Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
Jim Lehrer (CHP) moderates Al Gore (DAH) vs. George W. Bush (WIF) debate
— I remember when this first aired, there was a lot of confusion on online SNL forums over who was playing Jim Lehrer, as the heavy prosthetic makeup made Parnell hard to recognize. Some people back then, including myself, wondered if it was host Rob Lowe playing Lehrer.
— Will and Darrell’s Bush and Gore impressions have really improved over the summer. Hell, Will and Darrell now even look pretty uncanny as the two candidates.
— Funny split-screen shot of Darrell’s Gore making an impatient face while Parnell’s Lehrer is listing off programs currently airing on Pay-Per-View.
— Bush: “Don’t mess with Texas.”
— Very memorable part with Gore going on and on about his “lockbox” plan.
— I absolutely love Bush answering one question with “Pass”.
— Hilarious part regarding Bush’s famous nonsensical quote about sex and violence in movies.
— Bush’s puzzled, intense facial expression during one very complicated question that Lehrer asks him is great.
— Gore, after Lehrer asks Bush a question: “Jim, I’d like to interrupt here and answer that question as if it were my turn to speak.”
— Yet another great highlight, with Gore’s story about an old lady with a variety of ailments.
— Bush, on a statement that Gore just made: “I believe that some of his figures may be in-ac-ur-it.”
— A very long debate cold opening, but it’s definitely worth it. When this originally aired, however, I remember 16-year-old me impatiently waiting and waiting for them to finally say “Live from New York…”, but that was only because I was eager to see if this season premiere was going to have a new opening montage.
— And there’s the iconic moment of this already-fantastic debate sketch: Bush saying “Strategery” as his final word.
— Overall, such a well-written and expertly performed debate sketch.
— A very strong way to kick off a season. This may be the first time in my SNL project that I’m giving a five-star rating to the first cold opening of a season. No other instances come to mind, but maybe I’m forgetting something.
STARS: *****
OPENING MONTAGE
— New montage.
— For the first time since all the way back in season 19, the opening montage has moving shots of the cast, instead of still photos.
— The new cast members joining tonight are Tina Fey and Jerry Minor, the former having already been an SNL writer and occasional onscreen extra the past few seasons.
— Rachel Dratch is still a featured player, which I remember surprised a lot of online SNL fans back at this time, including myself, considering the fact that it was felt at the time that Rachel had a strong first season, plus the fact that we weren’t yet aware of the then-new “two seasons as a featured player” addition to SNL players’ contracts. Speaking of Rachel not getting promoted to repertory player, she ends up not even appearing in any sketches tonight, which makes this the SECOND consecutive episode that she’s absent in, as she was also M.I.A. in the preceding season’s finale. Geez, poor Rachel. I remember some online SNL fans having a theory that Rachel refused to show up for this season premiere because she was perhaps upset over not being promoted. A pretty silly theory, honestly.
— A Cartoon By Robert Smigel is credited in tonight’s montage, but no cartoon ends up airing tonight. The cartoon was going to be the “Sex and the Country” cartoon that ends up airing later this season and would cause controversy.
— SNL Band saxophonist Lenny Pickett is now credited in the opening montage as the leader of the SNL Band, feeling like a nice throwback to the days when G.E. Smith got that honor.
MONOLOGUE
audience members ask West Wing star host some presidential questions
— The dumb questions the audience is asking Rob Lowe are fairly funny so far, but ehhh, nothing great.
— The Emmy bit between Rob and Paula Pell is really funny.
— A big laugh from Jim Downey’s question about “the room where they blow the president”.
— Rob ends this monologue by saying “Eminem is here, so wake up the kids!”, an interesting variation of the usual “stick around, we’ll be right back” tagline.
STARS: ***
CORN CHIP NAIL TIPS
Corn Chip Nail Tips are both fashion accessories & tasty snack treats
— An okay concept. More cute and flashy than funny, but I’m enjoying this enough. I remember finding this commercial dumb back when it originally aired, but I can appreciate it more now.
