November 12, 1977 – Ray Charles (S3 E5)

Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Don Corleone (JOB) doesn’t want to see any more Godfather on television

— The audience is very quiet so far. Not even an initial reaction to seeing John’s popular Don Corleone impression.
— John: “I want Grizzly Adams to wake up with a bear’s head on his pillow.”
— It’s over already? This was way too subdued for an opening sketch, and there were barely any real jokes. A waste of John’s Corleone impression.
STARS: **

OPENING MONTAGE
— The very first shot in tonight’s montage is new, with glaring car headlights in a busy street.

— So far, everything else appears to be the same as the preceding episode’s montage.
— Two minor differences in the cast shots: Laraine’s shot lasted a little longer this time (I had mentioned in my last review that her shot was noticeably a few seconds shorter than the rest of the cast’s), and Gilda’s was a little shorter.

MONOLOGUE / MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

 
— Ray’s getting a couple of laughs talking about his initial refusal to host the show.
— Very funny part with Ray talking about the show fooling him into thinking he’s at Carnegie Hall and him then revealing “I’m not the real Ray Charles”. He’s showing promise as a host so far.
— This has launched into a full musical performance.
STARS: N/A

CARTER’S ENERGY PROGRAM
Jimmy Carter (DAA) is mad at public for not supporting his energy program

— The preceding musical performance has smoothly segued into this President Carter sketch with Dan.
— Dan’s Carter’s dismissive and bitter attitude towards America is pretty funny.
— We’re not even a full year into Carter’s presidency at this point, and already SNL accurately predicts that he would only last one term.
— Loved Dan’s “Honk off, bozos, you had your chance” line.
— This ending of this has segued right back into Ray’s musical performance.
— Overall, I felt this was a nice change of pace from the usual presidential address sketches.
STARS: ***½

MAMOREX
host & Ella Fitzgerald (GAM) demonstrate Mamorex’s sound reproduction

   
— As soon as Ray mentioned Ella Fitzgerald in his intro, I knew we’d be seeing Garrett in drag again.
— This has been only the second time in three seasons where Garrett played a woman. I’m starting to wonder if all the stuff I often heard about him always being stuck playing women was exaggerated. Either that, or maybe the drag roles occur more often in the second half of his SNL tenure.
— Them actually replaying audio of what Garrett just sang reminds of when they did that in the last episode, when Charles Grodin sang as Garfunkel.
— The reveal of Ray’s broken glasses was pretty funny.
— Overall, nothing too special as a whole.
STARS: **½

THE DOODY GIRLS
Howdy Doody’s widow (GIR) & sister (LAN) struggle to cope with his death

   
— Nice to see the return of Gilda’s Debbie Doody.
— A very funny sight gag with Gilda and Laraine’s difficulty in sitting down.
— Good visual gag with Gilda using puppet strings to hold up the urn of Howdy Doody’s ashes.
— I liked how after the sketch ended, the camera panned up to show the technicians operating the cast members’ puppet strings.
STARS: ***½

TOMORROW
during interview, host olfactorily analyzes Tom Snyder (DAA)

— Always love seeing Dan’s Tom Snyder.
— Funny line about music from the late 40s mainly being operated by the Ku Klux Klan.
— Loved Ray’s “I didn’t see it” response to Dan bringing up a movie about blind people.
— Good ending with Ray using his heightened sense of smell to call out oddities about Synder.
STARS: ***

WHAT’D I SAY
The Young Caucasians sing a whitebread version of “What’d I Say” for host
host performs “What’d I Say”

   
— LOL at the group name “The Young Caucasians”.
— Doing a 1950s whitebread version of “What’d I Say” is a funny idea, but it’s not coming off all that funny in practice and it’s also going on too long for my likes.  The commitment from the cast is fun, though.
— This has segued into another full musical performance from Ray.
STARS: N/A

WEEKEND UPDATE
DAA exhibits rabies symptoms as JAC reads a list of them
BIM gives away Close Encounters plot while slamming Time for doing same
the NBC Dancing N invites DAA & JAC to dance

