For this week’s Best Episode Ever I decided to give myself another challenge. What would be more challenging when I’ve already singled out the greatest episode of television in the history of the medium (see column #2)? How about picking a champion out of the nearly 40 year history of “Saturday Night Live?” This won’t be the greatest 90 minutes in television history, but to sift through that much material and still make a strong case for the best is a task I gave myself.
What even constitutes a Best Episode of “SNL?” Is it the most popular? Obviously not. The most culturally significant? That’s a more interesting angle, but I had to go with the funniest. It just so happened that my funniest episode of “Saturday Night Live” was also a powerful exhibition of the very form of the show, thus illustrating the variety show’s maximum potential.
When Jerry Seinfeld hosted “SNL” for the first time on April 18, 1992, he brought Jerry Seinfeld to the show. Perhaps he had an unfair advantage, being the world’s number one comedian at the height of “Seinfeld’s”popularity, but he applied his comic voice to the show’s sketch format. He gave us sketches laced with his brand of observational comedy, and sketches that gave TV’s Jerry Seinfeld a showcase to do what he does best. How hard do you think they pitched him to do a “Seinfeld” spoof? He didn’t even need to go there.
Seinfeld’s opening monologue is essentially a mini-stand-up act. He does LaGuardia jokes, which are so local but the show is so New York it’s sort of universal, or at least expected. We get a little “what’s the deal with the pilots on the speaker,” cops should do double duty as garbagemen and adjustable stun gun material. He does a bit on signs that tell thieves a car has no radio; which must have been a 1992 attempt to prevent auto theft. I didn’t have my driver’s license in 1992 so I wouldn’t have gotten Seinfeld’s bit about drivers who accelerate to red lights. Now I get it, and it’s still true today!
The first sketch starring Seinfeld, “Stand Up and Win” features Seinfeld as a game show host with stand-up comedians as contestants. This sketch spoofs the very format of Seinfeld’s own style of standup, the old “What is the deal with ____?” Seinfeld plays the host so sincerely, repeating the convoluted punchlines of jokes as if they are quantifiably correct answers. There’s a great running joke with Adam Sandler repeating the same wrong answer every time. This is just a great idea in general though. What if there were a “Jeopardy” style game show for stand-up comedy jokes?
That was cute, but the next sketch is profound. I always thought of this as The Teacher Sketch, but I’ve learned it was called “Make You Think.” Seinfeld is a high school history teacher trying to coax his students to learn about WWII history themselves. His attempt to use Raiders of the Lost Ark as a teaching tool goes through so many stages, from the snakes to the “Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaazis.” It is satirical statement on trying to engage kids when they’re doing everything to fight it, and Ellen Cleghorne delivers the willbreaker line: “Who came up with that name, Europe?” Her enunciation of Europe is classic and drives Mr. Seinfeld to resort to showing Raiders of the Lost Ark on VHS for the next class.
It turns out “Weekend Update” has a classic Opera Man bit this week, where he sings about Donald and Ivana Trump’s divorce. That’s one I always remembered. “Muerte! Muerte Ivana!” “Update” kind of exists independently of the host, but there was nothing in this “Weekend Update” to bring the show down. Kevin Nealon was hosting back then and I always thought he was underrated for his absurd style and deadpan delivery. But after the news came the piece de resistance.
In a Passover seder sketch, Seinfeld shows up as Elijah the Prophet. As part of the traditional seder, a family opens the door for Elijah, and Elijah is actually waiting at the door. It’s Seinfeld in a gray beard, white robe and sandals, from Biblical times. And he’s an A**hole. Elijah crashes this family’s Passover, hits on the daughter and complains about the food. His comment about dropping Lot’s wife in the soup is an outrageous Seinfeldian observation with the absurd logic of coming from the Bible. He breaks the fourth wall completely, looking into camera during a joke about the four questions.
