Tag: Men At Work

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October 22, 1983 – John Candy / Men At Work (S9 E3)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
JIB’s friend host hasn’t shown up yet, Mr. Mambo (host) says “told ya so”

  

— Right at the start of his first episode as a cast member, Jim Belushi is already front-and-center.
— Pretty funny part with Eddie and Joe coming up with an emergency plan to host the show as The Honeymooners.
— Great entrance from John Candy, and I’m liking his character here.
— Jim gets to deliver “Live from New York…” on his first night.
STARS: ***


OPENING MONTAGE
— Interestingly, to keep up the Mr. Mambo premise of the cold opening, the regular SNL theme music is replaced with mambo music tonight.
— This mambo theme is a fun change of pace, though it’s coming off very out-of-place in this particular opening montage.


MONOLOGUE
JOP & EDM kill time doing Ralph Kramden & Ed Norton; host finally arrives

   

— Good Honeymooners impressions from Joe and Eddie.
— John being at a loss for what to do in his monologue was kinda funny at first, but hasn’t been going anywhere interesting.
— I love the way they transitioned out of this monologue by having John just walk over into the next sketch as it begins, which continues the fun vibe of tonight’s episode.
STARS: **½


OLD COUNTRY SKI LODGE
Doc Edmund (EDM) tries country remedies for broken leg & baby delivery

  

— This has had a slow start, but I’m liking Eddie and Robin’s entrance as old doctor and nurse.
— Very funny part with Eddie advising Julia to “push her egg down” during sex.
— Some good character work from Eddie here, especially the laugh he keeps doing.
— This overall sketch wasn’t good enough to justify its long length, but there were some highlights here and there.
STARS: **½


VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED LITTLE RASCALS
Miss Crabtree’s (ROD) class is evil

     

— Interesting premise.
— Great effect with the Rascals’ glowing eyes, though I’m not sure how they’re pulling off that effect.
— So we’re just supposed to forget that Buckwheat got killed off last season? What’s he doing here? Or is this different because this is supposed to be the Rascals when they were still just kids and not grown-up yet?
— Tim giving intentionally dangerous advice to the Rascals is pretty funny.
— Unexpected twist at the end where it turns out the Rascals’ “evilness” was just them playing a gag on the teacher.
STARS: ***½


PHONE BOOTH CONFESSION
a priest (host) uses adjacent phone booths to hear (JIB)’s confession

   

— Ha, I like the concept of holding a confessional in adjoining phone booths.
— Some funny realistic humor here from all the difficulties that would naturally arise from delivering a confessional through a pay phone.
STARS: ***½


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Joanna Carson (JLD) justifies the amount of alimony she wants from Johnny
Dr. Jack Badofsky lists the many types of acne

     

— Boy, Brad’s opening NBC “Be There” joke was fucking terrible.
— Brad’s second joke wasn’t any better. Geez, he’s off to a very rough start tonight.
— Okay, his jokes are starting to get A LITTLE better, but still nothing to write home about.
— When mentioning having to sleep with Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show guest hosts once a week, Julia mentions Bill Cosby as one of them and makes a pudding sex joke regarding him, which comes off cringeworthy in hindsight for obvious reasons.
— I liked Julia’s “He’s not funny upside-down either” line regarding watching Carson’s Tonight Show while having sex.
— I like the fake-out with Tim’s “Balzac-ne” pun, where it ends up being for something much more innocent than the name would have you expect.
— Tonight’s overall Dr. Jack Badofsky commentary was kind of a letdown. Nothing stood out in this one aside from the aforementioned “Balzac-ne” one, nor did we get any of Tim’s usual funny ad-libs in response to the audience’s reactions.
— I’ve been noticing that this season’s editions of Saturday Night News have been quite short so far. I’m glad, because I wasn’t crazy about the overly-lengthy format they often used in the second half of last season. Though the fact that they’ve been shortening Saturday Night News this season could be a sign of the writing being on the wall for Brad, who’s tenure as an anchorperson is soon coming to an abrupt end.
STARS: **


