Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
saving Fred Silverman’s life in the Korean War wrote host’s ticket to SNL
— Funny beginning with anti-Buck picketers outside the studio. While it may have just been a joke here, it’s something SNL would later experience in reality when a certain now-president hosted in 2015.
— Wow, SNL’s really going all in tonight on this era’s traditional gag of Buck never getting any respect at the show.
— The war story about Buck had a great Fred Silverman twist.
— Jane finally gets her coveted first solo LFNY.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
security guards protect unfazed host from a mob that’s sick of seeing him
— Haha, security guards are on stage upon Buck’s entrance.
— Good bit with the audience constantly heckling Buck. Again, that’s something that would later become a real-life concern for SNL regarding the monologue when Trump hosted.
— I almost thought the guy who was stopped from angrily rushing the stage was Belushi, just based on his voice, before I remembered Belushi’s not on the show anymore.
— I love how Buck is oblivious to all the hate.
— The shot of the outside picketers tearing apart a dummy of Buck was fairly funny.
STARS: ***½
HARLEY’S BRISTOL CREME
rebuffed (GIR) settles on sharing Harley’s Bristol Cream with Honker
— Gilda’s rejected phone calls are fairly funny.
— I like how Gilda’s increasing desperation has now gotten to the point where she’s resorting to yelling out the window for a random guy.
— HA, great ending with the random guy who Gilda called up to her apartment turning out to be Bill’s Honker character!
STARS: ****
THE MYSTERY OF TOAD ISLAND
inbred residents have amphibian traits
— Oh my god at Laraine’s neck suddenly bulging like a frog’s. That caught me completely off-guard, and looks almost TOO realistic.
— After the initial shock has worn off, I don’t think I like where this sketch is going.
— Okay, yeah, I DEFINITELY don’t like where this is going. One of those thin-premised sketches where the humor fizzles out early right after the initial joke is revealed.
— Overall, boy, did I dislike this sketch. Why was this chosen as the lead-off sketch of the night?
STARS: *½
MATCHMAKER NERDS
Lisa & Todd try to get Marshall & Enid to go on a date
— It took the audience a few seconds to really get the “Todd works out with his right arm a lot” joke.
— The return of Buck as Todd’s dad, a character that was really funny last time he appeared.
— The Expo 67 story of how Buck lost his wife was pretty funny.
— Loved Todd’s frustrated reactions to his dad sending Lisa and Enid to the chess tournament.
— Overall, the usual solid Nerds sketch.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Refugee”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Jack Van Arks (ALF) defends the chemical industry with mundane facts
footage depicts enormous response to Find The Popes In The Pizza Contest
Father Guido Sarducci picks Find The Popes In The Pizza Contest winner
— What’s with Bill slowly moving the desk phone & phone wire during Jane’s first joke?
— Refreshing to see the debut of a new Update character. I can’t say enough how much Update is in desperate need of new characters at this point in the show’s run, considering the small range of recurring guests they keep cycling through every damn week.
— I almost thought at first that this was going to be Franken’s infamous roach-killing bit I’ve always heard about, but I think that’s actually in the following week’s Bea Arthur episode.
— Franken’s reaction to drinking H2SO4 cracked me up.
— A follow-up to the “Find the Popes in the Pizza” contest.
— Funny line from Sarducci about the SNL mailman not knowing what to do with a letter he found for Belushi.
— Overall, a good conclusion to the Popes/Pizza contest.
STARS: ***
BAD CLAMS
(GAM) & (YVH) feed Lucille Ball (GIR) rancid seafood
— Yes! Here’s a sketch I’ve always been dying to see, after hearing how great and weird it is.
— It feels strange seeing Yvonne Hudson with so many lines. This is probably bigger than any role she would ever get during her future Featured Player days the following season, where (from what I heard about that season) she was literally a glorified extra.
— I love the sudden shift from typical morning show banter to “Now who’s gonna eat these bad clams?”
— What an inexplicably insane concept.
— I always love the raspy voice Gilda uses as modern-day Lucille Ball.
— Gilda making her Catatonic Colleen face when eating the bad clams.
— Great little moment with Gilda doing the famous “Lucy cry” while having her face endlessly stuffed with the clams.
— This is pure craziness.
— Overall, that definitely lived up to all the hype I’ve heard over the years. Perfect length, too.
STARS: *****
HOW TO TALK TO YOUR GRANDPARENTS
record album helps youngsters get gifts
— Not too sure about this concept.
— Okay, I kinda like the part with the scrolling list of topics covered in the album, done in the same way commercials list off songs in a music album they’re advertising.
— Overall, eh, the humor was relatable, but this pretty much did nothing for me.
STARS: **
LIFE AFTER DEATH
by TOS- “take a number, be seated” experience recalled
— Is this film a rerun?
— Yep, they showed this one before. And I remember not caring for it the first time. Not one of Schiller’s better films.
— Is it just me, or were the graphics on the bottom of the screen that displays each testimonial-giver’s name and cause of death not there last time they aired this film?
SPECI-PAK
Speci-Pak carrying case keeps severed body parts fresh on way to hospital
— Buck coughing up a chunk of a mysterious internal organ was a great laugh.
— Ha, the above-mentioned coughing-up bit being followed by Bill’s “How often does this happen to you?” is great.
