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Of the first five seasons of the show, I've been most curious about Season 3. Beyond the fact that it's well-regarded as the finest of the original era, it feels like all of the wonders of the show are coming in at a fevered pitch. There's some legendary episodes here, from Charles Grodin, to the atomic lobsters, to the quintessential Steve Martin gig. There are points of intrigue, like Hugh Hefner, returning alum host Chevy Chase, or Miskel Spillman and the Anyone Can Host competition. Gary Weiss is on the way out, and Tom Schiller's on the way in. And there's also O. J. Simpson. Basically, there's a lot to look forward to, and also O. J. Simpson!
Does Season 3 live up to its mythical status in the pantheon of Saturday Night Live? Scroll down and find out!
For my reviews of the preceding season, Season 2, CLICK HERE!
9/24/77: Steve Martin / Jackson Browne (S3 E01)
It's easy to recognize the SNL super-host gene in Steve Martin, but in his third time around the studio, we're still not really there. To this episode's credit, it's the closest to a successful Steve Martin-hosted episode of SNL yet, though its successes also don't feel attached strictly to Steve's magnetism. He's in the finest and most versatile form of any of his hosting stints yet, but suspiciously, some of the night's best material succeeds in disregard for his presence so much as the energetic, robust feel of being a big, shiny season premiere.
That sense of excitement and freshness is what powers the episode along for me, right from the Jumbotron opening montage and Steve's excited walk down to the show's newest home base (even if the intro music is now decked-out with poorly-aged, horribly synths). Two other things also jumped out to me rather immediately, and most tantalizingly for the season to come. For one, the show's fake commercials have gotten a serious upgrade; usually relegated to brief bits woven into the middle of Weekend Update, they've now got a far better sense of polish, showcasing an attention to detail in the season's debut commercial parody that plays a heavy hand in selling the overall concept—the sublime, briss-friendly Royal Deluxe II. Similarly, while I've heard a lot of scary things about what this season's Weekend Updates will look like, this inaugural iteration was pretty dang delightful, taking the form of a more proper newscast featuring a weather update and reports from almost the entire cast. Even if it's a proof of concept for what would go on to be a mangled iteration of Update, it makes a great first impression.
As for Steve himself, while he only got two proper sketches, he gave them his best shot. The better of the two was the debut Festrunk sketch; perhaps it was more low-key than the mythical recurring characters I've heard so much about, but I think that played to the sketch's benefit here, churning out a strong character piece buoyed by Steve and Dan's improbable charm. More than just being sexually-minded weirdos, they're two naive, silly guys just looking for a good time, and that silliness transferred over to me wonderfully. His other sketch, and the night's centerpiece, was far harder to swallow, though Steve gave it his best shot and I can't blame its failures on him. "Mike McMack, Defense Lawyer" is just way too dark and ill-handled for me to know what to do with it. There's an interesting, satirical edge to it, the idea that lawyers are in it for the ego-soaked gamesmanship rather than justice, but the show trips on itself by its cruelty to Gilda, played with deadening, almost-painful straightness. (Her sobbing while Steve hit on her after labelling her as liable for being raped, and while her defendant patted him on the back for knowingly whipping the jury around over his guilty client, just made me feel unwell.)
The rest of the night's offerings maintained a pretty fun vibe, fully-formed or not. The best of those was Dan's confession booth piece with Garrett, a spiritual successor to the winning "ATM" sketch last season where confessions are quantified by a computer algorithm. Meanwhile, Franken and Davis manage to wring a few laughs out of their pageant sketch (slight but remarkable praise for them, truly), and John pulls of a fun, physical turn performing an inelegant musical number as Roy Orbison. (I do wish it were framed more immediately though, like his Joe Cocker performance from Season 1; the framework with Laraine just felt dead.) All in all, a pretty good night, even if Steve Martin's got a ways to go. (Penned 6/27/21)
GRADE: B+.
10/08/77: Madeline Kahn / Taj Mahal (S3 E02)
Madeline Kahn's second episode is, disappointingly, a bit hard to find a stance on. I don't think it was the worst thing ever, and considering what I've seen from the last three seasons, there's honestly some merit to what gets brought to the table here. But there's also aimlessness in equal strokes, and perhaps most frustratingly, Madeline's first episode—which was rightfully a revelation—casts a heavy shadow over the mediocre patches that plague her return.
The best sketches were generally speaking the ones without Madeline's involvement, but I don't think that's a strike against her. The show just didn't know what to present to her as a host, and it's the fault of the writing more than anything else that Madeline doesn't get much to do besides sing and awkwardly maintain aimless conversation with Dame Edna. She gave strong performances across the night, even if most of what she applied herself to throttled her chance to charm; the final sketch, pairing her with Gilda for a sweet, Marilyn Suzanne Miller slice-of-life piece, glowingly proved that the Madeline of 1976 is still here.
But as I said, the night shone elsewhere. Bill's "Swill" sketch is another home run for the season's fake commercial department (the visual of the soda can tab slowly oozing out of the bottle destroyed me), and though more low-key, Dan submits similarly-sublime work to the later "Pocket Pal" piece; his complete 180 from the stiff, professional spokesperson delivery of his commercial pitch to a stiff-bodied, blood-curdling scream was one of the hardest laughs the show's given me in this era. (Alongside the Hercules voice dub sketch, it's a nice reminder of Dan's strengths, especially in the aftermath of his distressingly terrible Update performance.) Gilda and Laraine's "The Pink Box" sketch is also incredibly strong and one of this era's best women-centric pieces, advertising a women's hygiene product so personal that even women don't know what it's for. Less successful were the inaugural Schiller's Reel, even if it was a bit cute, and Garrett and John's "reverse discrimination" sketch, a piece which, like last episode's lawyer sketch, bungles its intent despite its toothy premise by placing its edge in the wrong places. The show's done far worse, at least.
Ultimately, this is a very mixed episode, but I think its wins are truly solid. I'll gladly take an episode that manages to get there in waves over one that struggles the entire time. (Penned 6/28/21)
GRADE: B.
10/15/77: Hugh Hefner / Libby Titus (S3 E03)
Hugh Hefner is a figure that I'll never be able to really get. If it's any distillation of that absolute confusion at the guy, at one point during his hosting stint, he announces, "I'm noted sex authority Hugh Hefner" to no laughs because everyone just willingly accepts that as a fact, and that's weird! But alas, in spite of the fact that this episode was strangely intent to massage his ego, I thought that it was a fair enough outing for the show given the many ways that it could've gone terribly wrong.
