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With the original era drawing to a close, I now approach some of the most infamously dangerous territory in SNL's history: the maligned Season 6. In the fall-out between Lorne Michaels and Fred Silverman, the show's talent coordinator, Jean Doumanian, was put in charge of helming the next era of the show and building an entirely new cast and writer's room. The results—seen at the time as a disastrous twelve-episode run that found the show in danger of cancellation—have since become the subject of legend, and in recent history, of significant re-evaluation.
Of the infamous seasons of Saturday Night Live (6, 11, 20, 30), Season 6 has always been the one I'm most eager to explore because of the unique, nigh-impossible challenge the show has been tasked with: retool the hippest, most beloved comedy show on television without any precedent. No matter how good or bad Season 6 would end up, it was tasked with fighting an uphill battle all the way through. This is where I think the re-evaluation spearheaded by the likes of the That Week in SNL podcast, Bronwyn Douwsma, and Stooge are so invaluable; they've facilitated a broader discussion on the show, acknowledging the circumstances in which they were created but with the assistance of hindsight. Such people inspired me to begin chronicling my journey through SNL in the first place, and subsequently, I'm very excited to add to that ongoing dialogue!
For my reviews of the preceding season, Season 5, CLICK HERE! Now, onwards, into one of the most fascinating periods in SNL's history, beginning with...
11/15/80: Elliott Gould / Kid Creole & the Coconuts (S6 E01)
Having spent the past five seasons with the original cast, it feels immediately jarring for our first episode of this new season to commence with a shot of Gail Matthius' face. It feels even stranger as the cold open progresses, and as it becomes clear that the show has been put even more on the spot than the audience. We've replaced one of the most beloved comedy casts of its heyday with six fresh-faced newbies that this new, Doumanian-led era of SNL feels so much pressure to immediately endear to us in perhaps the most backwards way possible. Truly, what better way to introduce our new sketch icons than by cross-referencing them with their predecessors and reminding us and them of the shoes they have to fill? And that's barring the nonsensicality of most of the comparisons that they're trying to make, too. I suppose it's fair enough to point out the elephant in the room up top, but it does so in a way that creates more expectations that this nervous premiere can really deliver.
With that being said... it's certainly not as bad as I was led to believe, or as the cold open forecasted. I'm well aware that S6 is a season of immense ebbs and flows, both unfairly-maligned and with the capacity to be miserable in the same stroke... but this premiere fares better than I was anticipating, if not well. It's difficult not to immediately pick up on the fact that the show's broader sensibilities have changed, and very much for the worse—thin, hacky premises galore!—but I felt a shocking level of magnetism here. Writing-wise, a bad precedent has been set, but everything is executed by the cast with a shocking level of vigor, and the particularly hot crowd helps everything go down easy. You could interpret that as damning praise for an episode that so readily makes jokes about poop, anti-Semitism, and homosexuality, but I prefer to think of it as a silver lining.
Hell, the cast is doing more to sell this episode than its host is allowed to. Elliott Gould is honestly a great choice, though his track record of gameness and amiability also means that the show easily drowns him out in straight roles. It is sort of a neat contrast to last season's premiere, where SNL hid its instability behind Steve Martin (very much working overtime), and I do actually respect this more... but leaving someone like Elliott at the borders of this episode feels like an ignoble end to one of the best hosts of the first five years, and I'm worried about if this new era knows how to accommodate for the talent it floats in on a weekly basis.
It's probably worthwhile now to talk about the material itself: ehhh? As I said earlier, the sketches don't often feel truly insufferable, but it certainly feels lowest common denominator. Room for nuance is lost for cheap jokes that exist to get some kneejerk reactions and woops from the crowd, and while some sketches feel more lively than others, it's hard to really describe any as strong. Interestingly, the show seems to be backpedaling out of the long-winded structure of the past two seasons, crawling with elaborate epics, and returning to the earlier seasons' knack for blackouts and quick-paced scenes. Hard to say how well it pays off, but the brevity ensures that no stinker ever overstays its welcome. The more proper sketches are an expected mixed bag: they all have pretty dumb ideas, and sometimes they feel more like an after-dark episode of All That than SNL (nose-wrestling? an accordion player polka-ing people to death?), but everything has spirit. I was worried about the "homosexuals in the military" sketch, for instance, and while there were the expected groaners, Joe and Charles work so hard to get it over that I guiltily enjoyed it. (The fact that then-writer, future cast member Terry Sweeney penned it also helped ensure that the piece doesn't fall on the wrong side of the map.)
Everything else in the episode kept it feeling refreshingly anew with the sort
of underground sensibilities that these last few seasons of the show lost. I'm
an especially huge fan of this season's new interest in spotlighting comedic
short films: Randal Kleiser's "Foot Fetish" piece was legitimately inspired
and the sharpest bit of bawdiness all night, and Jonathan Demme's "Gidgette
Goes to Hell" music video was a neat little new wave artifact. Aside from the
deafening cowbell that abducted the sound mix, too, I dug the tropical disco
cocaine vibes of Kid Creole & the Coconuts—I know this is one of the best
seasons for musical guests in the show's history, and I'm fully looking
forward to it. I'm getting tastes of the grime and attitude of those first few
seasons of the original era, and I'm all here for that compared to how often
the era's jadedness would lead it to complacency. I'll enjoy that goodwill;
there are far worse ways to kick things off.
Like next episode! (Penned 12/07/21)
GRADE: C.
11/22/80: Malcolm McDowell / Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (S6 E02)
It's so, so easy to label the Malcolm McDowell episode as a gargantuan trainwreck, perhaps even the worst episode of SNL ever, and to call it a day. Indeed, that was the judgment I was ready to make going into it. My understanding of this episode was that it would be akin to ripping a bandage off: no matter the highs that S6 may reach in the future, this second episode of the season will always exist as the nadir, an episode haunted by ghastly vibes that leaves the rest of the Doumanian era feeling like it's fighting a losing battle, and that any successes are seemingly in spite of itself. Even if I try to dissuade that notion, it's hard to fight through an episode with such a nasty edge without feeling second-hand embarrassment for everyone involved.
But therein lies the thing: these are all people who, honest to god, are trying. This is a cast of six who have to trudge through material that, with the limited assistance of Jean Doumanian, puts them at the mercy of an audience that questions their authority. It's even worse that the failure of such horrible pieces like "Commie Hunting Season" or "Jack the Stripper" validates that skepticism, and there isn't an ounce of defense I could make for either of those pieces. And yet... I want these new kids to win. I know that none but Piscopo succeed at that and they end up being purged at one point or another, but I want to defy the history of the show and let them prove me wrong. And to be honest, it's hard to be angry at them because, if nothing else, seeing the preceding era become complacent and pathetic at the very end was worse than this, at least at the level of being a curiosity piece. If "Commie Hunting Season" is repugnant, it's at least fascinatingly repugnant, a special brand of ugliness that captures your attention. Something like fucking "Manhasset" from last season just drains the soul into pitiful boredom.
