Tag: Nirvana

Posted on

September 25, 1993 – Charles Barkley / Nirvana (S19 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Bill Clinton (PHH) tells what the health care plan will & won’t cover

— Funny reference to the infamous then-recent Lorena Bobbitt incident (the first of many references this season).
— Some really good laughs from Phil’s Clinton delivering such a serious rundown of which circus sideshow freaks are covered by his health care plan. (“Japu, the Indian rubber man, you are covered. Lobster Boy, I feel your pain!”)
— Funny part with Clinton’s sly smile before saying breast augmentation is covered by his health care plan.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— Same montage from the last three seasons, making this the first time in SNL history where an opening montage was used for more than three seasons. I wonder if SNL fans at the time were disappointed to have to see this montage being used for YET ANOTHER season. I find it funny that right before tonight’s montage was cued up, Phil Hartman’s Clinton set up his “Live from New York…” by saying there are certain things they’re too afraid to change. That exact same statement could be made about this opening montage.
— Ellen Cleghorne, Melanie Hutsell, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, and David Spade have all been promoted from featured player to repertory player.
— After the 1990-1993 experiment of having two separate categories of featured players, we now go back to the traditional format of only one category of featured players.
— The shot of Julia Sweeney from the last three seasons (first screencap below) has been updated to a new shot (second screencap below).

— There are no new cast members yet. We will eventually get three of them added within the following two months.


MONOLOGUE
host goes one-on-one with Godzilla stand-in Barney

— Considering Charles Barkley’s evident greenness here, it’s probably a good thing he threw to a pre-taped video fairly early.
— Hilarious idea of Charles going one-on-one with Barney the Dinosaur. New writer (and soon-to-be new cast member) Jay Mohr came up with the idea of this monologue.
— This film is priceless, especially when it gets to the point where Barney has an eye hanging loose and stuffing popping out of his head.
— Too bad 9-year-old me at this time in 1993 hadn’t discovered SNL yet, because I would’ve gotten a huge kick out of seeing Barney getting pummeled, considering my seething hatred for him at the time (which was probably typical for boys around my age during Barney’s overexposure in the early 90s).
STARS: ****½


NCI
NCI Long Distance Company will do whatever you want to get your business

— The visual style of this commercial is a dead-on recreation of these types of phone commercials from this era.
— The customers’ increasingly bizarre requests are funny, as are the key words being flashed onscreen in response to every request being accepted (e.g. “Pretty girls”, “Extra long phone numbers”, “Ponies”).
— David’s doing a solid job in this spokesperson role, though the fact that he’s being cast in this role while Phil has a small supporting role as a customer is our very first sign that this season is a changing of the guard, with the new guard (Spade, Farley, Sandler) receiving more and more focus while the old guard (Hartman, Nealon) gets phased out. If this commercial had aired even as then-recently as the preceding season 18, I bet David and Phil would’ve been cast in each other’s roles.
— Speaking of Phil, I’ve always noticed that something about his face looks a lot different in this final season of his. Maybe it’s just sudden aging. His hair looks different this season too.
STARS: ***½


LARRY KING LIVE
divorcee Burt Reynolds (PHH) takes truth serum

— Kevin’s Larry King impression always makes me laugh, as does Phil’s Burt Reynolds.
— I liked Phil-as-Burt-Reynolds line, “She’ll be back; she’s like the clap.”
— Feels odd unexpectedly hearing Sarah Silverman’s now-instantly-recognizable voice as one of the callers. Sarah is one of the new writers this season and, like Jay Mohr, will soon be added to this season’s cast.
— I love King and Reynolds’ simultaneous goofy laughter, which seems to be inspired by the then-newly-popular Beavis and Butthead.
— Some of the truths King blurts out after drinking truth serum are pretty funny.
— Overall, the sketch was fine, but feels unfitting and kinda odd as the lead-off sketch of a season premiere (which is also a gripe I had with the preceding season premiere’s lead-off sketch: Tiny Elvis).
STARS: ***


