Polite Dissent

I caught the last twenty minutes of The 101 Most Unforgettable SNL Moments on E! I can’t say I necessarily disagree with their choices, but I sould have done it differently. The one that caught my eye was the Ebony & Ivory skit with Stevie Wonder (Eddie Murphy) and Frank Sinatra (Koe Piscopo). It was certainly funny, but there were better muscial sketches on Saturday Night Live. Her’s my favorite musical sketches on SNL…

1. “Direct Hits” This was on sometime in the mid-80s (1984, I think), when George McGovern was the guest star. In this skit, he portrayed an Army general selling a K-Tel style compilation album, rewritten to highlight the military. Songs included Guerillas Just Want To Have Guns, Drop It (to the tune of Beat It), Deploy Dense Pack (i.e. My Boyfriends’s Back), I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Cruise, and many others. Funny stuff.
2. “Musicians for Free Range Chickens” I don’t remember who the main guest star was, but Michael Bolton was the musical guest and he took part. This was a hilarious send-up of the “We Are the World” type events.
3. “Unforgiveable” “Natalie Cole sings with her dad’s dead friends.” Sammy Davis Jr, Young Elvis, Old Elvis, and Chris Farley as Mama Cass.
4. Anything with the Blues Brothers (and this did score higher on the countdown than Ebony & Ivory)
5. “Choppin’ Broccoli” with Dana Carvey
6. The Neil Diamond sketch with Will Ferrell and John Goodman. An MTV unplugges type set-up, but Neil keeps saying more and more bigoted things.