Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
L.A. Law- Richard Laymer creates nicknames for Grace Van Owen (host)
— Victoria’s whispery delivery is making me laugh.
— Hilarious reveal of Richmeister out of nowhere, after such a serious beginning.
— I like how Richmeister is getting meta, now referencing Susan Dey’s Partridge Family past.
— After Rob delivers “Live from New York” (his very first solo one, by the way), it looks like the wall behind him already starts to be disassembled by the crew right before the opening montage even starts.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Nice turn with her unveiling her more casual, revealing wear to differentiate herself from her TV characters.
STARS: ***
LEEVI’S 3 LEGGED JEANS
— Rerun from the Linda Hamilton episode
HARRASSMENT TRIAL
(PHH) fails to convince jury that Mike Tyson’s penis size isn’t relevant
— Boy, that extra playing Mike Tyson doesn’t look a thing like him.
— An absolutely hilarious turn with Mike Tyson showing his “evidence”, represented off-camera by a loud thud sound after he unzips his pants. Phil, Myers, and Susan’s speechless reactions are great, as is Susan saying afterwards “I’ll allow it.”
— Lots of very funny frozen-faced shocked reactions from the jury while Phil slowly walking past them as he gives his statement. I especially like Farley’s thumbs-up gesture and Ellen’s unimpressed look.
— Phil’s speech about penis size has so many funny lines, and I also like Julia and Melanie’s simultaneous head-shaking whenever they disagree with him.
STARS: ****½
THE ARAKAWA GROUP
Japanese version of McLaughlin bashes lazy Americans
— Much like The Sinatra Group, we get another variation of The McLaughlin Group.
— I can look past the very broad Japanese stereotypes here and enjoy the discussion, funny lines, and general silliness, but I’m probably biased because I’ve always enjoyed this sketch, long before it would’ve been considered too un-PC by modern standards.
— Mike’s “You’re killing me. Oh, my sides” when laughing at Rob’s joke is cracking me up.
— Funny line about the laziest Americans being postal worker on drugs.
— The panelists’ discussion of Barbara Bush has a lot of funny lines about her.
STARS: ***½
THE SENSITIVE NAKED MAN
The Sensitive Naked Man (ROS) tries to find out what’s bothering (host)
— Already starting off hilarious with the opening title and the subsequent casual cutaway to a naked Rob greeting Susan.
— The execution of this is very funny, especially with Rob’s insistence on getting Susan to open up about what’s REALLY bothering her. Rob’s performance here is great.
— A priceless nonchalant reveal of Rob’s uncensored behind at the end, which gets a great audience reaction.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Here We Go Let’s Rock & Roll”
musical guest performs “Gonna Make You Sweat”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Crystal Blue Persuasion (ELC) talks about the refugees sent back to Haiti
Cajunman (ADS) gives KEN a rhyming overview of Mardi Gras
KEN gives a subliminal editorial on the Japanese & the economy
— Very hot audience tonight. Some of Kevin’s jokes are getting big reactions from them.
— Ellen attempts a new character, Crystal Blue Persuasion, who never ends up becoming recurring.
— Ellen’s characterization is decent, but the commentary itself is not interesting and has nothing that’s jumping out at me as really funny. I can definitely see why this character never ended up recurring.
— A lot of comedic random one-line asides from Kevin (e.g. “You know, there are a lot of people out there…”).
— The debut of Cajunman, a character that actually DOES end up becoming recurring.
— I really like the format of Adam’s Cajunman commentary, with his dialogue consisting only of words that end with an “own” pronunciation. Adam’s raspy voice and accent are also adding a lot to the humor.
— Adam’s Cajunman delivery in tonight’s debut is a little faster than it would go on to be in subsequent appearances.
— Among Cajunman’s lines, I especially got a laugh from him saying he got an “infec-shown” from an exotic dancer.
— Kevin’s strong night ends with him doing a Mr. Subliminal editorial, for the first time since he took over as the new Update anchorperson.
— As usual, some very funny Mr. Subliminal lines, especially “Maybe we could learn something from the Japanese (sneak attack).”
STARS: ***½
PARTRIDGE FAMILY VS. BRADY BUNCH
Laurie (host) & Partridges vs. Jan (MEH) & Bradys in battle of the bands
— Here comes the centerpiece of this particular episode, a very fun and all-time classic sketch.
— Big audience reaction as soon as the Partridge Family opening credits and theme song starts playing.
— Good to see Melanie’s Jan Brady impression officially become recurring, and it’s nice seeing it crossed over into a Partridge Family sketch.
— A cringeworthy line flub from Melanie just now, which causes her to nervously laugh her way through the rest of her line.
— Melanie recovers nicely from the blooper mentioned above, by getting very good laughs with her spot-on delivery of “Marsha , Marsha, Marsha!”
— I love the cutaway to Farley’s Reuben Kincaid just observing the Partridges playing music while he has that big grin with his hand resting under his chin.