DAILY AFFIRMATION WITH STUART SMALLEY
Muggsy Bogues [real] lends support to host

— Unless I’m forgetting something, this is the first time a Daily Affirmation sketch has ever appeared in the pre-Weekend Update half of an episode.
— The idea of tonight’s Daily Affirmation sketch was obviously inspired by the success of the one with Michael Jordan from two seasons earlier.
— Charles already has some funny lines early on in this interview.
— Great part where, after Charles brags about being the best basketball player, Stuart innocently says “If you’re the best basketball player in the world, I guess you’ve won a lot of championships”, which Charles then embarrassedly admits he hasn’t.
— A Muggsy Bogues cameo!
— When Charles is supposed to start getting choked up, you can tell he’s stifling his laughter, which comes off looking hilarious.
— Muggsy’s heartfelt “I love you” to Charles is very funny.
— I love Stuart eagerly getting up to hug Muggsy because he finds him adorable.
— Overall, though I feel this doesn’t hold a candle to the Michael Jordan one, this was a strong Daily Affirmation sketch.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Heart-Shaped Box”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Hollywood Minute- DAS gives his thoughts on summer showbiz happenings

— We’re seeing the wrong camera angle during Kevin’s joke about the Olympics. Either that, or Kevin’s just delivering the joke into the wrong camera.
— Oof, some of Kevin’s jokes are getting a really tepid audience reaction. This is setting the tone for what a rough season this is going to be for Kevin’s Updates.
— Though he stumbled through the set-up (as usual), Kevin finally had a great joke that got a big reaction tonight, with his joke about how Michael Jackson celebrated his 35th birthday with “a 13 year old…………….bottle of champagne.”
— During David’s Hollywood Minute, I loved his “It gets worse” aside to the audience when some of them are going “Ohhhh” after the Andrew McCarthy slam.
— The usual solid stuff from David’s overall Hollywood Minute tonight, with my favorite parts being his Homer Simpson/Skipper “d’oh/dip” back-and-forths, him riffing on Chevy Chase’s disastrous new talk show, and his comments about Billy Idol.
— Another wrong camera angle during one of Kevin’s Update jokes.
— Two Update commentaries were cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal: one in which Ellen’s Queen Shenequa character talks about taxes and President Clinton (pic here), and one in which Adam as Eddie Vedder (an impression that will make its on-air debut a few episodes later) sings about world events to the melody of the Pearl Jam song “Evenflow” (pic here). The latter sounds like a variation of Adam’s Operaman commentaries.
STARS: **½


THE GAP
Gap girls Kristy & Lucy recall unpleasant experience with Skid Row [real]

— Interesting how they completely changed David’s character’s hairstyle, which has been acknowledged within the sketch.
— The Heidi Fleiss scandal must’ve recently broken out, as we’re getting a lot of mentions of her in tonight’s season premiere.
— And now, much like David’s character, Farley’s character’s hair also looks different from the preceding installments of this sketch.
— Farley’s whispery “You two are terrible!” cracked me up.
— Random pre-taped Skid Row cameo out of nowhere.
— Oh my god at the sight of Charles Barkley dressed like… that.
— Charles is wearing flesh-colored makeup over his mustache to hide it. Also, he keeps holding his head down in this weird way. Is he doing that to make the flesh-colored makeup less noticeable onscreen?
— That’s the end of the sketch? Why was Charles’ appearance so brief? Seemed like a waste of our host.
— Not the best Gap Girls sketch overall. I didn’t care for the Skid Row scene and the sketch as a whole felt too disjointed, like I was watching three Gap Girls sketches in one.
STARS: **½


COFFEE TALK WITH LINDA RICHMAN
Linda takes some calls on Yom Kippur

— The first of what will unfortunately (for me) be an EXCESSIVE amount of Coffee Talk sketches this season.
— As usual, the material is boring me and I’m getting pretty much no laughs, but I did like Linda Richman’s long run of Yiddish during a rant just now, which was impressively delivered.
— Boy, while watching these early 90s episodes during this SNL project, I’ve gotten VERY sick of hearing that “I’m feeling verklempt… tawk amongst yuhselves” catchphrase. It never makes me laugh, and what makes it worse is that it’s always delivered two or three times in each Coffee Talk sketch.
— I’m starting to notice that my absolute least favorite Coffee Talk sketches (which is certainly saying something) are the ones with no guests, like tonight’s installment.
STARS: *½


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


CHARLES BARKLEY’S BIG, TALL & BLACK MEN’S STORES
host’s store offers clothes for big tall black males; Muggsy Bogues cameo

