Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
DISCLAIMER
Bowling For Medicine will not be seen tonight
COLD OPENING
leprechaun-suited GAM sings “Danny Boy” while his message scrolls by
— At first, I thought the backup singers were played by John, Bill, and Dan, but they appear to be actual singers.
— This opening so far is just Garrett singing. Is this going to be a serious cold opening?
— Ah, a comedic disclaimer from Garrett himself acknowledging how they usually put disclaimers on the screen during his musical numbers.
— LOL at the audience laughing a lot when the disclaimer negatively calls out the audience for usually laughing during Garrett’s songs.
— The comment about his leprechaun suit was really funny.
— Surprised to see a solo Garrett LFNY. Until now, I thought his only time saying LFNY by himself was in the Richard Pryor episode in season 1.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host promises to have a good monologue if she’s invited back a third time
— Jill: “If they ever ask me back…” Well, as we know now, that wasn’t happening. This ended up being her final time hosting.
— I feel bad for Jill that they threw her out there with such a nothing monologue. The writers seemed to treat this as a total write-off. Overall, probably one of the more pointless monologues in SNL history.
STARS: *
ROYAL DELUXE II
— Rerun
THE OLYMPIA CAFE
a new waitress (host) quits her job
— John’s character now has a mustache, which he didn’t have in the first installment of this sketch.
— I like Gilda as the regular customer who “gets” how the cafe is run.
— Dan’s way of saying “cheeseborgie” is a funny touch.
— A benefit for “the little boys that ate the balloon”? I wonder if that’s referencing a real news story from that time frame.
— The intense back-and-forth with John trying to get Jill to pronounce “cheeseburger” with an accent was pretty good.
— Jane, when Jill is having a breakdown: “Can someone get her a glass of water?” John: “No water, Pepsi.”
STARS: ***½
SYBIL III
therapist (host) believes (JAC), (GIR), (LAN) are same woman
— I get the feeling from the beginning with Jill that her patient is going to turn out to be Gilda’s catatonic Colleen character.
— It IS!
— Funny with the girls describing their punishment of being hanged upside-down from a light fixture and receiving ice-water enemas.
— Good visual of all three ladies unsuccessfully trying to lay on the therapist couch at the same time.
STARS: ***
BAD ONE-MAN THEATER
five simultaneous portrayals in An Evening With…
— Surprised the play starts with Tom Schiller in such a prominent speaking role.
— Bill’s lines as Edgar Alan Poe are really funny.
— Boy, this is delightfully awful.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
NUTRIFIX
Nutrifix intravenously delivers instant breakfast & amphetamines
— Funny concept.
— Ha, I didn’t foresee Laraine getting the injection in THAT part of her body.
— John’s loud yell when getting injected was hilarious.
— Overall, a really good commercial that felt very quintessential of 70s SNL.
STARS: ****½
WEEKEND UPDATE
LAN’s interview with mine inspector (ALF) is cut short by a cave-in
Roseanne Roseannadanna wanders from income tax to bad odors
— Boy, that Walter Cronkite/Jean Stapleton joke got almost ZERO laughs from the audience.
— Another Al Franken coal miner commentary? His one from earlier this season was really bad.
— Haha, oh my god at the mine caving in shortly after the Franken commentary started. That came out of nowhere.
— Roseanne Rosannadanna’s nasty rant is funny as usual, especially the story about her childhood classmate Hernando Rosannadanndo.
— At the end during the sign-off, was Dan not even there? The camera suspiciously stayed on just Jane, when they usually show both anchors.
STARS: ***
BLURRY
on an airplane, (host) sees that (JOB)’s myopia has disillusioned him
— I got a decent laugh from the picture of John’s wife being blurry and out-of-focus like everything else he’s described.
— That’s the whole sketch? Meh. The performances were fine, but I didn’t care for this premise.
STARS: **
SHOWER MIKE
Richard Herkiman & wife reunite bickering couple (JOB) & (host) in shower
— Is this going to be a sequel to Bill’s Shower Mike sketch?
— It is. I used to think the first one was a one-off piece. Not sure if this will work as a recurring sketch.
— I like how they upped the ante from the last one by adding a fourth person to the shower this time.
— The wife of John’s character is named Judy. Knowing that these Shower Mike sketches were inspired by John’s real-life wife Judith/Judy giving Bill a microphone-shaped bar of soap as a gift, I wonder if that was an intentional shoutout.
— Overall, not anywhere near as good as last time, but still a pretty good sketch.
STARS: ***
THE CONEHEADS ON EARTH
Prymaat discovers Beldar is having an affair with student driver (host)
— The set-up of this with Jill in a hotel bed talking to her off-camera lover who’s in the next room makes this feel like we’re in for a Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute sketch. But I know that’s impossible, because they only did that sketch one time, when Margot Kidder hosts next season.
— Ha, it’s Beldar as the lover! At least I was right about the lover being an Aykroyd character.
— Interesting premise with Beldar having an affair.
— Jane’s muttering of “Mmmebs… mmmebs” whenever she’s distressed is really funny to me.
— Hilarious line with Dan telling Jane “No one gives cone like you.”
STARS: ****
CELEBRITY CRACKUP
Tony Orlando (BIM) & others discuss their problems
— This was originally supposed to air in the Chevy Chase episode earlier this season, but got cut due to tension between Bill and Chevy that reportedly hampered the sketch.
— Ha at Gilda playing Claudine Longet, which makes me think of a certain controversial season 1 sketch.
— Garrett playing Richard Pryor? Well, this impression is going to suck.
— Garrett’s frozen depressed, almost-catatonic facial expression is kinda funny, at least.
— Bill almost looks like he’s going to laugh right now.
— Ha, I too almost thought Garrett said “coke” instead of “cope”.
— Bill’s doing really well in this. And I’m sure he’s happy not to have to deal with Chevy’s presence this time. Speaking of whom, I wonder which celebrity Chevy was going to play in the original version of this sketch.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
SERIOUS SONG
host sings an amusing song about relationships
— I can tell right from the start of this that we’re in for a Jill Clayburgh non-comedic musical performance. She did one in her season 1 episode, too.
— I guess I was wrong about this 100% being a “non-comedic musical performance”, as there’s at least some humor in some of her spoken asides throughout the song. I still don’t feel right giving this performance a rating, though.
STARS: N/A
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A fine if somewhat average episode. There wasn’t much that stood out as particularly strong, but most of the sketches were still pretty enjoyable and there wasn’t much I disliked aside from the monologue and the Blurry sketch.
— Like last time, Jill Clayburgh did an adequate if unmemorable job hosting. The type of roles she got and the way she played them reminded me a little too much of Jane Curtin, though. Then again, you can say the same thing for Candice Bergen whenever she hosted in this era, and she was certainly more compatible for SNL than Clayburgh was.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Art Garfunkel):
— a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Christopher Lee