April 10, 1999 – John Goodman / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (S24 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

BACK TO LYING
ruefully-truthful Bill Clinton (DAH) tries reverse psychology on Kosovo

— Very funny concept of how Clinton has learned from his actions about the current war in Kosovo that he should never tell the truth and should always lie.
— Darrell is really milking the audience reactions to his Clinton thumbs-up and lip-biting moves, even moreso than usual.
STARS: ****

MONOLOGUE
host can’t convince audience members that the show isn’t a rerun

— Great turn with Paula Pell as an audience member interrupting the monologue to ask John “Is this a rerun?”
— I can see how they came up with the idea for this monologue, because not only has John hosted many times, but Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers have also musical guested many times, often in episodes hosted by a Goodman-esque frequent host (Buck Henry, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, and later on, Alec Baldwin). Thus, John Goodman/Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers definitely would’ve sounded to people in 1999 like a host/musical guest lineup that already occurred.
— I love how they’re going even further with this, by now having Paula hold up a fake newspaper that states this episode is a rerun from 1991.
— For the record, 1991 is the ONLY calendar year in the 90s that John hasn’t hosted in.
— Another Jimmy Fallon monologue walk-on that receives a good audience reaction, again showing how quickly popular he’s become in just his first season as a featured player. This ends up being Jimmy’s only appearance of the entire night, by the way. He had a Weekend Update commentary cut after this episode’s dress rehearsal in which he and Tom Petty perform a guitar song together.
— I love how Jimmy further confirms this episode is a rerun from 1991 by saying “I was in 8th grade when it first ran.” A funny exaggeration of Jimmy’s youthfulness as a cast member. (In real life, Jimmy was actually 17 in 1991.)
— Another dress rehearsal tidbit: Lorne’s walk-on in this monologue originally had him in a brown wig and t-shirt, to make it appear even more as if this episode is from 1991 (even though Lorne hasn’t had brown hair nor wore t-shirts onscreen since the 70s), but in the live show, he instead enters this monologue in his usual suit and gray hair.
— One oversight in this overall great monologue: how do they not involve Tim Meadows in any way? After all, he’s the only person in this then-current 1999 cast who was also in the 1991 cast. They definitely should’ve done something with that in this monologue. He could’ve walked on and casually asked John “Hey, ready to do the next sketch?”, and Paula Pell or Tina Fey could’ve blurted out “See, there’s Tim Meadows! That proves this is a rerun from 1991!”, and John could’ve responded “But Tim’s still in the cast now!”, which Paula or Tina could’ve responded to with a deadpan “Really?” as yet another SNL joke about how surprisingly long Tim has been on the show.
STARS: ****½

ADULT LITERACY PROGRAM
(host) brings high school antics to adult literacy class led by (TIM)

— John: “Do we have to know this for the test?” Tim: “(in a blunt, deadpan manner) Uh, no. You have to know this to know how to read.”
— Not a particularly hilarious character that John is playing, but his performance is making this work. Tim is also a great straight man to him.
— Boy, SNL sure loves doing sketches this season that end with a text crawl. I lost count of how many sketches in this season have ended with one.
STARS: ***

SHAUN MONDAVI VINEYARDS
self-styled wine heir’s (WIF) vile liquid further ires stepfather (host)

— A solid concept that Will is selling well.
— Will’s grimacing and groaning whenever he takes a sip of the wine are slaying me, especially when he starts really going all out on it.
— A very funny reveal of the wine coming in a Mountain Dew soda bottle with a shoddily-made wine label taped onto it.
— Great turn with Will’s angry stepfather crashing the commercial and giving Will a mean-spirited reality check.
— John: “This isn’t wine! It’s tequila, Five Alive, and those little marshmallows you put in cocoa.”
— Heh, does John’s character realize that calling Will’s character a son of a bitch in front of someone who’s both Will’s mother and John’s wife is technically calling his own wife a bitch?
STARS: ****½

CNN
lightweight magazines provide basis for serious reportage

— Pretty funny turn with this ad going from legitimate examples of hard-hitting news coverage to coverage from very light magazines like Cat Fancy and Highlights.
— Funny cutaway to John as a “bear”.
STARS: ***½

WRAP IT UP
(host) strongarms complaints about his incompetent gift wrapper son (CHK)

— Kattan’s horrible wrapping of Tim’s gift is pretty funny, especially when he tries to make the wrapped gift look like a swan.
— Bizarre sketch so far.
— Odd how this is the second consecutive live sketch with John playing a violent father.
— Funny little touch with Kattan randomly snipping off a small part of the flowers with a pair of scissors after destroying the flowers during his bad attempt to wrap a ribbon around them.
— Now this already-bizarre sketch is getting even more bizarre with Kattan’s thought bubble of a popsicle.
— John’s beatdown of every customer that has an unsatisfactory reaction towards Kattan’s gift-wrapping has some shades of that sketch from the season 20 finale where Chris Elliott, Morwenna Banks, and Chris Farley fatally beat up any customer that showed any kind of disrespect towards their folksy ways.
— I like how Kattan’s thought bubble about kitty cats is just another popsicle, this time with a cat’s tail.
— Overall, boy, was this one weird sketch, but it made me laugh enough.
STARS: ***

