Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
DEFENSE TEAM
Johnnie Cochran (TIM) & other lawyers form Unabomber (WIF) defense plan
— Koechner makes his only appearance of the night in this cold opening, and he’s just playing a straight man role. Lately, it’s sadly been becoming more and more obvious that SNL is phasing him out in the homestretch of this season.
— This is the second consecutive episode with a Ted Kaczynski cold opening.
— Will’s jovial portrayal of Kaczynski is always funny.
— A fun roundup famous lawyers, like Johnnie Cochran and Leslie Abramson.
— A hilarious defense from Tim’s Cochran about how postal workers are to blame for Kaczynski mailing bombs to people.
— I love Cochran’s rhyming statement “Take off that orange pajama, cuz you ain’t the Unabomber!”
— A good line with Cheri’s Abramson just responding “Then I’ve got nothing” after learning the Kaczynski brothers weren’t molested by their parents.
— Feels weird seeing writer Steve Higgins playing such a noteworthy role (F. Lee Bailey). He’s pretty funny here.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host has Lois Lane-ish inability to recognize glasses-wearing castmembers
— While it’s just a little thing that’s probably not intended to be funny, I’m cracking up at the close-up of Will doing a back-and-forth glasses removal when demonstrating to Teri that he’s always Will.
— A fairly tepid and corny premise, but it’s being executed decently enough.
— A laugh from Teri still not recognizing Tim even after he’s removed his glasses.
— Tim: “I’m Tim Meadows, I’ve been in the cast for, like, 8 years.” Teri: “Oh. What are your hit characters?” Tim: “……..I don’t have any.” Haha, but also, awww.
STARS: ***
OLD GLORY INSURANCE
Rerun from 11/18/95
WEST SIDE STORY
prop girl Mary Katherine Gallagher wants Maria role in West Side Story
— I love the juxtaposition of Will energetically swinging his fists into the air while singing a soft song from West Side Story.
— Mary Katherine Gallagher to the white female performers in the play: “I just want to say that you ladies make excellent Puerto Ricans.”
— I cracked up at MKG shoving Teri out of the shot while romancing Will.
— One of MKG’s more memorable movie monologue quotes.
— Overall, one of the better MKG sketches. I’ve always considered this (along with the Elle MacPherson installment) to be the most representative installment of this sketch . Part of that may be due to the fact that this is the MKG installment that’s in Molly’s “Best Of” special.
STARS: ***½
NIGHTTIME MUSIC
inept romantic (CHK) seeks mood music & dance steps to use on date (host)
— An early quintessential Chris Kattan sketch, and a nice representation of his skills as a physical comedian. He’s getting good laughs from a lot of little things he’s doing in his “seductive” dancing.
— Within his “seductive” dancing, Chris is slipping in some future trademark Mango moves. I find them a lot more tolerable in this sketch than in the actual Mango sketches.
— I love the part with Chris making the couch move by repeatedly bumping it with his crotch.
— Haha, is that a freakin’ Ladysmith Black Mambazo song Chris is now seductively dancing to?
— I like Chris ridiculing Teri’s legitimately seductive dance.
STARS: ***½
THE PRINCESS AND THE HOMEBOY
(host) & G-Dog clash in a new NBC sitcom
— I’ve always loved this. One of my favorite Tim Meadows sketches.
— I like the critic review that’s shown (the third above screencap for this sketch), made even funnier by Will’s delivery of it as the announcer.
— A hilarious part with G-Dog sticking an ice cream cone onto his crotch and telling Teri “Come and get it, (*bleep*)!”
— G-Dog to Teri: “You touch that mother(*bleep*)in’ dog, I’ll rip your (*bleep*)in’ head off.”
— A huge audience reaction to Teri joining G-Dog in directing bleep-filled obscenities toward Mark as the father. I also love Mark responding “Oh, double-dear!” in a classic “cheesy white TV dad” voice.
STARS: ****½
MATH COMPETITION
Arianna is left behind when Craig has an opportunity to be a real Spartan
— A calculus test is a pretty funny out-of-place setting for the Cheerleaders to do their cheers at.
— For the first time ever, a Cheerleaders sketch is telling an actual story instead of just being another tired sketch consisting of nothing but “Craig and Arianna do various cheers for a few minutes, briefly get interrupted by a character complaining to them, and then conclude the sketch by doing ‘the perfect cheer’”. I appreciate how ambitious tonight’s installment feels compared to the one-note, overly-simplistic preceding installments.
— When Craig is reminiscing about great times he had in the past with Arianna, we get a mock-dramatic slow-motion montage of clips from earlier Cheerleaders sketches. The fact that SNL had enough footage at this point to make an entire freakin’ clip show montage of Cheerleaders sketches when these characters debuted less than a season ago REALLY shows how oversaturated this season has been with Cheerleaders sketches.
— I love the bit with Teri getting a chipped tooth.
STARS: ***
WEEKEND UPDATE
due to his Masters choke, Greg Norman (MAM) has chosen a new nickname
— Feels rare to see Mark in a solo Weekend Update commentary.
— Despite Mark’s solid performance, his overall Greg Norman commentary was pretty forgettable.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Too Much”
SPADE IN AMERICA
host & DAS do unflattering imitations of one other
— Very interesting change of pace with Teri hosting this segment while impersonating Spade.
— Teri as Spade, regarding Weekend Update running long again: “Okay, Norm, Marion Barry smokes crack. We get it.”
