Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
George Bush (DAC) will try harebrained plan of pal Manuel Noriega (JOL)
— Jon’s look as Manuel Noriega is very funny, as is his raspy-voiced accent.
— Some pretty good laughs from Bush and Noriega reminiscing about good times they had in the past.
— Love Dana’s Bush busting out into his trademark laugh when realizing Noriega is trying to coax him.
— Bush: “Not gonna do it, Manuel. Read my lips: NA. GA. DA.”
— The submarine scene was okay, even though it made no sense how after the submarine exploded, we see an unharmed Bush still inside the inexplicably-undestroyed submarine while saying “Live from New York…”.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
JAH, DAC, Maury Povich [real] wary of host’s Married With Children link
— Pretty funny opening bit with Ed O’Neill explaining to people who don’t get the FOX station in their city (remember, this was back in FOX’s early years) that he’s an actual, genuine celebrity. By the way, this small portion of the monologue would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. Not sure why, though.
— He predicts that Married With Children will be here for a long time to come, which turned out to be accurate, as the show ended up lasting about 10 or 11 seasons.
— Good laughs from Dana and Jan asking Ed not to link his “offensive” and “gross” sitcom with SNL.
— A cameo from Maury Povich, back when he was known for “A Current Affair”.
— I like how even Maury is asking Ed to downplay his association with FOX.
— Very funny bit with Maury cueing the trademark “A Current Affair” sound effect with a simple move of the hand.
STARS: ***½
BIZILADY
the mini-cordless shaver lets women on the go depilate anywhere
— Funny jingle, and an amusing premise of an “anywhere” shaver for women.
— Hilarious part with Jan casually shaving her armpits in the theater.
— This pre-taped commercial ends up being Victoria’s only appearance all night.
STARS: ***½
I GOT WHAT YOU NEED
a shopkeeper (host) recommends store items as he would his penis
— Lots of great fake-outs with Ed’s sleazy, suggestive recommendations turning out to be something innocent. This era is good at doing this type of fake-out humor (e.g. The Bean Cafe sketch with Tom Hanks).
— I love Phil’s characterization in this.
— A particularly funny bit about Ed’s “one-eyed monster”.
— Good ending with the “old johnsons” conversation between Ed and Kevin.
STARS: ****
WAYNE’S WORLD
driving instructor (host) watches boozin’ & cruisin’ skit
— I see they’re still using “Schwing!” in an innocent context (this time, used by Wayne as a sound effect when donning an imaginary Nintendo Power Glove). I wonder when they first use that word in the way we’re now familiar with, as a way of miming an erection.
— Funny seeing Ed O’Neill playing an uptight character like this, and I love his disturbing long spiel about how a car is a killing machine known by the nickname “The Widow-Maker”.
— Wayne and Garth’s drinking-and-driving PSA is absolutely classic. My favorite parts are the use of moving background trees as Wayne is miming driving, and Wayne using a harmonica to represent honking car horns during his driving and a beeping heart monitor during his surgery.
— IMO, this has been the best Wayne’s World sketch so far at this point.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “It Had To Be You”
WEEKEND UPDATE
ALF’s piece on the morbid vernacular of comedy proves to be an example
DEM shows the defective Jarvik artificial heart’s phallic symbol air bag
Grumpy Old Man hates microphones, seat belts, flame-retardant sleepware
— Funny commentary with Al going on about variations comedians use of the expression “I really died out there”, as it’s slowly becoming more and more obvious that Al is referring to himself regarding how (supposedly) badly his commentary is going over with the audience.
— Dennis’ Jarvik Heart demonstration was funny.
— Grumpy Old Man makes his very first Update appearance, after debuting in a now-forgotten sketch the previous season.
— Loved Grumpy Old Man’s line about how due to the non-existence of video games in his childhood, they had to make up their own game called “Chew the Bark off an Oak Tree”.
— Priceless part with Grumpy Old Man making up his own dismissive remark: “Flibodee floo!”
