Tag: Tom Hanks

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October 22, 2016 – Tom Hanks / Lady Gaga (S42 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) & Hillary Clinton (KAM) debate one last time

— Nice seeing Tom Hanks moderate this debate.
— Just realized how interesting it is seeing Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin, two SNL hosting legends, in the same sketch.
— A big laugh from Alec-as-Donald-Trump’s sudden, uncalled-for exclamation of “They’re ripping babies out of vaginas!”, spoofing something Trump infamously said at the real debate.
— Kate’s Hillary Clinton, on her and Alec’s Trump: “What two better people are there to talk about women’s issues: me, a woman who has had a child and has taken birth control, and him, a man who is a child and who’s face is birth control.”
— Love the “Trump Bingo” card that Kate’s Hillary holds up.
— The “Alright, settle down, entire planet” line (in response to the whole world laughing at Alec-as-Trump’s claim that nobody has more respect for women than him) is such a fitting line for Tom Hanks, who’s delivery just has a way of selling lines that are written the specific way this particular line was.
— An okay meta moment with Alec’s Trump calling one of his celebrity supporters, Stephen Baldwin, the best Baldwin brother.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
America’s Dad host gives country a confidence boost via a father-son chat

— Ah, so nice to see Tom entering through the home base stage’s door for his first time in 10 years.
— Feels odd hearing Tom say this is his 9th time hosting, because, even though I just pointed out this is his first hosting stint in 10 years, it feels like he’s hosted much more than 9 times. (I somewhat feel a similar way about Christopher Walken.) You’d kinda expect him to have Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin/John Goodman numbers in terms of amount of hosting stints, but maybe that just shows what a damn strong and memorable host he is that it feels like he’s hosted more times than he has.
— Very solid concept of Tom giving America a chat as “America’s Dad”, in response to him being named that by a magazine. This also, in an unintentional way, feels like a nice progression to Tom’s season 14 monologue, which was based on a magazine calling him the nicest guy in Hollywood.
— A lot of funny and warm things being said by Tom here. I especially love the little line about America having a summer birthday.
STARS: ****


BLACK JEOPARDY!
Trump voter (host) finds common ground with contestants

— Here’s a beloved classic, and the zenith of this recurring sketch.
— Feels a little odd seeing this recurring sketch without Jay Pharoah for once, but it’s nice seeing Leslie now being one of the contestants.
— A great initial reveal of Tom’s character.
— An absolutely fantastic change to this recurring sketch’s formula, with how Tom’s character is surprisingly-but-reasonably fitting in perfectly with Black Jeopardy’s sensibilities. And the bonding between him and Kenan is so damn great and charming.
— Tom, to his fellow contestants and Kenan: “You people are fun. (*pauses after realizing that sounded offensive*) Can I say that?” Kenan: “(after a long pause) We’ll give you a pass this time.”
— A particularly hilarious answer Tom gives to the “Skinny women can do this for you” question: “What is, ‘not a damn thing’?”
— A great little detail of how the sound effect signal to start the next segment is the sound of a broom hitting the ceiling below this show.
— A priceless turn this sketch takes at the end, with the knowing uncomfortable silence that follows Kenan revealing that the next subject they’ll have to talk about is Lives That Matter. I also love Kenan’s line to Tom after that silence: “Well, it was good while it lasted, Doug.”
STARS: *****


HALLOWEEN SHOW
(MEV) & parents (host) & (CES) demo Halloween block party musical routine

— I’m not caring for ANY of the random humor in the first minute of this sketch. As I said in a previous review, writers James Anderson and Kent Sublette are so bad at attempting random, absurdist humor, usually my favorite type of comedy.
— At least this Anderson/Sublette-written musical number sketch isn’t one of their interminable number of “Come on, join in, you know this song!” sketches (e.g. Debra’s Time). However, this sketch still has too much of the general aura from those sketches, and regardless, I’m still finding this musical number to be an absolute chore to sit through.
— Given her very distinct voice, Melissa has an impressively beautiful and pleasant singing voice (what little we hear of it solo in this sketch). I actually didn’t even catch that in the Crucible Cast Party short from two episodes prior.
— Blah at the turn with the guests admitting they actually liked the musical number that Tom, Cecily, and Melissa have just finished performing, despite the constant cutaways we previously saw of those guests’ frozen puzzled facial reactions (which itself a tired, overused gag) throughout the song.
STARS: *


BROKEN
CBS hopes depressing “comedy” will earn awards consideration

— Another instance of Vanessa’s presence in a segment reminding me “Oh, that’s right, she’s still on the show this season.”
— Out of all the segments in this episode, this is one that I had completely forgotten about.
— Cecily’s mock-dramatic angry outburst at Tom made me laugh out loud. She’s always great at doing that kind of acting.
— A very funny, spot-on, and well-executed bleak, melodramatic tone to this commercial, made even funnier by the conceit of CBS trying to present it as if it’s a wacky comedy show. I’m surprised that I had no prior memory of this commercial, given how damn strong it is.
STARS: ****½


HAUNTED ELEVATOR
unscary David S. Pumpkins (host) is an enigmatic haunted house attraction

— Needless to say, an extremely famous sketch that would go on to become very iconic.
— Am I crazy, or does that suspiciously sound JUST LIKE the then-recently-fired Taran Killam doing the voice-over at the beginning of this sketch? It sounds way too much like his familiar voice to NOT be him. Was this sketch originally cut after dress rehearsal from a previous season or something (perhaps the season 41 Tracy Morgan episode, which was that season’s Halloween episode……wow, imagine the David S. Pumpkins character being played by Tracy), and SNL possibly reused Taran’s voice-over from it? After all, that Chris Farley-starring Dante sketch from the season 20 Bob Saget episode had a “new” voice-over from the no-longer-on-the-show Phil Hartman, because the sketch originally got cut after dress rehearsal from the season 19 Nancy Kerrigan episode, back when Phil was still on the show. (Then again, Phil wasn’t fired, unlike Taran, so it IS rather odd that SNL would use a recently-fired cast member’s voice-over from a previously-cut sketch. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another example of that happening, though.)
— Beck and Kate play their second married couple for the second consecutive live sketch tonight. Kinda funny to imagine that Beck and Kate’s characters in both sketches are the same, even though I know that’s not SNL’s intention.
— A hilarious introduction to Tom’s David S. Pumpkins character in his first scene.
— Very funny and infectious silly dancing from Mikey and Bobby, who are making a solid pair here, which makes me kinda wish we saw them teamed up more often this season.
— I’m getting so many laughs from a perplexed Beck and Kate’s deconstruction of the concept of David S. Pumpkins (Beck is particularly great at that), even if Kenan previously did a similar thing in the preceding season’s Kevin Roberts sketch.
— Speaking of Kenan, he’s excellent in his role in this David S. Pumpkins sketch.
— Beck: “And the skeletons aaarrrreee….?” Mikey and Bobby as the skeletons: “…PART OF IT!”
— Tom’s David S. Pumpkins, in his usual catchphrase: “Any questions?!?” Beck: “Yes, several! I am so in the weeds with David Pumpkins!”
— Great fake-out with how Leslie’s scene ends up suddenly turning into a continuation of the whole David S. Pumpkins bit. Also, that gleeful look on Leslie’s face while she’s dancing with her chainsaw raised in the air is a riot.
— Beck: “Why did you go all in on David Pumpkins?!?” Kenan: “Hey, look – it’s 100 Floors Of Frights, they not all gonna be winners!”
— This sketch is all of the right kinds of silly, stupid fun, and has so many lines that I find quotable. While I can understand why some people find this sketch to be overrated (hell, I myself didn’t like this sketch when it originally aired, as I found it to be trying way too hard to recapture the magic of the Kevin Roberts sketch, and I didn’t like how it instantly became much more popular with viewers than Kevin Roberts ever did. It took me months to come around on David S. Pumpkins.), and while I do prefer Kevin Roberts, I definitely feel David S. Pumpkins is a perfect sketch.
— A perfect exaggerated startled look on Beck’s face during the freeze-frame at the end (the last above screencap for this sketch).
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Mark Ronson [real] perform “A-YO”


WEEKEND UPDATE
hacking victim LEJ is unfazed due to her inability to be embarrassed

The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started A Conversation With At A Party malaprops vainly

— As usual for the first few minutes of each Update lately, we open tonight’s Update with lots of great long-form ranting from Colin and Michael on the election.
— Rather unrealistic for Colin to claim he had no idea about Leslie getting hacked that summer.
— A very funny, heartening, and empowering speech from Leslie about how internet trolls can’t hurt her. One of her absolute best Update commentaries ever.
— I believe tonight’s Girl At A Party commentary is SNL’s very first mention of the modern term “woke”.
— While I went through tonight’s overall Girl At A Party commentary without finding any lines that I felt like quoting in my review, her commentary was strong as usual.
STARS: ****


COCKPIT
proud Sully Sullenberger (host) balks at being (Alec Baldwin)’s copilot

— Oh, hell yeah. After teasing us with having Tom and Alec in the same cold opening earlier tonight, SNL now gives us an outright pairing of them in the lead roles of this sketch. I’m in SNL Hosting Legends Heaven right now. Kinda reminds me of the joy of seeing Buck Henry and Steve Martin interact with each other in that Rise sketch from the season 5 premiere that Steve hosted.
— I got a big laugh from how, after being told by the control tower through his headset that Alec is the pilot of this flight, Tom’s Sully responds by awkwardly just stating “I’m uh…I’m Sully”, as if that alone will make the control tower change their mind about who should fly this plane.
— I love the dry, professional tone of the acting between Tom and Alec, and Tom in particular is fantastic here.
— Kyle plays his fourth kid character in just these last three episodes ALONE.
— I really like the structure to this sketch, with short scenes in the cockpit being interspersed with exterior shots of the plane in flight.
— Great bit with Tom’s Sully intentionally making the plane go awry so he can “save” it and then brag over the plane’s loudspeaker that “Sully did it again.”
STARS: ****


A GIRL’S HALLOWEEN
night of (AIB), (CES), (VAB) is a drunken disaster

— An entry in this era’s series of shorts that involve cutting back and forth between a tender scene and a related chaotic scene.
— Aidy’s drunken, gleeful delivery of “Awwww, pizza, biiiitch!” at the very end of one scene made me laugh even more than it probably should’ve.
— Out of all this era’s shorts with this “back-and-forth cutting between tender and chaotic scenes” concept, the concept is being pulled off particularly well in tonight’s short.
— The mere visual of Pete (making his first and only appearance all night, by the way) in that full-body green makeup is cracking me up.
— I was about to say this is also the first appearance Bobby has made all night, until I remembered his character in the David S. Pumpkins sketch. Tonight’s episode is another sign of how invisible Bobby is in this final season of his, sadly.
— I love how even Bobby’s character gets involved in the “back-and-forth cutting between tender and chaotic scenes” theme.
— Excellent ending, with the reveal of Pete’s full-body green makeup being all over Aidy’s mouth.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Hillary Lindsey [real] perform “Million Reasons”


AMERICA’S FUNNIEST PETS
Joelle, Noelle, Ron Howard (host) voice animals

— This is the second and final installment of this sketch, though this installment changes the original “American’s Funniest Cats” title to “America’s Funniest Pets”.
— The first installment of this sketch was strong, but it doesn’t feel necessary to do a second one, as I don’t see how it will work as well as the first one did.
— Tom’s Ron Howard impression is so much fun, even throwing in a meta, self-deprecating remark at one point about Tom Hanks being a pain in the ass to work with.
— Surprisingly, it actually turns out that Kate and Cecily’s voice-overs in this second installment of this sketch are working just as well for me as they did in the first installment. In fact, of the two installments, I’d actually give the edge to this second one, because I feel that the host portions of this one with Tom are more fun than the host portions of the first one with Adam Driver, even if this second installment doesn’t have Kate and Cecily memorably saying “Boi-oi-oing” throughout the sketch.
— Kate and Cecily’s voice-overs during the “puppy walking on its hind legs in a store” clip are particularly hilarious.
— What was with the awkward, empty, abrupt way this sketch ended? The show ran out of time, I take it?
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An absolutely fantastic episode. Almost the entire episode was comprised of strong segments, including THREE that I gave a perfect five-star rating to (Black Jeopardy, Haunted Elevator, and A Girl’s Halloween). And, after Tom Hanks’ last two episodes prior to this ranged from disappointing (his 1996 episode) to forgettable (his 2006 episode), it’s nice that tonight, SNL gave Tom the strong episode he used to regularly have back in the day. Oh, and he himself was a wonderful host in this episode as always.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
(Much like the preceding season’s Tracy Morgan episode, there are way too many things to pick in this episode, so I’ll narrow it down to what I feel are the particularly best highlights)


