Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
ALLOWED EVIDENCE
Judge Ito (MIM) decides what evidence will be allowed in the O.J. trial
— For some reason, the way Farley looks as F. Lee Bailey cracks me up.
— A good laugh from Mark high-fiving his opposing team after the Pamela Anderson announcement.
— Just now, a mysterious blue light flashes onscreen from off-camera (first screencap below). No idea where that blue light came from (somebody snapping a photo, maybe?), but SNL would later hide this in reruns by substituting this small portion of the cold opening with the dress rehearsal version, a substitution that’s very noticeable, as the wig that Mark wears throughout the sketch is suddenly missing and he’s sporting his normal hair (second screencap below).
— Very funny line about a request to show Mandingo and the whipping scene from Roots.
— Poor Laura, being stuck in yet another non-speaking role in what ends up being her only appearance of the entire night.
— I guess it’s nice that Mike gets to say “Live from New York…” on his final episode as a cast member, whether they know he’s leaving or not.
STARS: ***
OPENING MONTAGE
— The theme music would later be replaced in reruns with the dress rehearsal version. Same goes for the following monologue.
MONOLOGUE
host sings variant of “I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General”
— Very interesting, out-of-the-ordinary format for this monologue. I love this. This has always been one of my favorite monologues of this season.
— Very catchy song with funny lyrics.
— David Hyde Pierce’s timing seems a little off and shaky with some of his lyrics.
— Just now, Pierce completely misses his musical cue to start singing a verse, so he just stays silent and does a goofy little finger dance while waiting for the next go-around in the music to sing his verse. This, along with his aforementioned shaky timing earlier in this monologue, is presumably the reason why this monologue would be replaced in reruns with the dress rehearsal version.
STARS: ****
AMAZIN’ LASER
lawn care barely taps the potential of the Amazin’ Laser garden gun
— Years ago, I used to dismiss this as a poor man’s hybrid of two classic commercials from the late 80s/early 90s years: Happy Fun Ball and Yard-a-Pult. I would later come around on this commercial and realize how unfair I was in my dismissal of it.
— Elliott is perfect for this.
— A lot of laughs from the disclaimers shown throughout this, even if it does have somewhat of a Happy Fun Ball-esque vibe.
— Towards the end, you can hear a voice in the studio loudly yell “Ten secoooonds!”, which is presumably the stage manager alerting the performers on when the next sketch is about to go on air.
STARS: ****
POETRY CLASS
(CHF) & (JAG) use rock song lyrics to do well in (host)’s poetry class
— One of the more popular sketches of this troubled season.
— I’ve always noticed that the leather jacket Farley wears in this sketch seems to be the same one he wears in another popular classroom sketch from earlier this era, French Class with Alec Baldwin (side-by-side comparison below). I wonder if this connection between both sketches is intentional or just a coincidence.
— The reveal of Farley’s poem being lyrics from “You Shook Me All Night Long” is absolutely hilarious.
— Is Janeane trying not to laugh during the part with Pierce having her and Farley stand with him together in front of the class?
— Janeane and Adam’s poems also being from rock songs are funny as well. Adam’s delivery of his poem is especially priceless.
— Pierce is helping sell the joke with his obliviousness to all the plagiarism.
— Good turn with Pierce mistaking Adam’s “Jump” poem as a cry for help.
— Great line at the end with “Wanna go fire up a doobie?”
STARS: ****½
TALES OF LITTLE WOMEN
prim kids turn nasty after falling through the ice
— I’ve always felt this sketch was highly overrated. To me, this is just one of a billion tired season 20 Chris Farley yelling sketches, which I’m noticing the show has been relying particularly heavy on these last two episodes.
— Much like the Mystery Dinner Theater sketch in the preceding episode, I probably would enjoy the turn with Farley’s prim 19th century character yelling a whole bunch of crude things had this sketch appeared in one of Farley’s earlier seasons, before the days of him screaming his way through every single sketch.
— I think in the “Live From New York” SNL book, Janeane discloses the fact that she was very bothered by the audience laughing and applauding at Farley calling her a “stupid whore”.
— The other performers joining Farley in the “yelling crude things” bit isn’t helping at all. Pierce is actually pretty good at the crude yelling, but the other performers’ attempts are kinda cringeworthy to me, especially Janeane’s.
— Oh, and goody goody, we end the sketch with a child rape joke! Ugh. This is exactly the type of unnecessary, unfunny, tasteless humor that season 20 has a reputation for over-relying on.
STARS: *½
SCOTTISH SOCCER HOOLIGAN WEEKLY
rowdies Andy (MIM) & Ian (MAM) talk shop
— The opening theme song is in the same melody as the theme song from the later recurring sketch Dog Show, from the Will Ferrell era.
— Very interesting pairing of Mike and Mark, one of them a veteran cast member in his final episode and the other a new cast member in his second episode, both Canadians, and both have the initials MM. This sketch feels like it’s intended as a passing of the torch between the two performers.
— We get a random part with Mark throwing a dart at someone off-camera, because we apparently needed to hear Farley screaming YET AGAIN tonight. Admittedly, his off-camera yell in this sketch used to crack me up when I was younger.
— I’m liking the way Mike and Mark are playing off of each other here. Makes me wish Mark joined earlier in Mike’s SNL tenure, so they could’ve done other sketches where they’re paired together.
— Even though this sketch features Mike ONCE AGAIN treading old ground by playing a character with a U.K. accent, I find that this sketch actually has a fairly fun and enjoyable vibe. Even the typical season 20 over-reliance on blood and gore is coming off tolerable in this.
