Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
it’s Black History Month, but ELC & TIM can’t find contemporary heroes
— Nice hearing such energetic applause for two underappreciated cast members each.
— A lot of laughs from Ellen and Tim’s bad luck in continuously picking troubled black celebrities to profile for Black History Month.
— I like Ellen quickly going through a series of black celebrity pictures and repeatedly saying “next one” when no good ones come up.
— Tim: “This was kind of a rebuilding year for black history.”
— Ellen and Tim claim that this the first time in SNL history where two black cast members say “Live from New York…” in unison. Uh, Damon Wayans and Danitra Vance have something to say about that. (And yes, I know Danitra wasn’t alive anymore by this point, but still…) The Rapping Wrapper cold opening from season 11, anyone? (One could argue that SNL doesn’t count that particular LFNY because Damon was only a featured player, but that’s reaching.) This is like how in Dennis Miller’s final episode as a cast member, he acted like he never said LFNY before, when he actually did say it once in a season 11 episode. Maybe everybody at SNL really does treat season 11 like it was just a “horrible, horrible dream”, as Madonna announced in the season 12 premiere. While my theory of season 11 being an example of canon discontinuity is fun, it’s disproved by the fact that Robert Downey Jr. opens his season 22 monologue by mentioning he used to be a cast member. There have probably been other on-air acknowledgements of season 11 that I’m forgetting at the moment (not counting anniversary specials).
STARS: ****
OPENING MONTAGE
— Molly Shannon has been added to the cast as a featured player.
Interesting how we get a new female cast member in what ends up being Janeane Garofalo’s final episode, much like the Mike Myers/Mark McKinney trade-off a little earlier this season. So many abrupt cast departures and cast additions in the middle of this troubled season, with still one more cast addition to come a few episodes from now.
MONOLOGUE
host performs liver transplant operation on audience member (TOD)
— Very wild audience tonight.
— Funny premise of George Clooney casually performing a liver transplant on an audience member.
— Typical season 20 over-reliance on gross-out humor and blood-spurting, but it’s actually coming off decent here, mostly due to good execution by both George and Tom Davis, with some decent assistance from newbie Molly Shannon.
STARS: ***
LEXON PARADOX
Rerun from 10/1/94
SEA PARK
(host) experiences good luck while (CHF) gets splashed by jumping whale
— WTF was with Farley’s “darling Mandy” bit at the beginning? It fell completely flat.
— (*sigh*) Here’s our obligatory Chris Farley yelling sketch of the night, after we got a nice break from it the past few episodes. This particular Chris Farley yelling sketch is a notorious example and features all of the unpleasant trademarks, including one joke being repeated over and over, and Farley screaming his season 20 catchphrase “SON OF A BITCH!”
— I do admit to getting a laugh from Farley’s line “Should’ve been vinegar and water, cuz I pretty much got douched!”
— What is with the dumb sideplot with George’s string of good luck? The gold coins in the railing bit in particular I’ve always found pretty cringeworthy.
— Stuff like this really helps you understand why Janeane was so miserable this season and why she chose to quit after this episode.
— Dear god, please end this repetitive sketch already.
STARS: *½
TAXICAB CONFESSIONS
passengers don’t mind telling their secrets on HBO
— Kevin makes his first appearance in two episodes. If anything, he should be counting his blessings that he wasn’t in any sketches in the disastrous Deion Sanders episode. Imagine how painful it would’ve been seeing him get dragged into doing that atrocious UFO sketch. Seeing him participate in the Gay Stripper Theater sketch back in the Jeff Daniels episode was depressing enough.
— The joke of passengers inexplicably being happy to sign release forms allowing their dark secrets to be aired on TV is kinda falling flat.
— George’s Jay Leno impression is cracking me the hell up, as is that pointy chin prosthetic he’s wearing.
— I felt this sketch started off weakly with some lowbrow humor (Farley’s gay bit, Adam’s anal warts bit), but after they got that out of the way, the sketch has been getting better and better.
— I love Michael as Vincent Price and especially Norm (in a rare season 20 sketch appearance) as Slim Pickens.
