Maybe it's because Jim Breuer as Goatboy is so bleating funny.

Or maybe it's because Cheri Oteri's cheers for V-I-C-T-O-R-Y
really work.

If its loudest critics mattered, ''Saturday Night Live''
would be Saturday Night Dead. But Nielsen swears the
ratings don't lie, and this season - just as in 21 seasons
past - ''SNL"" is No. 1 in its time period.

""Like chronic substance abusers who keep persuading themselves
that this fix will be different,'' TV Guide complains in this
week's issue, ""''SNL'' fans delude themselves into
thinking that this season's cast will feature the new John
Belushi, the new Eddie Murphy, the new Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

But invariably, the new cast features the next Joe Piscopo, an
even more moronic Adam Sandler, a grosser Chris Farley. It is
quite pitiful. ''

Evidently TV Guide would judge Eric Mink's review as one
written through a profound purple haze.

""Even on (the show's) lame weeks, there seems to be at least
something that qualifies as genuine must-see television,'' Mink
writes in the New York Daily News.

I agree with Mink. Bring on Goatboy.

""Me and a friend years ago used to go to the zoo and go by the
goat section,'' says Breuer, explaining the inspiration for the
half-goat, half-man creature. ""There were about 40 goats
there, and every time I would go 'Baaa,' all the goats would
go crazy - 'Aaaa,' 'Aaah,' 'Oooh,' 'Uuuh. ' ''

Suddenly, Goatboy lives - he's chewing on his end of the
telephone line.

""And there was an old goat out there, with long white hair,
and he couldn't really hear them; he'd go, 'Baaaaaa. ' ''

Breuer - that is, Goatboy - introduced the character to the
bar scene and a Goatstar was born. When he joined the
''SNL"" cast last year, he threw a few ""Baaa's'' the
writers' way. Today he has worked his Goatboy into a
semi-regular on the show.

""What I like most about that character is that he's not
complicated,'' says Breuer, who's been doing stand-up since his
college days on Long Island. ""I have little kids and
grandparents who've picked up on it. ''

From this chair, Breuer is on the verge of becoming a breakout
star on the show. He already does a dead-on Joe Pesci. (Look
for ""Pesci'' to appear on Saturday's show, hosted by Phil
Hartman.) And he's working on ""a guy from Blob Blob Land. ''

Don't ask.

Too late.

""It's all facial. Basically, it's
blub-blub-blub-blub-blub-blub-blub-blub. I don't know how I'm
going to incorporate the whole thing. Is it a sitcom-y thing
where he lives with his whole family, or is it another planet
where evlebodly tlalks like thatl? '' Count me in as a big fan
of newcomer Ana Gasteyer, too.

Her turn last Saturday as a food commentator on National
Public Radio was, well, deliciously undercooked. On Nov. 2,
she did a Liddy ""Let's Get Comfortable'' Dole that was
downright wicked, with Dole shedding shoes and quaffing a
quart of beer.

""I love boring people,'' said Gasteyer - speaking about the NPR
woman, not Dole. ""There's something infinitely fascinating
about playing boring people. Probably because I am one. ''

She met Dole last Saturday when she and her husband, Bob, had
cameos on the show.

""I almost fainted,'' says Gasteyer, ""partly because it's so
surreal to meet someone you've watched hours of tape on. I
told her it was such an honor to have played her on the show.

And it was clear by what she said to me that she had not seen
the show. But she was very graceful and tactful and made me
feel validated. ''

Gasteyer was Mrs. Dole opposite Oteri's Barbara Walters, and
both were a hoot and a half. But Walters is only one
personality in Oteri's character gallery. She's also
well-known for playing Debbie Reynolds; Rita, who polices her
neighborhood from her front stoop; and most of all, Arianna
the cheerleader.

""When we got here (in fall 1995), Will Ferrell and I
improvised before we even started the first show, to get to
know each other,'' Oteri recalls. ""I was off to one side just
stomping my feet and kind of clapping, like I used to when I
was a cheerleader, and Will started doing it with me and I go,
'You look so funny; we should do a cheerleading sketch. ' We
didn't know if it would work or what it would be like, but
that's the way it worked out. ''

And that's the way it's supposed to work out. A few hits. A
lot more misses. That's live sketch comedy.

""No matter what you do, you feel like sometimes you're as good
as your last sketch,'' says Oteri. ""One week you can have a
great show, and the next week, it's like, 'Am I ever going to
be able to think of anything again? ' You start to panic. ''

It ends up being fun - it has to be fun or else the 60-hour
work weeks and constant nagging from critics and viewers would
crumble you.

""Not since I was a teen-ager have I sat down for a full
evening of SNL,'' admits Gasteyer. ""It's the nature of
sketch comedy that people walk away with one moment good or
bad. It's hard to say this show was really great, or this show
was really bad. ''

Would that we all remember this.