December 3, 1994 – Roseanne / Green Day (S20 E7)

31 Replies to “December 3, 1994 – Roseanne / Green Day (S20 E7)”

1. I usually don’t mind when SNL makes fun of stuff but something about the Civil War sketch rubbed me the wrong way. The whole mocking tone of it, characters they used, and the listing of the job titles underneath them felt kinda “Harvard writer” elitist-y to me for some reason.

   Aside from that and the Tom Arnold sketch, the rest of this episode is pretty averagely okay for S20 standards. I’m glad the women got a lot more to do this time, especially Laura.

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   1. I don’t mind that sketch as much on rewatch, but that means I went from hate to dislike. The whole thing is just lazy and sneering, and not even the last time this season, if memory serves, we’ll be getting that kind of belittling of people if they didn’t go to college. What makes it even more offputting is it’s just an excuse for more “greatest hits” – Farley’s screaming and mugging, Adam Sandler being cutesy-poo, Jay Mohr trying and failing to find a character, Mike Myers Honorary Asian Tour 1994. The only one who manages to find a few laughs is Ellen Cleghorne. It also annoys me that so much time and effort was spent on those beautiful etchings which were much better than this sketch deserved.

2. A few awful details you left out of the Rescue 911 sketch:

   (in fairness, the sketch was topical at the time, because Philadelphia’s 911 bank was in trouble for rude treatment of desperate people)

   Michael McKean was hosting the segment as Patrick Stewart… because the real Rescue 911 series was hosted by William Shatner and… it’s similar, so ha-ha. He kept throwing to the actor segments with lines like “Make it so” and “Engage” because… that’s what Patrick Stewart says on another show, ha-ha.

   At the end of the sketch, Tim Meadows enters as Geordi LaForge and says “Goodbye.” Because… well, that’s the established logic of this sketch: Star Trek references are funny all by themselves. For SNL, it was a rather stunning lapse in jokecraft.

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   1. The idea of Patrick Stewart filling in for William Shatner could have been a cute, brief gag. Stretched out over an entire sketch, with multiple gags, and, frankly, an impression which isn’t all that good – not the best idea. The whole sketch is just miserable and not particularly funny, although with a judicious trim it could have worked.

      I never even considered this as having the same character as the Mastercard piece, but this really sums up the marked decline in Roseanne’s acting between 1990 and 1994 (not just on here – she also became shockingly bad on her sitcom).

3. This is one where I completely blame the host. I was never a fan of Roseanne but she has been good on SNL in the past. She was downright annoying here, but the show was decent around her. I loved Norm’s sketch, Chris’s Funny Strange/Funny Ha Ha was off-the-wall and Update was really good. If you cut out everything with Roseanne, you got a decent episode.

   I also felt really bad for Laura in this one. This is the biggest showcase of her SNL tenure and she seems a little lost. I think with another draft of Lock Up With Bonnie Blake you could have had the makings of a decent recurring character. Hell, Good Morning Brooklyn got a second appearance why not this? It almost seems like they left her out to dry on this one.

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   1. It’s sort of chicken and the egg because I wonder if the therapy sketch (one of my favorites of the season) would have gotten on without her, given her history with Norm. Given her ties to Laura, she is also likely a big reason why we get two of the only female-centric sketches of the season, even if those sketches (especially the yogurt sketch) aren’t the best.

      I do feel like Laura does well in the prison sketch, but I agree with you that more could have been done. From the backstage stories we’ve heard about her time there, like her issues with Norm and the whole ugly incident where she was humiliated by various male cast members for suggesting a change in a sketch, I can’t imagine what that year was like for her.

      As for Roseanne, I was a big fan of her sitcom in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I even rented She-Devil. She became so bitter and so coarse by this time – I had quit watching her sitcom by this point and blocked out most of this episode to the point where it was actually only earlier this year that I remembered I’d watched a few of the sketches before. When she has a few character pieces here, she’s fine, but as herself, especially in the monologue, I just wince. It is just pure rage, and at several points threatens to veer wildly off the rails. It’s sad to think about her decline because I truly believe she was a wonderful comic performer who did a lot to change television comedy for the better.

4. Roseanne’s SNL hosting stints were the impetus for her to create Fox’s Saturday Night Special. SNS featured Laura Kightlinger in its cast and aired as a six-episode trial balloon in MADtv’s timeslot from April-May 1996:
   https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-01-ca-53495-story.html

   Crucially, SNS competed directly against SNL, which Roseanne bragged would “finish” SNL in the ratings. It’s the standard mission statement for SNL competitors – SNL is old, its sketches never end, we have the better format/cast mix to kill this mastodon, etc. It’s especially hollow coming from someone who, a TV season earlier, used the mastodon to broadcast her grievances with the media. Given that, I’m not surprised Roseanne never hosted SNL after this episode.

