When Phil Donahue died a few weeks ago, my first thought was how amazing Phil Hartman's impersonation of him was. The inflections in Hartman's voice and the way he moved his head matched Donahue to a T.
Same here! I loved it! I was a kid when this aired but I loved that I could stay up late to watch this. When I think of Saturday Night Live I think of this cast and what came later. People will always say Sandler, Spade, Farley and Schneider saved the show but nope, it was this magical cast.
The "Reagan Mastermind" sketch with Phil Hartman absolutely nailing the impression is in my personal all-time SNL Top Ten. Brilliant concept, brilliantly executed...
So you guys had said that season 12 was only renewed for a half season (10 episodes). At what point did NBC go ahead and let SNL do the full 20? Great video. I look forward to these every week.
At that time I was friends with a super Trekkie and she told me that at the next convention, the "Get a life" sketch was all anyone could talk about. Not everyone was amused.
@@allenrubinstein3696I would love if someone did this in 2024 at a Star Wars convention. Geek culture is so embarrassing today (especially people my age who keep going back to these franchise movie sequels and then complaining they are not like the originals). Shatner was ahead of his time. Lol
@@allenrubinstein3696 I have been a Star Trek fan since I was a little kid. And I thought the "get a life" line was hilarious. You've got to be able to laugh at yourself.
It helped that many of them worked together before SNL. Instead of getting personalities and names, Lorne got performers who knew how to work together. That was more important than getting big names.
They also did their absurd characters with less mugging for the audience in order to elicit laughs, but with a commitment to the characters and the reality of the sketch. They played their ridiculous characters as though they were real people. It’s a subtle distinction, but can make all the difference
Jan admitted to terrible stage fright. You would never know. Phil played a big role in helping her get by. They were a great duo, maybe the best ever on SNL.
My personal opinion: this is when the show recaptured the magic, and over the next 10 years really just kept getting better and better! As usual a slump was hit, but since this season I've felt they can always persevere
When I started binging from season 6 and on in 2020, as soon as I got to episode 1 of this season, I realized, "Wow, *everything* I just watched was junior league SNL." It's crazy how quickly this crew turned the show around. Can't wait for the seasons 14-18 videos. Those were really the peak of this era, imo.
I do not remember commenting on these before, but fantastic job with the season summary videos. Very well-made, organized and love the attention paid to the more hidden gems in each season, as well as musical performances to watch.
I am so impressed by both the quality and the frequency of these episodes. I am enjoying how well-paced and tight the writing is when covering the highlights of a season. I could see these playing at the top of each season on Peacock, providing a historical perspective on the show that can't be found without digging through dozens of books on the subject. Well done!
Jan Hooks was on Bonnie and Terry's previous local sketch show from Atlanta called Tush. And she was on Not Necessarily The News and Half Hour Comedy Hour.
The William Shatner episode is one of my favorite episodes of all time. Almost every skit is laugh out loud funny. To this day, I’m in shock that Shatner only hosted once.
Season 12, the start of my favorite era of SNL (late '80s to mid '90s). So much great stuff: Edddy Van Halen performance, The Adobe (the car made out of clay), the Hercules sketch, and on and on.
This is the season I first started watching SNL. My father insisted on me staying up late on Saturday to watch the news followed by SNL. Church Lady had me dying of laughter in my Transformers pajamas. This was my own personal golden era!
Season 12 was when I was finally allowed to stay up and watch the show live. I was instantly mesmerized by Jan Hooks, Phil Hartman, and Jon Lovitz. Three of the show's all-time greats. Magical stuff ❤
Thank y’all for this. I was a junior in high school when this season hit and if you didn’t watch, you were a nerd. I had such a crush on Jan Hooks and Victoria Jackson.
Perhaps you should mention that "Buster Poindexter" was a persona of David Johansen, the singer for the New York Dolls and later a celebrated solo artist. Some of the children out there might not know that.
This is a personal favorite season of mine. I was too young to see it in real time, but Comedy Central replayed it to all heck in the 90s. Carvey, Hartman, Hooks, Lovitz were immediate cast legends and were rarely topped.