For the sake of actually dissecting the bad, though... yes, the worst of this episode is some of the lowest SNL has ever gone. "Commie Hunting Season" is so questionable and so fucking dark that it basically destroys the argument that anything should be able to be joked about. Whose bright idea was it to craft a satirical piece around a massacre spearheaded by the American Nazi Party and the KKK, let alone to go forward with that and cast these people as not mere objects of ridicule, but people we're supposed to find humor in? All you need to hear is the piercing silence of an entire studio of people after Charles Rocket utters the n-word, and to then recognize that pause existed for theoretical laughter, to know that there's no point of recovery for any of these people's reputations. "Jack the Stripper" is somehow almost even worse, though; it's like watching a friend you love do the worst goddamn emulation of a Monty Python sketch that you've ever seen. SNL is trying, but it's so desperate to be ridiculous that it makes "Serf City" look like high art. (And that stage fog... it's like the sketch is begging not to be comprehended in real time.)
These are the worst impulses of S6, which makes it all the more frustrating that the pieces which don't play with loaded or desperate concepts actually fare well and deserve to be more commonplace. The gothic novel shop sketch with Ann Risley is actually well-written and chuckle-worthy, and it benefits from a strong, Eric Idle-esque performance from Malcolm McDowell—who, oh yeah, is our host tonight, and he'd love to forget that! It's absurdity done well, penned with an actual sense of what it wants to be and the conclusion that it's going towards. We also get another Mitchell Kriegman film, and I preferred it to last week's; they're not laugh-out-loud funny, but there's a thoughtfulness to them akin to the original era's Weiss and Schiller pretapes that demonstrates the worth of having eclectic voices in the mix willing to take the show down different avenues. And as an unrelated sidenote, speaking of different avenues: fuck that one guy who yelled "SHIT!" after Captain Beefheart's second performance, because those were as awesome as they were hell-bent on being beautifully abrasive. (Also, I kid about that one guy in the audience, because he gave me my biggest laugh of the night.)
So yeah... what can I say about this episode? Well... it's not good. It's very bad. It doesn't not deserve its legendary reputation... but if it's a dirge, it's a goddamn fascinating one that has room for occasional appreciation, and I'll take that any day of the week. (Penned 12/18/21)
GRADE: D.
11/06/80: Ellen Burstyn / Aretha Franklin, Keith Sykes (S6 E03)
After toiling over the last two bumpy (and at times truly disastrous) outings, the Ellen Burstyn episode feels like a nice bit of course correction. It's not a particularly great episode by any means, and it's still plagued by a few problems endemic to Season 6, but it feels like we're feasibly heading in the right direction. Whether or not the next episodes will follow up on its successes, it seems to suggest that, hey, we could be getting somewhere good, and further down the line, there's even the potential for us to get something truly wonderful. We just need to build up to that and continue weeding out the kinks that don't really work.
For the most part, this is an episode that chugs along pretty amiably and unremarkably, and while that doesn't give it much of a chance to step out of the ugly shadow Malcolm McDowell's episode cast over S6, things are certainly cohering, and sometimes even clicking. A lot of that is assisted by the variety of character-driven premises on display instead of heavy topicality or putrid conceptual work. Gilbert and Denny are able to follow up on their Waxman sketch from the premiere with another silly installment of "What's It All About," while Gail gets a second, more naturalistic framework for her Vickie character. Both are exercises in refinement, especially the latter; instead of leaning against the potential sleaze of a young girl character, her visit to Planned Parenthood with her guileless friend (played by Denny) keys into some fun slice-of-life vibes, all properly enlivened by Gail's very flippant characterization. Meanwhile, while I'm not too endeared to Joe's new Jersey Guy character—the choice of scenario for this debut sketch feels like a flat improv exercise, and his quirks are rather overblown—there's some sneaky good writing to it and it's gratifying to hear the audience whipped into such a frenzy. Here's hoping his future outings expand into better places.
This episode also some legitimately great pieces in the mix. Gilbert's short film as Pepe Gonzalez has a rather thin premise, but it's so specific and flashy that it's kind of hard for it to fail for me. Gilbert commits to the absurdity in a piece that makes good use of his boyish charms (weird to say knowing what he'd become), and being able to see some beautifully-shot footage of '80s New York feels like an absolute treat. There's also a stunning 10-to-1, most certainly the best piece of the season thus far and a piece that could go toe to toe with the slice-of-life pieces from the original era. Ellen Burstyn as a host isn't given too many chances to shine across the episode—a shame given her joyful monologue—but I'm glad we could end the night with a piece that met her distinct pedigree. She channels everything she's got into a stunning, sometimes heart-wrenching portrait of a lonely old woman ostracized by the neighborhood kids and quietly mourning the death of her son, while Gail submits equally compelling work as the naive kid that she lures inside for a few minutes of company.
Of course, not everything works. Although not as great of an offense as some of the stinkers last episode, a handful of pieces here feel too mean-spirited or toothlessly edgy to register as anything more than acts of provocation. Efforts like the junkie sketch merely feel like darkness for darkness' sake, lacking the point of view to give it a chance of truly working. The junkie sketch was so iffy that Jean had to fight to get it to air, almost costing Jean her job... and for what? It's nimbly-performed, especially by Charles and Joe, but it feels aimless, out to do its best O'Donoghue impression without being able to hold a candle to the legitimate misanthropy of Mr. Mike. (Denny's puppet sketch feels similarly feisty, but in a distinctly halting S6 way.) Meanwhile, Ann Risley's big Toni Tennille piece proves, rather unfortunately, how ill-fitting she is for what the show demands of her. I don't mind her in small doses but she's charmless in a role that necessitates her to be a diva, and there's no worse omen for a sketch than casting someone as a singer when they can't carry a tune for a second, let alone 20.
In the end, though, this episode will always be most notably remembered as Eddie Murphy's proper SNL debut. He made a little cameo last week in the "Negro Republican" sketch, so unremarkable that I didn't even write about it at all... but to see this kid come on and effortlessly crush in the middle of a ghastly installment of Weekend Update feels like a true turning point, a moment where the narrative of the season can't be refuted: Eddie, in almost exactly a minute, has become the show's immediate future. It'll be fun to see him get more and more in the mix as the season progresses. In the moment, though: not a bad episode, if also not a super good one. Stay for the Aretha performances. (Penned 12/22/21)
GRADE: C+.
12/13/80: Jamie Lee Curtis / James Brown, Ellen Shipley (S6 E04)
There is precisely one reason why the Jamie Lee Curtis episode of S6 is the only one of its season to ever get an encore screening several decades later: James motherfuckin' Brown. He's a consummate show-stealer no matter how good the night, blasting through the electrifying, disco-infused "Rapp Playback" before getting into the main course of the evening: an eight-minute long medley of some of his greatest hits punctuated by Brown's trademark howls, shimmies, and mic spins, both raw and loose but immaculately choreographed with not a single person missing the mark. What's not to love there? The son of a bitch is pushing 60 and had two cape swaps. With the sheer force of his magnetism, James Brown makes this episode required viewing... though the downside of that is the fact that everything else is as tumultuous as S6 has trained me to expect. (I don't think there's any more damning display of the quality disparity in this episode than going from James Brown's first performance into the chilling silence of another Charles Rocket-helmed Weekend Update... or going from that badger sketch into his medley.)
