Classic SNL Review: May 16, 1987: Garry Shandling / Los Lobos (S12E19)

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

OPENING: IRAN-CONTRA HEARINGS

  • Senators walk on eggshells to avoid upsetting sad sack Robert McFarlane (Phil Hartman).

  • Somewhat similar to last week’s sketch, though this works better: Hartman has more to do here, and his mopey McFarlane (who died recently as of this writing) is pretty funny, as are the others tripping over themselves trying not to upset him.

  • Another appearance of Akira Yoshimura as Sen. Daniel Inouye, again for a single line.

  • Rerun alterations: None.

*** 1/2

MONOLOGUE

  • Garry Shandling does stand-up about how he asked different people what to do for his monologue.

  • An interesting meta-monologue, in the style of Shandling’s fourth wall breaking Showtime series It’s Garry Shandling’s Show that he co-created with former SNL writer Alan Zweibel (who returns as a guest writer tonight). There are a lot more jokes throughout than just the whole metareferential concept, so it works.

  • Robin Eubanks fills in for SNL Band trombone player Steve Turre tonight.

  • Rerun alterations: Replaced with dress rehearsal; the making love/needs in bed run is later, the Jerry Lewis portion wasn’t included in dress, and there are jokes about his parents that aren’t in live. As well, the live show has some audience comments that Shandling responds to.

****

SKETCH: RETURNING A SWEATER

  • Garry Shandling keeps breaking the fourth wall during a scene where his character tries to return a sweater without a receipt, much to the annoyance of his co-stars.

  • Continuing right from the monologue, this is another It’s Garry Shandling’s Show style meta bit, but this manages to be even funnier, thanks to the frustrated reactions of Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman. I also love how Shandling is treating this like it’s the funniest sketch in the world.

  • Phil Hartman steals the whole thing with his Frank Nelson (“YEEEEEEEEESSSS?”), and the impression makes some of his lines even funnier (particularly his angry “Thank you for shopping at BAMBERGER’S!” at the end).

  • Shandling did the stand-up routine he does about clothes here in the second episode of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.

  • Rerun alterations: Replaced with dress rehearsal up to where Hooks pages Mr. Dingle; the back wall doesn’t have the folded up shirts on it in dress.

**** 1/2

SKETCH: THE PUPPY

  • Inspector Langley (Phil Hartman) overlooks obvious clues that wealthy playboy Sir Geoffrey Kerr (Dana Carvey) is really the notorious jewel thief he’s been trailing.

  • A bit silly, but the committed performances from Hartman and (especially) Carvey make this quite enjoyable; the ball scene is particularly well done.

  • I love the crappily chromakeyed footage of Carvey in the taped prologue; it sets the tone for the sketch pretty well.

  • Rerun alterations: Audience mixed quieter during opening videotape.

*** 1/2

SKETCH: SUPPORT GROUP

  • Stu’s (Garry Shandling) horror stories about his mother (Jan Hooks) have his support group ready to confront her, but they quickly find out that the truth is far more disturbing.

  • This is a great one. The stories about Stu’s mother are funny enough, but right off they also make Stu kind of a jerk to his group mates, and the scene only escalates when the group heads to the mother’s house (Victoria’s “Get her! Get her! Get her!” makes me laugh). Once Jan Hooks is in the scene (another great characterization from her, BTW), this becomes a classic.

  • Dana Carvey manages to steal this sketch as Brad, the agoraphobic group member (“Two times. I left my apartment two times.”), who gets some of the funniest lines, particularly when he reacts to the disturbing revelations. Carvey based the character’s voice on his older brother, engineer Brad Carvey, and the voice later evolved into Garth Algar’s in Wayne’s World.

  • The fourth wall break at the end (“God, this is the worst character I ever had to play”) is the perfect ending to this.

  • Rerun alterations: Traffic noise added to opening photo of building. Slight edits during photo fades to remove dead air.

*****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “IS THIS ALL THERE IS?”

  • “The loudest conjunto band in the world” (as Shandling introduces them) play a track from their current By the Light of the Moon album. Steve Berlin’s sax is unfortunately buried in the mix, but it’s a good performance, with a longer outro than on the recorded version.

