Tag: Season 19

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January 8, 1994 – Jason Patric / Blind Melon (S19 E10)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

INAUGURAL SPEECH
Rudolph Giuliani’s (KEN) son Andrew (CHF) upsets NYC mayoral inauguration

— A funny contrast when the footage of the real Giuliani and his son crossfades to a shot of them being played by Kevin and Chris.
— Chris’ various actions are a funny spoof of how Giuliani’s son acted at the real inauguration.
— There’s practically no material in this cold opening, but Chris is impressively milking every possible laugh out of such a thin piece and and is actually making it very memorable.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
host is less than thrilled to be on SNL; LOM asks him not to be a downer

— A notorious monologue. I’m a bit conflicted, as I really want to like Jason Patric’s dryness here, and he (or should I say, whoever wrote this monologue) isn’t wrong about some of his criticisms of the then-current state of the show, but geez, the man is not coming off well at all here, and it feels wrong for an SNL episode in an increasingly less-than-stellar season to start in such a dour manner. A funnier host more skilled at deadpan, snarky humor would at least sell the anti-SNL attitude thing much better and give it an amusing feel instead of a sour feel.
— Jason riffs on the fact that going backstage to talk to Lorne is an overused, cliched monologue trope, and he adds “Let’s run this device into the ground together” (which is a funny line that, again, would’ve killed had it been delivered by someone more adept at snarky humor). Hmm, I think he’s picking on the wrong monologue trope. Considering the trend of the monologues this season, he should consider himself damn lucky they aren’t having him take questions from the audience.
— I kinda smiled at him explaining to us that, unlike hosts who like to run back to the home base stage after a backstage scene, he’s just going to take his time. Again, I’m conflicted on this monologue. Part of me strangely kinda loves this idea of a host using their monologue to deconstruct SNL’s bad cliches, but the wrong host is delivering it.
— Oddly, at the very end of this monologue as the SNL Band starts playing the show to commercial, Jason walks back to the home base stage’s entrance doors behind him and starts to open the door, only to pause, turn back and run past the camera to get changed backstage. What was that all about? Reruns of this monologue hide this by fading out early when Jason stats to head towards the home base stage’s entrance doors.
STARS: **


THE NFL ON FOX
John Madden (CHF) & Luke Perry (host) anchor at halftime

— Funny start with the “90210”-style opening credits for NFL on FOX.
— Boy, Chris is doing the world’s worst John Madden impression ever heard.
— The joke of Jason’s Luke Perry only speaking in moody “90210”-esque one-liners has gotten old fast.
— I’m really liking Julia’s Peg Bundy impression. Considering how badly underused and misused Julia has been this season (and it only gets worse the next few months), often being relegated to small straight roles, it feels refreshing to actually laugh at a performance of hers.
— The Deion Sanders/Kim Wayans scene is freakin’ terrible.
— Minutes later, they’re still running the unfunny Luke-Perry-says-deep-one-liners joke into the ground.
— Boy, talk about terrible, the jokes for Jay’s Don Rickles are cringeworthy. In his SNL book, Jay blames the audience’s silence during his portion of this sketch on the fact that they couldn’t recognize him under that heavy makeup (he mentions in that part of the book that he could hear a girl in the audience ask “Is that Spade?”). Sorry, Jay, but I think the audience was dead because your lines weren’t funny and your Rickles impression didn’t work.
— I kinda like what Adam’s going for with his Richard Lewis impression.
— The “Melrose Place” scene with Phil’s Jimmy Johnson is yet another scene in this sketch that’s falling flat.
— Reruns show the dress rehearsal version of the “Melrose Place” scene. Phil’s wig in that version is a bit different, and the scene goes on a little longer, at one point featuring Sarah Silverman’s Heather Locklear leaving and Phil’s Jimmy Johnson saying something to himself while in deep thought.
— Mercifully, this bore of a sketch has ended. This overall sketch just plain didn’t work, which is a shame considering the format itself was fun and had promise.
STARS: *½


THE ROAD TO SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Don Lapre’s (DAS) word truncation scheme

— Good to see David’s Don Lapre impression back. I’ve always liked tonight’s Don Lapre sketch even more than the one from the preceding season’s finale.
— The “airport schmairport” bit is funny.
— This is the first time all night where a Jason Patric performance is actually working for me (and will probably end up being the only time all night, from what I remember of the rest of this episode).
— Lots of funny little lines all throughout this sketch.
— I love the dark humor of Phil’s prisoner character cheerfully revealing he’s going to be executed by “leath injecsh”.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “No Rain”


WEEKEND UPDATE
KEN gives a subliminal commentary on excessive criticism of Bill Clinton

— Not crazy about the jokes so far.
— WTF?!? In the copy I’m watching, right as Kevin begins his Subliminal Commentary, the audio suddenly cuts off and is randomly replaced by audio from a freakin’ Empty Nest episode. I kid you not. I’m aware that this is a local NBC affiliate error.
— Jesus, it’s now almost a minute-and-a-half later, and even long after Kevin has ended his Subliminal Commentary and has moved on back to news jokes, the Empty Nest audio has yet to stop. One of Kevin’s jokes I missed involved him flinching in fear from a picture displayed of Jesse Jackson on the news screen. Wonder what that was all about.
— Finally, the Empty Nest audio has ended.
— Great joke from Kevin about Latoya Jackson not being nominated for a Grammy because there’s no category for “crappy”. I recall hearing an opinion that this seems like an Update joke that Norm Macdonald would’ve done the following few seasons, and I can definitely see that. He would’ve sold the punchline even better than Kevin did.
— No guest commentaries tonight?
— Despite a few good jokes and a funny weather map bit, I found this to be a rough Update as a whole and it had a fairly dead atmosphere in some portions, not helped by the lack of a guest commentary, giving this Update even more of an empty, dead feel. The bizarre Empty Nest audio gaffe also didn’t help things, though that’s certainly not Kevin nor SNL’s fault.
STARS: **


MR. INTENSE
Mr. Intense (host) goes to a party & does the hokey-pokey

— I’m currently a little over a minute into this weird sketch, and I have no idea what to say so far, except point out that I haven’t laughed a single time.
— Okay, I can definitely see why Mr. Intense naming off each of the Seven Dwarves in his typically intense, dramatic manner is supposed to be hilarious, but this sketch is another example tonight of something Jason Patric’s doing that would actually be funny if it were given to a more capable host. Imagine Christopher Walken performing this sketch’s material.
— What’s up with Kevin’s overly broad performance? It seems out of place for the tone of this sketch.
— As if this sketch wasn’t already off-putting enough, what the bloody hell was with the fourth wall-breaking ending? Not only was it terrible, but it seemed to be a weird continuation of the “I don’t want to be here” storyline of Jason’s monologue earlier tonight. If this is the show’s way of doing a meta Charles Grodin-type running gag throughout an episode, then this is sad. (Actually, what they’re going for is probably more comparable to what they did with Garry Shandling, but the point still stands) If you’re going to attempt what the Grodin episode beautifully did, you need to be much more clear about it and show far more commitment to the concept. Don’t establish the concept in the monologue and then wait half an episode later to do a half-assed continuation of it, only to never speak of it again for the remainder of the episode.
STARS: *½


COFFEE TALK WITH LINDA RICHMAN
Richard Simmons [real] gives diet tips by singing Streisand

— (*sigh*) Fourth appearance of this sketch in just ten episodes so far this season…
— Hmm, a Richard Simmons appearance. At least he’s providing a distraction from the typical Coffee Talk dullness.
— Simmons is adding a fairly fun vibe to this. His energy is welcome, considering the lethargic atmosphere throughout tonight’s episode.
— Another positive thing about this Coffee Talk sketch is that it has thankfully cut down on the use of Linda Richman’s catchphrases that never make me laugh.
STARS: **½


WHERE’S THE REST OF ME?: THE FABRICE STORY
a hand model (host) copes after losing a finger

— It’s taken two minutes into this sketch for me to get my first laugh, with the whole bit involving Norm giving a rundown on the casualties from the car accident. Great use of Norm’s trademark delivery style.
— Mike seems to be playing a bit of a Dr. Evil prototype here, especially the pinky-in-the-mouth mannerism. Or maybe he’s just doing a variation of his behind-the-scenes Lorne Michaels impression, but then again, that’s what Dr. Evil supposedly is.
— This is the second consecutive episode with a long movie-like sketch involving many scene and set changes, after Sally Field’s I Want My Baby Back sketch. I usually love this type of sketch, but it didn’t work for me much in the Sally Field sketch and it’s DEFINITELY not working for me in this sketch.
— Adam’s line was chuckleworthy, providing only my second (and probably final) laugh of this overlong sketch.
— God bless Phil for trying to save this sketch like the consummate pro he always is, but I’m afraid it ain’t workin’ here.
— The montage of Jason having success with his stump-fingered hand is actually charming in itself, but is going on too long for something not intended to be funny in a sketch that’s already been long and has been failing in its attempts to be funny. In a better sketch, I would’ve loved that montage.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Paper Scratcher”


THE HERLIHY BOY DOG SITTING SERVICE
Mr. O’Malley & (host) beg “let him sit”

— Here’s our latest victim of season 19’s bad habit of making recurring sketches out of stuff that have no legs as a recurring sketch and clearly should’ve remained a solid one-off. And did we really need to see the return of this particular sketch only TWO EPISODES after it debuted?
— Chris is mining some laughs out of this material, but the gradual buildup to his eventual angry screaming rant isn’t being pulled off anywhere NEAR as well as it was in the memorable first installment. This is coming off as a pale and clumsy imitation.
— All I can say about Jason’s random psychotic-ranting character is: WTF?!?!
— Herlihy Boy’s begging eventually getting to the point where he now tells us “Let me be your dog” is worth a good laugh.
— I love how Chris immediately cuts off his “Let the boy be your dog” screaming rant to ask Herlihy Boy in a low-voiced, sensible manner “Tim, I’m not sure what we’re going for here” and “Have you thought this through, Timmy?”
STARS: **


SKI LIFT
while riding a ski lift, (host) has a strange conversation with (KEN)

— Kevin: “Boy, if I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me that, you’d be a dead man, Tony.”
— Finally, a sketch that’s actually making me laugh a lot. This is a very silly sketch that Kevin is perfect for. I’m loving his string of off-beat, disjointed, unsettling one-liners.
— Unfortunately, Jason Patric as this sketch’s straight man is yet ANOTHER example tonight of a role that would’ve worked better with a different host. Thankfully, though, this sketch is making me laugh so much to the degree that Jason’s less-than-stellar straight man performance isn’t hurting it much.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very rough episode as a whole, and probably the weakest one I’ve reviewed in quite a long time. There were certainly still some really solid highlights tonight, but they were few and far in between, and a lot of the stuff in between was pretty brutal. While most of the writing did the show no favors, a good chunk of the blame for the lousiness and lethargic atmosphere of this episode goes to Jason Patric, who had a baffling presence, wasn’t funny for the most part, and killed the energy of a lot of pieces. And the half-assed Charles Grodin/Garry Shandling-type conceptual theme they seemingly were going for him was a huge flop.
— Tonight’s episode, the first one of the second half of this season, has really set the tone for the remainder of this season, as we’ve entered what turns out to be a sharp downhill slide in the show’s quality that eventually leads into the infamous season 20. While the first half of the season we’re in wasn’t too great itself, so many things about this season has changed starting with tonight’s midpoint episode; even the look. Have you ever noticed how drastically different the visual appearance of the second half of this season is compared to the first half? That’s always stood out to me, even in the days when I was originally exposed to this season in 60-minute Comedy Central reruns.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Sally Field)
a fairly big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Sara Gilbert

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December 11, 1993 – Sally Field / Tony! Toni! Toné! (S19 E9)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
ADS plays guitar & sings a song about why he won’t get toys for Christmas

— Hmm, here’s a change of pace: starting the show with a Sandler guitar song on the home base stage. I wonder why we’re not seeing this song on Weekend Update like we’d usually see in this era.
— As usual for Adam’s guitar songs, this song has a catchy melody.
— Ha, Adam seems to have a weird comedy obsession with bearded grandmothers. He mentions one in a lyric here and there’s a whole bit about shaving a grandmother’s beard in a Herlihy Boy sketch from the Emilio Estevez episode later this season. I can’t remember if there’s a bearded grandma joke in Adam’s song about his grandmother when cameoing on Weekend Update in the Tom Arnold episode from season 21.
— Some fun confessions of naughty things Adam did this year.
— According to GettyImages, the dress rehearsal version of this cold opening had Rob, Tim, and Chris participating in Adam’s song (pic here and here). I wonder why they got cut from the live show.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
disappointed audience members leave when host says she won’t rehash roles

