Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
during heart surgery, host dreams that Dean Martin (JOP) is his doctor
— Great entrance from Joe as Dean Martin. In typical Joe Piscopo fashion, he’s relying on tons of make-up for his impression, but in this particular case, it really DOES make his Dean Martin look pretty uncanny.
— Jerry reverts to his old goofy voice from his younger days as he’s speaking to Joe’s Dean Martin.
— Jerry seems genuinely amused during parts of this.
— Just now, I noticed a sudden cut, as if something were removed from my copy.
— Eddie makes his first live appearance in weeks, and his performance here as Sammy Davis Jr. is very welcome.
— Yep, Jerry’s definitely amused by the others’ performances, especially Eddie’s.
— A strange and awkward ending, but I loved Jerry’s “Live from New York…” delivery.
STARS: ***½
OPENING MONTAGE
— You can hear a strange-sounding voice from the audience loudly cheering “Whuh-whuh-whooooaaaa!!!” all throughout this montage. Funnily enough, the voice sounds kinda reminiscent of future cast member Fred Armisen whenever he does a certain type of goofy, surfer-esque voice.
MONOLOGUE
JOP & EDM present a throne to host because he’s the real King of Comedy
— Huge extended applause break for Jerry at the beginning.
— I got a good laugh from his sudden passing-out pratfall immediately after claiming he’s not nervous.
— Joe and Eddie have suddenly entered with a throne for Jerry.
— Similar to my observation about Jerry seeming genuinely amused throughout the cold opening, now Joe’s the one who you can tell is genuinely amused during his interplay with Jerry.
— Very funny reaction from Eddie when hearing Jerry won a Nobel prize.
— I’m loving the way all three of these guys are playing off of each other. The natural rapport here is entertaining.
— Fun bit with Joe, Eddie, and the entire studio audience getting up and simultaneously doing wacky Jerry Lewis impressions. You can REALLY hear the aforementioned Fred Armisen-sounding audience member’s “Whuh-whuh-whooooaaaahhhhh!!!”s loud and clear during this part. Maybe I shouldn’t make fun, though; after all, I remember reading a comment from someone who had a theory that the audience member may have been a mentally-disabled person who Jerry knew from his work with special-needs people, and brought to the audience as a favor.
STARS: ****
WHAT FAMOUS PERSON DO YOU LOOK LIKE?
“What famous person do you look like?”; Florence Henderson cameo
— They’re going really heavy on the number of Man on the Street segments this season.
— Interesting random Florence Henderson cameo, posing as a random citizen saying she looks like Florence Henderson.
— LOL, right before that one guy answered “Gary Coleman”, I said to myself that’s who he looks like.
— This is very fun so far. I’m really enjoying most of the answers.
— Hilarious how almost every single black guy’s answer is “Eddie Murphy”.
— Funny ending with the woman saying she’s been told she resembles Mary Gross but doesn’t know who that is.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
THE FORUM
people say where they were when they heard JFK had been shot
— Jim is very funny with his reveal that he didn’t find out about JFK’s assassination until 9 years after it happened, when he was in college. I’m also liking Joe’s reaction to that.
— An even more hilarious reveal right now with Robin revealing she didn’t hear about the JFK incident until just before this interview.
— Okay, I initially liked Joe’s incredulous reactions, but he’s now getting a little too over-the-top with it. Here we have yet another display of his bad tendency to play some roles too big.
— Even though the escalation with each interviewee feels like it should be getting predictable by this point, I’m still getting a pretty good laugh from Tim as the final guest literally just now finding out about JFK.
— There’s the aforementioned audience member’s “Whoooooaaaaaahhhh!!” heard once again.
STARS: ***½
ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT
interviews with host & other celebrities
— Tons of airtime for Joe tonight.
— Julia’s interview was pretty funny.
— Weird seeing Joe doing a Robin Leach impression.
— Mary’s brief Suzanne Sommers interview was hilarious.
— I’m liking all the random humor throughout this sketch.
— Something about Jim’s look and facial expressions in this remind me so much of his brother John.
— I liked Jim’s dinner show comment.
— Overall, while this sketch felt all over the place, it was pretty interesting and didn’t have the usual Ebersol-era feel at all… or at least, not the seasons 7-9 Ebersol-era feel. I can picture this sketch airing in the season 10 portion of the Ebersol era, now that I think about it.