I'd like to think I'm an eternal optimist with SNL, and while S6 isn't taking it out of me as much as many would suggest, it's still hard to sing praises of something that could most politely be called mediocre. I'd go so far as to say, though, that the greatest flaws with this season lay more in writing than performance. It's not Charles' fault that his Update jokes are piss-poor, and while one might be able to pinpoint his foot-stomping and mugging as desperate, I don't know if I'd say it's any better to sit there and bomb jokes as a sullen husk. Perhaps there's something to be suggested in certain cast members' ability to break through the writing and will strength into the show with their performance chops—and Gail's (and Denny's, to a slightly lesser extent) routinely great work so far suggests that's a valid assessment—but that also doesn't excuse that this episode, our big debut for Eddie Murphy in the featured cast, finds the future star fighting through material that even he can't make pop. (The best thing he gets to do here is eat dog food during Update, a bit reliant enough on shock that his input does little to sway the manufactured audience reaction.) Unable to cohere, S6 yet again has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis rather than as the sum of its parts.
There are a few good pieces that deserve a mention, as usual. I actually quite enjoyed "Dying to be Heard"; it's another characteristically dark S6 sketch, taking the conceit of a show where female writers kill themselves on-air to earn the right for their works to be broadcast, but I feel it's able to thread the needle better than most. More than punching down on the notion of the "tortured artist," it's a scathing take on the notion that such a status is admirable and attainable, a point driven home by the legitimate nastiness of the program's main applicant. I also didn't mind Gilbert's short film this episode, even if it wasn't as memorable as Pepe Gonzalez; he brings a nice, oddball energy to the show, and while the story of his arrival at SNL doesn't fully gel, it's packed with some fun detail work (his family living in a revolving door; his audition tape being in front of the security cam of a bank he's sticking up). Lastly, although I never know how much to factor the "Short Shorts" segment into the quality of these episodes since they're outsourced, there's something to be said of this season's strong curation, and the stylish "Hot Dogs for Gauguin" (featuring a young Danny DeVito!) is pretty darn delightful.
On the other hand, not much else works. Jamie Lee Curtis gives everything her all, but there's just not much for her to chew on in pieces like "The Attack of the Terrible Snapping Creatures," a horror movie spoof about the terrors of clothespins. Her second best shot is in the slice-of-life salon piece she shares with Gail and Denny; it's simple but rooted in good characterizations, even if it's not as memorable as Gail's sketch last episode. She toils elsewhere playing less consequential roles in the dire badger and biker girl sketches, though her charm helps take the edge off of both piece's intolerable character work. The best thing I can say is that she does her best and seems to inspire the show more than some of the season's previous hosts. I wish there were more nice things to say here, but hey... at least we have James. (Penned 12/22/21)
GRADE: C.
12/20/80: David Carradine / Linda Ronstadt, The Pirates of Penzance (S6 E05)
It's very difficult to form a proper opinion on the David Carradine episode of SNL, let alone in regards to its status as the big Christmas special. There's so many weird details that necessitate wild articulation, and to what end? It's an episode that, no matter how much enjoyment you can ascertain from it, is pretty transparently a lesser effort. Nothing spells out a shaky entry for the show like having your host be piss-drunk and fumbling through every sketch he appears in, and that's almost all you need to say about this episode. Almost.
What that point dodges is that, for however little there is in this episode that really connects... it is kinda fun in the drunken sloppiness. There's definitely a spectrum with this kind of thing. Whereas a host like Kristofferson in S1—tasked with anchoring an episode with versatile sketch roles—becomes a deathly black hole of comedy, in an episode like David Carradine's where there's almost nothing to gain from peak performance, you kinda live for the weird eccentricities. Some of my biggest laughs of the episode came less from the intent of the written material than Carradine's strange sense of alternating conviction or indifference in all of his roles. In that sense, Carradine is sort of a perfect host: when presented a dour evening, why not get sloshed and see how that changes things?
The material itself is bereft of clear-cut winners, though they at least all have moments, whether brought about by Carradine or others. Notably, this feels like the first episode where Eddie can really go all off and assert his sense of comic alchemy over the limp material he's presented, a strength made obvious by that first Kung Fu menswear sketch. He's so smooth and unfazed—the sort of foresight a performer has when they know they can score a laugh—and the fact that he's able to find chemistry with the inebriated Carradine across so many sketches tonight is nothing short of remarkable. (They similarly shine in the low-key KFC sketch, a meandering piece that merely works due to the rapport between them and Denny and some solid, alcohol-influenced line reads.) Most everything else with Carradine finds him either whiffing cues or incessantly asking for water, with the exception of the pleasant enough Dylan/Guthrie piece (the sort of thing not engineered for me but, y'know, passable).
The half of the night without Carradine's involvement is better, though still never to any soaring heights; it at least feels more coherent. Gail gets another Vickie piece, solid for what it is but perhaps the least memorable, and Piscopo gets his first ranting spokesman piece, though it's sold more in enthusiasm than concept. There's more fun in the deeply darker material. After all, what better way to spice up disturbingly real-feeling domestic turmoil than slapping some Dallas wigs on? Or what better place for haughty white elites to get authentic cocaine than deep in the annals of Harlem? Both are funny ideas willed into working by performance, as S6 sketches so often are, but there's an extra bite to the detail that makes them pop just a bit more.
Additionally, as a borderline ironic counterbalance to Carradine's unpredictable performance ability, this episode offers the delights of an immaculately-choreographed Pirates of Penzance performance! Whether or not musicals are totally my thing, there's something undeniably joyful in the tongue-twisting insanity of "Modern Major-General," or Linda Ronstadt's pitch-perfect high notes, or that one police guy's floppy-ass arm work. Carradine gives off some boozy charm, but Penzance injects some festive cheer into the night where it's desperately needed. Happy holidays indeed, everybody! (Penned 12/26/21)
GRADE: C.
1/10/81: Ray Sharkey / Jack Bruce & Friends (S6 E06)
Something that I feel is worth pointing out is that, having exited the first five seasons—which were all carefully preserved and released on box sets in the best quality possible—S6 has been a mixed bag of varying visual quality. Some episodes are rare reruns from the Comedy Channel; one, Jamie Lee Curtis', was a rerun from the mid-2000s. This Ray Sharkey episode, fascinatingly, is an episode copy in the crunchiest resolution I've seen yet with pixels abound, some lovely tape hiss, and some scenes so dark that you can barely make out what's happening. A proper master is the best thing one could wish for with these early episodes, but honestly... this is the second best. It's all the grime of a particularly grimy episode compounded, a reminder that this is an era that modern SNL would so often like to completely ignore or render inaccessible to the masses.
