"Really? Sorry."
Cold Open: Backstage
5 Stars
Oprah refuses to do some of the show's material
Lorne is concerned because Oprah hasn't tried on her Aunt Jemima costume yet. Oprah isn't going to do that sketch, or the maid sketch, the Br'er Rabbit sketch or the Refrigerator Perry sketch. Danitra Vance comes in dressed as Celie from The Color Purple to bring Lorne his tea. Lorne delivers quite possibly my favorite Lorne Michaels line in SNL history.
"Danitra, you're black."
"Yes, Mr. Lorne."
"For some reason Oprah won't do anything I say. What do you think I should do?"
"Beat her."
Lorne goes in the dressing room, we hear a ruckus and Oprah comes out with Lorne in a headlock. She screams "Live from New York...". I absolutely loved this, Vance was perfect, Lorne was great and it provided a commentary on racism on television that still exists to this day.
Oprah Winfrey Monologue
Oprah Winfrey Monologue
4 Stars
Oprah tells the story about how she fit into her Oscar dress
Oprah isn't upset about losing the Oscar because she looked good on Oscar night. She had problems fitting into her dress though so tonight she's gonna dress more comfortably, and she still looks good. The anecdote is over but we needed to squeeze in our weekly visit from Tommy Flanagan. He presents her with an Oscar, which she actually won. He re-calculated the votes on the way to the studio. She won Best Support...Best Pictu...Best Actress for The Purple Rose Of Cairo. She corrects him and says that it's actually The Color Purple, which is silly because that movie didn't win anything. The Oscar says 'Walter Brennan' but Tommy tells her that's a typo. In fact all Oscars say Walter Brennan. Tommy asks her for a job with Steven Spielberg, she says no and Tommy tries to take the Oscar back. Not a bad way to start the show. As a huge fan of Oscar history I always love when SNL references the Academy Awards. It's like both of my passions making out with each other.
John Cougar Mellencamp's Lookin' At America
John Cougar Mellencamp's Lookin' At America
3 Stars
Mellencamp sings about things he sees
Downey, in a pretty decent impression, sings songs about things he sees, like hot dogs, a fat woman, a redneck, pretty girls, an old gas station and a little league game. When they cut to his point of view it is shielded by his bangs. Not much to say about this one but it's okay.
The Pat Stevens Show
2 Stars
Pat interviews Oprah
Pat reads a letter from a viewer before introducing her guest, Oprah Winfrey. Oprah's talk show is going national and Pat wants some advice on how to interview people. Oprah tells her that she has to prepare which Pat does by looking in a mirror and making sure she knows how to pronounce the guest's name. You get it by now, she's an idiot. This is our 7th Pat Stevens appearance and I'm tired of it by now. This one seems less like a sketch and more like an actual interview with Oprah Winfrey, which would be fine if this weren't a sketch comedy show.
Cabrini Green
Cabrini Green
2 Stars
Cabrini tells her mom that she's pregnant
Cabrini is at school and the cheerleaders are making fun of her because she's pregnant. We then go to her house where she tells her mom that she has a problem.
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Your pregnant daughter."
They have a heart to heart. Cabrini says that "contracaception is not romantical", her mother is upset but understanding. This felt like an after school special more than a comedy sketch. I came to the show for some laughs not a heartwarming look into a family's plight with teen pregnancy.
Joe Jackson
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Your pregnant daughter."
They have a heart to heart. Cabrini says that "contracaception is not romantical", her mother is upset but understanding. This felt like an after school special more than a comedy sketch. I came to the show for some laughs not a heartwarming look into a family's plight with teen pregnancy.
Joe Jackson
"Right And Wrong"
Joe Jackson is our musical guest and he is one ugly bastard. He spends the majority of the song standing with his hands in his trench coat before moving over to the piano. The song is pretty preachy, we're talking about ideologies, do you know the difference between right and wrong? I was not a fan of this.
Weekend Update With Dennis Miller
"The line of death is around my neck"
Miller had a lot of good lines this week, the desk pieces needed some polishing. The NRA is mad about machine gun regulations because it will affect hunters, because stalking field mice with an uzi is the definition of sporting. Clint Eastwood is mayor of Carmel, California but he will have a stunt mayor for more difficult decisions. Scientists have a new theory that all life on earth can be traced back to Warren Beatty, it's called the big bang theory. He also comments on the Super Bowl Shuffle by saying he hasn't seen choreography like that since Lee Harvey Oswald's prison transfer.
Robert Downey and Anthony Michael Hall show up to prove why they never should have been hired for the show. They are here to review William F. Buckley's new book and they do a point/counterpoint piece with fart noises. Downey makes fart noises with his hands while Hall goes the under the armpit route. Miller finally breaks them up by asking if they book is worth reading. They admit that they never read the book and just wanted to come out to be extra sophomoric. After they leave Miller retorts, "Hard to believe but I think the boys wrote that themselves".
A. Whitney Brown is back with The Big Picture. He's talking about the war in Libya and threats from Qaddafi. The best line was when he said that Europeans are as nervous as a Christian Scientist with a severed artery. This is just a political stand-up routine but Brown is very funny.
The Wart Hog
A. Whitney Brown is back with The Big Picture. He's talking about the war in Libya and threats from Qaddafi. The best line was when he said that Europeans are as nervous as a Christian Scientist with a severed artery. This is just a political stand-up routine but Brown is very funny.
