Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
SNL sponsored by Exxico- “Stay out of our way or we’ll kill you”
— Oh, so these Exxico opening disclaimer gags are a recurring thing now?
— Not a bad tagline in this, but it didn’t make me laugh as much as the Exxico tagline from earlier this season did.
STARS: **
TALENT ENTRANCE
HERE’S ‘COS
new album from frequent Tonight Show fill-in Bill Cosby (EDM)
— I already like the premise of Eddie’s Cosby hosting the Tonight Show.
— Oh, turns out this is just a commercial instead of a full-fledged sketch.
— I like how the announcer is calling off various Cosby-isms one by one (rambling stories, mugging, etc.) while Eddie demonstrates them.
— I’m starting to realize that as funny as Eddie’s Cosby is, it’s far from the most dead-on Cosby voice I’ve seen.
— Interesting fourth wall-breaking ending with stage manager Joe Dicso telling Eddie that Lauren Hutton wants to see him in her dressing room.
STARS: ***
DRESSING ROOM
host invites EDM to her dressing room, JOP advises him to leave
— Lauren asks Eddie to do his Buckwheat, which is interesting because he had only done one Buckwheat sketch at this point in SNL history. I guess even after just that one sketch, his impression ALREADY gained a lot of fame.
— Interesting how this seems to be turning into a “The Graduate” parody.
— There’s Eddie’s trademark “heh heh heh!” laugh.
— I liked Joe’s sudden “These are white guys, do you know them?” to Eddie while in the middle of listing off white male actors that Lauren has worked with.
— Another funny line from Joe to Eddie about how “we both know the myth (about black guys) isn’t true”.
— Good ending with Joe appearing in Lauren’s changing booth.
STARS: ***
HAIL TO THE CHIEF
Ed Meese (TOR) uses movie ruse to direct Ronald Reagan’s (JOP) presidency
— The debut of the “Hail to the Chief” sketches where we see things from President Reagan’s perspective.
— I also just realized this is the debut of Joe’s Reagan impression itself. While we can’t see him in this, his Reagan voice is spot-on and a HUGE improvement over the bizarre, lousy Reagan that Charles Rocket did the previous season.
— Very interesting format.
— Reagan: “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Meese!” Ed Meese: “Shut up, will ya, Ron?”
STARS: ***½
TRANSEASTERN
“It’s like flying in a cattle car with wings”
— Is that the voice of Christine Ebersole singing the jingle?
— The premise of the commercial jingle being interspersed with shots of airline employees jovially introducing themselves by saying which typical flight inconvenience they’re responsible for is pretty funny. Some amusing lines there.
— Great tagline at the end. (last screencap above)
STARS: ***½
WHISPER
host demonstrates Whisper’s bubble bath & detergent uses simultaneously
— Eh, not too sure about this dishwashing bathwater premise.
— Okay, this is getting a little funnier.
— Decent ending with a grouchy Tim dumping silverware into the bathtub.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Give It To Me Baby”
THE KHADDAFFI LOOK
— Rerun
CHEAP LAFFS
Macho Wipe super-abrasive toilet paper is weekly lowbrow yuk
— The return of this funny sketch from earlier this season.
— Oh, Tony’s the host this time instead of Tim.
— Another scene with Lauren as herself in her dressing room.
— Haha, oh my god at this “hard, manly toilet paper” premise.
— Overall, while the prior Cheap Laffs sketch gave me a few more laughs, I still got some really good amusement from this one.
STARS: ****
SNL NEWSBREAK
Princess Di’s (CHE) baby birthdate estimate doesn’t jibe with tummy size
Ted Koppel (JOP) interviews Menachem Begin (TIK) & Yasser Arafat (TOR)
EDM describes animal flight experiments he conducted from 10 stories up
— At least they shook up the opening “falling logo letters” gag by having Brian quickly put on a hardhat in preparation.
— Brian didn’t even mention Mary Gross in his intro, not even saying she’s “on assignment in the field” like he did in the last SNL Newsbreak. I guess they’ve given up on keeping up the pretense that she’s still an SNL Newsbreak anchor, and are basically admitting they’ve officially taken that spot away from her.
— What’s with the shakiness of the first picture being displayed on the news screen?
— Is that Lauren Hutton playing Princess Di? She kinda resembles Jane Curtin in this.
— Princess Di on her upcoming baby: “I’m hoping for anything with a chin.”
— Interesting concept with Brian announcing they’re trying out a series of “guest newspersons”, which again is basically acknowledging that Mary is no longer an anchorperson.
— Joe’s Ted Koppel wig is insane here.
— Still not crazy about Joe’s Koppel voice, though.
— When they first showed Tim in that old man getup (screencap below), I actually thought that was frequent SNL extra Andy Murphy.
— The childish argument between Begin and Arafat is pretty funny.
