Cold Open: Iran-Contra Hearings
2 Stars
Robert McFarlane weeps in front of the committee
This was obviously based on something topical that I don't know about. I only vaguely know what the Iran-Contra scandal was about and I have no idea who Robert McFarlane was or how he acted during his questioning. So, is it funny? Not really. Phil plays McFarlane, former national security adviser, and he keeps crying when he admits to knowing things that he didn't tell people about. The committee is falling for this and keeps trying to make him feel better. Political cold opens exist only in the present and 30+ years later they lose pretty much everything.
Garry Shandling Monologue
This was obviously based on something topical that I don't know about. I only vaguely know what the Iran-Contra scandal was about and I have no idea who Robert McFarlane was or how he acted during his questioning. So, is it funny? Not really. Phil plays McFarlane, former national security adviser, and he keeps crying when he admits to knowing things that he didn't tell people about. The committee is falling for this and keeps trying to make him feel better. Political cold opens exist only in the present and 30+ years later they lose pretty much everything.
Garry Shandling Monologue
4 Stars
Garry uses his monologue to do some stand-up. Actually, he keeps talking about how he doesn't want to do a monologue, which is a monologue in itself. He talks about several women that he's dated including one who only wanted to talk about herself, her hair was on fire at the time, and a woman who mocked the realism in the movie E.T.. He also says that he made love to her for an hour and 15 minutes, it was the day you push the clocks ahead. My favorite piece of observational comedy was when he said that he was buying a house for $350,000 that the realtor said has a great view.
"For $350,000 I need to see breasts up against the windows."
He eventually lands on not wanting to do a monologue at all and just wants to walk to the next sketch, which he does.
Returning A Sweater
4 Stars
Garry can't stop looking at the camera during his first sketch
Garry walks into a department store wanting to return a shirt but he doesn't have the receipt. Shortly into the sketch he acknowledges Jan and tells the audience to give her a big round of applause. He continues to break the fourth wall and tell the crowd that he met Jan at a party at Kevin Nealon's house. Since he doesn't have a receipt, Phil comes out as the manager doing a perfect impression of Frank Nelson (from The Jack Benny Show but most will recognize him as 'The Yes Guy' from The Simpsons). Garry eventually drops all pretenses of being in the sketch and just starts doing stand-up about men and how they buy clothing. Garry's commitment to not committing was very funny and this was a fun precursor to the bizarre that lies ahead.
The Puppy
5 Stars
A master jewel thief gets interrogated by a detective
Dana gets an opening theme song, he's a highly skilled jewel thief known as 'The Puppy', the reason for his nickname will become abundantly clear soon. An inspector from Scotland Yard comes to question him. There has been another robbery attributed to The Puppy. They know it was The Puppy because he left his calling card, something that he should have his nose rubbed in. During this Dana is sitting on the floor until the inspector invites him to sit on the couch. The Puppy brings the inspector two dog bowls of sherry, he is very interested in the ball that the inspector is tossing up and down, they wrestle over a rag and the inspector notices a spill on the carpet that has a strange smell. The Puppy says that someone must have had an accident, but they are really a good boy and held it for as long as they could. It's all incredibly silly and fun as Dana creates a great character in this dog man he's playing and Phil once again shows his strengths as a hilarious straight man.
Support Group
5 Stars
A man brings his therapy session to meet his mom
Kevin is running a support group for people with various issues, Dana has agoraphobia, Victoria is bulimic and Garry has multiple issues that stem from his mother. She sent a letter to his fiancee detailing a sexual affair he had with his male college professor, she burned his birth certificate, she put his cat to sleep and told him it was his fault and she once told him he was a bad boy so she rubbed his face in the cups of her bra. The last part he didn't mind too much. The support group gets so upset that they feel that they need to accompany Garry to his mom's house to confront her. Once there they realize that they've only heard one side of the story. Mom explains that she had to give the cat away because Garry insisted on taking its temperature every 6 hours, she rubbed his face in her bra because he drew pictures of himself in the cups with magic marker and she burned his birth certificate so he would never find out that his college professor was actually his father. Garry knew that last part the whole time and says it made it all the more exciting. The groups feelings on Garry have completely turned around and they want to leave. Garry and his mother finally start to talk and express their feelings but things go a little too far and they start making out. The group leaves in a panic and Garry breaks character and tells the audience that this is too disturbing and needs to end. Quite possibly the darkest and grossest sketch that has ever been on SNL and I loved every second of it. Shout out to Dana who is very funny as an agoraphobic who keeps wanting to leave and go back to his apartment and stay there forever.
Los Lobos
"Is That All There Is"
Los Lobos, whom I only know from their cover of 'La Bamba' perform a toe tapping song that sounds pretty good. It's not my favorite style of music but it's pretty good.
