Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
20/20
Christopher Darden (TIM) tells of affair with Marcia Clark (NAW)
— Feels weird seeing somebody other than Laura Kightlinger playing Marcia Clark. It even looks like Nancy is wearing the same dress Laura always wore in that role.
— A good little laugh from Mark Fuhrman’s “Heil Hitler” over the phone.
— Interesting lisp on Tim.
— Good sexual innuendo with Nancy-as-Marcia-Clark’s horny line to Tim’s Christopher Darden: “It’s time to take the black Bronco down the 405.”
— A very funny raunchy ending with Darrell’s Hugh Downs and Cheri’s Barbara Walters going at it under the desk.
STARS: ***
OPENING MONTAGE
— Newly-hired Chris Kattan has been added to the cast as a featured player.
— SNL writer and frequent onscreen performer Colin Quinn has also been added to the cast as a featured player tonight.
MONOLOGUE
host uses powers granted for 7th SNL appearance; Elle MacPherson cameo
— Some pretty good laughs from John detailing the perks of your 5th, 6th, and 7th hosting stints.
— We get a random cameo from Elle MacPherson, presenting John with his crown (which immediately falls off by accident after she places it on John’s head) and scepter. I guess this makes sense, since Elle was the host of the last episode. This reminds me of earlier this season when Mariel Hemingway had a random walk-on as Lorne’s secretary in a backstage sketch the week after she hosted.
— This is John’s second monologue where he gets in a self-deprecating dig at how much his movie King Ralph bombed.
— I love how we’re getting to see backstage security cameras of various cast members.
— A very funny visual of Norm in his dressing room gambling on cockfights.
— An amusing brief shot of Lorne just nodding when John asks him if he’s allowed to force Jim to do his Alanis Morissette routine.
— A good quick gag with Jim silently mouthing “Aw, fuck, man!”
— I’ve seen a lot of criticisms of Jim’s Alanis Morissette parody in this monologue, and I gotta say, I don’t understand the criticisms at all. I’ve always found Jim’s bit in this monologue to be fun silliness.
STARS: ****
GRAYSON MOORHEAD SECURITIES
Rerun from 10/21/95
MTV NEWS
Kurt Loder [real] relays some bogus items from the music scene
— This is basically just a set-up for what’s to follow, but I like how they’re doing this to give an authentic MTV feel to the following piece.
— The fake news stories here aren’t particularly great, but I strangely like Kurt Loder’s delivery of them.
— Nice how the ending of this segued into the following piece.
STARS: ***
THE REAL WORLD
Bob Dole (NOM) doesn’t get along with young housemates
— An absolutely priceless random inclusion of Norm’s Bob Dole as one of the Real World housemates. The initial reveal of him during the opening intro shot of each housemate is great.
— Dole’s peanut butter rant is legendary.
— The fight over “Bob Dole’s chair” is hilarious.
— This is a MUCH better Real World parody than the live one they did in the Shannen Doherty episode from season 19. Not only is tonight’s Real World parody very funny and well-written, there are also so many spot-on and accurate details in the way this is shot and edited. Everything about this piece is perfect to me.
STARS: *****
THE JOE PESCI SHOW
Marisa Tomei (CHO) & Richard Dreyfuss (DAH)
— I love Jim-as-Joe-Pesci’s line about John’s Robert DeNiro gaining back all of his weight from Raging Bull.
— The camerawork is a mess during the back-and-forth exchanges between Jim’s Pesci and Cheri’s Marisa Tomei, constantly cutting to a close-up of the wrong person while the other person is speaking.
— Funny line with Pesci asking Tomei, regarding the Oscar she won, “Who’s Joe did you DiMaggio to win that thing?”
— Haha, John’s attempt at a DeNiro impression has kind of a “so bad, it’s good” quality.
— I love Pesci and DeNiro’s re-enactment of a Raging Bull scene, using the word “shampoo” in place of a certain obscenity.
— A fantastic and very funny Richard Dreyfuss impression from Darrell.
