January 26, 1980 – Teri Garr / The B-52’s (S5 E9)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
seeking Paul McCartney interview, Father Guido Sarducci gets arrested

   

— Don Pardo’s opening mention of “the crisis in Tokyo” gets immediate big laughs from the audience. I take it this is a spoof/variation of the Iran hostage crisis going on at the time?
— Oh, this turns out to be coverage of Paul McCartney’s infamous Japan arrest.
— Whoa, a Weekend Update segment right at the beginning of the episode. There’s something you don’t see every day.  Boy, this feels strange.
— Some really funny lines during Bill and Jane’s day-by-day analysis of the McCartney arrest.
— This use of Father Guido Sarducci is a good change of pace for him, and the concept of him carrying a luggage full of marijuana just to intentionally get himself arrested is pretty funny.
— I like Sarducci’s way of sneaking in hidden cries of help to us viewers.
STARS: ***½

OPENING MONTAGE
— Peter Aykroyd, Jim Downey, and a mustached Brian Doyle-Murray receive their very first featured player credit tonight.

  

— Wow, there are A LOT of featured players credited tonight in general – about 7 or 8 of them. Geez. It’s funny how much larger the featured player cast is than the repertory cast.

MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Sorry, folks, I blinked and missed this whole monologue!
— But seriously, as I briefly mentioned in my review of Candice Bergen’s December 1975 monologue, this Teri Garr monologue has to be the shortest in SNL history (Bergen’s aforementioned monologue is probably a close second). It literally only consists of her saying that she’s happy to be there, and that there’s so much show to get to tonight that they’re just going to go right ahead with it. The End.
— I wonder what the story behind this lack of a monologue is. How do you not write a funny monologue for Teri freakin’ Garr? I feel bad that they just left her out there to awkwardly and clumsily segue into the rest of the show. To her credit, she looked game and upbeat, at least.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)

CRAIG’S TRAVELER’S CHECKS
— Rerun

CAUCUS
presidential hopefuls do chores for housewife (host); John Anderson cameo

         

— Feels kinda weird seeing George Bush being played by anyone not named Dana Carvey. Jim Downey seems to be attempting some kind of voice, but it’s not sounding very Bush-esque to me. Then again, this is 1980; people back then probably weren’t as familiar with Bush’s voice as they would become years later.
— Yes! The return of Bill’s hilarious Ted Kennedy.
— Gilda’s walk-on receives some audience applause, despite the fact that she’s just playing a random supporting character. Shows how popular Gilda was around this time. She also received a huge amount of cheers earlier tonight during the opening montage.
— Funny inclusion of Laraine’s Rosalyn Carter. This is reminding me that SNL would strangely go through this whole season without ANYONE portraying the president (Jimmy Carter). Couldn’t Shearer have given it a shot?
— Great Chappaquiddick reference with Bill’s Kennedy offering to drive Teri’s car.
— There’s Garrett’s sloppy, stumbly delivery once again……
— This is turning out to be a great showcase for the featured players.
— Tom Davis is giving a really good performance in this.
— Is that an audience member shown as John B. Anderson at the end of the sketch?
STARS: ***½

DEBS BEHIND BARS
jailed preppies (host), (JAC), (GIR) try to survive

     

— It’s kinda funny hearing the awkward audience sounds in the background during the intro photos of the women.
— I feel like this is parodying a movie I’m not familiar with.
— There’s Garrett in drag as a sassy woman once again……
— Are we supposed to believe there’s glass between Bill and Teri, because there clearly isn’t one.
— Is Laraine playing a real person? The name Gloria Vanderbilt sounds familiar.
— Funny blooper when Laraine’s earring falls off and then after staring at the camera with a mock(?) panicked facial expression (fourth screencap above), she quickly whips off her other earring right before the camera cuts away.
— The voice Peter Aykroyd’s using in this sketch sounds a lot like his brother Dan.
— Didn’t care for the ending preview scene with the girls meeting their male counterparts, and it went on too long for my likes.
— Overall, despite a few parts, I did not enjoy this much. It feels like too much of it went over my head.
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Rock Lobster”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Big Vic Ricker (HAS) discusses the Super Bowl & possible Olympic boycott
college student (PEA) tells LAN why he supports the draft
keep gold prices high & get an Al Franken Decade medallion, says ALF

       

— Feels weird seeing Update again tonight, after the early appearance it made in the cold opening.
— I liked the “Perrier Spill” bit.
— These last few Updates, they keep using that funny Alan Zweibel picture (second screencap above) in different contexts. It seems to have become a running gag.  It’ll be funny to see how long they keep it going.
— Ah, a new Update character. Feels like it’s been a while since Harry last had a really big role.
— Harry’s doing great as this character and I like his delivery.
— Good little part with Harry throwing to a videotape only to realize they don’t have one.
— A Laraine remote segment, which is also doubling as a rare Peter Aykroyd showcase.
— That’s it? The Laraine/Peter commentary is over already? I guess it was a funny quick gag, but I was hoping this would give Peter more to do, after he won me over in that “Java Junkie” short in the last episode.
— Bill’s commentary about fat people was really funny.
— We’re getting yet another guest commentator. Wow, this is one long Update. Unusual for this era.
— After appearing on Update in a string of consecutive episodes earlier this season, Al Franken returns.
— Oh, it’s a follow-up on the Al Franken Decade bit.
— The commemorative Al Franken coin was pretty funny.
— Haha, I love the part with Al passing off a penny as an “Abraham Lincoln Medallion”.
STARS: ***

