Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
DISCLAIMER
Grizzly Adams Sets Fire To His Head will not be seen tonight
COLD OPENING
host & castmembers resolve to do SNL’s peppiest show ever
— The whole set-up to this is reminding me of the cold opening of the Fran Tarkenton episode.
— Bill’s back to having a mustache for the first time since his first few months on the show.
— Dan’s shame when saying “I, for one, can’t” was pretty funny.
— The whole marching band ending with the cast one-by-one busting through a sheet and calling out their name is adding a lot of great energy.
— LOL, did I just hear Dan call himself “Gary” during the cast roll-call?
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host reads entries from her eighth-grade diary concerning a rebuff
— Uh…..
— Yeah, overall, I was very bored during the whole diary read, waiting for a funny twist that never came. And the alleged payoff at the end about “Danny” Aykroyd wasn’t enough to make up for it.
STARS: *½
HEY YOU!
(GIR) eschews subtlety with Hey You!, the perfume for one-night stands
— Ah, this famous commercial.
— Overall, this was excellent and featured one of Gilda’s most well-known performances. This season continues to be on a roll with strong, memorable fake ads.
STARS: *****
MORE INSECTS TO WORRY ABOUT
(JOB) on lens beetles & funny ants
— I heard this was supposed to air in the preceding episode, but got dropped for technical issues.
— John’s delivery of “This makes me wanna vomit” was a good laugh.
— Good ending with John getting angrily worked up when explaining what “funny ants” are.
— Overall, a good sketch.
— Not sure what kind of “technical issues” prevented this from airing the previous week; this was just a straightforward talk show sketch with two people talking the entire time. It’s not like this included lots of clips, graphics, or anything.
STARS: ***½
TOTAL WOMAN
devotees of Total Womanhood system are subservient toward husbands
— Mary Kay is fitting in pretty well with the female cast members here.
— Heh, Laraine looks kinda like Harpo Marx in that combo of the curly blonde wig and the man outfit she’s wearing during her and Gilda’s enactment.
— Loved Laraine saying (while acting as a man) that Gilda’s dog collar “makes me hot”. I feel like Laraine hasn’t had a lot of great moments so far this season, but I’m liking her in this sketch.
— Overall, a really good and well-written sketch.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
WEEKEND UPDATE PREVIEW
(no synopsis available)
— Wow, an actual promo with Jane “previewing” what’s to come in tonight’s Weekend Update? There’s something you don’t often see on SNL.
STARS: N/A
WEEKEND UPDATE
bellboy (GAM) apes Johnny Roventini with a “call for Garrett Morris”
LAN demonstrates facial expressions that reveal the presence of a lie
forced into retirement by CBS, Eric Sevareid (BIM) says goodbye
JAC & DAA send get-well message to ailing cue card man Al Siegel
— Hmm, the Update set now has a screen in the middle, where the news story pictures are now going to be displayed from. This is a smart change, because I wasn’t crazy about how they had previously been displaying the pictures this season.
— No Pardo intro at all in this Update.
— What in the world was with the bit with Garrett walking on as a bellhop loudly announcing “Call for Garrett Morris!” in an exaggerated manner? The bit was so brief and random, and why was he announcing a call for himself? The audience gave an applause of recognition during his bit, so I’m assuming it was a reference to something I’m not familiar with.
— Laraine’s mic wasn’t working when she started talking. Also, there’s a distracting shadow on her that keeps moving.
— Overall, Laraine’s commentary was pretty pointless and weak. After impressing me in the last sketch, she’s unfortunately gone back to her typical forgettable season 3 performances.
— Interesting seeing Bill do an Update commentary as someone other than himself for once.
— Where’s Bill’s recently-grown-back mustache? Did they put flesh-colored make-up over it to make him resemble the guy he’s playing here? Ha, since when does this era care about accuracy in making a cast member look like who they’re impersonating? I thought that didn’t start happening until Harry Shearer came aboard in ’79.
— Bill sounds an awful lot like he’s doing his Walter Cronkite impression, even though he’s not playing him. Is this his default voice for ALL news anchors?
— Cronkite-type voice aside, Bill ended up doing a great job here. His delivery was fantastic and he had some really good witty remarks.
— Nice ending with Dan and Jane using a cue card to wish a “get well soon” to SNL’s ailing cue card man Al Siegel.
