Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
host sings “Help Me Make It Through The Night” as CHC woos musical guest
— Opening with a musical performance? I guess this is like the Paul Simon episode earlier this season.
— Oh, never mind, looks like there’s gonna be comedic cutaways with Chevy throughout this song.
— Who’s the woman with Chevy? The musical guest?
— I appreciate the idea, but I wasn’t crazy about this opening overall.
STARS: **
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— Boy, is his timing and delivery terrible in this. I heard that he supposedly got drunk right before airtime, and I’m not having a hard time believing that right now.
— “See why they didn’t let me do the monologue?” Haha, at least he’s aware of how badly he’s doing.
— And it’s over ALREADY? Probably a good thing…
STARS: N/A, because this wasn’t an actual monologue; it was basically just an introduction to the following sketch
I WAS NOT A SUCKER FOR SATURDAY NIGHT
new employee Sherry recalls male SNL writers’ advances toward her
— Very interesting meta premise.
— The comment about Alan Zweibel was very funny.
— The Michael O’Donoghue comment just now was even better.
— Overall, this was very strong and Laraine gave an excellent performance.
STARS: ****½
SAMURAI GENERAL PRACTITIONER
Futaba gives host an examination
— I liked the bit with Futaba clipping off a tiny piece of Kris’ beard to lower his weight.
— I don’t get the joke with Futaba sliding a gloved finger up and down the height ruler. That got a big reaction from the audience.
— Whoa at the uncensored picture of a topless woman that Futaba’s looking at. (second screencap above, though the topless pic is hard to see in it; here’s a bigger screencap) Between that and the woman nipple pic shown a few Weekend Updates ago, I’m assuming NBC was more lenient about female nudity back in the 70s. I’m surprised. They certainly wouldn’t let modern-day SNL get away with showing that.
— What was with Kris blatantly moving during the fake freeze-frame ending?
— Overall, a lesser Samurai sketch, but still had its moments.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
— Hey, it’s Gilda and Laraine hula-hooping!
GREAT WHITE ATHLETES
Jesse Owens (GAM) sells medallions of the endangered Great White Athlete
— Loved the line about great white athletes being a dying breed.
— Overall, short but funny.
STARS: ***½
FORD DELEGATE
Gerald Ford (CHC) hears uncommitted delegate’s (host) pork barrel request
— Ha, it’s Pardo’s voice on the intercom as Ford’s secretary.
— The ‘tulip in the drink’ gag was hilarious.
— Kris’ delivery is noticeably starting to become slurred.
— Great performance from Chevy, making his Ford come off even more bungling than usual.
STARS: ***½
POLICE STATE
officers (DAA) & (CHC) shoot first, ask questions later
— I can already tell from the intro that I’m gonna like this. It helps that I have a strong love for old 70s cop shows.
— John appears to be wearing the same fancy Hollywood clothes he wore in the preceding episode’s cold opening, minus the jacket.
— Haha, holy hell at John suddenly getting shot a whole bunch of times by the cops.
— I’m loving the transition shots showing toy model cars & buses crashing into each other.
— I also like how Chevy and Dan keep continuing their “what do you want to eat tonight?” conversations at the most random times.
— This is all hilarious so far.
— The fake freeze-frame ending credits is cracking me up.
— Overall, I loved this. A very funny parody of 70s cop shows.
— Was the (recurring?) “X-Police” sketch SNL would later do in this era in a similar vein to this sketch, or am I remembering incorrectly?
STARS: ****
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
Viking I’s soil scoop narrowly misses finding evidence of life on Mars
— I like how Chevy’s opening phone conversation gag tonight is making fun of Pardo.
— Ha, and now Pardo just had a funny retort after Chevy did his usual “I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not” line (“Nobody wants to be, Chubby!”).
— “Still to come”? Aww, man, I see they’re unfortunately going back to dividing Update into two separate parts with a fake ad in between. I thought they stopped doing that in the last episode.
TALK COUNTRY
host’s book helps you overcome education with dialect
— Once again, Kris’ delivery is just plain rough.
— I did like the joke of him including “children” as one of the words his book teaches you to drop the ‘g’ at the end of.
STARS: **½
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
LAN reports on Viking I mission from Nassau instead of NASA
— Laraine’s NASA/Nassau mix-up is a simple but funny joke.
