Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Infidelscam- Iranians hold hearings on their part in arms-for-hostages
— Even though it was a cheap stereotypical middle-eastern joke, I got a laugh from the “oath” just turning out to be high-pitched foreign-dialect screaming. I think there was just something about the visual of A. Whitney Brown doing that that amused me.
— I like how the Iranians are speaking in VERY American accents.
— Haha, Phil is especially doing a very funny American accent.
— Damn, Phil’s delivery of his lines are particularly great here and are getting big laughs. He’s stealing the whole sketch.
— Pretty good cold opening overall.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host plays “War” on his tuba with SNL Band to show that he’s cool
— Steve’s high school reunion story had some laughs.
— I’m liking this performance of “War (What Is It Good For?)”, but again, I’m always a sucker for that song.
STARS: ***
MCSOOSHI
“America’s Eating It Raw” under the golden arches
— A very funny parody of McDonalds commercials, with sushi of all things being the subject of this jolly ad.
— Kevin’s brief testimonial was pretty funny.
— Great part with the cutaway to a Japanese guy in the restaurant just shrugging.
STARS: ****
DEREK STEVENS
a marketing expert (KEN) says Derek Stevens should die to help his career
— Dana’s Derek Stevens character becomes recurring.
— Wasn’t necessary to repeat the “Welcome to L.A…. private joke!” greeting from Phil’s character. That line was delivered much funnier in the original Derek Stevens sketch.
— I like the reveal that Phil and Kevin don’t want Derek Stevens to fake his own death; they feel he should genuinely die.
— The made-up song Stevens has started singing is using the same melody as his “The Lady I Know” song (the one with the legendary Choppin’ Broccoli chorus) from his first sketch.
— Yeah, this “My Teeny Little Woman” song he’s singing is paling BADLY in comparison to Choppin’ Broccoli. It’s nothing but a cheap knock-off. I always kinda hate when SNL does stuff like this, where they take something that was an unexpected big hit and then give it a sequel where they just lazily do a rewrite of the original script, hoping lightning will strike twice.
— Okay, they kinda won me back at the end of this sketch, with Stevens being given a new car that’s obviously set up to crash.
— Overall, there were laughs in the beginning and end of this sketch, but I took issue with the middle where they tried to replicate the success of the Choppin’ Broccoli number.
STARS: **½
BLIND MAN
a homosexual (host) poses as a woman to seduce a blind guy (JOL)
— Fairly funny how Steve is pretending to leave and then sneaks back into blind Jon’s bed.
— Jon’s “Oh! Oh!” reactions every time he realizes Steve is in his bed are cracking me up.
— Good part with Steve doing various voices when pretending the cops have arrived.
— The mock-PSA ending didn’t really add much to this.
— Not sure if I should like this overall sketch or not. I mean, I got laughs throughout it, but the homosexual subject matter feels questionable and touchy, to say the least. IIRC, this sketch received quite a lot of flack when it originally aired, and resulted in this overall episode not getting a rerun on NBC that season.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Don’t Get Me Wrong”
SIDESHOW OF THE STARS
Baboon Boy Casey Kasem (DAC) & other freaks
— Interesting use of Penn and Teller.
— Funny visual of Dana’s Casey Kasem as “Baboon Boy”.
— Nice to see Jan’s solid Sally Kellerman impression back.
— The debut of Phil’s classic Charlton Heston impression.
— Haha, holy hell at the priceless part with Phil’s Heston biting the fake chicken’s head off.
STARS: ***½
WEEKEND UPDATE
lengthy National Spelling Bee ends when (host) misspells “aiieeeee”
Babette likens repairing USA-France relations to apologizing to a lover
— Interesting cutaway to a spelling bee scene, which is basically coming off as a mini-sketch in the middle of Update.
— I like the unusual words Victoria and Steve have to spell.
— I didn’t get Dennis’ bit about cardboard cutouts.