STARS: ***
MARRIED IN A MINUTE!
everything goes right for young women new to NYC
— Is the year 1961 a recurring theme tonight? It’s the year this sketch takes place, and it’s also the year the diary entry that Mary Kay read in the monologue came from.
— Heh, Garrett’s still dressed in the bellhop uniform he wore minutes ago.
— Another female ensemble sketch tonight.
— I’m getting a lot of laughs from the girls’ non-stop overly-convenient fortunes. Their performances are great, too.
— Good part with Mary Kay getting ecstatic over receiving a platter of a big pile of dirt as a “gift”.
— Haha, now the girls’ already-over-the-top good luck has gotten even funnier with Jane receiving a letter from God.
— Overall, a great sketch, and I loved the way this escalated.
STARS: ****
ANDY KAUFMAN
as Foreign Man, Andy Kaufman [real] tells a joke & tries levitation trick
— I recognize this already; I think I saw clips from this years ago in an Andy Kaufman documentary. I’m looking forward to seeing this in its full context.
— Love the part of the foreign gibberish song with Andy going back-and-forth between a crying high-pitched voice and an evil low-pitched voice.
— Haha, I like how even after the song, he’s continuing to casually speak in foreign gibberish as if the audience understands him. He’s even doing it during the audience member participation segment.
— Classic part with Andy doing a wild, fast-paced jig, then suddenly stopping and holding his side in pain. That was another thing that I had previously seen as a clip in the aforementioned Kaufman documentary.
— Overall, this whole thing was phenomenal. Absolutely one of the best appearances I’ve ever seen Andy do, and is a great example of why I’ve always been such a big fan of his.
STARS: *****
BAD MUSICAL
the story of Dutch microscope pioneer Leeuwenhoek (JOB)
— Funny line from Dan about how the musical closed just two-and-a-half minutes after opening on Broadway.
— Mary Kay’s solo “Maybe I’m too big for him” song actually sounds really good. Doesn’t that kinda ruin the concept, though? I thought this whole musical is supposed to be “bad”.
— Bill suddenly going into a sleazy “Let’s have sex” song is hilarious.
— I liked Gilda’s very random little jig, and the way she just abruptly stopped and then sheepishly walked off.
— Despite the aforementioned funny moments, I was underwhelmed by this sketch as a whole. The musical didn’t seem as “bad” or as weird as these Leonard Pinth-Garnell sketches usually are. I don’t know if I missed the main joke, or if this simply lacked the weirdness I usually love from these sketches.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
FARBERS CHANUKAH
Bobbi Farber explains Hanukkah’s origins to neighbors (BIM) & (host)
— The Farbers!
— Funny turn this has taken with Bill’s blunt “the Jews killed Christ” comment and the Farbers becoming uncomfortable by that.
— Hmm, John playing an additional role during the flashback. I remember hearing about a funny blooper in this sketch, in which Bill breaks character and cracks up when John’s makes his hasty return from the flashback set to the present-day set.
— Okay, here we are. In the corner of the screen when the camera was on just Gilda, Bill, and Mary Kay, it was clearly visible when John made his return to the set. That got a good reaction from the audience.
— Also, LOL at John’s now-ruffled hair, from the quick-change he did after the flashback scene.
— Hmm, no character break from Bill, though. Contrary to what I had heard, he actually kept his composure fairly well and didn’t really laugh, though he could be seen wiping away a tear and making an ad-lib about being “misty”.
— Overall, an okay Farbers sketch, but there have been more noteworthy ones.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
— Tonight’s episode must’ve ran short, because the scrolling ending credits don’t start rolling until about a minute and a half after the goodnights music has started.
— When announcing the guests for next week’s episode, Pardo says that The Sex Pistols will be the musical guest. They must’ve ended up canceling at the last minute, because the musical guest for that episode would actually end up being Elvis Costello… who would memorably pull a certain infamous move that night.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty strong show, which is a pleasant surprise to me. For some reason, I was expecting a more average episode; probably because I have zero familiarity with Mary Kay Place. This episode turned out to be dominated by lots of solid, well-done segments, and there was only a small amount of lowlights.
— Mary Kay wasn’t a stand-out host, but she blended into the show finely and worked especially well with the female cast.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Buck Henry):
— a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
— Anyone Can Host contest winner Miskel Spillman
“Call for Garrett Morris” is a reference to the old advertising campaign “Call for Philip Morris [the cigarette brand],” in which a bellboy would shout out the phrase.