— I liked Laraine’s “Will I have to pay for this?” line at the end.
— Loved the Spiro T. Agnew joke.
— Our newest variation of the running “News for (insert group here)” gag is Chevy just saying “For those of you who may be growing tired of Weekend Update, I will not repeat tonight’s top story”.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***
BOBBY MCGEE
Bobbi McGee (GIR) of host’s song is now the wife of Larry Farber (JOB)
— The debut of Bobbi Farber. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the Farber sketches before, but I’ve heard about the characters quite a lot over the years.
— What was with Kris busting out laughing during Gilda’s talk?
— I like John’s walk-on as the husband.
— John’s un-hip suburban dancing during Kris’ song is pretty funny.
— Gilda is so good in this.
STARS: ***½
BLIND DATE
(JAC) is apprehensive about a blind date with her gynecologist (host)
— Jane’s having some really funny lines during her phone conversation.
— Now Kris’ bad delivery has gotten to the point where he’s taking long pauses between some of the dialogue. Just now, after a particularly long stretch of silence, Jane actually had to prompt him to go ahead with his next line.
— Overall… man, I wanted to like this, as it had the type of slice-of-life conversational humor that this era was so good at pulling off, but something about this one seemed lacking. I blame Kris’ performance.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
CARTER-YOUNG
suckup Andrew Young (GAM) sings the praises of Jimmy Carter (DAA) in vain
— Is this gonna be yet ANOTHER solo Garrett Morris commercial? He’s been doing these a lot lately.
— I’m liking Garrett’s energy here, but where is this going?
— Ah, there’s Dan’s Jimmy Carter.
— And ah, there’s the gray hair that was missing from Dan’s Carter debut in the preceding episode.
— I like Garrett’s slowburn as he’s realizing that he isn’t going to be put in Carter’s presidential cabinet.
— The way Garrett’s overly wrapped up in the blanket, you can tell he’s trying to hide the suit he still has on from the dream.
— Wasn’t crazy about how this ended.
— Overall, this sketch feels like it could’ve been better.
STARS: **
WAITING FOR PARDO
Vladimir (host) & Estragon (CHC) ponder enigmatic DOP
— I love the premise. SNL seemed to have so much fun with Pardo in these early seasons.
— Ehh, this isn’t turning out as funny as I was expecting.
— Okay, I was getting tired of the “Pardo keeps announcing gameshow-esque promo ads” joke, but now it’s starting to become kinda funny because of the ridiculous repetition.
— I know it’s intentional, but all the silence between Chevy and Kris is becoming WAY too dry & drawn-out.
— What did Kris mumble to Chevy at the very end? It didn’t seem to be part of the script.
— Another odd thing about the end: what appeared to be an audience caption showed up when the camera was still just on Kris and Chevy’s silhouettes.
— Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about this sketch as a whole. I think I feel the concept was excellent, but it kinda died in the execution, despite some funny parts. It also probably doesn’t help that I’m not familiar with “Waiting for Godot”.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
GOODNIGHTS
_______________________________
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Hmm, I’m kinda iffy. I feel like I didn’t care much for this episode, but thinking back on my review, I gave out a couple of pretty good ratings, nothing received the dreaded one-star rating, and there were two sketches I loved (Police State and I Was Not A Sucker For Saturday Night). That all adds up to an average episode. I think Kris Kristofferson’s rough performances just left a bad taste in my mouth, which is probably dampening my enthusiasm over the episode. I mean, as a host, Kristofferson wasn’t Louise Lasser bad, but still – oof. This episode also seemed to suffer from that famous “post-Weekend Update drop-off”, which has plagued quite a number of episodes in the second half of this season.
— Considering this was the season finale and considering the disastrous episode that preceded this, I had been hoping this would be a strong episode with a strong host, so maybe that’s why I feel a bit let down.
— Speaking of season finale, was this even intended to be the last episode of the season? There were no mentions of it at all during the show, no “see you next season”, nothing. The only aspect of this episode that made it seem like a finale is when some of the cast members took pictures of the rest of the group onstage during the goodnights.