— The shot of the audience applauding after Sally steps out onstage would later be removed from reruns, presumably because the shot gives away the group of Gidget fans in the front seats, who are going to be shown later in the monologue.
— Oh, no. Yet ANOTHER audience-involved monologue, for the FOURTH episode in a row?
— Okay, so it turns out this monologue isn’t using the tired questions-from-the-audience trope used in the last three consecutive monologues, but it’s still inane to me that SNL keeps relying on audience-involved monologues week after week this season.
— Funny seeing a Burt Reynolds imitation right after the hilariously random shouting of his name from an off-camera audience member during one of Paul Westerberg’s musical performances in the preceding episode.
— I like the bit with Phil’s Burt Reynolds initially getting up to leave when hearing there will be no “Smokey and the Bandit” parody, then changing his mind and staying, only to storm off when Sally mentions she’s always happy to make fun of crazy people.
— A good “You like me, you really, really like me” reference during Chris’ bit.
STARS: ***


NCI
Rerun from 9/25/93


I WANT MY BABY BACK!: THE HARRIET CRALBONI STORY
host in TV movie about mother trying to reclaim kid

 

— I like Kevin’s sleazy performance.
— A good laugh from Tim as the welfare department guy randomly showing up and sternly telling Sally “Give me the baby.”
— During Melanie’s baby-switching confession, there an accidental view of cue cards in the background (seen in the top right corner of the screencap below)

— I’m usually a sucker for this type of epic movie-like sketch that involves many scene and set changes, and the frequent turns and escalations this sketch keep taking are funny in themselves, but I dunno, something about this sketch’s execution is coming off a little underwhelming to me. I’m also not crazy about hearing “I want my baby back!” shouted over and over throughout the sketch, even if that’s part of the point. I am really appreciating Sally’s commitment in her performance, though.
— Didn’t care for the ending.
STARS: **½


WHITE DIAMONDS
soft focus hides Elizabeth Taylor’s (host) age

— An initial laugh from the age-hiding soft focus filter used for Sally’s Elizabeth Taylor. I’m aware this is parodying the use of soft focus in a real Elizabeth Taylor perfume ad from this time.
— Wait, that’s it? The filter joke got old after about 10 seconds and this didn’t go anywhere else.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “If I Had No Loot”


WEEKEND UPDATE
lame duck NYC mayor David Dinkins (TIM) vows revenge on the city

— A good string of Clinton-related jokes early on in this Update.
— A great sudden dark (figuratively and literally) turn during Tim-as-David-Dinkins’ kind message, where he threatens New Yorkers for not voting for him. One of Tim’s funniest showcases during his neglected years in the first half of his SNL tenure.
— Funny little bit after the David Dinkins commentary ends, with Kevin innocently telling us “Hey, I voted for the guy.”
STARS: ***


HEADGAMES
quizmaster (PHH) messes with his relatives’ minds on game show

— Great concept, and a perfect cruel characterization from Phil.
— I’m loving Phil’s seamless transitions from professional gameshow host to sadistic husband/father.
— A lot of really funny back-and-forths between Phil and his family.
— I really liked Phil’s “final round” fake-out to Sally, and her angry response of “You bastard!”
STARS: ****½


BAND SHOT
ROS sings “Blue Christmas” Elvis-style with SNL Band


MOTIVATIONAL SANTA
shopping mall Santa Matt Foley teaches kids about harsh realities of life

— Though I’m still not all that crazy about them keeping Matt Foley a recurring character, I’m glad to see them putting him in a new setting for once, which is a nice change and provides a new outlet for laughs.
— The cue cards make a second onscreen cameo tonight (seen in the top right corner of the screencap below).

— Some good laughs from the Christmas story Foley reads to the kids.
— Farley’s pratfall through the chimney reminds me of Chevy Chase’s famous pratfall off a Christmas tree in a Gerald Ford sketch.
— Overall, though it still comes NOWHERE close to touching the classic first Matt Foley sketch, tonight’s sketch is probably my favorite of all the Matt Foley follow-ups.
STARS: ***½


CRAB LICE SINGLES CLUB
first-timer (host) feels uneasy at a crab lice singles’ club mixer

 

— Uh, what a premise.
— Rob has some funny bits here, such as him trying to tempt Sally with a “romantic” promise to take her to a pharmacy and show her all the disinfectant shampoos, and him combing his hair with a tiny crab lice comb.
— Adam getting busted on not really having crab lice is funny, especially when he answers Phil’s “What color are crabs?” question with “…….Blue???”
— The ending with Chris’ direct-to-camera message fell flat.
— The overall sketch didn’t quite work for me as a whole, but there were some individual funny moments.
STARS: **½


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY

— Surprisingly, this is the first time we’ve gotten a Deep Thoughts since the season premiere.
— According to episode guides, this Deep Thoughts is a rerun, but it wasn’t in my copy of whatever episode it originally aired in.


THE SUICIDE ATTEMPT MACHINE
Dr. Jack Kevorkian (NOM) shows attention-getting suicide attempt machine

 

— I love seeing Norm cast in this role.
— This is the first of three solo Norm sketches this season that feature him as a famous figure. The other two sketches are funnier and more memorable (Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt and 60 Minutes), but this is a pretty solid one that I’ve always liked too.
— Good concept.
— I love how, during the Suicide Attempt Machine tape message that’s playing, the camera pans over to Norm’s Kevorkian just grinning at the camera in a smug, somewhat creepy manner.
— Good ending line from Norm’s Kevorkian, with “Maybe this year, what they’ll find under the Christmas tree… is you!”
STARS: ***½


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Tell Me Mama”


PRAYING
Jesus (PHH) asks a pious housewife (host) to pray more selectively

— I’m enjoying Sally’s religious southern housewife characterization here, as well as her habit of praying for trivial things.
— Always very welcome to see Phil’s Jesus appearing in a sketch.
— Considering he’s been getting phased out this season, it’s great to see so much Phil throughout tonight’s episode. Tonight’s episode is one of the final gasps of Phil’s dominance from seasons 12-18.
— I loved Phil’s delivery of “…I know…” when Sally tells him “I pray to you all the time”.
— Excellent reveal that Jesus is here to ask Sally to try not praying so much.
— Phil’s down-to-earth delivery as Jesus is so great.
— Overall, a fantastic sketch and our second strong and memorable Phil Hartman-starring piece of the night.
— Years ago, on an old blog Julia Sweeney used to have, I recall seeing a publicity photo of this Praying sketch in an “SNL photos” section of the blog, except Julia was in the praying housewife role, and get this: Christian Slater was in the Jesus role. I kid you not. This sketch must’ve gotten cut after dress rehearsal from the Christian Slater-hosted episode earlier this season. I cannot for the life of me imagine Christian Slater pulling off this role.
STARS: ****½


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY


BAND SHOT
ROS sings “It’s Now Or Never” Elvis-style with SNL Band
— This is missing from my copy.


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— The quality of tonight’s episode was a little more shaky than the last few episodes, but this was an overall decent episode, keeping alive the streak of satisfying episodes since Rosie O’Donnell. The placement of sketches tonight sure needed some tweaking, though, as it wasn’t the best idea to have the two lead-off sketches be iffy pieces like I Want My Baby Back and White Diamonds while burying the solid stuff after Weekend Update. Sally Field was a very game host who gave fully committed performances in every sketch, even the weaker ones.
— This is the final episode before there’s a change of tone in several aspects of this season, especially the quality.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Charlton Heston)
a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
We enter the year 1994, with host Jason Patric

Posted on

December 4, 1993 – Charlton Heston / Paul Westerberg (S19 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PLANET OF THE APES
host finds himself transported back to The Planet Of The Apes

— I like Charlton’s delivery of “Why the hell didn’t somebody wake me up?”
— Fantastic gradual reveal that the entire studio has been taken over by apes.
— This cold opening is amazing and extremely fun to watch.
— When a wandering Charlton stops near a big scarecrow-looking “X” thing in front of the musical guest stage, he’s supposed to say “What kind of a show is this?!”, but instead, there’s awkward dead air as he just stands there silently for a VERY long time, looking kinda lost before he finally delivers his line. I think he was just waiting for his cue, not realizing that he was already given it. Needless to say, this gaffe would later be removed in reruns.
— An ape version of a Richmeister sketch!
— For some reason, the way Ape Rob Schneider angrily pounds his fists on the desk while repeatedly going “Ooh-ooh!” in an ape-like manner cracks me up.
— Hilarious bit with Charlton seeing a silent, dopey-smiling Chris Farley and thinking his brain has been removed like Phil’s, only for Tim to reveal “Chris is fine; he’s always like this”, followed by Chris saying “Ten Commandments was awesome!”
— The ending shot, in which Charlton gets a net thrown on him, quotes his famous “damn dirty apes” line, and says “Live from New York…”, would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. Not sure why. The most noticeable differences between the live and rerun version is that the rerun has the (human) audience audibly applauding after Charlton’s “damn dirty apes” line and Charlton uses a different delivery for his “Live from New York…”
STARS: *****


OPENING MONTAGE
— Oh, I love this! SNL is going all out on the “apes taking over the studio” premise by having it carry over into the opening montage, with the show going through all the trouble of recreating the opening montage by doing an ape-ified version of all the human shots.

— So much attention to detail in these recreated shots (some side-by-side comparisons below), right down to a blonde female ape’s swinging earring during the recreation of Phil Hartman’s sequence.

 

— This really makes you wish SNL played around with their opening montages more often like this.
— Excellent touch with musical guest Paul Westerberg being introduced as “singing human” and Charlton Heston being introduced as “captured slave”.


MONOLOGUE
captured host tries to explain to audience monkeys- “I’m not a mutant”

— More fantastic commitment to the apes premise, by having it continue into the monologue, reminding me of what they cleverly did in the Macaulay Culkin episode from two seasons earlier.
— Great touch with even the SNL Band wearing ape masks. According to an old report I once read on the SNL newsgroup from someone who attended this episode’s dress rehearsal, the ape version of G.E. Smith was actually played by a double. The real G.E. stood off-camera while conducting the band.
— Oh, no. Even this ambitious piece is succumbing to the recent trend of “audience members each ask the host the same dumb question” monologues, which makes this the THIRD consecutive monologue with that premise, and the fourth one of this overall season so far. I was going to dock some serious points in my rating for this monologue, but that probably wouldn’t be fair of me. The whole ape thing is at least a fresh and fun spin on this monologue trope, and I’d like to think that this is SNL’s self-deprecating way of mocking their own overreliance on this type of monologue.
— I mentioned in a recent review that a portion of Sarah Silverman’s monologue from her season 40 hosting stint cleverly features her answering questions asked by herself in out-of-context old clips from various season 19 questions-from-the-audience monologues. A brilliant bit, but one glaring omission was a clip of her from tonight’s monologue. It would’ve been freakin’ priceless if, after seeing normal clips of 1993-1994 Sarah Silverman asking questions to 2014 Sarah Silverman, we suddenly got a clip of 1993 Sarah as an ape asking 2014 Sarah “Are you some kind of talking mu-tant?”
— Hmm, maybe I wasn’t wrong in my initial urge to dock points for this monologue. All of the “Are you some kind of talking mutant?”-type questions from the ape audience aren’t all that funny after about 20 seconds.
— Norm Macdonald giving a very Norm Macdonald-esque performance in an ape mask is hilarious in itself. I love how, even if you don’t listen to his voice, you can still tell that’s him under that mask just from his eyes and the way he has his head tilted back.
— Nice addition of a captured-and-chained Lorne.
— Too bad the ape theme of tonight’s episode ends after this monologue. As a huge fan of conceptual SNL episodes (e.g. Charles Grodin and George Wendt/Francis Ford Coppola, two of my favorite SNL episodes ever), it would’ve been amazing had the ape theme continued for the entire night, but that’s probably wishing for too much. It would’ve been hard for SNL to pull off an entire live show in that manner, plus the gag might’ve gotten old after a while.
STARS: ***


INFINITI
Jonathan Pryce (MIM) shows off features of the Infiniti Q45 Toilet

— Pretty funny subject matter, a solid Mike Myers performance, and a spot-on parody of the real Jonathan Pryce commercial from this time.
STARS: ***


