Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
AIR FORCE ONE
Bob Dole (NOM) & Newt Gingrich (DAH) grumble about having to fly coach
— Unlike Chris Farley in the preceding season, Darrell seems to be attempting an actual impression of Newt Gingrich’s voice.
— Some good laughs from the cheapness of the coach section of the plane, especially the random chickens wandering around.
— Because Darrell’s in this playing Gingrich, the brief walk-on from Bill Clinton is played by a double, hilariously trying to hide his face from the camera. I can’t tell if the Clinton voice we hear coming from him is pre-taped audio of Darrell’s Clinton, or if it’s the double himself doing the Clinton voice. I’m leaning towards the former.
STARS: ***½
OPENING MONTAGE
— When announcing “And your host, Laura Leighton”, Don Pardo seems to temporarily forget how to pronounce Laura Leighton’s last name, as he awkwardly stretches out his utterance of her first name and then pauses for a second before finally saying her last name. This would later be fixed in reruns.
MONOLOGUE
Lucien & Fagin tell host how much they love her work on Melrose Place
— The Fops already becoming recurring after debuting just one episode ago. Luckily, I enjoy these characters, so I don’t have any complaints about the frequency of their appearances… yet.
— Mark’s smile and delivery as his Fops character always cracks me up, especially the way he said “Oh, delicious” just now.
— Very funny photo of the Fops watching TV “bare-assed naked”.
STARS: ***½
OLD GLORY INSURANCE
Sam Waterston [real] pitches Old Glory Insurance against robot attacks
— Here’s an all-time classic SNL commercial.
— I love the opening conversation between the old ladies.
— This completely random concept of robots attacking old people is freakin’ hilarious, especially with the way it’s being played so straight.
— Some great dramatization visuals of robots fighting with old people.
— The fact that this is such a silly idea being played so straight is made even better by Sam Waterston’s involvement.
STARS: *****
FORTUNE TELLER
Stan Hooper dwells on otherwise-accurate fortune teller’s (host) lone mistake
— Much like The Fops, Stan Hooper becomes a recurring character after debuting just one episode ago.
— I like Hooper harping so much on the psychic’s Dayton mistake. Even just the way Norm says “Dayton” is inherently funny.
— Oh my god, this one female audience member has a VERY distinctive, loud, kinda creepy-sounding laugh that’s heard all throughout this sketch. That laugh is going to haunt my nightmares.
— Good ending with Hooper returning to the room after being stabbed with a “hatchet”, as the psychic predicted.
— Overall, of the four Stan Hooper sketches, this one is probably the weakest by default, but that’s not to say I’m putting this sketch down, because I still found it funny. It’s just the least memorable of this character’s four sketches.
STARS: ***½
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
a Time-Life video collection of family fights
— A lot of laughs from the text crawl of family argument topics.
— I absolutely love Will’s various “That’s it, f*** this , I’m leavin’!”, especially the third time, where he does it for no reason during an actual friendly family conversation.
STARS: ****
WHAT A WOMAN WANTS
coeds (host) & Kitty McGinnis (MOS) take calls
— Molly’s constant nervously-delivered “Just kidding”s remind me so much of Kristen Wiig’s Judy Grimes character (the fast-talking Weekend Update correspondent) from years later.
— I’m still hearing Creepy Laugh Audience Lady from the Stan Hooper sketch.
— Some laughs from Mark as a caller insulting Molly while praising Laura’s looks.
— We’re towards the end of this sketch, and I’m not quite sure where a lot of this sketch is trying to go. It feels kinda aimless.
STARS: **
CYDNEY
Cydney (host) films a perfume commercial with little people; Grant Show cameo
— Funny initial visual of the male cast on their knees playing little people.
— Spade’s (in a rare season 21 sketch appearance) sarcastic mocking of Laura’s remark towards him reminds me of when he did something similar to Tim in the first Total Bastard Airlines sketch.
— A big laugh from Norm putting out a cigarette under the shoe of his fake tiny legs. I think they use the dress rehearsal version of this sketch in reruns, because I swear I remember the reruns having the audience applaud after Norm puts out the cigarette, whereas the live version I’m currently watching has a different reaction from the audience, where they just laugh at Norm putting out the cigarette.
— Feels weird seeing Fred Wolf playing a character like this. He seems out of place in this role.
— I liked this sketch at first, but it’s kinda fallen apart after about 2-3 minutes. Nothing is working for me anymore.
— Not too crazy about the ending, either.
