November 13, 1999 – Garth Brooks / Chris Gaines (S25 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

NRA HEADQUARTERS
NRA members celebrate gunman (HOS) after he shoots up their headquarters

— Interesting fake-out at the beginning, where this starts out with stock footage of a Cheerleaders sketch (from season 23’s Matthew Perry episode), before it thankfully gets cut off by an NBC special report.
— I like it being pointed out how ironic it is that a mass shooting is occurring at the NRA headquarters.
— Will is doing the most bizarre Charlton Heston impression I’ve EVER seen. It’s certainly making me laugh, though. Also, is Will wearing fake arms for whatever reason? His arms are strangely hanging in a limp, un-moving manner.
— Hilarious line from Will’s Heston about the mass shooter’s rifle: “Upon seeing it, I instantly achieved an erection.”
— I love the detail of the shooter (Horatio) being an unemployed women’s softball coach.
— Interesting social commentary throughout this cold opening.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
whereas host was smitten with Mango, Mango has a thing for musical guest

— (*groan*) Mango makes an appearance for the SECOND episode in a row. While it’s understandable in tonight’s case, considering how famous the Mango installment from Garth Brooks’ last episode was and that people would’ve been expecting a follow-up tonight, I still have to complain. SNL knew during the week of the preceding Dylan McDermott episode that Garth was hosting the next episode, and thus, they should’ve just waited until Garth’s episode to do a Mango sketch, instead of shoving Mango down our throats two consecutive weeks. Then again, considering McDermott did a Mango imitation in the Mango sketch from his episode, I wonder if he was already a fan of the character and requested a Mango sketch during that week’s pitch meeting. Still, there had to have been SOME way to avoid having a Mango sketch in two consecutive episodes.
— Garth is funny with his tense reaction to seeing Mango again.
— I do like that we’re seeing a clip from the last Mango sketch that Garth appeared in, just because the clip is a fun and well-done scene.
— Garth’s delivery of “Mango’s got the hots for Chris! Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk!”was odd but charmingly hillbilly-ish.
STARS: **

TODAY IS NEVER YESTERDAY
James Bond (CHP) informs former sex partners of his 107 venereal diseases

— An absolutely priceless reveal of Parnell’s James Bond having 107 different venereal diseases. I love the James Bond music sting that plays when the camera shows Bond’s taken-aback reaction.
— When asking Bond how hasn’t he noticed all of the awful symptoms of his venereal diseases, I got a big laugh from Garth saying “Surely you’re aware of the stench that even fills this room.”
— Hilarious sequence with Bond calling up all 8,000 of the people he’s slept with in the last five years. I especially like him calling up Martha Stewart and both Batman AND Robin.
— Funny ending with Ana revealing to Bond that her name is Connie Lingus.
STARS: ****

THE SMURFS
cartoon imps are dramatized in star-studded epic miniseries

 

— A hilarious concept of the Smurfs being turned into an epic NBC miniseries.
— A lot of fun celebrity choices for Smurf portrayals. I especially like Darrell’s Sean Connery as Papa Smurf, and Tracy as Little Richard.
— Very funny passionate line from Rachel to Garth: “I want you to Smurf all over my Smurfs!”
— An absolutely priceless inclusion of Ana’s Celine Dion singing a dramatic, powerful rendition of the Smurfs theme song.
STARS: ****½

HICKORY FARMS
Boston teens Sully (JIF) & Denise (RAD) videotape Hickory Farms job quest

— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring character debut!
— Rachel gets her very first lead role.
— I love Garth’s friendly delivery of “I’m gonna have to ask you not to dry hump by the food products.”
— Rachel: “Everybody calls me Zazu!”
— Right in this first Boston Teens sketch, Jimmy and Rachel already have a good handle on their characters, which makes sense in Rachel’s case, as she previously did these sketches with Tina Fey in their improv days.
— We get our very first “Nomah” mention.
— Another great line from Garth: “I don’t think you have the skills needed to hand out free pieces of cheese.”
STARS: ***½

