Tag: saturday night live

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February 26, 1983 – Beau and Jeff Bridges / Randy Newman (S8 E14)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
hosts tell embarrassing stories about each other’s childhood

   

— Strangely, this begins with Jeff and Beau being announced by Pardo, followed by them making their entrance on the home base stage. Uh, shouldn’t this be happening in the MONOLOGUE, not the cold opening? Ebersol’s toying around with SNL’s format yet again, I see.
— I like where this is going, with Jeff and Beau telling embarrassing childhood stories about each other.
— Some good laughs from their dad Lloyd Bridges scolding them over the phone and then encouraging them to fight each other.
— What was with that loud buzzer sound when Beau was doing the “Hey, look over there” trick on Jeff?
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
hosts duke it out on-stage, egged on by Lloyd Bridges [real] in L.A.

   

— Some technical errors when the thought bubble of Lloyd Bridges first shows up.
— This is the second time this season where a legendary actor makes his cameo in the form of a pre-taped thought bubble giving advice to his son, after Andy Griffith did the same to his TV son Ron Howard in the “Opie’s Back” sketch.
— The Jeff/Beau fight is fairly fun, though nothing great.
— How are Beau and Jeff applying the fake blood on their mouths after each of them gets punched?
— Pretty funny conclusion with both brothers coming together to agree that they hate their father.
STARS: **½


TEXXON
“Do what we say, nobody gets hurt”

   

— The return of SNL’s fake sponsor Texxon Oil, after those frequent “disclaimer gag” cold openings from the first half of season 7.
— The guilt trip messages from the old man, black guy, and little girl are funny.
— Love the ending slogan “Do what we say and nobody gets hurt”.
— Overall, pretty biting satire.
STARS: ***½


PIMPLE
a huge pimple causes many embarassing moments for (JLD) on prom night

   

— I like the randomness of Julia’s name being “Cynthia Marie Laboof”.
— When Julia comes downstairs in her prom dress, you could hear wolf-whistles from someone in the audience before Julia reveals her huge pimple.
— Speaking of that reveal, I saw it coming from miles away.
— Hmm, Beau and Jeff randomly appearing as themselves.
— Great ending with Eddie.
— Overall, the premise of this sketch was too predictable, and I feel like I’ve seen this whole thing (someone having a comically-oversized pimple) pulled off better somewhere else, but I’m not sure where.
STARS: **


RICK’S CAFE
it’s Casablanca in a ski lodge & Rick (EDM) controls the lift tickets

   

— Interesting with Eddie as a Humphrey Bogart “Casablanca”-esque character. Between the Gas Station/Elvis sketch from the last episode and now this sketch, SNL seems to be getting a lot of mileage lately out of Eddie’s knack for doing dead-on impressions of white celebrities.
— A good laugh from Tim’s initial walk-on as a guy impaled with a ski pole. He’s doing a decent Peter Lorre-esque voice too.
— Haha, the Shaft part is freakin’ hilarious.
— A good laugh from Eddie’s big sticking-out tongue.
— I like how Joe’s long listing-off of random minorities eventually led to one of the listed minorities being “Jew albinos with brunette hair”.
— Eddie to the camera: “My, this is a long sketch.”
— While Eddie wasn’t kidding about the length of the sketch, I still found it pretty enjoyable overall, and damn, what a strong performance from Eddie. Probably one of his more underrated, forgotten performances. If the writing of this sketch were up to the same level as his acting, this might’ve turned out to be a classic.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Love L.A.”


CHEAP HUNT
Mike Nelson (Jeff) keeps costs down by staying out of water

   

— I like the detail of Jeff having comically-big furry fake eyebrows while playing his father Lloyd.
— I’m not liking where this sketch has been going. Some of the groanworthy random gags are bringing back unwanted memories of that infamous Sunken Submarine sketch from last season’s Robert Culp episode. What is it with the Ebersol era doing bad sketches that have a nautical setting?
— Funny unscripted moment with Jeff pointing out that Tim’s tie is hanging in the bucket of water he’s holding.
— Okay, I am starting to kind of like the meta premise, but the overall sketch just isn’t coming off all that well.
STARS: **


BATTERED HUSBAND
male domestic violence victim (GAK) gets little sympathy from other men

   

— SNL seems to be going to the “the usually meek, soft-spoken Mary Gross playing an aggressive character” well a lot lately.
— Yeah, not too sure about this premise with everybody ridiculing Gary for being beat up by his wife.
— Strange how the two sketches that have used this same living room set tonight (this and the Pimple sketch) both deal with characters entering the house one-by-one and adding ridicule to a character in an embarrassing situation.
— WTF at the ending? Good pratfalls from Gary as usual, though.
— A really weak sketch overall.
STARS: *½


SAUNDRA’S HOUSE OF MASSAGE
(Beau) is surprised to find that masseuse Saundra (Jeff) is a man

   

— Heh, this is getting creepy with Jeff oiling himself up.
— Geez, the increasingly-homoerotic nature of this massage is disturbing when you remember these two guys are BROTHERS in real life.
— LOL at Beau’s sudden jumping-up reaction when Jeff’s hands “slip” down to Beau’s crotch area.
— Overall, very mixed feelings about this. I spent portions of the sketch being really creeped-out by the incestuous undertone of it, but I suppose I got enough laughs from the overall piece. I really have to wonder, though, how the Bridges brothers agreed to perform this.
STARS: ***


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
TIK uses New York Post headlines to tell a story
Howard Hesseman [real] is disappointed by poor response to “moon Reagan”
Dr. Ruth Westheimer (MAG) takes a call from an aroused teenage admirer
JOP asks big-necked Herschel Walker (EDM) about his decision to turn pro

        

— Barely any audience applause for Brad during his intro. Is the audience as consistently bored with him as an anchorperson as I am?
— Tim’s Salute to Journalism commentary so far is an improvement over his disappointing last one from earlier this season. I especially liked the “They’re Free!” headline bit.
— Strong ending to Tim’s commentary, with his displaying a New York Post toilet paper roll.
— Hey, it’s last week’s host, Howard Hesseman! He must be here to do a follow-up to the “moon President Reagan’s face” mail-in contest.
— Yep, he is.
— Howard’s getting some laughs from his perverted desperation to see more mooning pictures, but the material itself isn’t all that funny. Kind of a waste of him.
— Gary’s increasingly-obscene phone call to Mary’s Dr. Ruth is very funny.
— It was unnecessary to repeat the finger-in-hole gesture bit from Mary’s last Dr. Ruth commentary.  Are they going to do that gesture bit EVERY time she’s on?
— Speaking of unnecessary, Brad’s addendum to Dr. Ruth’s commentary was pointless and fell flat.
— Wow, this is one long Saturday Night News. Feels like there’s 50 guest commentaries.
— Eddie’s fake neck as Herschel Walker is a good sight gag.
— Unfortunately, the rest of the Eddie/Joe commentary didn’t go anywhere beyond the sight gag, which lost its novelty pretty fast.
— Lately, Brad seems to have made “Right on!” his new ending tagline. Yeah, not sure I can say that’s a good decision.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Real Emotional Girl”


GUY CRAZY
National Organization For Women members are “Guy Crazy” for Jeff

   

— A musical sketch. If you’re familiar with how I usually feel towards this type of sketch, then you’d know what my initial reaction is to having to sit through this one. (*hint: it ain’t a pleasant reaction*)
— That being said, I am kinda liking the energy here, and at least Robin is getting a rare big showcase. It’s a shame how incredibly underused that woman’s been this season.
— Jeff: “(singing) I’ll take you to the woods and play ‘house’ in your nest.” Uh, whoa…
— After the dream sequence has ended, the camera cuts back to Jeff continuing to give the speech he was giving before the dream sequence started, but he’s seen re-applying his tie. I don’t know if that’s just a delayed costume change, or if it’s an intentional meta joke.
— Overall, despite me being a little more lenient on this than I usually am towards musical sketches from this era, this still wasn’t anything special.
STARS: **


GOODNIGHTS

 

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A very “meh” episode. Absolutely no sketches stood out as particularly strong, and quite a lot of the show was forgettable. There were a few pretty good things, but not enough to make this an overall passable episode.


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Bruce Dern, a.k.a. the famous “Buckwheat gets shot” episode

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February 19, 1983 – Howard Hesseman / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (S8 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

DISCLAIMER
DOP relays host’s request that home viewers have a camera ready

— Heh, this is ALREADY making me laugh.


COLD OPENING
cast tries to talk host out of doing controversial anti-Reagan monologue

 

— Good premise with the cast begging Howard not to go through with the controversial monologue he has planned.
— Eddie complaining about Howard’s piece being too hostile towards the president gave me an unintentional laugh, given the fact that, just a few episodes earlier, Eddie did an anti-Reagan commentary on Saturday Night News, calling the president a sleazeball and encouraging viewers to write a letter protesting his refusal to make Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday.
— Heh, and now Howard himself pointed out the irony of Eddie’s complaint about Howard’s hostility towards the president, by responding “Oh, great, advice from Mr. ‘Kill the White Man’.”
— This is doing a good job of hyping up the monologue and keeping the audience in suspense, even though I personally am already aware of what the monologue’s big reveal is going to be.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
host says “Join me- take photo of yourself mooning Reagan, send it in”

   

— Here we go, Howard’s heavily-hyped monologue…
— Funny unscripted moment with a woman in the audience being heard yelling “Hey, Johnny Fever!” (or was it “Play Johnny Fever!”?).
— Haha, Howard’s big reveal is that his monologue is going to be him “dropping trou and mooning the president of the United States”.
— A brief callback to his “dead Belushi” jokes from the monologue he did earlier this season.
— He invites viewers at home to join in on the “media moon-in of President Reagan”, by taking a picture of themselves mooning the TV set when a Reagan picture will show up onscreen, and then mailing their mooning photo to SNL so they can announce the results. LOL, this is great. I can’t believe SNL is doing something like this.
— The audience is going fucking WILD now that Howard’s about to start his mooning.
— We can’t see Howard doing the actual mooning while the camera is showing a close-up of a Reagan picture, but the audience reaction seems to indicate that Howard is indeed exposing himself right before their eyes.
— The ending of this monologue appears to have been abruptly cut off in the copy of the episode I’m watching (an old recording of a Comedy Network rerun from Canada).
— Overall, a terrific and uproarious monologue. In the three episodes he’s hosted, Howard has shown a true knack for doing fantastic monologues that know how to get the audience really into it.
STARS: ****½


SLEEPY BOY 2000
— I already covered this in my review of the Robert Blake episode. This was actually originally aired in tonight’s episode and was later added to the Blake episode in reruns.


