December 22, 1979 – Ted Knight / Desmond Child & Rouge (S5 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
from Panama, Shah Pahlevi (BIM) celebrates Christmas with friends

     

— The return of Bill’s impression of The Shah.
— The pinata was pretty funny.
— Interesting way to work in Gilda’s Baba Wawa, who SNL has (wisely) been using very sparingly these last two seasons.  Her wig looks different tonight.
— Haha, we get the debut of Al Franken’s Henry Kissinger impression, which I remember he would later do quite a number of times in the mid-late 80s era. Franken’s impression is a lot more accurate than the one Belushi used to do, and is really funny.
— Overall a pretty good way to start tonight’s Christmas episode.
STARS: ***½

MONOLOGUE
host admits he’s Steve Martin’s long-lost father & does his son’s act

   

— Heh, he randomly begins the monologue immediately acting like Steve Martin, doing Steve’s whole act (arrow-through-head, microphone electrocution, etc.)
— Funny bit with him revealing he’s Steve Martin’s father.
— Ted to Steve: “I rambled into Texas… and your mother.”
STARS: ***½

DIFF’RENT STORKS
to boost sagging ratings, NBC adds more Gary Coleman to its lineup

 

— A pretty funny quick sendup of NBC’s ratings troubles at the time, by having them desperately milking one of their very few then-current hit shows (“Diff’rent Strokes”).
STARS: ***

CHUDD HARASSMENT CASE
grievance board pretends to care about (JAC)’s sexual harassment charges

   

— Am I in for another dull “group meeting” sketch, like the Teacher’s Strike sketch from the last episode?
— A sketch about sexual assault allegations.
— Bill, regarding his secretary: “I got her ‘Charlie’ for Christmas”. What does that mean?
— I like Gilda’s character. Why do I feel like I’ve seen Gilda in that wig before?
— Shearer agreeing with Ted about women being attracted to men with power was pretty funny.
— Loved Jane’s angry delivery of “You slime!!!”
— Ted sounded really funny during his “ashamed” crying outburst.
— I bet as soon as the ladies leave, Ted’s going to immediately drop the “crying” act and start laughing out loud with the other men.
— I was right.
— And that’s the ending? Meh, I was hoping there’d be more to it. That was a weak, predictable way to end this.
STARS: **½

POLICE P.S.A.
at holiday time, police officer (host) has tough words for the public

 

— Ha, Ted’s cop character being named “Bob Kopp” is really funny to me for some reason.
— The way Ted said “I’m tellin’ ya once!” cracked me up.
— Uh… that’s it? This was very short and seemed completely pointless.
STARS: *½ (the ½ is only for Ted’s performance)

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Tumble In The Night”

— Why’d Gilda introduce this performance instead of Ted?
— Hey, it’s a young-looking, short-haired G.E. Smith as the musical guest’s guitarist! (screencap below)

THE TONIGHT SHOW
(no synopsis available)

— A continuation of the “NBC is shoving Gary Coleman down our throats” premise from earlier.
— As silly as the idea seems, I could actually picture 70s-era Gary Coleman guest-hosting The Tonight Show. On a similar note, is it strange that I think it would’ve been interesting if he had hosted an SNL episode sometime during the early years of “Diff’rent Strokes”?
STARS: ***

WEEKEND UPDATE
Roseanne Roseannadanna goes from picking a charity to thawing Gene Shalit

     

— Good bit about Bill having nude snapshots of Jane.
— That Tony Orlando “Quote of the Year” never gets old.
— We haven’t seen Roseanne Rosannadanna in a while, thankfully. I’m glad they’re going lighter on her this season.
— That being said, I still didn’t care for her overall commentary tonight. Only part I liked was the story of her mistaking Gene Shalit for a poodle. The rest: meh. If you’ve seen one Roseanne Rosannadanna Update commentary, you’ve pretty much seen them all.
STARS: ***

NERDS NATIVITY
(host) directs Todd, Lisa, other nerds during Christmas pageant rehearsal

         

— Ah, the Nerds Nativity sketch that I’ve always heard about. Wasn’t there some controversy over this sketch, or a story that there was something the censors refused to allow in it?
— Franken’s making me laugh as the wiseass student.
— LOL at Alan Zweibel as a donkey.
— Interesting seeing Harry Shearer in a very un-Harry Shearer-like role.
— Loved the tense build-up of a seething Ted slowly walking over to seemingly confront Bill, only to end up simply telling him “Consider yourself warned.”
— Overall, this was fine, but not one of my favorite Nerds sketches. Compared to other Nerds outings, this was a little too slow-moving for my likes.
STARS: ***

ANDY KAUFMAN
Andy Kaufman & Diana Peckham [real] wrestle; Buddy Rogers cameo

       

