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Snakes In The Ball Pit => How I choose to spend my time => TeeVee => Topic started by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on March 09, 2026, 05:17:15 pm

Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on March 09, 2026, 05:17:15 pm: In true SNL fashion, we'll get the most obvious joke out of the way: "oh my god why would you do that to yourself?!?"

As a kid I grew up the show, and like most kids I thought it was funny when guys yell in funny voices and then fall down. I kept watching for years but mostly dropped off around 2004, only occasionally catching episodes until falling off of it completely. I have watched a few episodes and individual skits since then.

I'm now able to watch almost every single episode up to 2020 with the exception of a few themed specials, and I've found that this fits pretty well as background noise while I work. It's an interesting time capsule if nothing else; for example, an old Weekend Update bit mentions how a decade from then, people will be able to buy HD TVs. Neat! This stuff will sate me for a while, so I won't have to go looking for 4-hour video essays on the history of the Wilhelm Scream or whatever Youtube's into at the moment.

The ratio of funny, memorable skits to boring or outright bad ones is very much skewed in favor of the boring ones, which is common knowledge. But what you might not know is that for every mind-meltingly terrible sketch, there are several more that just... waste time? I don't mean the bits that run a joke into the ground, because everyone knows about those too, but I mean sketches where they just needed to fill time and it's hard to tell what the hell the joke is even supposed to be.

The more notorious moments (ex. Martin Lawrence's monologue) are also in my archive, and it's genuinely cool to be able to look up some of this stuff that only aired once. I'm not an expert on SNL but I do have some familiarity with its overall history just from looking up bits and pieces over the years. Did you know that Chevy Chase is banned from hosting because he hit Cheri O'teri in the back of the head? Or that Conan made a few cameos in skits back when he was a writer? Or that Mike Myers created Wayne before joining the show? It's true!

So yeah, ask away about any info or hot takes or whatever. Or don't! Meanwhile I'll be here, working to the sounds of catchphrases and fake commercials.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: Antivehicular on March 09, 2026, 06:21:03 pm: I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts! Curious if you find any of the also-rans that you think are underrated.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: A Meat on March 10, 2026, 05:10:36 am: Have you considered branching out to watching All That or some other sketch comedy series that isn't current events focused?
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on March 10, 2026, 06:11:30 pm: I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts! Curious if you find any of the also-rans that you think are underrated.
Antivehicular, March 09, 2026, 06:21:03 pm

This is a good question because even just off the top of my head, there are a lot of sketches that make me laugh that nobody seems to remember when I bring them up. Apologies in advance because I know these will sound much less funny as vague descriptions, but I'll try to find public stills or videos when I can. I'm actually surprised any of these are on Youtube.

Officer Miller: This is a bit nobody but me cares about. Phil Hartman plays a friendly local cop, the kind you'd see in an old comic book, and Chris Farley plays a gee-willikers teenager who asks him for life advice. Don't go into this expecting any kind of punchline; the entire point is that this is just a baffling conversation between two weirdos. The audience doesn't really get it, either. I think they're waiting for a gimmick or catchphrase to finally drop, and it never does. I admit that this format of "people are just being confusing" isn't to everyone's taste and it wouldn't even work as a regular skit format, but I personally love a dash of "wtf was any of that?" every so often in life.

(https://i.imgur.com/lCcOdJn.png)

My Best List: Jack Handey is responsible for the "Deep Thoughts" bits, which are some all-timers for me. This is a short sketch that isn't that, but very much in the same tone. Handey lists his favorite things of 2001, most of them being about wax. Personally I think that good SNL bits tend to get in, make the joke, and get out, and that's what all of the Jack Handey things do.

(https://i.imgur.com/TDzkRrS.png)

Suckerpunch!: Steve Martin hosts a game show called "Suckerpunch!," which he consistently pronounces as a mumbled, rushed together "sugpnnnn!" He then punches people in the face regardless of their answers or the categories. It's so stupid, and yet to this day I still think about "SUGPNNN!"