— HUGE technical issues as this sketch starts. The soft background music for this sketch instantly cues up, but the screen just stays black for a VERY long time. Then, while the sketch’s background music is still heard playing, an SNL bumper photo of Barkley is shown onscreen for a while, as if this is SNL’s way of telling us “Technical difficulties; please stand by”. Then the sketch FINALLY starts. Wow, what the hell was going on?
— Decent concept for this sketch.
— A few minutes into this, and I haven’t been finding this hilarious, but there IS a charm to it.
— Funny visual of Muggsy Bogues entering in oversized clothes.
STARS: **½


OUT OF AFRICA
tribal art dealer (ROS) touts the weed-holding abilities of artifacts

— OH, NO. Here’s the debut of a soon-to-be recurring sketch that I’ve always despised.
— Only 40 seconds into this sketch, and “You put your weed in there!” has already been said about three times and is clearly going to be the only joke of this whole sketch.
— It’s now a few minutes later, and yep, nothing has changed. “You put your weed in there!” remains the ONLY joke.
— Okay, one part of the scene right now with Barkley’s cop questioning Rob gave me a “so stupid, it’s funny” chuckle.
— Overall, a rare miss at the time for the usually-solid Rob Schneider. Unfortunately, this season ends up having a number of Rob Schneider sketches that don’t land with me. This is only the beginning.
STARS: *½


WHAT’S THAT?
contestants guess the sex of crossdressed men; RuPaul cameo

— What’s with the crossdressing theme in tonight’s episode, between the Gap Girls sketch, Coffee Talk, and now this?
— This is the first time in tonight’s episode where I’ve noticed Chris Rock’s departure. Adam being cast as one of the contestants in this urban gameshow makes it obvious that SNL now only has two black cast members. Adam is cracking me up in this role, though.
— What the…? Charles’ voice has suddenly become very hoarse mid-sketch, making it very hard for him to get through the line he’s currently trying to deliver.
— Not the funniest concept to this sketch, but it has a very goofy, silly atmosphere that’s working for me.
— Bea Arthur being shown as one of the “man or woman?” clips gave me a laugh.
— Another technical error tonight, this time with the opening “It’s time for What’s That” announcement accidentally being played during the ending when they were supposed to play the What’s That ending theme music.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Rape Me”


DONKEY BASKETBALL CAMP
host stresses importance of human-ass cooperation in donkey basketball

— Uh… what a concept.
— Big night for David Spade, who’s been very prominent in this episode. Probably the most airtime he’s gotten in a single episode thus far.
— Ha, this sketch has started going off the rails, first with Charles’ donkey starting to move around when it’s not supposed to, and then one of the other guys’ donkey just walking right off the set.
— The “Slipping on donkey urine” bit gave me a good laugh.
— Ha, now Farley’s basketball bouncing has scared the rest of the donkeys, causing them to leave the set with the guys still on top of them.
— Farley looked like he had no idea when to exit the scene. Maybe Charles was supposed to tell him to go, but forgot.
— Overall, there was a weird kind of fun charm to this random sketch, though it pales in comparison to a far-superior and more memorable later sketch that also involves people sitting on donkeys in an unlikely situation: the Ridin’ My Donkey Political Talk Show sketch from the Will Ferrell era.
STARS: ***


OFFICE SPACE
by Mike Judge- disgruntled worker Milton stews

— A lot of Beavis and Butthead connections tonight.  First, the SNL Band played the Beavis and Butthead theme music during one of the band shots earlier tonight (and IIRC, they do that again right after this Office Space cartoon), then the Larry King Live sketch had Kevin and Phil’s Larry King and Burt Reynolds constantly laughing simultaneously in a goofy manner, then David did a Beavis and Butthead imitation at one point during Hollywood Minute, and now we get this Mike Judge cartoon. This really takes me back to how Beavis and Butthead took pop culture by storm around this time. I remember my mom didn’t allow me to watch Beavis and Butthead’s show back then because she felt I was too young for it (I was 9 years old, as mentioned earlier in this review), but I would still sneak in viewings of it when she wasn’t around, and I eventually got in a bit of trouble when she caught me watching it.
— Needless to say, this Office Space cartoon is an interesting change of pace for SNL.
— This is already cracking me up early on. This Milton character is hilarious.
— For some reason, it feels weird hearing audience laughter during an indie-type cartoon like this.
— I love the part with Milton’s boss.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— While not a terrible season premiere, this season’s drop in quality from season 18 is already evident. The first half of the episode was fine, but the second half was pretty rough, though there was a bit of an upswing towards the very end. As for Charles Barkley, while I feel his comedic sensibilities are better in more modern times where there’s more of a self-aware quality to his humorous personality, he had his moments tonight and wasn’t too bad for an athlete host.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1992-93)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Shannen Doherty

