Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
peeved GIR tells viewers that she won’t be in much of tonight’s show
— Loved how after Gilda casually brought up LFNY, they falsely started the opening montage & theme music before being cut off by Gilda yelling she’s not finished yet.
— Yet another “while someone is addressing the camera, a disclaimer on the bottom of the screen reveals the truth” gag. Always funny.
— After Gilda delivered the real LFNY, the theme music kicked in as usual, but they took a long time to cut to the opening montage for some reason, thus we just see Gilda standing on stage for a while as the theme music was playing.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host maintains that her youth has had no effect on her treatment at SNL
— Just now, she has mentioned that she’s the show’s youngest host, which receives applause from the audience.
— The jokes about all hosts being treated like a kid are pretty tepid, not helped by Jodie’s awkward delivery of them. However, I do like hearing her namedrop some of SNL’s previous hosts (Raquel Welch, Desi Arnaz, Elliott Gould).
STARS: **
PILSON’S FEEDBAG DINNERS
CHC recommends Pilson’s Feedbag Dinners for people on the go
— Chevy ONCE AGAIN??? Ha, he’s been gone for a grand total of ZERO episodes since he “left the cast”. I guess because of how popular he was during his tenure and because SNL wasn’t used to cast members leaving the show, SNL felt they had to wean the audience off of him.
— Funny visual with people eating from the feedbags. Nothing more to this commercial than that, though.
STARS: ***
PETER PAN BEES
Wendy (host) doesn’t believe in Bee Peter Pan (LAN) or Tinkerbee (JOB)
Bee directors Dave Wilson & Heino Ripp [real] send SNL to a commercial
— I’m not liking Jodie’s performance as a typical 70s stoner much.
— John freaking out is pretty funny.
— Laraine: “Bees are like Muppets with longer contracts.”
— Hmm, fourth-wall break, with Jodie asking the audience to applaud to bring Bee John back to life. I’m liking this.
— LOL at John’s request for a standing ovation.
— Loved the cutaway to Bee Dave Wilson and Bee Heino Ripp in the SNL control room.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
PUBERTY HELPER
host shows how Rovco’s big Puberty Helper bag prevents teen trauma
— Dan doing a fantastic job as yet another manic fast-talking pitchman.
— Who’s the guy in the Puberty Helper bag talking to Jodie? Neil Levy? I’ve gotten to the point where any time I don’t recognize a guy in a sketch from this era, I assume it’s Levy.
— The scene with Jodie and the guy could’ve been funnier.
— Dan is hilarious quickly spouting off the long list of things that Puberty Helper prevents.
— For some reason, I cracked up at Dan’s odd way of pronouncing “bra”. I assume that pronunciation is a Canadian thing. Norm Macdonald, another SNL canuck, once pronounced “taco” in a similarly odd fashion (“tack-o”) during a Weekend Update joke about Taco Bell.
STARS: ***½
METAL DETECTOR
airport security guards (LAN) & (musical guest) detain metal-laden (DAA)
— The reveal of Dan wearing a whole bunch of kinky metal under his clothes is very funny.
— Funny ending with Laraine giving the Tin Woodsman a free pass through the metal detector.
— What was the point of Brian Wilson just standing there silently for almost the entire sketch?
STARS: ***½
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
JAC phones Jimmy Carter (DAA) with Generalissimo Francisco Franco quiz
alleged footage of Christina & Jackie Onassis mud-wrestling over will
— What was with Jane’s “Here but for the grace of God goes Gilda” opening line? I guess that was some kind of reference to tonight’s cold opening.
— Jane’s phone call to (president-elect) Jimmy Carter was pretty fun.
— The mud wrestling clip representing a fight between Christine & Jackie Onassis was good and silly, helped by Jane’s solid narration.
WHAT KINDA GUY WATCHES SATURDAY NIGHT?
promiscuous Steve Bashekis (JOB) is the sort of man who watches SNL
— John played this Steve Bushakis character before, but I can’t remember when. Maybe the Prisoner Auditions sketch from season 1.
— This whole thing was just baffling. What was the point of this? And what was with the weird homophobic vibe?
STARS: *½
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
JAC reads viewers’ suggestions on how Morris The Cat should kill himself
— Another mention of “CIA director George Bush”.
— A very good follow-up to the preceding episode’s Morris the Cat bit. I wonder if the suggestions Jane read were really sent in by viewers.
— No guests tonight.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
LITTLE KNOWN TALENTS OF THE NOT READY FOR PRIME-TIME PLAYERS
LAN’s talents include imitations of a crying baby & a possessed chicken
— Gilda’s intro to this seems to be a continuation of the cold opening’s premise of Gilda not having anything to do tonight because she’s being “phased out of the show”.
— This sketch appears to be in a similar vein to the sketch last season with Gilda and Madeline Kahn each displaying a unique impression they can do.
