Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PREPARATION
Dick Cheney (DAH) coaches Condoleezza Rice (host) to flash a boob
— Darrell-as-Cheney’s extended phone conversation with an unseen President Bush has some laughs, but makes it painfully obvious that SNL doesn’t seem to have an official Bush impersonator by this point. I guess even after that 1960s sketch from this season’s Drew Barrymore episode where Will Forte played a young Bush, SNL is still iffy on the idea of Will OFFICIALLY taking over the Bush impression by playing present-day Bush. That would change in the very next episode.
— Interesting decision to have Condoleezza Rice being played by tonight’s host, Janet Jackson, instead of Maya once again.
— Darrell’s Cheney has some funny lines to Janet’s Rice.
— A good laugh from Darrell’s Cheney suddenly suggesting that Rice flash a boob during her 9/11 testimony, referencing a certain then-recent infamous incident from tonight’s host.
— Janet-as-Rice’s toothy smiling during her 9/11 testimony is funny.
— SNL was too early on their cue to blur out Janet-as-Rice’s boob flash, plus you can clearly see that Janet’s wearing a bra, but the gag is still working enough for me.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host’s home movies unconvincingly show she’s from a normal family
— Pretty funny bit about three siblings that Janet forgot about.
— Another obligatory “wardrobe malfunction” reference. This one didn’t work for me as much as the one in the cold opening.
— An overall pretty short monologue, but maybe that’s for the best.
STARS: **½
BRIAN FELLOW’S SAFARI PLANET
(host) & flying squirrel are a distraction
— Ooooooookay. So I take it from this Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet opening title sequence on my screen right now that Tracy Morgan is cameoing AGAIN this season?
— Yep, there he is. I love Tracy, but it’s a little sad seeing him hanging onto SNL so hard this first season after his departure from the cast, especially considering how tonight’s episode is around the time when a cancellation of Tracy’s unsuccessful NBC sitcom was all but confirmed by this point. As we know now, though, his post-SNL career would later take off.
— The whole conversation between Brian Fellow and Janet regarding if her flying squirrel is aware of 9/11 is hilarious.
— I love’s Will’s deadpan “I really don’t know how to respond to that” line about a particularly asinine thing Fellow asks regarding Will’s French poodle hating America.
— Fellow falling in love with Janet’s character dispels any assumptions that I (and I’m sure a lot of people) previously had about Fellow’s sexual orientation.
STARS: ***½
TICKET LINE
Starkisha balks at paying $250 for a ticket to a Janet Jackson concert
— Oh, god. Fucking Starkisha.
— Finesse In A Dress alert.
— Some self-deprecating humor with Janet playing a character complaining about Janet Jackson’s ticket prices and spreading unflattering rumors about Janet.
— Amy’s very whitebred, nosy character is cracking me up.
— Kenan telling Chris, in regards to Starkisha and her friends, “I’m just as afraid of people like that as you are” made me laugh, but felt like an inferior variation of his great line to Chris in the first Starkisha sketch (“Why they gotta be my friends? Hey, man, I came with YOU.”).
— Overall, while this sketch was still certainly bad, it didn’t come off quite as cringeworthy as the first Starkisha sketch and this had a few more saving graces.
STARS: **½
AN EASTER TREAT FROM SNL
HOS, CHK, TRM, JIF, Simon Cowell [real] perform a happy Christmas ditty
— Oh, hell yeah, the return of the “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” routine, always a favorite of mine.
— I gotta say, though – Chris Kattan cameoing for the THIRD episode this first season after his departure from the cast?!? And I thought it was sad that Tracy’s been hanging onto SNL so hard after leaving. With Kattan on his third cameo of the season and Tracy on his second, I’m starting to ask myself if either of them even truly left the cast?
— Interesting twist with this turning out to be an audition for Simon Cowell, who’s in the audience.
— Funny bit with Simon questioning what Kattan does in the band.
— I like Tracy’s “Imma kick this dude’s ass!” after an insult Simon directs at the band.
