Saturday Night Live, Ranked and Reviewed: Season 9

 "Maybe we can turn off the lights and... see what develops!"

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And so, after a season that pushed the Ebersol era into an appreciative state of stability, the boat starts to rock again. With Eddie Murphy maintaining one foot out the door, missing shows and eventually leaving before the season's even concluded, the show's future is yet again thrown into question. How will it cope with the loss of its greatest star? And just how much will the hiring of our only new cast member, Jim Belushi, give the show an extra jolt?

For my reviews of the previous season, Season 8, CLICK HERE! Now, without further ado, here are my thoughts on every episode of Season 9!

10/08/83: Brandon Tartikoff / John Cougar (S9 E01)

It feels sort of insane to imagine a time where SNL didn't remotely fret about who the person hosting was and how much of a "get" they would be, and I guess that's the sort of security you have when you know that tens of millions of people will tune in to see the cast... or perhaps, more appropriately, to see Eddie and Joe. But alas, that's what makes Ebersol's era perpetually interesting, and his decision to have the president of NBC, Brandon Tartikoff, host the Season 9 premiere is certainly a unique choice. Not that it was a suggestion that came out of nowhere: rather sweetly, Ebersol presented the idea as Brandon was going through chemotherapy to cheer the guy up, giving him something big to look forward to in the months of his recovery. (Brandon would later reminisce that it was one of the biggest highlights of his career.)

With that being said, Brandon serves less as a center for the episode and more as an emcee, occasionally participating in the fun but never playing anyone but himself. Even so, he's a very good sport, letting SNL take snipes at NBC's low standing most memorably in a pretaped segment where he runs around the streets of New York hocking the network's embarrassing programming to literally anyone willing to watch it. (At one point he shouts at a CBS employee across the street through a megaphone to overpower his promotional efforts.) Outside of that, there's a little meta sketch where he tries to pitch some new, equally-bad projects to Eddie ("Eddie, I can make you bigger than Gary Coleman." "I've got parts of my body that are bigger than Gary Coleman.") and deflects the Whiners before realizing they're a Nielsen family, which is a clever enough way to weave the characters into the premiere since they remain, for some obscure reason, a major selling point.

Beyond those moments, though, this is an episode commandeered by the cast, by which I mean Joe and Eddie, whom the night seemingly alters between. (Maybe they were just eager to show off their new haircuts?) I suppose that's a fair enough way to bring everyone back to SNL after the summer break, since we can't rely on Brandon to do any heavy-lifting for as lovely as he is. With that being said, none of their bits hit super hard. Eddie, despite saying he's happy at the network in the aforementioned Brandon sketch, feels like he's already got his foot out the door, though he's at least got the undying charisma to get away with phoning things in. It's rather telling that Joe is able to steal the spotlight away from him in their shared spotlight piece, playing a very unwell Pokey alongside Eddie's curmudgeonly Gumby impression as well as headlining a surprisingly fun and scathing post-monologue sketch as James Watt preparing for his forced resignation. My favorite Joe segment, though, was his crazy spokesperson ad for a discount food and clothing warehouse, giving him the golden opportunity to rant wildly while throwing bundles of grapes and clothing at the camera.

The rest of the cast is lucky to weave their way into the show, which they do to very mixed effect. Tim holds his own against Eddie in the "Jazz Riffs" sketch, a rare and enjoyable display of their chemistry, but it doesn't do much more than give Eddie a chance to get some easy cheers from the audience; Julia, meanwhile, only makes a single appearance in SNL's umpteenth Calvin ad spoof. Surprisingly, it's Brad who walks away with the best sketch in the whole episode, "Larry's Corner," hosting a talk show where the guests are all of his childhood best friends. Brad is a difficult performer for me sometimes because he has this overactive, manic energy that he just can't shake, but it's deployed perfectly here as the scene devolves into sublime chaos, with Gary making fart noises while Tim crawls along the floor, drinking milk flowing out of someone's nose. It ain't smart, but it's the sort of loose craziness that makes watching SNL a thrill.

Overall, this is a season premiere like most others. The stars are the stars, and the rest do their best. Not the worst foot to put forward, but it's about what you'd expect. (Penned 6/01/22)

GRADE: B-.

10/15/83: Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman / Eddy Grant (S9 E02)

I'm usually skeptical of episodes with multiple hosts, but when it's two people as wholesomely fun as Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman, it's hard to really complain. I knew that they would bring it this episode and weave into the show seamlessly; the bigger question is how much the show would take that for granted. It's certainly interesting, if nothing else, to compare the husband and wife team to their predecessors in the SNL hosting department: Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss from Season 5. That was a better episode all around and one of my favorites from the original era, but it also felt more like the show having two entirely separate hosts who occasionally interlocked. Danny and Rhea's hosting gig, on the other hand, finds the two actively playing off of each other and demonstrating the intrinsic chemistry that makes a husband-wife hosting team interesting in the first place, and you know what? It works!

Both do get their own spotlights of course, which is fair enough, and they serve as strong demonstrations of their individual strengths. Danny gets a breezy but fun sketch as an author sharing all of the books he's published in a year-and-a-half that quietly document his stalker obsession over someone in his building, while Rhea carries out an even funnier and more clever piece as a Spanish teacher who insists that the people around her speak to her in Spanish even in the most dire of circumstances, culminating in her being held at knifepoint and fatally wounded. ("I'm shot, call a doctor!" "En español?") The night's at its most fun, though, seeing the two play off of each other with the rest of the show's ensemble. Probably the biggest winner of the night is the "Small World" sketch, casting them as a married couple who get trapped with some other passengers in the middle of the titular Disney ride and become victims of the park's sudden bloodlust. Every little detail falls into place perfectly—Eddie's PTSD outbursts, the ride chanting "One down, four to go!" after Tim gets electrocuted to death, Brad and Joe emerging in scuba gear and shooting the berserk animatronics with guns—and the end result is just beautifully-unfolding chaos. 

On the other end of the spectrum, though, I also really appreciated the more low-key sketch with Rhea, Danny, and Tim as nerdy autograph hounds bragging about their collections and devotions to various celebrities while waiting for celebrities behind a stage door. It's got some big laughs, especially from Danny and Rhea's more gruff demeanor and the incredibly random Dick Cavett cameo, but it's also got some really nice slice-of-life tinges that serve all of the actors well and allow them to tout their strengths as character actors. Considering how Season 8 seemed to dodge slice-of-life material almost entirely, I'm hoping this piece is a sign of more to come.

The rest of the night offers varying degrees of spins on this era's most reliable material. The latest Mister Robinson's Neighborhood sketch isn't one for the books, and every beat feels well-worn by this point, but Eddie still makes it work, and this installment—surprising Mr. Robinson with his bastard child, which he immediately plans to sell on the black market—offers some new, dark laughs. There's also the "What Would Frank Do?" sketch, a clever way of finding a new angle with Joe's Sinatra impression by having Danny host a game show centered around contestants guessing what Frank would do in various situations. (It's amusing that the idea stemmed, perhaps with some spite, from Joe's repeated assertions over things Frank would and wouldn't do to writers.) I could do without Eddie's crowd-pleasing Dion as one of the show's contestants, just as I could always do without Dion in general, but the premise is strong enough that it floats along just fine. 

Some things in the episode miss—poor Robin gets wasted in the one-joke, labored funeral sketch, and Joe resuscitates his Andy Rooney routine to the same effect as usual—but those misses are swift, and all the solid material leaves behind a strong impression. It already feels like SNL is willing to get a bit more daunting after its very streamlined, preceding season, so I hope these trends continue to develop! (Penned 6/02/22)

GRADE: B+.

10/22/83: John Candy / Men At Work (S9 E03)

Ever since my fairly mixed review of the Moranis/Thomas episode from last season, people have been hounding me about watching SCTV, and I'm sure expressing my general lack of awareness surrounding John Candy's body of work will only serve to further those pleas. I know who John is by name only, and while this hosting stint demonstrates that he is, unsurprisingly, an adept comic performer, it doesn't inch me much closer to understanding his allure. I think that comes down to the fact that, unfortunately, he doesn't have the most remarkable outing. It brings to mind his brief cameo appearance in Season 7, performing (ugh) the "Wetback Weather Report"; he's clearly a performer in his prime, but this is not prime material, and the episode is doing little to help me create a connection to him as a performer.

I can see why this episode would appeal to some in how writerly and low-key it is, which is usually a vibe I can get with... but it's almost too low-key. It feels unenergetic, lacking the sort of ups and downs that fuel a strong SNL episode. It's a lack of energy that even seems to stump how Ebersol usually arranges his episodes; the closest things he has to crowd-pleasing material is Eddie's weakest sketch in some time, casting him as an old country doctor who futzes about with poor diagnoses and even poorer medical treatments at a ski lodge. (It also goes on for eight minutes and actively dismisses John for half of that runtime, which is bizarre.) The most interesting pieces of the night also suffer as a consequence from that overall lethargy; the phone booth confessional is an interesting idea that feels too aimlessly-executed, amounting to a slice-of-life piece with little intention, and the sketch casting John and newbie Jim Belushi as two guys behind bars who treat their cell like a vacation home is cute and semi-captivating, but far too long and similarly desperate for structure (as well as having some obnoxious gay stereotypes thrown in for no reason).

Speaking of Jim Belushi... Jim Belushi!! It's rare to see a new cast member be so deeply ingrained in their first episode, but I suppose that serves to demonstrate how much confidence Ebersol has in the guy, which is fair enough—he's a Belushi. But more than that, he's also an appreciably generous performer, more capable of sharing scenes than his brother and earning laughs as a team player rather than ever trying to steal the spotlight. His chemistry alongside John helped a lot of those aforementioned scenes go down more easily, and he fulfills an important niche in the show that the current cast, strangely, has lacked: he's an everyman. I suppose it remains to be seen how much he can really add to the show, since his heavy presence in this episode ultimately does very little to lift it, but I'm happy to see the amount of confidence the show has in him, as well as how polished he already comes across.

There's a few other things in the episode that bump up interest a little bit—the unwarranted return of Buckwheat in a admittedly-okay Children of the Damned spoof, some insanely cheesy Men At Work performances (even by Men At Work standards)—but in the end, there sadly isn't too much worth clinging to. Maybe one day I'll understand John Candy more, but today just isn't that day. (Penned 6/27/22)

GRADE: B-.

11/05/83: Betty Thomas / Stray Cats (S9 E04)

Is there anything better than going into an episode with zero expectations and discovering its strengths? It’s one of the greatest joys of my SNL watch-through, and a lot of those weird, unassuming outings—your Ralph Naders, Mary Kay Places, Richard Benjamins, and Strother Martins—have made for my favorite revelations from this review project. The Betty Thomas episode, while perhaps not at the dizzying height of some of those episodes, is no doubt a worthy new addition to the line-up, occasionally faltering but always energetic and ready to throw some wonderful insanity at you in a moment’s notice.

