Month: October 2019

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October 7, 1995 – Chevy Chase / Lisa Loeb (S21 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

NFL ON NBC
sideline reporter O.J. Simpson (TIM) hints that he’s guilty

— I wonder if viewers at the time were a little lost during the beginning of this cold opening with Darrell’s Bob Costas and Koechner’s Mike Ditka, considering the fact that those viewers would’ve been unfamiliar with Darrell and Koechner (not helped by the fact that the Ditka makeup renders Koechner fairly unrecognizable). I bet some viewers were like “I can’t tell which new cast member is which in this!”
— The audience gives a big (albeit hesitant at first) applause when Tim shows up as O.J.. I wonder if that applause is because of 1) this being SNL’s first O.J. parody since the big verdict from a few days earlier, or 2) Tim’s seniority in a mostly-new cast, combined with the fact that the two cast members who appeared before him in this cold opening were two fresh, unfamiliar faces. If it’s the latter, then it’s so nice to see Tim finally getting the recognition from the audience that he deserves, after always being overshadowed by the Bad Boys in the previous era’s cast.
— So much great humor here so far, especially O.J.’s murder innuendos when talking to Will’s Marv Levy about football.
— An absolutely classic SNL moment right now with O.J. spelling out “I did it” on the telestrator.
— I love Will’s panicked facial reaction to the aforementioned “I did it” part.
STARS: *****


OPENING MONTAGE
— When Mark McKinney’s picture shows up, Don Pardo is oddly silent at first, then quickly spits out “Mark McKean” instead of “Mark McKinney”. I guess Don hasn’t gotten used to not having to announce Michael McKean’s name anymore.


MONOLOGUE
CHC recalls SNL’s first episode & sings “When You Wish Upon A Star”

— Chevy mentions that tonight is only a few days away from the 20th anniversary of SNL’s very first episode.
— Wow, heartfelt reminiscing from Chevy over getting ready for the very first episode’s cold opening right before airtime. I kept expecting a comedic twist to this reminiscing at first, before realizing that this is a genuinely earnest, emotional, and straightforward moment. I’m actually finding this really nice.
— When singing “When You Wish Upon A Star”, Chevy imitates Jiminy Cricket’s facial expression, which some SNL fans incorrectly assume was just Chevy randomly making a stupid face to get a cheap laugh from the audience (something that he’s certainly not above doing). While it’s not particularly funny in the context of this monologue, he actually did this same Jiminy Cricket bit before, during one of his traditional Weekend Update phone gags back when he was a cast member.

STARS: ***½


LOBOTOL
(NAW) dumbs down prolific co-worker (CHO) with a dose of Lobotol

— A nice Nancy Walls showcase.
— Funny line from Nancy about her husband giving her a dose of Lobotol when he felt she was asking too many questions.
— Pretty good ending with the cutaway to a Lobotol-ized Cheri moving around helplessly while lost in a dress fabric.
STARS: ***


COCKPIT
boisterous girl Althea (CHO) visits with pilot (CHC) in the cockpit

— Hoo, boy. The debut of a short-lived Cheri Oteri recurring character that I remember never caring for. I’ll go into this with an open mind, especially since Cheri is new at this point.
— I will say Cheri is VERY convincing as a hyperactive little girl, both in looks and in acting.
— Chevy’s straight man reactions are making me laugh, such as him asking Cheri’s Althea character “Maybe you’d like to see the outside of the jet.”
— Another funny one-liner from Chevy, with him announcing into the intercom an annoyed-but-restrained “Will any freakin’ flight attendant come into the cockpit?”, which receives wild cheers from the audience.
— Good exchange with Althea telling Nancy’s stewardess character that the captain has two testicles and Nancy responding “Yes, I know.”
— Overall, definitely not as a bad as I remembered it. A lot of what made the sketch work was everybody’s reactions and responses to Althea.
STARS: ***


THE BLAME GAME
black (TIM) & white (CHC) contestants fan racial tensions

— Chevy does his usual shtick of trying to save a flubbed line of his by ad-libbing comical gibberish, something that was funny when he used to regularly do it on Weekend Update back in the original era whenever he flubbed a joke, but kinda detracted from this particular sketch.
— Tim to Chevy: “Why don’t you go put on a pair of Dockers and watch another episode of Mad About You?!” Great line.
— I’m loving this premise. Lots of funny dialogue of racial tension between Tim and Chevy.
— Mark is very solid as the gameshow host, which makes me wonder why SNL doesn’t use him in this role more often.
— The speed round with Tim is very funny.
— This is yet another sketch this season where Tim is giving a really strong performance. He’s been having a great season so far.
— Is Chevy’s constant premature ringing of the buzzer throughout this sketch an ad-libbed gag? If so, much like his aforementioned ad-libbed gibberish after flubbing a line earlier in this sketch, it’s not funny and is kinda detracting from this sketch. 1990s Chevy Chase just doesn’t have that great knack at pulling off ad-libs that 1970s Chevy Chase had.
— I like Nancy’s delivery of “(in a sweet manner) Don’t patronize me. My name isn’t honey. (in a suddenly bitter manner) YOU’VE WON A CLOCK.”
STARS: ****


FUZZY MEMORIES BY JACK HANDEY
an encounter with an escaped convict


BRAVEHEART
CHC advises JMB not to rely on physical comedy; Mariel Hemingway cameo

— I like the idea of this meta sketch.
— A very random cameo from the preceding episode’s host, Mariel Hemingway.
— When Jim tells Chevy he’s one of the new cast members, Chevy responds “Hope you can save the show.” Just a little comment that I found interesting, as it shows that people still weren’t sure yet if this new cast was going to work out and save SNL from cancellation.
— Nice to see Jim getting a lot of facetime as himself here, after having practically nothing to do in his first episode the preceding week.
— (*groan*) Chevy’s old routine of constantly calling someone by the wrong name is coming off particularly tired here.
— Not caring much for Chevy’s long speech to Jim.
— Good Chevy-esque pratfall from Jim down the stairs. I like the little touch of him slamming his head into the side of the stairs at one point during that fall.
— Pretty cool how the ending of this sketch segued into Chevy introducing the following musical performance. That adds to the exciting, fun feel of this new season.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Do You Sleep?”


WEEKEND UPDATE
from Central Park, Father Guido Sarducci reports on Pope’s lost wallet
Father Guido Sarducci tells the papal wallet finder that he’ll get a mass

— After using the Friends theme song for Norm’s new Update intro music in the preceding episode, tonight’s Update intro music is the theme of another then-current NBC show, E.R.. Are these NBC theme songs supposed to be Norm’s version of how Dennis Miller’s Updates used to open with a different rock song each week? Either way, it doesn’t last for Norm, as they would soon settle on an intro tune to use regularly for his Updates.
— Tonight’s Update starts with one of Norm’s most legendary Update jokes of all time, in which he says “It is finally official: murder is legal in the state of California” as a picture of O.J. is on the news screen. Classic.
— Some really big reactions from the audience towards some of Norm’s jokes tonight.
— A surprise return of Father Guido Sarducci.
— Interesting and I guess fitting how this and Sarducci’s last guest appearance were in episodes hosted by an SNL alum from the 70s cast (Bill Murray, Chevy Chase).
— As usual, Sarducci is getting some good laughs from a lot of little things, such as his bit with the Pope mask.
— I like how Norm is continuing his running gag from last season of punchlines that deal with a dog sniffing another dog’s ass.
— The continuation of the Father Guido Sarducci/pope bit feels a little unnecessary, but I liked Sarducci’s line about low masses.
STARS: ****½


ALWAYS & FOREVER
at their prom, ’70s teens (WIF) & (CHO) freak out with little provocation

— Ah, our very first Ferrell/Oteri character piece, I see.
— Will’s angry punching of the air during his outbursts is cracking me up.
— Speaking of Will’s outbursts in this sketch, they probably did nothing to stop some viewers’ fears at the time that Will would be another season 20-era Chris Farley who yells in every sketch. To me, Cheri’s coming off more shouty in this sketch than Will.
— Interesting how this is the second consecutive season where the second episode had a prom sketch set in the 70s.
— Fun running gag with Will and Cheri’s robotic dancing.
— So far, this sketch is more fascinating to me than funny. It’s pretty fun to watch the very first SNL display of Will and Cheri’s great chemistry from their Groundlings days together, even if I’m not laughing at every single thing in this. I still prefer this to the Cheerleaders sketches we’ll start seeing soon enough (though if the Cheerleaders had only lasted one installment and never became recurring, I’d probably have a bit more of a favorable reaction towards them like I’m having with this prom sketch).
— Will’s reaction to being told he’ll be getting a “BJ” is great.
STARS: ***


GANGSTA BITCH BARBIE
Gangsta Bitch Barbie & Tupac Ken are dolls appropriate to the urban scene

— Very funny concept, and I love how mid-90s this feels. It also feels kinda refreshing seeing such urban humor on SNL back in these days.
— A lot of good little details with the dolls’ various accessories.
STARS: ****


THE MARK FUHRMAN SHOW
Mark Fuhrman (CHC) says he likes (TIM)’s anti-white rap

— I love the name of Tim’s rapper character, MC Bodybag.
— Some funny lines here and there so far, but this is a slow sketch, and not in a good way.
— I’m getting some laughs from the snippet they’re playing of MC Bodybag’s song “Good Cop, Dead Cop”. I also like Fuhrman’s head-bopping during that.
— Very weak gag involving Fuhrman leaving a bloody glove where MC Bodybag had been sitting. Is that what this whole sketch was leading up to? Yikes. You can tell they were expecting that gag to get bigger laughs than it did.
STARS: **


O.J. TODAY
anchor Bill McDonald (WIF) & legal analysts do the final show

— Interesting how they’re bringing back this sketch from the season premiere.
— I like Will’s line about how O.J. Today’s timeslot will now be filled by Fantasy Island.
— Surprisingly, this is Molly’s first and only appearance all night.
— Norm’s whole awkward story about how he got hired as a lawyer is funny.
— Not crazy about the blooper reel that’s now playing, which isn’t providing many laughs.
— Sadly, this sketch is probably the biggest comedic role Koechner has gotten on SNL so far, which still isn’t saying much. He’s had a fairly quiet start in his two episodes so far, and has yet to be given any big showcase pieces, unlike his fellow newbies (even the very underused Jim Breuer had that Braveheart piece with Chevy).
— Overall, not much to this sketch, despite a few laughs in the pre-blooper reel half. I was expecting this to be so much better.
STARS: **


SPADE IN AMERICA
DAS gives examples of how rock & roll is out of control

— Geez, once again, I almost forgot that this segment is a thing this season. Tonight’s installment is airing even later than the one from the season premiere.
— Spade’s imitation of The Cranberries’ Zombie song is funny.
— Yeesh, some of Spade’s jokes about rock music are coming off kinda cringeworthy and hacky.
— I do like the complete randomness of Spade just saying “When I was a kid, I had an ant farm” as a very brief non-sequitur segue into talking about FarmAid. That non-sequitur segue went by so fast, it almost doesn’t have time to register with you.
— Interesting hearing Spade do a Casey Kasem impression.
— Overall, much like the last Spade In America, I got a few laughs from this and I see some promise in this segment, but some parts were weak and there’s room for improvement. These Spade In America segments have not hit their stride yet.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Stay”


