Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
INSIDE POLITICS
Steve Forbes (MAM) & Bob Dole (NOM) respond to questions
— The debut of Mark’s Steve Forbes impression.
— Mark’s Forbes impression is as funny as I had remembered. Interesting goofy laugh on him here too. I don’t recall that laugh becoming a regular part of the impression.
— I love the cutaways to a deadpan Norm-as-Bob-Dole shifting his eyes unhappily while Mark’s Forbes is going on about his decision on a whim to give politics a whirl.
— As always, lots of funny lines from Norm’s Dole, even if this isn’t my favorite Norm-as-Dole appearance.
— The eye-wandering song Dole directs towards Nancy’s Bobbie Batista is hilarious.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
at his insistence, host sings “Chubby Clementine”
— Danny Aiello’s setup to the song he’s about to sing has some laughs.
— A very straightforward musical number, with no jokes at all. Meh. Catchy singing from Danny, though.
STARS: **
THE SAUCE
(host)’s spaghetti sauce comment starts cascade of violence at dinnertime
— Cheri is cracking me up as the Italian mother.
— I like the authentic feel of the mobsters’ conversations.
— Some good laughs from the chain reaction of violence from each guy at the table.
— Danny’s timing seems a little off at times.
— A pretty one-joke sketch, but it’s being executed well.
STARS: ***½
THE KEVIN FRANKLIN SHOW
Kevin Franklin (TIM) admits when he’s wrong, which is always
— I’m all onboard with the idea of putting Coolio in a sketch.
— I’m enjoying Tim’s cluelessness here.
— A particularly funny line from Tim about rap reaching its peak when The Fat Boys were in their heyday 10 years ago, and how rappers are now either in polka bands or are farmers.
— I loved Coolio’s “I should bitchslap you” line just now.
— The running bit with Tim admitting “I’m terribly wrong, I’m sorry” isn’t working for me. This sketch would work better if Tim stood by his idiotic statements instead of shamefully backing down whenever he gets called out.
— Tim: “Let’s take a call–” Coolio: “You about to take a serious ass-whuppin’ after this show.”
STARS: ***
TIME-LIFE VALENTINE’S DAY ARGUMENTS
Time-Life presents a video collection of Valentine’s Day arguments
— A random idea to bring back this sketch from earlier this season.
— Nancy Walls really laying on the bubbliness of her Time Life operator this time.
— Like the last time they did this sketch, the text crawl of various arguments is really funny. I especially like “I’d rather f*** the dog” and “You know, just shoot me in the head.”
— Will’s “That’s it, f*** this, I’m leavin’!” plate-flipping bit, while still funny, doesn’t work as much in a second sketch. Should’ve kept it one-and-done.
— Will changes things up a bit in the “gay lovers” scene, by doing an effeminate plate flip while saying a fey “That’s it, f*** this, I’m leavin’!”
STARS: ***½
BUS
Althea bothers a Greyhound Bus driver (host) during a trip to Orlando
— Yeah, not sure I wanted to see this character again. Though hopefully, like last time, this sketch will still work due to everyone’s reactions and one-liners towards Althea.
— Hmm, Althea now has glasses.
— Althea, regarding her mom: “She takes prescriptions pills to calm her down.” Danny, sarcastically: “That’s a surprise.”
— Althea: “My mother had her tubes tied.” Danny: “Not soon enough.”
— Althea: “How many testicles do you have?” Danny: “A bunch! And you’re busting every one of them!”
— I like the running gag with Danny stopping the bus to a screeching halt to make Althea fall down.
— A nice meta reference with Althea displaying a Gangsta Bitch Barbie doll, as a subtle callback to a memorable fake ad from earlier this season. This reference seems to go right over the studio audience’s heads, as there’s no audible reaction from them.
— I loved Danny’s “You hit a nerve” bit, even though, again, it got absolutely no reaction from the audience. What is WRONG with you audience members?!?
— Haha, holy hell at Danny opening the bus door and letting Althea fall out of it while speeding up the bus. Great ending to this sketch. This, by the way, ends up being the final Althea sketch, which leads me to bring up a case of “fridge horror” (for those not familiar with that term, read here): since the final sight we EVER see of Althea is of her getting thrown out of a speeding bus, is it safe to assume that she, uh, died from that? Did an SNL sketch just freakin’ end with a man proudly killing a child? Haha, dark as hell.
STARS: ***½
WEEKEND UPDATE
Gary MacDonald struggles through some jokes about the GOP candidates
NOM asks Larry Brown [real] why Dallas didn’t cover Super Bowl XXX spread
— Hell yeah! The return of one of Koechner’s many wonderfully bizarre creations: Gary Macdonald!
— As usual, Gary Macdonald’s getting huge laughs from me.
— I like how Gary’s now doing awful “impressions” of some of the republican candidates.
— Like last time Gary appeared, Norm reveals a funny note written on Gary’s paper, this time stating “Please don’t let me hang by my fear’s rope.”
