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R.I.P. Swayze, Thanks For The Chippendales Sketch With Farley!!!

When I first saw Patrick Swayze in the lineup of hosts I was very excited because I knew this meant I would be seeing the classic Chippendales sketch where he has a dance off with Chris Farley. As a funny fat guy myself, I've always been fond of this scene because I feel it's the point where Farley went from being a background featured player to a cast member who was properly utilized.

Other than my excitement for this one sketch, my expectations weren't all that high being that I felt the rest of the night would suffer the curse of the hotty of the week host where, guy or girl, the good-looking host is treated more like a prop to be fawned over by the funny types while never getting a real funny line of their own.

That's not to say that this brand of hosts isn't good at what they are known for but not all of them are cut out for comedy. Either way, it doesn't matter in this case because I think Patrick Swayze may be the first of the good-looking hosts to break the mold by standing on his own as the main source for several laughs throughout the night.

Sure they still referenced his looks several times throughout the night but they did this while never resorting to the over-confident heartthrob character who does nothing but react to the other ugos in the scene. Even in the above mentioned Chippendales dance-off between Swayze and Farley, our good-looking host was never confident that he would win.

Other than this dance-off and Franz falling in love, I don't think looks played into any other sketch from the night. Again, there is nothing wrong with humor based on good looks but most of the time it comes across as a writer's crutch over being a genuine source of comedy, which wasn't the case tonight.

So, now that I've shared a few thoughts on this visit from the late Patrick Swayze, it's now time to move on and share what I actually saw, as I give you...

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with Dirty Square Dancing which, of course, was a parody of Dirty Dancing only with a Square Dance being the venue for the film's climax, only the sketch was more about Dirty Square Dancing as opposed to actually spoofing the movie. This being the opening sketch, as always, it ended with the announcement of, "Live from New York..."
Patrick Swayze then officially opened the show with a monolog about how the last time he was in New York he was shot and killed mixing reality with his role in the movie Ghost before transitioning into a quick song and dance, with his wife, before throwing to the first set of commercials.
Pumping Up With Hans And Franz then made its season debut where the muscle-bound brothers perform their usual routine only this time they mix things up with Patrick Swayze who is promoting his fitness book that deals with flexibility over size which really messes with the muscle men's minds and leads Franz to question his sexuality.
Ghost II was a parody sequel to Ghost where Swayze witnesses Demi Moore's character's disgusting personal habits while she is unaware that his spirit is watching. She ends up being so gross that Swayze's ghost ends up wanting to have nothing to do with her.
We then got a fake ad from Sam Walton, the owner of Walmart who puts forth an offer to the American voters where he will pay anyone one hundred thousand bucks to write their representatives to push for a positive vote that would favor the ultra-rich corporate class.
Super Feud was a fake a for an album where two Latin superstars battle over who is more significant amongst their Central and South American fans with songs filled with brags about themselves while dissing their competition.
We then got a follow up to the Sam Walton Offer where the owner of Walmart resent his offer because he was thinking way too grand and made a new offer where he would send any letter senders a hat like the one he was wearing on his very own head.
Mariah Carey then took to the stage to perform Vision Of Love.
Once again, Dennis Miller gave us the news. This week, A. Whitney Brown dropped in for another Big Picture moment about how horrible our choices were for that year's mid-term elections which sounded an awful lot like our current problem only way less extreme.
This was followed by the classic Chippendales sketch where Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley have a dance-off for the final spot in the Chippendales dance squad.
We then got a parody of The Tonight Show where we see the end of an interview with "one of the girls from The Partridge Family," where Johnny is obsessed with her childhood career while she wants to focus on the present. This was followed by a routine by Arsenio Hall, played by Chris Rock, and the two talk show hosts compare their shows since Johnny was just learning about his competition, highlighting how out of touch the old-timey talk show host got toward the end of his career.
White Trash Bed And Breakfast was a sit-com sketch following the family and guests of a low-rent vacation home that mainly plays off of redneck cliches and stereotypes.
Mariah Carey then returned to the stage to perform Vanishing.
Mouse Trap Seminar was a sketch that as the title suggest follows a group of students at a mouse trap themed seminar where the main focus seems to be how these humans can avoid getting hurt by buying and eating cheese from the store instead of giving into their urges and trying to steal from their traps.
Finally, Patrick Swayze closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

I'm so happy that this ended up being a super solid show with no so-so aspect about it, especially since this episode made it so easy to sort through these three favorite moments from the night. First I loved the Chippendales sketch because as I said above, I think it was the big turning point for Chris Farley to where he started to be treated as more than just the new featured player in the cast. Next, I really liked this week's Pumping Up With Hans And Franz because Franz's fantasy sequences with Swayze really had me laughing out loud. Finally, I was a fan of Ghost II because I love the idea of Swayze's ghost being able to see how Demi Moore's character really acts when no one is around and how her disgusting behavior was enough to get him to give up on their love.