February 24, 1996 – Elle MacPherson / Sting (S21 E14)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HOTEL
Pat Buchanan (DAK) manhandles Steve Forbes (MAM) into giving him money

— A nice use of the republican candidates.
— Norm’s Dole impression finally starts receiving the audience applause that it deserves.
— I like the part with Norm’s Dole and Molly blatantly vamping for time while Mark is off-camera getting cables attached to him.
— A funny visual of Mark’s Forbes hanging from a light fixture by a wedgie.
— Very cool how during his “Live from New York…”, Mark gets lifted up into the air, stopping in front of the audience members in the bleacher seats. A fun change of pace for a “Live from New York…”.
STARS: ***½

OPENING MONTAGE
— After sounding very sick during the last episode, Don Pardo is out tonight with a case of laryngitis. Darrell Hammond fills in for him, for his first of several times during Don’s tenure as SNL announcer.
— It doesn’t even sound like Darrell is attempting to imitate Don’s voice here, like he later would do in the James Van Der Beek episode from season 24 (remember the monologue from that episode?). He’s just using a generic announcer’s voice tonight. In fact, he’s using pretty much the same generic announcer’s voice that he would later go on to use regularly when becoming SNL’s official announcer after Don’s death.

MONOLOGUE
while host speaks, on-screen text goes on about her physical attributes

— Yes! We get a Buck Henry-esque text crawl monologue. I always like these throwbacks to the original era.
— Several funny lines in the onscreen text, especially “Elle MacPherson makes my wife looks like she has rickets”, “Oh, no, what if my wife’s watching?…. Who am I kidding? Nobody’s watching.” Sadly, there’s probably a little truth to that “Nobody’s watching” line. I believe it’s not until season 22 where SNL would regain most of the viewers they lost during seasons 19-20.
— Very funny cutaway to SNL writer Hugh Fink in the audience, being ridiculed in the onscreen text for looking like a dork and actually paying attention to what Elle is saying. Haha, poor Hugh Fink always gets picked on when he plays an audience member during a host’s monologue. Remember Cameron Diaz’s monologue from season 24?
STARS: ***½

A.M. ALE
Rerun from 9/30/95

SWIM MEET
irrepressible Craig & Arianna try to bring spirit to a swim meet

— Will and Cheri’s performances as the Cheerleaders are still fun, but yeah, I’ve officially run out of things to say about these two characters and, as I explained in the last installment, I’ve officially reached the inevitable point where I’m starting to develop a slow burn towards them.
— The “taco, burrito, what’s that comin’ out of your speedo?” number is memorable, at least.
— I do like how we’re getting a little more insight into the Cheerleaders’ relationship with each other.
— SNL sure loves throwing a scantily-clad Tim Meadows into sketches.
STARS: **½

RECORDING SESSION
jazz pianist (TIM) voices inappropriate catchphrases during a session

— A wonderfully goofy Tim Meadows performance, and a quintessential example of how great he is at performing silly material like this.
— Tim’s random pop culture catchphrase quotes during his jazz sessions are hilarious, made even funnier by his gleeful delivery.
— We get a meta reference with Tim’s latest catchphrase quote being “Morgan Fairchild, yeah, that’s the ticket!”
— Great ending with the “Pac-Man Fever” album title.
STARS: ****½

FRESH FACE MODELING CONTEST
Mary Katherine Gallagher & (host) compete in a teen modelling contest

— I guess it was inevitable that we’d eventually get an episode that features both the Cheerleaders AND Mary Katherine Gallagher. I’d better get used to this, considering the HUGE oversaturation we’re going to get of these two recurring sketches in the upcoming season 22, one of the things I’m kinda dreading about that season. I’ve always joked to myself that I don’t think there’s a single season 22 episode that DOESN’T feature either a Cheerleaders, Mary Katherine Gallagher, or Roxbury Guys sketch. (I’m sure that in actuality, there are at least a few season 22 episodes that don’t feature any of those three sketches, but you get my point.)
— After not having the audience 100% on her side yet in her first three sketches, Mary Katherine Gallagher finally receives recognition applause and lots of hearty audience laughter throughout this sketch.
— Ha, Darrell doing a Jon Lovitz impression! Between the preceding sketch’s “That’s the ticket” reference and now Darrell’s impression, Jon Lovitz’s repertoire is getting a big workout in tonight’s episode.
— The debut of Cheri’s supporting character in these Mary Katherine Gallagher sketches, who always speaks in a fast manner and always holds onto her own arm.
— MKG and Elle trying to pose over each other in front of the camera is pretty funny.
— A particularly large amount of panty flashes from MKG in tonight’s installment.
— Will’s giving me some good laughs in his great performance as the straight man.
— An overall pretty good MKG sketch. Not my favorite appearance of this character, but I’ve always considered both this and the one with Teri Hatcher later this season to be the most representative installment of this recurring sketch.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Lucien & Fagin remain big NOM fans, even after he reproaches them

