"Do not watch this show, tomorrow is church."
Cold Open: Church Chat
3 Stars
The Church Lady is protesting tonight's host
After explaining her protest to tonight's show as well as offering some counter-programming, ABC is showing the thriller movie Ants, Edna goes backstage to confront the naughty comedian. Sam is seen being fed grapes by his porn star girlfriend. Edna gets a few scolding words in before Sam tells her he knows what she really needs. He gives her a big kiss on the lips before turning to the camera and screaming, "Live from New York...". I should probably get this out of the way early. I never liked Kinison and never found him particularly funny. His whole gimmick was the screaming which I found annoying and I never really cared for any comedian with a gimmick. He had some good points and was a valuable alternative to the ultra conservative decade but he never provided me any laughs.
Sam Kinison Monologue
After explaining her protest to tonight's show as well as offering some counter-programming, ABC is showing the thriller movie Ants, Edna goes backstage to confront the naughty comedian. Sam is seen being fed grapes by his porn star girlfriend. Edna gets a few scolding words in before Sam tells her he knows what she really needs. He gives her a big kiss on the lips before turning to the camera and screaming, "Live from New York...". I should probably get this out of the way early. I never liked Kinison and never found him particularly funny. His whole gimmick was the screaming which I found annoying and I never really cared for any comedian with a gimmick. He had some good points and was a valuable alternative to the ultra conservative decade but he never provided me any laughs.
Sam Kinison Monologue
2 Stars
Kinison plays guitar and threatens the censors
As Sam walks out he straps on a guitar that's lying around on stage and jams with G.E. Smith for a minute. This is some unlistenable garbage I'm hearing as Kinison plays a random chord and thinks he's a rock star. He then mentions Libya and Chernobyl and of course screams. He says that NBC is going to let him say whatever he wants with no authority but before he can launch into his act two mounted policemen come out to keep watch. If you took out the minute of him playing guitar poorly then this wouldn't have been as bad as I thought it was.
Commercial: Adobe
As Sam walks out he straps on a guitar that's lying around on stage and jams with G.E. Smith for a minute. This is some unlistenable garbage I'm hearing as Kinison plays a random chord and thinks he's a rock star. He then mentions Libya and Chernobyl and of course screams. He says that NBC is going to let him say whatever he wants with no authority but before he can launch into his act two mounted policemen come out to keep watch. If you took out the minute of him playing guitar poorly then this wouldn't have been as bad as I thought it was.
Commercial: Adobe
4 Stars
The most affordable car on the market
Hyundais and Yugos are fine if you have $4,000 lying around. Finally there's a car with a sticker price of just $179. It's the Adobe, a Mexican import made out of clay. Big props to the prop department for designing the car which can be easily molded back in place after a fender bender and has an optional sunroof, if you peel back the actual roof. You can buy a cheaper car, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Parent Teacher Conference
Hyundais and Yugos are fine if you have $4,000 lying around. Finally there's a car with a sticker price of just $179. It's the Adobe, a Mexican import made out of clay. Big props to the prop department for designing the car which can be easily molded back in place after a fender bender and has an optional sunroof, if you peel back the actual roof. You can buy a cheaper car, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Parent Teacher Conference
3 Stars
A teacher tells parents their child is stupid
Kevin and Jan show up for their parent teacher conference but here's the kicker, the teacher is Sam Kinison. Oh man, he's gonna yell and scream. The sketch starts off good as there is a buildup to Sam's rage. He says he has a problem communicating with their daughter, Sarah, and he has a theory as to why, she's stupid. They don't believe this as Sarah is only 4½.
"I know how old stupid Sarah is. I've seen a lot of dumb, stupid, idiot kids and she's really stupid. You got a real idiot on your hands."
He points out proof by showing them her handwriting and a picture she drew of the sun with a smile. As everyone knows, the sun does not smile. Then the sketch just turns into Sam screaming at them full volume. Eventually Dana comes in as their real teacher and Sam quickly jumps out the window. The sketch has a pretty good punchline as Dana's nice teacher says that Sarah is no Einstein and tells the parents to have a seat. This had a fun premise and pretty good execution until it just turned into a scream fest.
