A.D. 13 Part V: A New Beginning – This appears to be parody
of epic Roman biblical TV miniseries of the ‘80s. I can’t tell if this is based
on any specific movie or miniseries. This saga stars James Mason (Guest) as an
evil emporer, Alan Alda (Kroeger) and Joan Collins (Stephenson) as gladiators
who fell in love, Jo Ann Worely (Dreyfus) as an evil empress, Dr. Haing S. Noir
(Crystal) as an Egyptian, Doug Henning (Hall) as Jesus, Pee Wee Herman (Gross)
as doubting Thomas and Robin Williams (Short) as Emporer Nero. At the end, Pope
John Paul II (Belushi) plugs the miniseries by telling the audience to “be
there” and opens SNL. This was a decent way to open the show, even if some
references may be lost on today’s audience. Everyone did good impressions here
and I liked the line about how they sensationalized this for TV with tales of
“scorching passions” and “burning lusts” along with “stuff we just made up
because who knows what went on then anyway.” I didn’t really get the reference
to Haing S. Noir until I saw part of “The Killing Fields” on cable two months
ago (which I have to assume came out around this time). I’m willing to bet
Crystal had a hand in writing this. To me, it smacks of his style. He probably
came up with this as an updated-for-the-‘80s version of his “actors who don’t
belong in biblical movies” routine. B-
Monologue – Christopher Reeve comes out in an Easter
bunny/Passover rabbit costume and jokes to the audience he’s had to wear
sillier things in his career. He then states how he looked forward to hosting
the show facetiously calling it a sharp, hip and literate as well as a show
that intelligently presents its guest hosts with style just before taking off
the head to his costume. He sincerely says the show is the closest thing
television has to live theater which is his background. He shows us some
pictures of his college theater days as well as some photos from the Superman
shoots. He then announces that he’s going to tell us the story of how he got
the part of the man of steel on tonight’s show. The monologue sort of ends here
as Reeve casually walks to the set of the nest sketch (which the SNL archives
lists as a separate segment). I thought this was pretty good for a first time
host. Reeve was good at poking some fun at himself here. Even if he came off
just a little stiff, there couldn’t have been a better way for him to get the
audience on his side and show that he was ready to have fun with the cast. B+
Superman Auditions – Director Richard Donner (Belushi) and
his assistant Rachel (Dreyfus) is holding auditions for his first Superman
movie. They’ve narrowed the part down to unknown actor Peter Blake (Hall) and
hammy kiss ass Cory Meredith (Kroeger). The audition includes reading lines,
catching a bullet in his teeth, and pressing a piece of coal into a diamond
with your hand and the use of heat vision. The bullet ricochets off of Reeve’s
teeth and chin breaking two windows in the process. He also squeezes the coal
to hard and liquefies it. Kroeger dies from the shot, but Hall manages to do
everything perfectly. Reeve is supposed to melt a payphone in the room, but
ends up setting the curtains on fire. Hall uses his breath to put them out and
gets the part. He cannot start on production next week because he got a
callback on a Dial Soap commercial that he can’t get out of, so they are forced
to hire Reeve. This was a rather silly sketch, but it was funny and well acted.
I particularly liked Dreyfus telling Hall and Reeve “we’ve narrowed it down to
you two” after Kroeger is shot. B+
Jackie Roger’s Jr. $100,000 Jackpot Wad – This is a semi
famous sketch from the Ebersol era. Short’s albino singer hosts this game show
with celebrity guests Captain Kangaroo (Belushi) and Sammy Davis Jr. (Crystal).
Roger’s wife Angelique (Stephenson) has a cameo. Guest reprises his gay Indian
character Rajeev Vindaloo. The game borrows heavily from “Password”, “Wheel of
Fortune”, “$50,000 Pyramid” and “Let’s Make A Deal.” Neither of the contestants
can guess the celebrities’ clues. Belushi’s building impatient rage with
Gross’s ignorance was pretty funny and the bizarre back and forth between
Crystal and Guest was great to watch. Guest is strapped to a giant spinning
wheel at the end, kudos to him for getting through that. This sketch deserves
its reputation and was definitely the highlight of this show.
