Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Paulette Clooney meets her idol host by chance in the ladies’ restroom
— Nice to see another appearance from Robin’s “She’s a pig” character, Paulette Clooney. Does this character appear beyond this season, or does this end up being her final appearance?
— A good laugh from Robin’s line “Olivia Newton-John in the john!”
— Pretty funny lipstick job Robin did on herself.
STARS: ***
OPENING MONTAGE
— Announcer Mel Brandt (who we’ll be hearing on SNL for the last time tonight) mistakenly announces Michael Davis as a “special host” instead of “special guest”.
TALENT ENTRANCE
— Uh, where’s the cast? For this Talent Entrance, Brandt announces “Olivia Newton-John and the cast of Saturday Night Live!”, but only Olivia makes an entrance. Strange. This would’ve been the cast’s last chance to do a Talent Entrance, as that segment gets dropped after this season.
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Physical”
TRANSEASTERN
— Rerun
EBONY & IVORY
Frank Sinatra (JOP) & Stevie Wonder (EDM) sing “Ebony & Ivory” variant
— Oh, this is a very well-known classic sketch.
— Eddie’s solo singing of “Ebony and Ivory” actually sounds genuinely nice.
— Joe’s Sinatra: “When I think of Ebony, I think of a magazine that most people do not buy.”
— I always get a kick out of Sinatra’s lyric “You are blind as a bat and I have sight”.
— Overall, a perfect and very well-done sketch, and is one of the quintessential displays of the great chemistry Eddie and Joe have always had.
STARS: *****
I MARRIED A MONKEY
Madge doesn’t want to give up her new life as a nun
— Ha, they fooled me with the long opening set-up with the nuns before the monkey showed up. I had no idea this would turn into another “I Married a Monkey”.
— Funny part with Tim responding to Madge’s lack of a verbal response to his question by saying “You’ve taken a vow of silence”.
— Overall, ehh, I found myself laughing very little during this. After a strong first two installments, I definitely seem to be slowly getting tired of this recurring sketch. These last two installments didn’t do much for me. I’m afraid to ask how many more times they’ll do this sketch over the next two seasons.
STARS: **
HITLER IN HEAVEN
Colonel (Graham Chapman) halts sketch about Hitler (TIK) at pearly gates
— Ha, is that a Hitler mustache I’m seeing on Tim under his “Mother Theresa” cloak?
— Yep, he IS playing Hitler.
— Tony’s “Go to hell” to Hitler was funny.
— Graham Chapman!
— Good audience applause in response to Chapman’s appearance. I thought I remember reading somewhere before that Chapman’s cameo in this episode disappointingly got no reaction from the audience.
— Nice breaking of the fourth wall with Chapman pointing out the general idea of this sketch was “stolen” from Monty Python.
— Another Twilight Zone twist with Brian showing up as Rod Serling. That’s making this feel reminiscent of a sketch they did before. I might be thinking of that sketch from the Chevy Chase-hosted episode in season 3 where characters in a scene tried various ways to end the sketch they’re in. Did Dan Aykroyd’s Rod Serling impression appear in that? I can’t remember.
— Overall, this didn’t work quite as well as it should have, especially for something involving a Graham Chapman appearance. This paled in comparison to that aforementioned season 3 sketch.
STARS: **½
NOT A RECORD AD
an unspecified product is very beneficial, but it’s not a record
— I’m enjoying the rapid-fire shots of random stock photos and clips.
— Wow, what the—? This overall ad went by so fast and was so strange, I couldn’t even fully process it. From what I could make of it, I did enjoy its weirdness.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Make a Move on Me”
SNL NEWSBREAK
ersatz Arnold Schwarzenegger (Leo Yoshimura) impresses MAG with his body
a banned advertisment for “The Secret Policemen’s Other Ball”
Graham Chapman [real] apologizes for any offensive material in the ad
TIK dislikes the popularity of self-help books
stills of Sophia Loren’s movie roles document her prison stay
host summarizes what James Watt has done during his time in office
JOP predicts how the trend of athlete endorsements will continue
EDM’s warning to fathers- “everybody gets it on prom night”
— A continuation of the running gag with Mary interviewing Akira Yoshimura as the wrong person, this time as “Arnold Schwarzenegger”. The image of a monotone Yoshimura in that Conan the Barbarian outfit is cracking me up.
