Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
musical guest inaugurates happy Bill Clinton (PHH) a la Marilyn Monroe
— Pretty fitting casting of Mike as Barbra Streisand, given the Coffee Talk sketches.
— We’ve officially arrived at a new presidency during SNL’s timeline. The Clinton years are gonna be quite a doozy for SNL.
— Ellen’s Whoopi impression is cracking me up, even if I feel she’s not nailing the voice.
— A lot of laughs from the cutaways to the Clinton family’s differing reactions to Madonna’s Marilyn Monroe-esque singing, with a horny Bill, an upset Hillary, and a confused Chelsea.
— I love Bill making the “call me” gesture to Madonna while hugging Hillary.
— Regarding the ending with Madonna revealing she was directing her sultry singing towards Chelsea, I’m kinda surprised SNL would go there after the then-recent controversy over their comments about Chelsea in a Wayne’s World sketch.
— Madonna messes up when saying “Live from New York…”, instead saying “Live from S–” before cutting herself off, pausing for a second, and then saying it correctly.
STARS: ****½
MONOLOGUE
host thinks musical guest’s fans are there to see him
— At times, Harvey’s voice reminds me a bit of future cast member Colin Quinn for some reason.
— A simple premise, but there are some decent laughs from his obliviousness to the excitement being for Madonna, not him.
STARS: ***
JIFFY EXPRESS
— Rerun from this season’s Christopher Walken episode
BATHROOM ATTENDANT
fancy restaurant bathroom attendant (KEN) makes (host) self-conscious
— I love the realization when it’s gradually revealed that Kevin’s a bathroom attendant.
— A quintessential Kevin Nealon premise, as he’s always great at pulling off this type of concept.
— The awkwardness of this situation is providing lots of laughs. I’m also liking some of the little things like Kevin tearing off pieces of toilet paper in advance.
— Hilarious how Harvey is trying to use the newspaper to hide himself from Kevin.
— Chris Farley returns from his second rehab stint of the season, only to make a quick 3-second walk-on at the end of this sketch, which ends up being his ONLY appearance of tonight’s episode. Odd. I used to wonder if perhaps he got out of rehab just a day or so before this episode, and this was the only sketch they could manage to throw him into on such short notice, but then I learned he was in a few cut dress rehearsal sketches from this episode, including a now-well-known Eager & Jones sketch (Farley and Meadows as a musical duo who sing as if they’re gay) that will make it on the air later this season.
STARS: ****½
TRANSIT WORKERS
mush-mouthed transit workers produce unintelligible subway announcements
— Harvey’s completely unintelligible speech over the subway intercom is a hilarious spoof of how hard it is to understand the muffled announcements made over subway intercoms. As someone who grew up in New York, this sketch brings back childhood memories of often being baffled by those muffled announcements in New York subways.
— Great reveal of Harvey’s casual speak being just as muffled as his intercom voice, along with his co-workers.
— Ellen’s muffled speak in particular sounds hilarious when it’s heard over the intercom.
— I love the confused look on Tim’s face during Ellen’s intercom announcement.
— Funny PSA from an equally-muffled-voiced spokesman played by Phil.
— This sketch was kept the right length for a premise like this.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Fever“
WEEKEND UPDATE
KEN gives a subliminal editorial about Bill Clinton’s inauguration
CSR discusses racial stereotypes, declares “yakoo“ as new anti-white slur
Hollywood Minute- DAS reviews 1992 celebrity news & recent movies
— I recently said that I wonder if the best days of Kevin’s subliminal routine are far behind us, but I feel his subliminal editorial tonight on Bill Clinton’s inauguration was his strongest in a while. The best subliminal terms in this one were Joey Buttafuoco, McNugget, and one-term.
— Funny how so many people in the audience just responded “Oooooh” to Kevin’s joke about the Clintons keeping daughter Chelsea chained up in a dungeon below the White House.
— I like Rock’s mini-rant about wishing there were more positive stereotypes for black people.
— Rock’s suggestions for a new racial slur against white people are okay. His use of placards for each slur is bringing back memories of Tim Kazurinsky’s Dr. Jack Badofsky commentaries from 10 years earlier.
— Tonight’s overall Hollywood Minute surprisingly felt a little below par for David’s standards. A number of his slams tonight didn’t hit as hard as usual. He still had some funny comments here, especially the one about Cindy Crawford’s attempt at singing in a recent commercial, and him about to do a joke about Madonna, only to nervously refrain when remembering she’s at the show tonight.
— Much like the preceding episode, Robert Smigel had an Update commentary cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal in which he reprises his Hank Fielding “Moron’s Perspective” character giving an analysis of Bill Clinton.
STARS: ***
IT’S PAT
(host) tries to figure out the gender of fellow castaway androgynous Pat
Audience McGee intercedes to maintain androgynous Pat’s aura of mystery
— I love Harvey’s diary entry about he and Pat having had sex 8 times and him STILL not knowing what gender Pat is.