A lot of that comes from the fact that while Hugh is a stiff performer who never has his public image challenged by he episode's writing, he rolls gamely with the reverence the writing seems to hold for him. There's never vibes of noncompliance or forced politeness from either party in the same way that, say, the Elon Musk episode feels like it was manufactured at gunpoint, and while it's perhaps weird that SNL seems to have no pause working with Hugh, everyone seems happy enough, and everyone's trying at something. With that being said, it doesn't tend to land; a filmed piece where Hugh narrates about his life as if the hedonistic universe he created for himself is a curse is hurt irreparably by Hugh's lack of comic instinct, and the sketch casting him as an ancient Greek philosopher espousing upon the wisdom of his debauchery reeked of Jost-tier pleasuring. I didn't mind the innuendo-heavy "Planet of the Men vs. Planet of the Women" sketch, though; it's a guilty-pleasure piece for sure but I found some joy in its kitsch and was surprised by the fact that it caricatured both of its parties with a campy, balanced sense of irreverence rather than poorly-aged hackiness.
As with the preceding Madeline Kahn episode, some of the most valuable pieces were the ones less centered on Hugh's involvement. Jane's "Angora Bouquet" fake commercial was surprisingly incisive and a great display of the sort of deadpan bite Jane gets to deploy when she's at her best, and John got one of the best distillations of his anarchy yet in the "Listening to Great Music" piece, finding him sliding into maniacal fury as he gets more enraptured by Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." Bill runs away with it this episode, though, with his funeral magician piece; I always love the sketches that cast him as an artificial, show-biz shmuck at the helm of an incongruous situation (see his debut execution rehearsal piece), and he navigates the piece with so much assuredness that he almost makes members of his fellow cast tonight look jaded in comparison. The episode's obligatory, less successful bits were another rendition of "John abuses Gilda: the sketch" and our debut "X-Police" installment, a continuation of the rule that every Season 3 episode has to have that one sketch that has the ability to work in its transgressive tone but which frustratingly misaligns itself. (I almost liked it, but it's too hard to laugh at Jane's life being wrecked; there's a reason that the similarly-minded "Police State" sketch from S1 didn't fuck with pathos.)
Maybe it was just because I expected so much worse, but while this episode isn't the best, I found some value in it. A poor man's Ralph Nader isn't the worst thing to be, it seems. (Penned 6/28/21)
GRADE: B-.
10/29/77: Charles Grodin / Paul Simon (S3 E04)
Is there a feeling in the universe more gratifying than when something that's been talked up to you endlessly turns out to be, in fact, as astounding as they claim? Probably, but it's still a damn good feeling, and the Charles Grodin episode sent a nice shock wave of pure joy into my brain, the likes of which this era has never seen before, and in some ways, that it hasn't really seen since. Not to immediately jump to the conclusion that this is one of the best SNL episodes ever, a measurement which is impossible to quantify, but it's definitely up there as an all-timer and a sublime curio piece that does everything it's intent on doing to absolute perfection.
The basic idea is thus: Charles Grodin, the host of the show, has been flaky all week and failed to attend the show's dress rehearsal (the cold open reveals he had to run out and get gifts for everyone before stores closed). What follows is an episode where the host sabotages every single sketch that he appears in through complete confusion and obliviousness to what his duties as a host are, or indeed what SNL is. All he knows is that he wants to sing his song, which he's worked very hard on. It's all fake, of course, but it's a testament to its absolute lunacy and the mythology of the show that this episode is all-too-frequently declared a legendary trainwreck episode that concluded with Grodin being banned from the show for his mind-numbing incompetence.
Clearly, none of those people have actually watched the episode, though, which plays its meta game absolutely perfectly. A lot of that is just... the powers of Charles Grodin. He has the perfectly solemn, lost sort of face for the gig at hand, and he's so damn good at playing himself as a guy who is truly, pitifully doomed to fail but genially trying to figure things out as they happen. Perhaps most memorably, he crashes through a Futaba sketch, which is the best outcome that could've come of a Futaba sketch really; his polite praise of John's character work, scene-halting deconstruction of a three-second gag, and mistaken reading of one of John's gibberish lines off of a cue card were all absolutely sublime. He similarly overturns a "Killer Bees" sketch, which plays to even greater, more destructive effect, sparking a confused discussion amongst the cast over what the Killer Bees are actually supposed to be—an "etymological masquerade," Dan says, which has to be one of his greatest, most Dan lines ever—before John gives an impassioned, furious speech about how Charles has destroyed the show. (He naturally fails to pay attention to due to his fascination with John's bouncing antennae.) Charles is at the height of his powers, though, in his impromptu duet with Paul Simon, wearing a Garfunkel wig much to Paul's confusion and discomfort and asking for playback on a high note that he fails to hit.
The episode is also smart to throw about some more traditional sketches unrelated to the episode's main conceit to give the show more proper form. The Coneheads return for one of their most classic installments, handing out six-packs of beer and fried eggs to trick-or-treaters because oh yeah, this is also the Halloween episode! And speaking of, Irvin Mainway returns to hock some of his horrific, discount Halloween costumes and prove that even outside of the first "Consumer Probe," he's a welcome guest for any evening. Lastly, Gilda gets one of her biggest highlights yet in her "Judy Miller" piece, playing a young, hyperactive child imagining her own talk show. It's not high on laughs, but as with other Mary Suzanne Miller sketches, there's something to admire in how lived-in it is, and how much of a physical and believable performance Gilda is able to bring to the writing. She's endearing.
GRADE: A+.
11/12/77: Ray Charles (S3 E05)
It's a bit hard to say what one could even ask for out of a Ray Charles episode. Sure, he didn't get a lot of material to sink into, but the guy's got some things that create inherent difficulties with the idea of acting, and the fact that he gamely participated in as many bits as he did is already a testament to his enthusiasm enough. Ray's effusively charming, and he brings life to everything he's handed no matter how basic the writing may be. It would be easy for this episode to slip into a hackathon of blind jokes, but Ray deftly maintains the upper hand through it all and keeps things fun with sly admissions to the audience that he's not as dumb as the show (fictitiously) thinks he is. Yes, he knows he's not in Carnegie Hall right now, but he's also not the real Ray Charles—the real Ray Charles is at the real Carnegie Hall. And yes, he knows that Mr. Mike didn't present him with a real Monet as an expression of gratitude ("Hard to describe, you sort of have to see it"), and he's gonna get Mr. Mike beaten up by the biggest Black dudes he can find at the after-party.
Ray's best comedic moments are his banter in between performances, but he navigates the night's sketches with far more assuredness than I expected... though it's indeed true that he has nothing to prove. There's not any big winners but everything works amicably enough. The better comedic pieces of the night were the ones held down by the cast: Dan gave one of his best Carter performances yet in a piece shunning Americans for refusing to support his energy program, and Gilda got to bring back her delightful, widowed Debbie Doody character. I'm a simple man and the visual of her and Laraine flopping around as marionettes brings me insurmountable amounts of joy.
But the night's all about Ray's musical performances, and boy are they absolutely spellbinding. He manages to convert one of the most intimidating episode types of this era—the musical episode that trades in its sketch content for full-on concert vibes—into a joyride rather than a chore, packing all of his best hits but performing them with as much vigor as you could possibly dream of. Plus, that moment right before the goodnights, where the entire cast is gathered around Ray at the piano on center stage, just singing "I Can't Stop Loving You" along with him (John busts in some of his Ray impression for good measure)... that's gotta be one of the most charming moments of this era. You can just tell that's one of the moments where everyone on stage, all giggly and excited, is living the dream. It's an infectious night of SNL, if there ever was one. (Penned 6/30/21)
GRADE: B+.