— This is now starting to get epic as the rest of the Brady kids have shown up.
— Adam’s constantly-cracking voice as Peter Brady is a riot.
— Excellent turn with a battle of the bands between the Bradys and the lip-syncing Partridges.
— Ha, Dana is getting REALLY into his lip-syncing and guitar miming.
— A very funny and outrageous part with Farley’s Reuben Kincaid wildly making out with Julia’s Shirley Partridge.
— The part right now with Phil as Sam the Butcher and writer Christine Zander as a covered-in-snakes Alice would later be removed from reruns. I have no idea why.
— Phil’s Sam the Butcher voice is hilarious.
— What’s with Susan’s stiff, monotone delivery of “I hate you” to the Brady kids? Perhaps that was just her way of making fun of her own acting on Partridge Family.
— Great random inclusion of Rock as… uh… Mushmouth? Dumb Donald? I’m confused over which Fat Albert character he was playing, because, while Dana’s Keith Partridge refers to him as Mushmouth, and Rock was certainly using the Mushmouth voice, I’ve heard during online discussions of this sketch that Rock was actually dressed as Dumb Donald. I wouldn’t know for sure, as Fat Albert was before my time and I’ve never had the fortune of seeing reruns of it. I am vaguely familiar with the show, but only through clips and hearsay.
STARS: *****
GESTURES
on a blind date, (MIM) & (host) make their points semi-verbally
— Pretty charming premise with everyone’s cartoonish physical descriptions of their emotions.
— Very funny part with Susan’s spittake into Mike’s face.
— Mike is particularly great at pulling off the cartoonish physical descriptions.
— Was Mike’s “I think I love you” to Susan supposed to be a subtle Partridge Family reference?
STARS: ***½
BACKSTAGE
Zoraida confuses host’s L.A. Law love scene with real life
— At the beginning as they show Susan walking backstage, I noticed on the SNL home base stage behind her that you can see stagehands disassembling a set and carrying away a desk that has mannequin heads wearing wigs (screencap below).
This was actually going to be a sketch called “Phil Hartman Creations”, where Phil as himself advertises a variety of his trademarked wigs. The sketch seemingly got cut at the last minute tonight and ends up airing later this season in the Sharon Stone episode.
— Despite an okay line or two, Zoraida’s whole shtick of mistaking host’s TV characters with real life is getting increasingly tired with each passing sketch she appears in.
— I did like the ending, with an angered Zoraida yelling to a walking-away Susan “Your family used to sleep in a bus!” and calling her an “una puta”.
STARS: **
BOSS & JANITOR
(MIM) & (DAC) discuss irony & repeatedly trade janitor & executive roles
— Always interesting seeing Mike and Dana being paired together in non-Wayne’s World sketches.
— I like Dana and Mike’s exaggerated cheesy laughter at the end of every scene.
— I’m loving the escalating absurdity in this, with Dana and Mike’s constant back-and-forth job-switching with each other, and them explaining the circumstances that led to it.
— Ha, now this has taken an even more bizarre turn with them both being janitors simultaneously.
— I like the meta part with Dana and Mike’s characters openly mentioning the back-less businessman suit that they kept changing into earlier in the sketch.
— Phil got some good laughs at the end as the angry boss and added to this sketch’s silly vibe.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “A Deeper Love”
ART MUSEUM
museum visitors make personal admissions while contemplating a painting
— Mike Myers has been having a HUGE night. It feels like he’s had a big role in almost every single sketch.
— Mike, in a deadpan response to an odd statement from Susan: “You remind me of my mother. I’m leaving the museum.”
— I love the structure of this sketch, with each character giving a snobbish yet unflattering personal description of themselves before giving their critique of a certain painting. Phil especially had a very funny description of himself.
— Tim absolutely KILLED with his hilarious smugly-delivered line about tying his white girlfriend (Beth) up with a belt and making her moo like a cow. It’s so rare for him to get that type of great one-liner during this era; that’s the type of dialogue that he would later typically get during the second half of his SNL tenure, where he had a much bigger presence and impact on the show.
— Kevin is great as a random deranged guy who ends up deciding to pull down his pants and run around the museum screaming.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
host announces that PHH is now the daddy of Birgen Hartman
— A legendary moment right now: Susan announces the birth of Phil’s daughter Birgen. A joyed Phil’s eyes fill up with tears as everyone around congratulates him. One of the most genuinely touching and heartwarming moments in SNL history, especially in retrospect after Phil’s untimely death.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode. We got a lot of great sketches, one bonafide classic (Partridge Family vs. Brady Bunch), and a heartwarming special announcement during the goodnights. I’ve always felt this episode accurately represents this season, particularly how big the cast is, as we got several instances of SNL using this cast’s extremely large size to their advantage in sketches (Harrassment Trial, Partridge Family vs. Brady Bunch, and somewhat Art Museum), some of which could never have been done with, say, the small late 80s cast.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Chevy Chase)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Jason Priestley