Saturday Night Live The Best Of Chris Farley

I started watching Saturday Night Live somewhere around the second or third season.  At the time our local NBC affiliate was running Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman in the late night Saturday slot.  My nephews in Illinois were fortunate enough to get SNL from the beginning.  I saw a couple of episodes while we were there on vacation one year and was hooked.  Once the series started airing locally, I was a faithful viewer up until the end of the 5th season when the original cast all departed.  I watched a few of the shows with the new cast, but I just wasn’t as captivated.  I didn’t start watching again until season 11.  That was the year Lorne Michaels returned to SNL.

I watched the first few episodes of season 11, but I realized that it was not nearly as funny as it had been and drifted away again by season’s end.  I returned once more at the beginning of season 14.  This was the season premiere with Tom Hanks and Keith Richards.  There was something different about the show this time.  It was actually funny.  The next week was also funny.  They had a great cast and talented featured players.  I watched for several seasons and saw new members join the cast.  One of these new members was Chris Farley.

I can’t say that Chris was my favorite member of the cast, but I thought he did some good work.  He was funny and seemed very adept at physical humor.  I was surprised to hear he had passed away when the news broke in 1997, but I shouldn’t have been.  The DVD containing The Best Of Chris Farley is the original Trimark DVD.  It contains a tribute show that SNL aired to Chris containing an opening from Tim Meadows and a collection of some of Chris’ best or most popular skits.  At one point these best of compilations were the only way to get SNL on DVD.  A few classic episodes had been released on VHS years ago, but no one had tried to issue the full seasons.  NBC Universal did finally start releasing the season sets and the first 5 seasons have been issued in very nice box sets.  I’m hoping that they continue this year with the shortened and much maligned season 6.  Season 6 is famous for introducing Eddie Murphy and for the episode where cast member Charles Rocket uttered the F bomb live from New York at the end of the Charlene Tilton hosted episode.  Only 13 episodes aired that year and only 2 of them after the Titlon episode.  The show returned the next fall with a new producer, a mostly new cast and a star in Joe Piscopo and a superstar in Eddie Murphy.  I’m hoping they don’t skip over the sixth season and move on to a more popular cast.

So how was the Chris Farley compilation?  Not bad.  It featured several full skits with Chris’ most famous characters and some clips of other famous bits including the alien ship landing where Chris’ tear away costume tore away too soon.  It’s a nice collection, but it’s only a taste of what Chris brought to the show.  Perhaps if NBC Universal continues releasing the SNL seasons, you’ll be able to see all of his work in another 10 years or so.  Until then, The Best of Chris Farley is a decent sampling.  I give it 8 1/2 on the Night Flight scale.

Tags: Charles Rocket, Chris Farley, comedy, compilation, DVD, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, NBC, Night Flight, Saturday Night Live, season sets, skits, SNL, Universal