Quite a time capsule. Man, I wish I enjoyed anything as much as this audience loves this show. Does this support my theory that people in the past were much more joyous? My instincts tell me this is just an aberration.
You can watch a behind-the-scenes "making of" look at the show here.
I fully lived through the era of music where large groups of musicians were getting together to Make A Difference... Live Aid, We Are the World, Do They Know It's Christmas?, etc. but I wasn't aware enough to really keep track and not having MTV was also a big factor. Case in point, I had never heard of "Voices That Care". Do you know what that is?
"Voices That Care" is the song (and the group) which was released for the Gulf War. With everyone from Celine Dion to Garth Brooks to Kenny G and Michael Bolton, it really underscores the low point that music hit in the early 90s. That's not even getting into the assemblage of non-singing actors and celebrities that is too long to reproduce.
"Hey we're putting together a song."
"OK, who you got?"
"I have Janet Gretzky, Nell Carter, Don King, Jon Lovitz and Mike Tyson."
"I'll tell you what you have there,,, you have a hit."
The song was not meant to be pro-war or anti-war or political in any way, the point was merely to support the troops. It's hard to criticize such a benign stance but I also can't help but laugh at the generic "Sending Our Love Down the Well" nature of it. Perhaps it's the final straw that gave us Famous Helping People. Who knows. "We're sending love and care to all the troops" Uh, okay...?
To round off the topic, there was also a Heavy Metal assembly to help famine in Africa (Hear 'n Aid) and another Heavy Metal group that was limited to just Swedish artists (Swedish Metal Aid) that helped... something. Uh, it was for charity...
And SNL mocked this trend with "Musicians for Free-Range Chickens," "Recurring Characters for Unity" and, a nostalgic favorite, "Rockers to Help Explain Whitewater."
Don West passed away December 30, 2022. While not famous, exactly, Don was somewhat notable - Don West was the guy who would come on those Home Shopping channels and sell Baseball cards and the like. More recently, he became an announcer for pro wrestling.
He was apparently well-known enough to be parodied on SNL, even being portrayed by Will Ferrell. Though my favorite of these parodies isn't on youtube.
On another personal note, I've never understood this show's existence. They would always say that they were selling everything for way less than it was worth, and I, being really into sports cards at that time, thought I could confirm that they were telling the truth - everything WAS WAY more valuable than you'd get it there. But how or why would anyone do that? If something is selling for $100, why sell it for $10? Call me naive but it remains a total mystery to me.
And another funny aside about the nature of the brain. I know, in retrospect that all the cards are junk - the card market at that time was a bubble that has since collapsed - but even watching these videos in 2023 I still do get excited as if these are really precious items, as if I'm still in 1993.
As the title says, Jim telling Norm stories.
Jim's impression of Darrell's impression of Phil Donahue is phenomenal.
One story he doesn't tell, perhaps because he's tired of it, is the Twilight Zone sketch story:
Mr. T's appearance on SNL is very typical stuff. There are a few things that stood out to me. I should mention that this is the Dick Ebersol era of SNL so it's the Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, etc. cast. So that's the flavor.
First off, Mr. T and Hulk Hogan do the opening "monologue" and it looks like the picture above. Mr. T has made a career out of being a large guy, he's not tall, he's 5'11'' but he's big. It's amazing to me how small he looks next to Hulk Hogan. That guy really is giant.
The monologue is basically a wrestling promo. The only thing that stood out to me is they make a joke about the Richard Belzer incident. Maybe it's just hindsight or the fact that I'm from a weaker, wimpier era, but that seemed to me to be poor taste.
So then it's the skits... Mr. T appears in 3 skits and in all of them he's just playing Mr. T. Seems like this would be a chance for the writers to get creative and have him play against type but then again, it's possible they proposed that and he refused. This is the era of Mr. T being as serious as a heart attack.
Mr. T appears in "Mr. and Mrs. T Bloody Mary Mix" - a fake commercial where Robin Duke (made-up to look like Mr. T) and Mr. T sell bloody mary mix. According to Robin Duke, her repetition of "I pity the fool" in this sketch is what made "I pity the fool" is what really injected it into the mainstream and caused it to become T's official catchphrase. Oh, she did that? Call me skeptical.
The most famous sketch from the episode, and also one of the most famous SNL clips in existence, is "Fernando's Hideaway." In case you don't recall, you've probably seen it in the clip shows. It's the one where Billy Crystal improvs in a Spanish accent and Hulk Hogan and Mr. T struggle to maintain character and not break up. As the most famous Mr. T highlight, it's ironic that all traces of it seem to be erased from the internet. NBC: they do whatever they can to not make money.
So that's about it.
Fun Fact: The funniest Hulk Hogan SNL sketch, in my opinion, is the one that didn't have Hulk Hogan.