STARS: **
WEEKEND UPDATE
Weekend Update is twice embarrassed by a Howard Stern supporter’s (Frank Sebastiano) hoaxes
Queens resident Joe Blow (COQ) gives news about his personal life
— Tonight’s Update opens with the theme music that would go on to be Norm’s regular Update theme, first used in the Update from the David Schwimmer episode earlier this season.
— I feel bad for being amused by Norm’s joke about cabbies with long Arab names.
— And I guess to make me feel less bad for laughing at the above-mentioned Arab joke, Norm follows it up with a “retards” joke (which, yes, I also shamefully laughed at).
— A funny fake-out commentary by SNL writer Frank Sebastiano, just showing up to shout “Stern rules!” Like I mentioned in my last episode review, Sebastiano’s unconventional (for an SNL writer) looks crack me up. SNL should put this guy in more sketches.
— After Norm’s Magic Johnson AIDS joke gets a very torn audience reaction, a sole audience member flat-out screams “Boooooo!” Haha, is SNL trying to offend all groups with some of the jokes and slurs uttered throughout tonight’s episode?
— Another instance of Frank Sebastiano doing a “Stern rules!” fake-out. What helps make these “commentaries” from him work is Norm’s long, overly serious set-ups to them.
— Now we get another SNL writer doing a (real this time) commentary, only this time, it’s Colin Quinn, in his very first speaking role on SNL.
— Colin-as-Joe-Blow’s ranting about his co-workers and neighbors is really funny.
— An overall solid debut for Joe Blow, with a lot of funny lines.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Roots Radical”
PARTY
socially-awkward Roberta’s (CHO) boring anecdotes ruin (host)’s party
— Cheri’s character killing the mood of the partygoers’ conversation with her awkward bus story is pretty funny.
— Okay, this sketch is starting to get pretty tepid and one-note to me. I want to appreciate Cheri’s quirky, low-key, realistic Roberta character, but it stopped being funny to me after about a minute, and this sketch is just repeating the same “Roberta kills the mood of a fun conversation by relating it to a boring story of her own” joke over and over. This sketch also feels like an unfortunate precursor to the “socially awkward character says or does awkward things at a social gathering while people react with uncomfortable facial expressions” sketches that SNL would be overrun with many years later in the late 2000s-early 2010s (Kristen Wiig in particular had the market cornered on that type of sketch during those years). In fact, Nasim Pedrad would even end up doing a sketch in the season 38 Christoph Waltz episode that was suspiciously very similar to this Roberta sketch of Cheri’s.
— Oddly enough, this Roberta character doesn’t becoming recurring until FOUR YEARS LATER, during Cheri’s final season. That has got to be one of the longest gaps ever between a recurring character’s first and second appearance.
STARS: **
SPADE IN AMERICA
DAS gets a tattoo from Sean Penn [real]
— Another change of pace for Spade In America. This is particularly interesting, as it involves Sean Penn, of all people, giving Spade a tattoo, of all things.
— Some really funny remarks from Spade on some of the tattoo designs on the wall. There are a few clunkers from Spade in there, but I can overlook them, as they’re outnumbered by the amount of funny comments he’s making.
— I love Spade working in his always-great Michael J. Fox impression.
— Funny little bit with Spade humbly admitting “Okay, I’m out of jokes…”
— When we see Spade live back in the studio at the end of this and he mentions he still has the tattoo, why didn’t he show it?
— Overall, my favorite of all the Spade In America installments that have aired by this point of the season.
STARS: ****
SELF-DISCIPLINE
officeworker Tommy (JMB) punishes himself for making mistakes
— A rare lead role for Jim. He has really been struggling for airtime this season. Supposedly, the reason for his struggles is because NBC, during their heavy involvement with the house-cleaning Lorne was doing to SNL over the summer of 1995, basically forced Lorne to hire Jim Breuer, someone who Lorne wasn’t too keen on hiring. This may explain why Lorne was so hesitant to give Jim much to do during his first few months on the show.
— Is this a leftover Chris Farley sketch from season 20? Jim seems like he’s doing a more violent version of Farley’s famous self-punishing routine from the “The Chris Farley Show” sketches, mixed with Jim’s own bar fight re-enactment routine from an Update commentary earlier this season.
— I do like Jim yelling “Stuuuuuuppiiiiiiiid” repeatedly as his voice fades while he’s falling out the window.
— Overall, ehh, not much to this and it felt a little pointless. A sad statement of how much Jim has been failing to leave a mark so far in his SNL tenure. Thankfully, in the very next episode, he will get that big hit sketch that he desperately needs.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Ruby Soho”
I WANNA GIT WITCHU
(host) rebuffs (TIM)’s unsubtle attempts to try to “git with” her
— The wig that Tim’s wearing bears a strong resemblance to the long dreads that he would grow for real during his final two seasons as a cast member.