— I liked Mary’s “Any lower and I’d be having your children!” line when Yoshimura lifted her in his arms.
— Graham Chapman again!
— The ending of Graham’s commentary was very predictable, though it was kinda funny seeing Brian dressed like that.
— Why’d the camera randomly move to the side strangely in the middle of Tim’s commentary?
— Tim’s overall commentary was okay and displayed some decent snarkiness and sarcasm from him.
— Oh, no, here comes SNL Newsbreak’s dreaded weekly “long photo montage”, this time showing Sofia Loren “in prison”.
— Odd seeing an Olivia Newton-John commentary. Hosts rarely do their own Update commentaries, especially back in this era.
— Uh, wow. What the heck was the point of Olivia’s overall commentary??? To deliver a straight, non-comedic speech railing against then-Secretary of the Interior James Watt? If I wanted to see out-of-place preachiness and politically-charged clapter on SNL, I’d tune into a modern-day episode.
— Man, most of Christine’s jokes are absolutely BOMBING tonight, even worse than they usually do.
— Joe’s SNL Sports commentary tonight is pretty funny with the increasingly silly fake athlete-endorsed products he’s displaying. I especially like the Secretariat ballpark franks.
— Funny ending to Joe’s commentary, with him repeatedly shoving the pull-string doll of himself into Brian’s face while Brian’s trying to speak. Seems like something Joe would’ve done to Charles Rocket the previous season, back when Joe would sometimes follow up his SNL Sports commentaries by trolling Rocket with a prop while Rocket was in the middle of a news joke.
— Is tonight’s SNL Newsbreak ever going to end?
— Great commentary from Eddie about sex on prom night, especially his line about “giving her the ol’ heave-ho like a champ” and him declaring that “EVERYONE gets it on prom night”.
— And so ends the final edition of SNL Newsbreak. And with that, I breathe a sigh of relief and thank God I no longer have to review this segment. My goodness, what a dreadful year for SNL’s news segment this was. You KNOW it was terrible when it has me welcoming the upcoming freakin’ Brad Hall era of the news with (somewhat) open arms.
STARS: **
MICHAEL DAVIS
Michael Davis [real] orally juggles ping-pong balls & hard-boiled eggs
— LOL at the audience gasping at Michael quickly inhaling a ping-pong ball into his mouth.
— Michael, on the dangers of swallowing a ping-pong ball: “It would hurt… twice.” Haha, I like how it took a few seconds for both me and the audience to get that joke.
— Man, some of Michael’s tricks never fail to make me wince, but I love it.
— Funny mock-disgusted sounds from Michael when he spits the ball into the audience.
— Very funny part with the audience going “ohh” when Michael actually messed up and didn’t catch the ball in his mouth like he was supposed to, only for him to quickly put the ball into his mouth by hand and then sternly ask the audience “What do you mean ‘ohh’?”
— Very impressive work, orally juggling two ping-pong balls at the same time.
— I love the cruel pleasure he always takes in making the audience wonder if he’s really going to do a stunt he announces.
— Overall, fantastic work from Michael as usual. Does this end up being his final SNL appearance, or does he appear beyond this season? If this is indeed his final appearance, it’s a shame he didn’t continue to appear after this season. He was definitely a consistent big highlight of the year.
STARS: ****½
BUZZ WORDS
(EDM) can’t comprehend other businessmen’s metaphors for “you’re fired”
— LOL at Eddie’s “white guy businessman” voice.
— What’s with all the abbreviation talk?
