Saturday Night Live Season 12 Reviews - Episode 2 - Malcolm-Jamal Warner / Run DMC

"Get down with your bad self, bro."

Cold Open: Bartles And Jaymes

2 Stars

Bartles and Jaymes talk about crack

Bartles and Jaymes is a wine cooler, or was, I'm not sure if it's still around.  It's been a while since I've bought a wine cooler.  I'm an adult man, if I want to drink I will drink, not guzzle a bottle of candy flavored sugar with booze in it.  Also, I'm a recovering alcoholic so it would be really sad if I fell off the wagon and was found surrounded by a case of strawberry daiquiri.  Anyway, their commercials in the 80s were two old guys talking about their product.  In this sketch they are talking about crack.  Crack is a drug, according to Bartles, and can cause you to be really stupid.  You shouldn't do crack.  I suppose they are insinuating that Jaymes has smoked crack as he is sitting on the porch slowly rocking in his chair.  He also gets to open the show with the 'Live From New York' tagline which might just be the only time A. Whitney Brown got to open the show.

The opening credits say there will be special guests Sam Kinison and Spike Lee.  What an interesting after party that must have been.  We also get featuring A. Whitney Brown and Kevin Nealon and The Saturday Night Live Band features Buster Poindexter this week.  He must have been hanging out in the studio still from last week.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner Monologue

3 Stars

Dana tries to get Malcolm-Jamal to dance

Malcolm-Jamal says he's just an ordinary kid, he takes an ordinary limo with an ordinary chauffeur to his ordinary job at the number 1 show on TV.  He worked out a dance for his opening monologue but now that millions of people are watching he's a bit self-conscious.  Dana comes out to encourage him and says that he too was nervous when he started dancing but now he is an incredible dancer.  He does some awkward white guy dances including a lot of finger guns.  Warner joins him in a dance and they continue to dance as we fade to commercial.  Dana was my MVP last episode and is now front and center in the monologue, he's being poised to be the breakout of the season.

Commercial: Team Xynex

5 Stars

Making technological advancements for people with too much free time

Team Xynex designs office systems to save time.  Then we get footage of office drones printing out birthday memos, making stupid pictures in paint programs and making copies of their butts.  We then see the cast around a computer as Carvey puts the phone down his pants.  As a guy who works on his blog while he's in an office getting paid to do something else, this struck me as exceptionally hilarious.

Donahue

5 Stars

Phil Donahue talks to women who have been exploited

Phil Hartman plays Phil Donahue and tonight's subject is women who have been exploited by men.  His first guest is Victoria Jackson who has been involved with a married man for 9 years.  There's also Jan Hooks whose boyfriend got drunk, totaled her car with her in it, never visited her in the hospital, withdrew her life savings and spent the money on other women and has held orgies in her apartment.  As Jan says though, you really have to meet the guy.  He's like a bad little puppy dog.  When Phil reminds her that he also sold her to an Iraqi business man she starts crying but then immediately explains that his landscaping business was failing and he needed the money.  His final guest is Dr. Norma Hoeffering who wrote a book, 'Women Good.  Men Bad.'.  Donahue pokes and prods at her relationship status eventually begging until she shouts that she's a lesbian.  Someone calls into the show saying that her ex-husband took advantage of her and only cared about his career.  The caller is revealed to be Phil's ex-wife.  We then go to the audience where Jon Lovitz tries to say that not all men are insensitive brutes but the women are more focused on Kevin Nealon who is sitting behind Lovitz and treating his girlfriend poorly.  He stands up to tell them that he knows what broads want and he's got it.  They all ask if he needs a lift home except for Dr. Norma who asks if he has a sister.  Phil's impression is the star here but this is an all around terrific where the entire cast got a chance to shine and say something funny.  It was a little long but worth it and all the characters were fun and everything just worked. 