BACKSTAGE
TRM tells host he thinks musical guest is fruity, then bosses LOM around

— Oh, here comes a very important game-changer in Tracy Morgan’s SNL tenure.
— Tracy is priceless in his negative rant to Garth about Chris Gaines, particularly this perfectly Tracy Morgan-esque line: “Chris Gaines is a weenie beenie bing-bong freak!”
— An absolutely legendary part right now with Tracy telling Lorne “Go get me a soda…. BITCH!” I also love how that’s followed by Lorne just pausing for a while and then saying “Okay.”
— Yet another killer line from Tracy, this time about how if Garth were as fat as Chris Gaines, they’d be calling him “Girth Brooks”.
— Garth’s flustered and horrified facial reactions throughout this are great.
— I enjoyed the little ending with Lorne’s “These are strange times, homes” and Tracy telling him not to do that.
— Overall, a true classic, and would be the sketch responsible for helping shape what would go on to famously be known as Tracy’s trademark onscreen persona.
STARS: *****

GREAT MOMENTS IN CORPORATE HISTORY
plethora of Warner-Lambert execs nixes merger with American Home Products

— Will has the great ability to make a reading-off of an endless amount of names funny.
— Will’s reading-off of names is made even funnier by the occasional moments we see the camera panning across a table of execs.
— Great fake-out with Will stopping his reading-off of names to take a drink of water, only to continue with the names immediately afterwards.
— Funny turn with Will calling the merger off just because Rachel messed up her name.
STARS: ****

EXPRESS FLOWERS
ordering flowers for girlfriend via phone, (host) mulls message for card

— A big laugh from the first message that Garth requests to be put on the card for flowers he’s sending to his girlfriend: “I screwed up, you screwed up, now let’s screw. Horniest wishes – Donnie.”
— The increasingly disturbing revisions Garth is making to the card are very funny.
— Solid ad-lib from Garth when he messes up a line.
— Garth: “I’ve got 800 bucks in the bank, a well-thought-of penis, and an NFL football phone.”
— I love how Garth is now directing his flower card to his girlfriend’s sister, and how he signs his name at the end of it as “The Night Dog”.
STARS: ****

WEEKEND UPDATE
The Millennium- Darryl Dawkins is named Man Of The Millennium
MOS says Julianna Margulies is crazy for turning down $27,000,000 from ER

— Great to see another Millennium segment, as these are always solid.
— An overall very funny Millennium segment on basketball player Darryl Dawkins, especially the part about how he was chosen for “Man of the Millennium” over William Shakespeare and Albert Einstein, and the line about his “almost-pornographic dunks”. All of this is made even funnier by Parnell’s great voice-over delivery.
— Colin finally had a post-joke ad-lib that made me laugh, after his Louis Farrakhan joke: “I can’t get a laugh on a Farrakhan joke in the Garth Brooks show; that’s a little politically correct for my tastes.”
— As I said in my last review, I keep forgetting that Molly is even still on the show, due to her lack of appearances lately. This is her first big role in an entire month.
— Throughout Molly’s commentary, they keep making a big deal about this being a new editorial commentary segment, as if they’re setting it up to become recurring. We end up never seeing this segment again.
— Not caring much for this commentary of Molly’s. I remember an SNL reviewer from back at this time in 1999 saying that this commentary just seemed to be an excuse for Molly to do a thinly-veiled Adam Sandler impression. I can definitely see the Sandler similarities in some parts of Molly’s performance here.
— For no good reason, Molly, during her goofiness at the end of her commentary, slips in an “I like a-dawgs!”, which is her catchphrase from the Dog Show sketches. This just further proves to me how one-note Molly’s gradually becoming as a performer lately.
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Way Of The Girl”

DRESSING ROOM
host reveals that his Chris Gaines persona was a ploy to get with Mango