11/19/77: Buck Henry / Leon Redbone (S3 E06)
One of the season's most intriguing offerings, its "Anyone Can Host" competition, has been quietly building in the background across the past few episodes, but here, it finally comes to a head. As a result, it's a bit of an odd hour, but I think it's carried along as smoothly and thoughtfully as it could've possibly been carried. It's not a roaring success, but it intrigues, and that's not a bad flavor for an SNL episode to have either. More than anything else here, I think this episode speaks strongly to the show's love and trust in its first five-timer Buck Henry, calling him up to moderate over the five contestants and otherwise carry a low-key but writerly night's worth of material. I'm hard on Buck's hosting gigs a lot of the time—he's almost too game of a host for these early season's most trying reflexes—but when he works, he's the best, and this episode is a nice reminder of how snugly he fits into the show and keeps things tight and to-the-point.
Maybe I'm also just excited that the night allowed him to play a wider ranger of roles than usual. Buck can will anything into working to some degree due to how affable he is, so it's nice to see that funneled into unique concepts. While I wasn't the biggest fan of either piece, both "Reunion in Kiev" and "Ricky Rat Club" tried at something different and, if not fully successful, make for wonderful demonstrations of the show's trust in Buck and Buck's trust in the show. Buck and Bill also brought just the right amount of goofy energy to the fantastic "stunt baby" sketch; I get how it wouldn't work for a lot of people, but I feel like it bypasses the grim premise of "baby abuse" in favor of pure absurdism through the internal logic that the baby has free will and is a show-biz professional who gamely carries out his duties, which just so happens to mean being slammed around and thrown out a fucking window.
The episode is really all about the five finalists, though, and even if most of them aren't too much to write home about (they shine the brightest in a Gary Weis film, each taking turns trying to twist Buck in their favor), it's amusing how obvious Miskel Spillman is as the only true candidate for the job. Sandwiched between three amicably bland contestants and a clearly deranged man, her assured one-liners charm as much as they destroy. It's a testament to the fact that she's got the contest in the bag that when everyone else is making final, desperate pleas to be voted on, she doesn't even tell a joke so much as saying that she had the greatest night of her life. Team Miskel forever! (Penned 7/01/21)
GRADE: B.
12/10/77: Mary Kay Place / Willie Nelson (S3 E07)
Amidst this stretch of episodes either comprised of recognizable hosts (Steve Martin, Madeline Kahn, Buck) or curious anomalies (Hugh Hefner, Charles Grodin, Ray Charles), I went into Mary Kay Place's episode with absolutely zero expectations of anything, and that mentality paid of: this was a solid night of comedy with a decidedly fresh vibe. It's rare to see a female host in this era who feels like they're on the same wavelength as the cast, but Mary is absolutely perfect, especially when paired with the ladies. That's great, too, considering how rarely it feels like Jane, Gilda, and Laraine get to hold up a scene without help from the boys; for once, we get a rare episode of SNL that has a feminine slant, and which is all the more successful for it.
The night had two big ensemble pieces, and both were greatly successful. The "Total Womanhood" sketch was incisive as all hell in a latitude that SNL—in its love of sketches where Gilda gets beat up—has seldom been, taking on the conceit of a group of women detailing their subservient exploits and assessing if they've been submissive enough to the unconscious desires and expectations of their husbands. (Leading off a prayer at the end, Mary Kay asks God to renew her Valium prescription, "and let it be not 5s, but 10s.") And more farcical but delightfully smarmy all the same, the "Married in a Minute!" sketch makes for a hilarious deconstruction of woman's films where the characters come from nothing and attain their wildest dreams with minimal adversity so much as millions of dollars and invitations from royalty littering their free penthouse suite.
The rest of the material was pretty darn great, too. Gilda headlined the simple but effective "Hey You!" perfume ad, another winner in these season's line of fake commercials; the Farbers returned for some nice, low-key silliness, with the addition of a flashback sequence and a fun quick-change gaffe; and Andy Kaufman hit up the studio again with undoubtedly my favorite bit of his yet, commanding the stage with nonsensical, foreign gibberish stand-up that confused the audience as much as it delighted them. (To everyone who says that Kaufman was too advanced for his audience, just watch how much they eat his insanity up.) All in all, this was an episode that really snuck up on me, but I'm glad that it did. (Penned 7/02/21)
GRADE: B+.
12/17/77: Miskel Spillman / Elvis Costello (S3 E08)
It was foolish on my part to expect the Miskel Spillman episode to be better than it was inevitably bound to be. The "Anyone Can Host" competition is as exciting as its final outcome is bound for disappointment—at the end of the day, it culminated with a non-performer hosting SNL, and SNL having to delicately accommodate for that. Miskel is adorable, but she's unsurprisingly stiff, and the show never bothers to find that much of an angle for her across the hour that followed her delicate walk down to center-stage. If anything, the show seems intent to hide her as much as possible.
That's fair enough, I suppose, but even if Miskel isn't a good host, it feels kind of silly to hide her as much as they did. She's hosting the show because America wanted to see her host the show, and she maintains the audience's trust the entire time, but SNL doesn't give her much of a chance to demand it. She's best in the monologue, zogged out of her mind from one of Belushi's killer joints and clutching a bowl of fruit while Buck Henry does his best to wheel her through. (All of her swats at Buck's hands when he tried to snag the bowl back were delightful.) Elsewhere, she listens to Jane read a story, is held hostage, and in her biggest role, shows up at John's childhood home as his new girlfriend, but none of those roles demand her to do much more than give straightforward reads to the slim dialogue she's contractually obligated to deliver.
Sadly, the episode doesn't pick itself too much in the material that Miskel isn't a part of, either. The "American Date the Self-Conscious Association" had some cute scenes with Bill and Gilda, but never found a strong framework, instead diverting the potential sweetness in their character work for a string of jokes about spokespeople that ends, tragically, with Dan doing an impaired voice. "The Gift of the Magi" was saccharine build-up to another cruel and annoying "John beats Gilda" punchline. "E. Buzz Miller," too, continues to disappoint me; I want to like Dan's performance, but the material does him no favors.
On the other hand, Bill has a fun turn as a wino Santa, and the night scores an indelibly fascinating Mr. Mike piece, "The Soiled Kimono." I've been curious about it for a while since I understand it to be one of O'Donoghue's masterpieces, and even if it's not the funniest thing ever penned, there's something very striking about it. It feels like a strange exercise in world-building, fleshing Mr. Mike out as more than just a dick but some all-powerful, antagonistic force with a Sisyphean grip on those who come to him for mercy, or at least a twisted bedtime story. it was atmospheric, cinematic, and just a hair opaque, but it left me wanting to see more of this strange little universe O'Donoghue concocted; I was eating right out of the palm of his hand, which I'm sure is exactly what he wanted and got off to.