GAS STATION
near Graceland, (EDM) receives Elvis’ soul after being hit by a car

   

— Robin’s exaggerated overbite is a funny little detail.
— Eddie thinking he’s Elvis is a pretty funny premise.
— I’m liking Eddie’s Elvis-esque singing of “Jailhouse Rock” while the other performers wildly dance.
— Felt like this overall sketch could’ve gone more places that it didn’t.
STARS: **½


MAD MAGAZINE THEATRE
Windbags Of War characters bash own TV-movie

     

— Oh my god, is that Joe under all the heavy make-up as Alfred E. Neuman?
— Haha, not only is it INDEED Joe, but he appears to be playing Neuman as Tom Snyder, which is really cracking me up.
— This whole scene with Joe is absolutely hilarious so far.
— Who is Gary doing an impression of? His portrayal seems so specific.
— LOL at Eddie randomly entering the scene as Kunta Kinte.
— Feels weird seeing Brad playing a character like this. This has to be the most deep I’ve seen him go into character.
— Very fast costume change for Eddie, playing two different roles in one live sketch.
— An overall fun silly sketch, and an accurate parody of Mad Magazine’s style.
STARS: ****


WEST HEAVEN
by Judith Jacklin Belushi- a musical farewell to JOB

       

— A film from John Belushi’s widow, Judy, as a tribute to the recently-deceased SNL legend.
— Did I just see John’s brother Jim (who we’ll soon be seeing joining the SNL cast next season) standing next to John in one picture? (fifth screencap above)
— Very nice background music throughout this.
— Overall, this was beautifully done, presenting a touching montage of personal pictures that show a softer side of John that audiences rarely got to see. Considering the strong affinity I’ve recently developed for the original cast when covering their era in my SNL project, this film really got to me personally.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


THE A-TEAM
Mr. T (EDM) says “watch the A-Team” but Rex Reed (JOP) says it’s no good

— An interesting snapshot of a time when The A-Team was a brand-new series.
— Another entertaining display of Eddie and Joe’s always-fun chemistry.
— Funny line from Joe’s Reed saying Mr. T looks like Tina Turner on steroids.
STARS: ***


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
John Hinckley’s affinity for presidents is documented back to Ike
Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer ponders more mysteries of the universe
Seymore P. Higgins (TIK) clears up misconceptions about George Washington

       

— The montage of John Hinckley in the background of various presidential pictures from over the years was veering dangerously close to coming off like one of Brian Doyle-Murray’s dreaded “long photo montage” bits from last season’s SNL Newsbreaks, but this one ended up having a decent payoff with Hinckley supposedly being conceived in a hotel in the background of an Eisenhower picture.
— Another overall good Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer commentary, especially his “What does a snake use for genitalia?” question.
— Brad’s humorous description of Jerry Lewis was funnier than the actual punchline of the joke.
— I feel dumb for saying this, but I didn’t get Brad’s joke about a Chinese-children-having Mayor Ed Koch getting married again an hour after his wedding. Are frequent marriages a Chinese stereotype?
— What the–? Tim in ANOTHER commentary tonight, as a different character this time? Wow, I know Tim has been a Saturday Night News staple this season, but it’s a VERY rare case to see someone doing two separate commentaries as two different characters in THE SAME edition of SNL’s news segment. The only other instance I can recall of this is Chris Kattan during the Weekend Update in a Jeff Gordon-hosted episode from season 28.
— At the beginning of this commentary, Tim is still seen wearing his mustache from his earlier Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer appearance, then he quickly pulls off the mustache in a hurry. I can’t tell if that was a genuine blooper or an intentional joke. I’m leaning towards the latter, judging from the exaggerated way Tim removed the mustache.
— Brad’s hand can be seen reaching from off-camera to fix Tim’s tipping-over hat while Tim’s in the middle of speaking to us.
— Haha, Brad adjusts Tim’s hat once again. Is this an intentional meta bit or an ad-lib?
— After a while, Tim finally just throws his unstable hat aside.
— Boy, Tim’s commentary seems to have gone completely off the rails. Everything in this is hilarious, though, from the bloopers to the ad-libs to Tim’s humorous scripted dialogue about George Washington.
— Ha, now this has gotten even funnier with Tim flat-out throwing off his entire wig and revealing his Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer bald cap to the camera.
— Tim’s overall commentary was a riot. I love how much he and Brad were having fun with it. One of the biggest highlights of any Saturday Night News this season.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Change of Heart”


HOLIDAY INN
room service theatrically serves Marvin & Celeste a Fiesta Cheese Platter

   

— This is the second time they’ve done a Holiday Inn sketch in a Howard Hesseman-hosted episode, after that funny Holiday Inn horror movie trailer sketch from his season 5 episode.
— Another return of Tim and Mary’s mousy couple Marvin and Celeste.
— I like Julia’s squeaky-voiced “Arriba!”
— Brad seems to be stretching his acting chops throughout tonight’s episode, playing the type of roles that we usually never see him in.
— Heh, this sketch is getting pretty crazy.
— The pairing of Brad, Julia, and Gary makes me wonder if this is another Practical Theatre Company piece, with Howard Hesseman playing Paul Barrosse’s role. Probably not, though. After all, who would’ve played Tim and Mary’s roles in the stage version of the sketch?
— Funny throwaway line from Hesseman about Tito Puente.
STARS: ***


MY DATE WITH DION
in the salon, Dion Dion & (MAG) tell each other about their nightmares

— Interesting voice on Mary. I’ve never heard her sound like that before.
— The return of Eddie’s Dion Dion character, this time showing him working at a salon, a setting that would soon become regular part of his sketches. Is this going to be the introduction of Joe as Blair, Dion Dion’s equally-flamboyant co-worker?
— Eddie’s naked Rastafarians line was pretty funny.
— Hmm, I guess Joe isn’t going to be in this sketch after all. When in the world does his Blair character make his debut? After being fairly familiar with the Dion Dion/Blair sketches from my past viewings of this era years ago, it feels weird seeing Dion without Blair.
— Decent sketch overall.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “The Waiting”


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— While a step down from Howard Hesseman’s terrific episode from earlier this season, this was still a pretty solid show. Most of the material was good, there were fun moments to be had, and the show never really bottomed-out. Even Saturday Night News was passable. There was also a great energy to the first quarter of the episode that put me in a really good mood.
— It’s a shame that this ends up being Howard Hesseman’s final hosting stint. Judging from the two episodes he’s hosted this season, it seemed like he was on his way to becoming the Buck Henry/Steve Martin/Elliott Gould of the Ebersol era. Why’d they stop getting him after this season?
— My version of this episode ran for only 1 hour and 3 minutes, which is a few minutes shorter than a typical episode from this era. Something must’ve been removed from my copy, but I don’t know what. [ADDENDUM: Looking at the episode guides, my copy of this episode is missing a sketch called “The Laughing Buddha” and a rerun of the “The Khaddaffi Look” commercial from season 7. Strange that they would re-air the latter THIS season; after all, isn’t the jingle in it sung by the recently-fired Christine Ebersole?]


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Sid Caesar):
— a slight step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Beau and Jeff Bridges

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February 5, 1983 – Sid Caesar / Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes (S8 E12)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
cast wonders how to prove show’s live, host explains “now-was-gonnabe”

   

— Gary being berated for his idea is a funny continuation of the running gag with him being the SNL punching bag.
— Why does the “Saveco” logo hanging on a banner on the background wall seem so familiar to me? (you can see it above Sid Caesar in the second screencap above) Was it used in a previous sketch?
— A good laugh from Eddie’s idea of proving the show is live by just bluntly saying into the camera “It’s crap and it’s live”.
— A VERY strong audience reaction to Sid Caesar’s entrance, which eventually leads to a standing ovation.
— The cast (especially Julia) seems to be really honored to be working with Sid.
— Sid’s whole complicated “when now is over” philosophy is freakin’ hilarious.
— Love the “Let’s pull Kroeger’s teeth out” mantra.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)

— Very short, but it was nice to see sincerity from Sid and he managed to get his usual laughs.
STARS: ***


FUNERAL IN A CAB
(EDM) pitches the inexpensive burial alternative

      

— Eddie’s doing a good job as another fast-talking pitchman, after the Popeil prophylactic commercial from earlier this season.
— The concept of this is funny, and the whole sequence demonstrating the dead body’s journey is hilarious, especially how it ends with the body getting thrown in a garbage truck.
STARS: ****


HOTEL
hotel room time-warp demonstrates 30 year change in male-female relations

     

— Whoa, sudden black-and-white shift.
— Oh, I see what they’re doing, showing how much times have changed between 1953 and 1983 by showing the huge difference in how Sid interacts with his respective love interest in both time periods. I love the clever concept of this.
— Nice touch with 1953 Eddie being a stereotypical Rochester-from-The-Jack-Benny-Show type of servant after we just saw 1983 Eddie as a respectable businessman who seems to be on the same level of importance as Sid’s character.
— I love how they’re constantly going back-and-forth between the 1953 and 1983 scenes.
— This is fantastic so far.
— LOL, is Mary biting Sid’s bare skin while she’s tearing his shirt off?
— Loved Sid’s final line into the camera.
— Overall, that was terrific, and really appealed to me as someone who’s always been fascinated in seeing how much social norms have changed from how they were several decades earlier. I can’t help but kinda wonder what an updated version of this sketch would look like, showing how much times have changed from 1983 to 2019.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guests perform “Up Where We Belong”


WHINERS
a hospital patient (host) is stuck next to ex-hostage Whiners

   

— Damn, they fooled me at first into thinking this was going to be a funny original sketch centered around Sid as a recovering hospital patient, until I recognized Joe’s off-camera whines and realized this is the dreaded continuation of the previous week’s Whiners sketch that ended with a cliffhanger. Putting up with the Whiners in one episode is bad enough; having to watch them in TWO CONSECUTIVE EPISODES is unspeakable torture.
— Sid’s facial expressions alone are almost saving this sketch.
— Satisfying ending with Sid wrapping his medical tubes around the Whiners’ necks in an attempt to strangle them.
STARS: *½


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Patti Lynn Hunnsacker (JLD) tells her parents “I’m sexually active”
spittin’ mad MAG tells us which federal agencies should be done away with
Dr. Jack Badofsky lists types of suicide

      

— Julia’s overall commentary did absolutely NOTHING for me. And worse, I think this teen character of hers eventually becomes recurring. Can’t say I’m looking forward to that.
— This is the first time during a “Spittin’ Mad Mary Gross” commentary where she actually describes herself with the words “spittin’ mad”.  Until now, I had kinda been wondering why I’ve always seen SNL fans use the specific title “spittin’ mad” for these commentaries of hers.
— I got a good laugh from Mary’s suggestion to replace the surgeon general with a “chiropractor colonel”.
— Unfortunately, the rest of Mary’s commentary was a step down from her usual angry rants.
— Ugh, ENOUGH with this Dr. Jack Badofsky character already.
— Man, Badofsky’s puns are particularly bad tonight. I cannot believe so many of these groaners are getting big laughs from the studio audience. I guess this shows how different times were back in the early 80s, because I’m trying to picture modern-day SNL in 2019 having a Weekend Update character like Badofsky (I’m not sure who in the current cast would play him), and I don’t see it going over well at all; I can’t picture those corny old-fashioned puns getting laughs from today’s audience.
— Overall, a really bad Saturday Night News tonight, with NOTHING knocking it out of the park.
STARS: *½


HARRY ANDERSON
Harry Anderson [real] does a trick involving red rubber balls & handcuffs

   

— Whoa, how’d he do that marked cards trick at the beginning?
— Funny part with a handcuffed Harry somehow getting tangled around the audience volunteer’s arm.
— Great reveal at the end that he did the handcuff trick with a fake hand.
STARS: ***


CRIME AND SELF-PUNISHMENT
troubled inventor’s (host) silent film biography

         

— I’m slightly wary about approaching this, as I recall hearing that this is a VERY long sketch. I have no doubt that Sid will make it work, though.
— This is doing great at mimicking a silent movie.
— LOL at Sid’s blatantly fake speed-reading through the books.
— Very funny part with Sid repeatedly pulling back up a heart-attack-having Tim to keep him from slumping to the ground.
— I like the random detail of Sid pouring the poison he’s about to drink into a fancy wine glass.
— Overall, this was INDEED a very long sketch (easily one of the longest in SNL history; I would guesstimate that this was around 15 minutes long), and I can see why some people may have a lot of problems with it.  While it dragged in certain spots, I personally can’t complain too much because I still felt that the overall film was interesting to watch progress and, as I expected, Sid made it fun and was tailor-made for it.
STARS: ***


A FEW MINUTES WITH ANDY ROONEY
only his books are worth reading

 

— They’re still doing these? Well, at least they’ve recently been cutting back on the frequency of Joe’s Rooney appearances.
— Heh, is that vagina quote from the Helen Gurley Brown book real?
— All the double-entendres with Rooney’s questions about Gurley Brown’s “book” are very funny.
— This badly petered out at the end, with Joe’s Rooney just saying the titles of his own endless number of books.
STARS: ***½


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Professor Helmut (host) touts soap operas as the trade imbalance solution

   

— Wait, what the hell??? A second Saturday Night News tonight? This is insane. What, we didn’t get ENOUGH bad Brad Hall jokes the first time around tonight?
— I really don’t understand Ebersol’s tendency to do odd, unconventional things with SNL’s news segment. (I’m aware he would later start doing particularly unconventional things with the news in seasons 9 and 10)
— Hmm, maybe this might be worth it after all. We’re getting a guest commentary from Sid.
— Sid demonstrating the same soap opera scene in various different languages is hilarious, especially the random brief English interjections he keeps throwing in.
— Overall, while Sid’s commentary was very solid, I don’t understand why they couldn’t have just put it in the first Saturday Night News from earlier tonight instead of creating a separate one for it. Oh, Ebersol, you perplex me.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Joe Cocker performs “Seven Days”


GOODNIGHTS
cast makes host an honorary member of SNL

  

— This is wonderful, with Mary presenting Sid with a plaque declaring him an honorary member of SNL. All the genuine joy and emotions being displayed here are infectious.
— Are Eddie’s tears real, or is he just jokingly acting emotional?

