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
Around the time of the original airings, I would have had a more negative opinion of the debate, as I didn’t think the humor was as sharp as the early ’90s political material and I also disliked the show’s aw shucks portrayal of Bush. I’m still not a superfan, but comparing it to most of their political output since and knowing how much Hammond suffered getting his Gore impression right, I can respect the effort more today.
You get a glimpse of just what a long-ago world this was when the Green Party candidate gets a sketch mostly because he was a friend of the show. I wonder if they got any blowback for it. Anyway, Nader was always pretty natural oncamera, and he and Rob Lowe are good fun together.
Lowe is a very solid host, clearly able to stand on his own with two other appearances under his belt. It serves him well to be able to have that independence, as the cast by this point has that feel of being broken into pieces that’s going to become more and more of an issue. His main two sketches are generally him relying on himself, especially the Dateline sketch (which I had to make myself not negatively compare to Dana Carvey’s Brokaw sketch several years earlier, as they don’t have the same premise). He’s also terrific in the monologue, managing to hold his own with some of SNL’s all time best “audience” members, like Paula Pell and Jim Downey. I’d say I don’t know why he didn’t host when he was on Parks and Rec, but most Parks and Rec people, other than Amy herself, seemed to not be tapped for that role (Chris Pratt was only after he blew up in Guardians of the Galaxy, and Aziz post-Parks, for his standup and Master of None).
The Olympics video is just boiling over with barely controlled rage – I can’t imagine that getting on the air in recent times. Parnell’s delivery is just about impeccable. I think only Phil Hartman could have bettered him, and that’s high praise indeed. Maybe not even Phil. Great work.
The Corn Chips ad just feels…I don’t know, kind of lazy and stereotypical to me. That it was written by James Anderson makes sense, as I assume he was involved with all the one-note drag roles Kenan and Finesse Mitchell were lumbered with.
I wonder why they had Horatio in brownface (unless my copy was just bad) instead of just putting Tracy in the rapper Update piece with Jerry. Or let Jerry do it on his own, as he was more than talented enough. Oh well. Between Jerry’s work here and his funny moment in the monologue, you’d think he was in for a much stronger tenure than what he ends up having.
Ben Douwsma has the Will/Molly sketch as a hidden gem of the first half of the decade and mentions how rare this type of slice-of-life piece was by this point in the show’s history. It’s a test of a sort, seeing Molly and Will trying to play normal people after Molly in particular became so wedded to caricatures, but they do a decent enough job to make you wish there’d been more opportunities of this kind.
Other than being slightly more guarded, Tina is pretty much exactly what she’d be for the rest of her tenure (and much of her post-SNL career). I prefer the way she and Jimmy are here as later on they become a bit too, for lack of a better word, ‘extra’ for me, but you can see from the premiere alone that they were the change the show needed and that Update was no longer something the rest of the show had to be written around.
Poor Tim advertising a flop movie and TV show…but he bounces back within a few years. I’m glad he at least got this sort of goodbye.
I guess Dennis Miller’s notorious tenure on MNF was irresistible for parody purposes, but Fallon doesn’t work for me and the sketch as a whole is several minutes longer than it needed to be. Fortunately, along with that corn chips thing, I’d say it’s the only weak spot of a very solid premiere.
I agree with you regarding Tina and Jimmy’s “extra” qualities. They are talented and Update was a highlight of the show in this era, but …
*quiet voice*
they received too much acclaim too soon, in my opinion.
Yea, that’s an unfortunate Update piece in retrospect. Especially because I finally just watched The Ladies Man and man that thing is GARBAGE. The only reason it’s not the worst SNL movie is because their track record is bad enough to include 2 of the worst movies I’ve ever seen (It’s Pat! & Blues Brothers 2000) but by normal movie standards that things is unwatchable (I would say poor Tim, but he co-wrote the script, so he is partly to blame).
I always thought Fallon’s Dennis Miller sounded a little like Nick Burns. As for Al Michaels, I think he just has a voice that doesn’t lend itself well to being impersonated. Norm MacDonald, Darrell Hammond, and Jason Sudeikis have all portrayed Michaels and sounded nothing like him. Hammond’s version comes off sounding similar to his Ted Koppel
Billy West dos a pretty good Al Michaels, IMO.
