Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Oliver Stone (PHH) sees conspiracy in George Bush’s (DAC) barfing episode
— Some good laughs from how overly cautious Phil’s Oliver Stone is when Kevin arrives for their meeting.
— Priceless video of Dana’s Bush vomiting and passing out, and Phil’s Barbara Bush panicking and climbing on the table.
— Some more laughs from the back-and-forth replay of the vomit going out and back into Bush’s mouth.
— This whole cold opening is tickling the hell out of me, especially with Phil-as-Oliver-Stone’s overly serious discussion of the vomit.
— The huge sheet of plastic vomit that Phil displays looks like it could be the same one that he displayed in the Apex Novelty sketch from the Jeff Daniels episode earlier this season, only without the uneaten sandwich.
— The “the president has wet his pants” ending was okay, though didn’t make me laugh quite as hard as the rest of the sketch.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
a clip of the substitute judge sketch proves that host was on SNL before
— Morrow is coming off very composed and relaxed in his performance here.
— Pretty memorable bit with Morrow pointing out he appeared as an extra in the Substitute Judge sketch from season 5’s Rodney Dangerfield episode. I’m also enjoying the fact that we get to see a clip from that sketch, as it brings back nice memories of not only when I reviewed that sketch, but when I reviewed that era in general.
— Some pretty good laughs from Morrow exaggerating the impact of his work as an extra, and acting like it’s the reason SNL had him back tonight.
STARS: ***½
SÁLON
putting the accent on the first syllable makes the shampoo work
— David Spade getting a rare showcase this season!
— David’s giving a strong performance and he’s totally selling this commercial. It feels interesting in retrospect seeing him nail a role like this, as it’s so opposite of the persona he’d go on to frequently use in sketches during his later seasons.
— I’m liking the insistence on how you must say “salon” with the accent, and the animated graphic showing how your hair is affected by the various ways you say “salon”.
STARS: ****
IT’S PAT
partygoers’ game of strip poker fails to indicate androgynous Pat’s sex
— An interesting oddly specific look of Mike’s character.
— I like the reveal of strip poker being the game that Pat’s co-workers think will reveal Pat’s gender.
— I loved Pat’s delivery of “I feel so NAUGHTY!”
— Good line with Pat requesting the song “Dude Looks Like a Lady”.
— I didn’t like the turn this took near the end, with the strange stock footage montage of people at work while a voice-over talks about people being comfortable with the sexuality of themselves and others, nor did I care for the subsequent scene with Pat being the only one at the party who still has clothes on.
— Not one of my favorite Pat sketches overall, as I felt it fizzled out near the end and the sketch as a whole was unusually short, when it felt like it could’ve benefited from doing more with the premise.
STARS: **½
DELTA DELTA DELTA
Delta Delta Delta sorority sisters Pam (BEC), Di (MEH), Meg (SIF) yak
— This soon-to-be-recurring sketch makes its debut.
— Very interesting seeing a showcase of the newer female cast members (minus Ellen), and in such an early timeslot tonight. This is also the very first time Melanie Hutsell has ever gotten a big role.
— Boy, right off the bat, Melanie is mugging up a freakin’ storm. Sadly, that’s something I’m gonna have to get used to during her SNL tenure.
— I got a chuckle from the incredibly low-budget, fake-looking shot of Siobhan running across the campus (third screencap above).
— Beth, Melanie, and Siobhan are all doing an accurate take-off on this valley girl type, but it’s coming off more annoying than funny to me.
— Morrow’s walk-on was brief, but I really liked his performance and delivery.
— According to GettyImages, this sketch was actually originally supposed to air in the Hammer episode from earlier this season, but got cut after dress rehearsal. In that one, Mike Myers appeared to be playing the role that Morrow plays in tonight’s sketch (pic here).
STARS: **
COWBOY SONG
(host) & lonesome cowboys musically resolve to better themselves
— I liked Dana’s lyric about using sex as a means of escape.
— A big laugh from the whole part about how these guys used to molest the cattle.