LAMPREYS
a boy (CHO) doesn’t want to part with his sucking creatures

— I really like this very random concept.
— Nice visual of Cheri entering with lampreys all over her.
— This makes two kid characters for Cheri tonight, each of opposite genders. Once again, Cheri’s very convincing in the role of a child.
— The amusing oddness of this sketch shows the huge change in SNL’s writing style this season. I cannot for the life of me imagine a sketch this delightfully random and weird appearing in the preceding season. Well, okay, now that I’m thinking about it, I guess season 20’s resident oddball Chris Elliott could’ve done this sketch. In fact, the more I think about it, I would’ve LOVED to have seen Chris Elliott do this sketch. The bizarre mental image of a bearded Chris Elliott in overalls and a little boy wig playing Cheri’s character in this odd Lampreys sketch is nothing short of fantastic. Dammit, WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE HAPPENED?!? I would’ve liked that version of this sketch even more than the Cheri Oteri version.
— The fact that this sketch is using the same living room set used in Chris Elliott’s (notorious) babysitter sketch with Mark makes it even easier for me to picture Elliott performing this Lampreys sketch.
— Funny pre-taped segment with Cheri’s character emotionally parting ways with each of his lampreys.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— After the preceding week’s solid season premiere, I was hoping tonight’s episode would keep the momentum going, but unfortunately, it instead ended up being a bit of a letdown. This episode had a somewhat forgettable feel, especially the post-Update half. I feel like the cold opening and The Blame Game were the only two sketches all night that I felt strongly about. There were some other pretty good sketches, but too much of the show hovered around the okay-to-meh range. There’s not much I’ll remember about this episode by the time I reach the end of this season. It’s understandable, though; after all, the new cast and writing staff are still growing at this point.
— Chevy Chase barely felt like the host. Towards the end of the episode, I kinda started forgetting who was even hosting. I think Chevy only appeared in ONE post-Update sketch. Maybe the idea was for him to mostly relax and let the new kids in the cast do their stuff, but it kinda feels like SNL should’ve spread his appearances throughout the episode instead of frontloading them in the first half. He also gave his usual questionable hosting performance, where he seemed a little off compared to how he was in his prime.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Mariel Hemingway)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
David Schwimmer

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September 30, 1995 – Mariel Hemingway / Blues Traveler (S21 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

O.J. TODAY
Johnnie Cochran (TIM) uses the race card in closing arguments

— Right as this cold opening begins, the very first thing we see is new cast member Will Ferrell. I love that.
— The ridiculous O.J. Today title sequence is pretty funny.
— Tim’s Johnnie Cochran impression has really improved from the non-attempt at an impression he did of him in the preceding season.
— A hilarious visual of Cochran and his lawyer team in African garb.
— I like the brief shot of Mark’s Judge Ito shaking his head in disbelief over Cochran’s rant.
— Fantastic part with Cochran complaining about the prosecution playing “the evidence card”.
— I’m loving the increasing absurdity of Cochran’s speech.
— Tim’s performance is a riot. I’ve always looked at this cold opening as Tim’s attempt at proving his worth, considering he was originally one of the many cast members fired over the summer of 1995, before Lorne soon rehired him because SNL couldn’t find a new black guy and they needed someone to play O.J. Simpson. While I think it’s a very sad statement that the only reason Lorne brought Tim back is because SNL needed an O.J. (hey, Lorne, how about the fact that Tim is FUNNY and was one of the few cast members in season 20 who always put 100% in his performances?), Tim probably knew after his temporary firing that he needed to step it up. In this cold opening, he most certainly is stepping it up, and is knocking it out of the park. A great sign that, after five seasons in the cast, Tim is FINALLY going to have his breakout year this season.
— Overall, a solid way to kick off the new season.
STARS: ****


OPENING MONTAGE
— New montage.

— We get a new SNL logo for the first time since 1988.
— For the first time in 10 seasons, cast members’ names are displayed onscreen in each of their individual shots.
— The many new cast members joining tonight are Jim Breuer, Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, David Koechner, Cheri Oteri, and Nancy Walls.
— Molly Shannon has been promoted from featured player to repertory player.
— Though on the surface, this theme music seems brand new, it’s actually just a slower, jazzier version of season 20’s theme music, minus the beginning and the key change towards the end.
— Speaking of the slightly modified theme music, something about the combo of it and this opening montage has an elegant, classy feel that I really like.


MONOLOGUE
while introducing the new cast, host passionately kisses the females

— We have a new homebase stage, for the first time since way back in 1986. The 1986-1995 homebase isn’t completely gone, though; it was simply moved to the left of the studio, where it will be the musical guest stage for these next three seasons.
— I like how right out of the gate in this monologue, Mariel Hemingway addresses all the big changes made to SNL over the summer.
— Fun idea of Mariel going around backstage to introduce the new cast to us.
— I love the look on Mark’s face when Mariel passionately kisses Cheri Oteri on the lips.
— I feel bad during Jim Breuer’s brief intro, considering he ends up having practically nothing to do tonight in his first show. Even sadder, he’s shown in this monologue rehearsing lines off a script, even though this ends up being his final live appearance tonight, and all of his roles tonight are non-speaking bit parts. Years later, Jim would tell a funny story as a guest on a radio show, I believe (I can’t remember what show it was, but there is/was a YouTube video of Jim telling this story on that show) about how his dad, who traveled all the way to SNL tonight to see Jim’s debut, unhappily confronted Lorne backstage after the show because Jim was practically shut out of the episode.
— A bit of a questionable premise of Mariel passionately kissing each of the female cast members (I guess it’s parodying the famous Roseanne episode she appeared in, as well as other lesbian roles that I hear she’s played over the years), but it’s coming off pretty fun in its execution.
— I love the casual look on Tim’s face in the background during Mariel’s kissing of Molly. I also love how Mariel just casually says “Hi, Tim” when walking away from Molly.
— Mariel’s doing a very solid job navigating this busy monologue.
— Funny background gag of two female NBC pages fearfully running away after Mariel walks past them.
STARS: ***½


A.M. ALE
it lets you feel OK about getting an early-morning buzz

— Pretty funny concept.
— Catchy commercial jingle, especially the chorus.
— I’ve never been quite as crazy about this commercial as some other SNL fans are, but this is a funny, well-done, and nicely-filmed commercial, and a good inaugural one for this era.
STARS: ***½


GET OFF THE SHED!
Frank (WIF) dampens cookout mood by threatening his shed-climbing kids

— I think this sketch is replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. I swear I remember seeing Will wear an apron in that version, which he doesn’t in this live version. (I don’t have enough time right now to dig up a rerun version of this sketch to do a side-by-side screencap comparision.)
— I love that the only cast members featured in this lead-off sketch are newbies.
— I’m getting big laughs from Will’s various sudden “GET OFF THE SHED!” outbursts and him always following that by seamlessly going right back to friendly conversations with the neighbors.
— Mariel’s “You smell good!” to Nancy Walls was certainly… random. Some SNL fans wonder if that was intended as a callback to the monologue, but I think it was just intended as a brief display of random humor. The silliness of it kinda works for me in the context of this sketch.
— Will’s threats to the kids are getting more and more funny and psychotic, such as “THERE’S GONNA BE A MEETING BETWEEN YOUR ASS AND THE PALM OF MY HAND!” and “I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE!”
— I like David Koechner and Nancy begging the kids to get off the shed when Will removes his belt and goes off-camera to confront the kids.
— A disappointingly weak ending with Mariel asking the kids to get off the fountain.
— Overall, what a way to introduce Will Ferrell’s style to us. I love that his first major role is as Will Ferrell-esque as a Will Ferrell role can get. A great sign of things to come from him.
STARS: ****


NIGHTLINE
Bob Dole (NOM) is bitter about Colin Powell’s (TIM) popularity

— A great choice of a celebrity impression to let newbie impressionist Darrell Hammond debut with. I love the Ted Koppel voice he’s using, as does the audience.
— Feels kinda odd seeing Darrell in his debut, knowing how very long we’re going to be seeing him in the cast. (Even just saying the words “newbie Darrell Hammond” feels weird.) For that same reason, I’m sure I will have that same odd feel when I reach Kenan Thompson’s first season.
— Interestingly enough, I think this is the first time we’re seeing Tim’s Colin Powell impression since Tim’s very first episode (in which he played Powell in one of Chris Rock’s Nat X sketches). At least they got rid of the unnecessary pudgy facial prosthetics he wore as Powell in that first appearance.
— Great to see the debut of Norm’s Bob Dole impression, which I’ve always been a huge fan of.
— Funny cutaways to Norm-as-Dole’s bitter facial expressions when Tim-as-Powell is going on and on.
— Great crack from Dole to Powell about how we “really kicked ass” in Vietnam.
— There’s a little greenness in Darrell’s delivery at times here, but otherwise, he’s nailing his first big sketch.
— Dole: “Prayer in school, Bob Dole’s for it. Balanced budget, Bob Dole’s for it. Vaginal sex, Bob Dole’s for it.”
— Koppel’s various interpretations of Dole’s offensive statements are made hilarious by the Koppel voice Darrell’s speaking in.
STARS: ****


LEG UP
Ann Miller (MOS), Debbie Reynolds (CHO), Elizabeth Berkley (host)

— A big audio gaffe with Don Pardo’s voice-over during the opening title sequence.
— Right out of the gate, I’m liking the way Cheri Oteri is carrying herself in her very first sketch appearance.
— Cheri’s Debbie Reynolds, regarding Mariel’s Elizabeth Berkley: “She’s so stunning, I’d like to shoot her in back of the head.”
— Fantastic chemistry between Molly and Cheri.
— I’m noticing some approval-seeking in Cheri’s performance, where she always delivers a funny line while looking directly at the studio audience in a way that she knows the audience will react. I do recall that being a habit of Cheri’s throughout her SNL tenure, and I can definitely see why that would annoy some people, but considering this is her first episode and first sketch, I find her looking-at-the-audience-for-approval thing forgivable and actually kind of charming in a weird way. We’ll see how long that goodwill of mine is going to last.
— Debbie Reynolds: “You’re looking at the lunch meat in a Gene Kelly/Donald O’Connor sandwich.”
— I love the “That’s a sore subject” part with Molly and Cheri.
— After having just gone through SNL’s early 90s era, in which female cast members were at their most underused, disrespected, and neglected, there’s a sight throughout this sketch that’s nothing short of incredible: SNL actually allowing female cast members to be funny, wild, and brash, something that was practically unheard of in season 20. An exciting sign that the Boys Club of the previous era is officially over and this new era is going to be a big change for female cast members.
STARS: ***½


WEEKEND UPDATE
NAW’s stories about the poor state of society make you shake your head

   

— Another noticeable format change in tonight’s season premiere: the tradition of the musical guest’s first performance airing before Weekend Update has been changed. For these next five seasons, the first musical performance will often be airing AFTER Update.
— Norm gets a new Update title sequence, which is randomly accompanied by the Friends theme song for tonight only.
— The new visual quality of this season is particularly noticeable during this Weekend Update. Even though this Update has the same anchorperson and same set as the preceding season, the overall look of Update is so different this season (side-by-side comparisons between last season’s Updates and this season’s Updates below).