— Despite my complaint earlier about the lowbrow gay and anal warts bits, we get an actual funny callback to it at the end of this sketch, with an unhappy Farley revealing he got anal warts from a certain stranger. A nice full-circle ending.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Zombie”
WEEKEND UPDATE
inattentive O.J. juror (ELC) doesn’t seem to realize what her duties are
host gives his opinion on Chicago Hope’s use of leeches in an episode
KEN addresses Medicare comments to people with no attention span
— Ellen’s O.J. juror commentary is pretty good, and I loved her “Ain’t none of my business” line regarding whether O.J. is guilty or not.
— A rare occurrence of an SNL host doing an Update commentary.
— The brevity of George’s commentary reminds me of the brief hockey strike commentary Mike Myers did earlier this season.
— I love the lameness of Norm’s joke about the richest little girl in the world having two birthday cakes. Only Norm could sell such a bad joke.
— Very interesting seeing Kevin doing an Update commentary as himself after being replaced as an Update anchor.
— Kevin’s attention span commentary is great and feels very much in line with the type of Update commentaries he typically did in his early seasons when Dennis Miller was the Update anchorperson. I might be witnessing the final great moment of Kevin’s SNL tenure.
STARS: ****
WR
Dr. Ross (host) & Dr. Greene (CSE) keep patients in the waiting room
— Another example of a season 19/20 sketch doing a too-long recreation of a TV show’s opening credits, but this one actually has a few laughs and the audience is reacting well to several of the cast intros. My favorites of the intros are a perfectly-cast Elliott as Anthony Edwards, and Mark as a crying Noah Wyle.
— This is too thin a sketch, and the running gag with the dramatic background music suddenly stopping when patients are told to wait in the waiting room has gotten old fast. This sketch is yet another example of season 20’s bad habit of repeating the same joke over and over during a four-minute sketch.
— Very funny part with David being manhandled off a gurney and onto a chair.
STARS: **
TALES OF FRAUD AND MALFEASANCE IN RAILROAD HIRING PRACTICES
railroad engineer applicant (MAM) is willing to do whatever (host) wants
— Feels so refreshing to see a Jack Handey-written piece in a season that’s sadly been severely lacking his trademark style of humor.
— I love Mark’s overly compliant responses to the increasingly bizarre, ridiculous things George requests of him.
— George: “Are you familiar with ants?” Mark: “I seen ’em in the movies!” Not sure why, but that exchange always cracks me up whenever I watch this sketch.
— Funny little touch of a running-away George briefly returning to the office just to push all the stuff off of the desk before running away again. Haha, I have no idea why he did that, but I love it.
— I’m always a sucker for Jack Handey’s trademark of showing fake sponsors.
— We get another Handey trademark with the character name Cameron Hormel, previously used as the name of Phil Hartman’s character in the Handey-written Showcase Playhouse Theater sketch from the season 17 Tom Hanks episode.
STARS: ****
THE MACK REARDON STORY
the career of a tough-luck country singer (host)
— Second sketch in a row with Mark doing a redneck accent, though it’s just a voice-over in this sketch’s case.
— Some good silliness here.
— The whole “I’m Black!” mix-up is hilarious.
— I love George saying this was the first time that the sales gross of an album was a negative number.
— George is a little stumbly with his lines here and there.
— The humor in this sketch has been getting funnier and funnier as the sketch goes along.
— Michael: “When Mack shot himself, most people in the industry wondered ‘Why?…. Why did he wait so long?’”
— I like the ski accident footage shown at the end.
— Overall, the execution could’ve used some work, but this was a good sketch with a lot of funny individual things.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ode To My Family”
ZAGAT’S
Hank Gelfand (ADS) gripes as wife Beverly (CHF) reads about eats
— One of Farley’s earrings accidentally fall off early in the sketch.
— Farley’s characterization is cracking me up, especially his big smiles & corny one-liners into the camera after each time he reads an entry from the book.
— Adam’s cranky one-liners started out as just whatever, but are now getting increasingly funny, especially him pulling out a gun just now.
— I mentioned in an earlier review that Farley has this certain over-the-top, hammy laugh that he does A LOT this season, and I always go back and forth between finding it either very annoying or goofily endearing. It’s the latter for me in this sketch. It works in the context of this character.
— Overall, this sketch wasn’t quite as hilarious as I had remembered it (maybe it’s the second installment from later this season that I’m remembering, or maybe I’m just so burned out on Farley and Sandler by this point of their tenures), but this is still a funny, solid sketch.
