January 31, 1976 – Dick Cavett / Jimmy Cliff (S1 E12)

Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
envious GAM employs voodoo to make attention-getting CHC tumble
 
— Interesting way to address that Chevy was becoming a bigger star and getting more press than the rest of the cast.
— They keep mentioning “last week’s fall”, but Chevy didn’t do his traditional fall in that episode; he instead got “hit” with a pie.
— The twist of Garrett having a Chevy voodoo doll is hilarious.
— Great segue to the traditional Chevy fall.
STARS: ****

MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about various topics before “dropping the cow”
 
— His jokes here had been pretty good so far, but he really won me over just now with the sperm bank/losing-interest-after-making-a-deposit joke.
— Another good laugh came from the ‘dropping the cow’ part.
STARS: ***½

HUNTER BOYFRIEND
eager to be wed, (JAC) ignores misfires of her hunter boyfriend (CHC)
 
— I kinda saw where this was going, where Jane would have forgiving reactions to Chevy’s increasingly-unforgivable accidental shootings.
— This is featuring a really good Jane performance. It feels like she hasn’t gotten many showcases this season so far, beyond straight roles or talk show host roles.
— Ending was a bit strange.
STARS: ***

DICK CAVETT’S SCHOOL OF AUTO REFINISHING & UPHOLSTERY
enroll in host’s school to earn money via auto refinishing & upholstery

— Nothing special, but I liked the ending.
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

H&L BROCK, PART 1
Lowell Brock (JOB) gives some reasons to use H&L Brock- they cheat
 
— Two sketches in a row with one person talking to the camera? This is usually one of my least favorite types of sketches.
— Like the preceding Cavett Upholstery sketch, this was also a quick piece, but I liked this more, as this had a funnier premise and better jokes.
STARS: ***½

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
amateurish TOS drawings summarize the arraignment of Patty Hearst
in war-torn Angola, lonely British mercenary (DAA) wants sex with LAN
   
— The joke about Professor Backwards’ cries of “pleh pleh” while being murdered was great, and was one I had always heard about on some SNL boards.
— The Dan/Laraine bit had a pretty funny payoff.

FELINA CAT FOOD
— Rerun.
— I still don’t get what the joke of this was supposed to be.

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
Emily Litella disagrees with an “eagle” rights amendment
TOS repeats the top story a la Ricky Ricardo for I Love Lucy fans
 
— Emily Litella AGAIN??? Man, are they overusing this character lately.
— She still had some funny lines tonight, though.
— The “News for ‘I Love Lucy’ Fans” bit was our latest in funny variations of “News for the Hard of Hearing”.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***

DICK CAVETT’S SCHOOL OF HYDROPLANE OPERATION
enroll in host’s school of hydroplane operation for a solid future

— Oh, this is a recurring bit tonight?
— He said a slightly-different phone number than the one that was displayed onscreen.
— I’m finding this one even more forgettable than the first.
— Funny ending line, though.
STARS: **

OUR TOWN
Stage Manager (host) lists some of his favorite NYC problems

— Two solo Dick Cavett sketches in a row?
— Overall, I wasn’t too sure of this sketch at first, but it started winning me over towards the end. This was fairly funny in a dry way, and it had a unique structure.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

CAVETT LOOKALIKE
winner of a lookalike contest (Marshall Efron) doesn’t resemble host much

— Uh…………..
— This “lookalike” guy seems kinda funny, but I dunno, I’m not too crazy about this segment.
STARS: **

CLOTHING DESIGNER & PLASTIC SURGEON
by Gary Weis- in absentia, tailor & plastic surgeon improve each other
 
— Unlike the last two Gary Weis films, this one seems to have a somewhat-interesting premise.
— Okay, that was a letdown. I liked this film more for the idea than for the execution of it. At least this wasn’t as frustratingly pointless as Weis’ last two shorts, though.
STARS: **

DANCE TO THE NATION
Betty Ford (JAC) combines advice & modern dance
 
— This is the first time we’ve seen any of the cast since Update, which feels like 20 minutes ago.
— Another interesting showcase for Jane tonight, in another type of role we don’t usually see her in. Her performance in this is making me like the material more than I would under a lesser performance.
— A kinda funny ending with her thinking the inept “turkey” of a husband described in the third letter was her own husband Gerald.
STARS: ***