Sadly, though, it’s a bit of a shame that Betty isn’t really responsible for the episode’s success, for as amazing of a performer as she is. She's got Second City background for Christ's sake! But this being the Ebersol era, the hosts merely exist as garnish most of the time, and she's left to make the most of her scarce moments in the limelight. Her biggest moment is in the ho-hum Jane Fonda sketch, casting her as Fonda in a workout video for pregnant woman, but Betty sells it with her vibrant energy and makes it the best sketch it could possibly be. Elsewhere she's relegated to utility roles that don't require much of her but she gives them everything she's got, and as a scene partner she's always perfectly dialed-in, perhaps most memorably in the "Perfectly Frank" sketch where Joe's advertising expert lusts after her through subliminal messaging. Joe may have the main comedic thrust, breaking up his speech with discreet sexual demands, but it's the character arc that Betty quietly endures as she gets the hots for him which sells the whole bit.

It's not just a lack of presence that knocks Betty off-center in her own episode, though. This one features a curious runner surrounding a fictitious US invasion of Switzerland, attacked after the violation of one tourist’s rights for being debatably “short-changed” 15 francs at a candy store. Like last season’s legendary Buckwheat runner, this one is all about using a ridiculous, silly scenario to deliver something scathingly satirical, and while it’s not one for the history books—and indeed, I’ve never seen this runner talked about—it’s still pretty fun every time the episode returns to the idea. Perhaps most enjoyably, Joe’s Reagan impression is deployed to its best effect in a long while as he gives a series of press conferences about the crisis, showing a propaganda film to smear Swiss interests (yodeling is apparently secret code) and later soliciting ideas via viewer male for arbitrary new nations to invade. 

This also marks the first episode of the season where Eddie's out of the studio, starting a trend of him appearing on-and-off across the next few months. His absences are covered with pre-recorded appearances from a special "preview show," and this episode comes out swinging with one of Eddie's most classic bits: "James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party!" I always love seeing Eddie trot out his energetic James Brown impression, and this is undoubtedly that impression's finest use as Eddie shimmies around a hot tub and lets out a soulful screech when he dips his foot in the water. ("TOO HOT IN THE HOT TUB! BURNED MYSELF!") Short, succinct, brilliant. The Gumby piece later in the episode is perhaps less so, though I at least appreciate using the pretaped aspect of Eddie's arrangement to take on something a bit more ambitious, with Gumby directing a biopic about his life and bossing around his impersonator (played perfectly by Gary) while being generally misanthropic with his crew. These bits have proven to be far more hit-and-miss with me than I would've expected, but as the last Gumby sketch in Eddie's tenure, it's a pretty nice installment to go out on.

Meanwhile, Eddie's absence has left Joe as the single most valuable person in-studio, and the episode wastes no time to give Joe carte blanche. He plows his way through the episode like Kate McKinnon's spirit animal, doughy and pointless facial prosthetics abound. His Reagan impression is at least put to fine work in the episode's runner, though I could do without the timely (?) Lee Iacoca piece, and especially the cold open where he dons some truly horrific blackface as Jesse Jackson. It's everyone else who rises to the occasion more. Jim continues to stake out his place at the show, and this week he discovers a wonderful scene partner in the form of Brad. They're two performers who are at their best when they find the right way to channel intensity, and the "You Win A Dollar!" sketch may stealthily be this episode's best, casting Brad as the overeager host of a sadistic game show that finds Jim's contestant fishing for a marble in a jar of razors and shoving his head into a deep-fryer, all in the hopes of winning an impossible game for a prize of one torn-up dollar. The Ebersol years love a mean-spirited sketch sprinkled in here and there, and while that usually doesn't serve them too well, this one's cruelty coalesces perfectly with a sense of gleeful absurdity. The two also team up in an SNN segment where Jim runs through old cast catchphrases in an attempt to endear himself to the audience, though it feels ill-conceited considering he's already done a lot to prove his worth; he even scores a solo piece here as a butch ballerina in a production of Swan Lake, and for as barebones as the premise is, it's an excellent physical performance that kills with the audience.

I wish I could like the last sketch, a showcase for Betty and the female cast to dig their nails into the sort of broad characterization that the women of SNL seldom got to do in this era, but the fact that said sketch premise entailed them being trans women lamenting the fact that they can’t be manly men anymore ensures that it’s a real rough watch. Even with that, though, this is a remarkably solid episode as Season 9 marches forward without its biggest star and plots what this new, Eddie-less show will look and feel like. Let’s just say I’m not at all opposed. (Penned 6/06/22)

GRADE: B+.

11/12/83: Teri Garr / Mick Fleetwood's Zoo (S9 E05)

I remember, when I was talking to my friend John about Teri Garr after her very middling Season 5 episode, he mentioned that she was a rare host who managed to helm an episode in three separate eras, with three entirely different casts… and yet none of those episodes, dishearteningly, are very good. It’s understandable why, in her first and final hosting gig, things struggle; the show was gassed out and in desperate need of an identity on both occasions. This one, on the other hand, has less of an excuse, though it’s also undoubtedly the least trying of her episodes, which is perhaps the most modest win she could get. Teri Garr gets to host the sort of Ebersol-era episode that, aside from a few fun moments, passes through you like a ghost.

I don’t think there’s really any single factor I can “blame” for how humdrum this episode feels. A little bit of it is the fact that Teri, while certainly a good actor, can’t really perform with the sort of broadness that live sketch requires, and the material doesn’t meet her half-way. At the same time, though, this is an episode that has that very Ebersol quality to me in that in so many of the night’s sketches, I can recognize where the humor is supposed to be, and some part of my brain responds to it accordingly… but I don’t laugh. I just acknowledge. And this episode, sadly, has a lot of that. 

Fortunately, there’s still variety in that "not laughing but I get it" mold. We get some very performance-driven pieces that don’t fully work, for instance! Teri leads a sketch where the joke is her attempts to film a coffee commercial become more and more frenzied with every ounce of caffeine, and it’s not a bad conceit for a powerhouse performer. The issue is just the fact that Teri simply can't do it, and the sketch doesn’t format itself well to make the idea of her gradual decline funny. (It’s definitely the lesser of Teri’s two coffee-centric SNL pieces.) Meanwhile, Joe helms a sketch that retells the story of Lincoln’s assassination with a big revelation: Lincoln was actually a massive prick! Joe’s fun, and he acquits himself well, but the idea feels a bit easy while lacking the sort of comic reinvention—no jeers of “Suck my presidential cock, bitch!”, really—that could further energize the idea.

On the other hand, there’s also a lot of not-quite-there sketches that exist in a more conceptual, writerly space. I actually quite like the idea of Mary’s big sketch in this episode, casting her as a nun who causes so many miscommunications to her fellow sisters in the sarcastic advice she gives that she’s dragging the name of her church down, but once the game of the sketch is established, it immediately falls short of finding fun places to go. Meanwhile, Gary helms a piece as a husband pleading with a grocery store cashier that his wife is a witch who’s transformed him into a rabbit, and it suffers perhaps the opposite issue: it’s a fully-realized scenario with a very nice arc, but it struggles to be very stirring comedically.

The episode is wise to sprinkle in a few more pre-recorded Eddie segments, which I assume will be the standard going forward; he lands another funny if uninventive “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” sketch, though those are fortunately very infallible, as well as possibly his best Dion piece, however characteristically fraught. They don’t do much to raise this episode up, though, which is unfortunate. Everyone’s trying, but little resonates. As we approach this upcoming string of exciting, comedy legend hosts (Jerry Lewis, the Smothers Brothers, and Flip Wilson), let’s hope the episodes are a bit more like Betty Thomas and a bit less like poor Teri Garr. (Penned 6/07/22)

GRADE: C+.

11/19/83: Jerry Lewis / Loverboy (S9 E06)

I don’t get Jerry Lewis. Maybe it’s because I’m not French. But also, plausibly, he’s a figure who hasn’t quite withstood the test of time, his entire comic persona built off of a shtick which feels borderline incomprehensible to me now. I’d argue that he’s acquired if not for the fact that he was one of the biggest comedians in his heyday, a fact that this episode has no hesitancy in reminding you of. Here’s the thing: I don’t want to feel disconnected from this episode. Even though this is a celebration of a beloved figure that I have limited context of, that’s a genre of SNL episode that I’ve found fairly infallible. Whether or not I have the greatest understanding of someone like Sid Caesar or the Smother Brothers, their episodes have a reverence that parlays into a fantastic combination of sweetness and strength. This episode, though, has none of that. Instead, it’s just… a lot of dicking around.

That shouldn’t immediately be the biggest issue. Some of my favorite episodes of SNL so far have been the loosest and most chaotic. Joan Rivers just last season, for instance, is another comic voice incapable of being diluted, but the show managed to succeed because of it. This episode, meanwhile, risks caving in at every turn due to the potency of Jerry’s presence and looseness. Jerry actively just comes across as very non-committal and lacking in professionalism, and at its worst, he becomes a detriment to the sketches that are supposed to prop him up. But that’s another issue with this episode—none of those sketches are all that good in the first place.

Half of his material seems like it was designed to really hammer in the purported fun of watching him mess around with Joe and especially Eddie, back in the studio after his two-episode absence. I get it; these two are stars, and they’ve become popular for the Jerry Lewis impressions in their repertoire, which are goofy enough that even I can enjoy them. But there’s just something that feels off about it all. The monologue, which should be absolutely magnetic, just comes across as an awkward gathering of three very detached individuals: Joe pontificates on Jerry’s brilliance, Eddie responds with an aloofness that wins the crowd, and Jerry shies away the attempts to sincerely express gratitude while awkwardly trying to riff (something he does all night to limited success). It’s far more fun watching the three of them vamping in the 10-to-1 slot with their dueling Jerry impressions, which is the closest the night gets to attaining what I think it was intending to, but even then that’s lacking in anything close to substance. Eddie and Jerry do get to team up in the most functional and written sketch of the bunch, casting Eddie as a skydiving instructor who’s left to do damage control after his client (Jerry) jumps out of the plane without a parachute, but that prompts the other big issue with Jerry in this episode, who hackily screams his way through the sketch without much true urgency: he’s just not very good at this.

Jerry Lewis is many things, but he’s simply not compatible with this format. He refuses to ground himself in a performance, makes strange ad-libs that create awkward pauses in the middle of sketches, and interrupts any semblance of rhythm in his sketches by stifling laughter and leaving his poor scene partners to patiently wait for him to subdue. Even Tim, the show’s greatest off-the-cuff improvisor, seems aghast at what to do in both of his scenes with Jerry. One, casting him as Jerry’s French voice dubber, is a fairly fun vehicle for him to jump around and do his best impression, but Jerry faffs about so much, interjecting in strange spots and pausing in others (all while calling Mary, in the scene as another character, by her own name), that Tim is basically left to power through everything in isolation. Later, the piece where he interviews the founder of an American Jewish Football League as played by Jerry finds him biding time while Jerry struggles his way through giggles before most of the humor is even laid out. All-around, despite Ebersol giving him more room than most hosts get in this era, Jerry does a rough job.