Massive Headwound Harry: I find really dumb over-the-top obviously fake gore to be really funny, and that's the whole point of this sketch. Dana Carvey is Massive Headwound Harry, he attends a coworker's party, wackiness happens.

(https://i.imgur.com/DxFy68n.png)

Dunkin' Donuts: Jon Lovitz plays the Dunkin' Donuts man doing one last commercial shoot, and his insistence that his character has an arc makes everything awkward. This is another one I quote every so often.

All-Drug Olympics: A very brief Weekend Update gag. It's the first SNL bit I remember seeing as a kid and I found it absolutely hilarious.

(https://i.imgur.com/4EmXxR1.png)

Handi-Off: Commercial for what to do with all those extra fingers you have on your hands. This one often grosses people out but again, this kind of body horror comedy is my jam.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on March 10, 2026, 06:18:29 pm: Have you considered branching out to watching All That or some other sketch comedy series that isn't current events focused?
A Meat, March 10, 2026, 05:10:36 am

I do plan on revisiting In Living Color and I'll probably also get Kids in the Hall, the State, Human Giant and other shows at some point. I doubt I'll ever go for All That though, because by the time All That premiered I was so used to SNL that I preferred stupid sketch comedy for adults over stupid sketch comedy for kids. Sure, Kenan Thompson yelling gibberish in French is kind of funny, but I knew that All That would never be able to run their own Massive Headwound Harry (see above) so I got bored of it pretty quickly. But yeah I'm definitely open to a bunch of shows!
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on March 18, 2026, 08:33:15 pm: So I have now finished watching the infamous Steven Seagal episode from April 20, 1991. Seagal has long been considered one of the worst hosts in the show's history, as he had no actual interest in SNL (and maybe never even saw it before?) and was so insecure that he insisted on looking cool and powerful the whole time. In the writers' room he suggested a skit where Victoria Jackson plays an assault victim and he plays a therapist who tries to cheat her out of her money and then propositions her. The pitch was thankfully rejected.

For the longest time I thought I didn't actually see this episode before, but then I saw a skit that I distinctly remembered so I must have seen this when it aired? They don't rerun this one since everyone agrees it's just a bad show, so I don't think I saw this after the fact. Or maybe they just reran the one bit I remembered. I dunno. Weird.

Well regardless I clearly forgot most of it, so let's find out: is the Steven Seagal episode as bad as everyone says?

(https://i.imgur.com/MUCItd4.png)

The cold open: Hans and Franz meet Steven Seagal. Not the worst, but as someone who's been going episode-by-episode for a few seasons, I have to say that SNL goes back to the Hans and Franz well much more often than I originally remembered, and the premise just isn't really strong enough to come back to this many times. Still, the idea behind this one is fine I guess, if predictable; Hans and Franz talk about how Seagal is a "girly-man" and whatnot, then it turns out he was standing behind them the whole time. They freak out and Seagal shows that his pinkie finger is stronger than either of them. Could have been executed way better but supposedly the whole reason the skit played out this way was that Seagal insisted that he "win" against the Schwarzenegger parodies. Once you know that, it' becomes clear that that's all he wanted out of the sketch.

A few things stand out that get established early on by the cold open. First off, I know this will shock you to your core, but Steven Seagal has zero range. In every bit he just does his thing without variation and on the one hand it's unintentionally funny how bad he is at this, but on the other hand it's just dull to sit through. His line delivery is just plain terrible and he trips over his own lines and steps on other's quite a few times. Another thing I noticed is that the audience reacts less and less as the episode wears on.

(https://i.imgur.com/FOlLGS6.png)

The Monologue: Seagal lists off some of his movies and then sings Kung Fu Fighting. Of all the unintentional comedy this might be the funniest because he's not singing, really. He's just kind of speaking the lyrics. It ends up sounding like something a bad impressionist would come up with.

