"Elle MacPherson makes my wife look like she has rickets"
Cold Open: Hotel
4 Stars
Pat Buchanan celebrates his victory
by bullying his opponents
Fresh off his win in the New
Hampshire primary, Pat Buchanan checks out of his hotel followed by Steve
Forbes. Pat stars giving Steve some noogies and rough housing with
him. Steve eventually pulls out a $15 million check he was going to
contribute to his campaign. Pat bullies him into signing it over to him.
When asked who’s gonna stop him, Bob Dole comes out and is quickly
punched out by Pat. Then Dole and the concierge, played by Molly Shannon,
are forced to ad lib while Mark McKinney gets strung up to cables. When
we cut back to him he is hanging from a light fixture via atomic wedgie.
He flys away as he screams, “Live from New York...”. I would say it was
hard to imagine a time where a blatant racist won the Republican primary but...
Elle MacPherson Monologue
4 Stars
The graphics guy can’t contain his
excitement
Elle comes out and starts talking
about New York City and how excited she is to be here when quickly a subtitle
comes on screen, ‘Man, is she hot!’. The guy who is in charge of putting
words on the screen apparently got bored and wanted us all to know about his
crush on the host. At one point he types, ‘Oh no, what if my wife is
watching?’ before correcting himself, ‘Who am I kidding? Nobody’s
watching’. We cut to writer Hugh Fink in the audience listening intently
to which the subtitles read, ‘Can you believe this guy? He’s actually
listening to her. I bet he got the crap beaten out of him in high
school.’ Eventually he says he has to go in to get a closer look and we
see Fred Wolf walk by behind her. Elle says that she has been aware of
what’s been going on the whole time and the subtitles read, ‘Houston, we have a
problem’ which was still a topical reference in 1996. This was really
good, I wouldn’t trust Elle MacPherson to handle a monologue on her own so it’s
a good idea they gave her some help.
Rerun of A.M. Ale
Swim Meet
4 Stars
The Spartan Cheerleaders root on the
swim team
The Spartan cheerleaders are cheering
a swim meet and if you’ve seen one of these sketches you’ve seen them
all. Something about this incarnation made me like it a little
better. Will and Cheri have amazing chemistry and the cheer bits were
more fun than usual. I especially liked ‘Taco, burrito, what’s coming out
of your speedo?’. We get a little more insight into Craig and Arianna’s
relationship. At one point they get splashed, Arianna is upset but Craig
says she looks pretty when she’s wet. He tries to kiss her but she says
she doesn’t want to ruin their friendship. It ends the way they all end,
someone comes out and tells them they shouldn’t be doing this, they do the
perfect cheer and that’s it. I was on board for this one but these
characters are really showing signs of diminishing returns.
Recording Session
3 Stars
A jazz singer puts TV catchphrases in
his song
Will and Elle are excited to be
recording a session with the famous jazz legend, Winston. His first song
is going good until he ad libs, ‘Where’s the beef?’. They yell cut and Winston
explains that sometimes words just come out when he’s in the middle of a
groove. Take two is going good until he shouts, ‘Nanu Nanu’. Cut is
called again.
“Yeah, we getting way out there like
Robin Williams”
Take three is a rapid fire series of
catchphrases. I pity the fool, ET phone home, Sit on it, Potsie, Kiss my
grits, He who smelt it dealt it, Me Chinese, me play joke, me put pee-pee in
your coke and in a meta moment, Morgan Fairchild, yeah, that’s the
ticket. They call a wrap and we get a cutaway of the album entitled
‘Pac-Man Fever’. This was a one-joke sketch but it was cute and even
though the one joke just kept repeating there were enough absurd variations
that it still worked.
