April 24, 1982 – Robert Culp / The Charlie Daniels Band (S7 E18)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Kelly (host) goes undercover to investigate old I-Spy buddy Scotty (EDM)

    

— What’s with Joe’s weird acting? Is he supposed to be doing a take-off of John MacEnroe’s infamous “You cannot be serious” rant?
— Ah, he is.  Just now, Robert addressed him as “Mr. MacEnroe”.
— A “reunion” between Culp and “Cosby”.
— Tim’s walk-on as Billie Jean King is giving me a good laugh.
— Another laugh from Tim’s BJK asking Robert to “hold her balls” (tennis balls) while she goes to the bathroom.
— Of course, we get a Jell-O Pudding reference, as well as other products the real Cosby was doing commercials for at the time.
— Decent twist with Robert turning out to still be a spy.
— Overall, despite a few highlights and good efforts from Eddie, I didn’t care too much for this cold opening. Too much of it dragged and felt like it went on a little too long.
STARS: **½

MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Interesting hearing the show make an actual acknowledgment that they don’t do monologues anymore.
— That’s it?!?!? This just had Robert rapidly reading a bad stand-up joke, and then he ended the monologue. What was the point of this?
STARS: *

MIDDLE AGE OF AQUARIUS
Mary Travers (CHE) introduces updated ’60s hits

   

— This is in a similar vein to the “Jesus in Blue Jeans” commercial from earlier this season. I think there’s another commercial like this later this era, where Tim advertises a record of Hitler-ized songs.
— The 60s hippie hits adjusted for 80s yuppie-type audiences are pretty funny, though the studio audience seems more amused by it than I am. Then again, the studio audience has the benefit of living in the 80s while I’m watching this in a much later decade.
— The “It’s My Condo (And I’ll Sell If I Want To)” song gave me a good laugh.
— Overall, pretty decent, though it went on a bit too long for something that was fairly one-joke.
STARS: ***

EGG & SPERM
in (CHE)’s uterus, a sperm (TIK) tries to pick up an egg (MAG)

   

— Well, this certainly seems to be a weird sketch.
— Oh, I now see where this is going. A fairly decent concept showing a human representation of a sperm and an egg inside a uterus.
— Loved the part with Tim as the sperm mentioning how he had to enter through the “back door” because a “big rubber trampoline” was blocking the front.
— Tim looking upwards and yelling “You slut!” was hilarious.
— The bit with Tony as a sleazy sperm isn’t coming off that funny.
— Took me a while to recognize Brian in bed with Christine at the end; I actually almost mistook him for his brother Bill Murray at first. Guess I was thrown off by the wig and the fact that we can only see the side of his face.
— Awkward ending.
— Overall, despite a decent concept and a few funny lines from Tim, this kinda fell flat and ended poorly.
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Still in Saigon”

SNL NEWSBREAK
various photos aid BDM’s explanation of Britain’s slow Falklands trek
tracked path of the Royal Navy’s Falklands route spells out their speed
disgusted with current naming trends, TIK lists some famous bad monikers
MAG sets a record running from ABC headquarters to assignment at CBS
JOP wants George Steinbrenner to stop trading the Yankees’ good players
racist joke prompts EDM to dispel the link between black people & monkeys

           

— Brian’s Oliver Hardy bit was just cringeworthy.
— Brian has begun listing off reasons why it took the Royal Navy so long to reach the Falkland Islands. Uh-oh, are we getting our weekly “long series of pictures” gag?
— Yep, looks like it. Ugh!
— Tonight’s SNL Newsbreak has been going on for five minutes so far, and Christine has yet to say a single word. Brian’s been doing all the talking so far.
— What is the point of this map bit that Brian is doing?
— The path that Brian drew on the map ended up spelling out “slow”. THAT’S the big payoff to the overlong map gag??? Ugh, SNL Newsbreak just gets worse and worse. Thank god there’s only two episodes remaining for this era of SNL’s news segment. Like I said recently, season 8 can’t come fast enough for me.
— Another commentary with Tim as himself.
— One of the “jerky” names that Tim complained about was Brad. Little does Tim know he would soon have a new castmate with that name next season.
— Some good laughs from Tim revealing the “real” names of celebrities, such as Ricardo Montalban really being named Irving Weinblatt.
— Here’s comes Mary’s weekly remote segment. Is she going to interview Akira Yoshimura as the wrong person for the third consecutive episode?
— Nope, the premise of Mary’s remote just turned out to be another “Mary’s reporting from the wrong location” gag, where she’s outside the ABC building when she’s supposed to be at CBS.
— Pretty fun with Mary “running over” from the ABC building to the CBS building.
— I’m enjoying Joe’s fast-paced recapping of the insane number of trades Steinbrenner has been making to the Yankees this season.
— Brian’s punchline to the blackface undercover cop joke was lame, but I got a laugh just from the premise of an undercover cop wearing ridiculous Al Jolson-esque blackface.
— Eddie’s whole “Black people don’t look like monkeys, whites do” commentary is great so far, and he’s making some really funny points.
— Great Monkees reference from Eddie.
— Interesting to see natural camaraderie between Christine and Eddie at the end of Eddie’s commentary. I didn’t realize until now that out of this entire cast, Christine is probably the cast member we’ve seen Eddie interact with the least on the show.
STARS: **

PARTY GIRL
out-of-town convention attendees (JOP) & (BDM) hire a “party girl” (ROD)

   

