Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 25: Episode 5
Weekend Update with Colin Quinn
…..Colin Quinn
…..Molly Shannon
[fade up to New York City skyline with smokestacks]
Voiceover: And now, from the news capital of the world, it’s Weekend Update with Colin Quinn!
[dissolve to Colin at the Update desk]
Colin Quinn: Thank you, folks….Thank you! Hi, I’m Colin Quinn. Here are tonight’s top stories.
President Clinton participated in his first ever presidential Internet chat at George Washington University this week. Clinton spent about 90 minutes online, although most of the conversations ended with, “Mr. President, before we go any further, I’m gonna need your credit card number.” [modest reaction]…Nothing like starting off with a bang.
On Tuesday…Germany celebrated the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, featuring a reunion of Helmut Kohl, Mikhail Gorbachev, and George Bush, which prompted a desperate George W. Bush to declare he could identify at least one of these three former world leaders. [some applause]
Governor Bush insisted this week that he’s fit for office because he knows how to bring peace between world leaders, despite his recent difficulty in naming them. Asked how he would do this, Bush says he’ll use the old trick of greeting everyone with “Chief!“, “Big guy!“, and “Hey, there he is!”
Hillary Clinton returned today from a controversial four-day tour of Israel and Jordan, which critics sai – saw as a crass attempt to curry favor with Jewish voters as part of her bid for New York’s Senate seat. Clinton responded angrily to that charge, saying, “Hey! How ’bout them Yankees?”
A portrait of Pablo Picasso’s mistress, Dora Maar, sold for 49.5 million dollars at Sotheby’s early this week. The painting is of particular interest because art critics have long wondered why Picasso even had a mistress when you consider how hot his [photo of Picasso’s Portrait of Jacqueline] wife was.
Comedian and long-standing bachelor Jerry Seinfeld got engaged this week to his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Jessica Sklar. The romantic proposal occurred after dinner at a downtown Manhattan restaurant when Seinfeld dropped to one knee, and with tears in his eyes, asked Sklar, “Who wants to be a millionaire?”
In a report released this week on the nation’s Y2K preparedness, the White House reassured Americans that lights won’t go out, planes won’t crash, and nuclear bombs will not accidentally detonate because of the computer glitch. Still upset with last week’s court finding, Bill Gates remarked, “That’s what you think.” [some applause]
The report also noted that in terms of Y2K readiness, Alabama is the nation’s least prepared state. Alabama authorities, however, insist that they’ll get to the Y2K problem as soon as they address the state’s long-standing Y1K difficulties. [scattered applause]
We now present a very special installment of Weekend Update’s “The Millennium,” as we name our choice for Man of the Millennium.
[Dissolve to a dissolving series of zooming-in pictures as dark, mysterious music plays. The sequence of pictures is as follows: view of Earth from space, William Shakespeare, Neil Armstrong on the moon, a medieval knight, Albert Einstein, Ludwig von Beethoven, Christopher Columbus, a French military leader, Philadelphia 76ers basketball player Darryl Dawkins.]
Announcer #1: “History,” wrote Thomas Carlisle, “is the biography of great men.” Tonight, we nominate one to stand above the others: Darryl Dawkins.
[dissolve to an hourglass, then zoom in “WEEKEND UPDATE/THE MILLENNIUM”]
Announcer #2: Weekend Update’s “The Millennium.” Part Three: Man of the Millennium.
[Fade to black, then fade up to a series of pictures as music becomes more triumphant. Sequence is as follows: panning historical timeline; dissolve to portrait of William Shakespeare; dissolve to photo of Albert Einstein; dissolve to photo of Darryl Dawkins; dissolve to another photo of Dawkins; dissolve to collective picture of Shakespeare, Dawkins, and Einstein; dissolve to photo of two men at a supercomputer; cut to clip of Dawkins standing on court; cut to clip of Dawkins’ glass-shattering slam dunk in Kansas City; cut to clip of Dawkins’ glass-shattering slam dunk in Philadelphia; dissolve to converging portraits of Shakespeare and Einstein, fade down portraits and fade up clip of Dawkins’ second glass-shattering slam dunk; dissolve to photo of Dawkins, fade up yellow banner at the bottom that reads “Man of the Millennium.”]
Announcer #1: From a thousand years of history, we selected three finalists. William Shakespeare, master of the written word; Albert Einstein, decoder of cosmic mysteries; and Darryl Dawkins, who named his dunks “The Go-Rilla” and “Rump-Roaster,” while claiming he was from the planet Lovetron. Three great men. But to choose one, we need a common ground on which to judge them. At random, this supercomputer chose: basketball. The head-to-head comparison went like this: over and over, Darryl Dawkins pounded violent, almost pornographic dunks over the once-great patent clerk and the effeminate actor, raining a shower of glass and terror on the two cowering nerds. So congratulations, Darryl “Chocolate Thunder” Dawkins, Weekend Update’s Man of the Millennium!