— Overall, these singing cowboys sketches from this era have a nice charm to them, and tonight was no different. We also got a lot of funny lyrics this time from each of the three performers, making this what I feel is the best of the singing cowboys sketches that have aired by this point.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Jan Brady (MEH) gets on a Marsha tangent while discussing breast implants
VIJ doesn’t understand the “dumb blonde” jokes she finds offensive
— Melanie Hutsell’s big night continues. Just to show you what a huge turnaround her airtime has suddenly taken, here’s a rundown of how she was used before tonight: In her debut in the Linda Hamilton episode, she only got two very small unnoteworthy roles, one of them a non-speaking one. Then in the following week’s Macaulay Culkin episode, she wasn’t even credited in the opening montage, yet did appear silently in the background during the pizza party cold opening. Then the opposite happened in the following episode when Hammer hosted: Melanie was credited in the opening montage, but was nowhere to be seen during the actual show. And finally, in the following week’s Steve Martin episode, her only appearance was with the whole cast at the end of the the epic “Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight” number. So overall, until tonight’s episode, Melanie had a VERY quiet start as a cast member, basically being a glorified extra. I was starting to forget that she’s even in the cast until tonight’s episode reminded me.
— Melanie’s doing a good job here. Her Jan Brady impression is very spot-on and funny.
— Pretty fun hearing Melanie’s Jan Brady referencing the plotlines of famous Brady Bunch episodes.
— Hmm, some awkward pauses and stumbliness in Melanie’s delivery throughout this commentary, which is ANOTHER unfortunate thing that I’m going to have to get used to during her SNL tenure.
— What’s with the lights in the background during Melanie’s commentary? They keep alternately turning on and off right now.
— Victoria’s commentary is okay, and is thankfully not another iteration of the recurring bit where she gives an intelligent speech and then reluctantly reveals she didn’t write it. While the “dumb blonde” shtick of hers feels kinda played-out by this late stage in her SNL tenure, there’s some laughs from the “dumb blonde” jokes she’s quoting in tonight’s commentary.
STARS: ***
LENIN’S BODY
(host) tries various money-making schemes involving Lenin’s body (MIM)
— The living room set is the same one used earlier tonight in the Delta Delta Delta sketch.
— I’m loving the bizarreness of this, with Morrow’s insane, harebrained scheme of making money off of Lenin’s dead body.
— Very funny line from Phil as the store manager explaining to Morrow that customers are leaving in disappointment because when they heard about the display of Lenin’s body, they assumed it was John Lennon. Phil’s subsequent line regarding the customers’ complaints about the way Lenin smells was also funny.
— I like how the absurdity and outlandishness of this sketch is increasing as it goes on. I’m also loving all the various scenery changes throughout this, which is giving this an epic, fleshed-out feel.
— Even little things like the loud sound effect used for Lenin getting hit in the face with a baseball are cracking me up.
— By the way, I have to laugh at how they’re using an actual cast member (Mike) to play dead Lenin. Mike’s actually doing a solid job in what must not be an easy role to play, having to hold still the whole time and take a whole bunch of physical abuse without reacting.
— Good turn with Morrow finally achieving success, with Lenin being used as a stunt double for a movie set in the old west.
— Fun ending with the montage of stunt dummies from movies. I recognize some of these movie clips, especially the one from “Friday The 13th Part V” (last screencap above). (As I mentioned in some of my earlier reviews, I’m a huge Friday The 13th buff).
STARS: ****½
MOVIE TALK
at the pearly gates, (DAC) is engaged in small talk about movies
— There’s a nice slice-of-life charm to this, but I gotta be honest, I’m not all that crazy about this premise of angels asking Dana for his opinions of recent movies. The conversations here aren’t that interesting to me.
— Phil had a really funny line just now, about how he couldn’t get over Barbra Streisand’s unconventional looks when watching “The Prince of Tides”.
— This sketch would later be replaced with dress version in reruns. In that one, Dana doesn’t wear glasses like he does in this live version.
STARS: **½
CHRIS ROCK’S WHITE PERSON’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING THE APOLLO
CSR’s White Person’s Guide To Surviving The Apollo helped (host) & (SIF)
— A nice showcase for the underused Chris Rock, and a very funny premise with him providing tips for white entertainers on how to survive the Apollo.
— Ellen is cracking me up as the rowdy audience member.
— I got a good laugh from the mention of how you can never go wrong doing a “James Brown on the toilet” impression.
— I’m really enjoying all the before and after clips of the white performers who took Rock’s advice.