— Hmm, Norm’s jokes are a bit tame and forgettable so far tonight, for his standards.
— Even Norm’s obligatory O.J. joke of the night didn’t quite land as well as it normally would.
— Okay, Norm’s jokes are now starting to get a little better, especially the instance of another classic “crack” joke.
— I guess to complete tonight’s trifecta of overused season 21 recurring characters, we have another appearance from The Fops.
— A big laugh from The Fops describing themselves as becoming “moist” by Norm.
— I love Mark’s big open-mouthed smile after saying “paisley” in that typical deep voice he always uses as his Fop character.
— Wow, Norm gives The Fops a reality check by harshly calling them out on their many problems, temporarily breaking their spirit (before they immediately go back to fawning over Norm, for his brutal honesty).
— Haha, we get a particularly long camera staredown during tonight’s instance of Norm’s recurring “Or so the Germans would have us believe” joke (last screencap above). This staredown hilariously goes on for almost 20 seconds.
STARS: ***

REDENBACHER HOLIDAY THEATRE
holiday special tells the story of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

— Wow, a very out-of-the-ordinary sketch. I’m enjoying the ambitious and fun nature of this.
— Ha, a random appearance from T-Bones, appearing for the second consecutive episode.
— Lots of Adam McKay appearances tonight.
— Will and Tim are funny as a singing-and-dancing silicon and saline implant.
— Wow at Nancy dumping a whole open bag of potato chips into her mouth. That came out of nowhere.
— Speaking of T-Bones randomly appearing, we now get another random recurring character appearance: Cheri’s Mickey The Dyke.
— The ending came off awkward. Something seemed off about the timing.
STARS: ***½

COMA
Stan Hooper wakes from coma & insists his wife & sister must be reversed

— A very busy night for Will, appearing in almost every single sketch.
— I love Stan Hooper’s “Good god! Why’d you wake me up?!?” response when learning the pathetic details of his life.
— A lot of good laughs from Hooper trying to find a way around his sibling relation to Elle so he can have sex with her.
— Cheri’s frumpy voice in this sketch kinda reminds me of a typical Robin Duke character. I guess that makes sense, as there’s always been a pretty strong facial resemblance between Cheri and Robin.
— The text crawl ending wasn’t as terrible as it often is in other sketches, but I still can’t help but feel like it was a lazy cop-out for this sketch.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “You Still Touch Me”

1-600-555-AUSSIE
callers can’t comprehend Australian phone sex operators’ dirty talk

— Geez, only a few seconds into this sketch, and Elle ALREADY starts cracking up in the middle of her opening line, for no apparent reason.
— I love Jim’s confused “Whaaat?!” in response to Molly’s dirty Australian slang terms.
— Nancy has a lot of funny lines, especially her request for Koechner to do her “Yahoo Serious style”.
— I remember the first time I saw this sketch, in a Comedy Central rerun, I didn’t even recognize Sting as the leather daddy.
— Ha, there’s Tim working in his tongue-clicking routine, which he does whenever he talks in fake foreign dialect in sketches.
STARS: ****

FUZZY MEMORIES BY JACK HANDEY
the fate of mom’s exquisite Easter eggs

MISS MANNERS
on a first date, (JMB) cuts mannerless but gorgeous (host) lots of slack

— I like Tim’s “I’m just a waiter, man” when Jim is going on and on to him about his approaching date for the evening.
— When taking Jim and Elle’s order, I like Tim’s deadpan “Alright, nothing for the lady” after she makes him sniff the inside of her shoe.
— More out-of-character laughing from Elle, though this time, I’m KINDA laughing along with her. Jim is doing a solid job trying to keep the sketch going with some good ad-libs.
— Elle’s character kinda feels like a precursor to Kristen Wiig’s Shana character (a sexy office worker who would do uncharacteristically disgusting things).
— Another great one-liner from Tim, telling Jim “Get out while you can” in response to a particularly weird thing Elle does.
— I’m having a hard time understanding Elle’s lines, between her constant laughing, her accent, and her talking with her mouth full of food.
— Okay, this sketch is getting dumb. I’m over this.
— Geez, now Elle is accidentally choking on her food a bit. What a disaster she is in this sketch. God bless Jim, though, for again trying his damnedest to save the sketch with another good ad-lib: “People choke, whaddaya gonna do?”
STARS: **

FUZZY MEMORIES BY JACK HANDEY
Rerun from 12/16/95

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Even though there wasn’t much that I disliked tonight, this episode had a bit of a “meh” feel for this season’s standards. I feel like my rating average doesn’t match my feelings for this episode as a whole. Even Norm’s Weekend Update wasn’t up to par. And there was too much reliance on overexposed recurring characters, which is part of what attributed to the lazy feel of this episode. I can’t complain too much, though, because there was still a large number of things that I liked tonight, especially Tim’s Recording Session sketch. As a host, Elle MacPherson performed the way you’d expect a supermodel with little-to-no acting experience to perform.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tom Arnold)
a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Our annual John Goodman episode. We also get a newly-hired addition to the cast.