Author: Stooge

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November 15, 1986 – Sam Kinison / Lou Reed (S12 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
mad that host is doing SNL, Church Lady confronts him & Seka [real]

— Another Church Chat sketch already, for the second episode in a row?
— I believe this is the first time Church Lady’s “Isn’t that special?” catchphrase has received recognition applause from the audience.
— Interesting meta premise with Church Lady announcing she won’t be appearing on SNL this week because she’s protesting guest host Sam Kinison for his most recent SNL stand-up segment where he, as Church Lady puts it, “said naughty things about crack and Christ.”
— I really like the fourth-wall break with her walking off the Church Chat set and heading to SNL’s backstage to confront Sam Kinison.
— Funny turn with Sam giving Church Lady “what she needs”, which is a big raunchy kiss.
— Great “Live from New York…” delivery from Sam, who’s trademark scream is absolutely perfect for SNL’s LFNY sign-on.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
after host plays guitar with SNL Band, cops on horseback monitor language

— Wow, fantastic entrance from Sam, joining the SNL Band’s theme music-playing by jamming out on an electric guitar. This is the first of what would end up being a few instances over the years where upon entering for their monologue, the host joins G.E. Smith and the SNL Band in an extended version of SNL’s theme music. Other instances would be Kevin Kline in 1988 and Rick Moranis in 1989. Not sure if there are any others I’m forgetting.
— I like the callback Sam’s making to some of his topical jokes from his appearance in the Jimmy Breslin episode last season.
— LOL at the entrance from two policemen on horses, to keep Sam on watch.
— I’m surprised by how short this overall monologue was, and how it ended without him even doing any actual stand-up, but I enjoyed what this contained.
STARS: ***


ADOBE
the little $179 Mexican import car is made out of clay

— Very funny concept of a car made of clay.
— I like Phil demonstrating the features of the car.
— Great montage of various people using the clay cars, especially the part with Nora molding a dent in her car back into shape, and the tennis couple exiting from their car with the backs of their outfits being clay-stained.
— A solid and memorable commercial overall.
STARS: ****


PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE
at parent-teacher meeting, (host) tells (JAH) & (KEN) their kid is stupid

— Already a laugh just from Sam walking on as a school teacher.
— Hilarious part with Sam’s theory of why he can’t get through to Jan and Kevin’s daughter, which is him bluntly saying “she’s so stupid”. Great reaction from Jan and Kevin as well.
— Love the part with Sam showing Jan and Kevin the sun outside and asking them if they see a smiley face on it.
— I’m enjoying how worked up Sam’s getting when talking about a disturbing Vietnam story he wrote for his students.
— An okay reveal at the end that Dana’s the real teacher, leading Sam to jump out the window. I probably would’ve enjoyed that ending more if it didn’t end up becoming a go-to ending that SNL would sometimes have a tendency to use as a lazy cop-out (e.g. the Park Ranger Tree Slice sketch with Tom Arnold).
STARS: ***½


JUNGLE ROOM
Chick Hazard (PHH) keeps an eye on ’40s club owner Eddie Spimozo (JOL)

— Here’s this era’s very first instance of a black-and-white sketch set in an earlier decade, which is a type of sketch this cast would go on to really excel in.
— There’s especially a strong part right now with all the back-and-forths between Jon and Phil, reminding me of their great chemistry in the memorable Johnny O’Connor sketch from earlier this season.
— Another sketch that showcases Jon’s fantastic singing voice. I especially loved the long operatic note he held at the end of this number. Speaking of which, I think this is the musical number they show during the ending credits of Jon’s Best Of special.
STARS: ****


FRESH BREAD
those plastic things keep bread fresher than those twisty deals

— Wait, what the heck did I just watch?  This segment was so random and brief, I almost missed it. This seemed intended as a quick, throwaway, going-to-commercial bit, being only 5 seconds long, which makes this one of the shortest segments in SNL history.
— This also ended with awkward silence from the audience, as if they were like me and didn’t know what to make of this segment.
STARS: N/A (too short to rate)


PET CHICKEN SHOP
Ching Change (DAC) doesn’t want to part with the chickens in his pet shop

— OH NO. The debut of… THIS character. Oh, how I had long been dreading having to eventually cover these sketches.
— As if I ALREADY hadn’t been enjoying where this sketch was going, now Dana breaks out into a song. (*groan*)
— Overall, yikes. Really don’t know what else to say here, other than the fact that I shudder at how many more of these Ching Change sketches I have to put up with these next few seasons.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Love You, Suzanne”


LOVE CONNECTION
host relives his hellish date with a pair of lesbians

— I always forget that Sam’s a former minister. I can’t picture him in that position at all.
— We get the return of Jan’s Marge Keister character from the Quiz Masters sketch in the season premiere. I’ve always felt this was one of Jan’s more underrated recurring characters from her overall SNL tenure, and I like how they always work her into a different random setting in each of her appearances.
— We also get the return of an even lesser-known character: Nora’s butch Dr. Norma Hoeffering character from the Donahue sketch earlier this season.
— I got a huge laugh from Sam’s eyes-rolled-up possessed facial expression when its mentioned that his two dates took him to a horse farm.
— What’s with the audio all of a sudden? During the interview with Nora and her female partner, Sam and (especially) Kevin’s dialogue keeps occasionally sounding strangely echo-ish?
— Sam keeps stepping on Nora’s lines with his screaming ad-libs, which completely drowned out one of her lines at one point.
— Overall, this sketch got some good laughs out of me. But if you’re not a fan of Sam Kinison’s screaming outburst routine, I can definitely understand why you wouldn’t like this sketch, as that’s basically all this sketch turned into after a while.
STARS: ***


WEEKEND UPDATE
footage of VIJ’s undercover Central Park mission to look for terrorism

 

— Dennis begins this Update by randomly ad-libbing “Never let ’em see ya sweat”, which receives a great amount of applause from the audience. There’s actually a backstory to this. According to an old SNL newsgroup post from someone who claims they were at the show the night of this episode (read the post here, though you may have to scroll down to see it; also, it’s a bit confusing, as the poster remembers the incident as happening in the Justine Bateman-hosted episode from next season… who knows, maybe it happened in both the Kinison and Bateman episodes), SNL’s stagehands took longer than usual assembling the Weekend Update set and barely made it in time before the show returned from commercial. This is supposedly what prompted Dennis’ “Never let ’em see ya sweat” ad-lib. I think this story is legit, because I noticed that when the camera first showed Dennis at the beginning of this Update, you can see the clock in the background winding around VERY fast, as if the stagehands weren’t finished setting the correct time on it.
— Another Victoria Jackson video clip that just turns out to be her playing with her baby.
— Fairly funny how Victoria is heard cracking up in the middle of her voice-over during the video.
— After the video ends, Dennis mocks Victoria’s aforementioned laughing, which was a cute moment.
— Kinda sad that these baby home video Update commentaries have been the ONLY big things Victoria has done so far in her SNL tenure. She’s definitely been struggling to leave a mark this season, unlike her fellow newbies who have all gotten a significant number of things to do so far and have all made a strong impression on audiences.
— Strong joke from Dennis about Ted Turner wanting to colorize the first 20 minutes of The Wizard of Oz.
— Dennis’ random suggestion for everybody to cough tomorrow at 10 a.m. to mess with people’s heads initially receives silence from the audience, then a few boos for some reason. Weird.
STARS: ***


DANCING LORD
(JOL) uses reverse psychology to sketch portrait of a dancing king (DAC)

— Funny seeing Dennis dressed as an 18th century character at the beginning of the sketch.
— This hyperactive foppish character seems like a role that Dana Carvey was born to play.
— Clever turn with Dana dancing himself to the point of collapse, which was a ruse by Jon to keep Dana still so he can sketch him.
STARS: ***


KRYPTON SURVIVES
after Jor-El (host) sends Superman to Earth, Krypton doesn’t blow up

 

— First time we’ve really seen Sam in character and in a wig all night.
— I got a laugh from Sam telling Nora “You know, there’s still time to squirt one off if you want.”
— When the phone ringing sound effect continues to play even after Sam has picked up the phone, he ad-libs into the receiver “Yeah, I answered the phone, will ya stop ringing it?”, which gets a great audience reaction.
— Okay, here’s where the decision to turn practically EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight into a Sam Kinison scream-fest is starting to take its toll on me. His screaming isn’t working for this sketch at all.
— An unintentional laugh from seeing A. Whitney Brown of all people (in his ONLY appearance all night, by the way) in a non-speaking bit role as a tough criminal.
— Overall, a sketch that started out okay but slowly died a terrible death over the course of four minutes. Bad sketch as a whole.
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Original Wrapper”


SAM KINISON STAND-UP
host does stand-up about how he’s misunderstood- he actually loves women

— Oh, looks like we DO get some Kinison stand-up tonight after all.
— Some laughs from him talking about his bad knack for choosing women who he knows will “bust him up good”.
— Good risque humor from the bit about guys trying to crack women’s “combinations”.
— Decent stand-up set overall.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— This appears to be a fairly polarizing episode, and I suppose which side you fall on depends on your view of Sam Kinison. As someone who’s always enjoyed Sam’s comedy, I used to absolutely love this episode in my past viewings. Hell, I used to consider this and the following week’s Robin Williams-hosted episode the point where this SNL era officially took off. Looking at this episode through a more critical eye now, especially after recently discovering that Sam’s stand-up performances in his earlier SNL appearances were surprisingly hit-and-miss, I still enjoyed this episode, but can see that there were some things that really didn’t work, and I can also see that 90 minutes of Sam’s screaming shtick DID start wearing thin towards the end of the night. So overall, I’m no longer as big on this episode as I used to be, but I’d still call it a good show as a whole.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Rosanna Arquette):
— a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Robin Williams

Posted on

November 8, 1986 – Rosanna Arquette / Ric Ocasek (S12 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

DISCLAIMER
newsreel shows why World Series caused SNL to be taped; Ron Darling cameo

— Interesting way to open the show, explaining in a newsreel footage-esque piece how for the first time in SNL’s 11-year history, a live episode was pre-empted and had to be taped for a later week.
— Random observation: Ron Darling strongly resembles Andy Kaufman.
— Funny how comically serious Ron Darling’s speech about finding out SNL was pre-empted is.
— Overall, I loved how they presented this whole thing, and Don Pardo’s dialogue was well-written.
— I really have to wonder how hardcore SNL fans back then, especially ones who aren’t baseball fans, reacted on that fateful night of October 25th when finding out that a live episode they were probably eagerly awaiting (especially in a new-and-improved season of SNL like this) wasn’t going to air after all. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like if that happened nowadays (even though I’m currently on a hiatus from watching new SNL episodes).
— Also, here’s something else I’ve always wondered: if this episode was originally scheduled to air on October 25th but got pre-empted, why did they wait TWO weeks to air it on November 8th? Why not air it on November 1st, the week after it was originally scheduled? Was a non-SNL program already planned to air in SNL’s timeslot on November 1st?
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


COLD OPENING
Tommy Flanagan poses as LOM, sells host on a “neck with producer” sketch

— The whole “Neck with the Producer” thing is pretty funny.
— Here comes yet another Tommy Flanagan appearance. But not to worry, because IIRC, after tonight’s episode, SNL goes really light on him for the rest of the season, and he barely (if ever) appears in any of the subsequent seasons of Jon Lovitz’s SNL tenure.
— I like Flanagan’s ridiculous claims to Rosanna about how the “Neck with the Producer” script contains a hidden message about the homeless.
— Uh-oh. During Flanagan’s long consecutive string of lies, I can tell they’re adding in canned laughter. It’s the dreaded return of season 11’s infamous practice of sweetening audience reactions in reruns. I understand why they had to use that practice back THEN, considering season 11’s dire quality, but why use it NOW, during an actual good season? Me thinks Lorne is taking a few too many liberties with the fact that he had several weeks to tweak this pre-empted episode before it aired.
— I got a pretty good laugh from Lorne’s reaction to the “Neck with the Producer” script.
— Overall, one of the better Tommy Flanagan sketches in a while.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Rosanna immediately starts this monologue by excitedly asking the audience “How about those Mets?!?”, which reminds me of how Malcolm-Jamal Warner similarly started the last monologue by asking “How about those Red Sox?” Unlike that, however, Rosanna’s Mets mention would later still be left intact in reruns.
— A fairly promising idea, with Rosanna thinly veiling her criticisms of President Reagan to appease the equal time rule.
— Wow, it’s over already? This was a VERY short monologue; too short, in fact. This felt like it had good potential to go further.
STARS: **


THE PEOPLE’S COURT
a white trash hairdresser (host) sues Mephistopheles

 

— I love this premise and it’s a great way to use Jon’s Mephistopheles. This is the most well-known Mephistopheles sketch, and probably the absolute best.
— Very funny reveal of Jan’s character being Rosanna’s mother, when both characters look almost the exact same age.
— Love the various split-screen parts of this.
— Memorable ending with Mephistopheles’ message into the camera, ordering us to worship him.
— Overall, a fantastic sketch that’s well-deserved of its high status.
STARS: *****


CHURCH CHAT
Church Lady scolds Jenny Baker (VIJ), host, musical guest

— Good to see this back.
— More signs that tonight’s pre-empted episode was heavily tweaked before airing: I can tell this sketch is a mixture of live and dress rehearsal, because the Halloween decorations on Church Lady’s desk keep disappearing and reappearing in different shots. (compare her desk in the two screencaps below)

— I didn’t know Rosanna Arquette had a reputation for being so political, which now explains the monologue she did earlier tonight.
— Ric Ocasek seems pretty out of it here, though maybe that’s just acting.
— Love Church Lady’s reaction to the raunchy clip played from a The Cars music video.
— Church Lady has some really hilarious comments to Ocasek.
— Interesting part with Rosanna’s angry rant to Church Lady, ending with her calling Church Lady a bitch, which appears to humble her for a moment.
— At the end, they transition from this sketch to the next segment by using the same “page turning” screen effect that they used at the end of Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s monologue.
— Overall, a bit of a step up from the debut of this sketch back in the season premiere, but this still isn’t quite at the level these sketches would later be, and they still need to cut back on the overabundance of “Could it beeeeee…. SATAN?!?”s.
STARS: ***½


HELMSLEY SPOOK HOUSE
Leona Helmsley (NOD) shows off her high-class den of horrors

— The debut of Nora’s Leona Helmsley impression, which has always been one of my favorite Nora Dunn roles.
— An okay piece overall, though this didn’t really seem to be trying to be all that funny. It felt like the realistic haunted house features could’ve had more laughs.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Emotion in Motion”


PORK
pole-vaulter (KEN) plans on dining on pork- his body can take it

— Funny reveal of pork being athlete Kevin’s training food of choice, and the announcer’s tagline to eat pork while you’re still healthy.
STARS: ***


WEEKEND UPDATE
AWB discusses how censorship is futile & hypocritical

— Loved Dennis screaming “AAAAH!” as a save when he screws up his U.S./Russia joke, and then reveals to the audience “I am a human being too”.
— A. Whitney’s overall Big Picture commentary tonight was one of his better ones in a while. Some of the noteworthy funny comments were about degrading eye shadow, anti-crack commercials, and how HBO is currently re-running C.H.U.D. for the 47th time.
— Overall, this has got to be the least amount of things I’ve ever had to say about a Weekend Update in all the episodes I’ve covered so far, but that’s not to say this was a poor Update or anything. I still got my usual laughs.
STARS: ***