— Tim’s “What’s all this BS?” amid all the professional abbreviation talk kinda made me laugh, though it got no audience reaction.
— Very good flawless fast-paced delivery from Tim and Joe, even if it’s not making me laugh much.
— I do like Eddie suddenly dropping his “white” voice and going all loud, deep-voiced, and ghetto on Tim and Joe after they fire him, though it’s not enough to save the sketch.
STARS: **
SANDY’S CURSE
unpopular girls (MAG) & (ROD) try to impress bad girls (host) & (CHE)
— Our obligatory Grease-related sketch of the night.
— Why do they keep trying to pass Brian Doyle-Murray off as a teenager this season? Who are they fooling?
— Yet another sketch tonight making mention of Robin’s alleged small chest size.
— Christine is dead-on as Rizzo.
— An overall decent sketch, though it kinda dragged a bit in some spots.
STARS: ***
SPORTS ORGAN CLASSICS
bring ballpark excitement home with this songbook
— Not too great of a concept, but still kind of a fun idea.
— An overall pretty forgettable sketch. I’m assuming this ends up being Tony’s final big role on the show, which is an underwhelming way for him to go out, though he certainly did what he could with the material in this.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Landslide”
THE CLAMS
— Aw, man, THIS is our final segment of the season? A repeated commercial??? Really, SNL?
— In a way, this is an accurate representation of the unusually high amount of repeated commercials we’ve seen over the course of this season. Sure hope there’s a lot less repeats in store for me in season 8.
GOODNIGHTS
— Is Joe drunk? He looks a bit smashed and his speech sounds unusually slurred.
— Joe announces that Eddie “is doing a movie this summer with Nick Nolte”. Of course, we now know what movie that would be.
— Oh, wow, very interesting how they’re now showing a still-photo montage of various sketches from this season while the ending credits are rolling.
— One of the pictures is of Danny DeVito dressed as a king while sitting on a throne. (fifth screencap above) Where did that come from? DeVito was never dressed like that anywhere in my copy of his episode, and as far as I know, there weren’t any sketches missing from my copy. Was that picture from a cut dress rehearsal sketch?
— The picture of Bill Murray and the cast singing with the Yale Whiffenpoofs in the Christmas episode noticeably has Father Guido Sarducci singing with them. That picture DEFINITELY has to be from dress rehearsal, because Sarducci was nowhere to be seen during that Whiffenpoofs performance in the live show.
— Overall, that montage was very fun. And something about it combined with the usual touching goodnights music playing in the background and the fact that this is the end of the season actually made me feel a little emotional.
— As far as I know, this ends up being the only season finale in SNL history that does this type of year-end “season montage”. It should’ve gone on to become a tradition for the end of every season; it’s a fun way to look back on the year as a whole.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An underwhelming, forgettable episode, which is pretty disappointing for a season finale. Kind of a microcosm of the quality of the second half of this season in general. Even Graham Chapman’s cameos tonight ended up being kinda disappointing. And ending a season finale with a repeated fake ad wasn’t the best idea, either (though maybe the show ran long and had to put that repeated ad in place of a planned live sketch). The only two things that stood out as strong were the classic Ebony & Ivory sketch and the Michael Davis spot.
— This would end up being the final episode for Tony Rosato, Christine Ebersole, and Brian Doyle-Murray. I know Tony and Christine were fired, but I’m not sure if Brian’s departure was his own decision or not. I was pretty surprised at how Tony and Christine turned out to be better cast members than I had been expecting. I already mentioned recently how reliable and solid Tony could often be in his performances. I’ve also noticed that he had a bit of a “Low-Key John Belushi” quality to him at times, and also had some of the likability that Belushi brought to his “everyman”-type of roles back in the day. Christine was a good performer in her own right and displayed solid performance skills in various roles. I said at one point early this season that I’m not looking forward to a whole season of constant Christine Ebersole musical sketches, but after now having gone through the entire season, I take that comment back. I actually ended up finding her musical sketches to be pretty enjoyable, and there weren’t anywhere near as many of them as I had been worried. In fact, the second half of the season barely had any. That may be a bad thing, actually, as Christine’s airtime in general also seemed to somewhat diminish in the second half of the season. Giving her the co-anchor spot on SNL Newsbreak in the last quarter of the season wasn’t a good decision, either, as she came off too bland and overly-straight for the role. Speaking of Newsbreak, I certainly have no problem with Brian’s departure. He helmed what is possibly the all-time worst era of SNL’s news segment, and his nothing-special delivery of the jokes didn’t help at all. As a sketch performer, he was serviceable at best, but nothing noteworthy. His presence on the show will not be missed at all.