— I know I’m eventually going to get tired of the repetitive formula of these Joe Pesci Show sketches, but for now, I’m still enjoying it.
STARS: ***½
THE REAL WORLD
tensions rise between Bob Dole (NOM) & housemates
— Great that this is a runner throughout tonight’s episode.
— A huge laugh from Dole just walking up to a ranting Jim and kicking the back of his legs out of nowhere, knocking him to the floor.
— I love the camera slowly zooming into Dole in bed with a look of horror on his face as he listens to Mark and Tim’s detailed discussion of a gay threesome Mark had.
STARS: *****
SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
substitute teacher Suel Forrester’s (CHK) poor enunciation stumps class
— Right out of the gate in Chris Kattan’s very first appearance, we get what would go on to be one of his signature characters.
— Not only does the classroom set look the same as the one used in various early 90s-era classroom sketches, including the famous History Class sketch with Jerry Seinfeld, but the chalkboard in tonight’s sketch appears to be the same one from the Seinfeld sketch, with the goofy face chalk drawing from the Seinfeld sketch being half-heartedly erased this time (side-by-side comparison below).
— Suel Forrester’s gibberish is priceless, and Chris is executing this so well. I also like how he keeps randomly throwing in a coherent sentence every now and then.
— (When the students receive the grade they got on their test) Nancy: “I got an A!” Will: “I got an L?!?”
— Overall, a strong and promising debut for Chris.
STARS: ****
THE REAL WORLD
housemates decide to kick Bob Dole (NOM) out
— A very funny shot of Dole peeking in at his roommates’ conversation about kicking him out, with a tear rolling down his face.
— Great ending shot of Dole dragging his furniture down the street.
STARS: *****
WEEKEND UPDATE
COQ wishes people would celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with more dignity
— In these last two Updates, the studio audience ain’t havin’ any more of Norm’s traditional O.J. jokes. Those jokes used to always get huge pops from the audience, but they’ve gotten a very tepid audience reaction these last two Updates. I’m still on Norm’s side.
— After playing various characters on Update so far in his SNL tenure, it’s great to see Colin getting to do his first Update commentary as himself.
— Sadly, Colin’s overall commentary ended up being a bit of a letdown. There were a few funny lines, but a lot of this dragged and the humor felt kinda tepid. Not his best stand-up material. I’m also seeing early unfortunate signs of Colin’s bad line-flubbing tendencies that we’ll later be seeing during his Update anchor stint.
— Norm does two “Or so the Germans would have us believe” jokes tonight, the second one being a variation that uses the words “German shepherds” instead of “Germans”. When doing the trademark camera staredown during the German shepherds one, Norm humorously continues doing it even when they cut to another camera (screencaps below). I love that.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Santa Monica”
FECAL MATTERS
John Fecal (MAM) is obsessed with avoiding anal waste
unseen contaminants are visible to the wearers of Fecal-Vision glasses
— Oh, that’s right, John Goodman is tonight’s host. I actually almost started forgetting, considering he’s felt really invisible in this episode.
— I like the various close-ups of Mark grimacing into the camera whenever John brings up something that disgusts him.
— Funny exchange with John telling Mark that he thought the show was called Fecal Matter because Mark’s last name is Fecal, and Mark explaining “That’s just a happy coincidence.”
— Colin’s very brief walk-on cracked me up.
— Looks like Will was late on his cue at the beginning of the Fecalvision commercial.
— I like the Fecalvision commercial showing fecal stains all over a diner.
— Funny delivery from Tim with his “Thanks, Fecalvision!” thumbs-up into the camera.
STARS: ***½
GRAYSON MOORHEAD SECURITIES
Another rerun from 10/21/95
MEETING
Gary MacDonald does free association humor as co-workers are laid off
— Yes! Regular Update character Gary Macdonald gets spun-off into his own sketch!
— We get a new addition to Gary’s mannerisms, with him now constantly doing a raspy-voiced “Hehh hehh hehh!” laugh.