And I think that's unfair, for the most part. This is not a great season of the show, and even those with the hottest takes have to acknowledge the bad, but it's a season tasked with an impossible task—to fill the shows the Lorne Michaels era left behind—that's nevertheless trying. And funnily enough, while this episode is rough around the edges, it's also an episode that feels rife with invention and vigor; it's almost like Season 6 has accepted defeat and is finally walking to the beat of its own drum, sometimes desperate (sorry, Charles) but for the most part with a greater interest in just being what it wants to be, shadows of the first five years be damned. In other words, this was my favorite episode thus far.
Part of that is that this episode feels like the first in a while to really lean on the natural energy of its host, and Ray Sharkey is nothing if not fully invested in the night. And that's the sort of enthusiasm the show needs! It makes a bad sketch better ("The Waiter-Maker") and a good sketch all the greater (his strong murder confession piece with Gilbert). I mean, look at the "Tommy Torture" sketch; there's almost nothing to it beyond its grimy atmosphere, and it never manages to really utilize Vicky and Debbie in any interesting ways that push the sketch along... but then Ray comes on-stage and delivers a legitimate, compelling punk performance that saves the entire thing and validates the grime; it becomes an authentic, loving piece of homage rather than apathetic parody. No matter what a role requires of him—whether being a stereotypical Italian caricature offering passionate translations to a chaste WASP couple, or dressing up as an old lady and getting incapacitated by a giant robot suit—he sells it, and he prevents any piece from fully bombing.
Apropos of Ray's presence, too, there's just something in the air here. Sketches like the Carter sketch that suddenly devolves into a New Years-esque celebration of January 11th feel somewhat confounding, for instance, but they're instantly memorable and impossible to hate—the ending, with confetti and streamers aflutter and party hats passed around the studio audience, feels like a legitimate, goofy celebration. This is also an episode that, at long last, has some really strong, darker material which, more than just hoping edge constitutes for laughs, actually has fun playing in the darkness and relishing its premises. The aforementioned "Stop-a-Nut" bit, as goofy as it is, begins with Charles cheerfully asking, "Tired of seeing your loved ones' precious bodies hacked into small pieces? Of course you are! Who isn't?"; the "White Babies" sketch, filmed on the same park set, is even more delightfully perverse, featuring Eddie (in the biggest night of his tenure) as a black market dealer hocking splotchy, white babies that he proudly displays, resting in a trash can, to an interested white couple. I especially enjoyed the surrogate mothers sketch; while not without its flaws (Yvonne is wasted yet again, this time with the further embarrassment of ending the sketch with a line from Gone with the Wind), there's so much dark fun in Denny using her pregnancy as a tool to get what she wants, threatening belly flops or drug use as leverage for a cup of coffee or a pay raise. ("Lady, you know you're boring me, and when I get bored, I take LSD" is the line of the episode for sure.)
Rounding out the evening is a legendary moment in the show's history: with time to kill, talent coordinator Neil Levy sent Eddie out to vamp with some of his old stand-up before introducing the second musical performance. It's perhaps more exceptional as a turning point than a standalone piece (though certainly not without its laughs), but this was the moment that made Eddie, someone who started with a speechless extra role only to slowly become an integral player, into one of the biggest stars SNL has ever had. It'll be interesting to see where the show goes from here as we dive into the turbulent second half of the season—Eddie and Joe's continued ascent and Charles' downfall, eventually culminating in a rash f-bomb that costs Jean and much of the cast their jobs—but it feels like the season is poised to do good things. I'm hoping to see it happen. (Penned 12/27/21)
GRADE: B.
1/17/81: Karen Black / Cheap Trick, Stanley Clarke Trio (S6 E07)
I have found the mythology surrounding Season 6 to be, for the most part, overly-cruel. There are a lot of valid criticisms and the lows are low, with the first two episodes basically setting the season up to be scrutinized, but that sort of generalization neglects the fact that the show is trying, and frequently as of late, it rebounds from its failures. It gets knocked back but it gets up and tries again, and every little victory is just another hint on the right direction for the show to take. It's less of a "Charlie Brown trying to kick the football" situation than conventional historians of the show would like to let on for the sake of keeping SNL's complicated history simple. Season 6 is deeply flawed, and it's impossible to overlook its many missteps, but it's as capable of being compelling as you could hope, and it can be a thing of beauty when everything hits just right. The Karen Black episode is a demonstration of that, and it stands as an unequivocal triumph for the troubled season.
No matter where SNL historians tend to fall with S6, there's unanimous praise towards this evening, and it's easy to see why: it feels like the sort of episode that this new school of cast and writers were assembled to produce. The show might've been in a panic to prove itself, but it's decided to do so not by recapturing the old spark of the original era or forming associations, but by showing us why these new cast members and writers can work. Its success lay in all of these different tones and voices coming together—be they dark, or scathing, absolutely stupid or deeply affecting—all finely crafted into an hour of deeply varied content that sprints across the gamut of possibilities in the way only a sketch comedy show has the immaculate capacity to do (however rarely we can actually see that reflected).
This is also an episode where it feels like everyone got to bring something to the table, a rare feat in a season that struggles to have even one identity some of the time. Charles, so often wheeled to the front without the sort of ability the show demands of him, integrates nicely into some truly winning sketches tonight, most memorably his game show couple sketch with Gail. It's the sort of idea that gets sold by its silliness and commitment in equal part, wringing out detail upon detail until it reaches a perfect conclusion, kicking their bewildered houseguests out before their arranged dinner due to Gilbert and Denny's inability to guess the correct answer to a question about their wine. He also gets to key into his best tendencies as a performer in both the "Rocket Report"—the best iteration yet—and the "SNL Action Dolls" piece, getting good mileage out of his capacity for manic energy.
Joe is also served quite well tonight; in addition to the aforementioned Jersey Guy piece, he gets to debut his Sinatra and hold down a pretape all on his own as Dan Rathers, prodding through the internal workings of CBS in light of their lack of female journalists. It's one of the most delightfully scathing pieces this season, funneling the edge that S6 is committed to into something that's actually pointed. Lastly, though a small night for Eddie, he does get to hold down a wonderful piece opposite of Yvonne as feuding apartment neighbors—incredibly simple but hilarious stuff, and a look into the possibilities SNL has at its disposal with two Black cast members (a luxury it wouldn't have again until over a decade later).
