Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
GAM hits his TV when Chroma-Trak girl GIR’s colors are reproduced wrong
— Garrett’s confused reaction to the TV gave me a pretty good laugh.
— Interesting how this ended with Gilda doing a fall. This being the first episode after Chevy Chase’s departure, viewers at the time probably assumed from this sketch that Chevy’s cold opening pratfall tradition would live on through the remaining cast, but as we now know, that didn’t last long. What if it DID stay a tradition to this day in 2018? Can you imagine the political cold openings nowadays ending with Alec Baldwin’s Trump or Kate McKinnon’s Jeff Sessions doing a pratfall before saying LFNY?
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host attempts to answer a few questions from the audience
— Hmm, according to Dick, he’s a last minute replacement for Elliott Gould, who was the originally-booked host for this episode. If Elliott had hosted, this would’ve been the third time an episode of his either followed or preceded a Buck Henry episode. Was SNL trying to make it a tradition for Buck and Elliott to always host back-to-back?
— A good laugh from “What makes New York so crummy these days?” “Tourists.”
— Funny answer to the “Are you hung in proportion to your height?” question.
STARS: ***
PUPPY UPPERS & DOGGIE DOWNERS
(LAN) recommends Puppy Uppers & Doggie Downers for (GIR)’s unbalanced dog
— This is a well-known fake ad from this era that I’ve never seen for myself before.
— Overall, that lived up to the hype pretty well. I wouldn’t say it’s a classic, but I found it very enjoyable.
STARS: ****
BLONDE AMBITION
Richard Nixon (DAA) tried to pin Watergate on John Dean (host)
— Al Franken’s voice-over in this is hilarious!
— I always love Dan’s Nixon.
— Overall, a pretty good Nixon sketch, though I’ve seen better ones.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
NEXT WEEK
GIR announces Paul Simon & George Harrison will do the next SNL
— Just a straightforward announcement from Gilda of the next episode’s guests. This had no jokes, no cameos, or anything.
STARS: N/A
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
JAC repeats Sally Field’s multiple thoughts on playing the role of Sybil
LAN reports from the site of Smokey The Bear’s ironic cremation
— The Jane Curtin era of Update officially begins.
— Interesting beginning, with Jane engaged in a “How’s Your Sex Life?” article she’s reading, instead of doing Chevy’s ‘raunchy phone conversation’ bit, despite the fact that there’s a phone right next to her.
— What??? They’re repeating the famous ‘prostitution stamp’ joke from last season? Why?
— Jane was fantastic doing various voices during the Sally Field/Sybill joke. I especially liked how she snuck “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not” in there.
— Jane had a funny ad-lib when looking at the wrong camera during the baptist church joke.
— And just now, Jane made an even funnier ad-lib when the audience had no reaction to the punchline of the baptist church joke due to her stumbling over several words.
THE MARINES
Marine (GAM) is looking to pick up a few good men
— Fairly funny punchline.
STARS: ***
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
— The twist of Jane’s Good Samaritan joke was very dark, which I loved just for that reason, also helped by Jane’s good delivery of it.
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***
CROSSROADS
communication breakdown caused by (JOB)’s desire to drop out
— Funny when Dan suddenly smacked John out of his chair after John’s long speech. John’s exaggerated extended reaction is making it even funnier.
— Oh, now John’s speaking to Gilda. Don’t tell me she’s going to do the same thing to him that Dan just did.
— (sigh) Yep, she did. Wasn’t anywhere near as funny, since I saw it coming. Also, the audience noticeably didn’t laugh AT ALL.
— Dick’s line at the end was great, but man, what a long way to go just for that joke.
STARS: **½
MOBILE SHRINK
CHC stars in TV show about analyst who visits his patients
— WTF? Chevy??? ALREADY??? He just left!
— Could Chevy seriously not go through ONE EPISODE after his departure without making his first cameo? Good god.
— Am I crazy, or is that future cast member Ann Risley on the therapist couch? It sure looks like her. I knew Denny Dillon appeared in a 70s episode, but I never knew her season 6 castmate Ann Risley apparently did, too. What next – will I be seeing Gail Matthius as a background extra in a sketch from 1977?
— The end of the pizzeria scene was kinda funny.
— Overall, this commercial as a whole fell flat. I dunno, maybe I didn’t enjoy it because the entire time, I was too busy just going “Really, Chevy? You couldn’t wait until more than one episode?”
— Maybe I’m being too harsh on Chevy. After all, this commercial may possibly have been a way for SNL to show how Chevy has moved on from their show, by airing a fake ad with him starring in a jokingly-bad NBC drama. That still doesn’t make this commercial funny to me, though.
STARS: *½
HOW THINGS WORK
(host) explains to JAC how pressure groups work
— That medicine bottle/typewriter joke may have been so bad, it was funny, but I can’t even tell.
— Overall, yet another sketch I wasn’t all that crazy about.
