Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
the new castmembers learn about SNL’s glory days from bedfellow host
— Gail Matthius gets the honors of being the very first new cast member we see, as this sketch opens on a close-up of her waking up in bed.
— Gail calls herself a cross between Gilda and Jane.
— Charles Rocket calls himself a cross between Chevy and Bill, which is an obvious comparison as Jean Doumanian reportedly WANTED viewers to see him as the Chevy/Bill of the new cast.
— Ann Risley calls herself a cross between… Gilda and Laraine??? WTF?
— I’m iffy on the premise of Elliott telling the new cast drug stories about the original SNL and NBC in general, but there are a few okay lines in there, I guess.
— And now Gilbert Gottfried has called himself a cross between John Belushi and “that guy from last year, he did Rod Serling and nobody can remember his name”. Okay, two things: 1) Aww, poor Harry. 2) WHAAAAAT??!?!? How in the world is Gilbert freakin’ Gottfried a hybrid of Belushi and Shearer? I had thought the other newbies’ comparisons to the original cast were off, but THIS takes the cake.
— Denny Dillon gets the honors of delivering the very first LFNY of the new era.
— Overall, I’m not crazy about how this cold opening has started the new season off. Also, if you ask me, it was a bad decision to introduce the new cast by having them compare themselves to the old cast. Things were already automatically going to be tough for these guys, being the first new cast to come in since the beloved originals, so why make direct comparisons between the new and old cast? That’s just setting this cast up to look inferior in the audience’s eyes.
— It also didn’t help that the comparisons were so far off. If I HAD to pick which original cast member each newbie is most similar to, based on what (very) little I’ve seen of this season in the past and based on all the things I’ve read about this season over the years, I’d say: Denny Dillon = Gilda (cast member who specializes in playing the more silly/goofy female roles). Gilbert Gottfried = uhh… I dunno, this is a hard one. I guess Garrett by default, as they’re both kinda the cast’s odd man out. Gail Matthius = Laraine (I’m not sure why, to be honest; I’ve just always viewed them both as similar types). Joe Piscopo = Dan (utility player, great at doing fast-talking commercial pitchmen, a knack for celebrity impressions). Ann Risley = Jane (the straight-laced one of the group). And Charles Rocket = Chevy/Bill (okay, they got THIS one right).
STARS: **
OPENING MONTAGE
— A decent new opening montage. The animated shining lights in some of the still photos look great. The “painting-over” screen transition effect probably comes off cheesy nowadays, but I kinda like it. The montage in general has a slight New Wave vibe that’s very representative of the year 1980, which I find pretty cool.
— I definitely like the new theme music; probably one of the catchier themes the show’s ever had.
— Not crazy about the cast shots.
MONOLOGUE
host shows audience a few of his undergarments, trades for some of DED’s
— The new home base stage is okay, and I like the spiral staircase.
— What was up with Elliott’s entrance? As the elevator on the stage is coming down empty, he rushes down the spiral stairs and then jokingly(?) tries to pretend he’s exiting the elevator. Did something go wrong there? Was he supposed to be in the elevator when it came down, but wasn’t able to get in it in time?
— When listing off some of the crazy things he did on the show in the past, he mentions dressing up as a girl. Which sketch was that? I’ve just reviewed all of the first five seasons and can’t remember any sketches with him in drag.
— Oh, wait, I just remembered the goodnights of his May 1976 episode, where he and the rest of the cast were dressed as cowgirls. I guess that’s what he was referring to.
— Ugh, this underwear-sharing premise is not good.
— And now Denny has shown up to trade underwear with Elliott. It’s not making this monologue any funnier, unfortunately, but it’s noteworthy that between getting to say LFNY just a few minutes ago and now getting to perform alongside the host in the monologue, you’d think Denny is the cast member that Jean Doumanian is trying to push this season.
STARS: *½
THE PETROLEUM COUNCIL
Petroleum Council’s Burma Shave billboard books let you read as you drive
— Heh, I’m kinda liking this premise.
— Overall, a pretty nice and well-done commercial.
