December 13, 1975 – Richard Pryor / Gil Scott-Heron (S1 E7)

Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
CHC gives pointers after yielding to host’s wish that GAM do the fall
 
— Interesting seeing them actually acknowledge that it’s become a tradition for every cold opening to have Chevy to do a fall and say LFNY.
— Wow, that was possibly Chevy’s best fall so far this season.
— Our very first non-Chevy LFNY, which I believe happens only one more time this season later on.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about an alcohol-induced bar fight & an acid trip

— I think it’s safe to say that by this point in the show’s timeline, it’s finally become an official tradition for hosts to make an entrance after Pardo announces their name.
— Knowing that this is going to be Richard Pryor doing stand-up, I can already predict right now that I’ll probably have next-to-nothing to type while watching this, because 1) I’ll be too engaged in the stand-up, and 2) it would be too much for me to list every single thing I find funny in this.
— I believe that’s the very first time the words “bitch” and “ass” have ever been uttered on SNL. I might be wrong, but I don’t recall hearing either those words in any of the previous episodes I reviewed this season.
— His imitation of a person on acid is freaking great.
— Overall, absolute A+ comedy as expected. I lost count of the number of times I nearly busted a gut laughing.
STARS: *****

SAMURAI HOTEL
Futaba (JOB) & bellboy (host) fight over (CHC)’s luggage
 
— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring character debut!
— Right out of the gate, John is fantastic in everything he’s doing as this character. Even the foreign gibberish he mutters is cracking me up.
— Chevy is doing fine, but I’ve always felt Buck Henry was the best at playing straight man to Futaba.
— LOL at Richard suddenly appearing as a black samurai. And, oh my god, that insane wig…..
— “Your mama-san” was a hilarious line.
— Very funny out-of-character moment with Futaba saying in a humble American voice “I can dig where you’re comin’ from”. From what I remember reading before, this ends up being the only time he ever spoke English in any of his sketches.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

LOOKS AT BOOKS
Junior Griffin (host) talks about his life as a Caucasian
 
— The book is titled “White Like Me”? Heh, I don’t think I need to say which future classic SNL sketch THAT brings to mind.
— I got a big laugh from Richard saying he accomplished becoming white by simply using shoe polish.
— His “white guy walk” is hilarious.
— Overall, this whole sketch can, in many ways, be considered the spiritual precursor to the aforementioned future classic sketch that needs not be named. While tonight’s version wasn’t QUITE as great, this was still a very strong piece.
STARS: **** ½

NEW DAD
— rerun

LINE-UP #1
rigged police line-up leads to handcuffed (host) being chosen as culprit

— Overall, a funny quick piece, and I always love when these early episodes do “blackout gag”-type mini-sketches that are basically just ‘set-up & punchline’.
STARS: ***½

WORD ASSOCIATION
interviewer (CHC) conducts racially-charged free association with (host)

— Oh, here we are, folks…
— Richard’s subtly-annoyed facial reaction after Chevy’s “tar baby” is perfect, and is the official kickoff point of this sketch’s main humor.
— What does “ofay” mean? That’s something I’ve always wondered ever since first seeing this sketch. However, I still always laugh at Richard’s great delivery of that word.
— Ah, and there it is – the immortal moment that defines this classic sketch. That part still kills me no matter how many times I’ve seen it. It goes without saying why it’s so funny, but a little detail that I’ve always felt added to its greatness is the dramatic pause Chevy does right before saying you-know-what.
— And as if that epic moment wasn’t perfect enough, the aftermath just now with Richard’s face-twitching during his intense staredown of Chevy was a hilarious way to follow it.
— Overall, unarguably one of the greatest SNL sketches of all-time.
STARS: *****

PONG
Pong-playing college students recount a rough hockey outing

— What’s with Franken’s lisp? He didn’t speak like that in the previous installments of this segment.
— Oh, I see, the lisp is from a hockey accident they’re going into detail about right now.
— Funny ending line.
— Overall, another okay edition of this segment, but I’m not too sure if I want to see these continue. The novelty of its unique format is starting to wear off, and I can see myself starting to get tired of these if there are any more of them.
STARS: ***