  • This appearance came a little more than a month before their cover of “La Bamba” was released as a single.

  • Rerun alterations: Cleaner mix.

WEEKEND UPDATE

  • Best jokes: Joan Rivers, Harts renew vows, Fawn Hall, “You Can’t Live On Hope”, Nancy Reagan

  • Opening music: “Sun City” by Artists United Against Apartheid.

  • A fairly compact set of jokes this week, including shots at Joan Rivers (whose run on The Late Show ended that week), and the usual targets of Hart-Rice, PTL, and Iran-Contra, plus a continuation of last week’s “Steinbrenner fires Pinella”

  • Jimmy Stewart (Dana Carvey) discusses the recent trend of movie colorization, and is “mighty peeved” that the artist’s work is being sabotaged. This mainly got by on the strength of Carvey’s impression until he starts getting worked up and threatening to kick the ass of the “little punks” who “doomby doomby” the movies on the computer.

  • Rerun alterations: The jokes about Joan Rivers are removed from the Comedy Central, NBC All Night and Peacock versions; the original NBC rerun aired the day after Rivers’ husband Edgar Rosenberg died by suicide. Oddly, the jokes are still intact in the Comedy Network broadcast of the rerun edit.

***

SKETCH: TEENY CAFE

  • Babette (Nora Dunn) and her pianist Bob (Jon Lovitz) sing a retranslated version of “Send In The Clowns” for patrons of her exclusive nightclub with very limited seating.

  • They finally put Babette in a different setting, and have her doing something other than getting sexually excited. There are some good jokes throughout, but I’m a sucker for the silliness of the song’s awkward new lyrics.

  • The people Jan Hooks and Kevin Nealon play here are Gloria, Princess of Thurn and Taxis and her husband Prince Johannes, who were known at the time for their jet set lifestyle and the much younger Princess’s punk fashion (which is why she’s addressed as “Gloria TNT” here).

  • Rerun alterations: The opening scene with Nell Campbell is replaced with dress rehearsal; some loud noises obscure A. Whitney Brown’s lines in the original airing. The audio is remixed during Dunn and Lovitz’s song. The camera switches to the band shot earlier in the rerun, removing shot where everyone starts to leave the set. An error with the show logo graphic disappearing is fixed.

*** 1/2

SKETCH: REDNECK AIRLINE

  • Business travelers (Victoria Jackson and Garry Shandling) flying to Tulsa regret being stuck in the chewing tobacco section on a Trans-Ozark Airlines plane.

  • Most of the sketch’s laughs come from the actors being sprayed with fake expectorate, but this wasn’t bad. Phil Hartman’s particularly good as the guy who was put in non-chewing by mistake, though it really seems like they had to truncate his part because they cut to the “No Chewing” sign while he’s still talking.

  • Shandling’s line about the tobacco spit ruining his hair is possibly another fourth-wall break (one of the running jokes on It’s Garry Shandling’s Show was that he was obsessed with his hair).

  • Speaking of hair, Victoria Jackson is wearing a self-wig (wig that closely resembles their own hair as much as possible) in this scene.

  • Written by Tom Davis.

  • Rerun alterations: The shot of A. Whitney Brown spitting and Nora Dunn telling him “You know what helps with that? Smoking” removed. A few seconds are cut before and after the “No Chewing” sign is lit.

***

FILM: HOLLYWOOD MOM - LYNDALL HOBBS

  • Tracey Ullman is more preoccupied with her new TV show than the safety of her baby Mabel.

  • A silly piece of black comedy, with Tracey Ullman, whose eponymous sketch show had premiered on Fox the previous month, too self-absorbed to notice the danger Mabel (Ullman’s real daughter) gets into.

  • Australian director Hobbs directed Back To The Beach, which was released in August of that year; Hobbs also made a sitcom pilot titled Hollywood Mom in 2018.

  • Written by Hobbs’ then-husband Chris Thompson.

  • Rerun alterations: Audio remixed.

*** 1/2

SKETCH: HAPPY COUPLE

  • Counselling hasn’t done much to improve the hostile relationship between a husband (Dana Carvey) and wife (Jan Hooks).

