Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
IT’S A WONDERFUL NEWT
Richard Nixon (host) shows Newt Gingrich (CHF) a liberal future
— The debut of Farley’s Newt Gingrich impression, which isn’t so much an impression as it is just Farley in a wig. Still, at least it’s a subdued, mature role that keeps Farley restrained for once this season.
— John Turturro’s Richard Nixon impression is great and fun. Considering how rarely hosts appear in cold openings and the fact that John looks unrecognizable here, I wonder if SNL fans at the time were racking their brain trying to figure out which cast member that is playing Nixon.
— Interesting and very biting political satire, with lots of harsh digs at Gingrich. The political humor here has a sharpness that feels atypical of this season.
— Very funny reveal that Hillary Clinton is the president, sending Gingrich into a long horror scream of “noooooo!”.
— A quote Gingrich’s wife reads from Nixon’s book: “Every time a bell rings, I get poked in the ass with a pitchfork.”
— Overall, a very promising start to tonight’s episode.
— This ends up being Farley’s only appearance all night.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
LOM rigs a Quiz Show to let host do SNL instead of Joey Buttafuoco [real]
— Pretty fun premise.
— The overly simplistic questions themselves aren’t the funniest, but John and Kevin are making this work.
— Joey Buttafuoco?!? Joey Fucking Buttafuoco?!? Is SNL kidding me with this cameo? Only in season 20 would you see something like this.
— I love how poorly Mike is hiding how genuinely uncomfortable he is talking to Buttafuoco. I’m sure it’s stuff like this that had Mike wondering at this point of his SNL tenure “Why the hell am I even still on this show?”
— Kevin: “Lorne Michaels, the producer, is a (blank).” Considering the ire that lots of people had towards SNL at this time in 1994, I’m sure there’s some colorful words some of them would have inserted into that blank in Kevin’s statement.
— Lorne being shown feeding John the answer, “genius”, is funny.
STARS: ***½
EYCH
Rerun from 5/14/94
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN’S CELEBRITY PSYCHIC FRIENDS NETWORK
Celebrity Psychic Friend Gary Busey (MMK) joins Christopher Walken (JAM)
— The return of this great sketch from the preceding season.
— Michael’s Gary Busey impression is cracking me up.
— What was with the interaction between Walken and Busey?
— Boy, so far, this has not been working anywhere near as well as the first installment of this sketch. And so many lines are falling flat.
— Interesting inclusion of John as Walken’s similar-talking brother.
— John’s Walken is okay, but I’m not liking it as much as Jay’s impression. I’m hearing too much of John’s real voice in there.
— This overall sketch was a very poor excuse for a follow-up to the great first installment. Should’ve left that sketch one and done.
STARS: *½
SHARING THE PHONE
(JAG) repeatedly hangs up the phone before (host) gets a chance to talk
— Nice slice-of-life premise, especially for this season’s standards.
— Ehh, as much as I like the slice-of-life aspect, it turns out that I’m not crazy about the execution of it so far. It’s being performed a little TOO straight to be comical, and is suffering too much from season 20’s typical habit of taking one joke and repeating it over and over for four minutes.
— Oh, god, this sketch ends in one of the worst possible ways, with a cutaway to Mike doing his Asian stereotype routine for the second goddamn week in a row, this time dragging along Spade with a stereotypical Asian routine of his own.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “You Don’t Know How It Feels”
WEEKEND UPDATE
publicity has gone to the head of self-styled superstar Judge Ito (MIM)
after much prodding, David Hasselhoff [real] confirms NOM’s German theory
— Here comes Mike “Honorary Asian” Myers bringing his Judge Ito impression to the Update desk.
— I know a lot of people are tired of Mike Myers by this point of his SNL tenure (I certainly am too), but I’m actually finding this out-of-the-ordinary characterization of Judge Ito to be fun.
— I remember when Comedy Central used to air this episode, they edited out a small portion of the Judge Ito commentary where he dances on the Update desk to the song “I Got the Power”. Music licensing issues is obviously the reason for that edit.
