May 14, 1977 – Shelley Duvall / Joan Armatrading (S2 E21)

Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
after fight clip preempts Bee skit, female castmembers toughen up host
   
— Odd structure to this cold opening so far.
— The brash back-and-forths between Shelley and the female cast members are interesting.
— Jane to Shelley: “Nice teeth; why don’t you tattoo ‘Steinway’ on your upper lip?” LOL, harsh but funny.
— The LFNY, opening montage & theme music is now quietly going on in the background TV while the main action is still on the girls arguing in the locker room. Is this really how they’re going to “start” the show tonight? Very strange and unique. I’ve never seen any other SNL episode that downplayed the LFNY and opening credits this way.
— Can the audience even hear the girls?  They’re not laughing at all at any of the lines.
STARS: ***

MONOLOGUE
Video Vixens JAC, GIR, LAN, host want to make you laugh harder
   
— With technically no real LFNY & opening credits, the cold opening has now just seamlessly transitioned into the girls walking onstage for what I guess will be the monologue. This “Video Vixens” set-up is certainly different.
— The song itself is kinda boring me, but the girls are doing a great job and I do like some of the dirty lyrics as well as the late-70s feel to this whole song and performance.
— I liked Laraine’s lyric referencing her Sherry character.
STARS: ***

INSECT
(DAA)’s disguise isn’t as good as those of his fellow bank robbers
   
— LOL at Dan’s entrance, bizarrely wearing a mask with two oranges over the eyes.
— I like how this has turned into everybody questioning Dan’s costume, and the robbers being more concerned about that than about carrying out their robbery.
— Great ending joke with the cops.
— Overall, a very solid sketch.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

CONTINENTAL MEN
“soy Ricardo Montalban (DAA), Cesar Romero (JOB), o Fernando Lamas (BIM)”

— Cool how after the preceding musical guest performance ended, the camera panned over from the musical guest stage to this sketch.
— In that wig, I thought Shelley was Laraine until the camera cut to a closer shot of her.
— Dan’s voice in this sounds like his Ricardo Montalban impression.
— Oh, he IS playing Montalban.
— I’m not too sure I like where this is going. I am liking the performances from Dan as Montalban and John as Cesar Romero. Bill, on the other hand, is pretty bland as Fernando Lamas; yet another example of how rusty of a performer Bill Murray sometimes tended to be his first few months on SNL.
— I’m getting some laughs from the mentions of other groups of three similar celebrities, but there’s not much else that’s making this sketch interesting.
— What was the point of Garrett playing a background extra during this whole sketch? He had nothing to do or say in this.
STARS: **

AUDIENCE CAPTION
 
— Ha, it’s Chevy!

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
 
— First time in a while they opened Update with a phone conversation.
— The Dale Evans “stuffed and mounted” joke was very funny.

BLACK EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE
boxer Duane Bobick (TOD) says “educate blacks, get them out of the ring”
 
— Funny premise, and this is making decent use of footage of the Duane Bobick/Ken Norton boxing match.
— Also, a good voice-over by, I believe, Tom Davis.
STARS: ***

WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
Emily Litella’s machine requests a message at the sound of the “jeep”
  
— Ohh, here comes yet another visit from Emily Litella… (which has become my catchphrase for whenever she shows up)
— Wait, what? An empty chair? Well, THIS is different. Litella’s not there?
— The whole Litella answering machine bit didn’t end up being TOO bad, even though it was the same basic joke as her usual commentaries.  For some reason, her voice and delivery sounds funnier to me over an answering machine.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***

VIVA LAS VEGAS II
Elvis (JOB) plays aspiring Shakespearean actor in Viva Las Vegas II
  
— It’s the same set from the Ricardo Montalban sketch earlier tonight.
— Hmm, I never knew John Belushi ever played Elvis on the show.
— The second time tonight where a wig Shelley is wearing  made me initially think she was Laraine.
— John’s Elvis impression is pretty funny, but this sketch is boring me so far and doesn’t seem to be going anyplace interesting.
— Not even the Jailhouse Rock number at the end could get me into this sketch (and I usually love hearing that song).
STARS: **

