Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
CAPITOL BUILDING
George (DAC) coaches son George W. (WIF) Bush on how to be evasive
— Dana Carvey!
— I love Will’s Bush repeatedly chanting “I’m a uniter, not a divider”, and Dana’s Bush snapping him out of it my slapping him back and forth.
— I see Dana’s still got it as Bush Sr.
— Bush Sr.’s various tips to Bush Jr. are very funny, and there’s some charming chemistry between Dana and Will.
— Bush Sr.: “Should we send the Gonzalez boy back to Cuba?” Bush Jr.: “I don’t give a rat’s ass.”
— The visual of Bush Jr. sitting on Bush Sr.’s lap kinda reminds me of SNL’s running gag of Dan Quayle doing the same to Bush Sr. back in the early 90s.
STARS: ****½
MONOLOGUE
host sings “Saturday Night Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week” & dances
— I like Christopher’s “I miss this place” line, whether it was intended to get laughs or not.
— Christopher reprises his “crazy make-em-ups” line from the questions-from-the-audience segment in SNL’s 25th Anniversary Special (which he was absolutely hilarious in).
— Here’s our obligatory Walken monologue song-and-dance.
— An overall charming and pretty fun Walken monologue song-and-dance as always, though this one didn’t have anything noteworthy, unlike his last two monologues, one in which he sang lots of fun winter-related songs, and one in which he danced with each female cast member one-by-one and then danced his way to SNL’s backstage area.
STARS: ***½
BEHIND THE MUSIC
cowbell dominates Blue Oyster Cult recording session
— Here’s an absolutely legendary and iconic SNL sketch.
— Christopher is playing a perfectly Christopher Walken-esque Bruce Dickinson.
— Bruce Dickinson: “I put my pants on just like the rest of you, one leg at a time. Except, once I put my pants on, I make gold records.”
— And there’s the first instance of Will’s cowbell banging. Even in the straightforward, low-key manner he’s doing it this first time, it’s amazing how Will is still able to make it hilarious.
— Bruce Dickinson, in regards to the first track: “I coulda used a little more cowbell.”
— And now we get the absolutely classic turn in the second track, with Will exploring the studio place by going wild while banging the cowbell all over the place, complete with his belly flopping out of his tiny shirt. An extremely memorable visual.
— I love an unhappy Will deliberately slowly playing the cowbell right next to Parnell’s face.
— When trying to deliver the simple line “Quit being so selfish, Gene!”, Jimmy busts out laughing, which leads to Will himself cracking up a bit. After this happens, it’s quite funny watching Jimmy in the background trying his damnedest to get himself back into a straight face during Will’s poignant speech about how important it is for him to play the hell out of the cowbell. When Jimmy finally does regain his composure, he IMMEDIATELY loses it again and ducks his head in laughter when Will’s voice unexpectedly cracks in a funny way while saying “I’d be doing myself a disservice– etc.” (you can hear Horatio bust out laughing off-camera during that part too). One of the very few times you’ll hear me say that a Jimmy Fallon character break actually added to my enjoyment of a sketch.
— Bruce Dickinson: “Guess what?!? I got a fever… and the only prescription… is more cowbell!”
— I love Horatio’s spaced-out look shortly before saying “He speaks for all of us.”
— Bruce Dickinson: “Babies, before we’re done here, ya’ll be wearin’ gold-plated diapers.”
— A great “in memoriam” freeze-frame of Will’s Gene Frenkle at the end, made even better by the fact that he’s not even a real person.
— Overall, such a perfect sketch, in every single way.
STARS: *****
ELIAN, THE CUBAN BOY!
stage adaptation of international custody battle
— A very funny idea of making a stage musical out of the Elian Gonzalez saga.
— Darrell makes his ONLY appearance of these last two episodes as a barely-visible guy in the back of a boat of singing immigrants (you can see him behind Molly in the first above screencap for this sketch). He looks as if he was possibly thrown into this sketch at the last minute, especially given how he’s off on his cue to raise his fist in the air in unison with his scene partners. I didn’t realize until now that he wasn’t in any sketches in the preceding episode, hosted by The Rock.
— Christopher’s Fidel Castro is hilarious, as is the song he’s singing. I remember an old SNL review from this time in 2000 saying Christopher managed to look even creepier than the real Fidel Castro.
— I love Rachel’s cheesy, theatrical portrayal of Elian Gonzalez.
— This is Will’s first time playing Janet Reno in quite a long time. Great to see this back.
— As much as it pains me to say anything negative about this great sketch, we unfortunately get our second of three moments from seasons 25 and 26 in which Will and Kattan kiss each other on the lips for an unnecessary cheap laugh.
— As a whole, a very well-done sketch.
STARS: ****½
THE CONTINENTAL
The Continental gets amorous when a lady arrives to retrieve her mail
— Always glad to see our obligatory Continental sketch.
— Must be some audio problems, as we’re not hearing the usual piano music during the obligatory opening Phil Hartman voice-over.
— Ah, now the piano music has started playing, at the very end of Phil’s voice-over. Not sure if this delay in the piano music would later be fixed in reruns or not.
— Funny mention from The Continental of having a tattoo of two dogs “doing it”.
— The Continental: “You are skittish… like Siberian palomino.”
— We now get The Continental’s very first utterance of “Wowie wow wow wow!”, which would go on to be a well-liked catchphrase of his.