STARS: **
THE PARAMOUNT NOVELTY STORE
by Gary Weis {rerun}
— Isn’t that the same lady from that Novelty Store film Gary Weis did last season?
— Oh, wait, this IS the same film. I pretty much hated this the first time, and I’m not looking forward to having to now sit through an encore presentation of it.
— The audience is laughing their asses off at this. Like I said sometime before, they usually seem to like Gary Weis films a lot more than I do.
STARS: N/A
BEE HISTORY
grandparent Bees (JOB) & (LAN) recall overcoming past discrimination
— Dan’s “Boy, I’d love to dip my spoon in her honey” remark about Bee Laraine was very funny.
— John’s ending “son of a bee” line was pretty good.
— Overall, I appreciate the idea behind this sketch, but the result ended up being yet ANOTHER sketch tonight that left me bored. Man, tonight’s show has really fallen apart after Update.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
MR. MIKE’S LEAST-LOVED BEDTIME TALES
“The Blind Chicken”
— Surprised they bought this back so soon, after only one episode.
— Something about the lighting and those glasses are giving Mr. Mike a nice, devilish look.
— Another pretty good story, and I liked Mike acting out the chicken being eaten by the alligator. However, much like the last Bedtime Tale, this one wasn’t quite as disturbing as I like my Mr. Mike humor.
— Pretty funny cynical message at the end about love being “a death camp in a costume”.
STARS: ***
FRANKEN AND DAVIS
scientists ALF & TOD do a survey about which words are funny
— Heh, why is Davis talking nasally like Franken?
— Davis has been doing all the talking, while Franken has only been gesturing and not saying a single word. Reminds me of Penn and Teller.
— Oh, Franken has begun speaking now.
— The face Franken keeps making when hesitating to say certain words is pretty funny.
— Overall, this was nothing special for Franken and Davis. I liked their segment from last season better.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
— Dick does a lot of talking & antics to kill time since the show is running short.
_______________________________
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Not very good as a whole. The pre-Update half was actually decent, albeit short, but I wasn’t crazy about ANYTHING in the post-Update half, which really brought this episode down. This is the second subpar episode that Dick Cavett has hosted, which makes me happy he never hosted a third time.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Buck Henry):
— a pretty big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Paul Simon
Yes, that’s Ann Risley. No clue to why she makes this random early appearance.
Apparently Elliott Gould had to cancel as he was taping an appearance on an Olivia Newton-John special in Hollywood that week (!)
Ann RIsley probably appeared in “Mobile Shrink” through Jean Doumanian – since she was the producer in charge of “talent” during this era, she mostly likely was in charge of hiring/casting the extras and “day players” that sketches/short films might need.
The previous week, Buck Henry said it was Chevy Chase’s last show.
HOWEVER, he was still a credited cast member for three additional episodes. Maybe they wanted to spread out the film material he’s in over a few weeks rather than cram them into one episode. I agree his brief appearance with Paul Simon is strange.
So, although 10/30/76 was his last show with a complete presence, 11/27/76 was his last credited episode.
Spayne – Chevy Chase did appear in filmed segments in this and the next two shows but he was not credited as a cast member.
The idea was to stockpile filmed pieces and, with some commercial reruns, keep his presence on the show for the rest of the season… but that plan went out the window with the injury. But the Paul Simon piece was intentional, to setup a joke that he wouldn’t leave.
I do agree with you on this one.. this one was underwhelming to me compared to the first one. I guess Elliott must have dropped out very late in the process and they had to make due with what they had. Dick was always very willing to do what he could do so that helped I’m sure, they had some hosts who wouldn’t do anything. That Dean piece was what they were proud of you could see that a mile away.. the rest is meh. The end is always fun.. you could see how much he liked the cast there. Much like the Gould show they ran out of stuff and let the play around.. shoulda done that a lot more.
Cooder was also a let down after following Cliff. SNL was weird with music around that time you’d see a lot of singers you wouldn’t see again in year 2. There’s no way Kinky Friedman woulda been booked besides on that first Martin show.
Shame Dick never hosted again.. he coulda become a 5 timer easily due to how game he was to work with everyone. He woulda found his niche on his 3rd show.
On Ann Risley, here’s an article from a Wisconsin paper (Risley’s early theater roots) from August 1976 mentioning her freshly-rising career with filming a scene in Woody Allen’s new film Annie Hall (**spoiler: her big scene was cut but you can see her in the background if you freeze-frame through one of the party scenes) and booking the SNL gig:
https://i.imgur.com/KgzhAGq.jpg
Here’s one of the many ads for RCA Colortrak using several B-actors/actresses (some A) back in mid-70s which is parodied in the cold opening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOM460wvf4
(**this ad is also referenced in the Samurai TV Repairman sketch with Belushi and Buck later in May 1978)
Seen in one of the audience caption segments, after the Mr. Mike bit, are Carole Pope and Kevin Staples from the 70’s Canadian early punk band Rough Trade (guessing a friend of Lorne or Gilda or Danny or Rosie or Howard or….)