STARS: ***½
WHITE HOUSE
Rosalynn (ANR) convinces Jimmy (JOP) Carter to be glad he lost
— Boy, it feels weird seeing new people taking over the impressions of the Carter family, after I’ve gotten so used to seeing the original cast in these roles.
— I guess it wouldn’t have been possible for them to do this sketch in the original era anyway, considering Rosalynn and Amy Carter were both played by Laraine Newman.
— Them talking about Jimmy Carter’s then-recent loss in the 1980 election makes me realize that thanks to this season’s late start (mid-November, people!), we weren’t able to get any election sketches while the presidential race was still going on. That might be a good thing, though, because I’m not sure how these new writers would’ve handled a presidential debate sketch.
— I will say that Denny IS very convincing as a little girl.
— I’m not sure about Joe’s Jimmy Carter impression. I guess it’s not bad, but it’s so generic compared to Dan Aykroyd’s very detailed, spot-on impression.
— Good lord at the part with President Carter blaming the Jews for not voting for him…
— An overly horny Rosalynn Carter? I don’t think I like where this is going.
— WTF at the ending?
STARS: **
SIDE NOTE: Hmm, I see they’re continuing the traditional “Coming up next” caption gags from the previous era.
BILLY-GRAM
(CHR) delivers a singing Billy-Gram to cohabitating couple (host) & (ANR)
— The premise of a singing religious telegram doesn’t seem all that great.
— Man, Charles is pretty hammy in this with his over-the-top facial expressions and delivery.
— That’s the whole sketch??? Wow, this was short!
— I didn’t find this sketch all that great, but I guess it wasn’t too terrible and at least they kept it from running longer than it needed to.
STARS: **½
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY
(GLM) demonstrates breast cancer self-examination dos & don’ts
— Gail’s vague instructions while she’s being obscured by a black bar isn’t all that funny.
— And that’s it? Not much of anything here. Boy, I have NOT been crazy about tonight’s episode so far.
STARS: **
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT
Pinky (DED) & Leo (GIG) Waxman interview host
— Gilbert’s heavy Jewish accent is great.
— I just realized that it feels weird seeing Elliott performing in sketches alongside people who AREN’T the original cast.
— Denny and Gilbert’s characters aren’t bad so far, and I’m seeing potential there.
— I never knew Elliott was once married to Barbra Streisand. It’s hard for me to picture them as a couple.
— Overall, a pretty good sketch with some decent laughs all throughout. This feels like the first live segment I really liked all night.
STARS: ***½
FOOT FETISH
by Randal Kleiser- two shoes have sex on the beach
— Elliott introduces this film by saying it’s the first in a series of “Short Shots”, which is apparently going to be this era’s name for the short film portions of the show.
— Hilarious seeing the stop-motion wild sex between the two shoes.
— Another very funny gag with the female shoe giving birth to a smaller shoe.
— Yet another inspired gag with a doctor cutting the newborn shoe’s shoelace as if it’s an umbilical cord.
— Overall, wow, that was great.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Mister Softee”
WEEKEND UPDATE
GLM can’t bring herself to tell John Anderson (JOP) that he didn’t win
The Rocket Report- CHR tries to get the scoop on the new Lennon-Ono album
author (GIG) claims his book proves that Ronald Reagan is already dead
— Here we go…
— Something about the new Update atmosphere feels dead with the way tonight’s Update has begun. Feels like something’s missing (and no, I don’t mean Jane and Bill).
— Why are there two screens on the Update set?
— That Shirley Temple Black joke was just plain BAD.
— Man, we’re a few jokes in and I have yet to laugh at any of them so far.
— Hmm, Gail as an Update reporter in a remote segment. I knew she had similarities to Laraine!
— Haha, Joe is really funny as an out-of-it John B. Anderson. I can’t judge the accuracy of the impression, having no familiarity with the real John B. Anderson beyond his silent cameo in the previous season’s Teri Garr episode, but it does seem like Joe’s going for accuracy with the voice and mannerisms.
— Hmm, a joke about Chevy Chase. Seems that Chevy caused some controversy at the time by publicly calling Cary Grant a “homo”. Oh, Chevy’s up to his old tricks, I see…
— Boy, I am not liking Charles’ delivery of the Update jokes.
