Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE BLIZZARD OF ’96
Rudolph Giuliani & George Pataki [real] make apologies for tonight’s SNL
— For some reason, I like how they’re making such a big deal of that week’s huge blizzard.
— Some pretty good laughs from Giuliani and Pataki blaming the cast’s hard work in clearing the snow on why tonight’s show might be lackluster.
— Right from this very first SNL appearance of his, Giuliani is coming off as a total natural; a good sign of things to come for his future SNL appearances. But, boy, Pataki, on the other hand, has awkward and stilted delivery here. He and Giuliani have fun chemistry, though.
— I like the New York City/State debate between Giuliani and Pataki.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
snowdiggers NAW, MOS, CHO join host as he dances & sings about snow
— Is Christopher’s hair redder than usual?
— I love Christopher mentioning his family complaining about the gruesome things he does as a movie villain.
— Christopher’s musical monologues are always very entertaining, and this Christmas medley is particularly fun, charming, and infectious.
— Cheri is coming off particularly adorable during her brief appearances throughout this.
STARS: ****
FRONT PORCH
Rita Delvecchio tries to get neighbor (host) to clear her walk
— Rita Delvecchio officially becomes a recurring character.
— At the very beginning of this sketch, are we supposed to see Christopher just stiffly standing awkwardly next to Rita Delvecchio’s house as the camera slowly zooms in on Rita?
— I always love Rita’s conversations with her off-camera friends.
— Christopher’s Italian wiseguy voice is freakin’ hilarious.
— I love Christopher’s odd threats to the snowball-throwing kids, especially “See how funny it is… when I bury your FACE… in the yellow SNOW.”
STARS: ***
THE CONTINENTAL
The Continental once again tries to charm a female visitor
— Of all the Continental sketches I haven’t reviewed yet, this is the only one I’m not all that familiar with, so I’m really looking forward to this one.
— A bit of a sad realization that this is the last time the trademark Continental stock voice-over intro from Phil Hartman will be used during Phil’s lifetime. All of the subsequent Continental sketches that use Phil’s voice-over are after his death.
— As always, it’s a riot whenever The Continental frantically jumps in front of the door when the woman tries to make a mad dash out of the apartment.
— Christopher’s “mmm mmm” sounds when enjoying the taste of caviar is a hilarious little Walken-esque touch.
— I love that The Continental is continuing to eat caviar while a piece of caviar is smooshed to his forehead.
— A huge laugh from The Continental saying “I have fallen for you and I can’t get up!” in a high-pitched voice when expressing how his heart feels.
— Hilarious reveal of The Continental having his head under the woman’s dress when we were led to believe he was tending to the fireplace.
— The visual of an unkempt-haired Christopher Walken with his head thrown back as the woman grabs him by the throat is the one part of this sketch that I’ve always remembered from past viewings. It’s a priceless visual (the last above screencap for this sketch).
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “One Of Us”
WEEKEND UPDATE
JMB personifies relationship between the stomach & alcoholic beverages
Jesse Jackson (DAH) explains relationship between civil rights & laughter
— Yeesh, what happened to Norm’s voice? He sounds hoarse as hell. Flu from that week’s blizzard, I take it?
— Feels like the first big thing we’ve seen Jim Breuer do in quite a while. I thought the debut of the Joe Pesci Show sketch a few episodes ago would turn things around for him, but he’s STILL been struggling badly for airtime since then.
— Pretty fun bit with Jim doing various voices for the alcohol having a party in your stomach. I especially like the Scottish and Mexican voices Jim’s doing.
— Haha, some of Norm’s jokes are getting the audience really riled up.
— The debut of Darrell’s Jesse Jackson impression.
— So… yeah… blackface. But I can ignore that aspect of Darrell’s Jesse Jackson impression, as his impression is fantastic and he is killing with both me and the audience, especially when his speech randomly turns into a powerful sermon about The Flintstones.
— Between his Weekend Update commentaries as Phil Donahue, Bill Clinton, and Jesse Jackson, Darrell has been Update gold so far this season.
STARS: ****
CONNIE STINSON TALKS
Connie Stinson (host) puts words in guests’ mouths to provoke
— Christopher expressing his guests’ thoughts is hilarious. I also like the guests’ puzzled reactions to that.
— I love Christopher’s various statements using the insult “fat hog” towards the fat female guests.
— This is such a perfect sketch for Christopher. I can’t picture anybody else selling this material.
— This is such a dead-on parody of this type of trashy daytime talk show from this era.
— The cue cards make an accidental cameo in the background just now (screencap below).