At the very least, there are some bright spots whenever Jerry steps back and lets SNL be SNL. Something I find interesting is that this season seems to embrace blackouts more, a development I forgot to mention in the previous review; while that prompts a forgettable Jim piece at the end of the episode, it also gives us another rendition of Larry's Corner. It's perhaps not as memorable as the superb first installment from the season premiere, but it still delivers a delightfully swift and efficient punchline and scores the best laugh out of the night. There's also a decent sketch, with Jim hosting a show interviewing people about when they first heard of Kennedy's assassination... but none of them had heard of it until just before the show, if even that. It risks predictability, but everyone's performances make it work and it escalates to a wonderfully great out (Tim breaking into tears at the news) which, for SNL, deserves a lot of respect. Lastly, there's one genuinely great, full scene in the episode, the Thanksgiving sketch casting Julia as a college kid whose new values challenge her parents at dinner. It’s a nice, relatable piece that risks being cliché, but Julia and Jim power through it with some strong performances. It’s Mary, though, who absolutely steals the scene as Julia’s mother, readily accepting the umbrage her daughter takes with her lifestyle and profusely apologizing for her values and general existence without question.

Ultimately, this episode wounds up meeting a rather unfortunate outcome for me. If you like Jerry, you might really enjoy this episode, but all it does is leave me scratching my head, no closer to understanding his lasting appeal. Sacre bleu! (Penned 6/10/22)

GRADE: C+.

12/03/83: The Smothers Brothers / Big Country (S9 E07)

I fear that, as the patterns of this season are further establishing themselves, Season 9 might be far more of a struggle than I hoped. A lot of things are pre-empting those growing pains: the loss of Eddie, the introduction of Jim, and tied to both of those, the battle for some new kind of stability. That final point is what makes this season feel so interesting to me, especially in comparison to Season 8; whereas that season plowed along amicably with a frequent lack of ambition in favor of dishing out hits, the sliding door vibes of this season makes it feel eager to find new things that connect when all else fails. The show, once again, is thrown into theoretically exciting, unpredictable territory, but the great misfortune is that aside from a few strong outings, it doesn’t feel like the show is closer to cracking the formula, and while this Smothers Brothers episode is a step in the right direction after the last two difficult outings, it’s still nothing too special.

Fortunately, unlike the last two episodes, this one’s difficulties are in no part due to the Smothers Brothers. While their second hosting gig isn’t as good as their first, it’s more indebted to the weaker material that's presented than anything else. They’re at their best performing their classic double act, and this episode’s greatest fortune is that it makes more room for the two to play off of each other; the monologue, a sing-along that gets repeatedly interrupted by Tom’s attempts to get a candid photograph of his brother, is probably my favorite bit of theirs that I’ve seen on SNL, and they also get a fun and catchy little performance of a Mason Williams arrangement, sold comedically by Dick’s disinterested key-pressing and Tom’s intense fixation on nailing his horn squeaks.

As with their last episode, though, we also see them incorporated into the sketches, and strangely not too frequently as a duo. It’s a shame; I feel like one of the enjoyable prospects of a dual hosting gig is seeing the two hosts get to interact with each other in different sketches (see: Devito and Perlman), but this gig tends to simply alternate the two, giving them each about as much as Ebersol gives any of his hosts (like two sketches each). Tom has a fairly decent turn as astronaut-turned-senator John Glenn, competing against Eddie’s Jesse Jackson in a game show over who would be the better hypothetical president, but something about it doesn’t fully work. He gives a strong performance and makes good use of his guileless persona, but Eddie’s attempt at the impression feels weak and some awkward dead spots at pivotal moments cause the sketch’s most theoretically incisive moments to miss. Dick, meanwhile, makes a walk-on appearance at the end of the decent garage band sketch; it’s half-slice-of-life, half-discordant madness as the cast plays a horrible rendition of “Gloria” that causes Dick’s Atlantic Records representative to insist they immediately give up on the musical industry. (It’s fairly predictable, though I liked the turn once he left with the band conflating his lack of comment on some areas of their performance as good signs.)  

The rest of the night is a series of scraps, some fun and some cumbersome. The episode actually has some really fun, unique framing, with the cold open establishing the threat of heavy rains in the studio derailing the show as if it’s a sports game, and having a later sketch be cut short by unexpected rainfall is a perfect way to carry that little runner through the episode and give things more of a unique flair. There’s also two particularly fun guest spots at this iteration of SNN: Gary introduces the audience to his fully grown-up, neglected Cabbage Patch Kid (“How was I supposed to accept being a single parent at the age of three??”) and Tim faces off with his most hostile audience yet with a particularly groan-inducing Jack Badofsky appearance. On the flip side, though, this episode finds Jim’s presence on the show already feeling tired and limiting, with one of his sketches casting him as a flippantly anti-Semitic talk show host and the other casting him as a television psychologist telling all of his guests that their dreams are about their sexual desires for him. There’s room for a boisterous comedic voice on the show, but these sorts of premises wear too thin and struggle to find an angle beyond the sort of arrogance and poor taste that embodied the worst of his brother’s tendencies. I know he’s an extremely capable performer from his first two episodes as a cast member, and I want to see more of that sort of charisma from him than stuff like this, and more of an effort to emerge from the Belushi shadow; pieces like these just make him feel like an ill substitute.

It’s sad that things in this episode don’t quite pop off, but at this point, I suppose it’s not that surprising. Hopefully this season can get a better grasp on its identity in due time. (Penned 6/10/22)

GRADE: B-.

12/10/83: Flip Wilson / Stevie Nicks (S9 E08)

During episodes like this, I start to become actively baffled by Ebersol's reluctance to implement hosts into shows. I get it if it's someone who can't be relied on too heavily, I suppose, though I think that's part of the fun of SNL in the first place; along with being a week of sketch comedy with some of the most highly-trained sketch performers around, it's also a sink-or-swim spectacle for whatever host chooses to enter the gauntlet. When you have a host like Flip Wilson, though, a then-living legend who has made his mark in television history through sketch comedy, it makes no sense that his SNL episode would opt to burn through its checklist of uses for him and then forget he was ever there. Barring that disappointment, though, this episode's able to maintain a decent energy throughout, and while it doesn't live up to its immediate potential, it's a decent outing for this season all the same and a solid note to send the show off on for the winter break.

In terms of Flip, he feels sort of old hat—hell, his monologue is a Polish joke—though at least fun in that antiquity; if he's not the most adaptable performer, he's still very good at what he does. A sketch like the airplane bathroom attendant piece wouldn't work half as well without him being able to channel magnitudes of energy to will over the lack of writing, and even if it doesn't really get over, all the performers exit unscathed and earn their laughs. The most notable part of the episode, surely, is him reprising his Geraldine character, which is sort of... complicated... though I suppose that just makes her presence in a Dion sketch all the more unsurprising. Seeing Flip cross-dress and play a sassy black woman risks being nothing but wince-worthy, though for all of those problematic undertones, he possesses the agency and control as a performer to make it fairly fun all the same; the more groan-worthy aspect of the sketches is simply the trademark homophobia that permeates every Dion piece. I much preferred the more low-key sketch where Gary is a shoe-tier whose sole client is Flip Wilson, which is far more unassuming but presents Gary an opportunity to do some solid character work while inviting Flip to play more at the show's level.

It's nice, too, that in Flip's disappointing absence, this is an episode that still feels motivated to conjure up some pretty exceptional, hostless material. Jim scores a particularly wonderful highlight with "Hello Trudy," anchoring a radio call-in show whose show only truly caters to the one titular person who listens in every episode (Julia, submitting equally great work); it's an incredibly simple but great piece, and it does a fine job of dragging the show's poor guest (Joe) along on the journey, his increasing frustration off-set delightfully by Jim's very patient rapport with his sole listener. Meanwhile, Joe and Eddie have their final installment of Solomon and Pudge, a recurring piece that I'll never tire of. It's the most thoughtful and consistent use of the pair's chemistry, and even if there's something of a predictable emotional element to it by the nature of its formula, the sincerity in their performances always leaves them deeply affecting. Even Robin gets a pretty fun little highlight this episode, anchoring a sketch opposite Joe as two libidinous weirdos who spend their Christmas evening engaging in endless foreplay that immediately fizzles out when they both acknowledge that they're all talk and no action. Two other short pieces round out the episode's slick line-up: Jim's "Crazy Weinstein" (great title), casting him as a crazy spokesperson who's actually just... a crazy guy with no wares to sell, and the nice, palette-cleansing "Subterraneans" sketch concluding the episode, with Tim bringing several discordantly-singing subway passengers together into a rather nice rendition of the Hallelujah chorus.

I would've loved to see Flip participate show more, and I found the few opportunities that he had to play along with the cast to be very charming, but it's a pleasant consolation prize that this episode is one of the sturdiest and most consistent episodes we've had all season. There will be some interesting changes once SNL returns from its holiday break—tonight also marks the end of Brad's SNN tenure, being fired from the position by Dick, and Eddie's lack of presence will keep becoming more and more felt until he ultimately leaves in February—so it's nice to have one more outing where everyone feels confident and assured before we enter the season's more complicated territory. (Penned 6/30/22)

GRADE: B.

1/14/84: Father Guido Sarducci / Huey Lewis & The News (S9 E09)

What a strange, strange episode, though I suppose that’s where I placed my expectations to some extent. I mean, it’s hard not to expect something a bit different with the prospects of Don Novello hosting an Ebersol-era episode in-character as Father Guido Sarducci, even if, admittedly, my expectations weren’t too high that he would be any more of a presence in this episode than most other hosts in this period. (To my surprise, he was actually pretty ingrained, though we’ll get to that in a bit.) More than anything else, I was interested in the potential effect that having such an influential writer from the original era would have on this week’s material, whether that means actively participating in the writing process, punching up jokes, or curating a stronger selection of sketches than usual. 

There are moments where that expectation comes into fruition, but for the most part, this episode gets bogged down by something even more unexpected: an extensive, call-in runner asking the at-home audience to dial for specific Democratic candidates, with SNL allegedly being responsible for whoever the Democratic nomination will be. It’s unsurprising that, for as heavily as this episode is built on that idea, it’s seldom remembered; compared to the other call-in stunts that get name-checked here (Larry the Lobster, the Andy Kaufman vote), this one lacks novelty and becomes too labored. (I literally think at least one sixth of this episode’s runtime is people reading off the phone numbers to call for each candidate.) We do get a somewhat novel, host-specific twist, with Sarducci disavowing his interest in the candidates and opening a phoneline for ZZ Top to get the nomination instead, but that also leads to a fairly predictable outcome: ZZ Top sweeps the competition. Hooray?

