September 13, 2015

A Look at “The Best of Saturday Night Live”

Last February, SNL celebrated it’s 40th anniversary. This inspired me to go back and check out their “Best of” collections. Actually there were two. One was a large collection released in the 90’s. featuring every year and many of the hosts. I had a ton of these which I loved to watch…and sad to say I gave them away. That still pisses me off, but I can always get them back if I really wanted.




The other set was a big group release starting in 1999, distributed by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. This lasted until 2005 when NBC ended that deal. But there were still several of these released, and over the last six months I have seen most of them. I couldn’t find any to buy to I got them off Netflix. So I thought it would be fun to go over them, and let you know what I thought. These are only the one’s I saw, a few will be missing like Steve Martin, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi. I just don’t care about that real old stuff. Also Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan’s DVD’s I  have not seen yet and not sure I ever will. I also find it curious that nothing from the 1980-1985 made it, except Eddie Murphy who I also did not watch.




So enough about what I didn’t see, let’s discuss what I did see:




SNL: The Best of Adam Sandler
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If you ever thought this guy was overrated, this DVD will confirm it. I mean was this boring! It was mostly him singing his dopey songs. I think all of three whole sketches make it, one he was barely even in! I guess if you liked his singing you will love it but this DVD was a fail for me.





SNL: The Best of Alec Baldwin
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I thought this was great! Baldwin has hosted like fourteen times so there is no way everything great could be here. As it is the DVD is longer than the standard length. But the classic stuff is here and it even got a few laughs out of me. They also didn’t ignore the older days as others will do. The only one of these I would buy.




SNL: The Best of Amy Poehler
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Eh. This one was OK. When Poehler was on she was really good. But most often she was kind of annoying and whiny. But it ended with the Sarah Palin rap which I loved, so nice. They included her impression of Christopher Walken and that alone may make this worth a watch.





SNL: The Best of Cheri Oteri
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Kind of the same thing as Poehler, was she really big enough to get her own collection? There are like three cheerleader sketches on here, and one would have been enough. Some of the stuff on here is real good and I enjoyed this one overall. But as I try to remember I come up empty…that kind of says it all.





SNL: The Best of Chris Farley
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To be fair, Farley did have his moments. Unlike Sandler who’s DVD shows how untalented he was, Farley’s shows that he did have some talent backing him up. Oh sure he could be annoying with his constant screaming but he really could be funny. There are also outtakes and stuff on this and it is a nice tribute.






SNL: The Best of Chris Kattan
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Um, I hated Kattan. Why the hell does this exist? Next!





SNL: The Best of Christopher Walken
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I am mixed about this one. Yeah Walken is great and some of the stuff on here was a slam dunk, it pissed me off that the DVD is mostly is more recent stuff. None of his older stuff seemed to make it, except The Continental which there are two of for some reason. I know there were one or two sketches I just didn’t get why they were here. Worth the watch but a bit uneven.





 
SNL: The Best of Dan Aykroyd
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Aykroys is awesome, I don’t remember this one but if you love Aykroyd you’ll love it. Why did I get this one and none of the other classic title? Dunno.





SNL: The Best of Dana Carvey
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I couldn’t get this DVD because it was very much sold out. Or whatever Netflix calls it. But I can imagine it was pretty good, since Carvey as always hilarious. Maybe somedays I will finally get my copy.






SNL: The Best of David Spade
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This really wasn’t bad, Spade has some real good moments. They did a few to many of his lame “Spade of America” segments but overall a good watch. I actually like Spade he was funny in Just Shoot Me, and I even of liked Dickie Roberts. Hey if people can love Adam Sandler I can love David Spade! His most memorable stuff is here and I had no complaints.






SNL: The Best of Jimmy Fallon
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Boring. Fallon was OK but this DVD just went on and on, it felt like it would never end. I am not sure why they stuffed so much into this but it just got old. I turned it off I’d had enough. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth a watch there is some good stuff in here.






SNL: The Best of Jon Lovitz
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Surpisingly this was a really good watch. It was sooo nice to see some of the older stuff from the 80’s. And there was even stuff I either never saw or hardly remember. Lovitz could really be funny and I totally recommend this one.





SNL: The Best of Mike Myers
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Mike Myers is very hard to like at times, some of his characters bug me. But this DVD  was pretty good, though two Wayne’s Worlds was not needed! But they did have the classic Coffee Talk sketch featuring Barbara Streisand so that’s cool.




SNL: The Best of Molly Shannon
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This was OK. What is it with this series doing variation of the same character? Did we need more than one Katherine Mary Gallagher sketch? I know that’s what made Shannon famous but still!




SNL: The Best of Phil Hartman
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This was a cheat since they simply took the Tribute to Phil Hartman that SNL made and edited in a few more sketches to round it out. However, this is totally worth a watch. Hartman was fantastic on SNL and I love everything he was in. No complaints here.





SNL: The Best of Tom Hanks
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This one was great! Maybe since Tom Hanks has one been a lot but not that many times, this DVD hit almost all his great sketches. One I loved didn’t make it, but that’s fair. Some of this old stuff I had never even seen. In fact this is the only time you see stuff from the 1980-1985 era which is really cool. Joan Cusack on SNL? Oh hell yes! Yeah I really liked this one.





SNL: The Best of Will Ferrell, Volume 1
SNL: The Best of Will Ferrell, Volume 2
SNL: The Best of Will Ferrell, Volume 3
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Yep, three volumes! And while it’s true there is a little redundancy on these (the exact same Inside the Actor’s Studio appears twice which I assume was an error), where can you go wrong with Will Ferrell? He had a way of making the dumbest ideas funny as hell, and while I hate his movies I always admire his SNL work.



Final analyses? Not sure who edited these but these are far from perfect. Some odd choices were made and some great moments were left off. Also there was to much repetition, we don’t need to see the same sketched more than once. The worst was Sandler, we got four Operaman sketches! Good lord, stop it! Yeah maybe some day they will reedit these and re-release them, which I would be very happy to see. But still worth a watch to bring back some good memories, if anything else.




So there you have it, though I wonder where some are. Maya Rudolph? Kristen Wigg? Heck, what about Kevin Nealon? I guess when NBC stopped their deal with Lionsgate the DVD’s stopped cold. Instead they started releasing whole seasons. Ah well, maybe someday. If you are interested in some great SNL DVD’s than you have my suggestions. It has been fun watching this stuff again, because after 40 years you really can’t remember every sketch. So some of the more rare stuff on these was nice to see.

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