MOVIE CONTRACT
EDM agrees to be in Dr. Tongue’s (host) 3D Chicks in Their Underwear

 

— John’s cheap 3D “effect” with the pen was pretty funny.
— Oh, this just turns out to be a musical guest intro. Clever way to shake up the segment.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Doctor Heckyll & Mr. Jive”


EDDIE IN NEW JERSEY
a look at EDM’s suburban New Jersey lifestyle

   

— Very interesting-seeming segment, showing Eddie’s new life in Jersey.
— Eh, the humor here is turning out to be pretty predictable and basic. Nothing special or clever at all.
STARS: **


BACKSTAGE WITH RONALD MCDONALD
Ronald McDonald (JOP) shows his nasty side in his dressing room

   

— Poor underused Gary Kroeger is just now making his first appearance of the night, and it’s just in a straight role.
— The return of Joe’s portrayal of Ronald McDonald, though at least his clown make-up is a lot less disgusting-looking than it was in that “McMillan and Wife” parody he did with Susan Saint James.
— Is this premise going to be Joe playing McDonald as an egotistical diva backstage, similar to that Pope sketch that Joe did two seasons ago? Considering how I pretty much hated that one, I’m not looking forward to seeing a knockoff of it.
— Pretty funny joke with Ronald McDonald’s “secret sauce” being liquor.
— Ugh at that groanworthy part with Ronald McDonald showing a perverted interest when hearing there are 7-year-olds waiting to see him, only to be disappointed to find out they’re boys and not girls.
— This overall sketch was a small improvement over the aforementioned Pope sketch.
— Something about this had a quintessential Ebersol era feel; one of those sketches that I can’t picture appearing in any other era.
STARS: **½


CANDACE’S FANTASY SHACK
(JIB) becomes the millionth customer at Candace’s (host) Fantasy Shack

   

— John is really funny as Candace.
— LOL at the huge size difference between “Candace” and Tim.
— Interesting character choice from Julia, using a random lisp for her Princess Leia-dressed character.
— Something about Mary-as-Dorothy’s delivery of “I like to be who I am… a whore!” made me laugh.
— Funny “millionth customer” twist.
STARS: ***


POLY-ROCK
Poly-Rock denture cream lets old musicians play guitar with their teeth

  

— For some reason, I almost thought Brad was playing Ozzy Osbourne at first, and I was about to ask “Didn’t Tim play him last time?” (in that “geek’s mouthwash” commercial), before I realized Brad just seems to be playing a fictional rocker.
— Nothing really to say about this overall commercial. It was really generic and just came and went.
STARS: **


BACKSTAGE
William B. Williams (host) & Ed McMahon (JOP) introduce musical guest

— I always crack up at Joe’s McMahon laugh.
— Another fake-out with a sketch turning out to be a musical guest intro. I’m liking this theme tonight.


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “It’s a Mistake”


MEN BEHIND BARS
(host) & (JIB) are glad to be back in prison for the winter

   

— Who’s the big guy playing the prison guard? Strangely, it kinda looks like the show’s director Dave Wilson, though I don’t see how it could be him.
— Lots of Jim Belushi for his first episode.
— Not too sure about this premise.
— Okay, I’m slowly starting to like this sketch more and more.
— I admit to getting a very cheap laugh from the off-camera effeminate voices from another prison cell.
— The “Why do you always have to be the last one to say ‘goodnight’?” bit was quite funny.
— An overall pretty good sketch that worked as a more quiet, relatable, realistically-humored piece, much like the Confessional sketch earlier tonight. And much like that sketch, John and Jim worked very well together.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

  

— John thanks “True West for letting Jim Belushi out tonight”. I’m assuming True West was some kind of play or show that Jim was in the middle of co-starring in when making his SNL debut.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty decent though average episode; not as strong as you would expect a John Candy-hosted episode to be (which I recall also saying about the episode that Candy’s SCTV castmates Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas co-hosted together last season). That being said, there was a fun, good vibe to the episode (Candy’s presence certainly helped in that regard) and the pacing of the show felt fairly quick.
— Jim Belushi had a huge first night, gave strong performances, and is already fitting in well on the show. This is making me look forward to the rest of his tenure.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman):
— about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Betty Thomas

