Saturday Night Live 25

Saturday Night Live's twenty five year anniversary is a celebration of a show that has launched the endless number of careers of breeding comedians. The show goes all the way back from 1975 with the days of Chase, Murray, Ayrkoyd, Belushi, and Radner among them to 1980 with the days of Murphy and Piscopo to 1985 with Short and Crystal to 1986-1994 with the days of Miller, Carvey, Hartman, and Lovitz to the days of Sandler, Myers, Spade, Farley, and Schneider. Many celebrities are guests including Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Jerry Seinfeld, and Steve Martin among them. The show reminisces with it's Weekend Update and the numerous anchors with a surprise appearance by former anchor Norm Macdonald. The special does nice tributes to Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi as well as Danitra Vance and Michael O'Donaghue by showing some of their best works. To top it off they do Robert Smigel's cartoon parody of Lorne Michaels. Excellent musical acts from the likes of Al Green, Elvis Costello, and the Eurythemics. Particular funny bits include O'Donaghue trying to teach immigrant Belushi "I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines" to Carvey's uncanny impersonations of George Bush and Ross Perot and Hartman's Frank Sinatra. Others include Chris Farley's Matt Foley, the motivational speaker and Adam Sandler's off the wall songs. I recommend this film for any die hard SNL fan.

SNL celebrates it's 25th anniversary with great clips and getting most of the old cast members back together. The clips are hilarious, going as far back as 1975. The clips here are the best this show turned out, including Bill Murray as a lounge lizard, singing 'Star Wars'. This special also included a small parody of 'The Blair Witch Project.' Besides bringing back most of the old cast, this special also featured famous celebrities like Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Hanks. And last, but not least, there is also a look at Weekend Update clips presented by Dennis Miller, Chevy Chase and (surprise, surprise) Norm Macdonald. This special was loads of fun.

OK, here we have an extremely funny summary of the 25 year run of SNL. Cream of the crop, tip of the top. Excruciatingly entertaining.

But let's talk about the real issue. Why do they only use 2 minutes of Kevin Spacey footage? The man was nominated for an Emmy for his hosting job!! Or at least, I think he was. He should have been. What was I saying?

Oh. Mr. Spacey's performance on SNL was one of the best in recent memory, and yet he is simply glossed over in favor of others like... oh... Sarah Michelle Gellar. This is a sin, and shall be punished when Judgment Day comes.

Seriously though, I highly recommend this special. It's the best of the best SNL sketches, with some entertaining monologues thrown into the mix. See it!

I was in awe when I watched the Saturday Night Live 25th Anniversary. As a die-hard fan of the show since 1989 (I wish to note that I'm 14) it was so nice to see all the cast members that I haven't seen in a while! It seemed like everybody who was involved with the show put their all into this one. It was absolutly wonderful. A must see if you ask me!

This 25th reunion of SNL is extremely hilarious. Sometimes it's a bit slow and there are bits where there isn't actual comedy, but it's still fun. After growing up on this show and seeing this big reunion I feel like I'm a part of the cast. Almost everyone is here, except for Eddie Murphy. (Norm MacDonald drops in for a funny joke about that.)

EVERYONE is here. Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Martin Short, et al, AND celebrities like Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Drew Barrymore, Garey Busey, et al.

I also liked the tributes to Belushi, Radner, Hartman (Lovitz starts to cry!) and even Farley.

All in all this is a solid SNL show with some surprising cameos. It's sort of interesting to see all these different talents from the show joining together, interacting and referencing each other. I enjoyed it immensely!

Now, if only they'd make a theatrical film with everyone who's ever been on the show (still alive, of course) doing skits together.

4.5/5 stars.

• John Ulmer