During Season 18 of Saturday Night Live, it is clear the classic run that began in Season 12 with the likes of Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and others is gone. Halfway through the season, Carvey departs, leaving only Myers, Hartman, and Kevin Nealon from the late-1980’s glory years. And Myers missed a chunk of shows at the beginning of the season to film So I Married an Axe Murderer, which would be released in 1993.
This cast tumult resulted in a wildly uneven season, starting with bad episodes hosted by Nicolas Cage and Tim Robbins. (The Robbins episode is mostly known for its musical guest - Sinéad O’Connor, who famously tore up a picture of the Pope at the end of her second song.)
But none of the new kids, some of them now in their third year on the cast, are either willing or capable of moving up to the front of the line. Chris Farley spent two stints in drug rehab during the season, and didn’t really break out until he unleashed his Matt Foley character on the world in the second-to-last episode of the season. Both Adam Sandler and David Spade excelled in limited stints on Weekend Update (Sandler playing “Cajun Man” and “Opera Man,” while Spade did his mean “Hollywood Minute” bits), but never broke out in sketches. Chris Rock, while showing flashes of brilliance, would be gone by the end of the year.
A bright spot, however, emerged with Rob Schneider developing into the closest thing to a front-line player the new cast could offer. Schneider proved adept at all sorts of roles and stepped up in Carvey’s absence, keeping things on track.
The women, meanwhile, had almost been completely written off the show. Neither Melanie Hutsell nor Ellen Cleghorne saw much screen time, leaving Julia Sweeney to carry the show’s female parts.
The overall writing began to sag this season, with eight of the show’s 20 monologues featuring musical numbers performed by the hosts. Half of the hosts were stars who have hosted the show before, leading to a recycling of themes and jokes.
Nonetheless, there are still plenty of classic sketches from this season, from Farley’s Matt Foley to Phil Hartman’s Bill Clinton in McDonald’s to the Campaign 1992 debate featuring Hartman playing Clinton and Dana Carvey playing both George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.
We discuss all these topics and much more on this week’s episode of “Wasn’t That Special.” Please subscribe and join us for a trip through every year of SNL. And consider joining at the Executive Producer level, where you get a whole load of extra commentary and clips that will help you become an SNL expert.
