October 3, 1998 – Kelsey Grammer / Sheryl Crow (S24 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

BEDTIME AT THE WHITE HOUSE
in bed, Bill (DAH) gets icy reception from bitter Hillary (ANG) Clinton

— I like how cold and tense the mood suddenly gets when Ana’s Hillary Clinton enters the bedroom.
— Some good silent acting from Ana and Darrell.
— A great part with Darrell’s Bill Clinton flipping through channels and finding talk about the Lewinsky scandal on EVERY channel, eventually getting to the point where even the weather channel has the meteorologist comparing blowing winds to “Monica blowing the pres–” before Darrell’s Clinton quickly shuts off the TV in a panic.
STARS: ***½

OPENING MONTAGE
— The new theme music from the preceding week’s season premiere has already been replaced with different theme music. The theme music tonight is actually the same one that was used in the first two episodes of the preceding season.
— After inexplicably not being credited in the opening montage in their first episode the preceding week, the three new featured players Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell, and Horatio Sanz are credited tonight.

— Shaquille O’Neal is credited as a special guest, which is noteworthy because, if I’m not mistaken, this is the last time SNL would ever credit a special guest in the opening montage. I believe that to this day in 2019, SNL has yet to credit any special guests in the opening montage since this episode from 1998.

MONOLOGUE
host sings rejected alternative Frasier theme songs

— The rejected Frasier theme songs that Kelsey Grammer is singing are fairly funny, though nothing special. Kelsey’s adding some charm to this.
STARS: ***

KCF SHREDDERS
(JIF) pitches bagged lettuce & mayonnaise to Generation X

— A random but very funny concept of presenting a mundane lettuce & mayo meal in the style of late 90s “x-treme” ads marketed towards Gen-Xers. This is a spot-on parody of those types of ads.
— A fun use of newbie Jimmy Fallon and his youthfulness. I also like the occasional bits with fellow newbie Horatio Sanz popping in.
— I love Tracy’s delivery of “I’m a BIG MAN, and I need a BIG SHREDDUH!”
— Hilarious how the kids meal comes with How Stella Got Her Groove Back action figures.
STARS: ****

THE DELICIOUS DISH
Margaret Jo & Terry talk wilderness food with naturalist-cannibal (host)

— Like the last installment of this sketch (from the preceding season’s Julianne Moore episode), this one takes place in a rare outdoors setting.
— I love that we immediately start off with some dark humor, where, after Ana says that autumn can only mean one thing, Molly says “Thoughts of a Christmas suicide” when she and Ana are simply supposed to say “leaves” in unison.
— Funny bit with Ana randomly complimenting Kelsey on a beard that he doesn’t have, just to fool listeners who can’t view the show.
— Hilarious dark turn with Kelsey getting increasingly worked up when disclosing a disturbing story about the desperate measures he once had to resort to when having nothing to eat but his friend Carl. This is the type of humor that I find Kelsey great at delivering.
STARS: ****

TERRY FERGUSON FOR SENATE
avoid sex scandals by electing eunuch Terry Ferguson (WIF) to the Senate

— Funny little detail with Will’s lack of eyebrows.
— Very funny premise with Will’s politician using his political ad to disclose the fact that he lost his genitals in a fire, and why that’s a good reason for you to vote for him. Will is always perfect for material like this.
STARS: ****

BIG BERNARD
(TRM) treats grown-up son (Shaquille O’Neal) as if he were still little

— Funny opening bit with Tracy questioning Shaq on how late he is.
— A priceless visual of Tracy struggling to get the oversized Shaq into a spanking position.
— Some good laughs from Shaq’s hamminess when smiling and laughing carelessly while getting spanked.
— A solid turn with Tracy following the spanking by having a heart-to-heart talk with Shaq.
— More great visuals, this time with Shaq laying on the side of the couch to place his head on Tracy’s lap, and then sitting in Tracy’s lap when being sung a lullaby.
— Tracy’s performance in this sketch is fantastic. Definitely one of his all-time best. I hope this made viewers at the time go “Why doesn’t SNL use this guy more often?”
— A great sentimental ending.
STARS: *****

TERRY FERGUSON FOR SENATE
Terry Ferguson has neither Washington-insider status nor genitals

— Hilarious how Will’s politician is using his opponent having genitals as a reason for you to not vote for him.
— Great line from Will about how the thought of sex gives him phantom pains where his genitals used to be.
STARS: ****

