This fast moving comedy countdown is really one big self made promo for E!, constantly reminding the audience that they are showing Saturday Night Live reruns twice a day. Even in five parts, they cannot show all 101 moments in their entirety when most of the time is spent on comments by hip celebrities. Many of them sat down to talk about SNL, but an equal number seem to haven been interviewed at social gatherings. This is also where most of the SNL alumni appear: in old footage from press junkets (all of these come with the original air dates in the corner, as do the memorable moments themselves, to keep us anal retentive date-o-philes happy). The few former cast members that did show up for this tribute are basically has-beens and never were's: Joe Piscopo, Ellen Cleghorne, Beth Cahil and I'm sorry to say, Dana Carvey, who is trying way to hard to be funny here.
They did manage to round up a big chunk of the SNL writing staff, who give insight into the origin of many a classic skit. Most prominent of them is Robert Smigel the insult comic dog, who's infamous Nude Beach sketch is still so controversial they can't even show stills from it on E!. Neither can anybody finish one sentence without cutting to something else thanks to E1's trademark frantic editing. Even when they have nothing to cut to, they still flip the image or zoom and skew it after 30 seconds. In sketches that rely heavily on music, they put in different songs (probably something about the rights). But there really is no time for music in this countdown, that was another series on VH1. So don't look for King Tut or Sinéad O'Connor vs the Pope. Sure, they could not leave the Blues Brothers out of the top ten, but we never hear them sing a note.
Having to feature so many familiar recurring characters, the definition of 'moment' is sometimes stretched a bit. For some reason Chris Kattan got almost completely neglected: No Mango, Mr. Peepers or Antonio Banderas, just the Roxbury Guys down at no 68 (and then they them with Pam Anderson instead of the one everybody knows with Jim Carrey). Each episode seems to open or close with a Eddie Murphy clip, yet Bill Murray and Steve Martin only appear twice each in the countdown. Tom Hanks has more airtime then the two of those combined, while Chris Farley and Phil Hartman get the most praise and appear all over the place. Hartman's roast of Sinatra gets two spots on the list (!), but Piscopo's version with Eddie Murphy as Stevie Wonder still finishes higher.
I was surprised to see a couple of mid nineties characters I never heard of up in the final stretch, like "Lyle the effeminate heterosexual" and the "Sensitive Naked Guy". Hang on, what are the Boston Teens doing at number 18? It seems to me they tried to shoehorn all the major players into each episode. It can't be a coincidence that every 20 number countdown has a touching or serious moment in the second to last spot either. Of course the top spot goes to the skit that spawned the most successful SNL movie ever. You see, Saturday Night Live has never really caught on across Europe (what's the point showing it when it's not live) but Waynes World became universally popular. So I guess Wayne and Garth would be considered most unforgettable of all.
8 out of 10
They did manage to round up a big chunk of the SNL writing staff, who give insight into the origin of many a classic skit. Most prominent of them is Robert Smigel the insult comic dog, who's infamous Nude Beach sketch is still so controversial they can't even show stills from it on E!. Neither can anybody finish one sentence without cutting to something else thanks to E1's trademark frantic editing. Even when they have nothing to cut to, they still flip the image or zoom and skew it after 30 seconds. In sketches that rely heavily on music, they put in different songs (probably something about the rights). But there really is no time for music in this countdown, that was another series on VH1. So don't look for King Tut or Sinéad O'Connor vs the Pope. Sure, they could not leave the Blues Brothers out of the top ten, but we never hear them sing a note.
Having to feature so many familiar recurring characters, the definition of 'moment' is sometimes stretched a bit. For some reason Chris Kattan got almost completely neglected: No Mango, Mr. Peepers or Antonio Banderas, just the Roxbury Guys down at no 68 (and then they them with Pam Anderson instead of the one everybody knows with Jim Carrey). Each episode seems to open or close with a Eddie Murphy clip, yet Bill Murray and Steve Martin only appear twice each in the countdown. Tom Hanks has more airtime then the two of those combined, while Chris Farley and Phil Hartman get the most praise and appear all over the place. Hartman's roast of Sinatra gets two spots on the list (!), but Piscopo's version with Eddie Murphy as Stevie Wonder still finishes higher.
I was surprised to see a couple of mid nineties characters I never heard of up in the final stretch, like "Lyle the effeminate heterosexual" and the "Sensitive Naked Guy". Hang on, what are the Boston Teens doing at number 18? It seems to me they tried to shoehorn all the major players into each episode. It can't be a coincidence that every 20 number countdown has a touching or serious moment in the second to last spot either. Of course the top spot goes to the skit that spawned the most successful SNL movie ever. You see, Saturday Night Live has never really caught on across Europe (what's the point showing it when it's not live) but Waynes World became universally popular. So I guess Wayne and Garth would be considered most unforgettable of all.
8 out of 10