Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
musical guest performs “Soul Man”
— I’m loving Garrett’s very energetic intro.
— Wow, what an entrance from Dan and John, especially John’s great cartwheel. I remember a slow-motion shot of that cartwheel was used to represent John during the “in memoriam” montage of SNL’s recent 40th anniversary special.
— I absolutely love Dan and John’s sudden wild dancing when the background music for “Soul Man” kicks in.
— Hmm, Dan is actually singing along with John during the chorus. I guess I was wrong in my review of their last appearance where I said my memory of Dan singing with John in Blues Brothers’ performances was faulty.
— Dan and John’s act is coming off more polished and perfected than their Blues Brothers debut in the preceding season.
— Overall, a freakin’ amazing musical performance and really got me hyped-up for the show.
STARS: N/A
OPENING MONTAGE
— Very energetic, loud applause from the audience during the cast announcements. Dan, John, and Bill got by far the most applause. Poor Laraine, on the other hand, was the only one who received almost no applause. Even GARRETT got more than her.
MONOLOGUE
Obi-Wan Kenobi (DAA) guides host as she tells a Star Wars-themed joke
— Hmm, walking out in her Princess Leia costume.
— I remember hearing there’s a noticeable technical error in this, where they accidentally cut to a brief shot of a Carrie Fisher stand-in waiting in front of a chroma-key screen for some kind of special effect that’s supposed to happen in the sketch that follows this.
— Who’s that doing Obi-Wan’s voice-over? His increasingly-obnoxious laugh is pretty funny.
— Oh, that’s Dan as the voice-over, it now sounds like.
— Ah, THERE’S the aforementioned technical error with the female stand-in. Wow, that was weird as fuck. (screencap below)
— Wait, the monologue’s over? What in the world happened? Why’d this end in such awkward, eerie silence, with no applause or laughter from the audience? Was the audience THAT thrown off by the aforementioned technical screw-up?
STARS: ***
BEACH BLANKET BIMBO FROM OUTER SPACE
Princess Leia (host) is a Beach Blanket Bimbo From Outer Space
— Another amusing technical error, where a “Coming Up Next” caption gag mistakenly shows up onscreen when they meant to display the “Beach Blanket Bimbo From Outer Space” title.
— The teenagers’ exaggerated 1950s dialogue is pretty funny.
— Gilda as Annette Funicello: “I’m Annette, this is my boyfriend Frankie, and these are my breasts.”
— Al Franken is funny as an immature teen.
— Some good laughs from Dan’s portrayal of Vincent Price.
— I usually despise when SNL sketches suddenly break out into cheesy musical numbers, but I can let this one slide because of the fun, infectious energy and because of how well the sketch had been going.
— Garrett: “There’s nothing I like better than entertaining white middle-class kids on the beach.”
STARS: ****½
LOUD FAMILY
members of the Loud family (BIM), (JAC), (GIR), (host) disturb the peace
— I can already tell from the way Jane’s talking at the beginning that this is going to be the Loud Family sketch I’ve always heard about. I’ve never seen this sketch for myself until right now, but I’ve heard that this has inexplicably been aired in some of SNL’s Thanksgiving compilation specials, despite having NOTHING to do with Thanksgiving.
— Going into this sketch, I’m a little wary of the premise, since it sounds like the kind of bad, one-joke “every member of a family has the same weird trait/big body part” sketch I usually don’t like. The same kind of thing I believe The Simpsons were making fun of in that “Big Ear Family” sketch of theirs. This is the same reason I’m dreading those upcoming “Widettes” sketches I’ve always heard about.
— Pretty funny contrast when Dan enters as a character who talks in a soft-spoken manner.
— The avalanche story was amusing.
— John entering in earphones is a nice touch.
— Hilarious part with Bill and Jane’s loud lovemaking sounds from their bedroom, even if I saw it coming as soon as they said they’re going upstairs to their room.
— Overall, wow, that was a lot better than I thought it would be. This was the RIGHT way to pull off a premise like this.
STARS: ****
MERCY KILLERS
orderlies (DAA) & (BIM) euthanize the wrong patient (GAM)
— John’s “Face it, she’s a vege” line was really funny.
— “Mercy Killers”? Haha, is this a sister sketch to X-Police?
— Love the sitcom-esque ending credits, with the theme song sung by Bill.
— Overall, pretty funny. Considering how those X-Police sketches got old pretty fast, it’s probably a good thing they’ve shook things up by doing a different, fresh variation rather than another tired retread.