— I really liked Laraine doing the Looney Tunes theme song with her lip.
— Very funny ending with Laraine imitating a chicken possessed by the devil.
STARS: ***½
DON PARDO: THE FIRST 50 YEARS
(DAA) narrates DOP’s life history
— I’ve always heard about this sketch.
— Great part with young Pardo tattling on his classmates in his usual professional style.
— John playing multiple roles in the same sketch?
— Dan’s insane extended laughter cracked me up.
— Oh, everybody seems to be playing multiple roles in this sketch.
— Lorne in 1975: “Don Pardo? Is he still alive?”
— Overall, a very entertaining sketch, and this made me really appreciate and respect Pardo’s long, impressive career.
STARS: ****½
TEACHER
smitten (host) has a chat with junior high biology teacher (DAA)
— This seems to be one of those realistic, slice-of-life sketches that this era would often do.
— Boy, did Jodie have a hard time delivering that line about a “felt tip pen”.
— Overall, nothing great, but this whole sketch had a charm to it that I appreciate.
STARS: ***
KIDS’ DREAMS
by Gary Weis- kids talk about dreams they have at night
— Gilda’s intro was another funny continuation of tonight’s “Gilda’s being phased out of the show” running premise.
— Typical dull Gary Weis film; this time, it’s a “cute” video with little kids babbling nonsense about dreams they’ve had. Sorry, not my type of SNL entertainment.
STARS: *
THE KING KONG DIRGE
GAM sings “The King Kong Dirge”
— As usual, Garrett’s operatic singing voice is phenomenal, but I’m not quite sure what I’m watching so far.
— Okay, I’m now starting to kinda love the powerful tone of this performance. It’s actually quite haunting and moving.
STARS: ****
SIDE NOTE: The “Gilda’s being phased out” gag continues, as we now see her sitting in the audience while the camera zooms in on her, in a similar manner to when the show does audience captions. Gilda’s adorable in this.
WHITE WIFE
(JAC) reveals to her husband (GAM) that she’s not black
— Two consecutive sketches starring Garrett Morris? There’s something you don’t see everyday.
— The little white ball of fuzz on the top of Garrett’s head is a bit distracting.
— Is this the same interracial couple that Garrett and Jane played in that awful Chevy Chase bellhop sketch from season 1?
— Jane’s dramatic “I’m not black” reveal seems like a really funny concept.
— A good laugh from Jane’s “The bottoms of my feet are the same shade as the tops!” line.
— This kinda lost me at the end.
STARS: ***
MR. MIKE’S LEAST-LOVED BEDTIME TALES
MOD tells host a Least-Loved Bedtime Tale- “The Little Train That Died”
— With the inclusion of Jodie, this seems like this will be a bit different from the previous two appearances of this sketch.
— This is a lot better than the last two, as this has exactly the type of twisted, disturbing humor I’ve come to love from Mr. Mike, with him acting out the train’s sudden heart attack, the bit about the schoolbus of kids getting killed by the train, and the ending with the frog getting beaten to death.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
GOODNIGHTS
— Haha, I couldn’t help but notice that Jodie mistakenly called John Belushi “John Belucci”.
_______________________________
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— I had always heard negative things about this episode, so I went into this expecting a rough show. What I ended up getting was not as bad as I was expecting. I didn’t quite see why this episode has such a negative reputation. I’m not saying this was a great episode, but there were a few sketches I found really well-done (Don Pardo: The First 50 Years, King Kong Dirge, Mr. Mike), I enjoyed the “Gilda’s being phased out” running premise throughout the night, and there were nowhere near as many duds as I thought there would be. Honestly, I’ve seen worse episodes this season (Karen Black, Dick Cavett).
— Another negative thing I had always heard about this episode is Jodie Foster’s performance as host. After seeing this episode for myself, I can kinda see what those criticisms were about. Her performances in the first 10-15 minutes were pretty rough, but I felt she got a little better as the night went on. I’m probably going a little easy in my critique of her due to her young age, though. That being said, some of SNL’s later kid hosts would do a more impressive job on the show (Fred Savage especially).
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Paul Simon):
— a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Candice Bergen hosts the Christmas show, for the second year in a row
This is one of the more tragic musical guest performances–Brian Wilson is a legendary musician, but you could tell this was at a rough patch of his life and his attempt at singing a solo version of Good Vibrations doesn’t come off well at all. Interesting to note the run of absolutely amazing musical guests (in terms of reputation and legacy)–Wilson appears in a run of George Harrison and Frank Zappa.