(https://i.imgur.com/cFCuGM7.png)(https://i.imgur.com/ZErShS4.png)

Nico vs. The Richmeister: The sketch opens with our host as one of those cop-playing-by-his-own-rules archetypes, with Phil Hartman as the angry police chief. Seagal's poor acting skills become painfully clear when he's up against Phil Hartman, whose acting chops absolutely blast him out of the water and into another dimension. It's just kind of amazing seeing the chasm that separates the two. Anyway the joke here is that the chief demotes Seagal's character and he's forced to do paperwork, which leads to him using the copy machine and into the office of The Richmeister, Rob Schneider's only real recurring character. For the uninitiated, this character's entire gimmick is that he loudly comes up with obnoxious nicknames for whoever happens to be using the copier.

Seagal just flatly tells him that he's annoying and he doesn't want to listen to him anymore before hanging him out the window, with Schneider's character continuing to vomit catchphrases. The skit just kind of ends after he pulls him back inside. At this point it becomes clear that we're mainly going to do bits about how Steven Seagal is Mr. Tough Guy in different scenarios.

(https://i.imgur.com/UypSAac.png)

All-Star Celebrity Tribute to Reginald Lee Addams: A sketch with no Seagal in it. The idea is that there's going to be celebrity tributes to every single American serviceman who was in Iraq, one by one in alphabetical order, every night for god knows how long. Pretty decent idea, has a bit in there with George Bush (Dana Carvey) doing obviously pre-recorded and hastily-edited thank-you videos for each person. It does get dinged a billion points due to Rob Schneider briefly appearing and doing a cartoonish Arab accent. This is not the last time we'll be seeing insensitive portrayals of other races in this episode, sadly.

(https://i.imgur.com/8QKNsCx.png)

The Dark Side with Nat X: A recurring character of Chris Rock's, Nat X has "the only 15-minute show on TV" and will usually insult his white guests. Here Steven Seagal plays Andrew Dice Clay for some reason? And it is jaw-dropping how bad his impression is. Once again he's just playing Steven Seagal doing Steven Seagal Things, with no effort to sound like anything else. Chris Rock's performance is very energetic so Seagal sounds like grandpa doing a local commercial in contrast.

Weekend Update also happens but eh whatever. The big news item of this era was a tell-all book about Nancy Reagan, if you're curious.

(https://i.imgur.com/yTP53Jl.png)

Musicians for Free-Range Chickens: Another bit without Seagal, mainly bringing it up because this is the sketch I remember seeing as a kid. It's supposed to be like Live Aid but to make it so all chickens are free-range... and I... guess I still don't get it? As a kid I thought "well yeah let's be nice to chickens :)" but now I'm not entirely sure what the point is here. Is it making fun of celebrity activism? The idea of rights for farm animals? Is it just because singing songs about chickens sounds funny? Is it purely so everyone can trot out their best musician impression? Eh whatever. Michael Bolton was the musical guest for this episode and I have to say he's probably the funniest one in this bit since he's singing the song 100% seriously even though all the words are about chickens. Hell just put him in the sketches, clearly he's having way more fun here.

(https://i.imgur.com/OsZcyyG.png)

The Boyfriend: Okay, back to business. Pretty straightforward concept here: Chris Farley plays a highschooler who's come over to pick up his date (Victoria Jackson) and the dad (Seagal) is strict and intimidating. Overdone sure, but I can see how the writers would figure having an action star who kills a bunch of people in his movies would push the concept. The thing is, this sketch has zero juice to it. If we're going to rehash this idea then you're going to want the dad to be absurdly scary, but once again it's Steven Seagal Just Doing A Steven Seagal Line Read. He just... sits there. Saying things. "Oh you know a lot about cars?" he says, "well then I guess I won't be getting any phone calls about how the car broke down so you'll be late getting back... huh..." It's bland as hell. The audience is clearly very disinterested because they don't respond.

(https://i.imgur.com/ncNOOOR.png)

Brace Steele: Greenpeace Photographer: Yeesh. Nobody reacts to this whatsoever, and it's obvious why: this entire sketch is just hellishly awkwardly performed from start to finish. We open with Seagal's character's backstory about how he was taught in the ways of peace, zen, and photography from a Japanese sensei (played not at all sensitively by Mike Myers) who then sends him out into the world to defend nature.

