or...

A Dey Without A Pants Suit

I don't know why it is but even though I've grown to look forward to hosts who are not that familiar to me since, more often than not, these lesser known names seem to give it their all while the bigger names can sometimes tend to feel like their phoning it in, I still don't fully trust hosts from certain genres of TV shows.

This was the case with tonight's host Susan Dey, where I was open going into the viewing only to have my expectations drop when I learned that she was famous for her role on L.A. Law. As I mentioned in my Rob Morrow review, I have an irrational bias against the one hour TV drama genre due to the fact that these shows traditionally aired at bedtime when I was a kid.

Since I hate the genre, I often find that, even when I like the host, I don't often like them on SNL because the writers often reference this genre that I am unfamiliar with in ways where I don't get the subtle jokes that are buried in overly dramatic scenes.

Luckily, this wasn't the case tonight. Even though the show started out with an L.A. Law sketch that led me to double down on my concerns, the moment that it transitioned into a Richmeister sketch I knew from there on that everything was going to be okay. This turned out to be a pretty fun show that did have some genre-specific jokes but avoided the genre-specific tone that can tend to make me bored.

Though it was a fun show, I wouldn't say that is was all that noteworthy so I cut this short and move on to share what I saw, as I give you...

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with a parody of L.A. Law which I didn't really get because I've never seen the real show and most of the humor seemed to come from the impersonations and references to the show, that is until Susan Day heads to the copy room to copy her legal documents when we learned this was actually a Richmeister sketch, where Rob Schneider played his name game for a bit before announcing, "Live from New York..."
Susan Dey then officially opened the show with a monolog about how she's excited to be doing live television then went on to share her early years of acting when she was on The Partridge Family where she was the first teenage girl on television to constantly wear a pants suit. She then went on to joke about how she continues to be known as a pants suit wearer thanks to her role on L.A. Law then switched out of the pants suit she was wearing to reveal an outfit with a little more sex appeal.
We then got a repeat of the fake Leevi's 3 Legged Jeans ad from earlier in the season where we were pitched a pair of three-legged pants.
We then went to a parody of the Mike Tyson Trial from back when he was accused of rape where the main argument of the defense is that there wouldn't have been an issue if it wasn't for the size of Tyson's penis. Due to this approach, the random guy playing Iron Mike was told to whip it out to be used as evidence. It then became a sketch filled with jokes about penis size.
The Arakawa Group was an offensive parody of the Japanese version of The McLaughlin Group. This sketch is made up of the worst Japanese impersonations as they make fun of Americans for being fat, lazy and stupid. It was funny when it cut to a clip of a monkey impersonating George Bush Sr. from when he puked during his visit to Japan.
The Sensitive Naked Man then made his debut to the show where Rob Schneider played the titular role to help Susan Dey work out her issue that makes her seem like she's feeling down only it turns out her biggest problem is his nudity. That didn't stop our naked sensitive dude to continue to push until gave in and shared a sad story from her youth but also made it clear that she is still a bit disturbed by hanging out with this naked man who she finds to be just a supportive friend that she wished would just wear some clothes when she's around.
C+C Music Factory then took to the stage to perform the songs Here We Go Let's Rock & Roll and Gonna Make You Sweat back to back.
Once again, Kevin Nealon gave us the news. This week, Ellen Cleghorne introduced her Jamaican character to talk about the rise in "Haitian Boat People" that was going on at the time. Adam Sander also introduced his character, Cajun Man, who discuss the upcoming Mardi Gras celebrations. Kevin Nealon also got his own special segment to check in as Mr. Subliminal.
The Partridge Family Vs. The Brady Bunch was a parody merger of these two fictional families that started with the Partridges recording their latest song when Jan Brady dropped in to complain about Marsha only to get asked to join the band as their tambourine player. It doesn't take long for Jan to realize that the Partridges are nothing but a bunch of lip-syncers which led her to call over the rest of the Brady Bunch for an impromptu battle of the bands.
This was followed by a Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey where Jack shares his suggestion for when you feel like you're going mentally insane.
We then joined Susan Dey and Mike Myers who are on their first day for a sketch called Semi-Verbal Points where everyone in the world of the sketch is over expressive with their gesturing while carrying on even the most casual of conversations.
Ellen Cleghorne's Zoraida character also returned to pester Susan Dey on her way to the dressing room while sharing the fact that she is such a huge fan of her career, confusing her character's actions with reality.
Janitor-Executive Irony was a sketch that I feel was done in the past where a Janitor and an Executive were childhood friends who are both surprised to be in this situation. We then cut away and returned to find that their roles had been reversed due to a mishap where the janitor won the company after a crazy lawsuit. This role reversal happens several times until we eventually learned that they were actually both janitors and this role-playing is just their way to get through the day when the real executive entered the room and threatened to fire them both.
C+C Music Factory then returned to the stage to perform A Deeper Love.
We then went to an Art Museum where we saw from the point of view of a painting as we witness untrained idiots give their opinions on what I'm guessing is modern art since there is a pretentious tone to their every word.
We then got another Deep Thoughts By Jack Handey where Jack shared his love of his favorite uncle, Uncle Caveman who turned out to be a bear.
Finally, Susan Dey closed the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

Even though I said up above that this episode wasn't all that noteworthy, it was still pretty fun thanks to these three moments of the night. First, I loved The Partridge Family Vs. The Brady Bunch because even though I never watched The Partridge Family because I think reruns were harder to find, I was a huge fan of The Brady Bunch when I was a kid so it was fun to see almost the entire cast play all the parts of these two families. Next, I really liked the debut of The Sensitive Naked Man because the concept of the character is enough to get me to laugh. Finally, I was a fan of Cajun Man's show debut because, especially at the time, I used to love Adam Sander's characters when they would drop by the news to check in.