January 24, 1981 – Robert Hays / Joe “King” Carrasco & The Crowns, 14 Karat Soul (S6 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Iranian hostages’ return won’t mean the end for Ted Koppel’s (JOP) show

  

— Here’s the “America Not Held Hostage Anymore” cold opening that I recently said a season 5 cold opening (“Carter Held Hostage”) reminded me of.
— I’m disappointed in Joe’s Ted Koppel impression. It’s coming off very bland and generic, and just sounds like Joe’s normal voice.
— Funny bit with Koppel’s announcement about how they’ll be spending each week profiling a different hostage. “With 52, that should kill a year.”
— Awkward scene with Ann whining at the press outside her door. Her acting came off pretty bad (as usual).
— That’s it? This cold opening felt a little too short and they could’ve done much more with this.
STARS: **½

MONOLOGUE
host alters his delivery by monitoring on-screen instant Nielsen ratings

 

— Seem to be a lot of monologues this season that immediately begin with with the hosts trying way too hard to hype up the audience. Some people have had a theory that The Powers That Be were telling the hosts to do this, out of desperation due to how poorly this season was doing and how much the show was getting slaughtered in the press.
— Hmm, the Nielsen rating number on the screen going back and forth in reaction to what Robert’s saying. I liked this premise better the first time, when Buck Henry did it once back in the original era. Why have some of the recent monologues been feeling derivative of monologues from the 70s, like how Karen Black’s monologue had the same premise as Chevy Chase’s season 3 monologue? (though I did like Karen’s a little better)
STARS: **

DAZOLA
(DED) says psilocybin is what makes Dazola mushroom spread a-maize-ing

 

— This seems to be the sister sketch to the “Dopenhagen” bit from earlier this season with David Carradine, right down to the whole idea of taking the first letter of a real brand name (Copenhagen, Mazola) and replacing it with a ‘d’.
— That’s Patrick Weathers in the red costume (a tomato), right? I thought I saw it listed in some places that Matthew Laurance plays the tomato in this, but that sure doesn’t look like him to me.
— Overall, not much to say about this. Despite the drug premise, this ended up being nothing special.
STARS: **

LOVE AMERICAN STYLE
host has a date with an inflatable prostitute

 

— Robert’s pretty funny with his eagerly pulling the blow-up doll’s string to hear the remainder of its sultry sentences.
— Hilarious ending with an inflatable black pimp showing up.
STARS: ***

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE SPORTS CENTRAL
Asteroids pro Eddie Atari (EDM) shoots space rocks & the Goodyear Blimp

   

— Oh, it’s the Eddie Atari sketch that I’ve always wanted to see!
— I love seeing those old-school early 80s video game graphics.
— Great unique use of Eddie.
— I liked the “What keeps you going?” “Quarters!” exchange between Matthew and Eddie.
— Fun sketch so far.
— Always funny hearing an “Oh, the humanity!” reference.
— Overall, not the classic I was expecting, but still a very enjoyable sketch.
STARS: ****

REAGANCO
look to Reaganco brand products for wallpaper, linoleum tiles, cosmetics

 

— This season continues it’s streak of having Charles and/or Joe play a pitchman once an episode; a streak that I believe started in the third episode of the season.
— The corpse comment about Reagan was pretty funny.
— Overall, an okay ad.
STARS: ***

SAVE-A-NETWORK TELETHON
JOP, ANR, DOP invite viewers to pledge a premise

     

— Interesting idea.
— I like the idea of desperately asking viewers to call in and “pledge a premise” to the struggling NBC.
— The NBC products Ann is showing reminds me of the Reaganco thing we just saw right before this.
— I recognize the deli worker as SNL’s cue card guy from these early eras. I remember seeing him in Jodie Foster’s season 2 monologue and in Chevy Chase’s aforementioned season 3 monologue.
— No idea what to think of Joe’s now un-PC line about the show Pink Lady & Jeff having a “Jap theme”. I guess this wouldn’t be a season 6 episode without at least one bad racial joke.
— Great one-liner from the cameraman, where he responds to Joe asking what NBC means to him by saying “I don’t want to lose my job, Joe”.
— An on-screen appearance from Don Pardo!
— It always feels so weird to see the familiar Pardo voice actually coming out of the man himself.
STARS: ***½