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   1. I remember trying this at the time, as I felt SNL could use a competitor, but I don’t think I even lasted for part of an episode. Someone once told me there were ads where the cast members were all holding guns – not sure if that’s true. I see in the article that Eric Idle made an appearance – I guess his ties to SNL and Lorne were long gone by this point.

      It’s interesting to look back at media coverage of this period that dismisses SNL as bland and middle-aged. Today you would think the show was in a renaissance period again in the collective eye, due to popular cast members like Molly Shannon and Will Ferrell. I suppose that started ramping up more by 96-97.

      https://ew.com/article/1996/04/26/roseanne-and-dana-carveys-new-shows/

      All I could find of the show online is clips related to an appearance by Ice-T and Tupac.

   2. Oh goodness, I completely forgot/blocked from my memory all details of Roseanne’s short lived sketch show. I remember watching about 10 minutes of it just for curiosity sake

   3. Guess who also made an appearance?

5. This episode is a mixed bag, but the good parts of the bag are pretty worthwhile.

   I’d say Jesse Helms may be Mike’s best moment of this season (hell maybe of 93-94 as well) – a funny and not too overlong poke at the frothing at the mouth Clinton hatred of this time period.

   Funny Strange is a nice Elliott showcase, although I agree the ending wasn’t needed (and while Kevin is fine, that type of twin maniacal laughing is something which would have worked better if Phil was still in this type of role). For decades I’ve been saying “funny strange or funny haha” and I had no idea until seeing this sketch earlier this year that I had watched this sketch 20+ years ago and that’s where I’d gotten it from.

   These last two episodes are some of my favorite of Norm’s Update, as some of his jokes are just perfectly written and delivered. I should not have laughed as hard at the joke about Paula Jones and the reaction from New Yorkers, but as with the Ricki Lake joke the week before, I couldn’t help it. Adam’s song is sweet, and Naomi Green is one of Janeane’s better showcases of this season, right for her sense of humor and interacted with in a fun way by Norm.

   The therapist and US Air sketches are both great – the therapist being another example of something only Norm could have pulled off. The yogurt sketch is one that just feels a bit too empty, but I always find little moments to enjoy on a rewatch, thanks in part to McKean and also the obliviousness of these women being willing to intake toxic chemicals for fantasy promises.

   The Madonna sketch is just awful, in spite of Janeane’s best efforts. The only positive I can say is that it shows what a pro Tim Meadows was – here they combine the lazy gay trope with the other familiar Tim Meadows trope of oiling him up and having him wander around half-naked, and he just goes along with it, not seeming remotely uncomfortable.

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6. Can’t wait for the Japanese game show in the next episode. We also get what (thankfully) ends up being Canteen Boy’s final appearance.

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7. This show’s not as bad as everyone says, it’s just a little mean spirited. Rosie was kinda of angry at that point in time and it shows, it’s still better than the SJP show and some of the other down shows. Her monologue’s pretty good, it shows how fed up she was with Hollywood’s BS. She told a lot of truth there about people being phony which turned out to be true. I always get a chuckle about the congress line considering how she’s changed politically over time.

   The US Air skit reminds me of that airline commercial from 1981 but it’s more negative but just as funny. The Madonna/Tom Arnold skit was what it was, they were trying to mock how sensationalized their story was, but it comes off as kinda stupid but still watchable. JG’s decent as Madonna and that bit with Meadows makes me laugh but it goes downhill when Rosie shows up, they coulda wrote it better.

   Rescue 911 skit was hilarious it’s shame you didn’t get it, I guess sarcasm isn’t your bag. Rosie’s sarcasm was hilarious in this, that’s really the point of it. I always got that it was the same character from the 1991 show. McKean’s Stewart impression always makes me lmao.

   Norm’s update here is one of his best, reminds me of Miller that it didn’t take neither one very long to get going and touch the audience.

   Really love the skit with Norm/Rosie.. they musta wrote it together which was awesome of her to do. She not only allowed the women to do more on this show but she did something with Norm which was awesome. I love the Civil War skit.. it needed a few fixings but on the whole it’s nowhere as bad.

   The show kinda dips this next little bit, especially the Foreman show.. ugh I’m dreading that one.

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   1. “Rescue 911 skit was hilarious it’s shame you didn’t get it, I guess sarcasm isn’t your bag.”

      Fucking really?

      If you want to defend that sketch, that’s fine, but don’t try to pretend it’s some cerebral bit that I didn’t “get”. I’m sorry for having to respond to your post this way, but I really don’t like how patronizing you came off.