THEY’RE TAKING OVER
(DAA)’s paranoia about black takeover misses changes in his own family
 
— I’m absolutely loving the structure of this so far, with each family member returning as a black person while Dan obliviously rants on.
— “Pass the grits” – haha! A perfect ending line.
— Overall, a brilliant sketch.
STARS: ****½

NEXT WEEK
(no synopsis available)

— Another straightforward bit with Gilda informing us who’s going to be next week’s guests.
— Gilda again manages to come off so likable in such a simple non-comedic segment.
STARS: N/A

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
 
— I’m glad Chevy’s back to actually saying funny things during the opening “phone conversation” gag, after the baffling bit in the preceding episode where he said absolutely nothing during the phone call.
— Ah, we get our very first utterance of the “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” line.
— Another “toyboat” ad-lib from Chevy after he stumbled over a joke.

SPUD BEER
— Rerun. Didn’t we just see this in the last Weekend Update?

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
Emily Litella is upset about the prospect of “busting” school children
with GAM’s help, CHC repeats the top story for the hard-of-hearing
 
— I like Chevy briefly singing the Spud Beer jingle to himself when the commercial ended and he (jokingly) didn’t realize he was back on the air. That IS a catchy jingle, isn’t it?
— Emily Litella makes her very first Update appearance.
— Ah, now THIS is the Emily Litella humor that people remember nowadays. This is definitely better than that subpar sketch she made her debut in a few episodes ago.
— I’m also glad her commentary didn’t turn into yet another ‘Chevy makes goofy faces behind the correspondent’ bit.
— I don’t know whether to laugh or groan at the intentionally(?)-bad “ship hitting the fan” punchline to Chevy’s Frank Sinatra joke.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***

LINE-UP #2
(host) is chosen from a line-up featuring a nun (JAC), a duck, an icebox

— Even funnier than the first one.  These sketches have kind of a comic strip-type of format, which is interesting to see on SNL.
— I also liked Gilda’s voice-over asking “Could you open the ice box please?”
STARS: ****

L-PILL
soldier (host) accidentally takes suicide pill during mission briefing
 
— Hey, it’s the Word Association set!
— You could hear Richard stifling his laughter for some reason when Dan shows him the hook gadget on the desk. Dan does a bit of a double-take when he notices Richard’s laugh.
— I love the camera slowly zooming in on Richard’s facial reaction to hearing the pill he just swallowed will kill him.
— His slowly passing out was great, and… wow, the sketch is over already. Once again, I love blackout gag / ‘set-up & punchline’ mini-sketches.
STARS: ****

JIM HENSONS’S MUPPETS
drunk Ploobis & Scred decide to pay a visit to the Mighty Favog

— The jokes are pretty bad here so far.
— Hmm, another blooper where one of the puppets gets its hand caught on something.
— The “why don’t, why don’t, why don’t” drunken stammering was the only time I’ve come close to laughing at anything in this so far.
— Was that ending even supposed to be funny? It was awful.
— Overall, yikes. Until now, I surprisingly haven’t been hating any of the Muppet sketches so far; in fact, the one from two episodes ago with the acupuncture needles actually gave me some big laughs, and the last one with Lily Tomlin was downright good. But THIS one, on the other hand, was exactly the type of bad humor that people had me expecting to see from these segments when I first came into this season.
STARS: *½

LINE-UP #3
(host) is chosen from a line-up in which all the other choices are cops

— Yet another really good one.
— I also like how all the cops were immediately pointing at Richard.
STARS: ****

EXORCIST II
another priest (host) tries to help possessed Regan (LAN)
 