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Black Jeopardy!
Haunted Elevator
A Girl’s Halloween
Broken
America’s Funniest Pets
Weekend Update
Monologue
Cockpit
The Presidential Debate
Halloween Show


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Emily Blunt)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Benedict Cumberbatch hosts the last episode before the election

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May 6, 2006 – Tom Hanks / Red Hot Chili Peppers (S31 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

THE GAS PLAN
Bill Frist (host) sells his new gas rebate plan to George W. Bush (WLF)

— Not caring for Will-as-President-Bush’s whole spiel about wishing for May to turn into June. The audience is amused by this tepid comedy far more than I am.
— Ha, I got a huge laugh from Will-as-Bush’s off-color line to Darrell’s Dick Cheney, “That Frist plan went down so fast, it was like YOU shot it in the face.” Darrell’s Cheney also has a very funny facial reaction to that line.
— Great to see Tom Hanks in the cold opening in his long-awaited return as host after a 10-year hiatus.
— Finesse stuck in his typical useless, brief non-speaking role that might as well have been played by an extra. Only two episodes left for Finesse to suffer through the hell of SNL’s awful utilization of him.
— Bill Frist: “Let’s say that a gallon of gas hits $4 a gallon.” President Bush: “Heh, oh, it’s GONNA.”
— This turning into a Magic Mop infomercial is fairly funny, but nothing great and certainly not something I’d call sharp political satire.
— How do you have Tom Hanks still onscreen at the end of a cold opening and NOT have him say “Live from New York…”? Did we really need Will Forte saying LFNY as Bush for the 150th time when Hanks was RIGHT THERE?
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
host takes DaVinci Code questions from religious figures in the audience

— I recall someone who used to work at SNL (I forget who) once famously revealed that SNL relies on questions-from-the-audience monologues whenever the writers don’t know what to do with a host for their monologue (if that’s true, then season 19 had A LOT of hosts that the writers didn’t know what to do with). I shudder to think that’s true for this particular episode, because if so, shame on this writing staff. How do you not know what to do with Tom Freakin’ Hanks?
— SNL writer Liz Cackowski continues to be the Sarah Silverman and Paula Pell of this era’s questions-from-the-audience monologues.
— Pretty funny subversion with Fred-as-the-priest’s alleged hard-hitting, stern religion-related question just turning out to be “What’s the deal with your hair?”
— Chris’ passive-aggressive line is very funny.
— Hilarious bit with Bill as an albino monk.
— The Flying Nun bit with Rachel was just dumb and didn’t work for me AT ALL.
— Didn’t care for the drawn-out bit with Darrell as the pope, and it needed a funnier punchline than a mention of Vince Vaughn.
— Very funny initial cutaway to Jason as Jesus, and Jason is always great at milking laughs from the audience without saying a word whenever the camera first cuts to him as a character in a questions-from-the-audience monologue, like in Natalie Portman’s monologue a little earlier this season.
— Jason’s natural resemblance to Kiefer Sutherland is coming off particularly noticeable to me here.
— The whole back-and-forth between Tom and Jason is absolutely fantastic, especially it ending with Tom, after calling Jason out on the gall he has as an SNL newbie to insult both the son of man and Steven Spielberg, sarcastically telling Jason “I’m sure we’ll see you in September.”
STARS: ***


WHEEL OF FORTUNE
dumb contestants (AMP), (FRA), (KRW) can’t solve puzzle

— A thin premise, but the execution isn’t too bad so far, and I like Tom’s performance as the straight man.
— Meh, this is now getting old, and the audience is agreeing with me, judging from their silence during some comedic parts. What is this sketch doing in the lead-off spot?
— Tom-as-Pat-Sajak’s long, frustrated spiel towards the end after he’s given up is great, and deserved to be in a much better sketch.
STARS: **


KAITLIN’S IGUANA
Kaitlin’s enthusiasm about taking care of (host)’s iguana levels off

— It feels odd seeing Horatio, because, once again, I keep forgetting he’s even still in the cast, given how much his airtime has (mercifully) diminished lately.
— This ends up being the final Kaitlin sketch with Horatio’s Rick character. The only remaining Kaitlin sketch appears towards the end of the following season, when Horatio is long gone from SNL.
— I like the suspenseful background music and unique camera angles during the sequence with a fearful Kaitlin having second thoughts about taking care of the iguana.
— Tom’s exit line was pretty funny.
STARS: ***


ARIEL & EFRIM
in their early ’90s music video, (host) & (ANS) fear for their testicles

— When this episode originally aired, I remember it strangely took me halfway through this short to recognize Andy Samberg and Tom Hanks as the two lead singers. Until then, I seriously thought the two lead singers were played by special guests who I wasn’t familiar with. I guess it was something about the way Andy and Tom looked in those bald caps that made me not recognize them.
— So I take it from Liz Cackowski’s appearance in this Digital Short (assuming she hasn’t appeared in a Digital Short prior to this) that she and her future husband Akiva Shaffer have hit it off by this point?
— Maya makes her first appearance in three episodes. Much like Horatio, it’s become easy to forget Maya is even still in the cast by this point.
— The wraparound segments with Chris, Will, and Kenan are very similar to the wraparound segments of a pre-SNL Lonely Island music video called Bing Bong Brothers. Even the ending wraparound segment of both that short and this one feature a character saying “I did NOT like that” in response to the music video that was just shown.
— Overall, this was a fun Right Said Fred take-off, but not quite as strong as I remembered it, and pales a little in comparison to the other Lonely Island music videos that have appeared on SNL prior to this. Still good, though.
STARS: ***½


UNIVERSAL THEME PARK
while in a theme park line, (host) & (FRA) yell at their lost ma (RAD)

— Hoo, boy. I recall this being a WRETCHED sketch.
— Fred appears to be wearing his Tony Danza wig.
— A laugh from Tom, when complaining about E.T. not having called Tom by his name during one ride, dismissively saying “E.T., he’s dead to me.”
— Who the holy fuck at SNL thought a sketch with Fred and Tom yelling “MA!” over and over at the top of their lungs for the entirety of a FIVE-MINUTE SKETCH would be worthy of not only making it to air, and not only making it to air in a TOM HANKS-hosted episode, but airing in the freakin’ pre-Weekend Update half of a Tom Hanks-hosted episode?
— I will admit that Tom’s yelling is actually making me smirk at parts, as awful as this material is. A testament to how terrific Tom Hanks is. Imagine how even worse this sketch would’ve been with a different host.
— The roller coaster bit is kinda funny, I guess.
— Ugh, this sketch is going on and on and on and on and on…
STARS: *½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Dani California”


WEEKEND UPDATE
TIF asks Rosie O’Donnell (HOS) about joining Star Jones on The View

Patrick & Gunther Kelly debate the immigration controversy with a song

— What is that bizarre off-camera noise while Tina is delivering her opening joke? The off-camera noise sounds like a pig squealing. The fuck? I don’t recall any pigs being involved in any of the subsequent sketches in this episode. Am I watching a rerun of Dennis Miller’s Weekend Update from the season 14 Ted Danson episode, where Dennis got interrupted at one point by the off-camera sounds of squealing pigs who were about to appear in the sketch that followed?
— Ugh, the return of Horatio’s Rosie O’Donnell. At least this is the last time we’ll ever see it.
— This Rosie O’Donnell commentary is as insufferable as I expected.
— Didn’t Rosie O’Donnell’s tenure on The View, which tonight’s Update mentions was soon going to start, end up being very short-lived? Not saying this is the sole reason her tenure was short-lived, but I recall her being in the news for some controversy she got into at one point for an Asian stereotype bit she did on The View. (Sounds like the type of thing celebrities would get “canceled” for nowadays.)
— When listing off similarities she has to Star Jones, Horatio’s Rosie ends with “and we both have gay partners”. Not only a lame joke, but Tina goes “Ohhhhh!” in response, as if it was some sick burn, which bugs me, because I’m sure Tina wrote that “sick burn” herself, as she seems obsessed with making fun of Star Jones and did write those View sketches back in the day. If she indeed wrote that “sick burn” that Horatio’s Rosie delivered here about Star having a gay partner, then Tina going “Ohhhhh!” in response is yet ANOTHER example of her patting herself on the back for an “edgy” joke of hers.
— Yikes, the string of Update jokes from Tina and Amy after the Rosie O’Donnell commentary is…just…Jesus Christ, how does stuff like this make it on the air?!? (*sigh*) Only two episodes left until Update gets a bit of a much-needed revamp.
— We haven’t seen the Patrick & Gunther Kelly characters in a fairly long time.
— Even though these Patrick & Gunther Kelly commentaries use the exact same joke every single time, it still works for me, especially after we’ve gotten a fairly long hiatus from these characters. I especially love how, in tonight’s commentary, Will’s musical high-pitched “Yuh”s are being done in time to the complicated background music.
STARS: *½


CLAREMONT YOGA CENTER
in a yoga class, (RAD) is unhappily partnered with sweaty & gross (host)

— A funny character for Tom.
— Liz Cackowski has appeared in THREE sketches tonight. How did SNL not eventually make this woman a cast member? Also, she’s gotten far more airtime tonight than actual cast member Seth Meyers, who is nowhere to be seen in this entire episode. Seth’s decision to decrease his own airtime this season to concentrate more on his new behind-the-scenes job as a head writer has reached a crescendo this week.
— Tom’s “Anus to anus” line was hilarious, as was him then saying, in response to him and Rachel doing the “anus to anus” move, “Boy, this would cost ya 20 bucks in Thailand.”
— Tom’s disturbing stories towards an uncomfortable Rachel are providing lots of laughs.
— Good line from Rachel about trying not to breathe in OR out while a sweaty Tom is hanging above her in a yoga position.
— I love the angry look on Rachel’s face at the end as the camera zooms in on her between Tom’s legs.
STARS: ****


COLIN’S PLACE
Colin Powell (KET) fields State Department overtures a la Fred Sanford

— As someone who used to be an avid watcher of Sanford & Son reruns, I appreciate this idea of doing a Colin Powell/Fred Sanford hybrid. It also kinda feels like a precursor to a fairly well-remembered sketch SNL would later do where Fred’s Barack Obama and his family star in a take-off of The Cosby Show, though I recall that sketch having better writing than this one.
— Kenan’s attempt at a Redd Foxx-type voice could be better, but Kenan was never known as a good impressionist in these earlier seasons of his.
— If I played a drinking game during this sketch, taking a drink every time Finesse’s Lamont Sanford-esque Michael Powell says “Come on, Pop!”, I’d be passed out before the sketch ended. I don’t recall “Come on, Pop!” being something the actual Lamont said THIS frequently on Sanford & Son.
— I like Maya playing a Condoleezza Rice/Aunt Esther hybrid.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Give It Away”


TENNIS PLAYERS
tennis players have one (host), two (WLF), three (CHP), seven (BIH) arms