— Now this gets even more fun with Spade coming on as Teri, and both of them roasting each other while acting in character as each other.
— Some really funny zingers between Teri and Spade. I’m loving this.
— Another reference to Tom Arnold’s infamous comment to Teri at that year’s Golden Globes.
STARS: ****½
THE LOCAL NEWS
(host) & NOM are guests on Joe Blow’s basement talk show
— Interesting to see Weekend Update staple Joe Blow get spun off into his own sketch, showing us his home life.
— A funny and kinda surprising moment with Darrell’s Uncle Frank character almost getting away with dropping a full n-bomb when complaining about Jim’s wannabe-gangsta character.
— After his scuffle with his son, I like Joe Blow threateningly telling him “I’ll hand you your head!” It’s Colin’s delivery of that line that cracked me up.
— I like how Norm is playing himself here, keeping the running theme of his and Joe Blow’s “rapport” from Weekend Update.
— Darrell’s Uncle Frank has a lot of funny lines throughout this sketch.
— An overall okay sketch, but I definitely prefer Joe Blow’s Update appearances. Also, they should’ve given Norm a little more to do here.
STARS: ***
FUZZY MEMORIES BY JACK HANDEY
making good on a worm-eating bet
RUMMAGE SALE
a rumble ensues when (host) stands up to Gail Lafferty’s bullying ways
— I like Teri standing up to Nancy’s Gail Lafferty.
— Funny little bit with Cheri immediately getting shoved out of the shot when trying to intervene during Teri and Nancy’s confrontation of each other.
— A great huge, wild fight between Nancy and Teri. Nice to see something like this during a live sketch, which must not be easy to pull off.
— I love Teri’s epic “Remember the Alamo, bitch!” one-liner before sending Nancy crashing through a window.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “So Much To Say”
PETCHOW
Rerun from 2/17/96
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— I’ve always considered this to be a very fun episode that has a lot of aspects that’s very representative of this season as a whole. And after having watched and reviewed this episode just now, I feel that opinion of mine still holds up. I like every single sketch, some of the sketches hold a nostalgia for me after my frequent viewings of this episode over the years, and there’s an atmosphere to this episode that, as I said, I find very fun. Even two of the biggest overexposed recurring sketches of the season (Mary Katherine Gallagher, Cheerleaders) had better installments than usual tonight.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Steve Forbes)
about the same
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Christine Baranski
One of my all time favorite episodes. Even though it’s a lot of recurring character stuff, it’s some of the best instances of those recurring characters they ever did. Almost everything in this episode works. They even made a Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch funny. And the best Spade in America. <3
I’ve watched The Princess and The Homeboy probably a hundred times over the years, and I’ll never not enjoy “Come and get it, bitch!” and then Teri looking away and trying not to crack up. One of the greatest SNL moments of the 90’s, IMO.
When people ask for my favorite episodes of this era (95-2000) I always pick this one and then the Kevin Spacey one. The Jim Carrey one maybe third, but in my opinion Hatcher and Spacey are more consistently funny.
The Princess and the Homeboy was great. Loved Teri almost breaking when cursing out her dad.
No way they could get away with Darrell almost dropping an n-word today. I was actually mildly surprised at the time that it happened.
Haha I used to like those Joe Blow talk show sketches, kinda wish they did more of them. I think they did at least one more the next season. Which would’ve been a rare occurrence of Darrell having a recurring character that wasn’t an impression. I know he had a couple here and there over the years.
Off the top of my head, there’s the older redneck in the Appalachian Emergency Room sketches.
He had another random redneck character named Skeeter who would pop in in random different sketches over the years. I know there was one where Skeeter co-hosted a hunting show with Bill Paxton as Ted Nugent
I always liked this episode. Teri Hatcher was a very solid host–I’m amused how she basically played an antagonist to every recurring character.
I also find the Spade segment hilarious–her zingers are frankly pretty devastating.
I consider this one to be the best episode of 95-96. It really showed how much the show how turned around in one year. The MKG sketch in this one is an absolute classic!
This is a strong episode – along with David Alan Grier the best of the season for me (although I may revise that once I see the last three for the first time in eons). Everything starts slow with the cold open and monologue, but the energy steadily increases and we get good stuff all through the night. Even the two recurring characters I can’t take has some virtue (MKG’s cast use and the cheerleaders working Teri into the material).
The highlights for me are Spade in America, which is one of the best things Spade ever did on SNL – just absolutely hilarious (and kudos to him for being willing to write such savage material about himself). I also love the Gail Lafferty sketch – it’s one of the main reasons I was so fond of Nancy’s time on the show. She and Teri really go for it, with lots of delightfully trashy dialogue and brawling. I will say Cheri just about steals the whole thing with the bits where she dopily runs into the scene to remind everyone that Teri is her cousin.
Beyond these two I would mostly single out the scene in her sketch with Kattan where she has to do the sexy dancing. I can just imagine how difficult that must have been, because she can’t dance in a comic way, as otherwise the joke of Kattan laughing at her wouldn’t work. So she goes up and really does try her best, greeted by a silent and likely confused audience. A lot of hosts wouldn’t have done that.
(that this is the second show this season to have a sketch work in a female host’s sexy dancing is probably an indication of the ratings they were hoping to attract)
By the time Tim had actually been with the show for five years, and he would soon have some recurring characters.
The lawyers with Ted is a funny cold opening.