STARS: ***½
WEEKEND UPDATE PREVIEW
WEEKEND UPDATE
Father Guido Sarducci shows depositor gifts offered by the Vatican Bank
Roseanne Roseannadanna wanders from quitting smoking to sauna sweat
— LOL at the real story of a restaurant being named Sambo’s.
— Bill’s screaming during the Neil Armstrong joke was great.
— I’m ashamed to admit it took me a few seconds to get Bill’s Vietnamese “fried lice” joke. Bill’s reaction to the audience’s reaction was good, too.
— This is the very first time where a guest commentator is doing their desk piece next to Bill instead of next to Jane.
— Great part during Father Guido Sarducci’s commentary with him showcasing a “how-to” book on how to weasel your way around the confessional.
— Overall, Sarducci delivers another pretty funny and relatable commentary.
— Oddly, we jump from one guest commentary (Sarducci) to another (Rosannadanna), with no news stories in between.
— As usual, some pretty big laughs during Rosannadanna’s commentary, especially the story about Dr. Joyce Brothers having a sweat ball hanging off her nose.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
MR. BILL GOES FISHING
by Walter Williams- Mr. Hands helps catch a whale
— Eh, I went through this whole short without laughing too much, overall. I hate to say it, but I’m starting to get tired of the Mr. Bill shorts. SNL’s been relying on them too often this season. Like I said in an earlier review, Mr. Bill’s better in small doses.
STARS: **
TOMORROW
cheerful Linda Blair (host) reflects on her rocky adolescence
— Dan’s Snyder makes another mention of “stage manager Bobby Brown”, which I can’t help but laugh at for the wrong reason.
— Dan was excellent randomly listing off a whole bunch of drugs in rapid succession, with no set-up.
— The whole cocaine part is hilarious.
— Overall, the usual strong Dan-as-Tom-Snyder sketch, featuring some really good laughs and a very good performance from Carrie.
STARS: ****
THE WORLD BAR
Marseilles barfly Brandy (host) sells a sailor (BIM) on mutual funds
— Looks like we’re in for a more dramatic sketch.
— Wait, a barfly discussing mutual funds? I guess this IS supposed to be a comedic sketch after all. Not crazy about this premise, though.
— The hand-under-the-table bit during Bill and Carrie’s conversation is pretty funny.
— Overall, I didn’t care much for this, despite another strong performance from Carrie.
STARS: **
BAD RED CHINESE BALLET
New York Yankee (GAM) represents imperialism
— I can’t tell which female cast members are playing which soldiers. Or are they all played by writers/extras?
— Garrett’s random walk-on (or slide-on) as the Yankee was pretty funny.
— Overall, this was decent, but lately, I feel like these “Bad Showcase” sketches are starting to lose the magic of the first few installments.
STARS: ***
ROMAN HOLIDAY
by TOS- woman has fun despite death of her husband
— The old lady’s voice sounds just like someone who’s been on SNL before, but I’m not sure who I’m thinking of. Ruth Gordon? Miskel Spillman?
— A slow start so far for a Schiller’s Reel. This almost feels more like typical dull Gary Weis fare (I’m so glad he’s gone this season, BTW) rather than Schiller’s usual interesting work. I dunno, maybe because I sometimes don’t care much for SNL shorts that star random unfamiliar actors instead of cast members.
— Okay, this got a little funnier after a while, with the wife’s constant flirting, and the husband keeling over face-first into his meal. Not one of Schiller’s better films overall, though.
STARS: **½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An overall fun and very well-done episode, featuring some really memorable sketches and performances. The quality of the show died down towards the end, but the overall show was still strong. Carrie Fisher worked well with this cast, and should’ve hosted a second time during this era.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Buck Henry):
— a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Walter Matthau
That restaurant was a chain but only one as of 2018 still exists in Santa Barbara, CA:
https://sambosrestaurant.com
“Mercy Killers” is the first of a series of sketches, I believe all written by Franken & Davis, that end with Bill singing the end theme (the same piece of music each time). Off the top of my head, there’s that one, “The Black Shadow,” “First, He Cries” and “The Micro-Dentists.”
The Tomorrow sketch is hilarious, but goes for the jugular. I always zoom in on Carrie-as-Linda’s enthusiasm for her eventual bad marriages, household accidents and nervous breakdown.