— After Grumpy Old Man left, I howled at Dennis telling him “Excuse me, sir? You forgot your prostate” while “handing” it over to him.
— Dennis: “Friends of the Dalai Lama say that since winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he has become an incredible pain in the ass.”
STARS: ***½
NAGGING HUSBAND
(host) assumes wife’s (NOD) nagging role after he arrives home late
— I really like this premise of a coming-home-late Ed doing his wife’s nagging for her.
— Ed’s doing a great job carrying a majority of the sketch.
— When Ed lays down on the couch, you can see stagehands sneaking past the window behind him.
STARS: ***½
DENNIS WOO’S REAL ESTATE FORTUNES THE EASY WAY
distressed property
— When I was younger, I used to think Mike’s character in this sketch was supposed to be the same character he played in the “Nude House of Wacky People” sketch earlier this season. Turns out both characters have different names. I guess Mike just has a penchant for using the EXACT same look and voice for all of his Asian stereotype roles, as we’re unfortunately going to later see ad-nauseam during the infamous season 20.
— Some good laughs from a southern-accented Jan’s stiff testimonial.
STARS: ***
CEAUSESCU’S WAKE
mourners at Ceaucescu’s wake give backhanded compliments about the tyrant
— Everybody reaching to find positive things to say about Ceausescu has some funny lines.
— I like them all spitting in unison after saying Ceausescu’s name.
— Pretty funny story from Phil regarding Ceausescu supposedly not being responsible for Phil being forced to watch his own father be executed.
— Great part with them all suddenly pulling out a gun and firing repeated shots into Ceausescu’s body just to confirm that he’s truly dead.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “It’s Alright With Me”
LOTHAR OF THE HILL PEOPLE
(host) says “men are better than women”
— Three lead roles for featured player Mike Myers tonight alone. It’s obvious that a promotion to regular cast member is soon coming for him.
— Some good laughs from the men griping about the problems of living with women.
— Hilarious part with Ed mentioning men’s ability to write their name in the snow without using their hand, as a bad example of men’s superiority over women.
— I liked Lothar’s line about how angry women “frighten cattle”.
STARS: ***½
THE 90’S
LOM previews SNL in the ’90s- changes include DOP’s larynx in a tortoise
— I really like how they’re doing a whole sketch on the fact that this is the first SNL episode of the 90s.
— So far, there’s some really funny announced changes for the new decade, such as the SNL cast now being on jet packs (demonstrated by Dana as Church Lady).
— I love the casual mention of Phil Hartman being part-android, which is followed by him showing up just to say a friendly “Hello, Lorne”.
— I always like this type of humor, where we see jokingly-outlandish predictions of what the future will be like.
— The indecipherable new SNL logo (last screencap above) is a very funny exaggeration of trendy styles from this time period in the late 80s/very early 90s. I also like Lorne’s mention of how the logo can read minds and can tell how viewers are responding to sketches.
— Priceless concept of an SNL “rerun pill” that viewers can take whenever they miss an episode. Lorne demonstrates by taking one of the pills and responding “Mmm, Tony Danza. It still holds up.”
— This is getting funnier and funnier, with us now being informed that Don Pardo’s voice has been surgically implanted in a turtle.
— Not sure if it was supposed to be funny or not, but the cheap “futuristic” effect used to make Lorne teleport out of the scene made me laugh.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
— Nice continuation of a gag from the last sketch, with the Don Pardo-voiced turtle (held by Kevin Nealon) announcing next week’s guests. Unfortunately, Pardo’s voice-over would later be muted out in reruns of these goodnights (which is typical in reruns from this era), resulting in us seeing an abnormally long close-up of Kevin Nealon just holding the turtle up to the camera while nothing is heard being said.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— SNL kicks off the 90s with a pretty good episode. While not an outstanding episode as a whole, the show was consistently good and did have a few really strong pieces in the first half, and a fantastic closing sketch.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Andie MacDowell)
about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Christopher Walken makes his hosting debut