Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
CHILD CUSTODY HEARING
at child custody hearing, O.J. Simpson (TIM) admits murder guilt
— Another O.J. Trial cold opening, for the second consecutive episode.
— I love Tim’s O.J. trying to guess when Black History Month is, going through each month but skipping February.
— Much like the last O.J. Trial cold opening, quite a number of things in this are tickling me, but this one isn’t quite as funny as the last opening.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
MAS talks about the ups & downs of SNL & sings about the show’s history
— Martin’s doing a good job comically milking the applause at the beginning.
— The SNL nerd in me absolutely loves Martin’s rundown of the up-and-down evolution of SNL, saying stuff like “First it was hip, then it got bad but was still hip, then it got… etc.” And then after all of that, he says “And then its second season started…”
— The pre-taped scene of Martin’s dinner with Lorne is great.
— I love the SNL backdrop that’s brought onstage behind Martin as he begins his SNL song.
— Fantastic SNL song from Martin, musically listing off a number of hosts from each SNL decade.
— Now the song is getting even better, with Martin going up a fancy set of stairs and eventually going into the audience. Very fun.
— Excellent conclusion to Martin’s song, with him swinging towards the home base stage on a grappling hook and busting through the aforementioned SNL backdrop. They’re going all out on this monologue.
STARS: *****
CELEBRITY JEOPARDY
Sean Connery (DAH), Burt Reynolds (NOM), Jerry Lewis (MAS)
— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring sketch debut! Words cannot express how excited I am to reach the debut of this now-legendary recurring sketch.
— There’s the first sighting of what would go on to be a Celebrity Jeopardy staple: the category “Potent Potables”.
— Funny how primitive this debut of Celebrity Jeopardy feels compared to later installments. That being said, this debut still has many of the Celebrity Jeopardy features that you’d now expect.
— Darrell’s Sean Connery misreading “’s’ words” as “swords” gets the honor of being Celebrity Jeopardy’s very first classic category misreading.
— As always, a great Jerry Lewis impression from Martin.
— I love Darrell-as-Connery’s angry delivery of “It begun with a bloody ‘s’!”
— Norm’s Burt Reynolds impression, making its debut, is absolutely slaying me.
— Darrell’s Connery is noticeably less vulgar than he would memorably go on to eventually be in these sketches.
— Each contestant’s written Final Jeopardy answer is hilarious.
— Overall, a strong debut for this sketch, though there are definitely even funnier installments of this sketch to come.
STARS: ****½
MARTHA STEWART’S HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: TOPLESS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
Martha Stewart’s (ANG) topless Christmas special showcases holiday tips
— Another important debut tonight, as we get the very first appearance of Ana’s Martha Stewart impression!
— And what a way for Ana’s Martha Stewart to debut. The classic Topless Christmas Special sketch!
— This sketch is a perfect combo of an incredible, dead-on celebrity impression and a priceless random, raunchy concept, and it’s being executed perfectly.
— Ana continues to impress me as a new cast member. So far, her first season has been better than I had remembered. She’s been doing quite a lot of solid stuff so far. Even her one-note Kincaid character, who I used to find really annoying when I was younger, has been giving me some laughs while I’ve been reviewing this season (though I still feel she should’ve been a one-appearance-only character).
— I love the scene that starts with a tight closeup of Ana-as-Martha-Stewart’s face, where it looks like she’s wearing a red turtleneck sweater, only for the camera to zoom out and reveal that the neck portion of the sweater is the ONLY thing she’s wearing as a top.
— Ana’s rhythmic chest-shaking at the end is hilarious.
STARS: *****
ED GRIMLEY IN HEAVEN
Ed Grimley is sent back from Heaven’s gate by (CHC) to live a little
— The great vibes in tonight’s episode continue, as we get the obligatory return of Ed Grimley.
— I like the callback to the old traditional gag of Grimley’s delayed reaction to taking out a hot pot from the oven without wearing oven mitts.