That’s not farsical
I swear watching this show live one of the bumpers (maybe the first one?) still had the “25” after the logo by mistake.
Your comment on Kattan getting laughs out of small things is pretty accurate. I always thought Kattan was funny, but I didn’t enjoy most of his recurring characters.
I also am surprised that Molly and Kattan are still on the show at this point in time.
wasn’t going with Jimmy and Tina a relatively late decision? IIRC they were still auditioning standups well into the summer. Jeff Ross was one of them.
also remember, according to Norm, Lorne wanted Kightlinger to co anchor with Norm going into 94-95. So Lorne clearly had the idea on his brain for awhile
From what I remember, another potential WU setup they were considering was Chris Parnell and Ana Gasteyer.
Everything John said, plus the sorry and awkward state of MNF circa 2000. This sketch aired the same week two 0-4 teams were scheduled to play on Monday night, a first for a program that is clearly intended for marquee matchups.
Rob Lowe was always such a good host, I can’t believe he hasn’t hosted since 2000. Always wondered why he appeared so little, was he not there the whole week or something?
Jerry Minor had a pretty good first season, to this day such an underrated funny actor despite having scene-stealing roles in so many shows. I think his firing came down to NBC budget cuts that year, I think the same reason for Parnell’s firing as well.
I’ve heard some say that Jerry wanted to leave, presumably because he didn’t care for working on the show. Whatever happened I’m sorry it worked out the way it did.
I didn’t know he and Horatio were close. Thanks, Derek Smalls, for adding that info.
Horatio and Jerry Minor were friends from Second City and IO. Probably scene partners. So, that’s why they were paired and probably wrote together often. Jerry still shows up on Horatio’s podcast, The Hooray Show to just to goof around.
When Tina was on Dennis Miller’s old HBO show (I think it was his last season, around 2002) he said something like ” I like you but that kid that does the impression of me ain’t no Carvey”
Al Michaels is one of Hammond’s rare misses, his voice is much more like Kermit/Ray Romano range. Sketch is still funny and reminds me of the beginning of the end of Dennis Miller’s relevance in society. I had completely forgotten about Nancy Grace being the anchor in the Shaggy sketch. As Stooge said, this is a couple of years before she became a divisive national star with her own show on CNN Headline News, after years on Court TV.
Not everyone at NBC was thrilled that Lorne brought back Jim Downey even perennial SNL champion Rick Ludwin, but the first debate was so instantly lauded that the network quickly let the Downey issue go.
The 2000 election coverage as a whole was great but I agree with Francis that Update and especially Jimmy getting instant acclaim for SNL and his role in Almost Famous (the star of said movie is next week’s host) was a double edged sword.
The best Al Michaels impression I’ve seen is this Family Guy bit. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z25TElBzqX8
Some of the comedy is sucked out due to the attention to detail in the Monday Night Football sketch, which is very faithful to the source material. Maya and Darrell’s parts are too Inside Baseball and weigh the sketch down for it to be considered an unqualified success. The Dream Team commercial at the end was much more tightly written and Parnell’s voiceover helped sell the jokes.
This isn’t the last time pro football and SNL will have a run-in with each other. Stu mentioned the 0-4 matchup on MNF but to add to that, ABC lured former Weekend Update detractor Don Ohlmeyer out of retirement to come up with a modern appointment tv version of MNF casting Miller as his Howard Cosell. When MNF moved to ESPN, they would try a similar approach with Tony Kornheiser (who was given Pardon The Interruption as a consolation prize when Miller beat him out for the job) in the Cosell role with the same lackluster results.
I’m always a sucker for a cheeky jab at Lorne so hearing Rob’s voiceover of “who is this guy? Lorne knows him, so he used to be famous.” got a huge laugh from me.
I forgot to say that at the time I was thrilled they were finally getting non-picture credits again. I wonder if one of the reasons Lorne waited, beyond budget, was technology – for the time the credits were probably fairly expensive. Some work better than others (there are a few too many shots that are a little too up close, and poor Maya looks like she was late for an appointment and is then accosted by a camera), but it’s a very fresh way to usher in a new era.
Oh man Comedy Central ran the hell out of the Kate Hudson episode that’s next. It was on all the time! Nomah!!
