Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
COLD OPENING
Alpo pitchman Lorne Greene (JOP) is the meat dogs really prefer
— A short cold opening with a quick, funny punchline of Lorne Greene getting attacked by the dog because Greene himself is “The Meat Dogs Love”.
STARS: ***
TALENT ENTRANCE
MONOLOGUE
MAG ruthlessly forces host to do impersonations of random celebrities
— I’m confused over the inconsistency of when they decide to do Talent Entrances. The last two episodes just went straight into the monologue without a Talent Entrance, whereas one preceded tonight’s monologue. It’s baffling; how do they decide when to randomly do these Talent Entrances?!?
— Mary’s brief Eleanor Roosevelt impression is pretty funny.
— I’m loving Mary’s increasingly faster and bossier requests to Blythe.
STARS: ***½
COME ON OUT AMERICA
America is turning gay- “Wouldn’t you like to be a homo too?”
— I remember hearing that this is a parody of a specific soda commercial from that time.
— Some of the shots of happy townspeople are amusing, especially the random Nixon one.
— Overall, I found this commercial to be pretty funny and well-made, but for various reasons, I’m sure I would’ve laughed at it even more in 1982.
STARS: ***
THE NEW CELIBACY
discovering their celibacy was accidental, (ROD) & (TIK) rush dinner
— A very long delay before the camera fades into this sketch at the beginning. Also, when the camera finally does fade in, Christine can be seen making a late entrance.
— Tim’s “Don’t touch me, I’m a time bomb” line was great.
— This is getting really funny with Robin and Tim frantically speeding through dinner to get to their lovemaking.
— Great delivery from Robin of the line “Just give me meat!”
— Excellent part with Robin and Tim sultrily eating their meal while staring at each other.
— Overall, a very strong lead-off sketch for the night.
STARS: ****½
20/20
Geraldo Rivera (JOP) badgers baby delivery during hospital expose
— Joe’s Geraldo impression is pretty good.
— I like the surgeons going “Who the hell is this guy?!” when Geraldo enters the delivery room while reporting to the camera.
— Short sketch overall. Not sure where else this could’ve gone, but I kinda wanted more from it.
STARS: **½
THE KHADDAFFI LOOK
— Rerun, for the billionth time this season. At this point, I can’t even get any enjoyment out of this ad’s catchy jingle anymore.
POETS
reclusive poet (MAG) finds her kindred spirit in burglar Tyrone Green
— A laugh from Robin “treating” Mary to the joy of tweezing Robin’s chin.
— Eddie’s “I don’t know nothin’ about your wazoo” was a funny line.
— I’m liking Eddie’s various confused reactions to Mary’s speech to him.
— Ah, they’ve revealed Eddie is playing his Tyrone Green character from the classic “Prose and Cons” short earlier this season.
— Eddie (and eventually Mary) quoting the familiar “Cill My Landlord” poem got a good audience reaction.
— Pretty amusing ending.
— Overall, a good sketch and featured several very funny lines from Eddie.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pirates”
FAB FIFTIES
some of the less appealing facets of the ’50s have resurfaced in the ’80s
— Brian’s amusing delivery of “Abortion’s illegal, so you’re ruined for life… you tramp” was VERY Bill Murray-esque.
— Interesting premise, pointing out how the 80s seems to be bringing back the worst aspects of the 50s. This is serving as a nice snarky contrast to how people usually tend to overglorify the 50s.
— Blythe’s delivery doesn’t seem right for this commercial AT ALL. She also stumbled over one line really badly.
STARS: ***
SNL NEWBREAK
MAG reports from Vince Edwards’ house instead of Shuttle landing site
Yvonne DeMouchier (ROD) gives fashion tips to Best Actress nominees
JOP gives Georgetown the NCAA championship on merit of coeds’ looks
BDM announces the birth of BIM’s son Homer Banks Murray
— We get the arrival of Christine Ebersole as Brian’s new co-anchor, while Mary is announced as being “on assignment”.
— WTF was with the random shot of Christine laughing and saying to the audience “It’s okay” as she puts on her clip-on mic?