STARS: ***½
EMORY
mayor of Emory, Illinois (MMK) wants abortion protesters to come to town
— The display of the Largest Stump gave me a laugh.
— Overall, the premise initially had me thinking this would be pretty funny, but the end result was forgettable.
STARS: **
SNOWBIRD
by Bruce McCulloch- karaoke conflict devastates lip-sync life
— Great to see a second Bruce McCulloch film this season. Sadly, this ends up being the final one to air in a live episode.
— I like the cutaway to a man’s deapdan-delivered “This kid’s good” during Bruce’s terrible singing.
— I love Bruce’s performances in these films of his. Lots of interesting and funny little acting choices he makes.
— Another funny cutaway during Bruce’s singing, where a table full of tough-looking redneck guys each drink from their mugs at the same time while staring stone-faced at Bruce.
— Good turn with Bruce unwisely choosing to change his song choice to Snowbird, which he, of course, proceeds to butcher.
— Solid ending.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
— Janeane is front and center, and happily waving to the camera. Guess she knows this is the end for her on SNL.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode. While there were a few pieces I found weak, they were definitely outnumbered by what I liked. The post-Update half had a lot of good things, particularly Tales Of Fraud And Malfeasance In Railroad Hiring Practices and Snowbird. Tonight’s episode was also helped by a very lively audience, which added a nice feel to the show.
— Call me crazy, but so far this season, I’ve felt there have actually been more episodes ranging from okay to great (Marisa Tomei, John Travolta, Dana Carvey, Alec Baldwin, Jeff Daniels, David Hyde Pierce, Bob Newhart, and George Clooney) than there have been episodes ranging from kinda weak to disastrous (Steve Martin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Roseanne, George Foreman, and Deion Sanders). (John Turturro isn’t in either category, as I personally feel that episode ranks somewhere in the middle of “okay” and “kinda weak”.) I’m just as surprised as you are about this. I never thought I’d see the day where I’d soften on season 20. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely still feel this is a bad season as a whole, hands down, due to MANY individual problems and the fact that most of the weakest episodes are among the worst in SNL history. But while doing these reviews, I’ve been discovering a surprisingly large amount of silver linings and hidden gems (certainly moreso than seasons 6 and 11). I came into this season having a morbid fascination to cover all the disastrous things in it, but instead, it turns out I’ve actually been having a lot more fun covering the surprising amount of highlights that I had overlooked in the past.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Deion Sanders)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Goddammit, why is it that every time I think I’m starting to come around on season 20 and feel it’s not all THAT horrible, they have to follow it up with an episode that is horrible? Paul Fucking Reiser is our next episode.
A great rebound from the Deion Sanders episode, only the Sea Park sketch was a drag despite Janeane. The Railroad interview sketch and The Mack Reardon Story are two back to back classics.
I can’t help but feel bad for Kevin being relegated to a correspondent role. The second oldest cast member there and it’s like he’s being punished. A solid commentary for sure though
Hard to believe Dolores is no longer with us.
Curious if you would give a retrospective of Janeane’s brief tenure, as it was only 14 episodes. What do you think made her say “Uncle”?
“Curious if you would give a retrospective of Janeane’s brief tenure, as it was only 14 episodes. What do you think made her say “Uncle”?”
As I explained in the comments section of the David Hyde Pierce review, I’m burned out on doing retrospectives for departing cast members and have decided to stop doing them. I wouldn’t have had much to say about Janeane’s tenure in a retrospective anyway, considering how brief her tenure was and how often her talents were completely wasted. As for what I think made her say “uncle”, I’m sure it was MANY different factors, but the two main ones were probably the show’s bad writing and the utter lack of respect towards women at the show.
I know you had stopped doing them, that’s why I was curious because of her short stint.
You would think with her being a standup comic(among other things), they would’ve had her do Update pieces as herself, a la Spade or Kightlinger.
You’re not alone in thinking this season has more ups than downs. Sure, the bad stuff is really bad (good luck looking for a silver lining in the next episode) but I find this season more enjoyable than season 19. The bad episodes there are just dull, the bad episodes this year are like a fascinating case study of how not to put on a sketch comedy show. Plus this season gave us Chris Elliott (who has a personal favorite 10-1 sketch of mine coming up in the John Goodman show).