— Here’s the follow-up to Andy’s challenge from a few episodes ago.
— Interesting… uh… hair on that Buddy Rogers…
— Haha, I love how they have security guards and a barber waiting by the side in case Andy loses the match.
— I’m starting to like this long set-up to the match.
— Andy comes out onstage to a huge chorus of boos and hisses from the audience.
— LOL at Andy intentionally pissing off the audience even further with his little message to female audience members, telling them to cook him a meal if he wins.  His smug smile after saying that was hilarious, too. (sixth screencap above)
— It’s amusing me hearing the various things the audience is exclaiming  throughout the match. So unusual seeing all this on SNL.
— The crowd went fucking WILD when the girl started pinning Andy.
— Haha, I keep hearing a guy in the audience bellowing out helpful directions to the girl.
— Andy denies the girl her extra minute after the match has ended. The audience is absolutely FURIOUS at him right now.
— Overall, another fascinating Kaufman wrestling segment.
STARS: ****½

BOB HOPE’S CHRISTMAS IN TEHRAN
Bob Hope’s Christmas In Teheran features Gary Coleman

— The Gary Coleman gag continues.
— It’s getting old now.
— Boy, that doctored photo of Coleman looks terrible.
STARS: **

SAMMY SELTZER JR.
Sammy Seltzer, Jr. lets you stomach Sammy Davis, Jr.’s (GAM) overexposure

 

— Ha, is this Garrett’s so-bad-it’s-good Sammy Davis Jr. impression that we haven’t seen in a long time?
— Yep, it is.
— Garrett as Sammy: “This Christmas, I’ll be saturating the media everywhere you turn.” Oh, you mean just like Gary Coleman?
— This turns into a random Alka-Seltzer parody. I’m guessing the real Sammy was doing Alka-Seltzer ads at the time.
— Overall, funny idea, I guess, but the execution of it was just plain weird. I’m not sure what to make of it.
STARS: **

JAVA JUNKIE
by TOS- (Teri Garr) abets (PEA)’s coffee jones

         

— “Java Junkie”. I’ve always heard this being mentioned as one of Schiller’s most memorable SNL films.
— “Starring Peter Aykroyd”. This must be the Schiller film that I’ve recently been told features a great Peter Aykroyd performance.
— I wonder when SNL begins crediting Peter as a featured player in their opening montage. He’s had several speaking roles in some of the past few episodes and now gets to star in his own short film, but he’s yet to receive a featured player credit.
— A Teri Garr appearance. Always nice to see her, but it’s weird that she’s making a cameo tonight, considering she actually hosts the next episode. Maybe they didn’t have the next episode’s host/musical guest booked yet when they filmed this.
— I love this so far, and it has the perfect look and feel of a 1950s thriller.
— Very clever part with Peter’s rehab being at Maxwell House.
— Overall, man, that was freakin’ great. And Peter really WAS good in this, like I had been told. I’m aware that his overall SNL tenure ended up being very forgettable, but he can say he had at least one standout strong performance.
STARS: *****

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
(JAC)’s visiting father’s (host) gaudy holiday decorations irk everybody

   

— It appears this is going to be a take-off of families that get ridiculously over-the-top with their Christmas decorations.
— Ha, Ted is perfect in this role.
— Funny bit about the complaint from the airport regarding the family’s Christmas lights.
— Hilarious how Ted had hired three actual actors to stand in a nativity display in the yard.
— Garrett: “Man, we gettin’ frostbite standin’ in that display!”
— When rattling off asinine ideas for Halloween decorations at the very end of the sketch, I liked Ted saying “We’ll dig up Bela Lugosi!”
STARS: ****

IRAN: THE COUNTRY AND THE CRISIS
more Gary Coleman in an NBC special

 

— Yep, this gag has been run into the ground, even if that’s kinda the point.
— Announcer: “After the late news where you can’t see the guy.” I don’t get it; what was that referring to?
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Goodbye Baby”

GOODNIGHTS

  

— What was with the “’Human Fly’ footage furnished by…” credit? (third screencap above) I don’t remember seeing any Human Fly clip in this episode. Must’ve been in a sketch that got cut for time.

---

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— SNL ends the 1970s with a pretty good episode. While there was a number of weak segments, there was also some really strong stuff after Update (Java Junkie, Kaufman wrestling, Christmas Decorations), and the overall show had a good vibe, even when things weren’t quite working. And as expected, Ted Knight was a fun host and added quite a lot to the sketches with his humorous performances.
— I’m still waiting to see ANY evidence of the alleged cast burnout that I’ve always heard about this season. The cast seems fairly energetic in the episodes I’ve covered so far. I guess the burnout doesn’t start showing until sometime in the second half of the season, which I hear is also the point where this season in general really starts falling apart.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Martin Sheen):
— a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
For the first time in my SNL project, we enter a new decade! Teri Garr hosts the first SNL of the 80s.