(https://i.imgur.com/qswIQpI.png)

Then the skit proper begins and it gets even more wince-inducing. The idea... I think... is that we're supposed to laugh at Seagal playing a pacifist, especially since he's clearly going to eventually do action movie stuff. But the guy just can't act, and I mean AT ALL. The sketch has Phil Hartman as the leader of Exxon, telling the board of directors about their plans to cause environmental disasters. He then calls George Bush (Carvey again), who openly admits to working with them in their evil schemes. Seagal then tromps on in to say ah ha, but he got photos of their nefarious meeting, which causes Hartman to respond with "okay but those are photos, you can't tell what we're saying in those, ergo I will just tell people we were discussing something else!" And this goes back and forth for a bit, and you can tell Hartman is trying desperately to hold this garbage sketch together while the guy he's directly interacting with can't even attempt to put any emotion into any of his stumbling lines. You can see it even in my screenshot there, but Seagal's eyes are absolutely superglued to the cue cards. He conspicuously stares at them the entire time and it just feels that much more like the worst school play ever.

(https://i.imgur.com/vlAuiyU.png)

Hartman's character then says "ah, but you Greenpeace guys are non-violent!" and he and other cast members take turns slapping Seagal around a bit.

(https://i.imgur.com/64rZZ1w.png)

Seagal then gets mad and we get to the action movie stuff. He punches guys and throws them through the prop table and chases Hartman's character away. Then he just weirdly says something about how this is what happens when you hurt nature and the sketch just... sort of... ends.

This is considered one of the worst bits and good god, yeah it's pretty bad! There are more offensive SNL skits out there but if you want a perfect storm of racism, bad line delivery, and no actual jokes then you've come to the right place. And this was the last sketch of the episode! This was the grand finale!

So overall was this the worst SNL ever? I guess it depends on your definition of "worst" but it's certainly up there. The unintentional comedy wears off immediately so it doesn't even have that going for it. I know there are some seasons that are wall-to-wall trash though, so maybe I'll reevaluate when I get to those. I suspect the Elon Musk episode is even worse though, so uh good luck to me when I finally get to that one!
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on March 29, 2026, 06:38:10 pm: Got to season 17, episode 11. Chevy Chase hosts and really it's kind of a slog because he's very much phoning it in as if he's above all this. He co-hosts Weekend Update since he used to lead the sketch in the 70s, and it's like he didn't even rehearse, bleh. So overall this episode isn't much, but it does have one bit that I remembered.

You can watch it here if you want to see the whole thing. (https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/1lq3muz/van_morrison_concert_chevy_chase_melanie_hutsell/)

Phil Hartman, Victoria Jackson, Julia Sweeney and Chevy Chase play two couples at a Van Morrison concert. Moondance starts, and Melanie Hutsell starts doing this dance:

(https://i.imgur.com/Otj2l2J.gif)

For years I remembered no details about this other than this dance, and of course googling "that sketch where Melanie Hutsell does a goofy dance" didn't give any helpful results. What can I say, I think it's funny! She looks like she's having the time of her life and this barely qualifies as a dance! That works for me.

I made the gif myself and I'm posting it here since I'm relieved to have finally recalled absolutely anything else about this dumbass bit. I kind of wonder if this was one of Conan's ideas since I could easily see this happening on his show. Anyway, feel free to add this to the collection of funny dancing gifs that I assume all of you have.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: thelizzerd on March 30, 2026, 12:43:09 am: My dad always references this fake commercial SNL did about number of razor blades increasing. How it wouldn't even be a joke today because they actually make razors with that many blades.

Have you run across any other examples of jokes that just wouldn't work because they're just reality now?
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: Antivehicular on March 30, 2026, 02:47:56 pm: That Steven Seagal episode sounds excruciating. Thank you for your service in reviewing it so nobody else has to watch it.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on March 30, 2026, 06:16:52 pm: My dad always references this fake commercial SNL did about number of razor blades increasing. How it wouldn't even be a joke today because they actually make razors with that many blades.

