Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
GAM, JOB, BIM, DAA re-create the Texaco Star Theater opening
— I’m liking how authentic this old-timey Texaco parody feels.
— Garrett’s solo was very stereotypical but hilarious.
— Short cold opening, but a fun one.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host’s politically-incorrect stand-up is ended after only five minutes
— For some reason, the stairway to the door the hosts make their entrance through is on the opposite side tonight.
— A super-extended applause break for the TV legend after he makes his entrance.
— He’s launched right into a string of groaners, none of them funny so far.
— Now we’re getting bad Puerto-Rican jokes…
— My god, he can’t stop making little ad-libs to the crowd every two seconds. I wouldn’t mind that if the ad-libs were actually FUNNY.
— Man, all these jokes are fucking TERRIBLE so far. That Jehovah Witness one in particularly was embarrassing.
— Ha, a loud pipe-dropping sound could suddenly be heard off-camera, and after a confused reaction, Berle ad-libs “NBC just dropped another show.” I admit, that made me laugh, especially knowing the poor state NBC was in at the time during Fred Silverman’s reign of terror.
— There’s a backstory to that pipe-dropping incident, by the way. IIRC, it was actually Bill Murray who intentionally dropped the pipe off-camera. Bill, as one of many SNL people who Berle pissed off throughout that week, did that as a way to throw Berle off during this hacky-joke-ologue of his.
— Oh, here’s the infamous part where Berle is told to cut his monologue short, after going on for just five minutes. Berle’s visibly upset by this, and at first, he jokingly responds “Only five minutes? I usually bow for 20!” (which is a really old joke he had been using for decades), then he very awkwardly wraps up the monologue with a hesitant, half-hearted “We’ll be right back”. And then, here’s the infamous part: as the camera’s about to fade to black, Berle apparently thinks the show has gone off-the-air and he angrily begins chewing out SNL for only giving him a five-minute monologue. LMAO! I was told by someone years ago that during Berle’s tantrum, he can be heard incredulously asking “Five minutes??? For a STAR??!?!?” However, I couldn’t make out what Berle was saying during his tantrum. It sounds as if they panickedly cut off his mic right after he started his angry rant.
STARS: *½ (the ½ is only for the “NBC just dropped another show” ad-lib)
THE WIDETTES
the Widettes’ Uncle Wayne (host) visits the family at Easter
— Oh, geez, not these guys again. As if the monologue wasn’t bad enough…
— The so-called “funny” part with Milton and Dan’s big bottoms constantly bumping into each other while they’re hiding Easter eggs – ugh. Between this sketch and the preceding monologue, I have yet to stop groaning tonight.
— Oh, I heard about this part, where the Widettes use Milton’s big bottom as a screen projector. Bah. Maybe I’d find that funny as a standalone gag if it weren’t in a sketch already filled to the brim with hacky big-butt jokes.
STARS: *
ROCK CONCERT
The Village Persons perform “Bend Over, Chuck Berry”
— Gilda’s doing a pretty dead-on imitation of Shaffer’s Don Kirshner impression, but it ain’t all that funny. Maybe because that insufferable “Night on Freak Mountain” sketch earlier this season (with Frank Zappa, another nightmare host from this era) permanently burned me out on Shaffer’s whole Kirshner shtick.
— “Bend Over, Chuck Berry.” Haha, oh my god…
— LOL at the opening shot of John rocking out to the music in that Indian outfit.
— Very fancy stage setting.
— This is an unusually fairly big production number for a live SNL sketch.
— Could Garrett’s lyrics be any more indecipherable? I can barely understand what the hell he’s singing.
— Now Garrett has gotten completely out-of-sync with the music.
— I remember reading about this sketch on an online SNL board, and someone had a theory that Garrett was coked out of his mind while he was performing this sketch. I absolutely do not have a hard time believing that right now. It would certainly explain a lot.
— Overall, I have no idea WHAT to make of this performance, but I did laugh throughout (even if it was “WTF?”-type of laughter) and the song was strangely very catchy.
STARS: ***
WEEKEND UPDATE PREVIEW
WEEKEND UPDATE
Chico Escuela has success in exhibition game with Mets; Willie Mays cameo
BIM discloses ex-lover Anita Bryant’s dirty secret- she drank apple juice
rock critic Z Jones (LAN) accuses Elvis Costello of being derivative
BIM sends off the King Tut exhibit with “Toot, Toot, Tootsie” variant
— We get Part 2 of the previous week’s Chico Escuela baseball pre-tape.
— Overall, a good Chico Escuela segment, even if it wasn’t trying to be all that funny.
— Bill’s reveal about Anita Bryant from his days of “dating” her was pretty funny.
— Ah, the debut of a new Update character (Z Jones). An actual new Update character is something I’m not used to seeing this season. I had thought they were hellbent on endlessly running Roseanne Rosannadanna and Father Guido Sarducci into the friggin ground this season.
— Laraine: “I hope I get this out before those ludes kick in.” Laraine already used that same line in that Roy Orbison sketch from season 3. She’s re-using the same voice from that sketch, too.
— Laraine’s overall commentary didn’t work for me. A shame, because I liked the idea behind her character and felt it had potential. Does this character eventually come back, or did it end up a forgotten one-time experiment? I wish the character worked, since this season is in desperate need of new Update characters. There’s only so much more of Roseannadanna and Sarduccci I can take.
