Monday, January 21, 2008

While you do THAT, you can massage the grapes. . .wink, wink, nudge, nudge

Lucy's quotes:


snl ~Horatio Sanz as Saddam Hussein

jimmy fallon ~Jimmy Fallon on SNL's Weekend Update

cowbell ~ Chris Parnell (On the right) in the infamous Cowbell sketch

Every year or two, some jerk gets clever and writes an article with a title along the lines of ''Saturday Night Dead'' making an obvious pun on Saturday Night Live. Still, even though I don't watch EVERY SNL episode, not a year goes by when I don't come across at least a few new sketches that I never forget.

Forrrrrrr instance, I'll never forget the cork soaking sketch. Of this much, I am sure. If I'm a senile old lady at age 134 and I can't remember the name of any of my 78 cats which I'm sure I'll be living with by then, I'll still remember the entire cork soaking sketch. I'll know everyone involved, like host/musical guest Janet Jackson who couldn't keep a straight face trying to avoid the obvious implied words and of course Horatio Sanz and Jimmy Fallon, who could rarely keep a straight face EVER when in the same sketch together.



The setting: A tour group is being lead through the workings of a vineyard, you see. The vineyard is either in Italy or just run by an italian family, something like that. Jimmy Fallon plays ''Marcello'' and Horatio plays ''Giuseppe'' and they are the tour guides. They bring the crowd into the place where they, ahem, soak the corks for the wine bottles. Here's a quote from this completely, squeaky clean, non-vulgar sketch:

Chris Parnell as ''tour group guy'': Do you ever run out of corks to soak?

Jimmy/Marcello: Oh, uh yeah, I'll never forget this one vintage was unusually large and I thought Giuseppe would need extra corks.

Horatio/Giuseppe: And I thought Marcello would need more corks.

Jimmy/Marcello: So, we soaked each other's corks at the same time. Remember that?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Can you imagine that? Me soaking his cork while he soak mine? . . .Oh boy

Jimmy/Marcello: Yeah, yeah

Horatio/Giuseppe: What year was that?

Jimmy/Marcello: What year? The year we soaked each other's corks?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Yeah

Jimmy/Marcello: Yeah, that was what? It was like sixtyyy..., late sixties right?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy/Marcello: Sixtyyy-eight?

Horatio/Giuseppe: I want to say seventy. . .

. . .

Jimmy/Marcello: . . . Now, you're sure it wasn't earlier than that?

Horatio/Giuseppe: Eh well, it was some time around there.

Jimmy/Marcello: Let's just say between 68' and 70', okay?




For years I will remember the goofy look on Maya Rudolph's face when she enters the room and Rachel Dratch as a very old, experienced soaker of corks. It's a classic. Right up there with Dana Carvey getting down with the pepper mill, which I dream about at least one night a week. That was hot.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never liked Jimmy and Horatio too much. I thought they ruined the sketches by breaking up so much. I can't remember Chris Parnell EVER breaking up, even a little bit. The man was stone-faced but it kept you in the reality of the sketch. He did some embarassing things on that show too, and he didn't even nervously chuckle. He was good.

Anonymous said...

I am REALLY bummed that Maya Rudolph ain't coming back this season. She was the most talented one of them all in my opinion. I remember that look on her face too, lol. That was good.