The best sketch of the night, though—and what will go down as one of the greatest of the season—is the hospital bed piece. It's stunning for a number of reasons, most immediately the way in which it's framed: the camera positions itself as the eyes of Morris Birnbaum, a stroke victim resting powerless in his hospital bed, his disembodied voice (supplied by featured player Matthew Laurance) echoing his inner thoughts about those who appear in front of him. For the most part, it risks being another exercise in mean-spirited humor from Season 6—Eddie, walking on as Morris' girlfriend, apathetically refers to him as "about as alive as a baked potato" and leans over his body like a table—but as it unfolds, it slowly becomes a deeply tragic piece about his neglect as he consciously takes in every way in which he's dehumanized while being powerless to stop it. (Karen, perfectly cast as his scummy adult daughter, yells into his face and faux-pas that she 'nearly had a stroke' on the way over as she flicks cigarette ash onto him.) It's Denny's final walk-on as Rachel, Morris' long-time friend and the sole recognizer of his condition, which is the most painful. She speaks to him sorrowfully while recounting old memories, and she sings a song to him that he duets in his mind; even though she asks him one question ("Why didn't you ask me? Why was it Ruth you married?"), she knows he has nothing left to give and she doesn't dare pry something from him.
It's a stunning piece that stands as proof that Season 6 was capable of great things, and it's sad to think it would come to be in a time where the season was, in the eyes of the public and NBC, past a point of no return, mere months away from being completely retooled. Even if every other episode left in Doumanian's run is absolute shit, Karen Black's episode will stand in the show's history as a great "What if?" for an era that never was, and which never got a chance to be otherwise. (Penned 12/29/21)
GRADE: A.
1/24/81: Robert Hays / Joe 'King' Carrasco & the Crowns, 14 Karat Soul (S6 E08)
And so, after the triumphant Karen Black episode, we return to reality with another big ol' Season 6 stinker. This is a really tough outing for the show; rather than maintaining the momentum we've built up over the past couple episodes, the show completely crashes, and as this one progresses, it feels like they're in a full-on spiral. What went wrong between this week and last? It feels almost like the crushing reality that the strength of their last episode did no favors to their reputation left the writers feeling more at a loss than they ever have, and the result is a bizarre, passionless hodge-podge where things come and go with nary a chance of a feeling to be felt.
Part of that is the fact that Robert Hays, our host, is as bland as they come. I'll give the season some credit here: even if its hosts tend to be funneled into flimsy premises, they've always been committed, either believing in the struggling show or putting on a smile until the cameras go off. (Malcolm McDowell got his green card, at least.) Hays comes out hot in his monologue, but aside from the amusement of watching his bouncy '80s haircut, he's a bland host who merely reads what he's provided. The inflatable doll sketch, for instance, is fine, but as with everything else he's offered, the show can't seem to channel his voice into something succinct. He comes across as someone unable to inspire the show who ends up subsequently being buried in the background, dredged up on the odd occasion as a reminder to the audience that he's still in the building.
This episode is perhaps most hurt by how it's formatted, though. Not only are its musical performances buried all the way at the end—our billed musical guest, Joe 'King' Carrasco, is forced to work with an embarrassingly sedated crowd as he Buckwheats through his performance—but the episode is composed of twenty individual segments, as if clustering half-baked ideas would mask their inelegance. It really feels like the episode is trying to play a statistical game: if we run through this many premises, at least a few of them have to land, right? But none do. A few sizzle a bit—Eddie is solid in the Atari sketch, and there's some decent organ gags in the funeral sketch—but for the most part the content borders on lukewarm at best and insufferable at worst. This does make more room for both Matthew Laurance and Patrick Weathers to participate at least, but neither are making a fan out of me, especially the latter with that goddamn brownfaced Ravi Shankar routine. It's been almost comical to see Eddie Murphy sandwiched between them (basically glorified extras) in the featured players credits, which the show seemed to finally recognize; the most notable thing here is that Eddie announces he's been promoted to the main cast.
You may notice that, for as much as I've written, I've said almost nothing about specific sketches. That's because none of them are worth anything. This episode sucks! Let's just... move on. (Penned 12/30/21)
GRADE: D.
2/07/81: Sally Kellerman / Jimmy Cliff (S6 E09)
While Doumanian's reign of the show has been working harder to free itself from the vestiges of the original era (to both good and middling effect), one of the framing mechanisms it's sought to keep are the little excerpts that lead into commercial breaks, mostly irrelevant "Coming Up Next" bits and audience captions. The latter is a silly idea in theory—why not put a clueless audience member on the spot with a wacky caption and see how they respond? It's the joy and spontaneity of being on live television! And usually, the victims of this little studio prank double over in embarrassment, or laugh along, maybe ham it up. But as the Sally Kellerman episode discovers, maybe it's not the best idea to zoom into the audience in the middle of a painfully ho-hum evening, because what we get a glance at here is perhaps the most glassy-eyed, unentertained audience member they could've possibly chosen. Never have I seen clapping that more explicitly states, "I am clapping because the clap sign is on," and even as the person sitting next to her pats her on the shoulder to let her know what's happening... she could not care less. This woman was one of my favorite parts of the episode. "Wishes she was a hostage," you say? I believe it.
This episode isn't the worst that the season has to offer, but there's little to gain from it, either. Sparks of intrigue keep it from becoming truly grueling, but that also just means you're left watching it and pondering the potential that Season 6 is failing to tap. Truly novel things are attempted—the "What's That Sin" game show sketch promises fast-paced absurdity, the "Lean Farms" sketch has a meta breakdown where a heckling audience member berates the core message of what's being performed—but somehow, something keeps them from popping. Maybe it's the sluggish audience; maybe it's the inability of the cast to lean into the audience. Maybe it's that Sally Kellerman, as a host, radiates a very off-putting, haughty energy, as if she's ready to embark to Harlem after the show to get some authentic heroin. There's just something in the air that makes this show feel halting... or maybe it's just everything.
For what it's worth, there's definitely a sort of uncomfortable nature to the politics of the US surrounding this season, which I've generally neglected to mention in my reviews. It's interesting to view Season 6 from a historical perspective, even more so than the original era I'd argue, because of how biting it is, or at least how biting it wants to be. SNL aims for relevancy by being responsive to the world around it, and considering this season is happening simultaneous to the Reagan administration, I'll give them credit for taking some truly nasty swipes—moments like those crawl with rebellious, counterculture energy. This episode actually has its eyes on the aftermath of the Iranian hostage crisis, and I'd say it generally succeeds in finding unique ways to approach it. The "A Day in the Life of a Hostage" pretape takes a look at the tortured celebrity of a recently-freed hostage who just wants to return to pedestrian life; it's not super funny, but it does an excellent job at satirizing the media attention placed on these innocent people who simply want to return to a normal life and finds particularly haunting use of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree." The Iranian student council sketch is a bit less pointed, paralleling the "let's just watch the world burn" energy of "Commie Hunting Season," but it actually gets over alright as well, for all of its denseness—there's something funny about the college students who held the prisoners hostage now having to panic about if they're gonna flunk their education. Neither are huge highlights, but they speak to the times, and how people responded to them, in a compelling way. (I forgive the audience's quietness during such stretches; it's hard to know how to respond to those sorts of events, let alone laugh at comedy about them.)