— Interesting-seeming idea of a Head-Shaking News segment from Nancy Walls.
— Nancy’s segment started off a little slow, but it’s gotten funnier starting with the story about the abuse a swan suffered.
— Interesting meta ending to Nancy’s commentary, with her and Norm shaking their heads over this commentary being Nancy’s big spot on her first show.
— There’s Norm’s famous “Better Than Ezra” joke, one of my favorite Norm Update jokes of all time.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Run-Around”


GETTING OFF THE PHONE
(WIF) has trouble coming up with ways to help wife (host) end phone calls

— Will’s sudden “You on the phone again, bitch?!?” killed me.
— Now Will has an even funnier bad getting-off-the-phone excuse, with his hilarious Skeletor bit.
— Will’s performance is reminding me that when giving their thoughts on this season premiere, Entertainment Weekly voted Will “Most Annoying New Cast Member” for his work in both this sketch and Get Off The Shed. I also recall someone on an SNL messageboard telling a story a few years ago of how, when he watched this season premiere with his dad when it originally aired, his dad’s first comment after the episode ended was “I hate that new guy who yells all the time”, referring to Will. Haha, I love Will and I love his performances in both this sketch and Get Off The Shed, but I can see why his loud delivery in both of those sketches would be off-putting to some viewers at the time who weren’t used to him, considering this is coming right after a season in which Chris Farley screamed his way through practically every damn sketch. Those viewers were probably worried that we were getting more of the same with Will. To me, the difference between Will Ferrell Yelling Sketches (not just the ones from tonight’s episode, but ones throughout his SNL tenure) and season 20 Chris Farley Yelling Sketches is that the Ferrell ones usually have solid writing backing them up, usually giving Will very funny dialogue to yell, whereas the season 20 Farley Yelling Sketches usually suffered from very poor, one-note writing, and seemed to be just using his yelling as a lazy crutch. It also doesn’t help that Chris had become very one-note by that late stage of his SNL tenure, giving loud and over-the-top performances even in roles that didn’t call for it, whereas Will is a much more versatile performer who would play calm and restrained just as often as, if not more than, he would play loud roles.
— Reruns of this sketch would use the dress rehearsal version of at least some portions, if not the entire sketch. One of the most noticeable differences is that in the live version I’m watching, Will delivers the line “Hide this balloon of heroin up your rectum”, whereas in the rerun version, he delivers the line as “Hide this balloon of heroin up your ass”. I can’t decide which line is funnier, as they both slay me.
— I love the random “Oh, and I killed the dog” ending, accompanied by Will holding up a stuffed dog. The dress rehearsal version of this ending shown in reruns is slightly different, as it ends on a close-up of Mariel screaming in horror after the dead dog reveal, whereas the live version stays on a wide shot of her and Will as she does a slightly different scream of horror. I prefer the version with the close-up of her scream, because it cuts to that close-up immediately after Will holds up the dead dog, which I feel is funnier because it gives the brief visual of the dead dog a more humorously disturbing tone.
STARS: ****


SPADE IN AMERICA
DAS gives the Unabomber some advice about his image

— Oh, that’s right, David Spade is still in the cast. I actually started forgetting that by this point of tonight’s episode.
— After trying to get used to SO MANY new faces in the cast tonight, it feels odd seeing a familiar face in this solo piece. Strangely, I didn’t feel that way much during Norm’s Update earlier tonight. Maybe because Norm hasn’t been a cast veteran as long as Spade.
— After reviewing the last few preceding seasons, it feels kinda lonely seeing Spade in a show that has neither Chris Farley nor Adam Sandler in it anymore.
— Considering how stale Spade got in sketches in the preceding season, the idea to now exclude him from sketches and instead give him his own isolated segment as himself actually seems somewhat refreshing. This is creative and unique for SNL, because, excluding Weekend Update, I can’t think of any prior time in the show’s history where a cast member was given a regular weekly isolated segment as themselves, unless I’m forgetting something.
— Spade’s “You’re comin’ off gay” message to the Unabomber has not aged well.
— Spade gets in a dig at the fact that Prince was the originally-booked musical guest for this episode but flaked out on the show.
— Spade’s little impression of Prince was pretty dumb, but made me laugh a lot.
— Another pretty funny dig from Spade, this time regarding the WB Network.
— Spade, on how he tries to pick up chicks by telling them he’s the Unabomber: “Lately, it works better than saying I’m on Saturday Night Live, that’s for sure.”
— Overall, the homophobia towards the Unabomber’s look does not hold up, and this overall segment had David doing his usual shtick and he still seems to have some of that aloof “I don’t wanna be here” attitude that plagued his performances a year earlier in season 20, but I gotta say, his style actually came off kinda refreshing in this new Spade In America format and I saw some hints of that acerbic wit that I remember loving from him in his first few seasons. I got some laughs in this inaugural Spade In America installment, but there’s room for improvement, which I think we’ll get going forward.
STARS: **½


BIOGRAPHY
host tells how she almost didn’t get Central Park West part

— The idea of Central Park West having four guys play the main female character is priceless, as is the clip of that happening. I especially love the four guys’ sloppy attempts at speaking in unison.
— Several funny bizarre lines from the narrator, such as Darren Starr holding a conference in a cave outside of Mexico City.
— Another funny line from the narrator, this time regarding Central Park West’s secret decision to film the four guys in a dress without any film in the camera.
STARS: either ***½ or ****, I can’t decide yet


FUZZY MEMORIES BY JACK HANDEY
dad’s reaction to a bully

— Looks like Jack Handey has replaced Deep Thoughts with a new recurring segment. Probably a necessary change, because, as much as I hate to say it, his Deep Thoughts seemed to be running a little out of steam in the preceding season.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hook”


THE CHICKEN LADY SHOW
non-judgemental program features fetishists

— Kinda surreal seeing Mark’s Chicken Lady character from Kids In The Hall being brought to SNL. However, it’s very disappointing that they’re relegating this character to one of SNL’s biggest crutches: the public access TV show format. This idea is a waste of this character.
— I believe this is intended as a parody of The Robyn Byrd Show. Please don’t tell me that the last name Byrd is how SNL got the idea to have Chicken Lady host this show. If so, that is groanworthy.
— Will as a bearded infantilist is very funny.
— I like the occasional cutaways to a random silent man (played by new SNL writer Adam McKay) tied up in S&M gear.
— Overall, good performances from everyone, but this use of Chicken Lady was a misfire and paled badly in comparison to this character’s sketches on Kids In The Hall.
STARS: **


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid start to the new SNL era. Right from this first episode, you can see loads of potential for this era, and there was a much more refreshing, exciting feel than the troubled preceding season had. There were several strong sketches tonight, and only one real lowlight for me (The Chicken Lady Show). (I wasn’t too crazy about tonight’s Spade In America, but I see some potential there.) I also liked the little hints of absurd random humor thrown in during some portions the show (especially in the Biography sketch), which feels different from the humor of the preceding era.
— Aside from Jim Breuer, the new cast members were represented well, with each of them getting at least one moment in the spotlight (well, maybe not David Koechner, but he appeared throughout the show, at least). Will Ferrell, by far, was the newbie who ran away with tonight’s show. You can immediately sense his strong leadership skills, and most of my biggest laughs of the night were from him.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1994-95)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Chevy Chase

Posted on

May 13, 1995 – David Duchovny / Rod Stewart (S20 E20)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

BEASTMAN
amidst a LOM conspiracy, host tries to find the Beastman of Studio 8-H

— I love “Deion Sanders hosting” being one of the strange Studio 8H happenings that Ellen lists off.
— G.E. Smith makes a somewhat rare sketch appearance in what ends up being his final episode in the SNL Band.
— Speaking of final episodes, Kevin mentions that tonight’s his last show after 9 seasons in the cast (a record at the time). Him assuming the show will be holding a surprise party for him is funny.
— Another amusing SNL dig at poor Joe Piscopo.
— I love the mock dramatic, tense scene in Lorne’s office.
— Mark’s very brief, non-speaking appearance, in which he’s told something by Duchovny and then fearfully ducks out of the scene when a loud scream is heard off-camera, ends up being his ONLY appearance all night. And this is the season finale, so you especially gotta feel bad for the guy. Thankfully, tonight doesn’t end up being his final episode.
— Elliott’s scream while saying “There he is!” when pointing out a walking-by Farley is freakin’ hysterical.
— Ah, Farley doing his “The Chris Farley Show” routine one last time…
— Overall, one of the better cold openings of this season. This was very fun, well-done, a good X-Files spoof, and a unique approach to a backstage sketch.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
even people from host’s old neighborhood haven’t heard of him

— A fairly tepid opening bit with Duchovny acting like unknown independent films he did early in his career are what people know him for.
— The pre-taped interviews with people from Duchovny’s old neighborhood are okay and have some laughs.
STARS: ***


YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME?
defensive people; Naomi Campbell cameo

 

— (*sigh*) Kevin in his final big role.
— A slow, weak start to this sketch so far, aside from the “You cannot read” bit with Adam.
— Even the set for this gameshow sketch looks dull, half-assed, and unfinished.
— Geez, they’re not even showing the questions that get chosen on the board like we usually see in gameshow sketches from this era. Yep, it’s official: this sketch’s set was definitely half-assed. What happened? Did they not have enough time to complete the set before airtime?
— Duchovny’s rants always ending with “burn the place down” is making me laugh, even though it’s repetitive. Duchovny’s delivery of it is what makes it work for me, which is more than I can say for the rest of this sketch so far.
— Good long-winded answer written by Duchovny on his card.
— The bit with Duchovny and Naomi Campbell is falling flat.
STARS: **


ZAGAT’S
Hank Gelfand is in agony when Beverly’s sister (host) shows up

— Like the last time they did this sketch, Farley has some funny one-liners and big smiles into the camera after each time he reads en entry from the Zagat’s guide. I especially like his one-liner “Ravioli? Holy cannoli!”
— There goes Farley trying to make Adam crack up by romantically rubbing his leg.
— Adam’s cranky one-liners are funnier than the ones in the first installment of this sketch. I especially like his memorable line “GIVE ME CANCER NOW, GOD!”
— Yeah, not sure I need the addition of Duchovny in drag.
— Good ending bit with Adam downing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Leave Virginia Alone”


WEEKEND UPDATE
LAK is depressed because her friends are getting married & having babies
Adam West (MMK) refuses to accept the new incarnations of Batman
ADS woos single moms with a suggestive Mother’s Day song

 

— A very weird and kinda awkward segue into Laura’s commentary.
— Interestingly, Laura’s SNL tenure has been bookended by an Update commentary as herself in both her first and last episode.
— Who’s idea was it to dress Laura like a Chinese restaurant waitress for this commentary?