Reiser’s episode has the Dippy and Doodle Update bit, which I like…. otherwise……
Knowing Reiser’s writers apparently wrote the crappy material doesn’t help.
(Also, I will say for this episode – I never really understood the universal loathing of the “Sea Park” sketch.)
I think the Sea Park sketch suffers from the cumulative effect of similar Farley performances, but in a vacuum is really no better or worse than any of them.
Highlight of the episode for me is Norm’s Slim Pickens, which was a very Norm choice for an impression.
The official SNL Youtube uploaded “Sea Park” over the summer and I enjoyed it in isolation, I must admit. In the middle of a long season I can imagine it being painful.
The season is certainly better, objectively, than like S6 and S11, but it would be absurd if it wasn’t–those seasons didn’t have veteran cast members (as well as basically a handful of veteran comedy performers to boot). Using a sports analogy, S6 and S11 I always think of as like rebuilding years of teams–you didn’t have high expectations anyway, whereas S20 is more like the sad, disappointing gasp of a team that was once dominant.
I think in season 11 expectations were high, given the talent of the writing staff – I don’t think that season was ever intended as a rebuilding year, it just ended up that way because so many gears melted down.
Season 20 I’d say is worse, and it also does not have one of my all time favorite cast members (Nora Dunn) along with one of my all time most underrated (Danitra Vance), but darn it if I don’t really really enjoy a number of moments in season 20 on a gut level in a way I just can’t with 11. Season 20 is the utmost of rollercoasters, with all the terror, and when they are in the right place, all the thrills.
I won’t even judge season 6 against them because there was too much stacked against everyone involved.
Didn’t mind Sea Park as much as a lot of the other “Chris Farley yells” sketches of Season 20. In fact, I actually enjoyed his delivery of the “Bacteria Splash” line. I know it was kind of the point of her character in the sketch, Janeane looked absolutely repulsed to be sitting next to Farley. Of course, she did have George Clooney on the opposite side…
I’m not sure if Farley’s delivery of the “darling” line was his way of mocking Janeane and/or the crappy writing. Seriously, who would’ve been using that word in that way in 1995?
Also loved Clooney’s Jay Leno.
As you can probably imagine, I’ve always been a fan of the railroad hiring sketch.
I have to admit that damn Sea Park sketch has kinda grown on me over the years. Maybe more Ha Ha Strange than Ha Ha Funny, but I went from hating it outright back in the day to enjoying it in a campy sort of way. The douche line is really funny.
I like the Sea Park sketch too. It’s not a five star sketch but I enjoy the physical comedy aspect and the escalating absurdity. Also I enjoyed Janeane’s parting words to Farley at the end — something like “can you blame me for going with other guy when you have the world’s worst luck?” — and Farley agreeing with her despite himself. Kind of takes on a meta quality since it was Garofalo’s last episode.
Paul Reiser is next? Be still, my heart!
I will always have a soft spot for John Turturro’s episode – I’d probably put it above Travolta’s, Baldwin’s, and this one. I can see why that is probably a minority opinion though.
It’s a shame that this episode is widely represented on Youtube, with three sketches, but they’re probably the three worst sketches of the night for me. I guess they are the more generic type, more likely to get views.
They got George Clooney (which was a HUGE gift from NBC, given that he was the hottest star on TV at this time and ER was truly appointment television for tens of millions of Americans) at the right time – he was very game here, charismatic and fun, without some of the sanctimony that would begin creeping in a few years later.
This episode is yet another from season 20 with somewhat somber undertones, between Janeane’s departure, the Cranberries (RIP Dolores), and some of the choices of material, especially Snowbird. It adds an interesting flavor to what on paper could have been a very breezy episode.
I love Snowbird. Absolutely devastating to watch – it just tears at you. Season 20 is one of the only times anything this bleak and anguished, no attempts at absurdity or happiness to take the edge off, would get on the air. It would take many more years, and the arrival of Kyle Mooney, for this type of approach to pop up on the show again, and while I absolutely love Kyle and think he’s been a real tonic to the show this past decade, it’s extremely difficult to live up to Bruce McCulloch, whose performance in this is absolutely superb. It’s not even just “oh he’s making a sad face in-between a comedy turn.” I mean the ACTING in itself is incredible. Even better, I recognized the singer who brings about his downfall – it’s Sandra P. Grant, who would go on to a pretty lousy time on soap opera One Life to Live a few years after this. At least she had a nice, if brief, showcase here.