It's more interesting to see how much this episode tries to work Sarducci into sketches, even if neither are classics; I really appreciated that creative exercise, and Novello is so strangely charismatic that he wrings laughs and depth out of what he’s provided. “The Man Who Loves to Swim,” for instance, would be a bomb if not for the way that Sarducci tenses up and rejects every advance women make on him by running off to the pool in quiet, sexual frustration—something about his cadence lands that repeated punchline rather adroitly. The slice-of-life sketch starring Sarducci at the end of the night is far better, and the sort of thing I was hoping to see Novello advocate for. It’s far from perfect, casting Jim as a TransEastern Airline employee whose job is to socialize with Sarducci as he waits for his delayed flight, but it gives Jim a chance at a more low-status and empathetic character (which he plays well!), and seeing his rapport build with Sarducci as the two connect in their philosophical musings is very sweet, even if the ending doesn’t quite connect. 

There are a few other highlights in the episode, though nothing blows you away. Despite Eddie’s absence, we get a pretty fun if not fully warranted Buckwheat sketch where he appears as a ghost to protect Mary’s always-fun Alfalfa from sensationalist publishers who want him to pen a grimy exposé on his late friend. It works mostly just because Eddie’s Buckwheat impression intrinsically works, even with the lack of commitment we see so much this season—it almost makes his repeated utterances of ghostly “Oooo”s more funny—though the sketch’s greatest contribution is Gary, cast as Buckwheat’s translator, going back and forth between his very professional demeanor and some flawlessly-executed Buckwheat nonsense whenever he has to relay the conversation. (It’s nice seeing Eddie and Gary play off of each other, and alongside the Gumby sketch from a bit earlier this season, I’m glad they’re getting some fun spotlights together.) Julia also submits one of her best performances so far in her tenure, doing an impression of Linda Ronstadt in an incredibly vicious takedown of her purported irrelevancy and desperation for attention; the reference is sort of lost on me, but Julia commands the stage perfectly and has, inevitably, an amazing singing voice.

I think that if we didn’t have the obtrusive runner weighing this episode down, it could’ve been something a lot more interesting, but those little cracks of more engaging and successful material help carry things to the finish line. There’s just one too many gimmicks in this episode, I suppose. (Penned 6/11/22)

GRADE: B-.

1/21/84: Michael Palin and his mother / The Motels (S9 E10)

It speaks to how much of a sly tactician Ebersol is that he's glommed onto Michael Palin. While I've only been particularly impressed by one of his hosting gigs before, he's clearly someone who's down to step in and entertain the whims of the week; if he doesn't seem to elevate like fellow Python host Eric Idle, he happily cooperates. He's more into actualizing than cultivating, which makes it feel like his episodes could go any way. As his final hosting gig, and one in an era that hasn't always been the best at host utilization, I was somewhat apprehensive of how this episode could go, though pleasantly, it was a satisfying evening, packing in some fun weirdness, writerly showcase pieces, and taking a step forward from last week's bogged-down episode to get more of a pulse on the future of the season.

First of all, and most strikingly, this is—surprise!—another gimmick episode of sorts, double-billing Michael Palin and his 80 year-old mother Mary as dual hosts. I say "gimmick episode of sorts" because she's only really there as a prop for the monologue and to introduce the musical guests alongside her son, but she's a fun presence all the same; of the few words she actually gets out in the monologue, all cozied up in an armchair with a book and some knitting equipment, her immaculately chaste delivery of "Now, go ahead and be funny" might be one of the night's shining moments. Elsewhere, though, this is certainly Palin's night, and he powers his way through a mix of material that ranges from sharp to dull, all with the same amount of spirit. His best moment is most certainly in the 10-to-1, portraying a Mississippi boat captain having a pivotal conversation with a young Mark Twain (Gary); it's an absurdist word stew that packs all of its delightful one-liners into one high density, delightful package, and Gary and Michael make for a particularly strong team. A few other bits are just fine, enlivened by his professionalism though certainly with room for improvement. The "man on chain" sketch, with him trying to sell Brad and Robin on renting an apartment that randomly includes a feral man chained to a hole in the wall (Jim), feels like it should work better than it ultimately does, though there are some fun little laughs throughout ("You'll find many of your best apartments have men on chains!" "Oh, no they don't!" "No they don't, you're right, I panicked."); a later sketch where he advocates for the rights of plankton is similarly concise with its premise, if perhaps uncomplicated.  

Everything else he anchors is fairly middling, if fleetingly interesting (including a three-part runner about an ill-conceived high-tech game show, and a real rough sketch about him owning a mutton franchise restaurant). I'd rather turn my attention to the episode's other unique offerings. SNN, strangely, has been very truncated; with Brad Hall dethroned as anchor, this episode opts instead to have special reports from regular guests interspersed across the night. It's hard to say how well it works, and it does feel like Ebersol greedily gutting the show down to its bare minimum essentials, but Joe and Tim are fun enough doing their sports guy and Jack Badofsky segments, respectively. Eddie, AWOL again, submits a particularly fun "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" segment, teaching kids about ransom while bargaining over the phone for the pet dog he stole. The more amusing pretaped entry to the night, though, and the first of this era's imaginative, in-house pretapes, casts Jim as a shoplifter who manages to shove the entirety of a store's goods down his clothes. Jim is a perfect, sleazy everyman, and Gary as the store clerk lends just the right underplayed guilelessness; the parting visual of Jim leaving the store with a hulking blob of stolen goods protruding awkwardly out of his clothes, and the closing button with Tim, are particularly strong and make me excited to see what other inspired pretapes this era has to offer. Lastly, "That's Okay" is swift, economical, and probably one of the best live sketches of the night, casting Joe as a host who eschews guests from displaying their extraordinary talents... until Brad makes the bold claim that he can hammer three nails into his skull. 

It took me a while to figure out how to land on this episode, because there's about as much that works as there is that doesn't, but in the end, things get over pretty well. Michael Palin does his thing, and he does it well, but it's the show's efforts without him that make this entry stand out the most. (Penned 7/15/22)

GRADE: B.

1/28/84: Don Rickles / Billy Idol (S9 E11)

With the spectacle of a live show, you almost always want one of two things. The most natural source of excitement is just being able to witness something so precise, to watch something where the live aspect enhances and awes but never serves to break the illusion of the world being created—it is to have your disbelief suspended. There's some part of you, though, deep down, that wants to see what happens when things go sideways. What happens when things go off-script when everyone is watching? The Don Rickles episode isn't just a whole lot of that, it's the end-all be-all of fuckin' around, so viciously chaotic that whatever the initial goal of almost every sketch in the show was ends up being swallowed in the madness. Thank god it's fun as shit.

All of that, of course, is indebted to Don Rickles, who makes it incredibly clear early on that we're winging this entire episode. He's one of the only guys who could make that work, rather than letting the show cave in on itself in the same way as a Milton Berle or a Jerry Lewis (to a lesser, but still egomaniacal extent), because he knows how to welcome everyone else in on the joke. It's pretty much the most basic principle of his entire comedic outlook. I can't say exactly how well he works for me doing his shtick, simply because he seems to get a lot of passes to say outrageously dated things, though his monologue is at least easy to soldier through, in all of its ten minutes, because there's something infectious about how Don's fueled by the people around him. It's the same energy, too, that he applies to every sketch that he appears in, always ready to veer everyone off-course at a moment's notice and leave his scene partners and the audience on the edge of their seat.

SNL as a show isn't really built for someone like him (the closest I can think of is how they used Joan Rivers, but even then she warmly embraced the writing rather than ripping it apart), but it certainly opens its doors to the trampling. This episode is loose, and every sketch feels primed to collapse. I mean hell, we start with an "I Married A Monkey" installment, which is ironically probably the most Don stays on-script the entire night! All of the cast readily accepts that they could be thrown curveballs at any minute, and most of them smile or burst out laughing as he sets their sketches on fire, but most serendipitously, Don finds a kindred spirit in Joe, who goes on to have maybe the best episode of his entire tenure. Everyone in the SNL cast comes from an extensive sketch and improv background and they're acclimated to more grounded ad-libs and riffing as necessary, but Joe... he's the only one who will completely give up the ghost, wink at the audience, and embrace things collapsing around him, and while that can be annoying elsewhere, it makes him a perfect foil here. The "Witness Relocation Center" sketch is the crown jewel of their partnership; it's ostensibly a sketch where he and Jim present how they'll help reinvent and protect Don's identity (in comedically inept ways), but as the sketch goes on it becomes more and more about watching them smack each other around and be ruthlessly antagonistic with little regards for however the script was ever supposed to go. (When Joe starts trying to ad-lib with him, Don immediately snaps "I'll do the funny stuff, you just do the regular lines!") In the heat of the moment, Joe gives him a slap for every word he says, ending his sentence with a smooch; after standing there momentarily stunned, Don immediately collapses to the ground. Priceless shit.

Of course, though, I'd be remiss not to mention that a full night of sketches like these... it's sort of a blessing and a curse. It's enchanting to watch Don work as hard as he can to veer the show off-course, but throughout the night I just couldn't help but think about how weak all of the material would be if he wasn't derailing it. A premise like "Don of Verona" doesn't even really work as a fail-safe for Don to riff on because the idea is so threadbare; it's just the age-old, hypothetical scenario of a character set in a time period and a specific context that they exist on the complete outside of. If it wasn't for the insanity of Don completely breaking everything and calling out Joe for slapping him around in the previous sketch, it would be a sketch that offers nothing at all—a testament to Don's larger-than-life presence and perpetual entertainment value, but something of an indictment of the material for needing him to lift it up. "This Is Your Afterlife" feels like the best chance that we get to see that weird disparity; whenever Don isn't taking control, it's relentlessly boring as Tim drones about therapy and Mary whines about "the aaalimoney," only suddenly bursting into vibrant colors when Gary needs to pull the sketch back from Don ("You're doing a great job, I dunno who you are but I'm gonna see that your on the show every week!") and when Joe resurfaces for some more roguishly meta nonsense. (Don chasing after Joe when he exits and smacking him as he climbs down the ladder of the set is a stunningly hilarious capper to the whole night.)

In the end, I think that's the one thing holding the show back, but make no mistake: this episode is a triumph, even if it falls just short of being a perfect episode for me that marries the exciting live energy with compelling writing. Kudos, forever, to Ebersol for letting the show fall apart like this from time to time. Of all of the strange decisions that he's made, reminding us that anything can happen and injecting some danger into the show is perhaps one of his greatest revelations. (Penned 7/21/22)

GRADE: A.

2/11/84: Robin Williams / Adam Ant (S9 E12)

I must confess that my familiarity with Robin Williams is very limited. I mostly know him from the later stages of his career, and for his more empathetic and nuanced turns in films like The Birdcage or Dead Poets Society. Subsequently, I didn't expect him to be as much of a whirlwind as he was here; I knew he had a lot more zaniness to his act, but his persona here feels teeming with some sort of coke-tinged, Steve Martin whackadoo energy, overpowering every other performer in his commitment to the nonsense he was presented. Fortunately, though, this was the sort of episode that seems predicated on him being in that position. Ebersol goes all in on Robin, and the result is one of this season's more solid and impressive outings.

