Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
undecided voters question debaters Al Gore (DAH) & George W. Bush (WIF)
— Parnell’s facial prosthetics as Jim Lehrer seem to get doughier and goofier-looking with each passing debate sketch.
— I can’t help but think that the woman seated behind Kattan (seen in the fourth screencap above) looks like a female Rob Schneider.
— I like Parnell-as-Jim-Lehrer’s sighing, head-shaking reactions to dumb things being said throughout this debate.
— Great to see Dana’s obligatory Bush Sr. appearance in this debate sketch.
— As always, Dana’s Bush is getting lots of laughs here. I even love how towards the end of his first spiel, he says “So to sum up…”, which was a regular thing Dana’s Bush always said towards the end of his address-to-the-nation sketches from the late 80s/early 90s.
— Ha, there goes Darrell’s Gore bringing up his famous lockbox again.
— I love Bush Sr. and his aides now flimsily disguising themselves as undecided Latino voters.
— Now Bush disguises as his wife Barbara, which is also funny.
STARS: ****
OPENING MONTAGE
— Much like in the season premiere’s opening montage two episodes earlier, we get a credit for A Cartoon By Robert Smigel that ends up not even airing tonight, presumably due to the show running long.
MONOLOGUE
DAC does stand-up about presidential candidates’ mannerisms
— As always, Dana is making fantastic ad-libs towards the audience’s reactions at the beginning of this monologue.
— I absolutely love Dana doing Bush and Gore impressions, making me wonder what it would’ve been like if the Bush/Gore elections had occurred during Dana’s tenure as a cast member.
— Some interesting out-of-the-ordinary camera angles throughout this monologue, such as all the close-ups of Dana’s face when demonstrating various impressions, and shots of the audience whenever they applaud Dana’s impressions.
— I love how Dana’s now doing a Joe Lieberman impression.
— Dana’s Johnnie Cochran/Monopoly bit is great.
STARS: ****
MAGIC MOUTH
Magic Mouth ass-appliance converts flatulence into erudite conversation
— For a low-brow fart joke, this actually isn’t bad at all. A pretty funny ridiculous device to hide your farts. I especially like the device’s obvious mechanical voice that people are somehow supposed to believe is your own voice.
— Will: “Magic Mouth – it’s like having a professor up your butt.”
STARS: ***
THE DELICIOUS DISH
Margaret Jo & Terry welcome a teacher (DAC) besieged by gang activity
— This always-solid recurring sketch has been appearing so scarcely by this point.
— I like Molly’s stern, humorless delivery of “There’s nothing cartoonish about my religious beliefs.”
— I like seeing Dana appear in a Delicious Dish, as it feels interesting seeing a former cast member appearing in a newer recurring sketch from a current era, when it’s usually the other way around in episodes hosted by former cast members (as we’ll see in a certain popular returning Dana Carvey recurring sketch right after this).
— The high-pitched, soft-spoken voice that Dana’s using here sounds kinda familiar, as if I heard him previously use it in a sketch that I reviewed back when I covered Dana’s years as a cast member. I can’t put my finger on which sketch I’m thinking of. Perhaps it’s the Jason Priestley ice skating cold opening, where Dana played Scott Hamilton?
— Dana going on about the urban juvenile gang who terrorizes his neighborhood is very funny, especially when he starts getting worked up when talking about how he’s going to get even with the gang.
STARS: ****
CHURCH CHAT
Hillary Clinton (ANG), Anne Heche (CHK), Eminem (CHP)
— Always great to see this sketch return.
— A hilarious Indian analogy that Church Lady makes in regards to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s relationship, especially the line about Bill getting his “peace pipe” smoked.
— Kattan reprises his Anne Heche impression for the first time since way back in season 22 when he played her opposite Mark McKinney as Ellen DeGeneres, just to show you how long ago it was.
— I love Church Lady’s dig at Heche’s infamous wandering incident.
