Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
NIGHTLINE
everyone is shocked by Michael Jackson’s (TIM) divorce
— I love the way they’re exaggerating the shock and impact of the Michael Jackson/Lisa Marie Presley breakup, complete with stock footage of girls crying and people rioting in the streets.
— Cheri still hasn’t quite found her Barbara Walters voice yet.
— Nancy’s Diane Sawyer has a lot of funny lines, especially her going on about the “raw sexuality” she witnessed from MJ when she interviewed him and Lisa Marie.
— Jim’s brief scene as Stephen Hawking slayed me.
— Tim’s MJ going on about how he loves women’s “short brown hair, 60-pound bodies, and the way they like to play with action figures” gave me a good laugh.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
new father host expresses his emotions with the help of Lucien & Fagin
— After getting so used to frequently reviewing Alec Baldwin episodes from the late 80s/early 90s era, it’s going to feel a little weird seeing him host in a completely new era with a new cast. Even just seeing him standing on this season’s new home base stage feels unusual. I’m sure I’ll have all of these same feelings when reviewing the John Goodman episode from later this season.
— The Fops return once again.
— Not the greatest monologue in itself, but The Fops are as funny as always, even if this has started going really heavy on their trademark “eerrrrrrr” sounds.
STARS: ***
MARSHALL POWER TOOLS
Rerun from 10/28/95
CHESS TOURNAMENT
Glen (MAM) asks Craig & Arianna to stop pepping up a chess tournament
— The concept of the Cheerleaders cheering at a chess tournament, of all places, is pretty funny.
— This installment has been very standard so far, but I do like the “Bobby Fisher, where is he?” number right now.
— (*sigh*) The inevitable Cheerleaders fatigue is slowly starting to set in for me. I’m feeling the very beginnings of me getting sick of these sketches. After having an open mind and goodwill during the previous two installments of this sketch, my slow burn towards the Cheerleaders has officially begun tonight, folks.
— I do like Mark’s performance during his small appearance as an angrily-ranting chess nerd.
STARS: **½
THE JOE PESCI SHOW
Robert DeNiro (host) watches abuse take place
— This sketch officially becomes recurring, giving the underused Jim Breuer some much-needed job security.
— Funny passing line from Jim’s Pesci about dyeing his hair blonde for Leathal Weapon so his head doesn’t match his “grill” (*points to his crotch*).
— Alec’s Robert DeNiro impression is hilariously dead-on.
— I love when Alec’s DeNiro gives Will’s cue-card guy some money for telling off Pesci.
— Very random casting of Spade as Brad Pitt. Also, this reminds me that tonight’s episode surprisingly has no Spade In America segment, for the first time all season.
STARS: ****
LITERARY THEATRE
bubbleheaded (MOS) & (NAW) display Dense & Densibility
— The Fops AGAIN tonight? Look, I like these characters, but yeeeaaaaahhhh, you’re pushing it, SNL.
— Some pretty good laughs from Molly and Nancy’s dense actions.
— I liked Alec’s “It appears as though my John Thomas has joined the military” line when looking down at his crotch while pointing out how sexually aroused he is.
— Ehh, this sketch has kinda fizzled out after a while. It’s been almost two minutes since I’ve really laughed at anything.
— A fairly funny ending with a bare-assed naked Fops.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Caught A Lite Sneeze”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Joe Blow says more about his blue-collar life & tries to connect with NOM
— Joe Blow officially becomes a recurring character. Strangely, SNL writer Colin Quinn has still yet to be credited as a featured player, despite all of this big airtime he’s consistently been getting on Update. I kinda wonder if this is the first time in SNL history where an uncredited SNL performer has had their own lead solo recurring character, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s at least one or two examples I’m forgetting.
— Like the last time Joe Blow appeared, there’s a lot of really funny ranting from him about personal news in his life.
— I like the running joke in Joe Blow’s commentaries, where he asks “When we gonna go for that beer, Norm?” This time, Norm reluctantly even sets a date for that beer (April 11th).
STARS: ****
BUCKWELL’S FOLLIES
gubernatorial candidate (host) makes devastating public relations errors
— Oh, here comes a sketch I’ve always absolutely loved. A favorite of mine.
