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"Hell-o! Good-bye!"
10/17/87: Steve Martin / Sting (S13E01)
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In his opening monologue, Steve Martin announced that all of the show's regular cast members are back, and none of them were fired—a slightly odd thing to make a point out of, though it's easy to forget, living in a time where cast turnover is slow and tumultuous, that Season 13 was the first time in four years that viewers didn't come back to a radically different Saturday Night Live. (It's actively bizarre to think that a young viewer could've started watching in Season 9 and simply assumed, over years of loyal watching, that insane cast changes were a key part of the show's DNA.) Even by the standards of the show in its most stable eras, past and future, it's kind of shocking how little has changed over the summer; beyond Kevin Nealon being appointed to the main cast (which he frankly deserved in the first place) and Jack Handey re-entering as a regular writer, the show is much the same. While I do think that SNL deserves the comfort of knowing that it's finally found a solid foundation after the years of anxiety, the ensuing season premiere feels, much like the previous season, like we have all the core ingredients but not enough of the spice. I blame myself for the slightly crushing disappointment. It's so easy to be burned by SNL! Here I was coming back to the show after a few months off, excited as hell to see one of the greatest casts of all time alongside a host as legendary as Steve Martin, and I was so swept up in that fervor that I completely forgot that SNL season premieres will almost always be SNL season premieres: an occasion more about the cast and writers rediscovering the show's rhythms than wowing the audience with some sort of bombastic return ceremony. More often than not, we end up with pretty lukewarm content, and maybe one or two gems that suggest the show's got aspirations once it's more attuned.
To some extent, I'm forgiving of that, but at the same time, I just have to wonder why things don't really work out for this episode at least a little more. It's filled to the brim with solid, writerly premises, some of which are actively brilliant, yet none of them are able to ascend to the levels of greatness that they should. Take the first sketch of the night for instance, "Common Knowledge," which has one of the best concepts for a fake game show I've ever seen: while its questions are selected by educators from Princeton University to reflect the broad range of common knowledge that every American should possess, the answers are "sourced from a nationwide survey of 17 year-old high school seniors." Even cleverer is the fact that it only reveals this premise after a minute and a half of hilarious confusion, as Kevin's contestant cleans up the board with a series of incorrect answers while Nora's Jeane Kirkpatrick sits back in abject confusion. The issue is that the sketch is never quite as good as it is up to that reveal; the turn of having Jeane attempt to game the system by dumbing down her answers is clever, but the "right/wrong" answers should be a lot funnier than they are in practice, and the speed round that finishes off the sketch (dates in history?) is too esoteric for even the studio audience to really follow along. Still, it's a sketch carried by its concept and great performances across the board—Nora's combative rant about how the program "doesn't do justice to the educational system which holds the fragile civilization of our country together" being rebuked by a sneering "Oh, well soooorrry Jeane." from Steve is as perfect a use of both performers as you'll ever see. Good stuff, but just not great stuff, which follows through the rest of the night.
There's plenty of sketches which feel perfectly tailored to wacky Steve shenanigans, and while none of them fall totally flat, they also don't manage to take off. I'm a big fan of the restaurant sketch's premise, with Victoria and Steve's internal thoughts on a first date being interpreted by the sound of slide whistles going up and down, and it even has some solid joke variations (a confusing response from Steve causes Victoria's slide whistle to toot in an undefined state of limbo, as if she can't figure out how it makes her feel), but it isn't able to hit as constantly as its premise requires, and Victoria isn't the right cast member to sell the sort of subtle emotional whiplash that makes the idea funny. The mini-epic James Bond spoof, "Bullets Aren't Cheap," also contains a silly kernel of an idea, with Steve's Bond proving to be a severe penny-pincher on vacation when he can't use his agency's money for spy shenanigans, though it ultimately feels bizarrely formless and slow-paced; it's as if the writers came up with the idea of "Goldsting" to fold Sting into the sketch (making his first of many appearances on the show, and proving himself to be better at comedy than music at this stage of his career) and called it a day. We get a few goofy gags, like Bond's "shaken, not stirred" beer, and the final note of him attempting to pour a glass of champagne back into the bottle in the middle of love-making ends things strong, but too much of it meanders without the efficiency it should have to really whip the audience into a giddy frenzy.
I think the one sketch that comes closest to working for me is "Adventures in the Lost Realm," a Handey-penned adventure B-movie spoof where Jon's explorer is nabbed by a dinosaur for a grisly death that will simply never end as his fellow explorers struggle impatiently to wait it out. While it certainly won't rank as one of his best, it's a welcome return to Handey's unmistakably silly writing style, and perhaps it's no surprise that he's the most adept at harnessing Steve's comic energy given their established history. There's a simple joy in watching him and Phil, disconnected from Jon's interminable screaming and body-flinging (via adorably crude hand puppet), killing the time by doing everything from teaching tricks to nearby, feral squirrels to holding deeply candid conversations about how to maintain a work-life balance. I'm looking forward to seeing his fingerprints all over the show in the seasons to come; while I was greatly disheartened to learn that Conan O'Brien, Bob Odenkirk, and Greg Daniels don't actually join the writing staff until far deeper into the season, at least he'll be laying the groundwork with his patented weirdness. Speaking of things to look forward to this season, I'd also be remiss not to mention the debut of Hans and Frans, two Austrian bodybuilders played by Dana and Kevin who hope to follow in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, their cousin, with exercise routines that largely consist of verbal abuse. It's funny to know that such an unassuming, so-so sketch in the 10-to-1 slot would go on to spawn some of the most cherished characters of this entire era, but that's just the strange way that SNL works. I guess it's no great surprise, though, considering how aggressively Dana and Kevin seem to be forcing some sort of catchphrase recognition break in their first sketch. It's the Dana Carvey way—he's a gifted forcer.
I'm not fully sure where to place my expectations for Season 13, though I suppose this premiere buffeted them down to a more reasonable place. Of course, a premiere is seldom a good metric of the quality of an entire season, but the patterns of the show feel very much the same as where we left off: there's good stuff going on, and a capability for greatness, but we're definitely not at any sort of renaissance for the show just yet. Still, you'd wish that a Steve Martin-hosted SNL episode would be a little more infectious than this, right? (Penned 3/15/24)
GRADE: B-.
10/24/87: Sean Penn / LL Cool J, The Pull (S13E02)
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As I work through SNL chronologically, it's not uncommon for me to stumble upon a host whose appeal confounds me; it's even more uncommon for that host to remain a confounding presence to this day. That's where I'm at with ol' Sean Penn, a figure that I simply do not understand. I get that he's a pretty solid actor within the world of drama, but I wonder if his allure as a personality-driven 80s star is a product of a bygone era, or maybe just a more archly prideful and self-centered one. Here's a celebrity who is, overwhelmingly, a prickly piece of work, but in such a way that defies the artifice of Hollywood as it's understood by the masses. He doesn't play by the game—he'd rather punch out the paparazzi than have a picture taken! Likewise, throughout this entire episode, he proudly displays his bizarrely menacing edge, and the audience is infatuated with him at every turn regardless. To them, he's either the unexpected heartthrob or the masculine ideal. To me, he's an unrepentant asshole with a track record of assault (including his then-girlfriend Madonna, distressingly) who somehow managed to pivot into a pretentious actor-activist who, nevertheless, continues to view the world through a myopic, vain lens while believing himself to be some sort of hero for stunting on Putin from his multimillion dollar mansion or playing Harvey Milk, despite holding a weird belief system about the modern man being severely emasculated even after the movie came out. Do I have too much of an axe to grind with the guy? Perhaps! But often times, a problematic figure does not necessarily equate to a bad SNL host. I was perhaps too hard on it at the time, but it's not like OJ Simpson tainted every sketch from his SNL episode with the stench of manslaughter. The thing about Sean, though, is that the realities of the person he is are inseparable from his work—and since this episode goes to reasonable lengths to bolster his image, it constantly risks bearing icky vibes in the process.
With that being said, this is actually a decent outing for the show from a writing standpoint; it's simply that the issues surrounding the attitude of its host hold it back. That tends to be at its worst when the show is actively acquiescing to his persona, as in the frequently lauded "Church Chat" installment here. On one hand, I'm always happy to see the segment bearing a comedic conceit rather than being a glorified interview, but I also can't be a huge fan of how much this one centers itself on Church Lady luring Sean into a characteristically violent rage, with an extra helping of Islamophobia from Jon's Iranian diplomat (and the weird jingoism from Church Lady that ensues). I can't say that its big crescendo, with Sean punching Church Lady in the face and commencing a brawl, was a particularly comfortable visual either, even if Dana's physical comedy abilities take some of the edge off. Still, there are a few good moments that keep it from being truly dire; Church Lady bringing Madonna into the conversation as a figure who has smeared the image of "the mother of our Lord" is too good to pass up, and Jon's diplomat agreeing is a clever touch. I also don't think I've seen a more affecting display of international diplomacy than Church Lady and Jon doing a superior dance over Sean's unconscious body, united in the defeat of a monster, so hey, that's something too!
The next, slightly less difficult category of sketches are the most prominent ones in this episode, where Sean, while not playing himself, infuses his roles with his token rage all the same, whether or not it serves the scenes' best interests. It's most obvious in some of this episodes' recurring sketches, where you can see his attitude infringing upon material which already has a set path. The sequel to the Keister family sketch from last season's Steve Guttenberg episode, for instance, is more strongly-written than the first and has a better game, with Marge and and Don failing to remember successively stranger details of their personal life while Sean struggles to fill the blank, but whereas Steve approached the role of their daughter's boyfriend with a sweet, begrudging patience, Sean's exasperation is far too abrasive, plunging the delicate, slice-of-life nature of the scene into a state of unease. The return of Phil's killer Peter Graves impression in yet another "Discover" sketch is also a welcome sight, and his delightfully stupid rapport with Jan's snake expert delivers some of the episode's hardest laughs ("Now some snakes can kill you, but not this one." "Uh-huh, so this snake is a coward!"), but once it shifts into its second half, featuring Sean as a snake researcher in a tank full of poisonous snakes, the scene starts to work a little less than it should. I love the premise of Phil's ignorance causing him to aggravate the snakes and kill Sean (at one point he just pounds on the glass enclosure), but yet again, Sean pushes things into a deeper uncomfortability even though the casting should be spot-on. (The threat of him shooting Phil felt disproportionately dark, least of all because of... y'know.) Still, both sketches work by the strength of their writing and performance; I just wish someone else more capable of landing the scenes could've occupied Sean's roles.