— A great snob voice from Will.
— Will unconvincingly trying to act like Tom’s missing arm isn’t the reason he’s dropping him as his tennis partner is pretty funny.
— After Tom’s line “You’re going to throw away 25 years of tennis and lovemaking?”, Will starts to say his reply, but pauses in an odd way after a second, then continues his reply. I’ve seen some people theorize that Tom’s mention of lovemaking was an ad-lib, and that Will paused so oddly during his response because he was genuinely taken aback by the ad-lib.
— I love Chris entering as Will’s new three-armed tennis partner.
— A very fun increasing absurdity to this sketch.
— I am absolutely LOVING how the only performers in this sketch are Tom Hanks, Will Forte, Chris Parnell, and Bill Hader. Some of my all-time favorite sketch comedy performers, all in one sketch together! And to make it even better, the sketch they’re appearing together in is a very well-written absurdist one.
STARS: ****½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— For the first Tom Hanks-hosted episode in 10 years, this unfortunately had a bit of a flat feel. The episode actually wasn’t all that bad, and there were a few strong pieces in the post-Weekend Update half, but 1) this episode as a whole didn’t have the special feel it should’ve had for Tom Hanks’ big hosting return, 2) there were a few really lousy sketches placed so bizarrely early in the show, and 3) the episode as a whole was largely forgettable, even with some of the highlights. Tom Hanks himself did not disappoint, though, giving the A+ performances and commitment he can always be relied on to give on SNL. After tonight’s episode, he sadly wouldn’t host again for another 10 years, but unlike tonight’s episode, THAT one actually ends up being worth the 10-year wait.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lindsay Lohan)
about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Julia Louis-Dreyfus becomes the very first female cast member to host the show

Posted on

September 28, 1996 – Tom Hanks / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (S22 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

ABC ELECTION COVERAGE
with no votes cast, ABC News declares Bill Clinton’s (DAH) re-election

 

— Good to see Tom Hanks reprising his Peter Jennings impression from the famous 1988 Presidential Debate sketch.
— Very funny announcement from Tom’s Jennings that Bill Clinton has won the election, a month-and-a-half early before voting has even taken place.
— Cheri’s Ross Perot impression is always good for a chuckle.
— I believe this is the first time we ever see Darrell’s Clinton giving a sly thumbs-up, which would go on to become one of his iconic trademarks.
— I love the part with Clinton gloatingly going into detail about the fact that he did inhale.
— A good laugh from Norm’s Dole crashing through the railing and falling into the crowd, as a reference to what happened to Dole in real life during, I believe, a campaign rally.
— I like Mark as Al Gore just coming in, saying into the camera “I’m Al Gore”, and then immediately leaving, which would go on to become a running gag these next two seasons.
— Though I’m still kinda laughing at it, they keep repeating the Dole falling bit over and over, which feels pretty unnecessary and one-joke.
— Pretty funny bit at the end with Jennings sternly stopping Perot from saying “Live from New York…”
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— The montage is the same as the one from the preceding season.
— The SNL logo zooms into the screen differently than it did in the preceding season’s montage.
— Similar to how season 8 used the same opening montage from season 7 but changed each cast member’s photo, this season’s re-used season 21 opening montage changes each cast member’s photo. Here are some side-by-side comparisons between some cast members’ season 21 and season 22 montage photo:

— The new cast members added to the show tonight are Ana Gasteyer and Tracy Morgan, both joining as repertory players.

As of 2019, Ana and Tracy are the last-ever cast members to immediately join as repertory players. Every new cast member since then has joined as a featured player, which is apparently some kind of rule that started after season 22.
— Chris Kattan has been promoted from featured player to repertory player.


MONOLOGUE
host reads the Oscar acceptance speech he didn’t get to use

— Tom addresses the fact that it’s been a while since he last hosted and he acknowledges the upswing in quality SNL has gone through in the new era, by saying “It’s wonderful to come back to Saturday Night Live now that it’s decent again” and mentioning that he avoided the show like the plague “back when it sucked”.
— Some good laughs from Tom bragging about how Nicolas Cage can’t relate to winning two Oscars in a row.
— Tom’s unused acceptance speech is pretty funny.
STARS: ***½


BIG BRAWN
Big Brawn Feminine Napkins get their super-absorbency from wood pulp

— Great visual of Will as a giant lumberjack.
— Hilarious reveal of a feminine napkin made from wood.
— A very funny part with Molly gleefully singing the lyric “It’s like a big friendly lumberjack between your knees!”
STARS: ****


THE ROXBURY GUYS
the antics of (host) & fellow Roxbury Guys land them in the slammer

— Well… I see SNL didn’t waste any time in bringing back this smash hit sketch from the preceding season’s finale. However, it’s a given that no matter how hard SNL tries, none of the subsequent Roxbury Guy sketches will ever come close to measuring up to the Jim Carrey one.
— I love the brief “Stayin’ Alive” turn.
— The urinals scene is worth a good laugh.
— Pretty funny ending with Chris’ character receiving his comeuppance by getting bumped back and forth by male prisoners.
— Overall, despite this paling in comparison to the preceding Roxbury Guys sketch and despite how wasted this sketch felt on Tom Hanks, I still found this pretty fun.
STARS: ***


HEY, REMEMBER THE 80’S
Goat Boy’s brays punctuate his nostalgia show

— Goat Boy officially becomes recurring and is put into a new format that, like the last one (in which Goat Boy sang 80s hits during an album promo), involves 80s pop culture.
— Jim is still cracking me up as Goat Boy, but man, I can already tell this character is going to get old fast in this format. I’d prefer it if SNL had just left him as a bizarre one-off character after his debut.
— During the Andrew Ridgeley interview, I like the sudden cutaway to Goat Boy sucking on an upside-down baby’s bottle.
— This sketch is feeling pretty repetitive, and is going on a little too long for such a thin concept to the Goat Boy character.
STARS: **½


PING-PONG TOURNAMENT
Craig & Arianna are cheered by a visit from the Spartan Spirit (host)

— Hoo, boy. Tonight’s episode is starting to destroy me with all the recurring characters appearing up front, even if I can understand the need for SNL to do this after a long summer break. However, I’m watching these episodes on a daily basis, so I don’t have the benefit of having a long summer break in between these last two Cheerleaders sketches. Sitting through a different Cheerleaders sketch two days in a row is pretty brutal.
— Oh, man. I thought Tom was kinda wasted in the Roxbury Guys sketch, but that’s NOTHING compared to his appearance in this Cheerleaders sketch. It feels sad seeing him in such an out-of-place small role in such an overused recurring sketch.
— After the last two preceding Cheerleaders sketches, with Teri Hatcher and Jim Carrey, in which the sketches had an actual fleshed-out premise and told a story, we’re unfortunately back to the Cheerleaders sketches only consisting of Craig and Arianna simply doing various cheers for most of the sketch before being briefly interrupted by someone.
— One positive thing I’ll say is that I always love the song choice we get at the end of every Cheerleaders sketch while Craig and Arianna do their “perfect cheer”. Tonight, we get Salt-N-Pepa’s very catchy “Push It”.
STARS: **


TV FUNHOUSE
“It Takes Two To Tango” by RBS- Ace & Gary are The Ambiguously Gay Duo

— Yes! We get the debut of a brand-new SNL segment: TV Funhouse! It feels refreshing to see a new animated segment on SNL, for the first time in ages.
— What better way for TV Funhouse to debut than with an Ambiguously Gay Duo cartoon?
— Already a huge laugh early on from Ace and Gary’s penis-shaped car.
— Nice animation in this cartoon.
— All of the suggestively homoerotic actions between Ace and Gary are priceless.
STARS: ****


WEEKEND UPDATE
MTV personality Kincaid’s (ANG) commentary comprises retro TV references
Kerri Strug [real] & brother Kippy (CHK) remember the Atlanta Olympics

— Norm has new Weekend Update theme music, which I believe would go on to be used for the remainder of his tenure as Update anchor.
— An odd brief technical gaffe when Ana Gasteyer’s commentary begins.
— Ana Gasteyer in her very first SNL appearance, getting her own Update commentary as a character that would go on to be recurring.
— At first, Ana’s Kincaid commentary started getting tired to me pretty fast, but now, her character is getting so increasingly ridiculous that it’s making me laugh. And Ana is doing a good job going through all the various pop culture references in rapid-fire speed.
— Norm does his first-ever “You guessed it: Frank Stallone” joke, which would go on to be a running gag in his Updates.
— A somewhat memorable Update commentary now begins with Kippi and Kerry Strug.
— Chris is doing a good imitation of Kerri Strug’s chipper high-pitched voice, but the commentary itself is only okay at best. It’s not doing much for me.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Walls”


THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO
missing link Mr. Peepers (CHK) wreaks havoc on panel

— As always, a spot-on Leno impression from Darrell, and I especially like the accurate imitation of the type of bad, corny jokes Leno typically does on the Tonight Show.
— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring character debut!
— Mr. Peepers looks dirtier than I remember him looking in future appearances.
— As I said at some points in the preceding season, I’m going to approach the debuts of most of this era’s biggest and soon-to-be most annoying recurring characters by treating their respective first installment as a standalone sketch and pretending that I’m unaware it’s the first of a series of sketches.
— Between Weekend Update and this sketch, Chris is getting quite a lot of showcases tonight.
— Some great physical work from Chris here, and his characterization is cracking me up.
— I like the part with Tom trying to get Mr. Peepers to say “Jay Leno”.
— A huge laugh from Mr. Peepers humping Ana’s Andie MacDowell.
— Much like Goat Boy, I just know I’m eventually going to get very tired of Mr. Peepers when he becomes recurring, but for now, I’m enjoying him. I’d put him on the long list of SNL characters that would hold up better if they never became recurring.
STARS: ***½


CREATIVITY TEST
creativity test giver (TIM) tries to pull an original idea out of (host)

— I’ve never seen this sketch until now, and I’m very eager, because I’ve heard some really great things about this.
— Some good laughs during the word association test where Tom’s only way of “changing” the words Tim says is by simply pluralizing them.
— This feels like the first sketch all night that’s utilized Tom well.
— I’m enjoying all of the quirks of Tom’s character.
— I absolutely love Tom’s disturbing, lengthy detailed description of what he sees in the ink blot card, complete with background music. This is fantastic.
— Overall, this sketch definitely lived up to the hype.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Angel Dream”


CLASSIC SING-ALONG WITH THE DRUNKEN ASSES
album has tunes for happy hour

— Unfortunately, the copy I’m reviewing of this episode is missing most of this sketch. I don’t have enough time to dig up a full copy of this sketch, so I’m just going to have to give it an incomplete review. From what I remember of this sketch in past viewings, I recall finding it decent, though I’ve always kinda looked at it as a poor man’s version of the classic Irish Drinking Songs sketch, even if that’s probably not a fair comparison.
— This sketch would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that during the “Saying things you can never take back” part of this sketch in the live version, Will drunkenly tells Tim “You’re one of the good ones.” In the rerun version of that part, I believe Will instead drunkenly tells everyone “I have male and female genitalia!”
STARS: N/A


BRIEF HISTORIES
cannibalism wasn’t the only Donner Party hardship

— Hmm, interesting-seeming segment, especially with the use of nothing but black-and-white still photos and a voice-over to tell the story.
— Overall, a slow build-up, but eventually gave me some decent laughs, and they got me with the surprising “Also, they had to eat each other” twist at the end.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Not a great season premiere. Some of the returning bits from the preceding season didn’t work for me tonight (Cheerleaders, Goat Boy), and it felt like there wasn’t much in this episode that wasn’t characters we’ve already seen before or characters we’ll eventually be seeing ad nauseam. I also didn’t like the way Tom Hanks was utilized for most of the night. The man is an SNL hosting legend, but you’d think this writing staff didn’t know that, considering how often tonight he was relegated to just playing second fiddle to recurring or soon-to-be-recurring characters. The great Creativity Test sketch was the only time all night where Tom was allowed to fully thrive. It’s too bad that this ends up being the only time he’d host in this era, and it’s also too bad that this would begin an odd tradition where he only hosts every ten years (1996, 2006, 2016). Back to tonight’s episode, among the things I did like was the introduction of new miscellaneous segments that gave this season premiere a different feel from the preceding season: TV Funhouse and Brief Histories, though IIRC, the latter ends up only being a very short-lived recurring segment. TV Funhouse, on the other hand, ends up becoming a huge and important part of SNL for years to come.