— Laura’s commentary is a little better than the one from her first episode. In her first commentary, I said that there were nice hints of dark humor that I wish she went further with. Thankfully, she has gone a little further with it in tonight’s commentary, but still not far enough. Oh, well. For what ends up being the last impression that the underused Laura will ever get to leave on us on SNL, this overall commentary isn’t bad.
— Michael as Adam West is dead-on casting. He looks just like him here.
— Michael warns Norm that he’ll be forced to use his Bat Ray on him, but when reaching to pull it out, he awkwardly says “It’s here in my belt” and then moves on with his commentary without pulling the Bat Ray out. Was that an intentional joke, or is this YET ANOTHER example this season of SNL being too lazy to hand Michael a prop gun, much like what happened in the notorious Alternating Guitarists sketch from the Sarah Jessica Parker episode?
— Kinda odd how they’re having Duchovny play Robin in a small walk-on role during the Adam West/Batman commentary, as it seems like a role that would usually go to a cast member (can Mark McKinney get some love, SNL?).
— I almost thought we were getting a “Marion Barry loves crack” punchline for the THIRD consecutive Update, but the punchline of tonight’s Marion Barry joke turned out to humorously subvert the expected crack punchline.
— Hmm, a change of pace for Adam’s usual Update songs. There’s no guitar this time, and he’s singing his song in the style of an R&B slow jam. This has potential, and something about this change in song style feels fitting for what ends up being Adam’s final SNL episode (which he wasn’t aware of at the time).
— Fun song from Adam here, especially when the music really ramps up when he starts doing a raunchy variation of his famous Turkey Song.
STARS: ***½


PRICHARD’S
New Englanders turn violent when out-of-towners don’t go for folksy ways

— Unusual teaming of Elliott, Farley, and Morwenna, once again proving what an awkward mishmash this season’s cast is.
— I love the very dark turn this takes when Elliott removes his glasses and starts going on an accent-less intimidating rant to Michael.
— The repetition of the gag seems unnecessary, but I do love Elliott’s delivery whenever he goes on a dark rant to customers.
— Considering my negative attitude towards a lot of Adam and Spade’s performances this season, something feels oddly satisfying seeing their snarky characters in this sketch get pummeled to death.
— Even in a co-starring role, Morwenna is barely given any lines.
— Since this ends up being Elliott’s final SNL sketch, I wish it was something more along the lines of his typical oddball sketches, which have been a (mostly) consistent bright spot of this season. I wonder if his Penis Measuring Device sketch would’ve been more fitting for tonight’s season finale, since he actually is leaving SNL after this episode.
STARS: ***


RICKI LAKE
a hermaphrodite (ADS) & some celebrity impersonators

— I always love Spade’s Joan Rivers impression.
— Much like Michael as Adam West earlier tonight, Duchovny as Richard Gere is another example of spot-on casting.
— Norm’s non-attempt at a Sulu impression is very funny in that typical Norm-esque way. I really can’t understand why they’ve used Norm so rarely in sketches this season. He’s usually always a bright spot, which this season really could’ve used more of. Thankfully, they would go back to regularly using him in sketches next season.
— They’re repeating the same joke from the last Ricki Lake sketch of Ellen playing various audience members (she’s even wearing the same various costumes that she wore last time). It’s not working for me as much this time.
— Boy, the whole bit with Adam as a hermaphrodite and everybody’s disgusted reactions has not aged well at all. Judging it by 1995 standards, it’s still not funny.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Maggie May”


HORIZON REALTY
the former lead singer of a rock band (JAM) is now a real estate agent

— A rare occurrence of Jay having a lead role in two consecutive sketches, something that has a bit of a bittersweet air in retrospect, as this ends up being his final SNL episode.
— In his SNL book, Jay discusses how he had a hard time getting this sketch on the air. It kept getting cut after dress rehearsal from the last few episodes. In the version that was cut from the Courteney Cox and (I think) Damon Wayans episodes, Norm played the husband role that Duchovny plays here, while in the cut version from the Bob Saget episode, Saget played the husband role. Jay says in his book that he wishes the Saget version made it on the air, as he felt that of all the guys who played the husband, Saget gave the funniest performance. By the time this sketch FINALLY made it to a live show, Jay was so burned out on performing the sketch that he had an angry and tired attitude during it, which he felt hampered his performance.
— I’m actually liking Jay’s energy and delivery here (perhaps his real-life angry attitude during this sketch is actually helping him nail the screechy rocker performance), but I’m not caring for the sketch itself. The gag of Jay seamlessly transitioning back-and-forth between screaming rock star and calm-voiced real estate agent isn’t providing many laughs and is just going on and on.
STARS: **


POLAR BEAR CAGE
JAM, TIM, ADS, CHF, NOM are eaten by a polar bear at the zoo

— Well, folks, we’ve officially arrived at the final sketch of this era. And a pretty famous sketch from this season at that.
— Geez, is this Tim’s first appearance all night?!?
— An oddly fascinating and entertaining sketch. Also, a lot of really bizarre but memorable lines throughout this, such as Tim’s inexplicable Mr. Dictionary insult to Norm, “That bear ripped off their heads like so much volleyball”, “Who are you, The Mighty Thor?”, the “arse” callback with Norm, etc.
— I love Norm’s musing when he’s the only person left.
— Hmm, interesting ending with Duchovny revealing that this sketch was shown for future hosts as a warning of the type of people you have to deal with all week long, pretty much confirming my suspicions that this sketch was Farley, Sandler, et al. just enacting typical backstage conversations and antics of theirs (well, minus the “getting brutally mauled by a polar bear” thing, of course).
— Overall, I love this sketch, though I feel like I shouldn’t, as the humor was stupid, random, and nonsensical, we got a typical season 20 display of self-indulgent hamminess from both Farley and Sandler, and we got one of season 20’s favorite recurring gags: fluid-spurting. But dammit, it all works for me in this sketch. Maybe because I take this sketch as some kind of meta commentary on this notorious season as a whole. Or maybe because the cast is playing themselves. Either way, this sketch feels like fitting closure to the Bad Boys era.
— Speaking of this sketch possibly being a meta commentary on this notorious season as a whole, I wonder if the idea of the cast getting gruesomely killed off in this sketch one-by-one was intended to be this season’s version of how the last notorious season, season 11, ended with the cast burning in a fire. If that’s the case, then part of me kinda wishes they used the entire cast in this Polar Bear Cage sketch, though considering the large size of this cast, maybe seeing each of them being killed off one-by-one would’ve been too long and redundant.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS
SNL director Dave Wilson [real] says so-long with “tape roll”

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A somewhat meh season finale. This episode was far from terrible, but aside from two big highlights with the cold opening and Polar Bear Cage sketch, as well as the funny Zagat’s sketch, things were kinda forgettable tonight. Even Norm Macdonald’s Weekend Update was a little more on the average side than usual. At least there weren’t any true bombs tonight, though. Even the worst sketches tonight were merely weak instead of painfully terrible like the worst sketches of most episodes this season.
— This would end up being the final episode for many cast members, as SNL would go through a big overhaul over the summer. The only cast members who return next season are Norm Macdonald, Mark McKinney, Tim Meadows, David Spade, and Molly Shannon.
— The experience of reviewing the notorious Season 20 was not what I was expecting. Before doing these reviews, I had always hated season 20 with a fiery passion, like most SNL fans do. And thus, in this SNL project of mine, I came into this season expecting to give the most consistently negative reviews I’ve EVER given so far. Instead, I surprisingly ended up finding myself discovering lots of silver linings, hidden gems, and just okay moments. In fact, believe it or not, I actually feel this season had more good or okay episodes than bad. I certainly can’t say that about the other two notorious SNL seasons (seasons 6 and 11). I also feel that the number of general highs this season far outnumber that of the other two notorious seasons. That being said, when this season had lows, which it most certainly did, it was fucking BRUTAL. This season contains some of the worst episodes, sketches, moments, and decisions in SNL history. Some new lows were reached this year, and there was a COUNTLESS number of individual problems both on and off-screen that make this such a troubled season. Overall, I came out of this season realizing that, while it’s undoubtedly still a bad season, it’s markedly better than I ever gave it credit for in the past.
— I’ve now officially covered all of SNL’s three most notorious seasons. While I’m not sure how I would rank them from best to worst, I can officially say that all three of them can be filed under “undoubtedly bad, but not quite as bad as its reputation”.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Bob Saget)
a mild step up


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS ENTIRE SEASON, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS (Note: These picks were hastily made off the top of my head and will naturally be missing some deserving sketches. I don’t have enough time to do full, thought-out “Best Of” picks for this whole season)


HOW THIS OVERALL SEASON STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1993-94)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
The dawn of a new era. A revamped SNL debuts with a mostly-new cast and mostly-new writing staff. Mariel Hemingway is our season premiere host.

Posted on

May 6, 1995 – Bob Saget / TLC (S20 E19)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A MESSAGE FROM TONY VALLENCOURT
Celtics fan Tony Vallencourt (ADS) relates his memories of Boston Garden

— It makes no sense why this particular average joe character is delivering an address to the nation in a cold opening, nor does it make sense why this particular average joe character is delivering said address from behind a desk in a professional-looking office. He does mention in passing early in this cold opening that this is his sister’s office, but that just seemed like the writers hand-waving their sloppy decision to place this character in an office set.
— There are some funny lines here and there, but the format of this cold opening has gotten boring pretty fast. This cold opening also kinda feels like a sister sketch to Adam’s Gil Graham commentaries from Weekend Update, which makes me now realize that this cold opening would’ve fit more as a Weekend Update commentary. I’m not sure if that would’ve made it funnier, but at least it wouldn’t have been as out of place as it is in the cold opening slot.
— Adam’s delivery is kinda sloppy throughout this.
STARS: **


MONOLOGUE
host enjoys the opportunity to say naughty words & signs an autograph

— Very constant, fast-paced snappy comments from Bob, to a tiresome degree. He can’t go through more than 5 seconds here without making a “witty” aside for every situation. I wouldn’t complain about it if his “witty” asides were actually funny. I’ve never been that big of a fan of his stand-up comedy.
— (*groan*) The “Nipples ass wiener” bit…
— I recall once seeing that monkey-scratching-his-butt-and-sniffing-his-finger video that Bob explains was deemed un-airable for America’s Funniest Home Videos.
STARS: *½


AMAZIN’ LASER
Rerun from 1/21/95


TRACK TEAM
coach of a high school track team (host) reminds his runners to go fast

— Okay, the concept of a coach’s only “insightful” advice to his track team simply being “run fast” is actually fairly funny on paper, but it’s not working AT ALL in its execution.
— This sketch feels like a poor man’s version of the Plucky Ninjas sketch from John Goodman’s season 19 episode.
— Season 20-era Kevin Nealon as a high school track student???
— Ah, now we get a twist that Kevin and the rest of the track team are in their 40s. That’s the first sorta-laugh I’ve gotten during this entire sketch.
— Very lame fourth wall-breaking ending with Bob saying to the camera “Go to commercial FAST!”
STARS: *½


AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HATE VIDEOS
accidental violence from militia & KKK

— I’ve always hated this sketch in the past and considered it emblematic of some of season 20’s problems, but I get the feeling I’m gonna appreciate the sketch more now, especially since I’ve been more lenient on season 20 in my reviews than I used to be in the past.
— The corny laughter from the fake audience is cracking me up.
— Just now, the exploding head footage during the Farley/Spade militia scene absolutely SLAYED me, even though we just got an exploding head gag earlier in the sketch.
— I like the shot of Farley in the audience with a now-headless David.
— There’s yet another sighting of Jay’s real-life arm tattoo of a giraffe(?).
— Interesting twist ending with the show turning out to be a trap to arrest the hate group who wins the contest.
— Overall, my prediction was right: I enjoyed this sketch MUCH more than I did in past viewings. Some pretty good stupidly funny humor here, and a solid ending.
STARS: ***½