(which other short of his airs in repeats? Is it Eraserhead [which episode did it air in, if I may ask?] I suppose this is one of those like Schiller’s movie with Phil Hartman and Melanie Hutsell that I will hear about but never get to see)
The hot (and presumably not-SNL oriented) crowd for this episode meant we got some different reactions than usual to Norm’s jokes, which meant some good reactions from him in turn. This Update has one of my favorite Ellen pieces of her run as a cast member. 94-95 had some long, depressing dry spells for her, but she has some good stuff, especially midseason. I like Kevin’s piece here but it almost feels a little too obvious – I would have done without one of the props.
Speaking of Ellen, this is a great cold open. She and Tim have a good rapport and it’s a funny subject to touch on. At first when we saw Farley I thought they actually would give him the LFNY, as one of those season 20 “jokes,” but fortunately they didn’t. It was nice to see them get some applause as well. In those years 4 seasons was a much longer period of time of familiarity between audience and cast member than we’d get now, where someone like Melissa Villasenor (or before her, Abby Elliott) is still struggling to even get on the air.
The Buck Reardon sketch is one of those that makes the most out of a thin premise, helped by Clooney’s agreeable delivery, but I wish they’d made a few key changes – drop McKean’s role and leave that to a narrator; deal with some of the needless segueways (the drag queens [although Kevin looks pretty good in drag, to his credit] and Meadows’ character all could have been removed).
I like the way the Emory sketch is handled. Given that the abortion wars were in a particularly violent place around this time, SNL mentioning them at all sometimes surprises me, but the way it’s handled, with the mayor putting such a clipped, phony tone on a serious matter (we have lesbian bars AND Christian discos), is perfect. One of McKean’s best moments on the show.
The train station sketch is a great piece from Jack Handey, with Mark McKinney in particular shining in his role.
The Taxicab Confessions parody is another instance where I wonder if the people who wrote the sketch even watched the show, or if they thought it had to be dumbed down for viewers. The show itself was very slick, rather than having the drivers smirk “Now that’s a Taxicab Confession” into the camera over and over, the way it’s badly overused here. Anyway, I do like Clooney’s Leno impression (and him being so positive aside from, you know, killing a man), and the little turn with McKean and Macdonald is a delight.
Zagat’s is something I might have enjoyed more if I hadn’t been so tired of Farley doing his Farley routine. I watched Sea World once and that was more than enough for me. Awful. WR is better, but the image of Laura Kightlinger (in what is her only appearance of the night I think) being dragged along, near-death, is such a depressing summing up of her time at SNL it’s hard to get into the rest. I also like the credits recreation. The only thing that ever gets me with this sketch is WHY they work so hard to make Molly Shannon look like Julianna Marguilies? Were they afraid viewers would be upset if she didn’t look like her? I’ve seen people who didn’t even know that was Molly Shannon. It’s one of those minor moments that sort of sum up how 94-95 often focused on the wrong aspects.
Speaking of Molly, it was a wise decision on Lorne’s part to immediately introduce her to viewers through the monologue (which is a bit too gory for me, although it’s nice to see one last moment to shine for Tom Davis). Who ever would have thought, watching this episode, and this era for women, that Molly would go on to become so hugely important to the show? This whole season is surreal on her side because her performances rarely even match her style that starts in fall ’95 – just a few random sketches, and one or two Update pieces come close. The other part that confuses me is that she worked with Adam Sandler before she was cast on SNL, but I honestly don’t remember her having much to do with him this season, and even in these goodnights, they’re standing at opposite ends of the stage…
I feel like all that could be said about Janeane’s tenure has already been said, but I will say I think with all the talk about how miserable she was, how the people at the show hated her, her going to the press, and so on, that her very solid work in a number of episodes is often overlooked. She really does some good stuff. I hope that through your reviews, people can now see the fuller picture.
I love this episode, it’s one of my all time favorites and I’ve seen it quite a few times. It has a feel good vibe to it that this year rarely had.. if the year hadn’t been so drama filled I see it going a lot better.