COFFEE TALK WITH LINDA RICHMAN
Linda’s goy boyfriend (host) wants to get married

— Oh, here we go again. Three times in just eight episodes so far this season, folks…
— Thank god we at least get a guest in this one, as the last handful of Coffee Talk sketches featured no guests at all and were even more insufferable than usual.
— The odd pairing of Linda Richman and Charlton is actually coming off fairly charming.
— I liked Linda’s “He tries, God knows he tries” when Charlton makes a poor attempt at some Yiddish phrases.
— Once again tonight, there are some awkward pauses before some of Charlton’s lines. Mike Myers seems to be cueing Charlton on his lines during some of the pauses.
— An actual surprising and sweet turn with Charlton proposing to Linda.
— Overall, one of the more tolerable Coffee Talk sketches by default, even if that’s still not saying much by my standards.
STARS: **½


INFINITI
the Infiniti Q45 Toilet has a non-stick finish to guard against caca

— Decent follow-up to the first ad, and there’s some laughs from Mike’s Jonathan Pryce listing off excrement euphemisms in his dignified English accent.
STARS: ***


GANGSTA DANCE RAP SMASHES!
just the album to liven up white partygoers

   

— Rob’s dancing is hilarious.
— This humorously captures the essence of early 90s gangsta rap.
— I’m getting good laughs from the listed-off song titles, such as “We’re Coming To F*** Your White Ass, Mama” by Big Group Of Black Guys, and “Tadaaa! Bloody Whiteboy”, all made even funnier by the fact that they’re being read in Phil Hartman’s cheery, professional voice-over.
STARS: ***½


THE PRESIDENT IS ILLITERATE
the executive’s (host) secret is revealed

— Nice idea for a follow-up to the The President Has Mustard On His Chin sketch from Charlton’s season 12 episode.
— I like Phil giving Charlton a menu from a Chinese restaurant and convincing him that it’s an education bill. We then get a hilarious visual of Charlton intensely “studying” the Chinese menu.
— There’s some unintended awkwardness in Charlton’s delivery at times here.
— Ohho, boy, talk about Charlton coming off awkward. Just now, there’s a big gaffe during Charlton’s televised press conference where, after he puts a “Hello, I am a cretin” button onto his lapel and Kevin responds “Oh… my… god!”, Charlton makes a VEEEEEEERRRRRRY long and awkward pause before he delivers his next line, rivaling his aforementioned long and awkward pause in the cold opening. Poor Kevin and Phil are left to just stand helplessly while waiting and waiting for Charlton to finally deliver his next line. At one point during that insanely long pause of Charlton’s, the audience laughs out loud confusedly. Reruns of this episode replace this entire portion of the sketch with the dress rehearsal version.
— The Cat in the Hat ending scene felt a little too long.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Knockin’ on Mine”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Hollywood Minute- DAS says to Macaulay Culkin “you’ll end up like me”

— What was up with the beginning? This Update oddly opens with absolutely NONE of the applause that Kevin’s Updates usually open with. Then after Kevin’s “Good evening, I’m Kevin Nealon” sign-on, the audience finally applauds. I guess there was a delay in the studio’s light-up “applause” signs.
— During David’s bit about Madonna and Michael Jackson being in a race to see who can end their career first, he throws in a “Oh, what’s this? It’s John Candy out of nowhere in a photo finish!” as a photo of John Candy is shown onscreen. (By the way, how was John Candy ruining his career at this time? Bad movies?) Candy’s untimely death just a few months later would prevent SNL from being able to re-air that joke about him, and reruns edit it out in a very noticeable fashion.
— Some solid moments from tonight’s overall Hollywood Minute, especially the classic Macaulay Culkin bit, where David explains to Macaulay, “Here’s the thing: I used to look EXACTLY like you when I was 10” (complete with a side-by-side comparison of a pic of Macaulay and a childhood pic of David, seen in the fifth above screencap for this Weekend Update) and “This is where you’re headed, buddy; welcome to hell!”
STARS: ***½


CAREER DAY
King Solomon Junior High’s Career Day guests include false prophet (host)

 

— Rob’s mundane, dry description of his boring job is funny, as is his answering David’s question with “Good question! (pause) No.”
— The leper scene with Mike is tickling me.
— Funny bit at the end of Mike’s leper scene, with his handshake fake-out to Julia.
— Ellen has really been struggling badly for airtime lately. Tonight is the second episode in a row where she only makes one small appearance all night.
— The false prophet bit with Charlton is very solid, and I laughed out loud at his delivery of “God told me to say that!……No, he didn’t.”
STARS: ***½


INFINITI
other Infiniti Q45 Toilet features include a seat & a drink holder

— Decent visual of the toilet having a fancy cup holder.
— Was it really necessary to end this by repeating the “Oh, and tell them you already know the part about the caca” line from the end of the second Infiniti ad earlier tonight?
STARS: ***


THE NRA LOANER
in response to Brady Bill, host announces NRA’s Five-Day Loaner Program

— Pretty funny concept of the NRA providing a 5-day loaner gun for people going through a Brady Bill-induced five-day waiting period for their real gun.
— I loved Charlton’s blunt “This thing’ll blow your head off” while the caption “Would Blow Your Head Clean Off” shows up on the bottom of the screen.
— When Charlton has his back turned to the camera (and thus, has his back turned to the cue cards) while listing off some of the guns he’s pointing out on a wall, you can tell he’s reading his lines off of a small piece of paper hidden in his hand. He’s doing a poor job of masking the fact that he’s reading (the last two above screencaps for this sketch). I’m not 100% sure, but I think reruns replace this sketch with the dress rehearsal version, where Charlton doesn’t resort to reading the gun names off a hidden sheet of paper in his hand (or at least doesn’t do it as blatantly as he does in the live version).
STARS: ***


BAG BOY
stock boy (host) with 42 years of experience uses threats to keep his job

— Oh, here comes something that’s always been one of my personal favorites.
— Priceless turn with Charlton responding to Phil’s hint of a potential firing by telling him a dark story involving a fired man and a shotgun. I also absolutely love how Charlton demonstrates the “insane death dance” that the man in the story does.
— Very funny running gag with Charlton’s wildly inaccurate answers to a cashier’s price check questions.
— Charlton continues to deliver absolutely hilarious disturbing stories in this, especially the headless one he tells to David and Adam. Charlton is killing me in this sketch, and this is such a perfect use of him. This sketch also would’ve worked perfectly for Christopher Walken and other older hosts who excel at pulling off oddball, creepy roles.
— Great deadpan disturbed reactions from Phil throughout this.
— I love the little touch with Charlton tossing his price sticker tool in the air in a carefree manner at the very end of the sketch.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Can’t Hardly Wait”


THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Dathan (ROS) says bad things about Moses (host) behind his back

— Funny and spot-on Edward G. Robinson impression from Rob.
— Despite Rob’s fun performance, the humor in this sketch has started to get kinda dull after a while.
— Okay, things have gotten a little funnier right now, with the made-up Ten Commandments Rob lists off.
STARS: **½


THE HERLIHY BOY HOUSE-SITTING SERVICE
Mr. O’Malley (CHF) lends support

   

— An interesting and unusual structure to this sketch.
— Another display of amusing stupidity from an Adam Sandler role.  His overly simplistic requests and begging have some good lines.
— You can tell Adam is amused by Chris’ little mumblings at the end of each of his calm-voiced interjections to the camera.
— The “Please don’t make me wash the sheets” bit was really funny.
— Chris gradually transitioning from calm and rational to worked up and angry, to the degree that he eventually goes on a long, shouty tirade, is pulled off very impressively, and feels like a spiritual successor to the classic Weekend Update rants that Chris’ idol John Belushi did back in the original era. Besides the first Matt Foley sketch and the Hidden Camera Commercials film by Tom Schiller, tonight’s Herlihy Boy sketch is probably the best and most quintessential use of Chris’ knack for screaming, a knack that will unfortunately become increasingly very misused and abused for the remainder of his SNL tenure.
— This overall sketch must’ve been an immediate big hit with viewers, because in reruns, it’s moved from the 10-to-1 spot to an early spot in the first half of the show, while the Gangsta Dance Rap Smashes sketch from the first half of the show is moved to this 10-to-1 spot.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

— Charlton pauses so long during an applause break in the middle of his goodnights speech that the SNL Band cuts him off prematurely before he’s even gotten a chance to thank Paul Westerberg. When realizing he didn’t get to thank Westerberg, Charlton opens his mouth to the camera as if he’s about to say something, but just silently pauses with his mouth still open (as seen in the first above screencap for these goodnights), and then gives up when realizing it’s too late because the goodnights theme music has fully kicked in. Pay attention to Ellen Cleghorne’s face in the background next time you watch this. Her facial reactions during this whole incident are funny.
— After the accidental snub, Westerberg seems to tell Charlton it’s okay, but then does something odd: right before shaking hands with Charlton, Westerberg intentionally(?) coughs into the same hand that he’s about to shake Charlton’s hand with. I hope that wasn’t a subtle F-U to Charlton for accidentally snubbing him. He didn’t appear to be genuinely bothered by the snub, so maybe I’m looking too much into the cough/handshake thing. Still a gross thing to do, though.
— In his SNL book Gasping For Airtime, Jay Mohr talks about Charlton’s accidental Paul Westerberg snub from these goodnights, but his recollection is COMPLETELY different from what actually happened. Jay claims that Charlton does thank Westerberg during his goodnights speech, but Charlton hilariously calls Westerberg by the wrong last name by accident (I can’t remember what it was; something goofy-sounding like “Westerblerger”). Somebody then tells Charlton the correct pronunciation of Westerberg’s last name, and Charlton then says to the camera “Oh, I’m sorry. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Westerblerger!”, making the exact same mistake twice! A hilarious story, but absolutely none of this actually happens during the goodnights we see in the live show. I know there are some inaccuracies in Jay’s book, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. The “Paul Westerblerger” incident probably happened during the dress rehearsal goodnights, and Jay must’ve misremembered it as being from the live goodnights.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode with some truly fantastic highs, especially the ambitious and memorable format-breaking Planet of the Apes running theme in the first 7 or so minutes of the show and the hilariously dark Bag Boy sketch. Charlton Heston had several iffy and awkward moments throughout the show, where he would have a serious delay with a line or seem kinda lost, but those moments are understandable and forgivable when you keep in mind how old the man was at this time. The stuff that he did well tonight, he nailed, especially the aforementioned Bag Boy sketch.
— Starting with the Rosie O’Donnell episode, this wildly inconsistent and worrisome season suddenly seems to have hit a nice groove, as tonight was the third consecutive episode that I’ve liked and had very few problems with. Considering that the upcoming second half of the season is where the trouble for this season REALLY starts fully kicking in (the Jason Patric episode is the point where it officially begins), I guess the string of satisfying episodes we’ve been having lately can be considered the calm before the storm.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Nicole Kidman)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Sally Field hosts the Christmas episode

Posted on

November 20, 1993 – Nicole Kidman / Stone Temple Pilots (S19 E7)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Wayne’s World- Wayne & Garth give their thoughts on some 1993 movies

— With an upcoming release of the movie Wayne’s World 2, we get a special return of both a Wayne’s World sketch and Dana Carvey, the latter making his first SNL appearance since leaving the cast halfway through the preceding season.
— Very funny line from Garth about going as Barney the Dinosaur for Halloween and getting his ass kicked.
— Surprised they’re not doing a Top 10 list.
— Okay, the Leprechaun/flashlight bit was funny at first, but is going on WAY too long.
— According to GettyImages, the dress rehearsal version of this sketch had Wayne and Garth holding up a chart that recaps their thoughts on the movies they’ve reviewed (pic here). We never see that chart in the live version. Also, judging from the chart in the pic, some of the movies discussed in the dress version of this sketch weren’t discussed in the live version, such as Demolition Man.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
host engages in Risky Business to make up for Tom Cruise not being there

— (*groan*) This season’s increasingly overused questions-from-the-audience monologue trope appears for the second episode in a row.
— Norm doing a very Norm Macdonald-esque long pause in the middle of his question was hilarious. He’s always a bright spot in this season’s questions-from-the-audience monologues.
— Yeah, tonight’s monologue seems to be the point where I’ve officially reached my breaking point with the overreliance on questions from the audience, as I’m not finding myself enjoying this one anywhere near as much I did the Jeff Goldblum and (especially) Rosie O’Donnell ones from earlier this season.
— Chris’ fearful “What’s happening, Lorne?” was funny.
— The turn with Nicole doing the famous Risky Business dance is both fun and nice eye candy.
STARS: **½


