Live From New York, it’s John Goodman and an Ape: Saturday Night Live (Dec 2, 1989)

Studio 8-H? More like Studio Ape-H! Bwaaahhhh-ha-haaaaaaa-ughhhhhhhh.

A bad sketch of John Goodman in one of those back-from-commercial bumper thingies.

“That was 1980 when the original cast left, Lorne left, and I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, unfortunately. I didn’t have any improv or stand-up background, and I had a terrible audition…”

Betcha didn’t know John Goodman tried out for the Saturday Night Live cast while he was a struggling actor in New York! Nine years later, he had done so well for himself that he hosted SNL for the first time (S15, E7).

[On a personal note, it’s hard to crack wise about sketch comedy. The jokes are already right there in the sketches, so you just end up joking the joke. With monkeys. Joke monkeys.]

His monologue is notable, since Goodman emphasizes how transformative 1989 was for him. He had a hit sitcom, films with Pacino and Spielberg in theatres, and got married to his beloved wife. He’s clearly awestruck and grateful.

Of course a technical glitch ruins the last monologue gag, so Goodman awkwardly has to pitch to commercial.

[What do you want to bet an Ape was at the board and forgot to roll the pretape? Yeah, uh…what a silly Ape. Listen to your director, Ape! ]

Dumb Fact: During the monologue, a young Conan O’Brien pops in to ask for an autograph from “Roseanne” (Victoria Jackson). Never fear, Conan and John Goodman would meet up again soon.

Goodman warms up to sketch comedy as the show continues:

He’s “Police Chief Wilson” of Aurora, Illinois on “Wayne’s World.” A “homo-says-what” bit from Wayne did NOT age well.

Dumb Fact: Wayne and Garth are one-degree of separation from the monkeys that might fly out of their butts.

A decent sketch of “Chef Lafitte” about to blow his top at “The Anal Retentive Chef.”

He’s Cajun chef “Odell Robespierre Lafitte” on “Cooking with the Anal Retentive Chef,” trading barbs with Phil Hartman’s severely OCD host.

Dumb Fact: That’s the third time Goodman’s flirted with Louisiana culture, after The Big Easy and Everybody’s All-American.

[What about a Monkey with OCD? That’s funny, right? Like, he has to line up his bananas just right or else his mom dies? Ha!]

“Toonces: The Cat Who Could Drive a Car” smashes a sedan into his Sheriff’s Department to alert the authorities of a Martian invasion.

Dumb Fact: The Wayne’s World and Toonces sketches mark the seventh and eighth time Goodman plays a cop on screen.

On the “Mike Ditka Type-A Christmas Special,” Goodman’s “Santa Claus” gives Hartman’s asshole Bears coach a turd-sized chunk of coal.

Dumb Fact: Phil Hartman is one-degree of separation from loving Doctor Zaius.

[Ha, ha, ha, what if the 1985 Bears were all Gorillas instead? One of the players would be Steve “Bongo” McMichael and he’d be really hairy and stuff!]

And he’s also a clueless “Dad” whose white suburban son (Mike Myers) has joined the Crips, and the family survives a drive-by shooting.

Dumb Fact: Myers is one-degree of separation from anyone who would like to touch his monkey on “Sprockets.”

A bad sketch of “Bill Pitman” confused about how he would even go about sticking his whole head up his rear end.

But the absolute best sketch of the night sees Goodman as the titular character on the “Referee Pitman Show.”

Bill Pitman is a friendly, earnest NFL football referee who takes constant deadpan verbal abuse from the audience and host “Rock Clark” (Kevin Nealon).

It feels like it must have been written by Jim Downey, and lines like “What’s in your head, since there’s no brain? Is it empty, or is it, say, filled with human excrement?”, “What is it like to have no soul?”, and “I’d like to invite Referee Pitman to go have sex with himself” are phenomenal.

Dumb Fact: Kevin Nealon is an animal rights activist, and is one-degree of separation from fostering apes who needed a home. There’s no joke here, that’s just a nice thing to do.

A bad sketch of Goodman hypnotizing the audience. Oh, John Goodman, you already had us hypnotized, ya big lug.

During the Goodnights, Goodman produces a pocketwatch and hypnotizes the audience to forget about the technical difficulties in the monologue. The “aw shucks” callback to the flub works, and overall he holds his own in the sketches as he gets his feet wet in the format.

[What if Goodman accidentally hypnotized himself and thought he was a marmoset, then went around doing marmoset things while the credits rolled? Let the cast “yes and” that!]

I’d bet good money that the many later SNL outings of Goodman will produce some sort of a Monkey or Ape…but not this one.

Coming up next, we return to the sitcom that made our main man a household name:

“Barney Miller.”

No, wait, it was “Too Close for Comfort.”

Ah, hell, what have I been smoking?

It was “Friends.”

Don’t you remember his catchphrase on Friends, “How you goin’?”

The studio audience would go apeshit.

Running Ape Count: Still 6

Whoops, sorry, it was “BJ and the Bear.”

He played the Bear.

I’m not making any BJ or Bear jokes beyond that, but feel free to do so yourselves.