— Jesus Christ, our THIRD Mango sketch within these last two episodes alone.
— I guess it’s kinda funny that Garth reveals he created his Chris Gaines persona just to get close to Mango.
— For some reason, this sketch randomly ends with Mango plugging the host/musical guest line-up of the next episode, then saying “I’ll see you then… or will I?” Man, I sure hope not. Three episodes in a row with Mango would be pure murder on me.
— Overall, despite the potentially interesting Garth Brooks/Mango/Chris Gaines story arc tonight, I didn’t care for this sketch at all, and I found Mango even more annoying than usual here, which is certainly saying something.
STARS: *½

LUCIFER SONGS
(host) will sell his soul for a hit song, but Lucifer (WIF) can’t deliver

— Great makeup on Will’s Lucifer.
— Lucifer’s uncharacteristically cheesy songs are all really funny, especially the “Fred’s got slacks” song and the English-accented “love bat” song.
— Will is giving a hilarious performance in this sketch, especially whenever he gets frustrated.
— Lucifer’s bad attempt at a rap song slayed me.
— The “The devil can’t write no love songs” song that Garth makes up at the end actually sounds like it could’ve been a legitimate hit song for Garth in real life.
STARS: ****½

WILSON’S
department store employee Nadeen (CHO) tells customers to “simmer down”

— The debut of Nadeen, Cheri’s “Simma dah nah” character, who’s a variation of a supporting character Cheri played in the Cathouse Computer System sketch from the preceding season’s John Goodman episode.
— A very funny line from Garth to Tim about how the clothing that Tim’s returning isn’t meant to be “dragged through the valley of your buttocks”.
— I’m getting some laughs from Cheri and Garth’s various ways of using visual aids to break down each word in the “Simma dah nah” phrase and variations thereof.
— Overall, while this was a pretty one-note and catchphrase-driven sketch, I didn’t find it too bad for this first outing. Not sure how I’ll react to the subsequent installments of this sketch from later this season. I remember getting sick of these sketches when they originally aired.
STARS: ***

ROYAL DELUXE II

— An encore presentation of a classic season 3 commercial. They’re re-airing this to commemorate SNL’s milestone 25th season, as evidenced by the fact that the beginning of this repeated commercial is framed with a “Saturday Night Live 25” logo (which the “Chess For Girls” rerun earlier this season wasn’t, for anyone who was wondering if that rerun may have also been to commemorate the 25th season). If this was intended to be the beginning of a regular thing this season to re-air classic old commercials, it doesn’t take off, as this ends up being the sole occurrence all season.
— So great to see some of the original SNL cast members again.
— For my thoughts on this commercial, read my original review of it in this episode review.

WXLU
ruinous newscast intro sequence devised by (WIF) has a kids show motif

— I love how this begins with Tim telling the quiet room of employees “Alright, everybody, settle down now”, as a reference to the “Simma dah nah” sketch that just aired.
— Wow, Ana has appeared in practically EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight.
— The news station used for this sketch, WXLU, is the same one used in the Lotto sketch from the last episode. Will is even playing the same character he played at the beginning of that Lotto sketch: Max Gibbons.
— Tim: “Words like ‘stiff’, ‘impersonal’, and ‘jackass’ kept coming up again and again.”
— I didn’t even recognize Garth at first in that wig.
— A lot of funny random lines in this sketch so far.
— The silly Zoom-esque kiddie intro for the news team is very funny. I especially like Parnell’s deadpan, emotionless bit about how he likes to think.
— I love the visual of Garth hiding his face in shame after the aforementioned Zoom-esque intro ends.
— Great ending with Will trying to fool Tim into believing he’s fired, then doing a fake freeze-frame while in the middle of laughing. After Will slowly walks out of the shot while still holding his freeze-frame pose, I also love Tim’s angry yell of “GIBBOOOOOOONNNNNNSSS!!!”
STARS: ****

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A great episode, with a lot of highly-rated sketches, and a classic (Backstage). Garth Brooks did yet another strong job hosting, and he works with this cast so well. A damn shame that this ends up being his final hosting stint.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Dylan McDermott)
a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Jennifer Aniston