There is one role where he shines, at least, and no, it's not his bizarre performance as an inebriated panelist in "Wall Street Week"—comfortably one of the worst sketch performances from an actor host I have ever seen. He slots perfectly into our old Hollywood piece of the night, "Joey Comes Home," a spin-off of last season's Jungle Room sketches with Jon's Eddie Spimozo picking up his younger brother (Sean) after his return home from the war. It's no surprise that a sketch playing into Sean's dramatic sensibilities would make for his best work all night, and while it's punctuated by the sort of absurdist nonsense that Jon sells so effortlessly in his inimitable, Lovitzian way ("How's Ma?" "She's FAT! Gotta get her off that birthday cake... she eats one every day all by herself!"), it's the surprisingly strong rapport between Sean and Jon as performers, as they argue over Sean's desire to join the family business, that gives the sketch a strong, serio-comic heft.
Speaking of things that work in this episode: LL Cool J! Isn't it cool to see a hip-hop artist on SNL in these years? Savor it while you can, because all we have to look forward to over the next five years are MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice... which is understandable, in a sad way, when you watch LL Cool J working overtime to try to elicit any reaction from an audience as lily-white as the show they came out to enjoy. History has vindicated that slight awkwardness: he brings a strong performance of "Go Cut Creator Go" replete with live record-scratching, and unlike the previous hip hop act on the show last season (Run-DMC, with all due respect), there's no cautious lip-syncing here—just pure energy. If you're wondering why he only performs one song, though, it's because the other musical guest slot is filled out, unfortunately, by Sean Penn's brother's band, The Pull, churning out one of the sickliest 80s power ballads you will ever here—a revolting concoction designed to top the music charts that isn't even good enough to achieve its only goal. At the very least, LL does get to appear in the cold open as a consolation prize, but unfortunately, it's yet another weak pop culture piece whose humor is derived from near-verbatim movie references (this time, a Fatal Attraction riff) that casts him as Sean's gay lover from behind bars. I never thought I'd say it, but honestly, thank god they don't have a black cast member right now who'd have to deal with these indignities every week.
This is probably a fairly aggressive and damning review, but it should be repeated: this is not a bad episode of SNL, and I actually liked it a fair bit. More than the premiere, actually! The issue is just the weird atmosphere that Sean creates, and the sense that, for all of its solid moments, it would be a much better night helmed by someone else entirely. Even so, this is a modest victory for the season, and hopefully an indicator that there will be more good times ahead. (Penned 4/22/24)
GRADE: B.
10/31/87: Dabney Coleman / The Cars (S13E03)
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Halloween in 8H is a special time, whenever that aspect of the show is embraced. Few episodes feel as distinctively Halloween-y as Dabney Coleman's outing, only the second (of three) to actually air on Halloween after Donald Pleasance's identically sinister S7 gig. Pumpkins line the mainstage; a cut-out witch passes in front of the camera at the start of the monologue. Even the SNL band brings a freaky flair to their interstitial performances, featuring a two-headed Leon Pendarvis-Cheryl Hardwick mutant playing the piano! Suffice to say, this is an episode frequently committed to a vibe, and not just in those little moments in between; its comedy alternates between silly, festive frights and crushing cynicism, enveloping the show in a near-perpetual darkness that, while not always succeeding, makes for a bracing watch.
Admittedly, the night's Halloween-centric sketches aren't anything too great most of the time, though they're all brisk and playful enough that they reinforce the night's sensibilities without serving to its detriment. The most elaborate, spooky sketch of the night is "Don't Go Down to the Basement!", a slasher parody that asks the age-old question, "What if the victims in horror movies exhibited any common sense at all?" The most commendable aspect of it is how ridiculously cinematic it is; seldom are sketches so atmospheric in their genre-spoofing, and it carries the piece along in spite of some fairly predictable, not-quite there writing. The one funny detail that the sketch lands on is everyone making a point out of Dana and Victoria's frightened teens being in their underwear; the rest of the sketch ends up being a fairly straightforward play-by-play of people doing sensible things, which is more funny conceptually than in practice. "Count Dracula: Self-Trained Auto Mechanic" is similarly light, though wisely short. Jack Handey would eventually make a career out of brilliant, one-joke sketches, though this early in his years as a writer, you can detect that he's still figuring out how to land these sort of misdirect-based ideas economically; in this case, it meanders perhaps a bit too long with unnecessary details, though it's so quick and has a solid button, and I can't be too upset about that. (It also helps that he's got a real gem of a sketch a bit deeper into the night.)
Perhaps the most curious Halloween aspect of the episode are the appearances from special guest star Elvira, the famed (if somewhat obscure in recent times) horror movie hostess played by Groundlings alum Cassandra Peterson. In her memoir, she recounted that she was originally slated as a host for this episode in spite of Lorne's disinterest by Brandon Tartikoff, but upon her arrival—in true passive-aggressive Lorne Michaels fashion—Dabney Coleman just happened to be there as a co-host, and she was gradually written out of the episode over the course of the week. As good of a host as Dabney is, it's pretty disheartening to learn in retrospect given how capable of a performer Peterson would've undoubtedly been; we only get dribs and drabs of that in the live episode, where she's trapped within her Elvira persona in very slightly-written premises. The cold open, "Lifestyles of the Rich, Famous, and Spooky," is basically a nothingburger that exists to give Dana one last chance to do his Robin Leach impression and ogle at Elvira's breasts, and her only other appearance is a consolation spot on Weekend Update (which ended up cut from future re-airings, to boot), where she gives a speech on the true meaning of Halloween. It feels very thrown-together, and the audience isn't too receptive, but Peterson, if nothing else, comes across as unflappably assured. It's a shame she never got a better chance.
Stepping outside of the night's explicitly Halloween-y material, the show maintains an incredibly dark and aggressive feel, which inevitably happens to be a great complement. The most successful sketch of the night, and an early highlight for the season, is "The Winning Spirit," a brilliant host showcase sketch that casts Dabney as a resentful blind man who completely uproots Jan's uplifting talk show about surviving the odds. The tug-and-pull between the two is absolutely perfect, as the twinkle in Jan's eyes turns to deep depression from Dabney's relentlessly scathing responses, all of which are so good that my notes for the sketch border on a complete transcript. ("You haven't let this stop you from leading a normal life, huh?" "Well, yeah, I'm pretty much dead in the water, I'd say.") It's interesting to compare to the last sketch to make a joke out of a character's blindness, the gay panic piece from Steve Guttenberg's episode a year before—whereas that one used its main character's blindness as some cartoonish attribute for someone else to take advantage of, "The Winning Spirit" actively lambasts their perception by able-bodied people as objects of pity who are sympathized in a hollow, demeaning way that doesn't even begin to approach understanding. Perhaps it's not the most progressive piece of all time, but in a bizarre way, it's kind of radical.
The bitter mood carries over into Dabney's next sketch appearance as a scoutmaster who takes over his troop's spooky campfire stories with the tale of "The Woman Who Could Change Herself Into Different Things," a haunting parable whose source material quickly reveals itself to be his acrimonious marriage. It's a very fine line to walk, and it only really succeeds off the strength of Dabney's ability to inhibit his characters far beyond what's provided on the page, and in the careful balancing act of having the giddy kids around him (played to perfection by Dana and especially Jon) be legitimately invested in his story as if a work of gripping fiction without any sense of the subtext. Unfortunately, it also spawns another strange theme for the night which doesn't fully pan out, as it's followed by a sketch with Dabney as a biased marriage counselor intent to gas up Kevin's problematic husband and shut down his distressed wife (Nora): misogyny, everybody! It's important to note both sketches were written with female involvement (the former by the Turners, and the latter by Rosie Schuster), and their intentionality (especially in the marriage counselor sketch) is quite obvious, but they compound themselves in the running order in such a way that it feels thematically overbearing while drowning out the distinct intentions of both pieces under the general notion that, as Dabney chants, "Women are no damn good."
Fortunately, the night rebounds (after a Pat Stevens sketch that doesn't bear significant mention) with a delightfully obtuse ensemble piece from Jack Handey, where Dabney's beleaguered teacher reigns over a student council meeting dedicated to deciding on a new school mascot. Something I love about the ensemble sketches in this era is the sheer attention to detail in everyone's performances; so many sketches in the modern show opt to simply parade cast members through a series of hit-or-miss bits, whereas here, the comedy (as good as it is) becomes almost secondary to how meticulously each character is inhibited. Dana pulls out his stock, proto-Garth voice to proclaim some incredibly air-headed ideas ("What about... the Strong Fighters."), which continues to kill me, and Jan's ditzy girl is steadfastly dedicated to her Capybaras pitch, down to a rigorous multi-step plan to spread public consciousness of what capybaras are; meanwhile, Jon spars over his peers' weak suggestions while pitching several mascots as "flaming," and Victoria shyly struggles to command basic respect despite having ideas so inane that Dabney has to repeatedly shut her down. ("What if we call ourselves the Super Winners?" "Now see, that's really dumb." "That was my mom's idea...") It's such a strong balance between the banal and the absurd, and the synergy between the performers and writing, both serving to elevate one another, feels like further foreshadowing of the greatness yet to come. All of that makes for an interesting contrast with the episode's 10-to-1, "Lambert & Fitch," which feels generally symptomatic of the place we're still at. Dabney and Jon give ridiculously impressive performances as a manipulative stockbroker and his spiteful, beaten-down client who's lost everything he ever had, and it has merit as a darkly comic vignette, but something about it simply doesn't click as a sketch and ultimately drags the night towards a somewhat ambivalent finish.
At the end of the day, while not without its imperfections, this is undoubtedly the strongest episode of the season so far. Dabney Coleman brought all the seasoned character actor energy you'd want him to, the cast delivered great performances throughout (with the exception of Phil being strangely shut-out, perhaps due to Dabney absorbing his usual type of roles), and the writerly feel of the night's sketches—with some Halloween festivities filling in the gaps—is exactly the kind of thing I enjoy seeing out of SNL. Whether or not S13 will be a noticeable improvement above the last, it's just nice to know that it can still deliver its fair share of hits. Let's keep 'em coming, guys! (Penned 5/13/24)
GRADE: B.