TWO SAMMIES
Sammies (KEN) & (DAC) watch TV, drink beer, doubt self-improvement odds

— I really like Kevin and Dana’s characterization and chemistry here.
— Haha, Kevin’s line about having to “cop a squirt” got a really good audience reaction.
— “Ahh, that’s ANOTHER thing I’m never gonna do, right?!?”
— Interesting camera angle from the top of the stairs when Phil and Nora are leaving. (third screencap above)
— Fun turn that Phil’s character ended up taking at the end.
— Pretty good sketch overall. You can tell they were setting these two characters up to become recurring. However, here’s the strange thing: these characters only ended up coming back once, and it was TWO YEARS LATER. Geez, by that point, most SNL fans at the time probably completely forgot about these characters’ first appearance.
STARS: ***


DOG BASEBALL
by William Wegman- canines’ owners watch their pets play

— The return of William Wegman. Back in the original SNL era, he did some short films with his dog Man Ray. I also recall him doing one in the Ebersol era.
— Instead of being with Man Ray this time, Wegman is shown with a whole bunch of dogs.
— Wegman’s amusingly-monotone voice-over and descriptions of each dog are making me laugh.
— Overall, I have mixed feelings about this film as a whole. On one hand, some of it bordered on being a little boring, but on the other hand, I like how this had an almost Jack Handey-esque feel, with the bizarre atmosphere, comically-mundane presentation, and monotone voice-over.
STARS: **½


MAKE JOAN BAEZ LAUGH
Howie Mandel’s (JOL) glove-on-head does it

— Interesting concept for a gameshow sketch.
— Phil’s gameshow host is named Big Bill Franklin, which is also the name of the gameshow host he played in the Quiz Masters sketch from the season premiere.
— Nora’s portrayal of a humorless Joan Baez is really good.
— I liked the “whatever” face Phil gave to the camera as an aside after one particular dour statement Nora’s Baez made.
— Jon’s portrayal of Howie Mandel is hilarious. His constant “What? What? What?”s are confusing to me, though. I’ve never known Mandel to constantly say “What?”, but it must be an accurate part of the impression because I recall future cast member Mike Myers later doing the same thing when playing Mandel in a locker room sketch from the Wayne Gretzky episode in season 14.
— Good conclusion with Nora’s Baez doing a laughing spit-take when seeing Jon’s Mandel do the “surgical glove on the head” trick.
STARS: ***½


PORK
enjoy pork after a workout- it’s when your heart can withstand it

— A decent continuation of the earlier pork commercial, and a funny ending visual of a cooked pig.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Keep on Laughin'”


MISS CONNIE’S FABLE NOOK
clowns Koko (DEM) & Mishu (DAC) teach giant Lebee (KEN) about patience

— Here’s a fleshed-out version of the Koko character that Dennis gave us a sample of in the season premiere’s Weekend Update.
— I wonder if the “Mishu, you’re standing in the stream” part was a real blooper or just part of the script.
— Kevin’s orge-ish grunting as the giant is KINDA amusing me, but I’m just desperate for a laugh at this point of the sketch.
— Boy, Dennis looks like he’s about to start busting out laughing any second.
— Wow, overall, I have absolutely no idea what to make of this sketch. All I know is I didn’t laugh. This sketch felt really out of place on SNL, and seemed like one big inside joke on Dennis.
STARS: *½


I SAW GOD
(host) sings “I Saw God”- He supports her decision to become a star

— Geez, where has Rosanna been? This is the first time we’ve seen her in a sketch since the first half of the episode.
— The audience seems to kinda like the “I Saw God” song so far, but it’s not working for me. I do kinda find the chorus melody catchy, though. Rosanna’s singing voice, on the other hand – yeesh.
— Overall, another strange, random sketch tonight that left me more puzzled than amused. Maybe this was attempting a more charming, softer piece, but if so, it missed its mark for me.
STARS: **


PANGO, GIANT DOG OF TOKYO!
Japanese miniatures are terrorized

     

— Wow, I thought the preceding two sketches were weird, but I can already tell that THIS is gonna take the cake.
— The overly-detailed dialogue during the science lab scene is making me laugh.
— The subsequent scenes has some pretty funny dialogue as well so far.
— Overall, yep, as I expected, a very bizarre film. There were some amusing lines throughout most of it, but the film went on too long and started kinda dragging towards the end.
— This film would later be cut from all reruns and be replaced with a different film titled “Coffee and Cigarettes”, starring Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright. Strange, by the way, how tonight’s episode would receive modifications in reruns, considering the original airing wasn’t even live. You’d figure they’d ALREADY have made all the necessary modifications to the episode before it even first aired.
STARS: **½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— The episode felt underwhelming compared to how this season had been going, and kinda had the typical burned-out feel that a lot of “third consecutive week” episodes have. There was actually some good stuff in the first half of this episode, however, particularly The People’s Court. It was the back half of the show where the quality seemed to gradually die off very badly. There were lots of strange things towards the end of the show that just didn’t work and confused me over what they were going for.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Malcolm-Jamal Warner):
— a fairly big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Sam Kinison, fresh off his controversial stand-up performance in the Malcolm-Jamal Warner episode

Posted on

October 18, 1986 – Malcolm-Jamal Warner / Run DMC (S12 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Frank Bartles (PHH) & Ed Jaymes (AWB) warn about the dangers of crack

— I like Phil’s blunt reveal that the subject of this Bartles & Jaymes message is… CRACK.
— Some funny background gestures from A. Whitney.
— I believe this is the only time A. Whitney would ever get to say “Live from New York…” during his entire SNL tenure.
— Decent cold opening overall, and an amusing way to address the crack epidemic going on at the time.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
DAC gives host the confidence he needs to do his dance

— The beginning of Malcolm’s talk would later be removed in reruns. In the live version I’m watching, Malcolm starts this monologue by asking the audience “How about those Red Sox?”, which receives quite a negative reaction from the crowd, and Malcolm responds by saying his home team, the Angels, aren’t in the World Series this year, so he doesn’t care who wins. The reruns of this monologue cut out that entire part and just begin with Malcolm saying to the camera afterwards “Hi, Mom; hi, dad.” Not sure why the World Series portion was removed; maybe they felt it was too topical? The cold opening also started with a reference to the World Series (Hartman: “We are sorry the Mets lost… but what a slugfest that was.”), but I don’t remember if that was removed from reruns or not.
— Suffering through Anthony Michael Hall’s amateurish performances last season has made me a little wary of seeing another teenage actor on SNL so soon (Malcolm-Jamal Warner is only 16 years old in this episode), but so far, Malcolm’s actually handling himself pretty well for his age and is coming off likable.
— Dana’s odd, stiff dance moves are providing some good laughs.
— Now Dana’s comical facial expressions are adding even more to the humor of his dancing.
— The SNL Band’s music keeps drowning out a lot of what Malcolm and Dana are saying, including Malcolm’s whole “We got a great show for you tonight” spiel at the end.
— Overall, an okay monologue and a decent showcase for last week’s breakout newbie Dana Carvey.
— Interestingly, instead of a fade to black, this monologue ends with a “page turning” screen effect that transitions it into the next segment. Don’t remember that screen effect ever being used again to end a sketch.
STARS: ***


TEAM XYNEX
Team Xynex gives your employees the ability to goof off more efficiently

— Dana once again gets to steal a scene (this time with his phone-down-the-pants bit at the end).
— An overall quick but funny commercial with how this presented typical office tomfoolery in such a professional way. Also a nice way to use what I think was the entire cast (even A. Whitney Brown was in there).
STARS: ***½


DONAHUE
women in exploitive relationships explain their actions

 

— This sketch is immediately starting off strong with the debut of a very funny and spot-on Donahue impression from Phil Hartman. It’s getting a great reaction from the audience.
— Some really good laughs from Jan’s crying and her pathetic defense of her boyfriend’s terrible actions.
— LOL at Nora’s butch character’s book being titled “Women Good. Men Bad.”
— Good back-and-forth between Nora’s aforementioned character and Donahue, with his desperation to get her to go into details about her personal life.
— Kevin as a brash audience member is hilarious and he’s stealing the sketch.
— I like how when the three female guests are showing interest in Kevin’s character, Nora’s butch character asks “Any sisters at home like you?”
— Overall, a very good sketch and featured strong performances from just about everyone. That being said, there’s another Donahue sketch they do later this season that I’ve always liked even more than this one.
STARS: ****


THE CROSBY SHOW
Theo Huxtable (host) dreams he’s in Bing Crosby’s (PHH) family

 

— Haha, quite strange seeing Cliff Huxtable being portrayed by the cigar-holding hand of a black extra while an unseen Dana Carvey is doing the Bill Cosby voice-over. Something about that cracks me up to no end. But really, it makes the lack of any black performers in this season’s cast painfully obvious.
— Dana’s vocal impression of Cosby is very funny, especially him constantly ending his sentences with “Ya see?”
— Funny turn with this Cosby Show take-off turning out to star Bing Crosby in the dad role.
— Two great Phil Hartman showcases in a row tonight so far.
— I’m getting a good laugh from the constant off-camera whipping and screaming sounds.  Dennis especially had some funny-sounding screaming.
— Hilarious walk-on from Jon as David Crosby, being portrayed as one of Bing’s sons.
— I absolutely love the bizarre visual of a spooky giant superimposed Bill Cosby head suddenly appearing and addressing the Crosby family in a loud, booming voice (done once again by an off-camera Dana Carvey).
— After Cosby says “That was a long, long time ago”, there’s a very long and awkward pause that, for some reason, always makes me laugh whenever I watch this sketch. Jan is amused too, apparently, as the long pause eventually causes her to start cracking up.
— Why is the audience applauding during the end-of-dream scene transition with Malcolm’s pre-taped voice-over repeatedly saying the magic words “I won’t try, I will”?
— The bedroom ending was weak.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee) introduces musical guest while they beat up LOM

— Fun Spike Lee appearance here.
— LOL at the priceless visual of Lorne getting manhandled by Run DMC.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Walk This Way”


WEEKEND UPDATE
KEN spouts numerous cliches while discussing the Reykjavik summit
Casey Kasem (DAC) answers viewer mail & declares Queen as top rock group

— Funny commentary from Kevin so far. I like his unfocused constant topic-changing and always saying “THAT’S what I’m really trying to say; forget the other stuff I was talking about.”
— I got a big laugh from Kevin’s line about a friend who was paralyzed from neck up, couldn’t wiggle his ears, and had to be confined to a hat.
— Loved Dennis’ whole “I don’t want to live in this world anymore” bit regarding D-Con Roach Spray and Mary Lou Retton’s appearance at a Statue of Liberty celebration.
— Unless I’m forgetting something, Dana’s Casey Kasem is the very first time a Dennis Miller Weekend Update has had a guest commentator who’s a celebrity instead of just a character or a cast member playing themselves.
— Great Casey Kasem voice from Dana.
— Funny hearing the disturbing story about Eddie Fontaine’s murder attempt being said in that cheerful Casey Kasem delivery. By the way, IIRC, Eddie Fontaine’s name  would later be bleeped out in reruns of this, I’m assuming for legal reasons.
STARS: ***½


INSTANT COFFEE
Sweeney sisters Frannie “Candy” (JAH) & Mary Ann “Liz” (NOD) sing medley

— The debut of the Sweeney Sisters. Interesting how their first appearance is as guests in some kind of morning talk show sketch, whereas their subsequent appearances would be in their own standalone sketches.
— Hmm, the Sweeney Sisters have different first names in this one. They introduce themselves here as Franny and Mary-Ann, whereas later installments of this sketch would have them named Liz and Candy.
— I really liked hearing the Sisters’ take on the song “Yesterday”, though I’m always a sucker for that song.
— There’s what’s always my favorite part of these Sweeney Sisters sketches: the energetic “Clang, clang, clang, went the trolley” bit.
— Nora and Jan’s chemistry is so damn strong here. We rarely ever saw this kind of chemistry between any of the cast members in the previous season.
— Fun song medley overall, and I liked the clever ways the Sisters connected the songs to each other with their transitions from one song to the next.
— Some funny little banter during the post-song interview conducted by Kevin.
STARS: ***½


PARENT-TEEN DRUNK DRIVING CONTRACT
host prefers youth-friendly version of parent-teen drunk driving contract

— An initial laugh from the oversized contract Malcolm brings out.
— Overall, a pretty straightforward piece that, while not really memorable, came off decent.  Malcolm’s delivery was solid and he, once again tonight, came off likable.
STARS: ***


SAM KINISON
Sam Kinison [real] does stand-up about family life & televangelists

— Another instance of the SNL Band playing badass music during Sam’s entrance.
— LOL at an audience member being heard imitating Sam’s scream right after Sam’s complaints about people on the street imitating his scream when they come up to him.
— Loved the whole “We’ll stop smoking crack if you give us the pot back!” part.
— He does a spot-on imitation of a typical televangelist voice.
— Funny ending with Sam imitating Jesus’ last words, which just turn out to be Sam screaming in pain while imitating the sounds of nails being hammered.
— Overall, one of Sam’s better SNL stand-up performances. Glad to see him stray away from the usual “marriage is hell” topic he usually always relies on in his SNL appearances.
— The more controversial portions of this stand-up performance (the parts about the crack epidemic and Jesus’ last words) would later get censored in reruns. Some reruns simply cut those portions out, but there are some old syndicated reruns that would censor those portions in a very odd way: instead of removing those portions entirely, they’d keep them in but mute out Sam’s dialogue while still leaving in the studio audience’s sounds (laughter, coughing, etc.). So, we see very long stretches of Sam speaking and screaming while no audio comes out of his mouth, all the while the audience is heard laughing hysterically at what he’s “saying” and “screaming”. It’s quite a bizarre sight. My guess is that edited syndicated version is taken from the original West Coast airing. Tape-delayed West Coast airings of live SNL episodes usually mute out any particularly offensive dialogue.
STARS: ***½


OLD HOLLYWOOD
(JOL) breaks it to war movie star Johnny O’Connor (PHH)- he’s finished

— Here comes a very well-known sketch.
— Hell, even just the beginning with Jon by himself, talking to various people over the phone has some really good laughs, and I love his old-timey delivery.
— Great characterization from Phil here.
— There’s the most well-remembered part of the sketch: the fantastic fast-paced back-and-forth with Jon bluntily telling Phil he’s fired and a terrible actor while Phil is completely oblivious and desperately keeps asking Jon to give him the news straight. I absolutely love this portion.
— Another really big laugh, this time from Phil’s fast-paced “Is it the booze? The dames? The pills? The sheep? The ducks? Your wife?” The latter gets a great reaction from Jon.
— Wonderful sketch overall, and a quintessential display of Phil and Jon’s always-great chemistry.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hit It, Run”


CHALK FACTORY
(host) doesn’t want to follow in dad’s (DAC) footsteps at chalk factory

