Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
JIB’s friend host hasn’t shown up yet, Mr. Mambo (host) says “told ya so”
— Right at the start of his first episode as a cast member, Jim Belushi is already front-and-center.
— Pretty funny part with Eddie and Joe coming up with an emergency plan to host the show as The Honeymooners.
— Great entrance from John Candy, and I’m liking his character here.
— Jim gets to deliver “Live from New York…” on his first night.
STARS: ***
OPENING MONTAGE
— Interestingly, to keep up the Mr. Mambo premise of the cold opening, the regular SNL theme music is replaced with mambo music tonight.
— This mambo theme is a fun change of pace, though it’s coming off very out-of-place in this particular opening montage.
MONOLOGUE
JOP & EDM kill time doing Ralph Kramden & Ed Norton; host finally arrives
— Good Honeymooners impressions from Joe and Eddie.
— John being at a loss for what to do in his monologue was kinda funny at first, but hasn’t been going anywhere interesting.
— I love the way they transitioned out of this monologue by having John just walk over into the next sketch as it begins, which continues the fun vibe of tonight’s episode.
STARS: **½
OLD COUNTRY SKI LODGE
Doc Edmund (EDM) tries country remedies for broken leg & baby delivery
— This has had a slow start, but I’m liking Eddie and Robin’s entrance as old doctor and nurse.
— Very funny part with Eddie advising Julia to “push her egg down” during sex.
— Some good character work from Eddie here, especially the laugh he keeps doing.
— This overall sketch wasn’t good enough to justify its long length, but there were some highlights here and there.
STARS: **½
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED LITTLE RASCALS
Miss Crabtree’s (ROD) class is evil
— Interesting premise.
— Great effect with the Rascals’ glowing eyes, though I’m not sure how they’re pulling off that effect.
— So we’re just supposed to forget that Buckwheat got killed off last season? What’s he doing here? Or is this different because this is supposed to be the Rascals when they were still just kids and not grown-up yet?
— Tim giving intentionally dangerous advice to the Rascals is pretty funny.
— Unexpected twist at the end where it turns out the Rascals’ “evilness” was just them playing a gag on the teacher.
STARS: ***½
PHONE BOOTH CONFESSION
a priest (host) uses adjacent phone booths to hear (JIB)’s confession
— Ha, I like the concept of holding a confessional in adjoining phone booths.
— Some funny realistic humor here from all the difficulties that would naturally arise from delivering a confessional through a pay phone.
STARS: ***½
SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Joanna Carson (JLD) justifies the amount of alimony she wants from Johnny
Dr. Jack Badofsky lists the many types of acne
— Boy, Brad’s opening NBC “Be There” joke was fucking terrible.
— Brad’s second joke wasn’t any better. Geez, he’s off to a very rough start tonight.
— Okay, his jokes are starting to get A LITTLE better, but still nothing to write home about.
— When mentioning having to sleep with Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show guest hosts once a week, Julia mentions Bill Cosby as one of them and makes a pudding sex joke regarding him, which comes off cringeworthy in hindsight for obvious reasons.
— I liked Julia’s “He’s not funny upside-down either” line regarding watching Carson’s Tonight Show while having sex.
— I like the fake-out with Tim’s “Balzac-ne” pun, where it ends up being for something much more innocent than the name would have you expect.
— Tonight’s overall Dr. Jack Badofsky commentary was kind of a letdown. Nothing stood out in this one aside from the aforementioned “Balzac-ne” one, nor did we get any of Tim’s usual funny ad-libs in response to the audience’s reactions.
— I’ve been noticing that this season’s editions of Saturday Night News have been quite short so far. I’m glad, because I wasn’t crazy about the overly-lengthy format they often used in the second half of last season. Though the fact that they’ve been shortening Saturday Night News this season could be a sign of the writing being on the wall for Brad, who’s tenure as an anchorperson is soon coming to an abrupt end.
STARS: **
MOVIE CONTRACT
EDM agrees to be in Dr. Tongue’s (host) 3D Chicks in Their Underwear
— John’s cheap 3D “effect” with the pen was pretty funny.