Jungle Room
"I know how old stupid Sarah is. I've seen a lot of dumb, stupid, idiot kids and she's really stupid. You got a real idiot on your hands."
He points out proof by showing them her handwriting and a picture she drew of the sun with a smile. As everyone knows, the sun does not smile. Then the sketch just turns into Sam screaming at them full volume. Eventually Dana comes in as their real teacher and Sam quickly jumps out the window. The sketch has a pretty good punchline as Dana's nice teacher says that Sarah is no Einstein and tells the parents to have a seat. This had a fun premise and pretty good execution until it just turned into a scream fest.
Jungle Room
2 Stars
A gangster runs a nightclubI'm not really sure what to make of this one but I am sure it shouldn't be a sketch that plays before Weekend Update. Jon Lovitz is a shady nightclub owner who yells a lot. He screams at his bartender and his guests and the detective who walks in. Then he puts everything on hold so he can go up on stage and sing. He unironically sings a song for quite a while before going back to the scene and exchanging some verbal jabs with Hartman. This was interesting but not funny and a little too experimental for this early in the show. Something like this needs to be at the end of the night.
Pet Chicken Shop
1 Star
Good Lord. Dana Carvey is a Chinese pet shop employee with a catchphrase
As Ching Change always said and will say many times during this sketch, "Chicken make lousy house pet". Jon Lovitz comes into a chicken pet store to buy a pet chicken for his wife. Ching Change finds a reason against purchasing any of the chickens. This chicken is slow, this one acts like a dog, this one is not house trained, this one is dumb.
"My grandmother can't see too good, she take this chicken for walk he take her under sewer grate. She live under Chinatown 6 year she not know difference, she come up and say basement clean now."
Lovitz ends up leaving with a chicken and Ching Change is left with the rest of his remaining chickens singing 'I've grown accustomed to his face'. Even if you take the needless racism out of this sketch it's still really stupid.
Lou Reed
"My grandmother can't see too good, she take this chicken for walk he take her under sewer grate. She live under Chinatown 6 year she not know difference, she come up and say basement clean now."
Lovitz ends up leaving with a chicken and Ching Change is left with the rest of his remaining chickens singing 'I've grown accustomed to his face'. Even if you take the needless racism out of this sketch it's still really stupid.
Lou Reed
"I Love You, Suzanne"
This is a fun rockabilly song with a saxophone solo. You'll find no complaints here.
Weekend Update
"This just in, C. Everett Koop looks exactly the same upside down."
I wasn't digging this one as much as other installments. There were only two jokes I bothered to write down one was about Ted Turner planning to colorize the first 10 minutes of The Wizard Of Oz and the other one I just wrote down because it got audible boos from the audience. Miller tells everyone that, just to mess with people's heads, at 10pm tomorrow everybody should cough at the same time. The crowd boos him for some reason.
Victoria Jackson returns to the Update desk with another investigative report. This time she went to Central Park to look for terrorists. The video clip she shows is just her playing with her daughter in the park. After Miller protests that her piece was not very informative Jackson gets a little defensive.
"If I can't take my baby to work, what's the point in having a daughter?"
Love Connection
"If I can't take my baby to work, what's the point in having a daughter?"
Love Connection
2 Stars
Sam goes on a dating show and wins a date with two women
Kinison is playing himself sitting next to Nealon's Chuck Woolery. Sam is introduced as a former preacher, stand up comic and woman hater who says he will marry again when hell freezes over. The show picked 4 girls for him to pick from, the first is Victoria Jackson whose ideal date is to sit at home with her dog and watch the film Mask. The next is Jan Hooks as an older divorcee who hasn't been on a date in 27 years. The third is Dr. Norma Hoeffering and Zena who claim to know what men want and prefer not to have a commitment. Sam says that he chose Dr. Norma and Zena but then starts screaming about how horribly they treated him. His screaming really gets in the way of this sketch as he is not only cutting people off but their is no build up for his anger. We, as the audience, do not know why the date went poorly yet. Through his screams and ad-libs we can infer that the two women tied him up in a horse stable and, I guess, extracted sperm from him as if he were an animal. If the sketch had a bit more set-up then it would be better but as it stands now it's just another showcase for Sam to scream and yell.
