Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
EL ORATOR DE MOTIVACION
Matt Foley offers bilingual motivation for two latin kids (MWB) & (JAM)
— I’ve been completely burned out on Matt Foley during his last few appearances, but at least having him do a sketch where he speaks entirely in Spanish is a change of pace, even if they are basically just doing a Spanish recreation of the very first Matt Foley sketch. According to Jay in his SNL book, David Spade was even going to play the son in this sketch, as a reprise of him playing the son in the first Foley sketch, but ended up letting Jay play the role instead, because sometime right before rehearsals of this sketch, David had a perfect opportunity to score with a hot model. Goes to show you where David’s priorities are this season (even if I can’t blame him for not passing up an opportunity with a hot model).
— Farley is noticeably cracking himself up with his clumsy attempts at some of the Spanish words.
— I do like hearing the Spanish version of “van down by the river”.
— Morwenna looks like she’s trying not to crack up at Farley right now. Jay’s been stifling his laughter throughout this sketch as well, but that’s not surprising.
— One of the positives to this sketch is that Farley has thankfully toned down the AWFUL whine he kept speaking in during the last Matt Foley sketch from the George Foreman episode.
— I absolutely love that Matt Foley delivers “Live from New York…” in Spanish. I’m always a sucker for when SNL changes up the LFNYs, and I believe this is the first time LFNY has been delivered in Spanish since Gilda Radner did it in season 5’s Strother Martin episode…. and interestingly, that episode was one of the final ones of the original era, much like how tonight’s episode is one of the final ones of the early 90s era. Both episodes were also the final April episode of their respective season.
STARS: **
MONOLOGUE
Bruce Springsteen (ADS) joins host on-stage for “Dancing In The Dark”
— Feels kinda odd in retrospect to hear Friends being referred to as a new show.
— Fun premise with Courteney turning the tables on Bruce Springsteen by bringing him out of the audience to join her on stage.
— Kind of a thin monologue so far, but Adam is making this really fun (for season 20 standards) with his performance.
— They’re starting to go all Lou Diamond Phillips on that repeatedly-shown clip of Clarence Clemons clapping and dancing.
STARS: ***½
GOOD MORNING BROOKLYN
unlucky (CHF) receives “beating of the week”
— Unnecessary to make this tepid sketch recurring, and I certainly don’t need any reminders of the notorious Sarah Jessica Parker episode.
— A guy in the audience noticeably says an exuberant “YEAH!” after Jay tells Courteney to shut up. Make of that what you will.
— The “Please Stand By” bit fell completely flat.
— Much like in the first installment of this sketch, Adam’s entrance gets a HUGE audience reaction.
— Molly playing a character with her own first name.
— Speaking of Molly, she seems to be playing a variation of the character that Janeane Garofalo played in the first installment of this sketch, right down to wearing a similar wig.
— While this overall sketch was still weak, there was a big energy throughout it that I kinda liked, which made this installment slightly more tolerable than the first installment.
STARS: **
GAPARDY
Gap girls Kristy, Lucy, Cindy compete on a game show
— Farley and Sandler have been dominating tonight’s episode so far.
— Wow, this is the first time we’ve seen the Gap Girls in over a year. Interesting new format for these characters tonight, putting them in a Gap-themed gameshow. This idea has potential.
— The back-and-forth debate over Courteney’s eye color is going on way too long.
— Boy, what’s with Farley’s sloppily-applied blush makeup?
— Speaking of sloppy, the execution of this sketch feels sloppy (Farley even completely blanks on one of his lines at one point), though the sketch is still providing some laughs here and there.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “What Would You Say”
WEEKEND UPDATE
eccentric English teacher Louise Ingstrom (MOS) punctuates her commentary
— A lot of Norm’s jokes are getting a really strong audience reaction.
— Molly with her very first big character piece during her SNL tenure.
— Interesting format to Molly’s commentary with her verbalizing the punctuation of her sentences.
— Solid performance from Molly, which feels like an early glimpse of the type of performances we would regularly see from her in the upcoming new SNL era.
— An overall short but fantastic Weekend Update, helped even more by the very lively audience.
STARS: ****½
RIDE HOME
(CSE) takes advantage of teenage babysitter Melanie (MAM) in a car
— Hoo, boy. Here comes a fairly notorious sketch from this season that I’m sure will be uncomfortable to review.
— Another Kids In The Hall character that Mark is bringing to SNL. Interesting how every KITH character he’s brought to SNL so far (Darrill and Melanie) has been paired with Chris Elliott.