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A very enjoyable episode that got all the mileage out of Sid Caesar that they could. He was utilized perfectly tonight, being given lots of showcases for his trademark comedic style, and he delivered in every single performance. Tonight’s episode was far from perfect, but the show as a whole had a strong feel that I really liked. This is probably the most I’ve enjoyed an episode since the  Howard Hesseman one from all the way back in October.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas):
— a step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
The recent string of impressive comedic hosts continues, as Howard Hesseman makes his return, a mere four months after his last hosting stint

Posted on

January 29, 1983 – Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas / The Bus Boys (S8 E11)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Bob Hope (Dave) & Frank Sinatra (JOP) pressure Woody Allen (Rick)

   

— Nice to see tonight’s two hosts front-and-center doing fun impressions right at the start of the show.
— Some funny lines from Rick-as-Woody-Allen’s asides to the camera.
— The Mia Farrow line was great.
— Whoa at Joe-as-Sinatra’s sudden “f**gots” line.
— Good bit with Joe’s Sinatra affecting the outcome of the Super Bowl with one phone call.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
Bob & Doug McKenzie are mad at DOP for giving their hotel address
the McKenzies visit NYC landmarks

     

— Rick and Dave make their monologue entrance in character as the McKenzie Brothers. Oh, this is gonna be fun.
— I like their summing up the history of SNL’s quality as “It was good, then it went downhill, then it got good again, then it– etc.”. Fellow SCTV alum Martin Short would later say something similar about the timeline of SNL’s quality in his 1996 monologue.
— The bit with them getting revenge on Don Pardo is funny.
— A cutaway to a pre-taped segment with the McKenzie Brothers out in the city. I’m loving this.
— Funny part with them suddenly leaving the clothing store as soon as an employee asks them if they need help.
— This kinda ended abruptly. I had hoped this would go on a lot longer.
STARS: ***½


WHINERS
Doug & Wendy Whiner are taken hostage during a bank robbery

   

— Oh, god, here we go…
— For once, I got an actual laugh from one of the Whiners themselves (usually my only amusement in their sketches comes from the straight man characters playing off of them), with Joe wimpishly telling Brad “I’ll make mincemeat out of you”.
— Unusual ending: after Gary and Brad go nuts and start firing their guns all over the place, the camera does a freeze-frame with the words “To Be Continued Next Week” being displayed onscreen. I’m aware that they DO follow through on this by continuing the sketch in next week’s episode, where we see (I think) Doug Whiner in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds (I guess Gary and Brad’s bullets somehow missed Wendy Whiner). While I normally would admire the fact that this is a rare instance of SNL doing a two-part sketch over the course of two episodes, I’m certainly not looking forward to having to put up with the Whiners for the second episode in a row.
STARS: *½


I’LL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT
Tyrone Green on Dick Cavett’s (Rick) game show

     

— After becoming familiar with the blandness of Dick Cavett when I reviewed the original SNL era (Cavett hosted twice in 1976), I’m getting a big kick out of seeing Rick do an impression of him.
— Rick is really good here and is perfectly capturing Cavett’s aura, though the voice isn’t quite as dead-on as I hoped it would be.
— Rick begins his introduction to his next guest with “one of the angriest poets…”, which must mean it’s gonna be… Tyrone Green!
— Yep, I was right.
— Tyrone’s back to having his usual short hair after suddenly sporting long dreads last time we saw him (the famous “Kill All the White People” sketch) . Heh, I guess we’re to believe that in the universe of that last sketch, Tyrone’s dreads were just a wig.
— Robin is really cracking me up in her scenes as Oriana Falacci, and the random sponsors she’s announcing are funny.
— Some good laughs from Eddie’s angry threats to the orchestra.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & EDM perform “The Boys Are Back In Town”

 

— Very interesting to see Eddie participating with the Bus Boys. I may be forgetting something, but I believe he’s only the third individual cast member in SNL history who got to sing with a musical guest during a musical performance (the first two were Chevy Chase in a Carly Simon performance from season 1 and Bill Murray in a The Amazing Rhythm Aces performance from season 5). I’m not counting the times where a cast member sang with a musical guest while in character as someone, like several instances of John Belushi as Samurai or Joe Cocker.
— You can tell Eddie’s having a lot of fun here.


HITCHCOCK HYGIENE
a suspenseful reminder to see your dentist regularly

     

— This is doing a great job of recreating the aura of a typical 1940s/50s thriller.
— The dentist reveal at the end was a good twist.
— This overall film had almost a Tom Schiller feel to it, though I doubt it was him behind this one.
STARS: ***½


GUY TALK
Liberace (Dave) & Michael Jackson (EDM) recount macho exploits

  

— Fairly funny concept with Liberace and Michael Jackson being the guests on a manly talk show.
— Eddie’s exaggeratedly high-pitched voice is kinda making me laugh, but his general portrayal of Michael as possibly gay would probably be seen as weird nowadays. I guess in hindsight, Eddie’s impression here is serving as a snapshot of a time before Michael became known for a lot of the quirks and oddities that you would later always see in an MJ impression.
— Eddie and Joe seem to be cracking up together during some portions of this sketch.
STARS: **½


PORTA-DISH
Gerry Todd (Rick) recommends a portable satellite dish made of fine china

     

— The satellite dish being a simple dinner plate is KINDA amusing, but I hope that’s not the main joke here.
— Okay, this sketch is getting pretty funny, with the strange channels being displayed.
— I especially got a good laugh right now from the “Dyslexia Channel” which has badly-spelled closed captioning.
STARS: ***½


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
JOP predicts the outcome of Super Bowl XVII- Dolphins by 9
Dr. Ruth Westheimer (MAG) talks about how to deal with male impotence
EDM solicits viewer letters asking Ronald Reagan to support MLK holiday
Walter Cronkite (Dave) criticizes BRH’s anchoring style

       

— Immediately after the top story, Brad ALREADY throws to Joe doing an SNL Sports commentary. It’s weird how some of this season’s Saturday Night News quickly go to the first guest commentary after Brad has done only one or two jokes. That’s unheard of in other eras of SNL’s news segment.
— Joe’s fast-talking Spanish outburst was pretty funny, though he already did that in an earlier episode.
— Very quick SNL Sports commentary from Joe, with him basically just predicting the Dolphins will beat the Redskins by 9 points in tomorrow’s Super Bowl.
— The Barbie Hitler pre-taped segment was weak.
— The debut of Mary’s Dr. Ruth impression, which would go on to be a big recurring role for her.
— The ending of Mary’s commentary with Brad stopping her from doing the finger-in-hole sexual gesture was pretty funny, but the rest of the commentary wasn’t really noteworthy. I hope her future appearances are an improvement.
— First time we’ve seen Eddie doing a news commentary as himself in a good while.
— Eddie’s kinda stumbly with his delivery here, but he’s making lots of fantastic and hilarious points during his rant against President Reagan’s refusal to make Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday. I especially love Eddie’s line about how Reagan probably thinks Mother’s Day is a black holiday, and the whole part with Eddie asking viewers to mail him letters supporting the idea of an MLK holiday so Eddie can televise himself dropping the letters onto the White House front lawn with a truck.
— They seem to be going really light on the number of news jokes from Brad. Tonight’s SNN is spending far more time on the guest commentaries than Brad’s jokes. No big loss there. At this point, I’m not even sure if I can consider Brad Hall an improvement over Brian Doyle-Murray’s dreadful run as an SNL news anchor anymore. Brad had a somewhat promising start in his early SNNs this season where he seemed to be trying to leave his mark by doing lots of unique side segments (e.g. yelling at James Watt on the phone, singing the bad news of the week in an upbeat folk song, etc.), but it didn’t take long for his SNNs to devolve into stagnant blandness. Supposedly, Dick Ebersol is to blame for this drop in quality, as word has it that he forced Brad to drop his more politically-charged material and interesting side segments in favor of just doing simple “picture gags” all the time.
— Dave’s Walter Cronkite segment is pretty fun, and a good way to close tonight’s SNN.
STARS: **


HELL BENT FOR GLORY
WWII movie characters realize deadly cliches are due

     

— Julia’s role as a “blind beautiful French girl” seems like it will be a rare sample of the type of comedic greatness that we would later become familiar with from her throughout her big post-SNL career. I’ve been noticing that Julia’s been pretty tame during her SNL tenure so far, I’m guessing partly because of her very young age at the time (only 21 years old; she probably hadn’t fully developed as a comedian yet) and partly because the writers probably didn’t know how to use her talents properly.
— I was right, Julia’s getting some pretty good laughs here.
— I’m liking the meta-premise of the characters calling out all the war movie cliches that they fall under.
— Tim: “What happens to me, sarge??!?” Dave: “Nothing, you’re just an extra, get out of here.”
— The ending with Dave “hiding” was kinda weak.
— I like the ending credits sequence, showing the cast of characters one-by-one.
STARS: ***½


RENT ED MCMAHON
rent Ed McMahon (JOP) for your next party & your unfunny jokes will work

  

— I remember reading how Moranis and Thomas didn’t like the fact that Joe wears such a heavy amount of make-up for his Ed McMahon impression in this sketch. Joe DOES tend to go overboard with the make-up in quite a number of his celebrity impressions. I think both he and Harry Shearer are the only two cast members in SNL history who were such perfectionists when it came to going all out in trying to make themselves look EXACTLY like the celebrities they play. And then you have cast members like Phil Hartman and Darrell Hammond who were perfectly content with simply using a wig and a dead-on vocal imitation to pull off their great impressions. (Okay, Hammond did sometimes tend to rely on a few minor prosthetics, but not overly so)
— Decent premise of McMahon appearing at your party to laugh at your bad jokes in order to make them seem funnier to other party guests.
STARS: ***


FIVE MINUTES TO REFLECT
a rabbi (Rick) explains origin of Jewish traits

 

— This sketch is already really funny right out of the gate, especially Rick’s fake sideburns coming off with the glasses.
— Okay, after a while, the humor in this has unfortunately kinda died down, but still decently funny.
— I like Rick’s complaints when they tell him to wrap up the show.
STARS: ***


THE BIOLOGICAL WATCH
the Ronco Biological Watch tracks women’s fertility

   

— Here’s Gary taking a shot at playing the type of manic pitchman role that were usually Dan Aykroyd and Joe Piscopo’s forte.
— Pretty funny commercial so far, especially the various famous songs the watch plays for different situations.
— Gary is doing okay in the manic pitchman role, but definitely not up to the same level of Aykroyd or Piscopo.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “New Shoes”


DON’T HITCH-HIKE
— Rerun


GOODNIGHTS

 

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A consistently pretty solid episode. While nothing stood out as particularly great and the overall show was not quite as strong as I was expecting a Rick Moranis/Dave Thomas-hosted episode to be (I should probably learn to start lowering my standards, considering this is the Ebersol era), this was still probably one of the better episodes in a while due to the consistent quality and Rick & Dave’s always-fun character work. Whiners and Saturday Night News were the only two things of the night that I flat-out disliked.


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
SNL’s recent string of impressive comedic hosts continues, as Sid Caesar helms our next episode. The show’s booking of hosts has really done an amazing turnaround from season 7, where we were getting “exciting” names like Robert Urich and Elizabeth Ashley.