— Some good laughs from Norm needling Larry Brown about not covering the Super Bowl spread, and Norm hinting that he lost a lot of money gambling on the Super Bowl.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “1, 2, 3, 4”
SPADE IN AMERICA
CHF does a Newt Gingrich impression & plugs Black Sheep
— This must be the earliest spot in an episode that Spade In America has ever aired in.
— Wow, the return of Chris Farley. It feels weird seeing him again after having gotten used to him being away for half a season while doing these reviews. It also feels weird seeing him in this specific season, considering the drastic change of style SNL has gone through since Chris was last on the show.
— Lots of fun and playful banter between Chris and Spade.
— I liked Spade’s line just now when calling out Chris on his unfamiliarity with Newt Gingrich: “I showed you three pictures and you picked Billy Ray Cyrus.”
— We get a plug for the newly-released Black Sheep.
— Chris is now starting to go really heavy on his “screaming fat guy” shtick. While it brings back a bad reminder of how utterly sick I got of that shtick when he overused it in season 20, I’m more tolerant of it here since we got such a long break from it this season.
— By the way, it’s nice to see Chris back on the show while he’s still healthy (well, healthy for his standards), considering the infamous state he’s in the next time we’ll be seeing him on SNL, when he hosts in season 23.
— A great occurrence of Chris’ obligatory pratfall through a breakaway table. Again, it’s amazing how refreshing some overused things can come off after you’ve gotten a long break from it.
STARS: ***
HI-C & TURKEY
weird insurance salesman (host) insists upon receiving Hi-C & turkey
— Here comes yet another wonderfully bizarre season 21 sketch that’s always been one of my favorites. This season has been consistently knocking it out of the park with this type of bizarre sketch.
— I nearly busted a gut at Danny’s delivery of the line “I’ll talk to your wife any way I want, PUNK!”
— I love the randomness and specificity of the Hi-C and turkey combo, as well as Danny’s endless insistence on receiving it.
— Danny, regarding Nancy and Koechner’s son: “He has goat eyes and he stinks!”
— A great escalating absurdity and madness to this sketch.
— Haha, now Danny’s holding the family hostage with a freakin’ stink bomb, of all things. I love the detail of that.
— Danny’s offbeat, somewhat-stilted acting in this sketch is strangely perfect for this material.
— Great ending with the “They go together like Dr. Pepper and trout!” tagline.
STARS: *****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Gangsta’s Paradise”
MARTHA STEWART LIVING
Martha Stewart (NAW) tries to deny her New Jersey background
— Feels so odd in retrospect seeing a Martha Stewart Living sketch starring someone OTHER THAN Ana Gasteyer in the role.
— The opening still photos of Nancy’s Martha Stewart are really funny.
— Not much of an attempt from Nancy at imitating Martha Stewart’s voice, but I think I’ve been so spoiled by Ana Gasteyer’s spot-on and quintessential version of Martha Stewart that any other Martha Stewart impression seems substandard to me.
— A pretty funny performance from Danny as a goofy goombah.
— An epic “Martha Freakin’ Stewart!” rant from Nancy’s Martha.
— I love the randomness of Danny’s character shouting an off-camera cheer of “Go Deviiiillllss!” after being shoved out of the scene by Nancy’s Martha.
STARS: ***½
FUZZY MEMORIES BY JACK HANDEY
getting his brother to jump off the roof
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode, even if Hi-C & Turkey was the only sketch I raved about. Just about every single thing in this episode worked for me, minus the monologue. The structure of this episode felt odd, though, as the second half of the show seemed a lot shorter than usual for this era. I was very surprised when the goodnights came on, as I had thought there was still one or two sketches remaining.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Alec Baldwin)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Tom Arnold. Hoo, boy. I recall this being a notably bad episode for this era’s standards.
Hi-C and Turkey is one of my favorites. Loved Aiello’s performance, he really made it work.
I actually liked this Althea sketch better than the first, particularly Aiello’s “Hello, Bitch” line.
Enjoyed Ferrell’s gay Time Life character, particularly paired with Aiello basically as himself.
Oh shit. One day away from Brainiac. That’s gonna be a one-star.
They did a really great job playing to Aiello’s strengths as a character actor. A lot of quotable lines in this episode in just about every live sketch except for the monologue.
There have been 8 different Martha Stewart impressions in SNL history. Obviously Ana Gasteyer is the best and the only one who impersonated Martha more than once.
2-4 Janeane Garofalo, Nancy Walls, Kate McKinnon. They all did good jobs with their Martha pieces, might even lean towards saying Nancy is the best of this bunch.
5-7 Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, David Spade from his season 30 hosting. There are a few laughs but none of the impressions were that well done and they’re just filled with one note prison jokes about Martha’s insider trading scandal.
8. Kristen Wiig. A complete one line throwaway from a celebrity Undercover Boss commercial parody
That’s a great rundown. I didn’t realize only Ana played her more than once.
Happy Halloween, everyone…
Odd episode for me.