11/14/87: Robert Mitchum / Simply Red (S13E04)
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It's interesting to compare and contrast Robert Mitchum and Dabney Coleman. They're two men ostensibly cut from the same cloth of SNL hosts as aged performers with a brilliant pedigree giving the show an earnest, college try, but I spent a few days wracking my brain over why they felt so different. Ultimately, I landed on this: Dabney Coleman is a character actor, and Robert Mitchum is an actor playing a character. Dabney feels like effortless support because it's the role he's played his entire life, making him a perfect SNL host, whereas Robert, in the late stages of his career, is a figure who was so typecast that he effectively operates as a face for his chosen genre; he's Noir Incarnate. None of this is to say he's a bad host. It's quite the opposite, I'd argue, but it does inform the way the show uses him. Robert is game for everything that's thrown at him, but he's also far from chameleonic, and every sketch is more about finding a framework for his unique candor than plopping him as an equal alongside the cast—something fundamentally impossible for a seventy year-old man to do. The results are up and down as the show is wont to be, but at its best, it's a delightful and touching love letter from the show to a living legend that they absolutely adore.
There's no greater gift than the post-monologue sketch, "Death Be Not Deadly," a noir spoof where Robert's aged detective fails to contain his scathing internal monologues so much as absentmindedly state them within earshot of his client (Kevin). It's, quite frankly, the most perfect use of Robert Mitchum in a sketch that there could possibly be, channeling his gravitas into deeply silly descriptors ("I had a hunch about this creep, a hunch crawling up my back like a monkey on a rope swing.") as he moves about the room, hiding behind plants or bathroom doors while deadpanning his innermost thoughts as if they create any sort of buffer. It's a strong enough sketch as written that anyone could theoretically do it, especially with such great assists from Kevin and Jan (playing Kevin's floozy drunk of a girlfriend), but the fact that Robert is its anchor launches it into the stratosphere, offering it a legitimacy in performance that makes it all the more joyous to behold. Other sketch attempts are a bit less fortuitous, but Robert lends them interesting shades and keeps them from spiraling into truly difficult territory. "Andre & Rex: Macho Hairstylists" is probably the worst of the night, for instance, casting Phil and Robert as two hairstylists who say stereotypically gay things with a terrifyingly steroidal degree of machismo. For as easy of a subversion as it is, there is simple pleasure in watching Phil scream at Robert's cattiness; it speaks to the decent idea buried in there about how much language is dictated by tonality, though the less said about the muddled inclusion of Jon as some sort of gay mafia pimp, the better. Jack Handey also contributes another not-quite-there piece to this episode, where Robert plays the beggarly father of Dana, regaling his son with the tale of how he acquired a prized gemstone, only for said tale to be excruciatingly boring and un-epic. (The vast majority of his journey concerns a bee that wouldn't fly out of his car, and a severed hand which he also presents to Dana as part of the story was simply one that he found on the road after an accident.) It's a difficult idea to land because it's designed to reward in its blatantly unrewarding nature, but it works just enough for a 10-to-1 if you allow yourself to key into the granular details, and Robert, once again, leaves you hanging on each and every word, boring as they may be.
His remaining appearances in the show are a bit more unconventional. Perhaps the night's biggest oddity is "Out of Gas," a short film spoof of his iconic film noir, Out of the Past, where he and Jane Greer reprise their characters in a sort of non-canonical epilogue. I cynically wonder if its inclusion was part of an agreement between Mitchum and SNL, as it was clearly a personal project of his daughter's (who directed it), or if it was a way to increase his presence in the episode, considering there's only three sketches that he really anchors; still, it's a neat little curio that celebrates his cherished career, and I get how the audience would get as much a kick out of it as they always do to see such SNL hosts reference their body of work. His only other role of the night is his least specific, appearing as Candy Sweeney's new beau who threatens to turn the Sweeney Sisters against each other and put an end to their act, though in a way, his presence there works to make that reveal sneak up on you in a particularly exciting way. I've never disliked the Sweeney Sisters, but I can find their act to be frequently repetitive and fatiguing; opting to bypass the usual rhythms of such a sketch and instead offer a glimpse at them offstage, going through a bout of tumult and playing out the conflict through their usual medley, is a perfect antidote to those issues and brings about the sort of ingenuity that I yearn for in so many of SNL's recurrers. In other words, it's their best installment yet, and I loved it!
The rest of the night offers some interesting showcases for the cast, while presumably giving Robert a break from his hosting duties. Dana helms the night's most substantial, host-free piece as "Mountain Man," a hermit outdoorsman challenging challenging Victoria and Jon's yuppie urbanite couple on their ability to survive a potential guided hike. I'll give Dana credit in that his performance is shockingly unlike any we've seen from him before; it's actively a bit Aykroyd-esque, with how he espouses meticulously on everything he talks about ("This here's a banana chip—compact-efficient, perfect food for the mountains."), though the fact that he simply isn't Aykroyd also means we get terminology as blunt and insipid as "teenie weenie peenie." That last bit lends itself to the greatest stumbling block of the sketch for me, though: trapped in this current, Mikey Day era of SNL, it felt like a punch in the nuts to be suckered into a surprise cuckold sketch here, too, as the game reveals itself to be Dana belittling Jon's wimpy character and hitting on his girlfriend in between calling him a panty-waisted little geek responsible for women "turning lesbo." Jan manages a far more succinct and everlasting highlight, meanwhile, in "Compulsion," a dead-on spoof of Calvin Klein's Obsession ad and one of this era's most enduring commercial parodies. The visual language of it is so impressively accurate that it's a joke in and of itself, and I love Phil and Dana's despondence as Jan's male suitors, but the game of Jan torturing the men's attraction with a compulsive need to clean everything around her as she navigates the M.C. Escher hellscape of a set is peak absurdity executed with maximum effort. (It's certainly better than the other fake commercial she leads as Corazon Aquino, an impression that SNL is far more convinced of than me, though it's an equally elaborate production and looks great, which deserves some notice, maybe.)
It's hard to look at an episode like this as a sign of the season's trajectory, because it ultimately feels like an effort on SNL's part to pay tribute to a distinguished figure that will surely never come through the building again, but if that was their mission, it was a decent success. This might not be the most memorable episode of all time, but it's got some pieces worth bragging about, good vibes between the cast and the host, and an overall sense of confidence, even throughout its lesser material. With that being said, with the season's next two episodes being hosted by close (if slightly underrated) friends of the show, I'm hoping to look towards them as more of a clear sign for where the show is headed. (Penned 6/09/24)
GRADE: B.
11/21/87: Candice Bergen / Cher (S13E05)
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Alright, so I said in my last review that Candice Bergen was a "close friend of the show," but she has a relationship with SNL that perhaps bears some deeper analysis. Not only was she the first woman to host SNL in its fourth episode, and the first to return less than a month later; she was also the first host who seemed to truly click with the show. I don't think Candice is an amazing host in the most conventional sense, per se—she's not a particularly multifaceted performer, and she doesn't necessarily bring a lot to the table for the cast and writers to work with. Rather, she's a great host because of her willingness to engage, and her complete trust in SNL's process, far before SNL even knew what it was supposed to be, brings her earlier hosting gigs a distinctly magical sense of camaraderie that the show would seldom feel until it became a recognizable establishment that everyone wanted in on. The irony of that, unfortunately, is that after her third hosting gig in only two seasons, she would grow so disillusioned and upset by the competitive, spiteful nature of the show's backstage that she would take this long to return, but that's also why this episode is all the more promising—SNL has changed, its tumultuous cast dynamics have largely neutralized, and Candice is ready to return to her old stomping grounds. That's gotta be good, right? Well... not really!
I don't know how to put succinctly what's wrong with this episode, but it's got the distinctly off-putting vibe of a show that simply failed to come together. I'm quick to point out that the collectivist nature of her earlier gigs feels almost entirely lost here, with much of the pieces oddly featuring anywhere between one and three performers; perhaps as a byproduct of SNL becoming an institution, too, it doesn't feel like Candice is a host helping ignite a crew of crafty comics so much as simply going along with what they churn out on "yet another week."
There's precisely one solid sketch in the line-up, wisely placed right after the monologue: Jack Handey's fictionalized account of Anne Boleyn's execution, finding the denounced Queen of England lost in several rounds of questions with Phil's advisor over what will happen to her head post-execution, or the other forms of torment she could opt to face instead. The answer? Depraved carnival games, for the most part! Candice frequently lacks chemistry with the cast in this episode, but it's unsurprising that the person she connects the most with is Phil, who gives Handey's insane details the perfect, precise level of tense deadpan that they deserve. ("What will happen to my head?" "It will be placed on top of a wall for public display. People will be allowed to throw things at it in attempts to knock it off the wall." "How many throws will each person get before another person gets to throw?" "Three." "Will they be allowed to throw anything?" "Within reason.") The sketch's coda is perhaps unneeded, with Anne's beheading going horribly wrong as the executioner whiffs every bloody slice, though I get how it's the sort of morbid, real-life trivia that is impossible for a comedy writer to resist—and I can't complain too much about a good sketch that hangs around for a bit too long, compared to all the bad sketches throughout the rest of the episode that fail regardless of their length. Candice's exaggerated yelps of pain ("YEEEEOWWW!!") are also the only thing she gets to land comedically all night, and I'm glad she could get something to remind us of the better times.
Unfortunately, the night then proceeds to drown out every trace of goodwill that it had with an installment of Ching Change which isn't merely as offensively bad as usual, but in fact, insanely passive-aggressive. SNL's attempts at navel-gazing are only as good as its willingness to meaningfully self-assess; choosing to deflect any fair criticisms about how much of a grotesque stereotype their new recurring character is by instead having Phil enter as Matthew Chen, NBC's "Positive Ethnic Role Model" whose whole deal is that he's Asian and incredibly normal, unfortunately ensures nothing productive can come about the whole exercise. It's a bizarre, half-assed play on the model minority trope, which in and of itself is a very fraught and regressive portrayal of Asian-Americans, but leveraging that concept as some sort of defense mechanism that voids the show from criticism, or even worse, actively tells offended viewers to fuck off, is just revolting. The fact that the sketch then has the gall to bring Candice into the fold, tell Ching that he's "a fairly broad caricature, but nothing beyond the realm of possibility," and ultimately react in visual disgust regardless as he does the same bullshit that he always does, only serves to clarify how little interest Dana or the writers have in reconsidering their prejudiced ideas, or indeed saying much of anything at all.