Fresh Face Modeling Contest
3 Stars
Mary Katharine Gallagher enters a
beauty pageant
It’s the Seventeen Magazine Fresh
Face Modeling Contest. Finalist #3 is Elle MacPherson who comes out and
strikes some poses. The next contestant is Mary Katharine Gallagher who
also poses, at one point putting her head between her legs so we get the
patented Mary Katharine Gallagher pantie shot. Before we get to the
question portion of the pageant it’s time to meet the judges, one of which is
Jon Lovitz, played by Darrell Hammond. 2 more contestants are brought out
to tell us why they should be the winner. Nancy Walls says she’s a
straight A student and can put her foot over her head, Cheri Oteri works at a
teen crisis center, Elle likes to date around but is not a whore. Mary
would like to use this time to perform a monologue from Little Darlings
starring Kristy MacNicol. The final two are Elle and Mary and it comes
down to a pose off. The two strut the runway, Mary of course leaps off
the stage and falls into the judge’s table. Elle is announced the winner
but is immediately dethroned because she used the word ‘whore’ in her question
and answer portion. Mary is the winner and the main prize is announced as
a date with Jon Lovitz. After the last two sketches, Jon Lovitz deserves
a shout out at the goodnight.
Sting
"Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot"
Elle says, “Ladies and gentlemen,
Sting” and a guy in the audience yells out, ‘Oh Yeah!’. I love The Police
but have never been a fan of Sting’s solo work. From what i can gather
from the lyrics you should let your soul be your pilot and let it guide you
through life. Pretty deep stuff.
Weekend Update
She enjoys eatin'
Bob Dole warns that if Pat Buchanan
is the nominee the Republican party might lose the presidency and
congress. Buchanan warns that if anyone other than him is the nominee,
blacks will retain the right to vote.
Nicole Brown Simpson apparently told
her therapist that she was afraid of getting beaten by OJ Simpson, when asked
why he didn't report this earlier the therapist said, "I was afraid of
getting beaten by OJ Simpson".
New instructions for those who have
come in contact with the Ebola virus, Drink plenty of fluids and stay the hell
away from me.
The Kasparov vs. chess playing
computer match was historic as it brought together both geeks and nerds.
Elizabeth Taylor will appear on all 4
CBS Monday night sitcoms as part of their new campaign, “Must Eat TV”.
He ends on one of the darkest jokes
ever told. After describing the Brandon Teena story he says, “This might
strike viewers as harsh, but I think everyone involved in this story should
die.”
Lucien Callow and Fagan, the
president and chairman of the Norm MacDonald fan club return to dawn over
Norm. They are almost moist to be in his presence. Norm calls them
pathetic losers and they love him even more. I started glossing over
during this. Lucien Callow and Fagan have completely worn out their
welcome.
Redenbacher Holiday Theatre
3 Stars
A holiday special entitled, “The
Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue that almost wasn’t”
Hank Redenbacher introduces this
special for some reason. He is Orville Redenbacher’s nephew, the guy
whose face is on microwave popcorn bags. None of this matters, it’s just
a weird framing device that I don’t get. He throws to the special which
starts with Jim Breuer camping out to get his swimsuit issue. Little do
they know that over in Swimsuit Land, Elle MacPherson is thinking about taking
the year off. She thinks that kids are tired of yanking it to the
swimsuit issue once a year when they have the Victoria’s Secret catalog once a
month. We cut to Molly Shannon as the evil feminist advocate who sings a
song about she wants to stop the issue. Hank Redenbacher wants to skip to
the ending where Elle, Kathy Ireland, The now glamorous feminist advocate, some
elves and dancing silicon and saline implants deliver the issue by sleigh.
Jim Breuer wakes everyone up including T-Bone and Mikey The Dyke. They
all rush home to jerk off.
Coma
5 Stars
Stan Hooper is disappointed with his
life post coma
Stan Hooper wakes up from a
coma. The doctor welcomes him back but tells him he's lost a lot of his
memory. Stan asks if he lives in a big house but the doctor reminds him
that he’s 38, lives in his parent’s basement, drives a Gremlin and works at a
urinal cake factory.
