Saturday Night Live Season 21 Reviews - Best Ofs, Worst Ofs

Best Cold Open

Tim Meadows and Norm MacDonald were the kings of the cold open this year with Bob Dole, OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson dominating the headlines.  Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich flew coach in Air Force One and Dole and his fellow republican candidates went door to door trying to pick up votes in Halloween In New Hampshire.  The second episode gave us NFL On NBC where OJ returned to the sidelines and did everything except come out and say that he was guilty.  After Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley's marriage dissolved Ted Koppel hosted Nightline and welcomed a panel of experts to try to come to grips with what could have possibly went wrong.  My personal favorite of the year also involved Michael Jackson on Nightline and the ludicrous New York Post headline 'Jacko On His Backo'.

Worst Cold Open

I decided to include my bottom 5 here and 3 of them weren't terrible, just a little uninspired.  Bill Clinton stuffed his face and made sad phone calls in Late Night Snack, Christopher Darden opened up about his relationship with Marcia Clark in 20/20 and Jay Leno hosted a star studded show for the troops in NBC's Christmas Salute To Our Bosnian Troops which involved Darrell Hammond kissing Tim Meadows in drag as RuPaul.  The two that I flat out disliked both featured non actors trying to do comedy.  The first was Dole/Rodman '96 where Bob Dole hires Dennis Rodman as his running mate and the second would be The Blizzard Of '96 where Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki tells us the show will suck because the cast was out shoveling snow all week.  It's a real momentum killer when you start the show with someone clumsily reading off cue cards.

Best Monologue

With only David Alan Grier doing a traditional stand up monologue this season my favorites come from the more high concept ones.  Jim Carrey tries to introduce a new character only to be interrupted by a bored audience member who just wants him to play his hits.  Phil Hartman has trouble finding his real voice and locks himself in his dressing room.  Steve Forbes takes questions from the audience, all pertaining to how rich he is.  Elle MacPherson's monologue is interrupted by a graphics operator amazed by how hot she is.  My personal favorite was Anthony Edwards who introduced us to Swabby, the wise cracking janitor who was cut from the pilot episode of ER.  He's so popular with the crowd that the audience keeps wishing that jerk from Chicago Hope would shut up and bring back Swabby.

Worst Monologue

There were a lot of un-ironic monologues this season.  I don't have a problem with sweet or cute over funny but it should still be entertaining.  Madeline Kahn sang 'Ain't Got No Home' by Clarence 'Frogman' Henry and Danny Aiello sang 'Chubby Clementine' by Bobby Darin.  Quentin Tarantino decided to sing a song from an episode of Bewitched while Chevy Chase sang 'When You Wish Upon A Star' from Pinocchio.  All of these seemed like huge wastes of airtime.  My least favorite had to come from the John Goodman episode, not from his bit where he literally sits out the monologue since it's his 7th time hosting but what came after where he forced Jim Breuer to sing a pointless a poorly written Alanis Morisette parody.

Best Commercial Parody

There were a lot of good ones this year including AM Ale from the first episode where the cast goes about their morning routine chugging 40 ounces of breakfast.  I also loved Grayson Moorehead Securities where Jim Downey explains to his employees how they shouldn't leave their client's money lying around, Old Glory Insurance where Sam Waterston sells robot insurance to the elderly, BugOff a pest control system that doesn't kill roaches but does harm and humiliate them and Petchow where Will Ferrell plays Hank Petchow a rat poison designer with an unfortunate last name.

Best Sketch

I had a lot of good to choose from this season, not surprisingly almost half of my list is populated by classing Norm bits.  My favorite sketch of the year has to be Coma where Norm wakes up in the hospital and refuses to believe that his sister is so hot while his wife is so ugly.  A close second is Seattle Today where Norm displays his limitations as a sketch artist by showing his portrait of the Unabomber and other criminals still at large.  I also loved Clara Turley's Bible Challenge where Norm figures out how to scam a religious themed game show and The Real World runner where Bob Dole joins the cast and is evicted.  Norm also appeared as Bob Dole in the Nightline sketch from the Steve Forbes episode where everyone is curious as to who wrote a new tell-all book about the primary season.  Speaking of Steve Forbes, he also headlined Roofers where 3 blue collar guys make plans for their lottery winnings.  The Gabriel Byrne episode brought us Baby Genetics where a doctor amazes an expecting couple with the advancements in science.  The best sketch of the all around solid Phil Hartman episode was You're The Man where a cop tries to talk down a man with a gun in a diner.  Finally, from the near perfect David Alan Grier episode we have Black People where Grier plays Charles 'Honeydew' Wilkins a performer who is more than happy to cater to white audiences only to get lynched by black people and Wake Up And Smile where chaos erupts after the teleprompter breaks on a morning news program.