Posted on

January 22, 1983 – Lily Tomlin / Purvis Hawkins (S8 E10)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
castmembers copy EDM’s characters to become successful, host disapproves

     

— I like the way the show is playing up how much Eddie has recently become a big star from the release of “48 Hours” and his SNL hosting gig.
— Funny bit with Eddie’s “walkman” just being two guys singing into his ears.
— I’m liking the impressions Eddie’s castmates are doing of his characters, with Mary as Gumby and Tim as a surprisingly spot-on Velvet Jones.
— We see Eddie’s now-trademark “heh heh heh!” laugh in response to Tim’s Velvet Jones.
— Ha, now we’re getting Gary in intentionally-poorly-applied blackface as Buckwheat.
— Nice twist at the end, with Lily doing her own personalized variant of Eddie’s “Live from New York, it’s the Eddie Murphy Show” from the last episode.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host recites a cheer designed to help you forget your worries

 

— I’m really enjoying this, and the format with her saying a random string of one-liners regarding the things she worries about is reminding me a lot of her monologue from season 1. As I mentioned in my review of that monologue, random strings of one-liners is one of my favorite forms of stand-up comedy (Steven Wright and Zach Galifianakis are my prime examples of some of the comedians who are the masters of that form of stand-up).
— Now she’s chanting a cheer while snapping her fingers as the audience claps along. Tonight’s monologue really IS using the same format as her season 1 monologue. Cool.
— Very solid monologue overall.
STARS: ****


JUDITH GOES SHOPPING
housewife Judith Beasley shows how to get free food while shopping

     

— The return of a Laugh-In character that Lily brought to SNL before, in the season 2 episode she hosted.
— I like how she’s taste-testing everything in sight, especially the part with her taking just a wing off of a rotating rotisserie chicken.
— Well-done film.
STARS: ***½


ERNESTINE’S HOUSE CALL
Ma Bell employee Ernestine reclaims a family of former customers

   

— Another famous Laugh-In character of Lily’s.
— LOL at the family’s corny strawberry phone.
— I like the part with Ernestine blackmailing the family by revealing their secretive phone calls.
— An overall solid sketch and great usage of the Ernestine character.
STARS: ***½


SPEAKING AS A WOMAN
words from Dustin Hoffman (GAK) & Joan Rivers (JOP)

 

— Joe is hilarious as Joan Rivers.
— Pretty funny how Joe-as-Rivers keeps cutting off Gary’s Tootsie by turning everything Gary says into a string of self-deprecating stand-up jokes.
— I like how quick and fast-paced the overall sketch was. Tonight’s episode in general has been moving along swiftly, which I really like.
STARS: ***


NATURAL RESOURCES
Judith Beasley warns of the imminent plastic shortage

— A follow-up to the Judith Beasley sketch ALREADY?
— Some pretty funny examples listed of how much plastic is used everyday.
STARS: ***


EDITH ANN & FRIENDS
little girls Edith Ann & Darlene (JLD) tell stories from a rocking chair

   

— Yet another Laugh-In character that Lily brought to SNL before. In my aforementioned review of Lily’s first episode, while reviewing the “Edith Ann Skates” short film, I asked if Edith Ann is the same character Lily would later play opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a sketch from 1983 (which is the sketch I’m reviewing right now), and in the comments section of that review, I remember someone replied that Edith Ann was actually a Laugh-In character of Lily’s, which I hadn’t known before. I’m only familiar with some of her Laugh-In characters.
— What’s with Julia’s randomly dark skin? It’s almost making her look black for some reason.
— Loved Julia’s line about mixing marshmallows with spit and making sauce.
— Lily’s penis-showing advice was hilarious.
— Pairing Julia with Lily’s Edith Ann character turned out to be a wise choice, as Julia is giving a strong performance that works perfectly alongside of Lily’s character.
— Julia’s south accent in this, coupled with the darker skin, is now starting to make me wonder if she IS supposed to be doing a black character. It makes no sense in this sketch, though. Why randomly make her character black???
— Strong sketch overall, and makes me want to check out some of the Edith Ann sketches that appeared on Laugh-In.
STARS: ****


PUDGE & SOLOMON
(host) buys drinks for Pudge & Solomon after soiling the latter’s suit

  

— Nice inclusion of Lily into this established recurring sketch.
— I like Lily’s choice of singing Froggy Went A-Courtin’ “because it’s in a negro spiritual vein”.
— Another good Pudge & Solomon sketch, though not exactly my favorite installment of this.
STARS: ***


TESS IN THE BALCONY
bag lady Tess (host) sits in the SNL audience & expounds her theories

  

— Fun premise with Lily in the audience. Bill Murray did a cold opening like this with his Honker character, back in season 4.
— I like seeing the studio audience getting a kick out of this.
— Lily is hilarious here, especially her improvised riffs on some of the individual audience members sitting next to her.
— Weird seeing the role of an NBC page being played by Robin. This is usually the type of role SNL gets extras or writers to play.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest sings about caring & brotherhood

 

— I remember the first time I saw this episode years ago, it seriously took me halfway through this musical performance to realize that this black, male R&B singer was just Lily in drag. Watching this again now, I can’t believe I was fooled the first time. It seems so obvious right from the start that that’s Lily. Maybe I wasn’t paying much attention the first time (I usually tend to tune out musical guests).
— Lily’s performance is really good as this character.
— I’m sure there’s something I’m forgetting from one of the earlier seasons, but I *think* this is the first time in SNL history where the musical guest of an episode was just the host as a character.


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Andy Kaufman [real] thanks those who voted to keep him on SNL
JOP announces a contest- predict when Billy Martin will get axed
Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer lists possible questions to ask God

      

— A callback to Andy Kaufman’s SNL banning from earlier this season.
— We get a pre-taped message from Andy thanking various people, including the viewers who voted for SNL to keep him. No jokes here, it seems. It IS nice, though, that the show has allowed him to give a goodbye message.
— Heh, Brad follows up Andy’s message by calling it “pretty sad” and saying that Andy now owes NBC money for using airtime.
— Joe announces an SNL contest for viewers to predict when the recently-rehired Billy Martin will next be axed by George Steinbrenner. Winner of the contest gets World Series tickets. At first, I thought this was a gag, but now I’m thinking this is a legit contest. After all, SNL did have a tendency to do stuff like this in these older seasons (e.g. the “Find the Popes in the Pizza” contest).
— Funny punchline from Brad to the Muppet movie banning joke.
— A mention of SNL producer Dick Ebersol and wife Susan Saint James having a baby over the Christmas break.
— I think Tim has appeared as a guest commentator in every single Saturday Night News since at least the Robert Blake episode all the way back in November. I wonder if he’s broken a record with that.
— Good to see the return of Tim’s Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer.
— As usual, several funny one-liners from Tim’s character, this time on the topic of the questions he would ask God. I especially liked one of his questions being “Is he really gonna save the queen?”
— What the HELL was that very loud “winding down” type of sound heard just now, after Tim asked “Does he enjoy being the almighty?” That sound actually startled me.
— After the aforementioned “winding down” sound, Tim humorously ad-libs “I guess we have our answer, don’t we?” I’m still wondering what that sound was, though.
STARS: ***


FANTASY
organist Bobbi Jeanine (host) lives her dream by playing on NBC

      

— Mary in light blackface as Leslie Uggams. Hmm, are you noticing a theme in tonight’s episode? Seems to be an unusually large amount of white performers playing black roles. Heh, what’s up with that? Also, this is only the first of SEVERAL black roles that Mary would play during her SNL tenure. I seem to recall her later playing Lena Horne in a sketch (she was actually kind of a dead-ringer for her in it, from what I remember), and I think she also plays a black role in a Stevie Wonder biography sketch when Stevie himself hosts later this season. I guess casting Mary as a black woman is supposed to be funny in itself because she’s probably one of the whitest of all the white cast members in SNL history.
— Pretty funny scene with a one-armed Tim inside “Fantasy Fountain” trying to catch money with only one arm, eventually resorting to putting the money he catches into his mouth.
— Is that the same mysterious Woody Allen impersonator from the “Everybody Does Merman” sketch in last season’s Daniel J. Travanti episode?
— Wow, this feels like the first thing Eddie has appeared in since the cold opening, though he may have appeared in something in between that I’m forgetting. [ADDENDUM: I indeed forgot something he was in: Pudge & Solomon] I wonder why the sudden extreme underusage of him after his big hosting stint in the last episode… actually, now that I think of it, maybe that’s the reason for his extremely scaled-back airtime tonight. Maybe Ebersol felt bad for the rest of the cast after Eddie literally turned the last episode into “The Eddie Murphy Show”.
— The overall segment with Eddie felt like a waste of him. Maybe I’m just not used to seeing him in such an uncomedic, nothing role, especially in a sketch where practically everyone else in the cast is getting something funny to do.
— Overall, not sure what to think of this sketch as a whole. It was all over the place and pretty hit-and-miss.
STARS: **½


THE IRISH RADIO HOUR
Siobhan Cahill (MAG) runs an Irish radio variety show

   

— I can’t help but find it funny how the name of Mary’s character, Siobhan Cahill, happens to be an unintentional combination of the names of two future short-lived featured players from season 17: Siobhan Fallon and Beth Cahill.
— Tim’s farewell message was pretty funny.
— An overall fairly forgettable sketch, but I guess not too bad for something this late in the show.
STARS: **½


COFFEES OF THE WORLD
ROD for Coffees of the World- Cafe Parmigiana, Greek Egg Lemon, others

 

— For anyone keeping count, this is the third sketch of the season where Julia has worn Ana Gasteyer’s future Bobbi Mohan-Culp dress.
— The concept of this isn’t very funny, and the sketch is leaving me pretty bored.
STARS: *½


THE WEB
— Rerun


GOODNIGHTS

 

— Ah, Joe announces that the “predict when Billy Martin will be axed” contest is indeed legit. I wonder if anything ends up becoming of that contest, because unlike the famous SNL contests of the 70s, I had never heard of this one before, which makes me wonder if it ends up not receiving enough participation for SNL to announce a winner.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A kinda strange-feeling episode, as a lot of it (particularly the first half) felt more like a Lily Tomlin prime-time special than an episode of SNL. They REALLY let her take over the show with her characters, but it’s hard to complain when those characters gave me some good laughs tonight.
— The first half of the show flowed very nicely, with a smooth, fast pace and lots of solid sketches. Unfortunately, the quality died down in the second half of the show, as none of the material that followed Saturday Night News was noteworthy at all.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Eddie Murphy):
— a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas

Posted on

December 11, 1982 – Eddie Murphy / Lionel Richie (S8 E9)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
planned host Nick Nolte is ill, so EDM introduces “The Eddie Murphy Show”

— I like the opening shot of pictures of various Eddie Murphy sketches on the wall.
— Eddie gives a legitimate but funny explanation as to why scheduled host Nick Nolte had to drop out, and how we’re still going to see a “48 Hours” star host tonight because Eddie’s taking over Nolte’s duties.
— It speaks volumes on how huge of a star Eddie was at this point that he was allowed to fill in as a host (and in only his third season as a cast member!) and the episode would still be a big draw for audiences. I don’t think there’s ever been another cast member since Eddie who’s megastardom on the show was THAT much higher than that of their castmates. Some people might argue Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, or even current cast member Kate McKinnon, but nope, they weren’t on Eddie’s early 80s level of huge stardom (especially not by their respective third seasons).
— “Live from New York, it’s the Eddie Murphy Show!” I know the decision to have Eddie open the show with that line bothered some of his castmates, but in some ways, that line DOES sum up how this SNL era is often looked as, for better or worse.
STARS: ***½


OPENING MONTAGE
— Funnily enough, despite being credited and announced by Pardo as the host (with his head pasted over a picture of Nick Nolte), Eddie’s also still credited and announced as a cast member as usual.