— Tim is very funny as this character, and I love his various utterances of “I just wanna GIT witchu!” I’ve always considered this one of Tim’s more underrated performances.
— Pretty funny how Tim keeps giving these deep, romantic scenarios of what he and Laura can do, and then always following it with “And then I wanna GIT witchu!”
— I really like the atmosphere of this sketch. It has a soft, quiet feel that I find very fitting for the final sketch of the night.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An average episode. A few great things, a few weak things, and several okay things, so overall, just an okay and not particularly memorable episode.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Quentin Tarantino)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Anthony Edwards
No doubt about it, Old Glory Insurance is one of the THE best commercial parodies the show has ever done. Just sublime.
Love to see the Dandy Fops back again. Mark McKinney’s face as Lucien is just so hilarious. Love it.
“I wanna git witch-u” is also a great Tim Meadows piece.
“Old Glory Insurance” is one of my favorite moments from any era of the show. It knocked me over the first time I saw it. Sam Waterston’s earnest voice-over while we see scenes of seniors being attacked by cartoonish robots – not to mention lines like “robots are everywhere, and they eat old people’s medicine for fuel” – is perfect. As straight as Waterston plays it, there’s a moment where I can just catch a twinkle in his eye, as if he knows how goofy this is and he’s trying not to break character, and that only adds to the fun.
I think my favorite line from Old Glory Insurance is “I don’t even know why the scientists make them!”
I hope you enjoyed Colin Quinn’s commentary here, because they get less and less funny as time goes on.
“Did you see the talking pig movie?”
“No”
“So you didn’t see The Net?”
Spade recently did a follow-up on his new Comedy Central show where he gets another tattoo from Sean Penn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHczI8ImRik
Damn, I forgot about that sketch with the cast as midgets, I remember thinking that was hilarious as a kid but haven’t seen it in years. Also could swear I used to love that Jim Breuer beats himself up sketch, but I might be confusing it with the “bippity boppity” sketch he did later in the season.
I wonder why they brought back Roberta all those years later. Maybe Cheri knew she was leaving at season’s end and figured she wanted one last chance at playing her.
The shout-out to Epitaph Records during Rancid’s “Roots Radicals” is notable. The Offspring’s 1994 album Smash is the highest-ever-selling album by an “independent” label (i.e., a label not connected to the-then Big Six of Warner, EMI, Sony, BMG, MCA and PolyGram). Rancid cemented Epitaph’s transition to the wider mainstream with …And Out Come the Wolves, which Epic would have released if Epitaph hadn’t convinced Rancid to stay:
https://www.spin.com/2010/10/oral-history-epitaph-records/
Around this time period, I wanted SNL to feature more obscure musical guests, given the higher popularity of labels like Epitaph and me just getting into the show. In retrospect, I don’t know why I had that mentality with SNL’s musical guests. The “DON’T FUCKING SELL OUT!” true-scene punks saw Rancid as a traitor for things like appearing on SNL and MTV’s Buzz Bin, which is baffling in retrospect. SNL had more pressing problems than the artistic inclinations of their musical guests (like ESCAPING CANCELLATION), I didn’t know how labels and promotion worked in general, and the Internet hadn’t yet lowered financial barriers to entry. These days, I just see Rancid’s SNL performance as a musical highlight of the 1995-96 season, especially given how hard SNL leans into the “alternative” scene by this time.
As for Colin Quinn, I like his tenure on the show overall and as a stand-up, yet that’s in spite of never leaving the “blue-collar, Brooklyn, I tell you what’s what” mold with his characters (and later as Weekend Update anchor). I appreciate that he brought some topical-segment depth beyond Macdonald, which was a good counter-balance to SNL leaning HARD on the Fops and Cheerleaders.
Agree with all of this. Rancid appearing on SNL was HUGE for me and their performance here is one of my all time favourites.
Also agree that Colin is, in retrospect, a solid contributor to the show. I mean, he’s an absolutely brilliant standup and his attempts to cross that over into the show are welcome. He never quite found his footing and he had a tendency to swallow his punchline (which is death for an Update anchor), but his writing is still razor sharp.
With apologies to Laura Leighton and Rancid, this has to be one of the more “recent” combinations of host/musical guest that I really have only the fuzziest idea of whom they are.
I don’t know why, but I can tolerate like 100 MKG and Cheerleaders sketches more than the stupid set-up sketch of “annoying person at a party ruins everything.”