Either way, there's a reason that this episode is most remembered for Elvis Costello (even if, in his defense, he fuckin' ripped). At least Miskel looked priceless in that Santa outfit during the goodnights. (Penned 7/02/21)
GRADE: C+.
1/21/78: Steve Martin / The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (S3 E09)
Ah, Steve Martin! I always walk into the next hosting gig of his in these years with equal parts excitement and skepticism; his past episodes have seldom worked amazingly for me, and even if his last one felt like a step in the right direction, I'd be remiss not to acknowledge the points in which it struggles. But with his fourth hosting gig, it feels like the show is finally getting more of a grip on how to imbue its sensibilities with Steve's; there's a really nice marriage of their styles, and while I still think we're not really at peak SNL, we're having a good time.
I feel like Steve's comedic voice likes to skirt the line between intelligence and inanity, and I the sketches that made up tonight's rundown spoke to that tug-and-pull pretty well. The Bigfoot sketch, for instance, is stupid as all get-out and makes its big reveal fairly early on, but I feel like it's able to retain a goofy tone throughout in how straight the characters' lack of an understanding is played; it's an absurd scenario executed in a very earnest way. Likewise, it's pretty easy for me to be charmed by the visual of Jane, Bill, and Garrett flossing their bodies with giant pieces of dental floss, but maybe I just don't require too much.
The best pieces of the night were its recurring pieces, which feels sacrilegious to say of SNL. The Festrunk Brothers are pure, goofy character work, and they get sold by the power of Dan and Steve's chemistry and charisma. (Those dance-walks they do!) It's crazy for me to think how quickly they've already established themselves as beloved characters on their first return, but there's such a palpable joy to it all, and this installment does a good job of continuing to build the world around the Festrunks rather than being another iteration of them hitting aimlessly on American foxes. The later Coneheads sketch is just as good, transplanting the characters into Family Feud where hilarity naturally ensues. I feel like I never have a ton to say about the Coneheads, but really, what's not to love? All you have to do is drop them into some new context and give them different characters to play off of (most notably here, Bill's delightfully pervy and scornful Richard Dawson), and it's a guaranteed success. It's also nice, at least to me, that we've hit a point in Steve's hosting gigs that he doesn't have to be front-and-center the entire time; he contributes some fun work to the Coneheads sketch as the patriarch of their competing family, getting some laughs but never over-stepping the line like a real team player.
The rest of the episode is fine, with only one real clunker ("What If?") and some terrific musical numbers from The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; their performance of "White Russia," accompanied by Steve, was a rip-roarin' affair. Here's hoping the Steve Martin episodes continue to get better and better. (Penned 7/02/21)
GRADE: A-.
1/28/78: Robert Klein / Bonnie Raitt (S3 E10)
Perhaps I was just too spoiled by Charles Grodin, but I had high hopes going into Robert Klein (aka the infamous "atomic lobsters" episode), and while I had a great deal of fun with it, I hesitate to call it a perfect experience. I think a lot of that comes down to the episode's material, weighted against its more high-concept storyline. The fact that the lobster theme slowly and quietly establishes itself as a runner before veering the show out of control means that it doesn't have the same sort of intoxicating effect as Grodin's episode, but that also means that it's a show that you can easily pull apart and assess on the merit of its individual sketches.
On the plus side, the good is very good. This episode marks the debut of the "Olympia Cafe" sketches, a series of sketches whose cultural standing power surprises me quite a bit. That's not a strike against the sketches by any means—and there's something hypnotizing and rhythmic about John and Dan's "cheeseburger" call and responses—but it's a very lived-in character piece that relishes more in a sense of low-key authenticity than absurdity, and I think that made it work so well for me. The later "Nick Summers" sketch is similarly delightful, taking what worked about his debut and creating a piece that's, overall, more silly and charming. Whereas the first installment commanded a sense of pathos from Bill's aimless probing at an unreceptive audience, I loved how this sketch gave him different energies to play off of, ensuring that his effusive charm never goes to waste. The lounge versions of Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra" and the Star Wars theme, too, are deservingly classic.
On the other hand, though, the ambivalence I had with Robert Klein during his first hosting stint wasn't assuaged too much by his presence here. He's an engaged host who's got chemistry with the cast, but his performances across the night tended to be too distractingly indulgent, even bordering on hacky, capping off in a particularly exhausting and aimless Jerry Lewis sketch. (He didn't do a ton of favors for the debut "Nerds" sketch either; it's hard to carry a premise that's so driven by character work when you play your role as stereotypically as possible.) With that being said, the general disbelief in some of his performances also allowed, against all odds, this "X-Police" installment to land a hair better for me than the first, since his deranged outburst at the end didn't demand the sort of gut-wrenching sympathy that Jane's did in the original. (The prison rape joke was gratuitous, though, even by these sketch's metrics.) So... hooray?
All of this eventually takes us to "The Attack of the Atomic Lobsters." Starting in Update, there's a curious runner building about atomic lobsters attacking the United States and slowly but surely making their way south to Manhattan before, in the middle of a sketch... it happens. What ensues is wonderfully insane and ambitious, but I simultaneously feel like I struggled to laugh at it so much as marvel at the ingenuity of it all. There's some insane stop-motion, audience participation, dynamic camerawork, and a gigantic lobster claw to boot, but it's more bizarre than funny, lacking in obvious joke-telling at a certain point in favor of general anarchy. For that reason, gutsy as it is, I hesitate to think if this episode has much rewatch value. It relies so viscerally on shock that the fact that I knew it was coming probably doesn't help things either, though if nothing else, I want to applaud it for its sheer audacity. Robert Klein, against all odds, proved to be a strong host to carry it out, too; he's got some fun, dramatic capabilities that I wish could've been more actualized across the preceding material, but at least he got to send this episode home.
Either way, this was a strong outing for the show, whether or not it was an unequivocal success. There's worse things for an episode to be than ballsy. (Penned 7/03/21)
GRADE: A.
2/18/78: Chevy Chase / Billy Joel (S3 E11)
Chevy Chase is one of the entertainment industry's greatest villains. Having grown up with an understanding of him as nothing less than a hot-headed prick who, as O'Donoghue put it best, "turned into a giant garden slug," it's strange to look back at a time when he was a sex magnet comedy superstar on the perch of greatness, at least hypothetically. Watching through his tenure, despite how much he wobbled between assured and nauseatingly desperate in his detached, too-cool way, he certainly proved himself to be an integral part of the show's early DNA and his talents can't be refuted, medium as they may be by some accounts. With that being said, I was always kept at arm's length from appreciating him too much because of how generally reprehensible he is... which takes us to this episode, the first one hosted by an alum, where mere minutes before going live he got into a screaming match and fistfight with Bill Murray. Good to have ya back, Chev!
