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Another Night Of Missing Pieces

As I've said in the past, I pay for multiple streaming services that have bits and pieces of each show without a single option for watching SNL in its entirety. This means that I have to resort to other streaming sites to find all of the content where I usually find extremely low quality feeds of VHS recording from Comedy Central and it turns out that even they have a few abridged show to fit into a one-hour time slot.

Unfortunately, when this is the case, it's usually a sign of a weaker night because it means the episode wasn't deemed worthy of an hour and a half during the syndication process. This is too bad because some of these missing sketches could have improved with time. It also really sucks because when I do see this to be the case, I psychologically brace myself for the chance that I'm going to be let down.

I was surprised to see this was the case with Geena Davis as host. Between Earth Girls Are Easy, Beetlejuice (which must have been the movies she was there to promote based on the time), and the fact that the show's been so good during this second half, I was expecting a solid episode with yet another one of my childhood crushes as the host.

Based on what I saw, I wouldn't say that I was let down. Also, based on the titles of the missing material alone, I think they chose the wrong fat to cut to bring the show down to an hour. Though I don't think this was the most exciting of episode whether or not it was cut, I do feel that I had an unjustified negative outlook going into the view based on the mental hang-up mentioned above. Since I now expect these abridged episodes to be boring this episode never stood the chance to be average at best in my head.

That said, it was a pretty average episode but as I keep saying, the host's positive energy and excitement to play was enough for me to have fun while watching it and wish I could find the rest.

So, now that I've rambled through my views on abridged episodes like this one, it's now time to move on and share what I saw, as I give you...

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with A Special Message From The President Of The United States with Dana Carvey as George Bush Sr. who is sharing his accomplishments during his first hundred days in charge. He has to twist the examples in order to make them seem positive while quickly moving past issues that he is still struggling with. Then out of nowhere, while continuing his presidential brag he blurts out the announcement of, "Live from New York..."
Geena Davis then officially opened the show with a monolog about how excited she is to host the show because it allowed her to do something new as opposed to movie acting. She then goes on to explain that she was tempted to carry out this "try new things" theme and use the monolog as an excuse to try playing the saxophone for the first time but then realized how that would be a bad idea. Her second idea was to sing and being that people have heard her belt out a tune or two in the past the new aspect of her attempt was to sing a French style song with an accent which wasn't silly like I expected but was actually pretty good.
We then got a fake ad for the fiction upcoming show called The Bob Waltman Special where this Bob Waltman person, whoever he is, interviews celebrities about the toughest struggles of their lives/careers mainly dealing with the death of people or pet who were special. This is another case where I can see what the show is going for but the fact that I don't know the show/person being parodied, I didn't find it to be as funny as the audience obviously did.
Frost White And The Seven L'il Men was apparently a Snow White parody but I couldn't find it anywhere on the internet.
The parody show Attitudes then returned for another installment with Jan Hooks and Nora Dunn playing a pair of hosts who passively fight for control with smiles plastered on their faces. They interview Geena Davis who plays an adorable but boring vintage shopkeeper who explains her average boring day while the hosts tried to make it seem interesting. Just like the Bob Waltman sketch, I think this is a parody of an actual show that I'm not aware of so I didn't get the subtle references that got the audience to laugh.
John Mellencamp then took to the stage to perform Pop Singer.
The Palmer Bunch was a parody of the Brady Bunch only instead of following the merged Brady family we followed Robert Palmer who's raising all of the girls from his music video who all look the same except for Alice who has the look but dresses like a maid. In the sketch, Geena Davis played one of the girls who wants to be an individual only to only to end up in shock therapy which causes her to give in to being the same.
Once again, Dennis Miller gave us the news. This week, Mike Myers and Ben Stiller dropped in as a pair of movie critics who are there to talk about Rain Man. Unlike Siskel and Ebert who are well prepared these two come across as idiot friends talking about the movie right after they just watched it before their opinion is clear. Also, unlike most movie critic teams who often disagree the two keep their eyes on each other's mouths and talk slowly so that when they talk at the same time they struggle to say the same thing.
We then met with a group out walking in the wood when Geena Davis finds a cave that is filled with Suspended Animation Chambers filled with people who appear to be in space suits who are supposed to sleep until 2089. Even though there are signs everywhere to just let the chambers be, this group of do-gooders think they need to step in and help completely ruining the plan.
John Mellencamp then returned to the stage to perform Jackie Brown.
Game Show Models was the second sketch of the night that I couldn't find anywhere on the internet.
After The Apocalypse was as the title suggests, a sketch that took place the day after an accidental WWIII leaving Jon Lovitz and Geena Davis as the only survivors. Though they are literally the only two people left in the world they still act like they're just neighbors living like strangers in New York. Jon Lovitz eventually attempts to ask Geena Davis out but even with him being the last person on the planet she finds him too ugly to date and comes up with lame excuses to get out of it and eventually gives into a lunch date at some later unagreed upon time.
Finally, Geena Davis closed the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

Other than the abridged aspect of this episode, thanks to these three favorite moments from the night, I found it to be a pretty good show. First, I loved After The Apocalypse sketch not only did I like the rom-com tone to this post-apocalyptic bit but I also related Jon Lovitz who couldn't even get a date while being the last man on the planet. Next, I really liked the Suspended Animation Chambers sketch because while working in film I learned firsthand how nobody seems to be able to read warning signs no matter how blatant they are. Finally, I was a fan of The Palmer Bunch because I still find the Stepford women from Robert Palmer's videos to still be a parody worthy idea.