Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
WELL BABIES TRAGEDY
the McCaughey septuplets have fallen into a well & the media loves it
— This season, SNL seems to like doing cold openings that start with actual footage of then-current NBC sitcoms, before they get interrupted by a “special report”. In a cold opening earlier this season, the interrupted sitcom was “Men Behaving Badly”, and now it’s what appears to be a Jenny McCarthy sitcom that I have no memory of.
— A hilarious random premise of famous septuplets from this time period becoming trapped in a well.
— I love the “Well Babies Tragedy” graphic, made even funnier by the sound effects played during it.
— I have no idea what the real McCaugheys look like, but Molly’s look as Mrs. McCaughey is very funny.
— Great bit with Jim’s Mr. McCaughey talking about how he heard seven splashes and responded “Nooooo….” seven times. Solid delivery from Jim there.
— This sketch is so fleshed-out that we even get a cutaway to a press conference held by Darrell’s Bill Clinton addressing the tragedy. His message is hilariously brief and generic.
— Funny interview with a Cheri as a now-pre-teen, cigarette-smoking Baby Jessica.
— I love Will-as-Brian-Williams’ increasing greediness and pride towards getting the honor of covering this story.
— A big laugh from Ana’s way of getting rid of Chris’ Geraldo Rivera.
— Will’s Brian Williams, regarding the “Well Babies Tragedy” graphic: “Damn, that’s a kick-ass graphic!”
— A particularly funny part where, when telling us he’s not going anywhere during this breaking news coverage, Will’s Brian Williams says “I got a bag of Snickers and a piss jar under this desk”, which he shows to us. That’s always been my favorite part of this cold opening.
— For some reason, I enjoyed the freaky way the fake gummy teeth that Molly’s wearing made her look when she shouted “Live from New York…” at the end.
STARS: ****½
OPENING MONTAGE
— “A Cartoon by Robert Smigel” is credited, but the cartoon itself never ends up airing tonight. I guess the show ran long and they had to cut the cartoon for time at the last minute.
MONOLOGUE
host, Ernie Sabella [real], cast go worry-free & sing “Hakuna Matata”
— I’m really looking forward to seeing this. As I mentioned in the preceding season in my review of Mike Myers’ monologue, which I absolutely loved, tonight’s Nathan Lane monologue is in a similar style to the Myers monologue, and I haven’t seen this one in ages.
— I like Nathan casually reading a newspaper during his monologue.
— A laugh from Ana and Nathan’s comical put-downs of the song Hakuna Matata, such as Nathan calling it, with a smile, “One of the most irritating songs ever written.”
— A cameo from the voice of Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella)! Just hearing him doing the Pumbaa voice in this monologue is bringing back childhood memories.
— And now we begin the around-the-studio Hakuna Matata musical number that I was looking forward to. This reminds me that Comedy Central’s old 60-minute version of this episode would cut out the entire musical portion of this monologue, abruptly fading to black immediately after Nathan says “Who the hell cares?” and throws his newspaper in the air. I’m assuming the reason for the edit is due to music licensing issues regarding Hakuna Matata. Makes you wonder why they didn’t edit out the entire monologue instead of only leaving in the least interesting part. The Comedy Central edits of episodes from 1994-1999 in general had a lot of baffling and sloppy edits, especially the upcoming season 24.
— I like the make-up bit with Darrell’s Ted Koppel.
— This is the second time this season where a host makes a dig at Chris Kattan for typically playing characters that don’t speak. Thankfully, unlike Matthew Perry earlier this season, Nathan Lane doesn’t fuck up the joke.
— Good bit with an injured, half-conscious Will laying on a stretcher due to a mishap from rehearsals.
— When expressing doubts towards the Hakuna Matata philosophy, Tim says “I used that attitude around here, and then I was in 3 sketches in, like, 5 years.” A good self-deprecating dig at how underused Tim was in his early seasons.
— An epic visual of Lorne doing an electric guitar solo.
— Much like earlier in the monologue, we get another comical put-down of the Hakuna Matata song, with Nathan proudly making sure to let us know “This is the last time you’ll hear me sing this stupid song!”