Dancing Lord
Dancing Lord
2 Stars
A foppish lord won't stand still for his portraitWe open with a man being rolled away on a stretcher as Dana calls for his next sketch artist. Phil comes in and starts to draw the lord but the lord just wants to dance. If he stands still it's no fun so he dances and scurries and threatens to shoot the artist if he can't capture his likeness. He shoots Phil after dismissing his portrait as a smattering of distorted scribbles. The next artist is Lovitz who thrives on movement and encourages the lord to dance faster. After a lot of dancing and skipping, Carvey passes out on the bed and Lovitz starts to draw him. Was this written by a 3rd grader? I really don't get this sketch at all unless its only reason for being is so Carvey can dance around wildly. I started to feel bad for the poor set decorator who went to all that work to create an aristocrat's chambers just for this.
Krypton Survives
1 Star
Jorel was wrong in his calculations
Kinison plays Superman's father as he is sending his son to Earth as his planet explodes. There's a really lame dirty diaper joke to start the sketch. After he sends his son away a joyous Dennis Miller comes in to say that the earthquake is over. The planet was not actually exploding, Jorel was wrong and now his wife is gonna give him shit for it. 30 years later, Phil Hartman as Superman is seen on Earth arresting A. Whitney Brown (this was the only laugh I got from the sketch, seeing Brown dressed as a 50s greaser). Jorel visits his son in a vision to tell him that a meteor is about to hit Metropolis but his calculations are wrong again as the meteor destroys France. This was really weak.
Lou Reed returns to sing "Original Wrapper" which has the lyric 'Better check that sausage before you put it in the waffle', truer words were never spoken.
Sam Kinison
Lou Reed returns to sing "Original Wrapper" which has the lyric 'Better check that sausage before you put it in the waffle', truer words were never spoken.
Sam Kinison
Sam ends the show with some stand up. All his jokes are about his favorite subject, evil women.
FINAL ANALYSIS
"Thank you for helping the lesbian nation"
Average
2.2 Stars
MVP
Jan Hooks
Parent-Teacher Conference, Jungle Room, Love Connection
The cast member who stood out the most was Carvey but for the wrong reasons
Parent-Teacher Conference, Jungle Room, Love Connection
The cast member who stood out the most was Carvey but for the wrong reasons
Best Sketch
Parent-Teacher Conference
Worst Sketch
Pet Chicken Shop
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
Well, I only liked one sketch in the entire episode so I can't say that rearranging the sketches would have helped matters. At the goodnights, Sam apologizes to Buster Poindexter who was supposed to have a performance at the end of the night. I suppose I would have cut that lame Superman sketch and replace it with that.
Host Analysis
Host Analysis
Last episode I commended the show for using the host sparingly. This episode I am cringing at the amount of Sam Kinison. I just don't find him funny and he was definitely not good at sharing the stage. Every sketch he was in he dominated with his screaming and his big personality to the point where it distracted and drew focus. The worst was when he was literally screaming over his co-star's lines in Love Connection.
Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
A very weak episode all around. The best sketch wasn't great and the rest of the episode was really bad. Maybe if you really like Kinison then you would like this episode. I know he has a legion of fans and is well respected in the comedy community so I don't want to shit on him too much. Also, he's dead so there's another reason I don't want to speak too ill about him. I just find him unfunny and boorish. The episode wasn't entirely Kinison's fault though. There were 3 sketches where he didn't appear at all and those were somehow worse than the ones he was in. It also seems like Dana Carvey is going for my Billy Crystal award as most racist cast member when you look back on it. Crystal shouldn't have done blackface, Carvey shouldn't have done yellowface. I want to say that it was a different time and they didn't know better. Dude, this was 1986, you shoulda known better.
Up Next
Robin Williams hosts the show. I'm expecting him to dominate the proceedings but I'm also expecting to stomach him a bit more than Kinison.
You're a twat. Kinison's leads actually made sense contextually. You must have no true sense of what a pentatonic scale can actually do. I'd like to see you do half as well with a shitty Strat copy run straight into a clean channel at high gain. Educate yourself, plebian.
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