— The Lassie-shooting reveal is hilarious.
— Priceless part with Alec unintentionally directing his angry “Kiss my ass!” outburst to a baby.
— I love all of the off-camera angry heckling while Alec’s giving his speech. Koechner’s goofy-voiced yells of “You shot Lassie!” are particularly funny.
— Note to the UFO sketch from the preceding season’s Deion Sanders episode: this is the right way to do a sketch that features frequent newspaper headlines.
— Alec’s horrible decisions are getting increasingly funnier.
— A rare example of a text crawl ending actually being really funny. A great way to end this sketch.
STARS: *****
FUZZY MEMORIES BY JACK HANDEY
mugging people by “playing pirate”
ACCIDENTALLY SHOT BY HUNTERS
guests tell about run-ins with sportsmen
— The setting of this sketch has an almost season 16 feel. Maybe because I’m being reminded of the Slapped By Beaver Tails and What Animal Were You Raised By sketches from that season.
— A nice visual of Mark’s insane deer-like hair.
— Will’s constant apologies in the audience are pretty funny.
— A short and simple sketch.
STARS: ***
BELATED SEASON’S GREETINGS
host sends belated season’s greetings with a generic video Christmas card
— A good little laugh from Alec referring to Christmas as Voodoo Day.
— I’m enjoying Alec’s generic season’s greetings, covering all the bases of the different recipients.
— Another short and simple sketch.
STARS: ***½
SHE
seamen (MAM) & (host) use feminine pronouns, except when appropriate
— A very busy night for Mark, who has appeared in a majority of tonight’s sketches. Is this SNL’s way of making up for him not appearing at all in the preceding episode?
— Mark and (especially) Alec’s delivery is selling this sketch fairly well, but there’s not much to this material, especially the “referring to a child as ‘it’” punchline at the end.
— Wow, yet ANOTHER short and simple sketch, though not as funny this time.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hey Jupiter”
AIRPORT BAR
drunk businessmen (DAK), (WIF), (host), (MAM) mythologize big Bill Brasky
— Words cannot express my excitement right now. We get the debut of Bill freakin’ Brasky, one of my all-time favorite recurring sketches.
— Wow, Mark’s busy night continues. He’s been ALL OVER tonight’s episode. I sure hope he’s enjoying all of this airtime, because this is as good as it’s going to get for him. It’s all downhill for him next season.
— So many funny little details in this sketch, especially the big overbites on all the drunk businessmen, their gruff voices, and their comically-oversized drinking glasses.
— This sketch is a prime example of how well Alec can disappear into character at times, as he sounds and acts absolutely nothing like himself during this sketch.
— Waaaay too many hilarious one-liners for me to single out in this review.
— After Koechner randomly blurts out a stream of gibberish while Will’s telling a story, Will continues speaking but you can tell he’s trying not to crack up.
— I am loving every single second of this insane, bizarre sketch. Such a beautiful piece of nonsensical absurdity.
STARS: *****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An okay episode, but not great, and far from one of Alec Baldwin’s best. What did hit in this episode hit really well, though, as this contained two of my favorite sketches of the entire season (Buckwell’s Follies and the Bill Brasky debut). The second half of this episode had an odd structure, with the string of unusually short sketches towards the end, though I do like how the brevity of those sketches gave me an “early season 1” vibe. And I was impressed by how immediately well Alec Baldwin worked with this new cast. He shifted from the early 90s cast to this cast without missing a beat.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Christopher Walken)
a mild step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Danny Aiello
This episode is not my favorite of the season, but it’s a good representation of what this season was like as a whole.
Seeing as you’re slowly starting to get tired of the Cheerleaders, this might be the demarcation point to where the show gets a bit oversaturated. Still, this season is so far miles funnier and better paced than the previous two years.
Agreed that this is episode kind of encapsulates the season as a whole – front loaded with overused recurring characters, but lousy with great cult classics on the back. Buckwell’s Follies, Season’s Greetings and, of course, Brasky are all really stellar pieces, shame we’ve got to endure Cheerleaders first. I’m always mixed on the Joe Pesci show. The De Niro impression is great, but the format of this sketch wore on me quickly.