THE DENISE SHOW
Denise’s best friend (host) is interested in Brian

— Another display of this season’s bad habit of frequently bringing back sketches that were fine as a one-off but don’t deserve to be recurring.
— Shannen Doherty still being shown as Denise in a picture on Adam’s table seems kinda silly. I can just imagine viewers who didn’t see the Shannen Doherty-hosted episode earlier this season but caught this episode would be confused when seeing the Denise photo. I’m sure they were confusedly asking themselves “What the hell? Is that Shannen Doherty in the picture with Sandler? Why???”
— I like the “Brian’s Fantasy” segment, especially when he yells “Stand over there, Denise!” in the middle of his acted-out argument with Denise’s new boyfriend. I also like how that acted-out argument suddenly gets interrupted by Denise’s new boyfriend (voiced by Mike Myers) confronting Adam via phone.
— A good laugh after the romantic kiss Nicole gives Adam, where Adam’s only response is an announcement that “The Denise Show has been officially canceled.”
— So, with tonight’s not-great-but-still-good Denise Show installment concluding with the aforementioned “The Denise Show has been officially canceled” announcement, that seems like a perfect way to officially put closure to this recurring sketch for good, right? So then why the hell do we end up getting an even more unnecessary THIRD installment of this sketch later this season?!?
STARS: ***


BAND SHOT
Wednesday (Christina Ricci) & Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) Addams & SNL Band


PLAYGROUND
hyperactive Phillip (MIM) talks with another kid (host) at the jungle gym

— The debut of the short-lived-but-memorable character Phillip the Hyper Hypo.
— I’m liking the idea of this character for Mike.
— Funny story from Phillip about his family feeding him a Snickers bar and a can of coke so he can tow the family’s broken-down car home.
— For some reason, I absolutely loved Nicole’s whole “I’m gonna talk like a robot” random bit.
— Solid characterizations from both Mike and Nicole, and I’m enjoying the way they’re playing off of each other.
— Fun pre-taped ending with Mike running through the city with a jungle gym attached to him.
— Too bad this sketch later ends up being yet ANOTHER victim of season 19’s aforementioned bad habit of frequently making recurring sketches out of stuff that was better left as a one-off. The second installment of this sketch even reuses the exact same pre-taped ending from this first installment!
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Creep”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Ike Turner (TIM) continues his love-hate relationship with KEN
Bruce Springsteen (ADS) sings about how much he loves to eat turkey

— At least Kevin sounds a little better than how hoarse he sounded in the preceding episode.
— Not too crazy about a lot of Kevin’s jokes so far tonight.
— As usual, I love the way Tim and Kevin play off of each other in these Ike Turner commentaries. I also love how Tim’s Ike always refers to Kevin by his full name.
— Good fake-out with the Ike Turner commentary abruptly “ending” and Kevin moving on to the next joke, only for Ike to suddenly interrupt him mid-joke by giving him flowers and a fur coat as an apology.
— Hmm, Kevin’s Update jokes are suddenly getting better and better.
— Interesting how Adam’s doing a Springsteen-ized variation of his famous Turkey Song from a year earlier.
— Hmm, this Springsteen song isn’t turning out anywhere near as funny as the original Turkey Song, and feels unusually long, as if we’ve officially reached THAT point in Adam Sandler’s tenure where he gets too much free rein to do whatever the hell he wants. All that being said, I’m still enjoying this Springsteen song of his. It’s pretty fun, and some of Adam’s typical irrelevant lyrics are making me laugh, such as the lowbrow-but-amusing “I hear George Wendt’s underwear has a huge skidmark” one.
— As always, fun participation from Kevin during Adam’s song.
STARS: ***½


SPROCKETS / DAS IST JEOPÄRDY!
(CHF), (host), shemale Susan play Das Ist Jeopardy!

— Big night for Mike Myers so far, who has been starring as lots of his now-famous characters like Wayne, Phillip the Hyper Hypo, and now Dieter.
— Yet another example of a Sprockets sketch changing things up in its format.
— I love the slogan of the sponsor German Eggo Waffles: “You will leggo my eggo. Now.”
— As always for Sprockets, we’re getting some good bizarre, disturbing humor.
— The audio daily double of what’s seemingly a German father berating his child is hilarious, especially the way he says “I excreted yoooouuuu!”
— A good laugh from the reveal that the winner will receive a tongue bath courtesy of The House of Velvet.
STARS: ***½


TAKEN
at a bar, a married woman (MEH) thinks all the guys are hitting on her

— A rare Melanie Hutsell lead role this season. Up until this point, she had been pretty invisible so far this season.
— Some interesting trivia about this sketch: it was originally cut after the preceding season’s Christina Applegate/Midnight Oil dress rehearsal, in which Melanie’s “I’m taken” character was actually played by Applegate, and instead of being set at a bar, the sketch was set at an office, where the “I’m taken” character was a businesswoman.
— Man, is Melanie capable of getting through a single sketch without flubbing a line?
— Only a little over a minute into this sketch, and I’m already tired of it. Melanie saying “I’m taken” in every single situation is too thin and not particularly funny of a premise. I’m also not getting any laughs from that clapping-and-laughing thing her character keeps doing after some of her lines.
— Kinda odd how neither Jay Mohr nor Norm Macdonald received their featured player credit in tonight’s opening montage, despite the fact that they both have a speaking role in this sketch.
— Norm’s screaming reaction to getting pepper-sprayed in the eyes is cracking me up.
— I got a laugh from Melanie assuming that even Ellen is trying to hit on her.
STARS: **


UNITED WE STAND AMERICA
Ross Perot (DAC) claims that (TIM) is the first NAFTA unemployment victim

— I had forgotten until now that Dana is a special guest tonight. I’m glad to see the welcome return of his Ross Perot impression.
— A great “WTF?” facial reaction from Tim when Dana’s Perot says Tim’s the first American to lose his job because of NAFTA.
— Geez, what was with the ending? Dana-as-Perot’s over-the-top endless loop of “Can I finish? Catch my drift? You’re not listening!” was a bit much.
STARS: ***


YELLING IN THE KITCHEN
(host), (PHH), (JUS), (MIM) take turns arguing in the kitchen

— Julia’s usually-long hairstyles during her SNL tenure have suddenly gone through a huge change, as she’s now sporting a very short hairstyle, which she keeps for the remainder of her tenure.
— Mike’s big night continues. He’s been all over tonight’s episode.
— Huge laugh from the first off-camera kitchen argument. Good stunned facial reactions from both Julia and Mike, as well.
— Even after you see where this is going, the repeated gag of the kitchen arguments is still remaining funny. Phil’s intense yells are particularly cracking me up.
— Okay, maybe I spoke too soon, as I’ve now started to kinda tire of the joke towards the end of this sketch, but it’s being executed so well that I’m still kinda liking it.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Naked Sunday”


CRYSTAL GRAVY
Rerun from 10/2/93


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, though not outstanding or anything. Still welcome for this season’s standards. The episode was fairly heavy on recurring or soon-to-be-recurring sketches, but a lot of the show’s quality was pretty good.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Rosie O’Donnell)
a slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Charlton Heston

Posted on

November 13, 1993 – Rosie O’Donnell / James Taylor (S19 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
The Packwood (PHH) Diaries- the senator recalls females he has harassed

— Phil-as-Packwood’s first sudden “I stuck my tongue down her throat” gave me a pretty good laugh.
— Packwood pointing out that a pro-choice women’s group he spoke in front of were “dogs and dykey-looking… but by then, I was drunk” gave me another laugh, though I feel wrong for it.
— Okay, after about a minute-and-a-half, I’m not caring much for where this has been going, and I can do without all the repetitions of “And then I stuck my tongue down her throat”.
STARS: **½


OPENING MONTAGE
— Writer Sarah Silverman has been added to the cast as a featured player.


MONOLOGUE
Madonna calls; fake audience members confuse host with other actresses

— The first half of this monologue with Rosie talking about movies and Hollywood is only okay, though the phone call to Madonna had a laugh or two.
— The soon-to-be-overused-this-season monologue trope of audience members taking turns asking the host the same idiotic question makes its second appearance of the season.
— Sarah Silverman’s “Now that you’ve left Wilson Phillips…” question to Rosie made me laugh out loud for two reasons: one, because it’s funny in itself obviously, and two, because I got reminded of when they later showed an out-of-context clip of it in Sarah Silverman’s monologue from her hosting stint in season 40, where Sarah answers several questions asked by herself in old clips from various season 19 questions-from-the-audience monologues.
— Love Norm’s delivery of “Yeah, uh, Designing Women? Yeah, it, uhh…. got really bad when you left.”
— Despite the repetitive nature of this season’s increasingly-common questions-from-the-audience monologues, they haven’t reached their breaking point with me yet. In fact, I’m actually liking this one from tonight more than the Jeff Goldblum one from earlier this season.
— Good ending with Rosie having a pleased reaction to being mistaken for Julia Roberts.
STARS: ***½


DUETS
Frank Sinatra (PHH) & pop stars hurriedly record duets; Casey Kasem cameo

— Much like the Clinton Inauguration cold opening from the preceding season, Mike’s Barbra Streisand looks uncanny to me.
— I absolutely loved Sinatra telling Liza Minnelli “Your money’s on the dresser, baby. I’m done with you.”
— I’m loving the format of this sketch with singers coming in one at a time to duet with Sinatra, especially when it gets to the point where the singers are hurriedly sent in two at a time. Very fun, and a nice way to use pretty much the entire cast.
— Hilarious slam from Sinatra about Anita Baker not being a stranger to trios.
— I love the staredown Rob’s K.D. Lang gives Sinatra after Sinatra IMMEDIATELY dismisses her and Wynonna Judd as soon as they enter.
— Funny ending with Sinatra beating the crap out of Bono while singing “Come Fly With Me”.
STARS: ****


MEXICAN STEREOTYPE
Mexican stereotype (ROS) sponsored by anti-NAFTA people tries to scare us

— I like Rob’s goofy laugh throughout this.
— Pretty funny bit with the pinata representing the economy.
— An overall good, silly bit pulled off pretty well by Rob.
STARS: ***


DAILY AFFIRMATION WITH STUART SMALLEY
Stuart counsels John (MIM) & Lorena (host) Bobbitt

— I love the audience’s big laughter as soon as they realize from Stuart’s intro to his guests that he’s referring to Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt.
— The posture Mike’s John Wayne Bobbit is uncomfortably sitting in throughout this is really funny.
— A big laugh from Stuart’s innocent whole “patch things up” spiel unintentionally correlating to John Wayne Bobbitt’s penis situation.
— Great facial reaction from Stuart when Lorena responds to his “What did you do with that anger?” question by saying “I cut off his penis.”
— A camera has suddenly become visible on the right side of the screen for an extended amount of time (screencap below).

SNL would later fix this camera gaffe in reruns by replacing that portion of this sketch with the dress rehearsal version, a substitution that’s kinda noticeable, as the look of Mike’s wig suddenly changes a bit.
— An absolutely priceless part with Stuart making Lorena recite a wordy apology to John’s penis.
— After the aforementioned penis apology, I love how John’s answer to Stuart’s “How do you feel now?” is just “…….It itches.”
STARS: ****


PHIL HARTMAN’S REAL VIEWS
PHH says “pay no attention to anti-NAFTA ad, let’s stick it to Mexicans”

— There’s something hilarious about hearing lines like “–really stick it to those Mexicans–” and “I can’t wait to see the looks on their smug Mexican faces” being delivered in Phil’s typically professional, straitlaced voice.
— Another funny comment from Phil, this time about Canadians being screwed by NAFTA, a tongue-in-cheek remark considering Phil is actually Canadian himself.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Memphis” & “Slap Leather”


WEEKEND UPDATE
new Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien (MIM) doesn’t like NAFTA
Operaman on NAFTA, Fan Man, John Bobbitt, Eddie Vedder, Princess Di