— Oh, this just turns out to be a musical guest intro. Clever way to shake up the segment.
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Doctor Heckyll & Mr. Jive”
EDDIE IN NEW JERSEY
a look at EDM’s suburban New Jersey lifestyle
— Very interesting-seeming segment, showing Eddie’s new life in Jersey.
— Eh, the humor here is turning out to be pretty predictable and basic. Nothing special or clever at all.
STARS: **
BACKSTAGE WITH RONALD MCDONALD
Ronald McDonald (JOP) shows his nasty side in his dressing room
— Poor underused Gary Kroeger is just now making his first appearance of the night, and it’s just in a straight role.
— The return of Joe’s portrayal of Ronald McDonald, though at least his clown make-up is a lot less disgusting-looking than it was in that “McMillan and Wife” parody he did with Susan Saint James.
— Is this premise going to be Joe playing McDonald as an egotistical diva backstage, similar to that Pope sketch that Joe did two seasons ago? Considering how I pretty much hated that one, I’m not looking forward to seeing a knockoff of it.
— Pretty funny joke with Ronald McDonald’s “secret sauce” being liquor.
— Ugh at that groanworthy part with Ronald McDonald showing a perverted interest when hearing there are 7-year-olds waiting to see him, only to be disappointed to find out they’re boys and not girls.
— This overall sketch was a small improvement over the aforementioned Pope sketch.
— Something about this had a quintessential Ebersol era feel; one of those sketches that I can’t picture appearing in any other era.
STARS: **½
CANDACE’S FANTASY SHACK
(JIB) becomes the millionth customer at Candace’s (host) Fantasy Shack
— John is really funny as Candace.
— LOL at the huge size difference between “Candace” and Tim.
— Interesting character choice from Julia, using a random lisp for her Princess Leia-dressed character.
— Something about Mary-as-Dorothy’s delivery of “I like to be who I am… a whore!” made me laugh.
— Funny “millionth customer” twist.
STARS: ***
POLY-ROCK
Poly-Rock denture cream lets old musicians play guitar with their teeth
— For some reason, I almost thought Brad was playing Ozzy Osbourne at first, and I was about to ask “Didn’t Tim play him last time?” (in that “geek’s mouthwash” commercial), before I realized Brad just seems to be playing a fictional rocker.
— Nothing really to say about this overall commercial. It was really generic and just came and went.
STARS: **
BACKSTAGE
William B. Williams (host) & Ed McMahon (JOP) introduce musical guest
— I always crack up at Joe’s McMahon laugh.
— Another fake-out with a sketch turning out to be a musical guest intro. I’m liking this theme tonight.
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “It’s a Mistake”
MEN BEHIND BARS
(host) & (JIB) are glad to be back in prison for the winter
— Who’s the big guy playing the prison guard? Strangely, it kinda looks like the show’s director Dave Wilson, though I don’t see how it could be him.
— Lots of Jim Belushi for his first episode.
— Not too sure about this premise.
— Okay, I’m slowly starting to like this sketch more and more.
— I admit to getting a very cheap laugh from the off-camera effeminate voices from another prison cell.
— The “Why do you always have to be the last one to say ‘goodnight’?” bit was quite funny.
— An overall pretty good sketch that worked as a more quiet, relatable, realistically-humored piece, much like the Confessional sketch earlier tonight. And much like that sketch, John and Jim worked very well together.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
— John thanks “True West for letting Jim Belushi out tonight”. I’m assuming True West was some kind of play or show that Jim was in the middle of co-starring in when making his SNL debut.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty decent though average episode; not as strong as you would expect a John Candy-hosted episode to be (which I recall also saying about the episode that Candy’s SCTV castmates Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas co-hosted together last season). That being said, there was a fun, good vibe to the episode (Candy’s presence certainly helped in that regard) and the pacing of the show felt fairly quick.
— Jim Belushi had a huge first night, gave strong performances, and is already fitting in well on the show. This is making me look forward to the rest of his tenure.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman):
— about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Betty Thomas