BABA WAWA AT LARGE
Richard Burton (BIM) on ex-wife Elizabeth Taylor

— Bill looks like he’s wearing the same outfit he wore in the Irish cold opening from the preceding episode (Eric Idle).
— I have absolutely no idea how accurate Bill’s Richard Burton impression is, but man, I love his voice and accent in this; it’s great.
— Bill was so into his delivery of “they’re creatures who just make their living off of sucking other people’s lives”, he unintentionally spit on Gilda, judging by how Gilda wiped off her face afterwards.
— Bill: “Excuse me for losing my accent again”. That line appeared to be an ad-lib, which is amusing, but him having trouble keeping the accent further proves my point about early-era Bill Murray’s rustiness as a performer.
— Love the exaggerated way he keeps calling Baba “Babaaa”.
STARS: ***

BRIDES
by Sharon Sacks- wacky wedding traditions; Spaulding Gray cameo
   
— Shelley during her intro: “This being June, the film is called ‘Brides’”. Uh, did nobody have the decency to inform Shelley that it was MAY at the time, not June?
— A film by Sharon Sacks, eh? I guess we’re getting a much-needed break from Gary Weis tonight.
— I got a big laugh from the demonstration of a guy screaming in horror when shown a gravy boat.
— Another big laugh from the groom being a giant chicken.
— Haha, this film is weird as hell, but I’m loving all the absurd, random humor.
— In a way, this feels like something that would’ve aired in an early season 1 episode, back when the show was finding its voice and would sometimes do strange, experimental segments that featured no cast members, just like this.
— Just when I thought this film couldn’t get any weirder, we end on a bizarre animated special effect of a bride morphing into a bat.
— Overall, a delightfully silly film that I’m sure is much better than whatever Gary Weis would’ve offered up this week.
STARS: ****

BAD BALLET
Leonard Pinth-Garnell dances with mistreated birds in “Swan”
   
— Yes, the return of the “Bad (insert type of play here)” sketch!
— Good laughs from John randomly tasing/zapping the ballet dancers while the dance is in progress.
— This is really funny and has me chuckling non-stop.
— I liked Dan ad-libbing “Thank you” in response to something somebody in the studio audience yelled while he was talking.
STARS: ****

NIGHT OF THE MOONIES
cult members overwhelm deprogrammers (DAA) & (GAM)
     
— Hmm, a black-and-white sketch.
— I can’t tell what movie or TV show this is a parody of yet.
— LOL at John’s bizarre entrance.
— “Night of the Moonies”. Oh, this sketch is a “Night of the Living Dead” parody. I’m kicking myself for taking this long to get that.
— Garrett’s performance in this is great. I’m loving his energy.
— How did Dan get the zombie eye makeup on so fast without the camera noticing?
— Really liked the reaction from John when getting shot.
— Overall, this was fairly interesting to watch and was performed well.
STARS: ***

SIDE NOTE: A joking “Coming Up Next…” caption mentions “The Loud Family discuss the Concorde SST”. Isn’t “The Loud Family” a sketch they would actually end up doing later this era (when Carrie Fisher hosted, I think)?

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

STEAK HOUSE
(DAA)’s van obsession outweighs wife’s (host) need for Streisand album
 
— Seems like this is going to be another semi-dramatic Marilyn Suzanne Miller-written sketch from this era.
— Dan’s doing great in this so far, but Shelley’s delivery could use some work; she keeps tripping over some of her lines.
— Dan has some great lines during his ranting. I especially like the one about how while he was “putting it” to Shelley while they were watching The Lawrence Welk Show on TV, he imagined he was “putting it to all four of the Lennon Sisters at once.”
— Heh, you can hear an audience member sneezing loudly during a silent moment in the sketch just now.
— Very funny line from Dan passionately referring to his plush van as a “movable fur house”.
— Overall, one of the better semi-dramatic, slice-of-life pieces I’ve seen in this era, and this featured particularly great character work from Dan. This felt like an actual good version of that Reunion sketch he did earlier this season with Jane (which I think I’m in the minority in not liking, judging from other reviews I’ve recently read which praised that sketch).
— This has been a strong night for Dan Aykroyd in general. He absolutely dominated this episode, playing the lead in most of the sketches and giving his usual excellent performances. This episode is a good sample of how versatile and valuable of a cast member he was.
STARS: ****

GOODNIGHTS
 

---

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty average episode, though I feel like the better material actually aired towards the end of the night (Brides, Bad Ballet, Steak House). Before that, most of the sketches were simply average, and some were flat-out subpar (Continental Men, Viva Las Vegas II).
— Shelley Duvall did okay, but was ultimately an unmemorable host, which is what I was expecting.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Eric Idle):
— a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Season 2 comes to an end, with host Buck Henry