— Oh, man, the whole Saturn rings audio sample bit was AWFUL.
— Ah, the debut of “Rocket Report”. Supposedly, from all the things I’ve read about this season, the Rocket Report segments are where Charles is really in his element this season.
— Pretty funny with Charles trying to interview garbagemen about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s garbage.
— Overall, the Rocket Report debut was a success, and Charles came off really well in it.
— And now we’re back to bad Update jokes, unfortunately. That Anita Bryant “homosexuals do it in a cage” joke was another dreadful one.
— Wow, that one joke got absolutely no audience response just now.
— We get our very first desk piece of the new Update era. Gilbert Gottfried gets the honors.
— Why the heck does Charles keep correcting people who call him “Charlie”? This is the second time he’s done it in tonight’s Update, and both times, it came off awkward and got no response from the audience.
— Gilbert’s performance was pretty funny overall, but the commentary itself was only okay.
— “Good night and… watch out.” I kinda like the idea of that as the new Update tagline, but Charles’ delivery of it was way too cocky for my likes.
— Overall, man, that was rough. If this is the new direction Update will be going in for the rest of the season, we are in big trouble. And one of the very few highlights, Rocket Report, soon gets spun-off into a standalone segment in the show, so there goes one of the only things the new Update has going for it.
STARS: **
AT ONE WITH…
sergeant (JOP) drills a member of the Gay Brigade (CHR)
— Another talk show sketch tonight?
— The “Gay Brigade”? Uh-oh…
— Joe and Charles are great with all their fast-paced back-and-forths. They’re giving me some really good laughs.
— Ugh, that line about Fort Dix being where the gay soldiers are stationed was a groanworthy joke.
— Overall, I’m not too sure about the material itself, but man, I absolutely LOVED Joe and Charles’ performances & delivery.
STARS: ****
HEART TO HEART
by Mitchell Kriegman- relationship-induced change seen
— When this started, I almost thought the girl in bed was Laraine Newman. I guess I still haven’t gotten used to not seeing the old cast.
— The subtlety of the girl being played by a slightly different-looking actress every time the camera cuts back to her is pretty funny and is being executed well.
— Ha, funny how the change in actresses has gradually become more and more obvious, culminating in a heavier woman being cast in the role during the final scene.
— An overall good film.
STARS: ***
SNL SPORTS
JOP does play-by-play for the nose wrestling bout between (host) & (CHR)
— Right off the bat in his first episode, we get the debut of Joe Piscopo’s SNL sportscaster persona. I wasn’t expecting to see that so early in his SNL tenure. His delivery here is a little more generic than it would later go on to be.
— Oh my god at this premise.
— Geez, we get yet ANOTHER unnecessary racial joke tonight, with the line about nose wrestling being dominated by Italians and Jews. (*groan*)
— Despite my initial iffiness towards the premise, this nose wrestling bit does have a bit of a strange charm to it.
STARS: ***
DATE
40 year-old (host) has an awkward dinner date with teenager Vickie (GLM)
— Elliott just called Gail “Vicky”. Is this gonna be the debut of Gail’s Valley Girl character?
— Okay, she said “grody” just now. Yep, this IS the Valley Girl character.
— I’m still seeing some of Laraine in Gail, as I can DEFINITELY picture Laraine doing a character like this.
— Some of the audience members are getting a kick out of Gail’s character. I have read that this character was considered somewhat groundbreaking for its time, as the valley girl craze hadn’t blown up just yet.
— What the heck kinda shirt is Gail wearing? I can’t tell what the picture on it is supposed to be.
— Funny line from Gail about her Marine boyfriend being “sort of black”.
— Overall, this seemed like this was going to be a nice character piece for Gail, but the sketch ended up being pretty flat. Nothing interesting really happened. I’m hoping this character’s future appearances are an improvement.
STARS: **
THE ACCORDION KILLER
(GLM) goes undercover to trap musical menace (CHR)
— I like the police station set-up with Elliott and Gilbert. This seems like it could be a good mini-movie mock-thriller sketch.
— This sketch is now starting to have a very Land Shark vibe to it.
— Gail playing a character with her own first name. Reminds me of when the original cast often did that back in season 1.
