April 16, 1983 – Susan Saint James / Michael McDonald (S8 E18)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Velvet Jones plugs his titillating new videotape- “The Exercises of Love”

  

— The opening shot of Velvet Jones laying in that position was pretty funny. Also, his positioning made me think this was going to be YET ANOTHER Calvin Klein Jeans spoof, but this has just turned out to be yet another commercial with him advertising a new book of his. Not excited to see this, considering I feel that the only strong book commercial he did was his classic first one (“I Wanna Be a Ho”).
–At least this is somewhat different from his last few book commercials, with him demonstrating various love-making positions, which is fairly funny, though nothing great.
STARS: **

OPENING MONTAGE
— For some reason, Don Pardo precedes his usual announcement of “It’s Saturday Night Live” by saying “from New York”. Not sure why. I know the cold opening didn’t end with a “Live from New York”, but neither did several cold openings from earlier this season, and those episodes didn’t have Pardo changing up the “It’s Saturday Night Live” announcement.

MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Nice energy from her to start this off.
— She mentions getting married to SNL producer Dick Ebersol and having a child with him in between her previous episode and tonight’s.
— Quick monologue overall. The breastfeeding joke at the end was okay enough.
STARS: **½

SIT ON IT!
panelists JOP, EDM, host identify statuettes with their butts

     

— Interesting to see Brad playing a gameshow host.
— Hmm, the three panelists (Joe, Eddie, Susan) are playing themselves.
— Sitting on a bust to identify it? THAT’S the premise??? What a concept.
— Figures Robin would choose the one black panelist (Eddie) to identify the Louis Armstrong bust.
— Good brief Louis Armstrong vocal imitation from Eddie when he correctly guesses the bust he’s sitting on.
— Susan’s eagerness to return to the show after seeing the flag statue was pretty funny.
— Overall, this was a little better than the initial reveal of the concept had me expecting, though I still didn’t find this all that great as a whole.
STARS: **½

TOOTSIE COSMETICS
Dorothy Michaels’ (GAK) Tootsie cosmetics bring out the woman in EDM

 

— Good to see the return of Gary’s Tootsie impression.
— Second sketch in a row with Eddie playing himself.
— Eddie’s silent, deadpan, uncooperative demeanor during all this is funny.
— This sketch made me come to a second realization that I don’t think Eddie ever dressed in drag in his entire SNL tenure. The first realization I had of that was in this season’s first Howard Hesseman episode where, during the monologue, Howard unfavorably compared this season’s cast to the original cast and asked at one point “When is Eddie Murphy going to start doing scenes in drag??? Garrett did!”.
— Funny in hindsight seeing the ending with Eddie having a big change of heart and starting to embrace doing drag after hearing how much money “Tootsie” grossed. Oh, so THAT’S why Eddie went on to do so many drag movies later in his career…
STARS: ***½

TEXXON
— Rerun

THE LADIES ROOM
(JOP) & (TIK) discover hidden paradise on undercover trip to ladies’ room

     

— WTF? Two sketches in a row centered around men in drag?
— The reveal of what the ladies room really looks like is fairly funny, though the premise of males finding out the ladies room is a heavenly paradise seems pretty cliché. I’ve seen it done in various shows and cartoons.
— I like the part with the guy walking around repeatedly asking “Anyone here for sex?”
— Despite the clichéd premise, I AM liking the commitment to how ambitious this sketch is, with all the various things happening from various people on just one set. Fairly impressive for a live sketch.
— Eddie playing an effeminate hair stylist named Dion? I was about to ask if this is supposed to be his recurring Dion Dion character, but he’s not wearing the wig.
— What was with the screaming running guy in the background in the middle of Susan’s big speech?
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “If That’s What It Takes”

SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
TIK reads police reports from Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Dr. Ruth Westheimer (MAG) answers sex questions from SNL technical crew
EDM thanks Chicagoans for electing Harold Washington mayor

      

— In the NYC skyline background, I’m seeing what looks like a tiny King Kong hanging off of the Empire State Building. (you can see it in the upper left side of the first screencap above) Interesting new addition to the set. Is this a random choice, or is it an homage/tie-in to some kind of significance King Kong had this week? I know the original King Kong movie came out in 1933, so considering this is 1983, maybe this week was the 50th anniversary of the movie’s release date.
— Funny seeing a reference to Joan Rivers’ famous reliance on Liz Taylor jokes, after it was on full display in the episode Rivers hosted the previous week.
— Here’s Saturday Night News’s obligatory Tim Kazurinsky appearance of the week. I wonder how many consecutive episodes he’s done a news commentary in by this point; my guess is six or seven. That’s GOTTA be an all-time record.
— The bizarre police reports Tim read off were an interesting change of pace from the New York Post headlines he usually shows in these Salute to Journalism commentaries, but this one felt like it wasn’t as funny as it could’ve been.
— Good part with Mary’s Dr. Ruth responding to the long size of the boom mic guy’s mic by saying “No problem there”.
— They repeated the Dr. Ruth finger-in-hole gesture gag ONCE AGAIN. Why do they always have to do that at the end of every commentary she does? That only worked the first time.
— I’ve been noticing tonight that whenever a guest commentary has ended, Brad does just one news joke, then he ALREADY throws to another guest commentator.
— Eddie’s overall commentary was only okay. There were some pretty funny lines, but this pales in comparison to some of his earlier news commentaries, and his delivery seemed kinda off during this.
STARS: **½