— Wow, what an initial visual of the whole chalk-covered set & characters.
— Pretty funny hearing a whiteface (or chalk-face) Malcolm-Jamal Warner speaking in the same English accent as Dana and Nora.
— This sketch is slow so far, but I liked the part with Dana’s character mistaking a stick of chalk for a cigarette, and the part with a chalk-covered Nora saying “I’ll go powder my nose.”
— I also kinda like the part right now with Malcolm revealing he’s interested in working at an eraser factory, which offends Dana.
— The billiard chalk bit with Jon was a fairly funny idea, but for some reason, it kinda ended this sketch on a flat note.
— Overall, a strange sketch. The audience barely laughed and, despite some okay lines, I can’t really say the sketch worked as a whole.
— This would later get removed from all reruns and be replaced with a dramatic short film about a black street performer. I think I recall hearing that film was directed by tonight’s special guest Spike Lee.
— With the removal of this sketch in reruns, Malcolm only appears in two sketches all night (The Crosby Show and Parent-Teen Contract), which is very unusual for an SNL host.
STARS: **


BUSTER POINDEXTER
Buster Poindexter [real] sings “Hit The Road Jack”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A very good episode. Felt a lot more consistent than the season premiere, which had a slow first 15 minutes as well as too many musical interludes in the second half that threw off the flow. Tonight offered a lot of good comedy and had only one sketch I didn’t care for (Chalk Factory). This episode felt a little more like what’s now considered a typical episode from this era. It’s also nice to see this cast continue to grow and start showing some really strong chemistry with each other (e.g. Jan and Nora in Sweeney Sisters, Phil and Jon in Old Hollywood).
— This was really Phil Hartman’s breakout night. This episode was to him what the season premiere was to Dana Carvey. Much like how Dana was given three strong showcases in that episode (Quiz Masters, Church Chat, Derek Stevens), Phil was given three strong showcases in tonight’s episode (Donahue, The Crosby Show, Old Hollywood), all of which featured a fantastic performance from him and perfectly showed us the type of great and versatile performer he’s going to be these next 8 seasons. I love the format so far this season, where each week has special focus on one particular new cast member. Unfortunately, I don’t recall this format carrying over into this season’s third episode or beyond. Too bad; the next episode should’ve been Jan Hooks’ turn in the spotlight.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Sigourney Weaver):
— a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Rosanna Arquette hosts the first and (as of 2019) only live SNL episode to be taped and aired at a later date, caused in this particular case by a World Series game that ran very late and pre-empted the originally-scheduled live broadcast

Posted on

October 11, 1986 – Sigourney Weaver / (no musical guest) (S12 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Madonna [real] reads a statement from NBC- “last season was all a dream”

— Classic moment here, with the statement Madonna reads about season 11 reading “It was all a dream… a horrible, horrible dream”, which receives a good amount of laughter and audience applause.
— Overall, an interesting and memorable way to kick off the new era. Jokingly writing the previous season off as a dream is a good way for SNL to put the failure of that season behind them.
STARS: N/A (not sure this cold opening warrants a rating)


OPENING MONTAGE

— A pretty fun new montage this season, and unique in how the typical shots of New York scenery are interspersed with silhouette-type shots of various cast members, most of them hurrying to get someplace.
— I really like all the fast cuts and the various close-ups of feet running.
— The new additions to the cast tonight are Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and featured player Kevin Nealon.
— No musical guest is credited tonight. Many SNL episode guides incorrectly list Buster Poindexter as the official musical guest of this episode, but he’s actually credited with the SNL Band in tonight’s opening montage. That makes this one of only three episodes in SNL history that have no official musical guest; the other two episodes being Rob Reiner from season 1 and Walter Matthau from season 4.
— For the first time in SNL history, the host is the last person announced in an opening montage, which would go on to be a tradition that still continues to this day in 2019.


MONOLOGUE
host & Christopher Durang [real] plan to sing tunes from a Brecht musical

— The new home base stage has a very classy “fancy dining hall/ballroom” look, which I love. Anyway, I’d better love it, because we’re going to be seeing this home base stage for a LONG time. SNL would end up keeping it until 1995(!), and even then, they just shift this home base stage to the next section of the studio, using it as the musical guest stage for the next three seasons until 1998. Lorne must’ve developed a REALLY strong attachment to this stage.
— Sigourney’s delivery is coming off strangely… uh, I don’t know what word I’m thinking of, maybe “stilted”? I remember an SNL reviewer once likening this strange delivery of Sigourney’s to that of a patronizing school teacher. I’d say that’s pretty spot-on.
— Kind of a strange monologue so far, but there are some laughs from Sigourney and Christopher Durang talking about Lorne’s alleged enthusiasm for seeing German Expressionist Opera on SNL.
— Pretty funny gag with the control room operators panickedly cutting to a commercial as soon as Sigourney and Christopher are about to start their Brecht musical.
STARS: **½


GENERAL DYNAMICS
young couple’s sexy conversation doesn’t mention sponsor General Dynamics

— Well… this sure was strange overall. The humor was apparently in how the advertisement turned out to be for something completely different than what we saw hinted at throughout the commercial, but I feel like that’s a gag SNL would do better other times over the years. (Can’t think of any specific examples right now, but I know there’s at least a few)
— I can’t really say this particular commercial worked for me, and it felt like a strange and underwhelming choice for the first fake ad of a new season.
STARS: *½


GIRLFRIENDS
Tommy Flanagan tries to explain things to his girlfriends (host) & (NOD)

— Our first cast sighting of the season. Didn’t realize until now how strange it is that the first three segments in this season premiere didn’t feature ANY cast members.
— I remember an SNL reviewer (not the same one mentioned earlier) making an interesting point about how weird it is that after doing a cold opening where SNL basically tells us “Last season sucked”, the post-monologue lead-off sketch of the night stars a character who was all over last season. I know Tommy Flanagan was a huge breakout character and audience favorite in season 11, but you’d figure if SNL wanted to put that season so far behind them and prove to us that “Hey, this new season’s going to be so much better”, we’d be leading off the season with something fresh.
— Some okay lies from Flanagan so far, and Nora and Sigourney’s naiveness in believing them is pretty amusing.
— Overall, this sketch was decent in itself and had some good funny lines, but I’m still burned out on Tommy Flanagan after my coverage of season 11, thus making it a little hard for me to laugh all that much here.
STARS: **½


QUIZ MASTERS
Marge Keister (JAH) loses to psychic Lane Maxwell (DAC)

— Finally, we get our first sighting of some of tonight’s new cast members. A bit odd how none of them have made their debut until after the first commercial break.
— Feels so exciting seeing so many new cast members here.
— Even early on in his very first sketch appearance, Phil Hartman is IMMEDIATELY coming off fantastic, playing this gameshow host role to perfection and adding such a humorous and likable air to the character.
— Good reveal of Dana Carvey’s character being a psychic, and how he’s answering questions before they’re even asked.
— Jan Hooks’ delivery of “I don’t think this is fair; he’s a psychic” got a really good audience reaction.
— I absolutely love Dana’s evil snickering after intentionally feeding Jan the wrong answer.
— Haha, holy hell at the hilarious sudden turn with a meteor crashing down onto Jan. Very funny pratfall from Jan as well.
— During the ending shot, it looked like Jan disappeared from her spot on the floor for some reason, even though her character still should’ve been laying there unconscious.
— A strong sketch overall, and all three newbies involved gave very solid performances and made a great first impression.
STARS: ****


THE AMAZING ALEXANDER
audiences think hypnotist The Amazing Alexander (JOL) is better than Cats

— Very funny how each of the obviously-hypnotized testimonial-givers are blankly staring into the camera while monotone-ly giving the exact same review as each other.
— Nice ending bit with the announcer trying to hypnotize us viewers with repeated orders as the camera slowly zooms into The Amazing Alexander’s eye.
STARS: ****


HEF-TEA TEABAGS
jumbo-sized Hef-Tea tea bags are preferred by the British royal family

— Oh, now I see why Jan disappeared from the ending of the Quiz Masters sketch. She had to hurry up and get in costume for this sketch, as she only had about a minute-and-a-half to change while the pre-taped Amazing Alexander piece was playing.
— Jan’s already proving herself to be a chameleon of a performer, with how drastically different she looks and sounds here compared to how she looked and sounded just a few minutes ago in the Quiz Masters sketch.
— Great entrance from Sigourney, crashing through the wall as a giant Sarah Ferguson. Also, pretty wise casting, as there IS a strong facial resemblance between Sigourney and Fergie. In fact, I wonder if that’s how the writers came up with the idea for this sketch.
— I’m enjoying the nice touch of how Sigourney’s giant Fergie has a booming, echo-ish voice.
— This appears to be a very specific parody of a then-current commercial. Having no familiarity with it, I’m a little lost during this sketch, but I’m still getting some laughs from the general silly humor and Sigourney’s performance.
— I liked the disapproving look Jan gave the camera during the ending freeze-frame close-up of her.
— This sketch (as well as one of Buster Poindexter’s musical performances from later tonight) would later be removed from all reruns and be replaced with a strange mock-foreign short film co-starring Rupert Everett.
STARS: ***


CHURCH CHAT
Church Lady Enid Strict (DAC) tries to interview Zuul (host)

— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring character debut! Wow, I don’t think I’ve said that since the original era; it used to be a regular thing I’d always declare whenever I would review the first installment of a big recurring sketch. Not sure why I stopped saying it after the original era; it’s not like the 1980-1986 years didn’t have any huge recurring characters.
— Right off the bat, I absolutely love Dana’s characterization here.
— Feels weird hearing Church Lady’s soon-to-be catchphrases just receiving a normal amount of audience laughter instead of the usual wild applause that those catchphrases would later always receive.
— Haha, Jan’s portrayal of Sally Kellerman is absolutely spot-on and funny, and it especially comes off amusing to me after I suffered through Kellerman’s snobbish demeanor while reviewing her season 6 SNL episode several months back.
— Funny Ann Landers impression from Nora, reminding me a lot of the Ann Landers impression Mary Gross did in the Ebersol era.
— Very interesting turn with Sigourney as her possessed Zuul character from Ghostbusters.
— What was with the camera clumsily and shakily panning over to Church Lady signing off while standing on her desk?
— Overall, a fun debut for this sketch, though not as good it would later go on to be. Until the Zuul portion of the sketch, the first few interviews were too short and redundant with how they all ended with Church Lady asking “Could it beeeeee…. SATAN?!?” (which, by the way, was missing the booming echo that would later always be used for the last word in that catchphrase). Church Lady would later go on to have more variety in her put-downs to her guests. That being said, she still had lots of funny one-liners all throughout tonight’s debut installment.
STARS: ***½


BUSTER POINDEXTER
Buster Poindexter performs “Smack Dab in the Middle”

— At the end of this performance, I got an unintentional laugh from the dumbfounded, speechless, almost dazed look of a non-clapping audience member seen during a shot of the audience applauding. (he’s the guy in the white shirt in the screencap below)


WEEKEND UPDATE
in Iceland with daughter Scarlett, VIJ didn’t cover Reykjavik summit
AWB doubts the Reykjavik summit will yield any significant treaties

 

— We get a slightly different opening intro sequence from the one that was used last season.
— We also get a slightly modified Update set. The most noticeable difference is that all the international clocks in the background are gone.
— Yet another change this season: we have the birth of Dennis’ trademark 80s mullet!
— Loved Dennis making a passing reference to the infamous Dan Rather “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” incident.
— Victoria Jackson makes her very first appearance, and boy, is that high-pitched voice going to take some getting used to this season.
— Decent gag with Victoria’s Reykjavik summit video just turning out to be a hotel room video of her with her baby daughter.
— Heh, a mention of Victoria being a Christian, which is only amusing in hindsight considering Victoria’s reputation in recent years.
— Victoria’s overall commentary was an okay way to introduce her personality to us, even if this particular bit wasn’t anything too noteworthy.
— Interesting-seeming segment now with Dennis acknowledging criticisms of his lack of character work, leading to him introducing a new character of his: a French clown named Koko.
— Ha, Dennis’ brief, low-effort demonstration of his Koko character was randomly funny. Also, when riffing afterwards on his own lack of effort in that characterization, we get what I believe is the very first SNL instance of Dennis’ trademark high-pitched “Ha ha haaaaaa!” laugh.
— Good to see A. Whitney’s The Big Picture returning this season.
— A. Whitney’s overall commentary was fine, though no particular lines of his stood out tonight.
— Dennis ends tonight’s Update with an earnest “Good luck, Chevy; you are in our thoughts.” I’m assuming Chevy must’ve recently entered one of his famous rehab stints. At any rate, we’ll be seeing him (co-)host SNL just two months from now when Three Amigos comes out.
STARS: ***


MR. SUBLIMINAL
Mr. Subliminal Phil Maloney (KEN) uses sneaky cues to get what he wants

— Being familiar with this character’s subsequent appearances, I find this to be a great way for Kevin Nealon to make his SNL debut.
— Love the casual start of Kevin’s subliminal dialogue while he’s mid-conversation. Also funny to hear the studio audience gradually catching onto it.
— I’m especially laughing at the constant “hot sex” lines to Victoria.
— Lots of funny lines during Kevin’s whole interview with Jon.
— Overall, that was great. Wonderful way to introduce Kevin Nealon.
STARS: ****


ALIENSES
Ripley (host) & Marines accidentally waste E.T.

