With all of the recent Saturday Night Live references on the boards, I’ve come to try to pick all of the classic stuff that makes SNL, and put them all in one episode. But I need a little help. I’d like to try to incorporate as many people from the history of SNL as possible. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
Host: Christopher Walken - I think he’s one of the best hosts SNL has ever had, but I’m a bit biased because of the MORE COWBELL sketch. Certainly up for discussion.
Musical Guest: U2 with Bono jumping around the audience was pretty funny, but Sinead O’Connor ripping up the picture of the Pope certainly got some attention. Regardless, I’ve never really watched SNL for the music, and didn’t watch in the 70s, so there’s gotta be something better than these two options.
Commercials: Happy Fun Ball
Bass-O-Matic
Oops, I Crapped My Pants
City National (the bank that only makes change)
Colonblow
Skits: I Gotta Have More Cowbell, Baby
Samurai Deli
Church Lady
Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker
Presidential Montage: Chevy Chase as Ford, Carvey as Bush Sr., Hartman as Clinton, Farrell as Dubya (did anyone do Reagan?)
Weekend Update: Personally, I like the current crew of Tina Fey and What’sHisFace. But I’d take anyone other than Dennis Miller (sorry folks, he’s annoying), Colin Quinn, and the guy before Norm McDonald.
You’ll want to create a new skit as well. It’s easy!
Take a funny idea or observation e.g. some guy dressed as a clown who’s just some regular guy.
Set up a situation designed to showcase the unique hilarity of your situation, e.g. clown-lookin’ guy goes shopping and other shoppers/children keep asking him to make balloon animals.
Repeat for 14 minutes. It’s funny!
Next week: writing a truly painful opening monologue.
One of my favorite skits: the one where John Larroquette is a guy that just died, and Dana Carvey is an angel. Larroquette gets to ask him a bunch of questions and get the real answers. This ranges from “What’s the most disgusting thing I ate without knowing it?” to “Who’s really better, Beatles or Stones?” It wasn’t a hilarious skit, but it was smart and wry and one of their best non-gut busting bits.
Also, that short film from the Rich Hall years where the guy cuts shoe soles out of the mat that opens and closes the electric door. As he walks by things, they spring open – mailboxes, car trunks, coffins. Funny film!
And the skit with Phil Hartman as a take-charge Reagan (and Dana Carvey as Jimmy Stewart – “You’ve changed, Dutch!”) is essential.
You also have to have a bizarre, oddly funny late-in-the-show skit. I nominate the “Dr. Poopy” skit from last year, where the couple goes in to see their doctor who berates them, then calls in Tim Meadows as Dr. Poopy, who does the Robot for them. One of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen on that show.
you have to have something from the early 90’s, or as I call them “The Mr. Years”. How many sketched can you think of where the title was “Mr. so-and so”…The best were “Mr. No Depth Percetion” and “Mr. Short Term Memory”.
Tom Hanks as Mr. STM: “Hey! You’re Tony Randall!!!”
Kevin Nealon as Mr. NDP: “You know what I’d really like to do? Skydiving! Pulling the cord at just the right second.”
I also liked Middle Aged Man (although not technically a “Mr”.
Oh, and you have to have at least one “Toonces, The Driving Cat”!
The First Citiwide Change Bank commercials: “We will work with the customer to give that customer the change that he or she needs. If you come to us with a twenty-dollar bill, we can give you two tens, we can give you four fives. We can give you a ten and two fives. We will work with you.”
The Star Wars audition tapes that they ran when Kevin Spacey hosted – Spacey as Christopher Walken auditioning for Han Solo and Spacey as Jack Lemmon auditioning for Chewbacca were priceless moments.
I maintain that you cannot have an Ultimate SNL Episode without (at least) one Celebrity Jeopardy. Preferrably one with both Burt Reynolds (Norm Macdonald) and Sean Connery (forget who plays him). If you can only get one, make it Connery. But those are absolutely hilarious!
Well, it looks like we’ve already used up far more than 90 minutes, but then, this is a special episode.
I’d have to insist on Chevy Chase to anchor Weekend Update.
A Robert Smeigel toon is also mandatory. (The one with Yogi Bear and BooBoo sporting immense crotch bulges was just a riot!) Smeigel is about the only reason I sit through most SNL shows these days.
A half hour of public access shows would also be necessary, especially Bob and Doug MacKenzie and Wayne’s World!
And musical skits. Two of the funniest skits of all time were Eddie Murphy doing an impression of James Brown singing “Hot Tub,” and Steve Martin’s “King Tut.”
Tom Hanks was alwaysw my favorite host…I’m sorry, but he didn’t host it 7 times or whatever for nothing. Music doesn’t really matter - never watched it for the music anyway. Fill in your favorite band here.
Can’t leave out the Schmidt’s Gay, Happy Fun Ball, and Colon Blow commercials…classic!
HAFTA have Celebrity Jeopardy with an ideal lineup - Daryl Hammond as Sean Connery, Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds, and John Goodman as Marlon Brando (he was on the first CJ…he started playing with a puppet and wrote “poop” in the final jeopardy round).
Then I’d put in the sketch with Tom Hanks and John Lovitz as the loser guys (she didn’t even know I was here! etc, etc, etc). Then of course, can’t leave out Matt Foley, the Church Lady, Mike Meyers as “the hyper hypo”, the Mr.Bill clay guy who always dies (oh no! mr. bill!), Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood, and the Ambiguously Gay Duo. I’d also throw in the sketch where Adam Sandler is the old man and Chris Farley is the old woman reading out of the travel pamplet (anyone know what I’m talkin about?). Finally, wouldn’t be complete without a classic Deep Thoughts from Jack Handey.
You have to also offend some people, or it wont be cutting edge. But it should also be funny so I would put in "The Run, Throw and Catch like a Girl Olympics"