PRE-SUPERBOWL PRE-GAME PREVIEW
(host), (ANR), (CHR) spout silly hype

— The laughs from the audience are mild at best so far. I personally haven’t been laughing AT ALL yet.
— And it’s over. Overall, I could not have been more bored by this sketch.
STARS: *½

THE FOREIGN FILM
by William Dear- (Michael Nesmith) speaks nonsense

 

— Ha, I’m liking how the subtitles on the bottom of screen are phonetically spelling out the foreign dialogue instead of translating it.
— Okay, is that the ONLY joke in this? The joke ain’t as funny after the first 15 seconds.
— Oh, man, apparently it IS the only joke in this. This is going NOWHERE.
STARS: *½

FUNERAL
sports organist Harry Osborne [real] fills in at a funeral service

   

— Who’s that as the organ player?
— Haha, this is pretty funny with him playing inappropriate sports anthems at the funeral.
— Loved the part with an off-camera piano “slide” sound being heard when the casket top was closed and then re-opened.
— I’m not liking Charles’ delivery here as the exasperated straight man. Something about his performance is bugging me.
— Wait, that was Gilbert playing the dead body in the casket the whole time? Poor guy. Why couldn’t they have just used a dummy, an extra, or even one of the male featured players? No wonder Gilbert’s developed such a sullen, sourpuss attitude these last few episodes. The show’s misuse of his talents seems to be getting worse and worse as the season goes on.
STARS: ***½

WEEKEND UPDATE
CHR tries to elicit an apology from an Ayatollah Khomeini mannequin
Tiffany Fleur (ANR) emcees a fashion show for engineering students
JOP derides Super Bowl XV teams, predicts outcome via electric football
frozen assets prevent EDM from recovering $80 spent on undelivered dope

         

— A pretty dead start to Update tonight, with Charles’ string of opening jokes getting tepid audience reactions.
— Isn’t that the same dummy of The Ayatollah that Bill Murray did a segment with in an Update from the previous season? (side-by-side comparison below) Ugh, so not only has Charles Rocket been aping Bill Murray’s persona all season, but now he’s flat-out doing cheap knockoffs of Bill’s bits too?

 

— Boy, that Ayatollah bit was just plain stupid. Gail’s little addition to it afterwards didn’t help, either.
— So far, Gail’s Update jokes tonight have been getting a better audience reaction than Charles’.
— Spoke too soon. Gail’s Eldridge Cleaver joke just now was TERRIBLE and noticeably received loud groans from the audience.
— Yet ANOTHER Update commentary from Ann? Man, why does SNL keep trying to make Ann Risley happen?
— The nerd fashion show bit is okay.
— Funny sight gag with one of the nerd models having a pocket protector glued to his bare chest.
— Overall, hey, Ann’s bit actually wasn’t too bad for once! However, I’m sure that’s due to the fact that most of the focus wasn’t on her. However, her delivery didn’t come off stilted or flat for once.
— Here’s our weekly Joe Piscopo SNL Sports commentary.
— Joe’s “who cares?” assessment of the two Super Bowl teams is pretty funny.
— Okay, I’m starting to get a little tired of Joe’s gimmick with him bringing out some kind of sports toy during his Update commentaries. This is, what, the third or fourth time he’s done that so far?
— At the beginning of Eddie’s commentary, he actually stops the audience from applauding by telling them to hold it. Not sure what that was all about, but I laughed. Eddie just has a way of making little things like that funny to me.
— Hilarious with Eddie revealing he’s holding his Iranian reefer dealer hostage.
— I also liked Eddie’s line about freezing his “assets” off.
— Tonight’s overall Update was a big step down. After a promising upswing in quality with Charles and Gail’s jokes in the preceding episode’s Update, I see we’re back to the usual dreariness.
STARS: **