— Pretty fun turn with Simon joining in on the musical number while the audience musically claps along to the beat.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “All Nite (Don’t Stop)”
WEEKEND UPDATE
off the record, Condoleezza Rice (MAR) outs co-workers’ lack of diligence
maudlin Kevin Eubanks (FIM) laughs at TIF’s lame joke
JIF sings the theme from nonexistent James Bond film “Jewel Eye”
— Looks like we get Maya as Condoleezza Rice tonight after all. What’s the point of having her play Rice the same night Janet did? Kinda reminds me of Martin Short and Rich Hall both playing Doug Henning at separate points in a single season 10 episode, but at least SNL lampshaded that by having Rich Hall’s Doug Henning say a tongue-in-cheek line about SNL having two Doug Hennings and how it’s an optical illusion. We get no lampshading of the sort with SNL’s two Condoleezza Rices tonight.
— Some laughs from Maya’s Rice gossiping in an off-the-record voice, making decent use of Maya’s knack for doing lots of “white” voices that Janet may not have been able to pull off had she done this same commentary.
— WTF? Finesse suddenly appearing out of nowhere as Kevin Eubanks from The Tonight Show?
— Again, I ask, WTF? What in the world was the point of the extremely brief Kevin Eubanks “commentary”?
— Tina’s mean-spirited joke about Jewel’s teeth rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t know why I found it so off-putting, given the fact that Update anchors over the years have certainly done lots of harsh jokes about celebrities.
— I think I used up all of my “WTF”s too early, because now we get this incredibly dumb and unfunny bit with Jimmy singing a James Bond-esque “Jewel Eye” song, which isn’t working for me at all. And unfortunately, THAT’S what they’re ending this Update on.
STARS: **½
PRINCE SHOW
Paula Abdul (host) & Steve Harvey (KET) visit
— A laugh from the camera panning over to Prince’s “scared” face (the third above screencap for this sketch).
— Kenan’s Steve Harvey impression makes its debut, and, wow, it’s COMPLETELY different from the Steve Harvey impression that we’re used to seeing Kenan do nowadays. Also weird in retrospect to see him playing Harvey with actual hair.
— Prince’s cry-singing while crawling on the floor is really funny. Even Janet seems to be cracking up at it.
— Overall, a decent Prince Show installment, but you can sense that the novelty of these sketches is slowly starting to wear off.
STARS: ***
CORKSOAKERS
(HOS) & (JIF) educate winery tourists on the art of soaking corks
— Another in the series of this era’s dirty wordplay sketches.
— This looks like the same set from another Italian winery sketch this season, where Jack Black played a wine taster doing an endless amount of spit-takes.
— An okay double entendre concept, but I’m not exactly bowled over with hysterical laughter.
— I love Rachel as a toothless grandma who still “soaks cork” at her old age.
— One of the more remembered aspects of this sketch is an unscripted one, with Janet always having trouble saying “soaking cork” instead of the actual term it’s a play on.
— After how bad of a laughing meltdown they had in the preceding episode, I’m glad Jimmy and Horatio are keeping their shit together in this sketch.
— When the winery guys are hornily rushing towards Janet and have to be held back, there’s a funny little detail that’s easy to miss, in which Jimmy grooms himself by combing his hair AND his thick fake mustache (screencap below).
— Overall, a very polarizing sketch among SNL fans (as is any dirty wordplay sketch that’s not Schwetty Balls), as it seems people either love or hate this sketch. I’m somewhere straight in the middle. I found this sketch amusing enough and it had a fun vibe, but to me, the sketch as a whole was just average and I didn’t find the puns to be nearly as well-written or funny as the ones in the preceding season’s Colonel Angus sketch.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Strawberry Bounce”
GOOD TIMES
Florida Evans (KET) & kin persevere amidst urban tragedies
— Hell yeah, a Good Times sketch! I became an instant huge fan of this show when I discovered it in reruns during my childhood in the 90s.
— SNL writer J.B. Smoove finds himself in another noteworthy onscreen role. The casting of him as J.J. in this particular sketch shows that this season only has a small amount of black cast members.
— The fake laugh track is a very accurate spoof of the boisterous Good Times audience.
— Kenan In A Dress alert. But, by god, he sounds absolutely uncanny in his vocal impression of Florida.
— Maya’s doing a spot-on impression of how over-dramatic Thelma tends to act.
— An unintentional laugh from the Black Jesus painting falling off the wall after Kenan’s Florida lightly touches it, a blooper that Kenan handles in a very funny and expert way.