STARS: ****
INSULTS
at a pizza parlor, insulting names are a natural part of teens’ banter
— Some good laughs from all the fast-paced insulting names the teen guys are casually addressing each other by.
— Very funny slam with Adam’s line about picking his little hairs out of Morrow’s sister’s teeth.
— I like Kevin’s succession of insults when handing each guy their pizza slice.
— Not only has Melanie been getting a lot of airtime throughout tonight’s episode, but so have her fellow rookies Beth and Siobhan.
— I’m enjoying the unique structure of this sketch, and everyone’s performances are fun. It helps that their delivery of these rapid-fire insults is flawless. Even Melanie is managing to get through this fast-paced dialogue without flubbing a line.
— I like how it’s gradually revealed that all of these characters’ insults are just their friendly way of communicating. A good take-off on how teen buddies do tend to speak to each other like that.
— What REALLY makes this already-solid sketch for me is the ending. I loved Phil as a random wise man explaining to us (regarding the teens) “Sticks and stones may break their bones, but apparently words… will never hurt them…”, and then slowly covering his still-staring-at-the-camera-with-a-smile face with a restaurant menu. Phil is always so great at pulling off twisted, oddball, creepy things like that.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Territorial Pissings”
MINUTES BEHIND
(host) repeatedly comes up with clever comments about 15 seconds too late
— Interestingly, this is the second set that was used in two separate sketches tonight. There was the Delta Delta Delta living room set earlier, and now, the cafe set used in this sketch was seen just minutes ago in the preceding Insults sketch, only decorated differently.
— Tonight’s “Attack of SNL’s New Girls” theme continues, as Beth and Siobhan get more good airtime here. I sure hope they’re both enjoying this, because as we know now, it’s not gonna last.
— Some good realistic laughs from how badly delayed Morrow’s witty interjections during Beth and Mike’s conversation are.
— The part of the conversation with Beth being surprised that Prince is still making music, and Mike saying “The old man still has some life left in him” when praising Prince’s new album feels strange. I mean, this is only 1992; why are they acting like Prince was ALREADY a veteran old-timer in music? He had only been around for a little over 10 years by this point, hadn’t he?
— I love Morrow’s “Clam chowdaaahhhh” interjection.
— Siobhan is funny as the testy waitress.
— The realism of this sketch is getting more and more funny, especially as Morrow grows increasingly unnerved.
— I love how when Morrow is sulking around the bathroom, he conveniently stumbles upon a random time machine as one of the bathroom stalls.
— Solid ending with a time-traveling Morrow nailing the timing of his witty interjections during Beth and Mike’s conversation.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
— These goodnights would later be replaced in reruns with the dress rehearsal version. The reason is because in these live goodnights, all three members of Nirvana begin exaggeratedly making out with each other, lips-on-lips and all (as seen on the left in the second and third screencaps above), in what I’m guessing was an attempt to play for the cameras. Apparently, this ended up causing some controversy at the time, which is why this version of the goodnights has never been seen in reruns.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very good episode, and a nice bounce back for this season after the surprisingly disappointing Steve Martin episode. While there were no sketches tonight that stand out as famous gems (besides maybe the Chris Rock/Apollo sketch) and there was a bit of a slow start with the first two post-monologue sketches (Pat and Delta Delta Delta), this overall episode had a low-key, quietly solid feel to it. Sketches like Lenin’s Body, Insults, and Minutes Behind weren’t big flashy pieces that would frequently be included in highlight reels, but they were the type of sketch that I personally love and they helped make this a solid episode. Another interesting factor tonight is what I dubbed earlier the “Attack of SNL’s New Girls” theme, where Melanie Hutsell, Beth Cahill, and Siobhan Fallon each had a rare dominant presence throughout the show. And finally, I was impressed by Rob Morrow, who was very natural as a host, came off likable, and blended nicely into the show.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Steve Martin)
a fairly big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Chevy Chase
Morrow is an interesting host–he does almost no sketches referencing what he was known for, he’s generally playing what I’ll call an “askew straight man” (not a broad comic role but not just a straight man), and to be honest, if you didn’t know he was the host or whom he was, you might just think he was a cast member.
If the cast members in Delta Delta Delta had more range (or in some cases, better writing), I might have liked the sketch more as just a silly broad character appearance, but to me, we’re getting harbingers of an era of broad catch phrases and yelling.