This season also marks the beginning of the show’s head writer anchoring WU. In the future it becomes problematic for a season or two, but this WU era is full formed and polished in its debut. A few minor tweaks but everything is already there. That’s something the Quinn era tried desperately to find while struggling to escape the Norm shadow.
This was the first season where I was not only watching, but also casually reading/posting on an SNL newsgroup. Around the time of the Julia Stiles episode later this season, I remember thinking this was a very strong year, and had wished it had coincided with season 25 (just for sentimental reasons). The new WU team certainly helped — though I never disliked Colin — but also, I felt like Will Ferrell funally seemed unchained after 5 years with Cheri Oteri. Reading these reviews has given me new respect for her, but at the time I was under the impression (as several posters here seem to have been) that Will and Cheri were friends who enjoyed working together. Once she left, that’s when I really started to noticed Ferrell’s idiosyncraticness. This is all probably just me and how I viewed the show at the time, but her departure — and the sudden dominance of Tina Fey — really propelled the show for me back then. I also, at the time, had no idea how much influence Fey and Dratch (under-rated) had together prior to this season. That explains some of their best moments over the past couple years before this.
Just noticed but I believe the man in drag playing the dad in the Kattan piece is James Anderson
I’ve always thought it was James Anderson as well, but IMDb has this curious listing: William Fowle Mango Parent (uncredited). Perhaps they put him in the Kattan Olympic profile after the Mango sketch was cut just like they did with Brendan Fraser.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2076119/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t19
I’ll always remember Gabriel Byrne’s sitcom Madigan Men because it ran after Norm MacDonald’s sitcom on ABC. I would tape every episode of that and ended up seeing so many promos for it. I for one detest Jimmy Fallon’s Dennis Miller. It contains nothing that Dana’s doesn’t and since Dana’s is such an exaggeration to begin with you get a weird snake eating its own tail thing.
The debate sketch is fantastic! Lots of pointed satire (Gore’s description of the woman with all the medical problems is hilarious), at this point Darrell and Will had perfected their impressions of Gore and Bush respectively. There’s a reason why Gore’s team made the real Al Gore to watch the skit so he could learn to come off more human and relate-able. 🙂 And Will’s Bush is perfection. It’s a damn shame that no one could even come close to W. once Will left the cast.
And, unfortunately, to me this is the last great presidential debate sketch the show has done. I don’t know what it is, but no debate sketch after this one as even come close. The show really needs to figure out what to do with Trump (Alec Baldwin is SO done playing the role…and it shows in his performance). The show can’t rely on Larry David to play Bernie either. And frankly, Larry seems to be kind of tired portraying Bernie as well. Oh well, this is all a discussion for a later time. 🙂
Anyway, back to this show, the Monday Night Football sketch is pretty good, but Dana’s Dennis Miller is 10 times better Jimmy’s. Furthermore, it’s good to see Tina & Jimmy get settled in at Weekend Update right away, and bringing back the era of co-anchors was an instant hit. Update under Colin had become rather stale, so it’s good to see it really take off. Someone commented above that it *almost* too popular, too quickly. I kind of have to agree…we’re also getting to an era of the show where Jimmy’s antics really start to bug me and I resented that he became such a big star on the show…*sigh*…maybe I’m being too harsh. Oh well, not looking forward to Will’s departure, at least we get two more strong seasons from him.
A solid debate sketch, no doubt. But after the amazing debate sketches from 88 and 92, this one feels rather…rote. Like, there are some smart observations and both impressions are far more locked in, but the writing of it seems more surface and a whole lot less fun (and nowhere near as funny). IDK, I always appreciated the wild absurdist bent that the late 80, early 90s crew were able to tap into. This one always felt gentler and a little more contained, which doesn’t really serve my taste. I’d still give it four stars and there’s no denying its influence, but as far as hard laughs go, I always found it a little mild.
Outside of 76, 88 and 92, I think the 08 Vice Presidential Debate sketch is a real classic. Probably my favorite of the Palin pieces. Everything else (ESPECIALLY the current batch) have been a little warmed over. The absurdist touch is completely missing.
Although it was overshadowed by Palin, I thought the first presidential debate sketch from 08 was strong.
“Bomb Iran”.
