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“I’m really sorry I’ve never been up this late in my life.”
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I have been a life long fan
of Saturday Night Live and the thing that I love most about it is
the history. Season 20 is one of the most critically reviled seasons
in SNL’s 39 years. Along with the 12 Charles Rocket episodes and
the Anthony Michael Hall season this is one of 3 seasons that pushed
the show to the brink of cancellation. Unlike those seasons though,
I was allowed to stay up late and watch these episodes so I have a
passing remembrance of watching them live. I recently came into
possession of every uncut episode and decided to re-visit them. Needing an outlet for my viewpoints I decided to steal my brother’s
blog and post my feelings here.
To give a historical context
to this season, the year was 1994 and it was the 20th
year of SNL. 9 years earlier Lorne Michaels took back control of
the show and decided to fill it with known talent like Randy Quaid
and Robert Downey Jr. That didn’t work out too well so the next
year the show was re-tooled into what can arguably be called the best
era of the show. Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks and Kevin
Nealon were added to the show and that cast eventually grew to a huge
size picking up stand-ups like Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob
Schneider, and David Spade. Season 19 wasn’t exceptionally well
received either and at it’s conclusion, the show lost stand-outs
Julia Sweeney, Schneider and the “glue that held the cast together”
Phil Hartman.
Season 20 didn’t have a
major cast overhaul. Filling the gaps in the cast were Michael
McKean, who was added at the end of the previous season, Janeane
Garofalo, who had previous sketch experience on “The Ben Stiller
Show”, stand-up Laura Kightlinger, who would later make some
appearances on “Mr. Show”, and one of my favorite people on the
planet, Chris Elliott. The only other shake up was that Norm
MacDonald replaced Kevin Nealon as Weekend Update anchor.
So let’s get into the
possible crap pile. Just to let you know how I’m grading these,
I’m using a 5 star scale, and an inclusion of Chris Elliott will
probably raise a sketch by 1 star, and then I'll give the entire episode an
average rating based on individual sketch ratings. I’ll also be
naming episode MVPs, giving my analysis of the host, and then
re-imaging the show with thoughts about how I could make it better.
Clinton Auditions
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| 4 Stars The current cast auditions for who will play the president this season |
In an odd Meta move to open
the season, SNL decided to address the fact that Phil Hartman left up
front. Sometimes these self-referential jokes don’t work, but this
one did, mainly because it wasn’t really a way to find a Hartman
replacement but to introduce the shtick that the current cast is
going to bring to the show. Farley’s a big fat loud guy, Spade is
the acerbic jackass, Sandler sings goofy songs, Elliott is going to
do his thing no matter what, and Meadows is…the black guy.
One of my biggest
complaints, and probably everyone’s complaints with SNL sketches, is when they go on too long repeating a joke, but I could have sat
through a couple more of these. I would have loved to seen Norm
MacDonald’s take on Clinton and I was surprised Mike Myers wasn’t
in this. Now that I say that, this is really what’s wrong with
this cast, they don’t have enough sketch performers and it’s
mainly a cast made up of stand ups and personalities.
Steve Martin Monologue
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| 3 Stars Martin has written a comedy monologue about soup, and then his inner monologue yells at him because it's so bad |
This is another weird way to
start a show and a season. Martin is one of the best SNL hosts in
history but they made him seem inept. So, Martin comes up with this
unfunny “soup bit” while shopping, then pitches it to the writers
and Lorne and everyone humors him into thinking it is good. Martin
sells this concept well but for the season premiere, with the
quintessential host, you’d expect something bigger. Maybe it’s
hindsight, because I know what’s coming, but it almost feels like
the show is already apologizing for itself.
Home Headache Test
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| 3 Stars How do you know if you have a headache? Take the home headache test. |
This is a better idea than a
concept; the joke is not on the screen but in your mind about how
absurd the product is. Garofalo and Nealon could have been a little
more dramatic in their delivery, but they almost seem sarcastic,
which kind of throws off the reality the sketch is living in.
Simpson Trial
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| 2 Stars Court TV shows some highlights from the OJ Simpson trial |
I forgot that this was the
OJ year. The Bronco chase happened in July and by this time the
trial was just beginning. This was a 7 minute sketch that had no
premise and very slow pacing. I get the fact that they’ve had
about 3 months of OJ coverage and feel like they need to comment on
it but this had no idea, it’s more of a highlight reel of things
that happened in the OJ case since they’ve been on break.
This may have worked with a
solid hook to the sketch, the jury selection bit in the middle made
me smile, Robert Shapiro asking Ellen Cleghorne if she thinks a black
man can be fairly judged in this society. It just seems like there
was a collection of OJ sketches and they decided to dump them all
together. I’ve heard of the comedy rule of threes but the comedy
rule of 8?