— There’s that same bedroom set again tonight.
— Great voice from Eddie as the bellhop.
— I’m surprised this is the first time we’re seeing Robin all night, but now that I think about it, this seems to be common for her lately. Feels like her airtime is diminishing more and more these last handful of episodes.
— With the facial expression she has in this sketch, Robin resembles Lily Tomlin in certain camera angles. I can kinda picture Tomlin playing a character like this.
— Brian dismissively calling Robin “Morey Amsterdam with a freight wig” has been one of my few laughs in this sketch so far, and this sketch has been going on for MINUTES.
— Overall, this sketch was a disappointment. I really wanted to like it because of how much poor Robin has been struggling for airtime lately, but I felt this missed the mark and very few things in it worked for me.
STARS: **

JAMES BROWN IS ANNIE
Godfather of Soul (EDM) sings hits from the musical

   

— Oh, this is a well-known sketch, though I’ve never seen it myself until now.
— Oh, this is great! I especially love Eddie singing a James Brown-ized version of “Tomorrow”; this version actually sounds like a genuinely great song.
— Wow, overall, this was fantastic. I kinda wanted it to go on longer, but maybe it was the right length after all.
STARS: ****½

BABIES IN MAKEUP
— Mary mentions that the show received hate mail from viewers in response to the “Babies in Makeup” short from earlier this season, so SNL is rebelliously airing the short again.
— Despite Mary’s funny intro, that doesn’t make up for the fact that I have to suffer through this film again. I kinda hated this the first time, and I ain’t liking it any better now.
— This is noticeably getting more audience response than the last time this aired.

HAPPY’S
Happy’s (EDM) Mayonnaise Palace- delicious treats made entirely of mayo

   

— Tons of airtime for Eddie tonight. With these last three episodes I’ve reviewed, I think I’ve officially reached the point in Eddie’s tenure where they famously start putting him into practically every single sketch.
— The concept of a mayonnaise restaurant is quite funny.
— I like Eddie doing the screechy aunt’s voice off-camera.
— Ha, Eddie looks like he started cracking up after doing the aunt’s voice.
— Great audience reaction to Eddie drinking the disgusting-looking mayonnaise drink.
— At some points, the kinda-screechy New Yorker voice Eddie’s using in this reminds me a little of Gilbert Gottfried. Makes me want to picture Gilbert doing this commercial in season 6.
— Overall, pretty funny commercial, helped by Eddie’s performance and his giggliness.
STARS: ***½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”

SUNKEN SUBMARINE
business-as-usual for the crew of a submarine stranded on the ocean floor

    

— Oh, much like tonight’s earlier James Brown sketch, here’s another sketch I’ve always heard about, except this time, it’s in a bad way. This is supposedly an EPICALLY terrible sketch.
— “Mr. Rosato”? Tony’s playing himself in this sketch?
— What the fuck is WITH this sketch so far? This is just bizarre in all the wrong ways, and the writing feels like a really bad attempt at doing silly M*A*S*H/Hogan’s Heroes-type humor.
— It’s almost laughable in itself how bad this sketch is. It’s getting ridiculously terrible and none of the things that’s been happening in it make any sense. And the audience is (understandably) COMPLETELY DEAD.
— Oh, now we’re just getting desperate. WTF at this human dog that was brought in just now? And whoever that is playing the dog (Neil Levy, I think) is overacting terribly.
— Okay, Eddie’s always-reliable line deliveries are making me chuckle at least, which is the first sorta-laugh I’ve gotten in this whole sketch so far.
— Eddie ALMOST came close to saving the sketch, but unfortunately, he’s already exited the scene before he could fully salvage this.
— Not only is this sketch dreadfully unfunny, but it’s becoming quite long too.
— Robert Culp’s delivery in this is pretty awful. I just now realized that I haven’t been enjoying him as an SNL host at all tonight. I honestly came into this episode expecting better from him.
— Overall, yep, this sketch definitely lived up to its negative reputation in every single way. In a way, it’s fascinating what a laughless trainwreck this was; probably one of the most noteworthy failures in SNL history.
STARS: *

GOODNIGHTS
EDM kills time at the end of the show by showing host how to tell a joke

 

— We’re told there’s a lot of time to kill, so Robert begins doing a follow-up to his monologue by telling more bad jokes. Ugh.
— Haha, to show Robert how it’s done, Eddie tells the same joke but with funnier delivery, which gets a much better audience reaction.
— Eddie’s now re-telling Robert’s earlier joke from the monologue with a long-winded Bill Cobsy delivery, until the goodnights music officially starts.
— I like how in these earlier SNL seasons from the 70s and early 80s, the host and cast would do fun things like this during the goodnights whenever there was time to kill. We really see the cast’s genuine personalities, as well as the camaraderie between them and the host. We never get anything like this in modern-day SNL’s goodnights.

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A very off episode. Very few things stood out as truly good, a lot of the sketches starring usually-reliable performers surprisingly flopped (e.g. Tim and Mary’s Egg & Sperm sketch, Robin’s Party Girl sketch), and that god-awful submarine sketch at the end of the show was a noteworthy disaster and left a bad taste in my mouth. There also seemed to be an unusually low amount of sketches tonight, I guess due to how insanely long SNL Newsbreak and the submarine sketch were (and even Party Girl felt kinda long too), not to mention the unnecessary rerun of the Babies in Makeup short.
— Eddie at least had a particularly strong night, starring in the two of the few highlights of the show (Happy’s and especially James Brown Is Annie), doing a great Newsbreak commentary, and getting the only thing closely resembling laughs in Sunken Submarine.

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

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Danny DeVito, the first host in a long time who’s name alone has me excited for an episode