— I recognize the actor with Richard; I recall seeing him in guest appearances on various black sitcoms from the 70s. The most notable role I remember seeing him in was Raj’s dad in “What’s Happening”.
— Richard already wanting to leave as soon as he heard the demonic sounds from upstairs is great.
— Strangely, this is Laraine’s first appearance of the night, and I remember hearing it ends up being her ONLY appearance. Then again, A LOT of cast members haven’t been seen much tonight. I wonder if it’s because this episode has so many guest performers who Richard requested be brought in.
— I read someplace (I think at SNL Archives) that it’s Chevy who does Laraine’s demonic voice-over in this. Is that true? Watching the sketch now, I’m having a hard time believing that’s his voice I’m hearing.
— Excellent timing from Richard when he seamlessly went from chanting “The bed… must be… on the floor” to frantically chanting “The bed… is on… my foot”, which is a quote I remember very well from seeing this sketch when I was a lot younger.
— Laraine’s facial expressions in this are great.
— Hilarious ending with Richard helping the other priest strangle Laraine.
STARS: ****

A FILM BY ALBERT BROOKS
from his sickbed, Albert Brooks [real] advances his own agenda

— Is he actually sick, or this just a bit? His congested voice certainly sounds genuine.
— “Broasted” chicken???
— What did they bleep out when the delivery boy was saying the record title?
— What was on that big poster that Albert held up? It’s hard for me to see it in the copy of this episode I’m watching.
— Bad ending.
— Overall, I have no idea what to make of this film as a whole. All I can say is I was very underwhelmed by it compared to Albert’s usual work this season.
STARS: **

ASSASSINATION
(TOS) is shot after alleging JFK assassination was a conspiracy
 
— Hey, it’s Tom Schiller in a big role!
— Richard desperately denying having any involvement in Schiller getting shot is very funny.
— Wow, what a random little segment overall, but again, that’s one of the things I love about these early SNLs.
STARS: ***

RICHARD PRYOR STAND-UP #2
host does stand-up about a heroin addict being mentored by a wino
 
— Again, don’t expect to see me type much while watching a Richard Pryor stand-up set.
— The way he’s able to flawlessly go back-and-forth between all the various different-voiced characters he’s doing is so much fun to watch.
— Man, this is just getting funnier and funnier as it goes along.
— Overall, another prime, brilliant stand-up set; even better than the monologue earlier.
STARS: *****

SHELLEY PRYOR
Shelley Pryor [real] tells a story about a pair of carousel horses

— Okay, THIS is unusual, but intriguing.
— Overall, I surprisingly liked this, despite it not really being a comedic segment. Her story was interesting, and I liked the poetic, rhythmic style of it.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

GOODNIGHTS
 
— The cast members are each holding food up to Richard. (Jane especially has a very funny intense deadpan stare on her face) I wonder if this is an inside joke and/or a comedic follow-up to the Candice Bergen goodnights where the cast members each held up a rose to her.
— These are, I believe, the very first goodnights to have the special guests of the night joining the host & cast onstage.

_______________________________

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— What can I say about an episode like this? An all-time classic show, and I’m glad to see that it still holds up.
— Unlike most of this season’s episodes I’ve reviewed so far where I had never seen them before, I was already familiar with a lot of this episode, due to various SNL compilation specials that some of tonight’s sketches made it onto, airings on “SNL Vintage” on NBC, etc. But, thanks to my ‘One SNL a Day’ project, it was interesting to now view this episode in the context of the other episodes that aired around this time. And I’d say this is by far the episode I’ve enjoyed the most so far this season, which is truly saying something since SNL’s been on an impressive streak of solid shows since episode 4 (the Candice Bergen one).
— I think part of what helps this episode still hold up, besides the basic fact that most of the sketches were very funny, is that a lot of the social commentary and racial humor that dominated the night is surprisingly still relevant today, all these decades later. That’s just one of the reasons why this is widely considered a very important episode in SNL history.
— And what can be said about Richard Pryor as host? Unsurprisingly, he was laugh-out-loud hilarious in every single sketch he appeared in, he gave many all-time-memorable performances, and his two stand-up sets are among some of the best stand-up comedy that’s ever been performed on the SNL stage.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lily Tomlin):
— a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
— Candice Bergen becomes SNL’s very first return host, only one month after her first hosting stint