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My Birthday Episode: Year 6

Two-ish days after this episode aired I would've been celebrating my second and a half birthday, making me six years old. Though I keep thinking that this is the season that I started to watch the episodes as they aired, I don't think this actually started until I was closer to seven.

Either way, I was very young when I started to religiously watch this show. As the youngest of a batch that included my sister and two cousins, I got to do big kid stuff way before the rest of my peers.

Where I definitely remember this cast and fully remember many of these sketches, I struggle to remember this season as a whole and don't even remember a full episode though I had to have seen some later on in life when they were replayed continuously on Comedy Central.

The sad thing is, I don't think it's going to take long for me to completely forget this season again if this wasn't the best season for music. Don't get me wrong, many of the best sketches from this season are good enough to compete to be in the overall top ten but other than that there doesn't seem to be anything in between the hits and the misses.

And by misses, I don't necessarily mean bad because bad would at least give me something to hang on to. No, by miss, I mean that it doesn't stick at all, not interesting enough to keep my attention while also not being bad enough to inspire a, "What the fuck?"

This entire episode was a miss that I didn't really mind sitting through, but I doubt that it will come up in conversation and doubt even more that I'll watch it again... well, minus one other plan that I'm working through in my head that I'm not quite willing to commit to.

Notice, I didn't even have any specifics for this episode because that's just how bland it was. So, now it's time to get this over with and move on to share what I saw, and with that, I give you...

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's episode starts with a segment of CBS Evening News where "Dan Rather" when Brian Doyle-Murray steps in as the director with notes to try to get him to lighten up a little and be more fun like the news we are used to today that's more about the personality than the news. They go as far as giving him a make-over to where he becomes Walter Cronkite.
This was another week where the host got a monolog without the dumb huddle. Elizabeth Ashley shares the first letter that she wrote home to her mom back when she was just 18 and moved to New York to start her acting career. This note highlights how much of a naive country girl she was at the time.
We then start to get a fake pitch from Eddie Murphy for a giant plastic bubble designed to protect your house from corrosion caused by the environment. Just before we get told the part where he tells the audience where they can buy this product, he switches his tone as he begins to criticize anyone dumb enough to believe a product like the Big Damn Plastic Bubble could actually work.
Speaking As A Woman is a round-table talk show where Sweetchuck discusses women's issues with celebrity women from the time who had just written a kiss and tell book. I could see the jokes being better back when the people being referenced were actually still stars.
We then go to the Vatican where the Pope and his people talk about his upcoming African Tour where they treat it like a traveling play. We then flash into Sweetchuck's mind as we see how he imagines that this tour will play out with the Pope acting like a total diva.
Hall And Oates then hit the stage to perform You Make My Dreams.
Once again, Brian Doyle-Murray and Mary Gross give us the news, and it's just normal, no subplot where the two are in love, they just give us the news the way the segment is supposed to be done. Not that the whole romantic interests was out of line, it was just too much of a sketch within the news that I felt deterred from last week's segment. I take that back, the segment ends with two talking about hooking up. (Clip 2) (Clip 3) (Clip 4)
We then go to some old lady's house as the cops arrive to deal with a hostage situation where Eddie Murphy is holding Elizabeth hostage. His only demand is to get an audition with Joseph Papp, whoever that is, which leads Eddie and everyone other than Papp to put on an impromptu show where they sing I'm The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General. He gets the part after Papp asks if the gun is actually loaded then Papp calls for the next hostage holding auditioner.
Hall And Oates then return to the stage to perform I Can't Go For That (No Can Do).
Harry Anderson then returns to the show to do another comedy/magic routine.
We then go to the bedroom at a teenager's party where the girls sneak away from the action to talk, and one of them pulls out a joint. This doesn't really add to the sketch as the smokers quickly leave and we get more stereotypical girl talk. We then go to the same room in the future where the women have pretty much the same conversation, but their older age gives them an extremely different response highlighting how optimistic we are in our youth.
We then go to an operating room where the surgeons lose a patient then decide to have a Loewenbrau Night to cheer themselves up.
Once again, Hall And Oates return to the stage to perform You've Lost That Loving Feeling.
Finally, Elizabeth Ashley closes the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

Here are my favorite moments from yet another so-so show. First, I loved the before and after women's conversation at a party where we see the exact same conversation had by the same group of women after several years had passed. Though it wasn't all that hilarious, the fact that they changed the entire meaning of said conversation by merely changing the attitudes and tones was absolutely brilliant. Next, I really liked the Audition For Joseph Papp. Even though I don't know who he is, the overall concept was funny, and I also liked the song. Finally, I was a fan of the fake ad for the Big Damn Plastic Bubble, because it was funny to see the actual thought of an infomercial pitchman.