January 10, 1998 – Samuel L. Jackson / Ben Folds Five (S23 E10)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

BUDGET SURPLUS
Bill Clinton (DAH) plans to make a kick-ass movie with budget surplus

— Funny idea Darrell’s Bill Clinton had for a naked Super Bowl, and how he got discouraged from that idea after seeing naked photos of Jerome Bettis.
— Some pretty good laughs from Clinton going on about the details for his idea of a big, expensive blockbuster movie.
— Overall, this was fine, but not quite as memorable as I had remembered.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
host shares his blaxploitation-themed New Year’s resolutions

— I like the opening line with Samuel clarifying that he’s not Laurence Fishburne or Morgan Freeman.
— Pretty fun premise of Samuel sharing his New Years resolutions, complete with cool background music.
— The resolutions aren’t all that hilarious, aside from “Build a shrine to my own bad ass”. However, they’re coming off charming and enjoyable, in the way that only Samuel L. Jackson can make it.
STARS: ***

LEMON GLOW
Rerun from 10/18/97

PUBLISHERS CLEARING HOUSE GIVEAWAY
Publishers Clearing House visits the ghetto to award prize to (host)

— Funny premise of Publishers Clearing House presenting a prize to a family in the ghetto.
— I love Samuel’s line to Ana, warning her to get away from the door before he “stomps a prize-winning mudhole in your ass!”
— Feels like the first time in ages we’ve seen Tracy with a speaking role. He was completely absent in the last episode, and in the episode before that, his only appearance was reused footage from a season 22 Quiet Storm sketch in which he just played a silent role. Was he out sick for the entire month of December?
— The portrayal of the black family is stereotypical as hell, but is making me laugh, and the performances are adding good realism to this scene, especially Samuel’s performance. Even Tim, as unconvincing as he tends to be when playing tough homeboys, is cracking me up in this and is coming off as his usual likable self.
— Samuel, regarding the prize: “That look like a big-ass food stamp.” I also love Will responding, in his whitebred voice, “I assure you, that is not a big-ass food stamp.”
— Hilarious acting from Will during the dog attack at the end of the sketch.
STARS: ***½

QUENTIN TARANTINO: A PROFILE
Quentin Tarantino (NOM) presents unsuccessful Pulp Fiction screen tests

— The recently-fired-from-Weekend-Update Norm Macdonald makes his only appearance of the night in this pre-taped piece. I’ve always wondered if the reason for him not making any live appearances tonight is because the show let him have some time off as some kind of compensation for losing Update. Does anyone know?
— Man, Norm’s Quentin Tarantino is freakin’ spot-on. One of my favorite impressions of Norm’s, which is saying something, as he’s done a lot of solid impressions over the years on SNL. His Tarantino is slaying me, especially after I’ve recently reviewed the real Tarantino in the SNL episode he hosted in season 21.
— Interestingly, this is the second consecutive instance of the first SNL episode of a calendar year doing a screen tests sketch for a famous movie. The first episode of 1997 had the Star Wars screen tests, and now we have this in the first 1998 episode. It would’ve been fun if this had become an annual tradition for this era.
— Yes! Norm’s Burt Reynolds!
— Hilarious concept of Darrell’s Walter Cronkite auditioning as the gimp.
— I love Ana-as-Ann-B.-Davis’ bleep-filled audition.
— Good ending scene with Ann B. Davis and Samuel doing the famous Pulp Fiction dance.
— Overall, not as epic as the Star Wars Screen Tests, but still a very strong and fun piece.
STARS: ****½

JAZZTERPIECES
Jazzterpieces documents the rocky career of musical couple (host) & (ANG)

— Ana’s crazy, mumbly, high-pitched singing voice is cracking me up.
— Very funny line from the narrator about ending discrimination against blind interracial junkies.
— At first, before the aforementioned interracial line, I thought there’d be a twist in this sketch that Samuel’s blind character never realized all these years that Ana’s character is white, since Ana’s doing a convincing black voice here.
— The interview portions with Samuel and Ana are pretty funny and have good chemistry between them.
STARS: ***½

JUDGE JUDY
personal trainer (host) sues former customer (ANG)

— The first of several Judge Judy parodies in this era.
— Good casting of Cheri as the no-nonsense Judge Judy.
— Interesting having Samuel play his character from Jackie Brown.
— I liked Ana’s line about Samuel burning her teaspoons.
— Another good line from Ana, about how the cardio workout that Samuel had her do involved her running bags of money through airport security.
— I love the bits with Tracy throughout this.
— I don’t know if it’s part of the script or not, but all of a sudden, Cheri has gotten sloppy with her delivery towards the end of this sketch.
STARS: ***

TV FUNHOUSE
“George Clooney” by RBS- Speed Racer George Clooney dodges press

— I love this very random premise of George Clooney starring in a Speed Racer cartoon. I also love how this is bringing back nice memories of watching Speed Racer when I was a kid.
— Haha, what the hell is with Fran Drescher’s manly voice? It’s making me laugh out loud anyway, even though I don’t understand it.
— I like the sudden inclusion of Barbara Walters, voiced by Cheri.
— Hilarious gag with Eddie Murphy fighting with Marv Albert over a transvestite.
— Overall, I could not stop laughing at all the fast-paced randomness throughout this cartoon, even when some of the randomness flew right past me.
STARS: ****

