Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
VICE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
de facto president Dick Cheney (DAH) checks his pulse & talks to the rich
— The first appearance of Darrell’s Dick Cheney impression in a regular SNL episode. His impression actually debuted in an SNL “Presidential Bash 2000” special from earlier this season.
— Darrell sure seems to like using a “laugh for a few seconds, then suddenly put on a serious face” mannerism in his impressions. It’s a famous part of his Bill Clinton impression, but he’s also done it several times as Al Gore and he’s done it just now as Cheney.
— Will is stealing the sketch in his walk-on as Bush.
— This early portrayal of Cheney from Darrell seems more animated than the Cheney portrayal that we would later become familiar with seeing Darrell do.
— When this cold opening originally aired, I remember being confused over who Parnell was supposed to be playing, as I wasn’t familiar with Karl Rove at the time.
— After Cheney’s heart monitor begins flatlining, I got some laughs from Parnell’s Karl Rove casually informing Cheney that he has died, then nonchalantly injecting Cheney with something to bring him back to life, even singing to himself while doing it.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
audience members question host about his not-so-proud past
— As always in these questions-from-the-audience monologues, Paula Pell gets some really good laughs.
— Tracy’s walk-on is hilarious. I’d like to think this is intended as a continuation of a joke established in Val Kilmer’s monologue earlier this season, where it was said that Tracy usually sells weed to the audience during the show.
— The Men At Work bit with Charlie Sheen refunding Steve Higgins’ money is great.
— The ending bit with Charlie unintentionally pointing out similarities that he has to George W. Bush when detailing why he could never be president is decent, if a little predictable and corny.
STARS: ***½
FOX
Herpes Island, Temptation Trailer, The Cannibal are new FOX reality shows
— Hilarious twist in the island reality show trailer, with one of the 10 women having a venereal disease, and the male contestants being eager to be the first one to catch it.
— The incestuous Temptation Trailer ad is very funny. Is Darrell playing his obscure Skeeter character in that? He’s wearing the same wig and is doing a redneck voice.
— I love the tilted zoom-in that the camera does on Parnell’s seedy facial expression in the Cannibal trailer (screencap below).
— Priceless ending to the Cannibal trailer.
— An overall very funny parody of FOX reality shows from this time.
STARS: ****
IRON CHEF
American bachelor (host) & Morimoto (HOS) cook shark heads
in breast cancer PSA, Emeril Lagasse (CHP) says “check for lumps; bam!”
— The bad American dubbing of the Japanese people is pretty funny.
— I like Darrell’s performance as the “famous murderer”.
— I’m pretty sure I made this same observation about Jimmy in one or two earlier reviews, but his facial expressions in this sketch are reminding me so much of Mike Myers, for some reason (and no, not because Jimmy’s playing an Asian stereotype, as Mike played his endless myriad of Asian stereotype roles in a different way from Jimmy).
— A hilarious mid-sketch “Food Networks Cares” breast cancer PSA, with Parnell (playing dual roles in this sketch) as Emeril Lagasse saying “Ladies, kick it up a notch, check for lumps, BAM!”
— Parnell’s Japanese character: “It made me feel American, like I was a man with blue eyes kissing a girl with a big ass.”
STARS: ***½
ERIC DICKERSON’S NFL PRE GAME SPECIAL
Dennis Miller (JIF) orates
— Tracy’s incoherent, rambly Eric Dickerson impression was hilarious as a small supporting role in the Monday Night Football sketch from this season’s premiere, but was it really a good idea to spin him off into a lead role in his own sketch? This seems like a pretty thin celebrity impression to center an entire sketch around.
— Like last time in the Monday Night Football sketch, I’m getting laughs from the running gag with Will’s Dan Fouts always stating the obvious in his football reports. Is/was the real Dan Fouts really like that?
— Nice seeing Charlie reprise his Major League character.
— Tracy’s singing and dancing of the song “Wild Thing” is pretty funny.
— Charlie, to Eric Dickerson, after witnessing his oddness: “Eric, you wore a helmet when you played, didn’t you?”
— Jimmy’s Dennis Miller impression has improved a bit from the Monday Night Football sketch in the season premiere, but that’s still not saying much. He still has a problem where his Dennis Miller voice keeps trailing off towards the end of his zingers. I do, however, feel that the makeup people have improved in making Jimmy look more like Dennis. His wig here is much better than the one he wore last time.
— Overall, a little better than I was expecting, but I still prefer Tracy’s Eric Dickerson impression in a small supporting role than in a lead role.