The bad vibes persist into the episode's unfortunate centerpiece, "The Mayflower Madam." If there were ever a reflection of the sheer, monocultural nature of 1987, it's that there's a sketch, based on a made-for-TV movie, based on a book by a random socialite who used to run an escort service. (Her name is Sydney Biddle Barrows, unbelievably.) To me, it's a pretty grim reminder of how the ghost of older eras of the show continues to thwart this era's attempts to come into its own; it has that deathly, plodding S5/S11 feel, confusing dense writing and the semblance of a grander plot for value as a piece of comedy while being stricken by a litany of problematic elements (namely, the very iffy portrayal of Native Americans) that the show has not yet learned it should stop dealing in. A good premise should still work stripped of its context, because comedy should be largely intrinsic, but there's not much comedy to its conceit: the true story of the first Thanksgiving, Sydney purports, is that in light of a poor harvest, the women of Plymouth have decided to decided to prostitute themselves in exchange for the Native American's crop surplus. As a Franken/Davis sketch, any expectation of nuance is rightfully thrown right out the window in favor of lousy shock, though aside from one particularly nasty line ("It's important to make sure your [client] is an Indian. That way, if you get caught, you can always say you were raped."—Christ, guys), it's largely just a game of anachronism that seems to think that its outrageous concept is all that it needs. It's a testament to the season's amazing cast that it doesn't feel like a massive dirge, but in a way that almost makes it sadder.
Elsewhere, the ideas continue to flounder and the energy remains low. The thought bubble sketch feels like a spiritual sequel to the slide whistle piece from the season premiere, and like that sketch it has the sort of idea that feels like it could fuel a classic, yet it simply doesn't because it has no idea how to fully live out its concept. Instead, we get Phil and Candice engaged with complete non sequitur thought bubbles whose randomness is not necessarily funny, and occasionally just comes across as desperate. There's also another sketch featuring Phil's criminally-underrated Mace, this time sparring with Kevin's peeping tom while attempting to romance a thoroughly nonplussed hooker (played brilliantly by Jan), though it feels far too derivative of the original without finding any interesting escalations. Dana also gets a number of spotlight moments across the episode, which work to varying degrees if never vindicating him of the comedy war crimes of Ching Change. It's nice to see a full cold open featuring his soon-to-be-iconic George Bush impression, even if we're still quite a ways from what his take on the future president would eventually become; in turn, it's more a matter of Downey's writing leading Dana along, but that also means that it has a nice level of bite that isn't simply drowned out by goofy performance, as Bush announces a successful coup on the presidency and details all of the drastic changes that'll come of his new leadership. There's a similar incisiveness to Dana's second solo piece, where he portrays a country singer who is actively spiteful of the hardship which has molded his life. It's not too difficult to make fun of the self-pitying nature of country songwriting, but Dana's sheer bitterness, treating his upbringing less like a means of character-building than an unassailable curse, is pretty delightful. Still, the best thing Dana does all night is actually not show up; in the midst of a particularly sluggish Weekend Update where Dennis Miller is fighting for his life, Dana, who was slotted to debut his Dennis Miller impression in a point-counterpoint segment, simply fails to make an appearance, forcing Dennis (and the episode as a whole) to vamp, scramble, and awkwardly pretend like the episode hasn't completely fucked itself over.
I don't enjoy being bitter about SNL. Even when dealing with its worst seasons, I always clung to whatever faint shimmer of hope there was. For that same reason, though, it's actively more painful to watch an episode that struggles as much as this one does when it's obvious that, circumstantially speaking, it should be much, much better. A good sketch or two is appreciated, as they always are, but they're not as illuminating when SNL seems to be on the come-up; overwhelmingly bad content, meanwhile, feels like a slap in the face of the show's forward momentum and progress. I can only hope that this episode was an uncharacteristic fluke, but even so, I can't help but feel sad that someone as crucial to the show's earliest years as Candice Bergen would be subjected to a uniformly poor episode that has no regard for her importance to SNL at all. (Penned 7/26/24)
GRADE: C-.
12/05/87: Danny DeVito / Bryan Ferry (S13E06)
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Okay, so, in a sense, last episode broke me. I's not just that it was a horribly disappointing and bad episode—something which exists consistently across the show's history—but in the fact that, for some reason, I felt obligated to write seven paragraphs on it. Why was I compelled to do that? I think I've had an issue with the scale of my reviews. It makes sense for, say, Season 11, where there's a lot of interesting things happening and the show is in a volatile state, or Season 12, where the show is finally establishing a new identity which, historically, proves successful—but as we enter into SNL seasons which are more stable and consistent, I don't know if as much attention to detail is truly deserved. Not every episode deserves some intense, beat-by-beat scrutiny; for every sketch worth mentioning, there's an "Ann Landers' Playhouse," an affably forgettable monologue, or a boring cold open that doesn't warrant so much as a passing glance. The nice thing about the essay format is that I can speak on an episode's general nature instead of having to perform an autopsy, so maybe I should start to do that again, at least until SNL stumbles into a more paradigm-shifting lane again. And either way, I shouldn't put more thought into a review than the show puts into its own material. All of this is to say that the Danny DeVito episode inspired me to rethink my approach. It's good, unchallenging, and for the most part, politely unmemorable, as most episodes of SNL are destined to be. And hopefully, my review of the episode can match those vibes without needing to be anything greater.
I love Danny DeVito, as we all do. I love the humbleness he bears as a performer; even in his monologue, he comes out with a baggy, untailored flannel as if he's as much an everyman as the characters he frequently portrays. We've seen him work perfectly within the confines of a few SNL episodes before by this point, though we're still yet to see him participate in a truly great episode. Still, he strikes a pretty solid balance as host; he's, at once, a very energetic and charismatic performer who can go toe-to-toe with the likes of Church Lady, and a master of pathos and understatement, lending itself well to subtler, more thoughtful pieces. It's just a shame that none of the material truly transcends, however much I respect the show playing at both of those opposing halves.
The episode is smart to place its brasher, most energetic material at the top. It's kind of surprising to see Danny doing a second Church Lady sketch after appearing in an installment from last season, though I suppose his chemistry with Dana was so strong that he's just been elected into the deeper canon of the Church Lady-verse. I can't speak much on the first half of the sketch, featuring Jan as Jessica Hahn—it seemed like heaps of righteous slut-shaming with the typically-blurry POV of Church Lady, which feels icky when you consider that she rose to notoriety amidst allegations of being raped by Jim Bakker and her greatest crime was being a bit opportunistic about the attention—but once Danny arrives, everything settles into a predictably fun groove, culminating in a rather nice rendition of "Here Comes Santa Claus" with Dana hammering away on the drums (a bizarre rite of passage for sketch comedians, seemingly). The At The Movies parody that follows, where Kevin and Phil's Siskel & Ebert review the latest slew of gay porn flicks, continues off of that silly, self-indulgent energy, if to a slightly lesser effect. It's very surreal to watch after subjecting myself to the exact same premise in Vince Offer's vile Underground Comedy Movie (let alone having to discuss it at length with my stupid voice); SNL does it better, of course, and I loved Phil's constant refrains of "The sex is HOT!", though having more meat on the bone doesn't suddenly make its premise feel that much less cheap. Realistically, it's most interesting for the fact that Kevin portrays Gene Siskel without his usual hairpiece, offering the only glimpse of his natural hairline we'll get across his entire career. (Oh yeah, and also, the sketch was co-written by Lorne. What?)
The rest of the night is dominated by more writerly, conceptual material, which gives the episode the slight edge that it has. I enjoyed our final visit to The Jungle Room, even if reception on it from other reviewers seems a bit mixed. I just love how much room vintage SNL has for a kind of world-building which is entirely lost in this modern, digital, see-anything-whenever-you-want age that weirdly disincentivizes complexity. Sure, Victoria does the same vocal aerobics she did in an earlier installment, and the shtick of the long-established characters remains the same, but that doesn't make it any less delightful to bring back, and I appreciate how this finale to the series takes aim at how Jon's Eddie Spimozo takes advantage of the people in his life. Danny makes for a perfect new addition to the cast as Eddie's weary former bartender, returning from the war to discover that he's been replaced in spite of Eddie's promises; the way the scene continues after Eddie cackles his way out, with Danny and Victoria bonding over their shared mistreatment, is legitimately sweet, too. The Phil Hartman-penned trailer park sketch is also a nice bit of character work, if one that has its sights on a more comic premise, as Danny and Jan's redneck couple present the clearly-fake "valuables" they were duped into buying to Phil's put-upon appraiser. It's a very solid fusion of Jan and Danny's ability to go big in a way that still feels well-observed, and Phil's ineffable deadpanning as he routinely disappoints them with his assessments ("See, Stratovarius created his violins in Cremona, Italy. So a clue to the instrument's fraudulent origins would be this Taiwan decal."), and while the ending is a slight head-scratcher, it's a fine bit of sketching overall.
But ultimately, the night is all about two sketches to me. One of those is, of course, the bonafide classic "Handi-Off" commercial, imagining a product designed to treat those pesky excess fingers. It's the sort of swift, no bullshit, straight-in commercial pretape that these early years are so brilliant at that simply asks you to believe in its absurd premise (and I do!), and the visual of Victoria's spare fingers rotting off of her hand is the sort of impressively disgusting sight that will haunt me to my dying days. It's the sketch that ends the episode, though, written by Bob Odenkirk during his very first week at SNL (alongside Robert Smigel and A. Whitney Brown), that makes for the night's most striking moment. With that trio of writers, you'd expect something mercilessly goofy, so imagine my surprise to discover one of the most slice-of-life sketches that has ever sliced life, playing out the final conversation between an apartment tenant (Phil), and the doorman who has greeted him every day for years (Danny). It's a premise that risks schmaltz if not for the themes of alienation that it explores, namely that the communal living of an apartment complex does not equate to actual community; lives are merely reduced to specific traits within Danny's conversations with the building's tenants—a strange gray streak of hair, or an awkward limp—though for as much as Danny binds everyone together, his relationship with them seldom goes beyond exchanging pleasantries. It's a poignant examination of that in-between world where you know someone, but you don't really know them at the same time, a reality that isn't necessarily sad so much as it is just a byproduct of the strange ways that our lives intersect with the people around us. A part of me wonders if there's a bit of subtext built in there, too. For as beloved a fixture of the cast as Phil Hartman is, his relationship to many of his fellow castmates is not dissimilar from that between his and Danny's characters: professional and friendly, but enigmatic and generally nonintimate. It's an unexpected note for the episode to end on, but a good one.
Where to next for this season? Who can say! I'm done predicting and pattern-finding for now. This was a good episode—not great, but good—and that's that. I'm just happy to watch the show try things. (Penned 8/16/24)
GRADE: B.
12/12/87: Angie Dickinson / David Gilmour, Buster Poindexter (S13E07)
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Season 13 continues to be Season 13, which is not intrinsically a bad thing. I think, at times, it can just be a bit hard to get super jazzed about. It's not that there's a lack of ambition at the show in a similar vein to other more ambivalent-feeling seasons; there's a very steady consistency. But it also feels like we're quietly biding our time until the show is truly ready to take off into its second golden era. In the meantime, we're treated to episodes which drift along amiably and score enough laughs to keep you satiated, but are forgotten about as quickly as they were consumed. With Angie Dickinson at the helm for this week, it's business as usual in an overwhelmingly "business as usual" season.