— Yes! And there’s Grimley’s priceless triangle dance. I’m surprised it’s getting such a muted reaction from the audience tonight.
— A random Chevy Chase cameo, which unfortunately reminds me that we have a particularly weak hosting stint from him coming up later this season.
— At least Chevy seems more enthusiastic here than I recall him being in his aforementioned hosting stint from later this season.
— I like the ridiculously brief “highlight reel” of Grimley’s life.
— Funny visual of Grimley trying to give mouth-to-mouth to his fish by putting half of the fish’s body into his mouth.
STARS: ****
THE ROXBURY GUYS
Roxbury Guys initiate foreigner Jaleel (MAS) into NYC nightclub life
— SNL continues their futile attempt to catch lightning in a bottle twice after the success of the Jim Carrey installment of Roxbury Guys.
— I like the shot of Martin’s pet goat rhythmically bopping its head like the Roxbury Guys.
— Boy, SNL sure loves throwing Tim in drag.
— Wow, I’ve never heard “What Is Love” go on this long during a Roxbury Guys sketch. We’re now hearing a verse that we usually never hear in these sketches.
— Overall, much like I said in the Tom Hanks installment of this sketch earlier this season, I found this Roxbury Guys installment somewhat fun to watch, despite it coming nowhere close to the untouchable Jim Carrey installment. However, I’m noticing that said fun feel of these Roxbury Guys sketches is slowly starting to subside for me. Uh-oh.
STARS: ***
WEEKEND UPDATE
Lenny The Lion describes his difficulties with the health care system
— A Donald Trump joke that interestingly ends with the punchline “…just in case there are a few people out there who still don’t hate him.” And remember, folks, this is 1996 that this joke is being told in.
— The second and, I believe, final Lenny The Lion appearance from Colin.
— Some laughs from Lenny The Lion, and the writing isn’t bad, but I’m not finding this commentary particularly hilarious. I do like him making a big deal about how turning his head to the side is “my move”.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Don’t Speak”
THE BARBARA WALTERS SPECIAL
Jackie Rogers, Jr. relives past pain
— Another great obligatory appearance from a Martin Short character, as we now get Jackie Rogers Jr.
— During the opening title sequence, I love the clips we see of a few Jackie Rogers Jr. appearances from season 10, including the classic Jackpot Wad sketch.
— Interesting seeing Martin and Cheri paired together, as I recall someone once pointing out a strong facial resemblance between them.
— Very funny clip of a drunken Jackie humping Miss Piggy.
— I love Jackie’s duet with the voice of his late father.
STARS: ****
MOSTLY USED MATTRESSES
Larry Azaria’s (MAM) Mostly Used Mattresses contain no live bacteria
— It’s great to see Mark starring in an absurdist sketch, especially given his extreme lack of noteworthy roles this season.
— I got a good laugh from the male/female picture of SNL writer Frank Sebastiano.
— I love the little detail of a huge blood stain on one of the mattresses in the background (the second above screencap for this sketch).
— I like the questionable testimonial from Martin as a doctor.
— Mark is doing a fantastic job with this delightfully bizarre material. Aaaaand as no surprise, the audience is completely dead.
STARS: ****
THE TERRY GANTNER FAMILY WORKOUT
chop breaks hand instead of board
— A perfectly cheesy upbeat Will Ferrell performance so far.
— A priceless reaction from Will when hurting his hand during his failed attempt to break the wooden board in half. I especially love him repeatedly asking “WHAT KIND OF WOOD WAS THAT?!?”
— This is the kind of thing that only Will Ferrell could make funny. I can’t imagine what this overly simplistic sketch looked like on paper, but Will is really making it come alive in the way that only he could.
— I love how the show just randomly ends while Will is still in the middle of yelling in pain.
