Classic SNL Review: February 14, 1987: Bronson Pinchot / Paul Young (S12E11)

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RATINGS SYSTEM:
***** - Classic
**** - Great
*** - Good/Average
** - Meh
* - Awful

OPENING: HEAVEN

  • Recently deceased Liberace (Phil Hartman) plays the piano in Heaven; the censors can’t show anything else.

  • One of the shortest cold openings ever, not counting the sponsor messages from season 7; this clocks in at about 45 seconds. For what it was, it worked.

  • The slightly longer dress rehearsal take shows up in the repeat versions of the Bill Murray episode from next month.

***

MONOLOGUE

  • Bronson Pinchot recalls a girlfriend he met on Valentine’s Day four years ago, how she encouraged him through the lean times, and how he ended up ditching her as his career took off.

  • I can see Pinchot may have been trying for a more deadpan delivery, but it doesn’t work well as it makes him seem somewhat aloof and disinterested. There were a few good jokes sprinkled in Pinchot’s story that you have to get past his low-key telling to notice.

  • There is one audience member whose high-pitched laugh can be heard throughout tonight’s show; it also sounds like she says something like “Way to go, Bobby” or “Where are you going, Mommy?” after Pinchot’s pronunciation joke.

**

SHOW: AMERIDA

  • A miniseries dramatizes a hypothetical world where Canada has taken over the USA; a special Nightline discusses whether such a thing could happen.

  • A parody of Amerika, a heavily-promoted and controversial miniseries that appeared on ABC beginning the following night, as well as a panel discussion moderated by Ted Koppel that aired beforehand.

  • I enjoyed the miniseries part with its various Canadian references, as I’m Canadian myself, but the panel discussion is even better, with Dana Carvey debuting his Ted Koppel impression, Al Franken bringing back his Henry Kissinger (who is particularly annoyed at the stupidity of the miniseries), Kevin Nealon’s hilarious Brent Musburger (“on CBS”), as well as Bronson Pinchot doing a decent Carl Sagan, who guesses the secret word a la You Bet Your Life (which Kissinger calls a fix).

  • Slight mistake: Newfoundland time is an hour and a half later than Eastern time, not an hour (that would be Atlantic time, which covers Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick). The reference to grade 13 (which was specific to Ontario) dates this as well; it became the Ontario Academic Credit about a year later, and was phased out in 2003.

  • Written by Robert Smigel, Jon Vitti, Al Franken and George Meyer.

****

COMMERCIAL: SPORTS ILLUSTRATED SWIMSUIT ISSUE

  • In these days of increasing censorship, Paulina Porizkova says the magazine’s more important for adolescent boys than ever.

  • Nothing special, and Porizkova is definitely not a sketch comedy actress, but this was charming enough.

  • The boy on the right keeps looking at the camera; at one point he makes an exaggerated bug-eyed face while looking at the magazine which I thought was funny.

  • I wonder who’s playing the old pervert at the end (“And I need it too!”).

  • Speaking of Paulina Porizkova, her Instagram is worth checking out; she’s a very engaging writer and very candid about aging.

  • Written by Robert Smigel, with assistance from Jon Vitti and/or George Meyer.

** 1/2

SKETCH: JINGLE

  • Cash-strapped Derek Stevens (Dana Carvey) is apprehensive about turning “Choppin’ Broccoli” into a Birds Eye jingle until Ringo Starr (Jon Lovitz) gives his blessing.

  • Another ill-advised return for Derek Stevens; while this one doesn’t fall into the trap of the last one of trying to do the same "hastily-written song” thing as the original sketch, this one’s just odd: “Choppin’ Broccoli” now has a different tune, and apparently was one of Stevens’ hits from the 70s. At least Lovitz’s Ringo Starr is a little fun, as is the end performance of the jingle.

  • Written by Dana Carvey and George Meyer

**

SKETCH: VALENTINE’S DAY

  • Serge (Bronson Pinchot) serves as go-between for Babette (Nora Dunn) and her suitor (Phil Hartman).