Some very strong sketches, namely Hi C and Turkey, and, aside from the average news jokes, a strong Update. Koechner’s Gary appearance is easily an all-time Update highlight, and the football interview is a fun Norm showcase. The mafia sketch works, and has a great performance from Cheri. This is probably one of Cheri’s best nights – she’s very funny in two exhausting central roles and her small role in the Martha Stewart sketch is the only moment that amused me. The cold open is also fun – Mark McKinney is just brilliant as Forbes, and even though Dole’s jabs at Batista and Forbes are so incredibly mean, they’re very funny.
Other parts of the show feel very ‘off,’ thanks in part to Aiello’s general off-center presence. They don’t try to write for this presence, the way they would have for Christopher Walken, so you end up with moments like the talk show sketch where both he and Coolio have very stilted deliveries and Tim Meadows is left to do all the heavy lifting. The Althea sketch is both hurt and helped by his delivery, but overall I’d lean toward helped. The problem here is that the sketch is just too long. The Martha Stewart sketch continues the strange theme of these years trying to “prove” Martha is some sort of Jersey stereotype at heart. Nancy Walls tries her best but it just never works for me, especially once Aiello gets involved. The weakest sketch of the night for me is the Time Life reprisal, which is passable enough when McKinney is reading the crawl, but falters once we get to the live dinner scenes. I wasn’t laughing at Will Ferrell jostling a plate the first time, so my ribs weren’t exactly tickled here. When we got his “lol gay” voice, I cringed, as it reminded me of just how much we’ll be hearing this over the next 7 seasons.
I know Chris Farley played into the self-deprecating tropes, but leaning so heavily into these for his brief return just made the appearance feel incredibly sad for me. “He’s funny, I’m fat.” Chris Farley was a very funny man, not just a fat joke or a loser, yet time and time again, this is all we ended up getting.
I’ve enjoyed these Fuzzy Memories pieces more than I’d expected I would.
Oh man, HiC and Turkey has always been a big hit in my household, me and my siblings still often reference that one to this day, especially around Thanksgiving. I’d love to see that sketch again, why the hell isn’t it on the NBC site?
Total speculation here, but I wonder if leaving SNL worsened Farley’s condition. Obviously there’s no easy fix for the demons he struggled with but there’s something to be said for having a weekly gig that you’ve got to show up for no matter what. Without that structure it’s not hard to imagine a person descending further into their dependencies.
The Arnold show coming up was rough for the group, Ferrell even took time in the LFNY book to bring up how awful Tom was to everyone along with Chevy. Will said the moment he came in he told people “This is going to be a rough week.” This was Tom at his worst, same year he had the three starring movies that bombed, he was no higher lol. I remember it being awful besides Sandler’s Update return.
I think what hurt Farley more than anything was the depression he got once Beverly Hills Ninja bombed. Much like Belushi with Continental Divide they put a lot of stock into 1 movie for some reason and it bombed and they couldn’t handle it. John went wild and Chris got depressed and ate a ton and got back on the crap. If he hadn’t downslid so badly I see him lasting longer and maybe, just maybe still being here. He looked good for that first year off the show, then the 2nd he went downhill bad.
Wasn’t this the year MadTV beat out SNL in the ratings?
Adam McKay and Norm Hiscock wrote HiC and Turkey, per Norm MacDonald on Twitter a few months ago. Danny Aiello does a great job in this sketch, but I always wondered if it was originally intended for/was cut at the last minute from the Walken episode a few weeks earlier – “HiC and Turkey” may have been almost as famous as “Colonel Angus” or “More Cowbell” had Walken performed it.
RIP Danny. Hopefully this one shows up in the Vintage spot soon.
Nows a better time then every to put “Hi-C and Turkey” up on YouTube, this forgotten classic needs to see the light of day again and be rediscovered!
RIP Bobbie Battista. Nancy’s impression of her was what I most associated her with, but she was a trailblazing anchor and should be remembered in her own right.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/media/bobbie-battista-obituary/index.html
Oh yea, the late 90s, back when the New Jersey Devils were the hottest team in the National Hockey League (pun unintended). Considering they won a Stanley Cup the past year, and of course the Face Painter episode of Seinfeld.
RIP Coolio.
https://variety.com/2022/music/news/coolio-dead-dies-gangstas-paradise-rapper-1235387456/
Cursed episode!
It might be a few weeks late after Coolio’s passing, but this is the vintage repeat this weekend.
I’m glad they’re finally showing an episode that could be considered “vintage”. Hopefully they’ll include the Gary Macdonald segment despite seemingly being absent in earlier 60-minute edits (as per Saturday Net). I know NBC uses different cuts from what aired on CC and E!, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
The sketches shown were the Cold Opening, the monologue, The Sauce, The Kevin Franklin Show, Weekend Update, the Gangsta’s Paradise performance, and Hi-C and Turkey.
Just noticed something: Danny’s character in Godfather II (1974) is named Tony Rosato! This comment section is the only place I can think of to share such useless knowledge
Coolio would’ve been a fun double-duty host.
I swear to god, I saw the screencaps of Danny in the Martha Stewart sketch and I thought he was playing Marge Schott.
Those Coolio performances were terrific–I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting them to be that good. His band was cooking.