— Norm is on fire with a lot of his jokes tonight.
— A visit to the Update desk from one of Norm’s favorite subjects, David Hasselhoff.
— I absolutely love Norm’s various frustrated ways of trying to get Hasselhoff to say Germans love him. This is a classic segment.
STARS: ****½
TAXI DRIVER, THE MUSICAL
Robert DeNiro (host) stars in the musical version of Taxi Driver
— John’s Martin Scorsese impression is a riot.
— I like that we’re seeing two different impressions from John in one sketch. He’s been showcasing a lot of impressions tonight in general.
— Nice performances, but the musical numbers are getting increasingly boring to me and contain no apparent humor.
STARS: **
BAND SHOT
musical guest plays guitar while his doppelganger (DAS) mumbles along
STOP THAT
(host) mimics his show’s guests until they get annoyed & leave
— Here comes a sketch that I’ve always considered a big guilty pleasure. The sketch is very stupid and childlike, but John is so damn fun in it and makes this material hilarious to me. I always love watching this.
— This sketch is a great use of the energy that we’ve been seeing from John throughout tonight’s episode.
— Even Farley’s southern accent over the phone cracks me up.
— I love how John is even imitating non-talking sounds, such as a phone dial tone and Kevin’s guitar playing.
— Solid bit with a returning Elliott getting revenge by turning the tables on John, only for John to do a turnaround on him.
STARS: ****½
JAMAICA
tourism-dependent Jamaicans (ELC) & (TIM)- “go ahead, treat us like dirt”
— A good showcase for two underused performers (especially Ellen).
— A lot of funny lines from Ellen and Tim’s joy in being treated poorly by tourists.
STARS: ***½
DR. IRA RESNICK
Ira Resnick (host) doubts credentials of fellow dentist Josh Levine (CSE)
— Ehhh, this whole thing just came and went for me, without giving me any real laughs.
STARS: *½
THE MOVIE CLUB
brothers (host) & (ADS) recommend tapes to rent
— Adam makes only his second and final appearance tonight. A surprisingly very light night for him, Farley, and Spade. Considering how stale and shtick-y all three of them often come off this season, not to mention how heavily all three of them tend to get associated with the awfulness of this season, their lack of appearances tonight is probably a good thing.
— I like the pairing of Adam and John here.
— Adam seems to be playing a variation of his Audience McGee character. His character here has the same look and is using a similar voice.
— Pretty dull sketch so far.
— Overall, yeah, I wasn’t crazy about this, even if there was a bit of a goofy charm (something that Adam pulled off much better in his earlier seasons).
STARS: **
DR. JOSH LEVINE
Josh Levine’s retaliatory ad- “Ira Resnick uses unsterilized instruments”
— Okay, the idea of showing a series of political-type attack ads between two dentists is funny, but man, the execution of it is BORING. I feel like an actual good season of SNL would’ve done more with this idea and made these ads work.
— Poor Chris Elliott has been wasted on a lot of weak stuff so far this season. I’m eager to reach the point in this season where they finally start letting him do sketches with his oddball brand of humor.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Honey Bee”
DR. IRA RESNICK
more Ira Resnick mudslinging- magazine & hygienist age, novocaine use
— This one is a little funnier, mainly for the “I won’t feel you up when you’re unconscious” line at the end.
— A fourth installment of this runner, starring Tim as an additional rival dentist, didn’t make it on the air due to the show running long. It would later be inserted into reruns of this episode.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Certainly an improvement over the notoriously dreary episode that preceded this, though I still didn’t find this episode to be all that great. The show started out well with a strong cold opening and a good monologue, but then tapered off afterwards with a lot of meh sketches dominating the remainder of the night. Nothing particularly horrible tonight, though, and there was a brief upswing in quality with the Stop That and Jamaica sketches. Also, Weekend Update was particularly strong. John Turturro was a fantastic host who added a fun energy to the show, gave committed and funny performances, had some shining moments, and even made some of the weaker material more tolerable. You can definitely put him on the list of “SNL one-timers who deserved to come back”.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Sarah Jessica Parker)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Roseanne
Man, Turturro works his ass off this episode–it feels like he’s in virtually every sketch and has a huge role in every sketch to boot, including multiple times he has to do impressions of famous people. Try and imagine this episode with a lesser host.
