Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
RAQ’s Vietnam tale scares gung-ho AMH & RDJ out of wanting to go to Libya
— Robert and Anthony’s committed attitudes towards joining the army are pretty funny.
— I like the turn this is taking with the sudden darkened lighting and ceiling fan shadow as Randy’s telling his war story.
— Good reveal that Randy’s disturbing war story just turns out to be a screenplay he’s working on.
— Pretty solid cold opening overall.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host tells a few jokes & tap-dances to “42nd Street”
— Meh at the gag with Tony’s Italian family turning out to be the entire studio audience.
— This overall monologue was all over the place and had no focus. Tony came off likable enough, though.
STARS: **
LYNDON LA ROUCHE THEATRE
Henry Kissinger (ALF) & host conspire
— A lot of funny lines during Randy’s intro, especially his mention of “the evil homosexual Henry Kissinger” as well as “the most evil man of the 20th century: Walter Mondale.”
— Good use of Al Franken, and nice to see his Kissinger impression back from season 5.
— Amusing interactions between Al and Tony.
— On paper, I would think Joan as a goofy Queen Elizabeth is a case of bad miscasting, but she’s actually giving a surprisingly funny performance in this role.
— Jon’s childlike portrayal of Prince Charles is a lot funnier than his more straight-laced take on him from the season premiere.
— Overall, a pretty fun sketch with a lot of silly humor. Felt uncharacteristic for this season.
STARS: ***½
30 COUNTS
a 30-second count rule prolongs a bout between boxers (AMH) & (host)
— The 30-second count premise is pretty funny.
— I’m really enjoying Jon’s performance as the fight commentator.
— Some good laughs from how Tony’s training video package keeps getting abruptly cut off whenever the fight is ready to continue.
— Decent sketch overall.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Baby Doll”
BIG TIME PROFESSIONAL GOLF
upcoming matches are promoted wrestling-style
— A lot of sports sketches so far tonight.
— The premise of a golf promo being presented in a WWF-esque trash-talk manner was initially pretty funny when it started with Randy’s promo, but it’s losing its humor with the subsequent promos by other golfers.
— Could’ve done without Anthony’s overly-hammy performance, even if this sketch called for it.
STARS: **
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
(JOC)’s pillow talk checks whether (host) loves her unconditionally
— Some laughs from Tony’s goofiness in his romantic sweet-talking to Joan.
— Haha, I’m really liking all of Joan’s oddly-specific scenarios when asking Tony if he would still love her if she had certain oddities about her.
— Interesting turn with Joan making it seem like she’s been cheating on Tony.
— Overall, a funny, well-written, and charming sketch, and Joan gave her second surprisingly strong performance of the night.
STARS: ****
WEEKEND UPDATE
Weekend Update Dancers demonstrate the IRS tax-time “Kiss”
Babette gets excited while discussing the use of French airspace
satellite feed shows Rock-’em Sock-’em robots aping Spinks-Holmes fight
DEM demonstrates his unique talent- holding a 45 rpm record with his lips
— Already a good laugh right from the beginning, with Dennis starting Update with “Welcome to all, unless of course you happen to be French, in which case, go to hell.”
— (*groan*) After mercifully getting a break from them in the last episode, here we have the return of the pointless Weekend Update Dancers.
— Nora’s overall Babette commentary tonight was an improvement over her underwhelming first one from earlier this season. Her acting out an increasingly-heated romantic phone conversation between America and France was fairly entertaining, well-performed, and had a decent payoff.
— The Larry Holmes/Leon Spinks boxing “clip” turning out to just be a video of Rock’em Sock’em Robots felt like a gag straight out of Joe Piscopo’s playbook.
— Tonight’s overall Update had too many average jokes from Dennis, though he ended on a good note by randomly demonstrating how he’s different from other newsmen by doing a silly mouth trick with a 45 rpm record.
STARS: ***
NANCY’S WORKOUT
Nancy Reagan (TES) demonstrates her fitness regimen to trainer (host)
— I like Terry’s walk as Nancy, which appears to be a new addition to his impression.
— Some good lines about Barbara Bush.
— Fun turn with Terry’s Nancy exercising/dancing wildly to the songs “Maniac”, “I’m So Excited”, etc.
— Another amusing visual, this time with Terry’s Nancy successfully lifting a huge barbell.
— Pretty fun sketch overall.
STARS: ***½
PENN AND TELLER
Penn & Teller [real] perform serpentine version of sawing-a-woman-in-half
— Funny reveal that Penn and Teller’s “lovely female assistant” is a live snake.
— Whoa at the announcement that they’re about to snip the snake in half.
— LOL, holy hell at the snake bleeding when being cut in half. No idea how Penn and Teller are pulling off that illusion, but I’m impressed.
— I’m surprised this has ended already. This was a lot shorter and simpler than Penn and Teller’s usual acts, but it was still pretty entertaining even if not as strong as their usual work.
STARS: ***
MASTER THESPIAN
Master Thespian tells about the time he performed for the Queen
— The appearance of this character makes me realize that we refreshingly haven’t seen Tommy Flanagan at all tonight, for the first in a LONG time.
— Some good stuff here as usual so far, especially the part with Master Thespian acting out being hit.
— Much like the Penn and Teller segment that preceded this, I’m surprised by how short and simple this overall sketch ended up being, just featuring Jon as the only performer, speaking directly to the camera the whole time. Jon gave a strong Master Thespian performance as usual, and there were laughs to be had, but this installment was very unmemorable.
STARS: ***
WACKY GLUE
the extreme adhesive properties of Wacky Glue outlast spokesman (RAQ)
— This is actually a rerun from one of the first few episodes of this season, but I never got a chance to review it back then since it was cut from my copy of that episode.
— Great reveal with the skull of a now-dead Randy STILL having the board glued to it.
— Overall, this was pretty solid and I liked the way it escalated and how we were shown Randy’s character through the decades.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Day The Devil”
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BIFF AND SALENA
at bar’s open mike night, Biff gains confidence to do “butt dancing” song
— Uh-oh, the return of these baffling characters from the Jay Leno episode.
— Nice use of G.E. Smith and T-Bone Wolk at the beginning.
— Pretty funny song from Danitra.
— Even without having seen the live version of tonight’s episode, I can tell the rerun version I’m watching of this sketch is definitely using the typical season 11 practice of sweetening audience reactions. The canned laughter in certain portions of this sketch is quite obvious. There’s no way the real audience is laughing THAT much at some of this material (like when Biff introduces himself onstage and dedicates his song to Salena).
— A surprisingly good singing voice from Jon, and it’s somewhat impressive he can sing that well while still doing that overbite thing with his teeth that he always does as this Biff character.
— Fun turn with the Butt Dance musical number that Jon’s performing.
— Overall, an improvement over the previous Biff & Salena sketch. Not much on laughs here, and the first half was slow, but the sketch became entertaining once the Butt Dance number started.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Not bad for this season’s standards. While this wasn’t a particularly strong episode by any means, the sketches had a fun vibe, two of them featured better writing than we’re used to seeing this season (Unconditional Love and Lyndon La Rouche Theatre), and there was a low amount of flops. For any normal season, this would just be a run-of-the-mill average episode, but for this season, it was pretty good.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Oprah Winfrey):
— a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Catherine Oxenberg and Paul Simon