— A very funny part with The Continental being caught slipping a mickey into the woman’s drink.
— The Continental: “Did you see my painting? I got it from Target.”
— A hilarious and memorable part with The Continental being seen staring into the bathroom through the other side of the bathroom mirror while he’s lighting a cigarette.
— I love the part with The Continental getting sprayed by mace, made even funnier by him screaming “WAAAAUUUGGHH!” in response. Freakin’ priceless.
— Ha, the aforementioned mace part has now gotten even funnier with the woman flat-out punching The Continental in the face to get him out of the way of the door.
STARS: *****
VIAGRA
wives sarcastically thank Viagra for restoring husbands’ intumescence
— Very amusing to hear Christopher talk about Viagra in his usual dry manner.
— Tina Fey makes an appearance as the only person I recognize out of all of the non-Walken/Gasteyer couples in this commercial. I’m not 100% sure, but I believe this ends up being her last onscreen SNL appearance before being added to the cast in the following season.
— Good ending visual of Ana flushing Christopher’s Viagra pills down the toilet.
STARS: ***½
JENNY JONES
audience member (host) imparts wisdom to panelists
— Rachel is pretty spot-on in her portrayal of Jenny Jones.
— Jimmy’s performance as a wannabe-black character is hilarious.
— Jimmy, to Molly: “You look like you sewed someone’s ass to your chest!”
— As with the Sally Jessy Raphael parody earlier this season in the Christina Ricci episode, this sketch is a spot-on parody of Jenny Jones’ show.
— Christopher’s various one-liners to the guests, such as “Checkity-check yourself before you wreck yourself” and “Let your freak flag fly”, are coming off priceless being delivered in Christopher’s usual manner.
— Parnell, on how he lost weight: “For a year, I ate only candy necklaces and Pedialyte.”
— Tracy makes his obligatory sole appearance of the whole night. This is getting ridiculous. I cannot remember the last time he appeared in more than one sketch in an episode.
— It’s a very small detail in the sketch, but I’m cracking up at Christopher’s frozen, speechless, somewhat-taken-aback facial expression in the background when Kattan enters as a woman.
— Rachel-as-Jenny-Jones’ ending line about having a crappy local band play the show to commercial is such a dead-on detail in regards to the real Jenny Jones show.
STARS: ***½
WEEKEND UPDATE
Jacob Silj bemoans being afflicted with voice immodulation
— Colin: “As members of the media, we’re required to say the word ‘Elian Gonzalez’ every 10 minutes.”
— I like the News From The Future segment about a 21-year-old Elian Gonzalez in the year 2015.
— I’m getting a kick out of the audience’s somewhat uproarious reaction to a punchline of Colin’s, in which he quotes an infamous bigoted John Rocker rant about “having to take the 7 Train sitting next to some queer with AIDS, some kid with purple hair, a 20-year-old mom with 4 kids, etc.” Since John Rocker’s name wasn’t directly mentioned anywhere in the joke, I’m sure the joke would go over a lot of viewers heads in more recent years, which might make it look like Colin was just randomly saying those bigoted things about passengers of the 7 Train for the hell of it.
— The return of Will’s Jacob Silj character. This seems like kind of a thin character to make recurring, but I know Will is going to manage to always make this character work.
— I like Jacob Silj explaining that some people get voice immodulation disorder from being born two months late and having been exposed to gold dust.
— At the end of this Update, Colin randomly saying “Elian Gonzalez” after his usual sign-off tagline was a nice callback to an earlier bit from the beginning of this Update.
— Overall, better than Colin’s usual Updates, keeping up the great atmosphere of tonight’s episode.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Turn To You”
THE CENSUS
census taker (TIM) records apartment dweller’s (host) crazy responses
— An all-time favorite of mine.
— Oddly, this is Tim’s first (and ONLY) appearance all night.
— A perfectly Christopher Walken-esque oddball role for Christopher.
— Just some of my many favorite Christopher Walken lines in this endlessly funny sketch are him counting plants and candy bars as people who live with him, his reveal of his wife being a bobcat, and him saying he has dual citizenship with the United States and Florida.
— Tim is a fantastic straight man here.
— Tim: “Let’s just proceed as if this is going really well.”
— I love the ending with Christopher saying to his off-camera bobcat wife “Again? We just did it!”
STARS: *****
BEAUTY PAGEANT
Sally O’Malley crashes the Miss Greenwood Hills Beauty Pageant
— I like the odd name of Christopher’s character, Brett Lighthorse.
— Cheri, regarding the burn unit of a children’s hospital: “I would just love to see their little red faces light up when they see me!”
— A pretty good laugh from Ana’s passing mention of wanting her baby back from “that miserable drummer”.
— The great atmosphere of tonight’s episode comes to a screeching halt with the appearance of Sally O’Malley. I’ve said enough in earlier reviews about my dislike of this character.
— One thing I’ll say I consistently like about these Sally O’Malley sketches are the hosts, as Danny DeVito, Ben Affleck, and now Christopher Walken have provided enjoyment for me in the Sally O’Malley sketches I’ve covered so far.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “At Last” & “What A Girl Wants”
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An absolutely fantastic episode. An impressive number of highly-rated sketches, two true classics (Behind The Music, The Census), one of my all-time favorite Continental installments, and Christopher Walken being his usual self. So many things to love here.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (The Rock)
a mild step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Tobey Maguire