1984 is my personal favorite season. But I remember this year and cast being hilarious and it just getting more brilliant for several seasons. They really deserve all the praise they get
I was 9 when this season debuted. I was watching this show with the volume down so low and a blanket over the TV. I didn’t understand it all but I absolutely loved it. I would pretend to be asleep when my parents would check on me and sit there in my bed watching the clock often catching the tail end of the local news. This was my favorite cast and the show was so funny and brilliant that it worked even for my child brain.
The SNL Renaissance! It's an outstanding cast....a small cast. They could pull off anything....these years the cast had the best acting chops. When did SNL "get good again". Here you go. Not to denigrate the Ebersol years..which I love...but the 86 cast just flowed together...regardless of the well-known arguments behind the scenes....
Best episode yet. This is when I started watching as a kid and other than Nora Dunn (who I found aggravating years before the Andrew Dice Clay controversy), this was THE perfect cast. Question for you guys: Around this time (May 1985), Dick Ebersol and Vince McMahon created Saturday Night's Main Event, a 90-minute pre-recorded wrestling special that would pre-empt SNL a few times a year until NBC cancelled it in 1991. Are you going to mention SNME at all during this series? Was there any issue between Lorne and Ebersol over the pre-emptions? (and mind you, this was long before wrestlers would appear on SNL under Lorne's watch).
If nothing else this series is demonstrating how much the show changes and how much it needs to always be in a state of change. I embrace that about the show and I think it will be even more important if the 50th season is Lorne Michaels’ last year.
SNL used to mock the establishment and now it is the establishment. Just like Howard Stern, once you sellout, you’re not funny anymore. The only people i know who still watch SNL are my mom’s friends because it’s safe and not edgy. The beginning of the end of SNL was when they fired Norm as he was doing something edgy and non-PC with the news.
That very first Quiz Masters sketch in the first episode was like a Bat-Signal that the show was gonna be really good again. It was hilarious then and it’s hilarious now.
Truly the greatest of all SNL casts... and the most underrated. This cast DEFINED SNL forever after. Why does this RUclips channel exist? Why does this series exist? Thank this cast. Without them, no one would be talking about the long-dead SNL in 2024.
This was the first season in which the show's house band was now behind the guest host (except for a couple episodes that season). Whose idea was it? Lorne's? G.E. Smith's? They're still there today.
I was just a kid when this season came out, but I remember my parents would let me stay up and watch it, so this is my first experience with SNL. What a great season to get started with.
I caught these in reruns in the 90's on Comedy Central and yeah it felt like SNL had found it's footing this season, William Shatner's convention skit was hilarious and Hartman, Carvey and Nealon were the much needed boost also Jan Hooks was such a cutie.
This (the Phil Hartman-Dana Carvey era of 1986-93) was the start of arguably, SNL's second big golden age after the original "Not Ready for Primetime Players" years (1975-80) if not its most consistently high quality period. The Hartman-Carvey years of SNL was when you could say that the show had the strongest combination of cast and writers and was at its smartest and most diverse. It was also in this era that it felt like the cast functioned most as an ensemble, with almost everyone who came through during this era having a unique position and voice.
My favourite memory of season 12…William Shatner telling a gathering of Trekkies to ‘get a life’. My Dad loved Star Trek and he thought this bit was funny!!!!
When the Tammy Faye on Church Chat sketch was live, the camera accidentally caught Jan Hooks adding the mascara tears to her face with an eye dropper. I think they’ve substituted the dress rehearsal version on reruns.
Thanks for the breakdowns. I started watching SNL around the e time IN LIVING COLOUR was out. Glad they never had re-runs of anything before 87' because it was bad outside bad before that. Honestly until later in life I had no idea some of the guys that were on those seasons were apart of SNL in the 80's.
