Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Wayne’s World- Wayne & Garth give their thoughts on some 1993 movies
— With an upcoming release of the movie Wayne’s World 2, we get a special return of both a Wayne’s World sketch and Dana Carvey, the latter making his first SNL appearance since leaving the cast halfway through the preceding season.
— Very funny line from Garth about going as Barney the Dinosaur for Halloween and getting his ass kicked.
— Surprised they’re not doing a Top 10 list.
— Okay, the Leprechaun/flashlight bit was funny at first, but is going on WAY too long.
— According to GettyImages, the dress rehearsal version of this sketch had Wayne and Garth holding up a chart that recaps their thoughts on the movies they’ve reviewed (pic here). We never see that chart in the live version. Also, judging from the chart in the pic, some of the movies discussed in the dress version of this sketch weren’t discussed in the live version, such as Demolition Man.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
host engages in Risky Business to make up for Tom Cruise not being there
— (*groan*) This season’s increasingly overused questions-from-the-audience monologue trope appears for the second episode in a row.
— Norm doing a very Norm Macdonald-esque long pause in the middle of his question was hilarious. He’s always a bright spot in this season’s questions-from-the-audience monologues.
— Yeah, tonight’s monologue seems to be the point where I’ve officially reached my breaking point with the overreliance on questions from the audience, as I’m not finding myself enjoying this one anywhere near as much I did the Jeff Goldblum and (especially) Rosie O’Donnell ones from earlier this season.
— Chris’ fearful “What’s happening, Lorne?” was funny.
— The turn with Nicole doing the famous Risky Business dance is both fun and nice eye candy.
STARS: **½
THE DENISE SHOW
Denise’s best friend (host) is interested in Brian
— Another display of this season’s bad habit of frequently bringing back sketches that were fine as a one-off but don’t deserve to be recurring.
— Shannen Doherty still being shown as Denise in a picture on Adam’s table seems kinda silly. I can just imagine viewers who didn’t see the Shannen Doherty-hosted episode earlier this season but caught this episode would be confused when seeing the Denise photo. I’m sure they were confusedly asking themselves “What the hell? Is that Shannen Doherty in the picture with Sandler? Why???”
— I like the “Brian’s Fantasy” segment, especially when he yells “Stand over there, Denise!” in the middle of his acted-out argument with Denise’s new boyfriend. I also like how that acted-out argument suddenly gets interrupted by Denise’s new boyfriend (voiced by Mike Myers) confronting Adam via phone.
— A good laugh after the romantic kiss Nicole gives Adam, where Adam’s only response is an announcement that “The Denise Show has been officially canceled.”
— So, with tonight’s not-great-but-still-good Denise Show installment concluding with the aforementioned “The Denise Show has been officially canceled” announcement, that seems like a perfect way to officially put closure to this recurring sketch for good, right? So then why the hell do we end up getting an even more unnecessary THIRD installment of this sketch later this season?!?
STARS: ***
BAND SHOT
Wednesday (Christina Ricci) & Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) Addams & SNL Band
PLAYGROUND
hyperactive Phillip (MIM) talks with another kid (host) at the jungle gym
— The debut of the short-lived-but-memorable character Phillip the Hyper Hypo.
— I’m liking the idea of this character for Mike.
— Funny story from Phillip about his family feeding him a Snickers bar and a can of coke so he can tow the family’s broken-down car home.
— For some reason, I absolutely loved Nicole’s whole “I’m gonna talk like a robot” random bit.
— Solid characterizations from both Mike and Nicole, and I’m enjoying the way they’re playing off of each other.
— Fun pre-taped ending with Mike running through the city with a jungle gym attached to him.
— Too bad this sketch later ends up being yet ANOTHER victim of season 19’s aforementioned bad habit of frequently making recurring sketches out of stuff that was better left as a one-off. The second installment of this sketch even reuses the exact same pre-taped ending from this first installment!
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Creep”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Ike Turner (TIM) continues his love-hate relationship with KEN
Bruce Springsteen (ADS) sings about how much he loves to eat turkey
— At least Kevin sounds a little better than how hoarse he sounded in the preceding episode.
— Not too crazy about a lot of Kevin’s jokes so far tonight.