There's just something to be said about how much of a force of nature Robin is, as well as how much his talents lend themselves to a sketch comedy format. While his energy is comparable to someone like Joan Rivers, he's far more interested in character work than dedication to some singular voice, and that lends the episode a wonderful sense of variety. Sometimes, these sketches don't quite work—the mime roommate sketch opposite of Brad just can't quite tap into the potential of its premise despite offering Robin's most animated performance of the episode, and the baby sketch feels strangely scattered even though everyone has solid characterizations—but that uniqueness to every premise, and how much each of them really try instead of feeling like sleepy time-fillers, lends them a likeable vibe all the same.

Fortunately, too, this episode has a lot of legitimate winners. One of my favorites was the strange "Firing Line" sketch, with Robin's William F. Buckley interviewing Eddie about "the sudden flammability of [black people] in the 80s"; the context of it being about Michael Jackson's tragic Pepsi commercial accident lends it perhaps a mean-spirited tone, but it manages to go beyond that starting place into truly loopy and absurd territory, all while both Robin and Eddie submit flawless, heavily-detailed performances. (The button at the end with Eddie starting to spontaneously burst into smoke, too, ends this sketch absolutely perfectly: "Help, Tito!") Robin also scores a win with the strong Siamese twins sketch, where he and Jim are two brothers conjoined at the hip who get in heated, personal fights while trying to pick up women at a bar. It risks being a sort of iffy and easy premise, but Robin and Jim have such fun chemistry, and the scene is peppered in with so many delightfully ridiculous details even beyond its central conceit—Robin is a children's book author, while Jim "hunts down Nazi war criminals" and forces Robin to come along with him to Argentina for it—that it never loses an element of surprise.

It's also nice that the pieces Robin isn't a part of work incredibly well, too; if anything, they serve as a nice way to break up the show from his bouts of hyperactive energy. Alongside "Firing Line," the "Rock & Roll And Then Some" sketch cements this episode as one of Eddie's best at this weird, one-foot-out-the-door stage of his tenure. It's one of his finest pair-ups with Joe, who interviews him as he makes claims about being one of the long-forgotten, original Beatles, Clarence. Perhaps there's not much to the writing, but it's so silly and so perfectly catered to Eddie's voice (hearing Beatles songs with Eddie repeatedly interjecting "man" after every line is comedic alchemy), and for once this season, he feels very committed, selling his threats to the other Beatles and to Joe's disbelieving host to great effect. We also get yet another delightful Andy Breckman sketch, and in tandem with his other pieces so far this season ("Larry's Corner"; "You Win A Dollar!"), he's proven to be one of the most reliable, rising voices of this era. This one, a talk show hosted by Mary where she interviews one person who talks on a 30 second delay (Tim) and one person who talks 30 seconds ahead of time (Julia), is prime Breckman territory, at once both insanely sharp and artfully stupid, and it gets the sort of delightful rise out of the audience that further exemplifies Breckman's flawless batting average.

There's a smattering of other sketches that deserve mention if only because they hold this episode back—weird, baffling slithers of ideas like Tim's brownface Gandhi as a trucker, or Mary and Robin Duke as a female rock duo who are ugly, and that's every joke about them—but the uniform strength of the pieces that work, as well as Robin William's engaging performances, fuel this episode with the sort of vitality I wish Season 9 were able to tap into more often. At least, in that scarcity, episodes like this one feel extra special. (Penned 6/21/22)

GRADE: B+.

2/18/84: Jamie Lee Curtis / The Fixx (S9 E13)

It's an interesting footnote that, aside from Bill Murray, Jamie Lee Curtis is the only host from the infamous Season 6 to come back and host the show a second time. Part of that, admittedly, is because their host selection started to scrape the rocks at a certain point, and I doubt anyone ever really wanted to see Sally Kellerman or David Carradine try hosting again, but I think it speaks to Jamie's gameness that she'd accept the opportunity to return, not even in hopes of scoring a better episode but simply because it's an incredibly enjoyable time for her. Hell, Jamie even feels like an active component of this episode, a rarity for someone hosting in the Ebersol era who doesn't even have a comedy background! That helps give this episode a bit more of an amicable feel, which is nice, because a lot of the material doesn't quite rise to the occasion.

For the most part, there's just a strange, off energy to this episode, even if the cast, for the most part, works as hard as they can to combat it. There are a couple of more obvious suspects for that gassed-out feeling. First, for some reason, is that this episode contains three repeated pretapes to pad the night out, one being the inexplicable re-airing of "Prose and Cons" after two seasons, a bafflingly un-slick addition to the show as if there is anyone watching the show at this point who doesn't know who Tyrone Greene is. This is also an episode that very heavily sells itself around the fact that Eddie Murphy is present, a fact that gets shouted-out in both the Rappin' Jimmy B number up top and forms the basis of the monologue... but this is possibly one of the most underwhelming nights of Eddie's entire tenure. There's a strange symmetry, in a very roundabout way, for Jamie Lee Curtis to host both Eddie's first credited episode in S6, where he's super green and eager, and one of his last in S9, where he could barely give a shit that he's there. Not that what the night offers him gives him much incentive to care, really; aside from a straight role in a later sketch, his one highlight piece, "Jake's Video Hut," feels like a half-baked Eddie and Joe pair-up that prays that their sparks can carry the lack of writing across. It sadly doesn't. 

Even beyond that, though, this isn't an episode where too much works, despite no shortage of variety. Joe's Reagan work-out sketch, where the only jokes seem to be that he's old and hard of hearing, is so toothless that even the audience can't give it any laughs; the sketch shared between Jamie and Jim as two actors doing a dialogue rehearsal of a sex scene lacks much purpose or variation. Jamie also gets to cut enjoyably loose in a few sketches, though not to any great effect: aside from an animated make-out session with Gary, the second installment of El Dorko retraces the original too much to feel warranted, and the Halloween musical sketch, "Heart Tartare," is nimbly-performed but too underdeveloped. A few things rise more to the top (Brad's gleefully tortured Pete Best impression, Julia's tour de force performance in "The Julia Show"), but there's one true runaway victory here: Andy Breckman's wonderful "Tag" sketch, casting Jim as a man whose life is turned upside-down when a mysterious stranger crawls through his window and tags him. It's a great display of Jim's ability to play lower-status, empathetic characters that the audience wants to root for, as well as being a wonderful showing for Ebersol's increased interest in the film department. Being able to take the sketch premise beyond the studio grants it a fantastic, epic scale as Jim roams the streets of New York, disheveled and purposeless, until he's finally able to pass the curse onto another unfortunate soul.

In the end, this episode feels like a perfect representation of where SNL is at right now—a confusing crossroads. Without being able to lean as hard on Eddie and Joe anymore, the show's trying to figure out what it can lean on: the rest of the cast? The host? The film department? Hopefully, in this final stretch of Season 9, we'll start to see a bit more clarity. (Penned 6/22/22)

GRADE: B-.

2/25/84: Edwin Newman / Kool & The Gang (S9 E14)

Did retired newscaster Edwin Newman just host the best episode of the season? Against all odds... he might have. Ebersol is all about weird, but most importantly, calculated risks, which leads me to believe that perhaps he knew better than the rest of us that Edwin wouldn't just be compatible with the show but a sturdy and captivating anchor (pun fully unintended). Most gimmick hosts just stay in their little corner, occasionally woven into sketches but with their presence being the full extent of the novelty; Edwin, on the other hand, is in it to win it, and by god, he gives it his all in all of his understated glory.

It's immediately striking and somewhat surprising just how much confidence the show has in Edwin, but as the night rages on, it becomes obvious how warranted that confidence is. He's far from inessential in the same way that most hosts this era simply get slotted into utility roles. Instead, he's the nucleus, with so much of the episode's material predicated on his ability to execute it... and he dos so with aplomb. Sometimes, all Edwin has to do is read his lines, because his deadpan voice lends itself so perfectly to comedy; a sketch like "Urban Answers" is such a hoot for the simple fact that hearing Edwin exercise his elevated vocabulary while dressed up as a rival gang member is brilliantly obtuse. (His delivery of, "I am prepared to fillet you, if necessary," while brandishing a knife was the undeniable moment of the night for me.) But Edwin is also capable of carrying so much more, and the show is smart to offer Edwin more involved pieces to sink his teeth into. I wouldn't think that he could pull off a sketch like "How High The Noon," effectively a Wild West-themed variant of Nate Herman's Mark Twain sketch earlier this season, but somehow Edwin is as good as Michael Palin is at dispensing the absurdist nonsense, if not better; whereas other hosts might overact or lean too much into certain punchlines, his aloofness, so lacking in desperation, allows every single punchline to land with laser precision. His best performance of all, though, is in the fantastic "Face the Press" sketch, putting him in a panel of reporters tasked with questioning Jim's terrifying, mafioso Secretary of Labor apointee who immediately dispenses of the other two panelists by murdering them. It ends up becoming a masterclass performance for Edwin, tasked with carrying the entirety of the scene on his shoulders as he anxiously attempts to beat around any prospective questions and stall for as long as he can, his life hanging in the balance. There's always a realism to how Edwin carries himself, and this particular sketch offers him the most room to channel that into legitimately great, believable acting.

This also marks the final episode for Eddie, a deeply bittersweet occasion that only serves to grant this episode even more specialness, and for once he seems particularly invested in savoring his final visit to the studio as a cast member even if his contributions are a somewhat mixed bag. Dion, of course, is a sketch I could always do without, though having the recurring character find the end of his journey as a make-up artist at SNL is a nice little bit of metaness; his James Brown reprisal is also pretty much just crowd-pleasing squeals and vocalizations, though he sells it as expected. Far more enjoyable is the reprisal of Eddie's Jesse Jackson impression, less because the impression's good (it's as rough as before) so much as it gives Eddie a chance to belt out one last silly song on the show: the fantastic "Hymietown," a silly bit of topicality that, indebted to Eddie's endless charms, proves quite transcendent all the same. His final contribution to the show finds him palling alongside Joe, just as he did when he made his debut only three years before, as two curmudgeonly old men reminiscing on the olden days when you could get anything for a nickel. There's not necessarily a lot on the page, but they sell it as they always do, so playful that they start to fuck up their lines, ad-lib ("You ever notice I look like Al Franken in 50 years?"), and time out before reaching the actual written conclusion of the piece. For once, the sloppiness just makes it all the more charming, and that closing image of the two laughing in their final moments of shared screentime, Joe leaning on Eddie's shoulder, is enduringly sweet. I'll miss these two together.