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October 23, 1982 – Howard Hesseman / Men At Work (S8 E4)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
ROD stalls for time because host hasn’t arrived; Susan Saint James cameo

       

— Lots of interesting sights in the chaotic background behind Robin.
— Robin explains to us that SNL’s regular studio is currently being used by NBC news for election coverage, which forces SNL to do this episode from two separate studios, each on different floors. She also explains that the show only has half the usual number of studio audience members tonight. Pretty fascinating backstory from Robin here.
— I like Eddie randomly portraying himself as his Gumby character.
— Heh, after Robin walks away from Tim and his “real-life” family members (the two monkeys from “I Married a Monkey”), one of the monkeys can be seen going wild in the background. A female staff member pops into that background shot amusedly staring at the monkey’s hijinks with her mouth wide open in shock.
— Great visual of a drunk Howard Hesseman making his late arrival through the elevator doors while on the back of a motorcycle.
— Very creative, unique way of doing “Live From New York…”. Kinda reminds me of how they did it in that Irish Potato Torture cold opening with Bill Murray and Eric Idle back in season 2.
STARS: ****


MONOLOGUE
host tells dead-Belushi jokes, says “don’t worry about offending people”

   

— A very different and more simplistic home base stage for tonight’s non-Studio 8H episode.
— I like how this started as a continuation of the cold opening, by having a still-drunk Howard getting pushed out onto the home base stage.
— Howard mentions that he’s the first host from the original SNL era to do “the new SNL”. I guess by “new SNL” he’s only referring to the then-current Ebersol era, because the Jean Doumanian season did have some original-era hosts.
— Howard, on his agent and P.R. man warning him not to host in the new SNL era: “They said it would look like my career was on the skids; like I needed the work.” Heh, like a lot of the hosts from season 7.
— Howard: “Okay, so I’m a whore.”
— Howard brings up the recently-deceased John Belushi and says some very interesting things about him.
— He makes a fascinating complaint about how “the new SNL” lacks the type of personal references and “autobiographical sketches” that the original cast frequently did, where they starred in sketches as themselves. That complaint comes off a little strange in hindsight, because this early 80s era actually does quite a bit of “autobiographical sketches” compared to later decades, where there truly IS a huge void of cast members playing themselves in sketches. The show has actually gotten a little better about doing that in more recent years, with stuff like some of the short films that star the cast as themselves (e.g. the Leslie Jones/Kyle Mooney relationship story arc) or Pete Davidson and Leslie Jones’s constant Weekend Update appearances using their private lives as comedic material (hell, if anything, I’d argue we’ve gotten to know WAY TOO MUCH about Pete’s private life).
— Howard: “When is Eddie Murphy going to start doing scenes in drag?! Garrett did!”
— Fun part with Howard telling some dead Belushi jokes. I actually wanted that part to go on longer.
— I like how he’s getting more and more worked-up, now comically railing against President Reagan’s policies.
— Ah, now I see what he’s doing; he’s imitating the Weekend Update rants that used to always end with Belushi flinging himself onto the floor.
— An actually fairly touching ending with Howard looking skywards and delivering a short sincere message to Belushi.
— Overall, wow, what a fantastic monologue. Howard was incredible here.
STARS: ****½


THE GIRLS OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
Playboy profiles The Girls of Saturday Night Live- ROD, MAG, JLD

       

— Uh… WOW, to say the least!
— Oh, there’s some jokes in here too, but who’s paying attention to THAT aspect of this commercial?
— Overall, while I’m not exactly sure what the comedic aspect of this was supposed to be, I certainly can’t complain about the excuse to see all that eye candy.
STARS: ***½


DELOREAN HOME
John Delorean (BRH) packs his suitcase with “Bisquick” & “sugar”

   