MONOLOGUE
EDM does stand-up about black people & haunted houses, Stevie Wonder

    

— Feels great to see Eddie making the entrance that hosts usually do at this part of the show.  And wow, listen to those huge audience cheers for him.
— I like how this has started with him jokingly saying the cliched things hosts usually start their monologues with (“great to be here in New York”, “working with this cast has been great”, etc.) as if he’s never been to New York or worked with this cast before.
— Yet another great display of Eddie’s knack for doing a perfect “old Jew” voice.
— Lots of laughs from Eddie giving examples on why black characters can’t realistically be in horror films. Even if that’s a cliched stand-up topic by today’s standards, Eddie’s making some funny points here.
— Love how he’s now doing his “bad taste” Stevie Wonder impression.
— Great part with him miming a fight with Stevie.
— Overall, great stand-up monologue from Eddie as expected.
STARS: ****


RUBIK’S GRENADE
“Maybe the last puzzle you’ll never solve”

  

— Funny concept, and seems to be an improvement over that “Rubik’s Teeth” commercial from last season.
— I’m getting some good laughs from the very frantic, shaky movements of the hands panickedly trying to solve the Rubik’s Grenade.
— Good tagline.
STARS: ***½


I CAME, I SAW, I CAME AGAIN
(JOP) & (JLD) see the Kensington Dance Theater For The Blind in action

   

— Some pretty funny missed falls from the dancers.
— Good reveal that it’s not the dancers who are blind but rather the audience. I had been wondering why the audience members were all staring blankly ahead during Joe’s speech.
STARS: ***


MERRY CHRISTMAS, DAMMIT!
Frank Sinatra (JOP) sings on Gumby’s special

       

— Ah, here’s what’s considered the quintessential Gumby sketch, as well as a famous classic sketch in general. It used to be a yearly tradition for SNL to always include this in their annual Christmas compilation special.
— I got an unintentional chuckle at how cheap-looking the title graphic for this sketch comes off by today’s standards, with “Merry Christmas, Dammit!” being written in a very plain-looking font.
— Haha, I like Sammy Davis Jr.’s tree ornament being a glass eye.
— Classic moment with the song from Gary and Julia’s Donny and Marie gradually turning into a squicky brother/sister make-out session. That’s probably the most well-remembered part of this sketch.
— Good dark ending to Gumby’s Christmas story to the kids.
— Loved the part with Gumby throwing a little girl out into the snowy outdoors and making her walk to Andy Williams’ Christmas special.
— Is that Clint Smith as the shortest of the three singing Don Kings? I can’t tell.
— I’m loving Joe-as-Sinatra’s medley of cartoon character theme songs.
— The scrolling ending credits of nothing but Jewish names was probably overkill of a joke they already established earlier, but it still made me chuckle anyway.
— Nice touch at the end with the little girl who was kicked out earlier now being frozen while staring in through the window.
— Overall, this sketch is absolutely deserving of its classic status.
STARS: *****


HARRY ANDERSON
Harry Anderson [real] tries bottle-in-a-tube trick with audience member

    

— Harry’s different ways of trying to communicate with the male audience member, especially after finding out he’s from New Jersey, are pretty funny.
— Good comment from Harry regarding the audience volunteer’s baldness: “You brushed your hair, but you forgot to bring it, didn’t you?”
— Overall, Harry’s interactions with the volunteer were fun as expected, but this overall segment wasn’t quite up to Harry’s usual standards. This felt pretty average.
STARS: ***


HAIREM SCAREM
Dion Dion (EDM) denies knowledge of stealing hair for wigs

   

— The debut of Eddie’s Dion Dion character, who would later go on to be teamed with Joe as a pair of flamboyant hairstylists.
— The audience seems to be getting a real kick out of the mere fact that Eddie is queening it up in this. I guess the portrayal of stereotypical gay characters was more of a novelty back in those days.
— I kinda like how it’s now being hinted that Eddie is wearing Robin’s old hair.
— At the end during the sketch-ending applause, Eddie can be seen yanking off his wig and throwing it at Robin, which I’m assuming was an ad-lib.
— Fairly forgettable sketch overall.
STARS: **½


HERPES GONE BANANAS
a Herpes Simplex II virus (EDM) returns home from the front lines

  

— Pretty interesting, unusual set-up.
— Good character voice on Eddie here.
— Wow, this sketch is really “out there” so far. And the studio audience ain’t into this at all.
— Overall, I don’t know WHAT to think of this, but I think I feel confident enough to say this did not work, despite a somewhat creative concept and a very committed performance from Eddie.
STARS: *½


JOY OF CHRISTMAS
jaded children discuss Christmas
— What the–? It’s a rerun of an SNL Newsbreak pre-tape from last season’s Christmas episode, where Mary interviews little kids about “the meaning of Christmas”. I know it’s Christmas again, but is it really necessary to re-air this?
— At least it’s worth it just for the (now) novelty of seeing a young Seth Green again.


A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Jesus’ birth, as told by April May June

— The return of this character from Julia’s very first episode.
— I like how Julia is getting increasingly worked up during her story. She always does a good job as this character.
STARS: ***


CLYSLER-PRYMOUTH
— I already covered this in my review of the Robert Blake episode. This was actually originally aired in tonight’s episode and was later added to the Blake episode in reruns.
— Comedy Central’s big-ol’ “The Eddie Murphy Experience” station bug on the lower corner of the screen (which I’m sure you’ve been noticing in some of my screencaps of this era’s episodes; “The Eddie Murphy Experience” was a big 1994 marathon of early 80s SNLs that Comedy Central showed to promote the release of Eddie’s “Beverly Hills Cop 3”) completely blocked the “Prymouth” part of the racially stereotypical “Clysler-Prymouth” name at the end, thus ruining the gag (not that it was funny anyway). (screencap below)

ORIGINAL RATING: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “You Are”


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Dr. Jack Badofsky lists some Christmas-related medical problems
May Bradley (ROD) has holiday advice for old people- drink smart egg nogs
a riled-up MAG offers some of her Christmas pet peeves

         

— Brad’s Tony Orlando Lookalike Contest joke was pretty funny.
— It took two minutes into tonight’s Dr. Jack Badofsky for me to finally get a laugh. It was the “Richard-Pryorrea” one that did it.
— Bah, aside from the aforementioned Richard Pryor bit, Badofsky’s overall commentary did absolutely NOTHING for me. I’ve officially been over this character for a while now.
— A lot of Brad’s jokes are bombing badly tonight.
— Here comes yet ANOTHER attempt from Robin at an SNL news character. None of her attempts in the past have worked at all. Will this?
— Eh, Robin’s overall commentary was marginally better than her previous SNL news attempts, though this one took a while to take off.
— Now Brad has been relying on an endless consecutive string of groanworthy picture gags.
— Tonight’s “Spittin’ Mad Mary Gross” commentary had a slow start, but after a while, we’re now getting her usual strong delivery and lines. She’s saving this whole Saturday Night News for me tonight.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Truly”


GOODNIGHTS
Steve Martin [real] is hurt because he wasn’t called upon to do the show

  

— Another mention from Eddie of tonight being “The Eddie Murphy Show”.
— Steve Martin! We haven’t seen him on the show since the original era. Having regularly reviewed his many prior episodes during my coverage of the first five seasons, it feels very refreshing seeing him again after a two-season absence, even if this is just a cameo. I still have to wait until we reach 1986 in my SNL project before I can go back to regularly reviewing his episodes again. I wonder if the reason for his long hosting gap between 1980-1986 is because for a while, he possibly stuck to doing what fellow original-era frequent host Buck Henry did: stay loyal to the original cast by never hosting in subsequent eras.
— Steve’s whole angry rant over not being asked to host is fantastic.
— His obligatory “Excuuuse meee!” at the end was delivered very differently and less exaggeratedly from how we’re used to hearing it, which may go to show that his style was already beginning to shift by this point in 1982. By the time he starts regularly hosting SNL again a few years later in 1986, his manic style from the 70s has completely changed to a more low-key style.
— I love Eddie’s frozen, deadpan reaction after Steve’s whole rant is finished.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A decent but surprisingly average episode. I had always been under the impression that this episode was generally considered to be a bit of a classic, so I was kinda disappointed to see it just turned out to be a normal episode. I think the whole “Eddie Murphy hosting the show while still in the cast” novelty might make this episode seem better in some people’s minds than it really is. Well, that and the often-aired Gumby Christmas sketch. Looking past those two aspects, there was still a decent amount of fun highlights, but not more so than usual.
— Eddie handled the job of a host perfectly, even managing to be funny in his musical guest intros (“Ever say to yourself, wow, the musical guest really sucked?” and then later “Ever say to yourself, wow, that last sketch really sucked?”, the latter referring to tonight’s Herpes sketch). It can’t be said enough how amazing it is that an SNL episode was actually hosted by someone who’s still in the cast. Needless to say, this milestone would turn out to be a turning point for Eddie, and it’s no surprise that even as early as the beginning of next season, he already has one foot out the door.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (The Smothers Brothers):
— a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
We enter 1983, with host Lily Tomlin

Posted on

December 4, 1982 – The Smothers Brothers / Laura Branigan (S8 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
Dick criticizes Tom’s Johnny Carson impression during a Tonight Show skit

   

— LOL at Joe’s make-up as Ed McMahon.
— Joe’s doing a good imitation of the trademark McMahon laugh. By the way, this makes YET ANOTHER impression that he and Phil Hartman share.
— Sounds like Tom Smothers is not even trying to imitate Johnny Carson’s voice. Was he only cast in the role because of his strong physical resemblance to Carson?
— Eddie-as-Cosby’s rambling about ankles is very funny.
— Ah, they’ve broken the fourth wall, with Dick Smothers actually calling attention to how bad Tom’s Carson impression is. Nice twist here.
— I got a pretty good laugh from Tom’s Nixon-esque delivery of “Then I didn’t do it!”
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
hosts sing “Impossible Dream” & say how it applies to Moses & Joan of Arc

  

— We get a traditional Smothers Brothers song right off the bat here.
— This appears to be a serious song so far.
— I like Tom panickedly blanking when he’s asked what the song means to him. Nice to see this song is now starting to get comedic.
— Tom’s whole Joan of Arc story is really funny.
— Overall, a pretty solid Smothers Brothers act.
STARS: ***½


THANK YOU, RON REAGAN.
— Rerun.
— Hmm, I don’t remember seeing that shot of a man carrying a whole bunch of boxes for a wealthy old lady the first time this commercial aired. Is that shot a new addition to this commercial?


LEDGE
(EDM)’s wife, boss, clergyman jump after trying to talk him off ledge

       

— Eddie’s fast-paced listing-off of racist things his wife (Mary Gross) does to him is really funny. I especially liked the one about how Mary makes love to him while whistling the theme song from “Mandigo”.
— Eddie, when looking down at his wife’s body on the pavement after she jumped off the ledge: “I never seen her in THAT position.”
— Hey, it’s Joe’s musical director character from the Oklahoma sketch in the last episode.
— Haha, the brief “Oh, is this ledge taken?” bit with Tom was hilarious.
— Pretty funny ending with Eddie realizing “I don’t feel that bad no more” after his wife, boss, and clergyman offed themselves before him.
STARS: ***½


IF YOU WERE A HOMOSEXUAL, WHO WOULD YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE?
responses to, “If you were a homosexual, who would you find attractive?”

   

— Uh… wow, what a topic.
— I recognize some of these interviewees as people who were interviewed in a previous man-on-the-street segment from earlier this season. It even looks like they’re wearing the same clothes they wore in that one. I’m guessing all of this season’s man-on-the-street segments were filmed at the same time.
— Is it just me, or does the British guy who was interviewed at the end (last screencap above) kinda resemble 80s-era Martin Short in a balding wig and fake British teeth? Martin actually wears similar-looking fake British teeth in that Beatles Auction cold opening from season 10’s Ringo Starr-hosted episode.
— As usual, some funny answers here, especially the guy who’s only reason for picking Elvis is “because he’s dead”.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


TRUCK DRIVING WOMEN
(JLD), (MAG), (ROD) star in a musical set in a diner

  

— Ugh, they’re breaking out into song.
— No idea what to think of this sketch so far.
— I want to say it’s nice to see this female cast doing an ensemble sketch, but I don’t like where this particular sketch has been going.
— Okay, now that the sketch is over, I can say I pretty much HATED this. Felt like a leftover sketch from the first half of season 7, back when they annoyingly did corny musical sketches all the time (thank god that habit went out the door with Michael O’Donoghue).
STARS: *


RUBBERS
Dick uses Tom as an example of why it’s important to use contraception

  

— The electronic speaking toy’s increasingly unprofessional responses to Tom are pretty funny.
— Great twist with Dick as a “Rubbers” spokesperson using Tom’s idiot behavior as an example of why families should have only one child.
STARS: ****


HANDSOME MEN WITH BIG NOSES
BRH & GAK trade backhanded compliments

   

— Interesting how Brad and Gary are introduced as playing themselves in this talk show sketch.
— Heh, I’m liking this odd premise.
— Gary’s slowburn when Brad is breaking down his features is pretty funny.
— Good delivery from a now-angry Gary, especially him particularly taking offense to Brad’s criticism of his cleft chin.
— Judging from the polished, smooth pacing of this sketch and the way Brad and Gary are playing off of each other so perfectly, I wonder if this is another sketch they brought with them from their improv days together at the Practical Theatre Company.
STARS: ***


TV
a family’s problems rise to the surface when the television goes out

     

