Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
JOB refuses to say SNL’s opening line until his demands are met
— Just now, John noticeably referred to the show as “Saturday Night Live”. I wonder if this is the episode where the show’s title officially became that instead of just “Saturday Night”.
— I love John’s mischievously joyful realization that he’s the only thing keeping the show from starting.
— All of his LFNY fake-outs are funny.
— Funny turn with him now reading a list of demands.
— Great ending with him being tricked into saying LFNY when reading aloud the letter he was handed. His panicked reaction when realizing he was fooled is killing me.
STARS: ****
OPENING MONTAGE
— Yep, this is indeed the very first episode where the show’s title was officially changed to “Saturday Night Live”.
MONOLOGUE
host fulfills a lifelong yearning by touching himself
— I thought I didn’t know who this guy is, but he looks surprisingly familiar. Eh, maybe he just reminds me of another actor.
— Oh, this guy’s a stand-up?
— Really? THAT’S the punchline? THAT’S what this whole monologue was building up to?
— The less said about that overly-corny punchline, the better…
STARS: *½
THE FARBERS MEET THE CONEHEADS
Larry & Bobbi Farber have Coneheads over for dinner
— Ah, the Farbers.
— Coneheads! I love this idea for a recurring character crossover. I’m kinda surprised, though, because the Farbers weren’t established recurring characters yet; they’ve only appeared once prior to this, in a miscellaneous piece with Kris Kristofferson.
— Something about the forehead/eyebrows area of Jane’s Conehead make-up looks odder than usual in tonight’s installment.
— Very funny part with the Coneheads “reading” the game instructions.
— Haha, Gilda and John are now breaking character and cracking up after the Coneheads all jumped through the window. Very rare to see any major character-breaking from this particular cast, which makes it a welcome novelty whenever it happens.
— The unplanned laughing was a good way to end the sketch.
— Overall, a great sketch.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
MARINE WEDDING
(host) performs a militaristic wedding service for Marines (DAA) & (JAC)
— When I first saw Jane, I almost thought that was Candice Bergen making a cameo. I guess it’s something about Jane’s wig…
— This premise seems like it’ll get old FAST.
— They basically already used this same one-joke premise in that season 1 sketch with Chevy trying to film a commercial for the Marines, and I wasn’t crazy about it then.
— Overall, I was not a fan of this sketch at all.
STARS: *½
A TOWN WITHOUT PITY
Eliot Ness (DAA) & Untouchables take over India from Indira Gandhi (LAN)
— The return of Laraine’s Indira Gandhi impression.
— Oh, no, not a song.
— John’s performing very well in his and Laraine’s song, but this is still a chore for me to sit through.
— Ha, I like the sudden turn this has taken with “The Untouchables” being revealed to be the characters from the Untouchables TV series.
— Our first time in quite a while seeing the “drop the cow” sketch-ending routine that was used a few times in season 1.
— Overall, a sketch that started out really bad, but slowly improved a little in the second half.
STARS: **½
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 1
JAC begs cardboard cut-out of Harry Reasoner to join her at SNL
— Funny beginning with Jane flirting with a Harry Reasoner cardboard cut-out.
— The Karl Malden/Ernest Borgnine joke was hilarious.
LEECH-TAB 100
old-fashioned pharmacist (DAA) prescribes leeches to (BIM) & (GIR)
— Fairly funny concept.
— Dan’s pitchman in this is a big change of pace from the fast-talking pitchmen he usually plays.
— Ha, they’re actually using REAL leeches?
— Despite the okay concept, the execution felt a little bland and didn’t work as well as I thought it would.
STARS: **½
WEEKEND UPDATE, PART 2
JAC announces the Oscar winners with results stolen from accounting firm
— The bit with Jane “spoiling” the results of the then-upcoming Oscars was interesting. I wonder how accurate those “spoilers” ended up becoming.
— No guests this week (unless you count Cardboard Harry Reasoner)
STARS (FOR BOTH WEEKEND UPDATE HALVES): ***
THE STORY OF THE SQUATTERS
crouching early Americans settle the frontier
— The visual gag of literally “squatting” – ohh, geez. Not sure how to feel about this premise; something about it feels very season 6-ish – not a good thing.
— I did get a laugh just now from the “Does a bear squat in the woods?” line.
— Props to the performers for being committed in carrying out this premise, but man, is this sketch going awfully far for such a flimsy, corny visual gag.
STARS: *½
SUICIDE LETTER
host blows suicidal businessman skit by doing his jump without ducking
— I think the suicide revelation was supposed to be a surprise, but I saw it coming early on as soon as Jack casually opened the window.
— I like the way this is breaking the fourth wall after Jack has “ruined” the sketch.
— This is great with more and more cast members coming on and realizing the illusion of the sketch has been shattered.
— Loved Bill’s stern delivery of “What the hell are you doing standing up?”
— Gilda’s overly-emotional entrance as the wife is hilarious.
— Oh, wait, Gilda’s actually playing a mistress. Still funny, though.
STARS: ***½
ROCKY
by Gary Weis- host trains for SNL Rocky-style
host drinks a raw egg to show that his training worked
— Funny hearing some audience members having a grossed-out reaction to Jack drinking the egg yolk.