DISCO MELTDOWN
dance club at nuclear plant is Dena Disco’s (DED) hangout

 

— Denny Dillon as “Deena Disco”.
— Hmm, disco was still around in 1981?
— Denny: “(singing) My shoes are disco, my hair is disco, even my handwriting is disco!” Are they kidding me with this stuff?
— What am I even watching??? Where’s the joke?
— A disco being held at a nuclear power plant. I usually enjoy random sketch premises in this vein, but this particular one is coming off just plain dumb and is lacking actual good humor.
— Overall, boy, this was awful. This is pretty much the type of bad sketch I always imagined season 6 was filled with before I started doing reviews of this season.
STARS: *

ROCKET REPORT
CHR purports to give Ronald Reagan’s daily itinerary

   

— The audience is very unresponsive so far. I’m not finding this film too great myself.
— The horse being named “Darkie” – ugh, yet ANOTHER example of unnecessary racial humor in season 6.
— Overall, wow, I couldn’t find anything good to really say about this. This just came and went without any really good moments standing out. Definitely a big step down from the usually strong Rocket Reports.
STARS: **

THE PACESETTER
(JOP) demonstrates how The Pacesetter can jolt amateur theater to life

   

— When the camera first cut to Ann, I almost thought that was Karen Black at first. Something about Ann’s hair in this and the way her face looked with her head thrown back like that. I guess I still have Karen Black on the brain after having just reviewed an SNL episode she hosted.
— I like the premise of jolting an actor with an electric shock to make them speed up the pacing.
— Okay, well, THAT sure died off fast. Much like the Foreign Film earlier tonight, this went from “funny” to “that’s the ONLY joke???” really fast.
— In the shots of Joe in the studio audience, you can see just how dead tonight’s audience is. They look pretty subdued compared to how SNL audiences are usually seen.
STARS: **

RAVI SINGS
Ravi Shankar (PAW) interprets American romantic ballads on his new album

 

— Oh my god at the make-up on Patrick Weathers. And the only reason I’m aware that this is Patrick Weathers is because of some reviews I read of this sketch in the past. Well, that and the fact that Patrick’s making the same over-the-top bug-eyed facial expressions that he made as a tomato earlier tonight in the Dazola sketch. (a side-by-side comparison is below) Otherwise, I never would’ve been able to tell that’s him in this sketch. I mean, I’ve already been having a hard enough time recognizing him in his normal look, so how would I have recognized him under all that heavy dark make-up?

 

— Is… is he lip-syncing? Why?
— Is there even a joke in this? What IS this??? What are they going for here??? God, you’re killing me with tonight’s episode, SNL.
STARS: *

CUT ‘N’ CURL
Reagan dispute teases out differences of opinion between Roweena & Nadine

   

— I remember liking this sketch last time it appeared earlier this season.
— What the hell? What was with the “$40,000” and all that “Dream Date” text that suddenly flashed on-screen for a few seconds? (screencaps below) Must be a technical error involving on-screen text that’s supposed to be displayed for a later sketch in this episode.

 

— Hmm, what’s with Gail’s aside to the camera? They didn’t do this last time this sketch appeared.
— Now Denny’s doing the “aside to the camera” thing. What is the point of all that? I’m not liking it.
— Overall, a very strange installment of this sketch, and a big step down from these characters’ first appearance. Almost nothing worked in this. And it probably would’ve helped if there were a third person for Gail and Denny to play off of, like how the first one had Jamie Lee Curtis’ New Wave-ish character.
STARS: *½

EDDIE’S PROMOTION
EDM claims that his promotion to full SNL castmember won’t go to his head

  