— This is REALLY slow-paced so far. I can’t tell what they’re going for here.
— Hmm, I don’t know about this premise. Maybe the idea of a family being lost on what to do after their TV has broken down is a promising concept and interesting social commentary, but the execution of it hasn’t been doing anything for me so far.
— I had been wondering what was up with Julia’s random… uh, bust size in this, but it ended up being part of the sketch, with Mary eventually calling out Julia for wearing an overly tight sweater and asking her “Who do you think you are, Suzanne Sommers?”
— Nice ad-lib from Julia after Mary flubs her “sweater” line.
— Overall, I didn’t care for most of this at all.
STARS: *½


PUDGE & SOLOMON
recently-unemployed Solomon refuses to accept charity from Pudge

 

— Nice to see these characters now receiving recognition applause from the audience.
— Lots of funny back-and-forths between Eddie and Joe here, even moreso than usual.
— Very touching, sweet ending with Joe helping out a newly-unemployed Eddie by sneaking him money while he’s not looking.
STARS: ****


MAGIC ACT
Tom scoffs at Dick’s magic act, they sing “It Just Doesn’t Matter To Me”

   

— Another nice Smothers Brothers routine. Can’t find anything else to say besides that.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Gloria”


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
Ted Kennedy (GAK) announces he won’t run for president in 1984
PBS president Lawrence K. Grossman [real] refutes lack of stuffiness
Officer Merman (ROD) offers crime prevention tips for the holiday season
Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer (TIK) ponders great unanswered questions

        

— Eh, not too sure about Brad’s jokes so far tonight.
— Interesting seeing Gary as Ted Kennedy, especially after I got so used to reviewing Bill Murray’s frequent impression of him in the original SNL era.
— Does Gary have something in his mouth? It kinda sounds like it, but I can’t tell.
— Gary’s overall Kennedy commentary was okay, especially the various Chappaquiddick references.
— Brad refers to a PBS fake ad that SNL did a few episodes ago, and they replay an excerpt. What’s the point of this?
— Ah, I see, it’s setting up a guest appearance from PBS president Lawrence K. Grossman, here to protest the commercial.
— Ha, looks like Grossman’s bit is going to be the classic “humorous disclaimers show up onscreen below a person while they’re speaking or singing” gag that the original SNL era often did (usually with Buck Henry or Garrett Morris).
— Oh, never mind, this Grossman bit has been going in a completely different direction after the one disclaimer (“No kidding, this really IS the president of PBS”) was shown.
— Here’s Robin Duke trying out a new character.
— Decent performance from Robin, but her commentary itself ended up being nothing special. I did kinda get a laugh, though, from her final tip encouraging us to shoot “a bearded man in boots” when he comes down your chimney this Christmas.
— The bit with Brad doing a Mr. Ed voice was kinda cringeworthy.
— The debut of Tim’s Havnagootime Vishnueerhere (and I’m sure I butchered the spelling) character, which would go on to become one of Tim’s signature bits.
— I really like this format with Tim’s character listing off various random unanswered questions. Fun premise.
— Tim’s overall commentary was solid and had some really funny lines, particularly “(regarding if the light in the refrigerator really turns off when it’s closed) How would we know? We eat the only witnesses” and the line regarding cat skeletons in trees. I’ll definitely take more of this character over Tim’s other Saturday Night News signature character, Dr. Jack Badofsky.
STARS: **


THE INSIDE STORY
(ROD) dislikes the TV movie about her killer boyfriend

— What??? That’s the whole sketch?!?! Uh, did I miss something? What in the WORLD was the point of this whole thing???
— I’m all for the underused Robin Duke getting more airtime, but not in fucking terrible sketches like this.
STARS: *


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Living a Lie”


GOODNIGHTS
hosts & castmembers jump from ledge set onto mattress

   

— A unique and fun way to do the goodnights, with everybody taking turns jumping off the “ledge” from an earlier sketch.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Very hit-and-miss quality tonight, which balances out to an overall average episode. There were some good highlights, but man, the lowlights weren’t just weak; they were stuff I really hated (Truck Driving Women, The Inside Story, Broken TV). A pretty mixed bag overall, but the highlights were enjoyable enough to make the episode still worth watching.
— The Smothers Brothers had a pretty fun presence as they usually do, though it felt like they barely appeared with the cast. I hope to see them in more sketches alongside this cast in their next hosting stint, which interestingly is an exact year from this episode’s airdate (first Saturday in December).


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Drew Barrymore):
— a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
History is made, as for the first and (so far) only time in SNL’s ongoing 44 years on the air, an episode is hosted by someone who’s still in the cast. SNL superstar Eddie Murphy fills in for scheduled host and “48 Hours” co-star Nick Nolte.

Posted on

November 20, 1982 – Drew Barrymore / Squeeze (S8 E7)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
in host’s dressing room, the cast is upset she was selected to do SNL

    

— A decent laugh from the look of Drew’s dressing room.
— LOL at Eddie’s slam at Tim for working with monkeys and kids.
— Tim, in response to Eddie’s aforementioned slam regarding monkeys and kids: “Be nice to ’em; who do you think is buying your album?”
— What’s this? Robin Duke with actual lines? Wow, I almost forgot what that’s like, given her non-existent presence these last few episodes.
— A reference to Dick Ebersol’s on-camera appearance the previous week where he supposedly trashed Andy Kaufman. As I mentioned in my last review, that Ebersol/Kaufman segment (among other things) is missing from the rerun version I reviewed of that episode. It’s notoriously difficult for anyone to find a copy of the live broadcast of that episode.
— Loved the part where it’s said that a Frontier Gynecologist sketch has been cut, which a disappointed Gary responds to by angrily yanking off the doctor gloves on the cowboy outfit he’s wearing. I like how it’s become a running gag in these backstage sketches for hapless Gary Kroeger to be told a sketch of his has been cut.
— Here’s the arrival of SNL’s youngest host ever.
— Drew Barrymore’s delivery is what you would expect from a 7-year-old on a live TV show. However, it hasn’t been TOO cringeworthy so far.
— Hmm, maybe I spoke too soon. Drew completely blanked at the end when she was supposed to say “Live from New York”, and during that long awkward pause, the theme music abruptly began, THEN Drew finally said her “Live from New York” while the screen did an unusually very slow crossfade into the opening montage. Awkward ending to this cold opening.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
TIK helps host answer some questions from the audience

   

— Interesting how Drew is making her entrance with Tim alongside her. Between the cold opening and this, they seem to have established Tim as Drew’s chaperone for the night. Did they pick him because he’s the shortest member of this cast (I think even tiny little Julia Louis-Dreyfus is slightly taller than him, judging from sketches where they stood next to each other)?
— Very nice interplay and chemistry between Drew and Tim throughout this monologue.
— The bit with the monkey was a fairly decent ending.
STARS: ***


THE WEB
stops the burglar before he can leave his own house

   

— An okay punchline with stopping a burglar before he gets out of his own house, after the setup of this commercial made it seem like he was robbing someone else’s house. Kinda reminds me of that Sleepy Boy 2000 ad I reviewed in the last episode, only that one was funnier.
— This commercial originally aired in the season premiere, but it wasn’t in my copy of that episode, so this is the first time I’m seeing it.
STARS: ***


E.T.
after Gertie (host) kills E.T., Mr. T (EDM) comes looking for his boy

   

— Here’s our obligatory E.T. sketch of the night (or the “host sketch”, as Susan Saint James worded it in her season 7 monologue).
— Tim as Elliott is perfect casting.
— In that blonde wig, I initially mistook Gary for Brad Hall.
— Drew’s cruel comments about the dead E.T. are pretty funny, especially her suggesting “Stuff him” when the boys are wondering what they should do with E.T.’s body.
— Great inclusion of Eddie as Mr. T, here to fetch his boy “E”. You gotta love the 80s pop culture explosion here, with Mr. T being in an E.T. sketch.
— In response to Drew finally saying one of her lines after awkwardly pausing, Eddie says to her “Very good” in his normal voice, then he and others in the scene start cracking up.
— Eddie to E.T.: “Atari’s coming out with a game about you!” Heh, funny hearing that in hindsight, if you’re aware that that game would infamously end up being SUCH a disastrous flop that a frustrated Atari buried thousands of unsold copies in a landfill. (read about it here)
— Overall, despite some awkward timing issues throughout, I found this to be a pretty fun sketch.
STARS: ***½


VOTE FOR ANDY
GAK announces phone-in contest to decide Andy Kaufman’s SNL fate

 

— Gary receives a strong amount of audience applause when introducing himself at the beginning of this, which is kinda surprising considering how new he is at this point.
— Gary sets up tonight’s contest where viewers will decide if Andy Kaufman will appear on the show again.
— Strange how they picked THIS of all episodes to do this vote-in contest. Now we have TWO unconventional gimmicks on the same night.
— Gary managed to get some laughs here overall.
— I had this same thought when watching the Larry the Lobster vote-in episode last season, but I wonder how they did this in dress rehearsal.  Since they obviously couldn’t have gotten calls from viewers yet during dress rehearsal, what did SNL do for these vote-in segments?  Did they just not include these in dress?
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


WHINERS
Doug & Wendy Whiner decide always-complaining (host) is the kid to adopt

   

— Mary Gross plays yet ANOTHER nun.
— Funny blooper when Mary accidentally gets her nun habit caught in the door and ad-libs her way out of it.
— Oh, lord, here comes the Whiners…
— It IS kinda interesting, though, how this seems to be picking up where the last Whiners sketch left off, where Ron Howard as a doctor tried convincing the Whiners to adopt a child. It’s kinda rare to see a story arc in a recurring SNL sketch.
— I got a laugh from a fed-up Mary quickly paying the Whiners to take Drew home as soon as possible.
— The sketch is over already. Overall, this was one of the more tolerable Whiners sketches by default, only because we barely saw them in this.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Annie Get Your Gun”


SHOULD ANDY KAUFMAN BE ALLOWED ON SNL?
answers to “Do you think Andy Kaufman should be on SNL?”; Ed Asner cameo

   

— Funny to see how polarizing Andy Kaufman is among the general public.
— Wait, was that a mustached Ed Asner I just saw as one of the people being interviewed? (second screencap above) [ADDENDUM: It is indeed Asner. How random.]
— LOL at one guy’s answer to the question being “I think he’s really hot”.
— Overall, some funny answers from some of the interviewees here.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


VOTING SO FAR
preliminary voting says “dump Andy,” EDM says viewers should reconsider

— For the second episode in a row, Eddie oddly wears an open leather jacket with no shirt underneath. Was that a thing back then in the early 80s, or was Eddie trying to make it a thing?
— I like how Eddie made a reference to the famous Larry the Lobster vote-in.
— Yikes, Andy’s ALREADY losing by a wide margin.
— After the audience’s positive reaction to “Dump Andy” being ahead in the votes, I liked the comically taken-aback look Eddie gave the audience before saying “You people are sick”.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
TIK warns Boston Herald-American readers by showing more Post headlines
BRH looks at real-life celebrity couples who could play the Reagans
JOP is sad the NFL strike is over- he liked coverage of alternate sports

         

— For the first time this season, Brad starts a Saturday Night News without wearing glasses. Hopefully, he’s gotten rid of them for good, because I really can’t understand his habit of wearing glasses at the beginning of each SNN, only for him to take them off after a few jokes, and then randomly put them back on after a guest commentary.
— Brad’s long bit about widowed public figures isn’t that great, and reeks too much of the type of dreadful “long photo montage” bits that Brian Doyle-Murray regularly did on SNL Newsbreak last season.
— Awkward moment during Tim’s “Salute to Journalism” commentary, where he mistakenly got mixed up with two of the papers at one point and had to backtrack. Unlike a blooper he made in a Dr. Jack Badofsky commentary earlier this season, this one wasn’t funny and it’s kinda thrown the segment off.
— Tim’s overall journalism commentary tonight was nowhere near as good as his previous one. Some of the supposedly “ridiculous” newspaper headlines he displayed were reaching, and the whole thing seemed to REALLY die down towards the end. The aforementioned blooper didn’t help, either. Also, between this recurring segment and the Badofsky bits, I’m starting to wonder why Tim seems to have a thing for doing Saturday Night News bits where he shows a series of titles to the camera one-by-one.
— Brad’s bit about which famous married couple will play the Reagans in a biopic had some laughs, and a good payoff with the chosen “married couple” turning out to be Jim Nabors and Rock Hudson.
— Joe’s rundown of what temporary televised sporting events we’ll miss now that football is back is funny due to the random clips shown as examples of replacement sports. Rubik’s Cube competitions were really a televised event back then?!?! Ah, the 80s…
STARS: **