DANTÉ
fashion designer (CHF) flamboyantly tells people to leave his office

— It’s just plain surreal and kinda sad to hear Phil Hartman’s voice-over in a new sketch this season (not counting his old voice-overs in old recurring stuff that still appears this season, like Deep Thoughts or Daily Affirmation). The reason for Phil’s voice-over in this sketch is because this sketch originally got cut after dress rehearsal from the preceding season’s Nancy Kerrigan episode. Here’s a GettyImages picture from that cut version of the sketch.
— I’ve been noticing throughout tonight’s sketches that Farley has been sporting A LOT of facial hair. Supposedly, he grew it out for the filming of Almost Heroes, though there would end up being long delays before filming would start.
— A very tepid sketch so far, with the unfunny endlessly repeated gag of Farley ordering people to leave his office while a dramatic music sting plays. How the hell is this supposed to be funny?
— Feels kinda odd seeing Bob Saget in a role like this. In the cut Nancy Kerrigan version of this sketch, McKean (in what was his very first SNL episode) played Bob’s role.
— Overall, not a single laugh from me during this entire sketch.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Creep”


WEEKEND UPDATE
British Little Girl (MWB) tells how television news happens in America
ELC is devastated because Full House has been cancelled
a clip from recently-deceased Howard Cosell’s appearance on SNL

— I love the audience’s very torn reaction to Norm’s hilariously brutal opening O.J. joke.
— A “Marion Barry loves crack” joke in two consecutive Updates.
— Morwenna Banks getting what would end up being her only character showcase on SNL. I recall hearing that this Little Girl character of hers is one that she was previously known for playing on a show in the U.K.
— For some reason, Morwenna is kinda reminding me a tiny bit of Mike Myers during this commentary. Something about her mannerisms and the British accent.
— Some parts of Morwenna’s commentary are more cute than funny, but I’m getting some good laughs here, and the humor in this commentary is a big change of pace from the usual tone of season 20. This is making me wish Morwenna would’ve been given the chance to showcase more of her style of humor before her insanely short-lived tenure ended.
— Funny concept of Ellen’s commentary, though her exaggerated crying voice is a bit much at times.
— I like Ellen’s line “I don’t remember the day I gave birth to quintuplets” when talking about how she remembers “important” moments in Full House more than she remembers significant events that happened in her own life.
— Bob Saget to Ellen: “Full House will always be in reruns.” Little did Bob know at the time how right he was. Two decades later, Full House still remains insanely popular in syndication, where it has enjoyed a renewed life.
— We get a tribute to the recently-deceased Howard Cosell, with an SNL clip of him in an Ed Grimley sketch from 10 years earlier. I love seeing this again, though a great clip from the fantastic season 10 being shown in the middle of a bad episode from the infamous season 20 is… well, kinda depressing. The classic season 10 clip just emphasizes the sad reality of the then-current state of season 20. Reminds me of how I felt watching a season 3 Mr. Mike sketch being replayed during the particularly awful Sarah Jessica Parker episode from earlier this season.
STARS: ****


KARL’S VIDEO
video store owner Karl bothers host & other customers

— A fairly interesting choice for a sketch to bring back, though I recall this second installment being a huge step down from the solid first one.
— Bob plays himself in this and David’s Karl character gushes over meeting him for the first time, which doesn’t make sense in the universe of this sketch, because in the first installment, Karl brags to Jeff Goldblum about how Bob Saget is a frequent customer and a “big porn freak”.
— Bob to David: “A little WD40 will straighten that creak you got in your throat.” No idea what that even means, but I laughed.
— The constant porn movie jokes throughout this sketch are getting tired.
— Overall, a few laughs, but this was indeed a huge step down from the first installment.
STARS: **


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


BOYZ II MEN
Boyz II Men (JAM), (host), (TIM), (ADS) do “I’ll Make Love To You” video

— Two minutes into this sketch, and I’m sitting here staring at my screen wondering what the bloody hell I’m watching. What in the world is the point of this sketch? Where’s the joke? Why are they singing the whole “I’ll Make Love To You” song with no comedic twist? Why are three white guys playing three of the four Boyz II Men members? Is THAT the joke? If so, why isn’t it funny? So many questions, so little laughs.
— The camera mistakenly stayed on Laura WAY too long after her bit was done. Sadly, that technical gaffe is probably the most screentime Laura has gotten in months.
— Yet another technical gaffe at the end, after the sketch fades to black.
— Well…. THAT overall sketch certainly was a colossal waste of my time.
STARS: *


WHERE IN THE WORLD IS SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA?
too-easy show ends early

— As a 90s kid, this sketch brings back childhood memories of watching Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego on PBS.
— Tim, Laura, and Michael are pretty funny as Rockapella.
— There’s Molly clearly playing a proto Mary Katherine Gallagher. Feels kinda surreal seeing any hint of Mary Katherine Gallagher in a season 20 episode. That’s such a Ferrell/Oteri-era type of character.
— I like Bob’s frozen facial reaction to Molly’s unexpectedly detailed correct answer of where San Diego is.
— Not a bad premise so far.
— What the hell? What was with the camera cutting back to Ellen not saying anything while looking at the camera with her mouth open, then starting to say something before awkwardly cutting herself off after the camera cuts away from her? Seems to be a lot of gaffes throughout tonight’s episode.
— Overall, the first half of this sketch was fine, but the humor died off towards the end.
STARS: **½


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Red Light Special”


DAILY AFFIRMATION WITH STUART SMALLEY
bitter Stuart chides public for not seeing his movie

— Here comes the final Daily Affirmation sketch during Al Franken’s SNL tenure (not counting the surprise return the sketch would later make in the Al Gore-hosted episode from season 28). And, boy, what a famous installment this is.
— Great meta premise, with Stuart Smalley lamenting the fact that his movie is, as he calls it, “a box office disaster”. This premise is a nice change of pace for these Daily Affirmation sketches.
— Stuart to people who didn’t see his movie: “You were too busy getting drunk and beating your kids and cheating on your wife to see my movie!”
— I love the running gag with the various brands of cookies that Stuart’s overeating in his depressed state.
— Stuart, regarding Chessmen cookies: “I eat them, but you can stick them up your ass.” Legendary line.
— Stuart’s out-of-character bitterness here is freakin’ awesome. He is slaying me in this. This is also a nice thinly-veiled way for Al Franken to vent his real-life frustration with the movie’s lack of success.
— Overall, an excellent sketch and a strangely fitting way to end the series of Daily Affirmation sketches. This also felt like a fitting capper to a notorious SNL season, even though we’re still one episode away from the season finale. Now that I say that, I’m finding myself wishing that they saved this sketch for the season finale. This and the famous Polar Bear Cage sketch airing back-to-back would’ve been a great way to end this season. But nah, I’m glad this sketch aired in tonight’s episode instead, because this episode desperately needed a strong sketch.
STARS: *****


PACEMAKER
offputting (DAS) unwisely alienates those who could fix his odd pacemaker

— (*groan*) Yet another season 20 occurrence of David dragging out his shtick of playing snarky pricks, which is so tired and played out by this point of his SNL tenure. In this sketch, he’s coming off particularly tired and unlikable, even if the latter is the point of the character. Either way, it ain’t funny.
— Ugh, this sketch is PURE DEATH so far. What is with this season and horrible sketches taking place in a workshop? First the Mike Myers Fortune Cookie Factory tripe, and now this. It’s reminiscent of how this season keeps relying on terrible sketches dealing with ad execs pitching a commercial at a boardroom meeting.
— Very lame ending involving David’s character doing his snarky shtick on St. Peter. What a waste of Mark McKinney (note to self: get used to it).
STARS: *


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very rough episode, though not the disaster I remember it being in past viewings (hell, in the very early years of my SNL fandom, I even used to consider this to be the official “Worst. Episode. Ever.”). There were more highlights and okay moments than I had remembered, but they still were far outnumbered by the lowlights, some of which were painfully unfunny. But hey, at least we got an epic farewell installment of Daily Affirmation for the ages.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Courteney Cox)
a fairly big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
It’s the end of an era. David Duchovny hosts the final episode of the season, before SNL goes through a major overhaul.

Posted on

April 15, 1995 – Courteney Cox / Dave Matthews Band (S20 E18)

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

Posted on

April 8, 1995 – Damon Wayans / Dionne Farris (S20 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

A STATEMENT FROM JUDGE ITO
Judge Ito (MAM) reciprocates Alfonse D’Amato’s racial stereotype

— I’m cracking up at Mark-as-Judge-Ito’s constant “I do naaaat (not)…”s (e.g. “I do naaaat speak in a stereotypical Japanese accent”).
— I loved Ito’s passing comment abut Italians: “I’m a judge and I see A LOT of them coming through my courtroom.”
— A funny gag with Ito doing a stereotypical impression of Alfonse D’Amato’s sister making love to a mule.
— I like Ito’s nasal laughing after his stereotypical impression.
— A simple cold opening that was short and sweet.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— Morwenna Banks has been added to the cast tonight, joining as a repertory player.

The way Morwenna’s picture is displayed epitomizes my problem with how the cast’s pictures are projected onto objects in this season’s opening montage. Morwenna’s picture is projected onto a freakin’ TRASH CAN, for crying out loud. A trash can, people!

— There are so many odd things about the hiring of Morwenna, some of which include: 1) the fact that she’s been hired so late into the season. There are only four episodes left this season, and a much-needed overhaul of the cast and writing staff is obviously around the corner. So why waste time hiring somebody new at this point? I’ve heard that Morwenna previously had fame in the U.K. from being on a sketch comedy show, so I wonder if maybe Lorne felt hiring a U.K. sketch comedy veteran was the shot in the arm that this troubled season needed. 2) This season’s female cast is already underused and disrespected enough. How is adding a FOURTH female to the cast going to change that? 3) The mid-season hirings of Mark McKinney and Molly Shannon made sense, as they were each replacing an about-to-depart cast member (Mike Myers and Janeane Garofalo, respectively). Morwenna, on the other hand, isn’t replacing anyone. 4) Morwenna is one of the very rare U.K. accent-having cast members in SNL history. I believe Pamela Stephenson from season 10 is the only other one, unless I’m forgetting someone.


MONOLOGUE
DAW does stand-up about African-Americans’ undesirable job assignments

— Damon’s imitations of a black reporter in the worst situations to report from are funny, especially the tornado bit.
— Some other really funny imitations of black people in bad occupations. I’m getting a lot of laughs here.
STARS: ****


BATHROOM MONKEY

— Rerun from 10/15/94.
— Oh, and by the way… WHY IN THE WORLD ARE THEY RE-AIRING A JANEANE GAROFALO-STARRING COMMERCIAL?!??! Last time I checked, Janeane hasn’t been in the cast since the George Clooney episode. So why re-air a fake ad where the only person featured is a recently-quit cast member who’s not credited in the opening montage anymore? Makes no sense at all. They must REALLY be hurting for fake ads to rerun. There hasn’t been a new pre-taped fake ad since Amazin’ Laser way back in January, nor do we end up getting any new ones for the remainder of the season. Did SNL just give up on these?