— My god, the skeeviness of this sketch is indeed uncomfortable. And most importantly, it’s not funny. As off-putting and disgusting as the subject matter of this sketch is, there can be a way to possibly pull it off. The controversial Canteen Boy/Scoutmaster sketch, for example, where they wrote actual funny lines throughout the sketch, alleviating the skeeviness of the sketch to some degree (your mileage definitely may vary on that, as I’m well aware that there’s quite a number of people who still find that sketch too disturbing to laugh at). The Uncle Roy sketches with Buck Henry might be a better example of a morally wrong concept being pulled off well. This Elliott/McKinney sketch, on the other hand, is hard to tell if it’s even being played for laughs. It’s coming off too realistic (yes, even with Mark in drag), and not in the admirable Marilyn Suzanne Miller slice-of-life type of way. What is this sketch going for?!?
— No idea what to say about that “I’d do it again!” ending.
— Overall, a rare misfire for Elliott. Actually, this is the second episode in a row where an oddball sketch starring him surprisingly didn’t work (Cirque du Soleil being the sketch from the preceding episode). I hope he’s not in a slump, especially since we’re in the homestretch of his short-lived SNL tenure.
— I recall SNL later doing a sketch with a very similar premise in season 30 (another really bad year for SNL), with Chris Parnell in the Chris Elliott role and Lindsay Lohan in the Mark McKinney role. That sketch, from what I remember, was also uncomfortably unfunny and played too realistically, though at least in that one, the guy’s plans to have his way with the underage girl got cut short, due to his wife (played by Maya Rudolph) showing up.
STARS: *
HIRING MANSON
offhand remark leads to hiring of Charles Manson (ADS) as office manager
— Hmm, an interesting premise for this season’s standards, though we’re almost a minute into this sketch and I haven’t gotten any laughs so far.
— Adam’s Charles Manson impression is cracking me up.
— Wow, this overall sketch was fairly short.
STARS: **½
COMPANY MIXER
(TIM) keeps (KEN) on the defensive by alternating truth with “jokes”
— This sketch was originally cut from both the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger and Martin Lawrence episodes from the preceding season. In the Martin Lawrence version, Martin played Tim’s role. I definitely can’t picture that, as it’s a low-key, laid-back role that requires no spastic gestures or mugging, whereas Martin… well, you know.
— Kevin’s sudden deadpan “Yeah, I’m gonna have you fired” made me laugh.
— Pretty funny ending regarding the urinated-in punch.
STARS: ***
REPLACEMENT BASEBALL
a documentary on the scabs’ brief careers
— Right from the start, I really like this premise. This has potential to be a much better Ken Burns documentary parody than that Civil War Memories sketch from the Roseanne episode earlier this season.
— Elliott’s testimonial is really funny.
— For some reason, I love the character name Glenn Blumm.
— A lot of funny lines from the narrator, and the black-and-white photos being shown throughout this are adding to the humor.
— Wilma Jobads is another character name that’s oddly funny to me.
— I almost didn’t even recognize Morwenna (doing a convincing American accent) at first. She looks so different in every sketch she’s in. Maybe I feel that way because in all the years I’ve watched this season, I’ve never gotten used to Morwenna, due to her very brief time as a cast member.
— An overall well-done and underrated sketch.
STARS: ****
HIS MUSE FRIDAY
(host) & poetry editor (MMK) trade verse in film noir
— A huge and refreshing change of pace for the juvenile season 20. This is the type of sketch that would’ve felt right at home in SNL’s late 80s era.
— Wow, strong writing and performances here, and all the performers are nailing the 1940s style of speaking. Michael, in particular, is really in his element here, which makes you wish he was allowed to do pieces like this more often during his SNL tenure.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ants Marching”
MR. COOL
aloof (DAS) becomes obnoxiously cloying after a night with (host)
— Geez, Laura is just NOW making her first appearance of the night, in the final sketch. Molly, on the other hand, has gotten tons of airtime tonight. It’s like Lorne has already decided by this point of the season which of the two female featured players he would bring back next season.
— Very interesting use of David. I like the sudden turn his character takes halfway through the sketch, especially since it forces David to actually put effort and energy into a performance for once this season. He’s doing a good job here.
— Funny gaffe with David forgetting whether to call Courteney “Gumball” or “Sunshine”.
— Pretty good sketch overall.
— I believe this sketch would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. I don’t remember the rerun version having the “Gumball/Sunshine” gaffe, and I remember David delivering his ending line in a much more serious, dramatic way instead of the comedic, exaggerated way he delivers it in the live version.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An overall okay episode, though the first half was kinda weak and very recurring character-heavy. However, that half of the episode also had a consistent fun energy that I liked, which caused even the Good Morning Brooklyn sketch to not make me want to rip my hair out for once. The second half of this episode, while certainly not perfect, was a lot better, and I really appreciate how it tried a lot of out-of-the-ordinary (for season 20 standards) sketch premises.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Damon Wayans)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Bob Saget
You know, I get why people trash Good Morning, Brooklyn (it’s Jacky as hell), but many of those same people would praise the equally lazy Bronx Beat over a decade later. Go figure.
