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Alumni Host Number Seven Of Seven From This Season

I have to be honest, I judged a book by its cover on this one and based on my screen capture/thumbnail picture of Mike Myers alone, I had low expectations for the former cast member’s first visit back since leaving the show. For whatever reason, between the hairstyle, suit, and phony smile, I was expecting him to use the old school approach of the alumni host where he would jokingly act too good for both the show and the cast.

I mean, he does often act like an arrogant snob in many of his personal appearances. Sure this attitude is always a joke but it still bothers me nonetheless so part of me wasn’t looking forward to the episode. Then after the first line of his monolog, I was back on board. It turns out, I was judging that photo based on a more modern Myers who resorts to arrogance as humor now that he’s a much bigger star because, during the monolog, he did nothing but share how much he loved his time working as part of the cast and could wait to see the other side by getting to be an alumni host.

He was there to promote Austin Powers which meant that he had already worked with several members of the cast other than Tim Meadows, who, as they pointed out, was the only cast member left from Mike Myers’s time with the show. I think this aspect made the episode that I was expecting to be average to be much more fun since there was already established chemistry.

I also really liked how there was a mixing of worlds with Myers bringing back a few of my favorites from his roster of characters while he also interacted well with the characters that have been created by the new cast. Since this episode was from a time period where I was still an active viewer, it led to a doubling down of nostalgic fun.

I might even go as far as to say that this episode tripled down on the nostalgic effect because there were a lot of sketches about the Academy Awards and this episode originally aired just before I landed a job at Metro Cinemas which was a movie theater in Seattle and probably the funnest job that I ever had since I was really into movies at that time and many friends that I made lasted my entire twenty-year stay in Seattle.

Now that I’ve double checked the date that this episode originally aired, I can now say that his review itself quadruples the nostalgic effect since seven days after I originally watched this, I loaded up my Jeep and two days later I was living in the Thunderbird motel which turned out to be on the hooker/junky street of my new Pacific Northwest hometown.

I could go on forever with this topic of my early days in Seattle and how they connect with this episode because the first Austin Powers was playing in the theater when I was hired and not only played into my first Seattle love interest but all of my friends/coworkers would watch the movie during our breaks so it was endlessly referenced for quite some time.

I also met Seth Green when he came into to watch Austin Powers on The Fourth Of July with a group of his friend during firework time which left the theater completely empty. He wanted to buy the cut out of Brenden Fraser as George Of The Jungle but our box office guy turned him down.

Alright, I’ve gone on enough about my nostalgic connection to both this episode and the host after expecting an average show, now it’s time for me to shift gears and share what I saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with a parody of The Barbara Walters Oscar Special where Cheri Oteri as Barbara tried to test out new catchphrases by randomly dropping them into her traditional interview special with the year’s Oscar nominees. This sketch mainly made fun of the overuse of “Show me the money,” when referencing Jerry Maguire. Of course with this being the opening sketch, the final catchphrase was from Darrell Hammond as Sling Blade who announced of, “Live from New York…”
Mike Myers then officially opened the show with a monolog about how he’s excited to be back on the show while also promoting his first Austin Powers movie. After promoting he went back to talking about his connection to the show which led him and the cast to break into a song about the joys of hosting SNL after experiencing the other side as a former Not Ready For Prime Time Player.
Mary Katherine Gallagher dropped by for another installment where this time she auditioned for Mike Myers as a lazy-eyed director who was looking for a new girl to be in a music video for Aerosmith since, not only were they the music guest, but they were also still in the schoolgirl-themed music videos at that time.
Mike Myers then revised his Linda Richman character for another installment of Coffee Talk where Ana Gasteyer played her cousin and the two discussed the Oscars and even sang an Oscars themed song.
We then got parody coverage from British Parliament where Mike Myers played John Major who was the Prime Minister at the time. During the parody session, the Prime Minister had to deal with innocuous issues which included the plight of the British band Oasis.
Once again, Norm MacDonald gave us the news. This week, Tracy Morgan dropped in as his character Dominican Lou to share his picks for the Academy Awards. Darrell Hammond also got a segment as Bill Clinton where he reviewed the movie Absolute Power where a fictional President was involved in an affair where his mistress ended up dead and “Clinton” found this to be horrible because he wished the Secret Service from the film would have killed his wife instead of the mistress.
Aerosmith then took to the stage to perform Falling in Love.
Mike Myers also brought back his Dieter character for another installment of Sprockets where we met his lover, played by Will Ferrell and the two presented their Insane Academy Awards where the ranked the craziest people in cinema.
Scottish Soccer Hooligan Weekly was a talk show sketch hosted by Mike Myers and Mark McKinney who play two aggressive Scottish Hooligans who bash their guest, played by Jim Breuer because he is an Irish Hooligan which is the rival team.
Aerosmith then returned to the stage to perform Nine Lives.
Prematurely Gray was a panel talk show where a group of guests celebrated the early onset of grayness while they shared the benefits of going gray at such a young age. All the fun ended when Mike Meyers and Ana Gasteyer shared how their hair turned gray in one day following an intense, nearly fatal plane crash who had absolutely nothing to celebrate.
We then got a fake ad for the Tito Jackson Album where Tracy Morgan played Tito in order to pitch his new album in order to afford some food which was appropriately titled I Need To Eat Too.
Finally, Mike Myers closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

Though I might seem more interested in the memories this episode triggered, I’d still say that it was a pretty fun night with the help of these three of my favorite moments of the night. First, I loved Mike Myers’s opening song It’s Hosting because I loved how Myers didn’t end up bashing the new cast or the show’s reputation since he left as some alumni hosts may do and instead heaped praise on everyone and really set up the show to feel like it was going to be a fun one. Next, I really liked Mary Katherine Gallagher’s Audition To Be The Next Aerosmith Video Girl because it was a perfect fit since Aerosmith was still doing their school girl thing at the time and it was also funny how the band actually played along. Finally, I was a fan of the return of Sprockets because I’ve always loved that character and it was fun to see him interact with Will Ferrell as a wacky German as well.