Sketches are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
DISCLAIMER
Bruce Jenner Wins The Javelin Catch will not be seen tonight
COLD OPENING
Jimmy Carter’s (DAA) State Of The Union address bores Congressmen
— I’m expecting this to be long, as SNL’s State of the Union parodies over the years tend to be very lengthy.
— The disclaimers in the stock footage cutaways are pretty funny.
— I’m also liking John and Bill’s antics in background.
— Wow, I’m surprised this is over already. Contrary to my earlier prediction, this was not long at all; in fact, it was shorter than a lot of cold openings in general are.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host electrocutes self, tells how to be a millionaire & never pay taxes
— The “John Belushi stole my $50!” bit was great.
— I like how the microphone electrocution bit was such a random non-sequitur.
— Overall, the usual strong Steve Martin monologue.
STARS: ****
SWILL
— Rerun
THE MYSTERY OF BIGFOOT
ranger (host) overlooks obvious clues pointing to (JOB) as Bigfoot
— Well… this whole sketch certainly came and went with nothing to note at all. Overall, I wasn’t crazy about this, and I felt the premise and the jokes were too obvious. No way should this have been the first sketch of the night.
STARS: **
FESTRUNK BROTHERS
Georg & Yortuk Festrunk meet their Croatian computer dates (JAC) & (LAN)
— The Festrunks in their second appearance.
— These characters are already getting good recognition applause from the audience.
— The characters now have the hats that would become part of their trademark look.
— Computer dating was a thing even back in 1978?
— I really like the turn this has taken with the brothers’ “American” dates turning out to be wild Croatians who are basically the female version of the Festrunks.
— John is hilarious as the Croatian uncle.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE (THE DIRT BAND)
THE BODY FLOSS
Body Floss is the Swedish way to make hygiene efficient & fun
— Ha, why in the world was Garrett randomly in the shower with Bill? I had to laugh at how there was no acknowledgement of that within the sketch.
— I got a good unintended(?) chuckle from Steve’s frozen smile into the camera at the end.
— Overall, a pretty ho-hum fake ad, but the performances were fun at least.
STARS: **½
WEEKEND UPDATE PREVIEW
WEEKEND UPDATE
Roseanne Roseannadanna rambles from lack of heat to disgusting food
— Funny hearing an innocent mention of Fred Silverman being NBC’s new president. If they only knew back then how doomed his reign at NBC would be…
— Jane’s endless list of President Carter’s poor track record in his first year in the White House was eye-opening to me and made me start to understand why people back then were already predicting he’d end up a one-termer. Again, going through these SNL seasons in chronological order is providing a great history lesson for me.
— Roseanne Roseannadanna in her very first Update commentary.
— Roseannadanna’s disgusting food rant and Jane’s reaction are pretty funny. A good way for this character to make her Update debut.
— Short Update.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE (RANDY NEWMAN)
FAMILY FEUD
Coneheads win despite unconventional answers
— I like the voice Bill is using, even though I can’t really judge how accurate of a Richard Dawson impression it is, as the Dawson era of Family Feud was before my time. I do know enough about Dawson to know that 1) Bill’s impression doesn’t look anything like him, and 2) Bill’s habit of kissing the female contestants is accurate to the real Dawson.
— The interplay between John and Bill is pretty funny.
— An interesting, fresh setting for the Coneheads.
— I liked the “the big one” answer to the “What do people like to bite?” question.
— Richard Dawson to Beldar: “I want you to tell me the first thing comes into your head… which will probably be a low-flying plane.”
STARS: ****
WHAT IF?
tonight’s simulation involves Napoleon (JOB) with a B-52
— Jane’s obligatory talk show host of the night being named “Joan Cage” seems to be a variation of the “Joan Face” name she had in an earlier talk show sketch this season.
— The Napoleon/B-52 concept doesn’t seem all that promising.
— Ha, Steve just sounds like he’s reusing his Festrunk Brothers voice.
— The whole dramatization is actually quite dull.
— I do know “What If?” ends up becoming a recurring sketch, and while I’ve never seen any of the subsequent installments yet, I did hear that one of them is about Superman as a Nazi, which sounds much more promising than tonight’s installment.
— Jane saying at the end that the next episode’s topic is “What if God and Superman got into a fight” seems to have been part of the inspiration for the aforementioned Superman Nazi sketch.
STARS: **
HOLLYWOOD HOMES
by Gary Weis- host tours Hollywood homes of his “close personal friends”
— I like the part with Steve talking to “Sonny Bono”.
— The repeated joke of Steve yelling a celebrity’s name outside of their mansion and getting no answer is starting to get a little tiring.
— Very funny part with Steve claiming he’s standing outside of Rin Tin Tin’s house.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE (THE DIRT BAND & STEVE MARTIN)
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— Well, it had to happen sooner or later: a Steve Martin episode that was average. Before this point, all of his episodes were strong and memorable, so I was kinda disappointed to see that tonight’s didn’t measure up. While this was far from a bad episode, there weren’t anywhere near as many well-remembered sketches that Steve’s episodes from this era usually have, and tonight also had a few more ho-hum sketches than I’m used to seeing in his episodes.
— It felt like there was an unusually low amount of sketches tonight, which may be something I have to get used to soon, as I recall seasons 4 & 5 often had episodes with a small amount of sketches.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Miskel Spillman):
— a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Robert Klein, a.k.a. the “Attack of the Atomic Lobsters” episode!!!
I actually don’t think I’ve seen this episode, but the descriptions of the sketches seem like in many of them, any host could have played Steve’s part.
Yeah, this one wasn’t as good as I remembered. I think having Steve host three times this particular season was a mistake. He should have hosted in September and April only. It also feels like someone else was supposed to host this episode and that person cancelled and the show got Steve last minute.
This may have been the episode that John Travolta was scheduled to host – apparently he had agreed to host, but had to back out at the last minute. Saturday Night Fever had just came out several weeks earlier, so SNL would have got him just as he was approaching his peak popularity!
This is probably the Steve Martin-hosted episode I am least familiar with – before the DVDs came out, I always wondered which episode the “Family Feud” sketch came from!
Bill Murray’s Dawson impression is accurate…to Dawson’s Hogan’s Heroes character…for about the first couple minutes…just like Dawson. Ok I changed my mind, Murray’s impression is very accurate.
This was the third and final episode on a VHS spotlighting Coneheads sketches. Not too bad even if Steve was missing a lot. The preceding one was the infamous Charles Grodin episode and he only appeared in the cold open, monologue and goodnights. Steve’s first episode was better, focusing on him as an IRS agent set to investigate the Coneheads.
Jane Curtin’s Croatian woman is so funny. The accent and her wig. Reminds me of her “Iris” character where she has that deep voice and short wig.
I always felt Jane and Dan A were the pillars of the show.
This is the one in which Randy Newman performed “Short People” and blew a raspberry to anyone who didn’t like it!
Speaking of which, I doubt that song would make it in today’s Top 40 during this “Woke” period, especially since it’s not even in any oldies station that I know of….