— A dazed, head-bandaged Will awkwardly trying to join in on the group’s singing at the end is funny, and reminds me of the monologue he would later do when hosting SNL in 2018, in which he comes out onstage with a bleeding head scar and proceeds to act very out-of-it while singing a song with nonsense lyrics.
— Overall, while this didn’t measure up to the Mike Myers monologue, I still found this a lot of fun.
STARS: ****½
CHESS FOR GIRLS
changing the game’s rules & goals broadens the appeal
— Kind of a stretch of a premise, as chess isn’t really considered a boy-dominated game, last time I checked.
— Some laughs from the over-the-top girly, un-chess-like uses of the chess pieces.
STARS: ***
SPARTANS DREAM
Craig & Arianna dream they’re popular; Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders cameo
— An interesting change of pace seeing Craig and Arianna at home, speaking to each other over the phone.
— The dream sequence is adding a bit of a different feel to Craig and Arianna’s cheers.
— I like Craig’s “I’d like to find… my real birth mother” lyric during one particular cheer.
— Some fun, out-of-the-ordinary things happening to Craig and Arianna throughout this dream sequence.
— Funny line from Nathan’s coach character about Craig and Arianna getting their passports stamped to Dryhumpville.
— Now we get an appearance from the real Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
STARS: ***
THE QUIET STORM
Chris Garnett & easy-listening deejay (host) have a playlist duel
— It feels like whenever they do this sketch, Tracy’s minor recurring role as a guy silently slow-dancing with his woman ends up being Tracy’s ONLY appearance of the entire night. In fact, judging from Tracy’s look in tonight’s sketch, I’m pretty sure the cutaways to him slow-dancing are actually reused footage from the last installment of this sketch, which means Tracy doesn’t even make any live appearances in tonight’s episode. The fact that SNL had to resort to reused footage of him makes me wonder if he was out sick this week.
— I absolutely love Tim’s line “You touch that button again and I’m gonna go Latrell Sprewell on your ass.”
— Nathan’s performance as a cheesy easy-listening DJ is adding a bit of a different touch to this Quiet Storm installment, despite this installment following the exact same formula of all the previous Quiet Storm sketches.
— During his radio announcements, Tim gives a shoutout to someone named G-Dog, which I’d like to think is a meta reference, as G-Dog also happened to be name of a short-lived but solid Tim Meadows recurring character from season 21.
— I’m kinda glad this ends up being the final installment of the Quiet Storm sketches, because they never take these sketches into any different directions. It’s basically the same thing every time.
STARS: ***
SISTER WENDY BECKETT’S ART ODYSSEY
Sister Wendy Beckett’s (host) Art Odyssey is a sexual repression outlet
— Funny pre-taped opening scene of Nathan as a nun out in the busy Manhattan street.
— Nice detail with Nathan’s fake teeth.
— I’m assuming this is a parody of an actual show that I’m not familiar with. I don’t seem to need to be familiar with it, though, as I’m still enjoying this parody, mainly due to Nathan’s performance.
— A lot of funny sexual comments from Nathan in regards to the various innocent paintings.
— A particularly good gag with the camera catching Nathan touching a statue’s penis, before defensively telling us “I just wanted to see if it would burn my hand.”
STARS: ***½
HISTORY OF VAUDEVILLE
Weber (host) & Rose (CHK) rode ethnic stereotypes
— I love Norm’s characterization of a crusty old commentator.
— This vaudeville sketch is perfect for Nathan’s style. Chris is also very fitting for this type of sketch. This is going to be fun.
— I like the hammy gestures Nathan and Chris keep making towards the audience at the end of each act when the audience is applauding them.
— I’m getting a lot of laughs from Nathan and Chris’ various bad ethnic stereotype acts.
— I love the voice that Ana is using as the elderly lady.
— The Jewish song that Nathan and Chris are performing is particularly funny.
— After Nathan and Chris’ inexplicable “I eat babies, I drink pee” French stereotype act, I got a big laugh from Ana’s only response to that in her following commentary being “….They didn’t know much about the French.”