Have you run across any other examples of jokes that just wouldn't work because they're just reality now?
thelizzerd, March 30, 2026, 12:43:09 am

I know that exact fake commercial you're talking about, haha. It's so weird that that's just a thing now. I'm going to keep an eye out but just from what I remember right now, here are a few examples:

(https://i.imgur.com/G6Fz60b.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/UdCg1i3.gif)

Not Gettin' Any: Michael J. Fox hosts a show where "we ask the same question that we ask every week; we're five normal, decent-looking, semi-intelligent guys, so how come we're not gettin' any?!?" The characters then talk about how they haven't had sex in however long and how it's all they think about and how unfair it is. They complain about women who "just want to be friends" and discuss their laughable methods of approaching girls. David Spade's character even gets creepy about the age of a girl he kissed, and the other guys agree with him. Chris Rock's character just flat-out calls himself a "nice guy" and says he'd rather be the jerk boyfriend.

So yep, it's just incels before the term existed! While this is a sign that guys like this have always been around, the idea of them having their own show where all of this gross talk goes uncontested used to be absurd. Now? It's everywhere.

(https://i.imgur.com/g3ItxTp.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/0QGymFe.gif)

Adopt-A-Pet: This is kind of a weaker answer but it did stick out to me since this is from the same Chevy Chase episode with the dumb dancing bit. Chevy Chase and Victoria Jackson play volunteers for Adopt-A-Pet, an organization that seeks to rehome animals. Chase describes the dog Sparky as "having trouble digesting" and "a bit of a scrapper" who's up at the crack of dawn barking. Victoria Jackson shows off a cat named Fluffy, which is described as "not a children's cat" and is "more for someone who enjoys the unpredictable". They glance at the phone which of course never rings.

Kind of a dull bit but it struck me because I've gone through a lot of pet adoption profiles lately and so many of them are just like this, honestly. Just people trying to politely convey "this animal is actually pretty mean and is going to result in a lot of extra vet bills but c'moooonnnn!" Actually the sketch is more honest than some of these profiles, because "he's a bit of a scrapper" is way more direct than "hi imma cuddly fur-end who needs a fur-ever home, but im just not into other dogs! i dont need that drama; i want to be your one and only!" Ugh.

(https://i.imgur.com/Uj0yP0j.gif)

Lesbian Holiday Party: This one might be the king of "I don't get it, isn't this just normal?" This sketch originally aired in 1992 and I found it when putting together a holiday compilation, but didn't include it because it's such a nothingburger. Glenn Close hosts. In this skit, Close and Julia Sweeney play a lesbian couple with a son. Every female cast member shows up as other lesbians, and Kevin Nealon arrives as the son's biological father, and they're all here to attend a holiday party. And everyone just kind of proceeds to have absolutely normal conversations...??? They ask each other how they met their partners, the kid has an art project, Nealon's character brings a present for the kid, Sweeney's character hopes there's some nice power tools under the tree, they all have a toast and sing. Nothing weird happens in it! You would think that the lesbians would all say outrageous things or that it would turn out they all hate men and drive Kevin Nealon away or yell at the little boy but... no? It's just kind of sweet honestly??? The only thing approaching some kind of "leftists are weirdos" joke is that Nealon starts to say "Christmas" but interrupts himself to say "holidays" instead, and ends up singing "The 12 Days of Holidays" at the end. But that's it! There's no social minefield where he "has" to adjust all of his language to appease all the gay ladies and there's no implication that he's being forced to do anything or is scared. It's just a bunch of people having a happy holiday together!

If I had to guess, I'd assume the joke is supposed to be that it's funny purely because they're lesbians... I... think?? But again, nobody's acting like a wacky stereotype. Is it just the existence of lesbians??? Is that it?? I got no idea. I'll just accept it as a weird sign of progress that it's such a mundane scene.

Dillon-Edwards Investments: Predicted all those domains Lemon buys
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: Lumbermouth on March 30, 2026, 06:45:39 pm: Dillon-Edwards Investments: Predicted all those domains Lemon buys
One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes, March 30, 2026, 06:16:52 pm

I have thought about this sketch every time someone buys a comedy domain name for the past twenty years.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: vaMpiresoftWare on March 30, 2026, 06:54:01 pm: Seeing how much of this I recognize makes me realize how much television I have watched and forgotten about.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on April 10, 2026, 02:56:01 pm: Finally worked up to this, which is one of my favorite bits ever:

Really the skit has nothing to do with Mr. Belvedere, which is one of the reasons why it's great. Everyone here does a great job of pushing the gag forward, and it's a gag that actually escalates instead of just running one joke into the ground! Huh, imagine that! It even has a funny ending, which is almost unheard of for this show.