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


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1995-96)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Lisa Kudrow

Posted on

May 9, 1992 – Tom Hanks / Bruce Springsteen (S17 E19)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Ross Perot (DAC) offers to base his presidential salary on America’s GNP

— The debut of Dana’s memorable Ross Perot impression.
— Right off the bat, this begins with Dana’s Perot addressing the L.A. Riots, which had occurred the previous week when SNL was in reruns. I can’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like if SNL had a live episode during the weekend the L.A. Riots were still occurring.
— Solid part with Perot displaying a check to pay for damages made during the L.A. Riots.
— Dana’s Perot impression is coming off pretty low-key here compared to his more goofy portrayal in later appearances. This is also the only time he ever plays Perot without glasses.
— Perot, regarding his aforementioned check: “This a one-time deal. If you burn down a buildin’ tomorrow, that’s your problem.”
— Very funny line about training the Crips and the Bloods to operate computers, as part of Perot’s plan to rebuild L.A..
— A lot of laughs during his proposal on how much we pay him proportionate to the percentage of growth in the economy during his hypothetical presidency.
— Great part with him reading off an ad for Munsingwear underwear, as part of a deal for the airtime he was given.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
last-minute replacement for Joe Pesci host asks PHH “How am I funny?”

— Tom mentions Joe Pesci was the originally-scheduled host for this episode but had to drop out due to the filming of his latest movie running late. Pesci would later end up making up for this by hosting early next season.
— Good bit with Tom’s over-the-top bragging about Pesci’s great year.
— Much like Tom’s season 14 monologue, this has a false ending where the screen fades to black but then suddenly continues with Tom being shown entering backstage when the show is supposedly in a commercial break.
— Tom’s great at doing Pesci’s famous “What do you mean I’m funny?” GoodFellas rant, especially when he gets really worked up by the end of it.
— Priceless visual of Tom smashing a bottle over Lorne’s head and then roughhousing him while heading towards the home base stage. I also love Tom’s hilarious angry gibberish during that (at one point noticeably saying “Bada bing, bada boom!”).
STARS: ****


JOHN CABRIZIO CHEVROLET MAZDA HYUNDAI
Los Angeles car dealer rep (ROS) announces sale on riot-damaged autos

— More good comedy tonight at the expense of the L.A. Riots.
— Solid spokesman performance from Rob, and some good laughs from him proudly advertising destroyed cars from the L.A. Riots. I like how the condition of each advertised car is getting increasingly worse as the sketch goes on, such as a still-burning Chevy Pickup.
STARS: ***½


SABRA PRICE IS RIGHT
merchants of shoddy wares haggle with contestants

— Oh, here comes a classic sketch that has HUGE historical significance to me as an SNL fan. I want to go into details about that, but since it’s a long story, I’ll save it for the end of this sketch.
— This sketch is improving upon the lesser-known original Sabra Shopping Network sketch from Tom’s last episode.
— A good laugh from Tom’s iffy, speechless reaction to a black contestant (Rock) entering the game.
— I love the cheap products being falsely advertised, such as a TV antenna being passed off as a satellite dish, and a “cordless telephone” that’s simply a home phone with its cord unhooked.
— The whole back-and-forth between Tom and Mike kills me, especially Tom’s endless “Nonono nonononononono” and Mike’s “It’s not even a CD player; it’s a child’s bank!”
— “Deesco, deesco, good, good!”
— I’m not sure, but I think portions of this sketch are replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. Some parts of the live version I’m currently watching don’t quite match the version of this sketch that’s been deeply ingrained into my memory since my teenage years (you’ll find out why it’s been so deeply ingrained into my teenage memory in a moment).
— An overall priceless, perfect, and very memorable sketch.
— Okay, now for the story of why this sketch has HUGE historical significance to me as an SNL fan: Back when I was just starting to get into SNL, which was during my teenage years, I was first exposed to this episode in a rerun during a Friday night SNL marathon on Comedy Central. As I watched this particular sketch, I was absolutely enthralled by it, as I found it SO funny and quotable. Thankfully, I happened to be recording this Comedy Central airing on my VCR, and so, some days later, I replayed this sketch on my VHS tape while recording the entirety of its audio onto a cassette tape, which also contained three other select sketches that teenage me loved, so I could listen to all four of those sketches on my walkman while either drifting off to sleep or if I was at a place that didn’t have a TV (for those curious, the other three sketches I had recorded on that audio cassette tape was 1) one from next season’s Kevin Kline episode where Kline plays an Italian celebrity with an uncontrollable farting problem, 2) Jennifer Aniston’s Fight Club monologue from her then-recent season 25 episode, and 3) another sketch from that same Aniston episode, where she and Rachel Dratch play old-timey street urchins trying to get a modern-day family to take them in for Christmas). Boy, did I end up playing the hell out of that audio tape. I loved listening to all four of those sketches over and over, but especially Sabra Price is Right. I listened to that particular sketch on that tape SO much to the degree that, ever since then, I have the ability to recite almost all of the dialogue of the sketch by heart, word-for-word. All-in-all, teenage me’s constant listening to this sketch on that cassette tape has been partly responsible for me becoming an obsessive, hardcore SNL fan.
STARS: *****


MR. BELVEDERE FAN CLUB
weirdos speak at a meeting of The Guy Who Plays Mr. Belvedere Fan Club

 

— Boy, the hits keep on comin’ tonight. Here’s another personal favorite sketch of mine, even if it doesn’t have quite the historical significance to me personally that Sabra Price Is Right has.
— I love the detail of how, despite these people being huge Mr. Belvedere fans, they apparently don’t even know the name of the actor who played him, judging by how they named their club “The Guy Who Plays Mr. Belvedere Fan Club”.
— I like the club members proposing nicknames for Mr. Belvedere, culminating in them settling on the now-legendary-among-SNL-fans moniker Brocktoon.
— Great disturbed facial reaction from Tim during Farley’s long-winded declaration of his admiration for Mr. Belvedere.
— Farley at the end of his above-mentioned declaration about Mr. Belvedere: “I’m wondering… should we kill him?”
— The increasingly disturbing turns this meeting keeps taking are fantastic.
— Adam: “I should like watching Mr. Belvedere a lot, but I shouldn’t have to masturbate at the end of every episode.”
— There’s my absolute favorite part of this wonderful sketch: the entire “to tear the flesh” spiel delivered by a particularly creepy Phil. Tom’s taken-aback speechless reaction to that is also great.
— Excellent ending with Tim’s whole “You people are crazy!” rant being immediately followed by a cutaway to him locked in the giant jar that was mentioned earlier in the sketch.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Lucky Town”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Jay Leno [real] gives KEN the latest news on the L.A. riots
DAS uses a personal anecdote to explain why he prefers Mother’s Day
Queen Shenequa talks about the L.A. riots; Akeyla Cleghorne cameo

 

— Lots of good L.A. Riots-related jokes right off the bat… that is, when they’re not being bungled by Kevin’s stumbly delivery.
— Random appearance from Jay Leno, playing himself as an L.A. Riots correspondent.
— I liked Leno’s line about how he considers the sight of a black man and white man stealing a TV together as a sign of unity.
— A short overall commentary from Leno that was basically an excuse for him to do some stand-up jokes about the L.A. Riots.
— After Leno has left, Kevin says “We wish Jay good luck with The Tonight Show”, as this is shortly before Johnny Carson’s retirement and Leno taking over for him.
— David Spade FINALLY gets an Update commentary on the air, after getting a string of them cut from the last few episodes’ dress rehearsals.
— David tells a childhood story about his father giving him a Nerf football, which David responds to with a funny sarcastic “Ooh, it’s two colors. You spoil me, ya bastard.” I’m not 100% sure, but I think he later reprises that exact same bit during an edition of Spade in America from season 21, where he re-enacts a conversation he recently had with his dad when reuniting with him for Thanksgiving (one of my favorite editions of Spade in America).
— Some pretty solid humor from David here, especially him telling us how, after breaking the news to his mom that he can’t be there at Arizona for Mother’s Day because he’s busy working at SNL, his mom responded to him “Can’t you get someone else to stand there and wave goodnight?” A great self-deprecating dig at David’s extreme lack of airtime on SNL.
— Another Queen Shenequa commentary already, after we just saw her two episodes ago?
— Some fairly tepid jokes from Queen Shenequa overall tonight, but I enjoyed the Mother’s Day-related ending with her daughter, especially Shenequa explaining to us that her daughter’s Swahili name translates to “Little bitch, don’t even think about gettin’ pregnant”. By the way, this is the very first of many SNL appearances from Ellen’s real-life daughter Akeyla (not counting the goodnights of the Rob Morrow episode from earlier this season, where she can be seen being held high by Ellen).
— Kevin’s Mother’s Day poll on the most often-used phrases by his mother when he was growing up had a funny ending (second-to-last screencap above).
STARS: ***


SHE TURNED INTO HER MOTHER!!
(JUS) takes on the traits of her mom

— Very funny performance from Julia, who’s doing a great job pulling off her character’s uncontrollable back-and-forth transitioning from her normal voice into her mother’s voice. Tom is also a perfect straight man for this.
— I like the horror movie presentation of this whole thing.
— Solid ending.
— Overall, one of the best showcases that the underappreciated Julia Sweeney receives during her entire SNL tenure.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “57 Channels” & “Living Proof”


THE DARK SIDE WITH NAT X
Nat X argues with disguised Rodney King trial jurors

— Nat’s line “I wanna say hello to all my fans watchin’ on brand-new TVs!” was yet another funny joke tonight at the expense of the L.A. Riots.
— Nice topical variation of the usual White Man Cam segment, with it now being the L.A.P.D. Cam.
— I like how Nat’s guests tonight are the Rodney King jury. Some good laughs from them all entering with goofy disguises, such as David in a Cousin Itt wig and Julia with a Batman mask.
— Nat’s angry questions to the jury has some pretty solid laughs.
— I love the casual cutaway to Phil with a brown paper bag over his head that has the words “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME” on it.
STARS: ***½


DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
on hoping that God likes enchiladas
— This is missing from my copy of this episode.


SHOWCASE PLAYHOUSE THEATER
(MIM) & (JUS) grow up wanting to fly

— You can immediately tell this sketch is a Jack Handey piece by the use of the character name Cameron Hormel, which is to Jack Handey-written sketches what the name Dale Butterworth is to Andy Breckman-written sketches, though to a much lesser extent in Handey’s case, as I can only think of one other sketch of his that uses the name Cameron Hormel (Tales Of Fraud And Malfeasance In Railroad Hiring Practices, from season 20’s George Clooney episode).
— A big laugh from Phil’s promo for the sponsor Nice Ass Baby pantyhose (Jack Handey knocks it out of the park once again with yet another great fake sponsor).
— Julia is getting a lot of good airtime tonight, which feels rare for her this season.
— Some really funny back-and-forth reveals from Phil of the legitimacy of the Nice Ass Baby pantyhose sponsor.
— I’ve always kinda had difficulty figuring out what to make of this sketch, but I can appreciate its weirdness. It’s far from one of my favorite oddball Jack Handey pieces, but all the flying fake-outs during the Mike/Julia scenes are amusing and Phil’s intro segments are solid.
— Pretty funny bit at the end with Phil randomly removing his mustache during his sign-off.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— As usual when Tom Hanks hosts in the late 80s/early 90s years, this was a strong episode, even if it’s not my favorite episode he hosted. The first half of tonight’s episode was particularly great, where we got two all-time classic sketches back-to-back: Sabra Price Is Right and Mr. Belvedere Fan Club, one of the greatest one-two punches in SNL history (and coming right after an episode that itself had a fantastic one-two punch in its first half, with Stand Up And Win and History Class). There were also no sketches that I disliked tonight, for the second episode in a row.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jerry Seinfeld)
a slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 17 comes to an end, with host Woody Harrelson. We get the last hurrahs of veteran Victoria Jackson and newbies Siobhan Fallon and Beth Cahill.