[dissolve to “WEEKEND UPDATE/THE MILLENNIUM” graphic sequence]
Announcer #2: This has been Weekend Update’s “The Millennium.”
[cheers and applause as music fades out, dissolve to Colin at the Update desk]
Colin: Yee-aw!
This week, a nine-year-old boy was arrested for stabbing his friend over a Pokémon card. For those of you who don’t know, “Pokémon” is a Japanese word for “this week’s excuse.”
Bostrox Records announced plans this week to release a CD featuring calypso songs sung by Louis Farrakhan, recorded before he had to abandon his music career in order to become the leader of the Nation of Islam. Of course, if Farrakhan were a young man today, he’d have a way to combine both his love of music and his hatred of white people — rap. [little reaction]…Oh-h-h yeah, I’m just gonna…I can’t get a f – laugh on a Farrakhan joke in the Garth Brooks show, folks. That’s a little politically correct for my taste, I’m sorry.
The Senate this week approved a bill that will raise the minimum wage one dollar to 6.15 over the next 28 months. Meaning now people who work at McDonald’s can actually afford to eat there.
In international news, Israel’s recent sale to China of a sophisticated 250-million-dollar airborne radar system raised serious concerns at the Pentagon this week. Defense officials are worried about the idea of China buying from Israel, noting that usually it’s Jews who are ordering Chinese. [scattered applause]…But that was okay? All right.
A Florida company signed a deal with the Vatican last week to issue commemorative Pope John Paul the Second phone cards. Boy, how guilty am I going to feel when I use a Pope phone card to call my girlfriend for long-distance phone sex?…It was rhetorical, actually, but…
On a five-day tour of Asia this week, the Pope himself launched a conversion drive that the Church hopes will reap a “harvest of faith” in the next millennium. At a stop in India, the Pontiff tried to persuade an audience in the cyclone-, famine-, and flood-stricken country by asking, “Come on, look around. Do you really think you picked the right god?” [mixed reaction]…What are you, Hindu? What, is there a yoga class here today? Figures…
In business news, United Parcel Service went public this Wednesday with a record-setting five-and-a-half-million-dollar stock offering that had shares soaring 35 percent on the first day of trading. The only problem is that for investors to get dividend payments properly, they have to use Federal Express.
After just one week on the job, Bryant Gumbel, host of the new “CBS Early Show,” accidentally signed off by saying, “This is ‘Today’ on NBC.” In a related story, Marv Albert mistakenly introduced a recent Knicks game with, “Hi! Welcome to Spike’s panty and leather mask party!” [applause]…Thank ah!…Thank you.
Now, here to introduce her new editorial commentary segment is our very own Molly Shannon!
[pan over to Molly]
Molly Shannon: [shaking her fists] Wooo! [smiles at Colin and touches his shoulder]…[slapping her hands on the desk] Woooo! Yes! Oh! Thank you very much, Colin. Okay. I’ve been, um, reading the paper a lot lately, and I’ve been studying current events, and I’ve noticed that most news stories have one thing in common — the people in them are really crazy. So, I deci – I decided to start a new segment on Weekend Update called “The World Is Crazy, [makes circles with her hands around her head] Crazy, CRAAZY!!!” [circus-like music plays as colorful graphic “MOLLY SHANNON’S THE WORLD IS CRAZY!!!” flashes briefly]…That’s my segment, okay. Okay.
Colin: What would you like to talk about this week?
Molly: Okay. [fade out music] This week’s item is that Julianna Margulies turned down a 27-million-dollar contract from “ER.” Because she wanted to pursue a movie career, okay? Julianna Margulies, you are crazy, pretty lady! Crazy, curly brown hair, with the big pouty lips, with the big brow, helpin’ with CPR, with the flap jacket! You’re craazy, lady! You could – you could use that money to make your own movie about how crazy you are! Okay? Or you could use it to buy some anti-crazy pills to possibly cure you of the kookiness that seems to have…[jerks finger to her head] s-s-s-stuffed itself in your head! That’s 27 million dollars, [semi-French accent] Julianna! That’s ten million dollars, plus ten million dollars, plus two million dollars, plus five million dollars, and if you don’t take that money, [semi-French accent] Julianna, you are [making circles with her fingers around her head]CRAAAZY! Crazy! Crazy, pretty lady!
Colin: I don’t know, Molly. [some applause]…Maybe you’re crazy.
Molly: No, I’m not crazy, Colin! The world is crazy! [stands up an imitates her “Dog Show” character Miss Colleen] And I like…dogs!
Colin: [laughs] Molly Shannon, everybody! Molly– [Molly puts her arm around him; he kisses her on the cheek] I’m Colin Quinn, that’s my story…
Molly: Woo!
Colin: …and I’m sticking to it. Yeah!
[Molly sits back down]
[fade to black]
Submitted by: Gregory Larson