According to the monologue, Joe Pesci was supposed to host that night but was too busy with Home Alone 2 so they brought in Tom Hanks at the last minute. It's a good thing too because I feel like Hanks' timing and delivery here is just too perfect. His character is a normal enough guy that he's upset by what he's hearing, yet so resigned that you can tell he's had to wrangle these creeps for years. It just adds so much!
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: John Toast on April 27, 2026, 04:13:07 pm: My dad always references this fake commercial SNL did about number of razor blades increasing. How it wouldn't even be a joke today because they actually make razors with that many blades.

Have you run across any other examples of jokes that just wouldn't work because they're just reality now?
thelizzerd, March 30, 2026, 12:43:09 am

That was actually MadTV!
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: thelizzerd on April 28, 2026, 09:15:04 pm: My dad always references this fake commercial SNL did about number of razor blades increasing. How it wouldn't even be a joke today because they actually make razors with that many blades.

Have you run across any other examples of jokes that just wouldn't work because they're just reality now?
thelizzerd, March 30, 2026, 12:43:09 am

That was actually MadTV!

John Toast, April 27, 2026, 04:13:07 pm

No. SNL Did it first, this reddit thread has the video: https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/lytpou/this_has_got_to_be_the_most_poorly_aged_snl_skit/

I couldn't find it on youtube. Reddit says it's from the first SNL episode in 1975. The MADtv one doesn't line up right with my dad talking about it being "when I was your age" at the time he was telling me about it.
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: John Toast on May 04, 2026, 10:39:47 am: My dad always references this fake commercial SNL did about number of razor blades increasing. How it wouldn't even be a joke today because they actually make razors with that many blades.

Have you run across any other examples of jokes that just wouldn't work because they're just reality now?
thelizzerd, March 30, 2026, 12:43:09 am

That was actually MadTV!

John Toast, April 27, 2026, 04:13:07 pm

No. SNL Did it first, this reddit thread has the video: https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/lytpou/this_has_got_to_be_the_most_poorly_aged_snl_skit/

I couldn't find it on youtube. Reddit says it's from the first SNL episode in 1975. The MADtv one doesn't line up right with my dad talking about it being "when I was your age" at the time he was telling me about it.
thelizzerd, April 28, 2026, 09:15:04 pm

Oh. Shit. My bad then! Apologies for being that kind of obnoxious internet corrections guy there!
Title: I am in the process of watching every episode of Saturday Night Live, AMA
Post by: One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes on May 08, 2026, 03:00:10 am: All right I hope you all are ready for some gifs because I've gotten up to The Sinéad O'Connor Incident.

This is possibly the most notorious moment in the history of Saturday Night Live. If I were some softball SNL historian, this would be the part where I mention something about how "wow, when a show is live, anything can happen! :D" But SNL clearly made some deliberate choices after the incident and those choices sure are something, let me tell you.

So, what exactly happened? The incident occurred during season 18, episode 2, original airdate of October 3rd, 1992. Tim Robbins hosts. For this post, I do want to mention a couple of relevant skits leading up to the performance, and by "relevant" I mean "SNL being just kind of weird about politics". You'll get what I mean, but I promise I'm going somewhere with these. Maybe not anywhere interesting, but still!

(https://i.imgur.com/BxD0pvT.gif)

Tim Robbins starts his monologue. He does a stupid joke about General Electric while wearing a goofy grin, and is immediately called backstage. Lorne Michaels tells Robbins to not call out GE because they pay the bills, and there's a gag about the show being cancelled because Robbins refuses to stay silent.