— I believe this is the very first thing that SNL writer James Anderson got on the air. This is his first episode as a writer, and he’s still writing for the show to this day, 20 years later.
— Some funny one-liners from Horatio’s hobo character, especially his excited “…and beef!” when the flavors are listed off.
STARS: ***
MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
Dennis Miller (JIF) gets arcane during pregame
— Darrell’s Al Michaels voice just sounds like a variation of his Frank Gifford voice. I’m not too familiar with either Michaels’ or Gifford’s voice, though.
— Will’s mere look as Dan Fouts is making me laugh.
— I remember an SNL podcast pointing out that Maya strangely looks about 14 years old in this sketch. I can see that.
— Speaking of Maya, when this sketch originally aired, I mistook Maya for Tina Fey. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with either Maya or Tina (I hadn’t yet seen the very few appearances that Maya made at the tail end of the preceding season, and I had no memory of the onscreen appearances that Tina previously made as a writer), and I assumed that Maya would only be cast in black roles on SNL, which is why I assumed that the white-looking woman playing the role of a white sideline reporter in this sketch must’ve been Tina Fey.
— There’s Jimmy’s Dennis Miller impression, which I remember had some hype online beforehand.
— Jimmy’s Dennis Miller is kinda making me laugh and he’s got Dennis’ essence down, but the voice? Ehhhh.
— I like the look on Will’s Dan Fouts whenever he laughs at Dennis Miller’s jokes.
— Funny in retrospect how all of the then-new ABC shows that Darrell’s Al Michaels keeps shoehorning plugs for are shows that would soon end up being canceled pretty fast, though I’m not 100% sure.
— Tracy’s incoherent, rambly report as Eric Dickerson is hilarious.
— Some good laughs from Dan Fouts always stating the obvious in his reports.
STARS: ***
BACKSTAGE
backstage, host & Ralph Nader [real] talk past one another
— Pretty nice to see a Ralph Nader cameo, as he has some good history with SNL.
— Rob’s inner thoughts about not knowing who Nader is are providing some pretty good laughs.
— Nader’s inner thoughts right now are even funnier.
STARS: ***½
PROS & CONS
vigilante snoops Scooby & Shaggy (host) defend their methods
— Odd in retrospect seeing such a low-key, serious Nancy Grace impression, but I guess this was long before Nancy Grace became easy to make fun of.
— I like the camera slowly zooming in on the sinister face of the criminal next to Parnell’s character.
— I’m loving the Scooby Doo concept of this sketch, and Rob is doing an absolutely spot-on and funny Shaggy imitation.
— I think I once read somewhere that Scooby was also voiced by Rob in this sketch, in pre-taped voice-over form. If so, that’s another spot-on impression from Rob.
— For some reason, this sketch claims that Shaggy’s full real name is Warren Shagowski. I thought it was somewhat well-known that in the actual Scooby Doo cartoons, Shaggy’s full real name was Norville Rogers.
— A good laugh from the bit with Parnell’s character misreading “meddling” as “sodomy”.
— Shaggy: “(angrily) Zoinks you in the ass!”
— I love all the little mentions of familiar cliches from Scooby Doo episodes.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Dido [real] perform “Stan”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Leon Phelps discusses sex in Hollywood cinema & promotes his movie
TIF’s advice to Britney Spears- “enjoy your ass while it lasts”
Grand Master Rap (JEM), Kid Shazaam (HOS), musical guest rap old school
— We officially enter a brand new era of Weekend Update.
— SNL returns to the dual anchor format for the first time since way back in the early 80s.
— This may be the very last time in my SNL project that I get to cover a new Update era that has no holdover anchorpersons from the preceding Update era. To this day in 2020, every era of Update after the Fallon/Fey era has had one anchorperson from the preceding era stay on. So, unless current anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che both step down from Update together before I finish my SNL project, this is the very last time I’ll get to experience the excitement of covering an ENTIRELY new Update era.
— After saying their names, Tina and Jimmy start this Update by saying in unison, “And when we get together, it’s news.” Uh… all I have to say about that is I can DEFINITELY see why that didn’t go on to be a regular thing for Fallon/Fey Updates.
