October 2, 1982 – Louis Gossett Jr. / George Thorogood & The Destroyers (S8 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
NBC is so desperate for viewers they’re willing to disrobe

   

— I like spokesperson Joe’s line about the realization the network came to after taking a long hard look at their new fall line-up.
— The idea of this is fairly funny, the jingle is catchy, and Mary’s giving a good performance. However, this pales in comparison to better shots SNL has taken at NBC’s ratings woes in earlier seasons.
— No “Live From New York” at the end of this. In my review of the season premiere, I made a big deal about them bringing back LFNY this season, but I forgot that there’s still some occasional LFNY-less episodes within these next few seasons. Hell, there are some episodes these next few seasons that don’t even have a cold opening!
STARS: **½

MONOLOGUE
host puts cast through comedy boot camp

     

— This unexpectedly begins with Louis Gossett Jr. already onstage right in front of the camera, instead of making an entrance like most hosts do in their monologues.
— Really good premise to this monologue, and a nice use of the whole cast.
— Haha, I’m loving Eddie and Joe’s exaggeratedly cocky, laid-back personas as the two veterans of this cast.
— If you know me, you know I personally got a kick out of seeing Eddie and Joe imitating Curly from The Three Stooges.
— Gary’s panicked facial expression when he doesn’t know the punchline to Brad’s joke is really funny.
— Lots of great rapid-fire pratfalls-on-command from Gary. I’m aware that doing falls on the show would go on to be one of Gary’s strengths as a cast member; I recall seeing some really good falls from him in my past viewings of this era.
— Overall, I found this to be a very fun, unique monologue.
STARS: ****

DON’T HITCH-HIKE
(TIK) learns his lesson the hard way- “Don’t hitch-hike”

       

— A very slow but interesting buildup so far.
— Ha, holy hell at the sudden drive off the cliff (represented by now-familiar stock footage that would later go on to be regularly used in the Toonces the Driving Cat sketches) and this turning out to be a “Don’t Hitchhike” PSA. A really good twist.
STARS: ***½

MISTER ROBINSON’S NEIGHBORHOOD
Mr. T [real] objects to drum noise

    

— The glitter shoes are hilarious.
— Interesting change of pace for the “word of the day” segment.
— Nice drumming from Eddie.
— Ha, Mr. T!
— Mr. T: “The new word for today is PAIN.”
— An overall very memorable installment of this recurring sketch.
STARS: ****½

SEX THERAPY
a sex therapist (host) enjoys putting his patients through play therapy

     

— Boy, Brad is really overacting in this. When I started doing reviews of this season, this is exactly the type of performance I was worried I would see from Brad, based on my past viewings of this era.
— What’s with Louis’ constant drawn-out “Ah ha” laughter throughout this sketch?
— Tim and Mary’s husband/wife characters are funny.
— LOL at the whole bit with Tim prematurely “climaxing” with his gun. That was great.
— Good ending with Louis’ gun going off multiple times after Mary kisses him on the cheek.
STARS: ***½

MR. & MRS. T BLOODY MARY MIX
Mr. [real] & Mrs. (ROD) T Bloody Mary Mix- drink it or be pitied

 

— Oh my god at Robin in this. She is hilarious here.
— Loved Robin’s “Dat’s mean!” after drinking the mix.
— Wow, this overall sketch was quick and incredibly fast-paced. Flawless execution of a really funny idea, and featured a very different side of Robin that we’ve never seen prior to this.
STARS: ****½

WHAT’S THE WORST THING YOU’VE EVER DONE?
people on the street are asked “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

   

— The one guy’s ashamed “I stole money… from a nun” confession after tip-toeing around saying it was really funny.
— Love the bluntness of one guy’s answer being he slept with his best friend’s wife… multiple times.
— What’s with this part with the hard-of-hearing old guy?
— Ha, the hard-of-hearing old guy’s answer to the “worst thing you’ve ever done” question being a simple “I got married” was a great way to end this.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)

SINGING IN THE STALL
a quartet of bathroom-goers sing “Under The Boardwalk” from their stalls

   

— I like the camera slowly panning over to reveal the other stall occupants have begun to sing along with Joe.
— I absolutely loved the part with Tim looking for an empty stall while quietly singing Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” (“Don’t…push…me…cuz…I’m…close…to…the…eeeeedge”, etc). It’s also hilarious because Tim’s one of the last people you’d expect to see casually singing that song to himself.
— This was an overall very well-done and enjoyable sketch. Tonight’s episode in general has been on fire so far.
STARS: ****

SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
BRH delivers bad news with a song & a guitar in order to soften the blow
Dr. Jack Badofsky lists names for advanced stages of medical conditions
Shelley Winters (ROD) talks about the death of her friend Marilyn Monroe
JOP interviews Canadian Football League player Bubba St. Jacque (EDM)

           

— Brad’s still wearing the glasses from last week.
— Hmm, interesting-seeming bit with Brad busting out a guitar to announce the bad news of the week in a “pleasant” way with a folk song.
— Decent audience participation bit with having them sing along to Brad’s guitar song.
— Whoa at Brad’s angry outburst and subsequent guitar-smashing at the end of the song. A fairly funny ending.
— Brad really seems to be trying to leave his mark as an anchorperson so far this season, by doing several unique side segments that I can NEVER picture Brian Doyle-Murray doing the previous season.
— Here comes this season’s first appearance of Dr. Jack Badofsky.
— Funny opening line from Badofsky.
— Maybe it’s because tonight’s episode has put me in a really good mood, but I’m finding myself enjoying tonight’s Badofsky puns more than I usually do.
— Whoops, a blooper. Tim has shown the wrong card for his “Tomorrow-The-World-Measels” pun, which has resulted in confused silence from the audience.
— Tim, in an ad-libbed response to his aforementioned blooper: “(deadpanly) I knew that’d happen someday.” Ha, he’s making a great recovery from his blooper.
— Some more very funny ad-libs from Tim in response to the aforementioned blooper. The audience is LOVING this.
— Badofsky’s “you have to wear a Hefty bag on your side” addendum to his “colossal colostomy” bit gave me a good laugh.
— This overall Badofsky commentary has definitely been one of his better appearances so far, with the blooper elevating this to a more noteworthy level.
— Nice to see the return of Robin’s Shelley Winters. She was hilarious in her appearance last season.
— Uh, wow. Robin’s portrayal of Winters is a lot more over-the-top tonight, especially the extremely drawn-out syllables. Not sure whether to find that funny or annoying. Sadly, I think I might have to pick the latter. Her performance here is a bit too much for my likes; her Winters impression was a lot funnier last season where it was more reigned-in while still being the right amount of loopy.
— Robin’s overall commentary was kind of a letdown, despite a few okay lines here and there.
— Brad’s whole “Our Gang-style killings” joke was great.
— Hmm, a Chevy Chase joke, a mere week after he hosted the show.
— Brad mentions that Chevy is going to be a father. The “he can feel the baby stumble” punchline was a bit of a groaner, but I found it okay just because I appreciate the callback to Chevy’s pratfall routine from the original SNL era.
— As usual, Eddie and Joe are doing great playing off of each other. It can’t be said enough how much I always love their chemistry whenever they’re paired together.
— Haha, I loved the extended ending of Joe and Eddie’s commentary, with Eddie ad-libbing a whole bunch of angry foreign gibberish to Brad.
STARS: *** (the highest rating I’ve given to SNL’s news segment in quite a long time)

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Bad to the Bone”

SATURDAY NIGHT EDITORIAL
MAG tells jokes about Jerry Lewis to prove SNL has nothing against him

— I like how Mary is all too eager to read off un-airable tasteless SNL jokes about Jerry Lewis.
— Very awkward ending with Mary suddenly apologizing.
— I didn’t enjoy this overall segment nearly as much as the set-up to it had me expecting to.
STARS: **

DON’S BACK
DOP describes his year away from SNL

   

— Joe brings up the fact that there’s several new things about SNL this season and how the return of SNL announcer Don Pardo isn’t exactly new.
— This sketch was actually supposed to air in the season premiere (which would’ve been more fitting, as that was Pardo’s actual first episode back), but due to the show running long, it was replaced with a brief “killing time” segment with Joe telling us that a great bit planned for that episode will be airing next week instead. I didn’t get to see that brief Joe segment, as it was removed from my copy of the season premiere.
— Nice way to re-introduce Pardo back to SNL, by having him detailing in a gameshow-style manner what he did over the past year after being fired from SNL. The general joke of Pardo saying casual things in an out-of-place gameshow-style manner has already been done by him multiple times back in the original SNL era (Jill Clayburgh’s season 1 monologue, the “Waiting For Pardo” sketch, etc.), but it’s still nice to see again.
— The oven part was pretty funny.
— Joe’s ending sign-off seemed really rushed and abrupt. Was something removed from my copy of this sketch?
STARS: ***

DONAHUE
Phil (JOP) discusses conflict with Begin (TIK) & Arafat (GAK)

    