CAMP UJAAMA
African-American day campers’ names come from dictionary & supermarket

— The first camper name Ellen calls out is Akeyla, which is her real-life daughter’s name.
— Some good laughs from the names of the black children so far. I especially love the name Spina Bifida.
— Okay, after you’ve gotten the point of this sketch, the same joke just keeps going on and on with no escalation or variation to the humor.
— Okay, I did get a big laugh from Farley’s delivery of the name Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon.
— All-in-all, despite the joke getting one-note after a while, they didn’t keep this sketch going TOO long and the overall sketch was harmless and enjoyable enough.
STARS: ***


MEN ON FILM
Blaine Edwards (DAW), Roger Ebert (CHF), Antoine Merriweather (David Alan Grier)

— Feels odd seeing an In Living Color character being brought to SNL.
— Damon’s character is dressed as an effeminate cop. There’s a theory among some SNL fans that this outfit of Damon’s is intended as a subtle nod to his improvised gay cop routine that got him fired from SNL when he was a cast member in season 11.
— Interesting pairing of Damon’s Blaine Edwards character and Roger Ebert.
— And there’s the famous “Haaated iiiiit!” catchphrase.
— Ha, I like the audience going “Awww” when Farley’s Roger Ebert looks depressed after Blaine calls him out on his weight problem.
— Not sure if the concept of Blaine “turning” Ebert gay has aged well, but judging it by 1995 standards, there’s a fun enough chemistry between Blaine and gay Ebert.
— David Alan Grier cameo!
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Know”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Jeff Foxworthy (DAS) tells you how to know if you’re the Ebola virus
ADS tries to get recently-released Mike Tyson to beat up people for him

— Oh, god, the return of David’s tepid Jeff Foxworthy bit after only TWO EPISODES?!?
— Boy, David has pretty much given up in the middle of this weak commentary, not even finishing some of his punchlines. I don’t even know why I’m surprised; David’s been half-assing performances pretty much all season long.
— There’s Norm’s famous joke about the winner of the category for worst job being “…………crackwhore.”
— We’ve reached the late stage of Adam’s tenure where he starts wearing glasses as himself all the time.
— Adam’s commentary has some good laughs.
— Great ending to Adam’s commentary, with him informing Mike Tyson about the mean jokes that Norm has told about him on Update, only for Norm to panickedly deny being Norm Macdonald and then signing off with “I’m Kevin Nealon, and that’s news to me.”
STARS: ****


STILES MONROE
(KEN) & (MOS) get drenched by excess saliva of jazz trumpeter (DAW)

— As I’ve seen pointed out once, it’s absolutely surreal in retrospect to see Kevin Nealon and Molly Shannon paired together, two cast members who are now heavily associated with two very different eras that are far separated from each other (the late 80s era for Kevin, and the late 90s era for Molly).
— (*groan*) This lousy premise is pure season 20. The type of weak, juvenile, gross-out, fluid-spurting humor this season has a reputation for over-relying on.
— This sketch has been going on and on with little-to-no laughs from me.
STARS: *½


THE SIMPSON TRIAL
homeless Anton Jackson (DAW) testifies at the O.J. Simpson trial

— Our second In Living Color character of the night. It’s particularly fun seeing this character on SNL.
— Ha, they have an extra playing O.J. (since Tim is busy playing a different role in this sketch). I don’t know why I find that hilarious.
— As expected, Damon is getting some big laughs in this.
— Tim’s Johnny Cochran impression is completely different here from the famous one he would later do in the first cold opening of the upcoming season 21.
— I liked Kevin’s ending line about Homey the Clown.
— This ends up being the final of many season 20 O.J. Trial sketches.
STARS: ***½


PERSPECTIVES
the logistics of a black militant’s (DAW) upcoming march

— Glad to see this sketch being done with an actual competent SNL host playing a guest, after Deion Sanders almost completely derailed the last installment of this sketch.
— Good characterization from Damon.
— As always, lots of funny foolish questions and statements from Tim’s Lionel Osborne. I especially love the whole bit regarding the rain date.
STARS: ****


CIRQUE DU SOLEIL
Cirque du Soleil performers (MAM), (CSE), (MWB) offer animal-free acts

— Great makeup on Mark.
— Well, I can already tell early on that THIS is certainly going to be an out-of-the-ordinary piece. I’m interested.
— Morwenna Banks is just now making her first SNL appearance (and only appearance of the entire night) pretty late in tonight’s episode. That’s already a sign of how invisible she’ll be in her insanely short-lived SNL tenure.
— A few minutes into this, and Mark has been providing my ONLY laughs of this sketch, with his straight-to-camera interjections. I really WANT to like this sketch, as not only is it Morwenna’s first big showcase, but it features both absurd humor and Chris Elliott, two things that usually mix together beautifully. But almost NOTHING is working for me in this sketch.
— Put this on the list of many season 20 sketches where SNL uses a fancy and impressive-looking setting but forgot to write any actual funny material for it.
— I kinda felt embarrassed for Damon imitating the Cirque du Soleil members at the end.
STARS: *½


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


CHRISTOPHER WALKEN FOR SKITTLES
Christopher Walken (JAM) endorses Skittles

— Here’s a famous sketch from this season.
— Hilarious concept for Jay’s Christopher Walken impression.
— I love how he occasionally keeps saying random Skittles flavors in between his statements.
— Haha, the exaggerated long pauses from Jay’s Walken throughout this are slaying me. I recall Jay saying in his SNL book that when he arrived backstage after this sketch was finished, he was met by Lorne, who, instead of congratulating Jay on the laughs he got in the sketch, complained to him about how overlong he dragged the sketch out with his lengthy pauses. Just one of many stories that fits the “Woe is me” / “I just can’t catch a break at SNL” narrative that Jay was pushing hard in his book.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Blackbird”


TOM JONES BRIEFS
Tony Bennett (JAM) offers Tom Jones’ (ADS) used underwear for sale

— Two lead roles in a row for Jay Mohr, a huge rarity for him.
— Adam doing a typically Adam Sandler-esque “impression” of Tom Jones.
— Speaking of Jay’s Christopher Walken impression a little earlier in this review, the way Jay’s Tony Bennett is getting “angered” over the lack of phone calls reminds me way too much of the running bit in the Celebrity Psychic Friends sketches where his Christopher Walken complains in a deadpan manner over how “upset” he is over the lack of phone calls.
— A tepid sketch, and I’m not getting many laughs so far.
— All of the underwear stains being displayed seems like typical season 20 lowbrow, juvenile humor (and also reminds me a bit of Elliott Gould’s season 6 monologue… which is definitely not a pleasant thing to be compared to, in my opinion).
STARS: *½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An episode with a pretty good first half, but a very mixed second half where there was an equal amount of really solid things and really lousy things. Damon Wayans was a pretty fun host, and it was nice to see SNL using him more to his full potential after often wasting his talents during his cast member days in season 11.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John Goodman)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Courteney Cox, our first female host in what feels like ages

Posted on

March 25, 1995 – John Goodman / The Tragically Hip (S20 E16)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THIS WEEK WITH DAVID BRINKLEY
Bob Dole (DAA) loses his temper

— Dan Aykroyd makes his first of many special guest appearances throughout tonight’s episode. Good to see his Bob Dole impression back.
— Seeing Mark and Michael as David Brinkley and George F. Will, respectively, makes me kinda miss Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey’s impressions of them.
— A lot of funny lines from Dan’s Dole.
— I like the turn with Dole’s angel and devil giving him advice.
— When Dole and his angel & devil are all supposed to say “Live from New York…” in unison, the pre-taped angel and devil Doles are accidentally played a few seconds ahead of live Dole. This would later be fixed in reruns.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
Mighty Mack (host) & Elwood Blues perform “Flip, Flop, & Fly”

— When bragging about the benefits of being a five-timer, John says “You don’t even have to show up until Saturday.” I wonder if that’s an inside joke, considering John truly didn’t show up to SNL until late in this week, due to a scheduling conflict with the show Roseanne. That’s the reason we’ll be seeing so many Dan Aykroyd appearances tonight. That’s also the reason why all the SNL bumper pictures of John tonight are reused from John’s season 19 episode, reformatted to fit the style of this season’s bumper pictures (side-by-side comparison below).

— Interesting transition into a Blues Brothers number.
— Not sure what to say about this Blues Brothers number. The performance is kinda fun, but I’ve never cared for the revival of the Blues Brothers after John Belushi’s death, and needless to say, Goodman is no Belushi when it comes to these two characters.
STARS: N/A (I don’t usually rate segments like this)


BOB SWERSKI’S SUPER FANS
Irwin Mainway & Super Fans on Michael Jordan return; Brian Dennehy cameo

— The return of the Super Fans! I didn’t realize how much I missed this recurring sketch until its return tonight. And they have a great excuse to bring this sketch back with the then-recent announcement of Michael Jordan’s return to the NBA.
— I like the Pork Soda sponsor shown at the beginning.
— John takes over Mike Myers’ Pat Arnold character, who we’re told gained a lot of weight due to binge eating during Michael Jordan’s retirement.
— A significant meta moment with Farley, in character, ranting about how bad SNL has gotten lately, a moment made even more poignant by the slow zoom-in the camera does towards Farley during it. Some great self-aware lines during this rant, such as “They got that fat guy screamin’ all the time” (so very, VERY true) and “Pull the plug on that freakin’ thing.” I wonder if this whole meta bit was fueled by the fact that the infamous scathing New York Magazine article about the troubles of this season had come out the preceding week.
— Wow, now we get the return of Dan’s Irwin Mainway character. I love this hybrid of the Super Fans and Irwin Mainway. It fits perfectly, since Mainway always did have a Chicago-type accent.
— As usual, very funny dangerous toys displayed by Mainway. I especially like the Jordan Head toy’s warning label: “You be careful with that”.
— Now we get a Brian Dennehy cameo.
— An absolutely fantastic ending with Dennehy revealing he’s here to help set the record for most fat guys in a single sketch, a reveal that’s followed by a group photo being snapped of said fat guys.
STARS: ****½


THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH TOM SNYDER
calls & Tom Snyder’s (DAA) rambling marginalize host

— Wow, they’re bringing back all the classics tonight. A real treat and very fun. Such a turnaround from the dour Paul Reiser episode the preceding week.
— When it comes to impersonating Tom Snyder, Dan hasn’t lost it at all.
— I liked Snyder’s “We’re gonna get a lot of letters on that one” line after mocking the names of Chinese food.
— A lot of laughs during the John Goodman “interview”.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Grace, Too”

— The novelty of this choice of musical guest adds to the fun and special feel of tonight’s episode.