— Wow, Kevin’s voice is absolutely shot tonight. He sounds terrible. I thought I noticed him sounding kinda bad earlier tonight in the Duets sketch, but since he didn’t speak all that frequently there, his hoarse voice wasn’t as noticeable to me as it is in this Weekend Update.
— Mike’s facial imitation of the Canadian Prime Minister is pretty funny (I have no idea what that Canadian Prime Minister looks like, but I’ve seen it mentioned that Mike’s impression is an accurate-if-comically-exaggerated imitation of his mouth shape), but I’m not caring for his commentary at all, and the constant pop culture references he keeps randomly throwing in aren’t doing a thing for me.
— Tonight’s Operaman commentary had a bit of a slow start, but it’s taken off with the bit about the Bobbitts.
— Funny bit with Operaman singing about Pearl Jam in an out-of-character Eddie Vedder voice to the tune of Evenflow, though Operaman would do a much more famous rendition of this bit later this season when Pearl Jam is the musical guest in the Emilio Estevez episode. Also, as I mentioned in my review of this season’s premiere, Adam had an Update commentary cut after the premiere’s dress rehearsal where he played Eddie Vedder singing about world events to the tune of Evenflow. I wonder if that was done in the same style as the Operaman commentaries, right down to showing superimposed photos next to Adam’s Vedder and having the lyrics displayed on the bottom of the screen.
— Tonight’s entire Operaman commentary would later be completely removed from all (or most) reruns. For years, I wondered why, until it hit me during one viewing. At one point during Operaman’s Eddie Vedder imitation, he sings a lyric that states “Nirvana kiss my assa”. I’m guessing the first re-airing of this episode was not too long after Kurt Cobain’s April 1994 suicide, and SNL must’ve thought it would be in poor taste to re-air the anti-Nirvana lyric of Operaman’s. But why remove the ENTIRE Operaman commentary, especially considering the character’s huge popularity? Couldn’t they have found some way to just edit out the Nirvana lyric, even if it would be a sloppy edit? After all, they do something like that in reruns of a Hollywood Minute commentary that’s coming up in two episodes. I’ll go into a little more detail when I review it, but in that Hollywood Minute, David makes a brief crack about John Candy during a joke about another celebrity. Well, Candy ended up dying just a few months later, so all reruns of that Hollywood Minute sloppily remove David’s crack about him.
STARS: ***


WAITERS WITHOUT A PAD
waiter (KEN) overestimates ability to remember order of (PHH) & (host)

— This sketch was originally cut after dress rehearsal from the preceding season’s Jason Alexander episode. In that version, Phil and Rosie’s roles were played by Jason Alexander and Julia.
— I’m getting good laughs from the part with Kevin badly attempting to slowly sound out Phil and Rosie’s orders until they say it for him.
— A very Kevin Nealon-y premise.
— For some reason, when trying to say “seared tuna steak”, Phil pauses oddly and then actually breaks character and cracks up a bit, which is very rare for him.
— I like the absurdity of Kevin phoning Phil from the restaurant kitchen to ask him his order, plus the absurdity of how Kevin’s character would even know a random restaurant patron’s cellphone number in the first place.
— Overall, I found this sketch pretty enjoyable, more than most people seem to, though it’s not one of Kevin’s better sketches that have a quintessential Kevin Nealon-y premise.
STARS: ***½


THE TOMBOY & THE SISSY
odd couple (host) & (DAS) teaches each other skills

— Always nice to see David play against type. He’s doing a solid job here.
— I love the concept of this sketch, and the opening title sequence is pretty fun.
— An overall cute and charming sketch.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Secret O’ Life”


MALIBU FIRES
Dick Clark’s receptionist controls the access to the California fires

— Surprisingly, David’s Dick Clark Receptionist character makes his first appearance since season 17. The setting of his appearance tonight is a creative and topical change of pace for him.
— Not too sure about the voice, but Jay is nailing Sean Penn’s facial expression.
— Funny impression from Rosie of her friend Penny Marshall.
— I loved Phil-as-Charlton-Heston’s delivery of “Laverne & Shirley still makes me laugh.”
— Interesting Planet of the Apes-esque ending with Phil’s Heston.
— Overall, this was fine, but doesn’t measure up to the more memorable Dick Clark Productions installments back in season 17.
STARS: ***½


WILL WORK FOR FOOD
by TOS- homeless (NOM) forgoes fruit of his labor

 

— Very unusual and interesting seeing early-era Norm Macdonald starring in a quiet, slice-of-life Tom Schiller film.
— Norm is doing a great job in this film, which is presenting a side of him that I don’t think we would ever get to see from him again for the remainder of his tenure.
— Very heartwarming ending with Norm giving his hot dog reward to the fellow hobo from the beginning of the film.
— This sadly ends up being the final Schiller’s Reel to ever make it on the air during a live episode. Reruns of the Martin Lawrence episode from later this season add in a cut-after-dress-rehearsal Schiller’s Reel titled “Laura” (a romantic film pairing together Phil Hartman and Melanie Hutsell, quite an odd pairing), presumably to fill in the extra time left over from the huge edit famously made to Martin Lawrence’s notorious monologue.
STARS: ****


HOMEGIRLS
(JUS) invites homegirls (ELC), (MEH), (host) to her birthday party

— Boy, this is awful. Cringeworthy. Where is the humor here supposed to be coming from?
— The fact that a dud like this is immediately following such a touching Schiller’s Reel makes this sketch feel even worse than it already is.
— This is one of quite a number of bad sketches this season that have that uncomfortable dead atmosphere that I mentioned in my review of the History’s Great Over-Thinkers sketch from this season’s Jeff Goldblum episode.
— A shame that this has to be Sarah Silverman’s first big role; the first sign of the huge struggle she’s going to have during her short-lived SNL tenure.
— The homegirls’ constant utterances of “Whoomp, there it is!” are just embarrassing in retrospect. Actually, it was probably embarrassing even at this time in 1993 when the song was still new and hot.
— Overall, definitely a contender for one of the worst sketches of the whole season.
STARS: *


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A (mostly) consistently good episode, especially for this season’s standards. There were a lot of good pieces throughout the night, and a few really strong pieces in the first half of the show. Even the questions-from-the-audience monologue managed to be pretty solid. Aside from the awful final sketch and the fairly one-note cold opening, I like that tonight didn’t have too much of the feel of a typical season 19 episode.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Christian Slater)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Nicole Kidman

Posted on

October 30, 1993 – Christian Slater / Smashing Pumpkins (S19 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Coffee Talk- in a Barbra costume for Halloween, Linda takes some calls

— You probably already know my reaction to this sketch making yet another appearance…
— Well, at least Linda Richman’s wearing a fairly funny costume this time.
— Geez, tonight’s Coffee Talk installment has been even more catchphrase-driven than usual so far, with all the dialogue in the the entire first minute literally only consisting of an endless string of Richman’s catchphrases that never make me laugh.
— In a desperation to find SOMETHING to like here, I kinda chuckled at the Andre Agassi comments.
STARS: *½


MONOLOGUE
host goes trick-or-treating backstage but fails to gather much candy

— Very fun premise with Christian going around backstage trick-or-treating.
— Some good laughs from the “candy” Christian is being given, such as Tic-Tacs and a prosthetic nose from the makeup department.
— A big laugh from David and Tim trying to get rid of an excessive amount of leftover Coneheads merchandise from the Coneheads movie that had come out earlier that year.
— The baby Conehead doll among the Coneheads merchandise looks like it could be the same one that was held by Nora Dunn in the New Coneheads sketch from Steve Martin’s season 14 episode.
— Very funny part with Lorne hitting on Mike still dressed as Linda Richman, thinking she’s a real woman.
— Nice visual of an excited Chis Farley in a giant pumpkin costume.
STARS: ****


MMMPH?
— Rerun from 5/15/93. We’re only five episodes into this new season, and they’ve already repeated TWO ads from season 18. What’s up with that?


MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER
Matt Foley lectures (MEH), (DAS), (host) about Halloween vandalism

 

— Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Matt Foley officially becomes recurring, despite the fact that his first sketch should’ve remained a one-off, as there’s no way they can come anywhere close to topping it. However, I understand why they brought this sketch back.
— You can tell they’re trying hard to recapture the magic of the first installment, with them even going so far as to reuse the same living room set and having David and Phil reprise their roles as one of the troublemaking teens and the dad, respectively.
— Loved Matt Foley’s “I’m the egg man, goo goo g’joob!” reference.
— Yeah, despite the amusement I’ve been getting here, this sketch is definitely not working anywhere near as strongly as the first installment. I kinda find some of the subsequent Matt Foley sketches a little better than tonight’s, partly because they put him in a completely different setting for a change.
— I do like the idea of Matt Foley telling a scary Halloween story while using a flashlight in the dark.
— Now they’re trying to recreate the legendary unscripted breakaway coffee table crash from the first installment, which doesn’t work as well this time as it’s not as spontaneous. At least the subsequent Matt Foley sketches change the type of breakaway prop he falls through.
— Funny bit with the flaming bag.
STARS: ***


SASSY’S SASSIEST BOYS
host & other stars are unthreateningly rebellious

— And now here comes another sketch that was funny the first time but doesn’t seem necessary as a recurring sketch. An early sign of this season’s bad habit of frequently bringing back sketches that were better left as one-offs, as they pulled out all the stops in their first installment and have no legs as a recurring bit.
— I wonder if Christian playing himself as a guest is a reference to the fact David played him in the first installment of this sketch.
— Mike-as-Joey-Lawrence’s dialog consisting only of “Whoa!”s is pretty funny and oddly memorable.
— Jay Mohr’s bug-eyed, out-of-it Andrew McCarthy impression is cracking me up. Only two episodes into his tenure so far, and I’ve been liking what Jay has to offer with his celebrity impressions.
— Phil: “I just stepped in a big pile of sassy!”
— Surprisingly, Phil’s endless “sassy” one-liners into the camera are still remaining funny tonight, despite the thin nature of the gag. I guess it’s that one-of-a-kind Phil Hartman magic that keeps it from getting old.
— I like how the bit with Phil pulling out a map of Sassyland is heightening the absurdity of this sketch.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Cherub Rock”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Queen Shenequa doesn’t like Whoopi Goldberg defending Ted Danson
this year, ADS gives cheap Halloween costume ideas that focus on the face

— Queen Shenequa had a funny slam just now about Ted Danson’s penis size.
— Queen Shenequa’s overall commentary was okay. Also, IIRC, this ends up being this character’s last appearance ever, despite the fact that Ellen still has a little under two seasons left in her SNL tenure. I didn’t realize until now that, between Queen Shenequa making her final appearance here and us already having seen the last of Zoraida (not counting the latter’s appearance in a recurring character group piece at the end of this season), it’s already the end of the road for Ellen’s only two big characters. At this moment, I can’t recall her debuting any new big characters for the remainder of her tenure, though there’s her upcoming recurring-but-short-lived Jocelyn Elders impression that I remember kinda liking.
— Adam’s annual Halloween costume suggestions makes its final Weekend Update appearance. (It makes a resurgence a year later as a brief part of a Ross Perot trick-or-treating sketch.)
— As always with these Halloween costume commentaries, Adam is able to mine a surprising amount of charming, fun laughs out of such an overly simple, childish premise.
— One of the SNL bumper photos shown of Christian Slater tonight has him holding the handle of a coffee mug in front of his eye like a monocle (screencap below). I’d like to think that’s a clever reference to Adam’s Halloween costume routine.

— Coincidentally, the only two Update guests tonight, Queen Shenequa and Adam Sandler as himself giving Halloween costume suggestions, were also the only two Update guests in Christian Slater’s previous episode.
STARS: ***


TEEN BAND
(host) & fellow teens debate what their band’s name & focus should be

— David’s sotto voce “I like Loverboy” aside made me laugh.
— Some pretty funny idiotic interjections and ramblings from Chris’ stoner character, such as suggesting the band call themselves Pearl Jam 2, and his story about getting crabs from his friend’s couch.
— I loved Christian’s “Did you just make some money in the last five minutes?” question when Melanie again suggests “Let’s go get some pot” shortly after suggesting it a first time.
— I’m conflicted on this sketch. I like the realistic, simple, slice-of-life premise, but the execution is iffy. There’s some laughs, but the sketch as a whole isn’t coming off particularly interesting, and I’m not caring at all for the running bit with Christian’s character and his off-camera mom having a shouting match.
— Adam working in his goofy-voiced guitar song shtick from Weekend Update felt kinda out-of-place and tacked-on in this sketch.
STARS: **


OUT OF AFRICA
(host) & tribal art dealer deny marijuana possession during police bust

— Oh, dear god, no.
— The endlessly-repeated “You put your weed in there!” catchphrase continues to increasingly get on my last nerve with each passing utterance.
— We get a “big change” with the addition of Christian as a similar co-employee of Rob’s character, which only means we now have TWO characters saying the stupid “You put your weed in there!” catchphrase, as if that’s somehow supposed to be funnier.
— Okay, I finally got a chuckle just now, from Christian’s line to Tim about how he and Rob need to keep Tim’s weed-clogged artifact overnight to get the weed out.
— Why does this recurring sketch always have to conclude with cops showing up?
— Poor ending.
— Thankfully, this ends up being the final installment of this sketch. I think I recall once reading someone claim that a third installment of this sketch appears in the Emilio Estevez episode from later this season, but it absolutely does not. My memory of reading that false claim is admittedly very fuzzy, so perhaps the person claiming that was actually saying the sketch got cut after dress rehearsal in the Estevez episode.
STARS: *½