— An announcement from Eddie that he has been promoted from a featured player to an official cast member. Very good news, and this promotion was LONG overdue. And nice applause from the audience in response to this announcement.
— He was still credited as a featured player earlier tonight in the opening montage, but I’m assuming he’ll start being credited with the main cast in the next episode.
— Funny ending with him disproving his claim that he won’t “go Hollywood”.
— As a rule, I don’t give a rating to segments like this, though I wish I could considering how much better this segment is than the last handful of dreadful sketches.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)

DREAM DATE
(CHR) tells how to send in $40,000 for a chance at a Dream Date

  

— Oh, so THIS is what that technical error from the “Cut ‘N’ Curl” sketch was all about.
— What the hell? This was yet another sketch tonight that came and went with me not getting any laughs from the so-called humor.
STARS: *

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
14 Karat Soul performs “I Wish That We Were Married”
14 Karat Soul performs “This Time It’s For Real”

NATIONAL ENQUIRER
National Enquirer editorial board makes tough decisions about next issue

   

— Joe’s line about a one-winged bird who only flies in circles kinda made me laugh. It’s probably an old joke that’s been around for ages, but I’ve never heard it before, and at this point of tonight’s dreary episode, I am so desperate for ANY laughs.
— Yet another sketch where Gilbert says his lines with a monotone, drawn-out, half-assed delivery. When I think back on how energetic he looked in the early episodes of the season and then see how increasingly miserable he’s become in the last few episodes, it reminds me so much of Janeane Garofalo’s stint on the show years later during season 20 (another infamous season) – how she started that season looking energetic and happy in her performances, and then a turning point came with the Sarah Jessica Parker episode where, from that point on, Garofalo’s misery from working on the show and the contempt she had for some of her castmates was written all over her face in every sketch and she no longer put any energy into her performances, coming off as a monotone sourpuss in almost everything. We’re seeing the EXACT SAME THING with Gilbert this season.
— “Cripples are big now.” Ugh, just STOP with the poor attempts at offensive shock humor, season 6.
— A lot of this sketch is falling completely flat for me.
— Another ugh at that bad low-brow ending with the guys agreeing to do a piece romantically linking Desi Arnaz Sr. and Jr. to each other.
— Overall, yet ANOTHER terrible sketch tonight with almost no laughs. Man, tonight’s episode has been dying a miserable death.
STARS: *½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Joe ‘King’ Carrasco & The Crowns performs “Don’t Bug Me Baby”

GOODNIGHTS

 

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Man, what a rough night. This is like the type of episode most people probably automatically think of whenever season 6 gets mentioned. I’ve been finding out through doing these reviews that this season wasn’t quite as horrible as legend has it, but this particular episode was bad enough to almost make me forget that. Though thinking back on the first half of the episode, while it certainly had its share of bad segments, there were actually some inspired, funny sketches scattered throughout it, mainly Eddie Atari and Save-A-Network Telethon. But damn, what the hell happened afterward? Once Update showed up, that seemed to officially kill any momentum that was left and the show never recovered. The post-Update half of the show was absolutely DIRE, with one dud after another, and a very bored-sounding (and looking) studio audience. Some of the least funniest sketches of the whole season were in the second half of tonight’s episode alone.
— It’s a shame that after the preceding week’s surprisingly strong Karen Black episode, the weaknesses of season 6 came back with a vengeance tonight. And the real worrisome thing is, as bad as this episode was, I’ve heard that the next episode is supposedly even worse.
— Robert Hays was a very bland, unmemorable host. Did absolutely nothing of note tonight. Well, he was decent in the Love American Style sketch, I’ll give him that.
— The copy of this episode I reviewed is missing a short sketch titled “Ordinary Elephant People”, which is a fake promo for a TV movie about an Elephant Man-esque family. I saw that sketch years ago and recall not finding it anything special, though it wasn’t terrible. The most noteworthy thing I remember about it is that Gilbert Gottfried uses his now-recognizable screechy voice, yet he STILL manages to come off sounding monotone and depressed in it.  Man, working on the show this season is DESTROYING that man.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Karen Black):
— a huge step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Sally Kellerman