Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
JOB dumps recovering CHC out of his wheelchair
— Looks like Chevy’s returning tonight. Not for long, though; I know he ends up leaving SNL for good very soon.
— Jane, on Chevy’s return: “That probably means I won’t be doing Update anymore…” Oh, don’t worry, Jane, your day as a regular Update anchor will be coming sooner than you think…
— LOL at Chevy’s overdramatic entrance in the wheelchair.
— Great unexpected shove out of the wheelchair by John.
— There seemed to be a technical error when no lights turned on at Chevy while he said LFNY.
Not only did it look strange only seeing his silhouette during his LFNY, but right before he said it, you could hear an off-camera voice audibly saying what sounded like “Billy, turn it on”.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host introduces her son Hunter [real] & narrates a history of mothers
— A host making their monologue entrance while holding a baby? I don’t think that’s ever happened any other time on SNL.
— The various pictures are kinda funny, but not anything great.
— Haha, the baby is stealing the show, grabbing at Karen’s chest while she’s trying to go on with the monologue. Was the baby thirsty?
STARS: **½
BABA WAWA AT LARGE
Indira Gandhi (LAN) defends antidemocratic policies
— Pretty funny hearing Laraine say “dear Ms. Wawa” in that Indian accent.
— The “free ewections” bit was good, but I kinda wanted them to go further with it.
— Funny moment with Baba pointing out the “pimento” on Laraine’s forehead.
STARS: ***
DEBATE ’76
Gerald Ford (CHC) & Jimmy Carter (DAA) inspire diffidence
— I like the needle sticking out of Chevy’s arm, especially how it’s not even being addressed within the sketch.
— Chevy trying to “name that tune” when they played the National Anthem was hilarious.
— Dan’s sexual comments to Jane are great.
— Not really liking Karen much as the moderator. Her performance has been strange and feels out-of-place. Lily Tomlin did a much better job in the first debate sketch.
— Funny bit with Ford and Carter both making their closing statements simultaneously.
— The ending credits of this sketch are re-using the exact same jokes from the ending credits of the first debate sketch. Only difference is this one is displayed in a different font and color, for some reason.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
— The opening camera angle on Chevy is quite different tonight.
— Chevy making the Jiminy Cricket face while singing “When You Wish Upon A Star” (first screencap above) is something he would later do again in his 1995 monologue.
— The Swine Flu Deaths joke was very funny.
TRIPLE TRAC
— Oh, come on, if you’re gonna rerun a commercial, at least do one from this season! But then again, it feels like there’s barely been any pre-taped commercials so far this season; the only one that comes to mind right now is Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine commercial.
— For some reason, they added in new goofy sound effects during the animation of the razor blades tugging at the hair.
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
— Chevy doesn’t seem to realize he’s looking at the wrong camera during the mafia joke. (first screencap above)
— Ha, and now he finally realized. His reaction was pretty funny.
— No Update guests at all tonight.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***
GREEN CROSS CUPCAKES
truth in advertising laws allow Green Cross claim of cancer-free cupcakes
— The short scene of the two scientists just slowly walking by with a stretcher of cupcakes in the red-flashing lab was strange, but made me laugh.
— Funny visual with John slowly shoving a whole cupcake into his mouth.
— Overall, I feel like I kinda didn’t get this sketch. Its randomness does have somewhat of an appeal to me, though.
STARS: **½
A*M*I*S*H
crime-fighting Mennonites are slow to react to a bank robbery
— Looks like this has suddenly turned into an Amish version of typical 70s cop shows. I can tell I’m gonna like this concept.
— John’s character just being named “Churn” is pretty funny.
— Nice background music throughout this. Again, very accurate to typical 70s cop shows.
— Overall, not sure how I feel about this sketch as a whole. I get what it was going for, but I dunno, I kinda wanted this to go in a bit of a different direction.