— I like the ending with Norm’s crusty old commentator rattling off various classic comedy catchphrases.
STARS: ****
WEEKEND UPDATE
NOM inquires about officer Lou Costello’s (host) discovery of a dead body
— Norm seems to be going through this Update a little faster than usual, shortening his usual long pauses between jokes.
— Yes! Nathan playing Lou Cosetllo. As a big fan of classical comedy teams from the 1930s-50s (after all, why do you think my username is Stooge?), I love the idea of this.
— As expected, Nathan is doing a spot-on and funny Costello impression.
— I like how, during his questioning of Nathan’s Costello, Norm is doing a Bud Abbott voice.
— After Norm slaps Nathan, we get some great ad-libs from Nathan, which cause Norm to crack up.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Fuel”
SONGS THAT RUINED EVERYTHING
album documents artistic denouements
— Amusing premise of an album of career-destroying hits from formerly-cool artists.
— A particularly funny inclusion of Jefferson Starship’s “We Built This City”.
— Funny impression from Will as Dennis DeYoung.
— Aww, I actually like some of these songs. Should I be ashamed to admit that?
STARS: ***
THE LOST DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
MISS MILO
theatre veteran Miss Milo (host) lectures dresser (WIF) about her craft
— Nathan playing a second woman tonight?
— A funny vocal warm-up that Nathan’s Miss Milo character does, which involves saying various sentences that contain lots of “w”s.
— I got a good laugh from Miss Milo casually telling Will to put on her pantyhose while telling her about himself.
— Another great characterization from Nathan tonight.
— Lots of amusing little comments and stories from Miss Milo throughout this. Even when saying some things that aren’t particularly funny, I’m finding it pretty fun to watch the solid character work that Nathan’s doing here.
— Very funny reveal that Miss Milo was getting dressed as a Christmas tree.
— Another great ad-lib from Nathan tonight, this time saying, in regards to his incorrectly-applied gloves, “I like the gloves this way, it’s more experimental.”
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Marianne Faithfull [real] perform “The Memory Remains”
EX-CONVICT SANTA
ex-con Gene’s stint as a department store Santa doesn’t go very well
— Why is Colin’s weekly sole appearance of each episode always buried at the end of the show this season? I keep forgetting the man is even a cast member.
— The return of the ex-con character, Gene, that Colin previously played as a restaurant waiter in the preceding season’s Lisa Kudrow episode.
— I love Gene’s comment to Nathan’s son about Gene and members of the Aryan Brotherhood drinking Pruno and passing around a “jerk book”.
— Another good line from Gene, where, after finding out that Nathan’s son loves watching “that Christmas movie with Tim Allen” (The Santa Clause), Gene tells the boy “Kid, I did time with Tim Allen.”
STARS: ***½
THE LOST DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
GOODNIGHTS
— What the…? “Additional sketch by Adam Sandler”??? (last screencap above) What in the world could he have written in this episode? I’m stumped. Did whatever he write get cut after dress rehearsal?
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— I’ve always really liked this episode, and I have a lot of happy memories of watching it when I was younger. Tonight’s viewing lived up to my nostalgic memories, even if it’s not an outstanding episode. A big part of the reason for my long-standing fondness for this episode is Nathan Lane, who was a strong host, added a fun vibe to the show, and came off as a natural for SNL due to his theater experience. The writers also accommodated him well, giving him a lot of sketches that perfectly fit his fun comedic style and let him run away with it.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Mayor Rudy Giuliani)
about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Helen Hunt hosts the Christmas episode. It’s also the final episode of the Norm Macdonald era of Weekend Update.
Sandler!?!? WTF!?!? There is no way that anything that aired in this episode could have been his. My only guess is that he helped Smigel with the unaired TV Funhouse
Or perhaps he collaborated with Herlihy on something.