What a great cast and writers! The clips on this season are hilarious. The past seasons clips on the series I didn’t crack a laugh but this cast and writers had magic! I was 7 and 8 years old when this season ran. Can’t wait for season 17 when I started to watch SNL.
seasons 12 ,13,14 i remember as a kid...we were homeless and i was 6 staying at a hotels in miami beach until i was 8. that hotel was crazy in the 80s...the more i remember,the more i believe we were survivors out there... snl was something my parents would let me watch with them,as well as knowing that they knew i loved comedy and "got it" even if most things went over my head....as a kid you'll find other things that are funny within the context...dana,and phil were my favorite back then. now i miss the 80's and 90s seasons...they were great!
Looking at the thumbnail, I already know this video will be great!
When Phil Donahue died a few weeks ago, my first thought was how amazing Phil Hartman's impersonation of him was. The inflections in Hartman's voice and the way he moved his head matched Donahue to a T.
Phil Donahue was an icon. Sweet guy. I'm sure he loved it.
This was my generation's era of SNL
Same here! I loved it! I was a kid when this aired but I loved that I could stay up late to watch this. When I think of Saturday Night Live I think of this cast and what came later. People will always say Sandler, Spade, Farley and Schneider saved the show but nope, it was this magical cast.
Yes!
Even though the original show was our generation’s, we all thought this was consistently better. Glad you all got the quality show to get hooked on.
I watched every episode of that season. Phil Hartman was starting to show he was the glue of the show.
Mine too!!
Hartman, Hooks, Carvey, Lovitz, Nealon, and Jackson. This was the future they needed.
The "Reagan Mastermind" sketch with Phil Hartman absolutely nailing the impression is in my personal all-time SNL Top Ten. Brilliant concept, brilliantly executed...
Following Robin Williams’ Reagan and absolutely slaying
People that actually have Top 10 lists of SNL sketches are my kind of people!
They really turned the show around. What a season. Great cast, great hosts...
I never realized so many classic skits were all in this season. What an amazing feat they pulled off to save the show.
Jan Hooks gets overlooked but she is one of the greatest cast members of all time.
Jan, Ana Gasteyer, and Maya Rudolph are my favorite SNL Women ever.
Jane, Cheri, and Cecily are pretty great too
Probably along with Kate McKinnon, the most versatile female performer SNL has ever had.
RIP Jan
Super hot in her day
My favorite, Jan.....😢
Definitely the turning point for SNL.
So you guys had said that season 12 was only renewed for a half season (10 episodes). At what point did NBC go ahead and let SNL do the full 20? Great video. I look forward to these every week.
This will always be my favorite roster.
The phil donahue impression is awesome
Pleasssssseeee!!!!!
Phil Hartman was perfect.
The Shatner episode is one of my all-time favorites. It was the first episode I ever got to watch.
At that time I was friends with a super Trekkie and she told me that at the next convention, the "Get a life" sketch was all anyone could talk about. Not everyone was amused.
@@allenrubinstein3696I would love if someone did this in 2024 at a Star Wars convention. Geek culture is so embarrassing today (especially people my age who keep going back to these franchise movie sequels and then complaining they are not like the originals). Shatner was ahead of his time. Lol
@@allenrubinstein3696 I have been a Star Trek fan since I was a little kid. And I thought the "get a life" line was hilarious. You've got to be able to laugh at yourself.
"E Jean Carroll?" THAT E Jean Carroll? This sim we're in is crazy.
Yes, a brilliant writer of some of the best sketches and stunning woman. She wasn’t Trump’s type because she was smart enough to know better!
Yea, where Trump raped her, then she sued him for defamation twice and won!
I knew i heard that name before..
Just incredible how this cast started nailing it so well right out of the gate in the first episode!
It helped that many of them worked together before SNL. Instead of getting personalities and names, Lorne got performers who knew how to work together. That was more important than getting big names.
They also did their absurd characters with less mugging for the audience in order to elicit laughs, but with a commitment to the characters and the reality of the sketch. They played their ridiculous characters as though they were real people. It’s a subtle distinction, but can make all the difference
This is arguably the best s.n.l. cast ever.
Jan admitted to terrible stage fright. You would never know. Phil played a big role in helping her get by. They were a great duo, maybe the best ever on SNL.