Posted on

January 11, 1992 – Rob Morrow / Nirvana (S17 E10)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Oliver Stone (PHH) sees conspiracy in George Bush’s (DAC) barfing episode

— Some good laughs from how overly cautious Phil’s Oliver Stone is when Kevin arrives for their meeting.
— Priceless video of Dana’s Bush vomiting and passing out, and Phil’s Barbara Bush panicking and climbing on the table.
— Some more laughs from the back-and-forth replay of the vomit going out and back into Bush’s mouth.
— This whole cold opening is tickling the hell out of me, especially with Phil-as-Oliver-Stone’s overly serious discussion of the vomit.
— The huge sheet of plastic vomit that Phil displays looks like it could be the same one that he displayed in the Apex Novelty sketch from the Jeff Daniels episode earlier this season, only without the uneaten sandwich.
— The “the president has wet his pants” ending was okay, though didn’t make me laugh quite as hard as the rest of the sketch.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
a clip of the substitute judge sketch proves that host was on SNL before

 

— Morrow is coming off very composed and relaxed in his performance here.
— Pretty memorable bit with Morrow pointing out he appeared as an extra in the Substitute Judge sketch from season 5’s Rodney Dangerfield episode. I’m also enjoying the fact that we get to see a clip from that sketch, as it brings back nice memories of not only when I reviewed that sketch, but when I reviewed that era in general.
— Some pretty good laughs from Morrow exaggerating the impact of his work as an extra, and acting like it’s the reason SNL had him back tonight.
STARS: ***½


SÁLON
putting the accent on the first syllable makes the shampoo work

— David Spade getting a rare showcase this season!
— David’s giving a strong performance and he’s totally selling this commercial. It feels interesting in retrospect seeing him nail a role like this, as it’s so opposite of the persona he’d go on to frequently use in sketches during his later seasons.
— I’m liking the insistence on how you must say “salon” with the accent, and the animated graphic showing how your hair is affected by the various ways you say “salon”.
STARS: ****


IT’S PAT
partygoers’ game of strip poker fails to indicate androgynous Pat’s sex

— An interesting oddly specific look of Mike’s character.
— I like the reveal of strip poker being the game that Pat’s co-workers think will reveal Pat’s gender.
— I loved Pat’s delivery of “I feel so NAUGHTY!”
— Good line with Pat requesting the song “Dude Looks Like a Lady”.
— I didn’t like the turn this took near the end, with the strange stock footage montage of people at work while a voice-over talks about people being comfortable with the sexuality of themselves and others, nor did I care for the subsequent scene with Pat being the only one at the party who still has clothes on.
— Not one of my favorite Pat sketches overall, as I felt it fizzled out near the end and the sketch as a whole was unusually short, when it felt like it could’ve benefited from doing more with the premise.
STARS: **½


DELTA DELTA DELTA
Delta Delta Delta sorority sisters Pam (BEC), Di (MEH), Meg (SIF) yak

 

— This soon-to-be-recurring sketch makes its debut.
— Very interesting seeing a showcase of the newer female cast members (minus Ellen), and in such an early timeslot tonight. This is also the very first time Melanie Hutsell has ever gotten a big role.
— Boy, right off the bat, Melanie is mugging up a freakin’ storm. Sadly, that’s something I’m gonna have to get used to during her SNL tenure.
— I got a chuckle from the incredibly low-budget, fake-looking shot of Siobhan running across the campus (third screencap above).
— Beth, Melanie, and Siobhan are all doing an accurate take-off on this valley girl type, but it’s coming off more annoying than funny to me.
— Morrow’s walk-on was brief, but I really liked his performance and delivery.
— According to GettyImages, this sketch was actually originally supposed to air in the Hammer episode from earlier this season, but got cut after dress rehearsal. In that one, Mike Myers appeared to be playing the role that Morrow plays in tonight’s sketch (pic here).
STARS: **