H&L BROCK, PART 2
another reason to use H&L Brock- they will bribe the IRS

— I liked the random little opening gag with the torn pieces of paper.
— Overall, not as funny as the first one was.
STARS: **½

LOOKS AT BOOKS
Nebraska Pimp host is a quaint prostitution practitioner

— I was expecting to see Jane as the host once again, but surprisingly, we get Chevy this time. A bit of a different role for him.
— Pretty funny seeing Cavett playing a pimp in a very “Dick Cavett” way.
— This started losing me towards the end, but they got me back with some funny lines at the end, especially Dick’s ad-lib(?) about the lack of audience laughter.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

H&L BROCK, PART 3
yet another reason to use H&L Brock- they have mob ties & cheap goods
  
— “We have close ties with the underworld” – Ha, I’m already liking this.
— Is John trying not to laugh?
— Hmm, and now the audience is laughing, too, as if something funny is happening off-camera. I wonder if this is the incident I remember reading about before, where a cast or crew member pranked John Belushi during a live sketch by tying his shoelaces together off-camera while John was speaking to the camera in-character.
— Yep, I was right. Haha, the sketch ended with the camera cutting to a wide shot where you could see someone crawling away from John, then John stood up and broke character a bit as he noticed his shoelaces are tied together. None of that was supposed to be part of the sketch, from what I read in the past. I also remember reading that John angrily mutters an audible “What the fuck? Goddammit!” when he notices his tied-together shoelaces, but I didn’t hear that at all just now. He just laughs and mumbles something indecipherable before the camera fades to black.
— Does anyone know the whole story behind this? Who was the person who tied John’s shoelaces together, and why’d they do it? Were they just goofing around? I guess this shows how loose SNL was back in these early years, because it’s hard to imagine an on-air prank like that being pulled in later SNL eras. The closest I can think of is an absolutely classic incident from 1983 where Eddie Murphy was performing a sketch and suddenly kept getting food thrown at him from off-camera by Joe Piscopo.
STARS: N/A (because the actual material of the sketch was completely overshadowed by the prank)

THE APPLE FOLLIES
by Harry McDevitt- peel show ends with arrests
   
— This is pretty interesting to watch.
— Funny gag with the stripper apple “undressing” by peeling its skin.
— Good ending with the director eating the cast.
— Considering this was a fan-made home video, this was well-done.
STARS: ***½

AL ALEN PETERSEN
hardhat Al Alen Petersen [real] becomes blonde girl to “I Gotta Be Me”
 
— Another strange special guest performer tonight.
— Whoa, what in the world am I watching???
— Overall, I have no idea what to make of this as a whole, but hey, I did laugh.
STARS: ***

GOODNIGHTS
 
— After Cavett gives his goodnights speech (with nobody onstage with him, BTW), they just cut to still photos from opening montage while the ending credits scroll by and the goodnights music plays. This is similar to what they did in the rerun version I reviewed of the Rob Reiner episode, when the live show supposedly ran long and got cut off before they could even get to the goodnights. Did the show run long tonight, too?

_______________________________

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— I’ve been praising so many episodes lately, saying the show has been on a hot streak since episode 4. But tonight’s left me underwhelmed. A lot of the sketches had a middle-of-the-road feel, and there was almost nothing that I’ll remember by the time we reach the end of this season. I wouldn’t say this was a particularly “bad” episode; just a letdown compared to how strongly the show had been doing before this. This IS the fourth in a string of four consecutive live episodes, though, which could explain the drop in quality.
— Cavett handled himself well, and performed smoothly throughout the show. It didn’t feel like he played any characters, though; it seemed like he was “Dick Cavett” in every single sketch he appeared in. I guess the Our Town sketch was the only one where he played someone other than himself. He seemed to make a good impression on the people at the show, considering they bring him back to host again the following season, IIRC.
— A lot of the cast seemed underutilized, especially Gilda and Dan, who I think made their only appearance of the night on Weekend Update. Thinking back on the show, almost every sketch tonight each involved only one or two performers, so I guess that explains why a lot of cast members had such a light night. I wonder if that’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t too crazy about this episode.
— I just realized, there were no Muppets tonight, for the first time all season. THANK GOD.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Peter Cook & Dudley Moore):
— a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Peter Boyle