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A Second Visit Sequel

Of all of the return hosts, this episode featuring Kirstie Alley is one of the few that feels like a sequel and not just a second visit. Not only did they almost redo her opening monolog only with the SNL cast taking the place of her Cheers costars but there were also a few follow up sketches from her first go-round rather than the night being completely new.

When I say follow up sketch I don’t mean that there were simply the same characters being used to do something new, no, I mean that these sketches were a continuation from her last visit to complete the story. I really liked this technique and wish that the show would do it more. Even in this episode it only happened a couple times but I found it to be an interesting enough aspect to make it a highlight of this review.

Other than that, this episode was pretty fun. My only issue was watching it with modern eyes knowing that Kirstie Alley has recently made statements about how people are making too much of all of the sexual harassment going on in Hollywood while based on her two appearances she seems perfectly fine with being manhandled and seen sexual being.

I’m fine with this outlook of hers and don’t want to make this political but I do take issue with the fact that in these modern interviews she seems to find it acceptable even to those who aren’t willing to play along.

And with that, I’m going to stop since I actually see both sides which nowadays seems to be the most offensive stance to take because it pisses off both sides. Before I go into a rant on about modern sensibilities, it’s now time to shift gears and move on to share what I actually saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with coverage of the movement Reoccurring Characters For Unity which was a parody of the Farm Aid Feed The World song featuring the reoccurring character from the current cast of SNL pleading their case for existing and overall acceptance in general following the second verdict from a new Rodney King retrial where the jury deemed that the cops were up to no good. Of course, this being the opening sketch it eventually built up to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
Kirstie Alley then officially opened the show with a monolog about how this is the final year of the show Cheers and how sad she is that her show is coming to an end. She then started to sing the theme song to the show just like she did during her last appearance only this time, instead of the actual Cheers cast joining in, the SNL cast accompanied her doing their best impersonations.
We then got another repeat of the Chameleon XLE ad from earlier in the season which was an ad for a luxury car that’s camouflaged to look like a hunk of junk.
La Cantore Hotel was pretty much a sequel to the Italian restaurant sketch from Kirstie Alley’s first visit where she got welcomingly molested by the staff in front of her husband only this time the scene is set in a hotel in Italy where the same exact staff welcomingly molested our host in front of her husband once again.
This was followed by a parody of The Montel Williams Show where the audience was actually competitive over how horrible they were when it came to answering questions of the guest.
We then got another Deep Thoughts By Jack Handey where Jack shares a funny thought about the county fair and stumbling onto random porn.
Ellen Cleghorne’s Zoraida character returned and Confronts Kirstie Alley where again Zoraida confused Kirstie Alley with characters that she’s played in movies and on TV.
Lenny Kravitz then took to the stage to perform Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Once again, Kevin Nealon gave us the news. This week, Chris Rock played Nipsey Russell to perform a poem about the Rodney King beating. Opera Man also dropped in for another segment where he sang about the headlines of the week.
Originals was a sketch that took place in a department store with Kirstie Alley working the makeup counter selling organic products that are actually terrible for you only no one is aware because they’ve never been tested on animals.
Bad Taste Sketches that started with Phil Hartman warning that the sketch was going to be offensive before we saw Chris Farley and Rob Schneider joke about bestiality before barfing all over the place. This was followed by another warning and another offensive sketch only this one had a more blasphemy theme as it built up to even more vomiting. Hartman then went on to introduce sketch three only to end up puking all over himself in the process.
Foreshadowing Tragedies was an old-timey sketch where Kirstie Alley shared with Julia Sweeney that she was in love with John Wilkes Booth. The two went on to go back and forth sharing their involvement in horrible instances throughout history before we learned that the horse and buggy they were riding is was being driven by Toonces The Driving Cat.
Lenny Kravitz then returned to the stage to perform Always on the Run.
Stop This Craziness! was a parody of the old Stop The Insanity infomercials that were hosted by Susan Powter with Kirstie Alley as the shaved-headed bleached blond host.
While The City Sweeps was one of those adorable end of the night Schiller Reel sketches that showed a night shift hotel security guard had over the day to the graveyard staff and we then saw a variety show style program with the help of all of the security cameras catching the night time antics of the building’s graveyard staff.
Finally, Kristie Alley closed the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

Unfortunately, we’re back to a good but not great episode but by definition, that means that the show was still good especially thanks to these three of my favorite moments of the night. First, I loved While The City Sweeps because this has to be one of the most charming end of the night sketches that I have ever seen and I am amazed that it’s not one that doesn’t stand out in my memory considering I spent so much of my life working graveyard. I really liked the opening sketch because I actually love the reoccurring characters since I feel that they are what give SNL its identity even when they get repetitive and old. Finally, I was a fan of the Bad Taste Sketches sketch because I love when SNL has characters puking by shoving a special effects tube up their sleeve.