— Season 7 as a whole was a very unusual one. It’s basically a tale of two halves: the first half with Michael O’Donoghue in charge saw lots of experimentation, weirdness, darkness, and a daring sense of danger (particularly the Donald Pleasence episode on Halloween), more than any other SNL era has ever had. O’Donoghue’s sense of experimentation, weirdness, etc. may not have always worked in this season’s first half, but I admired it and found myself enjoying most of the episodes in that half of the season. The second half of the season after O’Donoghue’s mid-season firing saw the show having a VERY different feel from the first half. Gone was the experimentation, weirdness, and danger, and in its place was a lot more safeness, blandness, and a generally overly-average feeling. Also adding to the unexciting vibe was the roster of hosts, as aside from Danny DeVito, the entire second half of the season had an endless string of bland or non-comedic celebrities hosting, with only Johnny Cash defying expectations and giving a strong hosting performance. While the second half of the season was a definite step down from the first, the season as a whole was still a step in the right direction after the chaos of season 6.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Danny DeVito):
— a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Season 8 begins, hosted by Chevy Chase via satellite. We get a few new cast members, a revamped news segment, and the return of several SNL traditions that season 7 did away with.
They Did do another “season montage” over end credits a few years later–the ending to Season 10’s “Best Of” show.
Graham Chapman was supposedly one of the future Doumanian hosts we never saw.
Imagine how terrible THAT would’ve been, since Jean most definitely wouldn’t have “gotten” Python-style humor.
I think Brian Doyle-Murray left voluntarily, as he had generally positive comments about Ebersol in Live from New York (in contrast, his comments about Lorne were surprisingly critical.). He would start his main career as a frequent film/tv character actor around this time – this is where he really excels.
John was a stunt host in terms of being huge when she was picked. She wasn’t a natural for the format but Dick being Dick musta saw ratings potential.. after a season of character actors hosting non stop he was smart for taking a risk.
Dud of an episode minus the one skit. However the montage at the end was great; it was heartfelt and you could see they were all proud of what they did. Direct 180 from Jean’s show.
You were right about Tony having sort of a “Low Key John Belushi” quality – honestly, he came closer to that style than Jim Belushi ever did in his run on the show. Too bad he didn’t get to stay another year – he probably would have done a better job at the news segment than Brad Hall did, for example.
Here are the five star sketches from the 81-82 season:
Buh-weet Sings (Susan Saint James)
Ebony & Ivory (Olivia Newton-John)
Two again. Though slightly less generous of Stooge as I could justify Prose and Cons being included as well. Also, there are a few more hidden and not so hidden gems from this season. Check out Mick! (Tim Curry), Girls to Women (Elizabeth Ashley) and Everybody Does Merman (Daniel J. Travanti) for some little remembered sketches that rise above the fray.
Damn, only two sketches? I’m surprised by that, though not surprised that they’re both Eddie Murphy sketches. I found this season to be okay, but thinking about it now, I guess there’s not much that stands out. The Ebersol era would progressively get better with each passing season.