My personal opinion: this is when the show recaptured the magic, and over the next 10 years really just kept getting better and better! As usual a slump was hit, but since this season I've felt they can always persevere
When I started binging from season 6 and on in 2020, as soon as I got to episode 1 of this season, I realized, "Wow, *everything* I just watched was junior league SNL." It's crazy how quickly this crew turned the show around. Can't wait for the seasons 14-18 videos. Those were really the peak of this era, imo.
Wow Sigourney Weaver looked smashing!
I always liked Dennis Miller & Garry Shandling.
I do not remember commenting on these before, but fantastic job with the season summary videos. Very well-made, organized and love the attention paid to the more hidden gems in each season, as well as musical performances to watch.
I have been waiting for your SEASON 12 for several months. My absolute favorite season (so refreshing after 7 dud seasons)
10 was good but everyone knew it was only a 1 yr deal.
That 3 Amigos episode was one of the best ever.
I am so impressed by both the quality and the frequency of these episodes. I am enjoying how well-paced and tight the writing is when covering the highlights of a season. I could see these playing at the top of each season on Peacock, providing a historical perspective on the show that can't be found without digging through dozens of books on the subject. Well done!
Jan Hooks was on Bonnie and Terry's previous local sketch show from Atlanta called Tush. And she was on Not Necessarily The News and Half Hour Comedy Hour.
IMO the Shatner episode is one of the all-time great episodes
They didn't mention the Swweney Sisters at the Christmas party!
WOW, I never realized just how many memorable sketches were in one season! 1986-87 was fire.
The William Shatner episode is one of my favorite episodes of all time. Almost every skit is laugh out loud funny. To this day, I’m in shock that Shatner only hosted once.
One of the best seasons of SNL and one of the best casts ever.
Season 12, the start of my favorite era of SNL (late '80s to mid '90s). So much great stuff: Edddy Van Halen performance, The Adobe (the car made out of clay), the Hercules sketch, and on and on.
Probably my all time favorite cast!
This is the season I first started watching SNL. My father insisted on me staying up late on Saturday to watch the news followed by SNL. Church Lady had me dying of laughter in my Transformers pajamas. This was my own personal golden era!
As a lifelong fan of snl, thank you so much for this series. I started watching around this era so all the previous episodes have been so informative.
Season 12 was when I was finally allowed to stay up and watch the show live. I was instantly mesmerized by Jan Hooks, Phil Hartman, and Jon Lovitz. Three of the show's all-time greats. Magical stuff ❤
Thank your parents for all the trash they saved you from before
86-95 is some of my favorite SNL
This season was a must-watch for those wanting to get into SNL!
Thank y’all for this. I was a junior in high school when this season hit and if you didn’t watch, you were a nerd. I had such a crush on Jan Hooks and Victoria Jackson.
I loved this cast, one of the best!
What an amazing series you guys are producing. Thank you
Shows the quality of this season. I remember vividly watching a lot of these sketches
The writing and performing holds up decades later
Perhaps you should mention that "Buster Poindexter" was a persona of David Johansen, the singer for the New York Dolls and later a celebrated solo artist. Some of the children out there might not know that.
Did probably one of the worst comedic movies of all time, Car 54 Where Are You?.
@@cityhawkHe was The Ghost of Christmas Past.
So it kinda balances out.
@@dr.snakesAh, that's where I recognized him from. Thanks! ("Scrooged" for anyone who hasn't seen the movie starring Bill Murray.)
Eddie Murphy, Jon Lovitz, Dana Carvey, and Phil Hartman definitely carried SNL in the 80's
Joe Piscapo helped out a little bit lol
This is a personal favorite season of mine. I was too young to see it in real time, but Comedy Central replayed it to all heck in the 90s. Carvey, Hartman, Hooks, Lovitz were immediate cast legends and were rarely topped.
So sad about Victoria Jackson. 😢 Treasure each day.....all of us. RIP Phil 😢🙏
The Haunika Harry Sketch....
*Hanukkah
Hartman and Donahue 😢
This was the season where I made this show a weekly must-watch for about the next ten years…they did the “Chopping Broccoli” sketch, and I was hooked
These two years of Saturday Night Live were far greater then the past 25 years.