You’re right about Morrow. Given the large cast size in this era you’d think they would have jumped at the chance of spoofing a popular show like Northern Exposure (Rob Schneider as Ed, Beth Cahill as Shelley, Julia Sweeney as Maggie, etc.). Maybe the writing room weren’t fans of the show. At least they gave him some good stuff to work with.
I think the best-written Delta Delta Delta sketch is when Mary Stuart Masterson hosted, as it’s a glimpse of the “real world” the girls don’t want to live in, and Masterson gives the role a great deal of unexpected poignancy (the bit where the girls don’t do the song with her anymore after they’ve overheard her talking to her boss in her adult voice gets to me a bit). Otherwise, it is, yes, broad catchphrases and yelling. There are a few recurring sketches of that kind which I still somehow enjoy and this tends to be one of them (it helps that there weren’t that many – I didn’t even realize until now that they only started midway through the season).
Dave Holmes probably sums it up best.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a33174/the-best-things-that-snl-40-forgot/
“We know about the great years for women: the years when Tina Fey was head writer, the years when Shannon/Gasteyer/Oteri dominated, right now when the female cast members are carrying whole episodes on their back. More interesting to me are the women who had to slug it out when the show was a boys’ club. I speak primarily of Melanie Hutsell, Beth Cahill, and Siobhan Fallon, who are genius performers (Siobhan’s showed her talent in movies and television in the years since; Melanie and Beth are improvisers who I have seen absolutely slaughter) who were stuck in the fraternity skit night that was early-’90s SNL. If you were annoyed by the Delta Delta Delta sketches, it was a reflection of your annoyance with humanity; these were beautifully-realized performances, and more than 20 years later, young women still talk like this. Watch an episode of Vanderpump Rules if you don’t believe me. You will collapse under the weight of all the theenk yows and bost fronds.”
Interesting how you discuss the women of that era but leave out Ellen Cleghorne as being underrated. Wonder why you forgot to include her
But was Ellen underrated? I don’t think she was bad, but I don’t think she was a stand-out cast member either. She had two recurring characters, who were basically phased out well before her tenure ended. Obviously, she was on the show at a time when women were not given the writing and opportunities that they deserved, but I do not know what else we would have needed to see to give her a more accurate rating.
Interesting that MADTV, decades later, would also do a recurring sorority skit called Kappa Kappa Kappa.
Charlie Musselwhite hanging out with the band tonight.
I think Rob Morrow was only 17 at the time he would have been an extra, so at first I wondered if they were joking about his appearance, but he mentioned it again in an interview about 15 years ago.
The bit about Prince being the “old man” who isn’t done yet – It’s difficult to explain, and would be easy to over-explain, but back then, artists often had a shorter shelf life than they do in more recent years. Prince blazed an incredible trail through the ’80s, but by the end of the decade, many had already written him off.
I watched this episode live and have always liked the time machine and Apollo bits (one of my defining memories of Fallon.) Glad you did.
I always liked Rob and was happy with how he fit in.
The cold open is one of those weird, random topical so rare now. One of the last may have been this:
I can’t find it online, but there’s was even a fairly extensive Entertainment Weekly article around this time on how Prince’s career had stalled, and it pointed to the then-recent Graffiti Bridge project as proof that he was finished. I think Dennis even did a brief, random WU but about the film at one point (“Hear the album- where’s the movie?”).
I also remember being really surprised when he had a big hit around ‘94 with “The Most Beautiful Girl In the World.”
I believe that this was the week that Weird Al secured Nirvana’s permission to do “Smells Like Nirvana.” He’d been having issues going through their management company, and once he found out that they’d be the musical guest this week, he decided to call his “UHF” co-star Victoria Jackson to see if she’d be willing to get them on the phone. Kurt immediately agreed, then paused, and said “It’s not going to be about food, is it?”
Spade appears in one of the Brady Bunch films playing a character very similar to the one in the Salon commercial. Kind of ironic seeing as how this episode had an Update commentary by one of the Brady kids.
According to Dana on the Fly on the Wall podcast Jack Handey wrote the Movie Talk sketch
The Nirvana appearance was huge at the time. Next Monday in the tenth grade (in Brooklyn,) it’s all we could talk about.
In NYC, “Showtime at the Apollo” used to air right after SNL, and indeed, it seemed like every week there was a 400lb woman in the front row!