February 28, 1976 – Jill Clayburgh / Leon Redbone (S1 E15)

Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
tired of being a clown, CHC holds up the show & tells LOM “no more falls”
   
— I’m really liking this. This is also reminding me of a sketch from Chevy’s 1995 hosting stint where he was reluctant to do a fall for a Bravehart parody.
— A good laugh from the “fan mail”.
— Love the part with Chevy going through the audience. Again, it reminds me of something Chevy would do later, in the cold opening of the 15th anniversary special.
— I’m enjoying how extensive the staging of this whole thing is, showing Chevy going back-and-forth all the way from Lorne’s office to the sketch set.
STARS: ****

MONOLOGUE
DOP’s game show-style cut-ins punctuate host’s description of their date
 
— Pretty funny, although it’s pretty much just the same joke over and over.
STARS: ***

GREAT MOMENTS IN HERSTORY, PART 1
Anna (LAN) & Sigmund (DAA) Freud analyze dream

— Dan’s having some great reactions to Laraine’s increasingly-suggestive dream descriptions.
— Overall, this was very funny.
STARS: ****

JILL CARSON, GUIDANCE COUNSELOR!
delinquent (JOB) receives advice
   
— Interesting intro to this. Kinda feels ahead of its time, as something about the sketch title’s crudely-written font (first screencap above) looks more like something from the mid-90s.
— Once again, John Belushi has the ability to get a big laugh from the audience merely from the way he walks into a scene.
— Gilda’s pretty funny as the mom.
— Jill is giving a very good performance as the counselor.
— Similar to a comment I made about the cold opening, I’m really liking how extensive this sketch is; it feels like an actual episode of a TV show, with all the scenery changes, the characterizations, etc.
— Dan’s cracking me up with his preppy demeanor when threatening John.
— Overall, a well-done sketch.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

WHITE GUILT RELIEF FUND
GAM offers to accept Caucasians’ penance via the White Guilt Relief Fund

— The reveal of the main joke was really funny, after such a dead-serious set-up.
— The ‘honorary negro’ certification & I.D. is a great capper.
STARS: ****

GREAT MOMENTS IN HERSTORY, PART 2
Isadora Duncan (host) chooses the long scarf
 
— A hilarious ending that made this whole sketch. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that the studio audience seemed to know where this was going long before I did, but then again, I’m not familiar with Isadora Duncan.
— I’m very impressed by how consistently strong tonight’s episode has been so far.
STARS: ****

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
a week after the primary, LAN reports from a vacant New Hampshire
amateurish artist’s renderings accompany Patty Hearst trial report
   
— Right at the start of Update, Chevy already throws to a remote segment with Laraine.
— It seems to have become a crutch lately to have an Update correspondent report from an event long before or after the event has taken place. I’m not really finding it funny anymore.
— A good unintended laugh from Chevy getting very tongue-tied when trying to say “former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter”.
— Wow, Update is on fire so far tonight, with lots of very funny jokes that are getting great reactions from the audience.

H&L BROCK
another reason to use H&L Brock- their fake church or synagogue tax dodge

— Hey, our mid-WU commercial is an actual new, live one this time!
— Eh, this was a little too dry for my likes, and as I said before, I’m usually not a fan of sketches where it’s one person delivering a speech to the camera.
STARS: **

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
Emily Litella is aghast at the notion of a “deaf” penalty

— Ohhhhh, geez. After taking last week off after appearing in 3-4 consecutive episodes, Emily Litella is unfortunately back, continuing to run her predictable shtick into the ground. Watching these SNL episodes chronologically on a day-to-day basis, I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t even laugh at this character anymore. Like I said a few reviews ago, she’s too one-note to be used on a weekly basis; she’s appeared in almost EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND UPDATE since way back in the Richard Pryor episode!
— Chevy’s annoyed facial expression when Litella started her commentary mirrored my look exactly.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): *** (Would’ve been higher if not for the two correspondents. Chevy’s jokes were red-hot tonight.)

THE SINGING IDLERS
The Singing Idlers perform “Semper Paratus” to dumber-than-dolphin scroll
host, SNL Band, The Singing Idlers perform “Sea Cruise”
   
— Wait, what’s this “people who dolphins are more intelligent than” disclaimer that suddenly showed up just now during the performance?
— Ha, the list of celebrities who are dumber than dolphins is pretty funny. Some of these same names were used in the screen crawl in Buck Henry’s monologue earlier this season. And like in that monologue, I’m not familiar with 70% of the names on this list, though I’m still laughing. If SNL did something like this nowadays, the celebrities on that dumber-than-dolphins list would probably be people like the Kardashians and Trump.
— Okay, now that that the list is done, the rest of this seems to be a non-joke legit musical performance.