— Gary’s endless free association habit is freakin’ priceless as always.
— Great gag with John revealing that the car alarm that’s heard going off after Gary jumps out of the window is coming from his own car, as he takes out his car keys and stops the car alarm.
— I didn’t even realize Darrell was one of the people at the table until the very end of the sketch when the camera was slowly zooming out. They didn’t even give Darrell anything to say or do in this sketch. What was the point of even having him there?
STARS: ****
FORBES-AMERICA
Steve Forbes (MAM) announces that he’s creator & president of new America
— Mark is going really heavy on the goofy laugh aspect of his Forbes impression.
— The audience is really dead during this sketch, even during some funny lines from Mark’s Forbes.
— I liked Nancy’s panicked “Save us!” when we first see her, Tim, and the others.
— I got a chuckle from Tim’s “We’ll eat the ponies!” when he and Nancy point out how hungry they are, but I think I’m just desperate for a laugh at this point of the sketch.
— Overall, a few okay lines early on, but a mostly disappointing sketch, and the audience’s complete silence gave this a weird feel.
STARS: **
HOLIDAY INN
the drunk businessmen tell more tales of abusive-but-swell Bill Brasky
— Hell yeah! This officially becomes a recurring sketch.
— This feels like the only comedic role we’ve seen John get all night. [ADDENDUM: He had one earlier as Robert DeNiro in the Joe Pesci Show sketch, but that was so early in this episode that I had forgotten it by this point.]
— John is fitting just as well into the role of drunk Brasky businessman as Alec Baldwin did, which would go on to solidify John and Alec as the only two hosts SNL would traditionally do these Brasky sketches with these next few seasons, though SNL would attempt to get a non-Goodman/Baldwin-involved Brasky sketch on the air in the Chris Farley-hosted episode from season 23, with the drunk Brasky businessmen being played by Will, Norm(!!), and Farley. However, that sketch ended up getting cut after dress rehearsal that night (it was once available online at the now-defunct Yahoo Screen site, and a blooper from the sketch is included in the “outtakes” feature in Chris Farley’s “Best Of” DVD).
— A sad realization that will be the final Bill Brasky sketch to feature Koechner, until decades later when they would bring the sketch back as a special occasion in a Paul Rudd-hosted episode from season 39. Koechner is so perfect for these Brasky sketches.
— A particularly funny one-liner about Brasky: “He’ll eat a homeless person if you dare him!”
— Another stand-out one-liner about Brasky, this one having always been one of my favorites: “I once saw him scissor-kick Angela Lansbury!”
— I nearly busted a gut from John interrupting Koechner’s story to scream a completely unintelligible statement in an anguished, crying manner.
STARS: *****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode, and the best one in a good while. Aside from the Steve Forbes sketch and perhaps Colin Quinn’s Weekend Update commentary, I enjoyed everything tonight, and found a lot of the sketches to be particularly great, with the Real World runner and the Bill Brasky sketch standing out as some of my absolute favorites of the entire season. John Goodman seemed strangely neglected as the host, and most of the times they did use him tonight, he was just playing a forgettable small straight man role. This is probably tied with his preceding hosting stint from season 20 as the episode he hosted that utilized him the least.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Elle MacPherson)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Phil Hartman
I’ll never understand why Koechner got cut. He seemed to have a great year as a first-timer. I mean, I know *why* he got fired – because Ohlmeyer pressured Lorne into it. But I don’t get why he felt so strongly about Koechner. If the guy had gotten his fair shake I bet he would be remembered for his time on SNL a lot more.
Seriously no doubt about it in my mind the guy had the best season of any (non-ringer) one-and-done cast member. Never made sense to me all these years until he revealed in more recent years it was the same guy who fired Norm who took a disliking to him (according to Koechner he really hates the fops) and went over Lorne’s head to get him fired. That at least made a bit more sense I would’ve thought Lorne was nuts for canning him, IMO he was one of the major standouts of the new cast.