Also, Tim Meadows appears as
OJ at the beginning of the sketch and then to give you an idea of how
long this sketch was, he’s able to appear as Al Cowlings at the
end, this also gives you an idea of how many black guys they have in
the cast. Steve Martin is absent in this sketch, and while I don’t
think the host needs to appear in every sketch, it’s odd to have
him non existent in the first sketch after the monologue.
Steve Martin’s Penis Cream
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| 3 Stars Steve Martin endorses a new beauty cream specifically for the penis |
Well, the audience laughed
really hard when Steve says penis. I watched this episode twice,
once to get my gut reaction and then once to take notes. I think the
first time through I was so bored by the previous 7 minutes of OJ
that I wrote this off as infantile. The second time through, while
yes it was infantile, I actually got a lot of laughs out of it. It’s
not a fully realized sketch and it probably would have fit better
later in the night, the basic joke is that he says penis a lot and
it’s a vague masturbation reference.
However, towards the end
when you get lines like, “You know it’s safe because it’s
tested on animals” and “it’s shipped in a plain brown wrapper
with the words ‘Not Penis Cream’ stamped all over it in big red
letters”, the sketch got to me.
Total Bastard Airlines
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| 2 Stars Rude flight attendants dismiss passengers with the instantly quotable catchphrase, "Buh-Bye" |
Believe it or not, there was
a time when “Buh-Bye” was a thing. Watching this with some
distance, it blows my mind that the show only did this sketch twice.
This would be our last Total Bastard Airlines sketch and the world
was a little emptier for it. This really didn’t have a lot of
laughs and the audience was dead for it. The whole sketch had an
aura of “we’re just doing this to do it”, the only part that
had any energy was the end when they dance and break the fourth wall.
I always do like sketches that utilize the entire cast though.
Eric Clapton: "I’m Tore Down”
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| How can you argue with a rocker in a beefy T? |
I’m not rating the musical
guests but I am watching them because they are part of the episode.
A good musical guest can really make or break an episode, by being so
low key or giving a dose of energy to a show.
Weekend Update
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| 4 Stars I'm Norm MacDonald and now the fake News. "The king enjoying a hoagie" |
Here it is, the inaugural
installment of Norm’s Weekend Update, which would become the
standout of the show for the next three years. Weekend Update is the
one piece on the show that has lasted throughout its 40 years and is
only as good as its anchor. Off all the people who have held the
position, Chevy Chase, Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon, Charles Rocket,
none have made it their own as much as Norm MacDonald. In his first
outing, he’s a little quick on the set-ups to punch lines but his
delivery will come into its own later. The thing I loved most about
Norm is that he took his time with the jokes. If something bombed he
would make a comment on it or just stare down the camera until you
laughed. He would make you laugh, no matter what the joke was.
Best jokes:
The next project
for Ken Burns is a 12 hour documentary about the dorky hair cut.
Having your head torn from
your body amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. I’ll admit it’s
cruel but is it really that unusual?
Norm’s biggest weakness
behind the Update desk, or what possibly could have been his strength
depending on how you look at it, was his interaction with the
correspondents. He could care less about the desk pieces, something
Nealon and Seth Meyers excelled at, being the straight man to silly
characters. Norm however seems un phased at seeding his time to
someone else, going so far as to call Adam Sandler’s Gil Graham
character Adam Sandler, “I’m sorry Gil Graham, looks a bit like
Adam Sandler, take off that wig and the funny shirt, dead ringer for
Sandler”, which could have been a jab at how Sandler’s characters
all sounded the same, or that Norm just wanted to tell jokes and used
this time to take a smoke break.
This is also the first
appearance of Norm’s running joke of “Germans love David
Hasselhoff”. This is just one example of the fact that Norm is
hipper than the room.
As for the desk pieces:
Laura Kightlinger uses this
as an excuse to do a stand-up routine. This is billed as a
“commentary” but didn’t really have a clear cut premise.
Gil Graham shows up, which
is Sandler not playing a “noun-man”. Here he gives concert
reviews but the twist is that he either didn’t attend the concerts
or was beaten up and trapped in a port-a-potty. Sandler finds
himself way more amusing than I do.
The Ron Wood Show
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| 2 Stars Ron Wood interviews celebrities |
Mike Myers plays Ron Wood as
he interviews Whoopi Goldberg, Leon Redbone and Gerard Depardieu.
Here’s the joke: Ron Wood is very hard to understand, show of
hands, who remembers Ron Wood? Who knew who Ron Wood was in 1994?
What this sketch did have
going for it was the sight gag of Farley as Depardieu and it obeyed
the comedy rule of threes, unfortunately, it was just the same joke
repeated three times.
