April 9, 1983 – Joan Rivers / Musical Youth (S8 E17)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

COLD OPENING
the Whiners are in the studio to watch SNL, but they have some complaints

 

— Ugh, another Whiners sketch. I guess Sid Caesar wasn’t successful in his attempts to strangle them to death at the end of their most recent sketch.
— I DO like the meta premise of the Whiners being at SNL, though.
— I got a big laugh from the Whiners saying “I hope Gilda’s on the show tonight”.
— I liked the irony of them complaining that Joan Rivers is so loud and annoying.
— Overall, surprisingly not too terrible for a Whiners sketch. One of their better appearances by default.
STARS: **½

MONOLOGUE
host does self-deprecating stand-up about her childhood

— Immediately starting off with VERY rapid-fire jokes.
— I’m liking a lot of her self-deprecating jokes about herself as a baby.
— Wow, she’s going a mile a minute with these jokes; so much so, that it’s taken me a few seconds to get some of the punchlines, and by the time I do, she’s already done the next punchline. I am getting a lot of laughs here, though, and I love the energy of this.
STARS: ****

THE DAVID SUSSKIND SHOW, PART 1
Buckwheat bodyguard (EDM) tells David Susskind [real]- he was sleazeball

      

— Yet another continuation of the “Buckwheat’s death” saga. I had no idea it ever went as far as three episodes. I was only aware of the first two.  Gotta love SNL’s continued commitment to this story arc.
— Very good blunt delivery from Eddie of the reveal that “Buckwheat was a sleazeball”.
— Eddie works in another funny n-word drop.
— I’m really enjoying the behind-the-scenes video of a candid Buckwheat acting like a sleazy diva.
— Susskind throws to a mid-show “commercial”, which I guess counts as a separate segment, and then I assume they’re going to come back to Part 2 the Susskind sketch. Interesting format break for SNL.
STARS: ****

THE ENQUIRER
the paper for people with enquiring minds

    

— A lot of funny, silly humor & animated graphics here.
— Love the random inclusion of Mary’s Alfalfa at the end of this.
STARS: ***½

THE DAVID SUSSKIND SHOW, PART 2
back on Susskind show, Buckwheat impersonators (TIK), (GAK), (EDM) argue

 

— Fast costume change for Eddie.
— LOL at Eddie’s dignified, accented voice as a Buckwheat impersonator. I feel like I’ve heard Eddie do this voice before, but I’m not sure which sketch it was in.
— An overall okay sketch, though a step down from Part 1 of this sketch.
— Poor Gary Kroeger was wasted in yet another sketch. They didn’t let him really do anything in this. That’s especially a shame considering we’ve seen before (in the Lily Tomlin cold opening this season) that he can actually do a decent Buckwheat impression.
STARS: ***

OSCARS
Oscar statuettes await their category backstage

   

— Mixed feelings about this concept. It’s a somewhat unique idea, but it also has too much of the type of cutesy, corny feel that I used to always negatively associate the Ebersol era with years ago. (As it turns out, I haven’t been finding this era to be QUITE as corny as I used to feel)
— That gold face paint oddly makes Julia look kinda like a black woman.
— Some highlights here, but the overall sketch wasn’t too great as a whole.
STARS: **½

JOAN VS. JOAN
host & crossdressed JOP have joke-telling contest to identify real Joan

   

— Nice to see the return of Joe’s Joan Rivers impression. It’s not the best Joan Rivers impression I’ve seen (it’s basically just Joe’s normal deep-ish voice talking in Joan Rivers’ vocal pattern), but he plays the role so over-the-top that I can’t help but always crack up.
— I like this premise of a Joan Rivers contest between Joan and Joe.
— Heh, boy, Joan can’t even keep a straight face ALREADY.
— The joke about a guy being “so dumb, he couldn’t count to 21 unless he was naked” took a few seconds to for me to get, but when I did, I laughed out loud for several seconds.
— Joe already used the “Why can’t you be more like Sheila? / Sheila had died at birth” joke in the Speaking As a Woman sketch from earlier this season where he did his Joan Rivers impression opposite Gary as Dustin Hoffman’s Tootsie.
— This sketch is very fun to watch so far. I’m having a blast, and clearly, so are Joan and Joe themselves.
— The ending with Joan’s husband (wearing a bag over his head) having to decide by feel which one of the two Joans is the real one was okay, but I felt it took away from where this sketch was going when it was just Joan and Joe playing off of each other.
STARS: ****

CALVIN KLEIN JEANS
Industrial Strength Calvin Klein Jeans- Liz Taylor (host) reminisces

  

— Oh my god at Joan in that getup…
— More fat jokes about Liz Taylor. Feels redundant to place this sketch right after the Joan Vs. Joan sketch which also had a string of fat Liz Taylor jokes.
— This turns out to be yet another Calvin Klein Jeans parody. SNL seemed to do a lot of these in the 80s.
STARS: **½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pass the Dutchie”

SATURDAY NIGHT NEWS
a list of cooperative events China will be boycotting
a raging MAG gives an alternate Academy Awards list
Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer talks about things that make him angry
James Watt (JOP) sings “Barbara Ann” with BRH & GAK

       