I wish there were more Gary MacDonald outside of WU stuff, that was such a damn funny character. I remember “Windows 95, no” when he’s asked to step away from the window giving me such a huge guy laugh the first time I saw this one. Probably the best forgotten recurring character in SNL history.
“gut laugh”
Haha that’s what I get for phone posting.
Also yeah the Brasky sketches always felt kinda empty without him. I think this installment was always my favorite.
I didn’t realize there were criticisms of Breuer’s Alanis impression. It’s far from a classic, but it worked for me.
I always wondered if the real Bob Dole feels as strongly about peanut butter.
Great first sketch for Chris Kattan as I enjoyed Suel Forrester much more than most of his characters.
Ordinarily, I might complain about John Goodman being largely wasted in this episode, but the episode is a really good one, and I like the confidence the show had, really, to not rely on a skilled host to save lame material (that said, an invisible host is probably a better strategy some other weeks).
The Real World/Bob Dole thing is one of the funniest things I’ve seen on the show. I always love what I’ll call “dual parodies” that parody two different things–we have a dead-on Real World parody, but also Norm’s always hilarious Bob Dole. The R.E.M. song playing while Dole is crying always makes me crack up.
I thought Walls and Koechner were both talented. I could see letting Walls go, as her replacement, Gasteyer, did a lot of similar roles and was better…but Tracy Morgan (who is a good cast member) and Koechner are very different.
Richard Dreyfus has probably always been my favorite impression of Darrells. So underrated, wish they found more uses for it.
Letting David go was a huge mistake.. in the few episodes I’ve seen out of the new people he was the most enjoyable besides Jim (who took a while to get going,) and Hammond. Ferrell and O’Teri were always hamming it up but Dave was always consistently funny to me. He just never had his shot to break out on his own, he got stuck in that stupid Fop role. Much like Jim they had to find a way overcome Ferrell who was getting the push and not much success. Much like McKinney they were never appreciated sadly.
The Real World bits were genius.. Norm’s Dole is one of the more forgotten election impressions and underrated at that.
Hartman’s show is quite fun up next.
The Real World sketch is one of my favorites of any era of SNL. So many parodies SNL has done in the last 25 or so years have the feel of writers faking their way through material that is popular but they personally don’t care about. This is a real labor of love – it gets all the Real World beats of these years just right, and even if you don’t know that show, it’s still very funny.
This episode is yet another example of why, even though he hosted many times, I struggle to have much memory or reaction to John Goodman as a host. So many times the episodes end up being written being around his presence, and he feels like a guest. At least the monologue was a lot of fun – a creative use of the backstage format. I loved the random craziness, like Nancy and Mark leaving a bathroom stall, or Norm running a gambling ring in his dressing room.
Is this the last Gary Macdonald appearance? I thought he was absolutely hilarious here, so if it is, at least he goes out on a high.
There were times I found Kattan funny, but unfortunately this sketch gets the reaction I often had to his work – stony silence and vague alienation.
I’m not sure why there was pretty much NO reaction to the Forbes sketch. There were some funny moments and McKinney was in good form. I suppose the audience was never as interested in this impression as they may have anticipated, but still, it deserved a little more.
That Kavorkian joke on Update made me laugh.
I own Farley’s “Best Of” DVD, and I don’t recall seeing any clips from his Brasky sketch. Granted, my copy is the original one put out by Trimark in 2000 and I understand it was re-released by Lionsgate at some point, so perhaps it’s on their version?
My 15 year old self had a nice little crush on Cheri for a bit after the Suel Forrester sketch
In the Real World, when Dole is listening to Mark’s character recount being intimate, Mark repeats several insults that were said by his boyfriend. One of them is clearly dubbed over; does anyone know what he really said? I do not recall is being dubbed in the original broadcast, but I could be mistaken after almost 30 years
If you’re referring to the “every name in the book” line, I noticed that too. I viewed the original broadcast on the Internet Archive and the dubbed line was noticeable there as well.