Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
inaugural preview has Nancy prompting Ronald Reagan during oath of office
— Not too great-seeming a premise of altering footage of President Reagan’s inauguration by dubbing in “Nancy” whispering Ronald’s lines to him after the chief justice says them.
— Yeah, the gag is ALREADY getting one-note and old.
— That sounds like Pamela doing the dubbed-in voice of Nancy. Strange that they didn’t get Mary to do the voice, considering she actually played Nancy on the show before.
— An overall strange and weak choice for a cold opening. I can’t think of any other cold opening in SNL history that relied entirely on stock footage, though I may be forgetting one or two.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— The punchline to the Knicks story was okay but nothing great.
— I did like the joke about no republicans in New York.
— An overall pretty short, straightforward monologue.
STARS: **½
SUPER SUNDAY
Ricky & Phil (CHG) temper their insults because it’s Super Sunday
— The return of Billy’s “unbelievable” character Ricky.
— I always like seeing Christopher and Billy teamed together.
— Christopher and Billy’s back-and-forth name-calling is funny, especially the “smegma” remark.
— As expected, I’m really enjoying the way both performers are playing off of each other here.
— Surprised to hear the word “douchebag” in a sketch from 1985.
— Christopher: “You smell like a rhino’s nipples.”
— A pretty good laugh from Christopher buying Pez for dessert.
— Hmm, what happened just now? When reading off the titles of various porno tapes that he rented, Christopher comes across one particular title that makes him laugh out of character and, while showing Billy the title, asks “Are you gonna say it?”, which came off like an ad-lib. Billy starts laughing out of character too, and neither of them end up reading the title aloud. Wonder what happened. Did someone at SNL jokingly slip in a particularly dirty porno title that couldn’t be uttered on national TV?
STARS: ***½
GOOD COP, BAD COP
(host) wants to do “good cop, bad cop” on (JIB), but Lawrence is inept
— Good to see another Lawrence sketch.
— Feels strange seeing Jim Belushi again for the first time in a while. This is his first episode back as a rehire after being fired a few episodes ago.
— In the version I’m watching, there appeared to be a brief edit when Roy angrily pulls Lawrence to the side after his “sad cop” routine. I wonder what was edited out.
— Jim’s smart-assed remarks to Roy are pretty funny.
— I’m enjoying Lawrence’s constant failure to understand what “bad cop” means when he and Roy are doing the “good cop/bad cop” routine.
— I like Roy snapping and insanely going into both the good cop AND bad cop routine, much to Jim’s confusion.
STARS: ***½
STEVEN WRIGHT
Steven Wright [real] does stand-up about his hobbies, imitates bowling
— His delivery always KILLS me.
— Overall, this was a fucking riot as his SNL appearances usually are. Some of my favorite random one-liners tonight were the ones about being afraid of widths instead of heights, his dwarf friend posing for trophies, his “imitation” of a bowling ball going in the gutter, and him owning a picture of Houdini having his keys locked in his car.
STARS: ****
FOLDGERS CRYSTALS
— Rerun from last season
IN PRAISE OF WOMEN
Julio Iglesias (GAK) gets fresh with 3 unsexy females
— Decent scenario for Gary’s Julio Iglesias impression.
— Pamela looks completely unrecognizable in that wrinkly, old make-up.
— Funny bit with Gary having Julia sit on his knee to tell him about her book.
— The sketch is getting fairly one-note, but Gary’s giving a strong performance and is making me laugh with his constant sleazy, passionate comments about what he loves about women.
STARS: ***
SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Ann Landers’ (MAG) poll shows 97% of guys prefer “the act” to hugging
CHG says “no ads,” so Paul Harvey (RIH) fools him by talking in Russian
British journalist Angela Bradleigh likes football players’ bodies
JIB says “follow my rules in movie theater or receive an air horn blast”
— This is the earliest that Saturday Night News has been on in a while.
— Much like Mary’s last Ann Landers commentary, I didn’t care too much for her overall commentary tonight and nothing really stood out to me in this one.
— Rich’s Paul Harvey has been appearing an awful lot this season.
— Ha, Rich angrily muttering “Punk!” to Christopher made me laugh out loud.
— I’m not caring for how Rich is using the exact same promotional props from his last appearance.
— You can hear one particular audience member’s loud laugh all throughout tonight’s Saturday Night News, especially during Christopher’s “dunces marching in the inauguration” joke just now.
— Pamela’s dirty sexual comments about football players are providing a few laughs, and is at least taking this into a different direction from the previous commentary she did as this character.
— Geez, FOUR guest commentaries tonight?
— Jim’s loud outbursts here are pretty funny.
— Some good movie theater rules from Jim, especially the “Leave the baby at home” one.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Caribbean Queen”
SCALPER
(host) won’t accept less than $5,000,000 for his 2 Super Bowl XIX tickets
— LOL at Roy charging an insane amount of 50 million dollars for two Super Bowl tickets.
— Love the way a smugly-satisfied Roy keeps deadpan-ly saying “Five. Million. Dollars.”
— Rich’s offer of bearer bonds is really funny.
— I’m loving Jim’s increasing desperation in the ridiculous things he’ll offer just to get those tickets.
— Interesting turn with a despondent Roy returning home.
— Haha, holy hell at Roy suddenly getting struck by lightning and being reduced to a smoking pile of clothes on the floor.
— Overall, I really liked this. A very well-written and well-executed sketch.
STARS: ****
THE FLAMING PARROT
transvestite lounge pianist Penny Lane (BIC) talks with (host)
— Billy as a drag queen?
— I like Billy playing the Jeopardy theme on the piano while trying to guess Roy’s name.
— More good uses of Billy playing certain famous tunes on the piano to relate to the various situations during his and Roy’s conversation.
— Surprisingly, I’m actually liking Billy’s characterization here.
— A touching turn this has suddenly taken.
— An overall surprisingly good sketch.
STARS: ***½
MENTAL HOSPITAL
in a mental hospital, Consuela visits self-admitted patient Chi Chi
— Nice to see these two characters in a normal setting instead of a talk show for once.
— Gary is hilarious as a wildly-dancing mustached mental patient who thinks he’s John Oates.
— A decent amount of funny little lines during Mary and Julia’s conversation. I especially liked Julia explaining she covered for Mary by absurdly telling their friends Mary’s having warts removed at a mental hospital.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Loverboy”
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A (mostly) consistently good episode, with a pretty fun vibe throughout. The cold opening and Saturday Night News were the only things I wasn’t crazy about.
— I’ve been noticing that for a season that has a reputation for being insanely heavy on filmed pieces, they’ve been going really light on them these last few episodes. I don’t think there were ANY short films in the last two episodes. Honestly, it feels like this season has been gradually relying less and less on pre-tapes with each passing month. Makes me wonder if it was only the first few episodes that earned this season its reputation for being pre-tape heavy.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kathleen Turner):
— a fairly big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Alex Karras