WEEKEND UPDATE
nervous Kato Kaelin (DAS) shows skills while testifying at the O.J. trial

— Interesting how they’re doing something a little different with David’s Kato Kaelin impression.
— Another instance of Laura giving an off-camera performance as Marcia Clark.
— Uh, yeah, no idea what to say about this Kato Kaelin segment so far, except that it feels more like a separate sketch than a Weekend Update commentary.
— A surprisingly fairly short Update.
STARS: ***½


DOG RUN
(host) talks with (LAK) while his “dog” (ADS) mingles with canines

— I think the dog costume Adam is wearing is the same one that would later be worn by Will Ferrell in another John Goodman sketch, Happy Smile Patrol, from season 24. I’ll do a side-by-side screencap comparison between Adam and Will’s costumes when I eventually review that season 24 Goodman episode.
— A hilarious unscripted part with a dog almost attacking Adam for trying to hump it. Adam’s reaction is priceless.
— Not too sure about the premise itself, but it’s coming off pretty fun in the execution.
— Weak ending.
STARS: ***


RUSH AND HOWARD
Rush Limbaugh (DAA) manages to steal Howard Stern’s (MMK) act & entourage

— Nice to see Dan introducing a new impression, after bringing back so many of his old characters and impressions earlier tonight.
— A welcome return of Michael’s Howard Stern impression.
— I love Ellen’s impression of Robin Quivers’ hysterical laugh. Ellen’s better at imitating it here than she did in the previous McKean-as-Stern sketch from the preceding season.
STARS: ***


LOSERS
self-deluded losers (CSE), (DAS), (MOS), (host) can’t identify rejection

— Is this Elliott’s first appearance of the whole night?
— A rare occurrence of David actually showing effort in a performance this season. Why can’t his season 20 performances be like this more often?
— A solid premise that’s being executed well by the writing and by all the performances.
— Weird how this is the second sketch tonight to end with a group of people at a restaurant table having their photo taken.
STARS: ****


UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
trail of evidence fails to lead to origin of universe

— An interesting choice to bring back Dan’s Robert Stack impression, one of his more forgotten and underrated impressions from back in the day. I like how he’s now updated his Stack impression from the Untouchables-era one he used to do.
— Uh, I’m not really getting what the comedic through line here is supposed to be.
— That’s the whole sketch? I wanted this to be so much better than it was, especially since it included a rare occurrence this era of pre-taped outdoors footage.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Nautical Disaster”


COAL MINERS
coal miners (KEN), (host), (DAA), (MAM) tell anecdotes about cave-ins

— The sudden dark ending to Dan’s first story, with someone dying in a cave-in, is pretty funny.
— Ehh, now they’re just repeating the cave-in story endings over and over again. I guess this wouldn’t be a season 20 episode without at least ONE one-joke sketch.
— Very interesting seeing so many great performers paired together in one sketch, but damn, couldn’t they have been given some actual funny material here?
— Oh, no, now the laziness of this sketch has gotten to the point where we get a text crawl ending, a sketch-ending crutch that SNL occasionally relies on.
STARS: *½


DENVER AIRPORT
in new Denver Airport, (CSE) surveys interest in penis-measurement device
CSE says he’s leaving SNL to make penis-measurer, is shot Oswald-style

— After a nice long string of episodes earlier this season where we got a delightfully oddball Chris Elliott piece on a weekly basis, there’s sadly been a complete absence of them in the last few episodes. Glad to see it make a return tonight.
— I love John’s facial reaction to being asked about a hypothetical penis-measuring device.
— Kevin also has some great responses to the penis-measuring device hypothetical, such as “I would have to know more” and “Would the device itself be heated?”
— Very interesting turn with Elliott breaking the fourth wall to make a big announcement to us.
— I love Elliott revealing he’s leaving SNL after “10 glorious years as a cast member” (a nice extreme exaggeration of his tenure on the show) to invent a penis-measuring machine.
— I like hearing the audience’s gradual realization that the black-and-white backstage scene of Elliott walking away with Lorne and a man in a cowboy hat is a Lee Harvey Oswald parody.
— Excellent gunshot ending, and I absolutely LOVE the comically pained look on Elliott’s face during the freeze-frame.
— Overall, one of my absolute favorite sketches of this entire season, and is probably Chris Elliott’s greatest SNL moment.
STARS: *****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— One of the more popular episodes of this troubled season, and rightfully so. This was a great and very fun episode, and had a VERY atypical feel for this season. Of course, a big part of that atypical feel is due to the return of beloved things from the past, most of those things being from special guest Dan Aykroyd, who added much-needed life to the proceedings tonight (and might as well have been billed as tonight’s co-host if they were going to use him THIS heavily). I used to consider it a sad sign that they had to resort to bringing back old things from better days in order to have a truly strong episode this season (a move that, again, may have been fueled by the then-recent scathing New York Magazine article about the show), but that sadness has somewhat diminished for me now that my long-standing hatred of this season has recently softened to a degree while doing these reviews.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Paul Reiser)
a huge step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 11 rebel Damon Wayans hosts. We also get yet another new addition to this season’s cast.

Posted on

March 18, 1995 – Paul Reiser / Annie Lennox (S20 E15)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESS CONFERENCE
uneasy Newt Gingrich (CHF) meets the press with lesbian half-sister (MAM)

— Considering what season we’re in, I can already tell the lesbian premise probably won’t be handled well.
— This sketch feels really dead so far. Gingrich’s downplaying of his relation to his lesbian half-sister isn’t providing many laughs at all.
— That’s it? The cold opening’s over already? Well, this was a whole lot of nothing.
STARS: *½


MONOLOGUE
audience members ask non-expert host questions about their relationships

— I recall once hearing that during the week of this episode, Paul Reiser was interviewed on Letterman, and when asked about hosting SNL that weekend, Paul responded “Yeah, well, I always wanted to know what it’s like to be on a sinking ship”, acknowledging the notorious year SNL’s been having.
— Oof, this lame cab-hailing routine of Paul’s is getting this monologue off to a really rough start, and reminds me of how much I’ve always hated Paul’s stand-up comedy.
— Ugh, the St. Patrick’s Day/drunk kids bit he’s doing now isn’t any better.
— After a year-long absence, we suddenly get a comeback of season 19’s extremely overused questions-from-the-audience monologue trope. I don’t know whether to groan at the return of this or count my blessings that Paul’s awful stand-up comedy has gotten cut short for this.
— Unfortunately, the questions-from-the-audience bit isn’t helping the humor here at all.
— At the very end when the SNL Band is playing the show to commercial after Paul concludes the monologue, Molly accidentally enters the shot when getting ready to head backstage, before realizing her mistake and nervously ducking back out of the shot. I’ll chalk that gaffe up to a case of new cast member greenness.
STARS: *


THE DAILY PLANET
with Superman out of action, lesser superheroes address incoming meteor

— I’m a minute into this sketch so far, and I haven’t got a single laugh.
— Yeah, I’m now a little further into this sketch, and I don’t have any idea what to say about this dull, laughless tripe, nor do I have any idea what the comedic through line is even supposed to be.
— Not even a rare season 20 Norm sketch appearance is doing anything for this.
— Laura’s long-winded rant about Farley’s Tic-Tac-sized brain feels like something that would normally have been given to the recently-quit Janeane Garofalo. Laura’s delivery of the rant was okay at first and I really wanted to laugh at it, but she seemed to lose her confidence towards the end and concluded it kinda awkwardly.
— Oh, god, not another fucking newspaper headline ending. I got my fill of those in the Deion Sanders episode, thank you very much.
STARS: *


ROAD TO THE FINAL FOUR
(host) & (KEN) pretend to like women’s basketball

— I’ve been hearing the term “rebuilding year” being used a lot these last few episodes. Trying to tell us something, SNL?
— Much like my complaint about the similar Dick Vitale “women’s basketball isn’t a real sport!” bit in the Espy Awards sketch from the Deion Sanders episode, this sketch is not only painfully unfunny, but insulting and sexist too. A very unlikable tone to this sketch, and it really shows the toxic attitudes of the behind-the-scenes Boys Club at SNL this season.
— Poor Kevin Nealon, having to be dragged into this trash. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: why, oh, why couldn’t you have left with Phil last season, Kevin?
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “No More I Love Yous”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Jeff Foxworthy (DAS) gives tips on how to tell if you’re a tornado
Frank Dippy (ADS) & Hank Doodle (CHF) fail to give their viewpoints

— Oh, Norm, you are my only hope in this episode.
— David-as-Jeff-Foxworthy’s “You might be a tornado” routine kinda made me chuckle during the first few jokes, but it’s fizzled out FAST. At least David’s not half-assing this one QUITE as much as I recall him half-assing the second Jeff Foxworthy commentary he does later this season.
— Every time I’ve seen this episode, I always hate the Point/Counterpoint commentary from Farley and Sandler, which, to me, epitomizes the free rein those two performers are given way too much of at this late stage of their tenures.
— Norm’s joke about Michael Jordan’s baseball nickname being Senor Crappy has always been one of my favorite Norm Update jokes of all time.
STARS: ***½


SPARKLEBRITE
Sparklebrite toothpaste commercial prominently features interracial kiss

— What is with this season and miserable sketches dealing with ad execs pitching a commercial in a boardroom meeting? Nutriffic and now this tripe.
— I called the Road To The Final Four sketch earlier tonight insulting and sexist, but when it comes to being offensive, THIS sketch about the “uncomfortable” nature of an interracial kiss takes the cake.
— Another sketch tonight that hurts like hell to see Kevin heavily involved in. Put this, Road To The Final Four, Uncle Joe, and Gay Stripper Theater on the list of most embarrassing sketches that Kevin Nealon ever had a prominent role in. There may be a sketch or two I’m forgetting from this season.
— I’ve heard some people describe the “You’ll never go back… to other toothpastes” tagline as clever, but I’ve always found that joke groanworthy.
— Jay mentions in his SNL book that he was so zoned-out during this sketch that, at one point, he was worried that he may have forgotten to deliver a line earlier in the sketch, only for the sketch to end and him to realize that he didn’t even have any lines in this. Neither does Laura, for that matter. Why even have them there, then?
— Aaaaaand there goes the stock footage ending with Reiser and Elliott being murdered via exploding car, simply because they had the “gall” to pitch a commercial with an interracial kiss. A fitting insulting capper to this unbelievably insulting and unfunny sketch. A new low for SNL.
STARS: *


DAILY AFFIRMATION WITH STUART SMALLEY
Stuart tries to help his drunk cameraman (CHF)

— Probably the longest gap between Stuart Smalley installments since the character debuted. The last time this character appeared was way back in the second episode of this season.
— The premise of this installment kinda has shades of Margot Kidder’s season 4 monologue, right down to repeating the gag of the camera slumping down to the feet of someone who’s speaking to the camera. I wonder if Al Franken was the writer behind that Kidder monologue.
— Ho-hum, Farley playing yet another loud, hammy, boorish role. What else is new for season 20?
— One of the more forgotten Stuart Smalley installments, and for good reason. This is a lesser Stuart Smalley installment, and in my opinion, easily the weakest one. It’s a damn sad day when not even the usually-reliable Stuart Smalley sketches can be depended upon in tonight’s disastrous episode.
STARS: **


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


ALIENS 4: MAD ABOUT YOU ALIENS
(host) enjoys life with his xenomorph wife

— The premise itself probably isn’t all that bad, but the execution of it is PURE DEATH. Awful. The writers didn’t even try with this.
— Even something about the “Mad About You Aliens” title seems lame and half-assed.
— The bit with Jay fell completely flat.
STARS: *


DATING IN THE NINETIES
host mistakenly labeled as sexually inexperienced

— Molly has only been in the cast for two episodes so far, and it feels like she’s already had a more visible presence than both Laura and the recently-quit Janeane Garofalo have had most of the season so far. Molly has also been displaying a nice enthusiasm and likability in her performances that’s a breath of fresh air in this season’s mess of a cast.
— (*sigh*) Lord help me. Yet ANOTHER sketch tonight that is absolutely dead. My god, tonight’s episode is the sketch comedy equivalent of a fucking funeral dirge.
— God bless Norm (making his second rare season 20 sketch appearance of the night), who’s given me my ONLY laugh of this sketch so far.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Train In Vain”


ONE BROTHER
at the One Brother Restaurant, (host) explains oddly-named menu items