CAR YUMMIES
Car Yummies cheese snacks are the fuel supplements your auto will love

— Okaaaay… well, THAT kinda just came and went without anything worth noting.
— I guess the idea of this ad was cute, though.
STARS: **

MUPPETS SUBSTITUTE
CHC’s hand puppets perform “Paying The Milkman” to fill in for Muppets
 
— Why did they feel the need to announce the Muppets won’t be appearing tonight, when we’ve already gone through the last few episodes without them?
— Why would the SNL Muppets be at that year’s Grammys? I thought people hated those characters.
— Is that Chevy doing these hand puppets?
— This has some pretty funny little gags like the milkman hand puppet holding an actual glass of milk, and him checking the time on the watch around his “neck”.
— Ah, that IS Chevy, I see.
— Overall, pretty funny, and amused me more than the actual Muppets have.
STARS: ***

WEGMAN
by Gary Weis- William Wegman [real] shows his weimaraner Man Ray’s skills
 
— Oh, so is Gary Weis now only doing shorts involving someone talking about their pet? This is the second episode in a row.
— Wow, what a frisky dog.
— The staring contest part was pretty funny, I admit.
— The World Trade Center ending made no sense.
STARS: **½

ANDY KAUFMAN
Andy Kaufman [real] & audience members lip-sync “Old MacDonald”

— We haven’t seen Andy in a while.
— This isn’t exactly funny so far, but is pretty charming & fun with the reactions of the participants.
— Overall, that was pretty cool. However, I definitely prefer Andy’s weirder pieces from other episodes. He surprisingly came off a lot more “normal” in this one than he usually does on SNL.
STARS: ***

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?
persistent (host) wants to know what boyfriend (CHC) is thinking about
 
— Haha, after such a long set-up, the warthog ending was a very funny unexpected punchline.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

GREAT MOMENTS IN HERSTORY, PART 3
Indira Gandhi (LAN) prefers gun to nonviolence

— John is pretty funny as the father.
— Uh, I think I missed whatever the joke of this was supposed to be.
STARS: ???

THE MR. BILL SHOW
by Walter Williams- malice disintegrates a clay man
  
— Dan’s intro in the stiff suit was pretty random.
— “A home movie sent in by Walter Williams”? Oh, is this gonna be the debut of Mr. Bill?
— Ah, it is!
— Mr. Bill’s voice sounds a bit different from how it would soon go on to usually sound.
— This is getting funnier and funnier as it goes along.
— Overall, this was great. I didn’t know until now that these Mr. Bill shorts started out as just a fan-made home movie.
STARS: ****

AUDIENCE CAPTION

— I don’t usually acknowledge these in my reviews, but I just wanted to point out that this particular one had the same “Adjust your set if it will make you happy” caption that randomly showed up during the festive goodnights of the preceding Desi Arnaz episode. I have to wonder now if that caption showing up in those goodnights was a technical error, and maybe they meant to use it earlier that night for an audience caption before the show ran out of time.

GOODNIGHTS
Grable (JAC) & Lombard (host)- movie features their marriage to one other
   
— Wait, is this even the goodnights? Is this a skit? Is this another ‘goodnights wedding’, ala Elliott Gould and Gilda Radner? What am I watching???
— “Grable and Lombard”. Okay, I know who those two actresses are, but I didn’t get the point of this. If the sole joke was simply how “hilarious” the idea of two women getting married to each other is – ohhh, boy. I don’t need to explain why the humor in that has not aged well at all.
— Now the regular goodnights credits scroll and music has begun playing, though there’s nobody on stage besides the three performers from the “Grable and Lombard” sketch.
— Just now, the scrolling credits got blocked by something for a few seconds. (third and fourth screencaps above) Did someone walk in front of the projector or something?

_______________________________

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A very strong first half, but the quality dropped off in the second half, and the weird “Grable and Lombard” goodnights left me a bit cold for various reasons. This was still an overall good episode, though.
— Jill Clayburgh fit in well on the show and came off very natural as a host.
— Whoa, I just realized: did Jane Curtin appear in ANYTHING besides the goodnights sketch? I can’t recall seeing her in anything earlier than that. Wow. Just when it seemed like she was recently starting to branch out and get better roles, she’s been really invisible these last two episodes.

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

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Anthony Perkins