The younger edgelord version of me really dug that babysitter sketch. I could definitely see it being a Michael O’Donighue sketch, but for the life of me I don’t know what the joke is. Tomorrow’s Boyz II Men sketch is another one I used to enjoy despite the lack of any kind of joke.
His Muse Friday is a very strong anomaly for this season. A nice throwback. Too bad it kind of dies with the audience.
I guess the joke in “Ride Home” is that Mark as Melanie is not a conventional-looking beauty.
I tend to wonder how many people who enjoyed Bronx Beat even remembered Good Morning Brooklyn, but I think the main difference is probably that Maya and Amy have good chemistry and can make some of it work (although I think the only one I really enjoyed was with Brian Williams).
Also, autocorrect disasters galore on my post there. *Hacky* as hell. And *O’Donoghue.
I’m calling it now. “Fast” gets one star.
I really want Stooge to buck the trend and be like “You know what, I love this crappy sketch.” The Saget episode is like that for me. A bunch of terrible sketches I don’t really hate.
Even money, there. I’ll do you one better; Taking all bets that the total number of One-star sketches will fall between 5 and 8
I can’t wait for America’s Funniest Hate Videos, which is a sketch I’ve always found to be very underrated.
But, I am looking forward to the Dante skit to be covered, inwhich the original SNLTranscripts called it Fashion Designer.
I just re-watched “Ride Home” and yeah, it’s a stinker. It’s too long (nearly six minutes), the performances are nothing special (good character work from Molly, though) and eventually the smirks (can’t really call them laughs) stop and it’s just disturbing. I wonder if it was originally intended for KITH, or written especially for SNL. Or if Chris collaborated with Mark.
That sketch really feels like it would have worked as a short filmed piece on KITH, maybe with Dave Foley in the Chris part.
I remember when this episode was being advertised, in an attempt to bring in more viewers when the show was really slipping, the NBC advertisements during the 11:00 news were really pushing that there would be a bunch of recurring characters in this episode, announcing that Matt Foley, Good Morning Brooklyn, and The Gap Girls would be on and showing clips from the dress rehearsal. I thought this was one of the better episodes of 94-95, and Molly Shannon really starts to shine in this one.
There’s something compelling about seeing Molly win over the audience on Update through sheer force of performance. Most of the season had had very dry commentary, very self-indulgent hamming from Sandler/Spade/Farley, etc. but not many boom pow pieces like what she does. This and her performance in that babysitter sketch seem like the point where she became what she’d be over the next 6 seasons.
This is one of the few episodes of the season that doesn’t feel very reliant on the host, which, due to the sluggish quality of many of the sketches, makes it somewhat bland to me. I’ve always found Courtney Cox to be lacking in charisma and performance ability, which is probably one of the reasons I couldn’t connect to sketches like the noir piece (which on paper was probably pretty strong, if rushed), or the office sketch at the end (also dragged down for me by some really bad acting from Spade and a slightly desperate performance by Laura Kightlinger). Her best work of the night was as the host of Gapardy, which was unfortunately let down by padding (the rock paper scissors and Adam repeating “stop fighting”) and some very rough timing issues from Farley and Spade. Their work in this episode shows why replacing/phasing them out was the right idea.
I appreciate Jay Mohr and whoever else trying to make a few changes to Good Morning Brooklyn, like the “beat up” contest, but I still couldn’t find a laugh. I also thought SJP was better in the co-host role, even if the material was risible.
I can see where the Meadows sketch was originally in the Martin Lawrence episode – there’s a mania in the performance which is often missing from Meadows’ work. It makes for a good change of pace, anyway.
The baseball sketch is a big improvement on the first Burns parody – a bit rough here and there, but much better balance in tone, and the cast is much smoother, without any of the mugging and catchphrase hell of the first version. It reminds me of something that would have aired in 84-85. Morwenna looks like Allison Janney for some reason. When I watch these episodes I genuinely wonder whether if it was her choice to leave or if Lorne or NBC let her go. The little we got to see of her suggests she had real talent and could have settled into the show with time.
Only seen this one once, it wasn’t that bad. Agree very much on the opposite halves. Cox was at her most beautiful here and she made each skit she was in watchable by being in it. She was a better pick for the Brooklyn skit, she looked more natural in that getup than Sarah did, she looked kinda stupid.
Molly killed on that Update piece, in the good way of course lol. She’s one of the fastest rising cast members I’ve seen, it didn’t take her long at all to fit in and get going.. shows that Lorne shoulda picked her for JG’s spot to begin with.
Need to re-watch this one for sure.