There are a few other fun novelties to this episode that only serve to strengthen my appreciation of it. I'd be remiss not to mention the great "News Bar" sketch, which starts somewhat slow only to hit a brilliant little pivot point. When Edwin makes a deal with Dan Rather that he could turn any regular Joe into a great news anchor, they approach the bartender, who responds with enthusiasm and turns to the camera: "That shouldn't be too hard, I used to read the news on Saturday Night Live. I'm Brad Hall." If this is the consolation prize that Brad gets for being booted from the show's recurring news segment, it's a damn charming one, with Edwin drilling him through several news stories that they sing My Fair Lady style. Speaking of SNN, too, we get to have Edwin take over the news desk, where he kills it to I suppose no great surprise; even so, making that perennial dead spot feel palatable is no small feat, and he sells the running joke of him refusing to deliver punchlines because he's so uninvested in the stories perfectly. Lastly, Kool & The Gang are in the building, powering through some energetic, sunny performances of "Joanna" and "Celebration"—what heartless soul could possibly hate that?

At the end of this joyous episode, I really just had one question: where does the show go from here? It's clear that, with Eddie gone, the show has some changes it has to make, and in the upcoming six episode trek leading up to the wildly reinvented Season 10, I'm curious to see how well SNL is able to adapt or evolve. As it stands, though, this episode is explosively fun, and perhaps all of its successes in lieu of Eddie suggest we're not in truly worrisome territory in the first place. (Penned 7/24/22)

GRADE: A.

3/17/84: Billy Crystal / Al Jarreau (S9 E15)

There's something strangely foreboding about the first episode after Eddie's departure from the show being hosted by Billy Crystal, and it's not just because that exchange has put us in the awkward position where Billy is the most qualified person to do a Sammy Davis Jr. impression. Whether intentional or not at the time, this hosting gig presents Billy with a trial that he carries so easily that it's not hard to see how he'd become one of the leading voices of Ebersol's decadent, climactic Season 10. There's just a minor issue with all of that, and perhaps a personal one: I don't know how much this episode has convinced me that Billy being an SNL fixture is worth being particularly excited about.

He's certainly not bad. Billy displays more ease than any host we've seen in some time, not just in the sense of being able to conduct the show but in his sheer command of it. You can tell he absolutely adores SNL, and that it's a personal honor for him to be able to host an episode, though it's something he takes with less humility than ego.  And that's part of the issue: there is nary a performer more indulgent, and who gives himself more of a pass to do whatever he deems fit, than Billy. His likability, thus, is dependent upon the writing he's given. He'll carry material no matter what, but it's unfortunate that most of the things he embraces feel tinged with arrogance and an overall sentiment of, "If I can do it, why shouldn't I?"

Well, hypothetical Billy, because all of your ethnic caricatures are questionable as hell, and I guess that's something I have to reconcile with. Perhaps most significantly, this episode marks the debut of his two most infamous impressions, Sammy Davis Jr. and Fernando Lamas. I can give him slightly more leeway with Fernando, I guess, even though his debut here—hosting a characteristically uninteresting installment of Saturday Night News and exclaiming that everything is "Mahvelous!"—doesn't fill me with much excitement for the character. It's just a shallow victory to see Billy doing an impression that doesn't involve him coating his face in greasepaint. That takes us to Sammy, which... I don't know, man. I know that Billy got the blessing of Sammy and his family for doing the impression, and it's an impression that's more focused on his Jewish faith (which Billy is, obviously, qualified to joke about), but it still comes across as disconcerting, with Billy exploiting the leeway he's been given. At least it's not purely hacky, I suppose, though Billy does give us a taste of his love for the lowest common denominator with a Herve Villechaise impression, the only joke being that he's short, stupid, and I guess ethnically-ambiguous enough that Billy got a little chub.

With that being said, Billy can also be very good, and those instances provide some reassurance. The "Winston University" sketch is, by far, the best-written and performed piece of the night, casting Billy as the representative of a "college" which is actually a front for parents' money and a four-year vacation for its "students." As with every Andy Breckman piece, it's rich in simple but effective details, but it's Billy's memorable, repeated assertions that if anyone reveals the university is fake that "We will find you, and we will kill you" which give the more goofy premise an enjoyably dark edge. He's also quite good in his monologue, unsurprisingly, telling stories of his childhood and puberty that allow him to use his knack for story-telling and inhibiting characters in an arena that he has more of a right to explore: his own life.

A few other contributions from the cast, in lieu of Billy, round the night out, though none are particularly amazing. One of Eddie's last pre-recorded sketches finds its place here, and it's perhaps unsurprising that it didn't appear earlier. The premise of Tim and Robin realizing they forgot to let a Jewish family out of their attic 40 years after WWII ended makes for a hilarious twist, but there's nowhere for it to really go once they're actually in the attic, coasting by from some easy laughs (Mary's 54 year-old having teenaged horniness; Eddie's grumpy Jew voice) rather than truly escalating. Mary also gets a lot of really nice moments across the episode, which feels somewhat rare: she helms the enjoyable (if somewhat esoteric) St. Patty's Day/Purim cold open, gets to do a goofy Pee-wee impression in the quick "Hung Like Me" bit, and shines in the short, faux-pretentious "The Womb" pretape as Julia's mother. (I read somewhere that it became a notable piece of camp that played in some gay bars around the time, which doesn't surprise me too much—Julia and Mary imbue their characters with wonderfully haughty auras.) 

That there are glimpses of a Billy Crystal that I liked in this episode gives me hope that his role in Season 10 will have some wiggle room for enjoyment, but for the most part, it's hard to take this episode as anything beyond a polite warning. Some things work, some things don't, but either way, be prepared for more... (Penned 6/23/22)

GRADE: C.

4/07/84: Michael Douglas / Denience Williams (S9 E16)

The Ebersol pretape mania begins. If the previous episode, with its emphasis on soon-to-be-cast member Billy Crystal, seemed to paint half the picture for what Season 10 will be like, this one paints the other half: it's a fairly unremarkable episode salvaged by its extensive focus on pre-recorded material. This is a very hard one to assess, and while it's plagued with issues, dead spots, and a fairly unimpressive host performance, I admired the show's interest in reinvention. They've reached near the bottom of the heap with Eddie's pre-recorded material, and they've taken it as a challenge to conjure up something new that can serve as fallback life force. To Ebersol's credit, it kinda works out in the end.

It's an episode of two halves, though, and it's impossible to simply express this episode's positive qualities when they're pretty balanced by its overall difficulties. I was interested in seeing Michael Douglas host after his father did a very charismatic job of carrying a forgettable S5 stint, but inevitably, that ease doesn't run in the family. He's not a bad host, and he's certainly excited to be there—perhaps a bit too excited, as he slams a glass cup into his face in the heat of the moment of one of his sketches and rides the rest of the episode out with a gash on his forehead—but excitement and capability are two different things. Live comedy is hard, and that's okay; the issue is simply that Michael can do very little to put over the mostly disinteresting array of live material that his episode consists of. Among his roles: a theater casting agent who gets sexually-aroused by an auditioner (Mary) pretending to be 7 (deeply uncomfortable), a man who lives a tortured existence underscored by inescapable background music (the one where he gashes his forehead, so he's into it), and as guest anchor at the SNN desk (as if we needed a reminder that Ebersol couldn't give less of a shit about SNN if he tried; he does a mediocre job). It's a shame that one of his best performances in the episode, a pretty fun impression of his father Kirk, is tucked into one of the most beguilingly awful sketches this season: "TV's Foul-Ups, Bleeps, Blunders, Bloopers, Practical Jokes, And Political Debates," perhaps the epitome of Ebersol's watery idea of satire that amounts to shitty practical jokes and cuckoo sounds transfixed over bad political impressions. Also, hello again, blackface Joe Piscopo. Glad this was one of your only roles tonight. (As a minor note, I also wonder if the role of the Kenny Loggins type in the "Footless" sketch was originally supposed to go to him instead of writer Nate Herman, as I feel like he could've pulled it off; either way, it makes for a pretty fun and energetic, if slight piece.)

Now the good! Gary and Jim continue to kill it as this season's two inexplicable pretape stars, each scoring a particularly dazzling highlight. I'll give the edge to Gary: his role in Breckman's "4 Minutes to Live" sketch, a man who vows not to waste another second of his life after receiving news of his super imminent death, is sold entirely on his increasing distress and agony as he feels every second of his final moments being wasted on the world's most merciless elevator. Jim's solo piece is pretty damn great too, though, casting him as one of two ice cream men (the other, an outside actor, 'cuz it's secretly very old) who incessantly demand specification on a young couple's ice cream order, each step becoming more labored and aggressive until Jim is bellowing to them at gunpoint. It feels strikingly modern in its abstraction; I wouldn't have been surprised to see Kyle and Beck doing something like this. The best piece of the night, though, finds the two working together, alongside Brad, resurrecting their garage band characters from the Smothers Brothers episode with a full-fledged, '80s-as-FUCK music video for "Look At Our Video," shamelessly begging for attention while working through every cliché imaginable. (Sex! Violence! SFX! New wave haircuts! A Gary Kroeger rap break!)  It's an elaborate, detail-soaked time capsule that makes perfect use of its three stars, and it's as exhilarating now as it was then.

As I said before: hard as hell to assess in the end. This isn't the most watchable that the show's ever been, but the highlights are truly worthwhile, and for a season that's been stuck in a listless shuffle every time it couldn't secure Eddie for the week, this episode feels like a solid prototype for the future of Ebersol's SNL. Things are looking up; there's just some fine-tuning to do. (Penned 6/27/22)

GRADE: B.

4/14/84: George McGovern / Madness (S9 E17)

I wasn't really sure where to place my hopes with George McGovern's hosting gig, just as I never know what to expect of politicians or public figures participating in SNL in general. It always feels like an odd arrangement, even if the success rate by this point in the show is surprisingly great. I wonder why that is, why having hosts like Ralph Nader, Julian Bond, or Edwin Newman encourages the show to push harder. This episode doesn't offer too many answers, but miraculously, it doesn't break the pattern, either. 

If there's one thing I can say about McGovern, it's that even if he's not as affable of a presence to work with, nor as capable of being a compelling performer, I respected his willingness to roll with the punches. Don't get me wrong, SNL isn't out to muck up his image, but they don't just pitch him ego-stroking softballs, either; they invite him into the fun, and occasionally the perverse, and he's always a game participant. I can think of no greater example of that than the "Cosmos" sketch which, whilst describing the florid accomplishments he had in a parallel universe where he got to be president, ends with him quietly acknowledging that he's sent off all Republicans to "work camps," a turn so dark and scathing that... I think I can appreciate it. Like, that was pitched to George and he approved it. What a champ.