— In interviews, Julia has famously talked about how she was once approached by a female fan who said she knows Pat’s a woman, because of the way Pat’s head was positioned in tonight’s sketch when sharing a kiss with Harvey. Turns out that was just a natural, subconscious move from Julia and wasn’t intentional for this character.
— Yet another Pat sketch with a refreshing twist, as we get a great fourth-wall break with Audience McGee putting a stop to Pat’s big gender reveal. I especially love McGee bringing up NBC’s pending loss of Cheers and David Letterman as reasons why we need Pat.
STARS: ****
BUSH’S SWAN SONG
George Bush (DAC) cleans out desk & talks with Dan Quayle (Jeff Renaudo)
— Damn, where ya been, Dana? This is the first time we’ve seen Dana in THREE episodes, and this ends up being his ONLY appearance of tonight’s episode, in a sketch buried in the back half of the show. Geez. Lately, it’s ALREADY been starting to feel like Dana’s officially left SNL. He only has one episode left before that happens.
— I love how Bush’s only response during a phone call he receives is a frankly-delivered “Bomb ’em. I’m still the president; bomb ’em good.”
— Nice premise for the final Bush sketch of his presidency. I’m loving all the wistful reminiscing from him here.
— Very funny prank Bush leaves for the about-to-take-over Bill Clinton, involving the removal of the device inside the oval office phone’s mouthpiece.
— I love the big ball of foil Bush rediscovers.
— Jeff Renaudo, the child actor who regularly plays Dan Quayle, has really grown since the last time we’ve seen him. Dana’s Bush even mentions how tall he’s getting.
— I’m liking how Dana’s Bush is particularly goofy and giddy during certain parts of this sketch.
— I usually DESPISE that Tomorrow song from Annie, but given the nature of this sketch, the song actually feels fitting and heartwarming in this context.
— Overall, a solid final Bush sketch that was both funny and bittersweet. This actually would’ve been really fitting as Dana’s final SNL sketch. It could’ve been his official sendoff. Unfortunately, as we’ll see, his actual final episode turns out to feature no special sendoff pieces for him at all. It’s just a run-of-the-mill episode for him. A shame.
STARS: ****
UNFROZEN CAVE MAN LAWYER
Cirroc tries primitive act in Mexican court
— Speaking of final sketches, this ends up being the final Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer sketch during Phil’s tenure as a cast member, not counting the one they would later do when Phil hosts in season 21.
— As usual, some nice bizarre fake sponsors at the top of the sketch. I especially like how one of the sponsors is the planet Xylon, made funnier by the announcer’s cheerful reading of the planet’s warning to us earthlings: “Change your ways or we’ll come there and destroy you!”
— An interesting change of pace for this recurring sketch, with this installment taking place in Mexico City and all the dialogue being delivered in Spanish.
— I’m enjoying how the Spanish version of Cirroc’s usual “Your world frightens and confuses me” speech to the jury comically has a few select English words thrown in.
— Rob’s mostly serious speech went on for a long time, but I liked his use of air quotes when saying “shakes” and “shimmies” during his Spanish dialect.
— This sketch ended on a really empty, weak note with Cirroc just silently smiling into the camera. And why was there no “preview of next week’s episode” scene at the end, like these sketches usually end with?
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Bad Girl“
musical guest tears up a photo of the “real enemy“– Joey Buttafuoco
AN INSANE IDIOT AND HIS COLLECTION OF DESCENDING-SIZE DEER HEADS
an insane idiot (host) shows his collection of descending-size deer heads
— I love that we get two back-to-back oddball Jack Handey sketches tonight (not counting Madonna’s musical performance in between).
— The increasing absurdity of this sketch is fantastic, especially when the descending-size deer heads start getting less and less deer-related, such as a mouse with deer horns glued to it, and an ant along with its three eggs.
— Harvey is executing this really well. There’s probably not many hosts who could pull off such a bizarre premise this well all by themselves in a solo sketch.
— Great reveal of the sketch’s title at the end. I like that they waited until then, because if they had displayed the title right at the beginning, I feel that the randomness of this sketch wouldn’t have worked quite as well.
— This overall sketch has always been one of my personal favorites, and some of Jack Handey’s best work.
STARS: *****
CAB
(MIM) & (JUS) get alternating orders to get in or out of (host)’s cab
— Ha, they’re not even attempting to make that street backdrop look real.
— I’m getting some laughs from the ridiculous back-and-forths with Harvey repeatedly letting Mike and Julia in his cab, then sternly ordering them to get out over every little disagreement.
— Funny how even Phil’s cop is getting into the “get in/out of the cab” act.
— Pretty funny ending, though the studio audience took an unusually long time to applaud.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
— For some reason, the scrolling credits abruptly stop halfway through, even as the goodnights continue. The same thing happened in the preceding season’s Christmas episode hosted by Steve Martin.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode, and the best in a while. Not only did every single sketch work for me tonight, but a lot of them were particularly great. This is usually always one of the first episodes to automatically pop up in my mind whenever I think about how strong this particular season is.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Danny DeVito)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Luke Perry hosts, and we get Dana Carvey’s last hurrah