— Lots of amusing impressions of the Aliens characters. The audience especially likes Jon’s take on Burke.
— Interesting how Christopher Durang has been playing character roles in various sketches throughout tonight’s episode. Reminds me of how some of the special guests in the preceding season were used (e.g. Marvin Hagler).
— Funny part with Sigourney getting ready to strip out of her jumpsuit, only for Phil to yell “Come on, Ripley, we’ve all seen your underwear!”
— LOL at the cheap E.T. prop.
— I got a huge laugh from Phil’s character trying to pretend an alien is about to pop out of his chest.
— This sketch started losing steam towards the end, and the ending voice-over from Don Pardo was weak.
STARS: **½


TEN WEEKS IN JAIL
NYC is getting tough on crime- take a life, spend ten weeks in jail

— Ah, our very first instance of Phil Hartman as a commercial spokesman.
— A good laugh from the reveal of the new so-called tough crime law being 10 weeks in prison for committing a murder.
— Overall, a quick but pretty solid bit, and Phil sold it very well.
STARS: ***½


BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE
host & Buster Poindexter sing “Baby It’s Cold Outside”


COMEBACK
Derek Stevens (DAC) sings “The Lady I Know”- she’s choppin’ broccoli

— Love Dana’s British accent in this.
— Dana seemed confused over when he was supposed to sit down, as if somebody missed their cue to tell him “Have a seat”. Not a big deal; it’s just kinda fascinating (and even a bit charming) in hindsight seeing this little flash of greenness from this new cast, knowing what huge pros they would go on to be.
— Oh, here comes a famous song that is one of the most well-loved Dana Carvey bits of all-time.
— I love how Derek Stevens’ absurd lyrics about “the lady I know” are so obviously being made up on the spot.
— And there’s the legendary Choppin’ Broccoli chorus. Freakin’ priceless, especially the different exaggerated ways Dana keeps singing the immortal words.
— Also a nice touch during the Choppin’ Broccoli chorus where the camera shows a close-up of Sigourney and Phil each being so deep into the song. I particularly like Phil looking upwards with such a pleased, thoughtful look
— I kinda wish this sketch had wrapped up while it was still hot after the Choppin’ Broccoli number.  The other silly songs that Derek Stevens played samples of afterwards were forgettable. Still a strong overall sketch, though.
STARS: ****½


BUSTER POINDEXTER
Buster Poindexter performs “Oh Me, Oh My”


BRECHT/ROGERS MEDLEY
host & Christopher Durang [real] perform Das Lusitania Songspiel excerpt

— Uh, wow.  This is just weird.  No idea what to think of this so far.
— Okay, I am kinda enjoying the Mack The Knife number right now.
— Heh, a comedic screen crawl disclaimer has suddenly shown up, basically saying “NBC does not share the same viewpoints as….. etc.”
— This piece has slowly been growing on me, and I’m also liking all the comical energy from Sigourney and Christopher.
— Overall, not bad. I can see why a lot of people wouldn’t like this, and I was expecting not to like it myself at first, but something about this was infectious to me.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Wow. Needless to say, a VERY different-feeling SNL from the previous season. I feel like I say that every time I review the season premiere of a new era, but hey, when you watch SNL episodes in chronological order on a daily basis like I’ve been doing for this project of mine, it’s VERY striking to enter a new era after you’ve gotten so familiar with the feel of the preceding era, even if the preceding era is a short-lived one like seasons 11 or 6.
— This season premiere wasn’t quite the immediate classic that some might expect from this SNL era, and there were several aspects tonight that feel odd and uncharacteristic for this era in hindsight (e.g. the strange General Dynamics commercial, all the musical interludes in the second half of the show). All that being said, this was still an overall solid episode. After a fairly slow beginning with the monologue, General Dynamics commercial, and Tommy Flanagan sketch, we were officially off and running once the great Quiz Masters sketch showed up. There was a very good number of highlights tonight, and even just from this inaugural episode, you can see so much promise for this new era and new cast.
— Speaking of the new cast, most of them had a very strong first night and are, hands down, leaps and bounds above most of the one-season wonders from the preceding season. Victoria Jackson was the only newbie tonight who didn’t do anything all that impressive, but even she displayed a likability in all her appearances (especially her supporting role in the Mr. Subliminal sketch) that still gives you confidence in her. But if we’re going to talk about which newbie made the best first impression, it has to be by far Dana Carvey, who had an absolutely AMAZING first night. I mean, the man starred in three very memorable showcases of his talents (Quiz Masters, Church Chat, Derek Stevens) tonight alone. Talk about hitting the ground running. I can only imagine how exciting it must’ve been for SNL fans in 1986 to witness this man’s fantastic debut, especially after suffering through season 11. I’d argue that Dana had possibly the best first night a cast member has ever had in SNL history.
— This is a more minor note, but I like how this new season has a certain kind of classy atmosphere, especially with the aforementioned “fancy dining hall/ballroom” look of the new home base stage, the SNL Band’s spiffy formal uniforms, and the old-timey throwback vibe of Buster Poindexter’s various musical performances tonight. In hindsight, being familiar with this SNL era as a whole, this overall classy atmosphere feels so fitting for this new era.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1985-86):
— a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Posted on

May 24, 1986 – Anjelica Huston and Billy Martin / George Clinton & The Parliament Funkadelic (S11 E18)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Hands Across America participants won’t let one-legged runner (RAQ) pass

— After not laughing much for the first minute or so of this, I’m liking Randy’s sudden entrance as a one-legged runner.
— Randy introduces himself as Kevin Brennan, which also happens to be name of a future SNL writer from season 25 who would do occasional A. Whitney Brown-esque political commentaries on Weekend Update.
— I like the running theme with a different person responding “What, those bums?” when being told Hands Across America is supporting the homeless.
— Randy’s overall presence added some laughs, but his scene ended really poorly and awkwardly.
STARS: **


OPENING MONTAGE
— For the first (and last, obviously, since this is the season finale) time this season, Al Franken is credited as a featured player.

— Damon Wayans is back as a featured player! Despite being fired two months earlier for an incident in the Griffin Dunne episode, Damon was brought back by Lorne tonight for one night only, to perform some stand-up. In the “Live from New York” book, Damon theorizes that the reason he was allowed back is because “(paraphrased) deep down inside, Lorne loves a rebel.”


MONOLOGUE
backstage, Billy tells Mephistopheles (JOL) & Anjelica that he’s changed

— Anjelica’s joke about the Academy Award “curse” leading to her hosting SNL tonight appears to be yet another self-deprecating joke about SNL’s poor quality this season.
— Throughout his talk with Billy Martin, Anthony annoyingly keeps clearing his throat. I’ve noticed in the last handful of episodes that he has a bad habit of doing this throughout sketches.
— Out of the two performers on my screen right now, it says something that the one with zero acting experience (Billy Martin) is coming off more comfortable on camera than the one who’s an actual actor and paid cast member of a sketch comedy show (Anthony Michael Hall).
— For some reason, I liked Billy going “You again?” upon seeing an evilly-laughing Mephistopheles show up.
— Overall, a decent set-up to tonight’s running storyline between Billy and Mephistopheles.
STARS: ***


THE PEOPLE’S SECOND CHOICE AWARDS
Ed McMahon helps honor runners-up

   

— Bah, this isn’t funny to me. Just a long screen crawl of many celebrity names, with not enough funny ones thrown in.
— Okay, I kinda got a laugh just now from one of the sponsors being “Big boned girls who don’t speak much at first”, accompanied by a picture of two girls.
STARS: *½


MOMENTS OF DOUBT
(RAQ) & (Anjelica) silently worry about uncertainties

— I like Anjelica’s random thought about if she put the car keys in the ceramic chicken.
— The dog’s obviously-fake bark provided a laugh.
— Overall, I kinda liked the format of this sketch, but felt the inner thoughts should’ve been funnier.
STARS: **


GLAMOROUS DRINKING
a sketch pulled from last week’s show excessively glamorizes drinking
liquor council spokesman’s (RAQ) rebuttal- drink a lot, but not too much

— Interesting intro from Lorne.
— I kinda like the detail of Billy’s oversized drinking glass.
— This sketch hasn’t been working too much for me so far. While I’m liking the idea of the comically absurd levels of alcohol glorification seen throughout the piece, I feel the sketch is coming off fairly dull.
— Okay, I’m interested in this sudden turn, with Randy as a spokesperson for the National Council of Liquor and Spirits offering a rebuttal to the sketch.
— I’m getting some pretty good laughs from Randy’s lines, especially him advising us to “drink, drink, drink, and then just before it gets really bad, stop…. and then maybe start drinking again.” Funny dialogue here, helped even more by Randy’s usual reliable delivery.
STARS: **½


ACTORS ON FILM
Jimmy Chance & Ashley Ashley extol the virtues of Top Gun

— The return of this unnecessary recurring sketch that should’ve been left a one-off in the George Wendt/Francis Ford Coppola episode.
— That’s it? The sketch is over? This didn’t work for me AT ALL. I enjoyed the first appearance of these characters in the aforementioned Wendt/Coppola episode, and though they suffered diminishing returns in their second appearance in the Oprah Winfrey episode, I still got some laughs there (mostly just from Robert). But this third appearance completely washed over me. I didn’t even get so much as a chuckle from this.
STARS: *


HALLMARK
Maerose Prizzi (Anjelica) reads some Hallmark Organized Crime Cards

— I think I recall hearing this is a character Anjelica previously played in a movie, but I can’t remember which movie it is.
— An overall simple but pretty funny sketch with some laughs from the mafia greeting cards that Anjelica read off.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs medley including “Let’s Take It To The Stage”


WEEKEND UPDATE
ALF gives an update on his decade & asks viewers to go see his new movie
AWB talks about the ill-educated, flag-waving class of 1986
Weekend Update Dancers & Father Guido Sarducci honor Statue of Liberty

— Dennis mentions that 6 years ago behind this very desk, Al Franken declared the 80s the Al Franken decade (actually, that happened 7 years ago, not 6, but that’s a nitpick), which leads us into an appearance from the man himself.
— Good to see the return of the old running gag with Al periodically saying “me – Al Franken” while a graphic of his name is displayed.
— A laugh from how the naked pictures of Al’s children have censor bars over private areas. Also, one of the pictures is of Al’s then-baby son Joe, who we’ll be meeting on the show three years later in the final episode of 1989, in a memorable Update commentary where Al passes the Al Franken Decade torch and declares the then-approaching 90s the Joe Franken Decade.
— Now Al has gotten to the main point of his commentary, which is just him plugging his and Tom Davis’ upcoming movie One More Saturday Night. Some laughs over Al going into excessive and desperate detail on which theaters are showing the movie. Feels a little weird watching this in retrospect, though, knowing what a flop the movie would end up being.
— I really liked A. Whitney’s line about illiterates who can’t read USA Today, which makes him wonder “Maybe they’re the ones who are writing it.”
— A. Whitney’s overall commentary had some really witty backhanded comments about the intelligence level of the graduating Class of ’86.
— After a two-episode break, we get an unwelcome return of the Weekend Update Dancers, in what will thankfully end up being their final appearance ever. This time, they’re changing things up by rhythmically acting out a Father Guido Sarducci-read story about the Statue of Liberty.
— Hey, this Weekend Update Dancers appearance is actually kinda making me chuckle in a weird way, just for the humorous incongruity between their dancing and Guido Sarducci’s narration.
— Funny post-Weekend Update Dancers visual of Dennis in that headdress.
— I liked the “knock knock” bit Dennis did to commemorate the end of this season. Stuff like this shows why I’m so glad he made Weekend Update fun again this season, after the dire condition it was in the previous five seasons.
STARS: ***


LESBIAN PICK-UPS
both (JOC) & her fiance (RDJ) are picked up by lesbians in a bar

— Nora plays her very first of what I recall being quite a number of lesbian roles over the course of her SNL tenure.
— I’m getting some good laughs from Nora’s confident determination in proving to Joan she’s just as good for her as any man is.
— Pretty funny turn with Joan easily being persuaded in going home with Nora.
— I had liked where this was going, but it petered out for me during the whole bit with Robert and Anjelica.  Cute ending, though, with them romantically slow-dancing their way off the set.
— I think portions of this sketch is replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. I’m reviewing the live version of this episode, but from my recollection of the rerun version, there was an abrupt cut in this sketch during Robert’s reaction to finding out his girlfriend walked off with a lesbian, as if something was inserted from dress rehearsal around that time.
STARS: **½


BOCCE BALL MY WAY
Father Guido Sarducci shows how in instructional video

— Fairly funny premise with Father Guido Sarducci hosting an instructional bocce ball videotape. And there’s something about the words “bocce ball” that just sound funny in Sarducci’s accent and voice.
— Wait, that’s it??? It’s over already? Nothing even happened in this! Okay, the scrolled list of topics covered on the tape was kinda amusing, but this overall piece could’ve been pretty funny if it actually went somewhere.
STARS: *½


BACKSTAGE
Mephistopheles tries to intimidate Billy & tempts him with alcohol

— For the second time this season, a non-Tommy Flanagan recurring character of Jon’s briefly breaks out into a Tommy Flanagan voice when telling a lie. Hmm. But, hey, to be honest, I’d take this over a full-fledged appearance of the overused Flanagan.
— Haha, when trying to tempt Billy, Mephistopheles mentions how “glamorous” liquor is, as an amusing callback to the Glamorous Drinking sketch from earlier tonight.
— Boy, this ended awkwardly as HELL. Something seemed to go wrong after Mephistopheles exited the scene. Anthony showed up afterwards to literally do NOTHING but awkwardly pause as if he or Billy forgot what to do next, and then the sketch just ended. What the hell? I guess that’s what happens when you do a live scene where the only two performers are a non-actor and an 18-year-old non-comedian.
— Speaking of Anthony, are these backstage sketches the ONLY things he’s going to be in tonight? He hasn’t appeared in character during any actual sketches in this episode. I should be thankful for that.
STARS: ***


DAMON WAYANS
DAW does stand-up about racism & how he won childhood insult contests

— During her intro, it sounds like Anjelica butchered the pronunciation of “Wayans”. Reminds me of Betty Thomas messing up Joel Hodgson’s last name when introducing his stand-up segment in the season 9 finale.
— Great to see Damon back on SNL. Also, his grown-out hairstyle here looks better than the shorter, receding hairstyle he had throughout the season.
— The watermelon bit was hilarious, and I loved Damon’s white redneck imitation.
— He mentions growing up with a clubbed foot and having to wear orthopedic shoes, which reminds me of an autobiographical animated series he would later star in during the mid-90s titled Waynehead, which aired on the WB network. (Any other 90s kids besides me remember that show?) The show was about Damon’s childhood in the inner city, and he was memorably always shown wearing a big-ol’ black shoe with a metallic brace due to his clubbed foot.
— I liked Damon enacting his child self telling his mother that his orthopedic shoes “look like Herman Munster shoes, mama.”
— I feel bad for laughing at his imitation of a mentally-handicapped bully, because it’s very un-PC by today’s standards.
— Great ending to the “dirty dozens insult contest” portion, where Damon delivers a hilarious and impressively wordy, long-winded, run-on insult without messing up.
— Overall, a very solid stand-up segment from Damon as expected.
STARS: ****


BOOK MINUTE
(DAV) reads real-life nursery rhymes for inner-city children

— I love Danitra’s character name in this: Aquanetta Feinstein.
— Good premise with Danitra presenting her own nursery rhymes for inner-city children.
— Some of these cruel nursery rhymes are really funny, especially the “Humpty Dumpy Dead” one.
— This ended on kind of a weak note with the repetitive string of “now he dead” endings to various stories.
— Overall, despite the weak ending, this was a pretty solid sketch and Danitra always seems to excel in these one-person talking-to-the-camera sketches.
STARS: ***½


MOVIE THEATRE
loud talk of Patti LaBelle (TES) & aunt (DAV) irks moviegoers

 

— I groaned SO LOUD at Terry’s entrance as a blackface Patti LaBelle.
— Earlier this season, I excused Terry’s previous appearance in blackface drag when he played Diana Ross in that Pee-Wee Herman Thanksgiving Special sketch, but THIS is way too damn much. His Patti LaBelle characterization is racially stereotypical as all hell, and if his make-up were any darker, it would LITERALLY be the color black.
— Also, why place this sketch immediately after two solo performance pieces each starring a black cast member (Damon’s stand-up segment and Danitra’s Book Minute sketch)?
— Oh, geez, as if this sketch hadn’t ALREADY lost me, now we’re resorting to the “black people being loud in a movie theater” trope, one of the most cliched, unfunniest, hackiest comedy premises imaginable.
— I also don’t feel too comfortable with this general premise of white people being annoyed by the behavior of black people. I can’t help but see unfortunate implications there, which is made even worse by the fact that one of said black characters is played by a white performer.
— Overall, ugh, this sketch was fucking TERRIBLE in every way possible. Hands down, one of the worst sketches of the whole season, which is really saying something considering the quality of this year.
— I’d like to think that even Billy Crystal would shake his head at this sketch, but nah, that’s probably giving him too much credit.
STARS: *


MY FRIEND
LOM fires Billy after he shows up drunk for a Colonel Sanders sketch

 

