Best Cold Open
The cold opens this year were, on average, very good. Most of them had the host front and center which I love because it welcomes us to the episode and gets some of the referential humor out of the way. None fit that mold more than
Risky Business from the Ron Reagan episode where he parties in the oval office while his parents are away at Camp David and
Backstage where Oprah Winfrey puts Lorne in a headlock because she refuses to do any sketches demeaning to black women. I also loved
Tightrope where Pee-Wee Herman is running late because he's walking between the twin towers and
Entertainment Tonight where Tom Hanks and Nora Dunn run down some of the inane stories in Hollywood. My personal favorite may have come from the Tony Danza episode where Randy Quaid recounts his
Vietnam Story and it turns out that he's just reading from a screenplay he's writing.
Worst Cold Open
Only one cold open this year really left me, well, cold and that's
Monks from the Dudley Moore episode. The cast is all dressed as monks trying to figure out how to invest their yearly earnings and they finally decide to bet it on the Super Bowl. It was unfunny and long.
Best Monologue
The monologue has changed drastically over the years. Today they seem written by writers instead of something the host came up with. That's why you see a lot of hosts come out and then Leslie Jones will join them and scream at them. My favorites this year seemed like they were either written by the host or catered to fit the hosts sensibilities.
Dudley Moore played some piano in a hilarious bit of physical comedy.
Pee-Wee Herman talked to the audience and danced in women's heels.
Griffin Dunne played the drum solo to 'Wipeout' with one hand.
George Wendt's monologue got interrupted by Francis Ford Coppola directing him. My favorite was
John Lithgow who didn't realize that the show was live so he just stared blankly into the camera for a few seconds.
Worst Monologue
The downside to letting the hosts do whatever they want is that sometimes you get monologues that feel sloppy and unrehearsed. That was the case with
Tony Danza who tap danced and gushed over his new bride and
Jimmy Breslin who stammered through some stories from his school days.
Jerry Hall also stumbled when she just made jokes about Mick Jagger for a couple minutes.
Catherine Oxenberg went the referential route and had assistance from Terry Sweeney dressed up as Joan Collins to do a Dynasty cat fight joke. The most uncomfortable I felt this season was when
Teri Garr dressed up in a pope costume with Don Novello and sang 'I Got You Babe'. There's nothing worse than watching two talented people not committing to a failing bit.
Best Commercial Parody
There was a lot of good here this season too. For the live commercials I loved
Jack's Discount Emporium where Jon Lovitz promotes his Martin Luther King Jr. Day White Sale, hilariously not understanding the cultural insensitivity. I also liked 2 out of the 3 appearances from
Rudy Randolph Jr., Randy Quaid's salesman character. The one I liked the most was when he was selling furniture at low low prices because it all smells bad. As for the pre-taped bits, we started off strong in the season premiere with
Where You're Going where the cast flaunted their wealth and prosperity before the reveal that they are all going to hell.
Wacky Glue was a bit of absurd genius as Randy Quaid is shown with a board stuck to his head through the years, even after his death. My personal favorite featured no cast members and that
Ad Council where a commercial pitchman speaks generic business talk and then we discover it is just a commercial advertising the ad council and how they like to waste your time for no discernible reason.
Worst Commercial Parody
These I just didn't get. Robert Downey advertises the Dalkon Shield Trout Lure which was a defective form of birth control that is now used to catch fish. He also shilled for Man Beat while Randy Quaid as Lyle Alzado strangled him. Speaking of Quaid, I didn't understand Rudy Randolph Jr. when he was promoting Double R Rolls a car dealership selling Rolls Royces at just barely discounted prices. The one that perplexed me the most was Trojans. Not only did I not see the joke in a shot of the statue of liberty as a voice over man described our freedoms, but we also got it in almost every episode.
Best Sketch
Randy Quaid was my MVP this year headlining most of my favorite sketches. He poured his heart out to Pee-Wee Herman in Locker Room, played Lone Wolf McCord a cop who didn't realize that he had such a nickname and crumbles when he finds out. He also squared off with Harry Dean Stanton in Death Of A Gunfighter an absurdly stupid and funny sketch. Tom Hanks described his Fantasy of his wife dying to his wife. My favorite was Prison where Jon Lovitz and Paul Simon tried in vain to escape, even when they only have one week left in their 20 year sentence.