— Another sign that this season only has a small amount of black cast members, as Maya has to play both Thelma AND Willona through the magic of a fast off-camera costume change. She’s at least doing an accurate impression of both characters.
— This sketch is perfectly and humorously hitting so many of the dramatic beats and hardships that the Evans family typically faces on Good Times.
— I got a good laugh from Chris’ white guy character incorrectly thinking the name Malcolm X is pronounced “Malcolm 10”.
— I absolutely love the ending line from J.B. Smoove’s J.J.: “Would this be a bad time to tell ya’ll I got Sickle Cell?”
— Overall, such a fantastic parody of a childhood favorite show of mine.
STARS: ****½
BOOM BOOMER
in the 1970s, cocaine sparks (CHP)’s interest in party game Boom Boomer
— Weird how this is the second consecutive sketch tonight set in the 70s, but I kinda like that, in a weird way.
— Speaking of the 70s, the 70s aesthetic of this sketch, the party setting, the look of the characters, and the fact that Seth and Amy are playing the hosts of this party all kinda feel like a precursor to the famous Key Party sketch from the following season.
— After Chris’ character gets coked up, it’s great to see Chris get a chance to go extremely over-the-top, because 1) he does that so rarely on SNL, 2) he does it so well, and 3) he’s been badly underused lately. However, this feels like a weak and abrupt way to end this sketch. If that “ending” was supposed to be a punchline, I don’t get it.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, especially compared to both this season and the debacle of an episode that preceded this. Lots of okay material and one or two standout things.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Donald Trump)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Lindsay Lohan makes her hosting debut
In case people don’t realize, Janet Jackson was on Good Times for a couple seasons.
Count me as someone who thought “Cork Soakers” was incredibly overrated.
Tom Davis wrote “Boom Boomer”
Curious as to where you got the Davis info from. I remember coming across an old forum post from around the time this episode aired that listed writers for certain sketches in this episode, and it credited “Boom Boomer” to Slovin & Allen.
The other ones I have from that:
— Smigel wrote the cold open.
— Rich Talarico wrote the monologue.
— Easter Treat was credited to Jimmy, Horatio, and Erik Kenward.
— Corksoakers was credited to Higgins, Matt Murray, Kenward, Michael Schur, and Dennis McNicholas.
— Fey & Sudeikis wrote the Good Times sketch.
Someone posted it here a few weeks ago. Guess it was wrong info (?)
SNL did want Simon to host the episode but he preferred to do a cameo instead.
Cowell had the right idea – his range is pretty clear in that cameo, fun as it is, and SNL pretty much always does a crap job handling Idol in this decade (I’m not sure why Lorne was fine with talking about Idol and having an Idol cameo but not Survivor…). And he still got a promo out of the experience:
I’ve always wondered if the “home movie” Janet shows is real or not. Her siblings in the video don’t look like her actual brothers and sisters to me.
Next episode: WAH-WAH….
Considering all the brouhaha over the last Super Bowl Half Time show with JLo and Shikira, I’d say Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” is now yesterday’s news…
I think I remember some amusement from the Cork Soakers sketch as well as from the “home movies” of Janet’s concerning the bra of her little self coming off. And it was charming seeing Simon Cowell willing to join in with Jimmy, Horatio, Chris K., and Tracy for that Christmas song…
I’m re-reading my review from 16 years ago, and… holy crap, we made a lot of the same points. Between that, the fact that we’re both from the Chicago suburbs, born in 1984, and probably watched “Good Times” repeats on WCIU, I’m starting to get weirded out.
Really though, I concur that this was an okay episode. I disagree (disagreed?) about Update; I thought it was a fairly strong one, and the meaner jokes didn’t seem to faze me.
One thing I love about Good Times is its great opening theme song & accompanying visuals. Totally nostalgiac & iconic.
I love Tracey swoopin’ in to play-kiss Will at the end of Safari Planet.
Stooge, you can barely hear Tina say something like “two versions, equally delightful,” after Maya is done – it’s drowned out by applause and Jimmy rushing to the next joke.
I will say I often think Maya’s delivery gets in the way of her material in these years, but this time her delivery helps make some weak material a bit more fun.