— What’s with the generic background music during this parody of the famous training montage from “Rocky”? Shouldn’t we be hearing the usual “Gonna Fly Now” song?
— Oh, there’s the song now, in this “the next day” scene.
— This film had an okay pay-off and Jack gave a good performance. The ending slo-mo shot went on way too long, however.
STARS: **½
ASK BIG DADDY
Idi Amin (GAM) thinly covers massacres of citizens
— I like seeing the return of Bill’s Walter Cronkite impression. The voice he uses as him always makes me laugh.
— Is this supposed to be a variation of the “Ask President Carter” sketch from a few episodes earlier?
— Hearing white cast members & writers doing voices of African citizens feels kinda wrong.
— The repeated “everyone died in a car crash” joke has already gotten old.
— Overall, this wasn’t very good. Yet another weak Garrett Morris-led piece.
STARS: **
MIRAGE
desert vending machine fails to quench a traveller’s thirst
— Well, that sure was short, but the punchline definitely worked.
STARS: ***½
PANTYGRAMS
Ricardo Montalban (DAA) tells how Pantygrams send messages via underwear
— The idea of a Panty-Gram is pretty funny.
— LOL at Gilda in those shorts.
— This sketch is not really working so far, and is falling flat.
— Despite looking awkward at the very beginning of his scene, Bill ended up being funny and the pay-off of his scene made me laugh. That almost redeemed this whole sketch.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
GAGS BEASLEY
drunk, washed-up comedy writer (host) approaches JAC & GIR in a bar
— I like the staging of this sketch.
— What was with that brief cut to a far away camera angle?
— I love the name Gags Beasley.
— This sketch is being performed very well, and even has a sad undertone to Jack’s character. This era of SNL was always good at pulling off pathos.
— Funny bit with Jack’s “business card” turning out to just be an 8 of clubs card.
— A nice sentimental ending to this overall solid 10-to-1 sketch.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty weak episode. A large number of sketches fell flat, either due to overly-thin concepts (Squatters, Marine Wedding, Ask Big Daddy), poor executions of decent ideas (Panty-Gram, Leech-Tab 100), or other circumstances. There were a few things that did work well, like the Farbers/Coneheads crossover, the 10-to-1 piece, and the fourth-wall-breaking suicide sketch, but there sure was a lot of mediocrity surrounding them.
— Jack Burns seemed to have a natural comedic presence, but boy was his monologue cringeworthy. Other than that, he wasn’t bad, but as a host, he ended up coming off as kind of a poor man’s Robert Klein. Great job in that last sketch, though.
— Man, the show has been in a bit of a slump lately, with the overly-average Sissy Spacek episode, the fairly-underwhelming Broderick Crawford episode, and now this mediocre episode. It’s been a while since the last time I was crazy about an episode.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Broderick Crawford):
— a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Julian Bond
Jack Burns was the comedy partner of Avery Schreiber. I’m not sure if I’ve cleared things up or confused you further!
Burns was also a comedy partner with George Carlin.
He later produced Fridays and took part in the Andy Kaufman episode or stunt.
“Gags Beasley” is familiar to Muppet fans as Fozzie’s writer, and the author of the famous “banana sketch,” also mentioned in the SNL sketch here. (Jack Burns was “The Muppet Show’s” head writer during its first season, which aired the same time as this season of SNL.)
https://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Gags_Beasley
Weird period in hosting. While I appreciated that early SNL didn’t just grab flavor of the week hosts, from episode 11 to 18 of this season, the hosts are three non-actors (Nader, Tarkenton, Bond); actresses who weren’t “comediennes” (Gordon, Spacek); a basically retired actor (Crawford); and a comedian who I think of as a more old school style than SNL (Burns). While some of these people worked hard and some of these episodes are funny, on the whole, the hosts in this period aren’t offering a lot. That might have been the charm I guess–there was no other show on TV where such people would appear doing odd things.
Regarding the last couple of hosts during this period – remember, Chevy had just left, and for many viewers during this era, he WAS the show. I bet lots of potential hosts and their agents/managers/handlers were taking a wait-and-see approach to see if the show would make it before committing to hosting during this period, which would allow a performer like Jack Burns to get a chance to host he wouldn’t ordinarily get.
Lorne was a writer for the short-lived Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour (1973) which was produced by Bernie Brillstein who managed Lorne, Belushi and other SNL’ers.
Wow, that “Desert Vending Machine” bit sounds like it was stolen right from the Monkees’ movie.
That gag has gone on to be a bit of a trope in other forms of media, most notably, a certain Dr. Pepper commercial from the 90s…but since I can’t find the original commercial, here’s Family Guy making fun of it some 15 years later…
RIP Jack Burns
Had a great career as a writer, teamed up with George Carlin and Avery Schreiber, head writer for Muppet Show and Muppet Movie. Writer (and announcer) for “Fridays” in the early 80s.
Also given the impossible task to replace Don Knotts (Barney Fife) on the Andy Griffith Show as Deputy Warren. Didn’t work out to well, but those were enormous shoes to fill.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jack-burns-dead-muppet-movie-muppet-show-writer-was-86-1274178
Jack was funny in this episode and he was decent on Andy Griffith Show. RIP
Man that Mirage sketch seems to be inspired by a Certain scene from the Monkees’ Head. Shame it doesn’t have the same ending.