BRAIN SURGERY
(JLD) gets the interesting date she wanted by helping with brain surgery

   

— There’s Julia wearing Ana Gasteyer’s future Bobbi Mohan-Culp dress once again.
— Ha, the sudden brain surgery twist came out of nowhere and is quite funny.
— I like Eddie’s various “He’ll never (insert random function here) again, you idiot!” to Julia.
— Wow, the audience is absolutely dead during this sketch so far. I’m personally liking this sketch just fine. Is it too fast-moving for the audience?
— Tim’s meek “I suppose I better be taking you home now” to Julia after the chaotic surgery scene has ended was pretty funny.
— Overall, a decent sketch. Something about this had a quintessential Ebersol-era feel to it. Maybe it was the frantic pacing of the whole thing. I can’t picture this sketch appearing in any other SNL era.
STARS: ***


VOTING SO FAR
MAG tries to help Andy Kaufman’s chances by showing a montage of his bits

     

— Mary rapidly reading off the “Dump Andy” number after carefully reading off the “Keep Andy” number was a gag that Eddie did during the Larry the Lobster vote-in.
— A fairly interesting Mary Gross-narrated montage of Andy’s previous appearances from SNL’s first seven seasons. Considering I reviewed all of those episodes during this SNL project of mine, I’m getting a nice nostalgic feel from this montage.
— Funny part where a section of pictures of Andy successfully defeating women in wrestling matches was followed by Mary saying “Then he wrestled a man” as we just see a picture of a humbled Andy in a neckbrace.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


OKLAHOMA
effeminate Mr. Blunt (JOP) unhappy with high school Oklahoma production

    

— Joe is spot-on in his portrayal of your typical drama queen-esque overbearing musical director.
— I liked Joe telling Gary “You’re an actor; now hold me like you mean it, dammit!”
— This was really missing a good ending. This had a very awkward, underwritten “conclusion”.
STARS: **½


DRESSING ROOM
babysitter TIK lets host dress him in women’s clothes a la E.T.

  

— First time we’ve seen Drew in a while. The last appearance she made was way back in the pre-Saturday Night News half of the show.
— Interesting Mommie Dearest “No more wire hangers” reference.
— That’s it? Wow, this was VERY short and felt kinda pointless. Tim and Drew do continue to have charming chemistry, however.
STARS: **


VOTE FOR ANDY
JOP reminds home viewers that there are only two minutes left to vote

— An incredibly short segment with Joe just telling us they’re running short on time and viewers have only two minutes left to decide Andy’s fate.
STARS: N/A (not a rateable segment)


MY FRIEND ZEUS
loser high school student (GAK) gains a powerful buddy

     

— Zeus making Gary say ridiculous things to his crush (Julia) is pretty funny, and the first laugh I’m getting from this whole sketch so far.
— Zeus to Gary: “Let’s go find a real woman, or maybe a goat or something.”
— A forgettable sketch overall, despite a few laughs.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pulling Mussels From A Shell”


SINGLE
career woman ROD says host makes her biological clock tick louder

 

— Good to see Robin getting a big showcase as herself, given how extremely underused she had been these last few episodes.
— Nice slice-of-life quality to Robin’s whole spiel.
— Drew responding to Robin’s idea of watching her own SNL appearances with “I’d rather watch Eddie” was a funny line on paper, but Drew awkwardly stopped in the middle of the line, before pausing and then repeating the whole line, which killed the joke and received awkward silence from the audience.
— Overall, I wanted to like this piece more than I did, but it was still nice to see Robin front-and-center as herself.
STARS: **½


GOODNIGHTS
by a count of 195,544 to 169,186, Andy Kaufman has been dumped from SNL

  

— Gary reads the final tally, aaaannnndd…. “Dump Andy” has received the most amount of votes, and thus, Andy Kaufman is officially voted off of SNL. In response, a lot of people in the audience happily cheer while some of the cast members are seen making exaggeratedly(?) unhappy faces.
— As a huge Andy Kaufman fan, I feel like I should be pissed off by the voting results, but it doesn’t bother me too much, especially since I’m aware he was actually the one who came up with the whole idea of this “Keep or Dump Andy” contest in the first place.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— An interesting show as a novelty considering the age of the host, but the quality of the episode itself wasn’t all that great. There were still several highlights, of course, but nothing stood out as particularly strong, and the limitations in the type of humor they could do tonight was very apparent. Despite some flubs, Drew certainly did the best that a 7-year-old could be expected to do in a live sketch comedy show, and there were some fun moments here and there with her. This overall episode was nice as a little one-time experiment, but it’s probably wise that the show never went this young for a host ever again.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Robert Blake):
— a slight step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
The Smothers Brothers

Posted on

November 13, 1982 – Robert Blake / Kenny Loggins (S8 E6)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
JLD & JOP discuss host’s phoniness as Merv Griffin [real] interviews him

   

— Funny comment from Merv Griffin about New York being “America’s G-Spot”.
— I like Joe and Julia’s cynical comments about Robert Blake. I wouldn’t be surprised if their cynicism towards him is genuine, given the negative things I’ve heard about Blake’s behind-the-scenes behavior throughout that week.
— Good slam from Merv telling Robert “You oughta know a lot about not working.”
— I liked Merv’s little “Whoa!” after saying LFNY at the end.
— An overall decent opening. Just about everything in it worked okay except for Robert Blake himself. I’m already dreading him as a host.
STARS: ***


MONOLOGUE
reunion of host’s Little Rascals co-stars- Alfalfa (MAG), Buckwheat, more

      

— Nice idea for a “reunion” of the Little Rascals characters.
— We get the debut of Mary’s Alfalfa impression, which would go on to be one of her most memorable recurring roles on SNL. Right off the bat, her impression is coming off very funny here.
— Just now, Robert introduced Spanky as the oldest Little Rascal, yet earlier in the monologue, he also introduced Alfalfa as being the oldest.
— I expected Spanky to be played by a cast member in a fat suit, but instead, it’s an actual heavyset extra. He’s pretty funny with his immediate pigging out at the food table.
— Funny bit with Julia’s Darla revealing she’s wearing Petey the Dog over her shoulders as a fur.
— I said in a review last season that I was starting to get a little tired of Eddie’s Buckwheat, but it IS nice to see him in this monologue, and I’m getting some pretty good amusement from him singing a Buckwheat-ized version of the Baretta theme song.
— A pretty long monologue overall, but fun.
STARS: ***½


SPACE SHUTTLE
on a Shuttle mission, (EDM)’s admission of love makes (JOP) uneasy

 

— Eddie’s random “I love you” reveal to Joe is fairly funny, just because of Eddie’s deadpan, straitlaced delivery of it.
— Joe’s gravelly-voiced “Yes, that’s an order, now tell me you love me!” line was pretty funny.
— I wasn’t too crazy about the overall sketch, despite some decent interplay between Eddie and Joe. I dunno, just something about this didn’t work for me. Maybe this should’ve been placed later in the night instead of as the lead-off sketch.
STARS: **


PBS
PBS’ jazzed-up programming is evidence that “We’re not stuffy anymore”

   

— I like how the new version of Nova is “animals doing what they do best” (having sex).
— Overall, this was reminiscent of the shots this era took at NBC’s desperation, and like those, this kinda missed the mark and wasn’t as funny as it could’ve been.
STARS: **


TYRONE GOES REGGAE
Tyrone Green’s reggae band plays “Kill The White People” at a talent show

   

— Tyrone Green with dreads? And he’s part of a reggae band now? Haha, I wonder why they changed this character so much all of a sudden.
— Oh, I think I know what famous sketch this is going to be…
— Yep, it’s “Kill the White People”. I’ve always wanted to see this one.
— From everything that I had heard about this sketch before, I’ve always considered this to be somewhat of a spiritual successor to Garrett Morris’ classic “I’m Gonna Get Me a Shotgun and Kill All the Whiteys I See” musical number from the original era.
— The song is very catchy-sounding, and even besides the main “kill the white people” message, there are also other funny lyrics as well, like the ganja one.
— Loved Tim frantically telling everyone “I thought they were gonna do ‘Day-O’.”
— Clint! Funny ending with Clint Smith as the only guy in the crowd who sticks around enjoying the music when everyone else has angrily walked off.
STARS: ****


THE GIRLS OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
— Rerun


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
JOP shows how Sugar Ray Leonard’s eyesight can be tested- offer big bucks
an irate MAG lists people who should be retired against their will
Dr. Jack Badofsky lists types of orgasms

         

— Brad’s opening Leonid Brezhnev/Lana Turner eyebrows joke was surprisingly strong.
— What was with the delayed cut to Joe’s SNL Sports commentary?
— Oh, Joe’s at a different set, I see.
— Funny punchline to Joe’s quick bit. Very strange, though, how he then segued into Mary doing a commentary at the desk.
— Yet another “Spittin’ Mad Mary Gross” commentary. These have been great and everything, but man, the show has been leaning very heavily on it this season. I worry they’re on their way to quickly running these into the ground.
— Funny comment and subsequent gesture from Mary regarding athletes who “play with themselves on TV”.
— These “spittin’ mad” commentaries are always good at getting the audience worked up.
— Now we get Dr. Jack Badosky. They seem to be bringing out their most popular recurring news commentators tonight.
— Badofsky’s puns aren’t doing a thing for me so far tonight.
— A noticeable jump cut in the middle of the Linda Lovelace/Steven Spielberg “Jawgasms” bit. I recall hearing something was censored in the rerun version I’m reviewing.
— Decent ending to Badofsky’s commentary with him asking women who are incapable of having an orgasm to contact Tim Kazurinsky, and Brad then breaking the fourth wall by shaming Tim, all of which made me laugh more than any of the Badofsky puns did.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Heart to Heart”


MASTERFUL THEATRE
the characters of Airheads Revisited wax idiotic

     

— This is the first time Robin Duke has appeared on the show in what feels a like a long time, and I think I recall hearing this ends up being her only appearance of the night. And it’s not even a big role! Poor Robin; what’s going on with her this season? Her presence on the show has been disappearing right before my eyes.
— Speaking of firsts, this is Robert Blake’s first actual sketch appearance of the night. I had been wondering where he was tonight.
— What the heck is with Blake’s performance?
— Joe’s voice and delivery is making me laugh.
— Here’s more homoerotic humor tonight.
— Man, what the hell IS this sketch???
— What’s with tonight’s episode having two Marvin Hamlisch references from Mary? (the first was in her “spittin’ mad” commentary on Saturday Night News)
— I got a laugh from Julia softly biting Gary’s shoulder.
— Overall, boy, this sketch was dreadful. Seemed like a very poor attempt at “random humor”. After a while, I just wanted this whole thing to end.
STARS: *½


CLYSLER-PRYMOUTH
Lee Iacocca’s (JOP) proud to say “Clysler-Prymouth floormats made in USA”

   

— Another Joe Piscopo impression involving tons of makeup and prosthetics that render him unrecognizable.
— I’m not familiar with Lee Iacocca’s look or voice, but from what I recall of Phil Hartman’s later impression of him (which makes this yet ANOTHER celebrity impression that Piscopo and Hartman share), Hartman played him with a very similar voice and facial mannerisms that Joe is doing here, which I guess proves that Joe’s Iacocca is spot-on.
— Pretty funny joke with the floormats turning out to be the only thing in the car that was made in America.
— Don’t know whether to chuckle or cringe at the racially stereotypical “Clysler-Prymouth” ending joke. Yeah, I think I’m gonna go with the latter. Though I admit I probably would’ve laughed at it in 1982 (if I had been born yet).
STARS: **½


VIEWER LETTER
EDM dispels the myth that he doesn’t love white people

 

— Heh, is there any particular reason why Eddie is dressed like that?
— Some really strong laughs from Eddie’s questionable ways of defending white people.
— The Burl Ives bit is especially funny.
— Pretty good ending with Eddie’s girlfriend turning out to be white.
STARS: ****


SLEEPY BOY 2000
the auto alarm eradicator kit lets you sleep peacefully

     

— Very funny punchline with the satellite blowing up the alarm-blaring car, after such a long setup.
STARS: ***½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Gotta Try”


DTV
the all-death channel is endorsed by Leonid Brezhnev

 

— Funny idea for a take-off of the then-new network MTV.
— The cheap-looking moving mouth on the Leonid Brezhnev picture saying “I want my DTV!” cracked me up a lot.
— Oh, that’s it? Well, this sure was short. Honestly, I wanted to see more. The premise was probably good enough to do a typical full-length fake ad with.
STARS: **½


VIDEO VICTIMS
— Rerun


GOODNIGHTS

 

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Second episode in a row that underwhelmed me, though it’s really hard to fairly judge the show as a whole, considering that the rerun version I reviewed of this episode is infamously butchered, removing several pieces (one of which was a sketch titled “Best Little Whorehouse On The Prairie”, and another of which was a rare on-screen appearance from Dick Ebersol delivering a message which was a stealth set-up to the “Keep or Dump Andy Kaufman” vote-in that we’ll be seeing in the next episode). Plus, I’m pretty sure that half the pre-taped segments I reviewed tonight were originally aired in later episodes. So, yeah, a difficult episode to critique fairly. From the new material that I did see in tonight’s show, a lot of it wasn’t very good and, despite some highlights, the overall episode had a “filler” feel to it.
— I’m left wondering how much Robert Blake’s notorious behavior that week had to do with his lack of airtime tonight, because after the cold opening and monologue, he was practically non-existent, only appearing in ONE SKETCH all night, which aired fairly late in the show and had him in just a minor role. Yeesh, I think even the little-used Michael Keaton got more to do in the last episode. Then again, Blake was probably in some of the material that got removed from my copy.