Posted on

December 8, 1990 – Tom Hanks / Edie Brickell & New Bohemians (S16 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Mr. Subliminal gives an editorial reply about America’s Iraq policy

— Kevin’s Mr. Subliminal routine is a very promising way to start the show.
— Lots of hilarious subliminal dialogue so far, particularly “Nobody wants war (republicans).” and “We need to give Hussein a face-saving way to leave Kuwait (bodybag).”
— A particularly great subliminal line right now, with “What’s the best weapon to use to topple a power-hungry megalomaniac like Hussein? (Marla Maples)”
— Nice touch how he even delivered “Live from New York…” subliminally.
STARS: ****½


MONOLOGUE
Paul Simon, Steve Martin, Elliott Gould [real] welcome host to 5ers club

— I love Tom breaking down the meaning behind each hosting stint.
— Very exciting and classic turn with Tom taking us into the Five-Timers Club.
— Ha, Paul Simon, after we just saw him as a musical guest two episodes ago.
— Speaking of Paul, there’s been confusion among some SNL fans over why Paul is considered a five-timer, as it’s widely thought that he only hosted four times: seasons 1, 2, 11, and 13. I made an argument in my review of SNL’s supposedly-hostless 100th episode that both Paul Simon and James Taylor were actually billed as that night’s official hosts (an argument I still stand by), which would explain the inclusion of Paul in this Five-Timers monologue.
— I liked the knock on “Joe Versus the Volcano”, with Paul saying there was a worry that movie would keep Tom from reaching his fifth hosting stint.
— HUGE audience reaction to the reveal of Steve Martin.
— Tom: “Thanks, Mr. Martin.” Steve: “Please, call me Mr. Steve Martin.”
— Love the Five-Timers handshake.
— Elliott Gould, making his first SNL appearance since his ill-fated season 6 hosting stint!
— Even though I’ve seen this monologue about 100 times before, it feels more special during this particular viewing to see all these cameos from five-timers, as someone who has reviewed every single SNL episode up to this point during this SNL project of mine.
— Elliott’s complaint about how “it really is easier to get to number 5 these days” is actually more of a valid point now than it was in 1990, with undeserving people like Jonah Hill and Scarlett Johansson somehow reaching their fifth hosting stint in recent years.
— Hilarious sudden appearance from Jon Lovitz as the waiter, in his first of what will turn out to be many SNL appearances since leaving the cast.
— Tom: “Jon Lovitz?!? You work here???” Jon: “Hey, work is work.”
— Great touch with the items on the menu being named after cast members.
— In reruns of this episode, when Paul orders the “Joe Piscopo” off the menu, Steve looks at him and asks a disapproving “REALLY?” However, in the live version I’m watching, right when Steve was about to say his “REALLY?” line, Jon unintentionally cut him off and went on with the sketch.
— Hilarious part with Ralph Nader trying to get into the club despite only being a one-time host.
— Excellent ending with the other Five-Timers advising Tom to literally “phone in” the end of his monologue.
— An overall phenomenal and legendary monologue. The only flaw was the glaring absence of Buck Henry. I know he wanted to show loyalty to the original cast by not appearing in any regular episodes after the original era ended, but couldn’t he have made an exception for this very special monologue?
— Come to think of it, Candice Bergen was also absent, though she’d later make up for it in the more recent Five-Timers Club monologues with Justin Timberlake and Jonah Hill.
STARS: *****


GROSS-OUT FAMILY
family doesn’t take each other’s word when it comes to unpleasant stimuli

— Tom’s reaction to drinking from the carton of spoiled milk cracked me up.
— Funny blooper: when Farley slams the door after entering, a knick-knack shelf falls off the wall and crashes on the floor, which everyone in the sketch diverts their attention to for a few seconds.
— I loved Farley’s reaction to drinking the spoiled milk: “Stop the music, that is BAD!”
— The “Later that night” title screen being shown during the extended stair-falling sequence was really funny.
— A perfect silly premise for this SNL era, and also for Tom Hanks, who is always a pro at selling stuff like this. He was particularly good during the ending of this sketch, with him alternating back-and-forth between drinking spoiled milk and sitting on a nail sticking out of a chair.
STARS: ****


GAME BEATERS
Mr. Short-Term Memory is a contestant; Tony Randall cameo

— Tom’s insanely excited reaction to being on the gameshow are priceless.
— The short-term memory routine is coming off particularly great in this setting.
— Very funny how Phil constantly makes on-the-spot changes to the gameshow rules to work around Tom’s forgetfulness.
— Classic interactions between Tom and Tony Randall. I especially liked Tom’s reaction to Randall giving him an autograph that he had just asked for: “So you just hand these out to people you meet?”
— The cutaways to Phil’s fuming glares into the camera throughout this are perfect.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Woyaho”


WEEKEND UPDATE
DEM & Dennis Millers (DAC) & (host) sing “Jingle Bells”

— Loved Dennis joke about the Pope turning and running away when being greeted by a crowd of people doing the Arsenio whooping sounds.
— Great to see the return of Dana’s Dennis Miller impression, and the addition of Tom as a third Dennis Miller.
— I love how Tom’s Dennis impression is an even more exaggerated version of Dana’s impression.
— Classic sequence with the three Dennis Millers performing a “Jingle Bells” number with some Dennis Miller-isms replacing some of the original lyrics.
STARS: ****


THE GLOBAL WARMING CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
excess carbon dioxide effects felt

— Ah, a very well-regarded sketch that I always enjoy.
— Funny Carl Sagan voice from Mike.
— I absolutely love Tom’s Dean Martin voice.
— The segment with Victoria as an emotional Sally Struthers is a very funny spoof of Struthers’ real-life tear-filled PSAs.
— Loved Jan’s reaction to getting paint thrown on her fur coat.
— Dana’s Paul McCartney voice is uncanny and hilarious.
— Great scene with Kevin as the ridiculously tanned George Hamilton.
STARS: *****


P. WHIPPED
panelists’ female-dominated relationships complicate show

— Love how the “P. Whipped” title graphic is accompanied by a sound effect of a cat and a whip.
— Dana: “When I first met Linda, I knew it was whipped at first sight.”
— A good laugh from the sponsors (last two screencaps above).
— The guys’ ways of showing how pussy-whipped they are are providing some good amusement.
STARS: ***½


SABRA SHOPPING NETWORK
(host) & callers argue over overpriced duds

— Here comes the lesser-known predecessor to the famous Sabra Price is Right sketch from the following season.
— Very funny accent from Tom.
— Love Tom’s claim that the VCR has “Sony guts”, because the inside of it is supposedly the same as Sony.
— Dana’s stealing the sketch with his hilarious fast, high-pitched foreign speaking.
— A big laugh from Tom trying to pass off the little walkman as a CD player.
— Tom’s excessive amount of “look look look”s when showing off the aforementioned alleged CD player cracked me up.
— Adam Sandler makes his very first SNL appearance. He had been hired as a writer the previous week, and the show is starting to do with him what they had recently done with Rob Schneider and David Spade, having him make lots of uncredited appearances in sketches to test him out before eventually adding him to the cast as a featured player.
— Overall, this undeniably pales in comparison to the classic Sabra Price is Right follow-up (it doesn’t help that during my early SNL fandom days, I had been exposed to Sabra Price is Right many times before I first saw Sabra Shopping Network), but it’s still funny in its own right.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “He Said”


REPEATING GUY
(host) seeks psychiatrist’s (PHH) help regarding double-take reactions

— Yet another example of a silly sketch that Tom Hanks was born to pull off. Not many other hosts could sell a goofy, somewhat thin premise like this as well as he can.
— The scene with Tom making an exaggerated goofy face whenever he holds himself back from doing a double-take is very funny, though the dress rehearsal version shown in reruns is funnier, as it features a blooper with Victoria helplessly cracking up at Tom’s exaggerated facial expressions.
— Loved the sudden house explosion at the end, as a callback to the earlier throwaway mention of the house being made of exploding wood.
STARS: ***½


CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
AWB’s tree-hunting tale has parallels to stalking & murdering a human

— Interesting change of pace for A. Whitney Brown.
— Some really good laughs from his disturbing story about hunting a tree, made even funnier by his bizarre cracking-voiced delivery.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An outstanding episode and has always been one of my personal favorites from this era. From beginning to end, this was a very solid show, and there were so many classic and near-classic pieces in the first 2/3rds of the episode.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John Goodman)
a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
It’s the one-year anniversary of me starting this ‘One SNL a Day’ Project! Dennis Quaid hosts the Christmas episode of the season.

Posted on

February 17, 1990 – Tom Hanks / Aerosmith (S15 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Donald (PHH) defeats Ivana (JAH) via thorough Trump prenuptial agreement

— Phil’s Trump impression has really improved from the previous times he played him.
— Very funny part with Donald telling Ivana that the contract she signed has allowed Donald to have mistresses, provided they are younger than Ivana.
— Ha, a mention of Donald Trump’s board game (“Trump: The Game”), something that I’m aware existed in real life only because I’ve recently been seeing commercials for it during some of the copies of live episodes I’ve been reviewing from this season.
— Great part with the Three-Card Monty trick.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— This is the first live episode that uses SNL’s 15th anniversary logo in the opening montage.

— Here’s another update that’s been made to the montage tonight: featured player Mike Myers has been promoted to a regular cast member! And he now has a live-action shot in the montage like the rest of the regular cast members (screencap below) instead of just a still photo like he had during his featured player days.


MONOLOGUE
host has an out-of-body experience after banging his knee backstage

 

— Good premise with Tom having hurt his knee backstage before making his entrance.
— Very funny reveal of Tom’s inner thoughts saying a monotone-but-pained “It hurts so much”, managing to name-drop some of his own hit movies, and begging God to make the pain stop.
— Hilarious visual of Tom’s ghost dancing delicately around the studio while having poetic inner thoughts.
— Most of this monologue would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns. One big difference is that in the live version, Tom’s ghost doesn’t go into the control room, whereas he does in the rerun version.
— Another difference between the live and rerun versions of this monologue: the way Phil and Victoria are dressed. In the live version, Phil’s still dressed as Trump from the cold opening and Victoria is wearing casual clothes. In the rerun version, Phil and Victoria are both dressed in their outfits from the Mr. Short-Term Memory sketch that appears later tonight. (side-by-side comparison below)

— A classic part right now with Abe Lincoln telling Tom “You’re an incredible pussy!”
— An overall great monologue that was perfect for Tom’s style.
STARS: ****½


MCDONALD’S
the Red Square McDonald’s offers Happy Meals containing basic necessities

— Hilarious how the prizes in the Happy Meal are things like a bar of soap, toilet paper, etc.
— Funny ending tagline from Jan’s happy spokesperson: “Good times, great taste, SOAP!”
STARS: ****


WAYNE’S WORLD
musical guest plays thanks to Garth’s roadie cousin (host)

— HUGE cheering from the audience at the beginning of this sketch.
— I like Nora sarcastically singing the Wayne’s World theme song when complaining about how she’s not allowed to appear on the show.
— Wayne freaking out about Aerosmith being in his breakfast nook is great, especially the line “Aerosmith is sitting where I eat my Nut & Honey everyday.”
— There’s the very first Wayne’s World utterance of the phrase “Monkeys might fly out of my butt”.
— And there’s Tom’s odd-but-now-immortal utterance of the term “sibilance” when doing a mic check.
— Fun seeing Aerosmith show up on the Wayne’s World set while an excited Wayne and Garth are doing the “We are not worthy” bowing-down to them.
— The Q&A segment is very funny, especially the Aerosmith members’ intelligent, verbose answers to the complicated question about socialism and the climate.
— Absolutely legendary part with Wayne, Garth, and Aerosmith performing a fleshed-out version of the Wayne’s World theme song. That propels this sketch into a popular classic and is pretty much what officially cements Wayne’s World in general as an untouchable recurring sketch.
STARS: *****