  • Pinchot reprises his one-scene wonder character from Beverly Hills Cop; the audience likes seeing him do the character again, but his schtick gets old, and this sketch seems more like the writers had a hard time writing sketches and just decided to adapt Dunn’s character’s schtick from Weekend Update into a sketch setting than anything else.

  • I give credit for Dunn giving a good performance as usual, but this went nowhere.

*1/2

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “WAR GAMES”

  • This is a much livelier and muscular take on one of the singles from Paul Young’s third album Between Two Fires. The song itself isn’t particularly great, but Young and band give it some life compared with the relatively limp studio version.

  • Young’s bass player Pino Palladino later appeared on SNL in 2015 with D’Angelo and the Vanguard.

WEEKEND UPDATE

  • Best jokes: Vegetable that leads to heart attacks, Bruce Willis, Happy Valentine’s Day!

  • Opening music: “Love Stinks” by The J. Geils Band.

  • Fairly strong night for Dennis Miller tonight; and he gets a few really fun bits like the spit-take for Bruce Willis being called a “renaissance man”, the video of the beating heart, the continuation of the C. Everett Koop running joke and the demonstration of the Weekend Update body condom (insert joke about Miller being a dick).

  • When a picture of what looks like a Sumo wrestler shovelling appears, an audience member (same one as the cackler?) can clearly be heard saying “Oh boy” before Miller skips to the next joke. As well, it sounds like her saying “Pull it down!” during the Weekend Update Body Condom segment.

  • Jacques Cousteau’s (Dana Carvey) commentary on the mating habits of the “napkin fish” is particularly hilarious, especially when it gets to the point where the male loses a penis on some coral (“No problem, he has six”).

  • A. Whitney Brown’s Big Picture commentary on the pay hike for federal officials gets very little audience reaction tonight; it’s not bad (some good lines about fighting WWII with kites had the Wright Brothers decided to go into politics and a dig at teachers’ salaries being lowered), but it’s a little underwhelming.

*** 1/2

SHOW: THE LIFE OF GOLDA MEIR

  • NBC’s miniseries about the late Israeli prime minister (Paulina Porizkova) takes some liberties with the facts.

  • Even for the “we got a hot girl on the show/how do we work the supermodel into a sketch” aspect, this is a pretty flimsy premise; I have to think it was deliberate, especially since they don’t even bother doing much to make Kevin Nealon or Jon Lovitz look much like Moshe Dayan or Menachem Begin.

  • Written by George Meyer.

*1/2

SKETCH: SKETCH ARTIST

  • Police artist (Kevin Nealon) manipulates his own face to match a mugging victim’s (Bronson Pinchot) description.

  • A good showcase for Kevin Nealon, and he gets to do some funny facial manipulations here; Pinchot doesn’t really add much, though.

  • Written by Kevin Nealon.

*** 1/2

SKETCH: HARDWARE STORE

  • Gigolo Armando (Bronson Pinchot) tries to pick up Marge Keister (Jan Hooks) in a hardware store.

  • The return of Marge Keister is always welcome, and Pinchot gets another chance to use his skill at accents here. Overall this was a decent sketch, mostly getting by on Jan Hooks’ strong performance but it has a few particularly funny moments, particularly Phil Hartman’s annoyed reactions to Armando using the coffee and dimming the store lights.

  • This is also the sketch that establishes that Marge Keister is married to Don (and are pretty much the same characters that appeared in Guttenberg).

  • Addendum (03/14/22): It appears that the decision to have Jan Hooks play Marge Keister in this scene was a last-minute one, because the pictures from dress rehearsal show here more or less dressed as herself.

***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “IN THE LONG RUN”

  • Another Between Two Fires track, this one co-written by Young, Palladino and keyboard player Ian Kewley. A decent song, though Young’s vocals are a little hoarse here (even for him), and he does a lot of microphone stand twirling and leaning,

SKETCH: MISS CONNIE’S FABLE NOOK

  • Miss Connie (Jan Hooks) tells the story of Koko (Dennis Miller), Mishu (Dana Carvey) and Lebee’s (Kevin Nealon) efforts to make a princess (Paulina Porizkova) smile.