— I like the mysteriousness of Joan’s many descriptions of her friend.
— Funny Colonel Sanders reveal. Billy looks completely unrecognizable in that costume. I can only tell it’s him by the voice.
— Good breaking-the-fourth-wall twist with Billy being drunk and causing the sketch to get derailed.
— An upset Lorne enters the scene, calls Billy out on his unprofessionalism, and fires him on the spot. I can’t help but picture this being exactly what it looked like (only with R-rated language) when Lorne fired Damon Wayans on the spot in real life after Damon’s impromptu “gay cop” routine earlier this season.
— The repeated joke throughout tonight’s episode with Mephistopheles laughing himself into a coughing fit is getting old, and is another cliched joke that’s been done to death in comedy.
— Pretty solid sketch as a whole, and another nice continuation of tonight’s running storyline.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs medley including “Do Fries Go With That Shake”


FIRE / GOODNIGHTS
Billy creates a cliffhanger by setting season-ending cast party ablaze

 

— Okay, here comes the most famous part of the episode, and one of the most famous parts of the whole season.
— LOL at some of these cast members being so pumped for next season, when you know in retrospect that most of them ain’t gonna be there.
— Hilarious reveal with Billy outside the cast’s room, setting it on fire.
— Oh, here comes what is by far the most well-remembered part of this whole piece…
— And there it is: upon realizing that if Billy sets the cast on fire, they wont be able to do the show next season, Lorne enters the smoky room as if he’s going to rescue the whole cast, only to exit a few seconds later with season 11 savior Jon Lovitz as the only person he’s brought out, telling him “Go down to my limo, sit there and wait for me”, and then Lorne just lets the rest of the cast continue to burn in the room! Mean but classic.
— Haha, and then to add a cherry on top of the cake, Lorne leads SNL’s writers into the burning room. The writers here are portrayed as the same three comically preppy, mega-whitebread characters who showed up as the writers in the That Black Girl piece from the Francis Ford Coppola episode earlier this season.
— I’m getting some unintentional amusement from the cheesiness of the really cheap-looking fire graphic that’s being superimposed onto the bottom half of the screen.
— Right now, in the live version I’m reviewing of this episode, there’s a big difference from the rerun version: when the camera cuts to Anjelica Huston and the musical guest all on the home base stage ready to start the goodnights, you can hear VERY LOUD mic’ed running footsteps coming from off-camera, which is actually a delayed Billy Martin rushing towards the home base stage to make his entrance. Billy’s delayed entrance and overly-loud mic’ed footsteps result in a very long awkward pause from a nervously-laughing Anjelica, who then proceeds to comically ad-lib a “cut” gesture to someone off-camera. Billy then finally shows up in burnt, smoky clothing.
— Love the classic visual of the cast burning in the smoky, fiery room while text is displayed onscreen asking “Who will survive? Who will perish? Tune in October 11th”
— Good touch with a question mark being added at the end of every single name in the scrolling ending credits.
— Funny seeing the cast ham it up among the smoke and flames.
— Overall, what an amazing, unique way to end a season, while also acknowledging the troubles of this particular season.
STARS: *****

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— The Billy Martin/Mephistopheles running storyline was fun, and we got an absolutely classic conclusion with the cast being set on fire as a season-ending cliffhanger. However, other than those, plus Danitra Vance’s Book Minute sketch and Damon Wayans’ stand-up routine, this episode was actually a little on the underwhelming side. A lot of sketches were just meh and fell pretty flat with me, and then there was that horrid Patti LaBelle sketch. For this season’s standards, however, tonight was probably one of the more passable episodes by default.

— Needless to say, most of the cast ended up getting dumped over the summer. The only cast members who would be brought back next season are Jon Lovitz (of course), Nora Dunn, Dennis Miller, and featured player A. Whitney Brown. I’d say Lorne definitely made the right call bringing back those four. Jon and Dennis in particular had a very strong year and probably made lots of viewers back then hopeful for SNL’s future.

— Going through the departed cast members one-by-one, in order from my least favorite to most favorite:

    • Anthony Michael Hall being brought in as an SNL cast member was a mistake, plain and simple. He turned out to be an extremely ill fit for the show, came off green as a live performer, gave us lots of awkward moments, had a bad tendency to mug the camera and overact, and had one horrible excuse for a recurring character (Craig Sundberg, Idiot Savant). While Anthony had a few okay-ish moments here and there, they were nowhere near good enough to redeem him. He, hands down, gets my vote for one of SNL’s worst cast members of all-time.
    • Robert Downey wasn’t much better, but he did have his occasional moments where he actually showed potential and cracked me up. I especially liked his two big showcases in the George Wendt/Francis Ford Coppola episode, particularly the bizarrely-funny Confrontational Suitcase Monologue piece.
    • Joan Cusack was a little better than I expected her to be. While I can’t think of many times she actually made me laugh, and she had a bad tendency to sometimes rely on a mentally-challenged-sounding slow delivery as a strange acting choice, she was usually always pretty good at the thankless task of playing normal, straight roles in sketches. She also showed a few flashes of charm, especially in the Unconditional Love sketch from the Tony Danza episode. Still, I can’t really say I would’ve wanted a second season of her, especially if it would’ve prevented the hiring of Jan Hooks.
    • Terry Sweeney often provided some pretty good laughs for me, though his tendency to constantly do drag could be a bit much the times he played multiple women in a single episode. Despite being reliable for some laughs, I don’t think I would’ve wanted Terry to come back next season. His seemingly very limited range might’ve gotten old in a second season or so.
    • Danitra Vance wasn’t used too much, but she was usually always very solid whenever she was given a chance to shine. I especially enjoyed so many of her solo pieces throughout the year. It’s too bad her dyslexia issues made it difficult for SNL to write for her, because out of all the fired cast members this season, she’s the only one who I actually would’ve wanted to come back next season (not counting Damon Wayans, as he was already fired earlier in the season and was only brought back in tonight’s season finale as a one-time thing).
    • Randy Quaid had a really good year. In my past viewings of this season when I was younger, I used to unfairly dismiss him as a poor man’s predecessor to Phil Hartman (much like how Michael McKean is always dismissed as a poor man’s successor to Phil Hartman). However, watching and reviewing this season these last few weeks has given me a whole new appreciation for Randy’s SNL stint. He was a very solid and underrated utility player this season, was reliable even in some of the weaker sketches of the year, and was usually always good for providing laughs in comedic roles. All that being said, I wouldn’t have wanted him to come back next season. Why? Simply because we wouldn’t have gotten Phil Hartman. Sure Randy was a strong leader this season, but when it comes to doing utility work on SNL, NOBODY compares to Phil.

— Season 11 as a whole lived up to its poor reputation, even if I didn’t find its quality to be QUITE as horrible as legend has it. There was a noticeably higher number of weak sketches than a typical SNL season, as well as a lacking number of truly strong sketches. The first several months of the season, however, were mostly up-and-down rather than flat-out bad, and surprisingly had a slightly higher number of good episodes than poor ones. For a while, that made me start to wonder if this season isn’t all that deserving of its reputation as one of the Infamous Three Seasons of SNL. However, a turning point occurred with the mid-season Jerry Hall episode, which started a string of weak episodes that made me feel I had officially reached the true badness of season 11. The season never fully recovered after that. There were very few good episodes in the last few months of the season. Aside from the experimental George Wendt/Francis Ford Coppola epic, even the better episodes from the last few months of the season weren’t too great. On the other hand, aside from Teri Garr, the worst episodes of this entire overall season were merely bad; not frustratingly awful like the worst episodes of the two other Infamous Three Seasons (seasons 6 and 20). In fact, if I were to rank the Infamous Three Seasons from least worst to absolute worst, my personal ranking would be: season 11, season 6, season 20. This may be subject to change when I eventually review season 20.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jimmy Breslin):
— a moderate step up


HOW THIS OVERALL SEASON STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1984-85):
— a big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
A retooled season of SNL debuts with a fantastic cast of mostly-new hires, kicking off an era that turns out to be a huge renaissance for SNL

Posted on

May 17, 1986 – Jimmy Breslin / Level 42, E.G. Daily (S11 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
AMH & manager Tommy Flanagan at weigh-in for upcoming bout with Marvin Hagler [real]

— A fairly funny premise of Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Anthony Michael Hall being paired against each other in a boxing match.
— I liked Dennis warning Anthony “Two minutes in the ring, you could come out like Jerry Lewis.”
— Here’s our obligatory weekly Tommy Flanagan appearance, this time showing up as Anthony’s manager.
— Flanagan’s Marvin Hagler/Marvin Hamlisch mix-up made me laugh.
— God, I hate whenever a sketch gives Anthony Michael Hall the excuse to ham it up and overact, and this cold opening is a prime example.
— In my copy of this episode, there seemed to be an abrupt cut to the ending with Hagler segueing into his delivery of “Live from New York…” (where he proceeds to mistakenly look into the wrong camera at first). Also, why did the screen strangely look enlarged and blurry during that shot? Is that shot a dress rehearsal insert?
— Speaking of Hagler’s “Live from New York”, he does a slight variation of the usual tagline, saying “I’m live… in New York… on Saturday Night!” Interestingly, this is the second episode in a row where someone did that type of twist on the LFNY tagline; Paul Simon opened the last episode by saying “We are live from New York on a Saturday Night.”
STARS: **


OPENING MONTAGE
— There’s a misconception in many SNL episode guides that Marvelous Marvin Hagler is a co-host of this episode. Not sure what started that, as Hagler is VERY CLEARLY announced as a special guest in this opening montage. I guess we can file this with other similar misconceptions such as Chevy Chase supposedly being the host of the final season 6 episode, there supposedly being no host in the 100th episode, Funky 4 + 1 More supposedly being the billed musical guest of the Deborah Harry-hosted episode, Dan Aykroyd supposedly being a co-host of the John Goodman-hosted episode from season 20, and Buster Poindexter supposedly being the billed musical guest of the upcoming Sigourney Weaver-hosted season 12 premiere. (There’s probably other similar misconceptions I’m forgetting at the moment)
— Also, if Hagler really HAD been the co-host tonight, the odd pairing of him and Jimmy Breslin wouldn’t be TOO unusual for this season, as the back half of this season has developed a strange habit of randomly pairing together two hosts who have absolutely no connection to each other (George Wendt and Francis Ford Coppola, Catherine Oxenberg and Paul Simon, and the upcoming pairing of Anjelica Huston and Billy Martin).
— Instead of being credited as a special guest like he usually is on SNL, Sam Kinison is credited as a featured player in tonight’s opening montage. What the…? Does this mean Kinison technically counts as an SNL cast member, even if it’s just for this one episode? I guess not, but the way he was credited tonight would make you think so. Heh, who knew Sam Kinison was once part of the SNL cast?


MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Pretty random choice for SNL to get a journalist/author to host. I wonder if this is because they were having trouble booking guests at this point due to the season’s infamous quality.
— He’s already coming off pretty funny with his New York-ish blunt remarks.
— Good callback, with him likening hosting SNL to a childhood story he told earlier in this monologue about his choir teacher.
— Overall, a good monologue. I was surprised at how likable and relatable he came off here.
STARS: ***


REAGAN’S COMMAND
a USA sub has Kaddafi in its sights, but Ronald Reagan (RAQ) can’t act

— First time we’ve seen Randy’s Reagan in what feels like a pretty long time. I also believe this ends up being the last time we’ll ever see his Reagan.
— A few laughs from the devil and angel Reagan heads advising Reagan.
— Though probably a cliched gag nowadays, I liked the Jeopardy theme playing when Randy’s Reagan is in deep thought, trying to figure what to do.
— I find it amusing that Gaddaffi strangely hasn’t moved from his spot in three long hours.
— Seems to be some timing issues throughout this sketch.
— This sketch started losing steam and dying off towards the end, though the ending was okay.
STARS: **½


MIDDAY WITH JENNIFER HICKS
advice from Bond villains Goldfinger (host), Blofeld (JOL), Largo (RAQ)

— The set-up of this whole thing with a talk show host interviewing three guests together reminds me of the Late Show with Joan Rivers sketch that we just saw in the last episode. However, I’m loving the idea of tonight’s sketch much more, with the three talk show guests being James Bond villains.
— Not sure, but I think the cat that Jon’s holding is the same fluffy white cat who’s been appearing in various sketches starting way back in season 5’s Canadian Wizard of Oz sketch with Elliott Gould.
— I like how Jimmy Breslin’s using his natural voice and how humorously out of place it is for his Goldfinger role.
— A lot of laughs from the villains’ tips on what not to do when dealing with James Bond.
— Ha, Joan actually points out how Goldfinger is missing his German accent, which he offers a pretty funny explanation for.
— A really solid sketch overall.
STARS: ****


KNOCKOUTS
Marvin Hagler’s [real] tips for the knocked out- breathe, don’t twitch, say “Las Vegas”

— Boy, this was a quick segment that just came and went. Marvin’s tips on what to do if he knocks you out were only okay at best; not anything particularly good.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Level 42 performs “Something About You”


WEEKEND UPDATE
unlike phony Chernobyl footage shown on other broadcasts, the real stuff
DEM shows pictures from Hitler’s WWII photo album

— The Chernobyl “footage” being an old black-and-white silent film was just okay, but felt like a gag that was pulled off better other times.
— Good visual bit with the Pope’s 1987 tour jacket that Dennis displays.
— I loved Dennis’ random bunions/Jerry Lewis telethon one-liner.
— Very funny joke with Dennis likening Sylvester Stallone’s acting “range” to that of Larry Stork on F-Troop.
— The Hitler photo album bit didn’t work for me.
— I absolutely LOVED the meta-ness of Dennis’ punchline to the story about The Love Boat being canceled: “If there was any justice in the universe, Chevy would’ve read this story 10 years ago.”
— No guest commentaries in tonight’s overall Update. Thankfully, we also got no appearance from the Weekend Update Dancers, for the second week in a row. Only one more episode left this season before the Update Dancers are gone forever.
— Quite a hit-and-miss Update overall tonight, but the hits made it worth it.
STARS: ***


LONE WOLF MCCORD
the crybaby renegade cop (RAQ) decides to quit

 

— What’s with the audience’s applause when Jon walks on at the beginning as a generic unnamed character?
— I’m already getting a good laugh from Randy’s entrance, with his whispery tough-cop voice.
— Funny turn with Randy dropping his tough attitude and breaking out into childish tears in the locker room because “the commissioner yelled at me!”
— Pretty funny reaction when Randy finds out his nickname among his fellow cops is Lone Wolf McCord
— Haha, I love the part with Jimmy breaking out into a badly-sung guitar song to cheer Randy up.
— Overall, a very well-executed sketch.
STARS: ****


SAM KINISON
Sam Kinison [real] does stand-up about Chernobyl & the bombing of Libya