— Well, folks, we’re officially one season down in my ‘One SNL a Day’ project! 40-something seasons to go.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Louise Lasser):
— a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Season 2 begins, with host Lily Tomlin
I remember Neil Levy in both “The First Five Years” doc (or the bonus featurette on the DVD?) and the Shales/Miller book mentioning Lorne scrambling around and saying about Kristofferson, “Get him a pot of coffee! The biggest pot of coffee you can find!”
I believe “Police State” was an O’Donoghue-penned sketch. That’s his voice at the end as “Jeremy Musk” too.
“— I don’t get the joke with Futaba sliding a gloved finger up and down the height ruler. That got a big reaction from the audience.”
A doctor donning a rubber glove and vaseline-ing his finger usually insinuates prostate exam (def back in those days) so it was a nice turn to unsqueak the scale…
I found KK quite fun and natural in this episode, sure a bit slurry; I’m sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if he was more sober…
I wanted to get a sense of the general quality of each season, so I decided to tally all the five star sketches of each season and post them I. The season finale thread. Obviously, these are Stooge’s ratings, so your mileage may vary (still can’t believe Killer Bees only got a four star rating), but I think it gives a good measure of each season.
75-76 five star sketches:
Andy Kaufman (George Carlin)
Joe Cocker (Rob Reiner)
Andy Kaufman (Candice Bergen)
Beethoven, Part 3 (Lily Tomlin)
Monologue (Richard Pryor)
Word Association (Richard Pryor)
Richard Pryor Standup #2 (Richard Pryor)
Winter Wonderland (Candice Bergen)
Homeward Bound (Candice Bergen)
Godfather Therapy (Elliot Gould)
Super Bass-O-Matic 76 (Ron Nessen)
Beatle Offer (Raquel Welch)
Bride of Frankenstein (Madeline Kahn)
Final Days (Madeline Kahn)
The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise (Elliot Gould)
That’s 15. I’ll compile the next season tomorrow.
This is a great overview, thank you! I once did this with Ben’s reviews of season 6 (extending it to 4+ star) but it was pretty depressing.
Awesome! Please do for every season. Thank you.
Wow, this is fascinating to me. Thanks for doing this, Carson. I’d love to see you continue it for each season if you can.
Oh, and now that you point it out, I’m now surprised myself that I only gave Killer Bees four stars. I’ll chalk it up to the fact that I reviewed that back when this project of mine was new and I was still trying to get the hang of things. I’ve been noticing that a byproduct of doing this SNL project is that it’s been making me grow so much as a reviewer. Lately, when I look back at some of my reviews of seasons 1-5, I often find myself thinking “I would’ve reviewed/rated that sketch differently now than I did back then” or “I would’ve worded that sentence a lot differently now than I did back then.” A year from now, I might have the same reactions when looking back at my current reviews of the early 90s era.
As a companion piece to Carson’s list, here’s an Honorable Mentions list compiled of all the sketches I rated four-and-a-half stars this season:
(Sketches with a + at the end indicates that I would now bump that sketch up to a five-star rating)
Wolverines (George Carlin)
George Carlin Stand-Up #3 (George Carlin)
George Carlin Stand-Up #4 (George Carlin)
Square Dance (Rob Reiner)
Jaws II (Candice Bergen)+
Crank Call (Candice Bergen)
I Can’t Stop My Leg (Robert Klein)
Monologue (Lily Tomlin)
They’re Taking Over (Richard Pryor)
The Dead String Quartet (Elliott Gould)
New Shimmer (Elliott Gould)+
Samurai Delicatessen (Buck Henry)+
King Bee (Buck Henry)
The Decabet (Raquel Welch)
Monologue (Buck Henry)
I Was Not A Sucker For Saturday Night (Kris Kristofferson)
That’s 16 sketches total, only one more than the five-star sketches listed in Carson’s post.
Also, looking at my review of the Killer Bees sketch, I now remember why it was robbed of a five-star rating. The sketch wrapped up with a tie-in back to the Gilda Radner/Elliott Gould love storyline that was a running premise throughout that episode. In my review, I stated that I felt the Gilda/Elliott tie-in, while fine, kinda slowed down the rest of the Killer Bees sketch’s fantastic momentum. Honestly, I still kinda feel that way now, but I’d definitely give the overall sketch five stars anyway, because the rest of the sketch was THAT good.