THE VALLENCOURT BOYS
New Englanders (ADS) & (KEN) drink & take calls

— Adam appears to be playing a variation of his Boston-accented Tony Vallencourt character from the What’s The Best Way gameshow sketch from season 18, only this time he’s named Bobby Vallencourt and has a mullet and flannel jacket that he didn’t have last time. To make things even more confusing, the next time this character appears, which is in the cold opening of the following season’s Bob Saget episode, he goes back to having the Tony Vallencourt name from his first appearance while still having the mullet and flannel jacket from tonight’s appearance.
— It is just me, or does Kevin’s Boston accent sound lousy and unnatural?
— I recall once reading a spot-on comment made back at this time in 1993 (within this post here) that basically said this sketch feels like a bad attempt at a Boston-themed version of SCTV’s McKenzie Brothers sketches.
— Oh, talk about lousy Boston accents, here comes Tim. While there’s an affable goofiness in Tim’s presence here that usually works for me in other Tim Meadows performances, it’s not doing a thing for me here.
— Man, this sketch is DEAD so far. No real laughs from me (nor the audience) at all.
— Wait, did Kevin just say “Before we bring out our next guest”? Ugh, I thought this boring sketch was mercifully about to end. Turns out they’re bringing out a guest now? So you mean I still have a few more minutes to put up with this snoozefest?
— Unfortunately, the interview with Christian didn’t make this overall sketch any better. I’ve gone through this entire overlong sketch without finding a single worthwhile aspect.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Today”


THE HEADLINE STORE
joke headline shop owner (host) belittles choices of Canteen Boy & others

— Tonight’s episode continues to die a long, miserable death. This sketch is pure one-joke material; a joke that wasn’t funny to me to begin with.
— A rare flub from Phil, as he accidentally blocks the newspaper headline Christian holds up (the third above screencap for this sketch) and doesn’t realize it until towards the end of the shot.
— A random Canteen Boy walk-on? Not so happy to see him so soon after that awful Garage Sale sketch he starred in just two episodes ago.
— I recall an SNL fan once saying that this sketch would’ve worked had Norm Macdonald played Christian Slater’s role. I can definitely see that. Something about this sketch’s material does seem like something that only Norm could sell with his unique delivery.
— Chris tries to breathe some life into this dead sketch, but I just see it as one of way too many Screaming Chris Farley Roles that we’ll be bombarded with over the course of both this and (especially) next season.
— A lame, dumb ending.
STARS: *


TRENT MARKHAM, LUNG DOCTOR
cigarettes escape blame in the ’50s

— Ah, thank god Phil Hartman has come to save the day after an endless string of horrible sketches.
— Phil always succeeds in these authentic 1950s-era black-and-white pieces, and this sketch feels like a nice throwback to his first season where SNL often did sketches like this. While tonight’s sketch feels slightly empty not seeing Phil being surrounded by the castmates he always used to perform these black-and-white sketches with, like Jon Lovitz, Dana Carvey (who probably would’ve worked an “I oughta pound yooouuu!” into this sketch), and Nora Dunn, Phil’s still receiving nice support from Julia and Christian.
— Pretty funny ad-lib from Christian when Julia unexpectedly has trouble lighting his cigarette.
— I loved the dark humor of Phil handing a cigarette to a newly-pregnant Julia and telling her “Take a big pull; you’re smoking for two now!”
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— The worst episode of the season so far, and the weakest episode I’ve reviewed in quite a while. The first half of this episode, while not terrible, was dominated by lazily rehashed material, one of which was a recurring sketch I typically don’t like and went particularly heavy on the catchphrases tonight (Coffee Talk), and two of which were newly-recurring sketches that were probably better left as funny one-off pieces last season despite still producing some laughs tonight (Matt Foley and Sassy’s Sassiest Boys, though the latter ended up being better tonight than I thought it would). And the second half of this episode? Yikes. It already started off iffy with the somewhat-promising but uninteresting Teen Band sketch, and only got worse and worse with each passing sketch, some of which produced literally no laughs from me AT ALL, and some of which felt like a sneak preview of what we’ll typically see next season. Thankfully, the night ended on a high note with a solid and classy Phil Hartman sketch showing up out of nowhere. Other than that sketch, the only real highlights of the overall night were the monologue and a portion or two of Weekend Update.


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

 


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John Malkovich)
a huge step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Rosie O’Donnell

Posted on

October 23, 1993 – John Malkovich / Billy Joel (S19 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Phillies spit while Anne Murray (MEH) sings “O, Canada” at World Series

— Some good laughs from the Phillies each crudely taking turns spitting out a small chunk of their tobacco during Anne Murray’s singing.
— Feels kinda weird seeing Phil being cast in this role at this point of his tenure.
— The ending gag gave me a huge laugh. I feel like I shouldn’t like it, since it kinda signals this and next season’s increasing reliance on bad low-brow humor and fluid-spurting gags, but it worked in the structure of this short-and-sweet cold opening.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
host gets worked up while trying to hit a baseball into the audience

— I love the fake-out on the old “host mentions a recent movie they’re in to receive applause” trope, with John saying “There was a little movie you might’ve seen this summer called Jurassic Park”, which receives confused, scattered applause from the audience, considering John’s not in that movie. John then says “Great movie; I’ve seen it twice.”
— A simple premise, but John is really making this work, especially with his increasing frustration.
— When John is angrily banging the baseballs on the floor with a bat, one of the baseballs accidentally flies up and lands by SNL Band drummer Shawn Pelton, nearly hitting him. Pelton just laughs while moving out of the way of the ball.
STARS: ****


MCINTOSH POST-IT NOTES
use the computer message units once & throw away

— I’ve always found this fake ad baffling. It’s not a particularly funny concept, and that coupled with the fact that the ad is played SO straight and dull makes it feel too much like a real ad. Kinda reminds me of how I’ve always felt about that Michael McKean-starring Virtual Reading fake ad from the following season.
— Yeah, watching this ad again now, my opinion has not really changed. Though I admit to getting a chuckle from the long “warming up” part, as well as the close-up of Farley as a coach giving a cheesy grin and head nod to the camera (the third above screencap for this ad).
— For some reason, the part with Kevin holding up a McIntosh Post-It Note in one hand and regular Post-It Notes in his other hand while comparing the two products would later be removed from all reruns. Does anyone have any idea why? Did SNL get in trouble with the real Post-It Notes company for showing their product without permission or something?
STARS: *½


THE MENENDEZ TRIAL
on witness stand, Erik (ROS) & Lyle (host) Menendez blame their twins

— The first of many Court TV sketches within these next two seasons.
— I got a good laugh from John as one of the Menendez brothers explaining that their parents hid the extra set of two brothers because “they were weak and not good tennis players”, a line made even funnier by that trademark Malkovich delivery.
— So many little things throughout this are cracking me up, such as John’s crying faces and the way he places his hand over his eyes during that crying, and Rob always listening to the lawyers while leaning his head forward with an intensely serious facial expression.
— I like how the alleged extra set of two brothers is clearly just Lyle and Erik having switched places with each other.
— Phil’s “Is that really necessary?” line was solid.
— The extremely long, silent wait for Lyle and Erik to return while the camera holds on a shot of two empty chairs is hilarious.
— I love the awkwardness and subtle panicking when only one of the brothers is sent to go get the extra set of brothers from the bathroom.
— This overall sketch was very slow-paced and repetitive, but it actually worked really well, and so many things in it tickled me.
STARS: ****½


THEATRE STORIES
Charlton Heston (PHH) & Brits talk about porno films

— Surprisingly, this is the first time they’ve done this sketch since season 17. This sketch completely skipped season 18.
— Good to see Julia’s character back after not being in the last Theatre Stories sketch.
— It’s also nice to see this sketch without Dana Carvey’s Mickey Rooney for a change, as his endlessly-repeated “I was the number one staaaarrrrr… etc.” catchphrase actually got old fast to me (as much as it pains me to criticize Dana).
— I like Mike’s character calling Charlton Heston “Charl-intestine”.
— Always fun to see Phil’s Charlton Heston. His line just now about “bananas… bananas… bananas” was very funny with his delivery.
— I’m loving John’s character and delivery.
— Funny running gag with Mike narrating how he’s randomly changing his body postures uncontrollably.
— The various porn stories being told are all worth good laughs.
— Overall, this has always been my favorite installment of this recurring sketch.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The River of Dreams”


WEEKEND UPDATE
KEN gives a subliminal editorial about Ted Danson’s blackface at roast
John Kruk (CHF) realizes that he was supposed to have been in Toronto

— This is the first in a long time they’ve altered the Update title sequence featuring Kevin’s spinning head, this time showing him in old-timey blackface makeup (screencap below), as an apparent reference to Ted Danson’s infamous blackface stunt at a then-recent Whoopi Goldberg roast.

— I loved Kevin’s two jokes about the cancellation of Chevy Chase’s disastrous talk show, one of the jokes being “By the way, The Chevy Chase Show is still dead”, as a reference to Chevy’s classic Generalissimo Francisco Franco running gag from the original era.
— Uh-oh, here comes yet another subliminal editorial. As I mentioned in my review of the preceding season’s finale, I’ve surprisingly gotten tired of Kevin’s subliminal routine over the course of last season.
— Tonight’s subliminal editorial ended up being okay, but was sadly still a far cry from the days when Kevin’s subliminal routine was in its prime. The best subliminal words in tonight’s commentary were Long Dong Silver and Kevin referring to Montel Williams as “8-ball head”.
— Kevin: “During the World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies have been accused of being unshaven, overweight, long-haired, dumb slobs.” Oh, was THAT the reason behind the cold opening earlier tonight?
— Great facial reaction from Chris as John Kruk when he comes to the realization he’s supposed to be in Toronto for the World Series tonight. This commentary is almost too simple a concept, but Chris is actually selling it well. I wonder if him turning his back to the camera was an ad-lib, since the back of his Phillies jersey is oddly empty (the fifth above screencap for this Weekend Update), as if SNL didn’t bother putting Kruk’s team number on it because they didn’t think the back of his jersey would be shown onscreen.
— The John Kruk commentary ends with him having a disappointed “Should’ve been there” reaction to Kevin’s announcement that Toronto won the World Series tonight (an announcement that initially receives cheers from the studio audience before being drowned out by many boos). According to a dress rehearsal photo on GettyImages (seen here), the dress rehearsal version of this commentary seemingly had a different ending, as the photo shows Chris’ John Kruk standing up with a rowdy look on his face while holding a bottle of champagne (it looks like his head is doused in champagne as well). I’m guessing the dress rehearsal version used an alternate ending where the Phillies were the ones who won the World Series, and Chris’ John Kruk broke out a bottle of champagne to celebrate. SNL must’ve had two different endings written in advance, since they obviously wouldn’t have known which team would win the World Series until the game ended during the live airing of tonight’s episode.
STARS: ***


OF MICE AND MEN
Disney’s version features two Lennies (host) & (CHF)
LOM shoots CHF after the latter breaks JAH’s neck during sketch

— Of Mice and Men is my personal favorite book of all time, and I’ve always loved SNL’s parodies of it from various seasons. I also like how this particular parody is in reference to the Of Mice and Men movie adaptation Malkovich starred in a year earlier.
— A very good and fun premise of George being replaced with a second Lennie.
— I love the sound effect of loud snapping whenever the puppies’ necks are cracked.
— The Lennies’ poor ways of hiding the dead puppies’ bodies are really funny.
— Great how the running neck-snapping gag is now extending to Farley’s Lennie accidentally snapping the neck of Curley’s wife.
— I absolutely love the twist after the sketch ends, with a behind-the-scenes bit where it’s revealed that Chris really did snap Jan’s neck during the sketch.
— Funny implication in Chris’ meta line “I did it again, just like Victoria.”
— Great ending with Lorne pulling a George and shooting Chris in the back of the head while telling him about Hollywood.
STARS: *****


RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE
guests’ actions spurred preventative measures

— An interesting and fairly fun premise.
— I’m enjoying the sketch, but it has an oddly really quiet atmosphere so far, for some reason. Not sure what it is; maybe it’s the audience.
— John is absolutely perfect for this creepy role, and I love his overly calm revelations about killing hitchhikers.
— Funny bit about Rob being the first man to ever bring a woman to orgasm.
— The sketch has been getting funnier as it’s going along.
— Good ending with each guest saying what they plan on ruining next.
— Nice touch at the very end with John asking “Anybody need a lift home?”, though it was almost inaudible.
STARS: ***½


