This morning, The Comedy Channel replayed the uncut version of Saturday Night Live from October 3, 1992. What's so significant about that date? Your host: Tim Robbins (promoting some movie that I can't remember for the life of me). Your musical guest: Sinead O'Connor. Yes, THAT episode. Sinead's actions at the conclusion of her second performance of that evening have become a "Where were you at the time?" moment for anyone born in North America between 1972 and 1976. Sure, it's a paltry legacy for our mini-generation, but it's the closest thing we have to Altamont.

Mike Myers (the pride of Scarborough) announced during the SNL broadcast that the Toronto Blue Jays had won the World Series. The response from the crowd was a healthy chorus of boos. My Canadian pride gravely insulted (this came in the wake of the Canadian-flag-hung-upsidedown Game 1 incident), I turned the channel, and thus, on October 17, 1992, I swore that I would never watch SNL ever again. I have watched it about three times since. I've been told that I haven't missed much.

Two weeks previous, I was watching SNL at home. Sinead O'Connor on the show, performing in support of her new album, "Am I Not Your Girl"? Her second song, was an eerie acappella, a chant perhaps. It seemed to be her usual "children are dying, war is hell" spiel. Most people considered her to be a preachy flake at the time. I was barely paying attention as the camera slowly panned in, until only her face and neck were visible. When a picture of the Pope appeared on my TV screen, my first thought was "I think she's up to no good". My second thought was "no matter what happens here, I doubt this segment will air again on TV". Sinead tore up the picture, proclaimed "Fight the REAL enemy!!", the live audience went deathly silent. She HAD been up to no good, NBC never aired the segment again, and Sinead's career as a mainstream artist/cash cow was finished.

Since that time, Sinead's life has been a real-life soap opera. I won't bother recapping it here. I will say that although "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" lives in over six million homes, it is hardly spoken of today. It sat untouched in my home for about four years before I rediscovered it in 1995. It is a damn fine album even ten years after it's release. Sinead O'Connor was, and is a, confused person, but no matter what happened in her personal life, she is a supremely talented musical artist. Many people won't appreciate her musical ability because they can't get past their preconceived notion that she is a wacko. Now, female artists like Alanis Morrisette, Gwen Stefani, Fiona Apple, Courtney Love, ....( you get the idea) go to great lengths to publicize themselves as left-of-centre wackos, and everybody thinks that it's normal for a female music star. Oh yes, Chris Farley and Phil Hartman are dead, and Tim Meadows is the only 1992 SNL cast member still on the show. And to think, it only took them eight years to think up a decent gimmick for him (and then he came down with not one, but TWO awesome gimmicks)

Now, eight years later, I watched the show with a far finer eye for detail than I had the first time. In his opening monologue, Tim Robbins speaks about General Electric, and how they don't just make kitchen appliances, they also make triggers for nuclear weapons ... of course, Tim is called to the back to be questioned by Lorne Michaels, and it all turns out to be a dream. So Lorne doesn't have to cut out Tim's monologue after all ... CENSORSHIP JOKE #1.

Much hilarity ensues, much of it courtesy of Dana Carvey with his dead-on Ross Perot and Dennis Miller impressions.

Tim Robbins appears in a skit in which he poses as the guitar-strumming "leader" of a group of white, racist, utlra-conservatives. The group is singing folk songs by a campfire, gleefully burning books all the while. Funny, but the political motive is far from subtle -- censorship = ignorance. CENSORSHIP JOKE #2.

Back from commercial, Sinead sings for the second time. I listen to what she's saying. As the camera pans inward, I notice that she's wearing a Jewish Star of David around her neck. Finally, as the song/chant reaches it's intense climax, as she urges the children of Ireland to fight back, she holds up the picture of the Pope, and I have to stand up and cheer. I'm not sure if I'm cheering due to CC's guts for airing this segment in it's uncensored entirety, or if it's more because I always agreed with Sinead on many of her religious principles. "God's place is the world, but the world is not God's place", was written in the liner notes for "I Do Not Want...", yeah, that works for me.

This episode of SNL was funny, but filled with political overtones in the light of the upcoming presidential election. But after all the jokes, the anti-censorship skits, the digs at Ross Perot and the Reagan-Bush regime, this show is only remembered today for ITSELF being censored. A fine example of modern day irony.