Very interesting stuff, Stooge. I agree that Jaws II is probably a top echelon sketch from the season and can see the value of Shimmer despite its goofy premise. Belushi’s Samurai never really did it for me in a major way (just like those Olympia Restaurant sketches), but there’s a sort of Vaudevillian perfection to that first one with Buck Henry. The sketches feel a bit mouldy to me, but this one is pretty perfectly executed.
When thinking back on that first Elliot Gould episode (my favourite of the season), I always seem to conveniently edit out the marrying Gilda runner.
There are actually three sketches that I feel very passionately about that aren’t represented here:
A Film By Albert Brooks: Surgery – Earns it’s length. Not only is not a disaster, it’s top level work from an unparalleled comic genius. Holds up better than most of the hits from the first five years.
A Gerald Ford Christmas Message – the quintessential Ford sketch and Chevy’s best ever fall.
Mr. Mike: Impressionist – As perfect a comic concept as the Kaufman pieces.
The show goes back on summer break after this episode, but “The Beach Boys: It’s OK”, a special sponsored by Dr Pepper, produced by Lorne, and directed by Gary Weis, aired on NBC prime time the following week (August 5th.)
This special was a promotion for the Beach Boys’ “15 Big Ones” album, which marked Brian Wilson’s return to active recording and touring with the Beach Boys for the first time since 1967.
The most notable comedy piece in the special was this scene, where John and Dan take Brian surfing:
After looking back at the SJP review, I thought it would be a good idea to record the calculated average for each episode. Here are the average ratings for Season 1. I’m using a ranking from 1 to 10 where each half star is a single number (ex. *1/2 is 3, **** is 8, etc.) Only segments with a star rating will be included, N/A marks are excluded while ambiguous ratings will become a default **. The average will depend on the correlation of ratings and segments, so I apologize in advance if an average does not match Stooge’s opinion of the episode.
101: 6.7 (George Carlin)
102: 5.6 (Paul Simon)
103: 6.2 (Rob Reiner)
104: 6.5 (Candice Bergen)
105: 6.4 (Robert Klein)
106: 7.0 (Lily Tomlin)
107: 7.4 (Richard Pryor)
108: 6.3 (Candice Bergen)
109: 6.8 (Elliott Gould)
110: 6.6 (Buck Henry)
111: 6.4 (Peter Cook & Dudley Moore)
112: 5.8 (Dick Cavett)
113: 6.6 (Peter Boyle)
114: 5.6 (Desi Arnaz)
115: 6.4 (Jill Clayburgh)
116: 5.8 (Anthony Perkins)
117: 5.9 (Ron Nessen)
118: 6.3 (Raquel Welch)
119: 6.9 (Madeline Kahn)
120: 5.9 (Dyan Cannon)
121: 6.9 (Buck Henry)
122: 6.4 (Elliott Gould)
123: 5.1 (Louise Lasser)
124: 5.9 (Kris Kristofferson)
Best Episode: 107 (Richard Pryor)-7.4
Worst Episode: 123 (Louise Lasser)-5.1
Season Average: 6.3
I really appreciate you doing this, Vax. Please continue this for each season. This is fascinating to see, as I’ve always been curious as to what the average sketch rating for each review of mine is. I didn’t have the time nor the math know-how to do the rating average myself. Your doing this for me will make it easier for something special I have planned for a final blog post I’ll do when I complete this SNL project, in which (among other things) I’ll do a separate listing of episodes with the highest and lowest sketch rating averages.
One suggestion: when you display the episode numbers (e.g. 101, 102), can you please also state who the host of the episode is? It’s hard for me to remember which episode number goes to which episode, and I imagine it’s even more difficult for many other readers. I had to look up some of the episode numbers when reading your post. [ADDENDUM: I edited Vox’s post to add in the names of the host for each episode number.]
My biggest surprises from looking at these average ratings for Season 1:
— How high the Lily Tomlin (ep. #106) and second Buck Henry (ep. #121) episodes are rated. I had remembered finding the Lily Tomlin episode to be solid and fun, but I hadn’t remembered being quite THAT high on it. And I’m having a hard time remembering what was in Buck Henry’s second episode (besides a fantastic monologue where Buck can’t get past security downstairs in the lobby), but that’s probably because Buck hosted so often in this era that his episodes blend together to me.