THINKING ABOUT BURRITOS
a dame (MOS) turns film noir private eye’s (host) thoughts to burritos

— Kelsey’s a natural fit for a film noir parody.
— I’m getting some good laughs from the increasing absurdity of how Kelsey keeps equating everything with his hunger for burritos. The silliness of this sketch, which I used to dismiss as just dumb and unfunny, is actually working well.
— Kelsey’s voice-overs throughout this sketch have a lot of funny lines.
STARS: ***½

WET ‘EM DOWN!
(host) wets Baywatch, Hal Linden, Christine Baranksi, Patti LuPone [real]

— I’m not caring for where this has been going so far.
— It’s now a minute later, and yeah, this is just a one-joke sketch that’s doing absolutely nothing for me.
— Feels odd seeing “Barney Miller” (‎Hal Linden) and one-time SNL host Christine Baranski making a cameo in this context.
— The ending kinda gave me my ONLY laugh of the entire sketch, just because of how comically out-of-place it looked seeing Tracy and Horatio hosing down Broadway performers on a theatrical stage.
STARS: *½

THE BEST OF HORATIO SANZ
volume 1 of The Best of Horatio Sanz doesn’t quite fill the videotape

— In the same vein of the preceding episode’s “The Best of the First 20 Minutes of Saturday Night Live” fake ad, we get another fake ad spoofing the overabundance of “Best Of” specials that came out in this time period. Of the two spoofs, tonight’s “Best of Horatio Sanz” would go on to be the more well-remembered of the two.
— An absolutely brilliant and hilarious idea to do a tongue-in-cheek “Best Of” ad for a new cast member who’s only appeared on the show for an episode-and-a-half so far and has done nothing noteworthy.
— I love the portion of this ad announcing things like “The walk-ons! The thumbs-ups!”
— Announcer: “Horatio Sanz is still alive, but someday, he won’t be.”
— A particularly hilarious sudden part with “Some material from The Best Of Dan Aykroyd included”, as we see a clip from a Coneheads sketch.
STARS: *****

WEEKEND UPDATE
COQ likens the problem of debtor nations to that of tapped-out friends
French playboy Tropical Storm Georges (host) luxuriates in his power

— Like the last episode’s Weekend Update, the Update opening title sequence is preceded with Colin doing a straight-to-camera rant in front of a green-screen, though we get different images displayed in tonight’s green-screen.
— The audience is pretty quiet during Colin’s opening rant.
— The Update theme music has been replaced with a new one. Too bad, because I absolutely loved the previous theme music, and this new one isn’t as good.
— The live via satellite interview with Kelsey playing an embodiment of Tropical Storm Georges feels like a knock-off of the famous El Nino bit that SNL did with Chris Farley a year earlier.
— Kelsey’s characterization here is good, but the commentary itself is completely forgettable to me.
— Not too great of an Update tonight, overall. Colin’s delivery of a lot of jokes had that uncomfortable stiffness that plagued some of his earliest Updates from the preceding season.
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “My Favorite Mistake”

LONDON PEEPERS
(host)’s socialization try proves Mr. Peepers is animal, not human being

 

— After seemingly being officially retired a year earlier in a Claire Danes-hosted episode (in which Mr. Peepers was sent back to live in his natural home in the wild, and reunited with his family), Mr. Peepers gets resurrected tonight for no apparent reason.
— I love the painting of Horatio as a clown lit on fire (screencap below).

— Bah. Only 50 seconds into this sketch, and I’m almost instantly reminded of why I was happy they retired Mr. Peepers in the first place. No laughs from me here.
— Okay, I finally got a laugh, from the part with Mr. Peepers peeing on the dinner table.
— Only two episodes into his SNL tenure, and we already get our very first minor glimpse of a Jimmy Fallon character break (something that would later become all too common), as Jimmy can be seen helplessly smirking out of character at Kattan when Kelsey and Mr. Peepers exit the scene.
— This sketch feels really dead. Very little of this is working and the audience is largely silent, the latter of which is unusual, as the crowd usually always goes wild whenever Kattan does his Peepers shtick.
— Overall, easily my least favorite Mr. Peepers sketch, and that’s saying something. Definitely should’ve kept this character retired after the Claire Danes episode.
STARS: *½