CARVILLE
James Carville (host) urges Hillary Clinton (JAH) to run in 1996

— Feels weird seeing an Oval Office sketch buried this late in the show.
— John continues to knock it out of the park, as he’s perfectly cast as James Carville and is giving a very funny performance in the role.
— I could be looking too much into this, but when talking about daughter Chelsea, Jan-as-Hillary’s emphasized delivery of “She’s a 13-year-old who deserves to be left ALONE!” almost seems to be SNL’s way of saying “See, everyone? We truly ARE sorry for the mean things we said about Chelsea in that Wayne’s World sketch!”
— I loved Carville slyly telling Hillary “I’ll see you in ’96…. minutes!” when Bill’s in the room.
— Very sweet ending with Phil and Jan, and yet another heartwarming display of their wonderful chemistry.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “All About Soul”


IN THE LINE OF FIRE
assassin (host) gets wrong numbers while trying to phone Frank Horrigan

— Another parody of a Malkovich movie, which I’m glad about, as In The Line Of Fire is one of my favorite Malkovich movies.
— The first wrong number reveal is really funny, happening out of nowhere during such a tense scene.
— John’s sudden “I KNOW IT’S ALRIGHT!” angry outburst cracked me up.
— Weird how this is the second out-of-it old lady Julia is playing tonight.
— A good laugh from John accidentally calling Julia’s old lady back immediately after hanging up on her.
— Priceless part with the kid’s “They killed Kennedy?!? The VJ from MTV?!?” reaction.
— John being put on call waiting right after finally reaching Frank Horrigan is very funny.
— The ending would later be altered in reruns. In the live version I’m currently watching, after John shoots himself in the foot (a gag ruined by a technical error where the screen took too long to cut to an exterior shot of the building), he calls 911, asks them for an ambulance, and that’s the end of the sketch. Reruns improve on this ending by adding in audio of Julia’s old lady character yelling “Hello?!? Hello?!?” on the other end of the phone after John asks 911 for an ambulance.
— Speaking of the ending, I wonder if whoever wrote this sketch would later write the recurring Zagat’s sketches from the following season, because much like John’s character at the end of this sketch, the first Zagat’s sketch ends with Adam’s character accidentally shooting himself in the foot off-camera (“MY FOOT!”).
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— And thus ends what’s always been one of my personal favorite episodes of all time. Unlike the last episode I reviewed that I called one of my personal all-time favorites (Christopher Walken/Arrested Development, which coincidentally originally aired on the same Saturday as tonight’s episode an exact year earlier), it’s a little hard to justify why tonight’s episode is one of my favorites. To a lot of SNL fans, I assume this is just a solid-but-not-classic episode (if I’m wrong about that assumption, I apologize). And even having just watched and reviewed the episode right now, I see that there were barely any sketches that I consider a five-star classic. But to me, this episode has always held a VERY special place in my heart. I just love so many things about it as a whole, including the feel and flow of it. Part of my bias towards this episode may be due to both the fact that I first saw it in a Comedy Central rerun during my very early SNL fandom days, where it left a huge impression on me (so much so, that anytime I noticed Comedy Central was airing the episode again, I’d go wild), and the fact that I’m a fan of a lot of John Malkovich’s work and always love when he hosts SNL (why he’s only hosted three times, I’ll never know). And after watching and reviewing the episode just now, I also feel that, unlike the preceding episodes of this season, nothing in this episode was hampered by early signs of the doom that awaits both this and next season (besides maybe the McIntosh Post-It Notes commercial, but that was short and harmless enough).


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jeff Goldblum)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Christian Slater

Posted on

October 9, 1993 – Jeff Goldblum / Aerosmith (S19 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
musical guest & other artists sing to protest Michael Jordan’s retirement

— These We Are the World-esque sketches this era does are always a winner.
— There’s something I like about the fact that this era’s We Are the World-esque sketches never display a name graphic revealing which singer each cast member is playing. It’s fun to instead try to guess which singer they’re playing.
— I like how each singer is singing a modified version of a hit song of theirs.
— Mike and new SNL writer Norm Macdonald are really fun as The Proclaimers.
— Ellen as Dr. Dre?!? That is giving me a weird laugh, though.
— Adam’s Eddie Vedder is spot-on and very funny.
— New SNL writers Jay Mohr and Sarah Silverman (both making their very first onscreen SNL appearance) appear in this as Billy Idol and Natalie Merchant, respectively, but have no actual lines and are presumably just there to make the group of singers look more complete.
STARS: ****½


OPENING MONTAGE
— Writers Norm Macdonald and Jay Mohr have officially been added to the cast as featured players.


MONOLOGUE
Laura Dern [real] & other audience members think Jurassic Park was real

— Uh-oh, here comes the first of WAY too many questions-from-the-audience monologues this season, where audience members all ask the same question as each other.
— Jim Downey’s question is making me laugh, mostly because of his delivery.
— After Downey’s bit, Norm also made me laugh with his delivery.
— I like Jeff initially responding to Laura Dern’s idiotic question with a dumbfounded long silent pause, then deciding to play along by giving her a false answer.
— Overall, considering this is only the first “audience members take turns asking the same dumb question” monologue this season, this came off kinda charming and fairly fun. Unfortunately, I’m aware of how quickly tired and frustrating this type of monologue will increasingly become over the course of this season.
STARS: ***


NERF CROTCH BAT
— Rerun from 5/8/93


SUBWAY MUSICIAN
subway musician’s (ROS) lyrics contradict what he says while not playing

— A pretty good laugh from Rob denying claims that he’s accepting money from passersby, by explaining he just so happens to keep his change in his open guitar case.
— I love Rob’s ridiculous deep singing voice. Sounds very different from his normal speaking voice.
— Very funny escalation to this, with Rob constantly following up his claims that he’s not a beggar by singing increasingly specific lyrics that make it seem like he wants Jeff to give him money. I’m also getting good laughs from Rob’s various justifications for why he’s singing those kinds of lyrics.
— I really like the ending with Rob’s violent lyrics towards fellow subway musician Adam.
STARS: ****


WAVE STARTER
at a baseball game, wave-starter (host) feels fans don’t appreciate him

— A simple premise, but Jeff is selling this role well and is making the sketch work.
— Funny reactions from Phil to the inane things Jeff is telling him.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Cryin'”


WEEKEND UPDATE
ELC suggests she could find Aidid- foreign men are attracted to her
NOM figures that the worst thing about going to prison is anal rape

— Kevin’s Where’s Waldo-esque Where’s Aidid bit was pretty funny.
— Ellen’s overall commentary did not work for me, though her pizza delivery man comment kinda made me laugh.
— When introducing Norm Macdonald’s commentary, Kevin’s bad penchant for flubbing lines on Weekend Update is on full display, as he bungles his Norm intro so badly that he actually has to stop in the middle of it, apologize to us, and then repeat the whole intro all over again. When he finally gets through it, he tells Norm “Sorry, Norm”, which made me (and Norm) kinda laugh. There’s something kinda symbolic about Kevin badly flubbing his intro to Norm’s debut, considering Kevin’s constant flubs is just one of several frustrating things about this season of Update that make Norm replacing him as anchorperson next season a breath of fresh air.
— As always during this SNL project of mine, it feels exciting to see a showcase for a new cast member, especially when I’ve gotten so used to the already-existing cast I’m reviewing.
— A huge laugh from Norm revealing that the worst thing about prison is “the, uh… you know, the, uh… anal rape.” I also love the audience laughter after that reveal.
— You can tell Norm’s commentary is from his stand-up, and it feels a bit odd as an Update commentary, but it’s an absolutely hilarious piece. I especially love him acting out an entire conversation between two prison mates.
— Overall, Norm’s piece was a riot and I cannot think of a more perfect way for SNL to introduce him and his brand of humor to us.
— We get our first of many Menendez Brothers references this season, and Kevin’s joke about them just now was hilarious.
— Some really strong jokes from Kevin in general towards the end of this Update.
— Tim had an Update commentary cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal, in which he talks about Michael Jordan and compares him to all the great white players in the NBA. The commentary ends in a meta fashion with Tim telling Kevin he’s just happy to get some airtime.
STARS: ***½


BAD DANCER
other club patrons make (host) feel self-conscious about his bad dancing

— I like the turn with the club band actually stopping their music during Jeff’s bad dancing, and the guitarist of the band (Mike Myers) actually approaching Jeff to ask if the band is playing wrong.
— Weird how this is the second sketch tonight with somebody accusing a Jeff Goldblum character of being paranoid by thinking everybody’s actions are directed toward him, after Rob made those claims about him in the Subway Musician sketch.
— I’m enjoying the growing absurdity of this sketch, with several club members now wearing masks of Jeff’s face.
— This sketch died really badly towards the end. The Aerosmith bit fell completely flat, and then afterwards, the sketch ended on a sour note.
STARS: **½


KARL’S VIDEO
host rents a porno from name-dropping video store owner Karl (DAS)

— I’m loving David’s performance as this character. He’s very solid here.
— David’s constant defensive “I’m not gonna do anything with it” whenever he reveals he has certain celebrities’ phone numbers/credit card numbers/etc. are cracking me up.
— A big laugh from David talking about how Bob Saget is a frequent customer and a “big porn freak”. That’s also funny in hindsight, considering they later end up bringing this sketch back (with much less successful results) when Bob Saget himself hosts next season, and he appears as himself in it (yet he and David’s character act like they’ve never met before… so much for continuity).
— Ellen’s real-life daughter Akeyla steals the sketch with her “Mom, is he a pervert?” line.
— I loved the line from David about Gabe Kaplan: “Good guy… rents Faces Of Death… kinda weird.”
— Very funny brief walk-on from Chris.
STARS: ****


GARAGE SALE
at a garage sale, (host) & other neighborhood adults mock Canteen Boy

— Boy, I’m not caring for this sketch at all so far, and the guys’ constant teasing of Canteen Boy not only isn’t getting any laughs, but has a particularly unpleasant, mean-spirited vibe that signifies the crass, nasty tone that will often plague SNL both this and (especially) next season. And it hurts seeing Phil being wasted in a weak role like this; an early example of how poorly utilized he’ll often be this season.
— No idea what to think about the very random brief close-up of Canteen Boy letting out a bizarre yelp into the camera (the fourth above screencap for this sketch) when Jeff tells him he wants to buy his canteen.
— We surprisingly meet Canteen Boy’s mom (played by Rob in drag), AND we find out what Canteen Boy’s first name is: Alan.
— Adam seems genuinely amused by Rob’s walk-on, as he’s visibly stifling his laughter.
— I guess the nasty, mean-spirited tone of earlier portions of this sketch is supposed to be vindicated by the fact that Canteen Boy gets revenge on his tormentors in the end, but that still didn’t work for me. And WTF was with that “He who laughs last” ending?
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sweet Emotion”


CHRISTOPHER WALKEN’S CELEBRITY PSYCHIC FRIENDS NETWORK
Christopher Walken (JAM) & Celebrity Psychic Friends want to visit you

— New cast member Jay Mohr’s Christopher Walken impression debuts.
— This sketch was actually cut from the preceding episode, and Jay talks about it in one part of his SNL book (titled Gasping For Airtime). According to him, the cut version of this sketch had Shannen Doherty playing Sean Young as one of the guests, dressed in a sexy Catwoman costume. The sketch was cut after dress rehearsal because Doherty started having second thoughts about potentially getting on Sean Young’s bad side, given Young’s notorious reputation at the time. Needless to say, Jay was not pleased at Doherty when he found out, especially since the sketch was supposed to be his big SNL debut. In tonight’s version of the sketch (which replaces Doherty’s Sean Young with David’s Crispin Glover), Sean Young is actually mentioned (and pictured) among several celebrity psychic friends who Jay’s Walken lists off.
— Wow, right out of the gate in this sketch, Jay’s Walken impression is coming off spot-on and is killing me.
— Walken and the guests’ constant silence while waiting for the phone to ring are really funny.
— David’s Crispin Glover impressions is absolutely priceless.
— I can’t help but think the picture they showed of “The guy who attacked Monica Seles” (screencap below) resembles then-recent SNL host Harvey Keitel.

