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Welcome To The Nine-Timers Club Mr. Goodman

Hm... I’m not sure where to go with this one, being that it’s John Goodman’s ninth time as the host, I’ve already shared that I’m a fan and love his connection with the show. Sure I could be repetitive like how I get when a season has a continual issue that I get hung up on, but nothing in this episode inspired me to revisit my interest enough to explore more about how or why I am a fan. This lack of inspiration isn’t really a problem and has nothing to do with the episode at hand, but it is a problem in that it led to the empty introduction that I just scribed.

I guess I could probably criticize the Blue Brothers 2000 inspired start to the show, but my issue with BB2K is more with the actual movie and not the performance in lieu of a monolog. I am glad that they didn’t bring the New Blues Brothers back in any form of sketch because if I’m being honest, I was never all that much of a fan of the original characters. I did like the original film but even with that, I feel it might have been more due to the fact that I was such a big fan of Belushi that I was just happy to see him on the screen.

Other than these thoughts on the Blues Brothers, all that I really have to say was that this was another great John Goodman episode. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be since now that he’s been on for nine episodes where he’s been featured in almost every sketch, he has as much SNL experience many of the cast members from the past. Between his experience and the quality of this year’s cast, it’s no wonder this show was as good as it turned out to be.

Since this is all that I’ve really got, I’m going to cut this review short and move on to share what I saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with the Lewinsky/Tripp Luncheon where John Goodman played Linda Tripp who attempted to get information from Molly Shannon as Monica Lewinsky over lunch. Little did Lewinsky know but Tripp was wearing a wiretap even though she was terrible at trying to conceal it. Toward the end of the sketch, we learn the person at the other end of the listening device was Dan Aykroyd as Bob Dole. This kept going until Lewinsky was being forced to admit what happened into the microphone which instead led to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
This was around the time of the Blues Brothers 2000 sequel so John Goodman took the stage as his Blues Brother character and was joined by Dan Aykroyd and the two performed the song Looking For A Fox with the original Blues Brother band, in lieu of an opening monolog.
Morning Latte then returned for another installment where this time Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell did their usual high energy morning talk show host routine while discussing a weekend fishing trip with their new producer who was played by John Goodman. They also tried to involve Goodman in other areas of their obnoxious conversation only to get quick annoyed answers from John since he was a producer who never intended to be on-air.
Clinton/Moses was a sketch that took place back in biblical time where Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton wouldn’t stop questioning John Goodman as Moses about whether or not he was sure that God really wanted the whole adultery thing to be one of the Ten Commandments.
Eye On Nagano then returned for another installment where this time Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan played two former figure skaters who were providing commentary for the ’98 Winter Games. This was a parody of one of those Olympic segments where the commentators venture out to explore the hosting city and the brought Molly Shannon as Michelle Kwan to go on a shopping tour with Will and Chris being culturally insensitive throughout the trip and Michelle Kwan was pissed because she hated being mistaken as being Japanese.
TV Funhouse then returned for another installment of the X-President which shared the continuing adventured of the former presidents with superpowers who continued to battle the Russians X-Men style after a trap was set during continued peace talks that followed The Cold War. This time the X-First Ladies also got involved.
This was followed by a parody of Emeril Live where Jim Breuer played our chef of a host to show us how to cook with Monica Lewinsky’s attorney William Ginsberg who was only focused on clearing Monica’s name to the TV views while all Emeril wanted to do was share how to cook a hot batch of chili and couldn’t care less about the politics.
Once again, Colin Quinn gave us the news. This week, Will Ferrell dropped in as a frat boy in order to share his views on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which of course he was one-hundred percent on board and was more against Linda Tripp for turning him in.
Paula Cole then took to the stage to perform I Don't Want To Wait.
We then got another parody of Judge Judy where this time Cheri Oteri played the short-tempered judge with Tracy Morgan as her bailiff/sidekick to try a case between Dan Aykroyd’s classic, sleazy toy salesman, character and Ana Gasteyer whose son was injured while playing with one of his unsafe toys. We then got to see a line of this dangerous toys when they were presented as evidence. As usual, even though Aykroyd is clearly in the wrong, Judge Judy ruled against Ana Gasteyer for trying to ruin this entrepreneur’s career.
This was followed by a parody of Martha Stewart Living where Ana Gasteyer as Martha showed us how to prepare for a trip to Cuba by sharing crafty techniques to build a refugee boat from items found around the house, doctor a passport, and create a comfy pouch to keister important things in your anus.
Sabado Chistoso was a parody of a Telemundo talk show with Dan Aykroyd and Molly Shannon as the host of this wacky night of entertainment that started out making fun of a real Telemundo show until Goodman returned and William Ginsberg which led the sketch to be more of a continuation of the Emeril parody from earlier in the night which was a little disappointing to me.
The Cobra was a sketch that took place on a plane where after announcing the landing time the pilot calmly added that there was a live cobra loose on the plane. At first, Ana Gasteyer was the only passenger to clearly hear this warning. The pilot then made a second announcement that was still calm but said loud and clear which got everyone to freak out. As the sketch continued on we learned of more and more cobras until this seemed to become the inspiration to Snakes On A Plane.
Neil Diamond: Storytellers was a parody of the old VH1 Storyteller show would share stories about what inspired their songs before they went on to play them. In this sketch Will Ferrell as Neil Diamond revealed the disturbing inspiration to his songs, like how Sweet Caroline was inspired by a crazy story where Neil Diamond killed a kick during a hit and run car accident, or how Coming To America was actually inspired by his hatred of immigrants.
Finally, John Goodman closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

Again, this was another great visit from John Goodman that was pretty fun with the help of these three sketches that contained my favorite moments of the night. First, I loved the Lewinsky/Tripp Luncheon opening sketch not only because I still find wiretap jokes funny but this is the one sketch that I remember from the night that this episode originally aired. Next, I really liked Neil Diamond: Storytellers because Will Ferrell and Neil Diamond is a combination that is guaranteed to crack me up. Finally, I was a fan of the Clinton Vs. Moses sketch because it cracks me up how Clinton is always treated like a kid trying to get one over on his neighbor like a perverted Dennis The Menace.