Everything else is just kinda... eh?... with some exceptions. To nobody's surprise, Eddie walks away with the hardest laughs of the episode in a brief Update segment discussing how the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't signed by Lincoln means that slavery is still legal, then offering some helpful tips to white folks looking to wrangle up new property. Joe also maintains his streak as a reliable player, presenting another silly SNL Sports piece with the help of some fun Marc Weiner puppetry as well as submitting fine comedic work in the otherwise underwritten "Parent & Child" piece. Most surprisingly of all, after being generally shut out of last episode, Gilbert is on fire tonight and acquits himself finely to three fairly enjoyable pieces (barring the aforementioned "Parent & Child") as a hyper-Italian stand-up comic, the wacky defendant in a trial-turned-talk-show, and best of all, as a sullen husband defending his love of his pillow pets to his neglected wife. ("I thought any man who could show that much love for [pillow pets] would have a lot of love to give me." "Oh, you were wrong.") Ignoring the smug, treacly musical number from Kellerman, that pillow pets sketch is the right note to end the episode on—we're still trying, but it's a bit more melancholy than before. (Penned 12/30/21)
GRADE: C-.
2/14/81: Deborah Harry / Funky 4 + 1 More (S6 E10)
Deborah Harry is pretty cool, right? Blondie! That's kind of all I knew about her, actually! (I don't know a lot.) But something I learned recently, and pleasantly, was that she played a pivotal role in introducing hip-hop music to the mainstream audience of the '80s, not just with her single "Rapture" being the first rap video featured on MTV but with her bringing Funky 4 + 1 More to SNL for her hosting stint, making them the first rap group to be broadcast on television. It's a groundbreaking moment, even if it's a bit hard to have your world rocked by it in present times, and it's a welcome bit of history tucked at the end of a decent enough S6 episode.
Fortunately, Deborah doesn't have to fight too hard to win cred with me after that fact, not that she's a bad host. She only really serves as a detriment to one piece—the "Big Brother" sketch, where she seemingly gets lost in the cue cards and generally overacts—though considering it's one of my favorites as written of the night (and perhaps the season) that stiffness feels more unfortunate. (Gilbert at least shines in his portrayal of Big Brother awkwardly trying to ask her prole character out, and I found the staging very unique.) Deborah works best slotted into more naturalistic scenes, so it's fortunate that she's graced with some solid ones. The latest Vickie sketch is solid observational stuff from Gail as usual, but the most interesting piece of the evening is the SoHo piece, casting Gail and Deborah as two young lesbians who get a sudden, surprise visit from her aunt and uncle: the Waxmans. It's a shockingly progressive piece for the era, a fact made obvious by the audience awkwardly laughing at the two of them exchanging "I love yous," and truth be told, I spent a lot of it wincing in fear that the premise would collapse into homophobia... but it doesn't. Instead, it feels very sincere and thoughtful as Deborah delicately tries to implicate their relationship to Denny's Pinkie character, and when she succeeds, Pinkie's stunned moment of realization is followed by a toast in their name—a subtle but sweet nod of approval.
The rest of the night is sort of Season 6 as usual, though with some lighter sensibilities that work in its favor. Jersey Guy returns, this time meeting his ultimate match—Deborah as a fellow Jerseyite! Not only is it packed with as many quietly strong lines as these pieces tend to be, with the two bonding over their chemical plants' radiation scares, but it's a great display of Joe and Deborah's natural chemistry. They play off of each other perfectly here (Deborah does her best work of the night), and the later "King Kong" sketch, with all of its gloriously juvenile thinness, gets over just as well. In terms of the hostless material, things are a mixed bag, but the show keeps moving along pretty briskly at least; the biggest crime is just Eddie being wasted on a weak runner.
Perhaps the most contentious part of the episode is the infamous "Where's Cooter?" sketch, but fuck me, I liked it! It's truly indefensible and I can see the argument made that it's basically just a prolonged improv exercise reenacted on-stage, but its self-aware, repetitious nature really tickles me before the kicker even comes in to close the story. There's a sort of "fuck you, we're doing this" energy which feels not just laudable in this troubled season, but kinda thrilling—damn the audience, they're just blithely committed! It's the exact right kind of energy for Season 6 to be tapping into right now, and judging by the fact that this is a pretty carefree episode, it feels like such a shame that next episode will seal its fate as an aborted, disastrous experiment. I'll enjoy it while it lasts. (Penned 12/31/21)
GRADE: B-.
2/21/81: Charlene Tilton / Todd Rundgren, Prince (S6 E11)
In the goodnights of the Charlene Tilton episode, everyone is gathered around Charles Rocket. The past episode has cast him as the center of a vicious love triangle amongst host and cast—in reference to Charlene's show, Dallas—culminating in him being shot by an unknown assailant. He now sits in a wheelchair, a cigarette in his mouth. "Charlie, how are you feeling after you've been shot?" Charlene asks. "I dunno man, it's the first time I've ever been shot in my life," Charles responds, "I'd like to know who the fuck did it." Shock rolls from face to face: Charlene squeals so loud her audio clips, Eddie's eyes bulge, and Matthew Laurance bursts out laughing. Charles just sits back smugly, taking an imaginary puff from his cigarette. It's official, everybody: we've hit the point of no return.
It's the ultimate, cathartic moment to weasel its way out of this nightmarish season. The cast has soldiered against audiences and critics who hated their guts, even in spite of their occasional successes, and the inept guidance of Jean Doumanian has done little to protect them. Charles, touted as the next Chevy Chase, has had to go out every single episode on Weekend Update and bomb week after week as he pitifully mugs and stomps the ground in hopes of strangling even a wheeze from the audience. How does it feel to be the face of a show that everyone despises? How does it feel, despite how heavily you've been groomed, to see that you're being surpassed more and more with every single episode by someone else? It's the tragic end to a man who was set up to fail... and sufficed to say, Charles' stunt far outlives the impact of almost anything here (let alone the season, or sadly, his career).
That's because, barring that bombshell of a moment, the Charlene Tilton episode feels prototypical of Season 6, mostly vanishing from memory as quickly as it plays out. Sure, there are some legitimately unusual things that this episode attempts, such as the climactic puppet boxing match between Rocko Weineretto and Weindulah and the Dallas runner, but it's sort of shocking how little impact they leave after the moment's passed. I'll actually be kinder to the former than most; it's hard not to be entertained, in my opinion, by impeccable puppetry, and while the presentation is a bit staid (Don King is there, I guess?), it's a fine art to do puppetry so well that we threaten to forget how it's being performed. "Who Shot C.R.?", on the other hand, is perhaps most interesting as a curiosity, and only because we know the shockwaves it'll create in the goodnights. On their own, the segments feel very limply-written, however enlivened by Gilbert's iconic, sour expression. (I like how the final part of the runner concludes, at least, with Charles getting sniped mid-sketch and everyone rushing out to him in shockingly well-acted terror.)