As a companion piece to Carson’s list, here’s an Honorable Mentions list compiled of all the sketches I rated four-and-a-half stars this season:
The Little Richard Simmons Show (no host)
Michael Davis (no host)
Single Women (Susan Saint James)
Michael Davis (Donald Pleasence)
The Vic Salukin Show (Donald Pleasence)
Girls To Women (Elizabeth Ashley)
The New Celibacy (Blythe Danner)
Michael Davis (Blythe Danner)
Everybody Does Merman (Daniel J. Travanti)
Last Request (Johnny Cash)
James Brown Is Annie (Robert Culp)
Michael Davis (Olivia Newton-John)
Glad to see lots of non-Eddie stuff here. Also, wow, I had forgotten until now how killer Michael Davis’ segments were.
Here are the average ratings for Season 7:
*may not represent review’s perception*
701: 6.4 (no host)
702: 5.7 (Susan Saint James)
703: 6.3 (George Kennedy)
704: 5.6 (Donald Pleasance)
705: 5.6 (Lauren Hutton)
706: 5.4 (Bernadette Peters)
707: 7.1 (Tim Curry)
708: 6.2 (Bill Murray)
709: 5.3 (Robert Conrad)
710: 5.3 (John Madden)
711: 5.8 (James Coburn)
712: 5.8 (Bruce Dern)
713: 6.0 (Elizabeth Ashley)
714: 5.0 (Robert Urich)
715: 6.1 (Blythe Danner)
716: 5.6 (Daniel J. Travanti)
717: 6.2 (Johnny Cash)
718: 4.8 (Robert Culp)
719: 6.3 (Danny DeVito)
720: 5.9 (Olivia Newton-John)
Best Episode: 707 (Tim Curry)- 7.1
Worst Episode: 718 (Robert Culp)- 4.8
Season Average: 5.8
I’m curious what Vax Novier’s list of average ratings would look like if it was ranked from best episode to worst, so I’ll do it below:
707: 7.1 (Tim Curry)
701: 6.4 (no host)
703: 6.3 (George Kennedy)
719: 6.3 (Danny DeVito)
708: 6.2 (Bill Murray)
717: 6.2 (Johnny Cash)
715: 6.1 (Blythe Danner)
713: 6.0 (Elizabeth Ashley)
720: 5.9 (Olivia Newton-John)
711: 5.8 (James Coburn)
712: 5.8 (Bruce Dern)
702: 5.7 (Susan Saint James)
704: 5.6 (Donald Pleasance)
705: 5.6 (Lauren Hutton)
716: 5.6 (Daniel J. Travanti)
706: 5.4 (Bernadette Peters)
709: 5.3 (Robert Conrad)
710: 5.3 (John Madden)
714: 5.0 (Robert Urich)
718: 4.8 (Robert Culp)
Biggest surprises:
— The huge gap between the rating average of the first and second highest-rated episodes. And some of those episodes that are ranked in the top 5 are kinda unimpressive (namely the No Host and Bill Murray ones).
— How low the Donald Pleasence and Daniel J. Travanti rating averages are. I have a huge soft spot for the Pleasence episode, though looking back at my review, while I gushed about the dark, disturbing, Mr. Mike-influenced tone of the sketches and the unique place the episode holds in SNL history (both of which are the reasons for the soft spot I have for this episode), I see that I deemed the quality of the episode itself to be very up-and-down. And as for the Travanti episode, I now mostly just remember it for the fun Larry The Lobster gimmick. The rest of the episode was probably, again, very up-and-down.
— How somewhat high the Olivia Newton-John episode is. I recall finding it to be a disappointing season finale.
— The very large number of episodes with an unimpressive 5-point rating average, including the overall rating average of the season as a whole. This, along with Vax Novier’s surprisingly large list of sketches I gave a one or one-and-a-half-star rating to this season, and Carson’s surprisingly small list of sketches I gave a five-star rating to this season, has me reconsidering just how big of an improvement this season is over season 6.
