Tonight’s “SNL Vintage” repeats an April 8, 2000 episode hosted by Christopher Walken. This was Walken’s fourth time hosting and features the Blue Oyster Cult cowbell sketch.
Tim Meadows played the census-taker trying to deal with Walken’s troubled Mr. Leonard. Dana Carvey and Will Ferrell opened the episode by playing Bushes 41 and 43. Walken made his fourth appearance as The Continental. Ferrell made his 11th appearance as Janet Reno in “Elian, The Cuban Boy!” and made his second appearance as unmodulated Weekend Update guest Jacob Silj.
Tina Fey, still in her first year as head writer and not yet a cast member or Weekend Update anchor, appeared in a Viagra sketch.
Fey’s writing staff that season included former head writers Steve Higgins (still writing SNL today but also now moonlighting as Jimmy Fallon’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show”), Tim Herlihy (writer of “Happy Gilmore,” “Billy Madison,” “The Wedding Singer,” “The Waterboy,” “Big Daddy,” etc.) and Adam McKay (writer-director of “Anchorman,” “Talladega Nights,” “Step Brothers” and “The Other Guys”) as well as longtime “30 Rock” showrunner Robert Carlock, “Parks and Recreation”/“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” creator Michael Schur, “Spoils of Babylon” masterminds Matt Piedmont and Andrew Steele, “New Girl” writer-producer J.J. Philbin, “Late Late Show” head writer Hugh Fink, and “Ladies Man”/“Land of the Lost” screenwriter Dennis McNicholas.
(I am astonished to discover this landmark episode originally aired precisely one day after I began manning Ain’t It Cool’s TV desk. In those days the AICN talkbackers were claiming SNL hadn’t been funny in years.)
Premiering tonight:
Artful Detective (8pm Ovation)
Black Dynamite (10:30pm CN)
D-Day To Victory (10pm AHC)
Transporter (9pm TNT)
The Bill Hader SNL easily beat everything in primetime and late night last Saturday.
Saturdays, Aug. 30-Oct. 11, 2014
(Adults 18-49; repeats in gray; previous weeks in parentheses)
1.8 (1.9) (2.1) (0.9) (1.2) (0.9) (0.9) Saturday Night Live
1.5 (1.6) (1.6) (1.2) (0.9) (1.4) (1.8) College Football ESPN
1.2 (---) (0.5) (---) (---) (1.0) (---) NASCAR
1.0 (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) MLBaseball
0.8 (0.8) (1.0) (0.6) (---) (0.6) (0.6) 48 Hours
0.8 (---) (0.5) (0.7) (0.8) (0.9) (1.2) SportsCenter
0.7 (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) NCIS New Orleans
0.7 (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (0.5) Person of Interest
0.7 (0.8) (0.9) (---) (---) (---) (---) SNL Vintage
0.6 (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) Mysteries/Laura
0.5 (0.5) (0.7) (0.6) (0.7) (0.6) (0.6) Attack on Titan
0.4 (---) (0.4) (0.4) (0.4) (0.4) (---) Cops
0.4 (0.3) (0.4) (0.4) (0.4) (0.4) (0.5) Doctor Who
0.4 (0.4) (0.5) (0.4) (0.5) (0.5) (---) Naruto Shippuden
0.3 (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) House Hunters
0.3 (0.4) (0.3) (---) (---) (---) (---) Legends of Chima