— Another aspect of tonight’s inaugural Fallon/Fey Update that would soon get dropped is Tina and Jimmy each throwing to the other anchorperson after a joke, by asking their name, like real news co-anchors do.
— As a new Update anchorperson, Tina is immediately coming off very comfortable, poised, and confident, as if this was something she was born ready to do.
— Jimmy doesn’t have an anchorman-type look or demeanor at all, but he’s strangely working well enough and has a likability to his approach, though he’d gradually get even better as the next few seasons progress.
— Now we get Jimmy and Tina’s very first interaction piece with each other, with Tina grilling Jimmy about whether or not he watched the presidential debate earlier this week. This piece establishes Jimmy and Tina’s Update personas, with Tina as the mature, stern anchor who takes her job seriously, and Jimmy as the young, slacker goofball.
— Ha, in just his first episode after leaving the show, Tim Meadows ALREADY makes a cameo, to plug the upcoming release of the SNL movie The Ladies’ Man. Considering how long Tim was in the cast, it strangely kinda makes sense in a way for him to make a cameo in the first episode after he left.
— Speaking of Tim’s longevity in the cast, I didn’t realize until now how odd it’s going to initially be for me to have to get used to no longer reviewing Tim, after I’ve reviewed NINE-AND-A-HALF straight seasons of him.
— I love Leon Phelps beginning his commentary by telling Tina “Thank you Colin… ooh, it’s a lady!”
— Leon Phelps: “One man’s porno is another man’s Sleepless In Seattle.”
— Interesting turn in the Leon Phelps commentary, with Tim dropping character and admitting that the only reason he came back to the show tonight, other than to plug the Ladies’ Man movie, is because he already misses being on the show, before segueing into a comically shameless plug for the (doomed) Michael Richards Show that he’s in.
— Tina now gets her own side segment, titled “Women’s News”. I’m enjoying all the new, different things SNL is doing with Weekend Update, now that we have two anchorpersons.
— I love how Tina starts off her “Women’s News” segment by saying “As a mother of two, which I am not…” I guess she can’t say that line anymore nowadays, though.
— Tina’s rant about Britney Spears is classic, and is a great early display of Tina’s typical sense of humor.
— Jerry Minor gets his first big showcase.
— I like the detail of how Horatio and Jerry’s old-school rappers pluralize random words in their sentences.
— The rap from Horatio and Jerry’s characters is a spot-on parody of early-era rap.
— An okay inclusion of Eminem in the Horatio/Jerry commentary.
— At the end of this Update, Tina signs off with “Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow”, a callback to the original SNL era. I remember in an interview that Jimmy and Tina did not too long after this episode, either Jimmy or Tina claimed that they’re only using “Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow” as a temporary placeholder while they try to come up with their own original sign-off. They would end up NEVER coming up with one. “Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow” would end up being used for the entire Tina Fey era of Update.
— At the very end of this Update, right before the screen fades to black, Tina apparently incorrectly thinks her microphone has been turned off and she can be heard excitedly exclaiming to Jimmy, “We’re set, baby!” A charming little moment that shows how excited Tina was to have successfully gone through her first Update, but SNL would later remove that statement of Tina’s from reruns by fading to black right before Tina says it.
— Overall, a good and promising start to the new Update era. Jimmy and especially Tina did well and there was a fun atmosphere that I found was missing from the Colin Quinn era of Update. I’m not always a fan of the dual anchor format, but it works here and I can see why it was considered a necessity after the Colin Quinn era.
STARS: ***½
BLIND DATE
(WIF) & (MOS) endure an awkward blind date at an airport bar
— Feels kinda odd how this is Molly’s first (and I think ONLY) appearance all night.
— Such a strange atmosphere to this sketch, but I’m enjoying it. There’s a humorously realistic, slice-of-life feel to this sketch that feels rare for this era. I recall there being a theory on online SNL forums that the cue cards got lost for this sketch during the live show, forcing Will and Molly to improvise. While I’m 100% certain that’s not the case, this sketch does kinda have an improvised feel.
