Reviews – Charles Barkley Hosts Saturday Night Live

by Andres Romay

Seventeen years ago, Saturday Night Live was hot.  Every week, the show was treating the late night audience to the likes of Chris Farley, Adam Sandler and Phil Hartman on a weekly basis.  1993 was also the year that we saw Charles Barkley become a host.  Although his first hosting opportunity was what we expected from Charles (as far as acting goes), it left us with some great memories like Nirvana’s performance and the Barkley vs Barney basketball game.  That poor purple dinosaur had no shot against The Round Mound of the Rebound.

SNL Made fun of Barkley's Golf Swing

In an effort to recreate that magic, SNL invited Charles Barkley back to be their first host of the new decade.  In the opening monologue, Charles openly joked about his gambling, playing bad golf, and “occasionally getting arrested.”  This was a central theme of this SNL episode, and it used Barkley’s public issues as a forum to create humor.

There were a few skits that actually were successful, most notably the spoof on the Haney Project, and the Scared Straight segment with Keenan Thompson.

In the spoof of the Haney Project, the Golf Channel show in which Hank Haney tries to help Charles with his gold swing, it was a laughable skit whose funniest parts were the real life footage of the train wreck that is Barkley’s golf swing.  “It looks like someone had a heart attack mid swing, then miraculously recovered” perhaps the best line of the night.

The Scared Straight skit depicted Keenan and Charles as father son convicts brought in to scare youthful offenders.  Keenan single handley carries this skit, but Barkley has some great lines and reactions which brought it all together.

One of the final skits of the night was in reference to Barkley’s Bank, where Charles offers a guarantee with your money.  “I’m either going to double it, or lose it all!” I would liked to have seen more of this skit, as I thought it had potential, but it strangely cut to commercial mid-skit.

Keenan Thompson Imitating Charles Barkley

Overall between these skits, the SNL version of The NBA on TNT and musical guest Alicia Keys, the show was received well.  Unfortunately the show started late, since the Cowboys-Eagles game that preceded it ran over, and it was reported that total ratings were lower than the show could have seen.  It was nice to see Barkley back on SNL, of course this time, just a few pounds heavier, with more public problems and additional TV experience.