— Great ending with Joe’s Koppel toppling over from side-to-side due to his tall hair.
— Eddie continues his streak of doing a commentary in every single SNL Newsbreak this season.
— I like how increasingly sadistic Eddie’s “pets landing on their feet” commentary is getting.
— Eddie’s “bring your kids” comment to Brian at the end was pretty funny.
— Overall, a slightly better SNL Newsbreak than usual tonight, though I still wasn’t too crazy about it.
STARS: **½
HARLEQUIN ROMANCES
(JOP) & (host) act out a scene from a men’s Harlequin Romance novel
— Kind of a strange sketch so far. No idea what else to say about it.
— Some funny lines from Mary at the end, but overall, I didn’t care too much for this sketch.
STARS: **½
REACH OUT
Brooke Shields (MAG) & Cheryl Tiegs (CHE) & real-life problems
host complains about stereotypes of models enforced in sketch
— Loved Mary as Brooke Shields saying “That’s my mother’s job”, regarding turning Brooke into a porn star.
— Pretty good laugh from Mary doing Brooke’s famous Calvin Klein Jeans leaning-over pose, though I liked it more when Gail Matthius did it last season.
— Rosie Shuster’s appearance as one of the “audience members” makes me realize that this feels like a sketch that would’ve fit perfectly in the original SNL era. I can imagine Gilda, Jane, and Laraine in Mary, Christine, and Robin’s roles.
— Christine’s Cheryl Tiegs to Mary’s Brooke Shields: “You know what’s gonna come between you and your Calvins? My foot.”
— Interesting fourth-wall break with Lauren Hutton as herself calling out the sketch for inaccurately portraying models.
— I like Lauren’s increasingly exaggerated examples of important things that famous models have supposedly done (e.g. being a leading micro-physicist, inventing the laser beam).
STARS: ***½
VELVET JONES SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY
Velvet Jones’ follow-up book teaches guys how to be a pimp & kick ho butt
— A reference at the beginning to the now-famous “I Wanna Be a Ho” sketch.
— Eh, this sketch so far is coming off as a poor rewrite of “I Wanna Be a Ho”, basically just replacing “ho” with “pimp”. The routine doesn’t work as well a second time.
— I do like the overly long book title and how it had to be split up into both sides of the book.
STARS: **½
BIG BASER
(JOP) longs for the good old days when Coca-Cola contained cocaine
— The sped-up old stock footage showing how the original Coca-Cola “gave people a lift” is pretty funny.
— What’s with the choppy camera effect at the end? Or is that some kind of VHS damage in the old copy of the episode I’m watching?
— Oh, never mind, the choppy camera effect is part of the sketch, to represent Joe “tripping out” on the coke.
— Pretty dull sketch overall
STARS: **
WILLIAM BURROUGHS
William Burroughs [real] reads a hospital scene from Naked Lunch
— Okay, THIS is gonna be weird…
— I do like how season 7 has been doing lots of strange, unpredictable, and interesting things like this; things that you’d usually NEVER see being done in any other season. I’m assuming Michael O’Donoghue’s influence behind the scenes this season has a lot to do with that.
— I’m liking Burroughs’ creepy look, voice, and delivery here (he’d have fit PERFECTLY into the dark Donald Pleasence episode), though I can’t even tell if this story is supposed to be funny or not.
— Okay, the story is getting funnier and funnier.
— Ha, all the gory details in his story are great.
— Overall, wow, a very odd segment, but I found this to be enjoyable and solid.
STARS: ***½
PUSH BUTTON TO EXPLODE BUILDING
— Rerun.
— For some reason, the ending credits of this are displayed on a different screen card than last time.
BITTER PEOPLE
Pat Cooper (JOP) says mean things about Vegas performers
— Well, this whole thing sure came and went without any real laughs. I did kinda chuckle at Mary’s line about Suzanne Sommers at the end. Other than that, I got no enjoyment out of this sketch.
— Hope “Bitter People” doesn’t eventually become a recurring sketch.
STARS: *
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Super Freak”
ART IS FICIAL
by TOS- a profile of literary dog Maurice Blaget
— That sounds like Tom Schiller doing the voice-over narration. If it is, I had no idea he did any SNL films outside of the original era and the late 80s/early 90s years. Why wasn’t this film preceded with the usual “Schiller’s Reel” title screen?
— I’m enjoying the French quaintness to everything here.
— Overall, boy, that was weird, but a pretty good film and had that usual Tom Schiller flavor to it.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An overall decent, average episode for season 7. The second half was quite strange, featuring several pieces that were weird, unconventional, or hard to figure, but I did like some of them.
— It also helps that this episode didn’t have any musical sketches or an Andy Warhol film, my two least favorite staples of season 7.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Donald Pleasence):
— about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Bernadette Peters