Pumping Up With Hans and Franz VI
Those wacky Austrian “bodybuilders” Hans (Carvey) and Franz
(Nealon) briefly “clear the air” on the Olympic steroid controversy and explain
why they don’t feel the need to take them. They also ridicule Greg Louganis’
diving performance and end by showing us what we might see had they
participated in the Olympics.
This was a fine outing for the two musclemen, but not
exactly their best. It wasn’t as good as the three other Hans and Franz
sketches we would see later on in this season. The real highlights were
Nealons’ washboard abs/Sears front loaders joke, Carvey’s out of nowhere
landromat comment, the two berating Louganis and calling him “Stuganis” for no
reason and of course, the soft focus, slo-mo Olympic profile/tribute.
Grade: B-
Montage
New season, new opening credits package. This features a
series of blue tinted, monochromatic shots of the cast out on the town and
various other oddballs and landmarks around New York.
While I do like the stylized casual grim decadence of this
intro, I must say I prefer the one from the previous two seasons. Even though
it had more of an overly pretentious feel to it than this one, I just liked all
the shots of the cast in a mad dash to get to the 8H. [citation needed] It’s especially funnier if you imagine that
they’re all running FROM something. I also liked the 90-94 package since I
pretty much grew up with it, but these make them look unambitious. They still
kind of pales in comparison to the strangeness that just jumps out at you form
86-90.
Monologue
Tom Hanks begins by walking out to briefly address the rumor
that he is the “nicest guy in Hollywood”. As his monologue “ends”, he walks
backstage and is tearfully thanked by Nora Dunn for researching her family tree
and presenting it to her as a gift. Further playing into his “nicest guy”
image, he walks into the control room to wish everybody good luck and consoles
and angry Hartman berating the crew about his wig and wardrobe not being right
for the debate sketch. Later, he calms a wild horse and his handler, (Conan
O’Brien) settles a dispute between an NBC page (Bob Odenkirk) and two thugs
without tickets and advises Keith Richards to check up on one of his ill band
mates. Finally, Tom congratulates Dennis on Update doing well in dress and
Dennis reminds him that he forgot to thank the audience for coming. Tom rushes
on the stage while the debate sketch is being set up to thank each and every
individual audience member.
This was great. Sprawling monologues that explore the whole
studio are always fun even when they’re not big song and dance numbers. Hanks
did a fine job of poking a little fun at his image even if he wasn’t being
particularly self-deprecating here. This is also notable for being Conan
O’Brien’s first and Bob Odenkirk’s second onscreen appearances since they were
hired as writers, so great for them. Bob’s voice sounded noticeably different
from the voice we all associate with him now. Hartman did a great transition
from angry to peaceful. Keith’s cameo also made me chuckle and Hanks
obliviously giving two thugs his hotel room keys was worth a laugh. Also, it’s
worth noting that Tom named “Colin” as one of the audience members seeing as
that’s also the name of his son. I wonder if that was intentional?
Grade: B+
First Citiwide Change Bank
A commercial for the only bank in America that specializes
in just making change for its customers (and nothing else) features
testimonials from Service Representative Paul McElroy (Jim Downey) and two
satisfied customers (Hooks, Nealon).
This is a semi-famous fake ad and that reputation is well
deserved. They took a subtly absurd premise and faithfully executed it exactly
like an actual professional bank ad. This is also one of many parodies of the
“real testimonial” ad tropes that were apparently big in the late ‘80s and
early ‘90s, but this one was the most successful and well-remembered. Downey’s
laundry list of change combinations for any given amount of money was funny to
listen to.
Grade: B+
ABC Campaign ‘88
ABC News presents coverage of the second of two debates
presidential campaign of 1988 between Vice President George H.W. Bush (Carvey)
and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (Lovitz). The debate is moderated by
Diane Sawyer (Hooks) and Sam Donaldson (Nealon) is the most prominent member of
the panel. Nightly News Anchor Peter Jennings (Hanks) and Sunday Morning pundit
David Brinkley (Hartman) also provide analysis as they are joined by VP hopeful
Dan Quayle (Jeff Renaudo) and his wife Marylin (Dunn).