STARS: ****½
THE TINSELTOWN TATTLER WITH PINKY NYE
absentminded star confidant (MAS) & actress (MOS)
— I’m not familiar with this character of Martin’s, but it looks promising. Although I do recall someone on an SNL messageboard once saying that this is a really bad sketch.
— I like the random running gag with Martin’s character bumping his head into the boom mic. I’d like to think that this is Martin spoofing a certain blooper that happened to his season 10 castmate Christopher Guest during the Ed Grimley/Wheel Of Fortune Interview sketch from the first episode of season 10, but I highly doubt the reference is intentional.
— Martin and Molly’s delivery seems unusually sloppy, with them both botching some of their lines.
— Martin’s character’s ridiculous obsession with the show “Hart To Hart” is pretty funny.
— Overall, not a particularly memorable sketch, but not bad, despite some sloppiness in Martin and Molly’s delivery. Definitely not as bad of a sketch as I had heard it was.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Excuse Me Mr.”
HAPPY HOLIDAY TALES
Mickey The Dyke decides to come out to her family
— Interesting use of Cheri’s Mickey The Dyke.
— I like Mickey The Dyke’s conversation with the Leather Mouse puppet.
— After Mickey’s big coming-out announcement, I got a laugh from Mark telling her in a “cheesy TV dad” manner “We don’t love you anymore, we’re just too narrow-minded, you’ll have to leave.”
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode, and definitely my favorite of the season so far. This episode was mostly filled with exceptionally great sketches, and we got two classics (Monologue and Martha Stewart’s Topless Christmas Special). Martin Short also deserves part of the credit for this episode’s strength, as he was a very solid host as expected, and made this a consistently fun episode with his performances and reliable character work.
— And thus ends SNL’s run of five consecutive episodes hosted by former cast members. This experiment was a blast, and makes me wish SNL did stuff like this more often, having a string of consecutive episodes that have some kind of connected theme, whether it be SNL alum hosts or any other fun idea.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Phil Hartman)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Rosie O’Donnell hosts the Christmas episode, with special guest Penny Marshall
Wow, I’ve seen the Topless Martha Stewart and the Family Workout sketches a lot and didn’t realize they were from this episode.
While the Celebrity Jeopardy sketches would evolve (the Connery characterization and accent would change a lot), it’s interesting that they basically are exactly the same format from the get-go, but it’s such a reliable, solid format that nobody minds.
I always mentally place Topless Martha Stewart in the Rosie/Whitney episode, since it always felt like that one had wall-to-wall holiday sketches. Not true, of course, but I digress.
Pinky Nye was a precursor to Jiminy Glick for
Martin
I distinctly remember this episode from seeing it in rerun form around August 1997 on a satellite feed. It was an East Coast feed without commercial inserts, so the SNL Band’s songs weren’t obscured, even if it was just audio over a logo still.
To later have Short as a waiter in a 2013 Five-Timers Club sketch…well, Short brings the sort of hosting energy that Steve Martin sometimes brings, and Chevy Chase usually brings in negative form before he’s reduced to perma-cameo status. Short doesn’t do SNL enough.
Of course we have Eugene Levy to thank for Celebrity Jeopardy, as he gave Norm MacDonald permission to use a SCTV sketch Levy wrote as inspiration for the sketches.
Half-Wits? Wow. I thought there were similarities but I didn’t know Norm contacted Eugene. The things you learn on the blogs.
Wait so who wrote the other Celebrity Jeopardy sketches after Norm got fired? I always thought Adam McKay wrote those originally.
Steve Higgins wrote them I believe after Norm left
I think Higgins and Norm collaborated on the early ones, and then Higgins was sort of the main writer for all of the ones afterwards (perhaps later on in collaboration with others, a la Barry Gibb Talk Show).
While I don’t think McKay wrote any of them in their entirety, he helped write some of the early ones IIRC
It’s funny to see how subdued Hammond’s Sean Connery is in the First Celebrity Jeopardy sketch. Even so, his “Swords” snafu is hilarious and Martin and Norm are also hilarious in this. Perfect launch for the long-running sketch.