TALES OF RIBALDRY
(VIJ) & (JAH) enlist services of a bootblack (host)

— Great to see this sketch back.
— The heated, sensual boot-polishing sequence with Tom and Jan is very funny, especially when the camera later returns to the scene to show a now-sweaty Tom still polishing the boot.
— The delight from Jon’s character during his various reaction shots are priceless as usual, especially the camera catching him peeking at the boot-polishing scene through a hole in the wall.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Janie’s Got a Gun”


WEEKEND UPDATE
one-man mobile uplink unit ALF is discovered during Medellin cartel deal

 

— Seems to be an unusually high amount of corny, picture-based jokes from Dennis so far tonight.
— I love this idea of tonight’s One-Man Mobile Uplink Unit commentary, with a whispering Al showing us a cocaine transaction.
— Excellent payoff to Al’s commentary with him being spotted by the cartel and frantically running away from their gunshots while still reporting to the camera.
— Funny little blooper with one of the sheets of paper on the Update desk almost falling before Dennis catches it.
— The very first SNL mention of Dick Cheney, who’s mentioned tonight as a defense secretary.
— Ha, was Dennis’ random “Dude looks like a lady” bit ad-libbed?
— Overall, Dennis had some of the usual solid jokes, but there were too many picture-based jokes tonight for my likes. Still a slight improvement over Dennis’ surprisingly dire Update in the preceding episode.
STARS: **½


MR. SHORT-TERM MEMORY
Mr. Short-Term Memory visits an injured friend (PHH) in the hospital

— Nice to see this officially become a staple for Tom Hanks’ SNL appearances.
— As usual, Tom is selling this perfectly and is making it very fun. I can’t see anyone else pulling off this character quite as well as him.
— I like how his bad memory has now gotten to the point where he suddenly doesn’t even recognize his friend (Phil), after having just spoken to him for most of the sketch and having no trouble recognizing him then.
STARS: ****


EYE ON CHEST HAIR
hirsute celebrities show off follicular endowments

— An amusingly random talk show concept, made even more random by Martina Navratilova being the host.
— Interesting how Tom is playing Randy Travis, considering Randy Travis was a musical guest in one of Tom’s earlier episodes. I wonder if casting Tom as him tonight was an intentional reference to that.
— Pretty funny with the guys each saying what they see in each other’s chest hair, like it’s some kind of psychology test.
— Dana’s Joel Siegel impression is cracking me up, even though I have no familiarity with what the real Joel Siegel is like.
— An absolutely hilarious unexpected bit with red ants being seen in a close-up of Gene Shalit’s chest hair.
— Good part with Kevin as an also-shirtless Kenny Rogers performing a (obviously lip-synced) song, especially the casual reveal of him having many gray patches of hair on his back.
— Seeing a studio audience full of shirtless guys reminds me of the Nude Talk Show sketch that’s coming up later this season.
— Funny bit regarding Tom Davis and chest hair implants.
STARS: ****


JENSEN SYRINGE COMPANY
drug-awareness ad imagery belies intent of Jensen Syringe Company spot

— Uh…….. okay. This was so brief and indescribable that I’m left wondering what I just watched.
STARS: *


THE MOB
personal testimony of (NOD) recalls how the mob saved her business

— Funny reveal of Nora having joined the mob to help her financial issues.
— Some good laughs from the professional way that this, of all things, is being presented, and from Nora’s nonchalant attitude towards the mob’s actions.
STARS: ***½


JENSEN SYRINGE COMPANY
reliable Jensen Syringes are thrown at dartboard in more drug ad imagery

— Okay, at least this one had more of a comedic point with the use of the syringes as darts, even if this still isn’t particularly hilarious.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Monkey on My Back”

— Just now, Steven Tyler noticeably uttered the lyric “(something something) fuckin’ monkey off my back”. While most of the words in that lyric were unintelligible (as are most of Tyler’s lyrics in this performance), the “fuckin’” was loud and clear. It would later get muted out in reruns.


GIRL WATCHERS
the desensitized losers try to work a cruise ship full of elderly women

— Here comes what would end up being the final appearance of these characters.
— Love how the Girl Watchers’ bad luck with the ladies has gotten to the point where they’re forced to resort to hitting on women in a cruise ship for elderly singles.
— Jon’s unibrow from the first installment of this sketch has returned, after not being used in the second installment.
— The usual very funny comments from Jon and Tom.
— Great part with one old lady slowly passing by with a walker and then suddenly speeding past the Girl Watchers just to get away from them.
— Loved Tom’s smug “We… are iiiiiin hell” at the end.
STARS: ****


BLACK HISTORY MOMENT
Andy Rooney (PHH) on George Washington Carver

— Hilarious idea of a Black History Moment being presented by Andy Rooney, fresh off a controversial statement he made about black people, even if I’m not familiar with what exactly the controversial statement was (there was also a reference to it in the previous episode’s Weekend Update).
— Haha, the ending “It’s f*gs I hate” line was so wrong but was a killer punchline.
STARS: ****


JENSEN SYRINGE COMPANY
Jensen Syringes seen washed up on beach are “fresh as a mountain stream”

— Ehh, a step below the last one, which is saying something. This also felt like a poor man’s version of the McDonnell-Rand commercial from the previous season’s Matthew Broderick episode.
STARS: **


GOODNIGHTS

— Tom Hanks at the end of his goodnights speech: “He shoots, he scores!” I can’t think of a better way to sum up his overall performance in tonight’s episode.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— The usual strong Tom Hanks episode, and a return to form for this SNL era after the previous week’s underwhelming Quincy Jones episode. Tonight gave us one all-time classic (Wayne’s World Meets Aerosmith) and tons of very solid pieces. The back half of the show was structured strangely, though, with an unusually high amount of filler and mini-segments, though the only ones I wasn’t satisfied with were the Jensen Syringe Company pieces.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Quincy Jones)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
A 13-year-old Fred Savage

Posted on

October 8, 1988 – Tom Hanks / Keith Richards (S14 E1)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Pumping Up With Hans & Franz- clips show the guys “up close & personal”

— Not too excited to see the season start off with a recurring sketch that I was starting to get sick of by the end of last season.
— Hans’ confusing talk about picking up laundry without a claim check was pretty funny.
— Hmm, maybe it’s because it’s the start of a new season, but it turns out I’m surprisingly finding myself in a more tolerant mood towards these two characters than usual tonight.
— The slow-motion Olympic profile utilizing clips of last season’s Hans and Franz sketches is interesting. Also, the fact that SNL already had enough Hans and Franz footage to make a full montage out of, despite these characters having debuted only a year earlier, shows how heavily-used these characters have been in such a short amount of time.
— Another thing I noticed about that Hans and Franz montage is that it really shows how different SNL looks in this new season compared to how it looked the previous season. (just compare the visual look of the first screencap above with the last three screencaps above)
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— New montage!

   

— Very interesting blue screen filter used for this.
— The SNL logo has been changed. This new circular one is probably my favorite SNL logo of all-time, though I may be biased because it’s used during my favorite SNL years (late 80s and early 90s).
— Some really good shots of the cast, especially Dennis Miller’s cool shot in the convertible.
— A lot of VERY memorable visuals throughout this, particularly the static-y TV screen laying in front of a river, Nora Dunn and Jan Hooks laughing hysterically in the backseat of a car, an old man looking at the camera with a deadpan facial expression while sitting in front of a moving ferris wheel, the person who’s shown right after the SNL logo (fourth screencap above), the “Sin Will Find You” neon cross, the pants-less(?) guy bopping along to music (third-to-last screencap above), the close-up of a dog looking at the camera while getting its belly rubbed, and the shot of the entire cast gathered together at a restaurant table.


MONOLOGUE
host’s backstage conversations reveal that he truly is a really nice guy

 

— Feels kinda weird but fun reviewing a Tom Hanks episode again so soon after I reviewed his previous episode just two days ago.
— Some good humor from Tom’s humbleness over the press labeling him the nicest guy in Hollywood.
— Interesting fake-out with the monologue “ending”, only to continue when Tom arrives backstage afterwards. This false ending is something they’d later repeat in Tom’s season 17 monologue (the one where he goes off on a Joe Pesci-esque “How am I funny?” rant to Phil Hartman backstage).
— The backstage scenes have a lot of very funny exaggerations of Tom’s niceness, helped by the use of sentimental background music and dramatic close-ups of Tom’s face.
— Phil’s angry tirade in the control room is cracking me up.
— The very first on-screen appearance of then-SNL-writer Conan O’Brien (“Careful, Mr. Hanks, this horse bites everyone!”).
— We also get a noteworthy appearance from fellow SNL writer Bob Odenkirk as an NBC page getting manhandled by two thugs. This is the first time in this SNL project of mine that I’ve caught an Odenkirk sighting, but I just found out his first SNL appearance was actually as a background audience member in the BushWhacked cold opening that I covered in the previous season. A shame I didn’t notice him there.
— I love Tom’s overreaction to realizing he forgot to thank the audience for coming.
— Overall, one of my all-time favorite backstage monologues. So many memorable parts here.
STARS: ****½


FIRST CITIWIDE CHANGE BANK
Paul McElroy (JID) explains their mission

— The concept of a bank specializing in change is hilarious.
— I love the mock-seriousness of the testimonials and disclaimer screens.
— Jim Downey is fantastic in this. One of the best displays of how his dead-serious delivery can make absurd dialogue come off hysterical.
STARS: *****


ABC CAMPAIGN 88
Diane Sawyer (JAH) moderates Michael Dukakis (JOL) vs. George Bush (DAC)

— Good beginning with Tom’s Peter Jennings announcing what’s currently airing on other channels, as part of the Bush camp’s demands.
— Love Jan’s performance as Diane Sawyer.
— The gag with Bush being on a higher platform than Dukakis as they shake each other’s hand after making their entrance would later be copied in a George W. Bush/John Kerry debate sketch in 2004. The gag didn’t even make sense in that context! It made sense here because Dukakis is much shorter than Bush Sr., whereas neither Kerry nor Bush Jr. are short. Ugh, don’t get me started on what a failure those Bush/Kerry debate sketches were. I’m eventually going to have to cover the awfulness that is SNL in 2004 anyway.
— Kevin’s Sam Donaldson impression now has the comically-thick eyebrows that his impression is remembered for today.
— Hilarious bit with Dukakis using a mechanical lift to reach over the podium.
— A good laugh from a deadpan Dukakis “proving” how enraged and off-the-handle he is right now.
— Dana’s Bush impression has further developed over the summer, though it’s STILL not at the cartoonish, exaggerated level it would later be.
— Love the whole absurd argument between Bush and Dukakis regarding a time machine.
— Priceless part with Jan’s Diane Sawyer getting a bowl of popcorn thrown at her out of nowhere after kindly telling the audience to hold their applause.
— There’s Dana-as-Bush’s memorable, inane “Stay the course, a thousand points of light” speech.
— Dukakis’ rebuttal to the aforementioned inane Bush speech: “I can’t believe I’m losin’ to this guy!” A legendary moment that defines this debate sketch.
— Great part with Bush demonstrating a bulletproof bubble.
— Dukakis: “My parents were little people… little, swarthy people.”
— Bush, when explaining he didn’t know the Iran arms sale would go to the Contras: “I was told the money was going to the bombing of abortion clinics.”
— I love the commitment to this debate parody, with them even going so far as to do a post-debate analysis with Tom’s Peter Jennings and Phil’s David Brinkley.
— I’ve said it before, but I love Phil’s David Brinkley voice.
— Hilarious “food for maggots” line from Phil’s Brinkley.
— The debut of SNL child extra Jeff Renaudo’s Dan Quayle impression, which would go on to be a running gag. Very inspired joke to have Quayle played by a child, as a comical exaggeration of Quayle’s young age.
— Overall, this classic is among SNL’s greatest debate sketches of all-time, as well as among SNL’s best political satire in general.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Take It So Hard”


