March 8, 1980 – Rodney Dangerfield / The J. Geils Band (S5 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
host gets little respect from dressing room hog Father Guido Sarducci

   

— Weird seeing a Rodney Dangerfield/Father Guido Sarducci interaction sketch.
— I’m not caring for this. The whole ‘Sarducci moving in, helping Jane with money issues, and introducing an Italian family’ thing just isn’t funny to me. To say nothing of how burned out I am on seeing Father Guido Sarducci in general this season.
— Nice transition to the opening montage, by initially showing it start up on the TV monitor.
STARS: **

OPENING MONTAGE
— Strangely, there’s no saxophone heard at all during the theme music tonight, which is very unusual for SNL. Is the SNL Band’s sax player out sick, or is he there but just not miked very well? The theme music in general has a strange muffled sound to it tonight.

MONOLOGUE
host does self-deprecating stand-up, solicits OK signs from audience

  

— I already know I’m gonna love this.
— A particularly great one-liner from Rodney about sticking his head out the window and getting arrested for mooning.
— The audience gives automatic recognition applause when Rodney says his “no respect” catchphrase.
— Another particularly great one-liner that killed me was the one about Rodney’s son putting Krazy Glue in Rodney’s Preparation H.
— The whole part with Rodney sincerely asking the audience to give him the “okay” hand sign for when he’ll walk off was very interesting, and took this monologue into an unexpected direction.
— Overall, an excellent monologue.
STARS: *****

THE NIGGERRAND
invest in the Niggerand, the gold coin mined by South African laborers

 

— Uh, wow, what a premise.
— Part of the reason why this is working is the way a premise like this is being played so straight in typical Harry Shearer fashion.
— I liked the line about “the gift that keeps on grinning”.
STARS: ***½

DR. SHOCKLEY’S HOUSE OF SPERM
host dreams he’s the most popular donor at Dr. Shockley’s House of Sperm

     

— Another sketch that has me saying “Wow, what a premise”.
— I like the names of other sperm banks Bill mentioned (“Jizz World”, “Jelly Barn”).
— Loved Bill showing the group of sperm samples from the U.S. Olympic hockey team.
— Rodney’s involvement is making this even better.
— Haha, Rodney slipping in a few more of his stand-up jokes.
— The scene with Garrett and Yvonne Hudson is good, especially Bill explaining to them that Tony Orlando is the closest to a black donor he has available for them.
— Funny how this is turning into everybody requesting Rodney as a donor.
— I love how there’s randomly a Nazi couple among the crowd of people at the store.
— I didn’t care for the ending. A disappointing way to end an otherwise very good sketch.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Love Stinks”

WEEKEND UPDATE
BIM interviews Jerry Mathers & Tony Dow [real] about Vietnam death rumor
Father Guido Sarducci interviews an Italian who underwent a race change

     

— Good callback to the famous Generalissimo Francisco Franco running joke from the Chevy era.
— WTF? What was with Bill’s off-camera “Remember these two guys?” while the camera is still on Jane?
— Oh, now we see what happened: Bill had mistakenly started his next bit too early before Jane did the second part of her two-part Francisco Franco joke. Some good laughs from that blooper.
— An interview with Jerry Mathers and Tony Dow. Boy, do they look weird with grown-out late 70s hairstyles.
— Mathers and Dow acting like their “Leave it to Beaver” characters is pretty cute, if not all that hilarious.
— Ouch, Jane’s traffic deaths/births joke didn’t get ANY laughs from the audience. I was hoping to get a good ad-lib from her out of that, but she instead just moved on to the next joke.
— *groan* The season 5 oversaturation of Father Guido Sarducci continues…
— Ugh, this whole Italian conversation between Sarducci and the other guy is a chore to sit through.
— Okay, I got a minor laugh from Sarducci’s line about Greek people who want to have a nationality-change operation into Arabs. The rest of this commentary is a waste, though.
— Jane ends Update by kindly saying “Goodnight, Walter”, as yet another reference to the running joke about her and Walter Cronkite.
STARS: **½

MANHASSET
(host)’s relationship with 10 year-old (LAN) mirrors Manhattan

     

