"Easter is not just sex. It's gluttony, drinking in excess and dishonesty in business."
Cold Open: Pagan Easter Special
2 Stars
Casey Kasam praises the God of fire on an Easter special for Pagans
Before Kent Laxtor and High Priestess Morganna take the stage we are introduced to who will be performing tonight including the Stonehenge Dancers, Judas Priest, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and, my favorite, Pat Boone's Evil Twin. Nora and John Larroquette talk about being Pagan and then bring out Casey Kasem who says that he started worshiping Molock, the God of fire, after getting fired from a voice over job. He then brings out his wife to do a sacrificial dance to Molock which is not funny and goes on for quite a long time. It was weird and I kept asking myself, "What the hell am I watching?". Casey says 'Live from New York...' after the dance. I feel like this might have been longer at one point and they cut it down and threw it on at the beginning of the show.
John Larroquette Monologue
Before Kent Laxtor and High Priestess Morganna take the stage we are introduced to who will be performing tonight including the Stonehenge Dancers, Judas Priest, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and, my favorite, Pat Boone's Evil Twin. Nora and John Larroquette talk about being Pagan and then bring out Casey Kasem who says that he started worshiping Molock, the God of fire, after getting fired from a voice over job. He then brings out his wife to do a sacrificial dance to Molock which is not funny and goes on for quite a long time. It was weird and I kept asking myself, "What the hell am I watching?". Casey says 'Live from New York...' after the dance. I feel like this might have been longer at one point and they cut it down and threw it on at the beginning of the show.
John Larroquette Monologue
3 Stars
John talks about how big a star he is while routinely dropping the fact that he has 2 Emmys
John says that it was only a matter of time before he hosted the show. He has 2 Emmys and the producers have been begging him for months. He didn't want to host the show on Easter because that's usually when he spends time with his family but then again, what about his girlfriends in New York, they need love too. It reminded me of the Bronson Pinchot monologue where you think he's going to say how much he loves his wife and family but instead admits to adultery. Larroquette is doing fake boasting but it almost comes off as true arrogance. Like, I know it's a bit but maybe he's just actually a dick.
"Those Emmys on my shelf, there's 2 of them, don't make me a better actor than anyone else. They are just tangible proof."
Sold-Out Bronze
John says that it was only a matter of time before he hosted the show. He has 2 Emmys and the producers have been begging him for months. He didn't want to host the show on Easter because that's usually when he spends time with his family but then again, what about his girlfriends in New York, they need love too. It reminded me of the Bronson Pinchot monologue where you think he's going to say how much he loves his wife and family but instead admits to adultery. Larroquette is doing fake boasting but it almost comes off as true arrogance. Like, I know it's a bit but maybe he's just actually a dick.
"Those Emmys on my shelf, there's 2 of them, don't make me a better actor than anyone else. They are just tangible proof."
Sold-Out Bronze
3 Stars
An album featuring today's best commercial jingles based on 60s rock
Kevin and Victoria are dancing to a Beach Boys song. He knows it as Good Vibrations but she knows it as the song from the Sunkist commercial. Then David Crosby tells us that most of today's commercial jingles are based on hits from the '60s and you can get them all on Sold Out Bronze, a new music collection. We get parodies of 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' (turned into 'In A Time Magazine-a') and 'White Rabbit' (turned into 'White Shirt', a commercial for a dry cleaners). My personal favorite was The Rolling Stones's 'Get Off Of My Cloud' turned into 'Lego of my Eggo'.
Mother-In-Law
2 Stars
A man gets in a fight with his abrasive mother-in-law
John is trying to fix the toaster when he is told by his wife, Jan, that his mother-in-law is dropping by. He is upset because a deal was made that Saturday would be his day and the last time the two met he was badly scarred at a barbecue. In comes Phil Hartman in drag and I immediately think I'm watching a sketch from the Flip Wilson show. Mom lights up a cigarette, tells her daughter that her high school boyfriend is single and wealthy and plugs in the toaster that John is working on causing him to get shocked. What starts as a typical mother-in-law from hell sketch that would have felt at home on the Sid Caesar show quickly turns absurd when John punches her in the face. They get into a big fist fight, Phil breaks a vase over John's head, they wrestle and trade blows to the mouth. The two reconcile once they see that Jan is upset. The fight scene was pretty funny but not enough to move this sketch into the win column.
Collecting Evidence
Collecting Evidence
3 Stars
A detective uses only pencils to collect evidence at a crime sceneA. Whitney Brown plays his second dead body of the season. Cops are surrounding his corpse and John comes in as the detective. They find a gun and a bloody shirt on the floor which John picks up with a pencil. Impressed, the cops get him to pick up more things that might have been used in a crime like the dictionary, the microwave and Kevin Nealon's eyelash. Larroquette displays some impressive physical comedic strengths here especially when he almost loses the eyelash and has to do a tumble while keeping the pencil steady. The cops scramble to find something else he can pick up, eventually landing on the body itself. John tries to pick up the body by stabbing it in the back, we then discover that the man is not dead, or at least he wasn't until John stabbed him. They all leave quickly when the coroner arrives. This was fun but missing something, I'm not sure what, that made me love it.
