Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Pumping Up With Hans & Franz- a muscle serenade for Valentine’s Day
— Yet another deviation from the usual Hans and Franz formula.
— Hans and Franz singing famous songs altered to have a muscle theme is decent, especially the song “Someone Left His Buttocks in the Rain”.
— Pretty short cold opening overall. I’m surprised they didn’t do more with this than just having the characters sing a few quick songs.
STARS: ***
OPENING MONTAGE
— We get a record-high number of musical guests tonight; too many to include in the header of this review. (For anyone curious of who the musical guests are, they’re listed in the tags at the end of the review) In fact, there’s SO many musical guests that Don Pardo has a lot of trouble getting through all the names, announcing them too slowly and awkwardly, and messing up some of their names. He announces Melle Mel as “Melanie Mel”, and announces Quincy D III (which is supposed to be pronounced “Quincy D 3”) as “Quincy D the 3rd”. SNL would later fix all this in reruns by using a different take where Pardo announces all the musical guests’ names quickly and without any mistakes.
MONOLOGUE
host conducts SNL Band in “Manteca” to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s freedom
— Hmm, the home base stage looks a bit different, with the walls on the left and right side gone, giving the stage a much wider look and overlapping it with the musical guest stage. There’s also a much larger number of SNL Band members than usual (looking more like a full orchestra than a band), which probably explains why the SNL theme music had a bit of a different sound tonight.
— Not any comedy here. We get Quincy conducting the enlarged SNL Band in a nice instrumental to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.
— Okay, they threw in a little joke at the end just now, with Quincy admitting he lied about a few things at the beginning of the monologue, mainly about how he’s happy to be here. Turns out he DOESN’T want to be here; he just cares about Mandela’s freedom. Hmm. It remains to be seen whether that comment was just a good-natured joke or 100% genuine.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)
CENTURY 21 MARRIAGE COUNSELORS
relationship advice has been franchised
— Here comes a fake ad that would later be removed from reruns and be replaced with a cut dress rehearsal piece with Quincy Jones advertising an album of himself performing music scores from movies.
— The employees’ odd-looking bright green suits are making me laugh, though I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be funny.
— For the second time in the last three episodes, Victoria makes her only appearance of the night in a pre-taped commercial. She didn’t even have any lines in this one! I know Victoria isn’t the most versatile performer, especially when compared to her two female castmates, but I still feel bad for her getting shut out of so many live shows lately.
— This overall commercial had a fairly clever idea, but the result of it was kinda forgettable.
STARS: **½
DRIVING MISS DAISY
after Hoke (host) quits, Toonces takes over Driving Miss Daisy (JAH)
— I liked Quincy’s long-winded insult to Miss Daisy that started with “old, ugly, dried-up camel…”.
— Funny how Quincy gets up and leaves while the car is still driving, causing the car to crash off the cliff with Miss Daisy still inside.
— Ha, I love how in the scene immediately after the aforementioned crash, we’re shown a completely unharmed and casual Miss Daisy in her bedroom.
— Interesting seeing Phil playing Dan Aykroyd’s character from the real Driving Miss Daisy.
— Great reveal of Toonces being Miss Daisy’s new driver.
— While nothing unexpected or exciting happened for the remainder of the sketch after the initial reveal of Toonces as the new driver, this still provided reliable laughs as usual.
STARS: ***½
THE BOB WALTMAN SPECIAL
Marion Barry (host) & Ronald Reagan (PHH) cry
— Great to see this back.
— I forgot to mention this in my review of this sketch’s debut the previous season, but I found out a few months ago that these sketches are supposed to be a parody of Barbara Walters, right down to the name (Bob Waltman). I was surprised to learn that, because I had always assumed from these sketches that Bob Waltman was a real person. Heh, then again, I’m the same guy who also thought Referee Pitman was a real person.
— I always love Nora’s look as Leona Helmsley.
— Very funny how Waltman makes Helmsley finally bust out in tears by mentioning she recently had to fly coach.
— Great touch with Quincy’s Marion Barry doing a cocaine-snorting motion while sniffling during his crying.
— Loved how the Tammy Faye Bakker interview IMMEDIATELY began with her breaking out in tears (complete with the usual running mascara) without even being emotionally prompted by Waltman, resulting in Waltman giving his usual goofy smile into the camera while also confusedly shrugging his shoulders.
— Funny use of tear gas to make Phil’s Reagan cry.
STARS: ****
JAZZ PERSPECTIF
obsequious hipsters (DAC) & (JOL) idolize “le Q” host
— In the copy I’m reviewing of the live version of this episode, the beginning of this sketch is missing due to technical glitches the local NBC affiliate was having during the preceding commercial break.
— Jon and Dana are hilarious as the Frenchmen hosts, and I like how they call Quincy “Le Q”.
— You can tell Quincy is genuinely amused during this sketch.
— Dana and Jon’s increasingly insane requests to Quincy are cracking me up, especially Jon eating a plate that Quincy ate off earlier, and Dana holding Quincy’s lips while Quincy’s telling a story.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host & musical guests perform “Prologue (2Q’s Rap)” & “Back On The Block”
WEEKEND UPDATE
DOP tells what the Gotti jury has won for finding the mob boss not guilty
— Odd moment where before doing one particular joke, Dennis confusedly pauses for a long time, then tells someone off-camera “That’s not the right joke, we gotta do THIS joke”.