STARS: **½
LOVE RUSSIAN STYLE
stressed Catherine the Great (host) & equine lover
— There are a few funny little details like Dan’s deep-voiced vocalizing during John’s long story, but where exactly is this sketch going?
— What was with Karen’s “Off with his pants… I mean, head” line? I can’t tell if that was a genuine flub or a random joke.
— What’s with the coughing during Gilda and Karen’s conversation?
— Oh, never mind, the coughing is part of sketch.
— The horse’s Mr. Ed-esque voice is cracking me up.
— I also like the reference to the Mr. Ed theme song.
— Overall, strange sketch, but got better towards the end. The entire first half felt overlong and unnecessary.
STARS: **½
PIPS
by Gary Weis- nightclub owner George Schultz [real] tells anecdotes
— Oh, that was Chevy doing the horse’s voice in the preceding sketch!
— This nightclub owner guy seems funny, but aside from some little chuckles, I haven’t been finding myself laughing all that much at his stories. I don’t know what to make of this short (I feel like I’m saying that about a lot of stuff tonight).
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
REUNION
high school nerd (DAA) reunites with cheerleader (JAC) at a lunch counter
— Oh, man, we’re two minutes into this sketch, and I have not cared much for anything in it so far.
— I’m usually not a fan of whenever SNL does this type of sketch. In fact, this one is kinda reminding me of a dreadful Bar sketch that Seth Meyers would later do with Paris Hilton in 2005.
— Overall, I wanted to like this, considering how much I’ve generally been loving Dan Aykroyd sketches in the episodes I’ve covered so far, but this was a huge misfire.
STARS: *½
MR. BILL GOES TO A PARTY
by Walter Williams- Mr. Bill attends Vance Degeneres’ [real] party
— Haha, this is pretty hilarious so far.
— What the hell? What’s with all the screen jumping and the abrupt cut to the party? The screen jumps almost made it look like a whole bunch of stuff was sloppily edited out.
— Great ending.
STARS: ****
KAREN BLACK: “TEN CENTS A DANCE”
host performs “Ten Cents A Dance”
— Another instance of a host doing a serious musical performance…
AMERICAN COINAGE
GAM, CHC, DAA, JOB pay musical tributes to American coinage
as JOB sings “One More For The Road,” on-screen scroll lists thefts
— The preceding Karen Black song has now segued into the cast doing a musical tribute to American coinage. At least this looks like this will be an actual comedic segment.
— Garrett sounds like he’s doing his so-bad-it’s-good Sammy Davis Jr. voice from the Nixon’s Final Days sketch.
— What was with Chevy beginning to say Dan’s lines before realizing his mistake? Again, that’s something I can’t tell was a real flub or an intentional joke.
— This tribute is kinda funny so far.
— Another mid-song disclaimer scroll, which seems to have become a semi-common thing in this era of SNL. I’m liking all the anecdotes in this one about John stealing things.
— What the hell? Why has the disclaimer suddenly started scrolling by so fast? That’s making it hard to read what it says, which is killing the joke.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
— Much like the Rob Reiner and Dick Cavett goodnights from last season, this is just still photos of the opening credits while the goodnights music plays. I guess SNL once again ran out of time before they could do a real goodnights segment. I wonder if the show running out of time is the reason they sped up the last half of the Belushi disclaimer scroll in the last sketch.
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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Strange episode. And honestly, it left me kinda cold. I dunno, I just wasn’t crazy about it. There were some individual highlights, but as a whole, the episode came off as a letdown compared to how well this season had been going before this point.
— Something else I wasn’t crazy about: Karen Black’s performance as host. I’m having a hard time remembering most of what she did, I wasn’t all that impressed by her, and her performance in the debate sketch was actually kinda bad. From what I read, she does a better job in her next hosting stint a few years later, in an episode that’s usually considered one of the better ones from the infamous 80-81 season.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Eric Idle):
— a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Steve Martin makes his hosting debut