Saturday Night Live Season 23 Reviews - Episode 9 - Helen Hunt / Hanson

"Mark Wohlers called me a fag"

Cold Open: Caroling

3 Stars

Marty and Bobbi Culp and two other teachers visit a former student on Christmas Eve

In a POV shot, a hand reaches for a doorknob.  I'm thinking I'm gonna get The Continental or maybe Bob Dole trick or treating again in New Hampshire.  Nope, it's Marty and Bobbbi Culp.  It's the last stop on their caroling tour and they are also joined by Tim and Helen Hunt.  After some light pleasantries, they sing a mixture of Christmas carols and popular songs.  The transitions between the songs were fun, Jingle Bells goes into Ring My Bell, Silent Night turns into Nights In White Satin and the turtles doves of The Twelve Days Of Christmas morphs into When Doves Cry.  Before the door can close on them completely, Hunt holds it open to scream the sign on.

Helen Hunt Monologue

3 Stars

The cast's impressions of Jack Nicholson are interrupted by the man himself

Helen is excited to be hosting the show with Hanson, as she is the oldest member of the band, but she's really excited for her new movie, As Good As It Gets with Jack Nicholson.  Jim comes out doing a Nicholson impression, followed by Darrell, Colin, Cheri and Tim.  They all take turns quoting lines from The Shining and Five Easy Pieces as well as The Elephant Man, which Jim thinks he was in.  Their barrage of impersonations are put on hold when the real Jack Nicholson appears to thunderous applause.  He tells them to leave this nice lady alone, then Jim asks Jack what he thinks of his impression.
"You wanna know the truth?  You can't handle the truth!"

Rerun of Cookie Dough Sport

The Delicious Dish

3 Stars

The radio hosts interview the owner of Viva Las Baked Goods

The girls are a little giggly today, it appears they have gotten into the eggnog.  They realize their mistake when they read the recipe for Sylvia's Non-Alcoholic Eggnog.  They could have sworn they were hammered but it must have just been yuletide cheer.  Their guest is Trudy, it rhymes with 'booty' which she shakes all night long while making baked goods.  She's a rock and roll pastry chef who made an exact replica of Elvis's Graceland out of gingerbread, if it were just one big room.  This is one of those sketches that I always think I am tired of but then end up enjoying.  Molly and Ana are just so fun playing these characters.

Fun With Real Audio

3 Stars

Jesus visits some televangelists

Televangelist, Robert Schuller is on TV praying for 20 million dollars to build his church, he doesn''t realize that Jesus is right behind him.  Jesus eventually turns him into a ballerina.  He visits Pat Robertson who tries to dress him up as a lamp, a faith healer and Kathie Lee Gifford's Christmas special.  Depressed, Jesus walks down a lonely street and comes upon a TV in a department store window.  He sees a commercial for Miracle Bible Oil, Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur and a Christmas episode of Happy Days but gets emotional when he hears Linus speak in A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Tears well up in his eyes as if he's finally heard someone speak the truth and he dances to the Peanuts theme.  It's a cute little cartoon for the holidays.

The Ladies' Man

3 Stars

Leon takes callers with the help of a skank

Leon is joined by one of the classier naked ladies in the strip club, as she only takes off the top half, Charlene.  He takes a caller from a man who can only date really attractive women.  Leon says that while we'd all like to have a hot lady like Delta Burke there is a reason God invented "the skank".  His next caller is a man who is concerned about the size of his penis.
"Medically speaking, how dinky is your wang?"
When the caller says 3 inches, Leon is taken aback.  He wasn't expecting anything under 10.  He asks Charlene if size matters, she insists it does, so Leon tells the caller that he will never satisfy a woman.  I was not buying Helen Hunt as a trashy stripper at all but the sketch was still funny.  An almost exact replica of the last time we saw the character but still funny.

Baseball Dreams

5 Stars

A child is visited by some of his heroes, and they brought friends

As Chris drifts off to dreamland, he envisions his future as a professional baseball player.  The closet door opens and in walks Todd Huntley, all star catcher for the New York Mets.  He tells the young boy to follow his dreams.  Then in walks Rookie of the Year, Phillies 3rd baseman Scott Rolen who says the same thing.  Atlanta Braves pitcher, Mark Wohlers tells little Danny that he can do whatever he wants because this ain't Russia.  When told that Russia is now a democracy, Mark Wohlers calls the little kid a "fag".  They all hide when Danny's mom comes in.  The ballplayers are joined by Marty Cordova, Jeff Fassero, Gregg Jefferies, Mark Grudzielanek and Rondell White.  All of which give Danny the same cliche line about following his dreams and being anything he wants to be.  Danny thinks all of this has lost all meaning after hearing it so many times.  In come Todd Zeile, Russ Davis, Cliff Floyd, Pedro Borbon, Jr. and Gerald Williams, who brought a keg.  Also here is Ted Brogan who played some minor league ball in the '80s and was supposed to play in Japan but failed a drug test.  The party ends when mom comes in the room.
"Who are all these men?"
"I'm Ted Brogan.  I got rolling papers if you got weed."
Police sirens are heard as Ken Griffey, Jr. is streaking in the front yard.  Everybody scatters and Ted Brogan asks little Danny to hide his gun.  Danny is in tears and tells his mom that he no longer wants to be a baseball player but a basketball player instead.  At this point a bunch of basketball players burst in and start causing havoc.  I loved this.  It had a beginning, middle and end, escalations in absurdity and all the ballplayers handled themselves quite well.  The only technical glitch was the audience who screamed over a few lines and the unseasoned actors didn't know to pause and wait for the applause to die down.