I’m surprised it took SNL this long to take the name “The Loud Family” to its logical conclusion, but here we are. You can see a mile away where they’ll take it, but it’s performed so well that it still works. (Those with long memories may recall the “Coming Up: The Loud Family Discusses the Concorde” bumper from several episodes before.)
The start of “Weekend Update” with the rumors of McDonald’s putting worm meat in its burgers brought back a lot of memories. I remember the commercials McDonald’s ran with (IIRC) Lowell Thomas angrily denouncing the rumors and vouching for the quality of McDonald’s products. I can also vouch that Sambo’s was an actual restaurant chain, too, as there was one in our nearest city.
One more “Update” note: Neil Armstrong actually did tear off the tip of his ring finger, but quick medical intervention saved the day (and the finger). The story is told in the book “First Man” by James Hansen.
I was wondering where the monologue was going, but the beach movie sketch it morphed into was a pretty good production number, a delightfully silly thing that had everything but the kitchen sink (the random Vincent Price was a hoot).
Ah, memories of Tom Snyder making members of his crew supporting players in whatever show he was doing. Snyder was dear to a lot of us who worked in broadcasting because he knew without the people behind the scenes, there was no show.
LOL at the “Mickey Rivers” appearance in “Bad Red Chinese Ballet.”
The Blues Brothers have been a thing in our culture for so long, revisited so often and parodied/ripped-off so often (even to the point where my employer commissioned a fundraising video that spoofed the Blues and included a parody of “Soul Man”) that it’s weird to watch them here on the way up, before the movies, before the efforts to relaunch the franchise in the ’90s, and so forth. As with the Hendrix version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I wish I could experience it with the shock of the new instead of as a go-to cultural reference.
I didn’t have a lot of expectations going into the episode, but this one turned out to be a lot of fun.
Gotta say the Blues Bros thing does not hold up that well 40 years later. Yes, the backing band was awesome, and it was nice to see Cropper and Dunn get a payday, but today Belushi & Aykroyd would be raked over the coals for “cultural appropriation” (2 white guys singing “Soul Man”? Really?) As I got older and delved deeper into the original versions of all those songs, the more I realized how unnecessary the covers were. Not many folks these days consider “Briefcase Full of Blues” to actually be a good album.
Yeah, I love the Blues Brothers, but I for the life of me can’t figure out why. It’s not musically worthwhile (outside of the band). It’s not comedically worthwhile. And it certainly has strong appropriation vibes (though the guys aren’t pretending to be anything they’re not). That all said, the movie is a joy (the original of course), they’re live performances are a blast and I can’t find it in my heart to dismiss them.
Just finished watching this episode and I thought I’d pop in to see what Stooge’s thoughts on it were, and now I’m feeling relieved to see the commenters who share my feelings on the Blues Brothers not exactly holding up all these years later. The performances are fun to watch and Aykroyd & Belushi obviously have a great dynamic. But in the broader musical picture… I dunno… I wouldn’t agree fully with @Carson that there’s no musical worth, but it does feel a bit unnecessary and yes, appropriative. I still don’t know how it became such a Thing (then again I also think the movie is very overrated). Nevertheless, these performances remain entertaining to watch.
Agree with the overall summation that Carrie Fisher should have hosted a second time in this era. She was great! She fit right in with the rest of the cast.
Besides the musical performance, I don’t think there was anything in the second half that really stood out… The “Bad [insert form of artistic expression here]” sketches are suffering diminishing returns, the Schiller’s Reel was indeed not his best (looking forward to seeing more this season, as I agree it’s a step up from Gary Weis), and “The World Bar” was just kind of… eh. I’ve pretty much started skipping the Mr. Bill shorts because I found the first couple to be more distressing than funny, but I can’t imagine I’d feel different from how you reviewed it.
I agree that The Loud Family is better than one would expect from such a simple premise- there wasn’t enough time for the joke to get stale. I hope that didn’t become recurring. Loved the hilariously dark tone of “Mercy Killers,” it did remind me of X-Police (a sketch which I don’t understand why it’s seemingly so disliked).
I wish I enjoyed the beach movie parody more, but I felt there were too many different elements to it that made it difficult to follow. Maybe I’d appreciate it more if I were more familiar with those types of movies, too.
I think the Beach Blanket Bimbo sketch needs the song because it’s parodying the beach party movies, which were musicals. The song makes the sketch for me. I don’t know if the tune is original or if it’s re-used from an old song, but it sounds great. The lyrics are a perfect fit to the tune. They’re well-written and capture the goofy innocence of the teen films of that era. Carrie’s performance here is right on the money, sincere and campy at the same time.