Tina has talked about all the comments she got for her appearance, so such a harsh dig seems a bit crass, although this was an era that seemed to go for such cheapness (and I guess it’s not out of the norm for Update). I’ve wondered sometimes if someone at the show in these years had an issue with Jewel, as there’s an entire sketch devoted to how annoying she is, alongside to a TV Funhouse to that effect, but that may just be down to her being so known at this time – they did ask her to host, after all.
Much as I dislike the pop culture focused material of this era, I’m glad Janet Jackson got the chance to host. The media hysteria and industry blacklisting she went through for absolutely nothing was ridiculous – I still cringe when I remember that Congresswoman crying over the damage done to her children. Fortunately, the episode doesn’t just trade in on the scandal, giving her the chance to do some comedy (this is probably one of the better political cold opens of this season, even if the ending is a clunker) and to have fun with her past (getting to play Paula Abdul, whose career got going because of Janet; referencing all the old Janet rumors in the Starkisha sketch). Even the Cork Soakers sketch, which is mostly just a warmed-over version of the old Smigel pieces from the early ’90s, is made less rote by Janet quietly breaking throughout the last half.
The only real complaint I have about the Good Times piece is that having Kenan go “damn, damn, damn” twice (and too early in the sketch) takes away what should have been the highlight. Otherwise, it’s one of the better homages/parodies SNL has done for a TV show in the last few decades, and the cast plays their roles perfectly (Finesse was born to play Michael Evans). I never can tell if it has a fairly light audience reaction because a lot of the audience didn’t know very much about the show, or if they were using some kind of soundtrack for the sketch.
This episode also must be something of a high water mark for the amount of sketches centered on black performers or non-white performers, to the point of bringing Tracy Morgan back and having JB Smoove appear in a major role. And the episode works well enough. This tends to happen with a black host in this era, but still, it’s bewildering how we went from this to Kenan being put in the thankless Tim Meadows role for 3-4 seasons to the garbage fire controversies over representation in 2013.
I have to admit I enjoy the Boom Boomer sketch. The “groovy” dialogue doesn’t work, but the set design/costume/wigs are very well thought out and don’t feel like 2004 actors dumped into old outfits (this period was good at that – the key party sketch the next season and the Match Game sketch in JLD’s 2006 episode are other examples). It’s also nice to see Chris Parnell getting a chance to use his energy and rhythm in a leading role that doesn’t involve forced wackiness or perviness.
The Brian Fellows sketch is fine but is probably one of the lesser installments for this character. I wonder if it was thrown together at the last minute. Will’s deadpan is worth the watch though.
Overall this is a decent episode and has a less offputting feel than many around these years for me.
Being a white Canadian born in the 80s, I never had much exposure to Good Times aside from JJ Walker. This sketch is a lot of fun, but since I’m not very familiar with the source material, I can’t tell if there’s a hook to the sketch. Like, the old Family Ties sketch has a bit of a comedic hook beyond the mere parody, same with the Welcome Back, Kotter sketch from 94. I’m not necessarily saying these parodies NEED a hook – Norm’s Letterman sketches were just straight parodies – but I’m wondering if there’s anything askew in the parody or if it’s straight down the line.
Also, rewatched Boom Boomer, I thought it was fun. Wasn’t there a Michael Ian Black piece that was essentially Boom Boomer. I know they basically do something like it in Michael Showalter’s The Baxter (a fabulous comedy).
I am of a similar background to you, and I think the hook of the GOOD TIMES sketch is that any time something good appears to be happening, it always gets taken away from them (Michael losing his scholarship, Janet’s pet rat eating the lotto tickets).
I loved the Starkisha sketch! Janet really went all in when it came to making fun of herself.
“I heard she and Michael were really the same person!”
“That would explain the ticket price!”
Sidebar, I saw Janet in concert last summer and she still dances like she is in her 20’s. This album she is promoting on here flopped because the media turned on her yet embraced Justin Timberlake, and it’s a damn shame.
Oh no doubt, it needs to be stressed that Janet Jackson is a national treasure. She’s got a few classic albums to her name.
This episode will be this Saturday’s Vintage repeat, barring a last-minute change.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Donald Trump, as of April 10, 2004)
a moderately big step up, compared to the notorious Trump episode