— As usual, I love the way Tim and Kevin play off of each other in these Ike Turner commentaries. I also love how Tim’s Ike always refers to Kevin by his full name.
— Good fake-out with the Ike Turner commentary abruptly “ending” and Kevin moving on to the next joke, only for Ike to suddenly interrupt him mid-joke by giving him flowers and a fur coat as an apology.
— Hmm, Kevin’s Update jokes are suddenly getting better and better.
— Interesting how Adam’s doing a Springsteen-ized variation of his famous Turkey Song from a year earlier.
— Hmm, this Springsteen song isn’t turning out anywhere near as funny as the original Turkey Song, and feels unusually long, as if we’ve officially reached THAT point in Adam Sandler’s tenure where he gets too much free rein to do whatever the hell he wants. All that being said, I’m still enjoying this Springsteen song of his. It’s pretty fun, and some of Adam’s typical irrelevant lyrics are making me laugh, such as the lowbrow-but-amusing “I hear George Wendt’s underwear has a huge skidmark” one.
— As always, fun participation from Kevin during Adam’s song.
STARS: ***½
SPROCKETS / DAS IST JEOPÄRDY!
(CHF), (host), shemale Susan play Das Ist Jeopardy!
— Big night for Mike Myers so far, who has been starring as lots of his now-famous characters like Wayne, Phillip the Hyper Hypo, and now Dieter.
— Yet another example of a Sprockets sketch changing things up in its format.
— I love the slogan of the sponsor German Eggo Waffles: “You will leggo my eggo. Now.”
— As always for Sprockets, we’re getting some good bizarre, disturbing humor.
— The audio daily double of what’s seemingly a German father berating his child is hilarious, especially the way he says “I excreted yoooouuuu!”
— A good laugh from the reveal that the winner will receive a tongue bath courtesy of The House of Velvet.
STARS: ***½
TAKEN
at a bar, a married woman (MEH) thinks all the guys are hitting on her
— A rare Melanie Hutsell lead role this season. Up until this point, she had been pretty invisible so far this season.
— Some interesting trivia about this sketch: it was originally cut after the preceding season’s Christina Applegate/Midnight Oil dress rehearsal, in which Melanie’s “I’m taken” character was actually played by Applegate, and instead of being set at a bar, the sketch was set at an office, where the “I’m taken” character was a businesswoman.
— Man, is Melanie capable of getting through a single sketch without flubbing a line?
— Only a little over a minute into this sketch, and I’m already tired of it. Melanie saying “I’m taken” in every single situation is too thin and not particularly funny of a premise. I’m also not getting any laughs from that clapping-and-laughing thing her character keeps doing after some of her lines.
— Kinda odd how neither Jay Mohr nor Norm Macdonald received their featured player credit in tonight’s opening montage, despite the fact that they both have a speaking role in this sketch.
— Norm’s screaming reaction to getting pepper-sprayed in the eyes is cracking me up.
— I got a laugh from Melanie assuming that even Ellen is trying to hit on her.
STARS: **
UNITED WE STAND AMERICA
Ross Perot (DAC) claims that (TIM) is the first NAFTA unemployment victim
— I had forgotten until now that Dana is a special guest tonight. I’m glad to see the welcome return of his Ross Perot impression.
— A great “WTF?” facial reaction from Tim when Dana’s Perot says Tim’s the first American to lose his job because of NAFTA.
— Geez, what was with the ending? Dana-as-Perot’s over-the-top endless loop of “Can I finish? Catch my drift? You’re not listening!” was a bit much.
STARS: ***
YELLING IN THE KITCHEN
(host), (PHH), (JUS), (MIM) take turns arguing in the kitchen
— Julia’s usually-long hairstyles during her SNL tenure have suddenly gone through a huge change, as she’s now sporting a very short hairstyle, which she keeps for the remainder of her tenure.
— Mike’s big night continues. He’s been all over tonight’s episode.
— Huge laugh from the first off-camera kitchen argument. Good stunned facial reactions from both Julia and Mike, as well.
— Even after you see where this is going, the repeated gag of the kitchen arguments is still remaining funny. Phil’s intense yells are particularly cracking me up.