STARS: ***
DR. KING ASSEMBLY
at an MLK Day assembly, Marty & Bobbi perform a civil rights medley
— Jerry seems like he’s just playing a weak knock-off of Tim Meadows’ teacher character from some earlier Culps sketches. SNL continues to waste Jerry Minor’s talents in poor roles.
— I love Marty Culp’s line about once calling his wife “Cottage Cheese Ass” as an insult.
— A pretty good Martin Luther King-themed song medley from the Culps, though this isn’t one of my favorite Culps song medleys. I do love their take on DMX’s “Party Up” (the “Ya’ll gon’ make me lose my mind” song).
— Overall, while this was still good, it felt a little forgettable for Culps standards.
STARS: ***
WEEKEND UPDATE
Katherine Harris (ANG) responds to critics with in-kind appearance jabs
JIF reviews concert atmosphere surrounding Bill Clinton’s farewell tour
in a terrible re-enactment, Prince Charles (CHK) falls from his horse
Marta Mercado (MAR) was more maid than houseguest to Linda Chavez
— Yikes, a lighthearted joke about “suspected terrorist” Osama Bin Laden, where the punchline is him blowing something up as a gift. This is only half a year before… well, you know.
— It feels a little rare to see Ana doing an Update commentary at this point of her tenure.
— Ana’s Katherine Harris impression isn’t as comically exaggerated as it used to be, and I’m not finding it quite as funny here.
— Jimmy’s music concert-esque review of Bill Clinton’s farewell tour is pretty funny, especially the part about how everybody at the concert was doing the bent penis wave.
— Kattan’s “Terrible Re-enactment” feature officially becomes recurring. I found this one particularly funny in how gleefully stupid it was, complete with a stick horse toy.
— Maya’s overall commentary was okay, if a little unnoteworthy.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I’m Like A Bird”
SOAP OPERA SHOOT
on the set of The Young & The Restless, Patsy Marsh (MOS) overacts
— Oh, god. Almost IMMEDIATELY in this sketch, we get Molly busting into the scene as a “new” hammy, obnoxious character that I can already tell will just be a tired variation of other hammy, obnoxious characters that Molly has already played. I am in for a LONG sketch.
— What kind of accent is Molly even going for here? It keeps coming and going all throughout the sketch. (*sigh*) I swear, SNL is just giving Molly free rein to do whatever she wants to do on the air at this late stage of her SNL tenure.
— Thank god Molly leaving SNL a few episodes from now prevents this character from eventually becoming recurring.
— I am getting laughs from Parnell’s dry, dramatic delivery of the line “I’ve heard enough” whenever they’re filming the scene.
— Another laugh from Parnell, with him disclosing the fact that he was banned from wearing his signature beret, as Charlie is complaining about the hat that Molly’s character is wearing during filming.
— Hmm, a twist with Charlie suddenly liking a take that Molly’s character has ruined, just because she flashed her bra. So I take it that Charlie’s been playing himself in this sketch all along?
— Funny ending with Will.
STARS: **
BIG BABY
(RAD) is surprised to give birth to 37 year-old Ted Brogan (WIF)
— Hilarious concept of Rachel somehow giving birth to a full-grown man.
— We find out that the name of Will’s character is Ted Brogan, which is the same name of the minor league character that Will played in the Baseball Dreams sketch from season 23’s Helen Hunt episode. They seem to be two completely different characters, though.
— The audience actually groans when Charlie cuts off the fake umbilical cord attached to Will. When the camera shows Rachel and Kattan immediately after that, Rachel has her hand over her mouth in shocked disgust, which seems genuine.
— Very funny how established we find out Ted Brogan’s life already is, when he just came out of the womb.
— Odd blooper towards the end, with Will mistakenly beginning to exit the sketch a little too early, before realizing it’s not time yet.
— I like the goofy quizzical look on Rachel’s face when shrugging her shoulders at the very end of this sketch (screencap below).
STARS: ****
T.G.I. FRIDAY’S
T.G.I. Friday’s (WIF) obnoxious waiter son (CHK) has job security
— Oh, god. Much like with Molly in the Soap Opera Shoot sketch a little earlier, this sketch almost IMMEDIATELY has Kattan busting into the scene as a very hammy, obnoxious, loud, annoying character that lets me know that I’m in for a LONG sketch.
