Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Rosalynn Carter (LAN) encourages illegal aliens to take part in census
— Another sketch that makes it really obvious they had nobody to play the president this season. This address to the nation about the 1980 census feels like it should be delivered by President Carter, not his wife.
— The census questions for immigrants are pretty funny.
— Hilarious random part with Gilda as her Spanish maid recurring character interrupting Laraine’s message and angrily spitting on her before being dragged away by secret service men.
— Gilda delivers LFNY in Spanish! This is SNL’s very first instance of a non-English LFNY.
STARS: ***
OPENING MONTAGE
— Writers Tom Schiller and Alan Zweibel receive their very first credit as featured players.
— Seems pretty late in the season to be making new cast additions. I recall hearing this ends up being the ONLY episode Zweibel was ever credited as a featured player in.
MONOLOGUE
(no synopsis available)
— I’m kinda loving his rural, hillbilly-type voice.
— A pretty straightforward, nothing-special monologue, but Strother got some humor out of talking about passing himself off as Tennessee Williams.
STARS: **½
FRENCH CAMP
Cool Hand Luke (BIM) rebels against French language camp director (host)
— I liked Strother’s line about being a “mean sumbitch”.
— Garrett’s delivery is really awkward in this.
— I like how “the box” that disobedient campers are confined to has a cassette tape of French lessons that the camper is forced to listen to.
— Great subtle gag of the soldiers’ guard dogs being French poodles.
— I’m getting a lot of little laughs from Brian Doyle-Murray’s constant whacks to his brother Bill’s head with a tiny wooden stick whenever Bill refuses to say “It’s a little cat” in French.
— Nice variation of the famous “What we got here is a failure to communicate” line.
— Very good ending.
— Overall, what a great mini-movie-type sketch.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Gangsters”
WEEKEND UPDATE
G. Gordon Liddy (TOD) barbecues & eats his hand during a LAN interview
Chico Escuela has advice for Muhammad Ali & baseball players
amateurish TOS drawings ape NBC video captioning of tonight’s top story
— Boy, yet another Update that begins with Jane not knowing which camera to look at.
— I like how during the news story about Hitler’s birthday, Bill says we were mistaken if we thought he was going to do another one of his “Happy Birthday” songs (which I did almost think he was going to do).
— Very funny reveal that Tom Davis is barbequeing his own hand.
— The surprising ending with Tom eating his own fingers makes me wonder if he’s the writer behind that Jeffrey Dahmer sketch from the 1992 episode hosted by Chevy Chase, where Chevy as Dahmer randomly chewed off his own fingers as the climax of that sketch. Tom actually does a walk-on at the very end of that sketch, so my suspicions that he wrote it are probably correct.
— The return of Chico Escuela. It’s surprisingly been a pretty long time since his last appearance.
— What in the world? That Escuela commentary was just plain bizarre, and Garrett’s delivery was ROUGH. That’s the second time tonight where Garrett’s delivery has come off bad.
— We get the return of the “amateurish, childlike Tom Schiller drawings” gag, which was often done during the Chevy era of Update in season 1.
— Update ends with the camera being on just Jane. Bill must be backstage getting in costume for the next sketch.
STARS: ***
VIDEO WILL
(host)’s children view their departed dad’s variety show-style video will
— I like Jane’s flaky southern character.
— A good laugh from Bill dismissively calling Harry “Jew boy”.
— The overlong bedpan sequence was pretty funny.
— I love the jovial performance of the song “High Hopes”.
— Funny morbid part with the reveal that Strother’s hospital roommate has just died.
— Heh, Schiller and Shaffer as Mexican musicians. This is reminding me of their roles in the Cuban Beatles sketch from earlier this season. It feels like the only time Tom Schiller is on camera this season is when he’s doing a foreign accent.
— Did we just get a too-early shot of moving feet on the TV screen?
— Good touch with the spinning screen effect at the end of one of Strother’s scenes.
— This is turning out to be an increasingly fun sketch.
— Ha, the video will even has a full set of ending credits.
— A funny dig at NBC’s then-current ratings troubles with Bill’s line about how NBC will buy anything.
— Overall, a very solid sketch.
— I like how at the end when the camera was pulling back, you can see that the office set and hospital room set were right next to each other.
STARS: ****
CONDUCTOR’S CLUB
at the weekly meeting of the Conductor’s Club, it’s business-as-usual
— Strange premise.
— The sound the record made when it screeched to a halt gave me a laugh.
— I’m starting to really like this sketch now; it has an interesting, unusual concept that’s appealing to me.
— The interludes with the club members practicing their conducting moves are hilarious.
— Heh, Strother was so into his wild conducting moves, he dropped his conductor’s stick and Bill had to pick it up for him.
STARS: ****
INVASION OF THE BRAIN SNATCHERS
Reagan pods turn liberals conservative
— Don Pardo as the voice of a news anchor on the TV Laraine’s watching. They used to do that with Pardo more often back in season 1.
— Their prediction that the 1980 election will end up being between Carter and Reagan ended up being accurate.
— Great visual with the giant Reagan pods.
— “Invasion of the Brain Snatchers”. Interesting direction this has suddenly taken.
— Bill’s understated reaction to seeing the pods was very good.
— Hilarious with the zombie-esque brainwashed Reagan supporters.
— Is Paul Shaffer spoofing a real singer? His goatee and crazy cross-eyed facial expression seem too specific to just be a fictional character. He looks hilarious, by the way.