This is one of those episodes, similar to Liev Schreiber’s this past season, where I can’t help being impressed by how much the host is thrown into the material and manages to make it work. It’s even more impressive here because John isn’t put into even one role where he just reacts to something or plays straight men – even when he isn’t carrying an entire sketch (as he does with several of them), he’s in roles with a lot of dialogue and comedic elements.
One of the reasons I can’t quite say I want to burn 94-95 to the ground is because there’s something so fascinating about such a host-intense season. You’re kind of like – with such a large cast, featuring several comedy legends, and several other cast members who were dominating the show by this time, how do you get to the point where your host ends up defining SO MUCH of your episode SO MANY TIMES, in good and bad ways?
It’s kind of refreshing compared to many later seasons, where the hosts are often kept in very prefab roles and the show goes on around them. That makes more sense for the health of a show, but it’s not very entertaining to watch. Seeing John Turturro essentially thrown right into the heart of a hell season is entertaining to watch.
That’s very true John. It’s weird how so much of this season’s quality lies on the hosts and what they contribute. There aren’t many eras of the show like that, besides maybe like the very first few ‘70s shows?
Oh, geez, get ready for an episode composed almost entirely of jokes about Tom Arnold’s penis.
Not only that…. one of the dullest sketches SNL ever did (Michael McKean reads yogurt ingredients).
That turd ended up on NBC’s website somehow.
I never really know why things are or aren’t put up. I don’t know why Stop That isn’t on their site. Is it because of the guitar song? Would they have to pay rights? The selection of sketches on their site for this episode makes it seem worse than it actually is.
Gotta love the look on Myers’ face when Buttafuoco goes to shake his hand during the good nights.
I believe Judd Apatow and Sandler wrote the
Movie Club sketch. I believe it’s Apatow voicing the intro as well
I haven’t seen the Taxi Driver sketch since this originally aired since it was cut from the Comedy
Central 60 minute version. It doesn’t sound that bad.
Turturro would later talk about this sketch in an interview on the YES network with Michael Kay on “Centerstage” and said it was his favorite thing he did on the show that night
The first time I watched this episode I was too thrown to even really follow the sketch. I thought – well, how very season 20 to have an extended musical for Taxi Driver. And I wondered if John Mulaney watched this and got any ideas for his (much cleaner and smoother) musical opuses of the last few seasons. Watching again, I end up agreeing with Stooge that there aren’t any laughs (aside from Turturro’s Scorsese), but I end up finding it watchable anyway, somehow. He sells the whole thing to a tee, and the absolute ludicrousness of the Iris duet somehow works because of that ludicrousness (and he and Janeane have a good connection). And I have to admit I actually think the “Are you talking to me?” homage song is kind of good…it’s a bit downmark O’Donoghue, but stays in your head.
Really, this sketch could have been thought of as a nadir for season 20, more than the Wizard of Oz piece, but it manages to avoid the shark and jet skis through sheer force of will.
Famous moment in rock history when pre- FooFighters Dave Grohl makes one of his first major public appearances since Cobain death playing drums w/ TP. Also coincides with TP parting ways with his drummer of 20 years Stan Lynch- hence the need for a replacement. Grohl really makes adds a punch to the rocker Honey Bee, on 2nd performance.
Grohl lit it up with Petty and the boys. I love the Foo Fighters but I must admit, Grohl as a permanent Heartbreaker would have really been something.
Yeah that was cool to see!