You see, the joke here is that Robbins was very politically outspoken, so we're all having a cute little giggle at his expense. But that's the thing; this is all very pre-written and pre-approved, and the big smiles and stilted delivery serve as our signal that nobody's actually mad. Oh sure, we can joke about the guy refusing to back down on live TV, but don't worry! He didn't really dare do anything to make the boss uncomfortable! It's all in good fun, everyone! My word, he wouldn't actually stray off-script just to make a point! Who would even do such a thing?

(https://i.imgur.com/7GbqDob.gif)

Next I want to talk about Founding Fathers. This is a bit about George Washington (Kevin Nealon), Thomas Jefferson (Tim Robbins), and Benjamin Franklin (Phil Hartman) traveling through time to save modern America. They hold a press conference and try to lay out a roadmap to reform the nation, starting with reducing the deficit.

(https://i.imgur.com/mNNmJT1.gif)

... but then we get to the... I guess punchline? Reporters keep asking questions about how these men held slaves. The questions annoy the founding fathers because hey, they just want to discuss the deficit! But the reporters refuse to stop so the guys leave and that's it, the end. It's a short sketch but the tone ping-pongs between "it was definitely bad that they owned slaves" and "... but why is everyone obsessed with that when we could be improving our great nation?" It's such a strange mish-mash that doesn't say much, but does lean more towards "why do you care about what these guys did, since it was a different time?"

Maybe I'm just looking too far into it, but it's a little wild to me how several points in this particular episode feel like we're just mocking the idea of caring about anything. Or at the very least, caring enough about anything to take any sort of action. Even though I was a kid back then, in my experience this was just the attitude of the times; if you cared enough to disrupt anything that was going on around you, you were seen as whiny, annoying, inconsiderate, selfish, immature, and disconnected from reality.

So you can imagine the reaction when The Thing Finally Happened!

(https://i.imgur.com/cApV53I.gif)

O'Connor performed War, with some of the words changed to reference child abuse. No band, no anything, just this. And then...

(https://i.imgur.com/BmOzEig.gif)

She pulls out the photo of the pope, tears it up, says "fight the real enemy" and tosses the scraps. She then silently walked away with no applause, as the applause sign was purposefully left off. Keep her expression in mind, because it's going to come up later.

As a kid I didn't really get it. I knew who she was and knew who the pope was, and knew she was clearly mad about something. I mean the whole show was Wacky Silly Pants Fun Times up until this point, so it was obvious that this was serious. But I also knew that there was a lot going on in the world that I didn't understand, therefore I simply assumed that the pope was involved in... something... and I was ignorant of the details. I shrugged it off and figured I'd understand some day.

People were infuriated at the time. I'm not entirely certain, but this might have been one of my first brushes with society's obsession with decorum over almost anything else? I seem to recall a teacher telling me that it didn't matter how mad O'Connor was about anything, whatever it was didn't call for tearing up a photo. I'm not saying I was a genius child wise beyond my years, but in my mind it was just a photo and didn't feel like a big deal. My kid logic was hey, you can always print new photos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, on to THE AFTERMATH!

SNL got over 4,000 angry calls. This was not the first time the show was in the papers, though. As with the controversial Andrew Dice Clay episode (can write about that sometime if anyone wants), the show decided to just make fun of the situation but take no particular stance.

Well... kind of.

(https://i.imgur.com/mniLl6R.gif)

So remember when I said Joe Pesci had to reschedule his appearance because he was busy? Well that was
ACCIDENTAL FORESHADOWING!!!
because I completely forgot that's why he hosted the very next episode.

Pesci's entire monologue was about how mad he was about the O'Connor thing. He said that he felt it was wrong for her to rip up the picture so he had someone glue it back together, which got cheers from the audience. But what really got the crowd going was the next line, where he says she was lucky she didn't do it when he was hosting, as he would have given her "such a smack".

Look, I know it's a comedy show, and I assume Pesci would not have had the guts to even threaten that if he really was hosting at the time. This is just Movie Star Man buying his own hype because he played murdery dudes before. HOWEVER, I mean... come on. Just come on. The guy just said he would have hit a tiny 20-something girl. And it was most certainly pre-approved and signed off on by everyone in charge of the show. And people cheered. It just really kills the mood for the rest of the episode, you know? The skits themselves are mostly pretty solid, but how am I supposed to enjoy them when the opener is "I want you to take me seriously when I say I'd have hit that lady"?

