Saturday Night Live Season 11 Reviews - Episode 15 - Tony Danza / Laurie Anderson

"Butt dancing, baby"

Cold Open: Vietnam Story

4 Stars

Randy Quaid tries to talk RDJ and AMH out of joining the army

Anthony and Robert are in army uniforms and Randy asks them what sketch they are rehearsing.  There isn't a sketch, they enlisted and are shipping out to go kick some Libyan butt.  Randy sits these naive little punks down to tell them a story.  A story about a young kid you went to Vietnam, saw half his squad blow up the first day then watched his best friend die on the second.  By the end of the month the kid forgot why he was there or who he was fighting and shot his commanding officer in the back.  He's carried that secret with him to this day.  Robert asks if that kid in the story was Randy but Randy tells him that it's actually from a screenplay he's writing and there are 2 really good parts in it for them both.  I loved this, it was stupid and silly and Randy Quaid is becoming my favorite part of the show with his constantly committed performances.

Tony Danza Monologue

2 Stars

Tony does a dance and talks about a lot of stuff

Tony feels great and wants to dance, he does a soft shoe number which is, whatever, he says he's glad he got that out of his system, I am as well.  He mentions that Italians have big families and asks his family to stand up, we cut to the audience and everyone stands up.  He's getting married for the second time, so he's not gong to wear white.  He used to be a boxer and won all his fights by knockout, he also lost all his fights by knockout.  He ends by thanking everyone for watching 'Who's The Boss'.  So there was absolutely no concept for this monologue.  I can only imagine that the writing staff asked him what he wanted to do in his monologue and he said, I want to dance, plug my show, mention I'm getting married and tell a boxing joke.  Sure, do all those things and we'll focus on the why later.

Nancy's Workout

3 Stars

Danza coaches Nancy Reagan on physical fitness

Sweeney enters as Nancy Reagan and can't decide where to put a flower pot so smashes it to the ground.  When the maid comes in to clean it up she mentions that some guy named Bruno was apprehended on the White House lawn.  This is Nancy's secret personal trainer and she asks that he be brought to her at once.  This is 2 1/2 minutes of pointless setup as the only joke of the sketch is a physical gag of Nancy working out to 'Maniac'.  Sweeney is very funny here as usual.  I like that he turned Nancy Reagan into just a drag show.  There's no real impression being done here it has just turned into a Terry Sweeney character.

Laurie Anderson

"Baby Doll"

The band walks out on stage with a choreographed silly walk and then Laurie sings.  She sings a song about how her brain is real bossy and at one point they split the screen so Laurie is singing to herself.  She is also standing in front of a blue screen with animated sheep.  The band is very animated as they dance and sway to this unlistenable song.  Thank goodness the performance was fun because I absolutely hated this tune.

Lyndon La Rouche Theatre

4 Stars

Queen Elizabeth runs a heroin deal with Henry Kissinger and his gay lover

Quaid as Lyndon La Rouche welcomes us to the play he's going to present to us.  I have no context for this, I have no idea who Lyndon La Rouche was but this reminded me of the National Enquirer Theater sketch from the season premiere.  Queen Elizabeth is selling heroin to Henry Kissinger.  She compliments him on his homosexual lover, played by Danza in an over the top performance that worked in 1986 but is now borderline offensive but works for the absurd nature of the piece.  Kissinger is worried that Lyndon La Rouche is on to him so he is scared to sell the drugs himself.  The queen calls for Prince Charles and Lovitz comes skipping in who takes the suitcase full of drugs under the assumption that he's transporting a tarantula to the states.  I'm guessing La Rouche was a crackpot or conspiracy theorist or just a Democrat but the sketch was silly with bizarrely over the top performances that it was fun without the political context.

Weekend Update With Dennis Miller

"Welcome to all, unless of course you happen to be French, in which case, go to hell."

For the first time in a while I was not digging Update.  I didn't write down any jokes that made me laugh so I re-watched the segment and still didn't write anything down.  The only jokes I liked had to do with Nebraska being split into smoking and non-smoking and when they cut to the pay-per-view fight of Larry Holmes and Leon Spinks and it was a video of Rock'em Sock'em Robots, but that seemed like a ripoff of something Joe Piscopo did.
Nora Dunn is back as Babette the French sex kitten.  I have no idea what she talked about, how to treat a real woman or something.  Apparently France wouldn't let US planes in their air space during our strike on Libya.  Yeah, screw those guys.  I thought the whole thing was a bust this week.

30 Counts

4 Stars

A new 30 count rule for boxing knockouts is initiated

Lovitz is calling the blow by blow of a boxing match between Danza and Anthony Michael Hall.  The New Jersey boxing commission has instituted a new 30 count rule so Danza beats the crap out of AMH and the referee counts to 10, then 20, then Hall starts to get up around 28 and the sketch keeps repeating from there.  What is essentially what I like to call a "lather, rinse, repeat" sketch is helped by good performances.  Hall actually handles himself admirably here as he demonstrates good physical comedy skills and I liked his dazed looks into the camera as if he's begging for the fight to stop with his eyes.  Every time Hall goes down Lovitz starts interviewing Danza about how he feels about the new rule.  Danza is optimistic that it might save lives but is worried that it will cut into his knockout ratio.  There's also a nice running gag where Lovitz keeps trying to cut to a video package about Danza but it is interrupted after 10 seconds when Hall starts to get up.  Nothing special here but I enjoyed it for what it was.