In the NY Mag article on this season, this episode is used as part of Janeane’s long goodbye from the show – one of her friends said she told them she thought this episode was an improvement on previous weeks. They said it in a way which implied she was deluding herself, but I think she was right – it’s one of my favorite episodes of the season, and other than Marisa Tomei, and a few to come, the main one that manages to work without a comedian/former cast member/beloved pop culture figure coming in for the week.
I will say this episode again points out the bizarre situation Janeane was in as the main female cast member at a time when there was little to no value in being a female cast member. Other than the Jamaica sketch (which is Ellen still in her own bubble), she plays every main female role in the episode. This mostly works (she’s pretty good in the telephone sketch and she does as well as anyone could have playing a 15-year old Jodie Foster), but there’s no great reason she needed to play Juliette Lewis in the psychic friends sketch. She certainly tried, but Laura Kightlinger looked a little more like Juliette and could have pulled off the glum look well enough. Instead Laura ends up having her second week of doing nothing but playing a politician’s wife.
They had the right idea in this episode just giving Sandler one big sketch and Farley one big sketch instead of putting them all over the episode. I was more critical of the Newt cold open the first time I saw it, but after seeing how much worse many of Farley’s performances were these two seasons, and how much sloppier the political writing could be, I’ve come to appreciate the piece more. Sandler is using his voice that annoys me most, but he and Turturro have a nice, easy rapport and the sketch has a sweetness rare for this time period – you can see why they would go on to work together in several of Sandler’s films.
Stop That is one of my favorite sketches of the season, probably of the ’90s, and is one I can rewatch repeatedly and still laugh. It’s complete goofy fun, played just right by Turturro and Chris Elliott in particular. Jamaica is almost as good, initially seeming like SNL’s belated version of the “Hey Mon” sketches on In Living Color until the much harder edge begins to appear. I think Ellen could have done this one on her own and it would have worked even better.
Even if I take into account how different things were in 1994, Buttafuoco’s involvement in this episode is disgusting, and doesn’t even make sense in a stunt casting way, considering the scandal was two years old by this time and the public had moved on to new sleaze. To have him appear on this show feels absolutely desperate in ways I will never understand.
I enjoyed the psychic hotline more on rewatch. It doesn’t quite work, but Mohr’s Walken is probably at it’s most eerily on point, and carries the material along. McKean’s Gary Busey is also decent, but as is often the case with McKean on SNL, isn’t actually funny. Anyway, Mohr had two strengths on SNL – impressions and half-dressed eye candy. He managed both feats through the night, so I’m going to declare this his best episode as a cast member.
Beyond Buttafuoco, the only real negative for me in the episode is Mike Myers. The yellowface with Spade was cheap and ruined the phone sketch that I otherwise really enjoyed (and a sketch that had a timeless feel), but his Update mugging was just unbearable for me. Mug mug, catchphrase shout catchphrase shout…just ugh.
In October 1994, Buttafuoco was cast in independent film Cul-de-Sac (released in the late 1990s as Better Than Ever), as he began his acting career:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2666/
The sadder thing is – if you believe Buttafuoco’s Howard Stern appearance and The New York Post ( https://nypost.com/2005/02/06/paris-wiltin-pouty-princess-nixes-buttafuoco-spot-on-snl/ ) – Buttafuoco was to cameo in the Paris Hilton/Keane episode. It’s one thing to have Buttafuoco on the show a year removed from the tabloid fracas that caused his minor celebrity, but in 2005 – and on the same episode as a fixture of “worst SNL host ever” lists, no less?
If I remember correctly, the scrapped Paris Hilton sketch was actually really funny.
I love this episode.. if I’m ever wanting to watch a random episode I always pull this one out and it does the trick. I disagree quite a bit on that it’s bad, it isn’t it’s legitly pretty fun. You could tell everyone was having fun that week after the nightmare which was the previous show. This is what makes season 20 more watchable than 11 for me, the group didn’t settle and be okay with being lost they tried to do fun stuff and they did here.
