May 13, 1978 – Richard Dreyfuss / Jimmy Buffett, Gary Tigerman (S3 E19)

Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
paraquat-tainted Mexican dope is traced from farmers (JOB) & (GIR) to BIM

   

— Gilda’s accent is pretty funny.
— Boy, they sure love doing sketches where John physically abuses Gilda by slapping her around. I lost count of the number of sketches that’s happened in the episodes I’ve covered so far.
— Love Dan’s fast-paced narration.
— Bill’s reaction to smoking the joint wasn’t all that funny. The build-up to it had me expecting his reaction to be much more hilariously over-the-top.
— Overall, a strange opening, and it didn’t really work for me.
STARS: **

OPENING MONTAGE
— Father Guido Sarducci is mentioned as a special guest. This will be his very first appearance on the show. I’m surprised, because I thought he didn’t make his debut until season 4.
— In tonight’s montage, some of the cast members (John, Jane, and especially Gilda) noticeably receive much louder audience applause than others, which is always a good indicator of which cast members are the most popular at the time (best example of this is in seasons 8 and 9: as soon as Eddie Murphy’s picture would appear onscreen, the audience would absolutely ROAR with cheers, after giving zero applause for the cast members announced before him). I’m not surprised about John and Gilda, but I certainly am about Jane; I never knew she was an audience favorite.

MONOLOGUE
to prove to JOB he’s worthy of an Oscar, host does Hamlet’s soliloquy

  

— Haha at him coming out in a Shakespearean outfit.
— Funny story about how Belushi convinced him to do Hamlet.
— We get another great increasingly angry rant from John.
— Good ending with Richard’s dejected, whiny demeanor after John finishes telling him off.
STARS: ***½

CONE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
(host) helps Coneheads snow Kuldroth

     

— Is that Bill as Walter Cronkite doing the off-camera radio announcing that Richard’s listening to?
— Oh, Bill’s voice is actually coming from a TV in the room.
— “Cone Encounters Of The Third Kind.” Great idea to do a Close Encounters/Coneheads hybrid.
— Funny to see Beldar appearing in a local driving school commercial.
— Beldar to Connie: “Young one, your cone is also on the block.”
— I liked the model set of a toy spaceship landing by the Coneheads’ house.
— Good to see the return of John as the high master of the Coneheads’ home planet.
— Richard sounds like a natural doing the Coneheads voice.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE (JIMMY BUFFETT)
— Interesting intro, with Richard hearing the Land Shark music cue. Took me a few seconds to realize they’re doing this because Richard was in “Jaws”.

SEX TEST
host poses multiple choice questions to assess carnal knowledge

     

— Heh, Laraine’s testimonial sure was odd.
— I’m liking the increasingly silly multiple choice options.
— Bill’s sleazy testimonial was really good.
— Gilda’s last name randomly being “Shoes” is strangely very funny to me.
— Another funny little detail is Garrett being listed as a “black sex therapist”.
— The whole “Who discovered genitalia?” part killed me.
— Haha, this sketch is continuing to get funnier and funnier as it goes along.
STARS: ****½

WEEKEND UPDATE PREVIEW

WEEKEND UPDATE
JAC vows to stop blowing up at exasperating Weekend Update correspondents
BIM thinks that Richard Burton should’ve won the Oscar instead of host
alleged clip of The Goodbye Girl features JOB & GIR in the primary roles
Roseanne Roseannadanna’s straying from UFO topic causes JAC to explode

         

— Interesting intro from Jane, somberly apologizing for her angriness towards her fellow correspondents. This seems to be a set-up for something they’ll come back to later in this Update.
— Oddly, Jane mentioned John Belushi as one of the recurring Update guests who she usually acts angry towards, but that isn’t really accurate. If anything, it’s the other way around: usually, Jane fearfully and sheepishly tries to interject during John’s rants, only to get yelled at by John (“BACK OFF, CURTIN!!!”).
— Oh my god, ANOTHER instance of Dan pausing a long time before a news story so he can find the paper on his desk that contains the story. (screencaps below) Man, Dan seems to have at least one bad screw-up in each Update. Mercifully, there’s only one episode left of seeing him struggle through Update.