— Sam gets his own badass theme music upon his entrance this time, which is new.
— Some laughs from him talking about how President Reagan is nonchalantly handling the Libya situation.
— This stand-up material is pretty hit-and-miss so far, but it’s nice to see Sam not doing YET ANOTHER stand-up set about bitter relationship issues.
— Uh-oh, I spoke too soon. Now he’s launched into the usual “marriage is hell” subject. This could have some laughs, though.
— Pretty funny bit about the devil giving married men a tour of hell.
— Another mention of SNL recently getting renewed for a 12th season. After bringing that up here, Sam laughs at all the naysayers who thought the show would get canceled, and then does a great victory dance.
— This overall stand-up segment was a little below Sam Kinison’s usual standards. He REALLY seemed to double down on his trademark screaming outbursts tonight, as if he was using them to hide the lack of actual funny material in this piece. Don’t get me wrong, I usually always crack up at Sam’s screaming outbursts, but not when he does it every 10 damn seconds. The outbursts are funnier when they’re used a little more sparingly to emphasize the points he makes.
STARS: **½


THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
driving exercises; Pulitzer winner host walks off

— Oh, god, here comes this sketch making its 3,820th appearance of the season.
— Nora demonstrating how steering a wheel can be done as a rhythmic exercise routine is okay.
— Just now, something got muted out at the end of Jimmy’s line where he defends himself by summing up all the work that he does. It looked like the censored words might’ve been “for god’s sake”. I’m guessing it was a no-no to say that on TV back in those days.
— I got a laugh from Nora’s line about poverty being so sad because “there’s nothing we can do about it”.
— Haha, I loved Jimmy abruptly walking off the show mid-interview while asking “What moron got me onto this show?” I wish the interviewees in these sketches had that type of attitude more often, but maybe that’s just because I’ve recently begun to kinda sour on these sketches due to their extreme overuse.
STARS: **½


TORNADOVILLE
between twisters, Tornadoville residents (RAQ) & (AMH) chit-chat

— Decent visual with that hanger sticking out of Anthony’s head.
— What the HELL is up with Anthony slowly looking around with a dazed facial expression when Nora makes a joke about how she won’t be able to recognize him without the hanger in his head? (second-to-last screencap above)
— I initially liked the premise, but the sketch has really not been working for me so far.
— This is yet another instance where I can tell season 11 is up to its old tricks of sweetening audience reactions in reruns. The audience’s laughter sounds SO canned and unnatural in portions of this sketch.
— I kinda like Nora’s mock-dramatic speech about living in a place without having to worry about various tornado-related annoyances. I think I’m just desperate to find something to like in this dull-as-hell sketch.
— The whole “I was born in that house over there” bit fell REALLY flat, not helped by typical bad Anthony Michael Hall delivery. (Thank god I only have one more episode to put up with him)
— I think in the original live airing, this was the lead-off sketch of the night right after the monologue. I can definitely see why they moved this to a late time slot in the rerun version I’m reviewing.
STARS: *½


ASSEMBLY
at school assembly, Cabrini Green sings a song to prevent teen pregnancy

— Strangely, this begins with Nora randomly playing Pat Stevens AGAIN tonight, introducing Cabrini Green in a school assembly. What the hell???
— First time we’ve seen Danitra all night. In fact, it feels like quite a lot of the cast has barely gotten anything to do tonight. Terry Sweeney hasn’t appeared in this episode AT ALL. Guess the writers didn’t have any drag roles available this week.
— The name of Cabrini’s back-up singers, The Mell-O White Boys, is actually from Danitra’s real-life off-Broadway stage show “Danitra Vance and the Mell-O White Boys”. I’m assuming the two Mell-O White Boys members onstage in this sketch are the same ones from Danitra’s stage show.
— The musical number is okay if nothing particularly great, and I liked the part where Danitra REALLY got into her singing.
STARS: ***


A MESSAGE FROM JODY HAGLER
flight attendant Jody Hagler (Marvin Hagler) says “I’m no boxer, leave me alone”

— I like the amusing detail of Marvin Hagler’s brother being a flight attendant.
— That’s it? The whole sketch just turns out to be him asking people to leave him alone? This was even more pointless than the last “A Message from Marvin Hagler” piece!
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
E.G. Daily sings “Say It, Say It” as Biff watches

— Hard to believe this is the same woman who would later go on to be a voice actress in some of my childhood favorite animated series from the 90s, most famously doing the voice of Tommy on Rugrats.
— Throughout the performance, Jon Lovitz is randomly seen in the background, inside the home base stage’s theater booth.
— And now he’s come out from the booth and becomes part of the performance, joining E.G. Daily in a little dance before leaving. He appears to be playing his Biff character from the Biff & Salena sketches. A really random though fun idea to include him in this musical performance. Did Jon and E.G. have some kind of pre-SNL connection? Perhaps they knew each other from The Groundlings or something?


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A fairly up-and-down episode, with a few more downs than ups, especially once we got to the last 25 minutes of the show. Some of the ups were surprisingly strong for this season (Midday With Jennifer Hicks, Lone Wolf McCord), while the downs were the usual tepid season 11 material. I will say that Jimmy Breslin gave the episode a bit of a boost, as he was a surprisingly fun and likable host.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Catherine Oxenberg and Paul Simon):
— a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
The troubled season 11 comes to an end, with hosts Anjelica Huston and Billy Martin, and featuring an epic season-ending cliffhanger regarding the future status of the cast

Posted on

May 10, 1986 – Catherine Oxenberg and Paul Simon / Ladysmith Black Mambazo (S11 E16)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Paul performs “You Can Call Me Al”

— We start off with a straightforward musical performance.
— Feels weird seeing an SNL episode beginning in this manner, but it’s not the first time Paul opened the show with a musical performance. The first time he did it was a special case, though, as that episode in general consisted almost entirely of musical performances.
— Interestingly, we get a slight variation of the usual “Live from New York…” tagline, with Paul announcing “We are live from New York on a Saturday Night.”


MONOLOGUE
Catherine’s Dynasty rivals Alexis (TES) & Dominique (DAV) have a catfight

— In hindsight, it’s good that Catherine’s going into a lot of detail about what she does on the show Dynasty, as I’m sure there’s a lot of modern-day viewers who have no idea who Catherine Oxenberg is.
— Terry’s Joan Collins portrayal is pretty funny.
— I got a laugh from Terry’s Aunt Jemima insult towards Danitra’s character.
— Not caring for most of the Terry/Danitra physical fight, though it was kind of a nice touch with them crashing through breakaway glass on one of the doors on the home base stage.
STARS: **½


GERALDO RIVERA OPENS THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Geraldo Rivera’s next stunt

— A funny parody of how Geraldo Rivera’s then-recent televised opening of Al Capone’s vault infamously turned out to be a bust.
STARS: ***


PRISON
prisoners (Paul) & (JOL) try to escape despite being shackled to a wall

— I got a big laugh from Paul’s asinine idea of Jon melting down the iron bars with heat from his eyeballs.
— Haha, I love the repeated visual of Paul straining to attack Randy while being held back by the chains.
— Some more really funny asinine escape plans from Paul and Jon.
— An overall solid sketch.
STARS: ****


THE LATE SHOW WITH JOAN RIVERS
Roger Vadim’s ex-wives fight back

— Until now, I had forgotten that I heard about Joan Rivers having a short-lived late night talk show in this era, competing against Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.
— Two drag roles for Terry in one night. At least this appears to be a better vehicle for his Joan Rivers impression than the way it was bafflingly shoehorned into that Cleveland Vice sketch earlier this season.
— The only thing Randy’s Ed McMahon impression seems to consist of here is increasingly-exaggerated “ho ho ho” laughter, which made me laugh early on but is running out of steam fast.
— Is that a bespectacled Don Pardo who has randomly walked into the scene at the very end, during the sketch-ending audience applause? (screencap below) What was THAT all about?

— Didn’t care too much for this sketch overall.
STARS: **


THE LIMITS OF THE IMAGINATION
Paul’s hell is Muzak versions of his music

— They surprisingly haven’t done this sketch in a quite a while, after overusing it in a consecutive string of episodes around the midpoint of the season.
— A lot of the Floating Head’s demonstrations are falling flat in tonight’s installment, but I laughed at the demonstration with him putting a cigarette out with his tongue.
— Joan flubs her line, mistakenly addressing young Paul Simon as “Seymour” before mentioning an Uncle Seymour who’s upstairs.
— I kinda like Robert’s badly-rhymed Uncle Seymour song.
— Good to see the return of Jon’s Mephistopheles character.
— Funny “So am I” response from Mephistopheles when young Simon and Garfunkel reveal to him they’re Jewish.
— In hindsight, it’s interesting seeing Paul Simon playing himself in a scene taking place in a then-much later year that has now long since come and gone (2010).
— I love the gradual reveal that Paul’s hell is staying eternally stuck in an elevator while being tortured by musak versions of his songs.
— Overall, I found this sketch more interesting than flat-out funny, but it was entertaining either way.
STARS: ***½


DIRK LANDERS
former CIA operative (RDJ) is offed by stranger (Catherine)

— Fairly amusing cheap opening credits.
— Very funny how after such a lengthy opening credits sequence setting up the premise of the show, the episode itself turns out to be a very quick scene that immediately ends as soon as the main character is all-too-easily shot dead.
STARS: ***½


WEEKEND UPDATE
Mouse Trap board game helps DEM explain what happened at Chernobyl
AWB chides the Soviet Union’s policies on Chernobyl & Afghanistan
for Mother’s Day, DEM reads an excerpt from Oedipus Rex

— Funny in retrospect hearing the then-new network FOX being mentioned as “Rupert Murdoch’s fledgling fourth network.”
— I love Dennis using the Mouse Trap board game to demonstrate the then-recent Chernobyl disaster.
— Dennis delivers a random “Back to you, Dennis” “Thank you, Dennis”. Why are we reusing old Brad Hall bits all of a sudden?
— I like how it’s become a recurring thing for Dennis to do random one-liners about Nell Carter’s weight.
— Surprised to see an A. Whitney Brown commentary tonight, as he wasn’t credited in tonight’s opening montage for some reason.
— Tonight’s overall Big Picture commentary wasn’t one of my favorites from A. Whitney, but this featured some funny comments about radioactive gas and Soviets.
— Good bit with Dennis’ Mother’s Day present to his mom being him reading a disturbing excerpt from an Oedipus story.
— Nice part with Dennis announcing that SNL (despite its many troubles and cancellation worries this season) was renewed this week for a 12th season. This gets a good amount of audience applause. Also, this reminds me that I remember hearing season 12 was originally only picked up for 13 episodes, because a wary NBC wanted to wait and see if the retooled version of SNL that season was a success before giving it the usual full 20-episode order. So I guess we can say that if season 12 hadn’t turned out to be such a hit, SNL would’ve officially been canceled somewhere around February 1987, which is around the time the 13th episode of that season aired.
— Yay, we went through this entire Update with no appearance from the Weekend Update Dancers!
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Paul & musical guest sing “Homeless”


BEVERLY HILLS
producer Tommy Flanagan swaps falsehoods with an “actress” (Catherine)

— After having a break from him in the last episode, Tommy Flanagan goes back to being overused.
— I did like Flanagan’s Taiwan/Out Of Africa bit just now.
— Overall, this was pretty standard Flanagan stuff that’s been suffering diminishing returns lately, but I did like the nice chemistry between Jon and Catherine.
STARS: **½


BRIM DECAFFEINATED
drowsy waitress (NOD) recommends Brim Decaffienated to sleepy (RAQ)

— Is this offering ANYTHING other than frequent yawning from Nora and Randy?
— (a few minutes later…) I guess not. Overall, this was a waste.
STARS: *


PENN AND TELLER
Penn & Teller [real] execute strait jacket escape during Casey At The Bat

— Surprised to see Penn and Teller appearing for the second episode in a row, but I’m not complaining about seeing more of these guys, especially considering the lack of quality this season.
— Ha, great reveal of a spiked platform that’s now under an upside-down dangling Teller.
— Quite funny seeing Teller’s unsuccessful frantic attempts to free himself while Penn is reading.
— Hilarious part with Penn comically speeding up his reading as Teller is finally starting to untie himself.
— LOL, that overall trick was great. An improvement over Penn and Teller’s appearance in the last episode.
STARS: ****


A MOTHER’S DAY MESSAGE
half-audible (JOC) stresses “moral values”

— What… the… hell??? Is the joke here supposed to be Joan occasionally silently mouthing random parts of her sentences? How is that even remotely funny?
— Overall, YIKES. The audience’s silence said it all. How did something like this make it on the air?
STARS: *


TROJANS
— Rerun


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Paul performs “Graceland”


GOODNIGHTS

— This is coming off kinda awkward. Why aren’t Paul or Catherine saying the usual goodnights speech? They’re just standing there smiling silently as the audience applauds.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty forgettable episode. There were some things I liked in the first half, though most of them weren’t anything particularly great. Then the show got REALLY rough in the second half where, aside from a solid Penn & Teller segment, we got a mega-overused recurring character (Tommy Flanagan) and horribly-written sketches where the only “joke” (if it can even be called that) was people repeatedly yawning or silently mouthing random parts of their sentences.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tony Danza):
— a step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Jimmy Breslin

Posted on

April 19, 1986 – Tony Danza / Laurie Anderson (S11 E15)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
RAQ’s Vietnam tale scares gung-ho AMH & RDJ out of wanting to go to Libya

— Robert and Anthony’s committed attitudes towards joining the army are pretty funny.
— I like the turn this is taking with the sudden darkened lighting and ceiling fan shadow as Randy’s telling his war story.
— Good reveal that Randy’s disturbing war story just turns out to be a screenplay he’s working on.
— Pretty solid cold opening overall.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host tells a few jokes & tap-dances to “42nd Street”

— Meh at the gag with Tony’s Italian family turning out to be the entire studio audience.
— This overall monologue was all over the place and had no focus. Tony came off likable enough, though.
STARS: **


LYNDON LA ROUCHE THEATRE
Henry Kissinger (ALF) & host conspire

— A lot of funny lines during Randy’s intro, especially his mention of “the evil homosexual Henry Kissinger” as well as “the most evil man of the 20th century: Walter Mondale.”
— Good use of Al Franken, and nice to see his Kissinger impression back from season 5.
— Amusing interactions between Al and Tony.
— On paper, I would think Joan as a goofy Queen Elizabeth is a case of bad miscasting, but she’s actually giving a surprisingly funny performance in this role.
— Jon’s childlike portrayal of Prince Charles is a lot funnier than his more straight-laced take on him from the season premiere.
— Overall, a pretty fun sketch with a lot of silly humor. Felt uncharacteristic for this season.
STARS: ***½


30 COUNTS
a 30-second count rule prolongs a bout between boxers (AMH) & (host)

— The 30-second count premise is pretty funny.
— I’m really enjoying Jon’s performance as the fight commentator.
— Some good laughs from how Tony’s training video package keeps getting abruptly cut off whenever the fight is ready to continue.
— Decent sketch overall.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Baby Doll”


BIG TIME PROFESSIONAL GOLF
upcoming matches are promoted wrestling-style

— A lot of sports sketches so far tonight.
— The premise of a golf promo being presented in a WWF-esque trash-talk manner was initially pretty funny when it started with Randy’s promo, but it’s losing its humor with the subsequent promos by other golfers.
— Could’ve done without Anthony’s overly-hammy performance, even if this sketch called for it.
STARS: **


UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
(JOC)’s pillow talk checks whether (host) loves her unconditionally