In my opinion, this season is a LOT more consistent and confident than season 6, even if the numbers make it look like it’s only a tiny bit better. You also have a cast that’s skilled at sketch comedy, whereas in season 6 you’d have so many random/weird performances from people who weren’t a good fit for SNL. Also, there are higher-profile hosts this season versus the cult following some of the previous season’s hosts had.
As for Travanti’s episode, I think it would have ranked even higher if not brought down by the “Hill Street” parody (which is very good, but only if one is familiar with the show) and The Whiners (who are polarizing).
The Season 7 cast to me at least seemed like they had actually seen SNL/done comedy/got the basic concept of “comedy” before; Season 6 at times seemed like Jean had just picked a bunch of random people out of Central Casting’s files and told them to go on tv and “be funny”
I imagine this season would have ranked a bit higher if you had a few more hosts from comedy backgrounds (we really don’t get that in the second half of the season until the DeVito episode!) While this season is a long slog at times, the increased confidence is a big improvement over s6 and is more watchable/enjoyable at times than even s5 was
For example, someone like John Ritter probably would have been a good-to-great host during this era (of course, the fact that his show was on ABC probably had something to do with him not hosting)
To this day, I am super baffled that SNL never had John Ritter on as a host. Seriously, he would’ve scored!!
Ritter woulda been a great recurring host; especially in that era or even Lorne’s 2nd run. He had a very Buck Henry esque style to him. Maybe not as dark as Buck but he woulda been a very game host indeed. Granted he did get dark in Problem Child.
I honestly think he coulda worked on the 10th season too. That year badly needed another straight man and he woulda been perfect for Shearer’s spot. Harry didn’t do anything much anyways so it woulda been a gain to have him on board. I think he and Kroger and Belushi woulda worked well together.
Ebony and Ivory is definitely the highlight of this season finale!
Rest in peace, Olivia.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/olivia-newton-john-dead-grease-1235194880/
R.I.P. Ms. Newton-John. By the way, was this the first time cast members introed the musical guest when that mg was also that week’s host?
Larraine Newman introduced the Rolling Stones.
Also Eddie Murphy introduced Deborah Harry the season prior.
as an aside, her musical performances were some of the best i have ever seen on the show……
It’s a shame Dan Aykroyd didn’t host this season (or this era in general). Half the cast probably worked with him at Second City. He would end up costarring with Eddie in Trading places. He may have clashed with Piscopo, who had done Jimmy Carter and Tom Snyder since, as well as pretty much reincarnating his commercial pitchman. Nonetheless, it was a missed opportunity. It would have been particularly interesting if he would have hosted during the O’Donoghue run.
Agree; even his cameos in the Carvey years, while good, just left me wanting more. But the second City connection was so strong, he would have fit perfectly in the early Ebersol years. Somewhere — possibly even in a comment on this site — I saw a seemingly legit list of possible hosts from the strike-shortened Ebersol portion of season 6. I believe Dan was on there… but so was Buck Henry, which makes me unsure if the list was real. Or maybe Buck just hadn’t yet decided to never host again?
RIP Olivia
Now that I’ve finished watching Season 7, I have to say, it was about what I expected it to be: More consistent than Season 6, but also a bit more bland. I’d actually seen a few of these episodes years ago, and my memory of them was that they had more of a low-key feel, as compared to the energetic atmosphere SNL typically tries to create. I got the same feeling watching them now, although it could just be that the sketches didn’t quite “pop” the way they do when the show is at its best.
On paper, at least, Season 7 was better than Season 6. The writing demonstrated more maturity and sophistication, and the show generally avoided the dismal lows that plagued Season 6. And yet, I can’t help but think that Season 6 had a certain quality that made me like it more.
While I’d probably give the S7 cast the edge in terms of talent, I’d give the S6 cast the edge in terms of chemistry. I thought the S6 cast functioned well as an ensemble, while the S7 cast seemed like a group of individually talented people taking turns in the spotlight. There just wasn’t a good balance of personalities that complemented each other, and really, the symbiosis of different performers is what makes the magic happen.