     
— I’m liking the running joke this season with Pardo making a mistake when introducing the anchors at the beginning of each Update. Tonight, his overly-energetic delivery of “And now, Weekend Update with Chevy Chase!!” and his subsequent explanation that he was reading from an old script was funny.
— Yet another prediction of Jimmy Carter ending up a one-term president.
— Funny seeing an innocent Update joke about O.J. Simpson.  Speaking of whom, boy is it going to feel odd reviewing the episode he hosts later this season.
— Dan’s demonstration of rabies was okay though predictable.
— Dan badly messed up the set-up of the Bob & Ray joke.
— Bill’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” review isn’t as funny as his usual Update stuff this season.
— Update ends with Dan and Jane doing an old-timey dance number with the NBC Dancing N. All I can say is “meh”.
— Overall, I did not care for this Update. It was also strangely short.
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

COMEDIAN FRANKLYN AJAYE
Franklyn Ajaye [real] does stand-up about watching old Star Trek reruns

— His name sounds familiar to me, but not as a stand-up comedian. I think he was a voice actor in some of the animated series I grew up watching in the 90s.
— Boy, this material is tepid so far.
— Unexpected n-bomb. I admit to laughing at that, which is more than I can say for the rest of this.
— What was with the painfully awkward way this ended?
— Overall, despite some occasional chuckles, this was really rough. One of the weaker stand-up guest performances I’ve ever seen on SNL.
STARS: *½

EVELYN WOODSKI SLOW READING COURSE
the Evelyn Woodski slow reading course lets you enjoy reading again

     
— An Evelyn Woodski reading sketch? Didn’t they do this before with Laraine in a season 1 episode? (BTW, I seem to be the only SNL reviewer in existence who actually liked that sketch)
— The beginning had me thinking I was in for another funny commercial with Dan as a manic fast-talking pitchman, but this ended up going in a different direction.
— The slow-reading braille part with Ray is very funny, especially the “blisters” line.
— Overall, I wasn’t too crazy about this during the first minute, but it got better as it went along.
STARS: ***

BLACKOUT
attempt by (DAA) & (GAM) to burglarize host is foiled by blackout

  
— It felt a bit odd seeing Ray actually walking all the way across the set to open the door.
— I love the exaggerated scuffle sounds during the blackout.
— Fairly funny payoff after the lights came back on.
— A short, simple sketch.
STARS: ***

NEXT WEEK
Buck Henry [real] announces that he will be hosting next week

— Hey, it’s Buck!
— We find out that the five “Anyone Can Host” contest finalists will make an appearance next week.
— Decent ending line from Buck.
STARS: N/A

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

MONET PAINTING
host & JOB perform “I Can’t Stop Loving You” with GIR, LAN, JAC
MOD attempts to fool host by unveiling fake Monet that he donated
host reveals his secret revenge against MOD

   
— During a brief number between the cast and Ray, John does a little bit of his great Ray Charles impression that we’ve heard him do on the show before.  Fun stuff.
— O’Donoghue has shown up out of nowhere.
— I wonder what his painting’s going to be.
— Haha! The “painting” simply being a board that says “Please Don’t Tell Him!” while Mr. Mike is kindly describing a beautiful painting to Ray is killing me.
— And now, this has gotten even funnier with Ray telling us about his plan for two big black dudes to beat the hell out of Mr. Mike during the after-party.
STARS: ****

GOODNIGHTS
host performs “On Saturday Night”

— Nice deviation from the usual goodnights, with Ray leading a musical performance as the cast and audience clap along to the beat.

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A decent episode, though no segments stood out as particularly strong except for the painting one at the end. Most of the stuff tonight just stayed in the ‘average/pretty good’ range.
— Despite his obvious limitations, Ray was actually a fun host with a great sense of humor. He added an enjoyable, likable vibe to the night. And its interesting how the show felt like a hybrid of an SNL episode and a Ray Charles prime-time TV special.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Charles Grodin):
— a moderate step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Buck’s coming back!