— Nora’s Babette character makes her first appearance since last season.
— So far, tonight’s Babette commentary is going in the same direction as her last appearance, with her acting out another passionate phone conversation between America and France.
— Yeah, Babette’s overall commentary tonight didn’t work for me at all. Much like Derek Stevens, this is another example tonight of a recurring character treading the same old ground that was done better in their previous appearance.
STARS: ***
MOVIE TALK
host’s girlfriend’s parents’ (PHH) & (JAH) movie knowledge is limited
— Jan appears to be playing her Marge Keister character, but she seems to have a different last name in this.
— Not much on big laughs here so far, but this sketch has a nice low-key, slice-of-life feel, and I’m really enjoying the character work and interplay between Phil and Jan.
STARS: ***
PENN AND TELLER
Penn & Teller [real] perform The World’s Most Expensive Card Trick
— Fascinating set-up to the trick, and I like how Penn is being broadcast from outdoors (though I don’t know if that’s truly being performed live, or if it’s pre-taped).
— Clever way of broadcasting the couple’s card onto the Times Square jumbotron.
— Entertaining segment overall.
— IIRC, this ends up being the last time Penn and Teller ever appear on the show. Not only that, but I believe this also sadly ends up being the end of SNL’s tradition of bringing stand-up comics and comedy magicians onto the show as special guest performers. That tradition would end up making a one-night-only comeback years later in 1998 when a then-unknown Tenacious D performed their act on the show.
STARS: ***½
THE BACK PAGE
’30s newspaper reporters cover the less important stories
— Glad to see another black-and-white old-timey sketch with this cast.
— Man, this cast is so damn good at giving these 30s/40s-era sketches such an authentic feel with their delivery, demeanor, etc.
— Dana: “Why, I oughta pound you!”
— I like Phil’s penchant for coming up with catchy alliterate headlines off the top of his head.
— Pretty charming piece overall.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
— Nice random continuation of the Movie Talk sketch, with Jan’s character briefly interrupting Steve’s musical guest intro to callback to something she had been trying to remember in the earlier sketch.
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul”
CASTING DIRECTOR
actress (VIJ) misreads casting agent’s (KEN) body language as cues
— I like how Victoria is outlandishly following Kevin’s misdirected hand gestures during his phone conversation.
— Good pratfall out the window from Victoria, all the while Kevin is completely oblivious.
— This felt like the type of short random sketch that would’ve appeared in an early episode from season 1.
STARS: ***
BOB ROBERTS
a profile of reactionary folk singer Bob Roberts (Tim Robbins)
— We suddenly get a random Tim Robbins-starring short film; one that would later be turned into a movie, which Robbins would host SNL to promote (and do a live sketch as the character during the episode).
— Robbins’ cigarette-smoking song was really funny.
— The “yuppie scum” comment from the rock-and-roll critic cracked me up.
— Another funny song from Robbins, this time about rich pride.
— Solid film overall.
STARS: ***½
AL-ANON
(PHH)’s high Christmas spirit is a symptom of alcoholism, says (NOD)
— Haha, great unexpected turn with this turning out to be an anti-drinking PSA. Excellent twist that gives Phil’s actions as the overly-generous father a different meaning in hindsight.
STARS: ****
CHRISSIE HYNDE AND BUSTER POINDEXTER
Chrissie Hynde & Buster Poindexter [real] perform “Rockin’ Good Way”
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An unremarkable episode, with nothing standing out as particularly strong (well, maybe McSooshi, but that’s just a short commercial). That being said, the show did have a consistent feel with mostly decent sketches, which at least made the episode still come off pretty enjoyable though nothing special.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short):
— a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
William Shatner hosts the Christmas episode
Dana Carvey’s “I ought a pound you” comment makes another appearance. This time in the classic Jim Downey/George Meyer-penned ‘Its a Wonderful Life’ alternate ending sketch in the Shatner episode. I also think he says it another black and white sketch after that. I guess he really like that phrase.