ANCHOVY COUNCIL OF AMERICA
new ads for the Anchovy Council by (host) & (HAS) target black consumers

     

— As always, it feels weird seeing Don Novello in a normal non-Father Guido Sarducci role.
— Tom Davis’ voice in this is pretty funny.
— There’s an odd part where, while Harry is giving a long explanation of anchovy research, the camera holds for a VERY long time on a random close-up of Bill grimacing and smirking out of character while hesitantly chewing on some anchovies. (fourth screencap above) During a discussion of this sketch on an old SNL messageboard years ago, someone there had a theory that Bill must’ve had a strong hate for anchovies and, knowing this, the people at SNL played a bit of a joke on him by showing a very-lengthy close-up of him making sour faces while eating the anchovies.
— When the camera finally cuts away from that lengthy close-up of Bill, Jane can be seen staring at him kinda funnily.
— This one guy in the audience has a loud standout laugh that I keep hearing throughout the sketch.
— I loved Harry’s little “I’m glad we all understand averaging” comment.
— Another amusing quick comment from Harry, with him ad-libbing a humorously obvious “It hasn’t started yet” while he was waiting for the videotape to start playing.
— The scene with Garrett and Yvonne Hudson is really good. Why do I feel like this anchovy-loving couple of theirs is the same as their bad clam-loving couple?
— Heh, funny ending to the Garrett/Yvonne scene, with Garrett immediately asking “Glass of water, please?” as soon as the director yelled “cut”.
— Overall, this sketch had several good aspects but I feel some shortening needed to be done, as this sketch felt too long and some parts dragged.
STARS: **½

BAD PLAYHOUSE
a production of The Great Mr. Potatohead Famine

     

— Whaaaa? A “Bad (insert type of play here)” sketch WITHOUT Aykroyd???
— Hmm, Laraine as “Lady Pinth-Garnell”.
— Laraine’s intro wasn’t too good. Dan usually got more laughs than that during his intros in these.
— A fairly funny weird play so far.
— I like Bill’s walk-on.
— What in the world happened at the beginning of Bill’s song? I’m guessing he missed his cue to start singing? Throughout his song, it looks like he and Gilda are both trying to keep from laughing. (second-to-last screencap above)
— Overall, the play had a funny first half, but it ran out of steam for me halfway through and I lost interest. Also, Laraine as the female Leonard Pinth-Garnell did not work for me AT ALL.
STARS: **½

BABY MOGUL
baby mogul Paula Kirsch (LAN) & Marilyn Nasalman (GIR) negotiate a deal

   

— Gilda’s wearing the same wig from the sexual harassment meeting sketch in the last episode.
— Wait, this is the return of Laraine’s child psychologist character? Wow, I didn’t know they ever made that character recurring.
— Laraine’s childlike crying was scarily realistic. Very dead-on.
— Overall, there’s not much I can find to say about this sketch. A lot of the performances were solid, especially Laraine’s, but I got pretty bored during the sketch after a while. That seems to have become a theme with these last few sketches. Man, what’s happening to the show tonight? There’s too many sketches that are overlong and/or have trouble keeping their momentum the whole way through.
STARS: **½

MR. BILL GETS HELP
by Walter Williams- Mr. Hands employs hypnosis

       

— Well, we haven’t seen this character in a while, so no initial groan from me tonight.
— Funny visual of the psychiatrist having his face hidden.
— I kinda liked the part with a flattened Spot being used as a Christmas tree ornament.
— I enjoyed the hellish, trippy nightmare sequence featuring Mr. Hands and Sluggo.
— This is the first time they’ve shown the “The Mr. Bill Show” title this season.
— Overall, wow, I’m surprised by how much I didn’t hate this. I guess Mr. Bill still has a little of that old spark left in him when they space his appearances out more. What kind of alternate universe am I in where I enjoyed a Mr. Bill film more than I enjoyed most of the night’s sketches?
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Dance This Mess Around”

— Strangely, before the performance ends, the camera cuts to a bumper picture of Teri Garr and stays on it for a long time as we can faintly hear the performance continuing and then concluding. The show must’ve been running late. I wonder if that also explains the sloppy camerawork throughout this song.

GOODNIGHTS

  

— Oh, it turns out that “audience member” who was shown at the end of the Caucus sketch was actually the real John B. Anderson.

---

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— SNL begins the 1980s with a underwhelming, below average episode. As I said earlier, a lot of the sketches suffered from having an overlong, dragging feel and had a hard time keeping the momentum they started with. There at least weren’t any sketches that were flat-out terrible, but there also weren’t any sketches that I feel stood out as particularly strong, either. With this episode, I get the feeling I’ve officially reached the beginning of the infamous downhill slide of season 5.
— Teri Garr came off likable (as usual), but I wasn’t crazy about the way SNL utilized her tonight. It feels like they kinda wasted her with too many generic female roles. To say nothing of that poor excuse for a monologue she was handed. As funny as Teri is, she doesn’t seem to have much luck with hosting good SNL episodes, as I’ve always found her season 11 episode to be absolutely wretched. I can’t remember how her season 9 episode goes, but I’m assuming it’s a good episode just based on the fact that SNL was generally in better shape in season 9 than they were in seasons 5 and 11.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ted Knight):
— a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Chevy Chase