That's the only real time that he props a sketch up, but he never hurts things; he's sort of a casual component of the material, not put under too much pressure to deliver but also more integrated than most hosts in this era all the same. Fortunately, the material is often fun enough that things cruise along amicably, and occasionally with some real strength. I really loved the post-monologue pretape, for instance, with George palling along with Jim and Joe as they recklessly and apathetically play golf throughout the city. It's an incredibly simple bit, but Joe and Jim counter McGovern's bewilderment with perfect nonchalance as they shoot golf balls off phone booths, on top of taxi cabs, and through office windows with limited regard for the distress they cause. (One of my favorite beats: a golf ball knocks an old woman unconscious on the streets, and Jim responds by saying she probably just wants to be on TV and kicks her body out of the way to take his next shot.) George also plays an archaeologist in the fun "Book Beat" sketch, a more modest feather in Breckman's cap but a feather all the same. There's a nice slow burn with the reveal that the box George uncovered was the "hidden treasure" Brad was booked on the same show to promote, though now all Brad can do is hang his head in shame and shrink back into his seat as much as possible as the show's host (Joe) reads out the kindergarten-level hints in his book.

Some other McGovern bits work less effectively, but they're still okay for the most part. It's barely a mark against someone for doing a lackluster job of hosting SNN, so more than anything I applaud McGovern's best efforts with the segment even if he's clearly not gonna make it work better. (He at least scores a fun little bit with Gary, who fills his correspondent spot with a poor attempt to smear McGovern simply because he didn't see a movie that week to talk about.) The lowest point for him is probably having to helm the resurrection of another of those dull song parody record sketches, though less because of McGovern and more because those sketches are deathly filler. He always does what he can, though, and I left the episode feeling that while I'll never desire to see George on SNL again, he did the best that he could and had a fun time with the cast.

A few more things round out the night. I absolutely adored the bonkers trampoline sketch, with Mary and Tim's date ruined by Jim's trampolinist jumping in and out of a massive hole in the floor and insulting them. It's such a bizarre set-up that somehow manages to keep topping itself as it becomes more and more anarchic, eventually reaching the fevered pitch where both parties are firing guns at each other and debris showers down from the ceiling—glorious madness, all spearheaded by Mary and Jim's maniacal performances. This episode also marks the end of the road for pre-recorded Eddie sketches with one last sketch about Jim and Mary trying to invite him into a ménage à trois; it's not super great stuff, but I like the conceptual nature of it, and the random curtain call at the very end with Eddie thanking all of the "ménage à trois players" feels like a sweet, weird way to pass the torch to his fellow cast members (intentional or not). 

The horrific lowbrow stylings of guest comic Frankie Pace, giggling away at some of the lamest jokes you will ever hear in your life, and possibly the worst performance of "Our House" by Madness ever are probably the episode's nadirs, but even then, there's something macabre about their existence that adds to the overall deal. All in all, though, things amount to a pretty fun and breezy episode! (Penned 7/05/22)

GRADE: B.

5/05/84: Barry Bostwick / Spinal Tap (S9 E18)

For the past few episodes, I've been detecting a nice upwards trajectory with this season. It's felt like the show has finally started to figure out how to go forward from Eddie's departure and sustain itself; certain cast member's value has continued to soar (Jim, Gary, even Brad at times) and an emphasis on pretapes has led to the show feeling the most exciting that it's felt since early Season 7. All of that brings us to this episode, one that I was excited out for a multitude of reasons; in addition to boasting fuckin' Spinal Tap, I've seen this one held in pretty decent regard by others within the reviewing community (i.e. two whole people!). Of course, I'm prone to disagreement about episode quality because all things are subjective, and I've often found my assessments of episodes at odds with theirs (and that's a large part of the fun), but either way my expectations were set for a quality that I sadly can't say this episode really delivered on.

It's an episode that raises a question I've been thinking about for a while now: what can I quantify into grading an episode of the show? There's certainly no shortage of things that I'd consider above-average here, and they serve to enhance the spirit of proceedings, but it's a conundrum of how much I can consider them part of the show. Spinal Tap delivers two of the most exciting and theatrical performances I've seen in some time on the SNL stage, rocking out far harder than any parodic heavy metal band has any right to, but how much can I count their chops towards the episode's value as a whole? (The only time I've ever let a musical guest raise an episode grade is James Brown.) Spinal Tap pops up in the show, too, delivering a pretaped improv session fielding questions from the episode's host, Barry Bostwick, that capture the verve of their acclaimed mockumentary, but how much can I count the unwritten ramblings of trained improvisors outside of the show towards the show's quality? I'd argue that I can't, or at least not very much. And sadly, too, A. Whitney Brown isn't quite a member of the show, though it was a pleasant surprise to see him do a strong guest comic set before joining the show proper in a few years.

That leaves us with the rest of the episode, which sadly feels like a jumble of different fragments, some strong and some ambitious, but lacking in much uniformity as a whole. The best sketch of the night, hands down, was the lie detector piece, casting Jim as a man who lets slip all of his horrifying truths while rigged up for a job interview; it's a simple idea that other shows may have gone on to perfect, but it's an exercise here in wonderfully-escalating absurdity—Jim's apparently hot-wired a railroad car, participated in Watergate, served in the Third Reich ("Briefly!"), and knows a Hitler clone in Argentina—all leading to a shockingly great ending, something which I will always appreciate whenever SNL can find one. The episode's big centerpiece, though, is also its greatest disappointment: "The Turkey Lady" is the closest Ebersol has come to having an elaborate epic sketch, casting Barry as a scientist who, by freak accident, fuses his wife with a turkey, but it never feels like it fully examines the perimeters of its insane conceit. Culminating things with a cameo from Soupy Sales (prompting me to ask that age-old question of vintage SNL: "Who???") rather than discovering a legitimate ending, too, torpedoes whatever potential it once had to land things with a bang.

There's some other stuff rounding this episode out, but none of it is particularly special. The "Iceman" sketch is a cute way to showcase Barry's musical talents through an impromptu, lively (if slight) Neil Sedaka number; Barry's a bit less well served in the "Dog Day P.M." sketch, casting him as a dog being interviewed about the horrors of human captivity, but it simply feels too cheesy for him to salvage despite his strengths as s host. Also, the less said about the final "Whiners" sketch, the better—there's no greater bait-and-switch than getting me excited about a Gary and Julia pretape out on the streets of New York than having the goddamn Whiners walk into it and do the same thing they've already done nine times. It's the fact that this episode offers a taste of the things to come, in a weird way, that gives the episode something of a unique value, however mixed: Billy Crystal sinks another iteration of SNN as Fernando (an omen of bad things to come, surely), and inevitably, Spinal Tap's guest appearance offered Ebersol a chance to negotiate for all of them participating in Season 10. This one just doesn't connect much as a whole in the end, though, and if anything, it feels like a demonstration of Ebersol's growing disinterest with the status quo that this season has done such a nice job to cultivate. (Penned 7/11/21)

GRADE: B-.

5/12/84: Billy Crystal, Mayor Ed Koch, Edwin Newman, Father Guido Sarducci, and Betty Thomas / The Cars (S9 E19)

Has there ever been a more Ebersol decision than to send off a season of SNL with five different hosts at the wheel? It's an idea that barely even makes sense... which I guess makes it less surprising Ebersol went with it. But I digress; it's an interesting proposition for sure, collecting a mix of some of the hardest-hitters of the past season (Edwin Newman, Billy Crystal to certain people who aren't me) and amiable friends of the show (Mayor Ed Koch, Father Guido, Betty Thomas) for one more ride. I find it hard to say just how much the spectacle pays off, but a pretty solid episode gets churned out all the same, and for as much as this is a final stop for Ebersol before he really pimps his ride in S10, it's appreciably cast-centric, a farewell to those who end their careers here and a grounds of celebration for those who will get to stay on just a little bit longer.

First, though, the hosts. Their use across this episode feels generally emblematic of their use across the previous episodes they participated in. Billy Crystal, unsurprisingly, is the most dominant, and even more unsurprisingly, he's the source of this episode's greatest blights. He paints his face every color except his own as he leaps through his usual bits (Sammy Davis, Fernando) and then some, the lowest point of the evening being a stereotypical Japanese caricature that makes me think he's never met an Asian person in his life. Betty Thomas, contrarily, is the most tragically invisible, being squandered for the second time this season in fairly nothing roles that don't let her demonstrate her charisma. Guido, as with his strange January hosting stint, mostly exists along the outskirts to guide the most superfluous segments along (a duet with Jim's Willie Nelson, and a man-on-the-street bit, though the latter is at least the perfect use for him). It's Mayor Ed and Edwin who shine the most, simply because the show channels into what made their earlier appearances on the show so successful. "Mayor Koch's Neighborhood" is the most delightfully ludicrous way that Mayor Ed's played along in advertising his book yet, abducting Eddie's classic sketch and shamelessly reworking every famous beat in hopes of getting some more sales while masterfully employing his charming candor. Edwin, meanwhile, helms another iteration of SNN (thankfully ripping it out of Fernando's hands for the most part), though his best contribution is playing second banana in the "Hello, Trudy!" sequel sketch. Rather than feeling inferior to the original, it discovers new hooks and developments (Jim becoming desperate and having to work hard and win Trudy's trust back after Edwin turns her away) that further its weird little universe and make for a gratifying revisit. 

I'll give the episode some minor credit for attempting to create a sketch that involves all five of its hosts, though what we ultimately got out of that idea is a sketch that sadly gets held back by the grotesque caricaturing and racism that enables its premise, casting Billy as a Japanese sushi chef fending off against a sudden Godzilla attack. Those problematic undertones are absolutely horrible (just hear the way Billy says "SAAAA-shimii") and casting Jim as a customer (Betty Thomas' date—yeah, she's just barely in there!) who goes "ewwy ewwy weird Japanese things" offers a further, mean edge, but I do want to give the vaguest credit for the amount of ambition to the piece. There's a strangely ambitious sense of scale to it as the story starts to focus on Godzilla rampaging through New York, only to be stopped by Mayor Ed advertising his book for the umpteenth time. ("He bored Godzilla to death," Edwin deadpans perfectly as the on-sight reporter.) Those shimmers of good just make it all the more disappointing that it could never truly work by virtue of the hacky values at its core, but in the end I'm more dismayed than truly angry.

Now the cast! Considering it's Joe's final episode, and considering that he's become increasingly more annoying to me whenever he's on-screen, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he had a rather strong night to close his tenure out. Sure, we got his Frank Sinatra in the very lavish cold open landing the season's final LFNY—perhaps a bit symbolic, considering he always dreamed of hosting an episode in-character as Sinatra—but his shining moments have always been as a member of the ensemble rather than standing in the spotlight. Here, he teams up with Julia and Mary to land the succinct and gloriously bloody "Mikko's Got Your Nose Safety Guard" sketch, ripping his child's nose off by accident playing the imaginary game and making fine use of the blood hose, and perhaps more memorably he teams up with Gary and Tim as the Three Stooges teaching a karate self-defense class—a fine display of silly physical humor that closes with an amazing blooper where he drops trou multiple times. Tim, meanwhile, feels like he's still at the height of his powers, reprising Jack Badofsky and his Worthington Clotman characters throughout the episode in addition to co-anchoring "Karate Class"; it's a disappointingly low-key exit for an unheralded cast member, though the consummate pro that he is, Tim makes every moment count. Brad, someone who's had a surprisingly solid season since being dethroned from the SNN desk, gets lost in the skirmish sadly, though he lands one more satisfying sketch appearance in "Got Your Nose" as a spokesman smarmily proclaiming, "Has this ever happened to you?" over the bonkers, unrelatable situation at hand. Last but not least of the departing class, Robin... is there sometimes. I love her to bits, and it's sad to see how the show has completely lost sight of her unique skillset when she should have flourished.