Angie, to her credit, is a decent host. Not amazing, but decent. She has the energy of someone who the cast was happy to work with, but who will never host again (and indeed, she didn't!), and she's slotted about the night appropriately, if rarely asked to carry anything. The only thing that feels like it was really written for her is, of course, the spoof on the show that gave her decades-long career a second wind, Police Woman, but even there, she's kept within a fairly limited role. The sketch imagines a crossover episode between her and Nora's Mary Beth Lacey (from Cagney & Lacey, for the other people my age who are reading this, likely by accident), and there is something of a fun interplay between the two's very differing portrayals of female cops—Angie gets by on wooing suspects with her femininity, whereas Nora's the sort of brash, no-nonsense cop that'll bust all the balls that are in her path—but it ultimately becomes an exercise in Jon screaming in disgust about how flagrantly unattractive Nora is while Angie waits patiently on the other side of an office door. It's funnier than it should be, because Jon has a way with bellowing, but it's a bit of an underwhelming, mean-spirited outcome to a sketch that could do a more interesting satirical examination of clashing archetypes from different time periods. Angie's better served in the airplane sketch—the only piece she's allowed to really anchor—casting her as a stewardess who roams the aisles of an airplane in the dead of night, asking some very concerning, leading questions to the passengers about how capable they would be of successfully landing a plane in the case of an emergency in about 10-15 minutes. It's a quieter concept with some pretty big laughs, and every increasingly-detailed reveal works; there could be even more absurdity to it, but Angie suffocating Jan for making too much of a scene, and then having to place blind faith in Phil's blatantly insane passenger to save the day ("Look, the color red. I invented that color. I invented most of the primary colors.") brings a delightfully chaotic touch to the overwhelming deadpan.
The night's other most interesting pieces were penned by some of the show's most beloved and promising acolytes, though again, none stand as particularly memorable in the long run. Andy Breckman is back for the week, penning both the aforementioned airplane sketch and "Wedgie Fever," a fake game show where wrong answers earn the show's contestants an increasingly dire wedgie. It exists to be lightly silly and heavily sophomoric, as Breckman's work is so frequently prone to being, though it does at least find a fun turn with the reveal that Jon is deliberately throwing the show to fulfill his masochistic delights—and admittedly, his high-pitched, castrating screams of "OOOOOOKLAHOMAA!!" are delightful. (It's a good night for fans of shouty Lovitz!) We also get the enjoyable Christmas party sketch courtesy of Jack Handey, where polite, aimless chit-chat keeps accidentally triggering the increasingly arbitrary personal tragedies of every guest: "I say that all in all, it's a good life." "Life... that's what [Victoria's] father got for embezzlement." It's the sort of idea that Handey should knock out of the park, allowing him to free-associate into uncharted, feverish territory, though aside from some very fun, individual moments (I love the mention of Nora's parents being run over by "a very fast glacier"), it can't quite do enough. Still, I'll take those sketch's simpler joys over sketches that don't offer any joy at all.
It also serves in this episode's favor that even the lowlights aren't particularly low. We do get, for instance, the perverse delight of watching Dana try out a new character who doesn't take off at all: Drunk Man, a superhero who realistically has no powers aside from the unearned confidence of a belly full of whiskey. It's alright for a quick laugh, though for someone who seems to thrive entirely on catchphrases, it's a bit shocking how thoroughly un-sticky "You're my best friend in the whole world" is, despite his repeated insistence. There's also a Donahue sketch, because the monkey's paw dictates that I can never go too many episodes in my watchthrough without being confronted by a recent death. (RIP, Dabney Coleman and Phil Donahue.) It's unfair to compare this one against the two previous Donahues—both of which border on classics—but this definitely feels like a lesser installment, using the format of Donahue's show less as a means to skewer sensationalized daytime television so much as to poke fun at the varying perceptions of Jan's charmless, desperate Nancy Reagan and Nora's Raisa Gorbachev, whose every remark inspires an applause break. There are some good beats, like the audience aww-ing when Raisa announces that the Soviet Union has no plans of invading the US, but it's too topical to become anything more than it was on the night it aired. The same goes for the cold open, where the entire joke is Kevin's poor, largely-uninformed translations of Gorbachev's UN speech, though it's buoyed by his usual charisma, and I'm just happy to get pure irreverence in place of another clunky movie parody to frame current events.
If there's one thing that this episode gets better than a lot of the others this season, it's that, for once, it boasts some fun musical guests! Granted, it is a bit damning for Season 13's litany of bad, sludgy musical performances that I will consider Buster Poindexter to be a legitimate highlight in spite of how exhausting his brand could be last season, but "Hot Hot Hot" is the sort of dumb, flashy, pure energy musical number that I can't help but get at least a little bit behind. Everyone's just jamming! The musicians form a conga line through the audience! And it's fun to see Buster gleefully playing the biggest song of his entire career before the crushing weight hits him that it'll be the most popular and inescapable thing he's ever done. All of this pales in comparison, though, to the real treat of the episode: Pink Floyd's David Gilmour jamming with G.E. Smith, T-Bone Wolk, and the rest of the SNL band for four minutes of undeniable excellence. It is funny to compare the two musical guests, really; while Buster engages in campy pageantry, David's got the gait of a man whose life is in a state of perpetual hangover, knowing that he doesn't have a thing in the world to prove. It kicks serious ass, and between this and Eddie Van Halen's performance last season, I wish this sort of thing could've become more of a norm for the show in these years.
But yeah, as a whole, this was just another entry into the show's ever-expanding catalogue, neither good nor bad enough to make its presence more known. Keep it moving, keep it moving. (Penned 9/03/24)
GRADE: B.
12/19/87: Paul Simon / Linda Ronstadt with The Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán (S13E08)
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At last, a truly strong episode for S13! And who better to bring that out of the show than Paul Simon? A part of me wonders if there's an emergency panic button in Lorne's office that causes Paul to drop everything and sprint to the studio, though this is the first time in a while that he's hosting, seemingly, to promote the show's stability; we're past the point where we need him to serve as, shall we say, a bridge over troubled waters. S13 is troubled in other ways, arguably—a consistency that risks feeling like the show is underachieving, despite everything at its disposal—though for SNL, it's a success. The show has survived the court of public opinion. SNL is cool again! So yeah, why not bring back Paul to really make a point out of that, and send us into the holiday break with some old-school holiday cheer?
Not enough can be said, truly, of how SNL has been able to so consistently find shocking comedy chops within such an unassuming, tiny man. The castaways sketch that Jack Handey contributes up top is not only a massive highlight for this episode (and by extension, this season), but it's a piece whose success lay, in no small part, in how beautifully Paul underplays his character, finding emotional depth within a sketch that, on the page, is entirely conceptual. The idea is Handey perfection, casting Paul and Victoria as two lovebirds who celebrate Christmas on a desert island in the best way they can manage—only for Victoria to display miraculous ingenuity that leaves Paul's offerings of pretty shells and pot-holders feeling personally mortifying—but the ability for every single joke to land rests entirely in the impeccable chemistry between Jack and Victoria. It could be a far more cynical scene, with Paul being left aghast by Victoria's gifts to the degree of becoming almost angry at the audacity of them, but there's a warmth that permeates it, no doubt because Paul and Victoria share a very sweet, down-home quality as performers that instead fills your heart with the fuzzies. Paul similarly offers tremendous assists to both the Sweeney Sisters and Hans and Franz, two recurrers whose heavily-templated nature often doesn't leave much room to make a big impact. Fortunately, though, the fast-track to comedy is often just torturing Paul: having Nora and Jan shout his own lyrics back at him in the former, and six foot-tall Kevin Nealon flinging him around like a ragdoll in the latter, are priceless escalations that offer both pieces some much-needed pep.
Speaking of recurrers, this episode also offers up an appropriately festive new outing for the Master Thespian, removing him from his usual estate in favor of a mall Santa job—which is, of course, treated with his usual, confounding theatricality. It's a solid change of formula for the character, and pairing Jon up with Phil (portraying his exasperated handler) makes for a lovely display of their severely-underrated Groundlings camaraderie that helps push the piece's enjoyability beyond being another case of SNL having fun with little kids acting against the cast. They also shine, alongside Kevin, in what would become one of this era's most beloved recurring segments, with the "Sincerely Speaking" sketch marking the world's introduction to the unlikely power trio of Tonto, Tarzan, and Frankenstein. It's the sort of thing that's funny just because it is, with Nora moderating them through a community access show where they simply comment on how they feel about various topics... and of course, Frankenstein thinks fire is bad. It's Handey's characteristically deft hand in weighing the absurdity of the characters against the mundane scenario that enables its success, and an exceedingly rare break from the usually unflappable Phil makes for a particularly joyful capper, even before they close everything out with one of their trademark, mumbly holiday carols.
The rest of the night fluctuates between good and merely okay, but never detracts. I particularly loved the subway sketch, with Phil portraying as a subway begger who makes up a different story with every walk up and down a train car to solicit as many donations as possible. It's clever, brisk, and performed by Phil with an absolute viciousness as he whips the passengers back and forth with every manipulative emotional swing he's got. (Gotta love Phil making the case that he's the greatest cast member of all time multiple times in the same episode.) Less successful, if admirable, is the sequel to last season's great truck stop cafe sketch, where Jan's waitress recounts a particularly fateful night shift and reflects on the past year as her shift winds down. I'm always happy to see slice-of-life content find a place in the show, and it's a thoughtful note to end the episode on, but it ultimately still amounts to the recounting of a story at the expense of any real action onstage. I'd also be remiss not to mention the great musical performances from Linda Ronstadt, who commands the stage with a mariachi medley so stunning that it almost makes me want to look more into that genre; for the normies, she also performs a less surprising duet with Paul Simon on "Under African Skies," officially making Graceland the most mercilessly-promoted album in SNL's history. Can't complain!
Will this be the pinnacle of the season? Probably, and that is a bit bittersweet to consider. But it's nice to know that the show still has that strength inside of it, even if it needs just a little more gestation time before it can pull off episodes like this on the regular. And hey: a good episode is a good episode, no matter what! Let's all celebrate that. (Penned 10/08/24)
GRADE: A-.