Appropriative or not, it certainly feels weird that the show would lay out the red carpet for Dan and John to do something like the Blues Brothers while doing little to zilch with their sole black cast member, Garrett. Even having him introduce them in this episode left a bad taste in my mouth.
They let Garrett sing a couple of times, the Blue Brothers turned out to be successful, and it makes sense that the biggest stars of the show would get preferential treatment. IMO, Garrett wasn’t an especially good sketch actor
Eddie Murphy was also treated better than the rest of his cast.
RIP Carrie
I assume this is where Carrie and Aykroyd met and started dating? Or was that after?
Maybe I’m showing my advanced age but I believe that the Blues Brothers are about as guilty as The Rolling Stones or Artie Shaw when it comes to appropriation. I’m having a bit of a hard time seeing how white folks who truly love and enjoy Black American music can be accused of stripmining when they have the supposed temerity of simply wanting to pay homage to the great artists that inspired them. Would I rather listen to Magic Sam or Elmore James than “Briefcase Full of Blues”? Absolutely. But what if my gateway to Magic Sam and Elmore James came from the Blues Brothers?
To quote Bruce Springsteen “The first Chuck Berry riff I ever learned to play was from Keith Richards.” Is Keith therefore guilty of culture rape? The Blues Brothers movie is great, a classic. But they deserve credit for doing exactly what the Stones did: they reminded people of the amazing work done by their artistic forefathers.
End of sermon.
First off, I love these posts. This has been such a joy to read. I remember watching all of these episodes live. And it is always fun for me to revisit them. And everyone’s opinion is 200% valid and I totally respect it.
Regarding The Blues Brothers, John and Dan did a great job as performers. They were funny, but they NEVER made fun of the music. You have to remember that most black artists that they (or other white artists like The Beatles, The Stones or Springsteen) covered loved that they did. As Bruce said, the covers were most white peoples introduction to the songs. Aretha, Ray Charles, and all the rest of the artists featured in the film were not selling at all like they were in their prime. Their days were over. Until they were reintroduced by artists like The Blues Brothers. And BB were a GREAT band, that still hold up for me. Maybe because the BB band consisted of the actual band who played on many of those records.
And John and Dan were never appropriating anything. They were paying homage to a music that was dying, and needed to be given new life. And Sam and Dave did later come on the show and perform Soul Man. And of course Ray Charles was in an earlier episode.
And I have Briefcase Full of Blues both on cd and vinyl. And I still love it. Same with the movie soundtrack.
Just my two cents.
It’s funny that reference to “Bobby Brown” gets a laugh for a completely different reason if the person watching is under 25 or so. Nowadays, the name brings to mind Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown.
the Blues Brothers as cultural appropriation? How history is oversimplified as time goes by.
the Blues Brothers was primarily inspired by the Downchild Blues Band, a Toronto band that was mostly white folks, for what that matters. Three of the songs on Briefcase Full of Blues were Downchild covers. Aykroyd has given props to Downchild many times.
as for why Garrett Morris didnt get to be the breakout blues star from the show, Garrett sang on SNL many times. Mostly he sang opera. I assume because he liked it and he was very good at it.
a few years ago, the Toronto Star published an article about an after hours bar Aykroyd ran in Toronto, before moving to New York. The article cover Aykroyd and Belushis first meeting, the origins of the Blues Brothers concept, and some more elements of the origins of SNL
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/local-legends-the-queen-east-key-club-where-the-blues-brothers-were-born/article_346be046-da3e-5693-b6e2-373a4cc198fd.html
I’m going to try to copy and paste the whole article, since the link may not work for everyone, and I think the article would be of interest to any fan of the original SNL. I hope thats OK, and I’m including the name of the author
_______________________
Local Legends: The Queen East ‘key club’ where the Blues Brothers were born
Dan Aykroyd’s informal watering hole Club 505 was where Second City cast members would party after hours. One night, a visiting John Belushi asked about the music he was hearing.
By Bruce DeMara Entertainment Reporter
Unnoticed by passersby and often unmarked by plaques, numerous Toronto addresses with big parts to play in cultural history sit mostly uncelebrated. In our series Local Legends, we tell you about them and put them on your mental map.
Aykroyd, an Ottawa native, came to Toronto in the summer of 1969 with writing partner and comic collaborator, Valri Bromfield, and moved into 505 Queen St. E. near River St.
