February 20, 1982 – Bruce Dern / Luther Vandross (S7 E12)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
host advises TIK to be realistic about his movie prospects

— Nice to see a backstage cold opening this season.  Also interesting to see what the door that the hosts make their entrance through for the talent entrances/monologues looks like from the inside.
— Bruce’s negative comments about Tim’s looks are pretty funny.
— Weak LFNY substitute with Tim starting the show by halfheartedly saying “Roll the montage” into the camera.
STARS: ***

TALENT ENTRANCE

 

— Love the way this transitioned into the next sketch with the camera panning over to the next set as Bruce walked over to it.

SKI DATE
(host) accidentally agrees to take (MAG)’s dog on a ski trip

— The set-up to whatever the main joke is going to be sure is long.
— Some of the reveals about Mary’s dog are fairly funny.
— Not sure whether to find that “I guess you couldn’t call her a complete dog” ending funny or weak.
— Not too great of a lead-off sketch, overall.
STARS: **

WHO DO YOU HATE?
people on the street answer the question “Who do you hate?”

   

— The debut of the man-on-the-street segments, which would go on to be recurring throughout the Ebersol era.
— Some laughs from the celebrities, politicians, and TV shows that people are saying they hate.
— Very funny part with the black guy’s argument that black people and Puerto Ricans have more fun than blondes.
— Some more good laughs from one guy saying a whole bunch of bad things about his mother-in-law.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)

FOCUS ON FILM
Raheem Abdul Muhammed denies that his buddy is homosexual

 

— First time Raheem Abdul Muhammed has been used outside of SNL’s news segment.
— Also the first appearance of Eddie’s real-life friend Clint Smith, who would become a frequent SNL extra in this era.
— Eddie’s constant gay panic when catching himself saying ambiguous things about Clint is pretty funny.
— The “Clint I’m sorry I thought you were a homosexual” mail address at the end was great.
— For some reason, I find it amusing in itself how Clint didn’t say a single word during the whole sketch.
STARS: ***

THE BIZARRO WORLD
NBC programming is unchanged in the backward dimension

     

— I’m surprised to see another installment of this sketch at this point of the season, because I thought the recently-fired Michel O’Donoghue was the writer behind the earlier installment of this.
— The opening narration bit doesn’t work as well with Bruce in the role; Mr. Mike was much more suitable for it.
— The scene with Bizarro Alan Alda was very funny.
— Amusing how Bizarro NBC is the same as real-life then-present NBC, as a pointed satire of the network’s troubles and asinine decisions at the time.
— Funny in hindsight seeing the execs talk about how absurd the idea was of giving David Letterman a late-night show (which had debuted very recently at the time) after the infamous failure of his morning show. If they only knew……
— Another good comment making fun of the absurd practice of hiring Jewish writers for black sitcoms.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Never Too Much”

SNL NEWSBREAK
after much prodding, MAG makes public her affair with BDM
novelty of chopper flight dominates CHE’s traffic report
JOP reports on what’s going on in sports- nothing

     

— On-again off-again anchorperson Mary Gross is back at the desk as a co-anchor tonight. I guess they’re doing this as a follow-up to the end of the last episode’s Newsbreak where Mary and Brian fell in love.
— Yep, they’re making Mary and Brian’s romance a story arc. Still not finding it all that funny.
— Is that Tom Schiller as the guitarist? (second screencap above) Between the short film he did earlier this season and now this appearance, I’m confused over his involvement in this season. Is he on the writing staff this season and I didn’t know it?
— Christine’s traffic report was just as big a waste of time as her weather segments usually are.
— Joe’s hyped-up SNL Sports commentary turning out to just be him announcing that nothing is currently going on in sports was good for a quick laugh.
STARS: **

SONGWRITERS
songwriters Schleimer (JOP) & Laub (TIK) have trouble selling their work

  

— Tim and Joe’s song titles that they’re listing off are pretty funny, especially “The Lindbergh Baby Polka”.
— I really liked Christine’s sudden dissatisfied “No, I don’t think so” immediately after passionately singing the whole song she was given.
— A pretty solid sketch overall, with a nice old-timey Vaudeville-esque charm to it.
STARS: ***½

THE MILD ONE
a Zen-inspired biker (host) verbally dissects diner patrons

   

— I liked Joe’s angry “You scum” remark to Bruce after Bruce’s gentle poetic speech about a rose.
— Funny sudden turn with Christine’s “You’re a flop in the sack” revelation about Joe.
— I’m enjoying all the mock-dramatic, mock-tense acting from everyone.
— Overall, not much else to say about this, but a decent sketch.
STARS: ***

FRACAS
by Timothy Hittle- a battle between a man & a claymation foe

— I already covered this in my review of the Bill Murray episode. This was actually originally aired in tonight’s episode.
ORIGINAL RATING: ****

FLYING
an unstable pilot (host) makes his passengers nervous

 

— A good laugh from Bruce’s “dropping acid” comment.
— Was something censored just now? In the copy of the episode I’m watching (the West Coast airing of the original live broadcast), the audio briefly got muted when Bruce said “How long you been (blank) my little mama here?”
— And now, Bruce again got censored when repeating the line. Looks like “screwing” was the muted-out word.
— Overall, while the premise had potential and the performances were fine, the resulting sketch was pretty “meh”.
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “A House Is Not A Home”

MELINA’S CAFE
while entertaining at her cafe, Melina (ROD) makes her troubles known

 

— Looks like a good character piece for Robin, which will be refreshing to see considering how underutilized she’s been the last few episodes.
— Haha, her angry heavy-accented quick singing of “I Know What Boys Like ” gave me some good laughs.
— Her whole “I love you, I hate you” bit with Tony is being pulled off well.
— Overall, a pretty good closing sketch.
STARS: ***

GOODNIGHTS

 

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An okay episode, but also fairly forgettable. Barely anything really stood out; almost the entire show hovered around the “average/pretty good” range, and never went above that. That seems to be slowly becoming status quo for the show lately, and I worry that it’ll stay status quo for most of the remaining Ebersol era (or at least until season 10), as my impression of this era has always been that it specialized in bland averageness. Can’t say I’m looking forward to two more seasons of that.

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

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Elizabeth Ashley