JG leaving I think had a lot due to that because by that point she had betrayed everyone and drove them up the wall with her drama and politicking. She whined everywhere she could about her situation and helped make that NY magazine article more gossipy and it just went south for her then. Lorne shoulda fired her over that, he didn’t which helped make things worse. Huge mistake on his part because it made the morale situation terrible.
It says a lot when Shannon came in and pretty much picked up like nothing was wrong and did well off the bat.. Lorne shoulda hired her instead.
As for the show there’s very few duds here.. the Sea World skit I always found kind of annoying but it had a lot of likes on YT.. weird. TC was a lot of fun.. starts of very typical of that era but the random celeb bits make it fun. George did a very good Leno (even if that chin was laughably bad.) What makes the skit for me was how good McKean and Norm’s impressions were of Price and Pickins.. they were both dead on yet the audience didn’t fully get them. Sad. The end was hilarious due to Farley’s charm.
I really love WR, it works because you have to experience it first hand to really get it. Hospitals can be awful due to the waiting times.. they ran with it and also managed to get some shots in on ER for being over-dramatic and cliche. Clooney’s bit with Shannon makes me LMAO due to the intended over acting. The hurt people are also funny (one of Mohr’s few funny bits was the guy on the stretcher and his overacting.) Spade also has a stretcher bit that makes me roll.
The Railroad and Mack Reardon skits are two of the best of the season and they are back to back none the less, funny how that works. It’s amazing how deep into the characters McKinney got.. shame he was never used like he needed to be. The MR skit had a wicked sense of humor to it, poor guy could do nothing right lol. Reminds me a shade of a Mad TV skit in that way.
It’s a shame George has only hosted once.. he was a natural at it. His charisma helped a lot too, you can’t help but enjoy him here. Also good set from The Cranberries too, not the happiest songs in the world but well performed and Dolores looked so beautiful, RIP.
It’s a shame they couldn’t keep the momentum up.. they took 3 weeks off between this and the awful next one.. I always wondered why. Re-tooling?
I forgot to say two things above:
– this episode reminds me that Smigel would have one of his customary vicious celebrity takedowns (this one involving Clooney’s scolding of the press) a few years after this. I’m still not sure how SNL got away with those for so many years.
– this episode makes me mourn for the wide variety of sketches you could get in this era, even if the show could sometimes be wretched. Once NBC stepped in, you began getting a much more streamlined show, which makes sense for the bottom line, but there are so many very different types of pieces on display here, and a lot of the best stuff is what did not make the cut from fall 1995 to present.
I always kinda felt this but after the reviews of this season there is no doubt in my mind season 20 is better than season 6.
I don’t like this episode has much as the others here, but it’s still good overall. The Sea World skit really drags it down. I’m a sucker for Chris Farley, but he just reeks of desperation in this sketch and it’s just a little too one-note of a joke for me. And I agree that Janeane’s character was supposed to be disgusted by Chris…but her acting comes off a little too genuine here. 🙂 It doesn’t help that she has COMPLETELY checked out…but it’s understandable. It was her last show of what was a terrible experience for her. Zagat’s doesn’t do much for me either, again, it’s weird because I’m a big Farley fan. But, maybe I was burned out with the schtick by this time as well. I don’t know, hard to explain, but the sketch is not that good.
Anyway, farewell to Janeane Garofalo. I know so many in the cast and crew (Al Franken apparently) treated her poorly, and she didn’t do herself any favors by criticizing Adam’s work on the show before she joined, and her treatment was probably unfair…but I’m not sorry to see her go. She really dragged down the show. Right out of the gate, her performances on the show kind of gave off an…”I’m too good for this” vibe, etc. And she always looked disinterested and apathetic. I know it was a toxic culture for women on the show during this time…but man, I didn’t care for her approach. Ultimately, good riddance.
It’s interesting to look back and see that maybe this season wasn’t the complete train wreck I remembered. That season had a feeling of weird transition. The people who had made it appointment viewing for me (Hartman, Carvey, Lovitz, Miller, etc.) were gone. I felt the show going more in the direction of Sandler and Farley, whom I could take in doses but no more; the louder and (forgive me) broader Farley played, and the more it leaned on Sandler’s style of humor, the more I began to move away. The new talent I loved from their work in other things – McKean, Garofalo, and Elliott – just didn’t seem to fit in here. It also didn’t help that at this same time, NBC was riding high – it almost felt like, per the “Onion” story, “Must See TV” would be enforced by law – and some of that would bleed over into “SNL” every now and again.