 

— The “Goodbye Girl” clip with Belushi as Richard Dreyfuss is hilarious! His Dreyfuss impression is having me in stitches.
— It’s kinda funny seeing Bill criticizing Richard Dreyfuss as an actor, considering they would later co-star together in “What About Bob”, one of my favorite Bill Murray movies.
— Another visit from Roseanne Roseannadanna. I guess this will be the payoff of Jane’s apology set-up at the beginning.
— Roseannadanna’s story about seeing a “rectal eclipse” is giving me really good laughs.
— Funny seeing Jane trying with all her might to keep from losing her temper in response to Roseannadanna’s inane ranting.
— Jane angrily ripping open her shirt when Roseannadanna asks “Are both of your things the same size?” came out of nowhere. She was even wearing the same bra from the legendary time she ripped her shirt open on Update before.
— Roseannadanna making Jane have an emotional breakdown was a very interesting way to end Update.
STARS: ***½

NICK SPRINGS
Nick “Springs” & Unavox SL-120 entertain newlyweds at The Honeymoon Room

     

— Loved Bill speeding “Love to Love You Baby” up to an insane tempo, then scream-singing the ending.
— Just now, Bill accidentally called himself Nick Winters (his name in one of the previous installments of this sketch) before correcting himself.
— Bill seems to be cracking Richard up.
— Overall, another very strong Nick the Lounger Singer, though this pales slightly in comparison to the last one, in which he does the famous “Star Wars” number.
STARS: ****½

PET PEEVES
lovers (host) & (LAN) argue by pointing out each other’s annoying traits

 

— I smell a Marilyn Suzanne Miller-written slice-of-life piece.
— Richard: “(sarcastically) No, my favorite sentence is ‘Hello, hurt me’.”
— Richard is great in this.
— Laraine’s starting to catch up with Richard with a solid performance of her own.
— Very nice ending.
— Overall, this was very well-done and probably one of the strongest Marilyn Suzanne Miller (assuming she did write this) slice-of-lifes I’ve covered so far.
STARS: ****

THE DAVID SUSSKIND SHOW
momma’s-boy celebrities & their mothers

   

— LOL at Gilda as Leon Spinks’ mom.
— First time we’ve seen John’s Kissinger impression in a long time.
— I like the concept of these celebrities having mothers who are similar to them.
— I remember seeing a clip in an SNL compilation special (probably “The Women of SNL”) of Jane as Tom Snyder’s mom. When I saw the clip, I had assumed it was from a “Tomorrow” sketch. Then again, maybe Jane later reprises this role in a “Tomorrow” sketch, and perhaps that’s where the clip I saw came from.
— Jane is doing an absolutely dead-on impression of Dan’s Snyder impression, right down to the laugh.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE (GARY TIGERMAN)
— There’s the Land Shark music again during Richard’s intro.
— Nice fake-out with Richard opening a door, but no Land Shark being there.

FATHER GUIDO SARDUCCI
Father Guido Sarducci (DON) tells how people literally pay for their sins

 

— I had been expecting his debut tonight to be on Update. Interesting how his debut is actually in a standalone stand-up performance-type segment.
— His use of crutches is apparently real, as I heard Novello broke his leg during the dress rehearsal of the hockey sketch from the then-recent Michael Sarrazin episode. Poor guy must’ve slipped while wearing ice skates. There seems to be an unintentional theme of injured performers tonight in general, as musical guest Jimmy Buffett performed his earlier number while having his leg in a cast.
— Hilarious comment about being hit by a nun on a Vespa.
— I really like the bit about the price of sins when you arrive at heaven.
— Overall, pretty solid debut for this character.
STARS: ***½

RICHARD DREYFUSS: “I WANT TO BE SEDUCED”
host & PAS perform “I Want To Be Seduced”

 

— Another instance of a host in this era doing a non-comedic musical performance.
— Hey, this actually has some fairly funny moments.
STARS: N/A

GOODNIGHTS
at closing, host is attacked by Land Shark

   

— The bit with Richard getting eaten by Land Shark was a funny payoff to tonight’s running theme.  I always like when this era does interesting, fun things during the goodnights.

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Season 3 churns out yet another great episode in what’s been a long string of them. Aside from the cold opening, everything in this episode was solid, with none of the segments getting a rating below three-and-a-half stars, and several segments getting four or four-and-a-half stars.
— Richard Dreyfuss was a very good host and added a charm to his performances, even getting me to like his musical number at the end of the show (and I usually don’t care for when hosts in this era do musical performances).

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

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
The amazing season 3 comes to an end, with good-ol’ Buck Henry hosting