— Wait, what the hell is going on? There seems to be major microphone issues in general at the start of this Newsbreak. Brian sounds like his mic isn’t working and you can hear very loud moving sounds off-camera. And what the hell was that high-pitched rewinding sound I just heard? All of this is completely drowning out Brian’s first joke (something about Norton from “The Honeymooners”).
— Haha, the technical difficulties are now getting a great audience reaction and Brian has acknowledged that his clip-on mic hadn’t been applied yet. It’s sad that this blooper is probably the hardest I’ve laughed at SNL Newsbreak all season.
— Mary’s commentary was pretty weak. I did like her opening ad-lib about the earlier technical snafus with Brian and Christine’s mics.
— Christine’s delivery as a Newsbreak anchor so far is okay, I guess. Nothing special, though; pretty generic.
— Strange seeing Robin in an SNL news commentary. Didn’t realize until now that, unless I’m forgetting something, she’s the only person in this cast who had never appeared at the SNL news desk until now.
— Robin’s fashion critic commentary is very weak and her delivery is not working.
— Boy, I don’t think I’ve laughed at a single news joke from Brian or Christine so far.
— Joe’s SNL Sports commentary was kind of a letdown tonight.
— A very nice ending with Brian mentioning that he’s recently become an uncle thanks to his brother Bill Murray.
STARS: **
MICHAEL DAVIS
Michael Davis [real] juggles a bowling ball, an egg, a tomato
— Some good laughs from his “razor-sharp bowling ball” test.
— I really like the idea of his stunt being to juggle a bowling ball, egg, and a tomato while eating just the tomato.
— Great unplanned bit with the audience member tossing the tomato back to Michael right as Michael’s about to tell him not to do that.
— Funny line from Michael about people juggling in India.
— Wow, very impressive part with him seamlessly going from catching the tomato from the audience member to immediately juggling that tomato with the bowling ball and egg.
— Ha, he ate the egg by mistake!
— Overall, the usual fantastic Michael Davis segment.
STARS: ****½
THE UNCLE TOM SHOW
Gumby (EDM) tells Snyder (JOP) of toon scandal
— Is there supposed to be music playing during the opening credits? We can’t hear anything except the announcer’s intro. Seems to be a technical error.
— I’m surprised to see this sketch again. Never knew this became recurring.
— The debut of Eddie’s Gumby! I thought we wouldn’t first see him until season 8.
— Eddie’s choice of playing Gumby with a curmudgeon Jewish accent is brilliant. But wow, his delivery in this debut is VERY different from the trademark angry delivery that I remember him having. He’s speaking in a much more low-key voice here. I guess he didn’t develop the angry delivery until subsequent Gumby sketches.
— Great part with Eddie’s Gumby explaining how Wilma Flintstone is a slut.
— There’s the very first utterance of “I’m Gumby, dammit”, but it ain’t the same without his now-famous angry delivery.
— Wow, the audience is kinda dead so far.
— Okay, the audience getting more into it.
— Overall, a pretty good sketch, but definitely not as strong as some of the future Gumby sketches I remember seeing.
STARS: ***½
MEET THE PEOPLE
panelists’ rude questions offend Princess Di (CHE)
— Blythe’s method of making people seem less dignified by picturing them going to the bathroom is pretty funny.
— Not too funny of a premise with all the panelists asking Princess Di crude questions.
— Overall, aside from a few lines, I didn’t care for this sketch. Just didn’t work for me.
STARS: **
BLYTHE’S PLEA
lack of funding forces legitimate actors like host to do shows like SNL
— Wow, this sketch is over already? This had a pretty funny initial idea, but it didn’t go anywhere near as far as it should’ve. It felt like they ended this too early or something.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Lush Life”
musical guest performs “Woody & Dutch On The Slow Train To Peking”
GOODNIGHTS
— Pretty funny continuation of the ending of the Blythe’s Plea sketch, by showing Blythe in the fish costume.
— Oh, we find out that was Joe’s own dog in the cold opening.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— A pretty good episode. Excluding SNL Newsbreak, there was a consistent quality throughout the night until it really trailed off with the last two sketches. As a whole, this was an overall perfectly satisfying show.
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Robert Urich):
— A fairly big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW:
Daniel J. Travanti