8. Ellen Cleghorne resurfaced as a writer and performer on Roseanne’s short-lived talk show. She also had Nora Dunn on to reprise Pat Stevens, and for years I thought Pat Stevens was a real person.

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   1. I also thought Pat Stevens was a real person, like some New York talk show host.

   2. I haven’t gotten around to watching them but it seems a number of her Roseanne talk appearances are on Youtube. One where she is the “macaroni lady” she is styled like the woman she played in the short film she made for the Carl Weathers episode.

9. Stuff like Multiple Personalities and this episode’s Update are why I contend that season 20’s high points are better than Season 29 & 30’s.

   Also, Ellen Cleghorne’s IMDb photo is her in Lock Up with Bobby Blake

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10. I swear I remember seeing at this time that Roseanne was recovering from plastic surgery around the time she hosted here so that could at least partly explain her depressed, annoyed, non caring attitude that night

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    1. I thought Roseanne had her facelift in Summer 1992.

11. I didn’t see this mentioned, but I’m 60 percent sure Roseanne’s anti-critics diatribe is directed at Matt Roush, with whom she had a pretty public feud,

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12. I actually thought this was the best episode of 94-95, tied with the Dana Carvey episode, but that show was strong obviously because it was rolling out Dana’s great characters. The Lock Up sketch was one of my favorite sketches of the year. I haven’t seen it in years, but I remember Ellen kept having a line “I play for keeps!” that I thought was hilarious. The yogurt sketch was offbeat in a good way, and the Madonna sketch was probably the only sketch that I liked that centered around Janeane. And then of course there’s the debut of Adam’s classic Hanukkah song.

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13. For some reason CC cut out Janeane’s commentary as Naomi Green. They also faded early after Adam’s song, so we don’t hear Norm’s complete reaction.

    Not sure why they decided to leave in the Civil War and Yogurt sketches, but cut out “Funny Strange” and “Lock Up With Bobbi Blake. Much stronger sketches.

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14. I remember watching this live, and realizing two things during the Tom Arnold sketch: The first was that Garafalo had totally checked out, and the second was that SNL was no longer appointment television for me.

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15. There was actually TWO made-for-TV movies on Roseanne and Tom Arnold, one on Fox (starring SNL alum Denny Dillon as Roseanne), and the other on NBC (starrring Patrika Darbo as Roseanne). Both came out in 1994 after the Arnolds’ marriage bit the dust. Fox’s take aired almost two months before the network’s Madonna movie.

    I wonder that Madonna/Tom Arnold movie sketch was also a callback to the Sally sketch from Roseanne’s first SNL episode where she and Tom complained about a TV movie documenting their lives, with scenes of Victoria Jackson and Chris Farley portraying them in an unflattering manner.

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16. Here’s the version of the Norm sketch from his album Ridiculous, with Molly Shannon in the patient role:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iLnO2YCyDuk

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17. Given how well Mike did with his Jesse Helms impression (and a few other southern characters earlier), I’m surprised he never got a shot at doing a Clinton impersonation. He clearly had the best range of any of the cast members at this time, and all you have to do for a passable Clinton impression is a southern accent with a frog in your throat (the guy always sounds like he’s got a bunch of phlegm he’s about to cough up).

    Maybe Mike didn’t want the workload at this point in his career? But if so couldn’t he have done like Carvey in 92/93 and taken a nap in the green room between the political cold open and the goodnights? Or maybe he was a liberal and didn’t want to make fun of Clinton for political reasons? Hard to say but seems like a huge oversight for them go with McKean’s bad impression when you had a guy with the range of Myers in your cast. Certainly would have been a better use of his talents than the majority of his other roles this season were.

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18. I’m never sure if Mike bailed midseason or if they knew he was going to leave…there never seemed to be any bad blood so I assume they knew – it would make sense as he took the first half of season 18 off for his film so this was probably making up that time in his contract. If both sides knew his time was winding down, having him play Clinton wouldn’t have worked in the long-term.

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19. The Rescue 911 sketch was, indeed, bad. The writers seem to have forgotten that the humor from Roseanne’s earlier Metro Card sketch came primarily from the juxtaposition between the customer’s euphemized recollections of their conversation, and her blunt descriptions. Without that, it’s just an operator being rude.

    Aside from that, just about everything in this episode worked at least competently for me. Roseanne ripped some Hollywood jerkfaces to shreds in her monologue. I thought the drawn-out Johnny B Goode in the Madonna/Tom Arnold sketch was pretty funny, as well as Farley’s interaction with the skeptical record execs. I thought Civil War Memories was all in good fun and not as mean spirited as I think some others did. If anything I thought the salt of the earth interviewees were kind of charming, despite their ignorance of history (well except for Myers’ one for obvious reasons). I liked Laura’s characterization of the nervous talk show host. And I thought Garofalo and MacDonald were both good sports during their point/counterpoint-ish Update repartee.