  • They really must have been short on material if they had to bring this sketch back this week. There is always a bit amusement to be had from the sight of Dennis Miller traipsing, but this is another “we got a hot girl on the show/how do we work the supermodel into a sketch” happening. I have to wonder if this second one was also done as a goof.

  • Written by Dennis Miller and Dana Carvey

**

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “HEART OF GOLD”

  • A David Johansen original first recorded for his 1981 album Here Comes the Night (under his own name) before being remade for the Buster Poindexter album. This is a bit more spare than either version, with just G.E. Smith, T-Bone Wolk, Cheryl Hardwick and Chris Parker backing him up, as well as a violin solo from Soozie Tyrell.

  • No introduction from Pinchot or Porizkova; it seems like the show was running long.

GOODNIGHTS

  • Bronson Pinchot is terse: “Goodnight! Thank you! Great!”. The two kids from the Sports Illustrated commercial parody are on stage. Dennis Miller is still dressed as Koko.

  • Larry Levin is credited as a guest writer.

  • No Don Pardo voiceover tonight.

Final thoughts: The weakest show in a while. Bronson Pinchot had a few decent moments here and there, but came off as a bit of a wet blanket at times, and three separate segments devoted to Paulina Porizkova (two of which just using her as a prop) was overkill. Some of the sketch selections also felt like this was a particularly uninspiring week for the writers. I have to wonder if this was another show where they had trouble booking guests. The cast keeps things from getting too dire tonight, though.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Amerida

  • Sketch Artist

SHOW LOWLIGHTS:

  • Valentine’s Day

  • The Life of Golda Meir

  • Miss Connie’s Fable Nook

  • Jingle

  • Monologue

MVP:

  • (tie) Dana Carvey/Kevin Nealon

CAST & GUEST BREAKDOWN:

cast

  • Dana Carvey: 4 appearances [Amerida, Jingle, Weekend Update. Miss Connie’s Fable Nook]

  • Nora Dunn: 3 appearances [Amerida, Jingle, Valentine’s Day]

  • Phil Hartman: 7 appearances [Heaven, Amerida, Jingle, Valentine’s Day, The Life of Golda Meir, Sketch Artist, Hardware Store]; 1 voiceover [Amerida]

  • Jan Hooks: 3 appearances [Jingle, Hardware Store, Miss Connie’s Fable Nook]

  • Victoria Jackson: 2 appearances [Amerida, Jingle]

  • Jon Lovitz: 2 appearances [Jingle, The Life of Golda Meir]

  • Dennis Miller: 2 appearances [Weekend Update, Miss Connie’s Fable Nook]

featured players

  • A. Whitney Brown: 2 appearances [Weekend Update, The Life of Golda Meir]

  • Kevin Nealon: 5 appearances [Amerida, Valentine’s Day, The Life of Golda Meir, Sketch Artist, Miss Connie’s Fable Nook]

unbilled crew, extras and bit players

  • Al Franken: 1 appearance [Amerida]; 1 voiceover [The Life of Golda Meir]

  • Don Pardo: 2 voiceovers [Amerida, Weekend Update]

G.E. Smith and the Saturday Night Live Band with Buster Poindexter

  • Cheryl Hardwick: 1 appearance [“Heart of Gold”]

  • Chris Parker: 1 appearance [“Heart of Gold”]

  • Buster Poindexter: 1 appearance [“Heart of Gold”]

  • G.E. Smith: 2 appearances [Jingle, “Heart of Gold”]

  • Soozie Tyrell: 1 appearance [“Heart of Gold”]

  • T-Bone Wolk: 1 appearance [“Heart of Gold”]

guests

  • Bronson Pinchot: 6 appearances [Monologue, Amerida, Valentine’s Day, The Life of Golda Meir, Sketch Artist, Hardware Store]

  • Paul Young: 2 appearances [“War Games”, “In The Long Run”]

  • Paulina Porizkova: 3 appearances [Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, The Life of Golda Meir, Miss Connie’s Fable Nook]

REBROADCAST HISTORY:

  • Not rebroadcast on NBC aside from a 2002 NBC All Night airing.

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.