WEEKEND UPDATE
Harry Caray (WIF) explores the implications of cloning hot dogs

— A new era of Weekend Update begins.
— With a new anchor, we also get a new Update set tonight.
— I remember an SNL review once pointing out that during the opening applause in this Update, you can hear the voice of a Norm Macdonald-sounding guy yelling “Hey, you!” towards new anchor Colin Quinn. The mysterious voice is actually yelling “Daddio!”, not “Hey, you!”, but yeah, the voice does sound similar to Norm’s. It’s obviously just an audience member, but it’s hilarious to imagine Norm sneaking into the studio audience to heckle his Update replacement by yelling “Hey, you!”
— Odd how Colin’s not wearing the traditional type of suit-and-tie attire that Update anchors typically wear.
— Excellent opening spiel from Colin about a new bartender, and how it turns out to be an analogy for Colin replacing Norm. This is a solid and wise way to alleviate the awkwardness of the circumstances behind Colin getting the anchorperson spot.
— Hoo, boy, only two jokes into this Update, and you can already see that Colin’s delivery seems VERY wrong for Update.
— Okay, Colin’s Bob Dylan joke just now was good, because the punchline of it allowed Colin to use his natural laid-back stand-up delivery instead of a straitlaced professional delivery that doesn’t fit him.
— Right in his very first Update, Colin does an “O.J. is a murderer” joke, proving that some people need to rethink the long-standing rumor that Norm got fired from Update for doing too many jokes about Don Ohlmeyer’s golfing buddy, O.J. Simpson.
— The punchlines to Colin’s jokes seem to be alternating between ones that have him using a professional delivery and ones that have him using a laid-back stand-up delivery.
— Even the graphics on the Update screen look different from how they typically looked in the Norm era of Update.
— Will’s Harry Caray!
— Just now, Will’s Caray tells Colin “Think of all the possibilities, Norm.” The slowly uproarious audience reaction to this is very funny. Will’s Caray then looks at the audience and asks “Hey, what’s going on over there?!?”
— Another Norm mix-up from Caray, by asking Colin “Hey, Norm, did you gain weight?”
— A memorable question from Caray right now, asking Colin “If you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself?”
— Colin’s interaction with Update correspondents is definitely going to need some work, as he’s stiff during this interaction with Will’s Harry Caray.
— Wow, Update’s ending already? I’m surprised by how short this Update was, though maybe that was intentional, considering Colin might not have had a lot of time this week to prepare as a new Update anchor.
— Overall, not a great debut for Colin as an anchorperson, but I see some promise there. They need to let him do more of the type of jokes where he can use his natural stand-up delivery, and let him develop better interaction skills with the correspondents.
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Brick”

TITANIC
fifth-class passengers (host) & (TRM) wait to be evacuated from Titanic

— I got an unintentional laugh from Will stumbling badly through his yell of “Last call for all third class passengers!” Afterwards, he deliberately delivers his next yell in a slow, almost staccato manner, so he won’t stumble through it.
— Some good laughs from all of the things being put onto lifeboats before the two black passengers, even stowaways and pieces of both the ship and iceberg.
— Very funny ending with Tracy and Samuel telling Tim about how they survived the sinking of the Titanic by making a dead white folks boat.
STARS: ***½

MANGO
Mango enthralls an otherwise-heterosexual hard-core criminal (host)

— A big night for Tracy, who’s receiving much more airtime than he usually gets in these early seasons of his, obviously because we have a black host tonight (Tracy would receive this same amount of airtime two years later in the Jamie Foxx-hosted episode from season 25). A nice contrast to how non-existent he was in the last two episodes.
— Mango officially becomes recurring.
— So far, this Mango installment is starting out the exact same way the first installment started.
— Yeah, this whole sketch is basically just a rewrite of the first Mango installment, only replacing the businessman character played by Brendan Fraser with a gangster played by Samuel L. Jackson.
— I admit to getting a laugh from Chris’ delivery of “No, get out, I hate’choo!”
STARS: **

THE LEARNING ANNEX
The Learning Annex can help you become a joyful, germ-free fake preacher

— I like the germophobe character that Ana’s playing.
— Molly’s joyologist character, Helen Madden, becomes recurring, after debuting in an ensemble sketch from the preceding season’s Lisa Kudrow episode. Unlike that sketch, Molly’s character has the last name Madden here.
— Jim has been practically invisible tonight. Like I said about Colin a few episodes ago, I sometimes forget that Jim is even still a cast member this season, due to how little he’s been used lately.
— I do like the doctored photos of Jim with Kevin Bacon.
— Wow, there’s yet ANOTHER appearance from Tracy tonight. His big night continues.
— Molly’s going heavy on the number of “I love it!”s in this sketch, but her delivery of it is still somewhat low-key compared to how over-the-top we would later get used to hearing her deliver it. She’s also thankfully not doing the exaggerated physical gyrations that she would go REALLY overboard with in later Helen Madden appearances.
— I like Will worriedly telling Samuel “I think your class is illegal” before quickly saying to the camera with a smile “…and we’re out of time.”
— Overall, some laughs here and there, but a forgettable sketch.
STARS: **

POOLSIDE LOVIN’
dad’s death leaves (CHK) not in the mood to “get it on”

— I’m not seeing much potential in this sketch so far.
— Yeah, a few minutes into this sketch, and I have not been enjoying this, though Samuel’s performance is cracking me up.
STARS: *½

THE WESTON COLLECTION
Another rerun tonight, this time from 11/15/97

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An episode with a good first half, but the second half felt off, aside from the Titanic sketch. I didn’t care for ANY of the last three sketches. Despite that, and despite there not being much in this overall episode that I felt stood out as particularly great, there were enough good things to make this an overall okay episode. And I did like the energy and fun performance style that Samuel L. Jackson brought throughout the whole show.

MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Helen Hunt)
a mild step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Sarah Michelle Gellar makes her hosting debut