I swear Steve Martin has always been 40 years old. I think he still might be... 🤔
He was great on The Smothers Brothers lol He was old then too
I never knew Nealon was dating Hooks. E Jean Carol? Am I the only one who never made the connection?
I immediately paused it and scrolled down to find someone say both things. We got that ESPN.
Nealon said they broke up after the first season was done.
1984 is my personal favorite season. But I remember this year and cast being hilarious and it just getting more brilliant for several seasons. They really deserve all the praise they get
E.Jean Carrol ? wow
This is when I started watching. Clearly the best era
I was 9 when this season debuted. I was watching this show with the volume down so low and a blanket over the TV. I didn’t understand it all but I absolutely loved it. I would pretend to be asleep when my parents would check on me and sit there in my bed watching the clock often catching the tail end of the local news. This was my favorite cast and the show was so funny and brilliant that it worked even for my child brain.
I love these vids. Keep up the good work, guys! (And, please, mention Lucy Lawless in Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup when you get to 1998)
The SNL Renaissance! It's an outstanding cast....a small cast. They could pull off anything....these years the cast had the best acting chops.
When did SNL "get good again". Here you go.
Not to denigrate the Ebersol years..which I love...but the 86 cast just flowed together...regardless of the well-known arguments behind the scenes....
Best episode yet. This is when I started watching as a kid and other than Nora Dunn (who I found aggravating years before the Andrew Dice Clay controversy), this was THE perfect cast.
Question for you guys: Around this time (May 1985), Dick Ebersol and Vince McMahon created Saturday Night's Main Event, a 90-minute pre-recorded wrestling special that would pre-empt SNL a few times a year until NBC cancelled it in 1991. Are you going to mention SNME at all during this series? Was there any issue between Lorne and Ebersol over the pre-emptions? (and mind you, this was long before wrestlers would appear on SNL under Lorne's watch).
I wish SNL was like this today...
If nothing else this series is demonstrating how much the show changes and how much it needs to always be in a state of change. I embrace that about the show and I think it will be even more important if the 50th season is Lorne Michaels’ last year.
SNL used to mock the establishment and now it is the establishment. Just like Howard Stern, once you sellout, you’re not funny anymore. The only people i know who still watch SNL are my mom’s friends because it’s safe and not edgy. The beginning of the end of SNL was when they fired Norm as he was doing something edgy and non-PC with the news.
Imagine SNL without Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman? Single handedly put it back on the map.
Think of the characters they did: Reagan, Bush 41, Perot, Clinton, Sinatra, Phil Donahue, Carson, Ed McMahon. Even Carsenio. Lol
Doubly handedly
It's one of the best eras of SNL. It's the best cast of all time.
nah
There is nothing funnier than Jimmy Stewart saying, “You made two mistakes Potter: you double-crossed and left me alive.”
That very first Quiz Masters sketch in the first episode was like a Bat-Signal that the show was gonna be really good again. It was hilarious then and it’s hilarious now.
Truly the greatest of all SNL casts... and the most underrated. This cast DEFINED SNL forever after. Why does this RUclips channel exist? Why does this series exist? Thank this cast. Without them, no one would be talking about the long-dead SNL in 2024.
It's amazing how quickly fortunes can change
Great stuff guys - continued success from Canada! (You know, the home-land of Dan, Phil, Mike, and Paul) 🍌
and Lorne
and Martin Short and Norm!
@@bossfan49 So much talent, EH?
@@GrantWitham Definitely and that's just limited to SNL.
This was the first season in which the show's house band was now behind the guest host (except for a couple episodes that season). Whose idea was it? Lorne's? G.E. Smith's?
They're still there today.
i really hope you guys cover all 50 seasons and counting!!! i love this series
I was just a kid when this season came out, but I remember my parents would let me stay up and watch it, so this is my first experience with SNL. What a great season to get started with.
Season 12 still has my favorite opening montage!
I would just like to add that Jan Hooks and Terry and Bonnie Turner were cast members on the Tush! Show which aired c.1980 on WTBS.