— It feels weird to see a Phil Donahue impression from Joe. While doing reviews of this SNL era, I’ve been noticing that Joe seems to do A LOT of impressions that either Phil Hartman or Darrell Hammond would later do more famously (Frank Sinatra, Ted Koppel, Dan Rather, etc.), and in the case of Donahue, both Hartman AND Hammond would play him (come to think of it, there’s quite a number of impressions that Hartman and Hammond share with each other).
— At first glance, I seriously thought for a second that that was Tony Rosato as Yasser Arafat sitting next to Tim’s Menachim Begin (after all, Tony DID once play Arafat alongside Tim as Begin in an SNL Newsbreak last season), until I remembered Tony’s not on the show anymore. I guess after reviewing the entirety of season 7 in such a short amount of time these past few weeks and becoming so attached to that season’s cast, I haven’t gotten used to not seeing Tony and Christine Ebersole anymore this season. I guess that’s to be expected with the nature of this SNL project of mine; after all, when I started reviewing season 6, there were a few times where I initially mistook some of the uncredited bit players for certain members of the original cast, because I had been so used to reviewing the original SNL era.
— Ah, turns out that’s Gary Kroeger playing Arafat. Good make-up job on him in this.
— Joe is nailing the trademark Phil Donahue gestures and mannerisms, but the voice is leaving a lot to be desired.
— Really funny bit with Joe’s Donahue suddenly diving onto an audience member’s lap to take Mary’s question.
— An overall decent sketch, if nothing special.
STARS: ***

FATHER AND SON
EDM & host quit a sketch that stereotypes blacks; cameo by EDM’s father

     

— Heh, there’s the Mister Robinson’s apartment set again tonight.
— It’ll be funny to see where this overly-dramatic sketch will go.
— Ha, Eddie drops character to say to the camera “This scene bites!”
— I’m liking where this is going. I usually always enjoy this type of meta sketch where the performers drop character midway through and break the fourth wall.
— Hilarious random bit with Eddie suddenly stopping mid-sentence and opening a closet door to yell a deep-voiced “SHUT UP!” to the band inside that’s been playing the dramatic background music for this sketch.  I recall reading that Eddie reprises that gag in another sketch later this season.
— I like the reveal of this black sketch turning out to be written by a very whitebread Jewish-looking guy, which kinda reminds me of a joke they would later do in a season 11 “That Black Girl” sketch with Danitra Vance.
— Is that really Eddie Murphy’s father standing up in the audience? I’m not seeing any facial resemblance between him and Eddie at all.
STARS: ***

THE INTERESTING FOUR
the superhero team of last resort is summoned

     

— A fairly funny pre-taped intro, giving us a rundown of the unimpressive superpowers each member of this superhero team has.
— Heh, Don Pardo as the voice of Hawkman on his answering machine.
— I like the randomness of Louis’s agent character using a Snoopy phone to make his important phone call.
— Joe is perfectly cast in the role of a schmaltzy stand-up comedian/lounge performer.
— Not too many laughs in this sketch so far. It feels like after the long pre-taped intro setting us up on the individual superpowers of each team member, there aren’t many places left for this sketch to go. Maybe they should’ve done away with the intro and let the reveal of each member’s superpower display itself over the course of the sketch.
— Boy, between the monologue and this sketch, they sure seem to be letting Julia Louis-Dreyfus mug the camera quite a lot tonight.
— I like the idea of a villain being named “Dr. Inconsiderate”.
— I’ve been noticing throughout tonight’s episode that Louis seems to be playing a lot of his roles in a VERY over-the-top manner, which I’m not crazy about. It’s especially hurting this particular sketch.
— This overall sketch fell flat. I’m aware that this somehow ends up becoming a recurring sketch later this season, which I’m definitely not looking forward to seeing.
STARS: *½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Back in Wentzville”

— The show abruptly goes to commercial while this musical performance is still in progress. I guess the show is running long.

GOODNIGHTS

 

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An overall solid episode, particularly the first half, which (aside from a somewhat “meh” cold opening) contained a consecutive long string of strong pieces and a general good vibe that I found infectious (I mentioned earlier during my review of Saturday Night News that tonight’s episode has put me in a really good mood). Even Saturday Night News was fairly decent. Despite a drop-off in quality in the second half of the episode, things were still pretty good until the show bottomed-out with that weak superheroes sketch.
— Louis Gossett Jr. was a letdown as a host. A lot of overacting and over-the-top performances from him tonight. He was a little TOO animated for his own good, which is a shame because I usually find him to be really funny in other things I’ve seen him in.
— I’m surprised at how much I’ve really been liking the way this season has been going so far. We’re off to a promising start.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Chevy Chase):
— a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Ron Howard