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Goodman Enters The SNL Scene

I'm actually super surprised that this is Jon Goodman's first hosting experience with the show. I don't know if I mixed him up with other fat funny guy hosts or if I'm just confused by seeing Dan from Roseanne many times during my SNL Review Prep-work phase but before writing these words I did a little research to see how far he was away from earning his Five-Timer's coat only to find that counting this visit the answer is five which came as a total surprise.

Other than that, I was extra excited about this episode because it was the first one that I've seen in a while where I actually laughed and not just as a courtesy. This was a super fun episode where not only were the reoccurring characters extra on but the original sketches were funny as well.

This episode felt like it would fit in the second half of last season when Mike Myers addition to the show seemed to get the cast and crew out of their comfort zone and get back to putting out a show with a bit of an edge and effort to put out laugh out loud comedy.

I really hope that this is a start to a trend because I'm getting a little tired of writing these reviews on autopilot due to the fact that the content being criticized is neither good enough nor bad enough to have a point of view that's all that interesting.

So, now that I've gotten my first positive review in a while off my chest, 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 It Used To Be A Wonderful Life which obviously was a parody of It's A Wonderful Life where this go around "Jimmy Stewart" is meeting with the House Banking Committee to answer for the money he lost. Rather than this being a tale about the true meaning of community, this version of the story highlights the extent of political/corporate greed ending with the announcement of, "Live from New York..."
John Goodman then opened the show with a monolog about all of the successes that are happening in his life, including two new movies, a recent marriage and his ongoing role on Roseanne. We then went backstage to see Victoria Jackson and Goodman's sit-com wife who is getting more attention than him to the point where no one is paying attention to our host because everyone, including the writer Conan O'Brien, is in the hall asking for autographs.
This was followed by a fake ad for BeautyBath from a couple years ago where "Imelda Marcos" pitches her line of bubble bath.
Wayne's World then returned for another installment where this time the two basement dwelling cable hosts talk about movies before interviewing John Goodman who plays the town's police chief who they invited onto the show to prank after being arrested for throwing snowballs at passing cars. This turns the sketch into an impromptu America's Most Wanted where Wayne and Garth reenact local crimes as Sheriff Goodman describes them.
Cooking With The Anal-Retentive Chef also returned for another segment where once again the clean freak of a host spend so much time tidying after sharing step one of his pot pie recipe that he never gets around to step two. Only this week, he has John Goodman, who plays a Cajun chef as his special guest who couldn't care less about cleanliness which drives our anal host over the edge.
Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive A Car was yet another return sketch where this week the driving feline has a run in with Martians while driving around with Dana Carvey and Victoria Jackson who play his owners. The sketch ends with the cat driving into the Washington Monument while piloting the UFO.
K.D. Lang And The Reclines then took to the stage to perform Pullin' Back The Reins.
Once again, Dennis Miller gave us the news. This week, Jon Lovitz's Annoying Man character returned for another segment where he does nothing but pesters Dennis Miller.
The Mike Ditka Type-A Christmas Special was as the title suggests a Christmas Special hosted by Phil Hartman who played the coach of the Bears who has strong opinions of how to be festive while at the same time being proactive.
The Referee Pitman Show was a sports show parody playing off of the trope of a blind referee where Goodman as referee Pitman can't even explain his own calls and spends the entire talk show defending his visual accuracy.
K.D. Lang And The Reclines then returned to the stage to perform Johnny Get Angry.
We then went to an upper-class suburban home to meet John Goodman and Nora Dunn who play the parents of Mike Myers who has recently joined the Crips and is sharing his experience with his uber-white parents as if he had just joined a country club.
We then got a repeat of the fake ThirtySomething Cereal ad from a few episodes ago.
Finally, John Goodman closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

This episode ended up being super fun thanks to these three of my favorite moments from the night. First, I love Toonces Meets The Martians because not only do I love this cat as a character, I also loved how this week he drove a UFO. Next, I really liked The Referee Pitman Show because it reminds me of the days from the past where I would actually hand out with sports fans who had many of these views about referees. Finally, I was a fan of this week's Cooking With The Anal-Retentive Chef because this character will never cease to be funny to me.