cripper's Full Review: Saturday Night Live - 25 Years of Laughs
I have always been a fan of Saturday Night Live, and I always will be. I do not think this needs an introduction, since most of you probably know what this is. Well, for those of you out there who have never heard of this show, its basically a show that contains various extremely funny skits on Saturday night. These skits range from impersonations of celebrities and other famous people to made-up characters to fake news flashes plus comedies in a normal situation at home or anywhere else. A combination of all this creates non-stop laughter.
I think after watching The Best of John Belushi and The Best of Eddie Murphy, my brother went and bought this. As soon as I saw him with this, I told him to put it in the DVD player.
However, the first part of this video was really boring, which shows Bill Murray, Paul Shaffer(sorry can't spell), Dan Ackroyd and Laraine Newman as people from the Ohmygolly Nation, which still confuses me to this day. 11 minutes of wasted trash.
However, the next part is Chris Rock introducing the show, and I thought this was REALLY funny. This was one of the funny things he said:
"I have never seen such a big gathering of some of THE MOST overrated actors in Hollywood!
This started the show off on its way, which moves into its first skit, The Schmitt's Gay Ad. Although at first it seemed quite amusing, it is quite disgusting to me now. It shows two bums (Adam Sandler and Chris Farley) and when they fill up a pool with water, a bunch of guys in briefs and tight spandex shorts come out. Well the bums constantly look down below...I won't go any further since things get ugly towards the end of the skit.
After that we move into the real skits, which are split up into 5 groups as listed below:
1995-2000
1975-1980
1980-1985
1985-1990
1990-1995
The first group (1995-2000) has some EXTREMELY funny moments! One of them is a Celebrity Jeopardy skit, which shows Darrell Hammond impersonating Sean Connery and Alex Trebek being impersonated by Will Ferrell. Connery picks "The Rapists" for $200, when it is actually "Therapists". I think it would be better if you see this one.
Other great impersonations include Norm McDonald impersonating Bob Dole and Dave Letterman, Chris Kattan impersonating Antonio Banderas plus Darrell Hammond's perfect impersonation of Bill Clinton. There are also famous SNL characters shown such as Molly Shannon's Mary Katherine Gallagher, Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer's character Marty and Bobbi Mohan Culp and Chris Kattan's Mango. Truly enjoyable to watch and always makes you laugh at the pure comedic genius of the SNL writers.
The original cast (1975-1980) does not show many imitations (the only one I can think of is Dan Ackroyd being Julia Child), but it does show John Belushi's memorable characters, Samurai Futaba, Jake of the Blues Brothers and Pete, the owner of the Olympia Restaurant in this section of the video. There are also the Festrunk brothers (as played by Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd), Emily Litella (Gilda Radner) and many more. One of the funnier skits in this is Andy Kauffman's infamous "Here I Come to Save the Day" dance, which is always funny to watch. Overall, this section is one of the more funnier sections of the video and will always give you a good laugh.
Although the 1980-1985 is probably the worst of the SNL years, it is introduced by a memorable character during that period: Billy Crystal's Fernando. He starts off by saying:
After 25 years of Livin' La Vida Loca, I still look MARVELLOUS!"
During the time in the studio, he mistakes Steve Martin for Phil Donahue and Chris Rock for Eddie Murphy. He is also shocked to find that Gary Busey is still alive. After talking about other people in the studio (including baseball's "perfect game" pitchers David Cone and David Wells), he eventually comes across Danny De Vito and calls him "a little Pokemon".
When the clips of 1980-1985 were presented, I was a bit disappointed. The only things I laughed at were the Eddie Murphy clips and a "60 minutes" parody (Harry Shearer as Morley Safer and Martin Short as Nathan Thurm, the extremely stubborn attorney). The rest of the stuff during these years are unoriginal and lame (partially because Lorne Michaels wasn't there).
Despite that, we move onto the 1985-90 section, which is a lot better than the clips in the 1980-85 section (well, Lorne Michaels did return in 1985). We have some of the most famous SNL characters, which include The Church Lady (Dana Carvey), Hans and Franz (Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon), The Subliminal Man (Kevin Nealon), Dieter, host of "Sprokets" (Mike Myers) plus many more characters. There are also excellent impersonations of George Bush Sr. (by Dana Carvey again), Phil Donahue (Phil Hartman), Ronald Reagan (Hartman) plus many more!
There was one particularly funny skit, in which William Shatner tells his Star Trek fans to Get a Life! and that "they've (the fans) turned this show into a colossal waste of time!". Always hilarious to watch.
After this, we get a "behind-the-scenes" look of Saturday Night Live, and this basically shows what goes on during the making of this show. Interesting to see.
We move onto another SNL commercial with the Citiwide Trust, which is not so funny, and is quite lame.
We come to the last of the section of sketches with the happenings of 1990-1995. This also presents many popular SNL characters, including Massive Headwound Harry (played by Carvey yet again!), The Caveman (Hartman again!), Stuart Smalley (Al Franken), Matt Foley, the Motivational Speaker (Chris Farley) plus many more. There are also impersonations such as Frank Sinatra (Hartman yet again!), Ross Perot (Carvey again), Billy Idol (Sting) plus many more!
Last but not least, there are the infamous Weekend Update skits. This shows many various skits, but some of the funnier skits are David Spade's Hollywood Minute, who says the following for two of his skits:
Latoya Jackson. Latoya, how screwed up do you have to be, to be known as "The Crazy One"?
Madonna is selling a book where she's naked. Sells for $50. Guess what? Already saw you in Penthouse for 5! Good Luck!
These never fail to make me laugh. There is also Dennis Miller, who says these for two of his skits:
After successfully jumping over the Caesar's Palace fountain, daredevil Robbie Kneivel has prepared for his next stunt. Leaping Bryant Gumbel's ego.
I would like to say a belated happy birthday to the president who turns...75? 75? Is that right? And he's got access to the button? Man, my grandfather's 75 and we don't let him use the remote control!
Well, I think you get my drift. Basically similar stories come from other members of the SNL Alumni, particularly Colin Quinn, Norm McDonald, Kevin Nealon and Dan Ackroyd.
There are two other sketches to complete this video: Where's Hans and Franz now? (originally MTV's Where are they now? and The Cluckin' Chicken Ad.
The first skit basically shows what happens to Hans and Franz (Hans begins to read butts and Franz tries to find a replacement for Hans. In my opinion, better to watch than for me to explain.
The Cluckin' Chicken Ad is directed at all those fast food restaurant ads. Instead of promoting it, the ad basically shows what happens to Clucky the Chicken (Adam Sandler). He starts off by saying:
"First, my head's cut off!"
After that, he basically goes through what happens to a chicken from when its alive, and when it eventually becomes "waste matter". Extremely funny to watch and a good sketch to end the comedy with.
The video also pays tribute to the dead members of the SNL Alumni. In various parts throughout the show, the show pays tribute to John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Michael O' Donaghue (famous for steel needles performances), Danitra Vance and Chris Farley. Each have a special skit dedicated to them.
There is also music during intervals, and this is supplied by The Eurythmics, Elvis Costello and The Beastie Boys and Reverend Al Green.
Well, that's basically what's in this special edition DVD, and although it misses some of the other memorable characters of SNL (Suel Forrester, the fast talking lawyer, Lyle, the Effeminate Heterosexual, Dominican Lou), I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys comedy. I would guarantee that you would get a laugh from this, despite the few setbacks.
All the best that SNL had and has to offer is here in one feature length special. All your favorite SNL cast members return for the 25th anniversary o...More at HotMovieSale.com
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