COWBOY SONG
(host) & lonesome cowboys musically resolve to better themselves

— I liked Dana’s lyric about using sex as a means of escape.
— A big laugh from the whole part about how these guys used to molest the cattle.
— Overall, these singing cowboys sketches from this era have a nice charm to them, and tonight was no different. We also got a lot of funny lyrics this time from each of the three performers, making this what I feel is the best of the singing cowboys sketches that have aired by this point.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Smells Like Teen Spirit”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Jan Brady (MEH) gets on a Marsha tangent while discussing breast implants
VIJ doesn’t understand the “dumb blonde” jokes she finds offensive

— Melanie Hutsell’s big night continues. Just to show you what a huge turnaround her airtime has suddenly taken, here’s a rundown of how she was used before tonight: In her debut in the Linda Hamilton episode, she only got two very small unnoteworthy roles, one of them a non-speaking one. Then in the following week’s Macaulay Culkin episode, she wasn’t even credited in the opening montage, yet did appear silently in the background during the pizza party cold opening. Then the opposite happened in the following episode when Hammer hosted: Melanie was credited in the opening montage, but was nowhere to be seen during the actual show. And finally, in the following week’s Steve Martin episode, her only appearance was with the whole cast at the end of the the epic “Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight” number. So overall, until tonight’s episode, Melanie had a VERY quiet start as a cast member, basically being a glorified extra. I was starting to forget that she’s even in the cast until tonight’s episode reminded me.
— Melanie’s doing a good job here.  Her Jan Brady impression is very spot-on and funny.
— Pretty fun hearing Melanie’s Jan Brady referencing the plotlines of famous Brady Bunch episodes.
— Hmm, some awkward pauses and stumbliness in Melanie’s delivery throughout this commentary, which is ANOTHER unfortunate thing that I’m going to have to get used to during her SNL tenure.
— What’s with the lights in the background during Melanie’s commentary? They keep alternately turning on and off right now.
— Victoria’s commentary is okay, and is thankfully not another iteration of the recurring bit where she gives an intelligent speech and then reluctantly reveals she didn’t write it.  While the “dumb blonde” shtick of hers feels kinda played-out by this late stage in her SNL tenure, there’s some laughs from the “dumb blonde” jokes she’s quoting in tonight’s commentary.
STARS: ***


LENIN’S BODY
(host) tries various money-making schemes involving Lenin’s body (MIM)

— The living room set is the same one used earlier tonight in the Delta Delta Delta sketch.
— I’m loving the bizarreness of this, with Morrow’s insane, harebrained scheme of making money off of Lenin’s dead body.
— Very funny line from Phil as the store manager explaining to Morrow that customers are leaving in disappointment because when they heard about the display of Lenin’s body, they assumed it was John Lennon. Phil’s subsequent line regarding the customers’ complaints about the way Lenin smells was also funny.
— I like how the absurdity and outlandishness of this sketch is increasing as it goes on. I’m also loving all the various scenery changes throughout this, which is giving this an epic, fleshed-out feel.
— Even little things like the loud sound effect used for Lenin getting hit in the face with a baseball are cracking me up.
— By the way, I have to laugh at how they’re using an actual cast member (Mike) to play dead Lenin. Mike’s actually doing a solid job in what must not be an easy role to play, having to hold still the whole time and take a whole bunch of physical abuse without reacting.
— Good turn with Morrow finally achieving success, with Lenin being used as a stunt double for a movie set in the old west.
— Fun ending with the montage of stunt dummies from movies. I recognize some of these movie clips, especially the one from “Friday The 13th Part V” (last screencap above). (As I mentioned in some of my earlier reviews, I’m a huge Friday The 13th buff).
STARS: ****½


MOVIE TALK
at the pearly gates, (DAC) is engaged in small talk about movies

 

— There’s a nice slice-of-life charm to this, but I gotta be honest, I’m not all that crazy about this premise of angels asking Dana for his opinions of recent movies. The conversations here aren’t that interesting to me.
— Phil had a really funny line just now, about how he couldn’t get over Barbra Streisand’s unconventional looks when watching “The Prince of Tides”.
— This sketch would later be replaced with dress version in reruns. In that one, Dana doesn’t wear glasses like he does in this live version.
STARS: **½


CHRIS ROCK’S WHITE PERSON’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING THE APOLLO
CSR’s White Person’s Guide To Surviving The Apollo helped (host) & (SIF)