— Okay, maybe I spoke too soon, as I’ve now started to kinda tire of the joke towards the end of this sketch, but it’s being executed so well that I’m still kinda liking it.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Naked Sunday”
CRYSTAL GRAVY
Rerun from 10/2/93
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode, though not outstanding or anything. Still welcome for this season’s standards. The episode was fairly heavy on recurring or soon-to-be-recurring sketches, but a lot of the show’s quality was pretty good.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Rosie O’Donnell)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Charlton Heston
I believe Ike always referring to him as Kevin Nealon is a reference to the real deal always referring to Tina as “Anna Mae” (her actual name).
Ooh, boy, I can’t wait for the Charlton Heston one.
They really brought in the Addams Family kids just for that shot of them in the band?
Gotta further that business relationship with Paramount, I guess.
Remember – eventually, SNL will bring in the Baha Men JUST so they can sing ten seconds of “Who Let The Dogs Out” en route to a commercial.
No, the Addams kids were also in the Yelling In The Kitchen sketch. They’re seen on opposite sides of Phil in the last screencap for that sketch in my review. Plus, the kids already had a sorta-relationship with SNL, as they appeared on the show two years earlier in an M.C. Hammer-hosted episode when the first Addams Family movie came out.
Thanks for the clarification–I kinda wish they hosted, actually.
That Yelling in the Kitchen sketch reminds of a sketch with Dan Aykroyd and Laraine Newman from season 1 or 2. They were owners of a restaurant and kept going to the kitchen to argue which can be overheard by the dinner guests, I think Gilda and Elliott Gould.
Also, I feel like a sketch with similar premise aired a few years ago with Jonah Hill.
I kept trying to figure out which sketch this reminded me of. Thanks. The Laraine and Dan sketch used to be repeated on Nick at Nite’s SNL package. Here’s the Hill one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzaIlHybawg
In terms of use of host, I thought Nicole was given a somewhat generic role, but in terms of a sketch, I thought this one was pretty good. I liked how they steadily amped up the absurdity of the conflict, until the end she was inviting everyone into the kitchen to scream at them.
Funny to see SNL go from an episode that didn’t plug anything (due to an abrupt host change) to an episode that plugs three different films (albeit two of them without saying the names). Didn’t do much for any of those three, did it…
I was never that into Wayne’s World, but one thing I notice is how Dana can slip back into the Garth role pretty easily while Mike never entirely does. This one in particular has lots of Myers-esque segueway characters and bits. The My Life promotion was also clunky. Still, better than most Wayne’s World reprisals and that weird sketch with Wayne in Melrose Place (not ruined by Myers, but by how unfunny everything involving the Melrose Place segments was).
The Q&A monologue felt so half-hearted, Norm phoning it in just made the blatant pointlessness funny (almost). The throwback to when Nicole Kidman was just known as Tom Cruise’s wife reminded me just how long ago this was. That would probably start to change around To Die For. Kidman wasn’t exactly able to break out of a shell here, but she was a competent host who added some sweetness to balance out Myers in the hypo sketch.
Melanie Hutsell’s sketch reminds me a great deal of something Cheri Oteri would have done a few years later. So much so that I wondered if Melanie was just in the wrong time period and would have gotten lots of response in those seasons. One difference is Cheri was much more adept at bringing the manic energy to power thin premises like these.
A very good Sprockets. Presumably that weird error where we only saw the questions halfway wasn’t meant to happen, but it added to the atmosphere of the sketch. And I loved Julia Sweeney as the tortured old woman.
I thought Sandler was kind of entertaining as Springsteen. Not really that interested in another Ike Turner appearance, although I’m glad Tim and Kevin didn’t do what we’d get many other times where they awkwardly push their faces together as the audience gawks.
Watching these to see how many times they will drag a pop culture topic out is more interesting than the jokes themselves. Last season was Madonna’s sex book. This season it’s Lorena Bobbitt. In more recent years, those jokes would probably go for a week at most.
Dana was clearly having so much fun playing Perot again he just descended into full self-parody robot mode by the end. Normally I might be more critical, but I needed the distraction after the depressing reminder that people could once retire at 65…
Once the Ferrell/Shannon/Kattan cast started they started to rely less on pop culture stuff I think. I mean they had some OJ stuff but not much. They did ride the Lewinsky stuff into the ground a little but I guess that’s more political than pop culture.
