Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
CLINTON AUDITIONS
CHF, DAS, CSE, ADS, TIM audition to replace Phil Hartman as SNL’s Clinton
— As this starts in a straightforward manner with Farley doing an actual impression of Clinton, I’m sure the audience is thinking to themselves “Wait, what? Farley is SNL’s new Clinton?!?”
— Ha, Farley quickly puts an end to the aforementioned audience thoughts by transitioning his Clinton impression into his Matt Foley shtick.
— I love the eventual reveal that we’re watching auditions for SNL’s new Clinton. Very fun.
— Nice way to introduce Chris Elliott to SNL. I like the Letterman mix-up with Elliott incorrectly addressing Dave Wilson as “Hal”, then explaining “Sorry, I’m new here.”
— Funny W.C. Fields bit from Elliott, even if the audience doesn’t seem sure what to make of it (which is a reception that Elliott will probably have to get used to during his SNL tenure).
— Farley, David, and Adam’s respective Clinton impressions just being them doing their familiar shtick is a clever way for them to poke fun at themselves for how one-note they had gotten by this point in their SNL tenures. I’d also like to think this is SNL’s way of addressing the fact that without Phil Hartman, the remaining cast is made up of too many people who are personalities instead of natural-born sketch comedy show leaders. This self-deprecation still doesn’t make up for the fact that the tired Farley/Spade/Sandler shtick and the oversaturation of personalities in the cast is going to be a huge problem this season. This cold opening, as great as it is, feels like unfortunate foreshadowing of that.
— Adam’s guitar-playing seems sloppy, for some reason.
— Even though it was stupid as hell, I admit to cracking up at Adam’s imitation of Clinton’s walk.
— Hilarious ending bit with Tim cutting off his attempt at a Clinton impression to dejectedly ask “I’m not gonna get this, am I?”
— Reruns of this episode would use the dress rehearsal version of most of this cold opening, up until Tim’s part.
STARS: ****
OPENING MONTAGE
— After four long seasons of the same opening montage, we FINALLY get a new one.
— The theme music has also been changed, making this the first time since way back in 1985 where new theme music was introduced.
— SNL’s 20th anniversary is commemorated in the logo in a similar style to the 15th anniversary logo from seasons 15 and 16.
— Norm Macdonald has been promoted from featured player to repertory player.
— The new additions to the cast tonight are repertory players Chris Elliott and Janeane Garofalo, and featured player Laura Kightlinger. The fact that Lorne is resorting to already-known names like Chris Elliott and Janeane Garofalo, in addition to the preceding season’s late addition of Michael McKean and this season’s later-to-come addition of Mark McKinney, shows that Lorne must be trying to spice up an ailing SNL by taking a page out of Dick Ebersol’s season 10 playbook.
— When newbie Laura Kightlinger’s picture comes up, Don Pardo seems confused, pausing for a bit, then starting to say “L–” before immediately cutting himself off, pausing once again for a good while, and then finally saying her name after her picture isn’t even onscreen anymore. I wonder if the reason for all of that awkwardness and hesitation is because Don wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce the unconventional last name “Kightlinger”. Years earlier, he had a similar issue when trying to pronounce new cast member Danitra Vance’s name in the first episode of season 11.
MONOLOGUE
while bombing on-stage, host steps outside himself to see what went wrong
— Funny line from Steve about how the only reason he was asked to host the premiere is because Tom Hanks and the then-new young movie star Jim Carrey passed.
— During Steve’s story about trying to get to first base with a 17-year-old girl while watching a movie, a story that you assume is from Steve’s youth, I like the reveal that the movie he and the girl were watching was the then-recently released Lion King.
— Funny and unique turn with Steve stepping outside of his own body to question what’s going wrong with his monologue.
— The whole pre-taped sequence with Steve coming up with his monologue idea and pitching it to various people at SNL is pretty fun. I like Lorne’s dryness when advising Steve on which kind of soup to go with.
STARS: ***½
HHT
brain pains can be detected with the H.H.T. home headache test
— Michael in his first of several Phil Hartman-esque commercial spokesperson roles this season.
— A pretty funny ad, overdramatizing headaches and treating the detection of them like an extensive pregnancy test.
— Michael isn’t bringing the straitlaced humor to his spokesperson role that Phil would’ve. For example, Michael’s ending line “Because what’s worse: having a bad headache, or not knowing if you have a bad headache?” was delivered so blandly straight that it got no absolutely reaction from the audience, leading to an awkward silent pause from them before applauding, whereas I know Phil would’ve delivered that same line in a more humorously straight manner that would’ve elicited some laughs.
STARS: ***
THE SIMPSON TRIAL
Court TV covers the trial of O.J. Simpson (TIM); Brian Austin Green cameo
— Our first of MANY sketches this season based on the epic O.J. Simpson trial.
— Some awfully long pauses from Laura Kightlinger before she says some of her lines.
— The bit with Tim-as-O.J.’s facial expressions alternating between grimacing and smiling, based on various things he’s hearing, started out funny but is going on too long.
— Michael-as-Robert Shapiro’s whole O.J./Rodney King analogy was worth a good laugh.