Oh, the McCaughey septuplets!! They took over the news in November/December 1997. About the teeth: People magazine took a picture of the family right after the babies were born, and one notices Bobbi’s teeth aren’t great (for the record she admitted this later in interviews) hence Molly’s odd teeth. A picture can be found here:
https://people.com/archive/cover-story-coming-up-roses-vol-48-no-23/
They were also on the cover of Time:
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19971201,00.html
And Newsweek photoshopped the teeth to make them straighter: https://www.cnet.com/pictures/pictures-that-lie-photos/14/
Bobbi later received braces later on.
There are days when I would love for this to be the big story again.
Could the Sandler credit be something he wrote that never aired back in ’90-’95, and they dusted off and used tonight? The only ones I can think of are Weber & Rose or Songs That Ruined Everything? I think if he’d helped with an unaired TV Funhouse, his credit would be within that segment, at the end, right?
“Kind of a stretch of a premise, as chess isn’t really considered a boy-dominated game, last time I checked.”
I think that’s kinda the point. They were mocking the gendering of commercials aimed at kids at the time.
Yeah, I thought that was a funny note by Stooge. Like, he’s explicitly detailing how he doesn’t get the joke. I actually think the commercial parodies are a major strength of this season (excluding the herpes bubblegum piece). They seem entirely on par with the early 90s.
Yes, Sister Wendy was actually a little old nun who infamously focused on scantily-clad art! XD
I remember Amy Poehler also doing a funny Sister Wendy impression on the UCB Comedy Central show in the 90s about a year after this sketch.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23vu3f
Couldn’t find any isolated clip, best I could find was the whole episode, jump to 6:20 seconds for Sister Wendy.
Herlihy and Sandler had just finished working on the Wedding Singer – I imagine they kicked around the “Songs that ruined everything” during the shoot and Sandler had enough ideas for songs to get a co-writing credit
Now that I think of it Sandler often mentions Styx in his films and the band is mentioned in the songs sketch
1997 was Sister Wendy’s break into the American TV market through PBS. I’d say she was to art history what James Lipton was to dramatic arts craft seminars, though superficially. Both hit big in their sixties and had easily-parodied mannerisms, though Sister Wendy’s educational background is less sketchy than Lipton’s career as a soap opera actor and writer.
I often sing “I eat babies, I drink pee” from the History of Vaudeville sketch to myself. Then again, I reference “pubic hair! fluffy!” from the Sister Wendy sketch on occasion, so I don’t know why those references stick with me after twenty-one years. Also, I’m convinced the TV Funhouse that airs in the Helen Hunt/Hanson episode was slotted for Lane/Metallica – that 75th-birthday message to Charles M. Schulz in the end is touching (it’s the first of Smigel’s Schulz references IIRC), but by the time it airs it’s already belated by two and a half weeks.
I think when this aired live, I saw Marianne Faithfull’s performance of “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” as an interesting lead-in to a commercial break, as it immediately follows the Sister Wendy sketch with no introduction. If that’s supposed to be a full performance, it’s cut off and treated as the usual SNL Band fodder. I don’t understand why it’s there in an already-overstuffed episode since neither SNL nor Faithfull brings up her infamous 1980 performance.
Good episode, though I was disappointed Metallica didn’t partake in Hakuna Matata
I’ve always loved this episode. Chess for Girls and The History of Vaudeville have always been among my favorites from this era. Nathan Lane should have hosted more, he was perfect for this show.
I’ve definitely seen some people over the years act like women can’t play chess, so I imagine the writer (Tina Fey, presumably) heard the same. This is one of those fake ads which packs a quiet punch – the bit where the boy says that isn’t how you play chess and the girl does the “shh, you’ll wake the baby!” is incredibly sad (and also accurate to many of the baby doll ads of course).
Never been that into Nathan Lane but he was definitely a very good host. I’m glad they trusted him enough to give him a few showcase moments – the dresser sketch being my favorite of the night. I like that they don’t try to get too ridiculous or too mean, as they often would have done – that Will’s character remains sweetly in awe of ‘her’ throughout the sketch makes the whole thing land better. Lou Costello on Update is just great…and I’m so glad this one got in right before Norm left because it wouldn’t have worked without him. The “songs that ruined your favorite artists” crawl is also fun. The vaudeville sketch is good overall but peters out toward the end.