— Oh, FUCK OFF, tonight’s episode. Just fuck off. At this point, you’re TRYING to insult my intelligence.
— On an SNL messageboard, I recall seeing someone once describe this sketch as being like an unfunny version of the Abbott & Costello “Who’s On First” routine.
— Just to further prove my earlier point about what a messy mishmash of a cast this season has, we have Michael McKean, Chris Farley, Mark McKinney, and Kevin Nealon all seated together in this sketch. It’s so hard to believe all four of those performers were ever in the cast together.
— Why in the world did they have to shoehorn in Farley’s “Aww, I’m an idiot!” routine? It felt very out of place in this sketch, and just further shows how one-note Farley has gotten this season.
STARS: *


O’CALLAHAN & SON
O’Callahan (MMK) & Son (JAM) Pub owners berate wimpy beverage choices

— Well, at least this is a sketch that has a backstory that’s interesting, though pathetic: in a move of utter desperation after not getting anything on the air in a good while, Jay pitched a sketch that he stole, word-for-word, from a comedy routine that he saw stand-up comedian Rick Shapiro do, involving Irish bartenders berating the drinking choice of customers. Sometime shortly after tonight’s episode originally aired, SNL would get busted by Shapiro on their plagiarism, but when asked about it by Lorne, Jay denied knowing anything about Shapiro’s stand-up routine. SNL would get sued by Shapiro, and as a result, this sketch would be removed from all reruns and be replaced with a cut-after-dress Bruce McCulloch short film titled Eraserhead.
— Man, if Jay was going to steal a stand-up comedy routine, couldn’t it have been a FUNNY one? This sketch is pure blah. Plagiarism is shameful either way, but Jay should be particularly ashamed that he had to resort to plagiarizing such weak material for a sketch. Then again, I’ve never seen Rick Shapiro perform this in his stand-up. Maybe this material is funnier as a stand-up routine than as a sketch.
— Wow, is this Tim’s FIRST appearance all night, just playing a small walk-on straight man role in the final sketch of the episode? Okay, he was in the Sparklebright thing earlier (*shudder*), but his appearance in that was pre-taped.
— Farley, on the other hand, has appeared in practically EVERY SINGLE sketch tonight. And surprise surprise, he’s playing a loud character in this sketch. Oh, how new.
STARS: *½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Just three words: Lord. Have. Mercy.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (George Clooney)
a big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Our annual John Goodman episode, this time with special guest star Dan Aykroyd

Posted on

February 25, 1995 – George Clooney / The Cranberries (S20 E14)

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.

Posted on

February 18, 1995 – Deion Sanders / Bon Jovi (S20 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

SIMPSON JURY FIELD TRIP
O.J. Simpson (TIM) sways jurors during a field trip to his house

— Tim’s O.J. letting Ellen keep his Heisman Trophy is pretty funny.
— Ha, Mark takes over Mike Myers’ Judge Ito impression. Something about that re-casting cracks me up, for some reason.
— Just now, the party music was cued up too early and then quickly stopped.
— Not all that much to laugh at here overall, but I guess this had kind of a charm to it and was harmless enough. Maybe I’m just being somewhat lenient towards this because I know what tonight’s episode has in store for me.
STARS: **½


MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— My god, Deion’s exaggerated, corny delivery of “About a week ago, Lorne Michaels calls me up!!!” was CRINGEWORTHY.
— Deion equating SNL to a football team is awful.
— Hmm, interesting how during his “SNL is a football team” analogy, he calls SNL “a rebuilding effort”. I see SNL is acknowledging the rough year they’ve been having.
— Overall, not a single laugh to be had here, thus beginning the pure hell that is this episode.
STARS: *


MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION
other sources of income allow host to promote baseball strike solidarity

— My god, EVERY SINGLE TIME Deion lowers his hand on the podium (which he does at the end of EVERY sentence), his wristwatch makes a loud and distracting “clunk” sound on the podium’s wood. Every single time. The fact that there have been zero laughs in this sketch so far makes the “clunk” sounds even more noticeable.
— Boy, is Deion fumbling through his lines throughout this.
— Enough with the running gag with Deion’s ringing cellphone.
— This sketch is DEAD so far.
— Not even Farley’s John Kruk is doing anything for me here.
— Deion, in one of his many line flubs: “…..do what we can to make men’s ends meet.” Closest I’ve come to laughing at this whole damn sketch.
— Now we get a lousy newspaper headline ending, one of SNL’s laziest go-to sketch-ending tropes.
STARS: *


THE 1995 ESPY AWARDS
sports honors with John Goodman (CHF); Manute Bol cameo

— I love Chris Elliott and I love what he’s been bringing to SNL this season, but he’s no impressionist, as his take on Chris Berman is showing.
— The bit with Elliott’s Berman doing gimmicky variations of athlete’s surnames is just plain stupid, and not in the funny way.
— Speaking of lousy celebrity impressions, Farley as John Goodman.
— The constant cutaways to the same stock footage of a laughing Lou Diamond Phillips sums up season 20’s habit of relying on one joke over and over. Same goes for Farley-as-Goodman’s constant “The Mets suck” jokes.
— Speaking of lousy celebrity impressions, Adam as Bobcat Goldthwait.
— Random casting of Jon Bon Jovi, who looks almost unrecognizable here.
— Speaking of lousy celebrity impressions, EVERYONE ELSE IN THIS SKETCH.
— Oof, Manute Bol should’ve just left his SNL camoes one-and-done with his funny Majestic Caribbean Cruise commercial from the preceding season. He could barely get through his one line in tonight’s sketch without stumbling over practically EVERY SINGLE word.
— This sketch is death personified. How long can this overlong, laughless tripe continue to go on?
— Oh, now we’re getting insulting and sexist, with Jay’s Dick Vitale screaming angrily about how women’s basketball is “not a real sport”. This is another bit in this sketch that sums up some of the problems of season 20. Oh, and even better, we soon end up getting an entire fucking sketch based on the “who cares about women’s basketball?” sentiment, when Paul Reiser hosts a few episodes later.
— The bizarre award show categories are just plain dumb, even if that’s the point. “Biggest stadium”??? WTF? This ain’t funny.
— Janeane’s Susan Sarandon, regarding a list she and Mark’s Tim Robbins are about to read off: “If you think sitting through this list will be excruciating torture…..” No, Janeane, excruciating torture would be sitting through this sketch.
— Overall, a quintessential example of SNL’s poor track record with award show sketches. Probably the all-time worst award show sketch in SNL history.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Always”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Operaman sings about Colin Ferguson, Demi Moore, Brad Pitt, more

— Here comes Norm to give me my first big laughs of the whole night.
— TONS of O.J. jokes tonight, most of them gold.
— Our first instance of what would go on to be a recurring Norm gag, with the punchline of a joke being Norm flashing a whole bunch of money while greedily saying “Don’t I know it!”
— Operaman makes his first appearance in a year, and his final appearance during Adam’s tenure as a cast member. Feels odd seeing him in a Norm Macdonald Update, as I’m so used to seeing him in Kevin Nealon Updates.
— Operaman is on fire tonight.
— Ha, Norm has a bad habit of often accidentally referring to Adam Sandler Update characters as “Adam Sandler” before correcting himself.
— I love hearing the audience reaction to Norm’s so-wrong-but-priceless “Best retard” joke about Tom Hanks and Jodie Foster.
STARS: ****½


JUGGERNAUT FORCE
mission into UFO leaves macho commandos naked, defensive, emasculated

— A particularly notorious sketch from this already notorious episode.
— Holy hell, there goes the famous blooper with Farley’s accidental mooning when his pants fall off (the sixth above screencap for this sketch). I’m certainly laughing, but it’s a sad day when the sight of Farley’s bare entire ass is one of the very few highlights of an episode.
— Speaking of which, when talking about this Farley mooning incident in his SNL book, Jay Mohr says that as Farley pulled his pants back up, Farley accidentally hit his head on the top of the spaceship’s entrance, resulting in him yelling “SON OF A!”
— Ugh at all the gay panic and typical season 20 homophobia in this sketch.
— My god (have I said that enough in this review?), the tedious, non-stop cutaways to newspaper headlines is driving me INSANE. I understand that SNL is probably showing all of those headlines so the cast can do quick changes, but at least make the headlines HUMOROUS.
— Now Elliott almost has an accidental mooning incident of his own, as his pants almost fall down as he’s running up the spaceship stairs, and you can almost see his crack.
— This sketch feels ENDLESS and just keeps getting worse and worse and worse as it progresses.
— I swear to God, if they show one more newspaper headline…
— Finally, this abomination is over.
STARS: *


RAP CONCERT
rappers (host), (TIM), (ADS) perform short songs with simple lyrics

 

— Hoo, boy. Every time it seems like a sketch is the lowest that tonight’s episode can sink, SNL manages to keep outdoing themselves by following it with a new worst sketch that would go to live on in infamy.
— Michael introduces himself as “JD Smooth”. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why that name is interesting in retrospect.
— Speaking of Michael, what the bloody hell is he, of all people, doing playing an urban, hip-hop character in a setting like this? Or is it an intentional throwaway joke that such a character is played by the oldest, whitest guy in the cast?
— This sketch was originally cut after dress rehearsal from the preceding season’s Martin Lawrence episode. In that version, I believe Rob Schneider played McKean’s role.
— What’s with the odd, awkward long pause just now before Tim spoke?
— “Peace, we outta here” as the only joke repeated a billion times in a four-minute sketch…… Goddammit, SNL. The only good thing about this is that it gave the That Week In SNL podcast their immortal sign-off line.
— Ladies and gentlemen, I am practically comatose by this point of tonight’s episode. The horribleness of tonight’s episode has officially broken me.
STARS: who gives a fuck anymore?


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night”


PERSPECTIVES
Lionel Osbourne & director of boys’ athletic club (host)

— Finally, a silver lining.
— Nice to see this sketch officially become recurring.
— Oh, dear. The awful character voice Deion is speaking in is threatening to derail this sketch. Don’t ruin my precious Perspectives, Deion!
— The whole bit with the five New York boroughs is really funny.
— Great bit at the end regarding an immediate rebroadcast of this episode of Perspectives.
— Overall, a solid sketch in itself, but Deion’s dreadful delivery in this (which I admit I might’ve considered “so bad, it’s good” in a better episode) made this not quite as strong as it otherwise would’ve been.
STARS: ***½


HOT DOG FOR JASON
to help a sick boy (CHF), host hotdogs & taunts opponents during a game

— Unlike many of the other atrocious sketches tonight, there’s nothing all that wrong with this sketch’s premise, but the resulting sketch is still a complete flop and is providing zero laughs. I’m sure an episode with better writing could’ve gotten SOMETHING out of this premise.
— I can’t find anything else to say about this. By this point of tonight’s episode, I’ve completely run out of negative things to say about bad sketches tonight.
STARS: blaaagh


RAPPING DEION
host performs “Must Be The Money” & “It’s On”

— OH. MY. GOD.
— Deion’s blatant lipsyncing, his ridiculous spastic “dancing”, his outfit, the attitude he’s attempting to pull off, the mere idea to even give him a segment like this… all of this is making this the unintentionally funniest segment of tonight’s entire episode.


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— …………………………………………………………………..Yeah, I got nothin’. I’m pretty much speechless after sitting through this unbelievable trainwreck of an episode. Worst episode ever? It certainly may be.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Bob Newhart)
the biggest step down imaginable


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
George Clooney hosts. It’s also the abrupt end of the road for a frustrated Janeane Garofalo, as well as the beginning of the road for a certain new female hire.