Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
DISCLAIMER
Emergency! starring Megan Marshack will not be seen tonight
COLD OPENING
JOB claims not to be angry about having his Deng piece cut from the show
— John looks pretty funny in that makeup.
— John: “I’ve got a #1 album on the charts.” What was he referring to there? Was that just a throwaway joke, or did he and Dan release a Blues Brothers album at the time or something?
— John, innocently: “Why would I hit Gilda?” Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you’ve done that in 30% of the sketches you were ever in.
— Harsh but funny line from John about how if SNL got canceled, he has Hollywood to move on to while Jane’s only post-SNL career option will be to “go back to Boston in some improv group”. Ouch!
— Much like the Mayor Ed Koch monologue in the season premiere, this cold opening is another reminder of how much John’s movie career has been taking off, which again makes you realize that his SNL departure is soon coming.
— Good ending with John taking a swing at Jane but missing her and punching the lockers.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
upon finding GAM impersonating her, host is upset by his lack of dignity
— LOL at Garrett coming out in that outfit as Cicely Tyson. This would pave the way for a few other monologues later in SNL history that had a cast member come out onstage impersonating the host (Kevin Nealon as Kevin Kline in 1993, Chris Kattan as Britney Spears in 2002; are there any others?).
— Some good laughs from Garrett not thinking SNL would actually get Cicely to host.
— Loved the part of Garrett’s contract stating that he “will play all parts darker than Tony Orlando”.
— When listing black female celebrities he’s impersonated on the show, Garrett mentions Leon Spinks’ mother among them. But he never played her; Gilda did, in that David Susskind Show sketch from the preceding season.
STARS: ***½
ELVIS PRESLEY’S COAT
— Rerun.
THE WIDETTES
the Widettes entertain a couple with similarly-sized butts (GAM) & (host)
— I can already tell right from the opening shot that this will be a Widettes sequel. Meh. Figures they’d do this sketch in an episode with a black host, who I’m guessing will be paired with Garrett as the Widettes’ similarly-big-bottomed friends.
— It’s too soon to bring this sketch back, considering I wasn’t crazy about the first installment from just TWO EPISODES AGO. I feel like SNL’s attempting to make these characters the new Coneheads (who may already be retired by this point in SNL’s run; we haven’t seen them since the terrible one with Frank Zappa back in October), but the Widettes don’t hold a candle to the delightful weirdness of the Coneheads.
— I admit, Jane bringing out a giant rectal thermometer to take Gilda’s temperature made me laugh.
— I was right about Cicely and Garrett appearing as a big-bottomed couple.
— Another SNL reference to President Carter’s hemorrhoid problem at the time.
— Didn’t care for the simultaneous pants-ripping ending.
STARS: **
THE SHAH’S FINAL DAYS
embassy receptionist Sherry tells visitors to wait
— Gilda’s high-pitched Iranian gibberish underneath that burqa is cracking me up. Doesn’t she end up reprising this same character in the Bel-Airabs sketch(es) from season 5?
— LOL at Laraine rocking out to “YMCA” by The Village People.
— Oh, man, not Dan’s recurring hippie character again. I previously stated that I never wanted to see his and Laraine’s hippie couple ever again after that dreadful Night on Freak Mountain sketch from the Frank Zappa episode.
— John’s pretty funny here, but I’m not sure where the heck this sketch is going so far.
— Man, Dan’s character is insufferable in this sketch. He won’t stop talking. This, along with the Widettes, may be the only recurring Dan Aykroyd character I don’t like.
— Haha, is that Bill’s voice doing the off-camera whiny foreign gibberish as The Shah? He sounds hilarious.
— Yep, it IS Bill, who has now shown up on camera. He’s really funny in this so far.
— Bill’s appearance ended up being too short; I wanted to see more of him.
— Overall, didn’t like this sketch much. There were a few good individual performances, but too much of the sketch dragged.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Take Me To The River”
FRONTIER MIDWIFE
Frontier Midwife (host) tries to deliver a baby in a male-only cabin
— A pretty good laugh from the frozen cat prop.
— I liked Bill’s “Does anyone know who this woman is?” after Cicely barged in and spent almost an entire minute giving orders.
— That ending with Cicely about to get raped by the group of cabin men….. I’m supposed to LAUGH at that???
— Despite a strong performance from Cicely, I wasn’t too taken with this overall sketch. (I’m starting to notice a theme in this review)
STARS: **½
WEEKEND UPDATE PREVIEW
WEEKEND UPDATE
JAC’s eulogy for Sid Vicious is more appropriate to Nelson Rockefeller
DAA’s Strictly Speaking condemns an unfair U.S.-China trade agreement
— Oh, THAT’S who Megan Marshack is.
— Loved Bill’s random earth-heading-towards-the-sun news story.
— This is the first in a long time we’re seeing a mustached Dan Aykroyd (or “Stache-kroyd” as I saw someone once call him).
— Dan’s “hamburger-gobbling gooks” line caught me off-guard but made me laugh out loud.
— Overall, another funny fast-speaking, verbose, acid-tongued commentary from Dan.