It’s probably for the best Quiet Storm ends here – this was the most cohesive installment of the three.
As I didn’t bother with the Cheerleaders, the monologue is the only part that I could have done without – it just feels a bit half-hearted and reminds me again of how I don’t care much for this cast as a group. I did like seeing Molly do the little dance she did so many times in the goodnights.
Pleased to hear a little of Marianne Faithful with the band, especially since what she has in the Metallica performance is barely audible.
I wonder if Don Ohlmeyer is why these cold opens have started with clips from NBC shows. Not that it did those shows much good…
The Jenny McCarthy show was titled Jenny and was cancelled halfway through the 1997-98 season. Trivia note: one unaired episode had Charles Rocket and Gilbert Gottfried cast as brothers. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0615072/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_31
I have very distinct memories of watching this episode live. It’s been a long time since I have revisited these sketches…so a lot of nostalgia is kicking in! 🙂
Nathan Lane was a great host, kind of surprised they never had him back. History of Vaudeville is very funny (and so wrong)! 🙂 I also remember watching the Sister Wendy show on PBS so it was great to see Nathan lampoon her. Also really like the cold opening, particularly pre-teen Baby Jessica. Good episode.
“Now that I think of it Sandler often mentions Styx in his films and the band is mentioned in the songs sketch”
Mentioned? Will’s portraying the front man!
The cameraman in the monologue section looks like Scott Adsit.
While on the subject of CC’s odd edits of this era’s episodes, would they always skip over the last bumper photo and go straight to the goodnights or was that a practice they began later on?
It was a regular practice for CC from seasons 20-24. The only pre-season 20 episode I remember CC skipping over the last bumper photo was the Patrick Stewart episode from season 19.
Thanks for the clarification. It’s a shame that they cut that, I’m always a sucker for the piano music that leads into the goodnights.
Is it true that CC would sometimes move the cold open and air it later in the show, cutting out the LFNY? I was reading a post in the old newsgroup that claimed this occurred in their edit of the Jim Carrey episode as well as some others from the era.
Were E!’s edits different from what CC aired? Someone posted E!’s version of the infamous Sarah Jessica Parker episode from Season 20 on the Internet Archive, and the closing bumper photo was intact.
At least some, if not more, of E!’s edits were indeed different from CC’s. One example I can remember off the top of my head is the Ben Stiller episode from season 24: CC cut out the cold opening (thus causing the beginning of the monologue to make absolutely no sense, since it was a continuation of the cold opening), whereas E! left it in.
I’ve never seen the E! edit of the Sarah Jessica Parker episode. Did it leave in the monologue? CC’s version of that episode would bizarrely crossfade from the end of the opening montage to the beginning of the Alternating Guitarists sketch, making it seem like THAT was the monologue.
They did indeed include the monologue. Here’s the link to the recording:
https://archive.org/details/snl-sjp
E! was such a weird place to air reruns of SNL. Between pulling the show a week after acquiring the bulk of the show due to a breach of their contract with NBC and limiting themselves to only airing the same five episodes over and over again, they were clueless in their treatment of the show. Then again, what else do we expect from the network that made the Kardashians a household name?
I’m glad VH1/VH1C rectified it by not only airing a wider variety of episodes on a regular basis (even if they their catalog only went as far back as 1998), but also showing some of the “best-ofs” and retrospectives uncut.
/rant
Yeah, they would do that with a number of cold openings from seasons 20-24, including this very episode.
Someone posted a recording of a back-to-back CC airing of a Season 24 episode (3/4 of it at least) and one from Season 26, the difference is night and day as far as how the episodes were edited.
One thing I did find odd about the Season 26 episode (Julia Stiles/Aerosmith) is that it carried the rather tame rating of TV-PG-D. Not sure if that was a fluke or not as I thought most of the post-1993 episodes were TV-14 (at least from the limited amount of screencaps and clips I’ve found online.)