At the very least, going in with such low expectations, the episode packed a handful of nice surprises. The issue is, of course, that you have to put up with a lot of Chevy Chevy-ing around to get there, and his antics made for an exhausting, smug bedrock to a lot of the material. The baggage inspection sketch would perhaps work better for me if Chevy's wink-wink way of playing clueless characters didn't annoy me as much as it did; the sermonette sketch, meanwhile, had no chance of working at all. The cold open and monologue, too, are perhaps most interesting because of how visibly shaken-up Chevy is from his altercation with Bill, though that's a novelty that doesn't elevate the material in any way as if lukewarm Gerald Ford fumbling and an onslaught of deliberate applause breaks had much of a shot.
Chevy was at his best when the show was able to rein him in and use him as more of a team player. His bedroom scene with Gilda was excellent, and coming off the heels of the monologue, it was a piece that caused me not to abandon hope for the episode immediately. It's a knock-out Marilyn Suzanne Miller sketch that finds just the right balance between its slice-of-life nature and quality laughlines, all buoyed by Gilda and Chevy's natural chemistry. The "Endings" sketch that closes out the night, meanwhile, is beautiful, meta insanity, packing fake-out after fake-out as scenarios fall apart under the weight of the show's farcical standard for the perfect out. (One of my favorite in-jokes is Jane attempting to transition to a film by Gary Weiss before falling dead.) Meta humor is hard, but I've been impressed by how much these early seasons have weighed the self-indulgence of it all with supreme self-deprecation, the likes of which modern SNL, in its smarmy "So what?" attitude, seems nigh-incapable of possessing.
Do two amazing sketches (and an intriguing Gary Weiss film) undo the great struggles of having Chevy back? Ehh. At least this season's still intent to pack a punch even when nothing else can be depended on. (Penned 7/04/21)
GRADE: B-.
2/25/78: O. J. Simpson / Ashford & Simpson (S3 E12)
O. J. Simpson. Jesus fuck. As a child of the 2000's, it's not just hard to go back to a time when he was America's meat-headed, athletic sweetheart; it's impossible. With that being said, it's not like I was walking into the episode bracing for disappointment; if anything, I was expecting to be wowed in spite of myself. The episode's notoriety seems to be the two-parter of, "Holy shit, that murderer O. J. Simpson hosted the show???", followed by, "Holy shit, he did a good job???". And to his credit, Simpson gives this episode his all, pouring as much charisma into proceedings as possible, but while I can't accuse him of bringing his hosting stint down, there just wasn't anything here to begin with. In a lot of ways, his monologue embodies the episode that follows: as I watched Simpson talk sincerely about his career with a goddamn Coneheads cone on his head, I just had to wonder, what exactly was SNL trying to accomplish here?
I mean, starting things off with a sprawling, epic Futaba-Saturday Night Fever parody is as bad of an omen as I could possibly imagine. I get it; Belushi's a star, and with that comes the carte blanche of being able to do whatever the hell you want, but sometimes... don't? His Travolta-Futaba intonations managed to supersede his usual racist gibberish with brain-damaged murmurs, and the sketch itself drifted aimlessly through a meandering homage that seemed to exist as an excuse for John to fuck around on the dance floor to the tune of "Staying Alive." Congrats, buddy.
After that, the episode settles into the groove of relying on O. J., but never giving him anything to make his own, navigating a string of fairly slight premises. (Perhaps it's no surprise that this also features the show's first big impression parade, "The Raid on Nicosia.") Sometimes the results of that are okay: I didn't mind the night's final sketch, pitting athletic Black men against white women in some pathetically one-sided Olympic games, and the Babe Ruth sketch was just dumb enough to get over for me, if not in large part because Garrett made a fucking meal out of it. Other times, you get "Mandingo 2" which... ugh. Look guys, by which I mean the stupid white guy who probably looks like Al Franken and who definitely wrote this sketch: I get the idea of doing a parody of a shameless exploitation film, but that doesn't make SNL any less grossly exploitative to have Garrett dress as a slave mistress and sloppily make out with O. J. Simpson. I don't need another pungent reminder of how much SNL's internal politics sucked. Be better.
At the end of the day, everyone certainly tried at something here, but I suppose it isn't surprising that so little of the O. J. Simpson episode has withstood the test of time. (Penned 7/15/21)
GRADE: C.
3/11/78: Art Garfunkel / Stephen Bishop (S3 E13)
Who would've thought Art Garfunkel would put on a better show than Paul Simon? Admittedly, the best material of the night tended to be the material he wasn't a part of which is a bit of a "luck of the draw" situation, but Art was actually pretty fun when he got to participate in the night's events, too. I don't wanna throw that adorably awkward guy under the bus too hard.
Art commits himself well to the two sketches he holds down for the night, which surprised me more than it probably should. The Tomorrow sketch was weighed down severely by the suggestion of a battered husband being hilarious, but the details make me appreciate it in spite of that painful center, with Dan's Tom Snyder increasingly spilling an increasingly-anxious Art's personal deets in spite of his promised anonymity. The Kiss security sketch is better, though, and a fun ensemble piece with everyone taking their turn to try and get into the back-door of a Kiss concert and slip past John and Garrett's uncooperative security guards. Kudos to Art: his soft-spoken delivery of "I’m in the Air Force and bailed out over the city to get here." was shockingly perfect. (Also a treat: turning down the night's musical guest from entry, Stephen Bishop, on account of hating his big song. He'd played it on the show two sketches before to verify that it's bad.)
But the reason the night shined was its back-half, where the episode bore the privilege of containing two timeless masterpieces that instantly make this episode a must-watch. My lack of familiarity with Andy Kaufman's work paid off beautifully in his piece tonight, which has to be my favorite thing that I've ever seen him perform. He just steps out on-stage as "his real self" (talking in a British accent) and decides that, in the interest of being himself before the audience, he'll read The Great Gatsby in its entirety in hopes of launching a facilitated discussion afterwards on its brilliance. It's a masterclass in Kaufman's ability to inhibit his bits to perfection, and in complete defiance to the audience's will and complete understanding; it's the carrot on a stick that says they're both in on the joke ("haha, he's not gonna actually read the book, right?") and faaaar outside of it ("holy shit, he's gonna actually read the book"). He drives the audience to insanity, playing them like a fiddle while maintaining enough control to fuck with them at every beautiful turn. I laughed until I cried.
Tom Schiller, meanwhile, scores his first SNL masterpiece with "Don't Look Back in Anger," finding a senile John Belushi mourning over his deceased, fellow cast members. It's a gut-wrenching piece, least of all because of the cruel subtext modern time has laid over it, but it's funny in equal parts as John lists the causes of deaths of his fellow Not Ready For Prime Time Players with a mix of pain and occasional ambivalence. I'm hard on John, I know; I feel like he's the most overrated cast member of his pack, someone who's been marketed as "dangerous" when he in fact relies on a slim but calculated bag of tricks most of the time. But moments like "Don't Look Back In Anger" are a reminder of his charisma, his talents, his ability to perform work that was nuanced and dramatic and vulnerable; the turn from his immense heartbreak and grief to that sly look into the camera, admitting the secret to his long life is "being a dancer" and performing a wild jig in the snow, is brilliant. To echo the words of Nathan Rabin—ironically the John Belushi of SNL reviewers if there ever was one—"If only it were that simple."
