Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Rolling Stones manager Tommy Flanagan & host in a bar; Mick Jagger cameo
— Amusing story from Tommy Flanagan about how he and Mick Jagger were in Vietnam together.
— Funny how Mick Jagger is getting involved in the lying, making up a story to Jerry about why he was late coming home one day.
— Overall, a pretty good Tommy Flanagan cold opening.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— The theater doors behind Jerry look to be in a darker color than they’ve usually been this season.
— And the monologue is over already. This was a very brief, nothing monologue with weak humor. Also, I kinda hate the strange way this ended with Jerry saying “Stevie Ray Vaughan is here and he’s funky… Sam Kinison is here and he’s funny.” That was an unusual way for the ending of a monologue to address tonight’s guests, and has always come off to me like SNL was desperately trying to drum up excitement in what they were aware was a dying season.
STARS: *
THE LIMITS OF THE IMAGINATION
Maggie The Cat (host) desires gay (TES)
— (*sigh*) The THIRD episode in a row with this recurring sketch.
— I liked the bit with the Floating Head (Randy) beginning to count to infinity, only to finally stop when a gun gets pointed at his head.
— Terry’s avoidance of Jerry’s sexual advances, and the hints he’s frantically dropping about his sexuality are pretty funny.
— Surprising hearing Terry proclaiming “I’m a f*g with a capital ‘f’!”
— Overall, despite some laughs, this wasn’t one of my favorite Limits Of The Imaginations, though it was still a step up from the dull one in the last episode with Ron Reagan.
STARS: **½
MODELS AGAINST THE WILDERNESS
host & Brooke Shields (JOC) in plane crash
— Some laughs from the cheap plane toy model used to represent the plane the characters are riding in.
— Terry’s funny as Brooke Shields’ chain-smoking mother
— An okay walk-on from Randy as a gravelly-voiced Bob Guccione.
— Overall, another sketch tonight that, while having some individual funny moments, wasn’t great as a whole and fell short of the strong epic sketch they probably wanted this to be.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Say What”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Weekend Update Dancers ask “How Will I Know” about Anatoly Shcharansky
sex kitten Babette (NOD) talks about her trip to Manila
— As a fan of classical comedy teams, I love how the theme music used for the opening of tonight’s Update was the Laurel & Hardy theme.
— Good random Dennis Miller one-liner: “Boy, that Nell Carter is a big woman, isn’t she?”
— (*groan*) The Weekend Update Dancers bit officially becomes recurring tonight. Should’ve just kept this a random one-time thing.
— Something about the Weekend Update Dancers segment caused something to go wrong with Dennis’ mic. (Maybe it was his dancing in his seat that messed up his mic) Right after the WU Dancers leave, Dennis makes a comment to the camera that’s completely inaudible, and then apparently, a boom mic is now being used to pick up his dialogue for the remainder of this Update.
— The debut of Nora’s French sex kitten character Babette.
— Nora’s overall commentary didn’t do much for me, though her characterization was good. Can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing more of this character in future episodes.
STARS: ***
MASTER THESPIAN
unrequited love for co-star of jungle movie (host)
— I got a laugh from Master Thespian’s giddy “Oh, happy day!” during his opening journal writing.
— I think there’s a part in the “Live from New York” book where Damon Wayans (who’s nowhere to be seen in tonight’s episode and didn’t receive his usual featured player credit in the opening montage) talks about how he refused to appear in this sketch because they wanted him to just stand in the background as a barely-clothed jungle native, holding a spear and having no dialogue. This is probably one of the many things that added to Damon’s growing frustrations working at SNL, which soon reaches its boiling point two episodes later when Griffin Dunne hosts.
— Very memorable part with Master Thespian secretly telling the camel “Be prepared to improvise!” Such a classic little Jon Lovitz moment.
— I liked Master Thespian’s misguided “You’re too kind” after Jerry’s comment about his big thunder stick.
— Jerry’s delivery of “I was… ACTING!” was pretty cringeworthy, and resulted in eerie dead silence from the audience (which I believe would later be “fixed” in reruns by using the typical season 11 practice of sweetening audience reactions).