Be that as it may, this look back through this strange season has reminded me of some things I enjoyed and kind of miss. The surrealism, for instance, of some of the things Jack Handey would write – especially his tendency for weird sponsor billboards. And although I run hot and cold on Norm MacDonald, there’s that weird edge he brought to whatever he did, and that could make for some fun viewing.
Thanks for doing this for us. It’s a needed education, and for me a reminder that memory isn’t as reliable as I’d hope.
Part of my sour memories of this season are also based on primarily being exposed to it through repeats, particularly the one-hour Comedy Central ones–I swear that this episode’s repeat (at least in my faulty memory) took the stupidest, worst sketches (presumably because they had the “big names”) and cut out a lot of stuff that sounds promising.
‘Mack Reardon” was def. cut from the 60 minute CC version
Btw, pretty sure McKean wrote that sketch (Reardon)
ASCAP and BMI credit a cue to Ian Maxtone-Graham.
https://www.ascap.com/repertory#ace/search/workID/498134622
http://repertoire.bmi.com/DetailView.aspx?detail=titleid&keyid=3457661&ShowNbr=0&ShowSeqNbr=0&blnWriter=True&blnPublisher=True&blnArtist=True&blnAltTitles=True
Man I know McKean wrote some sketch this season involving a guitar! Maybe it was just the awful one from SJP
McKean and Herlihy co-wrote “Buck Daniels,” so there’s that.
Oof.
Yup that’s the one I was thinking of! Got it confused with Reardon I guess
Marlilyn Suzanne Miller was a credited writer for this episode. Looking at it she had to have written “Emory”. I can’t imagine it being anything else on this show
Just realized she’s in the monologue sitting next to Tom Davis. Maybe she helped Davis write that?
I have mixed feelings about Janene’s tenure on SNL. Was it a boy’s club? Yes. Was it homophobic? Yes. I haven’t seen half of these episodes because this season was so bad (season 11 at least had the sublime FFC episode, Danitra Vance, and wonderful musical guests) Yet (and she admits this in LFNY) she didn’t do all-nighters. (like Molly Shannon) She didn’t bring food (like Victoria Jackson) she didn’t come up with her own takes on celebs (Jan Hooks on Tammy Faye Baker) I know she admired Marilyn Suzanne Miller, did she ever try to write with MSM?
Not bringing food counted against her?
BTW, I’m The Garofaholic on Twitter.
Here’s the deal (and from I know from the SNL legend/canon) the writers work late and yeah, they get takeout, but it helps your chances to get material on the show by bringing the writers food. Victoria Jackson did it. She knew they didn’t care about her. They were focused on their own careers. Yet she brought them food and she formed relationships with them. And let’s face it, out of the three women from 1986-1990, Jackson was the most grating (although her I’m Not a Bimbo was sublime)
Granted, JG probably hated the writers so much she would’ve flung food at them rather than bring them food, but yeah, it meant she wasn’t a “team player.” I’m not saying it’s right. I loved her in Reality Bites and The Matchmaker was a very underrated movie. But her and SNL was a bad bad match.
Admittedly, I have a soft spot for the Whale Park sketch. I think I was like 5 or so when I saw it on TV and I thought Chris Farley’s screaming was funny and I mimicked him. I know it’s another “Farley screams” sketch, but it was like an early dose of love for Farley to my younger self
I prefer the Sea World sketch to other Screaming Farley pieces this season. There is some sincerity to his performance because we can see he really is being pelted with buckets of water. (Unlike, say, the Little Women sketch in the David Hyde Pierce episode where he is supposed to be reacting to icy sub-zero water, but we know he’s just overacting.)
Aside from the physical comedy, there isn’t much else to Sea World though.
I thought that the “Sea Park” skit was hilarious! I don’t understand the hate for that skit at all. And I personally thought it was funny most of the time when Farley yelled – there’s just something about him that makes it particularly funny.
If like me you are always interested in more stories of Molly’s overlap with Sandler in the cast but are too lazy to look around much to see what she has said about it, she shares a few stories here starting around 7 minutes in.
This Weekend Update contains one of Norm’s best IMO deep cut jokes of all time: “Former Interior Secretary James Watt was indicted this week for still having a large, light bulb-shaped head.”