— Bill singing a goodbye song to a King Tut statue and sleazily kissing it is a funny variation of something he had recently done with a Einstein bust. Doesn’t Bill later do something similar to an Ayatollah statue during a season 5 Update?
STARS: ***
THE LAUNCHING PAD
club owner Buddy Pine (host) can’t find talent good enough to showcase
— Bill’s brief vocal impression of Jimmy Stewart sounded more like Mr. Ed.
— This sketch is pretty dead so far.
— Garrett’s hacky routine on the differences between blacks and whites started out like it was going to be amusingly bad, but ended up not going anywhere.
— What the heck is that thing Dan keeps doing with his hand, where he does the turkey-hand gesture against his forehead? Why is he doing that?
— Man, I am getting ZERO enjoyment out of this sketch.
— John’s the final cast member being auditioned. Looks like he could potentially save this sketch.
— Nope, John’s scene didn’t end up being funny either. Damn.
— Well, at least the sketch is finally over. This whole thing seemed pretty pointless. I thought all the bad comedy acts would lead to some kind of unexpected twist at the end, but it never happened. If the humor was supposed to come from how bad the comedians are, the writers should’ve made it more hilariously bad, instead of just boringly bad.
STARS: *
ON THE SPOT
Irwin Mainway’s unsafe Kiddie Funworld ires Joan Face (JAC)
— Irvin Mainway comes to save this episode!
— This is possibly this character’s final appearance before Dan leaves.
— Loved the description of Mainway’s “Crack the Whip” ride, where children are stuffed into a burlap bag and are spun around and around until being flung into space.
— And now, we get an even funnier ride description, with Mainway’s “Ice Palace” being a collection of abandoned refrigerators.
— Surprising moment with Jane’s character finally snapping and strangling the hell out of Mainway as the sketch ended. A fitting way to end what (I assume) ended up being Mainway’s final appearance during Dan’s tenure in the cast.
STARS: ****
FARBERS RETIREMENT HOME
Bobbi Farber & sister Sylvia (LAN) gab as they feed elderly father (host)
— Always good to see Gilda’s Farbers character.
— Oh, god, this is the infamous “Did you make?” sketch I’ve always heard bad things about.
— A super-hacky spittake from Berle.
— Boy, this was yet ANOTHER awful sketch tonight. Gilda’s Farbers character is usually always enjoyable; why’d they have to drag her down into the awfulness of tonight’s episode?
— This was the second Farbers sketch in a row that didn’t include John’s character. Wonder why they stopped using him.
STARS: *
MILTON’S WRITERS
host’s six Japanese “writers” get an on-air introduction
— Now we get MORE unfunny racial humor from Berle, with him introducing his all-Asian team of writers, and him speaking to them in fake Japanese. Leave the fake Japanese gibberish to Belushi, Milty.
— Oh, this just ended up being an intro to the musical guest. Why’s the musical performance on so late in the episode, by the way?
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Times Square”
SEPTEMBER SONG
host sings “September Song” & reflects on his life in show business
— Oh, no, here’s yet another infamous part of the episode I’ve always heard about: Berle’s “September Song” segment.
— He stops mid-song (yay!) to do even more hacky jokes (boo!) during an overly sappy, maudlin reflection of his career (ugh!).
— I can just picture Lorne, the cast, and the crew gagging and dry-heaving during this whole segment.
— Oh, here’s the phony standing ovation I heard about. Legend has it that Berle had a friend planted in the audience for the purpose of leading a standing ovation, so it would look like the ovation was spontaneous. Ugh.
STARS: *
GOODNIGHTS
— I’m noticing how reluctant the cast is to interact with Berle. John and Garrett are the only ones I saw immediately shaking hands with him. John’s reportedly the only cast member who still had any respect left for Berle by the end of the week. Berle’s well-documented obnoxious backstage behavior that week caused him to alienate just about every non-Belushi person who works on the show.
— It does look like Milton has started slow-dancing with Gilda, which, if anything, is a testament to Gilda’s perpetual sweetness.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Oh, thank god it’s finally over. Out of the episodes with the three most notorious hosts of the original SNL era (Louise Lasser, Frank Zappa, and Milton Berle), I’d probably say this is tied with Lasser as the worst. I got very little enjoyment out of watching this. I wish I counted the number of times I groaned during this episode, because I’m sure it’s way into the double-digits (the monologue ALONE probably got at least 20 groans from me). I absolutely hated most of the segments tonight; in fact, the only things I liked (cold opening, Bend Over Chuck Berry, Update, and Irvin Mainway) happens to be the only parts of the show that Berle had no involvement in. Definitely not a coincidence.
— I normally find Milton Berle to be funny in many venues, but I can’t deny how horribly he did in SNL’s format. To say nothing of that tantrum he threw at the very end of the monologue after they told him to wrap it up. The only thing he was tolerable in all night was the Launching Pad sketch, and that’s only because he played the role straight with none of his usual upstaging business.
— Overall, no wonder Lorne supposedly wanted to bury this episode by permanently excluding it from reruns (until the 2000s, I believe).
— At least I can now proudly say I’ve reviewed all of “The Notorious 3 of 70s SNL” (Lasser, Zappa, Berle).
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Richard Benjamin):
— a colossal step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Michael Palin