Sagat’s show is very interesting. A lot of bad skits but like Carson said they are at least fun to watch, remember the Hate Videos skit being darkly funny and that fashion designer skit was so odd lol. That show shows how burned out Farely really was by that point as he has a mustache during it, he looked so weird with it. Same for Spade too, such a surprise he was kept on.
I would agree that you could see the star power in Molly almost instantly. Maybe a “hot” take but she had pretty decent chemistry with this cast in the very short time she was with them. Wonder what it would have been like if she was hired a year or two earlier? I think she would have killed with this group as well
I was wondering the same yesterday – when I watched the late ’90s ‘live’ I sometimes hated Molly’s characters (namely MKG) and I think part of the reason is because she was with a cast that with one or two exceptions all had similar broad characters/performances. I wish I’d gotten to see her with a more balanced cast, which 93-95 were at times. I suppose she would have had the same fate as most of the women who came up against the bad boys buzzsaw though. Her half-season in 94-95 tends to avoid them.
This episode isn’t too bad. The back half has some interesting things and Mr. Cool is one of my favorite sketches from this season. Something about Spade playing dorky roles is really entertaining to me. His Muse Friday and Company Mixer are good as well.
This episode gets a bad reputation for the babysitter sketch, but I honestly don’t think it’s one of the season’s low points. It’s just very muddled on what the actual point of the sketch is, and the fact that it’s so tasteless exacerbates that. Mark doing the KITH approach to drag and not playing it in as much of a winking or jokey way as SNL typically does adds a layer of uncomfortable-ness too—same with Elliott’s performance.
This episode is ok. I agree that Matt Foley committing to Spanish for the whole bit is somewhat admirable and lifts it a little bit. Even if it is a total re-tread of the first Foley sketch. Anyway, it’s a good send-off for the character (let’s not talk about his return when Farley came back to host). Mr. Cool was interesting to see Spade play against type (the ending with McKean firing Cox was lame though and didn’t work), Company Mixer and Hiring Manson were both short and sweet and pretty funny. The Replacement Baseball documentary is a pitch-perfect (pun intended) parody of Ken Burns-style documentaries. Loved this one.
As for Chris Elliott falling in love with Mark’s teen-age school girl character…um…yikes. Just a terrible idea for a sketch. No good.
I also think Gap-ardy is a big swing and a miss. Adam has no consistent approach to his character throughout the sketch (it’s like he had stepped away from the character for so long, he forgot how he performed her in prior sketches), I don’t know what’s going on with Chris’s makeup either. 🙂 It’s just a sloppy and lazy sketch (the rock paper scissors bit is horrendous), just a sad way for these characters to go out.
If it has a point, I think the babysitter sketch is just to remind people that there are consequences for doing bad things. I kind of liked the sketch for the performances and precisely because it doesn’t shy away from making the audience uncomfortable, which needless to say would never fly today on network TV. And it’s really not that bad — I mean, McKinney is a fully grown man doing a goofy character and this is just pretend, right?
Here’s my reviews of the musical performances.
What Would You Say
— Pretty brief solo by Boyd Tinsley to substitute for Popper’s missing harmonica. Kind of wish he went further with it.
— Dave looks like he’s wearing pajama bottoms. Welcome to the 90s, Gen Z’ers.
— Love that the alto sax solo is completely different from the studio version. It’s called improvisation, boys and girls.
— Nice drumming by Carter to wrap the song up.
— Solid performance.
STARS: ***1/2
Ants Marching
— Oh wow, they’re starting with the intro to their song Warehouse.
— Dang, that was a great segue into Ants Marching. Quite a trick they pulled off here.
— Once again Boyd and Leroi are improvising during their first instrumental break. Really appreciate that, instead of just doing a rote copy of the studio version.
— As usual, Carter is crushing it on the drums.
— Dave himself has been rock solid during both performances vocally and with his guitar.
— Great job by Boyd during his big solo, and like that he’s continuing to jam even after the rest of the band comes in.
— Excellent rapid-fire riffs by Carter at the end of the song.
— DMB was massively overexposed in the 90s and I got pretty sick of them by the end of the decade. However, both of these performances have been quite good and there not much to complain about.
STARS: ****
Also, I would have given the cold opening 3 and a half stars, not two. Creative use of Foley, an unusual LFNY, it didn’t go on too long, and the supporting performances by Morwenna, Michael and Jay were pretty good.
An awful episode
This episode isn’t that bad. The first half is a wash, although there’s nothing offensively bad. Gapardy isn’t that good in execution, but points for at least trying something new with these characters.
From Update on the show is pretty good. I always enjoyed the Mixer sketch. Good to see Nealon get one final offbeat piece in under the wire.
Morwenna Banks is a dead ringer for Allison Janney in the replacement baseball sketch