— Gilda cutting off her finger is another big laugh.
— This is humorously disgusting so far.
— Interesting device. I like this creative premise.
— Bill is fine as the pitchman, but man, just think of how fucking great Aykroyd would’ve done pitching this product.
STARS: ****
LOVE CONTRACT
during prenuptial talks, lawyers (host) & (HAS) break up (BIM) & (LAN)
— So once again, Harry Shearer DOES end up making an appearance after all, despite not being credited in the opening montage tonight. This is the second episode in a row that has happened. Why did they begin crediting him in the Eric Idle episode’s opening montage, only to take him out of the next two episodes’ montage, despite the fact that he’s appeared in noteworthy roles in both episodes?
— This has a clever, interesting premise.
— Bill’s ridiculous pet names for Laraine are pretty funny.
— I like the twist with Jane suddenly appearing as Bill’s other fiancee.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Don’t Do Me Like That”
DRIVING
(host) scares (JAC) & (GIR) during a desperate drive home for the toilet
— I’m already liking this sketch a lot, right from the frantic beginning with Buck angrily driving fast.
— Haha, good reveal that the reason for Buck’s panicked driving is because he simply has to go to the bathroom.
— Gilda’s reaction to Buck running over a rabbit was very funny.
— LOL, hilarious ending.
— Overall, wow, what a great little 10-to-1 sketch. Something about this sketch had a feeling that is atypical of this SNL era; I dunno why, but I think it has more of an early 80s Ebersol era feel.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
cast chases host from studio after he wears out his welcome
— Why is Garrett dressed in that afro wig and outfit? Was a sketch cut at the last minute?
— Fantastic continuation of tonight’s cold opening and monologue by having the cast angrily chasing Buck off the stage and beating him down backstage. Probably one of my new all-time favorite goodnights gags the show has ever done.
— We get a very extended goodnights afterwards, with the last minute of this just showing the SNL Band jamming out on the goodnights music. Probably one of the longest the goodnights music has ever been heard in an SNL episode.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A fun episode, and easily the best one of this underwhelming season so far. I got a lot of enjoyment from this episode, especially the “protesting audience” storyline early in the show and all the creative, inspired premises that appeared after Update (particularly Bad Clams).
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Bill Russell):
— a fairly big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Bea Arthur
The driving home to go to the bathroom sketch DOES feel like an Ebersol sketch, like Mary Gross, JLD, and Gary Kroeger (if not the host) are born to play the family.
I think I remember reading that the Toad Island sketch was insanely elaborate to make the special effect work for basically a long, one-joke premise.
You’re correct, the superimposed names and causes of death weren’t in the original “Life After Death.” I guess they were included to add a touch of verisimilitude.
There is a Buck Henry commentary track on the DVD for this episode and his episode in May. Not much is learned. It’s just interesting hearing Buck’s take on sketches he appears in. He hated Toad Island, loved playing Todd’s dad in the Nerds sketches and really enjoyed the Driving Home sketch.
She does a good job in “Bad Clams”, but I’m surprised they had Yvonne Hudson co-host with Garrett and not Laraine – I doubt it would have taken her that long to get changed for the upcoming lawyer sketch!
A sparkling review!
-the Toad Island makeup took a long time to apply, which is why it had to go first
-since Bad Clams takes place in Baltimore, they felt it had to have black hosts… such was the unconscious non-colorblind casting of 1979. BTW Yvonne Hudson would have been a solid utility player (a la Jane in season 1) of they’d have given her more to do. I wonder where she is today?
-Harry was kept mostly out of the montages so as not to appear as a “replacement” for Belushi/Aykroyd
any SNL episode with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers is a notch better, just for that…lol
Utterly insane to me that upon googling, apparently after leaving SNL in 1984 Yvonne Hudson vanished and no one has any idea where she is to this day.
Not easy to share, but kinda chokes me up when i hear Jane’s only solo LFNY.
Loved both the Cold Open and Monologue about how “unpopular” Buck Henry is and Bill Murray’s story about Buck and then-NBC president Fred Silverman
That franken update bit reminds me of an old chemistry joke: “Billy was a chemist’s son but Billy is no more; What he thought was H20 was H2SO4, HEY!”
The opening was indeed very funny, but of course, Silverman didn’t join NBC until 1978, at which point Buck had already hosted SNL 5 or 6 times. Also, loved Murray’s character name in the Love Contract sketch: “Hampton Jitney”, which is actually the name of a shuttle service that takes people from Manhattan to the Hamptons on Eastern Long Island.
Not only do I wonder who wrote Bad Clams – it seems more like the kind of sketch you would see during SNL’s Second Golden Age in the late 80s – I wonder how they even pitched it at read-through!
Stooge, I don’t know if you have it in you to still read the comments, but you did awesome work. Thank you.
LMAO at Bad Clams. This was a perfect sketch on so many levels, and Garrett, Yvonne, and Gilda all really brought it with their performances and took this sketch next level.
Also, that Harley’s Bristol Creme sketch made me realize just how great Gilda and Bill were together throughout their time together on SNL. Putting them together just worked seemingly every time. Those two had incredible chemistry and I need to pay closer attention to the sketches with them working alongside each other.