The Wart Hog
4 Stars
The Wart Hog refuses to deny his grotesqueness
Downey and Don Novello are at a crime scene with no clues and fingerprints. They decide to call for outside help from The Wart Hog. Quaid comes in wearing a mask and apologizes for his grotesque appearance. Both RDJ and Don think that he's rather handsome though. They argue for a bit and finally Don tries to prove it to the Wart Hog by taking him to another set and entering him in a 'World's Most Handsome Man' contest. Before revealing the winner they announce a special category of 'Most Grotesque' and the winner is the Wart Hog. He is more upset than before and wants to get back to solving the crime. Downey says that they solved while he was in that contest and there's no more need for his skills. This was a case of the silly stupids. I loved the absurdity of Don Novello walking Quaid over to another part of 8H where the just happened to be having a handsome man contest. Dumb stuff like that just tickles me.
I Play The Maids
I Play The Maids
3 Stars
Vance sings about her casting troubles
Vance is in her dressing room and a stagehand tells her that it's 5 minutes till the Gone With The Wind sketch. She then sings a song about playing maids to the tune of 'I Write The Songs'.
"I played the very first maid. I raised the chillin', did the housework and didn't care if I got paid"
That's it. Nothing else but a cute little song. I was expecting a joke at the end but it never came. This was cute but not very funny.
Vance is in her dressing room and a stagehand tells her that it's 5 minutes till the Gone With The Wind sketch. She then sings a song about playing maids to the tune of 'I Write The Songs'.
"I played the very first maid. I raised the chillin', did the housework and didn't care if I got paid"
That's it. Nothing else but a cute little song. I was expecting a joke at the end but it never came. This was cute but not very funny.
Actors On Film
1 Star
Downey and Dunn smoke and talk
It's hard for me to write a synopsis of this because my notes just say "I hate this" over and over.
Craig Sundberg, Idiot Savant
1 Star
Ugh
I don't understand this at all. I mean, I get it but I don't see the joke. Craig is an "idiot savant" so he's really smart but he sounds like an idiot. He talks like a stoned teenager while he is explaining complex scientific jargon. Washington D.C. needs his help to create a metal as strong as titanium. He goes there and helps them, that's the sketch. At one point one of the scientists played by production designer Akira Yoshimura asks him, "What do you think we are, idiots" and Oprah apologizes for him because he doesn't know that Craig is an idiot. So he is an idiot but is also smart? I just don't get it. The audience is particularly silent for this, maybe because they aren't saying anything funny.
The Cute Shop
The Cute Shop
4 Stars
A shop that sells cute items is hiding a dark secret
Oprah comes into a 'Cute Shop' looking for a gift for her 3 year old niece. Joan Cusack shows her some stuffed animals, like a dog with a slipper in its mouth, a sleeping bunny with a sleeping mouse in its ear and a koala riding piggy back on a panda. Oprah starts gushing over the cute items and Joan brings in two guys in black. Oprah pulls out a gun and tells them not to try anything cute. She's an undercover police officer and opens a door that releases a bunch of hostages holding cute stuffed animals. Joan distracts her with a cute little penguin long enough to take her gun and put her in the back room. As soon as this sketch ended I wanted the sketch to begin. Who is this woman? Why are they keeping people hostage? What are they using these people for? I had so many questions but I loved the turn this sketch took because I thought it was just going to be 5 minutes of Oprah and Cusack cooing over stuffed animals.
Joe Jackson returns to sing Soul Kiss which I liked a lot better than his first song. It's a jazzy little number. The song stops abruptly as Joe looks at a clock and says, "That's it, 4 minutes, they gave us 4 minutes". Not sure if he was complying with the show's demands or objecting to them but that was a cool little moment in a show that hasn't given me much to care about.
One Shoe Emma
2 Stars
'One Shoe' Emma gets visited by a prince
3 ignorant hillbillies come in to a diner where they love to make fun of 'One Shoe' Emma. They call her that because she only got but one shoe. Emma pours her heart out to her boss and tells her that sometimes she stands on her stairs with one foot on one level and the other foot on another and pretends that she's wearing 2 shoes. She then gets visited by Dennis Miller as a prince who gives her the shoe she left at his palace. What could have been an opportunity for absurd stupidity is played like a straight fairy tale. I did like Randy Quaid as the hillbilly who didn't quite understand the situation.
FINAL ANALYSIS
FINAL ANALYSIS
"Don't try anything cute"
Average
2.8 Stars
MVP
Danitra Vance
Cold Open, Cabrini Green, I Play The Maids, One Shoe Emma
Cold Open, Cabrini Green, I Play The Maids, One Shoe Emma
Best Sketch
The Wart Hog
Worst Sketch
Actors On Film
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
This felt like an episode of SNL, a bad episode, but an episode. Self referential stuff in the cold open, recurring characters at the start of the show, musical guest, weekend update, bad sketches to close the show. Switching the placements of sketches wouldn't help much, you just gotta put something worth watching after Weekend Update.
Host Analysis
I gotta commend Oprah for being a good performer in all of her sketches. She didn't seem to look at the cue cards at all. They just didn't give her anything funny to do. She played herself or the straight person in every sketch. She did it well but I will forget that she ever hosted by the end of the season.
Final Thoughts
The next time I do an SNL season recap I need to rethink my sketch average ratings system, because I really disliked this episode but it still got a 2.8 which is just below average.
Up Next
Tony Danza?
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