— Some laughs from Tony’s goofiness in his romantic sweet-talking to Joan.
— Haha, I’m really liking all of Joan’s oddly-specific scenarios when asking Tony if he would still love her if she had certain oddities about her.
— Interesting turn with Joan making it seem like she’s been cheating on Tony.
— Overall, a funny, well-written, and charming sketch, and Joan gave her second surprisingly strong performance of the night.
STARS: ****


WEEKEND UPDATE
Weekend Update Dancers demonstrate the IRS tax-time “Kiss”
Babette gets excited while discussing the use of French airspace
satellite feed shows Rock-’em Sock-’em robots aping Spinks-Holmes fight
DEM demonstrates his unique talent- holding a 45 rpm record with his lips

 

— Already a good laugh right from the beginning, with Dennis starting Update with “Welcome to all, unless of course you happen to be French, in which case, go to hell.”
— (*groan*) After mercifully getting a break from them in the last episode, here we have the return of the pointless Weekend Update Dancers.
— Nora’s overall Babette commentary tonight was an improvement over her underwhelming first one from earlier this season. Her acting out an increasingly-heated romantic phone conversation between America and France was fairly entertaining, well-performed, and had a decent payoff.
— The Larry Holmes/Leon Spinks boxing “clip” turning out to just be a video of Rock’em Sock’em Robots felt like a gag straight out of Joe Piscopo’s playbook.
— Tonight’s overall Update had too many average jokes from Dennis, though he ended on a good note by randomly demonstrating how he’s different from other newsmen by doing a silly mouth trick with a 45 rpm record.
STARS: ***


NANCY’S WORKOUT
Nancy Reagan (TES) demonstrates her fitness regimen to trainer (host)

— I like Terry’s walk as Nancy, which appears to be a new addition to his impression.
— Some good lines about Barbara Bush.
— Fun turn with Terry’s Nancy exercising/dancing wildly to the songs “Maniac”, “I’m So Excited”, etc.
— Another amusing visual, this time with Terry’s Nancy successfully lifting a huge barbell.
— Pretty fun sketch overall.
STARS: ***½


PENN AND TELLER
Penn & Teller [real] perform serpentine version of sawing-a-woman-in-half

 

— Funny reveal that Penn and Teller’s “lovely female assistant” is a live snake.
— Whoa at the announcement that they’re about to snip the snake in half.
— LOL, holy hell at the snake bleeding when being cut in half. No idea how Penn and Teller are pulling off that illusion, but I’m impressed.
— I’m surprised this has ended already. This was a lot shorter and simpler than Penn and Teller’s usual acts, but it was still pretty entertaining even if not as strong as their usual work.
STARS: ***


MASTER THESPIAN
Master Thespian tells about the time he performed for the Queen

— The appearance of this character makes me realize that we refreshingly haven’t seen Tommy Flanagan at all tonight, for the first in a LONG time.
— Some good stuff here as usual so far, especially the part with Master Thespian acting out being hit.
— Much like the Penn and Teller segment that preceded this, I’m surprised by how short and simple this overall sketch ended up being, just featuring Jon as the only performer, speaking directly to the camera the whole time. Jon gave a strong Master Thespian performance as usual, and there were laughs to be had, but this installment was very unmemorable.
STARS: ***


WACKY GLUE
the extreme adhesive properties of Wacky Glue outlast spokesman (RAQ)

— This is actually a rerun from one of the first few episodes of this season, but I never got a chance to review it back then since it was cut from my copy of that episode.
— Great reveal with the skull of a now-dead Randy STILL having the board glued to it.
— Overall, this was pretty solid and I liked the way it escalated and how we were shown Randy’s character through the decades.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Day The Devil”


THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BIFF AND SALENA
at bar’s open mike night, Biff gains confidence to do “butt dancing” song

— Uh-oh, the return of these baffling characters from the Jay Leno episode.
— Nice use of G.E. Smith and T-Bone Wolk at the beginning.
— Pretty funny song from Danitra.
— Even without having seen the live version of tonight’s episode, I can tell the rerun version I’m watching of this sketch is definitely using the typical season 11 practice of sweetening audience reactions. The canned laughter in certain portions of this sketch is quite obvious. There’s no way the real audience is laughing THAT much at some of this material (like when Biff introduces himself onstage and dedicates his song to Salena).
— A surprisingly good singing voice from Jon, and it’s somewhat impressive he can sing that well while still doing that overbite thing with his teeth that he always does as this Biff character.
— Fun turn with the Butt Dance musical number that Jon’s performing.
— Overall, an improvement over the previous Biff & Salena sketch. Not much on laughs here, and the first half was slow, but the sketch became entertaining once the Butt Dance number started.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Not bad for this season’s standards. While this wasn’t a particularly strong episode by any means, the sketches had a fun vibe, two of them featured better writing than we’re used to seeing this season (Unconditional Love and Lyndon La Rouche Theatre), and there was a low amount of flops. For any normal season, this would just be a run-of-the-mill average episode, but for this season, it was pretty good.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Oprah Winfrey):
— a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Catherine Oxenberg and Paul Simon

Posted on

April 12, 1986 – Oprah Winfrey / Joe Jackson (S11 E14)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
slave DAV tells LOM to beat host for refusing black stereotype material

— Lorne asking Oprah why she’s not in costume for the Aunt Jemima sketch is funny, though I was recently told that an Aunt Jemima sketch was supposedly an actual idea that Al Franken legitimately pitched to Oprah earlier that week. Good lord.
— Ha, during Oprah’s listing-off of stereotypical characters she refuses to play, I got a good laugh from one of them being Refrigerator Perry.
— A very funny walk-on from Danitra.
— A great laugh from Danitra blunty suggesting “Beat her!”
— Good ending with Oprah exiting the room while holding a beat-up Lorne in a headlock.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
Tommy Flanagan gives host an Oscar that belongs to Walter Brennan

— Funny opening line from Oprah about the Academy Awards.
— Unsurprisingly, she’s coming off comfortable in front of a live audience.
— Here’s our obligatory weekly Tommy Flanagan appearance, which now makes this the FIFTH consecutive episode he’s appeared in. This really shows how desperate this season is for a hit. Again, I like Tommy Flanagan, but will this EVER stop?
— Flanagan’s “How would YOU know?” response to Oprah was clever.
— Oprah’s attempt at a Tommy Flanagan impression was kinda cringeworthy, despite her best efforts.
STARS: **½


JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP’S LOOKIN’ AT AMERICA
Lookin’ At America through John Cougar-Mellencamp’s (RDJ) eyes & hair

— The first-person POV shot with Mellencamp’s bangs obscuring part of his vision didn’t make me laugh all that much.
— Not much of a joke here. This is coming off pretty meh.
STARS: **


THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
host gives some tips on how to run a talk show

— At least they put this frequently-used sketch on a bit of a hiatus after the previous installment.
— The audience is pretty quiet so far. Pat Stevens’ pre-interview segment wasn’t as funny as some of her previous ones have been.
— Overall, the brief hiatus unfortunately didn’t do the Pat Stevens Show sketches any good, as they still continue to suffer diminishing returns. Despite a few good simple-minded statements from Pat as usual, this was an overall dull installment and a few too many parts of the interview portion felt like a genuine interview.
STARS: **


CABRINI GREEN
(host) finds out that daughter Cabrini Green is pregnant

— For some reason, I like hearing Nora doing an “urban” voice. I don’t recall her using that voice ever again for the remainder of her SNL tenure.
— Funny how Cabrini Green uses a knock-knock joke to break the news to her mother that she’s pregnant.
— Oprah as the stern mother has a lot of funny lines in this, especially her remarks about Cabrini’s boyfriend.
— Overall, this had a softer, more slice-of-life approach than the usual Cabrini Green sketches do, and this came off pretty enjoyable, helped by how Danitra and Oprah’s performances gave it a nice sense of realism.
STARS: ***


WEEKEND UPDATE
RDJ & AMH use fart noises to review William F. Buckley’s book High Jinx
DEM crosses Kaddafi’s line of death on the Weekend Update map
AWB talks about Kaddafi & European responsibility for terrorism

— Dennis starts tonight’s Update by telling us Alfred Hitchcock has a cameo somewhere in tonight’s newscast, so “see if you can pick him up”. No idea if that’s legit or just one of Dennis’ usual random one-liners. The studio audience seemed to take it seriously.
— Oh, no, here comes a notoriously bad Anthony Michael Hall/Robert Downey commentary.
— We’re one minute into Anthony and Robert’s commentary so far, and all I can say is: Are these two freakin’ KIDDING me with this?!? A book review consisting of frequent random fart noises. THAT’S the big joke. How in the world does something like this make it on the air?
— Considering what a surprisingly strong night Robert and Anthony each had in the preceding George Wendt/Francis Ford Coppola episode, it’s sad that they had to follow that up with THIS, which is serving as an unfortunate reminder of why I’ve generally been disliking both of them this season.
— I used to compare this Downey/Hall commentary to the typical juvenile antics that Chris Farley and Adam Sandler developed a bad tendency to over-rely on in the infamous season 20 (and even season 19, for that matter), but now, the more I think of it, I think not even Farley and Sandler at their sophomoric worst would do this piece that Downey and Hall are doing.
— For some reason, I did kinda get a kick out of seeing Dennis address Robert and Anthony under the nicknames “Bob” and “Mickey”.
— After Robert and Anthony exit, Dennis makes a great ad-lib to the camera: “Hard to believe, but I think the boys wrote that themselves”.
— Another great ad-lib from Dennis, this time remarking “The Line of Death is right around my neck” when the clip-on mic on his tie unexpectedly pulls him back as he’s walking over to the Weekend Update map to show us where the Line of Death is located on it. Dennis is just so damn good at making clever quick ad-libs for any situation on Update.
— Loved Dennis’ Warren Beatty joke.
— Dennis, regarding the famous Superbowl Shuffle video: “I don’t think I’ve seen choreography that stiff since the Lee Harvey Oswald prison transfer.”
— I believe this is the first time a Dennis Miller Weekend Update has ever had more than one guest commentary.
— I liked A. Whitney summing up the invasion of Grenada, explaining “It didn’t take a whole lot of military strategy to knock over a fruit stand with two aircraft carriers.”
— A. Whitney’s overall commentary tonight was the usual solid Big Picture piece, with a lot of funny comments about the French.
— Yes! We managed to get through this entire Weekend Update without seeing a single trace of the Weekend Update Dancers, for the first in a long time.
— Now that Update’s over, I have to ask: where was the Alfred Hitchcock sighting? I guess it really WAS just a random Dennis one-liner.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Right & Wrong”


THE WART HOG
world’s greatest detective (RAQ) wins Most Grotesque award

— Haha, good make-up job on Randy. Surprisingly, I think this is the first time we’ve seen Randy all night, by the way. I wonder if that’s because it maybe took a long time to apply that warthog makeup on him.
— Speaking of Randy’s warthog makeup, I once read an online post years ago from someone who recalled watching this episode when it originally aired, and that person claimed that Randy inexplicably didn’t wear the warthog makeup in the original airing of this sketch, rendering the premise of the sketch completely pointless and nonsensical, and resulted in a confused and silent studio audience. Supposedly, the version of the sketch seen in reruns (which I’m reviewing) is from dress rehearsal. All of those claims should probably be taken with a grain of salt, however. Unfortunately, it’s hard to confirm whether that person’s recollection is correct or not, as a copy of the live broadcast of this episode has been difficult for SNL collectors to obtain.
— Pretty funny and interesting turn with Randy being taken off the set to another set in the studio where there’s a World’s Most Handsome Man Contest randomly taking place, which he’s entered in to prove his non-grotesqueness.
— I cracked up at Randy’s bizarre, exaggerated angry gesturing and vocalizations towards Robert and Don Novello just now.
— Geez, that ending freeze-frame close-up of Randy looked kinda nightmare-inducing. (screencap below)

— The closing “Wart Hog” theme song (which almost sounds like it’s being sung by Oprah, though I don’t think that’s her) that’s being played during the scrolling ending credits kinda reminds me of the various closing theme songs that Bill Murray would sing for various Franken and Davis-written sketches back in the original era (e.g. Mercy Killers, The Micro-Dentists, First He Cries, etc.) I wonder if that means this Wart Hog sketch is also a Franken and Davis-written piece.
— Overall, this wasn’t quite as funny as I had remembered it being. While I still appreciate the creativity and absurdity of its premise, as well as the random World’s Most Handsome Man Contest turn, something about this sketch came up a little short for me, though I’m not sure what exactly.
STARS: **½


I PLAY THE MAIDS
DAV sings “I Play The Maids” to document lack of good black actress roles

— Here’s one of Danitra’s more well-remembered pieces of the season.
— Great visuals of famous maid roles played by black actresses over the years.
— Overall, a very well-written and well-performed song, making a good point about the typecasting that black actresses face. I also liked the sentimental feel of this piece.
STARS: ****


ACTORS ON FILM
The Color Purple awed Jimmy Chance & Ashley Ashley

— The return of Nora and Robert’s actor/critic characters from the last episode. While I actually liked their previous appearance, we definitely didn’t need this back so soon.
— I laughed at Robert’s line just now, regarding The Color Purple: “I saw it, it changed my life, I saw it again, it changed it back.”
— Some funny lines during the whole “smoking is acting” part.
— Overall, I liked some of the lines, and Robert’s delivery as this character always makes me laugh, but this sketch was a step down from these characters’ last appearance and SNL probably would’ve been better off just keeping these characters a random one-time thing in the Wendt/Coppola episode.
STARS: **½


CRAIG SUNDBERG, IDIOT SAVANT
Craig Sundberg, Idiot Savant helps create a high-strength alloy

— OH, NO. Why are we seeing THIS awful character again?
— Boy, tonight’s installment of this sketch is dead so far. The studio audience is (understandably) very silent.
— For the second episode in a row, we get an Akira Yoshimura sighting, and he even has a good amount of dialogue this time.
— This has to be the most un-Terry Sweeney-esque performance I’ve ever seen Terry Sweeney give.
— In my review of the first installment of this sketch, I likened this Craig Sundberg character to the type of character Pete Davidson typically plays nowadays. I now think it’s Pete’s Chad character who I was specifically thinking of when making that comparison. The way Craig Sundberg often responds with a slow-witted “Right… sorry” reminds me so much of Chad’s slow-witted “Okay” catchphrase.
— Man, this sketch is going on pretty long. At least the first Craig Sundberg sketch was mercifully short.
— Overall, boy, this sketch was TERRIBLE. Even worse than its first installment. I couldn’t find a single redeeming factor in this overlong piece.
STARS: *


THE CUTE SHOP
The Cute Shop is filled with stuffed animals, but it’s actually a trap

— Okay, I wasn’t sure about this sketch at first, but this is suddenly taking an interesting turn with Joan secretly bringing out two soldiers.
— Heh, now this sketch takes yet another interesting turn with Oprah turning out to be an undercover cop and proceeding to free hostages who were being held captive in the back room.
— Overall, it was fun to watch this progress, with all the unexpected dark twists they kept throwing at us.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Soul Kiss”


ONE SHOE EMMA
prince (DEM) brings waitress One-Shoe Emma (DAV) what she’s been missing