Worst Sketch

I only had a list of 5 for the worst of the season but, man, are they stinkers.  Chevy Chase plays the disgraced LAPD detective in The Mark Fuhrman Show where he talks to a black rapper and then places a bloody glove on his chair, a long way to go for a really weak punchline.  The sketch White Trash Around A Campfire Dealing With An Overabundance Of Fluids from the Quentin Tarantino episode seems like it was written on a bet on who can come up with the stupidest and most pointless sketch.  Nancy Walls wore a half shirt and fat shamed the rest of the cast in Such A Pretty Face.  Walls shows up again with Molly Shannon as they played two dumb ladies in a production of 'Dense And Densibility' in Literary Theatre.  The absolute worst of the season has to be Cydney from the Laura Leighton episode.  What starts as a fake perfume commercial turns into several minutes of making fun of little people as the entire male cast plays 'midgets' who protest about being called that.  It ends with Leighton waking up ala The Wizard Of Oz next to her Melrose Place co-star and a shirtless Fred Wolf on his knees.  This is the only sketch of the season that made me feel sad as I was watching it.

Best Recurring Sketch

With an entirely new cast all trained in sketch comedy and improv there were several new characters that seemed poised to be recurring.  Some hit right away like the Spartan Cheerleaders and Mary Katharine Gallagher while others didn't like Cheri Oteri's Althea and Colin Quinn's Joe Blow.  My favorite was the always dependable Gerald "T-Bones" Tibbins who we followed through several jobs, hospital orderly, barber and executioner.

Worst Recurring Sketch

Some recurring sketches are cute at first and then wear out their welcome.  Such is the case with Leg Up where Molly Shannon and Cheri Oteri play Broadway legends Ann Miller and Debbie Reynolds.  They tell jokes about how they are old and then they always mistake whatever their guest is plugging with an old Broadway show.  We saw these old dames 4 times this season and each time I started watching the clock as the sketch began.

Best Musical Guest

This category should be called George's favorite bands from the mid-90s.  This season brought us Dave Matthews Band and Foo Fighters, two of my all-time favorites.  We also got Blues Traveler and Gin Blossoms who were bands I didn't follow past the decade but always loved.  Then there was The Cure which is a band I always thought that I disliked but turns out, after watching them on the Christine Baranski episode, I'm a big fan.

Worst Musical Guest

While Sting was just very very very dull during his two sets, Tupac Shakur was unlistenable.  He screamed half his songs unintelligibly and was constantly out of step with his band.  Worse thing about it was this was in the very unfunny Tom Arnold episode so not only was the comedy not working but the music wasn't good either.

Best Weekend Update Desk Piece

Hands down, my personal favorite of the season and perhaps ever is Gary MacDonald.  David Koechner plays Norm's nervous and camera shy brother who keeps wanting to get his shot at telling Update jokes.  It is sheer awkward brilliance and Koechner succeeds in something that is very hard to do, be hilarious while being unfunny on purpose.  This season also gave us Bill Clinton giving his movie review of The American President, his favorite part was the dead wife.  Frankenstein showed up to give his commentary on forest fires, they're bad.  Adam Sandler returned to sing a goofy song about his grandma.  Finally, John Two Eagles Flying came on during the World Series to defend the Cleveland Indians racist mascot and berate the Atlanta Braves.  Turns out he is not really a Native American and just a loser Cleveland fan.

Worst Weekend Update Desk Piece

So it should come as no surprise that I am not a fan of Colin Quinn.  He has his moments as a stand-up comedian and he actually wasn't terrible as an Update anchor, he was just nowhere near Norm's level.  When it comes to character work though, he definitely lacks something.  We got Joe Blow 3 times behind the update desk and then a sketch, Lenny The Lion talked about conditions in the zoos, Saint Nicky talked about his criminal past and then Colin came out as himself to talk about St. Patrick's Day.  As much as I didn't like him he wasn't the absolute worst.  That honor goes to Dennis Rodman who came on to plug his new book and do an uninspired and sloppy piece of comedy.  Once again, leave the comedy to the comedians.