Ben Douwsma said it best when he compared Brian Wilson’s hair to a Fisher-Price man
I just watched the Jodie Foster bee sketch and it was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen on SNL. It rivaled some of the awful material from the infamous season 6. I never understood the love for John Belushi. I will eventually watch all of these old episodes but so far, most everything I’ve seen him in is disappointing. The cheeseburger BS is dumb, the samurai thing was annoying and the bees? I just don’t get it. Do people love him because he is fat and fat is hilarious to a percentage of the population? I argue that he just may be the most overrated person in the history of television.
Ahh I so agree with you, though I don’t actually think he’s that fat after watching the Farley years and his infatuation with becoming Belushi, not shitting on Farley or Belushi I think they had talent to extent but I can’t stand the freaking bees or samari or strange voice s Belushi makes. Same with Farley over the top Matt foley motivational speaker. I think Farley was good as one of the gap girls and liked it when he interviews 3 famous people only to ask silly questions, but apparently that sketch really was a lot of Farley being Farley. I don’t find Belushi funny, I think I tried watching animal house once and it was a flop. It’s really hard to make it thru these early years because so much is dependent on really bad sketches, that are on repeat like a bad song. And Jesus, the same hosts it seems every 4 or 5 episodes along w musical acts. At least the first season and a half it seems…
Lorne Michaels produced The Beach Boys: It’s OK, which was part of the “Brian’s Back” promotional push for 15 Big Ones in the summer of 1976. Wilson had a similar piano-on-sandbox setup at his house. Dr. Eugene Landy’s not on camera, but is backstage holding placards, so there’s no getting around Wilson’s psychological damage or substance abuse in the SNL performance.
It didn’t even amount to much in the end, as Wilson eventually bottomed out after Landy’s first firing. In retrospect, I can’t see why Michaels needed to carve himself a slice of the Beach Boys’ “comeback” (such as it was), even if Michaels couldn’t predict Dennis Wilson’s death or Mike Love’s largely commandeering the Beach Boys into a nostalgia act. Even if Michaels was a fan, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd goading Brian Wilson to surf has overtones now that belie the product shilling:
“At Landy’s insistence, Wilson appeared on Saturday Night Live, choosing to perform a solo piano rendition of “Good Vibrations” which received mixed feedback.Landy stood off-camera holding signs for Wilson that read “smile”. He said that critics missed the point of this exercise, explaining that Wilson’s performance “was a terrible thing” as a one-shot, but if he continued making appearances then he would have gradually overcome his stage fright.” Quoting Wikipedia..which quotes from a specific book.
but after seeing that clip it’s also beyond me how cruel Belushi and Akroyd could be, or Lorne for that matter. You see how terrible shape Brian’s in, let alone he can barely surf. This isn’t a funny sketch, it’s really depressing, it would be funny if the circumstances weren’t in the awful Landy period, but it is.
“Here but for the grace of God goes Gilda” – Jane’s way of saying “Gilda you can totally take the WU chair away from me and save me the torture of reading these ‘lame’ news jokes…”
(**apologies to Zweibel and Sargent RIP)
Also, idk about Belushi and Jodie dancing in end credits like Sport and Iris in Taxi Driver, but when Belushi starts posing a pinched face during that moment, I’m guessing he’s doing his impression of Robert De Niro (back when no one did a De Niro)…
On the week’s previous show with Paul Simon, when the camera cuts to an older male audience member for commercial, I spotted Jodie Foster in front of him slumped down trying to look inconspicuous. She’s even wearing the hat she has on for the opening spot the following week. She must have decided to see the show to get an idea of what to expect. Not her finest moment but an A+ for dedication.
There was no “weird homophobic vibe” in the Bushakis sketch, in fact I’d argue that sketch was satirizing your typical (1976) macho, homophobic guy. The bit was a takeoff on a commercial of that period (“what kind of guy eats/drinks/buys…”), tho’ I can’t remember what the original spot was advertising.
I’d forgotten that Michaels was behind that Beach Boys special; it certainly explains why Wilson was allowed to do 3 songs here.
Early 1977 profile of Jodie Foster on CBS, including footage of her in her dressing room at 8H during her SNL week (cue @6:40 spoiler: no SNL cast or crew pop in…)
https://youtu.be/EqUSqg-s-2c?t=400
It was a reference to the “what kind of man reads playboy?” aD campaign for Playboy magazine. Not a bad sketch.
Gilda mentioned in the cold opening that she was in a cut sketch as “Joey Heatherton in the locker-room of the Minnesota Vikings”: Heatherton was an “American actress, dancer, and singer (and a) sex symbol of the 1960s and 1970s” (wiki). She was married to professional football player Lance Rentzel who was accused of indecent exposure to underage girls a couple times including in 1966 while playing for the Vikings. Heatherton, who had her own legal run-in for drug possession, was an inspiration for Catherine O’Hara’s Lola Heatherton on SCTV
Very surprising they had a new episode Thanksgiving weekend; especially after the famous “turkey” scene in last week’s Paul Simon episode.