— I love the part with Bill running in the dark while transparent shots of brainwashed Reagan supporters are superimposed over him.
— Overall, a brilliant, very well-done sketch with clever political writing.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Too Much, Too Young”
ANY TOWN
nameless residents are prejudiced against new coach (BDM)
— Yet another sketch tonight with an unusual, interesting-seeming premise.
— I’m liking the lack of names for everyone and everything.
— Strother’s doing a good job leading this sketch and seamlessly pulling off the various scene transitions, which doesn’t look easy.
— Overall, this didn’t seem to be trying to be laugh-out-loud funny, but it was interesting to watch progress.
— This reminded me a little of that Our Town sketch from Dick Cavett’s season 1 episode. They both even have similar titles. Are both sketches a parody of the same thing?
STARS: ***
FOOD
by Edie Baskin- photographic essay of various NYC eateries
— Hmm, this film has the exact same look and stop-motion style as SNL’s then-current opening montage. Must be made by the same company.
— It’s over already? I’m not sure what to say about this film, but it had a unique structure and a very nice visual look, at least.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
— The show must’ve ended early, as these goodnights went on for a long time before the credits even started scrolling. We’re also getting some lengthy shots of the SNL Band, which is rare for this era.
— Don Pardo: “Tonight’s food photo essay by Edie Baskin”. Ah, that explains that film’s visual similarities to SNL’s opening montage, which Edie Baskin is behind.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A kinda-unusual episode, but I liked this one a lot. A majority of the sketches had really odd, creative, well-thought-out premises, some of which tried less for laughs and more for telling an interesting story. In general, the writing tonight seemed more inspired than it’s usually been this season. A few of the sketches were particularly strong, such as French Camp and Invasion of the Brain Snatchers. Overall, not only was this easily one of the best episodes from the rough second half of this season, but was also one of the best episodes of this whole season in general.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Burt Reynolds):
— a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Bob Newhart
A sad postscript to this episode, as this episode turned out to be one of the Last things Strother Martin would appear in before he died later in August 1980 from a Heart Attack–His final role was in a movie called “Hotwire”, released a month after his passing.
In answer to your “Any Town” question – yes, both it and the Cavett sketch from season one are parodies of the same thing: Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town.” You obviously steer clear of community theater. There’s wisdom in that.
And, of course, “French Camp” is a parody of the Paul Newman film “Cool Hand Luke,” in which Martin plays essentially the same character he plays here. Good sign of a well-written parody: it’s funny even when you don’t know the source material.
One last comment: man, the Specials were AWESOME. Not least because they managed to leap around that small stage without running into one another.
Pretty damn strong episode, this one. Apparently, Lorne rewarded his cast and writers this season by letting them suggest hosts or musical guests. I believe Strother was Jim Downey’s suggestion. Good call, Jim.
This episode is freakin’ awesome. I love Strother as a host and there are so many great premises throughout. Might be my fave episode from Season 5.
I wonder if Strother Martin had lived longer, he might have made an interesting recurring host in that Christopher Walken sense. He was a very entertaining and energetic host; I liked how earlier seasons would just have random character actors host.
After a rewatch of this I highly enjoyed it. French Camp, Conductors Club and Invasion of the Brain Snatchers were inspired pieces. I loved Bill’s line about French cuisine in the French Camp sketch. I’ve never seen Cool Hand Luke, want to though, but I still liked this parody.
Also, The Specials killed it. I only knew of “Ghost Town”from them and because of these performances added two “new” songs to my YouTube feed. The movements around that stage were impressive. Food was impressive little filler short film too.
That Video Will continues to be a favorite of mine. I remember Jan Hooks did a similar sketch in season 14 or 15, where she played Betty Davis doing a will by videotape. I think whomever wrote that also wrote the Video Will sketch from this episode.
What I noticed about the video will sketch was how at the end it was linked to the Bob Fosse film “All That Jazz,” especially the parody of “Bye Bye Love.”
One of the hidden gems of year 5. I remember reading the host list and thinking: “Who is the old guy,” and being pleasantly suprised by it. He fit in darn well and was very game to do stuff unlike Burt was. You could tell by this point that they were just wanting to have fun by this point hence why he hosted.
I miss these days when they had unusual hosts; more often than not they were solid picks and the stars theirselves weren’t that good.
I loved this episode. Talking with Matt Neuman for my podcast he wrote the Any Town skit and Garrett came up to him afterward and said, “Thank you for making me a doctor and not a maid.”
I believe Paul Shaffer is supposed to look like Charles Manson in the Reagan sketch? Makes sense since Manson is from California and was an aspiring musician, too. In the screen so, he also resembles Adam Sandler as cannibal Greg Brady from the season 16 sketch “America’s Most Wanted: Former Child Actors”
*Manson is from Ohio but gained infamy in California, I should say
I’ve never seen that Conductor’s Club sketch until now, but it’s one of the only Season 5 sketches posted on NBC.com/snl so I gave it a look. Aside from what Stooge already pointed out, I love the detail of Garrett asking Zweibel if he’d be willing to conduct the minutes of the meeting if invited to join, and then being the only other member besides Bill to vote for his inclusion based on that.
Here’s an installment of the 1979-1980s Tegrin Dandruff Shampoo commercial campaign that inspired the beginning of the “Anytown” sketch. (In fact it is the one with “Coach Johnson” played by The Breakfast Club’s Paul Gleason (RIP))
I loved this episode too. The French camp one cracked me up and I also liked the Conductor’s Club.