This was one of the more creative and ambitious debate
sketches in terms of production value and of length (clocking in at nearly 14
minutes) and along with the 200 Bush/Gore debates it could be credited with
starting the trend of SNL doing presidential debate sketches every four years
(with 1996 being the possible exception that proves the rule…unless you count
the Bob Dole Independence Day debate with Bill Pullman or the Clinton/Dole
debate “Fun With Real Audio” Smigeltoon from that same episode). Still, this
was one of the better and more memorable debate parodies. It had plenty of
moments of satirical brilliance including Dukakis’s lift and “enraged” speech
(although some of the absurdist comedic value of the lift has waned since Jon
Stewart used one in his Bill O’Reilly debate last fall), the whole squabble
over the logistics of time travel, Sawyer getting hit with popcorn, Donaldson
hijacking the whole debate, Bush’s hedging “stay the course/thousand points of
light” ramble followed by Dukakis’ disbelief that he’s “losing to this guy” and
of course the bullet proof shield and Dukakis’ “American Dream” speech.
Everyone pulled off great impressions. Carvey’s Bush is rather primitive here
and has yet to evolve into the cartoonish form it would later take. The same
could be said for Nealon’s Sam Donaldson. Lovitz seemed more concerned with
getting Dukakis’ speech patterns and rhythms down rather than his voice, but he
certainly looked the part most out of the cast so the role suited him. Hartman
pulled off an accurate Brinkley and his bleak cynical depression was absolutely
great. Having a child play Dan Quayle was definitely better in execution that it
might have sounded on paper. It didn’t hurt that Renaudo looked the part. They
were obviously going for a broader visual gag there and it seemed to be more of
a political statement or a character choice than anything. Anyway, this was a
great topical sketch to lead off with.
Grade: A-
Keith Richards performs “Take It So Hard”
Mr. Short Term Memory
Jeff Morrow (Hanks) was hit in the head with a falling pear
from a tree and is now frustrating a waiter (Hartman) and his blind date
(Jackson) at a restaurant with his goldfish-like memory span.
This was the first of three installments of Hanks’ recurring
character. While it isn’t the best one, he still played it brilliantly and his
timing was perfect. His constant treating Jackson like a stranger and berating
the staff asking for menus, wine and poached salmon and “finding” his own
wallet and watch were very funny. I also liked him being suddenly baffled to
discover food in his mouth and arriving at the conclusion that the restaurant
serves pre-chewed food. Hartman played off him brilliantly. I particularly
liked when he said that the only dish they serve is poached salmon. Jackson
didn’t really add anything other than being a straight woman here. Other than
that, great debut!
Grade: B-
First Citiwide Change Bank II
Another ad for the change only bank, but featuring different
testimonials from customers (Dunn, Hartman)
It’s usually fun when one sketch is continued later on in
the show, but this was just more of the same. They still pulled this off as
well as they did the first one in terms of verisimilitude. The highlights were Hartman’s
testimonial about how the bank was able to give him change for five pounds in
British currency despite not being able to convert it to US dollars and cents
and Downey’s statement that they make money by volume.
Grade: B-
Weekend Update w/Dennis Miller (featuring Kevin Nealon and
Sergei Akmudov)
Music Intro: Robert Palmer – Simply Irresistable
Best Jokes: Bentsen/Quayle, Pinochet running mate, finger
quotes, Ben Johnson, NASA
Kevin Nealon reports from the “All Drug Olympics” in Bogota,
Colombia. In this competition, all forms of drugs are legal and encouraged.
Russian Weightlifter Sergei Akmudov (Hartman) goes for the world record, but
ends up numbly severing his own limbs in the process.