There was no one in the cast I really disliked, although it took me a while to warm up to Tim Kazurinsky, and Brian Doyle-Murray didn’t do much to impress me. Of the three departing cast members, I think Tony Rosato’s the one I’ll miss the most. I had almost no familiarity with him before I started watching these episodes, but he turned out to be one of my favorites. It may have been for the best that he was fired, though, as the cast needed some new blood, and he didn’t really gel with the others.
I guess my biggest complaint would be that S7 didn’t feel like SNL; it felt like a generic sketch show with SNL branding. A lot of that had to do with the tinkering: No more “Live from New York…!” Replacing Don Pardo. Reducing the role of the hosts. Frequently forgoing the monologue, and often making it a bit with a cast member rather than a monologue proper when they did do it. Even the O’Donoghue half of the season failed to conjure up the spirit of the original era, in my opinion. Despite all its problems, S6 still felt like a continuation of the first five seasons, while S7 was like a totally different show. And I might even go so far as to say that S6’s best episodes (the few that truly hit the mark) beat S7’s best episodes.
Oh well. It was a rebuilding year. Every season of this show has its own unique flavor, so I look forward to what Season 8 will bring.
When I went through this season in my deep dive a few months ago I came away with the same sentiment.
Update is about on the same level as it was last year. Charles stomping and making bug eye faces at least made for a fascinating trainwreck. Here, I feel like I deserve a trophy for sitting through the endless text crawls and drawn out “jokes” in these bloated news segments. They try to spice things up a little with the back and forth between Brian and Mary but it doesn’t go anywhere.
The look of the show this year is extremely bizarre without cold opens, LFNY, monologues and Don Pardo. Michael O’Donoghue’s influence in the first half yielded some mixed results. Nick the Knock and Bizarro World might not be the most laugh out loud sketches but hey they get points for weirdness. The sunken submarine sketch and the Abe Lincoln/Velvet Jones clusterf**** baffles me to this day.
Until recent years when these episodes have become more widely available, I was always under the impression that Eddie and Joe were all over the show and the others were just background scenery. This season has a pretty good balance of the entire cast throughout. Eddie and Joe seem to be the ones with the most talent and they are the most comfortable on camera. Kazurinsky and Gross are very good too but I find that they are either typecasted by the writers to be these inept, nerdy types more often than not or they play characters like that as their own choice. Cannot figure that out. Like, why does Dr. Jack Badofsky slouch his shoulders and talk in that mousy voice? Robin has her best season here, doing Paulette Clooney, Shelley Winters, among other leading roles in sketches but quickly disappears in the middle of the following season. She herself has said that she was intimidated by the live aspect of the show. Likewise, I was surprised to walk away admiring Tony’s time on the show. Didn’t care too much for them pigeonholing him into stereotypical roles, but his Ed Meese is one of the highlights from this season. Christine didn’t really make much of an impression outside of her musical pieces. After O’Donoghue left, she seemed to just play thankless straight roles and her brief WU tenure was forgettable.
Also, love Joe Piscopo. I think he’s among the best to do ever perform on Saturday Night Live but he had one too many schmaltzy moments this season. He fit the variety show vibe Ebersol and O’Donoghue were going for in the first half of the season better than anyone else in the cast.
*among the best to ever perform
I honestly prefer season 6 to the second half of season 7 because at least season 6 was interesting. That said, I did actually really like Tony Rosato on the show and I think it’s too bad he didn’t last longer. On the other hand, I found myself tiring of Joe Piscopo pretty quickly, to be honest. I usually love utility players- huge fan of Dan Aykroyd and Bill Hader, for example- but Piscopo doesn’t interest me. It might just be that from behind-the-scenes stories he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy I’d want to be coworkers with, or that a lot of his impressions feel very similar to me (though I admittedly don’t know most of the people he does impressions of). Anyway, I’ll miss Rosato but I’m glad to be done with season 7.