— A nice showcase for the underused Chris Rock, and a very funny premise with him providing tips for white entertainers on how to survive the Apollo.
— Ellen is cracking me up as the rowdy audience member.
— I got a good laugh from the mention of how you can never go wrong doing a “James Brown on the toilet” impression.
— I’m really enjoying all the before and after clips of the white performers who took Rock’s advice.
STARS: ****


INSULTS
at a pizza parlor, insulting names are a natural part of teens’ banter

— Some good laughs from all the fast-paced insulting names the teen guys are casually addressing each other by.
— Very funny slam with Adam’s line about picking his little hairs out of Morrow’s sister’s teeth.
— I like Kevin’s succession of insults when handing each guy their pizza slice.
— Not only has Melanie been getting a lot of airtime throughout tonight’s episode, but so have her fellow rookies Beth and Siobhan.
— I’m enjoying the unique structure of this sketch, and everyone’s performances are fun. It helps that their delivery of these rapid-fire insults is flawless. Even Melanie is managing to get through this fast-paced dialogue without flubbing a line.
— I like how it’s gradually revealed that all of these characters’ insults are just their friendly way of communicating. A good take-off on how teen buddies do tend to speak to each other like that.
— What REALLY makes this already-solid sketch for me is the ending. I loved Phil as a random wise man explaining to us (regarding the teens) “Sticks and stones may break their bones, but apparently words… will never hurt them…”, and then slowly covering his still-staring-at-the-camera-with-a-smile face with a restaurant menu. Phil is always so great at pulling off twisted, oddball, creepy things like that.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Territorial Pissings”


MINUTES BEHIND
(host) repeatedly comes up with clever comments about 15 seconds too late

— Interestingly, this is the second set that was used in two separate sketches tonight. There was the Delta Delta Delta living room set earlier, and now, the cafe set used in this sketch was seen just minutes ago in the preceding Insults sketch, only decorated differently.
— Tonight’s “Attack of SNL’s New Girls” theme continues, as Beth and Siobhan get more good airtime here. I sure hope they’re both enjoying this, because as we know now, it’s not gonna last.
— Some good realistic laughs from how badly delayed Morrow’s witty interjections during Beth and Mike’s conversation are.
— The part of the conversation with Beth being surprised that Prince is still making music, and Mike saying “The old man still has some life left in him” when praising Prince’s new album feels strange. I mean, this is only 1992; why are they acting like Prince was ALREADY a veteran old-timer in music? He had only been around for a little over 10 years by this point, hadn’t he?
— I love Morrow’s “Clam chowdaaahhhh” interjection.
— Siobhan is funny as the testy waitress.
— The realism of this sketch is getting more and more funny, especially as Morrow grows increasingly unnerved.
— I love how when Morrow is sulking around the bathroom, he conveniently stumbles upon a random time machine as one of the bathroom stalls.
— Solid ending with a time-traveling Morrow nailing the timing of his witty interjections during Beth and Mike’s conversation.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

— These goodnights would later be replaced in reruns with the dress rehearsal version. The reason is because in these live goodnights, all three members of Nirvana begin exaggeratedly making out with each other, lips-on-lips and all (as seen on the left in the second and third screencaps above), in what I’m guessing was an attempt to play for the cameras. Apparently, this ended up causing some controversy at the time, which is why this version of the goodnights has never been seen in reruns.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very good episode, and a nice bounce back for this season after the surprisingly disappointing Steve Martin episode. While there were no sketches tonight that stand out as famous gems (besides maybe the Chris Rock/Apollo sketch) and there was a bit of a slow start with the first two post-monologue sketches (Pat and Delta Delta Delta), this overall episode had a low-key, quietly solid feel to it. Sketches like Lenin’s Body, Insults, and Minutes Behind weren’t big flashy pieces that would frequently be included in highlight reels, but they were the type of sketch that I personally love and they helped make this a solid episode. Another interesting factor tonight is what I dubbed earlier the “Attack of SNL’s New Girls” theme, where Melanie Hutsell, Beth Cahill, and Siobhan Fallon each had a rare dominant presence throughout the show. And finally, I was impressed by Rob Morrow, who was very natural as a host, came off likable, and blended nicely into the show.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Steve Martin)
a fairly big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Chevy Chase