— I like the bit with Will quoting Molly’s constant “I’d really rather not talk about it right now” response before revealing he was just kidding, only for Molly to be offended.
— Chris Kattan (who I believe is also making his first appearance of the night) has the ability to get laughs from the audience even with just subtle, low-key things he’s doing, like the way he softly taps the table each time before he leaves.
— When Molly’s about to exit, I’m laughing at her always answering “Yeah, no” whenever Will asks her something.
STARS: ***½
DATELINE PRE-TAPES
perfectionist Stone Phillips (host) records intros for Dateline NBC
— Wow, where has Rob Lowe been? For a host, he’s been absent from a surprising amount of sketches tonight.
— Rob delivers another spot-on and hilarious impression tonight. He is knocking it out of the park tonight with these impressions.
— Rob has the great ability to always get laughs from his constant repetition of a simple line in that impeccable Stone Phillips voice.
— Will always immediately agreeing with everything Stone Phillips suggests is funny.
— I love the part with Stone Phillips doing three takes in a row in rapid-fire speed, even if Rob got a little mixed up with some of the words there.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Real Slim Shady”
PERSONAL PROFILE
NBC gets Up Close & Personal with CHK before a skit; Brendan Fraser cameo
— I love the idea of this, doing an Olympic-type profile on Kattan getting ready for a sketch.
— Brendan Fraser makes a random silent cameo as Kattan’s agent. This was actually a last-minute addition to this sketch. Fraser was originally going to appear tonight in a noteworthy role in a Mango sketch (the premise of the sketch had Mango being tricked into doing a porno, from what I remember of the description I read of it back at this time in 2000), but the sketch got cut after dress rehearsal, so SNL threw Fraser into a walk-on role in this Personal Profile sketch during the live show, as a way of keeping him in tonight’s episode.
— Commentator, on Kattan: “This is not his best event. He’s better with gay characters. He’s not good with words.”
— In the video package shown of Kattan, we see a clip from an unaired Weekend Update commentary that Kattan did at dress rehearsal at some point in the second half of season 23, judging from the Update set seen in the clip (the second above screencap for this sketch). From what I remember finding out online, this unaired Update commentary had Kattan playing a character named Zip Zing, a take-off on Kattan’s real-life father, actor Kip King. I’m not 100% sure, but I think the season 23 episode that this unaired Update commentary comes from is the Julianne Moore episode.
— The shot of Kattan emotionally staring at the camera during his flood story is hilarious.
— A priceless bit about Tracy not being able to perform in tonight’s show because traces of banned substances were found in his urine.
— I love how Kattan’s parents are fittingly portrayed as a monkey and a drag queen. Am I crazy for thinking that the guy playing the drag queen kinda resembles former cast member Mark McKinney? (the last above screencap for this sketch)
— This sketch is such a spot-on and funny parody of typical Olympic athlete profiles.
— The whole premise of this piece is to show Kattan getting ready for a Looks At Books sketch that he’s about to do, and this piece even ends with him entering the Looks At Books set and sitting in his seat for it. However, we end up never seeing the Looks At Books sketch itself. It was originally supposed to follow this Personal Profile sketch, but the show ran long and the sketch had to get cut, kinda rendering this Personal Profile sketch a bit pointless, though still very strong.
STARS: ****½
DREAM TEAM 2000
Dream Team 2000 video documents arrogance of USA Olympians in Sydney
— A great parody of American athletes’ classless, unsportsmanlike actions at the then-recent 2000 Olympics.
— This commercial is making yet another very funny use of Parnell’s always-fantastic voice-over work.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid season premiere. I liked every single segment, and several stood out as very strong, including a classic cold opening, a very fun Scooby Doo take-off, and two inspired Olympic-themed pieces towards the end of the show. Rob Lowe strangely didn’t appear much for a host, but he made great use of his limited airtime, especially with how he displayed some spot-on and very funny impressions (Shaggy, Stone Phillips, and possibly Scooby Doo).
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1999-00)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Kate Hudson