— Funny climax with the police officers coming in playing bagpipes, which causes Charles’ character to die.
— Overall, not bad, even if it was basically a poor man’s Land Shark.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “There But For The Grace of God Go I”
GIDGETTE GOES TO HELL
by Jonathan Demme- shark eats surfer chick
— This is introduced by Elliott as being our second “Short Shot” of the night.
— Very interesting format. Again, much like this season’s new opening montage, this short has kind of a 1980 New Wave music video feel that I’m liking.
— Overall, a weird short, but I enjoyed it and found it interesting to see where it was going.
— Strange that two of the three short films tonight have taken place on the beach.
STARS: ***
SPEED LISTENING
speed listener (DED) relaxes efficiently with accelerated music
— This speed-listening premise is pretty funny and is something I can picture the original cast doing.
— Denny’s “half-fast/half-assed way of listening to music” line was good.
— The short lengths of the songs listed in the screen crawl is worth a few good laughs.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
host introduces cast & announces they’ll “be around forever”
— Elliott re-introduces each cast member by first name.
— There’s Elliott’s now-ironic “We’re gonna be around forever” statement about the new cast. IIRC, Steve Martin would later make a similar ironic statement during the goodnights when he hosted the premiere of the infamous season 20.
— Oh, wow, I forgot that the goodnights music this season is different. Man, it’s weird to see an SNL episode ending with anything that’s NOT the traditional goodnights music we’re all so familiar with.
— The live version of this episode, which I’m reviewing, cuts the goodnights off pretty early, so I can’t really give a critique yet on the quality of the new goodnights theme. I recall kinda liking it when seeing a few episodes from this season years ago.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Well, there it is. Man, I feel so weird after watching this episode, considering how I had gotten so used to reviewing the original SNL era.
— I surprisingly didn’t dislike this overall episode as much as I was expecting to. While the episode had a very rough start during the first 20 minutes or so, the show slowly got a little better as it went along. The post-Update half featured quite a lot of stuff that I found decent. Overall, while not great by any means, the new SNL era is showing at least a little promise so far. Right before I watched this episode, a very small part of me was worried I’d break down halfway through the episode, whining “I miss my old cast!!! It ain’t the same without them!!!” Instead, I ended up experiencing a feeling of excitement watching and reviewing a new SNL era after only reviewing the first five seasons.
— I am aware that the alleged awfulness of season 6 supposedly doesn’t start fully kicking in until a few episodes into the season, when all the bad press the season soon starts getting begins to negatively affect the mood of the show.
— A bad trend I noticed throughout the night that I’m worried will be a trend throughout the whole season is reliance on overly-corny humor and unnecessary racial jokes. Also, it looks like I’m gonna be in for one difficult season of Weekend Update.
— I was surprised at the large number of segments in this episode. So many quick sketches and various films stuffed into a 90-minute episode, which reminds me of how the early episodes from season 1 were so jam-packed with MANY segments and had so much variety. Feels kinda nice to see that again, after I had gotten so used to the longer sketch format from seasons 4 and 5.
— Elliott Gould was not utilized well AT ALL tonight. He seemed to be cast in nothing but dull straight roles all night, and he looked out of his element with this new cast. A shame we weren’t able to see the charm that he always had when hosting in the original era.
— Of the new cast, I’d say that Joe, Gilbert, and Denny seem to be the cast members who I’m looking most forward to seeing more of, just based on how they performed in this episode. I think I’m gonna like Gail as well, but it’s a shame that the two sketches that showcased her tonight (American Cancer Society and Date) weren’t good. Charles already seems to be getting pushed as the “star” of the new cast, but I’m iffy on him; his mugging & cheesy delivery in Billy-Gram and his cockiness & weak delivery on Update were all off-putting to me. I see SOME potential in him, though, as I liked his performance in the Rocket Report segment and his delivery in Gay Brigade. As for the remaining cast member, Ann, I couldn’t form any kind of opinion on her at all. She’s the only one who left me with no impression.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1979-80):
— a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Malcolm McDowell. A very notorious episode, as, until more recent decades, it was widely considered to be the definitive “worst SNL ever”.