This isn't a consistent episode of SNL with much of a sense of flow to it, but if you've got two all-time classics amidst a sea of pretty enjoyable content, the math works out in your favor. This one's solid. (Penned 7/05/21)
GRADE: B+.
3/18/78: Jill Clayburgh / Eddie Money (S3 E14)
Jill Clayburgh was a host that I had no particular interest in seeing back on the show. Admittedly, that's perhaps a bit unfair to her; her first episode was another rocky-as-expected S1 affair where SNL was still very much trying to work out what exactly SNL is. She also had her fair share of charming moments, too, like her little musical number with the Idlers; if anything, the main point of separation between her and a host like Candice Bergen is material. That hypothesis rested pretty steady over this episode, her second and final hosting gig. It's a step up, though it never quite rises to become anything more than enjoyably pedestrian.
A lot of that is that it has cruise control vibes, though for this season, that isn't an inherently bad thing. Recurring material dominates the episode, but I think it's a testament to the little universes of each piece that they still get over. The Olympia Cafe returns, most notably, a reminder of how much of an instant-classic the first one only a few episodes ago was, and while it doesn't match the simplistic brilliance of the first, it finds some new wrinkles that feed into the quiet world-building of it all (Jill's frustrated tribulations as a waitress-in-training; Gilda's regular customer trying to tell Bill a joke). The Coneheads were also pretty darn good, even if they're always pretty darn good and even if this one doesn't escalate too much from its predecessors. (It's just fun to hear Jane and Dan exchange distressed "mmmebs" over each others' newfound infidelity.) And lastly, the latest installment of the "Bad X" and shower talk show sketches linger upon a basic hypothesis—what if we just added more people?—and it pays off handsomely enough for what the sketches are.
Whatever else remains of the episode is just fine, perhaps even pleasant, but never mind-blowing: "Sybil III" offers up some laughs with its silly concept, "Celebrity Crack-Ups" pokes fun at the problematic celebrities of yesteryear, and John lands a surprisingly quaint piece about a man whose life experience has been thoroughly shaded and deprived by his poor vision. But yeah, Jill was fine, and the show was fine. I can't complain, but I won't write home about it either. (Penned 7/05/21)
GRADE: B.
3/25/78: Christopher Lee / Meat Loaf (S3 E15)
I dunno what it is about those dandy British actors, but they tend to make damn good SNL hosts. Unsurprisingly, too, Christopher Lee was a complete natural throughout his hosting gig. Perhaps the greatest crime was that he didn't get more to do though his presence lent to the episode's lust for the macabre; in other words, he's a perfect emcee for the show's dark proclivities.
It feels like a fair amount of the episode is spent with Christopher introducing us to the most ghoulish of delights rather than being an active participant: a series of fake horror movie trailers, a bloody Gary Weiss film, Meat Loaf. Barring some of those immaculate fake trailers, though ("The Thing That Wouldn't Leave" is classic, and Dan's Vincent Price-as-Mr. Rogers is rather delightful as well), the episode was at its best when Christopher could actually play along with the gang, even if he only got three real shots at it. I was gobsmacked, for instance, that I really enjoyed this episode's Baba sketch; I've never really been a fan of Gilda's impression nor the rote cliches that all of her appearances operate under, but the redefined context granted by her sketch tonight—a My Fair Lady parody where she seeks speech therapy from Christopher and Dan, complete with a legitimate story arc—was a ton of fun. See how far you get when you really try, SNL? Another surprise for me was how much Christopher elevated this episode's Nixon sketch. Like Baba, I've never really been able to key into Dan's Nixon impression or the sketches that have housed him, but turning everything into a horror spoof where he's a vampiric monster whose written work must be slain so that he can stop haunting the public conscience was beautifully inspired.
The best sketch of the night, though, was Christopher and Laraine's "Mr. Death" piece, which has to be one of my favorite things from the season. It's a perfect mix of sweet, slice-of-life-esque undertones and deadpan absurdity, with Christopher's Mr. Death personally apologizing to Laraine for the death of her dog and waxing about the strange nature of his duties as someone who attends to the finality of death rather than actually controlling it. The idea of humanizing Death is far from inciteful, but everything is played so straight and with a shocking amount of poignancy; it feels less like another take the idea so much as one of the idea's greatest distillations. As with almost all good things in these early seasons, though, the sketch is haunted by complication: Larraine begged to have her part in this sketch over Gilda, straining her relationship with Gilda and Alan Zweibel (the sketch's co-writers) and dooming the rest of her tenure. I can try to ignore that, though... I guess... because this one's a real winner. Happy Halloween, everybody! Ignore that it was March. (Penned 7/08/21)
GRADE: B+.
4/08/78: Michael Palin / Eugene Record (S3 E16)
Hmmmmm, I didn't connect with this episode at all. Perhaps that had to do with high expectations; there's something inherently exciting at a Python hosting the show, and as Eric Idle has proven in the past, it can make full a harmonious meeting of the minds. But Michael Palin's episode never really shifted into as interesting of a place as I would've hoped, even in its occasionally zanier ambitions (and truthfully, kicking the night off with some profoundly unhappy cats being shoved down Michael's pants didn't warm me to the night's overall vibe).
There was some Python-esque writing strewn about, but none worked especially well for me. The best of it was "The Seagull," with Michael attempting to enter a dramatic scene at the same time that he exited a box he was trapped in; there's something intrinsically funny about his spastic flailing at odds with the very serious drama Bill and Jane are performing, but I feel like it misses the chance to find a solid out by dragging things out with Michael ranting about how he wishes he were a claims adjustor at the end. (That is, arguably, a very Python thing to do, though it's seldom a writing trick that I'm all too smitten with.) The Sherlock Holmes sketch, meanwhile, was simply one that I couldn't manage to get into, even if I enjoyed some of the character details and the rather insane visual of Michael's Sherlock alternating between playing the violin and shooting at a target. (There was also a very absurd and edgy Franken sketch. "Bigoted rapist?" Try harder, bud.)
Basically, whatever drips of goodness this episode had were off-set by imperfection. Michael did his best, at least. (Penned 7/11/21)
GRADE: B-.
4/15/78: Michael Sarrazin / Keith Jarrett, Gravity (S3 E17)
As with this season's earlier Mary Kay Place episode, I had literally zero expectations of Michael Sarazzin and was lovingly rewarded by those lowest of stakes. Unlike Mary Kay, though, this episode didn't prove its worth through strong synergy with its host necessarily—Michael didn't pull a ton of weight, though it almost feels like the show doesn't offer him the chance—so much as the show, for whatever reason, feeling particularly inspired. It was a night of unexpected, low-key delights, coating everything in an assured, relaxed vibe, but nonetheless one dripping with writerly detail.