This cast will always be my favorite era of SNL, probably because I was in college at the time.
These were my absolute favorite years.
This is the cast that I see sketches nowadays (I was born in 87) and they are still FUNNY AS HELL to me.
These videos are terrific. Thanks
I caught these in reruns in the 90's on Comedy Central and yeah it felt like SNL had found it's footing this season, William Shatner's convention skit was hilarious and Hartman, Carvey and Nealon were the much needed boost also Jan Hooks was such a cutie.
The start of the best SNL era.
This (the Phil Hartman-Dana Carvey era of 1986-93) was the start of arguably, SNL's second big golden age after the original "Not Ready for Primetime Players" years (1975-80) if not its most consistently high quality period. The Hartman-Carvey years of SNL was when you could say that the show had the strongest combination of cast and writers and was at its smartest and most diverse. It was also in this era that it felt like the cast functioned most as an ensemble, with almost everyone who came through during this era having a unique position and voice.
My favourite memory of season 12…William Shatner telling a gathering of Trekkies to ‘get a life’. My Dad loved Star Trek and he thought this bit was funny!!!!
I taped that episode and watched it over and over. There was also a TJ Hooker parody, and a brilliant Christmas medley with the Sweeney sisters.
Dang!! They hired some power players this year!
This series is great. I look forward to every one.
This season really was a spectacular revival
Jan Hooks is my #1 cast member. First person I’d draft for an all star cast.
I love this series and I’m very happy the videos are getting longer as we enter this late 80s/early 90s era.
Amazing... I never saw ANY of these! Looking forward to the following installments.
This was a fantastic video!!! It seems like Season 12 gave SNL the jolt it needed.
These sketches are some of my first memories of TV. 😁😅
❤❤ really look forward to this series very insightful
E. Jean Carrol. That name rings a bell
I stopped the video and went back to see whether I heard that name correctly.
Model and comedy writer. What a wonderful combination of insight and presentation!
I wish these we’d on dvd/blu ray 😢
E. Jean Carroll, where have I heard that name? 🤔
I’m enjoying these a lot. By the way, the correct word to use in that context is “broadcast,” not “broadcasted.”
When the Tammy Faye on Church Chat sketch was live, the camera accidentally caught Jan Hooks adding the mascara tears to her face with an eye dropper. I think they’ve substituted the dress rehearsal version on reruns.
Peak season! I was actually in the audience for the Bertinelli, Van Halen show. I met Kevin Neelan in the lobby before the taping. Nice guy!
Thank you for posting this. Went to Peacock to watch
Thanks for the breakdowns. I started watching SNL around the e time IN LIVING COLOUR was out. Glad they never had re-runs of anything before 87' because it was bad outside bad before that. Honestly until later in life I had no idea some of the guys that were on those seasons were apart of SNL in the 80's.
I love stuff like this I hope that you do one for every season maybe you have I haven't looked but I'm this is great I'm listening on my way to work
E. Jean Carroll?!? Wow: did NOT know that.
Glad that she had the last laugh on him!!!!
What a great cast and writers! The clips on this season are hilarious. The past seasons clips on the series I didn’t crack a laugh but this cast and writers had magic! I was 7 and 8 years old when this season ran. Can’t wait for season 17 when I started to watch SNL.
seasons 12 ,13,14 i remember as a kid...we were homeless and i was 6 staying at a hotels in miami beach until i was 8. that hotel was crazy in the 80s...the more i remember,the more i believe we were survivors out there... snl was something my parents would let me watch with them,as well as knowing that they knew i loved comedy and "got it" even if most things went over my head....as a kid you'll find other things that are funny within the context...dana,and phil were my favorite back then. now i miss the 80's and 90s seasons...they were great!
This was the first season me and my brother watched on TV and it was the best back then.
Comment for the algorithm. Really enjoying this series; thanks for all your effort.
Loving the channel guys. So if it was only for half a season was this only half a seasonal at some point to extend it to a full season?
Legendary cast. Incredible how a year prior everyone was thinking the show was on life support and could be cancelled at any time.