— The very first SNL episode is rated surprisingly high too, especially considering the wild variety of different segments, but I’m guessing I went easy on my grading since it was just the first episode and was also my first review in this project.
— How low the Desi Arnaz (ep. #114), Anthony Perkins (ep. #116), and Ron Nessen (ep. #117) episodes are rated. I guess I understand the Anthony Perkins rating, as I remember finding the second half of that episode to be kind of a dud, but I have a feeling I’d like it better on a second viewing, especially now that I’m more experienced doing these reviews.
I’m curious what Vax Novier’s list of average ratings would look like if it was ranked from best episode to worst, so I’ll do it below:
107: 7.4 (Richard Pryor)
106: 7.0 (Lily Tomlin)
119: 6.9 (Madeline Kahn)
121: 6.9 (Buck Henry 2)
109: 6.8 (Elliott Gould 1)
101: 6.7 (George Carlin)
110: 6.6 (Buck Henry 1)
113: 6.6 (Peter Boyle)
104: 6.5 (Candice Bergen 1)
105: 6.4 (Robert Klein)
111: 6.4 (Peter Cook & Dudley Moore)
115: 6.4 (Jill Clayburgh)
122: 6.4 (Elliott Gould 2)
108: 6.3 (Candice Bergen 2)
118: 6.3 (Raquel Welch)
103: 6.2 (Rob Reiner)
117: 5.9 (Ron Nessen)
120: 5.9 (Dyan Cannon)
124: 5.9 (Kris Kristofferson)
112: 5.8 (Dick Cavett)
116: 5.8 (Anthony Perkins)
102: 5.6 (Paul Simon)
114: 5.6 (Desi Arnaz)
123: 5.1 (Louise Lasser)
few more things:
– Kris mutters “You sure this is how Steve McQueen got started?” at the end of “Waiting For Pardo”; a non-sequitur (I guess, idk the context), just a loose add lib from KK this far in his “stupor.” I’m guessing this sketch was written by Tom Schiller (he likes dealing with art and philosophy in his sketches and films)
-In “Gyno Blind Date” Jane is holding a copy of Seventeen Magazine July 1976:
https://imgur.com/jVNGNhG
https://imgur.com/ofMCn6i
– shame an audiotech malfunction lost the keyboard solo during “Hula Hoop”…
Seeing Gilda and Laraine hula-hooping with Rita was one of the most fun of scenes of this first season of “SNL”!
You know the Police State and I Was Not A Sucker For Saturday Night sketches are kinda more relevant today cause of the Patriot act and Police Brutality and the #MeToo movement. Just goes to show how somethings seem to never change.
Also, I would love a trip to Nassau right about now, even though it would be hot af. I wonder if I can take up windsurfing there…
If I remember correctly, Laraine made a statement in support of Al and talking about their working environment when his #MeToo controversy occurred. The Sherry sketch was the first thing I thought of. What can I say, times were different.
I just noticed that the “Coming up: Leprosy…” audience caption is used at the end of “Ford Delegate” and again at the end of “Police State.” Probably a technical issue in that they didn’t advance to the next CG
Watching this episode today may not be consistently enjoyable, but it reminds me of how the live format could feel really edgy back then. The technical glitches are all over the place (there are absolutely no keyboards on Coolidge’s number, and the title cards are off the hook). I rather enjoy how sloppy and fun Kristofferson comes off and, unlike Lasser, he’s heavily utilized throughout.
The Police State sketch is completely crazy too. I think they were riffing less on police brutality as they were on the then-current discussion about violence on television as well as frustration over the elaborate due process hurdles police now faced (Dirty Harry was also a response to this phenomenon). Police State cuts right through any pretense of procedural plot and delivers squarely on violent confrontation, with two cops who are, essentially, executioners, a la Magnum Force.
How many times did Chase actually straightly deliver his famous “…and you’re not” line? He does it here for the first time in a long while, but Pardo immediately follows up with his voiceover. Before this, Chase is playing off of the anticipation of it, and almost always uses variations.
LFNY Counter:
Chevy Chase: 22 (Jesus)
Garrett Morris: 1
Gerald Ford: 1