Dennis had a great night and seemed to be enthusiastic and in
good spirits, but there seemed to be an odd edit between the Bush/Iowa joke and
the Tyson/Givens jokes in the reruns. If anyone has a copy of the original live
airing, can someone tell me what if anything they edited out? SNL Transcripts
doesn’t indicate this. It’s kind of interesting how the mere mention of Al
Sharpton got boos from the audience until Dennis delivered the punch line. I
wonder exactly what he did in the ‘80s to make everyone hate him. The “All Drug
Olympics” bit was pure gold. It was a solid, ambitious premise that was
executed flawlessly. It is very well known as it has been included on every
Sports Extra special ever assembled and the Best of Phil Hartman and possibly
because it was one of the first sketches to utilize fake blood for laughs early
on in the show (the only other pre-90s one I can think of is Aykroyd’s French
Chef…if anyone has any others, please feel free to reply) Hartman and Nealon
were great acting as if something that would be horrifying in real life didn’t
faze them and Nealon’s generic color commentary at the end was a great way to
play into this. He was also funny listing all the substances Hartman’s
character was on.
Grade: B+
Girl Watchers A Go Go II
Hanks and Lovitz hang out by the ladies room to catcall
girls who they know will ignore them. Their friend Andy (Nealon) shows up with
a girl, and he is quick to point out how she isn’t a catch.
This is the second installment of the classic Conan
O’Brien/Robert Smigel penned piece and it was funny. Their constant
“hello/goodbye” comments to passing women were great as was their pointing out
each other’s glaring physical flaws and stating how socially undesirable they
are. Nealon played well off them as well.
Grade: B-
Jew/Not a Jew
Bob Tompkins (Hanks) hosts this game show where waspy
couples the Knutsens (Nealon, Jackson) and the Thompsons (Hartman, Hooks) must
guess whether well-known celebrities are Jewish or not. During the break, a
“You Make the Call” spot for Feldman’s Kosher Pickles is shown where Sandy
Koufax’s Jewish heritage is called into question (Spoiler Alert: he’s a Jew).
This was the weakest piece of the night. It seemed like a
funny premise on paper, but the execution seemed unambitious and lazy.
Thankfully, it was rather inoffensive. Nothing really stood out to me except
the cheesy theme song and Hanks explaining the rules. He played the game show
host role well, but he couldn’t really do much to save this.
Grade: C-
“Big” Outtakes
Hanks on home base introduces outtakes from his summer hit
that show how drastically different the film was from what he agreed to do. In
this original version, Hanks stays in junior high and uses his size to bully the
other children rather than move to New York, fall in love and get a big job
with a toy company.
This was a funny, more realistic take on “Big” and a better
way for Hanks to poke fun at his image. The highlights were his story about
seeing “Big” on a plane and his constant tackling of the kid on the baseball
field.
Grade: B-
From the end of the filmed piece, Hanks goes straight into
introducing Keith Richard’s performance of “Struggle”.
Richards is a talented guitar player and his solo efforts
seem underrated.
Pat Stevens Show XIV
On this model-centric talk show, host Pat Stevens (Dunn) has
the contenders for first lady as her guests, Barbara Bush (Hartman) and Kitty
Dukakis (Hooks) and discusses the Presidential race as if it were a Miss
America pageant between the two wives.
I never cared that much for these Pat Stevens sketches, but
the later installments had their moments as Dunn played off different “guests”
and hosts. Aside from Hartman’s great deadpan as Barbara Bush (great stunt
casting) the diet pill jokes and catfight at the end, nothing really stood out
to me about this sketch. Thankfully, they kept this one short.
Grade: C-
Goodnights
Overall, this was one of the great season premieres. It
really was a great sign that the show and this cast had fully come back into
their own and made themselves relevant again.
Now, I’m going to list what segments got cut from Netflix. I
thought I’d do this as a helpful viewing guide especially since they really butchered
this season good.
Pumping up w/Hans and Franz, Monologue, “Last Temptation of
Christ” joke from Update, Mr. Short Term Memory, Girl Watchers,
Now, my rankings of this episodes’ sketches form best to
worst:
1. ABC Campaign ‘88
2. Weekend Update
3. Mr. Short Term Memory
4. Monologue
5. Keith Richards “Struggle”
6. First CitiWide Change Bank
7. Girl Watchers
8. Keith Richards “Take It So Hard”
9. Pumping Up w/Hans and Franz
10. First CitiWide Change Bank II
11. “Big” Outtakes
12. Pat Stevens Show
13. Jew/Not A Jew
Next episode will be hosted by Matthew Broderick with
musical guest, the Sugarcubes. See you then! Hope you’re having a great summer
so far!
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