I believe the Six Pistols had trouble obtaining passports or visas — hence Costello’s fill-in.
Mary Kay’s best moment, in my opinion, was her extremely passive aggressive interaction with John in the Total Womanhood sketch. Considering his reputation for giving little to no effort in the readthrough of female-written pieces (I’m going to guess it was a Beatts & Shuster), I’d be curious just what *that* moment looked like at the big table.
Mary Kay actually got her start in the business as a writer/behind-the-scenes person before her performing career took off. About a year or two before this episode aired, she co-wrote an episode of Mary Tyler Moore – her co-writer? Valerie Curtin (Jane’s cousin!)
The closer re-watch I’m undertaking of SNL’s early years has attuned me to how they’d try different styles at different points, and “Update” during this season has conditioned me to expect stray random goofiness. When there was a music cue and a little-too-long pause, I expected something like the Dancing N to come in. It almost seemed like someone got the idea of Garrett in the bellhop costume for the next segment, thought of the old Johnny Roventini line, put two and two together, and it ended up in “Update.” Since Philip Morris ads with Johnny ran into the ’50s and ’60s on some popular programs (including “I Love Lucy”), it’s a pop-culture reference the SNL audience of the day would have grown up with, like “Howdy Doody” and “I Love Lucy.”
(By the way, that music cue – from the “On The Trail” movement of Ferde Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite” – was the actual music used in the ads with Johnny Roventini. If the music sounds familiar to younger viewers, it was one of the many cues from “Grand Canyon Suite” used in the 1983 movie “A Christmas Story.”)
Bill Murray’s version of Eric Sevareid wasn’t far at all from the real Eric Sevareid, and whoever wrote that commentary had an ear for the style Sevareid used in his commentaries on the Cronkite “Evening News.” It was dead-on, a little affectionate and a little sad, a nod to the end of an era.
Other favorite moments: the marching band playing the SNL theme during the opening sketch; Gilda and Laraine role-playing (and trying to keep a straight face) in the “Total Woman” sketch; the classic “Hey, You!” commercial; the awesomeness that is Willie Nelson. And Andy Kaufman’s segment just plain stole the show. It was brilliant.
In “Hey You,” just before the dissolve from the bar to the outside shot of the cab, a sinister-looking guy enters the frame for a split second. Is that Buck Henry?
Also, does anyone know what the music is in the background? So catchy
I just thought that was Buck too.
Yes, I notice Buck in the ad. Also, Tom Davis.
This is supposed to be the one where Gilda tears up after lighting the Menorah & saying the blessing, but the only ones I see breaking are Bill & John? This was the first time a Menorah was ever lit on television so it was a big deal. The Bobbi Farber character was loosely based on her mom so I can kinda see how she might get choked up in that character doing a holiday ritual she’d done as a girl with her dad (who died when she was 14). But try as I might I can’t see her crying!
This was a great episode. The first time I saw this I wondered if Andy Kaufman might’ve enjoyed some of “God’s dandruff” with Belushi before the show lmao. He was on fast forward for sure. But apparently it was all natural.
In the Buck Henry/Leon Redbone ep review, I just posted in comments an 8pg magazine article from 1978 on SNL during that ep’s workweek. Here is a page from that article that mentions the fate of “More Insects to Worry About” during rehearsals:
https://imgur.com/oXp7uwv
It’s starting to make sense that it started with Buck as the guest (perhaps Dr Bodanza) but decidedly tried out with Belushi at the helm (IMO a weird fit).
Thoughts on the “Hey You!” commercial:
– I’m guessing the recently released Diane Keaton film “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” gave some inspiration for this parody.
– Yeah, it’s Buck!
– Took me years to come to this unconfirmed realization: I think that’s Jane Curtin’s VO going sultry in there. (Wat u think?)
– I don’t have an ID on the hunk that picked up Gilda, but he did party with Buck and Lauren Hutton at this big NY event:
https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/buck-henry-lauren-hutton-and-guests-during-richard-avedon-news-photo/105837336
Found out today that there was a real Marabel Morgan who wrote a popular self-help book for married women called “The Total Woman”. Here’s a profile on her from 60 Minutes (CBS 1976) which includes an intimate meeting between housewives much like the Mary Kay Place sketch:
https://youtu.be/WDCPnO-oaoo?si=WdC17Ux1DJn1Yh0c