This episode was another that ended up feeling very disjointed to me, mostly because Martin never quite blends into the show itself – even his (hilarious) turn in Celebrity Jeopardy is sort of locked into itself. The Ed Grimley piece I would have cut as it didn’t add much of anything and Chevy’s garbled cameo sort of hurt the episode’s energy level. The monologue also could have lost about a minute – mostly some of the prattle about SNL’s history, as it went on so long that his funny punch line (all the craziness happened in just one season) fell flat. I did like the mattress sketch he did with Mark – it had SCTV vibes, and deserved a better audience response. The Jackie Rogers Jr. piece felt like a strong performance trying to hide somewhat tired material, but I did laugh at his overegged reactions to Baba Wawa’s canned old lines. The Roxbury Guys was pretty much the usual, but Martin’s rubbery facial expressions were perfect for this sketch.
The Mickey sketch could have been a highlight with some changes. Cheri gave a very good performance – she really put her heart into it. Kattan was mugging it up as her kid brother even though he was meant to be in a supporting role; I wish they’d recast him. The punch line of Will saying a real man could turn her didn’t get any real audience reaction because the conceit of the writing (oh this is a pro-gay sketch…wait no it isn’t, ha ha) never came through in the execution. So it just felt like a cheap gag.
Martha Stewart’s Topless Christmas is absolutely perfect and, as you said, that Ana Gasteyer was turning this out only months into her first season is incredible. How often would you ever have a new cast member getting a well-filmed pre-tape like this, trusting the audience enough to appreciate her and to laugh? Very rarely. And to think this didn’t just get laughs at the time – it would go on to be repeated for decades to come. What made her Martha so brilliant was that she didn’t try to play up some kind of hypocrisy or hard edge as much as she just played the utter absurdity underneath normality that is Martha Stewart (an absurdity Martha herself has embraced over the years).
I think Norm flubbed a line in the cold open (saying Tim skipped April instead of February). Tim smoothed it over like a champ.
This is one of my favorite shows of all time and helped turn me into an SNL superfan.
The Vintage SNL this week.
They made some weird choices with the re-run. They included Tinsel town but cut Topless Martha Stewart & Ed Grimley. I literally have no idea why anyone would make that choice.
The Trebek tribute was nice, at least.
I’m watching it now. That’s lame.
Wow, I had totally forgotten the Martha Stewart bit was in this episode. Crazy to cut that out. I wasn’t surprised they cut out some stuff due to age, but I would have thought one of Martin’s recurring characters would make it. And I was hoping for the mattress piece.
Given Norm’s Update material I’m surprised any of that got through in 2020…
It was cool seeing a Norm Update. Bummed at what they cut out. I wonder how much of it was timing. Plus the monologue goes on forever.
The first 50 seconds of Celebrity Jeopardy are totally different in the live version of the episode. Connery simply mumbles “Hello”, while in the dress version shown in reruns, his response is much friendlier. Reynolds says “How ya doin’?” in the dress version, while he’s silent in the live version. Jerry Lewis also delivers his “Yeah, we’re gonna need it!” line too early in the live version.
This seemed like a feel good returning cast member show as Short had nothing to promote here. (Jungle 2 Jungle came out 3 months after this)
That seemed to be an early theme of this season as much of the returning cast members weren’t really promoting anything (Downey especially was in a lull in his career)
@Jared DiCarlo I noticed that too. Another giveaway is that there are a few shots in which the placards featuring the contestants’ names were made from cardboard.
@Strummer I’d argue that Phil and Martin’s hosting stints coincided with movies they were starring in. Phil had Jingle all the Way coming out the weekend he hosted, while Martin was in Mars Attacks, which debuted the week after he hosted.
You’re right. For some reason I had remembered Mars Attacks as a summer release