— The “Taco or wiener?” part of the Church Lady/Anne Heche interview has always stuck in my memory since this originally aired.
— Church Lady’s facial reaction to a profanity-filled clip being played of an Eminem song is priceless.
— Great ending with Church Lady doing a “The Real Slim Shady”-esque number, complete with Church Lady lookalikes surrounding her.
STARS: ****
HUNTING
George (DAC) seeks gravitas in George W. (WIF) Bush during a hunting trip
— I love that we get two appearances tonight from Dana and Will’s Bushes, this one being more in a similar vein to the cold opening that Dana and Will did as the Bushes in the preceding season’s Christopher Walken episode. Will’s Bush impression has really improved since then.
— I like that we get a return of the Bush-Sr.-slapping-Bush-Jr. gag from the last Bushes sketch with Will and Dana.
— A good dark bit with Bush Sr. contemplating shooting his son.
— SNL would later replace this sketch in reruns with the dress rehearsal version, which has a memorable blooper in which Dana fake-slaps Will at a much earlier point in the sketch than he was supposed to, causing Will to react by moving his head upward in a comically confused manner, before ad-libbing a line to Dana, in character: “You tried to hit me?”, which Dana responds to, in character, with “Thought I saw a fly there.” Then later in the sketch when Dana fake-slaps Will when he’s supposed to, Dana ad-libs in character, in a stern manner, “Now that time, it wasn’t a fly!”
STARS: ****
BAHA MEN
going to commercial, Baha Men [real] perform “Who Let The Dogs Out”
— Um… ooooookay.
— At least this shows that SNL is still trying different things with their format this many decades into their run.
WEEKEND UPDATE
Anna Nicole Smith (MOS) outlines her university’s gold-digging curriculum
opinion-gauger Adam McKay [real] comes off as a dangerous stranger
Robert DeNiro [real] responds to JIF’s review of Meet The Parents
— Parnell’s now doing the voice-over intro for Update, after the voice-over intro in the previous two Updates this season were done by a male with an unidentifiable voice.
— Tina’s doing tonight’s Update without her glasses, which I remember being an odd sight even at the time, considering the only two Updates that we had seen Tina do prior to this had her with glasses, but it ESPECIALLY comes off as an odd sight when re-watching this nowadays, after being so familiar with Tina doing Update with glasses for SIX SEASONS.
— I like Jimmy’s various jokes about a bulge that Al Gore is sporting in a picture.
— Molly doing a very typically Molly Shannon-esque “impression” of Anna Nicole Smith. Blah. I found this “impression” of hers a lot more tolerable in pre-taped form in that great Fanatic piece from the preceding season’s Ben Affleck episode. In tonight’s live Update commentary, all that Molly’s Anna Nicole impression is making me do is wonder two things to myself: 1) why couldn’t Molly have left with Cheri, and 2) exactly how many more episodes do I have left until Molly mercifully leaves mid-season? It’s been pretty rough watching her go downhill these last few seasons.
— Tina’s whole rant about French whores is great, and I remember made me wonder back when this originally aired if Tina was the writer behind the great Old French Whore sketch from season 23’s Garth Brooks episode. As we know now, she indeed was.
— Interesting sudden use of a drop-down news screen behind Jimmy and Tina.
— SNL writer Adam McKay gets his own remote segment.
— Good remote segment from McKay so far, especially him trying to lure kids into his van.
— UCB’s Matt Walsh makes a funny appearance as an angry parent kicking McKay’s ass.
— Adam McKay, to Matt Walsh, regarding the kids: “I just want them to go in my van so I can film them talking about Bush!”
— A Robert DeNiro cameo, back when Robert DeNiro appearances on SNL still had a level of excitement.
— More interesting camera angles tonight, with the odd tight close-ups of Jimmy and DeNiro, respectively, at the beginning of DeNiro’s cameo (the last two above screencaps for this Weekend Update). SNL’s been doing a lot of experimenting with camera angles in tonight’s episode.