— I like how we see during the camera pull-out at the end that this sketch’s set is placed on the Tales of Little Women set (screencap below).
— And with the end of this sketch, we officially reach the end of the Mike Myers era of SNL.
— SNL would end up bringing back this potentially-recurring sketch a few years later when Mike hosts in season 22, where Mark would still be a cast member.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Alone”
WEEKEND UPDATE
TIM & entire African-American community are glad the hockey strike’s over
JAM’s Wacky Sports Bloopers consist of crudely-manipulated videotape
— Nice to see Tim “Little Hockey” Meadows doing a follow-up to his hockey commentary from earlier this season. Solid bit from him tonight.
— I liked Norm’s “I’m afraid to know why you’re applauding at that” ad-lib after some audience members applaud a joke about gays only being allowed at a parade so they can get beat up.
— Interesting seeing Jay doing a commentary as himself.
— Jay’s doing a variation of Rob Schneider’s sports bloopers commentary from the preceding season. This at least has a different spin on it, with the gimmick being that the “bloopers” are just manipulated videos of normal sports plays. I used to really like this bit when I was younger, but now it feels kinda on the hacky side to me.
— I love Norm’s amusement at Jay showing a “real” sports blooper, with a basketball player’s missed dunk.
STARS: ***½
ROBOT SPY
the crew of a spaceship suspects nerdy (host) of being the robot spy
— I could do without Ellen’s constant repetition of “freakin’”, which started out funny but is increasingly getting old.
— Overall, not really sure what to say about this sketch. I’m not too crazy about it and I didn’t get too many laughs, but it wasn’t horrible and it was adequately performed.
STARS: **
NERVOUS HABITS
(MMK) dislikes fellow lawyer’s (host) nervous habit of sheep shearing
— A very funny casual reveal of Pierce’s nervous habit being sheep shearing, of all things. I really like this absurd premise.
— Haha, things are going off the rails with Pierce struggling to keep the sheep from roaming around the set, and the camera (unsuccessfully) trying to hide that by doing a clumsy zoom-in to a close-up of Michael. At one point, you even see a stagehand accidentally enter the shot when trying to handle the sheep (on the lower half of the screencap below).
— As this season progresses, it’s becoming more and more awkward and sad to see Kevin “Oh, He’s Still On The Show?” Nealon pop up in a sketch at this late stage in his SNL tenure.
— Good ending with the insemination of a pony.
— I love how at the end, the sheep from earlier can be seen in the background just randomly wandering back into the scene.
— Unfortunately, I believe SNL would later replace this sketch with the error-free dress rehearsal version in reruns, robbing us of the funny animal bloopers.
STARS: ***½
BROKEN ENGLISH
Jersey kids’ (ADS) & (DAS) fun with foreigner (host) makes instant karma
— Solid characterization from Pierce here.
— Adam and Spade’s nonsense translations to Pierce’s sentences are providing good laughs.
— Great twist at the end.
— A weird little overall piece, but it really worked. I used to kinda hate this sketch when I was younger and dismissed it as typical lousy season 20 fare, but I now have much more appreciation for what this was going for.
STARS: ****
PERSPECTIVES
urban community programming with Lionel Osbourne (TIM)
— I’m very happy to see the debut of this Tim Meadows sketch.
— I love Tim’s constant “If you’ve just tuned in…”s and reintroductions.
— Some good laughs from the dryness and blandness of this interview, and from Tim’s bad interviewing skills.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Selling The Drama”
INTERNET CHAT
Claire (CSE) finds an unwilling Internet sex partner in Darrill (MAM)
— Ladies and gentlemen, SNL has officially entered the internet age. An important milestone, as this is the very first SNL sketch centered around the then-novelty called the internet.
— Our very first instance of Mark bringing a Kids in the Hall character to SNL.
— Speaking of Mark, he’s been getting a lot of airtime tonight, which is great to see, especially after he made only one brief appearance in his debut episode the preceding week. The way Mark’s being utilized tonight is how it should regularly be for him on SNL, but sadly, his tenure would instead go in pretty much the opposite direction.
— It’s funny in retrospect seeing internet terms like LOL and ROFL being treated as such a novelty that Janeane’s character doesn’t understand what they mean and Darrill has to explain them to her.
— I love the inclusion of Elliott as a sleazy, naked, hairy perv (is he wearing the same fake body hair from the Bad Striptease sketch earlier this season?). Ever since December, we’ve been getting an oddball Chris Elliott character piece on a weekly basis, and I, for one, could not be happier about that.
— This sketch really feels ahead of its time.
— Some really good laughs from the Elliott/McKinney online chat, especially the “How big is your hard drive?” innuendo.
— Janeane must be uncomfortable being “naked” at the end, as she can be seen quickly putting her robe back on before the sketch even fades to black.
STARS: ****
MOVIE NEWS
small print reveals the “show” to be a vehicle for Disney ads
— The constant disclaimers of “(insert company here) is a subsidiary of Disney” are getting repetitive and are not that funny.
— Okay, the disclaimers are now getting funnier, such as the one about Sharon Stone.
— I got a chuckle from a female audience member being heard screaming in excitement at the mere mention of Sylvester Stallone.
— Funny gag with the person who’s typing the disclaimers making Pierce say something ridiculous about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid and consistent episode, and I feel it’s definitely one of the better episodes of this troubled season. There were some really strong sketches, some pretty good sketches, and very few sketches that I disliked. The post-Update half in particular had a nice run of sketches ranging from decent to strong once they got the Robot Spy sketch out of the way.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jeff Daniels)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Bob Newhart