MR. SHORT-TERM MEMORY
Mr. Short-Term Memory (host) is forgetful during a dinner date with (VIJ)

— The debut of a very memorable Tom Hanks recurring sketch.
— I love the opening credits sequence of this.
— Tom’s increasing forgetfulness is very funny, with him even forgetting who his date is a minute into the sketch.
— Phil’s reactions are great.
— Tom is so fun as this character.
— I love how Phil is now making up stuff to go along with Tom’s forgetfulness.
— Hilarious part with Tom spitting out food that “mysteriously” got into his mouth, and then complaining in an outrage “This restaurant serves already-been-chewed food!”
— Good ending with the “mysterious” wallet Tom finds in his pocket.
STARS: ****


FIRST CITIWIDE CHANGE BANK
more customer testimonials in praise of First Citiwide Change Bank

— Very funny line from Phil detailing the type of foreign change he received for a five-pound note.
— An overall equally-classic follow-up to the classic Part 1 of this ad.
STARS: *****


WEEKEND UPDATE
at the All-Drug Olympics, KEN reports on (PHH)’s weightlifting attempt

 

— I loved Dennis’ suggestion of a presidential system called the “volleyball-tocracy”, where 6 men are elected president and one of them serves until he screws up and then one of the other men is rotated into the role for a while.
— Dennis is on fire so far tonight.
— Very funny concept of an “All-Drug Olympics”.
— Phil making a very rare Weekend Update appearance.
— A freakin’ PRICELESS and classic gag with Phil’s arms coming off during his attempt to lift a huge barbell. Great touch with the fake blood and those stringy organs hanging out of his arm sockets.
— Funny line from Kevin about how Phil’s character doesn’t have much pain right now, but tomorrow “he’s really gonna feel that.”
— An overall fantastic Update. My favorite Dennis Miller Update so far.
STARS: ****½


GIRL WATCHERS
the desensitized losers experience deja vu at their high school reunion

— Jon’s unibrow from the first installment of this sketch is missing tonight. Guess the unibrow was just a one-time thing.
— I said this last time these characters appeared, but I always love Jon and Tom’s smug, slow delivery in these sketches.
— Jon: “She caught the shine on my forehead and just kept on truckin’.”
— Jon, to an approaching woman: “It’s been a while…” (approaching woman passes them by) “…aaaand it’ll BE a while.”
— Kevin’s appearance here is much funnier than his appearance in the first Girl Watchers sketch. Love his bragging about his unappealing wife, especially him hinting that she’s “not the clean one”.
STARS: ****


JEW, NOT A JEW
contestants try to identify celebrities’ lineages
Feldman’s Kosher Pickles’ You Make The Call- yes, Sandy Koufax was a Jew

— There goes Jan in Ana Gasteyer’s future Bobbi Mohan-Culp dress one again.
— Speaking of Jan, I’m watching the live version of this episode, and Jan’s hair in this sketch looks very different from how I remember it looking in reruns. The rerun version of this sketch must be from dress rehearsal. (side-by-side comparison of Jan’s hair below)

— Great part with Tom explaining the rules of what qualifies as a Jew.
— Fun sketch so far.
— Nice “You Make The Call” segment.
— Al Franken voice-over: “Sandy Koufax: Baseball great. Jew.”
— A strong and memorable sketch overall.
STARS: ****


BIG
outtakes from Big show Josh (host) using his size to bully the other kids

— I like Tom’s threatening repetitions of “Look how big I am!” to a kid he’s bullying.
— Very funny part with Tom casually shoving a kid to the ground at the end of a scene.
— The baseball scene is a freakin’ riot, especially the child umpire eventually running away from Tom’s pending tackle.
— Nice segue at the end to introducing Keith Richards’ musical performance.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Struggle”


THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
Barbara Bush (PHH) & Kitty Dukakis (JAH) bicker

— Strange that a well-established recurring sketch like this is appearing at the end of the night.
— Some laughs from Pat Stevens’ explanation of a First Lady “runner-up”.
— Pat’s constant ignorance and mistakes towards her guests are coming off funnier than usual tonight.
— Funny line about Kitty Dukakis being addicted to amphetamines for 26 years.
— The way Jan’s Kitty Dukakis keeps pushing her husband Michael’s political issues is making me laugh.
— Love the cattiness between Kitty Dukakis and Barbara Bush.
— Overall, easily my favorite Pat Stevens installment so far. Also, contrary to my worries, this thankfully wasn’t a carbon copy of the previous Pat Stevens sketch that Phil’s Barbara Bush appeared in. In fact, I feel this was the better of the two.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An absolutely fantastic way to start the season. By far, one of the best season premieres I’ve reviewed so far. And what a stellar return the show made after such a long writers’ strike & summer break. This episode was firing on all cylinders, giving us lots of strong sketches all night and producing some all-time memorable and classic moments. Very rarely, if ever, have I done a review where I consistently gave out so many four and five-star ratings. And of course, it doesn’t hurt that Tom Hanks did his usual masterful job as host. With this season premiere, I feel that I’ve officially arrived at the late 80s era fully hitting its stride.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1987-88)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Matthew Broderick

Posted on

February 20, 1988 – Tom Hanks / Randy Travis (S13 E12)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Dick Buttons (PHH) loves (host)’s cowboy-themed figure skating routine

— Love Phil’s look in this.
— Funny use of Tom Hanks.
— Amusing little part with Tom skating to the Bonanza theme.
— A good laugh from all of the low scores Tom receives.
— Tom being too out-of-breath to speak during his interview is a bit that would later be reused in another Olympic ice skating cold opening starring a host: Jason Priestley. Never realized until now that that Priestley cold opening was basically a variation of this one, though that one is still good in its own right.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— I like Tom’s excitement over his freedom of being able to do whatever he wants on live TV.
— Some pretty funny reasons from him for not wanting to vote.
— When listing off this year’s presidential candidates who’s names he can’t remember, I love how he referred to Jesse Jackson as “Jermaine Jackson”.
STARS: ***½


THE BEAN CAFE
customers at The Bean Cafe narrowly avoid telling jokes about flatulence

— Funny concept of a cafe that serves just beans.
— I’m loving all the fake-outs with a potential fart reference turning out to be something innocent.
— Characters: “Beans, beans, good for your heart… beans, beans, GREAT for your heart!”
— Hilarious part with Tom using a lighter by a bending-over Kevin to make sure his pants don’t have wet paint on them.
— Great sketch overall.
STARS: ****


GIRL WATCHERS
desensitized losers (host) & (JOL) take female rejection in stride

— The debut of Jon and Tom’s Girl Watchers characters.
— Nice touch with Jon having a unibrow.
— Jon and Tom’s confident, smug, slow delivery when putting themselves down is freakin’ great.
— Didn’t care too much for the ending with Kevin by himself.
STARS: ****


THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
GOP wives Elizabeth Dole (JAH) & Barbara Bush (PHH)

— I thought Phil’s Barbara Bush didn’t debut until a Pat Stevens sketch from the upcoming season 14 premiere, where Pat interviews both Barbara Bush and Kitty Dukakis.
— Hilarious exchange with Pat telling Barbara, regarding George Bush, “You must be so proud of your son”, and Barbara having to inform her that George is her husband. Again, that’s an exchange that I mistakenly thought was in the aforementioned Kitty Dukakis sketch.
— Some pretty funny unintentionally insulting comments from Pat towards Barbara.
— Okay, after watching this entire sketch, I’m now both curious and wary to re-watch the upcoming Kitty Dukakis sketch, to see if it’s a carbon copy of this sketch.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Forever & Ever, Amen”


WEEKEND UPDATE
KEN fumbles for words & gets numbers wrong during Olympic report
sick of dumb blonde image, VIJ recites “serious” poem about Daniel Ortega
JOL strays from budget topic to declare viewers should “Get to know me!”

— This is SNL’s very first mention of George W. Bush, or “George Bush Jr.” as Dennis referred to him tonight. Funny seeing how young GWB looked back then. (first screenap above)
— Oh, please don’t tell me Kevin’s commentary is going to be yet another one of his topic-changing bits. The set-up has me thinking this is going to be different.
— I was right. Thankfully, Kevin’s commentary is going in a completely different direction from his topic-changing routine.
— Funny part with Kevin confusing the word “preliminaries” for “suppositories”.
— The rest of Kevin’s commentary has had other pretty funny bad guesses for words/names he can’t immediately remember, especially him naming Connie Chung as the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.
— Another Victoria commentary with her doing a “The Life Of A (insert object here)” poem.
— Oh, wait, it turns out this is the famous commentary where Victoria removes her blonde hair, ditches the high-pitched voice, and reveals she’s a dark-haired, normal-pitch-voiced, intelligent woman who’s only been doing the dumb blonde bit as an act. I’ve always wondered what episode this came from, after seeing a clip of it in the “SNL in the 80s: Lost and Found” documentary.
— For some reason, I love how Victoria’s poem is titled “Ortega’s Mustache”.
— Victoria’s performance here is great. She’s very committed to the bit and is coming off SCARILY convincing in her characterization.
— Hmm, interestingly, Victoria’s commentary ends with her removing her dark-haired wig and going back to her high-pitched voice, revealing the dumb blonde bit IS her true self after all. I almost feel that was unnecessary, though I have to laugh at the absurdity of the fact that Victoria was wearing a wig under a wig.
— Boy, this is an unusually long Update. Probably the longest one Dennis has ever had so far.
— Feels weird seeing Jon doing a commentary as himself.
— The debut of Jon’s memorable “Get to know me!” routine. This is another thing tonight that I thought wasn’t performed until next season.
— I like the reveals of which celebrities wrote the letters that Jon reads from people who were nothing before they “got to know me!” Funny enough, one of the letters is revealed to be from Donald Trump, which makes this the second SNL episode in a row that mentioned him.
STARS: ***½


GIANT BUSINESSMAN
Giant Businessman (PHH) deals with noisy neighbors without using his size

— Yes! I’m very excited to finally see this sketch, as I’ve always read great things about it.
— I’m already loving this, just from the interesting greenscreen work in the opening scene, and the opening credits sequence & theme song.
— Great visual of Phil in that tiny living room set.
— Tom is perfect for this role as a rowdy neighbor.
— Tom’s threatening delivery of “I’m not gonna forget this, Giant Businessman!!!” cracked me up.
— Funny ending with Giant Businessman fearfully calling the witness relocation program simply because Tom yelled at him.
— I loved the silliness of this overall sketch.
STARS: ****


APPLE SUPPORT SYSTEMS
tech support operator (KEN) guides (host) through computer confusion

— Tom’s panicky demeanor is making me laugh.
— A good laugh from a confused Tom freaking out when the computer turns on.
— Nice ending.
STARS: ***


CASEY KASEM SINGS THE BEATLES
countdown king (DAC) covers the Fab Four

— Hilarious concept.
— I love the part of Helter Skelter where Dana’s Kasem vocalizes the guitar and “boing” sounds.
— SNL seems to get quite a lot of mileage out of doing these “out-of-place people cover Beatles songs” ads, with other examples being the Cuban Beatles ad from season 5 and the “Beatles Songs You Kind Of Know The Words To” ad that appears next season.
STARS: ***½


DELIVERY ROOM
expectant father (DAC) misinterprets sounds coming from the delivery room

— Funny premise with Dana constantly hearing something from the delivery room that makes him think his wife has given birth, only for him to find out that what he heard pertains to something completely unrelated. This sketch has a silly, charming feel that I find very representative of this SNL era. Also, something about this premise almost feels like a companion piece to tonight’s earlier Bean Cafe sketch.
— Great meta turn with Tom revealing they can’t come up with an ending to this sketch, and then proceeding to bash this sketch’s quality.
— Good ending line with Tom’s “Goodbye, you poorly-developed characters, you.”
STARS: ****