Hanson

"Mmmbop"

You gotta respect these little golden haired mop tops, they played their own instruments and wrote their own songs and released an incredibly catchy tune that became inescapable in 1997.  This performance sounds a little more unpolished than the album version we are all familiar with but that made it a little cooler.  I've heard the album version literally a billion times so I wanted something different.

Weekend Update

"An observer who caught the couple necking at a restaurant will have trouble getting an erection for the rest of his life"

That's it.  The joke above is the last joke Norm told on Update and it's a good one.  But more than that, it's a Norm MacDonald joke.  I'm trying to imagine Colin Quinn deliver that punchline or Kevin Nealon, Dennis Miller or anyone else.  There are some incarnations of Weekend Update that I like better than others but even when the segment is firing on all cylinders there's still a part of me that thinks, why are you still doing this?  This is Norm's bit.  Sure, he didn't invent it but he perfected it.  What are you still doing here?

Latrell Spreewell has hired Johnny Cochran as his attorney.  Cochran claims that his client did not choke his coach and has offered a reward to find the real choker.

President Clinton's meeting with a Chinese diplomat was cut short when it was revealed that the diplomat was broke.

OJ Simpson received $500 in compensation when he was refused a table at a restaurant.  The restaurant now offers separate sections for murderer and non-murderer.

Bill Clinton got a puppy, this is because in comparison with a male dog the president's sex life will seem relatively normal.

Colin Quinn comes out to talk about the International Monetary Fund but he's drunk on eggnog.  That's the joke.  He's sloppy drunk and can't do his job.  He spills his drink on the desk, Norm tries to get him to straighten up but gets insulted.  It ends with a policeman taking Colin away.  This is not boding well for next episode.

The Roxbury Guys

2 Stars

The Roxbury Guys seek treatment for how they treat women

The Butabi brothers are bopping their heads in their car.  They arrive at The China Club and it's the same old routine until Cheri finally stops them.  They pounce on her as normal, slamming her back and forth between their pelvic thrusts, but she has finally had enough.  She tells them that she is a human being and should be treated with respect and advises the two to get some professional help.  The next day they are in a psychologist's office and her diagnosis is that they have become desensitized to human interaction due to excessive clubbing.  She tries to engage them in a dialogue to little progress and tries to get them to dance normally but they quickly revert to their old ways of crotch bumping.  Finally the psychologist yells at them.
"Women have no interest in this ultra cool, "Hey, baby", slicked back hair, expensive suit wearing, dark sunglasses image."
Then, in walks Jack Nicholson.  He asks her if she's ready to hit the town, gives her a big kiss and walks out doing the Roxbury head bop.  Two things, one, clearly Jack had never seen the show as his imitation of the Roxbury Guys is hilariously awkward.  Two, there's a weird reaction from Hunt after the kiss.  She looks flummoxed and says, almost angrily, "Thanks a lot".  I rewatched it multiple times.  At first I thought the kiss was unrehearsed but you can tell that she goes in for it as soon as he puts his arms out.  I'm guessing Jack's headbops were not planned as she looks confused at first and then covers her face.  Just a weird moment I wanted to point out.  She tells the pair to start clubbing responsibly and we see them the next day approaching Cheri again.  They politely ask her to dance, she accepts and then they start banging her with their crotches.

Joan Rivers' 1997 Fashion Wrap-Up

3 Stars

Joan Rivers and friends dish on what celebrities are wearing

Points to whoever decided to make Joan Rivers a skeleton puppet voiced by Ana for this entire sketch without any explanation, I just wish there was more to it than that.  Skeleton Joan is joined by her daughter Melissa, Cheri, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, Darrell and Jodie Foster, Hunt.  They take turns dishing on what celebrities are wearing and calling the ugly, fat or both.  Things get slightly morbid when they start saying things like "she should be mauled by bears" or "she should be shot in the face".  Jodie Foster is the voice of reason, calling for civility but the other three are having none of it.  The sketch ends with Joan's skeleton head popping off her skeleton body and it remains laying on the floor as we fade out.

