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'SNL' special highlights best of '90s |
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Written by Maureen Ryan, McClatchy-Tribune
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Saturday, 05 May 2007 |
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A few weeks ago on "30 Rock," fictional NBC executive Jack Donaghy came up with what he thought would be a slam-dunk ratings winner: A special featuring nothing but fireworks.
Real NBC executives don't have to resort to quite such desperate measures. They can always dredge up a "Saturday Night Live" clip show to fill those awkward holes in the schedule.
And we all know that "SNL" clip shows are like a bag of potato chips. Or possibly Fritos. You know you shouldn't finish the whole bag of non-nutritious goodness, but somehow you can't help yourself.
So it comes as no surprise that "Saturday Night Live in the `90s: Pop Culture Nation" (7 p.m. Sunday) is a more than passably entertaining way to spend a couple of hours.
Nothing in the special will be news to anyone who has followed the show's ups and downs, and many of the points covered in the special - Chris Farley's death, Norm Macdonald's firing, the rise of Adam Sandler and David Spade during an era of negative "SNL" press - are also covered in Tom Shales' and James Andrew Miller's indispensable 2002 book, "Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live."
Yet some stories bear repeating, just as some sketches are funny the fifth or even the 10th time you see them - Farley doing his Chippendales dance, "Wayne's World," Phil Hartman as an acidic Frank Sinatra, Dana Carvey as George Bush, Chris Rock as Nat X. Farley's "Motivational Speaker Matt Foley" just may be one of those sketches that's funny the 50th time you watch it.
As they did in Shales' and Miller's book, for this two-hour special, a wide array of "Saturday Night Live" writers, producers and performers share their frank memories of the show's high and low points during a pivotal decade, when it regularly connected to the zeitgeist in a way it arguably hasn't in years, the popularity of "Lazy Sunday" notwithstanding.
If I have one quibble with the special, it's that it spends too much time on clips of musical guests. I'd rather have seen more sketches and reminiscences than boring snippets of Blues Traveler and Sheryl Crow, thank you very much.
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Far less entertaining is "Beau Brummel: This Charming Man" (8 p.m. EDT Sunday, BBC America ), a disappointing TV movie that provides a forum in which James Purefoy (Marc Antony on "Rome") exerts his considerable charm. But that's about all "Beau" has going for it.
Purefoy stars as the legendary Regency dandy, who became an adviser to the Prince of Wales and made wigs and face powder unpopular (there's a marginally comical scene in which two powder-covered, wig-wearing "toughs" confront Brummel about his unorthodox dress - a rather plain, dark suit).
Still, this film provides almost no context about where Brummel came from, and the costume-drama intrigue about his unorthodox fashion sense is formulaic at best. Note to aspiring filmmakers: When a Wikipedia page is more interesting (and more elegantly written) than your take on a particular subject, it's time to go back to the drawing board.
Still, there are a few redeeming scenes in the film: Hugh Bonneville is perfectly presumptuous as the querulous Prince of Wales, and Matthew Rhys ("Brothers and Sisters") works a surprisingly effective smoldering leer as the self-absorbed Lord Byron.
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Maureen Ryan:
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