The rest of the material tends to alternate between truly dire and failing to seize upon its high potential, the two classic modes for an S6 sketch to inevitably fall into. The pork parade sketch is utter nonsense, the sort of idea that should have something in its specificity yet emerges completely empty-handed, while the "Women Behind Bars" sketch has a funny idea at its center—forcing Charlene's new fish into giving a debate about the Industrial Revolution's effect on education—but spends too much time incubating that the reveal goes out with a whimper. The Nancy Reagan sketch feels the closest to working, with Gail's Nancy relishing her daughter-in-law's nightmarish stay in the haunted Lincoln's bedroom, but something renders it sluggish, too; maybe the timing isn't quite right, or maybe it expects too much of Ann, who's tasked with putting it over.
On the plus side, though, this episode has a very obvious highlight: the debut of "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood!" It's sort of bizarre to see the first of these legendary sketches in its infancy; for however much it resembles all of the iterations that follow, there are a few odd kinks here that make it feel rawer, and that honestly plays to the sketch's benefit. These are seedy sketches, and they relish in that as much as they relish in the inherent charm that Eddie possesses (his smiley delivery of "Can you say bitch?" is fucking perfect), and the result is a beautiful blend of concept and performance—two things we seldom see working alongside each other this season. We also get to go out, after a dry spell, with one final, strong Rocket Report, with Charles taking Charlene on an authentic New York subway ride. It's a reminder, in this episode that ordained him with the perpetual curse of dropping an f-bomb on SNL, that Charles could be great on the show when he was used properly; his interactions with random passersby are as silly and charismatic as they are a portrait of '80s New York City.
Unfortunately, not even an absolutely badass performance from new talent Prince can help divert this one from the legacy it ultimately left behind. The casual fan who merely sees this as the big f-bomb episode, for once, is barely missing a thing. (Penned 1/03/21)
GRADE: C-.
3/07/81: Bill Murray / Delbert McClinton (S6 E12)
It feels like an extreme fortune for the cast that Bill Murray was scheduled to host two weeks after Charlene Tilton. In any other universe, that would be the end of the road, and there's a strong sense that the only reason Jean wasn't immediately discharged, or the likes of Charles fired, was because Bill was right around the corner. To executives, it's a fair enough grab to warrant one last go, and the return of a heralded comedy icon to his old stomping grounds; to the cast and writers, meanwhile, it's a last-ditch effort to salvage their careers. It's the most perfect opportunity that could befall Season 6, even if that outcome still yields the immediate termination of the Jean Doumanian era, and it also prompts one of the most perfect cold open opportunities SNL has ever had, sending the cast into Bill's dressing room as he uplifts them with a spoof of his Meatballs speech and the victorious chant of, "It just doesn't matter!" Whereas the cold open that commenced this season sought to brazenly exorcise the ghost of their predecessors, this cold open feels like a humbled admission that they played their cards all wrong. But it doesn't feel grim, or melancholy, nor does this episode, miraculously—instead, the episode is a bittersweet demonstration of the season that could've been.
If it isn't the best episode of Season 6 (an honor that remains with Karen Black), it's one of the most rejuvenated, perhaps because it feels like almost everyone is fighting more than they've ever fought to meet the expectations of their host. There's a sense of ambition here across the board, stuffing the night with things ranging from a devoted character piece (the Jersey Guy pretape), to a ten minute-long epic sketch ("Altered Walter"), to very low-key slice-of-life material ("Bubba's Wash, Fayetta's Dry"). It's as if this episode is doing its best imitation of the original era with its breadth, but it never comes across as manufactured so much as dialed-in, and through it all, the cast doesn't miss a beat. That's evident in the best piece of the night, and one of the best of the season, "Script in Development," casting Bill as an indecisive author who struggles to lay out the scene being acted out by the cast behind him. It's brilliantly-executed and chock full of delightful details, but most of all, it stands as a testament to just how strong and in-sync the cast could be as an ensemble when they were given good material. The second half of the sketch, devolving into Bill quickly re-reading his convoluted story up to that point at least three times as fast, is an exercise in truly masterful physical comedy for everyone involved (Charles, Ann, Denny, and Matthew Laurance, having a shockingly involved night).
That sketch, notably, also feels concurrent with the strange pattern of this episode to keep Bill a bit segregated from the cast. It's unfortunately rather difficult to assess Bill's chemistry with most of the them, or indeed, his eagerness to be here, and while that's not to say he submits poor work, there's a slight lack of warmth. He's an aloof professional who checks every box that he has to, but he doesn't come across as a member of the ensemble so much as the night's anchor. That's fair enough, I suppose—pieces like the new Nick the Lounge Singer installment are by and large carried by his charisma—though it does leave you yearning a bit. The rare opportunities where he and the cast are on the same level, at least, always register: his monologue with Eddie is good fun, and he acquits himself perfectly to "Bubba's Wash, Fayetta's Dry," opposite of Denny as a divorced couple forced to share ownership of a laundromat. The latter sketch is probably the most effortful work from him all night, and the most it feels like he's really on the same level as the people he's performing with—the ending, with him playfully chasing Denny around and jumping at her as the camera panned out, was legitimately heartwarming.
At the very least, too, even if Bill seems reserved, he doesn't miss a beat. The most worrisome sketch of the night, the epic "Altered Walter" sketch, threatens to overstay its welcome with its excessively timely concept (an Altered States parody about Walter Cronkite's recent retirement from CBS), but the surrealism of the piece combined with Bill's performance chops allows it to go down easy and even score some serious laughs. (It ends, bizarrely and beautifully, with Walter announcing that "the news you make is equal to the news you take," before transcending the boundaries of time and space and turning into a test pattern.) He similarly allows the wobbly cat name sketch to go for the jugular; while Matthew Laurance's jovial performance as an enthusiastic cat owner grounds things, Bill's desperation slowly morphing into shameless screaming over the phone as he begs for the cat's name is a perfect crescendo.
Perhaps, though, the cast's frequent relegation to the background, apropos of the great work they individually achieve, further spelled out their unfortunate fate: it just didn't matter. It would be the last episode for Charles, Ann, Gilbert, and the featured cast, though Yvonne would make sporadic appearances in the years to come before vanishing completely; Jean Doumanian was ripped from her position, along with most of the season's writers, and replaced by Dick Ebersol, NBC's head of sports programming. Over the next month, he'd work diligently to completely reinvent the cast, pulling in Second City alum like Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky, and Tony Rosato, alongside Laurie Metcalf and Michael O'Donoghue's protégé, Emily Prager. They'd join the remaining cast of the Doumanian era—Eddie, Joe, Gail, and Denny—for one episode, before a writer's strike aborted the remaining season. The Bill Murray episode is just half of the story to Season 6's bizarre end, ultimately, but it's the sweeter half, and the tragic end of a timeline that deserved much better. Oh, what could have been... (Penned 1/13/22)
GRADE: A-.