— An overall very strong and memorable sketch, and a very promising start for Jay Mohr.
STARS: ****½


HISTORY’S GREAT OVER-THINKERS
(host) can’t decide which mind should talk

— Very good makeup on Rob, which renders him almost unrecognizable.
— Adam seems really miscast as Orville Wright. That’s one of the problems with SNL increasingly giving the Farley/Sandler/Spade group more and more airtime and focus this season. That group doesn’t have the strong versatility and range the Carvey/Hooks/Lovitz/etc. group before them had.
— I can see what this sketch is going for, but the execution of it is not working AT ALL. Oof.
— Not helping this sketch’s struggles is the fact that you can practically hear a pin drop in the studio during this. The audience is DEAD. That’s something we’re going to have to get used to, as I recall quite a number of really bad sketches this season that have that uncomfortable, notorious, dead atmosphere.
— It’s almost laughable that Rob went through so much extensive makeup for such a short, lousy sketch that had no payoff.
STARS: *


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An episode with a solid first half, but a wildly inconsistent second half. The second half seriously had a pattern where a really bad or iffy sketch was immediately followed by a great sketch, which was immediately followed by a really bad/iffy sketch, which was immediately followed by a great sketch, and so on. (I recall an online SNL fan once making an interesting point that the wildly inconsistent nature of the second half of this episode is a good microcosm of this season as a whole) And most of the bad/iffy sketches in that half of the show were particularly brutal (Canteen Boy, History’s Great Over-Thinkers). However, the good in this overall episode outweighs the bad, we got a very promising start from the two new cast members, and Jeff Goldblum was a likable host, even if there was a sameness to all his roles, where he basically just played Jeff Goldblum in every single sketch.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Shannen Doherty)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
John Malkovich hosts one of my personal favorite episodes of all time

Posted on

October 2, 1993 – Shannen Doherty / Cypress Hill (S19 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Operaman comes within one number of hitting the lottery jackpot

— HUGE extended applause (albeit delayed) after Phil mentions the name Operaman. I love how after the applause died down, Phil just says “Indeed!”
— A great change of pace to see Operaman outside of Update. This is a very creative use of him.
— This is a fun bit that’s giving me really good laughs, especially Operaman’s “no more masterbato” promise to God if he wins the lottery.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
videotape of host’s recent wedding shows there was plenty of fighting

 

— Odd how both monologues so far this season have relied heavily on a pre-taped video package.
— New SNL writer and soon-to-be-added-to-the-cast Norm Macdonald makes his onscreen SNL debut here, playing a caterer arguing with Shannen. It’s just a straight role, but he even manages to make his repeated line “The deal… was cash!” funny with his delivery.
— A lot of big laughs throughout this wedding video. I especially like Shannen and the reverend’s shoving match and the random exploding car stock footage (the latter of which was previously used in Linda Hamilton’s season 17 monologue and will later be used at the end of a notoriously bad season 20 sketch called Sparklebright Toothpaste).
STARS: ****


CRYSTAL GRAVY
the latest in the clear food craze is a transparent sauce

— I love the reveal of Crystal Gravy after such a serious beginning. This is an absolutely priceless subject matter for a fake ad.
— Every single aspect of this is an eerily spot-on, detailed, and well-done parody of the real Crystal Pepsi commercial from this time.
— The shot of Kevin splashing his face with the Crystal Gravy is especially giving me a good laugh.
— Overall, one of the most memorable fake ads from this era.
STARS: *****


THE REAL WORLD
diverse young adults are sensitive to perceived prejudice

— I get what the opening Jim Downey-read disclaimer (the first two above screencaps for this sketch) is going for, comically overemphasizing the show’s genuine reality, but it’s going on way too long.
— I love the opening intros, where after each roommate mentions what type of people they hate, the next roommate shown is the exact type of person who was just mentioned. The bit with Rob as an Eskimo is especially funny.
— Pretty lousy English accent from Tim.
— Boy, Adam’s constant, repetitive, exaggerated yells of “Shaddap, you (insert words here)!” are kinda annoying me. In all of my previous viewings of this sketch, I had always found those lines from Adam hilarious, but watching it now, not only do I find it unfunny and repetitive, but I see it as an early sign of a lot of bad and obnoxious things to come from the Farley/Sandler/Spade group both this and next season.
— The sketch as a whole was okay and was an accurate Real World parody, but I’m not quite as big on this anymore as I used to be.
STARS: ***


THE DENISE SHOW
jilted Brian (ADS) is obsessed with ex-girlfriend (host)

— Lots of Adam Sandler tonight.
— I really like the format of this sketch, and Adam is solid as this obsessed, heartbroken character.
— All the various little segments within this show (e.g. “The part of the show where I call Denise and hang up on her”) are really funny, as is Adam always ending them with an “Okay, that was great.”
— I love Phil as the voice of Adam’s dad screaming at him over the phone.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Insane In The Brain”


WEEKEND UPDATE
ROS narrates some wacky sports bloopers that are actually quite mundane
Ike Turner (TIM) hits KEN with a cake, then tries to make up with him

— After his “I’m Kevin Nealon” sign-on, Kevin just bizarrely pauses while staring at the camera for a long time, to complete silence from the audience, then he finally moves on. Ugh. This unfortunately ends up becoming a thing he often does at the beginning of his Updates this season, and I’ve always hated it.
— Boy, that “Jury retires in Denny beating case” bit from Kevin was just plain stupid, not helped by his bad delivery of it.
— Rob’s sports “bloopers” bit is a fairly cheap premise, but Rob is making it fun with his amusing and dead-on imitation of a cheesy announcer’s voice.
— At the end of Rob’s commentary, I love Kevin’s exaggerated amusement at the sports “bloopers”.
— After a rough start early on this Update, Kevin’s jokes have thankfully gotten better.
— The debut of Tim’s Ike Turner, which we’ll be seeing A LOT this season. It is nice, though, to see the underused Tim Meadows being given a showcase.
— Tim-as-Ike-Turner’s love/hate behavior towards Kevin is giving me some laughs, and I’m really enjoying the way Tim and Kevin are playing off of each other here.
— I like how after the Ike Turner commentary ends, Kevin delivers the remainder of his Update jokes with cake still around his mouth and shoulder, from when Tim’s Ike hit him with the cake earlier.
STARS: ***


IS IT DATE RAPE?
(host) & (CHF) use Antioch College guidelines to decide

— I’m getting an unintentional big laugh from the opening theme music used for this sketch, because it’s the same music that would later memorably be used for Will Forte’s classic Dancing Coach sketch with Peyton Manning.
— Uh, wow.  What a premise for a sketch.
— Spot-on casting of Chris as a rowdy fratboy, a role he was born to play.
— I’m very impressed by the part with Phil rapidly explaining the very lengthy gameshow rules in almost one breath without missing a single beat. Absolutely perfect, fast-paced, flawless delivery.
— A pretty good laugh from Shannen’s stern “Take your hands off me” to Phil during the “meet the contestants” segment.
— Despite the dodgy premise, I feel this sketch is being executed okay enough. However, sketches like this and the preceding episode’s What’s That show how downhill SNL’s gameshow sketches are going this season compared to earlier this era when gameshow sketches almost always ended up being a very memorable hit.
STARS: ***


THE RELAPSE GUY
Relapse Guy (CHF) says he’s changed, but he’s still unreliable

— Hoo, boy, speaking of sketches with dodgy premises…
— This sketch, based on Chris’ real-life addiction battles and constant rehab stints, is considered by a lot of SNL fans to be too uncomfortable to enjoy after Chris’ death from a drug overdose. Heading into tonight’s episode, I was conflicted on how I should handle reviewing this sketch, and ultimately, I decided to take the same approach I used when reviewing the Gun Safety sketch from a Fred Savage-hosted season 15 episode (a sketch that a lot of SNL fans find uncomfortable to watch after Phil Hartman’s tragic death, considering most of the sketch features him having a gun pointed at him), and that approach is to just watch this in the same innocent mindset that SNL viewers at the time would’ve when this sketch originally aired. I feel that’s the most fair thing I can do.
— Is the name of the rehabilitation center, Verdant Meadows, an inside reference to Tim Meadows? He does play the center’s counselor.
— I’m enjoying the running gag involving Mike’s healing arm.
— Seems kinda late in the sketch to be showing its opening title sequence, but I suppose it was necessary to have such long pre-credits scenes to set up the premise. I like how this opening title sequence is in the traditional style of some other sketches from the late 80s/early 90s era.
— Phil is very funny as the dad, especially his line about how he hasn’t liked his son for about “15, 20 years now”.
— The increasingly exaggerated “I love you!” reconciliation hugs between Phil and Chris are cracking me up.
— As I’ve mentioned a few times recently, I enjoy sketches that involve constant scene changes and set changes, and this sketch has PLENTY of that.
— The operation room scene is hilarious, with Chris trying to pass off a calves’ liver from the supermarket as the human liver he’s supposed to deliver to the surgeons, and then him suddenly falling and crashing over the breakaway operating table (which was funny because of the way it was executed).
— Okay, the running punchline of Chris falling through a breakaway prop at the end of every scene is now starting to get kinda old to me, and serves as an unfortunate reminder that the days of SNL’s bad overreliance on Chris screaming and falling down in a majority of sketches is approaching. (As I mentioned recently, I blame the first Matt Foley sketch on that. While an undisputed classic, that Matt Foley debut eventually created a monster when it comes to SNL having Chris constantly play screaming characters who fall through breakaway props.)
STARS: ***


DRESSING ROOM
hairdresser Noah (MIM) & wardrober Frans (TIM) give host advice backstage

— This feels like it’s attempting to be this era’s version of Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo’s hairstylist characters, Dion and Blaire, from 10 years earlier. Problem is, this sketch is lacking the strength and great chemistry those Dion/Blaire sketches had. If SNL is setting this sketch up to become recurring, it doesn’t work, as we end up never seeing these characters from Tim and Mike ever again.
— I am liking the fact that the underused Tim Meadows has been getting more and more chances lately, though.
— I got some good laughs just now from Mike’s odd detailing of the chocolates he eats when he’s feeling blue.
— Why is stage manager Joe Dicso telling Shannen to get ready for introducing Cypress Hill’s second musical performance? After this sketch, there’s another sketch Shannen appears in before Cypress Hill’s performance. And this is the live version I’m watching of this episode. Reruns of this episode wildly scramble the running order of the second half of the show, where this sketch airs AFTER Cypress Hill’s second number, which causes Joe Dicso’s line to make even less sense.
STARS: **


SALEM BITCH TRIALS
early-American lynch mob wants to find (host) guilty at Salem Bitch Trial

— The bitchcraft reveal was worth a good laugh.
— Wait, Mike’s supposed to be playing a woman? Why???
— Kevin looks kinda cool and bad-ass in that wig and facial hair.
— I’ve never been able to look at this sketch quite the same way after reading a criticism from someone on the SNL newsgroup (alt.tv.snl) years ago about how he tried to enjoy this sketch, mostly because it features the great Phil Hartman in his final season, but couldn’t get past the fact that Chris and Adam’s performances in this are “so awful”. The newsgroup member who wrote that was someone who admittedly generally HATED the Farley/Sandler/Spade group, and he was kinda using this sketch as an example of how the unprofessionalism, hamminess, crassness, and lack of range of the Farley/Sandler/Spade group was such a downgrade from what the Hartman/Nealon/Carvey/Hooks/Dunn/Lovitz/etc. group was doing just a few years before. He certainly has a point there (I’ve been mostly positive towards the Farley/Sandler/Spade group so far in this SNL project, but that’s because I hadn’t gotten to the truly troubled part of their tenure yet; I’m of the popular opinion that THIS is the season where that group slowly started hurting the show, and then by season 20, they had gotten so bad that I find their shtick mostly UNWATCHABLE), and he’s definitely not wrong about Chris and Adam hamming it up in this sketch (David’s more low-key here, though), but I’d be lying if I said Adam’s bizarre-voiced “I guess everybody likes ye!” rant in this sketch doesn’t crack me up every time I watch this, even if his characterization feels very out-of-place for the tone of this sketch. (Besides, I personally feel that Adam’s performance in tonight’s Real World sketch is a better example of how the Farley/Sandler/Spade group could tend to be detrimental to the show.)
— I like how after Shannen’s speech defending her own bitchiness, Phil’s lengthy, calm, professional response ended with an unexpectedly stern “…if they hadn’t been delivered in such a bitchy manner!”
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That”


A MESSAGE FROM MICHAEL EISNER
Michael Eisner (PHH) assures tourists they’ll be safe in northern Florida

— This sketch was cut from the preceding week’s season premiere.
— The voice Phil uses as Michael Eisner is always pretty funny.
— Phil’s Eisner now translating his speech into German is making me laugh.
— I’ve never been all that crazy about these “message from Michael Eisner” pieces (which we’ll be seeing quite a bit this season), but I actually found this particular one okay overall.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode. It started very strongly with the cold opening, monologue, and Crystal Gravy ad, but then the quality cooled down, where most of the rest of the show was just in the “decent/pretty good” range. I can’t complain much, though some of the first few post-Update sketches had dodgy premises, and I’m still seeing early little signs of trouble for this and next season.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Charles Barkley)
a mild step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Jeff Goldblum hosts, and we get two new additions to the cast

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