1. Land Shark
2. opening montage
3. Wayne's World Top Excellent Babe Costumes
4. Gay Dracula
5. Martha Stewart
6. Matt Foley, motivational Speaker
7. Cheerleaders
8. Vampire Dating
9. Rich the Copy Guy
10. Twilight Zone
11. Consumer Probe
12. Sandler's Costume Ideas
13. Return of the Coneheads
14. Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley
15. Wayne's World Top 5 Worst Treats

There's some great material here, but the show isn't quite an hour long and doesn't really establish a tone of its own. The classic bits are two vampire skits with guest stars John Travolta and James Woods. Woods is so funny, we wonder if he's wasted his career in straight roles. Also strong are Al Franken's intense Stuart Smalley bit, the Coneheads routine and Rich the Copy Guy. Others have a knee-jerk nostalgic appeal, like the original Land Shark gag, and there's nothing bad about the Twilight Zone Eye of the Beholder takeoff with Pamela Anderson. Perhaps cued by the Myers-Carvey Wayne's World best-of skits used as bookends, the show leans heavily in favor of mean-spirited humor ... not a bad thing for Halloween, I suppose.

I get the feeling that some great material that had to be chopped because of legal rights problems - mainly Madeline Kahn's drop-dead funny I Feel Pretty, that she sings as the Bride of Frankenstein. The Bernstein-Sondheim estates probably had something to do with it.

The quality of these Lion's Gate show is fine, with some skits limited by the video quality of 1970s broadcast TV. There's a refreshing absence of host intros like the ones that mar the music compilation discs. Savant can heartily recommend the Halloween show to SNL fans.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Saturday Night Live Halloween rates:
Show: Very Good
Video: Good
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: None
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: January 19, 2004