The Crosby Show

 

4 Stars

Theo dreams that he's part of another family

Theo Huxtable is lying in bed while an off-screen Cliff Huxtable, voiced by Dana Carvey, is telling him to stay there until his homework is done.  He drifts off to sleep and we dissolve into a white family's home as Nora Dunn and her children played by Carvey, Jackson and Miller are waiting for their father to get home.  In walk's Phil Hartman as Bing Crosby and we get the title card of The Crosby Show (in hindsight, a theme song parody of all of them dancing would be fun).  Dana is having trouble in school and when papa Bing sees the report card he thinks they need to discuss this in the library.  They go in and we hear whipping and screaming.  As they come out, Dennis Miller tells dad that he's afraid to talk to girls.  They go into the library and we again hear the pained sounds of violent parental abuse.  Before Bing can get to Theo the doorbell rings and it's Bing's wayward son David Crosby, played by Lovitz, who got arrested for carrying a gun at a concert.  Theo tells them that he's not part of this family and then Bill Cosby's head is superimposed on the screen telling Theo that he can go home if he clicks his heels 3 times.  He wakes up and Cliff tells him to come in the library as Warner screams we fade to the band.  This was dated but fun.  You really need to know the context.  You see, The Cosby Show was the number 1 show on television at the time, it has since been erased from history.  Bing Crosby was a star from the 1940s who years after his death was revealed to have beaten his children.  Their names coincidentally sound alike, hence a sketch is born.  It had a weak ending but it had enough jokes to survive past the initial joke. 

Run DMC

"Walk This Way"

So first Malcolm-Jamal Warner introduces Mars Blackmon, a character from the film 'She's Gotta Have It'.  Mars says that Run DMC is coming out soon and that rap has become the music of the inner city black youth.  He also says that there will be no riots today while they are performing.

During this, Run DMC are seen talking to Lorne Michaels backstage.  I don't know what they are discussing but it ends with the group choking him and forcing him to the ground.

The the band rushes to the stage to perform Walk This Way which was one of the first breakout rap songs that crossed over to multiple audiences.  It's a mixture of rap and rock as they sample the original Aerosmith track.  I forgot just how repetitive this song was as it becomes a little boring to listen to as they just repeat the same hook and chorus over and over again.  During the song they get the very white audience to wave their hands like they just don't care.  It was fun to see a bunch of old white ladies confusingly holding their hands up in the air because a bunch of black guys told them to.

Weekend Update

"Dizzy Gillespie exploded tonight"

I don't get a lot of Dennis Miller's jokes because some of them aren't jokes.  They are more rambling thoughts that eventually get to the semblance of a punch line.  He wins me over with his attitude though as he's just a hip happening 80s guy with his own sense of style.  Like when he makes a joke about containers of D-Con having traces of cyanide and says that he doesn't want to live in this world anymore until he thinks about Mary Lou Retton and thinks he can go on one more day.  See, is that a joke?  a musing?  I have no idea but I still get joy from it.

Kevin Nealon is here to give his take on the news.  He says he has opinions about the failed summit talks between U.S. and Russia but these really just turn into bits from his stand up act.  Some good bits, he mentions that he cheats in life and sometimes copies people's grocery lists and ends up buying tampons and diapers.  He also has a friend who was paralyzed from the neck up and is now confined to a hat.  It's funny even though it's just a brief stand up act masquerading as a desk piece.

Entertainment editor, Casey Kasam shows up to ramble incoherently.  I can't really tell you what he says as this is just an excuse to showcase Dana Carvey's impression, which is good and funny.  He talks about a gruesome murder for some reason and then gives some bizarre music trivia.
"What band had the most hits on the most charts while never existing?"
The answer is nobody, no band that never existed had no such hits. 

Instant Coffee

 

3 Stars

The Sweeney Sisters perform on a TV show

Kevin Nealon plays Big Bill Smith who apparently hosts a show from a diner.  His guests are The Sweeney Sisters who perform a medley of standard songs.  Their performance is fun and spirited.  After they sing they sit down with Bill to promote their upcoming gig at The Chicken Coop.  Bill Smith says that tomorrow he'll be drinking Folgers Instant with a checkers champion.  This had no reason to be centered around a fake talk show.  The reason for the sketch is for Hooks and Dunn to sing random songs, everything else here was pointless filler. 