The pair had been hired by legendary Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, who was then developing comedy for the CBC.
“We moved into 505 and it became sort of the headquarters for after-hours parties,” Aykroyd recalled in a recent interview.
When Aykroyd joined Second City in Toronto in 1973, Club 505, as it was known, became the comedy troupe’s “after-hours hangout.”
“I lived upstairs and my brother (Peter) lived under the pinball machine,” Aykroyd cracked.
But he dismisses the term “booze can” for the main-floor antics, preferring the more genteel term “key club.”
“We were open after 1 a.m. (last call at the time). It was more like a ‘key club’ — it was friends of ours, friends and family, that could get in. We rocked, we raved. It was a great experience to have a window open and having a party going on at 4 in the morning,” he said.
Besides the comedy talent, special guests over the years included actors like Jack Nicholson and musicians like Paul Shaffer and fellow Canadian composer Howard Shore.
Aykroyd can’t remember the exact date in 1974 when he first met the late John Belushi, later to become Jake Blues, but it was a snowy winter night.
Belushi was in town from New York, where he was working the National Lampoon Radio Hour, a syndicated comedy show spun off from the humour magazine, and hoping to “raid” Second City talent, like late comedian and future SNL castmate Gilda Radner.
“He wanted to get Gilda and me to come down to New York to the Lampoon. We didn’t want to go; we had a good life here. (Second City alumnus) Dave Thomas and I had a radio commercial company that we were doing. We were writing stuff and having so much fun, so we didn’t want to leave. He managed to get Gilda to go,” Aykroyd said.
(It’s a matter of historical record that Aykroyd, Belushi and Radner were all part of the original cast of SNL, the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, when the show premiered in 1975.)
But on that cold wintry night at 505, Belushi heard some cool music and asked his new friend what it was.
“The Downchild Blues Band record Straight Up was playing and John asked me, ‘What is that?’ I said, ‘It’s a local blues band.’ And he said, ‘I really like that,’” Aykroyd recalled.
“And I said, ‘Well, you’re from Chicago, you know about the blues.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m into heavy metal and that.’ The next time I saw him, he had 300 (blues) records.
“That was really the night we came up with the Blues Brothers,” Aykroyd said, referring to the wildly successful 1978 musical sketch on SNL that later spawned the 1980 movie co-written by Aykroyd, as well as the band, which has continued to tour intermittently since Belushi’s untimely death in 1982 from a drug overdose.
Back in the 1970s, Toronto was still a fairly sedate and buttoned-up town, so the parties did not go unnoticed by local police.
“I met many nice police officers who would say, ‘What’s going on here?’ One of them, Richard Kruk, he was a cop on the beat. One night, we were having this raucous party and I look outside, it was a blustery night, and there was this old Polish woman or Ukrainian woman walking by,” Aykroyd said.
“I said, ‘Who’s that poor old Ukrainian woman?’ And it was Ricky. He was bundled up with a scarf around his head and gloves and I said, ‘That guy’s going to freeze to death.’ We brought him inside and we’ve been friends ever since.
“We had some beautiful parties,” Aykroyd added wistfully.
Isabel Gadsden, who has owned the property since 1995, is well aware of its storied past.
“It was Dan Aykroyd’s booze can,” Gadsden said, with a laugh.
Gadsden said she met Aykroyd on the set of Blues Brothers 2000, which was filming a short distance from his former home, and the comedian regaled her with stories, including a night when Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger jammed with American blues-rockers ZZ Top while director Francis Ford Coppola tended the bar.
The distinctive 505 letters denoting the building were commissioned by Aykroyd and Gadsden liked them so much, she kept them.
Bruce DeMara is a former reporter for the Star, where he most recently covered city life. He previously reported for the Star’s entertainment section and on the data enterprise team.
round the same time, Toronto Star published another article as part of the same series, about another local address where much cultural history happened: a house on Avenue Road rented at various times by Eugene Levy, Martin Short and John Candy, where much of the writing of SCTV was done.
I won’t copy and paste this one, as its not directly SNL related, though Radner, Schaffer, and Aykroyd are all mentioned. I’m sure all fans of the original SNL appreciate the SCTV connection, the two shows were like one big bifurcated dream cast
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/the-toronto-house-where-sctv-ideas-were-hatched/article_84610601-4faf-50da-a2ee-a7659e0f4627.html