— Strange topical John Delorean sketch so far. I get what all the “flour”, “sugar” and “Bisquick” really are, but other than that, I feel like this whole thing played better to 1982 audiences than to me today.
— I did get a laugh just now from the big bag of sugar that Brad emptied out into a huge pile inside the suitcase.
STARS: **½


BILL IRWIN
2 years later, dancing man (Bill Irwin) is still shaking his groove thing

   

— Always nice to see this guy, and I liked the Dancing Man short he did back in season 6.
— He’s dancing to the same song from the aforementioned short.
— Oh, this whole segment appears to be some kind of continuation or variation of the Dancing Man short. Wonder why he has such a different look this time, though the wig and oversized clothes do work well in making his rubbery physical movements look even funnier.
— Great “walking down a staircase inside the suitcase” miming at the end, a trick I also saw him do on another show.
— Overall, wow, that whole thing was great, and it was more impressive seeing him perform this in a live segment than in a pre-taped short.
STARS: ****


CARIBBEAN VACATION
Caribbean intrigue for nerdy couple Celeste (MAG) & “Iguana” Marvin (TIK)

     

— This appears to be the return of Tim and Mary’s meek couple from that Couples Therapy sketch earlier this season with Louis Gossett Jr.
— Tonight’s general episode has really been getting a lot of mileage out of Julia’s sex appeal.
— Tim and Julia’s dance is cracking me up with how they’re doing occasional throw-head-back moves in unison.
— Pretty funny part with Tim calm-and-collectedly sipping his drink while effortlessly holding back Howard from stabbing him with a knife.
— This overall sketch went a little too long for my likes, but the craziness of the whole thing was pretty funny, and I really appreciate how well-performed and fully-committed the whole thing came off. Something about this sketch had quite a different feel for this era of SNL.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Who Can It Be Now”


GOOD MORNING AMERICA
clip of David Hartman (JOP) film is Bullwinkle-like

   

— Haha, oh my god at Joe’s look in this. At first glance, I almost thought that was Gilbert Gottfried I was looking at. It’s something about the way Joe’s eyes look in this.
— Another oh my god at Joe’s dopey-sounding Bullwinkle-esque voice.
— Hilarious random gag with Joan Lunden being portrayed by a mannequin.
— The redundant interview with Gary is giving me some good laughs.
— Ha, they actually acknowledged the Bullwinkle similarities in Joe’s voice by showing an actual Bullwinkle clip being used to represent Joe.
— Overall, some pretty big laughs in this short silly sketch.
STARS: ***½


CONFESSION
(GAK) returns home from college & tells his father (host) he’s straight

 

— LOL at Gary’s dramatic reveal being “I’m straight!” after that long buildup where you think he’s going to come out as gay.
— I like the bizarro universe feel of this premise, where being straight is looked down on while being gay is accepted.
— Howard’s crying outburst is cracking me up.
— Funny ending with Howard arranging to watch “Magnum P.I.” with his apparent boyfriend.
STARS: ***


NAKED WAKE
as per the deceased’s wishes, his open casket features a naked corpse

     

— Tim, when initially looking into the casket: “He’s naked.” LOL!
— Loved Julia’s comment while staring at a certain part of the nude corpse: “His wife is REALLY gonna miss him.”
— I remember hearing Del Close has something to do with this sketch, but I can’t remember what exactly.
— Great delivery of Mary’s “This surprises me!” line immediately after she confidently claims that nothing would surprise her. I also loved her “What a NUT!” line right afterwards.
— I’m already laughing at Eddie’s mere walk-on. I can tell his bit is gonna be hilarious.
— I was right. Eddie’s “This dude is butt-naked, man!” killed me.
— Another huge laugh, this time from Eddie saying a threatening “You a DEAD MAN!!” to the corpse.
— Oh, now I remember what Del Close has to do with this sketch. Howard’s funny hippie-type character here is based on Close. I noticed that Howard was addressed as “Del” just now.
— Haha, now here comes Robin’s funny Italian mama character that we saw several times last season.
— Overall, this sketch was an absolute riot. One of the hardest I’ve laughed this season so far.
STARS: ****½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Down Under”

— Wow, we’re getting the second musical performance when Saturday Night News STILL hasn’t aired yet? What the heck is going on? I’m starting to question if they’re even going to DO a Saturday Night News tonight.
— WTF? Why did this musical performance abruptly fade to black and go to commercial while the song was still being performed? I doubt they ran out of time, considering we’re not at the end of the show yet.