Pesci is one of those sketches where it’s the same thing pretty much every time, so popping up more than one or two times a season is a bad idea. The bar for a good sketch that is the same over and over is very high, and most of these don’t cut it (in my opinion).
This is one of those episodes I had no memory of until vague recollections around the time of Fop Theatre, and full recognition post-Update. The back half is, for me, much, much stronger than the first, and makes me wonder, not for the first (or last) time, how much better these years might have been if they hadn’t relied so heavily on recurring characters. The whole first half is a slog for me thanks to those and the samey cold open (although Nancy Walls was a good Diane Sawyer). Of course those probably brought in ratings, but I still wish they’d dialed back a little once the ratings began to improve.
The political sketch is indeed great, and one of those sketches that you probably couldn’t do today because many in the audience would say he still would have been elected. I suppose today you’d have an ending saying he won. The use of child actors in this adds to the atmosphere. They’ve done that about 4 times this season – reminds me of the Ebersol years. I’m not sure how much longer that continues.
The Christmas greeting, which is also great, I think popped up in Christmas compilation specials. I like how they did not even try to knock off Steve Martin’s Christmas message of a decade earlier.
Bill Brasky is a classic, and one that, if memory serves, generally works well even when recurring. Seeing it again for the first time in a while I wonder if Will based any of his style or performance on Barry Humphries’ Les Patterson character. Patterson was more of a parody of racist, sexist politicians, but there are some similarities.
The hunter talk show definitely reminded me of early ’90s sketches until we got to Will shooting guests – then I started to wonder who wrote it. Decent sketch…probably the part I took from it is that Jim Breuer would have been strong in ‘normal’ parts if he’d had the chance.
Tori Amos gave some very compelling performances – she almost seemed very lost in the goodnights, which was a bit sad.
I know he’d been doing it a while, but Norm telling the same jokes over and over starts to weigh down his Update for me around this point. There’s just nothing that funny about telling the joke about Clinton smoking a joint and flying to England for 3-4 shows in a row.
The Fops theater sketch was one of those moments where I wish they did more with a recurring character having their own theater program (similar to Emily Litella), but the material itself wasn’t memorable. What DID stand out for me was they used at least three pieces from Dark Shadows for the background music. I wonder why. Here’s one:
Until watching these again I never realized how little Jim Breuer was used when on SNL, I always thought of him as a guy who got a lot of airtime, I guess it just seemed like it with how popular those Pesci and Goat Boy sketches were at the time, but yeah other than those I can’t think of much bigger showcases he had while on the show.
Of course Breuer has claimed Adam McKay didn’t like him and tried to bury him to Lorne. McKay has disputed that of course
Btw, for some reason I thought they started doing Joe .Pesci way later in the season. Forgot he debuted this early.
And Spade will be taking a hiatus pretty soon. I believe someone said he was filming the pilot for Just .Shoot Me. Filming a movie maybe?
So if McKay was badmouthing Breuer, and NBC forced Breuer on Lorne (as a post from a few days ago suggested), it sounds like he would have had to roar out of the gate like Dana Carvey just to stay even. That’s too bad, because his work on the show was solid. But it seems like once he was let go, he was forgotten entirely. I could be wrong, but I don’t think he’s had any cameos, no appearances on anniversary specials, no roles in any SNL-alum movies except tiny bit parts in Beer League (dir/co-written by Frank Sebastiano) and Zookeeper (produced by Adam Sandler). Same goes for Cheri Oteri and Mark McKinney (though with the latter, his career has been fine and it may have been his own choice to stay away). Such an odd set of circumstances.
Cheri seems to have fallen off the map ENTIRELY anymore. Jim at least has a great stand-up career.
Last I saw Cheri in any role, it was last year in a guest spot on The CW show “Crazy Ex Girlfriend” as a director for a local theater…Sad thing is, I would NEVER have recognized her without somebody mentioning it in the video comments; here’s quick clip…
HOO BOY! That Lassie sketch takes on a different tone now.
Agreed.
every day Buckwell’s Follies ages better and better