Worst Sketch
If Randy Quaid was my MVP, Robert Downey was my LVP, headlining two of my least favorite viewing moments of season 11. First we have Actors On Film where Downey and Dunn smoked and talked about actors. For some reason we got these characters 3 times. Luckily we only got one Confrontational Monologue where Downey screamed things from a suitcase. Downey didn't appear in either Business Beat where Quaid, Cusack and host Griffin Dunne demonstrate workplace devices nor did he appear in Roy Orbison's Christmas Special where we saw the last 5 minutes of a 1968 NBC special that never aired but he did play the usher in Movie Theater which wins this category as it was not only unfunny but also flamboyantly racist. Terry Sweeney dons blackface to play Patti LaBelle being loud and annoying in a movie theater. Because black people are loud in public, get it?
Best Musical Guest
Season 11 had a pretty solid musical lineup, my favorites include George Clinton And The Parliament Funkadelic from the season finale, Al Green and The Replacements. In the case of Clinton and Green, I just love their sound. In the case of The Replacements, I discovered a band that I never listened to before. E.G. Daly performed a pretty forgettable pop song but gets my vote for most fun performance as she jumped into the audience, fondled the cameraman and brought Jon Lovitz out to dance with. My favorite was an unconventional pick and Dudley Moore who closed out his show by performing a medley of Tchaikovsky and James Brown's 'I Got You (I Feel Good)'
Worst Musical Guest
Joe Jackson and
The Nelsons show up here just because I didn't care for their music but in the case of
Phillip Glass and
Ladysmith Black Mambazo their performances brought the show's pace to a crawl. Glass played keyboards accompanied by unrelated visuals while Ladysmith Black Mambazo choral chanted about the homeless. If this is your type of music, I have no problem with that but it's an odd fit for SNL.
Best Weekend Update Desk Piece
Dennis Miller flew solo for most of the season with the exception of the occasional desk piece. He was mostly joined by A. Whitney Brown who broke in several times with a topical stand up piece and twice by Don Novello who showed up as Mr. X. a mob informant with little information and Father Guido Sarducci promoting his new church where anyone and everyone can be pope.
Worst Weekend Update Desk Piece
I like poop jokes, I like fart jokes, but the joke can't just be "I farted" or "I pooped". Having Robert Downey and Anthony Michael Hall come on Update to just make fart noises is not a joke. They briefly commented on the fact that this was juvenile at the end but there needs to be some kind of joke surrounding the fart.
Best 10-1 Sketch
Much like the cold open and the monologue, the 10-1 sketch has evolved as well. Now it is a spot for the more bizarre or absurd ideas that just wouldn't work at 11:30. Here it just seemed to be the last sketch of the night. Such was the case with
Time Travel Game Night from the Teri Garr episode which turned out to be the best sketch of the night. Quaid, Garr, Lovitz and Dunn are trying to play Trivial Pursuit but Anthony Michael Hall is fooling around with his time machine upstairs. Same can be said for
Sore Toe from the Jerry Hall episode where Randy Quaid complains about his sore toe while his entire family puts dangerous objects near it. The more ingenious last sketches came from the George Wendt/Francis Ford Coppola episode and
The Grand Finale where the camera pans around Studio 8H and finally the bar that George Wendt is watching the show from and the season finale when Lorne Michaels saved Jon Lovitz from the
Fire that burned up the entire cast and writing staff.
Worst 10-1 Sketch
Like I said, the last sketch of the night was less of a haven for absurdity and more of a heap of half formed ideas. Jon Lovitz used it to workshop some characters like in
David's Date where he played a man obsessed with Woody Allen and twice in
The Further Adventures Of Biff And Salena where he and Joan Cusack play mentally challenged lovers. I also didn't care for
Money Magnetism Seminar where Randy Quaid seemingly did a self help seminar without any jokes and
Tea And Sympathy where Griffin Dunne played a ghost talking to his ex-girlfriend's mother.
Best Host
Future 5 timer and president of Earth
Tom Hanks scored in every single sketch he was in as did
John Lithgow but my personal favorite was
Pee-Wee Herman who played "himself" in every sketch and headlined one of the most absurd and weird episodes of SNL ever.
Worst Host
The only two hosts who let me down this season were
Jerry Hall who really had no business being there in the first place and
Chevy Chase who mugged to the camera the whole night and didn't let the rest of the cast get any laughs.
Best Episode Ratings
Pee-Wee Herman/Queen Ida - 3.5 Stars
Tom Hanks/Sade - 3.4 Stars
Catherine Oxenberg/Paul Simon - 3.1 Stars
Worst Episode Ratings
Teri Garr/Dream Academy/The Cult - 2.1
Jay Leno/The Neville Brothers - 2.5
Ron Reagan/The Nelsons - 2.5
Episode Average For The Season
2.8 Stars
Up Next
Season 11 Cast Rankings
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