— Rodney’s opening narration was funny at first, but went way too long (even if that was the point).
— Why is the opening city montage continuing to go on for a ridiculously long time, even after Rodney’s narration stopped?
— If this is supposed to be set in modern day, why is this in black-and-white?
— Geez, this premise is creepy. Rodney having a relationship with a 10 year old???
— I’m starting to think this is a parody of an actual movie that I’m only vaguely familiar with. (ADDENDUM: it’s Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”)
— I’m not caring for this so far.
— The cheap look of Bill and Rodney “walking” in front of a chroma-key screen is almost funny in itself.
— Rodney’s joke about finding a guy at the bottom of his waterbed was hilarious, and felt like the first big laugh I got from this whole sketch so far.
— “The End”. Finally, it’s over. Man, I got very little enjoyment out of this whole sketch, especially the longer and longer it went on (and, boy, was this a long sketch). The uncomfortable pedophilia premise didn’t help, either… which is odd, because I always laugh at the Uncle Roy sketches with Buck Henry. Not sure why the pedophilia premise works for me there, but bothered me here.
STARS: *½

ROAD TO MOSCOW
Curt Gowdy (HAS) & athletes mull USA Olympic boycott

 

— Geez, this entire sketch came and went with me being very bored and finding absolutely NOTHING to note for this review. I didn’t laugh a single time here. I think that preceding Pedophilia sketch soured my whole mood for this episode.
STARS: *

100TH EPISODE
GIR & JAC tell viewers that next week’s SNL will be the 100th episode

— Jane and Gilda are wearing the same robes they wore in their strange interlude during the Micro-Dentists sketch from the last episode.
— Oh, this is an announcement of next week’s episode being SNL’s milestone 100th episode.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)

SUBSTITUTE JUDGE
people in court play schoolroom pranks on a substitute judge (BDM)

     

— This is a well-known sketch that I’ve never seen for myself until now. Considering the bad mood the last few sketches put me in, I could use a strong sketch right about now.
— I liked all the off-camera murmuring of “crotch???” when the court heard that “Crotch” is the substitute judge’s last name.
— Future one-time SNL host Rob Morrow appears in this as one of the background jurors, which he would later memorably point out in his monologue.
— I like this premise of treating a substitute judge like a substitute teacher.
— Gilda sneakily returning the gavel is hilarious.
— I wonder if this sketch was written by the same person who wrote that Thanksgiving dinner kids table sketch from earlier this season. They’re both in a similar vein.
— Rodney’s immature one-liners are cracking me up.
— What the hell’s that loud buzzing sound while Brian’s speaking right now?
— Oh, it’s everybody in the court humming.
— Overall, a fun and very solid sketch.
STARS: ****½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sanctuary”

AMERICA ON THE JOB
American Garment Inspectors Association is saluted

   

— Ah, I recognize Peter Aykroyd’s voice as the narrator, based on how much the narrator sounds like Peter’s brother Dan.
— And now we see for ourselves that it IS Peter. I thought this was just going to be an off-camera narrator role for him, but it turns out he’s actually playing a spokesman. Interesting role for him.
— Is this Gilda’s “I clean up, okay?” recurring character?
— Strange sketch.
— Yikes, Peter may have his brother’s great spokesman-type voice, but he sure doesn’t have his brother’s impeccable delivery or straight man skills. Peter’s coming off fairly stumbly with his lines, and he almost cracked up at one point. Is this why he usually doesn’t get much airtime?
— Uh, what exactly was the point of this whole sketch? This was another sketch tonight where there wasn’t anything worth noting about the actual content.
STARS: *½

GOODNIGHTS

 

— Everybody onstage and in the audience is giving Rodney the “okay” hand sign, as a classy callback to his monologue.

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Yet another fairly disappointing episode from the second half of season 5. While the memorable House of Sperm and Substitute Judge sketches were a riot, not to mention Rodney’s stand-up monologue, there wasn’t really anything else worth bragging about. The show especially hit a really bad lull around the middle, with two back-to-back sketches that I hated (Manhasset and Road To Moscow). This was also yet another season 5 episode that suffered from too much Father Guido Sarducci.
— This overall episode was nowhere near as funny as a Rodney Dangerfield-hosted SNL should be. Rodney himself was fine as host, but I wish he instead hosted during a better season.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kirk Douglas):
— a slight step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
SNL’s 100th episode! Hosted by… no one!