Out of everyone in the cast, it's Gary who shines the brightest and who makes the strongest case for his return in the final Ebersol season. What starts off as a simple enough sketch of Robin showing Julia various different video date applicants hoping to score explodes into a spectacular music video production for his Ira Needleman, a 31 year-old dental hygienist who loves Star Trek and very much wants to not be a virgin. Gary does not get enough credit for being as remarkable as he is; while he often slaved away in utility roles as he always has, this season's offered him some chances to really up the ante and demonstrate his blinding charisma, and it's no surprise that this gem of a sketch is probably the sole reason Ebersol didn't fire him over the summer break. Jim continues to demonstrate his remarkable abilities, if also his unevenness—he's fantastic in "Hello, Trudy!" but his performance in the sushi restaurant falls back on old, obnoxious habits, so let's call it a minor draw—while Julia and Mary submit nimble work whenever it's presented to them. Sadly, it already feels like they've been cosigned to the B-team before Season 10's A-tier have even entered the building, but I'm looking forward to their continued presence.

If it's not clear from everything I've written, there's a lot to formulate about this episode. Some things really hit, some things really miss, and the fact that this feels like the show's last moments before committing an act of strange metamorphosis lend it a surprisingly bittersweet feel, even if Ebersol still feels rather sly about what changes are in store. In the end, though, the liveliness of the episode prevails, and I suppose Ebersol and his farfetched, impractical ideas triumph yet again. This one's a win, but as we step into the strangest frontier for his era yet, we'll see how well these sorts of gonzo decisions continue to pay off. (Penned 7/15/22)

GRADE: B+.

Cumulative Season Rankings:

1. Edwin Newman / Kool & The Gang (A)
2. Don Rickles / Billy Idol (A)
3. Betty Thomas / The Stray Cats (B+)
4. Robin Williams / Adam Ant (B+)
5. Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman / Eddie Grant (B+)
6. Five Hosts / The Cars (B+)
7. George McGovern / Madness (B)
8. Flip Wilson / Stevie Nicks (B)
9. Michael Douglas / Deniece Williams (B)
10. Michael Palin and his mother / The Motels (B)
11. Brandon Tartikoff / John Cougar (B-)
12. Jamie Lee Curtis / The Fixx (B-)
13. Barry Bostwick / Spinal Tap (B-)
14. The Smothers Brothers / Big Country (B-)
15. John Candy / Men At Work (B-)
16. Father Guido Sarducci / Huey Lewis & The News (B-)
17. Jerry Lewis / Loverboy (C+)
18. Teri Garr / Mick Fleetwood's Zoo (C+)
19. Billy Crystal / Al Jarreau (C)

FAVORITE SKETCHES:
10. "Look At Our Video" (S9E16 / Michael Douglas)
9. "Tag You're It" (S9E13 / Jamie Lee Curtis)
8. "Face the Press" (S9E14 / Edwin Newman)
7. "Trampoline" (S9E17 / George McGovern)
6. "Witness Relocation" (S09E11 / Don Rickles)
5. "Midtown Open" (S9E17 / George McGovern)
4. "Winston University" (S9E15 / Billy Crystal)
3. "Needleman" (S9E18 / Five Hosts)
2. "James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party" (S9E04 / Betty Thomas)
1. "You Win A Dollar" (S9E04 / Betty Thomas)

Other great sketches: "Larry's Corner" (S9E01 / Brandon Tartikoff); "Small World," "Spanish Class," and "Autograph Hounds" (S9E02 / DeVito and Perlman); "Thanksgiving Dinner" (S9E06 / Jerry Lewis); "Hello, Trudy!" (S9E08 / Flip Wilson); "That's Okay" and "Boy's Life On The Mississippi"  (S9E10 / Michael Palin and his mother); "Rock & Roll And Then Some," "Firing Line," and "Siamese Twins" (S9E12 / Robin Williams);"Hymietown," "News Bar," "How High The Noon," "Urban Answers," and "A Nickel" (S9E14 / Edwin Newman); "Four Minutes to Live" (S9E16 / Michael Douglas); "Lie Detector" (S9E18 / Barry Bostwick).

FAVORITE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES:
7. Al Jarreau (S9E15 / Billy Crystal)
6. Eddy Grant (S9E02 / DeVito and Perlman)
5. The Motels (S9E10 / Michael Palin and his mother)
4. Huey Lewis & The News (S9E09 / Father Guido Sarducci)
3. Stevie Nicks (S9E08 / Flip Wilson)
2. Kool & The Gang (S9E14 / Edwin Newman)
1. Spinal Tap (S9E18 / Spinal Tap)

WEEKEND UPDATE: This is the season where things start to really fall apart for Saturday Night News. It's not very surprising that Ebersol grew tired of the news desk; Brian-Doyle Murray's reign through Season 7 was truly terrible, guaranteeing a massive dead zone in every single episode, while Brad Hall's voice was drowned out by poor writing and Ebersol's apolitical leanings making his style particularly toothless. I sympathize with Brad, as he never really did anything wrong so much as having the misfortune of being bogged down by the material. Even so, he remained chipper and never as desperate as the desk's worst offenders; considering how secretly spotty and generally awful Weekend Update is throughout the show's history, I'd actually put him in the upper half so far. Definitely leagues above his two predecessors, and I'd say about on par with Jane/Bill (a team-up I never cared a ton for).

Of course, this is the season where Ebersol would disavow with the segment entirely and fire Brad over the holiday break from that position. The segment would usually end up being lent to whoever was in for the week, which worked sometimes (Edwin Newman) but was usually very baffling to the degree that I'm not sure why Ebersol bothered to preserve it (George McGovern? Michael Douglas?). Worst of all, it ended up empowering Billy Crystal, anchoring two iterations this season as Fernando, a character who would go on to define his tenure next season. How this bit was ever loved, nobody will ever know. At the very least, correspondents this season remained in strong form: Gary is always a fun presence with his film reviews, and the gag of him being thrown over the desk every week was a nice touch, while Tim continues his hot streak with several solid Jack Badofsky appearances and a few solid character debuts, perhaps most memorably as the stuffy network censor Worthington Clotman. As a whole, though, the news segment remains unsteady.

SOME WORDS ON THE DEPARTING CAST: In a season packed with departing cast members, Eddie Murphy, of course, will be the most missed. This was not a great season for him for the most part, despite a handful of very strong highlights ("James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party," "Rock & Roll And Then Some," "Firing Line"); he was afflicted with senioritis whenever he even bothered to show up, though I don't blame him for being bigger than the show by this point and poised to leave on a relative high. Even at his most disengaged, though, it's impossible to deny that Eddie might be the most sheer, magnetic performer SNL has ever had. While I don't agree with the apocryphal tale that Eddie singlehandedly saved the show through these years, it's impossible to deny that the screen lit up whenever he was on it, and he knew how to sell any line you gave him. If he didn't save the show, he certainly brought it a vibrancy and ease that these years would've suffered without.

His best pal turned one-sided arch-rival Joe Piscopo, on the other hand... he made the farewell pretty easy to swallow. It's easy to slam Joe Piscopo, something of a national punchline for decades after leaving the show, but that delegitimizes how strong he could be on the show; just like Eddie, cast against the dreary undertones of Season 6, he was able to create a beacon of light and connect with skeptical audiences. By this point in his tenure, Joe is simply having an ego trip, becoming deeply enamored with horrifying prosthetics to fuel his lackluster impressions (Barbra Streisand? Jesse Jackson? Really?), and it sadly strains the memories of just how reliable he once was. Perhaps it's true that even his best bits cast him as perpetually second at everything—the second-best Sinatra after Hartman, the second-best pitchman after Aykroyd, the second-best star after Eddie—but in his best years, he brought the show some reliability, and in his willingness to let sketches collapse around him when things went awry (the whole Rickles episode, the Stooges sketch), some good old-fashioned fun.

The loss of Tim Kazurinsky is probably one of the saddest; the fact that he was simply fired by Ebersol after the season despite all of his valuable contributions to the show is a painful pill to swallow. He never got as much appreciation as he deserved. He was both a consummate, unflappable professional, perhaps one of the hardest working utility players the show's ever had, and perhaps the most dedicated cast member in the show's history to the live nature of SNL, partaking in gleeful exercises that pinned him against the in-house audience with his barrage of puns and placing all of his faith into live chimpanzees as scene partners in "I Married A Monkey". He had so much more to give, but I'm glad that history has been kinder to him than most.

Robin Duke's firing was no great surprise, but it was disappointing all the same. Seldom has such a clearly-talented person so at ease with the show been as wasted as Robin was. She could do it all and found the humor in even the straightest roles—an important skill for her, considering that was what she mostly got. But she was at her best when she could showcase the maniacal glint in her eyes: her Mrs. T impression deserved to go the distance, and any time Robin was given the opportunity to go big and play the most unhinged character she could, she was as captivating as she was quietly terrifying, a true force of nature. Sadly, she'll go on to be best remembered as half of the Whiners, a second banana to the perpetual second banana that is Joe Piscopo, because SNL couldn't figure out what to do with a female cast member who couldn't play sexy.

Lastly, there's Brad Hall. While I don't think I'll miss him as much as most of the other departing cast members, it's sad to think how much he could've continued to improve. He gets a bad rap for a lot of things I can't really contest: his hamminess, his WASPiness, his SNN tenure. But I think that when he was used right, he could be an engaging, idiosyncratic performer, certainly the only one in the cast capable of his little niche. Aside from his always-solid work with his old PTC buddies, Gary and Julia, he formed a strong partnership with Jim, whose tendencies towards loose, manic energy enabled them to form a quick connection that fueled some of the season's most fun pieces ("You Win A Dollar"; "Look At Our Video"). Sadly, staying past this season was untenable from the start; his relationship with Ebersol was tumultuous, and getting removed from the SNN desk was the beginning of the end. Kudos to Brad for making his remaining time count and turning it into something of a blessing in disguise.

FRANKIE PACE: Who the fuck is this guy? How the fuck did SNL find him? I think about this weird little man so much and his stupid, stupid jokes. The fact that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand, too, made me feel like I was in an alternate dimension where comedy made no sense anymore, where nothing I believe was true. I was adrift in the deadness of space. I hate Frankie Pace, but more than that, I love Frankie Pace. He's still absolutely killing at all those years later so I wanted to give him a signal boost, because I know I am exceptionally powerful. He kissed Robert Urich—a meeting of two legendary, SNL-adjacent minds! That's all I wanted to say on the matter.

SEASON GRADE AVERAGE: B-.

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