— Nice to see Danitra getting so many showcases in tonight’s episode. This has to be by far the most airtime she’s ever gotten in a single episode. Kinda sad that all it took for that to finally happen was SNL getting a black female host, which means Danitra will probably go right back to being underused as usual in the remaining episodes this season.
— Pretty strange premise so far.
— LOL at Dennis entering the scene randomly dressed as a prince, and playing him in a very casual Dennis Miller-esque way.
— Randy’s dimwitted character is getting some good laughs from me.
— Overall, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this sketch as a whole. It did have a charm to it that I kinda liked, but for an absurd-premised piece, I wanted this to go in an even weirder direction than the one it ended up taking.
STARS: **½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— After the amazing experimental Wendt/Coppola episode, we’re unfortunately back to the usual season 11 mediocrity. There were some highlights, but a lot of the show was pretty underwhelming. I do commend the fact that tonight’s episode had several creative, oddball sketch premises, but most of them didn’t fully live up to their potential.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (George Wendt and Francis Ford Coppola):
— a big step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Tony Danza

Posted on

March 22, 1986 – George Wendt and Francis Ford Coppola / Philip Glass (S11 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
LOM tells cast that NBC has brought in Francis to direct tonight’s SNL

— I believe this is our very first Lorne appearance of the season, making this the first time we’ve seen him on camera since season 5.  It’s funny how much his general look has drastically changed since the original era.  Back in those days, he was very young-looking, always dressed in casual clothes, and looked like an average joe.  Half a decade later, he’s gray-haired, wears a suit all the time, and looks like a typical network exec.
— Nice way to introduce tonight’s big storyline of Francis Ford Coppola being given full control of the show.
— Dennis is the only cast member absent in this.
— When Terry delivers his line “That raving egomaniac, he’ll ruin the show!” in a particularly effeminate, over-dramatic manner, Anthony can be seen uncontrollably cracking up and then trying to hide it.
— Funny line from Lorne about being forced into a supervisor role before moving full-time into wrestling, which I assume is a reference to Dick Ebersol producing “Saturday Night Main Event”, a wrestling program that NBC would sometimes air in SNL’s timeslot this season during some of the weeks SNL didn’t have a new episode.
— Though some of the cast members ask if there’s going to be a “Live from New York…” tonight, this cold opening ends without one being officially delivered. I believe that makes this the only time (as of 2019) in Lorne’s reign as producer where an episode didn’t kick off with an official “Live from New York…” or any variation thereof.
— Overall, a pretty straightforward cold opening setting up the running premise for tonight’s episode, though there were funny little jokes thrown in there.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— We get a special opening montage for tonight’s unique episode.

— The moody, feature film-esque beginning of this montage gets a good initial laugh from the audience.
— There’s no Don Pardo announcements. The names of the guests and cast are just superimposed over a darkened wide shot of SNL’s studio, while a soft, dramatic music score plays (which I recall reading somewhere is being performed by tonight’s musical guest Phillip Glass). Also, the cast is interestingly listed “in order of appearance”.


MONOLOGUE
Francis directs George & audience on how he wants the jokes to work

— Adding to the unique feel of tonight’s episode, the main camera angle on George throughout this monologue is an undershot, which is a nice change of pace from SNL’s usual camera angle during monologues.
— Here’s our first Francis Ford Coppola appearance of the night, humorously interrupting George’s monologue to make him re-tell a joke.
— Hilarious that Francis is instructing the audience to go back and remember something funny from their childhood, so they’ll laugh at George’s re-telling of his joke.
— Great exaggerated audience reactions during George’s joke re-telling.
— Interesting ending to George’s monologue portion.
— I liked Terry flat-out calling this season a “sinking ship”.
— Here, Terry establishes himself as Francis’ assistant for the night, a role he ends up playing for the rest of the show, which means he doesn’t appear in character during any of the actual sketches.
— Very nice segue, with the camera crane that Francis is seated on being moved over into the next sketch.
STARS: ****


THE HONEYMOONERS: THE LOST EPISODES
Ralph (George) punches Alice (NOD)

— You can hear an off-camera stagehand whispering “Nora” right before Nora turns towards the door to greet George.
— Strange blooper where George enters through the wrong door, and humorously tries to make it seem like it was part of the sketch.
— Not too sure I like George’s Ralph Kramden impression. The voice sounds too forced.
— Boy, this sketch has a lot of weird flubs and miscues so far.
— Anthony Michael Hall as Norton? Ooookay, THAT’S strange casting.
— Ha, holy hell at George’s Ralph actually punching Nora’s Alice, knocking her out cold.
— This overall sketch ended up petering out towards the end after the punch, and felt very underdeveloped.
STARS: **


COMMERCIALS
Tommy Flanagan as Grant Tinker gives Francis the OK to go commercial-free

— Wow, they actually interrupted a real Tic-Tac commercial when the show goes to a commercial break.
— This is now the FOURTH consecutive episode to feature Tommy Flanagan, and his fifth appearance in the last six episodes. Pretty insane. It’s a good thing I have a fondness for this character, because otherwise, I’d be driven out of my damn mind having to see this character day-after-day while doing these daily reviews. I remember how crazy I was driven during my coverage of season 1 when Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella appeared on Weekend Update for about FIVE consecutive episodes at one point, doing the EXACT SAME SHTICK each time (which I never found all that hilarious to begin with).
— Some laughs from Tommy Flanagan acting as head of NBC Grant Tinker, though his lines are pretty basic so far. The general overuse of Flanagan this season has made me go from finding his humor hilarious to now finding it just decent. However, he still hasn’t reached Emily Litella levels of groanworthiness.
— The ending felt very abrupt, as if the recording I’m watching cut this off prematurely.
STARS: ***


CAMERA CONTROL / MYSTERY PLAYHOUSE
Francis’ bad camera switches screw up a Mystery Playhouse sketch

   

— When Francis asked director Dave Wilson for a favor, I liked Dave’s suck-up delivery of “Anything, babe!”
— Another great line delivery, with Terry’s incredulous “I can’t believe you just said that to Francis”.
— Fun premise of Francis’ impromptu decision to control the camera cuts for a sketch.
— LOL at all the (intentional) bad camera switches, always cutting to the wrong shot whenever anyone says something.
— Haha, now the botched camera cuts are humorously causing us to miss a crucial moment where the murder weapon and killer are revealed.
— Very funny piece overall.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Lightning”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Weekend Update Dancers express the Marcos scandal as “What You Need”
believing it was a comedy, JOC slams Out Of Africa for not being funny
Francis doesn’t want DEM to do a satellite interview with Pinochet

 

— For the first time ever, a Dennis Miller Weekend Update opens with a rock song as the theme music, though I don’t recognize this particular tune.
— Dennis’ opening joke about bad newspaper headlines felt like it was in the spirit of Tim Kazurinsky’s Salute to Journalism commentaries from back in the day.
— Dennis’ joke about McGruff the Crime Dog paying for his bitches was fucking hilarious.
— (*groan*) Here’s our obligatory pointless Weekend Update Dancers segment of the week.
— Hmm, tonight’s Weekend Update Dancers segment is more elaborate than usual.
— Feels weird seeing Joan in her own Update commentary.
— Joan’s commentary isn’t really working for me. The main joke of a person complaining about a dramatic movie not being funny feels like something I’ve already seen other times.
— I didn’t get Dennis’ post-Joan-commentary joke about how Joan’s movie reviews “can be heard on WOR radio, but not as often as they used to be”. That got a pretty good audience reaction, but flew right over my head.
— Interesting how the Francis Ford Coppola running storyline is even carrying over into THIS, with Francis interrupting Dennis’ satellite interview with Pinochet.
— Dennis: “I find it real tough taking artistic direction from a guy who came up with Rumblefish.”
— We get a reminder to send in entries for the Pinochet Countdown contest that Dennis introduced in the last episode. Does anything ever become of this particular contest, or does it end up fizzling out?  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter, considering SNL’s dire ratings this season.
STARS: ***


THAT BLACK GIRL
Francis interrupts That Black Girl- he wants more realism from set & DAV

— I like Francis interrupting the sketch to ask for it to have more squalor and grit, and telling Danitra to act more like a real black girl.
— Hilarious gag with SNL’s writers turning out to be three preppy, mega-whitebread guys. We’ll be seeing them again later this season, during the epic “Billy Martin sets the cast on fire” season-ending cliffhanger.
— Terry: “(to the writers) Why do you write so poorly? Just a question.”
— Love the gritty turn the now-revamped That Black Girl scene has taken.
— Wow, fantastic mock-dramatic intense monologue from Danitra. Great use of her performance skills.
STARS: ****


FISH MARKET
fish market owner (George) tries to unload a mistakenly-delivered whale

— I’m already laughing right from opening shot of a sign that reads “Mmmm…. Whale!”
— Also a great visual of the giant whale in the store.
— Very good performance from George, in his desperation to sell that whale.
— I love the part with George trying to bribe Nora’s cop character by offering her the blowhole of the whale, as if that’s something desirable.
— Good reveal that the reason the store was delivered a whale is because “whole shipment” was misread as “whale shipment”.
— An Akira Yoshimura sighting! Always fun seeing him pop up on SNL.
— Kind of an awkward ending.
STARS: ***½


ACTORS
Jimmy Chance (RDJ) & Ashley Ashley (NOD) link last skit to Francis’ ego

— Nice random interlude, with the preceding whale sketch being immediately followed by this “critique” of it.  Fast costume change for Nora, by the way, who was last seen very recently as a cop in said whale sketch.
— I’m really liking Robert’s delivery in this.
— Lots of funny lines from Robert here, especially during the part where he’s intensely detailing his days as Francis Ford Coppola’s caterer, adding at one point “I kept his donuts well-jellied!”, putting particular emphasis on the last part of the sentence, which always tickles me to no end whenever I watch this episode.
— This overall piece was a lot better than I had remembered. Nora and Robert both did very accurate and fully-realized characterizations of this type of pretentious actor, and Robert in particular gave me some good laughs.
STARS: ***


GHOST OF THESPIANS PAST
ghost of Master Thespian visits Francis & asks to be in the grand finale

— There’s been a running joke all throughout tonight’s episode of how to pronounce “Coppola”. Master Thespian gets in a particularly amusing mispronunciation of it here.
— An interesting different use of Master Thespian.
— A mention of how SNL is hanging by a thread, as a reference to the possibility of SNL soon getting canceled.
— Overall, not particularly hilarious, but this featured the usual strong Master Thespian performance from Jon, and it was a decent way to set up the grand finale we’ll be seeing later tonight.
STARS: ***


VIETNAM SKETCH
Francis nearly quits when AMH gets shot during a too-real Vietnam sketch

— Robert running out into the field with a blaring radio and IMMEDIATELY getting slaughtered was hilarious, as was Randy’s only response to that being “Hmm, must’ve heard him comin’”.
— Excellent breaking-the-fourth-wall turn with the performers dropping character because Anthony has gotten shot “for real”.
— Ha, I like Francis proudly revealing he’s using live ammunition in the sketch to give off a sense of realism, not even being aware of how insane that is for a sketch comedy show.
— I’m loving Anthony’s angry yelling at Francis. Some really funny lines from him there, including “You were NEVER my age!” and “Nobody cares about realism anymore; this is the 80s!”
— Wow, very nice dramatic rant from Randy to Francis.
— Great tracking shot of a depressed Francis walking past some of the sets from tonight’s earlier sketches and then walking down the long hallway backstage, all while we hear his inner monologue.
— Lorne’s delivery of “Nobody knows what the finale is; you didn’t tell us!” made me laugh.
— Overall, this has always been one of my favorite parts of this episode, and I really like how extensive this all felt.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Rubric” as Koyaanisqatsi scenes are shown


CONFRONTATIONAL MONOLOGUE
RDJ is upset that JOC is also doing a suitcase confrontational monologue

— LOL, such a random, bizarre idea, and it fits tonight’s experimental episode perfectly (though I recently found out this was actually cut from the Jay Leno episode earlier this season).
— Haha, Robert spouting off a string of insane, nonsensical one-liners is fucking hilarious. I especially howled at “I know why whales beach themselves…. SPIDERMAN TOLD ME!!!”
— Between the Actors piece earlier in this episode and now this sketch, I’m surprised by how much Robert is actually making me laugh throughout tonight’s episode.
— Pretty funny turn with Joan casually interrupting the scene to do the exact same thing Robert’s doing.
— A dangerous-seeming part just now, where Robert’s intentional tipping-over of himself caused him to land right on the very edge of the stage, where he could’ve easily fallen head-first off the stage by accident. Who knows; maybe they had padding on the floor below just in case.
STARS: ***½


GRAND FINALE
Francis’ grand finale pays tribute to live television & Studio 8H
bartenders ALF & TOD serve beer to finale non-participant George

— Ah, here it is; our hyped-up grand finale.
— Wonderful part with Master Thespian detailing to us the illustrious history of Studio 8H while various clips are played on a chroma-key screen behind him.
— Master Thespian randomly breaks out into a Tommy Flanagan voice for a brief moment when telling a lie. It’s fairly funny seeing Jon’s two biggest recurring characters overlapping, but BOY is this season hellbent on shoving Tommy Flanagan down our throats.
— Here’s what’s always been my absolute favorite part of tonight’s whole episode: the camera doing a very impressive tracking shot of the entire studio, showing a different cast member at each set from tonight’s earlier sketches while NBC’s “Be There” jingle plays. This is all absolutely BEAUTIFUL.
— We now interestingly go to an outside-the-studio sequence with George Wendt at a bar, somberly watching SNL’s grand finale on a TV screen.
— Hey, it’s Franken and Davis randomly appearing as bartenders. First time in years we’ve seen either of them appear on the show.
— Davis: “How’d you like doing the show?” Wendt: “The horror… the HORROR!” Franken: “How do you think we feel? We’re the producers.”
STARS: *****


GOODNIGHTS

— Oh, I love this deviation from the normal goodnights, showing George out in the street trying to hail a cab while the usual ending credits scroll by and the goodnights music plays.
— Hmm, even the goodnights music has a more tender, sentimental sound to it than usual tonight.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Wow! What an episode! Definitely one of the most creative and daring things SNL has ever attempted, and it definitely payed off. I loved all the unique things they did throughout the show (even the musical guest was an unconventional pick that fit this episode perfectly), all the format-breaking, all the commitment to the “Francis Ford Coppola directs the show” storyline, etc. The episode was so fun to watch and had such a nice flow; even the few normal sketches that had no involvement from Coppola were solid (well, except for The Honeymooners, but even that had a fun vibe). This just might be one of my personal favorite SNL episodes ever, and it also goes without saying how this episode was leaps and bounds above most season 11 episodes. Even some of the weaker cast members like Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey had their best night of the season in this episode (Robert especially).
— Considering how much SNL was in danger of cancellation at the time, I get the feeling they quietly intended this to be a potential stealth “last episode ever” just in case NBC indeed ended up pulling the plug on them sometime between this and the next episode. In hindsight, that gives this episode a bittersweet feel. Of course, as we know now, SNL ended up being fine, but honestly, if this HAD turned out to be the final SNL episode ever, it would’ve been a pretty fitting way to end the series. In particular, that grand finale at the end of the episode would’ve brought nice closure to SNL’s run.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Griffin Dunne):
— a huge step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Oprah Winfrey