1/23/88: Robin Williams / James Taylor (S13E09)
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I wish I loved Robin Williams, I really do. I have nothing but respect for his place within the annals of comedy, for his strong dramatic work, and for his reputation as a remarkably decent person in a historically scummy field. But as a comedian? I've always found him incredibly hard to key into. Robin Williams hosting gigs, then, are the sort of venture that only work if you're an unquestioning fan of his zany energy, and I don't intend that as a criticism; It's obvious to see why he remains a comedy superstar, and the audience is eating out of the palm of his hand all night. But I find that, in spite of his theoretical, chameleonic skillset, he's never been the sort of host that makes for a fine hour of sketch, because the extent that Robin remains "on," through every sketch and every moment in between, is legitimately exhausting. With his third and final hosting gig, we've definitely hit the ceiling on that.
If there's an interesting theme to much of the episode that points to some level of self-awareness, it's how many sketches tonight seem to directly say, "Yeah, Robin's energy can be a bit much, can't it?" Sometimes this works well, and sometimes it doesn't. On one hand, we get the proud dad sketch, which probably ranks as his greatest piece on SNL, in no small part due to the smart writing allowing him to go wild with purpose. I'm always a sucker for these sketches that play around with early technology and their cultural impact (see: video will, Needleman), and casting Robin as a soon-to-be father who is infinitely more focused on creating an entertaining home video than providing comfort to his laboring wife ("Now where is Cheryl through all this?" "I was holding the camera...") is a masterstroke—I can't think of a lot of hosts who could do the piece better. On the other hand, though, are pieces like the "I wuv you" sketch or a disappointing reprise of "Discover," which substitute joke-writing for a reliance on Robin aggressively selling what he's been presented. The former at least has a vaguely slice-of-life premise that should work, with Robin being unable to confess his love to Jan without falling into insincere voices to avoid sincerity, but as the night's final piece, it both feels very rushed and very exhausting with how battered-down we've become over the course of the episode. The latter, meanwhile, is just Robin playing a "trans-channeler" who connects with the spirit realm to invoke the consciousness of the deceased... aka, an excuse for him to hit up whatever voices he hadn't already across the episode. It's pretty ignoble way for such a strong recurrer from Phil to go out.
If there's one sketch I'm sad I couldn't I like more, it's the "Robin Jr." piece, imagining Robin in his old age interacting with his son (Dana), who very much inherited his zeal for life. There is an unintentional, bittersweet nature to the sketch for obvious, tragic reasons that serves to its benefit, though once again, it gets too bogged-down by its playfulness. Perhaps it's the lack of a tight script, but it feels like it doesn't drift towards the more poignant aspects of its concept—Robin mourning the loss of his fame amidst some poor career moves, or acknowledging that he must've been a difficult father to tolerate—nearly as much as it focuses on Dana and Robin mercilessly riffing at each other to a degree of white noise. With that being said, the pair have a nice sense of chemistry that keeps it from ever becoming truly unbearable, and despite its otherwise formless nature, it does end with a legitimately great closing line: "I haven't got the heart to tell him he's a foster child."
The rest of the night... is how it is, often struggling to pace itself between Robin's energy and several shockingly energy-sucking pieces. "Learning to Feel" is the most successful from a strategic standpoint, a take on the apathetic "self-help" shows that were rampant in this era; it's one of Nora's better explorations of 80s self-importance, with her host doing little more than approaching her guests' difficulties with a rhetorical question of, "Have you looked at yourself?" Meanwhile, this episode also features the show's inaugural, overlong awards show sketch—oh, joy! There's very little of comic value to be found in "The ACE Awards," sarcastically celebrating "cable excellence"; the best that can be said about it is that it isn't too painful despite its droll, nine minute runtime, and there are a few scattered laughs if you really squint. (I enjoyed Kevin winning best picture for C.H.U.D., three years in a row.) Shout-out to James Taylor as well, who makes for a decent palate cleanser most of the time. Your mileage may vary on the guy, but his acapella performance of "That Lonesome Road," a song he performed at Belushi's funeral, is particularly affecting.
But yeah, in summation: Robin Williams is Robin Williams. His episode is a Robin Williams episode. Unmistakable or unbearable? It's all in the eye of the beholder. (Penned 11/08/24)
GRADE: C.
1/30/88: Carl Weathers / Robbie Robertson (S13 E10)
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I apologize for being the most disgustingly politically-correct bastard who's ever written about SNL, and it's mighty reductive of Carl Weathers' illustrious career as a professional football player-turned-actor, but all I could think as I saw his hosting gig slowly approaching on my watch-through was, "Hmm, I wonder how this era of SNL will handle a black host." (Yes, we had Malcolm-Jamal Warner last season, but there, it was more a matter of the show accommodating for a teenaged host than anything else.) However strong of an era as this is in terms of its cast and overall host selection, it's also blindingly, ghoulishly white, and the idea of bringing a person of color into the fray is nothing short of daunting. What will the cast and writers cook up? Will the host be treated with the sort of dignity bestowed upon our usual hosts, or will they have to amble through the gauntlet of material that comes with the writers getting to have a black person to write for? As it turns out, this episode fell somewhere in the middle: that Carl Weathers is a black man hosting SNL is unignorable throughout much of the night's material, but for the most part, its opportunism rarely feels restrictive. Carl's moment in the sun is unfettered, and he gets to enjoy what almost every other host this season has gotten to enjoy—a functional, robust, but still-not-fully-there S13 episode all his own!
To some extent, I can't fault SNL for using Carl in some of the ways that it does, anyway. How would we go about a Democratic debate sketch, for instance, without a performer who's able to portray Jesse Jackson? It reeks of the same awkwardness that we had to endure in the late aughts when the show lacked a performer who could play Michelle Obama (and barely had one who could portray Barack), though with this being SNL, it's nice in a damning sense to see a Jesse Jackson impression that isn't accomplished with brown face paint and Carl acquits himself well to the material, waxing so poetic that he loses the plot of his own talking points. The sketch itself is a pretty solid ensemble effort, working through the cast's impressions of every Democratic candidate efficiently while granting all of them their own little comedic beats, and it makes for a nice contrast to the modern show's way about political content of only really focusing on the most "significant" politicians. (I particularly enjoyed the candidate's internal monologues while Dana's Richard Gephardt drones endlessly—including Jon's Dukakis having to convince himself that he deserves to be president, and Dennis' ironic, non-impression of Gary Hart scoping out women in the crowd to sleep with.) I also enjoyed this episode's installment of The NFL Today, which for once has a more coherent comic game at-hand than just "sports": following Jimmy the Greek's firing for making insensitive comments of black athletes, he's returned to the program on a probationary period and pulled a complete 180, reinventing himself as a radical, outspoken Black Power activist. There's a somewhat delicate premise at play to it, but Phil is just so goddamn fun with his egregiously progressive spin on Jimmy the Greek, suggesting James Baldwin books to the show's remote guest and protesting how white athletes have had it too good for too long, that it glides along that razor-thin line regardless. The main tragedy is just that Carl is relegated to such a minor, thankless straight man role when his presence could've brought the premise more bite, but maybe we should just count our blessings that he wasn't actively degraded.
Elsewhere, the episode sticks Carl into recurring premises, to mixed but never outright terrible effect. I was more than happy to see the return of Phil's insane, violent mother-in-law character from last season's John Larroquette episode, for instance, this time contending with her daughter bringing home a black boyfriend. It's a far more cluttered scene than the previous installment, with the inclusion of Jon as her gay hairdresser being especially strange, though I don't mind fleshing the world of the characters out more; that the sketch concludes in a shoot-out between Carl and Phil, complete with some nice, detailed set destruction, is also an exciting bit of escalation that makes it all feel worthwhile, even if I prefer the original's simplicity. The night's Master Thespian segment is slightly less successful, meanwhile, because it gets bogged down in its unneeded, racial angle by casting Carl as a legendary Chinese actor who is so skilled that he's transformed, physically, into a black man. To some extent, it's amusing for Master Thespian to have really met his match with someone so gifted that he defies his physical form, and Carl is actually quite adept at mirroring Jon's theatricality, but it just strikes me as reductive of Carl that his race has to be tied into a sketch that doesn't really call for it, and the fact that the premise of the sketch pays off in him re-emerging as Dana, doing his usual Ching Change routine, makes for a needlessly rancid conclusion.
The best sketch of the episode, and a real keeper for this season, is the one that isn't bogged down by race at at all, a subversive little piece where Carl plays an agent tormenting Jan on her and Phil's honeymoon about the secret life she's fought so hard to leave behind her: being a successful sitcom actress. I always adore these sorts of premises, written with a healthy degree of cheekiness but performed as whole-heartedly as they are by Jan and Phil—two of the show's most talented dramatic actors—and likening the steady, unremarkable career of sitcom acting to a life of prostitution ("[My fiancée] doesn't watch television! He's good and decent!") is such a hilarious analogue to explore. This'll never be the sort of sketch to make it onto the highlight reels, but as someone who obsesses over these deep cuts where you simply get to sit back and marvel at the cast translating such a compellingly weird idea, it's precisely the sort of thing I love to discover on my watch-through.
While there may have been a slightly negative sentiment to how I've navigated much of this episode's material, it's certainly not a bad episode; I just find it hard not to interpret many of the sketches through any lens beyond the show's need to mine Carl Weathers' blackness for all it's worth, especially when he was at his most compelling in a role that didn't feel a need to acknowledge it. As a person of color, I think it's a very interesting, and dare I say valuable thing to trace within the show, while also doing my best to be fair and level-headed about what SNL is, and always has been, throughout much of its history (white, white, white). We're obviously doing leagues better than we have in the past with hosts like Cicely Tyson, and it is sort of nice for the show to meaningfully engage with the ideas that it does, but it's not until there will be a greater sense of diversity at the show that we can begin to see these sorts of things proliferate honestly and naturally. Still, there's an effortless feel that keeps things fun and amusing, and Carl is an endearing host, even if there are rarely any massive highs being reached. We're calling that a win! (Penned 12/19/24)
GRADE: B.
2/13/88: Justine Bateman / Terrance Trent D'Arby (S13 E11)
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While I feel like S13, at large, hasn't been up to as much as a lot of other online critics personally think, something about the unanimously middling reception of this episode has made it strangely mystifying to me. One critic's trash could be another's treasure; I recall finding the Valerie Bertinelli episode last season to be very underrated, for instance, in spite of the so-so response it's attracted from a lot of others. With that being said, allow me to join the Greek chorus here: this is not a particularly good episode of SNL, and while there are flashes of potential and no shortage of intentionality, it just can't quite crystallize in a way that's all that enjoyable to watch.