Parent-Teen Drunk Driving Contract

3 Stars

Malcolm-Jamal Warner explains his negotiated contract with his parents

Warner encourages kids to sign the Students Against Driving Drunk contract but before they do they should negotiate some rules.  The contract says that teens will agree to call their parents if they are ever too drunk to drive home and the parents agree to pick them up, no questions asked.  His contract, drawn up by his lawyers, has some addendums.  Like his parents have to pick him up 2 blocks away in a cool sports car, he gets to pick the radio station and make any stops he wants.  There's also a no car clean up clause in case he pukes in the car.  It's a simple and cute little piece but under the surface it is still condoning underage drinking. 

Sam Kinison

3 Stars

Kinison walks out like a rock star.  Like you can't wait to hear what he's gonna say.  He starts out by addressing his signature scream.  Robin Williams has ‘Nanu Nanu’, Steve Martin has ‘excuse me’ but people see Sam at the airport and scream in his face.  He ends by talking about how politics and religion are merging and it won’t be long before we have a preacher in the White House.  I did enjoy his bit about televangelists telling their constituents that Jesus convinced them to go non profit.

Old Hollywood

5 Stars
Johnny O’Connor doesn’t realize his career is over

Jon Lovitz is the head of a movie studio taking a meeting with film star Johnny O’Connor.  He has just finished his latest picture, ‘Yankee Kamikazee’.  Now that the war is over nobody’s going to want to see movies about fighter pilots so the producer tells him he’s fired.  Johnny fails to understand.
“You’re finished.  Your contract is not being renewed.”
“Don’t leave me hanging by a thread.  Tell it to me straight.”
“I think you’re the worst actor I’ve ever seen.”
“What’s the word on the street?”
“The war is over and so are you.”
“Is it the booze? The dames? The pills? The sheep? The ducks? Your wife?”
Lovitz gives him the part of man number 3 in his new giant lizard picture to make amends.  Johnny is satisfied and excited.  This was really great and anchored by terrific performances from Lovitz and Hartman who play off each other’s rhythms wonderfully.  It’s only the second episode but this is a contender for sketch of the season.

Run DMC return to perform Hit It, Run.  There’s a lot of beatboxing and record scratches and it all adds up to a fun set.

Chalk Factory

I’m missing this sketch starring Dana and Warner as workers in a chalk factory.  All I know about it is that there’s a mishap in a chalk factory that covers both of them in chalk and Malcolm-Jamal Warner is in white face.  It was never rebroadcast in any of the reruns, I think because it was slightly racist, but I could be wrong about that.

Hit The Road Jack

We end the show with Buster Poindexter singing Hit The Road, Jack by Ray Charles with some woman.  It’s fine but a sketch would have been preferable.

FINAL ANALYSIS

"Iacocca this!"

Average

3.7 Stars

MVP

Phil Hartman
Bartles & Jaymes, Donahue, The Crosby Show, Old Hollywood

Best Sketch

Old Hollywood

Worst Sketch

Parent-Teen Drunk Driving Contract

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

The whole show was solid.  It started off a little slow with a weak cold open and monologue but we got a good commercial parody, two good sketches, a spirited musical guest and then some weirder sketches at the end of the night.  The only thing I would have changed would be Buster Poindexter.  We didn't need that at all.

Host Analysis

Since I didn't get the final sketch, Chalk Factory, I only saw Malcolm-Jamal Warner in 2 sketches and the monologue.  In one sketch he played himself and in the other he played Theo Huxtable.  Not the greatest range although he did change his sweater.
Final Thoughts

In hindsight, it's probably best that they didn't give Warner much to do because everything he didn't appear in worked really well.  Old Hollywood and Donahue were classic sketches and we also got the introduction of The Sweeney Sisters which is not one of my favorite bits but the performances by Hooks and Dunn and their chemistry together are always a treat.  Overall this was a really fun episode and, unlike the season premiere, this one did get me excited for the new cast, Hartman specifically.

Up Next

Not quite a year since she went away, Rosanna Arquette hosts with musical guest Ric Ocasek from The Cars.