4/11/81: (no host) / Jr. Walker & the All-Stars (S6 E13)
And so, after the past season of ups and downs, controversy, bad press, and injustices, we arrive at one of the most puzzling season finales the show has ever had. It's the end of an era, and the start of a new one all at once, joining some leftovers from the Doumanian years with Ebersol's new talent in an episode that largely feels like the passing of the torch. It's a strange sensation, though, and not one strictly by design: while this episode would be the end of the road for Gail and Denny (as well as the generally-absent featured players Dick hired), that's only because an ongoing writer's strike axed Season 6 before it could properly conclude. That's a huge shame, really, and we can only imagine how much difference the rest of this theoretical season would've made. It's not just because of the litany of spectacular hosts that we never got to see (another Buck Henry or Steve Martin episode! Dan Aykroyd hosting in his prime!)—there's definitely a sense of an alternate SNL history that could've led the show down a very different path. What if Gail and Denny got to continue honing their craft and eventually grow into reliable players through the Ebersol era? What if Emily Prager did? They're questions which, sadly, will never be answered.
What we get, instead, is a strangely cobbled-together night of half-ideas, trunk pieces, and dusted-off, rejected Michael O'Donoghue sketches, all led by a predominantly new cast. The writer's strike has already begun by the time this episode is airing, making it feel almost miraculous that it worked out at all, but the difficulty of getting this episode over is all too easily felt. It's crafty, front-loading with some assured and theoretically-winning bits (Joe's Sinatra, Eddie's Bill Cosby) while bringing in treasured SNL alum to helm things in the background (Chevy Chase and Al Franken), but the results are pretty mixed all the same. That Sinatra sketch, "Drive for America," just becomes an exercise in confused jingoism—do we laugh at the tedious "jap" slams because they're politically-incorrect, or because that's how America really feels?—while Eddie's piece, casting him as Cosby advertising beer to kids, comes across queasy at worst in light of Cosby's allegations, and airy at best. You can trust Eddie to wring laughs out of anything, but it always plays to the show's favor to strive for more. (The other two Doumanian hold-overs, Gail and Denny, are stuck in isolated, unsuccessful pieces: Gail's "Fame" parody is an ostensive showcase piece that cast her out of her depth, while Denny's melancholy "Bag Lady" film trips over itself with some confounding voiceover edits.)
The old ringers don't do much for me either, though that might just be personal; I was more than happy to exit the era of Chevy and Franken. The former is as the former has always been, with all the good and bad attached. Chevy helms possibly the longest Weekend Update yet, all comprised of the sauciest jokes Mr. Mike couldn't get on earlier shows, and aside from a few touches ("The writer's strike continues," he bemoans, after a joke bombs), it was... an appointment in the soul-sucking, monochrome hell that is your umpteenth Chevy Chase Update. And when you're trapped there, a commentary from Al Franken at his cockiest hardly feels like a reprieve. It's as theoretically interesting as his great "Limo for a Lame-o" piece, and this one makes for a nice bookend to the entire saga of Season 6—a mess he got everyone into, in large part—but his snipes feel too labored and self-glorifying to fully land. It ends up making this episode feel less like a full attempt to christen the new SNL so much as a retroactive apology for trying something different the past twelve episodes.
The majority of the appeal I could find in this episode, honestly, falls upon the new cast that gets featured. They're the biggest takeaway for me; I've been curious about the Ebersol additions for a while now, and seeing them in action for the first time, I'm super excited to see what they bring to the next few seasons! Robin Duke is unfortunately a bit sidelined, but Tim Kazurinsky and Tony Rosato walk away with the funniest and most promising pieces of the group. Tim's "I Married a Monkey" is a simultaneous display of the delightful insanity of having monkeys as scene partners and his knack for quick-witted improvisation, while Tony's Italian father sketch, despite the extensive length—it's a trunk piece in the middle of a writer's strike, I get it—was a burst of energy with some broad but fun character work and physical comedy. (The gesture fight between him and Tim was one of my favorite moments of the night.)
All of that being said... this is a strange episode to consider as a whole. The circumstances surrounding this episode are truly fascinating, and they position it to be one of the most unique episodes in the history of the show... and yet the content itself is tumultuous, to say the least. It's an ignoble end for Season 6, but to put things plainly and succinctly: it is what it is. Onwards, to greener pastures! (Penned 1/17/21)
GRADE: C.
Cumulative Season Rankings:
2. Bill Murray / Delbert McClinton (A-)
3. Ray Sharkey / Jack Bruce & Friends (B)
4. Deborah Harry / Funky 4 + 1 More (B-)
5. Ellen Burstyn / Aretha Franklin, Keith Sykes (C+)
6. (no host) / Jr. Walker & the All-Stars (C)
7. Jamie Lee Curtis / James Brown, Ellen Shipley (C)
8. David Carradine / Linda Ronstadt, The Pirates of Penzance (C)
9. Elliott Gould / Kid Creole & the Coconuts (C)
10. Charlene Tilton / Todd Rundgren, Prince (C-)
11. Sally Kellerman / Jimmy Cliff (C-)
12. Robert Hays / Joe "King" Carrasco & The Crowns, 14 Karat Soul (D)
13. Malcolm McDowell (D)
FAVORITE SKETCHES:
10. "Pillow Pets" (S6E09 / Sally
Kellerman)
9. "I Married A Monkey" (S6E13 / hostless)
8. "Lonely Old Lady" (S6E03 / Ellen Burstyn)
7. "60
Minutes" (S6E07 / Karen Black)
6. "Apartment Building" (S6E07
/ Karen Black)
5. "Bubba's Wash Fayetta's Dry" (S6E12 /
Bill Murray)
4. "Livelys" (S6E07 / Karen Black)
3. "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" (S6E11 / Charlene Tilton)
2. "Script in Development" (S6E12 / Bill Murray)
1. "Hospital Bed" (S6E07 / Karen Black)
Other great sketches: "Pepe Gonzalez" and "Planned Parenthood" (S6E03 / Ellen Burstyn); "Dying To Be Heard" (S6E04 / Jamie Lee Curtis); "The Home Version of Dallas" and "Heroin in Harlem" (S6E05 / David Carradine); "White Babies," "Surrogate Mothers," and "Stop-a-Nut" (S6E06 / Ray Sharkey); "Big Brother" and "SoHo" (S6E10 / Deborah Harry); "Dressing Room Cold Open" (S6E12 / Bill Murray).
FAVORITE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES:
10. Jack Bruce & Friends
(S6E05 / Ray Sharkey)
9. Kid Creole & the Coconuts (S6E01
/ Elliott Gould)
8. Jr. Walker & the All-Stars (S6E13 /
no host)
7. Cheap Trick (S6E07 / Karen Black)
6. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (S6E02 / Malcolm McDowell)
5. Linda Ronstadt, The Pirates of Penzance (S6E05 / David Carradine)
4. Aretha Franklin (S6E03 / Ellen Burstyn)
3. Stanley
Clarke Trio (S6E07 / Karen Black)
2. Prince (S6E11 / Charlene
Tilton)
1. James Brown (S6E04 / Jamie Lee Curtis)
SEASON GRADE AVERAGE: C.
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