— Chilling in hindsight to hear a joke about Space Shuttle Challenger, knowing what would infamously happen to it three years later.
— Oh, COME ON, a return of the dreaded “long screen crawl gag” from the previous season’s SNL Newsbreaks?!?!? It’s official: this season DEFINITELY must be occasionally using leftover Brian Doyle-Murray scripts from season 7. Ugh.
— Wow, the audience is really starting to get worked up during tonight’s Spittin’ Mad Mary Gross rant.
— This is the first Spittin’ Mad Mary Gross rant that ended with her concluding it on her own instead of getting cut off by Brad.
— Here’s Saturday Night News’s obligatory Tim Kazurinsky appearance of the week.
— Tim’s Jodie Foster/John Hinckley joke actually received boos from the audience.
— Tim’s overall commentary was okay, but not as strong as his usual Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer appearances.  There weren’t any particular lines that stood out this time.
— Ha, Joe as the infamous Secretary of the Interior James Watt.
— Love how Joe and Brad randomly broke out into an out-of-place performance of the song “Barbara Ann”, especially when Gary literally popped up from under the desk as himself to join in on the singing. Very fun bit.
STARS: **

OLD AGE HOME
in the year 2040, old folks host & EDM remember their glory days

 

— Interesting seeing a sketch taking place in the year 2040, and I like the futuristic look of the set.
— Wait, Joan’s playing herself? Did anyone in 1983 REALLY think she’d still be alive in 2040? Wouldn’t she have been well into her 100s even before that decade?
— I always like seeing futuristic sketches taking place decades later where hosts play themselves as elderly. Robin Williams does a great one in season 13, and Lady Gaga does one in season 39. I think I also remember seeing one with Paul Simon in season 11. There might be others I’m forgetting too.
— Julia: “Your husband Edgar’s not coming.” Joan: “Tell me something new.”
— LOL, Eddie playing himself as an old man. I also love his random choice of portraying his elderly self as having an old white Jew voice for no apparent reason.
— Heh, Joan has once again started cracking up in the middle of a sketch.
— Yet ANOTHER slam at Liz Taylor in tonight’s episode. She must’ve been Joan’s favorite punching bag back in the 80s.
— Overall, another fun sketch tonight.
STARS: ***½

CLUB DOOLITTLE
E. Eppy Doolittle (EDM) does ad for his club while avoiding (JOP)’s food

     

— Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this sketch all night. You’ll see why soon.
— Clint Smith makes his second appearance of the night.
— I’m really liking Eddie’s intentionally-bad stilted delivery.
— Joe’s ALREADY trying to make Eddie laugh during their scene together. But that’s just a small hint of what Joe ends up doing to Eddie later in the sketch.
— Yes! Here it starts, with Eddie randomly getting whipped cream and cake thrown at him from an off-camera Joe while Eddie’s in the middle of addressing the viewers.
— Haha, this is starting to turn into a full-out food fight between Eddie and Joe.
— And here’s the legendary part that propels this unscripted whipped cream/cake incident into an all-time classic, where after struggling to keep the sketch going while dodging Joe’s thrown food, Eddie finally drops character and yells to an off-camera Joe “THIS IS LIVE TELEVISION!!!! This show’s live!” I can barely even type out this stuff right now because I’m laughing so hard.
— Now I’ve begun laughing even harder just now with Eddie opening his mouth wide to try catching a piece of cake thrown at him. He misses, as the cake piece hilariously ends up bouncing off his mouth. All of this priceless stuff is absolutely SLAYING me.
— Overall, oh my god, that was simply epic. This is a rare, Debbie Downer-type example of unprofessionalism actually making a sketch much funnier. I highly doubt this particular sketch would stand out at all if it hadn’t gone completely off the rails and was instead performed straight.
STARS: *****

JOAN RIVERS STAND-UP #2
host does stand-up about the birth of her daughter, ugly rock stars

— This feels like a throwback to the first two seasons, back when stand-up comedian hosts (George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Robert Klein, etc.) were given multiple spots throughout the show to perform their stand-up instead of just relegating it to the monologue spot.
— Joan mentions her then-14-year-old daughter Melissa, who would later become well-known.
— More rapid-fire funny jokes from Joan.
STARS: ***½

CARIBBEAN GYNO
on the island of St. Chuck, (host) visits a Caribbean gyno (EDM)

  

— Right out of the gate, I already love Mary’s voice and accent in this.
— Interesting lower-key character for Eddie.
— Great part with Mary singing the theme song for Eddie’s character.
— Eddie’s pronunciation of “umbrellla” as “oombrella” was a little detail that gave me a pretty good laugh.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Never Gonna Give You Up”

GOODNIGHTS

 

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS:
— I was really looking forward to reviewing this episode, because from my viewing of it years ago (when NBC showed it on “Classic SNL” sometime around 2004 or 2005), I recalled it being a very fun episode. Watching the episode again tonight, I see my recollection was absolutely correct. In fact, the episode ended up being even MORE fun than I had remembered. The overall episode was consistently solid (even the Whiners were half-decent) and had such an enjoyable, loose, ad-libby atmosphere, helped by Joan Rivers’ presence (who I was not expecting to find as likable as I ended up finding). The loose vibe of the night reached its absolute peak with all the legendary antics in the Club Doolittle sketch.

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Robert Guillaume):
— a big step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW:
Susan Saint James