Again, I was a kid. Kids would say "I'll kill you!" regularly on the playground so I didn't think much of it at the time. But now? Yeah, gives me the creeps, what can I say. Pesci could have been told "nooo, no no no, don't talk like that, don't even bring it up. Don't talk about hitting her, too many people are going to genuinely agree with that. Stop." But he wasn't!

(https://i.imgur.com/XrKosdA.gif)

Oh but don't worry, the show wasn't done yet! In the very next episode of SNL, they do a bit called "It's the Sinead O'Connor Goodtime Happy Jamboree," where Jan Hooks plays O'Connor doing a cartoonishly Irish... I dunno, variety show? Musical? But gets booed so hard she flips out and runs away sobbing. This was a reference to her being booed and leaving the stage during a Bob Dylan tribute concert.

(https://i.imgur.com/Ut1EOY9.gif)

Later in the episode she tries again on the main SNL stage, again more booing. This time she asks what people want from her, to which Adam Sandler (playing a random audience member) gives her a teary-eyed plea for her to love, not to hate.

(https://i.imgur.com/IMs7JFi.gif)

So she says sure and then this dance party happens.

(https://i.imgur.com/PJxLNQQ.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/5HF1gHj.gif)

Other shows jumped into the fray. In Living Color did a bit where Jay Leno (Jim Carrey) had O'Connor (Kelly Coffield Park) on his show. Park tore up several photos, including the prime minister of Norway for allowing the country to kill "thousands of whales"* and Steve Urkel for being "really irritating". Carrey makes a bunch of jokes about... ah, well you see... this is pretty complex, refined humor so I'll have to break it down. See, women are typically expected to have, like, long hair, right? Well Sinéad O'Connor did not have long hair. In fact she was shaved bald. And see, like, being bald? That's more associated with men. Some people might even call it a "man's hairstyle". But she wasn't a man. So it's, you know. Funny. Hilarious enough to merit several jokes in one sketch, even.

(https://i.imgur.com/ZRGkMgu.gif)

Saturday Night Live really wasn't going to let it go, by the way. All the way in episode 11 of that season, Madonna decided to throw her hat in the ring even though this stuff happened weeks and weeks prior, and once again SNL said "yeah sure, approved why not". That's a photo of Joey Buttafuoco by the way, which was just one of the big news stories at the time, doesn't even have anything to do with anything. If this happened today, she would have been tearing up a picture of, god I don't know, the numbers 6 7 or something.

So there's something in these reactive sketches: Watch the gifs from both the Jan Hooks bit and the Kelly Coffield Park bit. Watch the actresses' portrayals. Pouting, fussy, like a toddler. In the SNL sketch she's rolling her eyes back and clownishly bawling. In the In Living Color sketch she's storming off with her arms swinging, again like a kid. Madonna scrunches her face up in a comical way and then stomps on the scraps.

And again, yeah, these are comedy shows. But the things they're making fun of her for are simply not the things she did. You can directly compare the images in this very post! In the real performance she's very focused and determined. She's serious. She's not throwing a tantrum here. But SNL allowed the version of events wherein she whimpered and sobbed and pouted and stomped to enter the public consciousness. And that certainly is a choice that goes well beyond "oh jeepers, anything can happen during a live show!"

This was all pretty dry but hey, at least you all got that founding fathers time warp gif out of it! That'll probably be useful to someone out of context.

* Nowhere else to really put this, but whining out "save the whaaaales~" was a common way to belittle anyone who cared about environmentalism, or really any cause at the time. The joke was that if you cared about some random animal that lived all the way in the ocean in other parts of the world, you were a wimpy dork who was paralyzed by your own nonstop tears. The other big one was "save the spotted owl," because some folks were super offended that the spotted owl's habitat was protected from logging. I personally got hassled for caring about this stuff growing up. Just a sidebar worth mentioning considering the eeeeeverything that's going on in the world today.