— I like Tina saying “You are on your own” when Jimmy asks her for help during DeNiro’s tense grilling of him.
— This DeNiro commentary is a prototypical example of how corny and tired a lot of SNL’s “a celebrity walks on and confronts a cast member who impersonates them” trope tends to be. There have been some examples where that trope actually worked well and provided good entertainment, but I can’t say this is one of them, in my opinion. Jimmy is coming off pretty charming in his reactions, though, especially after DeNiro signs off for him by saying “And I’m Jimmy Fallon” in a hokey, high-pitched voice. Am I remembering correctly that on Jimmy’s very first episode as host of Late Night, he and that night’s first guest, DeNiro, did a comedy bit that seemed to be based on this Update cameo of his, in which Jimmy and DeNiro read scripted lines as each other, with Jimmy doing his typical DeNiro impression and DeNiro using the same hokey, high-pitched voice that he imitated Jimmy with in tonight’s Update?
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sleepwalker”
VH1 VOGUE FASHION AWARDS
stars celebrate style superlatives
— Yikes, poor Jerry Minor, flubbing his first line in this sketch when trying to say the name Cuba Gooding Jr. SNL would later replace this portion of the sketch in reruns with the dress rehearsal version.
— Maya’s Macy Gray impression is spot-on and funny.
— I like Kattan’s take on Dylan McDermott, especially him asking us to stare at his “package”.
— Tracy as a loud Samuel L. Jackson is cracking me up.
— A lot of then-recent SNL hosts and musical guests are being impersonated in this sketch: Cuba Gooding Jr., Macy Gray, Dylan McDermott, Sting…
— Rachel is hilarious in her impression of Cheb Mami during the Sting performance.
— A spot-on Sting impression from Jimmy.
— I can’t really judge the accuracy of Dana’s impression of Survivor’s Rudy Boesch, as I’ve never been a Survivor watcher, though I remember seeing a clip or two of Rudy back then on other shows. Dana’s performance is making me laugh here, though, plus I like the Super Fans-esque Chicago accent he’s using, which makes me wonder what it would’ve been like if Dana had played one of the Super Fans back when he was a cast member.
STARS: ***
PET CHICKEN SHOP
Ching Change receives financing for his Broadway play about chickens
— OH. NO.
— Why, why, why did Dana have to bring back this wretched character tonight? I don’t need to be reminded of how miserable it was for me to review these sketches back when I covered Dana’s first few seasons as a cast member.
— A cue card has made an accidental onscreen cameo just now (screencap below), which is somehow more interesting than the sketch itself is.
— This feels like Horatio’s first appearance all night. Man, his airtime has been pretty terrible so far this season.
— Horatio’s incredibly hammy, over-the-top performance is cracking me up in spite of myself. Dana can be seen cracking up at him at one point too.
— Oh, no, and now to make this already-awful Ching Change sketch even worse, we get that “Tomorrow” song from Annie that I despise with a fiery passion.
— The change of pace towards the end, showing a Broadway play starring chickens, is kinda funny, I admit.
— Aaaaaand my goodwill from the above Broadway chicken play bit immediately gets soured by Dana breaking out into that “Tomorrow” song AGAIN, as if hearing that song once in this sketch wasn’t bad enough.
— This has the dishonor of being the first sketch all season that I’m giving a rating under three stars to, though it’s certainly impressive that this season made it this long without having a sketch rated 1-2 stars by me.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hand Me Down”
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— As expected, a solid episode with Dana Carvey as a host, though the episode’s quality gradually trailed off a little in the post-Update half. The first half of the show, minus the Magic Mouth commercial (which was still good), had an impressive long string of sketches that got a 4-star rating from me. Season 26 continues to do very well so far.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kate Hudson)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Charlize Theron. This is a very special episode for me, as it’s the very first episode I ever did a review of, back when I regularly did reviews of new SNL episodes right after they aired, for 14 long years. (Those reviews are archived at this site.)