That Week In SNL (A Vintage Saturday Night Live Podcast)

It's another classic Ebersol era Weird One as we wind down one era of the show and build up the next (and beyond) with a record five people showing up in this one before they became cast members. You got Fernando on Update. You've got a mini-epic with the Turkey Lady. Spinal Tap! Soupy Sales! Lets go!

No, this isn't a rerun. This is just the tenth time John Goodman is hosting the show in as many years but thankfully, it just may be his finest outing ever. Join us as we explore this intensely dark outing from the last few months of Adam McKay's reign over the show and maybe, just maybe, learn a little something about family.

It's time for another infamous episode and thus we'll need the combined forces of both Arthur Meyer AND Jon Schneider to help us get through this one. Despite being a huge ratings boost for the show at the time, this one has long been since viewed as one of the  worst episodes of SNL...but is it ALL bad? Join us as we see if there's anything to salvage from this notorious bomb.

For the first time in a long time, we're jumping to the next episode in chronological order from our last one and why not? It's Willie Nelson doing double-duty with some backup from special guest Danny DeVito! Join us as we untangle this mellow, laid back entry into the annals of sketch comedy history. 

It's Valentine's Day over at the ol' SNL factory and that means we gotta break out the big guns. Not only do we get a host way out of his depth with Bronson Pinchot and the middling musical stylings of a one Paul Young but we've also got model Paulina Porizkova in tow and of course, because it's S12, a little smattering of Buster Poindexter as well. It don't add to much at all so thankfully, we've...

What's this? William Ham and Eddie Ham appearing on the show to discuss an episode hosted by Jon Hamm?! That certainly sounds whimsical indeed! Join us as we struggle to sort the present from the past with an episode that is good but is also kinda bad and misses a few key moments and we rant and rave. It's fun! 

We're back for the first episode of 2024 and finally getting around to one that we've had on the back burner for awhile now. Yes, we did slightly cover this one all the way back at the birth of the show on an early Off Week but now we're digging full bore into one of our favorite modern SNL outings! Get ready for fun, adventure and bracing Tim Cicali monologues!

As the wise Beach Boys once said, "Christmas comes this time each year" and following those sage words, we've decided this would be the best time to drop our Christmas episode! Jon Schneider is back aboard the ship to discuss Martin Short's cameo packed S38 outing as we hack it up about canonical vs. non-canonical moments, tearing ass, fateful bus trips and much more! 

It's the Smother Brothers! Hosting SNL during the Ebersol era! Now that's some cozy, down-home holiday fun if I do say so myself. William Ham joins us as we break down the history of the mighty Brothers and how it runs up against a cancelled SNL special, live commercials tell the tale of the pre-crash video game market, more Airplane 2 discussion than you'd expect and more!  

We've got a true oddity on our hands this time around: one of the few episodes to hosted by someone completely in character. We're talking dominant hands, audience cameos, fluctuating ages, Swartzwelder, Father Guido Sarducci AGAIN, and more!

We don't visit season 28 of the show much, mostly for good reason, but this one has so much going on that we just had to do it. You've got Brittany arguably at the height of her popularity post-8 Mile, cameos from beloved alum like Adam Sandler and Garrett Morris (also, Rob Schneider shows up), and your usual smattering of SNL sketch offerings, mostly re-occuring. And along the way, Andy learns so...

What a match made in heaven this should have been. You've got one of rock's greatest satirists hosting America's premiere late night sketch show (a show that he's already been on and crushed it, mind you) for the HALLOWEEN episode and yet, nearly the whole damn thing is just rotten. Frank tries to torpedo already questionable material, no one seems to want to be on stage with anyone else. It's jus...

Ah, now here's a real oddity. You've got technical difficulties, feverish non-endings to sketches, a brutal runner about family strife, and a host giving scenes more honest realism than may have even been on the page. It's just our kind of show. Let's dig in (digging in may not be recommended if you're a My Chemical Romance fan)!

Hot damn, we're BACK, baby! It's the premiere of the seventh season of That Week and this time we're hitting up the first episode of the second season of SNL for what turns out to be an important episode in a number of fashions. You get the final Land of Gorch sketch, a greasy Dan Aykroyd, the origins of the Antler Dance, three, count 'em, THREE James Taylor performances and hell, even Taylor Mead...

Today we're chatting with Jason Klamm, author of the new upcoming book (Sept. 12th to be exact) all about sketch comedy in the 90s, We're Not Worthy! We discuss the hardships of putting the book together, various bombshells dropped during the making of it and more!

We're wrapping up the main portion of season six of the show with an episode with some fond memories attached to it...and some new, not-so-fond memories as well. It's your classic end of season cameo clusterfuck with Jason Sudeikis, Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg all stopping by for some shenanigans but ya know what? It doesn't really matter because it's all pretty darn fun!

It's been awhile since we've hit up the second season of the show and so, we've got this odd little outing of the show to shift through. It's got some doozies in it, both good and bad, including two of the more confounding sketches we've ever tried (and failed) to parse out but there's a mysterious charm to this one. Plus, we get to hear about William's run-ins with the Moonies! 

We're again joined by our friend Jon "Schmitty" Schneider to unravel the mysteries of a subtly game changing episode of SNL. Oh sure, we've got some Hunger Games references to comb through, some duds, some boom stamps and some truly insane bombshells from Schmitty...but the REAL focus of the evening is the arrival of Kate McKinnon and a new era of the show silently setting itself up. 

You know you've got a special one on your hands when even Lorne Michaels himself considers it to be one of the absolute worst the show has ever done. Unseen for multiple decades after it's initial airing, ol' Uncle Milty comes in to crash the party in so many unique and harrowing ways that there certainly can't be any redeeming qualities to massive bomb, right? And yet...

This week we take aim at a quietly controversial episode of the show, one that spells the end for Damon Wayans as a featured player and is seemingly a sacrifice to the sketch gods while they shore up defenses for what could be the last rodeo. Come for the discussion of Damon going off the grid, stay for the attempts to make anything else out of this episode.

Oh hey, look! It's that guy from Late Night who used to write for SNL and The Simpsons! This should be fun! That's right, we're finally digging into the Conan episode, complete with our remembrances of Conan's Late Night tenure, fuzzy memories of early file sharing days and more Don Henley talk than you can shake a stick at! Zibbity Bop!

We've got one of the weirdest and more experimental Ebersol era episodes at hand today (and honestly, that's really saying something) and so we brought in some new folks to break it all down: Eddie Ham and Mattalamode! We discuss one of Jim Belushi's most recognizable sketches, Turk-182, Christopher Guest VS Brian Doyle Murray and much more! 

It's time. We're finally gonna tackle one of the most infamous episodes of the show's original run. Ol' Chevy Chase drops by for his second hosting gig and...somethings wrong. Even more wrong than season five usually is. William Ham joins us as we unravel one of the sweatiest, most coked out, face-down-in-the-toilet disasters the show has possibly ever seen. But is it ALL bad?

We're back with our first mainline episode of 2023 and it's the first of Sarah Michelle Gellar's three hosting gigs! We discuss an unruly Norm, the unbeatable physique Tim Meadows, that gerbil show (??), debate the sleepy charms of Portishead and more! This podcast drives a Dodge Stratus!             

The threat of apocalypse hangs over every moment of this decidedly chilly Christmas episode of SNL so we've called upon the dual forces of Tim Barnes and Ian Abramson to lighten things up a bit. It's the last stand of Michael O'Donoghue's vision for the show and as usual he never fails to bring the goods, with forces both internal and external colliding for the darkest holiday outing ever.       ...