— Short Update. I’m glad they finally managed to make it through an Update without any of this season’s narrow cycle of regulars (Roseanne Rosannadanna, Father Guido Sarducci, and Chico Escuela).
STARS: ***½
NICK RAILS
en route to Orlando, Nick “Rails” entertains passengers on the Auto Train
— I loved Bill’s screechy note at the end of his singing of “Freak Out”.
— The train setting is an interesting change of pace for this sketch.
— Garrett’s line about cruising the beaches for young white girls would’ve been funny if he hadn’t flubbed it (as usual).
— I got a big laugh from Bill’s line about throwing up all over his Volkswagen after seeing “Holocaust”.
— Overall, the usual great Nick the Lounge Singer sketch.
STARS: ****
BLACK PERSPECTIVE
host blames blacks’ poor image on black men
— First time we’re seeing this sketch since the famous installment with Julian Bond.
— Ah, I see that the bombshell line the host drops that offends Garrett in tonight’s installment is “The black man has always been such a loser”. It’s funny, but pales in comparison to Julian Bond’s “light-skinned blacks are smarter than dark-skinned blacks” bombshell. We still get the same “Say what?” response from Garrett.
— HAHA, I loved Garrett’s “Now listen, bitch….” line to Cicely.
— Very funny comment from Cicely about how black men ruined Detroit.
— I like the way Garrett and Cicely are playing off of each other.
STARS: ***½
WORLD AT WAR
during WWII, the Walker Brigade tries to exploit a loophole
— Interesting the way the Black Perspective sketch segued into this one.
— Bill’s narration voice-over sounds like his Richard Burton impression.
— Oh, now we see he IS playing Burton.
— The footage of all the soldiers with walkers looks like authentic 1940s footage, but it obviously can’t be.
— Overall, the premise was kinda thin, but they got enough mileage out of the amusing “soldiers with walkers” visual without running it into the ground.
STARS: ***
EX-POLICE
X-Police harass a pair of supposed lesbians (JAC) & (LAN)
— Funnily enough, Laraine giving Jane a backrub reminds me of the Franken and Davis “Porno for TV” sketch from the preceding episode.
— Oh, no. Another return of the X-Police. I may have given a very positive review of the first installment of this sketch, but this NEVER should have been made into a recurring sketch. Hell, I’d even take another installment of Mercy Killers over seeing this once again.
— Wait, now they’re officially titled “Ex-Police”? WTF? Why’d they change the original spelling of X-Police?
— Whoa at Bill’s angry “dyke!” outburst to Laraine. Jesus Christ.
— Ugh, everything in this sketch is pretty much a carbon copy of the exact same crap we’ve seen in the other two X-Police sketches, only with an uncomfortably angry homophobic premise.
— Considering we’re nearing the end of Dan’s SNL tenure (*sob*), hopefully this is the last time I have to put up with X-Police, Ex-Police, or whatever the fuck we’re supposed to call it. When I said earlier in this review that Dan’s hippie character and the Widettes are the only two recurring Aykroyd characters I don’t like, I clearly spoke too soon. Man, it hurts to see my favorite original cast member doing his three weakest recurring characters in the same episode.
STARS: *
CICELY SINGS SICILY
album of host doing songs native to homonymic island
— Not sure where the humor here is supposed to be coming from so far, other than the Cicely/Sicily name similarity, which is a concept I would’ve only found funny as a kid.
— Overall, what in THE WORLD was the point of this sketch???
STARS: *
LITELLA-VISION
GAM & host perform “Porky” & Bess duet on Emily’s show
— Well, if anything’s gonna save tonight’s tepid episode, it’s SURE to be my FAVORITE character Emily Litella! [/end sarcasm]
— While I’m not all that eager to see this character being brought out of the mothballs after a long hiatus, at least we’re seeing her in a different setting. I wonder why this sketch didn’t open with a title card or opening credits sequence.
— Oh, is this just another excuse to hear more singing from Cicely?
— Garrett’s Porky Pig-esque stutter-singing is kinda funny. BTW, tonight has got to be the most airtime Garrett’s received since the Julian Bond episode from season 2.
— The visual of a pig mask-wearing band was okay.
— Overall, odd sketch. I have no idea how to feel about it. I have a feeling it might grow on me on a re-watch.
— I wonder if Litella-Vision eventually becomes a recurring sketch, or if it ends up staying a random one-off.
STARS: undecided
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Artists Only”
GOODNIGHTS
— Why’d the band start playing before Cicely even delivered her goodnights speech? They completely drowned out what she was saying.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— I did not care much for this episode. In fact, it’s the first one in a good while that left me with such a “meh” feeling. There were a few good things tonight, but they were overshadowed by a surprisingly large amount of sketches I didn’t like. There was an upswing in quality around the middle of the show, but that was short-lived as it was followed by a string of real duds like Ex-Police and Cicely Sings Sicily. Tonight’s episode also contained some uncomfortable moments like the angry homophobia in Ex-Police and the pending rape at the end of Frontier Midwife.
— Cicely was a good host and gave some pretty strong performances, and it sure was refreshing seeing a black woman hosting the show for once. I just wish the show gave her better material.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Michael Palin):
— a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Rick Nelson