JT was a very solid host, shame he never hosted again I could see him being a 5 timer he fit in great with the live format. It’s also one of Petty’s best performances on the show, shame he didn’t do Mary Jane the 2nd song. You Don’t Know how It Feels is one of my favorite live performances on the show and it’s just a great live performance as everyone was jamming and Tom had those sunglasses on. The fact Dave was drumming made it funner. Always loved the musical stage with the “Saturday Night,” logo up top it reminds me of Season 1 a ton.
Only really bad sketch I don’t like was the Walken skit but it wasn’t a pure 100% bomb, the audiences just didn’t get it. They were trying to make his Chris more akward like the real one this time and it just didn’t settle well. I find it hilarious in places though because it’s so akward. JT saves it by being great in the brother role, McKean’s Busey wasn’t bad either. The Taxi Driver skit’s weird as hell but I like it, again due to JT. The Movie Club works for me as it’s very low key and kinda sweet, they both are just having fun being wimpy NY’ers who love movies.. it’s very homespun but fun.
The Dentist skits were a nice jab at political ads back then and how silly they can be, no harm there. Sketch of the night for me is Stop That. JT and Elliot are so good in that, they made perfect foils. The whole idea’s very childish but JT and Elliot made gold out of it.
It’s not really a surprise JT became such good friends with all the guys, he was a perfect fit in terms of persona. He and Adam were gold together as was he and Elliot. Shame they all never made a movie together this era, woulda been so fun.
Easily my favorite show of the year along with the Clooney show, both I find to be solid.
Rosie’s show next isn’t great but it’s not terrible either. It went for a lot of random shock skits and mostly didn’t work but it was fun to watch. Sadly the season hits somewhat of a funk a couple of shows later.
Comedy Central could’ve done us all a favor by cutting those stupid dentist ads to make room for more sketches like Taxi Driver, or another Petty song.
Myers and Spade playing the Chinese guys made me laugh and was a good coda to what was otherwise a lackluster sketch. The embarrassed look on Spade’s face, and then Myers speaking Chinese gibberish were funny, sorry.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks to @Ruby for finding that the Tim Meadows part of the dentist runner was uploaded back in 2013 (and then likely geoblocked until last year). It’s a good use of Tim, and is as timely now as then (even if the joke is, as per, stretched too thin).
I get the joke of Buttafuoco being the alternate host, but did that really justify him being on the show? Couldn’t they have had someone portray him? Why not an undesirable host who wasn’t so sleazy, like Ralph Nader?
I’ll give One Iota of credit to that “Movie Club” sketch; Dull as it was, it DID look like the progenitor of so-called “First Time Watching” shows on Youtube that SOMEHOW gets thousands of views at a time (you know the kind, I hope)…I wouldn’t go ranking it among “Triple Trac” or Jimmy Fallon “hosting” in 1998/2011 as the SNL Predicting the Future, but it’s something.
I noticed the two women who flanked Mike Myers at the Update desk were named Bambi and Thumper. Likely this is a reference to the movie Diamonds Are Forever, which features a pair of minor female antagonists with the same names. I assume Mike is channeling his like of the James Bond franchise which would soon lead to Austin Powers.
Turtorro is near the top as far as ‘one timers who deserved better.’ I definitely would have loved to see him appear in a better era where the cast and writing were more worthy of his skills. He really commits to each sketch, and not in a broad, hammy ‘hey look! I’m hosting SNL and trying to be funny!’ way. He feels natural in the way he performs and his attempts to elevate the weaker material don’t feel forced at all. Even Stop That!, which is a silly premise that almost requires a fair amount of scenery chewing to overcome its flimsy premise, has him playing it just right.
Chris Elliott’s thoughts on the Buttafuco appearance: “Joey Buttafuco, that was the lowest point for me at SNL, walking back to my dressing room and seeing this guy just walk by me and go, “Hi, Chris”, and I just said, “Hi, Joe.” And then I had to be in a sketch with him.”