SENTIMENTAL VALUE PAWN SHOP
a pawn shop owner (PHH) pays full sentimental value for personal items

— I’m liking the trivial things that Phil gladly pays full sentimental value for.
— Funny bit about Kevin’s tiny piano being worth more when Kevin’s mother is dead.
— I’m enjoying Phil’s voice and characterization in this.
— Another funny little bit, with it being revealed that a bronze shoe Nora chooses is from an adopted baby.
— Pretty good ending regarding the ashes of a phone caller’s father.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “What’ll You Do”


STAND-UPS
(DEM) & other observational stand-ups continue their act backstage

— Oh, yeah, I had forgotten that they briefly continued this recurring season 11 sketch two seasons later.
— I’m glad to see them doing this sketch in tonight’s episode, because out of all the performers in the earlier installments of this recurring sketch, I found Tom Hanks to be the funniest at doing the Seinfeld-esque delivery.
— Great bit about “What do you say to God when he sneezes?”
— I liked the cream/milk fight between Jon and Dennis.
— The whole Gilligan’s Island “three hour tour” bit is very funny.
STARS: ****


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A consistently solid episode, and definitely one of my favorites of the season. As I said in my last review, I had never seen this (nor the next) episode before, but I’ve always figured this must be a good episode, knowing 1) how well Tom Hanks usually works with this particular cast, and 2) how soon they bring him back for his next hosting stint. I was not let down tonight. And I like how some of this episode’s one-off sketches were so perfectly suited for Tom Hanks, to the degree that it’s hard to imagine another host pulling off those sketches as well as he did. Also, something I always love about Tom’s hosting stints from this era is that his chemistry with this cast is so good that at times, he comes off as an honorary member of the cast, basically being to this late 80s cast what Steve Martin was to the 70s cast.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Justine Bateman)
a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Season 13 comes to a premature end, thanks to a writers’ strike. Judge Reinhold hosts.

Posted on

December 14, 1985 – Tom Hanks / Sade (S11 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Entertainment Tonight- Brooke Shields (JOC), George Michael (RDJ), others

 

— Right at the beginning of his first SNL appearance, Tom Hanks is ALREADY coming off funny by humorously vocalizing along to the Entertainment Tonight theme song.
— The cutaway to Terry nodding (in drag, of course) made me laugh.
— The various inane polls are pretty funny.
— The repeated cutaways to the same shot of Terry nodding reminds me of the joke they always did with Harry Shearer’s Robin Leach in the preceding season.
— I’ve always liked the part with Anthony, on the set of his movie “Out of Bounds”, explaining that the reason he wasn’t in the previous week’s SNL episode is because his parents grounded him. A good way to get humor out of Anthony’s absurdly young age for an SNL cast member. Also, this ends up being Anthony’s only appearance tonight, meaning he wasn’t there live in the studio that week either.
— I got a big laugh from Tom doing a sad vocalization of the Entertainment Tonight theme during the in-memoriam part.
— Okay, the constant cutaways to Terry nodding are gradually losing their humor.
— Boy, this cold opening is long. They seem to be going out of their way to work in every cast member.
— Okay, the “Terry nodding” cutaway has made me laugh again, only because of the absurdity of how it was shown during an interview with Terry playing another role (Joan Collins).
— Overall, parts of this could’ve been better, but this had a fun energy that I really liked.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— Finally, after the overly-simplistic, low-budget, still-photos opening montage used in the prior episodes from this season, we get a new live-action montage.

 

— The opening overhead shot of the city (first screencap above) is different from the one that would be shown in the modified version of this montage in this season’s subsequent episodes.
— Dennis casually hopping onto the back of a passing garbage truck has always been my favorite part of this montage.
— The text showing the cast members’ names looks a bit different from how it would soon look in the modified version of this montage in later episodes. In tonight’s montage, the lettering of the cast’s names aren’t bolded, which makes some of them kinda hard to read, especially in Danitra’s shot (third-to-last screencap above).
— For the first time in SNL history, the host isn’t the first person announced in an opening montage. Starting tonight, the repertory cast is announced first, then the host, then the rest of the night’s guests, and then lastly, the featured players.
— Overall, a solid set of opening credits, and I like the unique format, showing the perspective of the host traveling in a limo from the airport to Rockefeller Center.


MONOLOGUE
host wants to watch himself on TV while doing the monologue

— Lots of good little lines from Tom so far.
— Funny how he’s achieving his desire to watch himself on TV while hosting SNL by excitedly looking at himself in the monitor.
— The compact mirror bit has made this even funnier.
— Overall, a good first monologue for Tom Hanks, and he handled this with ease.
STARS: ***½


TROJANS
a message about the importance of freedom from Trojans

— The sudden Trojans reveal at the end after all the noble freedom talk was pretty funny.
STARS: ***


LIARS
Tommy Flanagan & brother Earl (host) visit mom (NOD) for the holidays

— Interesting premise, showing Tommy Flanagan’s family.
— Jon’s mention of Pathological Liars Anonymous receives some scattered recognition applause from the audience.
— I like Nora listing off various lies of Tommy Flanagan’s childhood, all of which Nora believes as true.
— Good casting of Hanks as Tommy Flanagan’s similarly-lying brother.
— I like Jon and Tom ganging up on Robert, calling him out as a liar. I remember in my first viewing of this sketch years ago, I hated Robert’s part because I had felt that he ruined the flow of the sketch, from the great chemistry we were seeing between Jon, Tom, and Nora, and I felt that Robert couldn’t measure up to their solid performances. Watching this sketch again now, I see that I was too harsh on Robert back then. He’s fine in this sketch and isn’t “ruining” anything.
— Pretty solid sketch overall.
STARS: ***½


THE PAT STEVENS SHOW
how to hail a cab; Louis Farrakhan (DAW) cries

— Man, between Tommy Flanagan and Pat Stevens, this season has been relying on the same recurring sketches an awful lot so far (and it only gets worse as the season goes on).
— Pat Stevens’ cab-hailing demonstration was okay, but not as funny as her past demonstrations in prior installments of this sketch.
— Damon as Farrakhan: “I like a woman so black, she’s blue! With blonde hair.”
— Haha, Damon clearly keeps trying not to crack up throughout this sketch. He keeps lowering his head whenever he starts smirking.
— Damon’s emotional breakdown was pretty funny.
— Funny bit with Nora-as-Pat’s reaction to the napkin that Damon blew his nose into.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest sings “Is It A Crime”


WEEKEND UPDATE
DEM tries to explain the GE-RCA-NBC merger with a fridge, dog, peacock
DEM’s Sports Fantasy- fulfilled wish to be a boxing referee goes wrong

 

— This is the second Weekend Update in a row to use a famous TV/movie theme during the Update intro (we get the Mission: Impossible theme tonight), which makes me wonder if I was wrong in my last episode review where I said it’s not until next season where it becomes a weekly thing for each of Dennis’ Updates to open with a different song.
— The bit with Dennis breaking down the G.E./RCA merger using toys is pretty funny, especially his various ad-libbed side comments.
— Even though it got a good audience reaction, I didn’t like Dennis’ corny Sardi’s joke.
— Dennis’ mini-rant about record censorship labels was okay and made a good point, even though I normally abhor preachiness in comedy.
— Hmm, a follow-up to the “Dennis Miller’s Sports Fantasy” bit from the season premiere.
— Tonight’s Sports Fantasy segment is basically using the same joke of the first one, presenting stock footage of a real sports injury as something that happens to the Sports Fantasy participant. This one wasn’t as funny.
— I did like Dennis’ funny comments about the Sports Fantasy participant during the live outtro.
— I didn’t get the punchline of the “alternate ending to Clue” joke. Maybe because I haven’t seen that movie in ages.
— Loved the Bernard Goetz joke.
— No guest commentaries in tonight’s overall Update. One of the things I like about this season’s revamped version of the news is that it’s been light on guest commentaries so far, which is refreshing after I’ve had to deal with the Ebersol era being so overly reliant on guest commentaries, often focusing far more on them than on the actual news jokes from the anchorperson.
STARS: ***


FANTASY
(host) has thought about what life will be like after his wife (JOC) dies

— You can already tell this sketch is going to get good just from Tom’s “Well… here’s something…” in response to Joan saying that nothing about Tom’s fantasies will shock her.
— Great line with Tom bluntly telling Joan “I sometimes have this fantasy that… you die.”
— I love how overly detailed and lecherous Tom’s fantasy is getting.
— Good facial reactions from Joan as well.
— Also some humor out of Tom trying to downplay how often he thinks about Joan’s death.
— Funny breakdown from Terry after accidentally stabbing Joan.
— Great ending.
— An overall fantastic sketch that was so perfect for Tom Hanks. Reportedly, this sketch was originally attempted with every male host this season (well, I’m guessing not Pee-Wee) prior to Hanks, but always kept getting cut after read-through. Definitely a good thing in hindsight that it didn’t make it on the air until Hanks came along. Lithgow would’ve been fine in this sketch, but probably not quite up to Hanks’ level. And as for Chevy? NO. Well, I admit 1975 Chevy probably would’ve killed with this sketch, but certainly not 1985 Chevy.
STARS: ****½


STAND-UPS
stand-up comics (host), (JOL), (DAW) do observational humor backstage

— I’m really liking the Jerry Seinfeld-esque delivery from Tom and Jon.
— Great addition with Damon now getting involved in the Seinfeld-esque musings.
— Genuinely funny observational humor here, especially the Miami Vice part.
— A strong, fun sketch overall.
STARS: ****


STEVEN WRIGHT
Steven Wright [real] does stand-up & sings a song about his girlfriend

— Our first (and only, I think) returning stand-up guest performer from the Ebersol era.
— Some of my favorite random one-liners so far tonight are the ones about his girlfriend doing her nails with white-out, him asking what’s another word for thesaurus, and his revelation that he stole all the erasers to all the miniature golf pencils in the world.
— Nice change of pace with him doing a guitar song now.
— I love the (false) title to the song about his girlfriend: “They’ll Find Her When The Leaves Blow Away, Cuz I’m Not Raking Till The Spring”.
— Another one-liner that made me howl was the whole bit about his girlfriend having poison ivy on the brain.
— Great explanation of how having sex with his girlfriend is like being at a concert.
STARS: ****


HOLIDAY MOMS
(NOD) & (JOC) take a break from shopping for their kids’ Christmas toys

— Some pretty funny realistic humor here during Nora and Joan’s conversation.
— I’m surprised this sketch ended as early as it did.
— An overall decent slice-of-life piece with good performances from Joan and (especially) Nora. I can easily picture this sketch being done with Gilda and Jane in the original era.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest sings “The Sweetest Taboo”


FISHERMEN
fishermen (host) & (RAQ) react after the sea gives them a treasure chest

— Some laughs from Tom and Randy’s angry Italian gestures when “cursing” the sea.
— Half of Randy’s fake mustache has peeled off, causing him to start laughing.
— Haha, Randy’s mustache is now gradually coming off even more. This is causing the audience to laugh through Randy’s long speech right now. This sketch is getting completely derailed in a good way.
— Good ad-lib with Randy’s “I think I can hear the sea laughing already”.
— The very end of this sketch seemed to get cut off in the live version I’m reviewing. The show must’ve been running late.
— Overall, thank god for that mustache blooper, because this sketch would’ve been pretty much completely worthless without it.
STARS: **


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Another great episode, which makes this three in a row now. Aside from the weak final sketch, the segments in this episode ranged from good to fantastic. And just from this episode, you can see why Tom Hanks would go on to be one of SNL’s greatest recurring hosts of all-time.
— The fact that we’ve now had three very solid episodes in a row must’ve lulled then-current viewers into a false sense of security, making them think that after a slow first two episodes, this season has officially taken off and things are going to be alright. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. The trouble this season was in during the first two episodes soon returns.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (John Lithgow):
— a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Teri Garr hosts the Christmas episode