Right off the bat, we're confronted with an incredibly long, epic sketch about a veneral disease case worker that should not work at all, but in spite of itself... it absolutely does. Michael nimbly carries out his rather thankless, straight man role, conducting the sketch from scene to scene packed with a smattering of ingeniously stupid comic beats at every step of the way. I mean truly, what's not to love about Bill screaming in agony while peeing, and then exiting the bathroom and announcing, deadpan, "Boy, my penis sure hurts when I urinate."? There are too many moments for me to jot down without things just devolving into a list, but dammit, everyone in that scene brings their A-game and I laugh just thinking about it.
The night doesn't lose momentum either, refusing to merely cruise along after popping such an elaborate gem out up top. Judy Miller returns with a high dose of charming energy, and I'd honestly consider it better than the original—perhaps a symptom of "Schweddy Balls"-esque notoriety making its best successor ("Dusty Muffin") all the more stealthily appealing. Either way, it trades in the winning simplicity of the first with a healthy dose of world-building, wise to never overstay its welcome and capturing that same spark through sheer willpower. This episode also had the first E. Buzz Miller sketch that really worked for me, fully relishing in its perversion with Dan instructing Laraine through a series of suggestive exercises. It's actually quite the heavy night for Laraine, actually: aside from killing it in the E. Buzz Miller sketch, she gets a cute Update spot and holds down a surprisingly clever 10-to-1 about future archaeologists wondrously observing the apartment of an humdrum, old, 20th-century man as if a tomb.
She also contributes delightfully to the night's most fondly-remembered spotlight piece, "La Dolce Gilda." It's a Schiller film that I both didn't fully know what to do with, having never interacted with any work by Fellini, and found wildly intoxicating. It doesn't feel like a self-satisfied takedown of what it makes reference to so much as an earnest love letter, at the wise expense of any easy laughs so much as a rich, frenetic atmosphere. It's also a stunning testament to Gilda's charm; as she exits the party scene overwhelmed and notices the cameraman filming her walk off, she addresses them (and the audience) with equal parts sultriness and thoughtfulness, granting the treacly dialogue a profound sense of conviction. All I can really say is it made me immediately pirate La Dolce Vita, and I look forward to unlocking this piece's beauty with time. This is how you make a short film for SNL, Gary Weiss.
So yeah, maybe Michael didn't get a lot to do, but when the night's so involved and simultaneously hitting it out of the park, how can you be angry? The instrumental jazz performances from Keith Jarrett and Gravity further sweeten the deal—this is a mighty strong evening. (Penned 7/10/21)
GRADE: A.
4/22/78: Steve Martin / The Blues Brothers (S3 E18)
This Steve Martin episode is... excessively hard for me to assess. It is, in effect, a live recording of a greatest hits collection, smashing through classic after classic to a degree that almost feels artificial. And I think that's sort of an unfortunate byproduct of the mythical status that this episode has, however deservingly: it fulfills its promises but, in the extent that it's penetrated the cultural zeitgeist, rarely surprises.
That's unfair to the show in some ways, but fair in others. Most obviously for me, the Festrunk Brothers piece—a recurring sketch I usually love—felt completely on autopilot in this third installment. They chant their catchphrases to raucous applause, dance-walk all silly, and land some hot, American foxes. They're fun characters for sure, and I got my laughs out of it, but I fear their characters have plateaued when these early years have otherwise done a remarkable job of keeping its recurring sketches in a constant cycle of reinvention. Steve Martin's monologue, too, felt sort of warmed-over, at least up until the point that he started violently pickpocketing items off of Bill.
Its original sketches could be mixed for me, too, and I fear my jadedness comes from the expectations I hold for a sketch which is considered a "classic." This affected Theodoric the most; I love the idea of writing a sketch around an era in medicine somewhere between complete witchcraft and an understanding of modern science, and the sketch hits that idea right on the money with the line, "Just 50 years ago, we would've thought your daughter's illness was brought on by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays, we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or small dwarf living in her stomach." But the sketch never quite punctuates its great premise with writing to match it, playing out competently but without exciting escalation. (We do get another version of Steve's "Nah!" speech from his nasty defense lawyer sketch, though, which works well enough here.) Some of the night's later contributions were more slight, though they at least maintained energy as well as a sketch about a trough restaurant can.
But alas, I should talk about what works, too. "Dancing in the Dark" is deservingly a classic, a silly but sweet moment shared between two comedic icons going for broke effortlessly as Steve and Gilda danced violently around the studio. (I'm not crying, you're crying!) "King Tut" is also a nice burst of fun; Steve's campiness is often hard for me to come to terms with, but it's the song's greatest asset here, allowing him to go winningly ham while winking at the Egyptomania and its commodification that had enraptured the cultural psyche. Perhaps the night's two most forgotten pieces are pretty darn delightful, too: Gary Weiss contributes a banger of a final short film, inviting the Lockers to pop and lock to Swan Lake with some ballerinas, and Jane and John hold down a great piece alternating between slice-of-life and bonkers hilarity, playing a middle-aged couple trying to turn each other on with tales of extramarital ribaldry.
So how can I rank this episode? I'm not sure, and truthfully, it's sad that such a popular episode couldn't do more for me given that I fully understand how it amassed such a sterling reputation. It's certainly a quality, all-hands-on-deck night for SNL, though, and jaded as I am, there's a lot to appreciate there. This one deserves the love, even if I can't give it all that much myself. (Penned 7/15/21)
GRADE: B+.
5/13/78: Richard Dreyfuss / Jimmy Buffett, Gary Tigerman (S3 E19)
From the second that Richard Dreyfuss walked out onto center stage to deliver his monologue dressed as a Shakespearean actor, it was clear that we were in good hands for the night. Indeed, this wasn't an amazing episode of SNL material-wise, but it's a wonderful example of how much a night can be elevated by a host who both plays by the rules of the show and fights to sell everything that he's a part of, no matter what that entails or how much of the spotlight is on him. He's a real team player.
Everything was pretty uniformly great, which also helps. On the original sketch front, Richard carries a particularly strange but enjoyable sketch spouting sex-based questions with increasingly-absurd answers and snippets from field professionals. (Did you know that George Washington Carver first discovered genitalia?) He's not made to do anything besides read things out in a straitlaced manner, but his buttoned-up delivery grants proceedings a nice gravitas and keeps it lively despite the sketch's rigid format. Richard gets to cut loose far more in the slice-of-life piece alongside Laraine, which might just be the night's best; the are perfectly in-sync as they shout vicious, personal grievances at one another, and while the dialogue might be overwrought with cleverness instead of realism, it packs a nice punch.