  • A little repetitive, but I found this had a slightly unsettling, almost abusive undercurrent that stood out, particularly at the beginning when Carvey calmly tells Hooks never to interrupt him.

  • I also appreciated the way they ended it and tied the sketch to the runner, with Shandling coming onstage with his tie undone and telling Carvey and Hooks “good sketch”.

  • Rerun alterations: Additional applause and closing bumper added.

***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “ONE TIME, ONE NIGHT”

  • The band (minus Berlin) play the lead-off track from By the Light of the Moon, which would later be used in next week’s host Dennis Hopper’s upcoming movie Colors.

  • In the live show, this was the last segment of the night, but didn’t have a Bershire Place promo beforehand as usual, and my copy doesn’t have an outro bumper; the show also ran the band photo bumper before the previous segment as well as this one. I wonder whether there might have been some last minute cut or change to the running order.

  • Rerun alterations: Cleaner mix.

GOODNIGHTS

  • Shandling thanks Lorne Michaels (“I had a great time, he paid for all my meals”), the cast and writers, and says “We did the monologue, we did the sketches, this is the end, goodnight and see you soon”.

  • An unidentified woman comes onstage at one point and can be seen hugging Lovitz.

  • Rerun alterations: Audience noise removed from closing theme. The shot of Carvey and Hartman replays again after the credit roll.

Final thoughts: A very fun episode, with some format-breaking that’s missing in the more recent SNL seasons. Shandling was funny, although I think the intended impact of his appearance would require the audience member to be somewhat familiar with It’s Garry Shandling’s Show; as he still essentially plays “himself” even as other characters. Even so, the Support Group sketch in particular is an unheralded classic from this era.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Support Group

  • Returning A Sweater

  • Monologue

  • Teeny Cafe

  • Hollywood Mom

  • The Puppy

SHOW LOWLIGHTS:

  • (none)

MVP:

  • Jan Hooks

CAST & GUEST BREAKDOWN:

cast

  • Dana Carvey: 5 appearances [The Puppy, Support Group, Weekend Update, Teeny Cafe, Happy Couple]

  • Nora Dunn: 3 appearances [Support Group, Teeny Cafe, Redneck Airline]

  • Phil Hartman: 5 appearances [Iran-Contra Hearings, Returning A Sweater, The Puppy, Teeny Cafe, Redneck Airline]

  • Jan Hooks: 6 appearances [Iran-Contra Hearings, Returning A Sweater, Support Group, Teeny Cafe, Redneck Airline, Happy Couple]

  • Victoria Jackson: 2 appearances [Support Group, Redneck Airline]

  • Jon Lovitz: 3 appearances [Iran-Contra Hearings, Support Group, Teeny Cafe]

  • Dennis Miller: 2 appearances [Weekend Update, Teeny Cafe]

featured players

  • A. Whitney Brown: 2 appearances [Teeny Cafe, Redneck Airline]

  • Kevin Nealon: 5 appearances [Iran-Contra Hearings, The Puppy, Support Group, Teeny Cafe, Redneck Airline]

unbilled crew, extras, and bit players

  • John Henry Kurtz: 1 voiceover [The Puppy]

  • Don Pardo: 1 voiceover [Weekend Update]

  • Robert Smigel: 1 appearance [Iran-Contra Hearings]

  • Bonnie Turner: 1 appearance [Redneck Airline]

  • Akira Yoshimura: 1 appearance [Iran-Contra Hearings]

guests

  • Garry Shandling: 5 appearances [Monologue, Returning A Sweater, Support Group, Redneck Airline, Happy Couple]

  • Los Lobos: 2 appearances [“Is This All There Is?”, “One Time, One Night”]

  • Nell Campbell: 1 appearance [Teeny Cafe]

  • Tracey Ullman: 1 appearance [Hollywood Mom]

REBROADCAST HISTORY:

  • August 15, 1987

Known alterations:

  • Edits: Support Group, Weekend Update (some airings), Redneck Airline

  • Dress substitutions: Monologue (all), Returning A Sweater (part), Teeny Cafe (part)

  • Audio remixing: The Puppy, Support Group, “Is This All There Is?”, Teeny Cafe, Hollywood Mom, “One Time, One Night”

  • Directorial changes: Teeny Cafe

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.