Penn And Teller

3 Stars

Penn And Teller saw a "lady" in half

Penn And Teller are dismayed that other magical acts seem to always get lovely assistants for their acts.  Since real women refuse to talk to them for some reason they bring out the next big thing and that's Kimberly, a live snake.  They grab a guy from the audience to cut Kimberly in half and Teller moves his hand to reveal that Kimberly is back in one piece.  It's a simple slight of hand illusion where Teller obviously had a fake snake tail that was being brutally mutilated.  It's effective but I wish there was something more to this than just a sight gag of a bloody snake.

Big Time Professional Golf

2 Stars

Golfers are interviewed as if it were professional wrestling

There wasn't much to this and you get the joke after the first interview and then it repeats 3 times.  Lovitz interviews Randy Quaid who screams about his upcoming match with "Joke" Nicklaus, Danza comes out as Gary "The Russian" Schneider and then AMH and RDJ come out as two other guys who scream.

Unconditional Love

4 Stars

A couple argue about how much they love each other

I really enjoyed this simple 2 person scene and felt that Danza and Joan Cusack performed it well.  They are lying in bed and telling each other how much they love one another.  They get into the routine of 'I love you more', 'No, I love you more' and then start the escalation.  Cusack asks if he would still love her if she got fat, or if she was 6 inches tall, or if her arm was 40 feet long.  Danza tells her that his love is unconditional but then she asks if he would still love her if she was having an affair.  Danza gets concerned and then the phone rings.  Cusack says that it could be the man she's been seeing on and off for 11 weeks.  Danza picks up the phone and it's his mom, he's relieved until his mother starts to ask him how much he loves her and the cycle repeats.  It was a very simple scene but had a nice payoff and Cusack was very charming.

Master Thespian

2 Stars

Master Thespian reads from his diary

It's a little late for a Master Thespian sketch and this one seemed rather lazy.  Lovitz is all alone on stage and reads from his diary.  He starts re-enacting an encounter he had while performing for the queen.  The audience was filled with people like John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier begging him for advice.  He dives into the orchestra pit to make love to the queen.  This character really needs someone to play off of, much like how Tommy Flanagan is much better when he's lying to someone else.  This seemed like the show was running short and Lorne asked Lovitz if he could throw something together real quick.  The performance was good but there didn't seem to be a point to this.

Laurie Anderson returns to sing Day The Devil.  What the hell is this?  I ask that in a good way, I'm not confused that something this alternative exists but how it became popular enough to get on SNL is confounding.  Here's what happens, Laurie has a microphone that makes her voice sound like a scary man, she speaks creepily about what's gonna happen when the devil comes to get you and then two black guys with high voices sing the chorus, "give me back my innocence".  Then she gives wrapped presents to members of the audience.  Once again, I hated this song and found it almost unlistenable but the performance was weird enough to keep me interested.

The Further Adventures Of Bill And Salena

2 Stars

Biff impresses Salena with his new song

Biff and Salena are at a country bar, if you don't remember these characters they are two retarded people who have crushes on each other.  Stupid people are funny, making fun of the mentally challenged is another thing.  Biff is nervous about the song he's going to sing.  He goes up on stage after drinking a hot cranberry juice and sings his song, "Butt Dancing".  Everybody in the bar starts to do the butt dance, including Tony Danza as the bartender, and Salena and Biff cement their relationship.  I liked the song but wish it was in a different context.  I just find nothing funny about these characters.

FINAL ANALYSIS

 
"Would you love me if I hated you?"

Average

3 Stars

MVP

Joan Cusack
Nancy's Workout, Lyndon La Rouche Theatre, Unconditional Love, Biff And Salena

Best Sketch

Vietnam Story

Worst Sketch

Big Time Professional Golf

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

Nancy's Workout was a good sketch to start the night, it utilized Tony Danza's physique and limited acting ability well.  I say keep it going and put 30 Count right after that.  Follow that up with Lyndon La Rouche Theatre and you have 3 solid sketches before the musical act.  Swap Master Thespian with Penn And Teller and the Master Thespian sketch wouldn't seem so last minute.

Host Analysis

Tony Danza was in almost every sketch but made no impression on me whatsoever.  It was weird, I watched this episode and took notes, then the next day I started to write my review and was floored by how much Danza was in this episode.  It's not that he blended into the background of sketches, he was front and center but I didn't remember him at all.  Watching the episode a 2nd time, he still didn't leave an impact.  He's just kind of a lump who doesn't distract but also doesn't command attention.

Final Thoughts

I was very surprised that this episode got a solid 3 star average but on the other hand it was the definition of average.  There was nothing great in this episode but nothing horrible.  It was 100% run of the mill mediocre.  The worst sketch in this episode wasn't abysmal but the best sketch in this episode would come nowhere near my best of the year.  This was quite possibly the most average episode in SNL history.

Up Next

Catherine Oxenberg hosts next week.  Who is that, you say?  I have no idea.  She's joined by Paul Simon so I'm guessing that she's probably not the strongest host in SNL history.