Laura is one of those hosts who mostly just makes sense if you were watching a certain show at a certain period of time. She was great on Melrose Place – one of the highlights of the show, honestly. She played a horrible bitch who also had moments of vulnerability and sympathy, even when she was doing insane soap things like accidentally causing her sister to have a stroke and become paralyzed. It’s a shame that the sketch in this episode which is based on her character mostly just exists for the sake of the same little person joke 500 times (although I guess it was nice for Fred Wolf to have a showcase sketch).
Still, even though I think she does a decent job as host, she’s definitely one of the more ??? host choices. Even for the time, when Melrose was still a fairly popular show, I wonder if someone else dropped out.
They really were having trouble getting big name hosts after the previous season, weren’t they? At least for the first half of the season.
Getting Jim Carrey to host the finale really was huge in changing the perception of the show
Watching this live air, I did enjoy the show! Even the pieces I wouldn’t call gems brought different ingredients to the variety. I believe all the cast got a nice balance of airtime. Even the hostess (who I’ve never gave one bit of attention before) gave a charming and valiant effort! Things are looking up for s21, I thought!
(Also, I found Rancid’s “Timebomb” catchy ATT…)
You never know what’s going to live on and what won’t, I suppose – Old Glory Insurance is one of the best remembered ads of this era or of most SNL eras, yet I bet few would be able to guess the episode it came from.
Unlike the last few episodes, I was able to watch this all the way through due to the lack of recurring characters, not counting The Fops (Stan Hooper is too nebulous for me to properly considering recurring). Even though you had Molly and Cheri doing some of their usual, at least it was in different settings. And there were some different types of pieces, like the sketch with Tim Meadows and Leighton at the end, which worked well (although the choice of accent he used in the sketch felt very fake). I also enjoyed the physical comedy with Jim Breuer – in small doses it’s entertaining and he doesn’t seem as desperate for attention as Kattan did.
I did not remember how much of these early episodes have allowed the writers to have chances to shine, similar to some previous years. It freshens up the show, and means less chance for some cast members to be overused and wear away your good will.
I’m also enjoying Spade’s appearances much more in these last 3-4 episodes. I wish that could last. In this one he has very natural rapport with Sean Penn and is taking himself out of his comfort zone.
A few weeks ago someone was talking about how SNL never used to have cameos as much as it does now. Yet in this season, 6 episodes in, we’ve had cameos nearly every week. I don’t say that as a bad thing, just as another example of the selective memory people tend to have (or that a lot of people haven’t watched past seasons).
Ten years ago during the live airing of the Gerard Butler / Shakira episode, dress rehearsal outtakes were shown during the commercial breaks. One was a live follow-up to the Old Glory Insurance ad. All we see is Cheri as a restaurant server and then a robot tries to bust through the wall and attack old people, but the head almost comes off and who(m)ever is in the costume has a tough time breaking away a chunk of the wall, leading to uproarious applause. Very curious what the rest of the sketch’s premise is. Can we start a petition or sumn to get SNL to release its dress pieces from the vault?!
I really liked “I wanna git witchu” – it had sort of a throwback feel to it. If they had done this sketch a season or so later, Tracy Morgan would probably have taken Tim’s role!
I think my favorite line from Old Glory Insurance is “I don’t even know why the scientists make them!”
Some said that the Old Glory ad was an attack of insurance companies’ preying on old people’s fears of dying. Also, I’m still not sure why Norm essentially named four different characters Stan Hooper.
Here’s my review of the musical performances.
Roots Radical
— Great pink mohawk on the lead singer/guitarist. If you’re going to rock a mohawk you might as well go big.
— Oh a second singer, nice.
— The bassist and drummer look like such normal guys in comparison to the two co-lead singers/guitarists.
— Great energy here by these guys. Love the little mini guitar solos between the Yeah Yeah Yeah parts.
— These guys are obviously very inspired by The Clash, but that’s not a bad thing. The Clash were long gone by this point so someone needed to fill their shoes, and they do a darn good job at it too.
— Fantastic choice of musical guest. Perfect for a late Saturday night. Hard to imagine anyone falling asleep during this performance.
STARS: ****
Ruby Soho
— I can hear the bass lines really well in this live version. Nice.
— Good to see the chorus has the same explosiveness here than in the studio version. The contrast between the soft verses and heavy chorus really enhances this song.
— For all the flack that punk rock sometimes gets for being too simple or not intricate enough musically, this song and performance is a great counterexample. The band is totally locked in here. The chord progression may be straightforward but it’s a tight, well-executed performance. Quality musicianship, no matter what the genre, will always endure.
STARS: ****