A Burt Reynolds Christmas

3 Stars

Commercial for a holiday special for the ages

This Friday on NBC, join Burt Reynolds and his special guests Michael Jeter and Jerry Reed as the celebrate the holidays together.  This is just a real quick commercial parody for a lame Christmas special with Norm playing Burt as the prankster he plays on Jeopardy.  He poisons Michael Jeter's eggnog, tells a joke about an elf pulling out his johnson in a whorehouse and makes Jerry Reed read a tasteless joke about his own wife.  It's pretty funny but could have been an actual sketch.

ChristmaSoft

2 Stars

Bill Gates is excited about his new merger

Bill Gates breaks on to the airwaves to tell us that Microsoft has officially merged with Christmas.  From now on to celebrate the holiday you will need Windows 95 and if you're a Mac user then you're now Jewish.  Gates gets bored during his own announcement so plays with his power and shows us video footage of what President Clinton and Field Castro are doing at the moment, the latter is dancing to Chumbawumba.  He then says that he's very lonely but not to worry, he'll get by and if he doesn't he'll just buy everyone in the country and make them say he did.

Torturing Hanson

3 Stars

Hanson gets a taste of their own medicine

Will and Helen corner Hanson in an elevator at gunpoint, something I don't think would fly nowadays, pointing a gun at a child.  They ask them if they are aware that Mmmbop was played 7.8 million times on radios worldwide in 1997.  It is time to make Hanson suffer the way we all did.  They force the group to listen to the song over and over so they can experience the same pain.  The oldest brother goes mad first, followed by the youngest, both of whom are incredibly overacting.  The middle Hanson doesn't seem to be affected and claims to like the song.  Will agrees and starts tapping his toes and dancing around.  As the elevator doors open, Hanson escapes but Helen, realizing that her friend has succumbed to Hanson fever, shoots him in the head like Lenny in Of Mice And Men.  Hanson was starting to irritate me with their lack of comedic timing and over-eagerness but this was a nice, morbid little skit to end the night.

Hanson returns with "Merry Christmas, Baby" which is a song I always attributed to Otis Redding but in doing some research found that his was a cover and the song has been recorded by numerous artists including Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Chuck Berry, BB King, Booker T. & The M.G.'s and, of course, Jessica Simpson.  Hanson's version sounds like a little white kid trying to sound like a black soul singer and I was not a fan.  After the song was over the youngest Hanson brother screams something from behind the drums.  I rewound several times but could't make it out.  I was wondering if I had discovered an SNL F-bomb that nobody had ever noticed.

No official 10-1 sketch this episode as the cast used Hanson's last performance to head outside and end the show on ice skates, waving goodbye with Jack Nicholson.  The Hanson brothers have to say goodnight from inside the studio.

FINAL ANALYSIS

"I'd like to set her on fire and burn her until she's dead"

Average

2.9 Stars

MVP

Ana Gasteyer
Caroling, The Delicious Dish, Joan Rivers' 1997 Fashion Wrap-Up

Best Sketch

Baseball Dreams

Worst Sketch

ChristmaSoft

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

Instead of a rerun of Cookie Dough Sport, throw A Burt Reynolds Christmas on post monologue to give the episode a holiday feel right out of the gate.  Also, I know it's the last episode of the calendar year and you're probably tired but between The Ladies' Man, Caroling, The Roxbury Guys and The Delicious Dish, half of this episode was recurring characters.  If it weren't for Baseball Dreams, Torturing Hanson and the Jack Nicholson cameo, this episode would be completely forgettable because it just resembles every other episode.
Host Analysis

I forgot until writing this section that I had seen Helen Hunt host before.  She hosted in season 19, which I already reviewed, and she made so little an impression on me that I completely forgot about her.  I went back to that episode to see if I could job my memory and while I remember certain sketches, I don't recall Hunt at all.  I found her rather wooden for this outing which worked for The Delicious Dish but not so much for anything else.  Luckily, they didn't give her much so she didn't drag the show down but this was far from a stellar outing.
Final Thoughts

Christmas episodes usually get a pass from me.  I don't know why but there's something about a Christmas episode of SNL that's just comforting.  This one had very little holiday feel to it though but it was just enough with the cold open, Hanson's final song, the Jesus cartoon, Burt Reynolds, Bill Gates and The Delicious Dish...actually that's more than half the episode.  So I'm not sure why it didn't feel that Christmas-y.  This is gonna be a complaint throughout the season I'm sure but I could have used one more original sketch and one less recurring piece.  Two per episode is plenty.  After The Culps, The Delicious Dish and The Ladies' Man, the last thing I wanted to see was The Roxbury Guys.

Up Next

The episode I've been waiting for.  Samuel L. Jackson hosts with musical guest Ben Folds Five.  I remember it well.  A 15 year old me was sitting on the floor of my living room watching SNL like I did every Saturday Night.  Then it happened...