STARS: ***
FASCINATING PEOPLE AND THEIR FRIENDS
a Jewish Football Leaguer (host)
— Seems to be a lot of talk show-type sketches tonight.
— The “American Jewish Football league” premise is pretty funny.
— Haha, Jerry has ALREADY begun cracking up.
— Everything in this sketch is tickling me, even if the dialogue itself isn’t all that great. The performances and occasional breaking are putting this over.
— An okay twist with Tim suddenly coming to the realization “Wait a minute, Jews don’t play football!”
STARS: ***½
PARACHUTE
skydivers (host) & (EDM) realize there’s only one parachute while falling
— Very interesting visual effect.
— This seems like a tailor-made sketch for Jerry, and I really like seeing him and Eddie paired together.
— Some great lines from Eddie and Jerry.
— Very strange ending, with Eddie randomly breaking the fourth wall to plug an upcoming TV movie about JFK that’s airing on NBC. Maybe this ending was funnier back in 1983 (lots of JFK biopics and documentaries were apparently airing at this time, as this was the 20th anniversary of his assassination), but it hasn’t aged well at all.
— Nice reveal of how they pulled off the green-screen effect, with Eddie and Jerry actually laying upside-down on two adjacent platforms.
STARS: ***½
CORNET
Rosemary Clooney (JIB) sings the praises of Cornet paper products
— Jim’s fairly funny as Rosemary Clooney.
— Ehh, this sketch isn’t turning out to be anything special. The humor here is pretty dull and weak.
— Wow, during the sketch-ending audience applause, you can hear a PARTICULARLY loud and fierce “Whooooooooaaaaahhh!! Whuh-whuh!!” from the aforementioned Armisen-sounding audience member tonight.
STARS: **
THANKSGIVING DINNER
a rebellious college freshman (JLD) is home for a tense Thanksgiving meal
— Mary’s funny as the overly-apologetic mother.
— This sketch is an interesting realistic & pretty funny piece so far.
— Hmm, Jim playing a character with his own first name.
— Pretty funny part with Jim tying Julia to the chair and starting to force-feed her, though I kinda wanted that part to go even further.
STARS: ***
LARRY’S CORNER
the luckiest man on Earth (GAK) loses his claim to fame
— I wonder if this is the record for most talk show sketches in a single episode.
— There’s writer Andy Breckman’s favorite character name Dale Butterworth again.
— Haha, holy hell, this freakin’ KILLED me! I am in tears, practically rolling on the floor right now as I try to type this. Andy Breckman strikes again.
— I also love how brief this whole thing was. I said in my review of the previous Larry’s Corner sketch from earlier this season (the classic “milk coming out of nose” one) that the subsequent installments of the sketch will never be able to top that one. While I wouldn’t say tonight’s topped it, it came very close to at least equaling it for me.
— Andy Breckman is quickly starting to become one of my favorite SNL writers of all-time. Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a list of all the known sketches that he’s written throughout his SNL tenure? I’d love to know what Breckman sketches are in store for me in future episodes I cover.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
— As I’m still laughing hysterically from the preceding sketch, Jerry continues to keep me in stitches just now with his random yell of “BABY, BABY!!!” while running over to the musical guests, before immediately going back into a straight face while returning to his “musical guest intro” spot.
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Working for the Weekend”
AMERICAN IN PARIS
host watches (TIK) dub King of Comedy into French as if it were slapstick
— I like Tim’s awestruck interactions with Jerry. Jerry’s clearly amused by it too, judging from his ad-libbed responses.
— LOL at Tim’s young Jerry Lewis-esque goofy French dubbing.
— Just now, Jerry noticeably called Mary by her real first name. Was that a flub, or just another example tonight of a cast member playing a character with their own name? My guess is the former, as the name Mary doesn’t quite fit her French character here.
— Some good physical work during Tim expressing that he wants to die.
STARS: ***
SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
BRH narrates a version of The Day After suitable for preschool children
JIB would rather talk about football than engage in The Day After debate
JLD doesn’t have much time to complain about the length of her segment
MAG talks about how fed up she is with holiday traditions
Jim Brown (EDM) to JOP- “I want credit for my Dirty Dozen run yardage”
— The child-friendly version of “The Day After” was an interesting idea (and also reminded me of the Tom Schiller-drawn “Artist’s Rendering” childlike drawings the show used to often do during the Chevy Chase era of Weekend Update), but didn’t really land for me.