On the recurring front, the Coneheads returned, to pretty good effect as usual; a spoof on Close Encounters on the Third Kind is naturally too obvious to pass up. I love the continuity here of Beldar being a driving instructor, with his local commercial spot leading Richard's alien obsessive right to his doorstep. Elsewhere, it's the same old beats for the most part, but Richard's character being less guileless than the sketch' usual human foil (at least up until he gets tricked onto a journey to Remulac) grants things a fresh feeling. Nick the Lounge Singer is less fresh, perhaps, but it's also very evergreen; the only addition to the formula here might be a drum machine, but Bill's joyous crooning and interplay with Paul Schaffer and his audience are, as always, a damn good time.
The rest of the night's pretty fun too! While dressing Gilda up as Leon Spinks' mom is a misstep, "The David Susskind Show" also features Jane doing a spotless vocal impression of Dan's Tom Snyder, playing his mom in what has to be one of my favorite Jane roles ever. This episode also marks the debut of Don Novello's "Father Guido Sarducci" character; I had no idea how to feel about him based on everything I've heard, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Novello's characterization and nonchalant laughlines.
Richard Dreyfuss' episode won't knock your socks off, but it's a great demonstration of what wonders can come out of a truly committed host. It's a shame he hasn't come back since. (Penned 7/18/21)
GRADE: B+.
5/20/78: Buck Henry / Sun Ra (S3 E20)
Oh Buck Henry, why are you such a tricky host? He's in a strange camp; I love the guy and think he's an infallible fit for the show, but damn if his episodes aren't fallible. I suppose that's the paradox of being a game, weathered veteran of the program: with his abilities and willingness clear, SNL buckles at the prospects of taking chances and simply rolls out an assured final product. In a way, it reminds me of some of this season's other episodes, actually. I feel like it was shooting to be akin to Steve Martin's last hosting stint, a ceremonious combination of Buck's most reliable bits and crowd-pleasers, but it ended up being more like Jill Claysburgh's episode. Buck simply doesn't have a radiant presence that can be counted on to brave the seas of wackier, less low-key material, and while he's competent and charming as ever here, he can't get the show over if the show's not trying to get that far over itself.
Basically, Buck reigned over a lot of recurring material, some of which worked and some of which didn't, but none feeling strongly invigorating. His best work was in the night's Nerds sketch, casting him as Bill's father; it's a role he was cut out to play, nailing that insane inhaled laugh and feeding in naturally to the goofy, endearing atmosphere that makes those pieces work for me. He also plugged in fairly well to tonight's "Olympia Cafe" installment, though all it really takes to plug in is the ability to play a believable everyman which, indeed, is Buck's strongsuit in the first place. (Not to be outdone, Bill's a lot of fun in this installment too, verblessly being fired and dragged back in by John as he deliberates the cost of an attack dog.) Lastly, although they're more low-key wins, I'm always a fan of those scrolling text monologues, and Buck's ability to get complex lines without faltering assisted greatly in the "Insects" piece, selling some devilishly graphic details with complete professionalism.
The rest of the night struggled. The "stunt baby" sketch didn't need to be redone with a "stunt dog," and the choice of a very unconvincing stuffed dog drained any potential for viscerality. The Samurai rehash was even more sluggish, seemingly existing out of obligation without knowing how to up the stakes; even John looks thoroughly checked out. Everything else is a wasteland: the sodomy sketch didn't know what to do with its thin premise, the "Bad Conceptual Art" piece took a jab at something which is truly impossible to satirize, and the Franken and Davis piece was atrocious even by Franken and Davis' standards. The less said about that or Mr. Mike's perv ballad, the better.
I'd like to say Sun Ra was a palette cleanser, but as much as I respect the dude for bringing such a unique flavor to the show, it wasn't really the refreshing breath mint I needed to exit from this season finale on the best note. This was an ignoble end to an otherwise pretty enjoyable season, but alas, that's what season finales are almost always fated to be. Onwards to Season 4! (Penned 7/14/21)
GRADE: C+.
Cumulative Season Episode Rankings:
2. Michael Sarazzin (A)
3. Robert Klein (A)
4. Steve Martin #4 (A-)
5. Art Garfunkel (B+)
6. Christopher Lee (B+)
7. Steve Martin #5 (B+)*
8 Ray Charles (B+)
9. Mary Kay Place (B+)
10. Steve Martin #3 (B+)
11. Richard Dreyfuss (B+)
12. Jill Clayburgh (B)
13. Madeline Kahn (B)
14. Buck Henry #5 (B)
15. Chevy Chase (B-)
16. Michael Palin (B-)
17. Hugh Hefner (B-)
18. Miskel Spillman (C+)
19. Buck Henry #6 (C+)
*I know that Steve's fifth hosting gig is objectively better than his fourth material-wise, but I try to grade with special attention to my appreciation for an episode in the moment, and especially the extent to which an episode will surprise me. Organizing these sorts of rankings are often very hard to quantify but I just try to follow my personal instincts.
FAVORITE SKETCHES:
10. "After Love" (S3E11 / Chevy Chase)
9. "Nick
Winters" (S3E10 / Robert Klein)
8. "Mr. Death" (S3E15 /
Christopher Lee)
7. "Endings" (S3E11 / Chevy Chase)
6/5. "Don't Look Back In Anger" (S3E13 / Art Garfunkel) / "La Dolce
Gilda" (S3E17 / Michael Sarazzin)
4. "The Soiled Kimono"
(S3E08 / Miskel Spillman)
3. "Andy Kaufman's Great Gatsby"
(S3E13 / Art Garfunkel)
2. "Josh Ramsey, V.D. Case Worker"
(S3E17 / Michael Sarazzin)
1. "Simon & Garfunkel" (S3E04
/ Charles Grodin)
Other great sketches: "Royal Deluxe II," "The Festrunk Brothers,"
"Keypunch Confession" (S3E01 / Steve Martin #3); "Swill," "The Pink Box," and
"Pocket Protector" (S3E02 / Madeline Kahn); "Funeral Magician (S3E03 / Hugh
Hefner); "The Judy Miller Show" (S3E04 / Charles Grodin); "Stunt Baby" (S3E06
/ Buck Henry); "Married in a Minute!" and Andy Kaufman's foreign stand-up
(S3E07 / Mary Kay Place); "Family Feud (S3E09 / Steve Martin #4); "The Olympia
Cafe" (S3E10 / Robert Klein); "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave" (S3E15 /
Christopher Lee); "Archaeologicus" (S3E17 / Michael Sarazzin); "Dancing in the
Dark" (S3E18 / Steve Martin).
FAVORITE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES:
7. Gravity (S3E17 / Michael Sarazzin)
6. Keith
Jarrett (S3E17 / Michael Sarazzin)
5. Taj Mahal (S3E02 /
Madeline Kahn)
4. Bonnie Raitt (S3E10 / Bonnie Raitt)
3. Ray Charles (S3E05 / Ray Charles)
2. Elvis Costello (S3E08 /
Miskel Spillman)
1. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Steve Martin
perform "White Russia" (S3E09 / Steve Martin)
SEASON GRADE AVERAGE: B.
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