Instant Coffee
2 Stars
A local theater couple gets interviewedOut of all the characters this season, the one I never thought I'd see again was Kevin Nealon's Bill Smith. Not because he wasn't funny but because the last time we saw him the sketch was simply an excuse to showcase the Sweeney Sisters. Here he is used the exact same way, he gets all the straight lines to feed to Jan and John's theater couple. They are vain and pompous and would rather do local theater than go to New York or L.A. with all the phonies, cretins and Jews. They end with a scene from their new musical about Jackie O discovering JFK's affair with Marilyn Monroe which is much more cute than it is amusing. Then the sketch just ends with a fade out, no punchline, not even a closing note from Bill Smith.
Timbuk 3
"Just Another Movie"
Woah, the group that sang 'The Future's So Bright' did have other songs. Not good ones apparently, this was crap.
Weekend Update
"I've always been partial to the last one myself."
The FCC has apparently issued some warnings to the network about obscene and offensive material so Dennis puts George Carlin's 7 dirty words on the screen (censored of course) and wants to add an 8th, that being FCC. There must not have been any big news stories this week because most of Miller's jokes are on the silly side like Dennis Hopper being cast in the Harry Dean Stanton story and vice versa and Dick York being replaced by Dick Sargent during his birthday party.
Robin Leach is here as the show's baseball correspondent. It doesn't really matter why he's here because it's just an excuse for Dana to showcase his impression. He talks about pitcher Fernando Valenzuela making over a million dollars a year and getting tacos filled with caviar.
International sex kitten Babette is back with a word about tax season. When asked what she does for a living she responds that she is a woman and American men don't know how to treat a woman with dignity. Oh, so this isn't about taxes at all then? It's just a framing device for Babette to do the exact same thing she did last time? She acts out making love to a tax examiner which gets her all hot and bothered to the point where she needs a cigarette. It's not that I mind the repetition, I just wish they were honest about it. Just say, here to make sex noises like she did a couple months ago is Babette.
Heaven
International sex kitten Babette is back with a word about tax season. When asked what she does for a living she responds that she is a woman and American men don't know how to treat a woman with dignity. Oh, so this isn't about taxes at all then? It's just a framing device for Babette to do the exact same thing she did last time? She acts out making love to a tax examiner which gets her all hot and bothered to the point where she needs a cigarette. It's not that I mind the repetition, I just wish they were honest about it. Just say, here to make sex noises like she did a couple months ago is Babette.
Heaven
3 Stars
A recently deceased man asks Earthly questions to an angelJohn is confused about how he died and an angel tells him he broke his neck playing football in the house. He wants to know a lot of things about his time on Earth like his biggest mistake (he was walking on the beach one day and was right next to an undiscovered treasure chest), the grossest thing he ever ate (pudding with a dead earwig in it), smooth or chunky (chunky), did Bruce Willis make a deal with the Devil? (yes), the weirdest thing that causes cancer (looking at goldfish) and God's favorite religion (Lutheran). This was cute, it had some gags and was just fine but the performances by John and Dana were just a little too low-key. If the had been more animated or if John was maybe a little more upset by his death it could have had more punch.
ICM
2 Stars
Hollywood agents regroup after an Earthquake kills most of the entertainment industryAl Franken narrates a brief history of Hollywood and then tells us that a giant earthquake has destroyed it leaving millions dead. In New York, a talent agency tries to figure out what to do. Jan gives a briefing on the TV department, Michael Landon, missing assumed dead, Howie Mandel, missing assumed dead, Heather Locklear, dead, Michael J. Fox, on location in Vancouver. John tears names out of his Rolodex as they are called out. Don Johnson, Donna Mills, Alan Thicke, Linda Evans, Goldie, Sally, Jessica, Jane, Barbra and Meryl are all dead, this is great news for Pia Zadora and may open things up for Suzanne Somers. John ends the sketch with an impassioned speech to his fellow agents that they can rebuild by finding new talent. This was both unfunny and long. My favorite part of the sketch was when a guy in the audience cheered when Linda Evans was pronounced dead.
Timbuk 3 returns with the equally unlistenable "Hairstyles And Attitudes".
According to SNL Archives I am missing a sketch called Enigma
I do get the extended tribute to SNL cameraman, Al Camoin at the goodnights where some of the cast reads awkward scripted well wishes.
FINAL ANALYSIS
"Let our women be fertile and our men be inflamed by desire"
Average
2.5 Stars
MVP
Jan Hooks
Pagan Easter Special, Mother-In-Law, Instant Coffee, ICM
Pagan Easter Special, Mother-In-Law, Instant Coffee, ICM
Best Sketch
Collecting Evidence
Worst Sketch
ICM
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
The cold open was really weak which is a big problem. A good opening to the show can really make or break my enjoyment. There's nothing to swap it with really. Maybe if they shortened and tightened ICM it could make a good open. They could go a little meta with it and talk about who's going to host the show tonight. There you go, make Phil the lead in ICM and change it to who is going to host the show and then they land on Larroquette because he was safely in the doorway of a brothel at the time of the quake.
Host Analysis
I was really letdown by Larroquette. He came off as arrogant in his monologue, which I know was the point, but it didn't get me on his side. The monologue is your way of showing yourself to the audience. What kind of attitude are you going to bring to the show? If you act like you're going to have fun then I'm having fun with you, if you act like an obnoxious tool I'm just going to think you're an obnoxious tool.
Final Thoughts
A fairly weak episode all around. Larroquette had a kind of sameness and blandness to him all night and the writing of the sketches wasn't that good either. It's been a while since we've gotten a slam dunk episode and I don't know if it's because the show is losing steam late in the season or I am.
Up Next
Hunky St. Elsewhere heartthrob Mark Harmon hosts with musical guest Suzanne Vega.
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