— The whole bit with Don Pardo doing a gameshow-type announcing of what the Gotti jury won wasn’t all that great and didn’t work for me.
— The brief bit with Dennis revealing that his rap name is also Dennis Miller bombed with the audience.
— What was with Dennis half-assing his usually-energetic arm-swipe when doing his trademark scribble-wildly-on-a-sheet-of-paper move after his sign-off? Reminds me of how lethargic he would come off in quite a number of Updates from the second half of his final season next year, where you could tell his heart wasn’t into it anymore and he was ready to leave.
— No guest commentaries tonight?
— Overall, yikes, an unusually rough Update from the Dennis Miller era. Easily one of his weakest.
STARS: **
CROWN HEIGHTS
reverend (host) & rabbi (JOL) try to repair a rift between blacks & Jews
— Quincy Jones in that wig is a pretty funny sight.
— I liked the camera briefly cutting to the rappers just sitting with stone-faced expressions after Jon makes a corny joke.
— After a very dull and uninteresting first half, this sketch has gotten a little better with the rappers performing a hilarious anti-Italians rap.
STARS: **
SWIMSUIT ISSUE
Tonto, Tarzan, Frankenstein peruse Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue
— Funny gag with Frankenstein quickly “clearing” the table by just tipping it over.
— As the guys are looking at one particular page in the swimsuit magazine, I liked Tarzan’s line “Jane had body like that once, before boy.”
— Another funny line, with Tonto responding to seeing a picture of a 6’1 model by saying “Tonto live on her like reservation.”
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host & musical guests perform “The Verb To Be” & “Wee B. Dooinit”
SOVIET CENTRAL COMMITTEE
Soviet Central Committee rubber-stamps Gorbachev’s (PHH) wild proposals
— Here comes ANOTHER sketch tonight that would later be removed from reruns. This would be replaced in reruns with something cut after dress rehearsal: a semi-dramatic, semi-musical piece with Quincy as a therapist and Phil as a patient pouring his heart out to the therapist.
— Some of the bizarre proposals Phil’s Gorbachev are making are kinda chuckleworthy, but the execution of this sketch has been coming off way too dull and repetitive so far.
— Okay, I did finally get a genuine laugh just now, with Gorbachev pulling a trick by switching the order of “all opposed” and “all in favor”.
— Bah, this is now just turning into a whole bunch of cheap poop jokes. What the hell?
— The explosion ending didn’t do anything for me.
— Overall, oof. Let’s just say I can definitely see why they would later cut this sketch in reruns. The therapist sketch that replaces this is FAR better.
— I also wonder if the reason they replace both this sketch and the Century 21 Marriage Counselors commercial is to include Quincy Jones in the show more, as he is pretty much non-existent in the last quarter of the live version of this episode.
STARS: *½
DIALS & GAUGES
House Committee On Dials & Gauges questions (KEN) about unsafe controls
— Hilarious beginning with Dana’s sinister laughing when speeding up the ferris wheel to an insanely-high level.
— Love the randomness of Kevin’s last name being Amalgamated.
— The increasingly-ridiculous dangerous levels on the controls that are displayed are really funny.
— Hoo, boy, the audience is DEAD SILENT during this great sketch. The awful Gorbachev sketch that preceded this probably killed all the audience’s energy.
— Nora: “Did you make this gauge here, which controls the temperature in this room?” Kevin: “For the purpose of this sketch, yes.”
— Hilarious how Nora asking Kevin “Look around you; do you see any cannibals in this room?” results in Kevin literally looking around the room for a long time, which Nora finally stops by telling him it was just a rhetorical question.
— Solid ending with the electric chair.
— When I was younger, I used to think this overall sketch was weak, due to the slow pacing and the dead audience, but I can appreciate this sketch a lot more now. There were so many funny things going on here, the bizarre humor is right up my alley, Kevin and Nora’s dead-serious performances complimented the material nicely, and this sketch comes off very welcome when compared to some of the dull sketches from earlier tonight.
STARS: ****
WE ARE WORLD
Tonto, Tarzan, Frankenstein sing “We Are The World”
— Very funny as always.
— Nice touch with them having headphones on just like the real “We Are the World” artists.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Sadly, SNL’s perfect long streak of good episodes since the beginning of season 14 has ended tonight, as we have our first episode that I was underwhelmed by since season 13. That’s not to say this was a flat-out bad episode, but the comedy portions as a whole were VERY mixed and featured a lot more weak material than we’re used to seeing these last two seasons. Even Weekend Update had an off night and seemed to be the point where this episode truly started falling apart, though they eventually bounced back nicely at the end with two very solid pieces to close the show (Dials & Gauges and We Are World). So, again, not an outright bad episode, but a lesser one from this era. This episode comes off a little better if you watch the rerun version, due to the superior sketch replacements mentioned earlier in the review.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Christopher Walken)
a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Tom Hanks / Aerosmith