part about the caca” line from the end of the second Infiniti ad earlier tonight?
STARS: ***
THE NRA LOANER
in response to Brady Bill, host announces NRA’s Five-Day Loaner Program
— Pretty funny concept of the NRA providing a 5-day loaner gun for people going through a Brady Bill-induced five-day waiting period for their real gun.
— I loved Charlton’s blunt “This thing’ll blow your head off” while the caption “Would Blow Your Head Clean Off” shows up on the bottom of the screen.
— When Charlton has his back turned to the camera (and thus, has his back turned to the cue cards) while listing off some of the guns he’s pointing out on a wall, you can tell he’s reading his lines off of a small piece of paper hidden in his hand. He’s doing a poor job of masking the fact that he’s reading (the last two above screencaps for this sketch). I’m not 100% sure, but I think reruns replace this sketch with the dress rehearsal version, where Charlton doesn’t resort to reading the gun names off a hidden sheet of paper in his hand (or at least doesn’t do it as blatantly as he does in the live version).
STARS: ***
BAG BOY
stock boy (host) with 42 years of experience uses threats to keep his job
— Oh, here comes something that’s always been one of my personal favorites.
— Priceless turn with Charlton responding to Phil’s hint of a potential firing by telling him a dark story involving a fired man and a shotgun. I also absolutely love how Charlton demonstrates the “insane death dance” that the man in the story does.
— Very funny running gag with Charlton’s wildly inaccurate answers to a cashier’s price check questions.
— Charlton continues to deliver absolutely hilarious disturbing stories in this, especially the headless one he tells to David and Adam. Charlton is killing me in this sketch, and this is such a perfect use of him. This sketch also would’ve worked perfectly for Christopher Walken and other older hosts who excel at pulling off oddball, creepy roles.
— Great deadpan disturbed reactions from Phil throughout this.
— I love the little touch with Charlton tossing his price sticker tool in the air in a carefree manner at the very end of the sketch.
STARS: *****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Can’t Hardly Wait”
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Dathan (ROS) says bad things about Moses (host) behind his back
— Funny and spot-on Edward G. Robinson impression from Rob.
— Despite Rob’s fun performance, the humor in this sketch has started to get kinda dull after a while.
— Okay, things have gotten a little funnier right now, with the made-up Ten Commandments Rob lists off.
STARS: **½
THE HERLIHY BOY HOUSE-SITTING SERVICE
Mr. O’Malley (CHF) lends support
— An interesting and unusual structure to this sketch.
— Another display of amusing stupidity from an Adam Sandler role. His overly simplistic requests and begging have some good lines.
— You can tell Adam is amused by Chris’ little mumblings at the end of each of his calm-voiced interjections to the camera.
— The “Please don’t make me wash the sheets” bit was really funny.
— Chris gradually transitioning from calm and rational to worked up and angry, to the degree that he eventually goes on a long, shouty tirade, is pulled off very impressively, and feels like a spiritual successor to the classic Weekend Update rants that Chris’ idol John Belushi did back in the original era. Besides the first Matt Foley sketch and the Hidden Camera Commercials film by Tom Schiller, tonight’s Herlihy Boy sketch is probably the best and most quintessential use of Chris’ knack for screaming, a knack that will unfortunately become increasingly very misused and abused for the remainder of his SNL tenure.
— This overall sketch must’ve been an immediate big hit with viewers, because in reruns, it’s moved from the 10-to-1 spot to an early spot in the first half of the show, while the Gangsta Dance Rap Smashes sketch from the first half of the show is moved to this 10-to-1 spot.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
— Charlton pauses so long during an applause break in the middle of his goodnights speech that the SNL Band cuts him off prematurely before he’s even gotten a chance to thank Paul Westerberg. When realizing he didn’t get to thank Westerberg, Charlton opens his mouth to the camera as if he’s about to say something, but just silently pauses with his mouth still open (as seen in the first above screencap for these goodnights), and then gives up when realizing it’s too late because the goodnights theme music has fully kicked in. Pay attention to Ellen Cleghorne’s face in the background next time you watch this. Her facial reactions during this whole incident are funny.
— After the accidental snub, Westerberg seems to tell Charlton it’s okay, but then does something odd: right before shaking hands with Charlton, Westerberg intentionally(?) coughs into the same hand that he’s about to shake Charlton’s hand with. I hope that wasn’t a subtle F-U to Charlton for accidentally snubbing him. He didn’t appear to be genuinely bothered by the snub, so maybe I’m looking too much into the cough/handshake thing. Still a gross thing to do, though.
— In his SNL book Gasping For Airtime, Jay Mohr talks about Charlton’s accidental Paul Westerberg snub from these goodnights, but his recollection is COMPLETELY different from what actually happened. Jay claims that Charlton does thank Westerberg during his goodnights speech, but Charlton hilariously calls Westerberg by the wrong last name by accident (I can’t remember what it was; something goofy-sounding like “Westerblerger”). Somebody then tells Charlton the correct pronunciation of Westerberg’s last name, and Charlton then says to the camera “Oh, I’m sorry. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Westerblerger!”, making the exact same mistake twice! A hilarious story, but absolutely none of this actually happens during the goodnights we see in the live show. I know there are some inaccuracies in Jay’s book, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. The “Paul Westerblerger” incident probably happened during the dress rehearsal goodnights, and Jay must’ve misremembered it as being from the live goodnights.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode with some truly fantastic highs, especially the ambitious and memorable format-breaking Planet of the Apes running theme in the first 7 or so minutes of the show and the hilariously dark Bag Boy sketch. Charlton Heston had several iffy and awkward moments throughout the show, where he would have a serious delay with a line or seem kinda lost, but those moments are understandable and forgivable when you keep in mind how old the man was at this time. The stuff that he did well tonight, he nailed, especially the aforementioned Bag Boy sketch.
— Starting with the Rosie O’Donnell episode, this wildly inconsistent and worrisome season suddenly seems to have hit a nice groove, as tonight was the third consecutive episode that I’ve liked and had very few problems with. Considering that the upcoming second half of the season is where the trouble for this season REALLY starts fully kicking in (the Jason Patric episode is the point where it officially begins), I guess the string of satisfying episodes we’ve been having lately can be considered the calm before the storm.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Nicole Kidman)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Sally Field hosts the Christmas episode