HELLO DOLLY
hucksters prefer collectibles to real-life youngsters

— John’s forehead is looking sweaty in this sketch.
— The Poopsie Daisy doll is funny, especially the gourmet jelly beans in the back of the doll’s soiled diaper, which John and Ana gleefully eat.
— I love the African-American “Dignity” doll.
— Like the last time they did this sketch, we’re getting some funny disturbing details about John and Ana’s troubled personal lives throughout the sketch. I especially like Ana’s casually-delivered line about how when she was pregnant with her second child, there was a good chance it was going to come out looking like the African-American “Dignity” doll.
STARS: ***½

WEEKEND UPDATE
TRM explains the meaning of acronyms appearing on current fashions
Colette Reardon surveys prescription drugs available to treat allergies

— Ah, a good old-fashioned “Dan Quayle is dumb” joke, feeling like a nice throwback to the Dennis Miller era of Weekend Update, back when Quayle’s dumbness was a frequent target.
— Tracy Morgan makes his obligatory one appearance of the night. Would it kill SNL to use this man in more than one sketch in an episode?
— Tracy’s FUBU-esque acroynms for various things are all funny, especially the one for Timberland boots (the sixth above screencap for this Update). However, Tracy’s delivery is kinda stumbly throughout this commentary.
— Man, Colin looks so stifled in these last few Updates, now that he’s been (presumably) forced by NBC to refrain from muttering ad-libbed remarks towards the audience after his news jokes. In these last few Updates, you can tell when he wants to make an ad-lib after certain jokes but restrains himself.
— In these last few Collette Reardon appearances, I’ve pretty much run out of things to say about her, but she continues to amuse me.
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Swingin'”

SPRINGTIME SANTA
a boozy & unpleasant Santa (host) unwinds at home during the offseason

— A North Pole/Santa Claus sketch in April? How random.
— John is solid as a belligerent, obnoxious Santa involved in a domestic argument with Mrs. Claus.
— A lot of funny tension in his sketch caused by Santa’s attitude.
— When Parnell and Cheri make their exit as the elf couple after spending their entire appearance standing on their knees to give off the illusion that they’re tiny elves, you can see both of them beginning to stand up on their legs before getting off-camera.
— Funny ending, re-dubbing footage of the original “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” stop-motion movie.
STARS: ***½

HAPPY SMILE PATROL
kid show stars’ ugly fate told by news bulletins aired during the program

— Here comes a favorite of mine.
— I love the news anchor’s (Parnell) disturbing details on the death of Kattan’s character.
— More and more laughs from the increasingly unsettling details of law troubles the Happy Smile Patrol actors have gotten in. I especially love the dark detail of Cheri’s character using a razor blade to cut a male victim’s throat to the spine (yeesh!) while he was climaxing during oral sex that she was giving him. Holy hell.
— Parnell is, of course, perfect in his role as the anchor breaking all of these special reports. The disturbing details he’s reading off are made that much funnier by his straitlaced delivery.
— Overall, a masterpiece.
STARS: *****

VH1
Behind The Music- bowling alley attendant Bun E. Carlos (HOS) thinks back

— Pretty funny reveal of Horatio’s Bun E. Carlos now being an attendant at a bowling alley.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Room At The Top”

CATHOUSE COMPUTER SYSTEM
embarrassed john (host) endures bordello computer system learning curve

— Good premise with the incongruity between the prostitutes and their savvy computer knowledge.
— I got a laugh from the little part with Cheri telling Horatio “You go upstairs and heat up the wax.”
— Funny southern accent from Cheri. It reminds me a bit of her future “Simma dah nah!” character Nadeen, who debuts the following season.
— And now, Cheri’s character has flat-out said “Now everybody SIMMA DAH NAH!” Yep, Cheri is definitely playing a prototype of her Nadeen character.
— Hilarious casual walk-on from Will in S&M gear, and the uncharacteristically friendly voice he’s using when helping the ladies with their computer trouble.
STARS: ***½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A much better episode than I recall it being. Until now, I had always deemed this episode to be the first of a two-year slump that John Goodman’s SNL episodes were in. However, I’ve come away from tonight’s viewing feeling it was actually a pretty good episode. (Goodman’s next episode from season 25, on the other hand? Oof. We’ll see if that one is the dud I remember it being.) This continues this season’s perfect streak of not having any episodes that I find outright bad. There were a few really strong pieces tonight, including one absolute masterpiece (Happy Smile Patrol), and no sketches that flopped for me.

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

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Drew Barrymore)
a slight step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Cuba Gooding Jr.