I leverage part of that assessment at Justine Bateman—a woman whose career seemingly begins and ends with Family Ties, and who at present seems vaguely famous for saying stuff about the industry that people applaud in between being a MAGA terf poopyhead. While it's true that a host doesn't need to be particularly strong for a show to work (see: the aforementioned Bertinelli ep), her high visibility across the night means that her flat presence and lack of comic intuition constantly hammer into the already-weak proceedings. The closest the show gets to building a sketch around her is in its centerpiece, a parody of Family Ties that playfully dogs on the fact that it may be the first television show to beat the clip show format to death. While I'm not familiar enough with the show to become truly enraptured in it as a parody, it's a rather fun critique of the repetitive nature of episodic television, teasing massive shifts in the status quo that, of course, never come to pass and never threaten to take the cast outside of their cozy living room set. Instead, we find ourselves burrowing deeper and deeper into bizarre flashbacks until we end up, inexplicably, in the middle of a Jeffersons episode. Throw in some silly contributions from everyone in the cast, including Dana's delightful Michael J. Fox impression and Victoria-as-Jennifer's dialogue consisting only of "yeah"s, and you've got a pretty good time.
It also sets up a very strange theme for this episode: a lot of the sketches are trying and repetitive, whether intentional or not, and they work to highly varying degrees of success. The recurring material suffers the most. The retread of Nora's "Learning to Feel" is a very transparent copy-and-paste job on an already internally copy-and-paste sketch, rendering the entire exercise basically pointless, and while the Derrick Stevens sketch at least strikes upon a new scenario—with Derrick fawning insufferably over his muse (Justine) while she fruitlessly attempts to end their relationship—all it manages to do is be outright grating in the way that Dana, when not given tighter restraint, is all too prone of. I have more respect for the Friday Night Videos parody that finishes off the episode, even though it's unsuccessful as a whole. If nothing else, it's a unique foray into anti-comedy, with Justine (stiff as ever) and Dana's George F. Well struggling to establish a rapport as incongruous guest hosts on the program who can barely muster a few minutes of small talk. Its main weakness, aside from being overlong, is that in a night where you're already desperate for laughs, a sketch so dry, awkward, and high-concept just cements those flaws instead of offering a fun counterweight. The one, unequivocal success of the episode is Kevin's "St. Valentine's Massacre" piece, where he struggles to put across the aggressively simple bank robbery plan of "In and out, nobody gets hurt" to his bone-headed lackeys. For once, the repetition actually fuels the sketch's momentum as we burrow deeper and deeper into the minutiae of his surface-level scheme and get lost in semantics that shouldn't even be there ("So what, do we go out the same door we come in?" "Good question, good question, the answer is yes."), and while it might not rank as among Kevin's best, it's another reminder of how deeply underrated and invaluable he is to this current cast.
Ultimately, though, this week will probably be most remembered for the fact that it touts Dan Aykroyd's first return to SNL since his departure as a cast member—an exciting proposition that is sadly, generally wasted on the episode's political cold open. I'll admit that by this point I've simply become too jaded to appreciate a ten minute-long cold open regardless of its quality, though it's not the worst. It's basically a successor to last week's Democratic Debate sketch, this time concerning the Republican candidates vying for presidency in '88. Dan's presence carries it along by the strength of his sheer charisma, and he has a solid Bob Dole impression, even if Norm McDonald will always have the definitive take; he's mostly there to get into a political catfight with George Bush, which has finally begun to establish itself as one of Dana's signature roles. I think the previous debate sketch worked better because it was more focused on the ensemble and giving everyone in the cast their own bit, though there's still fun to be had with the ancillary impressions that pad out the piece's remaining runtime. (Al Franken's smiley Pat Robinson impression is the piece's greatest delight, surprisingly.) If an episode's main claim to fame, though, is that it features the return of a cast member, in a bloated political cold open, performing the non-definitive impression of a politician, we're not really cooking with gas.
There kind of isn't anything worse than a flat host being worked through flat sketches, but that's the Justine Bateman episode in a nutshell! Hopefully Tom Hanks can come in next week and bring SNL the sort of energy it needs to truly sing. (Penned 1/23/25)
GRADE: C.
2/20/88: Tom Hanks / Randy Travis (S13 E12)
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After the knockout success of Tom Hanks' first episode—which was something of a coup for the struggling Season 11—it's a bit shocking that it took him two seasons to return, though perhaps it reflects positively on SNL that they waited for their sense of confidence to return before bringing him back around for some fun. Indeed, by Hank's account, this was an episode with a very different vibe to his first gig. In the SNL oral history book, he speaks on how that eager-to-impress attitude was gone, supplanted by the more relaxed, if arguably complacent feel of working with someone who already understood the show's motions. It's an interesting analysis, especially as he asserts that he doesn't feel that this hosting gig was particularly great, because none of that fatigue is all that visible; while the show feels assured about Hank's ability to get things over, that encourages them to roam more freely, cultivating an eclectic blend of witty and writerly pieces. If anything, this might feel like a lesser episode solely because it feels like a warm-up to the classics that Hanks is yet to host—a rather uncourteous read of an episode which is quite strong in its own right.
It's nice to see, for instance, that Hanks has already gotten to the place of being entrusted with reliable, recurring segments. Memorably, this stint touts the debut of the Girl Watchers, one of Conan's earliest, memorable contributions to the show (working alongside Smigel); it's one of those simple, indelible bits that perfectly melds performance and writing, as Jon and Tom bomb cat-call after cat-call while schmoozily expressing their greatest deficiencies to one another. ("The good lord gave me this body and there ain't no changing it now!" "Amen!") There's no shortage of cuckold-adjacent humor throughout the annals of SNL, a show that was probably built, in part, off the backs of nebbish losers who really wanted to get laid, but it's their glassy-eyed confidence that sells every line, as if the characters have relegated themselves to defeat so prematurely that they're just doing it for the love of the game. We also get the return of the Stand-Ups, one of my favorite bits of Smigel nonsense. As with the Girl Watchers, Tom and Jon make for a wonderful pair as they spout their dumb little observations incessantly to one another, though Dennis' inclusion is the cherry on top (why is it that I like him infinitely more doing sketches than Update?), and there's a fun game to this iteration as the mask of the characters falters repeatedly—as when Jon speaks of his girlfriend leaving him, or Dennis and Jon getting into a violent tussle over different versions of the same joke—only for them to snap back into their usual shtick at the drop of a hat.
And if anything, Tom feels like a champion of everything that he's a part of, regardless of how destined for success it may be, and he tactfully lands plenty of pieces that, in less skilled hands, don't necessarily spell out success. "The Bean Cafe" is literally just one prolonged fart joke, with every bit of dialogue and happenstance foreshadowing a toot that will never come, but his eager, lived-in performance as the cafe's proprietor helps maintain the very tongue-in-cheek tone that the piece's lowbrow humor is entirely dependent upon. He brings that same quality to the Apple Support Systems sketch, where his anxious, technologically-challenged wreck of an employee is plodded along Kevin's gentle guidance as a helpline systems operator. There isn't all that much on the page to this one either, which almost feels like an improvised scenario (and intriguingly, Tom himself is credited as a writer along with Kevin, so perhaps it was), but again, Tom is able to find something specific within his characters that gives them life beyond just being in a "bit"; I especially love his nervous physicality, and the way he shakes his hands in the air while trying to find the right keys to press. Basically, he's an incredibly naturalistic performer, while also being naturally funny, which is a stellar combo.
Another nice thing about this episode is that it feels like we've officially gotten to a place with how established the show's cast is that we can interact with the show's meta in more intriguing and gratifying ways, especially in regards to their images and personas. Jon, for instance, debuts his memorable "Get to know me!" bit at the Update desk, fusing the bombastic, holier-than-thou attitude of the Master Thespian into his own comic identity in a concentrated dose of comedy perfection. It's like seeing him become Jon Lovitz, the rapscallion, in real time, as he screams at the audience about the value in making his acquaintance, and they're readily eating out of the palm of his hand the entire time. ("Now I know some of you are probably thinking, what a jerk! Congratulations, you're getting to know me!") Victoria also possesses a similar, but arguably more striking command on the audience in her memorable character-breaking Update appearance, where she suddenly lowers her register, rips off her blonde hair, and reveals her ditzy persona to be nothing more than a cheap act. The joke, of course, is that her usual Update poetry is no less naive, but she locks into the character of her "true self" more tightly than anything she's ever done on SNL before, and for a moment, you can almost suspend your disbelief. For someone who usually clears a very low bar, it's a masterful display.
I would also make the argument that, while Phil Hartman is a fully-formed performer from the very start and who never illuminates the audience on his true self, even he benefits from this audience familiarity in a major way with one of the episode's most unusual highlights, Jack Handey's "Giant Businessman." It's a brilliantly stupid bit, with Phil's eponymous character getting into an uncomfortable feud with his loud neighbors, but its bizarre anti-comedy only plays because of how seriously Phil approaches his character; he's a giant second to being a human being who simply wants some peace and quiet, and his stature grants him no less a sense of vulnerability and fearfulness. The punchline is so perfect that I won't even mention it here, lest that be taken away from any first-time viewer, but suffice to say, nobody but Phil could do this. He's similarly strong in the night's closing sketch, as a pawnbroker who assesses the worth of items based on their sentimental value. It's the sort of high-concept piece that I love, and while there are bouts of dark humor—Phil insists that Kevin should wait for both of his parents to pass before pawning off a childhood toy so that its value will increase—by and large, it's got a surprisingly earnest sense of sweetness to it that allows the night to end on a warm note. In both cases, Phil's sense of command as a performer awards him a level of trust with the audience to navigate tricky tonalities perfectly, whether it's stringing them along for a shaggy dog story or giving them ample room to feel something bittersweet. I could probably write a paragraph in every episode review about how amazing Phil Hartman is, but these two pieces, at opposite ends of the episode, strike me as a particularly compelling yin and yang that speak to his sheer genius.
And so, with both a host and cast operating at the height of their powers, it feels like we're finally starting to narrow that gap between this era's potential and its ability to actualize success. Whether or not the season's unplanned finale will be a good episode, it fills me with hope that those legendary '80s years of the show are as good as they say—and I'm fully ready for Tom Hanks to come back for his next stint (which is, humorously, only two episodes away) and absolutely crush it. (Penned 2/21/25)
GRADE: B+.