— Another point-counterpoint between Brad and Jim? Is this going to be a rehash of the bit with Jim being called out on stealing catchphrases from the original SNL era?
— Oh, this one is different, I see, with Jim’s rebuttal trailing off into off-topic football talk.
— Loved Jim’s ridiculous claims of ABC airing “The Day After” as a pilot for a series that will feature different cities being nuked in every episode.
— Brad’s Lebanese Roulette joke gave me a good laugh.
— Julia’s been doing lots of Saturday Night News commentaries this season. I think she’s been appearing on SNN even more than the usual SNN staple Tim Kazurinsky has lately.
— Oh, this is the bit where Julia’s entire commentary only consists of her saying “Boy, do I hate the way things are run around here. In dress rehearsal, this speech was 4½ mintues long! Back to you, Brad.” I’m not 100% sure where I remember seeing a clip of this before (probably in the “SNL in the 80s: Lost and Found” documentary from Kenneth Bowser), but this was a very funny quick bit, and was most likely written as a way for Julia to vent her real-life frustrations regarding her lack of airtime.
— I think this is our first Spittin’ Mad Mary Gross commentary of the season. After going heavy on these last season, they seem to be scaling back the number of these lately.
— Mary’s mistletoe complaint was very funny.
— Impressive fast-paced delivery from Mary during the whole “pre and post holiday parties” portion of her commentary.
— Ugh, every week this season, Brad keeps doing this groanworthy bit where he follows a guest commentary by saying “Here now with more news is Brad Hall. (to himself) Thanks, Brad.” I admit, that’s the type of gag that an anchorperson like Kevin Nealon or Chevy Chase could make funny, but it never works with Brad and it ALWAYS dies with the audience. Well, I don’t have much longer to put up with seeing him do that gag, considering what’s about to happen to him a few episodes from now.
— FIVE guest commentaries tonight?!? What is this, a Brian Doyle-Murray era “SNL Newsbreak” all of a sudden? [ADDENDUM: I was mistaken; there were only four guest commentaries tonight. For some reason, it felt like more than that as I was watching this episode.]
— Eddie in that make-up as Jim Brown is a pretty funny initial sight.
— I got a good laugh from Eddie’s “Imma probably go throw some white ladies out the window” line.
— I admit, Brad did get a laugh from me just now by randomly announcing himself as Elvis Presley during his sign-off at the end.
STARS: **½
JERRY SCHTICK
host gives JOP & EDM tips on how to impersonate him
— Joe’s impression of older Jerry Lewis’ voice seems to have gotten better than it used to be. Maybe working with the real Jerry all week helped Joe finally nail the voice.
— Oh, this turns out to be a “next week” promo, with Joe announcing that next week’s episode will be a rerun of last season’s Joan Rivers episode, and the following week will be a new episode hosted by The Smothers Brothers.
— The whole interplay between Joe and Jerry feels very loose and ad-libby.
— Joe brings out Eddie to do his famous dead-on impression of Jerry’s wacky younger voice.
— This is fun as hell, even if it just feels like an extension of the monologue from earlier tonight.
STARS: ***½
GUSTY
Gusty (JIB) sings a song in honor of the whales
— I’ve been liking a lot of what Jim Belushi has been doing on the show so far in his SNL tenure, but the punchline of this sketch with his “whale sounds” didn’t really work for me.
— The format of this reminds me of the educational film narrator sketch that Gary did in the last episode, in that both sketches are a quick blackout gag with someone giving a presentation in front of an unseen audience. I liked Gary’s sketch much better, though.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
— We’re told that Loverboy won’t be able to perform their scheduled second number due to the show running long. I’m guessing it was all the ad-libbing and character-breaking tonight that caused the show to run long.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An insanely fun episode, which was to be expected with Jerry Lewis as the host. The writing itself was far from perfect, but the fun atmosphere to the whole show was very infectious, there were barely any segments I didn’t like, and a few parts of the show (especially Larry’s Corner) gave me some of the biggest laughs that I’ve gotten from SNL in a while. This episode was a blast for me to watch.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Teri Garr):
— a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
The Smothers Brothers