Guest Performance - Steven Wright does more of his stand up
act. This was one of his best performances. My favorite bits were tarot poker,
deli scalping, Spanish record, air bizarre, hardware store and baby diary. A-
Escaping the Germans – A WWII unit is surrounded by Germans,
but the sergeant (Belushi) refuses to surrender. Private Snyder (Kroeger) has
found a suitcase full of nun habits somewhere and suggests they use them to
sneak past the German infantry. The Sergeant thinks “it’s so crazy it has to
work”. Private Saunders (Crystal) sarcastically suggests they wear them with
French bread loaves in their mouths and pose as penguins. He also suggests that
they go out and tell the Germans that Sarge’s brain is so small that the
Smithsonian wants to display it. The Sarge sincerely thinks these are great
ideas. After seeing Snyder get shot to death, Private Perkins (Reeve) questions
whether the plan will work which leads Sarge to believe he is a German spy. To
test him, he asks who played Rhett Butler in “Gone With The Wind”. After naming
every single other person who worked on the film, he answers Clark Gable. Sarge
shoots him after confusing him with Cary Grant. Sarge then forces Private
Campbell (Hall) to jump on a bayonet. At this point, Saunders decides to just
leave but Sarge insists on dressing up like a penguin and taking the first
shot. After he is killed, Saunders actually tries his Smithsonian idea from
earlier which actually works. This seemed like one of many war time sketches
from the Ebersol era, but it was still pretty funny and well performed. Belushi
and Crystal played well off of each other and the Gone With The Wind/bayonet
bits really stood out. C+
Palisades Nursing Home – Retirement home resident Izzy
Tishamn (Crystal) makes passes at his nurse (Dreyfus) meets an elderly Clark
Kent (Reeve) for the first time, but has a hard time believing he was really
Superman. Crystal would always make some snappy comeback whenever Reeve would
describe one of his incredible feats from the film. Crystal comes around when
the nurse brings him a birthday cake which he blows clear off the table trying
to extinguish the candle. This premise must have sounded better on paper. The
only thing that really stood out to me was the cake gag. C-
Saturday Night News – Best Jokes: artificial heart,
Gorbachev, Circus, Billy Joel, Francis the Talking Bible. Belushi delivers a
commentary on AT&T breaking up. He rails against calling information and
getting a recording, call waiting, confusing bills, 25 cent checks and having
to get your own replacement phone. This wasn’t really as good as his previous
“airhorn” commentaries, but it had its moments. I particularly liked his bit
about how call waiting is usually more interesting than his call. Paul Harvey
(Hall) delivers a commentary on the “We Are The World” charity effort and
proposes sending the single to starving nations on edible records made of pita
bread, tortillas and pizza that don’t quite play that well. Guest cuts him off
early making this one the shortest Paul Harvey sketch of the season. I
personally liked this as it didn’t run the joke into the ground. Aging insult
comic Buddy Young Jr. (Crystal) tells jokes about movie theaters, film rentals
and music videos. He goes into the crowd and to interact with regular audience
members and Calvert DeForest (aka Larry “Bud” Melman) who gets a warm response
from the audience. This was one of the better updates from this season,
although not a whole lot really stood out. Guest had a good night with his
jokes, though. B-
Talk Back – Larry Woods (Guest) hosts this talk show where
the subject is the Amish response to the Harrison Ford film “Witness”. Kroeger
plays an Amish spokesperson discusses how the film misrepresented the Amish
community and casually mentions how prostitution is a huge part of their
culture. Guest reveals him to be a fraud just before real Amish representative
Hall joins the show. When he implies that the Amish sell their babies, Guest
also reveals him to be a fake. This was pretty funny and Kroeger really stood
out here. I particularly liked when he said Amish women “have hooters out to
here.” B-
Well, this was a rather middle of the road show for this
season. Nothing really stood out as being too horrible. Strangely enough, this
was also one of the shortest episodes of the season. Next I will review the
finale of this season with Howard Cosell and Greg Kihn.
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