— Ha, Kato Kaelin. The audience loves the visual of David as him.
— Brian Austin Green’s absolutely pointless cameo is laughably terrible. And I love how there’s absolutely no audience reaction to him until the very end of his scene, where the audience applauds as he makes his exit.
— Something else I find laughably bad: the non-attempt to make Tim’s Al Cowlings look any different from his O.J., both of whom end up just looking exactly like Tim Meadows in different clothes. They couldn’t have been bothered to at least put a wig on either of Tim’s impressions?
— And here’s yet ANOTHER thing I find laughably bad, though this is a much more minor point: during the Tim-as-Al-Cowlings testimony, when the camera is on Michael’s Robert Shapiro, a Tim Meadows stand-in who looks NOTHING like Tim can be seen sitting where Tim had been sitting as O.J. earlier in the sketch. (the stand-in is on the lower right corner of the screencap below)
I love how they went through the pointless trouble of hiring a Tim Meadows stand-in who ends up not even being in most of the camera angles. They might as well have just had nobody occupying the O.J. seat during Tim’s Al Cowlings bit.
— Like so many things in this sketch, the whole Al Cowlings “dammit” bit is going on way too long. And why in the world do we need TWO scenes with him, both consisting of the exact same joke?
— Needless to say, this overall sketch did not work much for me. When I’m getting more laughs from unintentionally laughable bad things than from the actual intended comedy, there’s a problem. Not a promising sign for the season when the lead-off sketch turns out like THIS.
STARS: **
STEVE MARTIN’S PENIS BEAUTY CREME
host lists some of the uses of his all-natural penis beauty cream
— Very funny reveal of what the product is.
— Steve is perfect for this, and his delivery is really selling this material.
— Great line from Steve, giving directions to rub the penis cream “for several minutes up to a half-hour”.
— The visual alone of Chris Elliott in that wig is worth a good laugh.
— Elliott’s testimonial is very funny, especially his line about cans of turtle wax.
— I liked Kevin’s straitlaced delivery of the line “made especially for the johnson”.
— Yet another great line, this time about how the cream will be shipped to you in a plain brown wrapper with the words “NOT PENIS BEAUTY CREAM” stamped on it.
STARS: ****½
TOTAL BASTARD AIRLINES
Total Bastard Airlines employees demonstrate more of their rude behavior
— Oh, no, looks like season 19’s bad habit of bringing back solid one-off sketches that have no business being a recurring sketch has carried over into the beginning of this season.
— Jim Downey’s opening voice-over is just a knock-off of the one he did at the beginning of the first installment of this sketch.
— Seeing Ellen in that wig and uniform makes me think of her Zoraida character.
— This sequel is TERRIBLE so far, and a gigantic step down from the classic first installment. Absolutely none of the “buh-bye” jokes are working, and the audience clearly shares my opinion, as they are absolutely dead during this.
— Is the “Nancy” character who David brags about having worked with supposed to be the character who Helen Hunt played in the first installment?
— Even Adam and David’s exchange is a poor knock-off of their exchange in the first installment. The “I want you to tell me you’re a woman” bit between them tonight is DREADFUL.
— Very poor utilization of Steve Martin.
— I’m noticing now that you can hear only one audience member laughing throughout this, and it’s a wiseass-sounding, almost Burt Reynolds-esque “Naa-haa” type of quick laugh.
— The armpit hair bit with Janeane Garofalo and Steve was just dumb, but I’m ashamed to admit to kinda laughing at Steve’s snarky delivery of “Whatever happened to your Lady Schick?”
— Jesus Christ, the song-and-dance ending was freaking AWFUL. And what was the point of Adam and Farley returning to the scene just to dance like idiots? Are you kidding me, SNL?
— Overall, one of the worst follow-ups to a classic sketch in SNL history.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I’m Tore Down”
WEEKEND UPDATE
LAK shares some life lessons she’s recently learned
Gil Graham (ADS) reviews concerts that he wasn’t able to get in to see
— I’m very excited to enter the Norm Macdonald era of Update.
— One thing I don’t care much for is how the new Update set is using a gray color scheme. It makes it look too much like the Kevin Nealon-era Update set.
— Norm, during his intro: “And now, the fake news.”
— Wow, Norm’s anchorperson delivery is quite different here from how it’s remembered nowadays. It sounds much more professional in this first outing, like you can tell he’s trying to sound like an actual anchorperson. It’ll be interesting to see over the course of this season how his delivery gradually goes from “faux anchorman” to “just Norm being Norm”.
— Laura Kightlinger doing some stand-up on her first episode.
— Laura’s overall commentary wasn’t all that great, but I did get a few laughs, especially the story involving the Big Boy Restaurant icon. Her delivery in this overall commentary wasn’t bad, but the commentary had some flashes of dark humor that I wanted her to go further with.
— I loved Norm’s “King enjoyin’ a hoagie!” ad-lib in response to the “Elvis/sandwich stamp” photo.
— The joke about a lady who spilled McDonalds coffee on her lap is one of the very first jokes tonight that has the type of Norm edge that would later go on to define his Updates.