Weekend Update
Dennis had some good jokes this week but nothing I bothered writing down. The best part of this segment was Dana coming out as Jimmy Stewart to talk about the colorization of black and white movies. The beautiful thing about this piece is that he's never saying anything particularly funny but the impression is so fun that it doesn't matter. Dana is hilarious just mumbling and stuttering his opinion and finally getting to the punchline that if he met anyone colorizing one of his movies in a dark alley he'd kick their ass. He gets so worked up at the end that he tells Dennis to get a haircut and threatens to kick his ass too.
Teeny Cafe
Teeny Cafe
1 Star
Babette performs a song at her small restaurant
Ugh. A. Whitney Brown is turning people away at the door because this New York club is so exclusive that it only has two tables, a maximum occupancy of 4 with a VIP room (the bathroom that can only fit 1 person). I was gearing up for some physical comedy of waiters and cooks trying to operate in a tiny restaurant but instead Nora Dunn comes out as Babette, the owner of the restaurant, and she just sings a song. Her and Jon, acting as her piano player, duet 'Send In The Clowns'. That's the sketch. They sing a song. It's not funny. It's not interesting. She just wanted to sing.
Redneck Airline
2 Stars
Passengers get in the way of hillbillies chewing and spitting tobacco
At this airline, tobacco chewing is allowed in rows 33-40. Garry and Victoria are not chewing but are sitting in that section because they were the only seats they could get. Both Garry and Victoria get tobacco spit all over them, Phil comes in as a first class passenger who wants to 'have a good chaw' and he spits on them, the flight attendant gets spit on, everybody gets soaked with brown liquid. This was like a parody of an SNL sketch. There's no premise, it's all just to facilitate a sight gag. There were some humorous moments but it mostly fell flat.
Hollywood Mom
4 Stars
Tracey Ullman stars in a short film about an actress raising her baby
We start with a VHS recording of Tracey Ullman giving birth. In the middle she gets a call telling her that she booked a TV gig. We pan out to her watching the footage and saying that it was the happiest day of her life, the day she got her own show. Then we get a bunch of sight gags of Tracey taking care of her baby, she leaves her unattended by the pool, uses her as a TV antennae and drives off with the bassinet on the roof of her car. Then it gets darker. While on the phone with her manager she lets her baby play with a gun, we cut to an exterior of her house, hear a gunshot and then the baby gets in the car and drives away. We're really pushing the taste boundaries this episode and I'm all in.
Happy Couple
2 Stars
A couple fights while having dinner
Dana and Jan are celebrating their anniversary over dinner. They mention that they are happy about completing couples therapy. They argue a lot, getting louder and louder and eventually throwing drinks in each other's faces and choking one another. They always pull back and apologize, remembering what they learned in therapy. It ends with Garry, who has been playing the waiter, coming out and taking off his jacket and saying the sketch is over. I anticipated this kind of ending to the sketch and the episode as a whole but I just wish it was more clever.
Los Lobos returns with "One Time, One Night" which is more twangy than their last song but still pleasant. It's nothing to get up and cheer for but I liked it.
FINAL ANALYSIS
"I did the monologue, we did the sketches and this is the end."
Average
3.2 Stars
MVP
Dana Carvey
The Puppy, Support Group, Weekend Update, Teeny Cafe, Happy Couple
The Puppy, Support Group, Weekend Update, Teeny Cafe, Happy Couple
Best Sketch
Support Group
Worst Sketch
Teeny Cafe
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
This had the makings to be one of the weirdest and wildest episode and I wanted more of it. After the monologue/first sketch, Garry only appeared in 3 sketches and he broke the 4th wall in two of them. I wanted him to come in at the end of Teeny Cafe and do some stand up to get us out of that lame sketch. He also could have commented on Redneck Airline and given that sketch some much needed irony. The placement of the sketches was fine but they should have just let Garry take over. Just leave him out of The Puppy because that sketch didn't need anything else.
Host Analysis
He only appeared in 4 sketches and he purposefully broke character in all but one of them. What a bizarre episode. The show needs one like this per season. Last year they had Pee-Wee Herman remaining in character the whole episode and this season we have Garry acknowledging the audience and acting like he doesn't know what the show is about. It keeps things fresh to play with the format every now and then.
Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Wow, was this weird and dark and I'm really only focusing on 3 sketches. The opening sketch put me off balance just enough so something like Support Group could follow and blow my mind. If that was the final sketch of another episode I would probably think it was in bad taste just for the sake of being bad taste. But they established a tone right away like anything could happen so when Garry Shandling starts making out with his mom I was staring at my TV in disbelief and wonder. Then you have Hollywood Mom which is a short film that wouldn't work in any other episode. It ends with a baby playing with a gun and shooting its mother. If that was in the Charlton Heston episode it would be the weirdest thing ever but it feels right at home here. If only the show didn't fall off the hinges right after Update this would have been a near perfect episode.
Up Next
Season finale hosted by Dennis Hopper fresh off his comeback with Blue Velvet and another comeback king as the musical guest, Roy Orbison.
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