Buck Daniels
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| 3 Stars Michael McKean sings the story of Buck Daniels, a country singer who rose to fame and then had a horrific downfall |
In retrospect, this seems
out of place here, with A Mighty Wind and an Oscar nomination for
McKean’s song writing, this could have been great. The song itself
is good but not particularly funny and I’m also not a fan of
singing funny songs on the show because it doesn’t give you enough
time to laugh, you can’t perform a song the same way you can a
monologue, where you can pause for laughs and let things sink in.
SNL is definitely not the correct outlet for this, Steve Martin
doesn’t know how to sell this so he resorts to mugging a lot, which
is unusual for Martin to look uncomfortable.
Nut-riffic
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| 2 Stars An advertising group presents their song for a candy bar "Nut-Riffic" |
Hey, have you ever noticed
that the word “nut” sounds a lot like “not”? That’s the
joke of this sketch, which goes down as the first terrible sketch of
season 20. The jingle is “Nut-riffic: Its nut very good”, which
sounds like the candy bar is bad. Elliott is the bright spot here
with his performance but it can’t save this horrible premise,
although there was one laugh with the insane asylum jingle “It’s
just got more nuts”, but it took 5 minutes to get there.
Super Sports Cruise
Commercial parody for a
cruise line that includes an exurbanite amount of baseball stars.
I didn’t understand this
sketch at all and neither did the audience. It seemed to me like the
joke was to say a lot of baseball player names but then I realized
that the baseball strike was going on at the time. So, you have a
bunch of millionaires on a cruise because they want to be
billionaires, it’s an OK idea but bad execution. It’s also
buried at the back end of the show when it’s chock full of baseball
star cameos.
Ugly Baby
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| 2 Stars Two couples get together and one is upset because their baby is uglier |
Not a big joke here but a
short, pretty well executed sketch. A fairly unmemorable sketch to
end a fairly unmemorable episode. I feel like the writers thought
Farley saying “I blame myself” would go a lot farther than it
did.
FINAL ANALYSIS
The goodnights have Steve
Martin saying “We’re going to be around for a long time”, which
is oddly reminiscent of what Elliott Gould said in the first episode
of the infamous 6th season. Also, I think Ellen Cleghorne
is going to have sex with Bobby Bonilla tonight.
Sketch Average – 2.6 Stars
MVP – Chris Elliott
(Clinton Auditions, Steve Martin Penis Cream, Nut-Riffic)
Best Sketch – Clinton
Auditions
Worst Sketch – Nut-Riffic
(mainly for its length but mostly everything was “meh” in this
episode)
How I would have Lorne
Michaeled it – This episode started off well but after Weekend
Update it really dropped off. As a full episode it’s pretty bad.
I would have led with Total Bastard Airlines and Ugly Baby, ended
with Steve Martin Penis Cream and Buck Daniels, and thrown the OJ
sketch and Nut-Riffic somewhere in the middle.
Host Analysis – This was
not Steve Martin’s episode at all. He really only headlined one
sketch, but that could possibly be a good thing, he did fit in well
with the ensemble. This was almost a show with Steve Martin as a
featured player, and again, that’s a good thing, if the writing of
the sketches was there.
Final Thoughts – Season 20
was a rebuilding year for SNL. The thing that sets this season apart
from others is the lack of quality sketch performers. If you compare
this year’s crop of talent to future years and the year that
follows, which introduced Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, and Cheri
Oteri. This season has the left overs of the stand up performers.
Adam Sandler and David Spade were the holdovers from previous seasons
and, as funny as they were, they did not fit in well with the sketch
comedy club. But here lies the problem with this current cast; you
have a group of stand ups doing sketch comedy. Sandler and Spade
have very good stage presence but don’t fit in well with an ensemble. Spade has his Hollywood Minute routine, Sandler has his
3rd grade goofy songs and Farley is a juggernaut who needs
a better premise for a sketch than fat guy fall down, even though he
gave his all 100% of the time.
Bill Clinton wouldn’t
really have many sketch premises for another two years when the
Lewinsky scandal hit. McKean will later do his self said “subpar”
impression. The writing wasn’t here at all which is bad for two
reasons, this is your first episode after a solid cast member left
cementing the fact that the show is on a downward spiral and you have
a solid powerhouse host in Steve Martin and you let him down. The
whole show had an air of phoning it in, maybe I’m just seeing it as
a sign of things to come, or this cast isn’t jelling at all but the
energy was not there.
Next Up: Marisa Tomei hosts,
straight off her Academy Award for My Cousin Vinny and the start of
her first, and short-lived, career as a romantic comedy star. I
don’t remember much about this episode when it first aired. I
recall a Chris Elliott sketch and I remember Marisa coming off as a
bit novice but that’s about it. Stay tuned for that, if you want.
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