2/27/88: Judge Reinhold / 10,000 Maniacs (S13 E13)
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And so, after over a year of wading through SNL's thirteenth season, we find ourselves at its unintended finale, and while we've seen the season prove that it's ready to shift into a higher gear, the note it ends on is, regrettably, as lukewarm as I've come to expect. It's not that the show is bad right now so much as it's often lacking in that indescribable factor that makes SNL shine the brightest—an effortlessness, a vigor, a sense that they've made magic happen in one week that justifies the arduous means of production. It can make criticism hard, because effort should be rewarded more than some abstract "it factor," but that's just the nature of the beast: sometimes, they just don't have it, for weeks or months at a time. The Judge Reinhold episode is a casualty of that overall trend for the season, in spite of its best efforts.
A part of that issue may be, perhaps, that Judge is not that compelling of a person to center the show around; even at his best, in the Beverly Hills Cops franchise, he's an affable but interchangeable second fiddle. He also didn't endear himself to the writers too much, by some accounts: Greg Daniels remarked that he was the least pleasant host to work with during his entire tenure, and that he seemed more interested in strolling around New York than working with the writers. (One has to wonder if the pirates sketch was a dig at his lack of popularity that week, with Dana and Kevin—equipped with massive, exotic birds on their shoulders—laughing at him behind his back for his lame parakeet perch.) He's never a detrimental host, but he doesn't do the material any favors when it's in need of a slight push, and at his worst comes across as rather halting. That's an especially frustrating issue for "When Great Minds Meet," a fake talk show hosted by Jon that imagines a panel of some of the greatest minds throughout all of history... but immediately hits a snag when its amazing line-up are too distracted by the mundane need to know who they are and what they've done. (It's something of a Jack Handy specialty. If not for the fact that "Succinctly Speaking" would spin off into an entire universe of sketches with Tonto, Tarzan, and Frankenstein, this feels like a spiritual successor.) While the script has no shortage of great little moments, and everyone in the cast portrays their historical figures with an amusing dryness while Jon stares off at them in disbelief, Judge's Jefferson Davis feels all wrong, as if he's putting too much effort in and trying to get laughs from material which, in theory, should capitalize brilliantly on his plainness.
Elsewhere, the episode is frequently awash with a lack of truly successful ideas that Judge simply works his way through, effortfully but unimpressively. There is something to "The Cop and The Prostitute," a fake sitcom whose preposterous premise is laid out with an ironic level of sincerity, but neither Judge nor Victoria are able to elevate its subtleties into bigger laughs (in spite of the two turning in some of their best sketch performances). Meanwhile, "Jorge Garcia: Nice Guy Dictator" has a premise I'm fully onboard with for that weird, erudite silliness that this era thrives on, but it feels like it's too focused on simply crafting its straightforward concept—what if, instead of being ruthless, a dictator was pretty chill?—rather than finding a sense of fun within its titular character. When the joke is laid out so directly, you have to do more than simply demonstrate it. SNL also tries its luck with another airplane sketch, where the entire joke is that increasing deregulations have transformed a plane into a slum full of roving children, hanging laundry, and stewardesses whoring themselves out to passengers in the hopes of scrounging up a few bucks in concessions. The painterly detail with which the show's writers craft their premises is admirable as usual, but the premise is too skeevy for this era to be able to put across without feeling like they're a bunch of yuppies punching down on the things that scare them.
What ends up keeping this episode afloat are the things that the show has wisely chosen as its main fail-safes: some retreads of their smash hit recurrers, and a terrific fake commercial. While the most topical iterations of Church Chat tend to miss with me, this might be one of my favorite installments if not just because it features two things I unabashedly love: Al Franken's smiley Pat Robertson, whose two appearances might rank as some of his finest moments on SNL, and Phil Hartman chewing the rafters, this time with his portrayal of disgraced televangelist Jimmy Swaggart as a blubbering, teary-eyed mess who begs for forgiveness as the Church Lady goads him about his shameful sexual proclivities. ("They are grievous chasms of torturous hellfire sin!!") I have no idea why these years were so rife with televangelist scandals (maybe organized religion is just kind of a mess?), but the sharp, intrinsically funny performances from everyone involved are a great way of cutting past the topicality, and I hope that'll be a continual source of strength as we venture deeper into this era of the show. There's also more Hans and Franz, affirming Dana's place at the show as the latest golden boy, and while I don't have terribly much to say about it as always, it remains a nice enough palette cleanser to start an episode off with, and the visual of Kevin and Dana doing their dumb, shaky posturing while the official Olympics theme swirls overhead is worth a chuckle. Best of all in this episode, though, is the pretape for "Wilson Trap Doors," a company that guarantees that their death traps won't have any of the janky faultiness that makes competing options less than ideal. It's such a brilliantly stupid premise as is, but it's sold to absolute perfection with Jon's commercial acting, making exaggerated gestures of frustration at the absurd failures of very non-Wilson trap door. (Alongside "Great Minds," this is a great week for Jon as far as making hilarious facial expressions goes.)
There's enough here in the end that it keeps you from ever checking out too much, but I'd be remiss not to say that it's a bad sign when an episode is made up of almost exclusively writerly pieces and I can't even be bothered to jot down specific lines. At the end of the day, this is a poetic anticlimax to a rather anticlimactic season. To speak generally of the past year, I can't get too angry at the show for playing it safe for the first time that they've even been allowed to in over half a decade, but that doesn't leave it with a ton of outstanding value to revisit all those decades later. But that was never the point; SNL exists to satiate the moment, and it at least succeeded in entertaining its contemporary audience and cultivating its talent. It's interesting to wonder if this season would've ended with more of a lift had the writer's strike not cut it short—the most famous casualty being a slated Gilda Radner episode that, sadly, would never happen—but if general consensus is to be believed, we're in for some real greatness when the show returns in the fall. Here's hoping they can recapture that magic. (Penned 3/12/25)
FINAL GRADE: B-.
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Cumulative Season Ratings
1. Paul Simon / Linda Ronstadt with the Mariachi Vargas
(A-)
2. Tom Hanks / Randy Travis (B+)
3. Dabney Coleman / The Cars (B)
4. Danny DeVito /
Bryan Ferry (B)
5. Robert Mitchum / Simply Red (B)
6. Carl Weathers / Robbie Robertson (B)
7. Angie
Dickinson / David Glimour, Buster Poindexter (B)
8. Sean Penn / LL Cool J, The Pull (B)
9. Judge
Reinhold / 10,000 Maniacs (B-)
10. Steve Martin / Sting
(B-)
11. Justine Bateman / Terence Trent D'Arby (C)
12. Robin Williams / James Taylor (C)
13. Candice
Bergen / Cher (C-)
FAVORITE SKETCHES:
10. "Anne Boleyn" (S13E05 / Candice
Bergen)
9. "Girl Watchers" (S13E12 / Tom
Hanks)
8. "Subway" (S13E08 / Paul Simon)
7. "Succinctly Speaking / A Holiday Message from Tonto, Tarzan, &
Frankenstein" (S13E08 / Paul Simon)
6. "Death Be Not
Deadly" (S13E04 / Robert Mitchum)
5. "Sitcom Actress"
(S13E10 / Carl Weathers)
4. "Mascot Ideas" (S13E03 /
Dabney Coleman)
3. "Giant Businessman" (S13E12 / Tom
Hanks)
2. "Castaways" (S13E08 / Paul Simon)
1. "The Winning Spirit" (S13E03 / Dabney Coleman)
Other great sketches: "Compulsion" and "Sweeney's Comeback" (S13E04 / Robert Mitchum); "Handi-Off," "Mona Lisa," and "Doorman" (S13E06 / Danny DeVito); "Airplane Stewardess" (S13E07 / Angie Dickinson); "Santa Thespian" (S13E08 / Paul Simon); "Birth Tape" (S13E09 / Robin Williams); "The NFL Today" and "Democratic Debate 88" (S13E10 / Carl Weathers); "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (S13E11 / Justine Bateman); "Stand Ups" and "Sentimental Value Pawn Shop" (S13E12 / Tom Hanks); "Wilson Trap Doors" and "Church Chat" (S13E13 / Judge Reinhold)
FAVORITE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES:
9. James Taylor
(S13E09 / Robin Williams)
8. Robbie Robertson (S13E10 /
Carl Weathers)
7. Buster Poindexter (S13E07 / Angie
Dickinson)
6. Paul Simon and Linda Ronstadt (S13E08 /
Paul Simon)
5. Linda Ronstadt with the Mariachi Vargas
(S13E08 / Paul Simon)
4. Terence Trent D'Arby (S13E11 /
Justine Bateman)
3. LL Cool J (S13E02 / Sean Penn)
2. 10,000 Maniacs (S13E13 / Judge Reinhold)
1. David Gilmour (S13E07 / Angie Dickinson)
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WEEKEND UPDATE: I continue to not be particularly impressed by Dennis Miller, and I can't phrase that sentiment very differently from how I spoke of him last season. Again: I get why he's important. But in the same way that I can view, say, Milton Berle as an important figure in the comedy of his era, that doesn't mean that I can twist that half-hearted respect into actual appreciation. (If Milton Berle is too much of a low blow comparison, I was originally gonna say Dane Cook, by the way.) It should be said, too, that a lot of my review compatriot have stated that Dennis' run through S13 is a particularly low ebb for him, though I can't claim to have noticed that much of a difference in quality.
The main aspect of Weekend Update that suggests the segment is headed in a more enjoyable direction, at least for me, is the increased focus on its correspondent pieces. We still get hefty doses of A. Whitney Brown, Kevin Nealon, and Victoria Jackson, which can be quite hit-or-miss, but the willingness to play around more with the format and bring shades of metaness into proceedings has brought about some particularly standout moments. Victoria, as I mentioned before, has done a good job of finding new angles within her comic persona to further ingratiate herself with the show's audience, as has Jon Lovitz, but the most satisfying moment of Dennis' Update tenure so far was casting him against Dana's aggressive Dennis Miller impression for a point-counterpoint segment, which is realistically one of the best uses of both performers: Dennis gives Dana so many easy hooks to formulate his cartoonish take on the guy (just look at how he bobbles his head around!), and Dennis has an opponent that he can actually go toe-to-toe with in the snark department in a way that makes him seem endearing rather than irritating. We've still got a ways to go before the guests can salvage these Updates for me, but at the very least, it's nice for there to be moments where the show can shake me back to life whenever my eyes start to glaze over.
SEASON AVERAGE: B-.
Follow me on Twitter @Matt_a_la_mode, or Bluesky @mattalamode.bsky.social!
SPECIAL THANKS TO MY AMAZING (AND VERY, VERY PATIENT) PATRONS: Andrew Dick, William Ham, Eddie Ham, John Wickham, Jeffrey U, Richard A, Ian Fermaglich, and Donovan D!
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