But yeah almost none of that in the current show. Usually one and done for a big story
Sorry – I meant to add this to the end. My main memory of Nicole Kidman and SNL isn’t this episode, but the whole strange story of when she wanted to date Jimmy Fallon but he didn’t pick up on her signals.
Is Julia’s haircut the most drastic hairstyle change an SNL regular has gone through on the show?
Offseason, I thought Will Forte’s buzzcut was the most jarring. During the season, this would probably be it, or maybe Pete Davidson going back to his old hair (although that was more of a relief).
Enjoying these reviews. That’s the incredible Texas guitar wizard Junior Brown sitting in with G.E. Smith and the SNL Band, along with Wednesday and Puggsley.
Here’s a sample of why Junior was such a big deal back then…still is here in Tejas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3SIoK2YFLI
I remember not hating the Homegirls sketch when it originally aired, but it may have just been my crush on Sarah Silverman clouding my judgement.
Being 13 at the time, I can say that nobody who was part of the “in” crowd would be caught dead saying “Whoomp There it Is”
Oops, I’m sorry. Meant to post that comment under the Rosie O’Donnell episode
I love Myers’ hyper kid…but again, it was a skit that should not have been revisited.
Here’s my commentary and rating of the musical performances.
Creep
— I like that they used acoustic guitars exclusively on this song, even though the studio version used a combination of acoustic and electric. It bugs me when bands try to play primarily-acoustic songs with electric guitars live.
— REALLY liking some of the vocal embellishments Scott Weiland is adding to the second and third verses.
— Rock solid performance overall. Band and singer both sound very crisp. Know Weiland had some off and on drug issues but he’s very sharp in both of his performances on this evening.
STARS: ****
Naked Sunday
— Interesting choice, this is a pretty deep cut on the Core album.
— I like that they followed up an all-acoustic song with a totally electric song as their second number. Lots of bands would have done the slower number second.
— Another solid job by the entire band here. Nice use of the megaphone by Weiland. We don’t get the televangelist rant at the end of the song that you get in the studio version, YMMV on whether that’s good or bad.
STARS: ***1/2
According to the SNL Archives, the last name of Mike’s character in the Denise Show sketch is “Campbell”. Was that supposed to be a thinly-veiled Wayne’s World connection? Perhaps an additional (albeit subliminal) reminder that the sequel’s coming out?
As of now, this is the Vintage SNL for Saturday.
Pushed back a week, but this is now the Vintage SNl.
Is there a significance I’m missing or is it just the vintage because it’s a pretty solid episode with a couple big recurring sketches?
It’s probably down to Nicole getting attention for her “prestige TV” shows the last few years (parodied by Chloe Fineman in a recent episode).
Vintage SNL cut:
Springsteen from Update
Taken
United We Stand America
Nicole Kidman looks so different today.
I think they also cut Yelling In the Kitchen
I think this might be my favorite host monologue I’ve seen in a while! I know it’s vintage Nicole Kidman, and was really hoping Tom Cruise would make an appearance (its weird he’s never cameoed or hosted SNL once throughout his insane career esp since I’ve seem him on Fallon a fair amount…).
Anyways back to NK…I love her. I thought the performance of her dancing a la Cruise in the button shirt and socks as an ode to The infamous Risky Business scene to “Old Time Rock N Roll” was epic, and she did it perfectly! I think she’s a stunning and talented actress, I remember watching a rerun and seeing the sketch of her and myers playing on the swingsand finding that funny, especially when he says “you’re conceited.” But then it goes over the top w him eating chocolate causing him to lift the playground, stealing her spotlight. Ugh…
Anyways I think she was rad overall, this was way before eyes wide shut and to die for were released, so it’s interesting to see her as a fairly green movie star with so much more to come…
I also enjoyed creep by STP so I thought that rocked, it would have been cool if they did Sex Type Thing as the opener and ended w Creep but that’s just me..
Might need to rewatch as I don’t think I saw the yelling in kitchen, I have been watching these as I’m nursing my teacup poodle back to health after she fell off the bed and broke her tiny elbow & recovering from surgery…so they have provided comedy for us both, I find her reactions to certain noises that play on SNL to be quite amusing, 3 pounds of love, but larger than life personality!