“Good lord, why’d you wake me up?”
The doctor tells him that his wife is
here. Elle comes in and Stan is delighted to see that he has a supermodel
wife until he is corrected again. This is his sister, his wife is Cheri
Oteri in an old lady wig.
“Let me get this straight, this is my
sister, this is my wife. This one I will see naked everyday for the rest
of my life, but not this one. You know what would be great, how bout you
put me back in that coma.”
He tries to figure out a way to sleep
with his sister, asking if they live in the backwoods of Appalachia where
incest is common or if ‘sister’ is code word for the girl you’re sleeping with
on the side. We end with a text scrawl telling us that Stan became a US
congressman where he went on to pass legislation making it okay for coma
victims to have sex with their sisters. This was a classic Norm
sketch. If you’ve read enough of these you probably figured out that a
Norm MacDonald sketch almost always gets 5 stars.
Sting returns to sing You
Still Touch Me. I had a weird thought while watching this, Sting
looks like an old dude here. This is 20 years old. Is Sting in his
90s now? Nope, 66. So he's mid 40s here. This just seems so
far removed from every other musical guest we've seen this season. Sting
looks like a dinosaur compared to the likes of Alanis Morisette and Silverchair.
1-600-555-AUSSIE
4
Stars
A hotline to talk to Australian
hotties
Elle MacPherson has a load of trouble
keeping it together during the intro but that’s okay because she’s just here to
throw to the female cast being silly. We first get Molly Shannon doing a
goofy Australian accent and exclaiming that she’ll “let you lob all over her
cookabooras” then Nancy Walls tells us that she’s got “a really wet
yabby”. There’s also 1-600-555-BLOKE for gay guys and we get Sting in a
leather daddy outfit. This was all very silly and it really made me
smile.
Fuzzy Memories
3 Stars
Mom used to make the most beautiful
Easter eggs. When we found one we weren't allowed to pick it up. We'd
point and mom would pick it up with white gloves and put it back in the
case. Someone ended up smashing all those eggs with a hammer, I think it
was our dog.
Miss Manners
3 Stars
A beautiful but uncouth woman goes on
a date
Jim Breuer is waiting for his first
date when Elle shows up, takes off her shoes to show him her blister. She
then smells her feet and declares them to be very stinky. Jim offers her
a carriage ride through Central Park but she refuses because she has a boil on
her ass and is worried about infection. She orders a salad because
“ruffage helps move her bowels”. Elle is incapable of keeping it together
through any of this and keeps laughing during all her lines. After she
tells Jim that she thinks she peed a little she says she just wants to be
friends to which Jim shows her his foot blister. This reminded me a lot
of that Kristen Wiig character who would do gross things in a sexy way,
although there an actual comedienne was in the role. This also reminded
me of a Helping Hands sketch from Whose Line Is It Anyway? One person is
doing a bunch of crazy stuff and someone else is just reacting.
Repeat of the Fuzzy
Memories where the kid buries his piggy bank in the backyard
FINAL ANALYSIS
"Take out your boomer and do me
Yahoo Serious style"
Average
3.6 Stars
MVP
Best Sketch
Worst Sketch
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed
It
Host Analysis
Elle giggled and laughed the entire show but they used her incredibly well. She only headlined one sketch, where she kinda tanked, and for the rest of the show she pretty much played a beautiful girl. There's no way I would say they should bring her back but the writers and producers figured out the best way to make an Elle MacPherson hosted SNL episode work.
Final Thoughts
This was a really good episode and had one of the best sketch averages of the year. When I was forced to pick the worst sketch I just picked the one I liked the least. I still enjoyed that sketch for what it was, it was just the weakest from an over all strong episode. Even the recurring sketches were working for me this week. The Spartan Cheerleaders and Mary Katharine Gallagher felt a little fresher than they have been.
Up Next
John Goodman hosted the show once a year from 1992-2001. That's pretty impressive. This will land right in the middle of his streak.
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