— Weak ending, though I did kinda like the visual of Master Thespian following the camera off the set as it’s backing away.
— Overall, there were some good highlights from Jon in the first half, but this sketch died off very badly in the second half.
STARS: **½
SAM KINISON
Sam Kinison [real] does stand-up, sings “love song” to former girlfriend
— What was with the drawn-out, awkwardly silent beginning after Sam made his entrance?
— Boy, this is slow so far and the audience is DEAD.
— I liked Sam’s weird vocalization after saying he loves women.
— Okay, this is finally starting to take off, especially with his outburst when acting out waking up next to his wife.
— I caught a near f-bomb from Sam before he caught himself and cut himself off.
— Interesting turn with Sam now launching into a love song.
— Haha, the “love song” turning out to be an entirely screamed rant with angry, violent “lyrics” after such a tender set-up was probably an obvious joke but still made me laugh out loud.
— Overall, some good laughs, but there were some really rough patches in the first minute or so, and I’m starting to get tired of how all of Sam’s SNL stand-up pieces seem to mostly focus on bitter relationship issues.
STARS: **½
LINE OF DEATH
Kaddafi (JOL) threatens (host) & (NOD) after they cross his line of death
— Not too funny so far, though I like Jon’s amusing delivery of his lines.
— Wow, that first soldier’s dive into the “water” looked fake as hell.
— I got a pretty good laugh from how after the first soldier drowned, Jon’s Kaddafi told the two women that he’ll now send a soldier who can actually swim.
— The nice sight of Jerry Hall’s bare legs throughout this sketch has been one of the very few things keeping my interest.
— Overall, a very forgettable, sluggish sketch, and the lack of audience reaction gave it a hollow, dead feeling (which I’ve been noticing quite a lot throughout tonight’s episode, actually).
STARS: **
THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
host shows how to hang upside-down & maintain looks
— ANOTHER recurring sketch that’s making an appearance for the third episode in a row. Man, this season is really hard up for recurring sketches to bring back.
— Also, what’s this doing on so late tonight? The prior installments of these Pat Stevens sketches have always been in the first half of the show.
— Pat Stevens’ opening demonstration with the blindfold wasn’t as funny as some of her previous demonstrations in earlier sketches.
— A strange but kinda-interesting turn with the interview now being conducted with Nora and Jerry hanging upside-down. Was the idea for this inspired by Penn and Teller’s famous upside-down act in the last episode?
— Jerry is clearly amused by this upside-down interview, as she’s laughing through her lines.
— This overall sketch was one of the lesser Pat Stevens installments. There just wasn’t much to laugh at here, and Jerry didn’t really add anything. This recurring sketch definitely seems to be suffering diminishing returns now that they’ve been overusing it so much lately.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Change It”
SORE TOE
hammer, snapping turtle, soup threaten to worsen (RAQ)’s sore big toe
— Funny visual of Robert wildly swinging the hammer around on the floor, narrowly avoiding Randy’s sore toe.
— Boy, Joan’s slow southern accent is awful.
— Some awkwardness during the close-up of Jerry telling Randy the soup’s ready. It appears that Joan mistakenly jumped ahead of the script and started saying her next line too early while Jerry was delivering her own line.
— Pretty funny blooper with Joan having to turn the wandering turtle around to face the correct direction when we’re supposed to believe it’s staring at the sore toe.
— More unintentional laughs from Jerry’s real-life difficulty in setting up the rickety table after one of its legs accidentally come off.
— The “Your father has hung himself” ending was weak (though I remember the ensuing audience applause being a lot more abrupt in the rerun version than in the live version I’m reviewing). Poor way for an otherwise amusingly silly sketch to end.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A weak episode with a lot of underwhelming sketches, and nothing standing out as particularly strong. We also got unusually subpar installments of some usually good recurring sketches that the show has begun to over-rely on lately (Master Thespian and Pat Stevens). As I mentioned a few times throughout the review, the episode also had a dead feeling during several spots, with the lack of audience reactions.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ron Reagan):
— a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Jay Leno