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
TIK’s salute to journalism deals with the New York Post
JLD announces the Save The World Contest- prizes for solutions to crises
JOP says the Brewers are World Series losers because they are slobs

         

— Can’t believe this is just NOW coming on, when there’s only about 18 minutes left in the show. That’s insane! I don’t think I’ve EVER seen any other SNL episode that had the news segment buried this late in the show’s line-up. I *think* the Flip Wilson episode from season 9 may also have an insanely-late appearance of Saturday Night News, but I’m not sure.
— Knowing that the order of sketches is often shuffled around in the rerun versions of this era’s episodes, I wonder if tonight’s Saturday Night News originally aired in a much earlier spot and only got moved to this late spot in the rerun version I’m watching.
— (*after seeing a joke that Brad has just done about John Delorean getting busted for cocaine*) Oh, NOW I fully understand that Delorean sketch from earlier tonight!
— The debut of Tim’s “Salute to Journalism” segment, which would go on to become a recurring bit.
— Lots of good, smart, sarcastic, biting comments from Tim here (I especially liked “Wow, three days of dead gays”).
— Between this and some of the SNL Newsbreak commentaries he did as himself last season, I’m noticing that Tim seems to have a good sardonic, snarky quality about himself. Amazing that this is the same man who also seems to like doing corny pun-based shtick like the Dr. Jack Badofsky bits.
— Julia makes her very first visit to the news desk, doing a commentary as herself.
— Julia announces a tongue-in-cheek contest for viewers to solve the Middle-East crisis. Pretty funny concept.
— Good use of Don Pardo’s voice-over in Julia’s commentary.
— Joe’s SNL Sports commentary about the Brewers acting like classless slobs at the recent World Series ended up being very brief. I kinda liked the clips shown, but there wasn’t much to this overall commentary.
— An off-camera Joe reaching his hand into the camera view to offer Brad a chewed-up ball of tobacco while Brad is in the middle of delivering his sign-off to the camera reminds me of how Joe often used to troll Charles Rocket with props after finishing his Update commentaries.
— Overall, not a particularly good edition of Saturday Night News, but not any worse than usual. I still can’t understand why they would bury this so unusually late in the show, as if they were ashamed of it.
STARS: **½


UNCLE TEDDY’S LITTLE THEATRE
family members criticize young (GAK)

    

— There’s that same living room set again tonight.
— Great kid voice from Gary.
— Tim’s bluntly negative comments to Gary are really funny.
— Strange that both sketches using this living room set tonight deal with Gary as a son and the topic of homosexuality.
— Wow, dark turn this has taken with Howard hinting at Gary to shoot himself.
— I’ve been enjoying this sketch so far, though the idea of this sketch mining humor out of a young boy being viciously belittled by family members for being “effeminate” probably won’t hold up well with a lot of people nowadays.
— Great twist with Gary turning the gun on Howard.
— Joe’s creepy host character is quite funny, and I now see what they’re going for with him, basically hinting that he’s a child predator.
STARS: ***


THE AMAZING RONCO ANSWER BOOK
The Amazing Ronco Answer Book has responses to ads’ rhetorical questions

— Joe plays the lead of yet another sketch tonight.
— Fairly funny premise, and the usual strong fast-paced pitchman delivery from Joe.
STARS: ***


GOODNIGHTS

 

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Very strong episode. Lots of really solid stuff all throughout the show, and nothing fell too flat; even the weakest segments of the night were still somewhat watchable. I got so much enjoyment from watching this episode.
— And what a great hosting performance from Howard Hesseman, who was an even better fit here than he was in his prior hosting stint in season 5. I can definitely see why they bring him back to host again just a few months later in this same season.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ron Howard):
— a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Michael Keaton