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Michael Keaton):
— about the same


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
A 7-year-old Drew Barrymore, the youngest host in SNL history. For years, this episode has been near the top of my “must see” list, as it’s hard for me to picture an SNL episode hosted by a 7-year-old.

Posted on

October 30, 1982 – Michael Keaton / The New Joe Jackson Band (S8 E5)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
host finds out there won’t be any cue cards tonight; Michael Palin cameo

   

— Like the last episode, this is another one that’s being performed from two different studios on two separate floors, due to Studio 8H being used for mid-term election coverage. I still find it amazing that SNL was able to pull off live shows with that awkward set-up.
— Funny bit with Joe Dicso breaking the news that there will be no cue cards tonight.
— Eddie’s random native bodysuit is funny.
— Michael Palin!
— It’s pretty well-documented that in a panicked move earlier that week, Dick Ebersol brought in Michael Palin as an emergency special guest/stealth backup host after seeing how poorly Michael Keaton performed during that week’s readthrough.
— Keaton’s “We got no cue cards!!!” outburst made me laugh.
— Ha, now they’re being told by Dicso that they won’t be able to use the elevators they need to get from studio-to-studio.
— I’m loving Palin’s complicated Monty Python-esque explanation to Keaton of how to get to Studio 3A.
— Gary appears in the same musketeers outfit he wore in the backstage cold opening from the last episode.
— I like the part with Gary listing off the titles of (fake) sketches that were cut tonight (“Wiener Water”, “Bess Truman in Hell”, and “I Was a G-Spot For the FBI” ).
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about his childhood trick-or-treat experiences

  

— We’re already off to a rocky start, as Keaton came off really awkward with that weird opening “Nice to be back hosting again… wait, have I hosted before?” bit.
— I know Keaton got his start as a stand-up comedian,  but it’s very hard for me to picture that man in a stand-up comedy club telling jokes into a mic.
— Trick-or-treating isn’t a particularly interesting stand-up comedy topic, and his material is pretty mundane so far.
— Okay, I did like the bit about his trick-or-treating brother requesting a sandwich from people handing out candy.
— This overall stand-up routine was weak, and man, Keaton’s uncomfortable demeanor here definitely helps me see why Ebersol panicked during readthroughs that week.
STARS: *½


THE INTERESTING FOUR
on Halloween night, The Interesting Four is looking for Espresso (MAG)

         

— I liked Mary’s delivery of “Drink your little Hawaiian Punch, you little snot-nosed brats!”
— It’s too soon to bring back the subpar Interesting Four sketch, and why is it placed as the lead-off sketch tonight? The first time they did this sketch, it was buried near the end of the episode (and rightfully so).
— At least this is a very different setting for them.
— Funny part with Brad as the Human Stapler being heard loudly yelling from the bathroom, then emerging with his hand stuck to his groin.
— Boy, that scene with the second group of kids was awkward as hell.
— I love the “time reversal” part with the performers talking and moving like the scene is being rewound. As I mentioned sometime before (when reviewing a Hercules sketch from a season 3 episode), I always get a kick out of whenever performers have to act out a scene being rewound, fast-forwarded, or played in slow-mo.
— Hmm, they’re doing the exact same backwards scene again.
— Okay, what the hell? Why do they keep repeating the same backwards scene over and over and over?
— Overall, this was a marginal improvement over the first Interesting Four installment, but I still had some issues with this one.
STARS: **½


A SENSE OF FEAR
events in (Michael Palin)’s scary story happen as he reads them

   

— Palin’s performance is really cracking me up so far.
— The scary story increasingly appearing to be about Palin himself feels like a kinda cliched premise.
— I liked Palin’s screaming and falling out of his chair.
— What was the point of that sponsor bit at the end?
— Overall, this featured a fine Palin performance, but the material itself wasn’t the best.
STARS: **½


THANK YOU, RON REAGAN.
privileged citizens say “Thank You, Ron Reagan” while others suffer

     

— Pretty biting satire of President Reagan’s economic policies. I’ve always heard that the Ebersol era supposedly often shied away from doing political stuff, but so far, I’ve been seeing quite a lot of unabashed anti-Reagan sentiment in these episodes.
STARS: ***½


SNOOKIE
after a first date, (TIK) gets mixed signals from (JLD) & her teddy bear

 

— Julia’s wearing the same dress that we’d later see Ana Gasteyer regularly wearing in her and Will Ferrell’s recurring Culps sketches. That same dress is also worn by someone (Nora Dunn, I think) in a 1988 cold opening where Jan Hooks as Oprah Winfrey (yes, you read right) hallucinates her talk show guests having food for heads. Speaking of Jan, I think she herself wears that dress in the famous “Jew or Not a Jew” sketch, but I’m not sure.
— Julia suddenly slapping Tim after asking him to sleep with her was really funny.
— Heh, a teddy bear with earrings.
— A lot of laughs from Julia’s odd way of relaying thoughts through the teddy bear.
— The bear has been referred to as both a “he” and a “she” all throughout this sketch.
— Great touch with Tim dismissively throwing the bear aside when finally getting Julia in bed.
— Overall, a strong sketch that was well-written and performed. Julia did a really good job as this strange character, and Tim was a solid straight man.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Steppin’ Out”


BILL SMITH CARES
a behind-the-scenes look at what really goes on in a political campaign

     

— Wow, Keaton is JUST NOW making his first actual sketch appearance of the night, and it looks like it’s not even a particularly big role. [ADDENDUM: Looking at a list of the original running order of this episode’s sketches, this sketch originally aired even later in the night, meaning Keaton didn’t make ANY sketch appearances in the entire pre-Saturday Night News half of the show. Wow.]
— Eddie and Clint Smith’s performance as “The Love Brothers” is kinda funny, but seems really out of place for the tone of this sketch. It IS nice to see Clint with a lot of lines, though.
— I like Mary as the bitter wife.
— What’s with Eddie and Clint’s singing of THE ENTIRE Jeffersons theme song? At first, I thought it would just be a truncated version of the song, but they ended up performing THE WHOLE THING. Geez.
— Interesting structure to this sketch, having various scenes that go back-and-forth from the campaign headquarters to Joe’s hotel room. That’s making this sketch feel very long, however.
— Heh, Tim’s been getting a lot of “action” in this episode. This is the second sketch of the night that ended with him sleeping in bed with a female cast member (first Julia, now Mary).
— Overall, for a sketch that was so long, this didn’t feature much that was noteworthy, and the overall thing fell kinda flat.
STARS: **


TOPOL THE IDIOT
Topol the Idiot (Michael Palin) wasn’t originally written in English

   

— The idea of Michael Palin playing an idiot character like this is already making me laugh.
— I almost didn’t recognize Keaton in this. He’s also doing an interesting character voice.
— The bad foreign language translation seems to be the main joke, though I’m not sure that it’s coming off all that well. I did, however, like the “May your house be full of Belgians” line.
— I didn’t get the bit with Palin showing a stained napkin to the camera, though it made me laugh anyway just because Palin is so goddamn funny.
— Overall, some things about this sketch kept tickling me (mainly Palin’s performance), but the thing as a whole didn’t work all that well.
STARS: **½


NUTTY PRESIDENT
Ronald Reagan (JOP) transforms a la The Nutty Professor during a speech

   

— Heh, WTF at Joe-as-Reagan’s sudden Jerry Lewis-esque loud wacky voice when saying how high unemployment shot up?
— Haha, he seems to be going through a full Jerry Lewis transformation.
— Yep, now the camera has cut back to him in a Lewis-esque wig.
— And there’s the buck teeth.
— An overall pretty funny idea and decent execution from Joe, even if there wasn’t much to this besides a simple transformation.
STARS: ***


SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
BRH makes endorsements in political races based on celebrity support
an upset MAG lists federal budget cuts she feels should be made
Raheem Abdul Muhammed refuses to believe that Liberace is a homosexual

     

— Second episode in a row with Saturday Night News making an unusually late appearance. In the last episode, it turns out SNN aired much earlier in the original live broadcast and was only bumped to a late timeslot in the rerun version I was watching, so I’m assuming that’s the same case for tonight’s SNN.  Boy, do I hate the odd re-shuffling of the running order in some of these old Comedy Central reruns (back in Comedy Central’s early days when they aired full 90-minute SNLs instead of shortened 60-minute ones).
— Interesting bit with Brad breaking down which celebrities are endorsing which candidates in the mid-term elections, though this seems to be kind of a time-killer that’s going on a little too long.
— Nice to see the return of “Spittin’-Mad Mary Gross”.
— Mary’s heated rapid-fire rant on budget cuts that should be made has some really good lines, especially “We pay, they pee” and (in regards to the Secret Service) “Thanks to you, only two of our last six presidents have been shot”.
— Some good ad-libs from Mary in response to some occasional flubs of hers during her fast-paced rant.
— I’ve been noticing these last few episodes that whenever the camera goes back to Brad after a guest commentary, Brad always says to the camera “More news” in a way that’s supposed to be funny, but it doesn’t work and just seems unnecessary.
— Eddie’s denial over Liberace being a homosexual is pretty funny, especially the incredibly flamboyant Liberace pictures he uses as proof of Liberace’s “masculinity”.
— Wow, that was a short Saturday Night News overall. Probably for the best, though.
STARS: **½


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Another World”


PUMPKIN
— A repeat of the gory pumpkin-carving short from last season’s Donald Pleasence-hosted Halloween episode.


GOODNIGHTS

 

— Keaton mentions that they had to cut tonight’s special guest Andy Kaufman. I think this is what would end up famously leading to the Larry the Lobster-esque “Keep or Dump Andy” vote-in that we’ll see a few episodes from now.
— Whoa, I just realized, where the heck was Robin Duke in tonight’s episode??? She didn’t appear in ANY sketches, and I’m not even seeing her onstage in these goodnights. Was she out sick this week?
— Gary Kroeger was also almost non-existent in tonight’s episode, but at least he was still in the show.
— It looked like Keaton walked off right in the middle of these goodnights. If so, I wonder if it’s because of Ebersol’s infamous treatment of him.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Not a very good episode. Despite a few good things, there was kind of a ho-hum, forgettable quality to the night as a whole, and there were too many overlong sketches. This episode also had a very weird feeling to it, which may have been due to the non-Studio 8H aspect, though that didn’t make the Howard Hesseman episode feel too weird (maybe because that episode had enough strong material to mask the weird atmosphere from being performed in two different studios). All I have to say is, thank God they’ll be back in Studio 8H by the next episode.
— The whole situation with Michael Palin being brought in as emergency backup makes me feel kinda bad for Michael Keaton, but Keaton truly didn’t seem too up to the task of handling the show, judging from his awkwardness tonight. I can understand why they barely put him in any sketches. He would later do a much better job in his 1992 and (especially) 2015 hosting stints.


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


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW:
Robert Blake