I agree that Update feels fresh again. Fey, in particular, feels like something completely new. But this crowd-pleasing format carries its own limitations and I cannot stress how much I disliked the Fey-Poehler combo. I’m a fan of both, but man, people look at that era with rose-colored glasses.
Up until Che, who has his own issues, everything about the 2000s era of Weekend Update feels very market tested. If nothing else, the early days of Che and Jost brought back the joy of Update being at risk of alienating the audience, a quality that can be valuable on an otherwise corny show.
I remember seeing on the old Saturday-Night-Live, back when it was a news update site for the show before it became strictly just message boards, mention that “Survivor” winner Richard Hatch was pitched to host this show, but through his agent, not the show itself. Imagine how that would have turned out.
This is from September 6, 2000:
“CBS reportedly wouldn’t allow “Survivor” champion Richard Hatch to host the season premiere of “SNL.”
According to Inside.com, NBC was after Hatch to kick off “SNL’s” 26th season. But CBS, which had all of the contestants sign a contract giving the network complete control over their television appearances through the end of the year, gave the deal a thumbs-down.
”It would look silly to have direct competitors” use them on their shows, a CBS spokeswoman said.”
There’s also this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20001217180600/http://www.saturday-night-live.com/snl/news/2000/september/michaels-moonves.html
In case you can’t see it, or if the link does not work, here it is below:
“Michaels, Moonves Comment on Hatch
By Sean Bradley
Rumors were afloat earlier this month that “Survivor” champion Richard Hatch was offered a shot at headlining “Saturday Night Live’s” season premiere, but that the reality show’s network, CBS, wouldn’t let him. Now, the “New York Daily News” is clearing up any confusion.
It turns out it was CAA, Hatch’s agency, which offered Hatch to “SNL” — without running it by CBS president Les Moonves. When the Eye network’s head-honcho got wind of the fact that Hatch was up for consideration, he immediately nixed the idea, before “SNL” even had a chance to decide on who would host.
“We let all the ‘Survivor’ cast members do a variety of things on other networks,” Moonves tells the “Daily News,” “but I wasn’t about to let the success of ‘Survivor’ kick off a new season of a show on a competing network. It’s very important for us to protect our brand. And, in this case, ‘Survivor’ is our brand, just like ‘Saturday Night Live’ is NBC’s.”
“SNL” executive producer Lorne Michaels tells the “Daily News” that the Hatch deal never even got to the offer stage. “I thought October 7 was pushing it on the whole ‘Survivor’ phenomenon,” he said. “Will he [Hatch] still be as popular then as he is now? I don’t think so. If I thought I could do something small with him, okay. But the show’s host? No.”
Rob Lowe will host the season premiere on October 7, with musical guest Eminem.”
Thoughts?
A few years down the line I could have seen SNL trying to get a big reality star to host, but in fall 2000 they didn’t need that type of PR stunt – the show was on something of a hot streak and also about to reach the peak of one of its most popular Presidential election years. Hatch and his reps would have been better off trying to negotiate with CBS and SNL to allow a cameo, but as I never really cared for him, I can’t say I’m sorry that never happened.
Rob Lowe has some befuddled thoughts about Brendan’s appearance in the goodnights…
(bonus is that it’s an interview with the always wonderful Vanessa Bayer).
https://uproxx.com/tv/rob-lowe-brendan-fraser-snl-sign-off-bedazzled/
As of 2011 Tina has been a mother of two.
When I first saw this episode I didn’t get the NFL or airport bar sketch, and I thought Rob Lowe was underused, but I did like the cold opening. Eminem did drop an uncensored s-bomb during his first performance. The season started okay but after the election was finally decided it went downhill.
When Al Franken interviewed Dana Carvey on his podcast a couple years ago, he said he was convinced that this debate sketch lost Al Gore the election (i.e. it was responsible for losing at least 500 votes in Florida). I think his argument was that everyone already knew that Bush had speaking problems, but that they had a negative impact on Gore that he hadn’t felt yet by nailing him on the “lockbox” thing. Franken said the Bush people were very friendly to SNL at that time, and even put up an “Office of Strategery” sign in their headquarters after this episode aired. But he said the Gore people were more wary of SNL and controlled in how they dealt with them.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/a-conversation-with-dana-carvey/id1462195742?i=1000444064556