— Here comes the debut of a short-lived Adam Sandler character that I’ve always hated.
— Two minutes into Adam’s Gil Graham commentary so far, and I surprisingly haven’t been hating it as much as I did in the past. It’s still kinda weak and is going heavy on Adam’s tired goofy voice shtick, but I’ve been getting a few chuckles from some of his stories.
— Okay, the Gil Graham commentary is now starting to go on a little too long.
— Pretty funny flub after the Gil Graham commentary has ended, where Norm mistakenly addresses him as “Adam Sandler” before correcting himself and making some humorous ad-libs.
— Our very first utterance of Norm’s soon-to-be-famous theory: “Germans love David Hasselhoff”.
— And thus ends Norm’s very first Update. A pretty good debut, but understandably felt kinda empty compared to what would later go on to be considered a typical Norm Macdonald Update. There will definitely be lots of growth and improvement from him over the course of this season.
STARS: ***
THE RON WOOD SHOW
the interviews consist of incoherent mumbling
— I liked Mike’s Ron Wood impression as a supporting role in the American Sportsman Today sketch from the preceding season. But with him now being placed front and center in his own sketch, the mumbling joke with him has gotten old very fast. Him interacting with equally-unintelligible celebrities isn’t make this any better.
— Steve looks pretty unrecognizable as Leon Redbone.
— A laugh from how Farley looks as Gerard Depardieu.
STARS: *½
BUCK DANIELS
(MMK) sings song about country musician Buck Daniels’ (host) tragic life
— A fairly interesting-seeming format.
— Over a minute into this sketch, and I ask: where is the entertainment supposed to be coming from? There has been no intentional comedy so far, from what I can tell, nor does the sketch have anything else interesting going for it.
— Okay, now there have been a few scattered attempts at humor, like Ellen punching out Steve, but it’s not working.
— Poor Michael McKean. His guitar-playing and musical narration skills are fine, but between the preceding season’s god-awful Poker Billy sketch and this weak Buck Daniels sketch, those skills have not been utilized well so far during Michael’s SNL tenure.
— I got a laugh from the random appearance of Adam as Jackie Mason in bed with Steve. Adam does a better Jackie Mason impression than some might expect.
STARS: **
NUT-RIFIC
an ad agency comes up with confusing jingles for the Nut-Rific candy bar
— I like Elliott’s cheesy delivery while eagerly pitching his commercial idea.
— My god, the overly simplistic premise of “nut” sounding like “not” is lame as hell. Are you kidding me, SNL? This feels like something out of a kiddie show.
— Farley’s somewhat goofy performance doesn’t fit his straight man role in this sketch at all. He also seemed to crack himself up after one of his lines.
— Not even Elliott’s emotional outburst off-camera is making me laugh.
— And the sketch goes on and on and on and on…
— Okay, I finally got a big laugh, from how the good-sounding “It’s just got more nuts” jingle turns out to be for a psychiatric institute. It only took about FOUR MINUTES for this sketch to get there.
— Didn’t care for the “nutsies” ending.
— Speaking of the “nutsies” ending, when the singers all hold out their hand in a Nazi salute, Jay Mohr can be seen staring ahead at something in an oddly fixated manner. In Jay’s SNL book, there’s a backstory about that: he had heard a rumor earlier that week (from Chris Elliott, I think) that Steve Martin wears a toupee, so Jay spent the end of the sketch staring at Steve’s hair in an attempt to tell if it’s a toupee or not.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Five Long Years”
SUPER SPORTS TOURS
join a bunch of striking baseball players on a cruise
— Oh, god, I thought some of the previous sketches tonight were too one-joke, but this puts those to shame.
— I want to like this in a “Sideshow Bob rake scene”-type of manner, but this is completely lacking that kind of funny.
STARS: *
BABIES
(CHF) & (JAG) get defensive because they feel their baby is inferior
— (*groan*) Tonight’s theme of repetition continues, as Farley keeps saying “I blame myself” over and over and over, which is doing nothing to make me laugh.
— I will say that I do kinda like Farley’s mock-dramatic performance in this sketch.
— The premise isn’t bad, but the execution is not working all that well.
— Aaaaand there goes Farley’s obligatory unnecessary screaming outburst. Dammit, he almost made it through a sketch tonight without resorting to his tired typical antics.
— Pretty lame ending.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— (*sigh*) Yep, the signs for trouble are already there. Actually, this season premiere had a promising start in the first 20 or so minutes. Ignoring the overlong and tepid O.J. Trial sketch, we got a very fun and meta cold opening, a pretty solid monologue, an okay fake ad, and a great Penis Beauty Creme sketch. The horrid Total Bastard Airlines reprise seemed to be the turning point where this episode fell apart and never recovered. Aside from Norm Macdonald’s Weekend Update debut, there wasn’t a single thing I liked tonight after the Total Bastard Airlines sketch showed up. And the post-Update half of the episode was pretty much a wasteland of one-note sketches that were either D.O.A. or had a somewhat promising idea but came off half-formed. Overall, definitely a sign of what to expect this season.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1993-94)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Marisa Tomei