— Good lord, this sketch is rough so far. I don’t usually hate Kattan at this point of his tenure as much as some people do (it’s not until seasons 27 and 28 where I officially entered “I cannot STAND Chris Kattan” territory, at least back when those seasons originally aired, and that was mainly because I felt he overstayed his welcome on the show, much like Molly in seasons 25 and 26), but my god, he seems like he’s playing a bad caricature of himself in this sketch. His performance is exaggerated to the tenth power, in all the worst ways. I remember when this episode originally aired, I actually found that Kattan’s performance in this sketch had a “So bad, it’s good”-type of quality. During this current viewing, however, I’m just finding his performance “So bad”.
— Some laughs from the running gag with the odd food combos in T.G.I.Friday’s menu items. There was a similar running gag in the previous T.G.I.Friday’s sketch that SNL did a few season earlier, where Mary Katherine Gallagher was a waiter at the restaurant. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a T.G.I.Friday’s myself, but I take it from these two sketches that the restaurant is known for serving odd food combos.
— A good bizarre turn with it being revealed that T.G.I.Friday is actually a real person, who’s full name is Thaddeus Garfield Ignatius Friday. And who better to play a bizarre character with a name like that than Will Ferrell?
— Will is absolutely saving this sketch with his INSANELY exaggerated, drawn-out, over-the-top performance. Unlike Kattan (or Molly, for that matter), Will turning his hamminess up to a full eleven during a sketch never fails to crack me up. Not sure why Will doing that works for me while Kattan and Molly don’t, but it just does.
— I remember this being pointed out by someone on an SNL board shortly after this episode originally aired, but this sketch contains what may be the closest that Parnell would ever come to breaking character in his entire SNL tenure. At one point in this sketch when Will is in the middle of doing his hammy performance, the camera cuts to Parnell and Charlie watching Will, and Parnell briefly has a slight smile on his face that doesn’t seem to be in character (screencap below), and then the smile soon fades, possibly because he realizes he’s onscreen.
Hard to tell if that slight smile was Parnell breaking character or not. If it was, then it makes sense that it was caused by Will Ferrell. I’m telling you, Will could make ANY performer break character. He’s even made consummate professional Ana Gasteyer crack up in a Terrence Maddox sketch once.
STARS: **
THE PERVERT
by Adam McKay- fellow creeps shun (Patrick McCartney)
— Adam McKay’s first SNL short film in half a year. These films also have a new name this season: “An SNL Digital Short by Adam McKay”. I bet there’s a misconception among quite a number of SNL fans that it wasn’t until The Lonely Island’s SNL shorts later this decade that SNL started using the name “Digital Shorts”.
— As always, Horatio is really in his element in these Adam McKay films.
— A very funny premise of the main pervert (played by UCB performer Patrick McCartney) getting off on the Cream Of Wheat chef (or “Cream Of Wheet” as it’s spelled here, presumably for legal reasons).
— The fantasy sequence with Jerry as the Cream of Wheat chef is slaying me.
— This film is hilariously fucked-up so far. I’ve been laughing almost non-stop throughout this.
— I love even the visual quality of this film.
— Horatio’s story about a pervert from 1983 getting caught shoving Skeletors up his “friggin’ A” is a riot.
— I got a big laugh from Adam McKay’s exaggerated delivery of the line “Get outta here, ya… PERVERT!!!”
— During the ending credits, why is Jerry’s last name misspelled “Meiner” (screencap below)? Is that an intentional inside joke?
STARS: ****½
CLASSIC VAUDEVILLE
host & Heidi Fleiss (RAD) do a prostitution-themed Who’s On First variant
— A very funny and dirty “Who’s on first?” parody, spoofing Charlie’s past with hookers, which once again shows tonight what a great sport Charlie is.
— I remember when I first reviewed this episode back when it originally aired in 2001 (the review is unfortunately not available anymore, as I lost it), I was a total prude and absolutely trashed the hell out of this sketch, because, as someone who has always (to this day in 2020) been a huge fan of classic comedy teams from the 1930s/40s/50s like Abbott & Costello, The Marx Brothers, and, of course, The Three Stooges, I was very offended by the fact that SNL was altering a legendary and, in my eyes at the time, sacred Abbott & Costello routine to make crude sex jokes. Luckily, I’ve lightened the hell up since those days, and can now sit back and laugh my ass off at this sketch.
— Spot-on Vaudeville-esque delivery from Charlie and Rachel, and they’re perfectly executing this very funny material. And I can’t help but find Rachel adorable in this sketch.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, but, aside from the FOX reality shows commercial, the only strong stuff was in the post-Update half. However, that post-Update half also had some awful hammy Shannon/Kattan showcases. Charlie Sheen was a pretty fun host, especially in how he got a lot of mileage out of poking fun at his image and his past.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lucy Liu)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Mena Suvari