OUR GENERATION
lazy (GAK) ignores motivation from parents, friends, potential fortune

   

— Is Gary’s repeated “Nah!”s going to be his only dialogue in the whole sketch?
— I got a good laugh from Joe’s angry “You go straight to hell” to Gary after failing to get him to do something productive.
— Okay, Gary’s “Nah!”s are starting to increasingly make me laugh more and more, especially the pondering pause he always does right before saying it.
— I love how Gary’s being offered increasingly golden opportunities, only for him to turn them each down with his usual “Nah!”s. Predictable but it’s tickling me.
— The ending with Gary heading up the stairs while letting everyone know “Thought I’d go upstairs… diddle with my fiddle” (which kinda reminds me of a classic moment from a certain famous Joe Montana-involved sketch the show would do four years later) was kinda funny in itself, but didn’t work too well as a punchline for this sketch. However, the reason for that may be because, from what I remember once hearing, the wording of that punchline was originally supposed to be dirtier before the censors made Gary tone it down to “diddle with my fiddle”. I can’t remember what the original wording was supposed to be, but whatever it was, I’m sure it would’ve made the punchline hit harder.
STARS: ***½

STEVEN WRIGHT
Steven Wright [real] does stand-up about his cross-country trip

— Surprised to see a Steven Wright appearance THIS early in SNL’s timeline. I had always been under the impression that he didn’t begin appearing as a stand-up guest on SNL until seasons 10 and 11. I’m very happy to see him, though. He’s always been one of my all-time favorite stand-up comedians.
— If you’re familiar with my reviews, you’ll know that I’m loving the format of this piece with him doing a long string of random one-liners.
— Overall, this was absolutely hilarious as expected. Every single thing that came out of the man’s mouth was funny here. My favorite one-liners were the whole Flintstones bit, the friend who has sideburns behind his ears, the “Breakfast any time” bit, and the punchline to the ski lift ride story.
STARS: ****½

TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS
James Watt (JOP) endorses pro-industry hits

  

— After only one episode, we already have the return of Joe’s James Watt impression.
— Looks like this is going to be yet another variation of the “celebrity spokesperson advertises an album of hit songs modified to fit a theme relating to said spokesperson” type of sketch. SNL’s been going to that well an awful lot lately.
— I got some laughs from the audio sample played of the modified version of “MacArthur Park”.
— This sketch definitely isn’t working as well as the previous sketches in this vein did. This one is getting too one-note.
— Just when I thought the sketch was mercifully about to end, Joe has thrown to YET ANOTHER screen crawl of even more songs from an extra “Beach Boys” album. Ugh, just END this sketch already.
STARS: *½

DUNG IN THE OVAL OFFICE
Ronald Reagan (JOP) communicates with Deng Xiaoping (TIK) via stereotypes

  

— The opening shot of the White House while the “Hail to the Chief” theme played made me initially think this would be another installment of the sketches showing President Reagan’s perspective, before the camera cut to Joe playing Reagan.
— Tim and Brad’s cartoonish Chinese gibberish and accents are just plain cringeworthy here.
— I did kinda like the throwaway line implying that Richard Nixon is now serving as a White House bathroom attendant.
— Wow at the endless amount of Asian stereotype jokes here.
— Overall, good lord, this sketch was atrocious and brought to light some of the worst tendencies of the Ebersol era. I know I was very lenient on those “Old (insert ethnicity here) Beer” commercials in my recent review of the Bruce Dern episode, but at least I found those to have an infectiously silly atmosphere and fun performances from Eddie and Joe that helped me look past the racism. This sketch, on the other hand, had NOTHING to help me look past the racism.
STARS: *

KILLING TIME
EDM wastes some time by plugging 48 Hours & Trading Places

 

— WTF happened? Why has this begun with the audience already in the middle of laughing hysterically?  What did we miss?
— Ha, Eddie now just acknowledged the same question I asked above, by jokingly saying “People at home are going ‘what did he do?’”
— Oh, it’s a “killing time” segment. Eddie’s usually always really good at these.
— He plugs an upcoming movie he’s doing with Dan Aykroyd, the now-well-known “Trading Places”.
— What’s with all the weird jump cuts? Am I watching an edited version of this?
— He also plugs the upcoming Stevie Wonder-hosted episode by doing his famous impression of him.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Can’t Let Go Now”

MAGIC FISH
a peasant (EDM) uses lawyers to negotiate wishes from a magic fish (MAG)

   

— Mary briefly breaks character after trying to spit water into Eddie’s face.
— Decent premise with Eddie bringing an attorney to negotiate wishes from the fish.
— I like how Mary as the fish is now smoking a cigarette after the camera cuts back to the negotiations still occurring after a long time.
— I’ve noticed what looks like another sudden jump cut tonight. Is this sketch edited too?
— Mary’s bitter “Damn!” into the camera gave me a pretty good laugh.
STARS: ***

THE WEB
— Rerun

GOODNIGHTS

 

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty unremarkable episode. There were some good segments, but a lot of the episode left me with a “meh” feeling. Not particularly bad, just forgettable.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Joan Rivers):
— a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Stevie Wonder