MAAKIES
by Tony Millionaire- chopped-in-half rat becomes a mermaid

— The second and final Maakies cartoon to air on SNL.
— Wow, and tonight’s cartoon is now over, with me having said nothing about it while watching it. Overall, the random humor in tonight’s Maakies cartoon was even more random than the first one. I don’t hate these Maakies cartoons (though I’m aware A LOT of SNL reviewers did back when these originally aired), but I think I like these cartoons more for the animation style and voice work than for the actual comedy. I do appreciate the weird and disturbing tone that these cartoons are going for, but they never quite hit the mark for me, and they feel a little too out-of-place in this SNL era. It’s no surprise that Maakies didn’t last long as a recurring segment. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Tony Millionaire” tried to get more of these on the air as this season went on, but they kept getting cut after dress rehearsal.
STARS: **½

MORNING LATTE
Tom & Cass bug new producer (CHK); Shaquille O’Neal cameo

 

— An unusually late spot in the show for this recurring sketch to air, as it’s typically aired much earlier as one of the first post-monologue sketches.
— As always, I enjoy the way Will and Cheri play off of each other in these sketches.
— Funny part with Will and Cheri disclosing the fact that Cheri recently underwent surgery to have a baboon’s ovaries and a raccoon’s uterus transplanted inside of her, to increase her chances of having a baby.
— Very funny mix-up from Cheri referring to rappers as “rappists”.
— I like Will and Cheri’s tasteless comments about the producer’s (Kattan) sexual harassment past.
— Kattan is giving a solid performance as the producer. Odd, though, how that role isn’t being played by Kelsey (who’s nowhere to be seen in this sketch), as the host usually always plays the producer in these Morning Latte sketches.
— Shaq’s presence in a second sketch tonight reminds me that Tim Meadows is strangely completely absent in this episode. Very odd for Tim at this point of his SNL tenure, especially after the strong showing he had in the preceding week’s season premiere. I remember an old SNL review from this time in 1998 asking at one point, in regards to Tim, “Did Shaq scare him away?”
— I like the visual of Cheri trying to make gang signs with her hands.
— Shaq is awfully stiff in this sketch, and not in the funny deadpan way that he’s known for being in more recent years.
— SNL finally went through a Morning Latte sketch without anyone yelling an obligatory “You stupid bitch!” (or any variation thereof) towards Cheri.
STARS: ***½

HELLO DOLLY
personal problems pervade saccharine pitch of (host) & (ANG)

— The debut of a lesser-known recurring sketch from this era.
— I’m really liking Ana’s performance, as she’s coming off exactly like the type of person who would host a doll show like this.
— I like the running bit with Kelsey casually mentioning in passing some disturbing things about himself.
— Funny line from Ana about once putting the Lavender Angel doll under her shirt and trying to nurse it.
— Some good laughs from how it’s becoming more and more apparent over the course of the sketch that Ana and Kelsey have some serious unsettling personal issues.
STARS: ***½

THE LUMBERJACK CLASSIC
lumberjacks blame timbersports champion (WIF) for hogging Jesus’ backing

— Right out of the gate, Kelsey badly flubs his opening line by accidentally introducing Will by the name of his own character, which gets some laughs from the audience and causes Kelsey to crack up (the first above screencap for this sketch). I like Will’s reaction during this: not only does he stay in character, but he jokingly starts walking out of the shot while Kelsey’s laughing, only for Kelsey to pull him back into the shot.
— A solid parody of athletes always giving credit to Jesus for helping them win.
— Good line from Horatio about Will hogging all the Jesus.
— Very funny bit with Kattan as a Jewish lumberjack, complete with a yarmulke.
STARS: ***½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Surprisingly nowhere near as bad as I had remembered it being. Until doing this review, I had always considered this episode to be a real dud, and among the absolute worst episodes of this entire era. I know a lot of other SNL fans over the years have disliked this episode as well (at least in the past; I’m not sure what the general consensus for this episode is nowadays). I was pleasantly surprised to see during tonight’s viewing that this episode was much better than I used to give it credit for. The first half of this episode was actually strong for the most part, and the overall show had a lot of stuff that was pretty good. I even came around on that Thinking About Burritos sketch, which I used to cite as a prime example of how terrible this episode is. However, most of the lowlights of the night were particularly lousy for this era’s standards (Wet ’em Down, London Peepers), but the amount of those was thankfully kept to a minimum.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Cameron Diaz)
a slight step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Lucy Lawless