It’s a shame that they didn’t keep booking the outside stand-ups/guest performers after this season – I’d much rather see a quality comic that you don’t see too many other places than a mediocre, dull, or hit-or-miss sketch. I imagine Lorne stopped doing this because the cast/writers complained about their sketches getting cut so that Penn & Teller (or Joel Hodgson, or whoever) could do their bit, even though the guest comics’ bits almost always killed with the audience.
Was listening earlier tonight to a 90’s Howard Stern appearance by Gilbert Gottfried where they talked about “Ratso” Sloman
What I mainly noticed during the Penn & Teller segment in Times Square was the plugs for Lorne’s movie Three Amigos in the moving billboard in the background…
“Ratso” was a Stern regular in the 80s and 90s
“Ratso” is also an associate of one-time SNL musical guest Kinky Friedman.
Penn and Teller’s computers had 140MB HDDs each, that’s absolutely massive for 1986 LOL. Probably cost $5K each ($16K today). I don’t know why they would have needed so much capacity for the trick, but it was entertaining.
Also he said they had reserved the “online time”, this was years before the internet, so pretty cool to hear the word online in 1986.
Very, very underwhelming episode which is a shame because Steve was jamming hard at that point in his career. He seemed super game and like he had fun but the skits weren’t the best. Guess the writers weren’t a good fit for him. That sucks because he shoulda been a recurring host then. He was a top dog and brought ratings in. That blind dude skit is so dang ballsy for 86.
Thankfully it’s nowhere as bad as Bronson Pinchot’s show was. 2 of my favorite 80’s actors and 2 rough shows.
I love the entire late 80s/early 90s “Renaissance” era of SNL, but this early stage (Seasons 12-13) is my personal favorite. The show was nearly canceled the previous season and if I’m not mistaken NBC gave Lorne 12 episodes to turn things around. I feel like the show and the cast are more experimental in this early stage with lots of forgotten gems like Phil Hartman’s mother-in-law character, Kevin Nealon’s one man pieces, and the Old Hollywood sketches (“Why I oughta pound you!”). The
I actually didn’t find this episode as bad as others speak of. I agree that I think Gutenberg could have been given better material, but I don’t put that in him, that’s the writers. His monologue is forgettable, and some sketches too, I’m not really a fan of the black and white pieces.
It was a shame to see Derek Steven’s do that silly song, which he seems to repeat later on I think by replacing just a couple words in an ode to the female host at the time. Chopping broccoli to this day is my favorite sketch ever.
I thought mc sushi was super catchy, loved seeing the expression on the Japanese man’s face which was like “eh” at the end. Though I’d see this commercial at least one or two other times while watching other episodes in this season. I still didn’t mind it.
I thought the homosexual bedroom blind sketch was hilarious, but was very surprised that made it on the air but also know it was never done for reruns, as I recently watched an old Donahue episode where the majority of the cast comes on and Hartman does a spot on imitation of Donahue (one of many his many talented impressions). In the show, Lovitz mentioned how that sketch was not to be aired for reruns and also mentioned the later Tony Danza sketch which he mumbles in a heavy ny accent but comes off as cursing, there was a lot of controversy and calls on that particular sketch cause people thought they were cursing.
Anyways I found the bedroom sketch hilarious and loved Lovitz reactions.
Movie Talk I thought was funny and just shows what great chemistry Hooks and Hartman have…
The Al-Anon sketch I thought was also really great. I’d be interested in who wrote that, if Franken had anything to do with it…
Aside from those pieces..
As for the musical performance, the Pretenders did a stellar job!
“Don’t get me wrong” was super to see and hear live! But “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul?” for me was the winner. I discovered that song by watching Miami Vice reruns a few years back and thought they performed it with great energy and it really made the episodes quality better with some of the forgettable sketches and lazy writing…definitely 5 stars for both performances. All and all a good episode!