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20. The Rescue 911 sketch was based on an actual event that had taken place in Philadelphia a few weeks earlier. In short, a teenager named Eddie Polec was beaten and left to die on the steps of a church by a gang of kids from a rival high school seeking revenge from an incident a week earlier when a girl from the rival school had a drink thrown at her in a McDonald’s parking lot. Polec himself was just walking his brother home and had no involvement whatsoever with the incident, but happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (his brother escaped unharmed).

    When neighbors first heard the commotion (the kids had been driving recklessly around the neighborhood looking to pick fights for a while before zeroing in on Polec), a number of 911 calls were placed and continued throughout. Overwhelmed by the volume of calls, the 911 operators grew increasingly rude and sarcastic to the callers. It was found that police were not dispatched until about 40 minutes after the first calls were made, and likely could have saved Polec’s life had they been dispatched right away. It garnered national headlines and the city’s emergency alert system was overhauled almost immediately.

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21. This episode was an improvement of the first two episodes in the season and obviously better than the SJP one. I was never a Rosanne fan, how her tv show was #1 in America always baffled me, but maybe I just found the show depressing and dreary. I didn’t mind her hosting gigs on SNL the first and second time, but for me the Metrocard is what stands out and remember the most in her previous hosting gigs.

    I thought myers did a good job w the cold opening but already forgot it. Rosannes monologue was way too screechy and winey for me. Tuned that out.

    Standouts for me were the USair sketch, thought that was done well. But also feel like Rosanne seems to use that previous metrocard attitude in this sketch and the Rescue 911 sketch which Scrooge referenced, but either way, I feel like her character is pretty much the same tone in both those sketches of “I don’t care bitchy attitude.” Obviously it’s not done like the OG metrocard sketch where that was the point. I still didn’t mind it, though I also felt like the rescue 911 seemed like recycled material of other stuff done, like spade in the ambulance the previous season. Still it held my attention more than the clusterf#ck of a sketch of Madonna & Tom Arnold. Completely felt like it was garbage thrown together in 5 minutes.

    Weekend update was the best one Norm did this season, but also think that JG role and Adams infamous Chanukah song make it that much more worthy. Also enjoyed Norms repertoire w JG during her role as defending serial killers. Kinda reminded me of Seth Myers & Amy Pohlers “REALLY?!” Bit.

    Civil war memories was really boring and forgettable.

    The frozen yogurt sketch was my favorite one of the night. I thought it was nice to see the three ladies in the sketch, though I didn’t think Mckean as the fro yo manager was a fitting role. Seemed like Myers would have better doing whatever it was Mckean was trying to impersonate. I thought the premise was funny and kinda accurate on how so many ladies can be w calories and whatnot and thought the ending was funny when LK and EC just get a diet soda and Rosanne just gets a thimble size portion of the fro yo. And each of them begging for a taste from her baby spoon.

    One thing I noticed while watching is that throughout the whole episode it seems like Rosannes makeup which is way too much to begin with as seen in the monologue, stays the same in every sketch. Kinda strange that it’s not changed in any sketch, at least that’s what it appears to me. Her hair is the only thing that is somewhat changed In a sketch or two, but it’s like she told the staff she wouldn’t want her makeup changed at all which makes little sense if she’s gonna be diff characters…so in every sketch she just looks like same, minus the diff outfits.

    It was nice to finally see Norm after only 7 episodes, finally do a sketch, which I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, he had done really well the previous season before WU. So I maybe also resent him as an anchor for not appearing in hardly any sketches, as that’s how he started off. I don’t think it’s too much to have Norm doing more than a couple sketches & do weekend update. But that’s just my take. I thought the premise of multiple personalities had promise but to me it felt too short, and also I feel like it would have been a better sketch to watch with someone else, (SJP would have been interesting in that role), but didn’t really care for Rosanne, also, seems like she’s barely trying.

    Funny Strange wasn’t awful but I’m not a CE fan, also felt like having a diff cast member instead of using the identical CE at the end would have made more sense. Highlight for me there was Farley & him debating on what fake vomit was…funny haha or funny strange.

    Lockup with Bobby Blake was another decent sketch of the evening. Watching it made me think at times I was looking at Gena Davis as LK seems to have some resemblance to her. Thought this lacked something, but it wasn’t a bomb. Enjoyed the ending w Rosanne and EC was funny.

    All and all not the worst, seemed like one of the worser episodes of season 19.

    Also not a GD fan but it was cool to see them play at their height of their career, would have liked to hear another hit, but did like Rosanne wearing a Green Day Tee before introducing them.

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