Lamest Spade In America Bit

This could be a 15 way tie with all 15 Spade In America segments but if I had to pick the worst it would have to be when Spade went to the World Series.  He asks Chipper Jones if anyone ever sings 'Me And Mrs. Jones' to him in the dugout.  He rounds the bases and sings 'Home Sweet Home'.  He does a lot of other lame shtick with baseball players and bat boys.  The runner ups would be his first one where he called the Unabomber gay, his second one where he aired his beefs about current music, the one where he acted out a conversation with his dad and his final one where he just played a clip package of his favorite Hollywood Minute jokes.  Credit where credit is due, I did laugh at the one from the Quentin Tarantino episode where he played 'This Is Your Life' and brought out Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter.

Best 10-1 Sketch

The end of the show is when the cast can let their hair down a bit and get a little silly and nobody is sillier than Will Ferrell who shows up in 3 of my favorite end of the night sketches.  In The Hulk Hogan Talk Show!!! Will fills in for the Hulkster to interview a torture victim but is frequently sidetracked with the wrestling trivia question of the day.  In Triumph Performers he plays a paralyzed mime along with a ventriloquist with a voice box and a physically scarred Jay Leno impersonator.  In Wedding Vows Will and Madeline Kahn exchange some crazy vows to each other like how they want to do some crazy humping and not talk to each other the next day.  My other two favorites are Quentin Tarantino talking about his fear of the hobo and love of model trains in All Aboard! and Gabriel Byrne firing Tim Meadows from his prison guard job because of all the times he's been raped in Riker's Island.

Worst 10-1 Sketch

Mark McKinney went from being a welcome addition to the cast in season 20 to one of my least favorite performers in season 21.  No other sketch displays why I disliked him more than The Chicken Lady Show from the season premiere.  One of his most bizarre and off-putting characters from The Kids In The Hall gets the lazy SNL treatment by having them host a talk show.  Speaking of annoying characters hosting a talk show, McKinney also gave us Taddli who is a completely undefined character who hosts a talk show yelling at guests who "suck on the pot".  Those were the two worst of the season, I also didn't care for the two Bill Brasky sketches we got at the end of the Alec Baldwin and John Goodman episodes, respectively, but I never liked these sketches.  The last two on my list were just lame more than awful.  Elle MacPherson proved that she might not be the best comedienne in Miss Manners as she giggled her way through a sketch where she burped, chugged beer and peed her pants.  Tim Meadows tried to pick up Laura Leighton with gangsta slang in I Wanna Git Witchu.

Best Host

Obviously if you have a host with sketch comedy experience they are going to excel.  Such was the case with David Alan Grier hosting my favorite episode of the season and Phil Hartman returning after a year absence.  Christopher Walken always has a way of bringing a fun off-beat energy to the show.  Then in the category of biggest surprises of the season we have Gabriel Byrne who committed to his characters in every sketch and Steve Forbes who out Walken-ed Walken by playing a big creep all night but it worked to the show's advantage.

Worst Host

Tom Arnold fancies himself a comedian, I believe, but you wouldn't know it from the episode he hosted where he clumsily read off cue cards all night and seemed to have no sense of comic timing.  Danny Aiello did the same thing but it's a little more forgivable as he's not known as a comic actor.  Chevy Chase wasn't terrible but did seem rather bored and uninterested for his hosting stint.  Laura Leighton was completely out of her element and seemed lost hosting a live comedy show.  Quentin Tarantino handled himself all right but was just really annoying for the whole show, mostly in the sketches where he played himself.

Best Episode Ratings

David Alan Grier/Silverchair - 3.9 Stars
Steve Forbes/Rage Against The Machine - 3.7 Stars
Elle MacPherson/Sting - 3.6 Stars
Gabriel Byrne/Alanis Morisette - 3.5 Stars
Christopher Walken/Joan Osbourne - 3.5 Stars

Worst Episode Ratings

Danny Aiello/Coolio - 2.4 Stars
Chevy Chase/Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - 2.5 Stars
Alec Baldwin/Tori Amos - 2.6 Stars
Laura Leighton/Rancid - 2.7 Stars
Madeline Kahn/Bush - 2.8 Stars

Episode average for the season - 3.1 Stars

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Season 21 Cast Rankings