— The “sit on my face” bit is hilarious.
STARS: ****
GUIDANCE COUNSELOR
Mary Katherine Gallagher dreams of dancing with guidance counselor (host)
— Was Christopher late arriving for this sketch? Not only does this sketch open with an abnormally long exterior shot of a school, but then when the camera does finally cut to Christopher, it looks like he’s still finishing putting on his outfit and is trying to get into character. It’s a pretty funny sight.
— A big unintentional laugh from Christopher opening the folder in his hand to make it look like he’s going through it, only to quickly put the folder aside when realizing there’s nothing in it. Haha, you can tell that wasn’t intentional. I guess this sketch was so ill-prepared, the prop people forgot to put paper in the folder.
— Very interesting turn with a black-and-white musical fantasy involving Mary Katherine Gallagher and Christopher dancing around the SNL studio. This is fun, and I especially love when they go to SNL’s home base stage.
— It feels weird hearing the audience still have a fairly muted reaction towards Mary Katherine Gallagher. This is her third appearance, yet the audience STILL doesn’t seem to be 100% on her side yet. By contrast, The Cheerleaders have only appeared twice by this point, and the audience already seems to absolutely love them. I wonder which installment it is where Mary Katherine Gallagher starts becoming a popular crowd-pleaser.
STARS: ***½
SPADE IN AMERICA
without realizing he’s on-air, DAS reports from outside
— A big change of pace, with Christopher sitting in for Spade while Spade does a live remote from outside.
— I like how when the camera first cuts to Spade, he’s quietly singing the same One Of Us song that we just heard being performed earlier tonight by Joan Osborne.
— Spade, regarding having to stand out there in the cold: “Can’t one of the new guys do this? Get that guy that does the cheerleader.”
— I like Spade telling a passerby that Christopher Walken is even weirder in real life than he is in movies.
— Now Spade is quietly singing another popular song from this time period: Big Poppa. It’s particularly funny hearing him sing this.
— Spade: “Are they still on Update? Good god, it’s 12:40! How many anal rape jokes can Norm do this week?”
— Yet another funny line from Spade, where he says Christopher is probably in his dressing room “going over his lines” (*mimes drinking*).
STARS: ****
EXECUTION
executioner Gerald Tibbins (DAK) jokes around with condemned man (host)
— Yes! We get the debut of Koechner’s T-Bones character, which has always been one of my (many) favorite things Koechner did on SNL during his short-lived tenure.
— I’m glad to see that Koechner is just as hilarious as this character as I remembered. So many funny goofy bits from T-Bones throughout this sketch.
— I like Christopher’s “Could… could you not speak to me?” response to T-Bones.
— Very funny prank with T-Bones faking a call as a governor giving Christopher a reprieve.
STARS: ****½
BAND SHOT
— We return from commercial just to get a shot of the SNL Band immediately playing the show back to commercial. Whenever that happens at the end of an SNL episode, it’s obvious that the show has run long and had to cut some scheduled segments at the last minute. One of the scheduled segments cut at the last minute tonight was Joan Osborne’s second musical performance (of which the dress rehearsal version would be aired a few weeks later in a “Best of the New Season” compilation special). I also wonder if tonight’s show running long and having to cut some scheduled segments accounts for why we don’t see Mark McKinney AT ALL tonight.
GOODNIGHTS
(Not included in the copy I’m reviewing of the live broadcast of this episode. My copy just abruptly ends with an abnormally long shot of a Christopher Walken SNL bumper picture that followed the preceding SNL Band shot. I guess tonight’s episode ran so long that some NBC affiliates didn’t have time to air the goodnights.)
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A solid episode, as Christopher Walken-hosted episodes usually are, even if this one isn’t among my favorites that he’s hosted. However, something strangely felt a little empty about this episode, maybe due to both the lack of goodnights in my copy and the scarce number of appearances from most of the cast throughout the show (even the usually-prolific Will Ferrell only made one appearance, and as mentioned earlier, Mark McKinney was completely absent). The scarce number of cast appearances is presumably due to the fact that 1) some of the sketches were very long, especially The Continental (as always) and Connie Stinson Talks, and 2) most sketches involved little-to-no cast members. In fact, believe it or not, Connie Stinson Talks was the ONLY sketch all night that involved more than two cast members (not counting the monologue or Weekend Update, as they’re technically not sketches). This is all a minor quibble, though, because I still enjoyed the entire show. Every single segment worked for me, a few of which were particularly strong.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Madeline Kahn)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Alec Baldwin