Classic SNL Review: January 24, 1981: Robert Hays / Joe “King” Carrasco & The Crown, 14 Karat Soul (S06E08)

RATINGS SYSTEM
***** – Classic
****    - Great
***      - Good / Average
**        - Meh
*          - Bad

OPENING: AMERICA NOT HELD HOSTAGE ANYMORE
-Following the release of the hostages, Ted Koppel (Joe Piscopo) keeps Nightline on the air by counting down the days the hostages are out of captivity.
-Nothing outstanding, but decent satire of the news media’s tendency to milk a story, which would be done better for Buckwheat Buys The Farm two years latter.  Actually, so would Piscopo’s Koppel (still not really a fan of the impression, though).
-I did like Koppel positioning the freeing of the hostages as the tragedy, and there was a little bit of scattered applause for the line about harassing the victims’ families.  Ann Risley’s part seemed pretty unnecessary, though.
**1/2

MONOLOGUE
-Robert Hays draws attention to an instant Nielsen rating that appears on the screen, which goes down once he starts bad-mouthing Nielsen families.
-Not a bad concept, and they ended it when it needed to, but this was way too similar to Buck Henry’s May 1979 monologue (thanks to TheLazenby for calling that) and not as well-executed.
**

COMMERCIAL: DAZOLA
-Indian (Denny Dillon) speaks highly of the spread that’s low on cholesterol and high on psylocibin.  Really highly.
-A spoof on the “You call it corn, we call it maize” Mazola commercials, right down to the tagline (“You call them mushrooms.  We call them magic”), but is essentially one big drug joke on par with Dopenhagen from the David Carradine show.
-What amused me more than anything was the goofy facial expressions on vegetable costumed Yvonne Hudson, Matthew Laurance and Gilbert Gottfried.  I wonder who got stuck in the pea outfits.
-Incidentally, the actual Mazola commercial they spoof is in my recording of last week’s show.
**

SHOW: LOVE AMERICAN STYLE
-In “Love and the Celebrity” by Sid “Slappy” White, Robert Hays gets companionship on a lonely promotional tour when an inflatable prostitute (voice of Gail Matthius) appears.
-Another merely OK bit, largely carried by the timing of the string pulls and the reactions from Robert.  The predictable ending was made up for by the strong sight gag of an inflatable pimp.
**1/2

SHOW: SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE SPORTS CENTRAL
-Matthew Laurance interviews Asteroids champ Eddie Atari (Eddie Murphy) from inside his ship, and witnesses him lay waste to flying saucers and the Goodyear blimp.
-Piscopo’s sports anchor persona anchors this sketch, and gets some amusing material with his overpoetic descriptions of Eddie Atari’s Asteroids technique, but once again Murphy walks away with the whole sketch, doing more with relatively few and succinct lines than either Piscopo or Laurance.
-Piscopo’s “Oh, the humanity!”  got some laughs and applause.  I’m wondering when Herbert Morrison’s quote from the Hindenberg became a common pop-culture trope: I know it was used in WKRP’s “Turkeys Away” show (probably the best-ever example of it in pop-culture, IMO), but right now it’s so common it’s cliché.
***

COMMERCIAL: REAGANCO
-Celebrate the new Reagan administration with decorative and cosmetic products by Reaganco.
-Written by Ferris Butler with assistance from Jeremy Stevens.
-Not bad, although the amount of ridiculous products that have been legitimately marketed to capitalize on the Obama inauguration make this one seem quaint in comparison.
-The audience really liked the line about the rouge that made even a corpse come alive.  Cheap, but sometimes cheap works.
***

SHOW: SAVE-A-NETWORK TELETHON
-Joe Piscopo emcees a telethon where viewers are invited to pledge a premise to the struggling network.
-Alright idea, but I found this more interesting for the on-screen appearances of cue card man Al Siegal (playing deli worker Sidney Sharkman), cameraman Al Camoin, and announcer Don Pardo (only his second on the show, and first where he’s introduced as himself).  The audience goes wild for Pardo, and he seems to be enjoying himself, especially while singing.
-One cringeworthy line in the part about Pink Lady & Jeff and Shogun.
-I can’t tell who most of the phone bank volunteers are (the recurring extra with the combover and glasses is one of them), but it looks like Neil Levy on the right side of Gilbert Gottfried’s table.
-I noticed Ann Risley adlibs a “right” after an audience member says “yay” to the NBC peacock sheets she holds up.
***

SHOW: PRE-SUPERBOWL PRE-GAME PREVIEW
-A panel (Robert Hays, Ann Risley and Charles Rocket) overinflates the importance of tomorrow’s big game.
-Weak.  The main jokes (the hype-up of the game and the football/ballet metaphor) were stretched way past their breaking points, and the final payoff (the anchors don’t even know who are playing tomorrow) underwhelmed.
*1/2

FILM: “THE FOREIGN FILM” – WILLIAM DEAR
-A short segment from “Elephant Parts” features a man (Michael Nesmith) and a woman spouting subtitled gibberish.
-The audience liked this a bit more than the last sketch, but it still suffered from the joke being stretched past the breaking point.  Gibberish is funnier than hyperbole and weak metaphors, though.
**

SKETCH: FUNERAL
-Inappropriate music selections from substitute organist Harry Osborne fit a sports game more than a dignified funeral.
-This was a little predictable once he started playing his first number, but it was silly enough to be worthwhile, largely because of the mourners’ reactions to the music.
-Best part for me was the organ swipe when the widow (Denny Dillon) closed the casket because she didn’t want her husband to hear it.
-I’m still not sure if Harry Osborne is a real person or just some outside actor or production staff member; the leading SNL sites list him as a real person so unless I get other information I’m going to treat him like a cameo.
***

WEEKEND UPDATE WITH CHARLES ROCKET & GAIL MATTHIUS
-Best Jokes: Reagan letter (for the graphic), Margaret Trudeau
-Most of the jokes were pretty bad this week (worst: Mondale and Eldridge Cleaver jokes…).  They’re at least curbing the forced chemistry between the anchors (only one attempt this week) and Gail seems to be getting better, although I don’t think anyone could have made the Eldridge Cleaver joke work.  Probably would have been something Brian Doyle-Murray would have done next season.
-Charles Rocket gets a short bit getting an “apology” from the same dummy of Ayatollah Khomeini they used on the show last season (100th show).   Meh.
-Tiffany Fleur (Ann Risley) shows some of her fashions for the engineering student.  A few easy nerd “slide rule” and “pocket protector” jokes but the sight of the pocket protector glued to the one model’s chest woke up the audience.  That’s writer David Hurwitz playing Paul (the bearded guy), while Robert is one of the administrative staff (no name, unfortunately, but it’s the same guy as in Taped Confession).
-Joe Piscopo gets another prop-based Saturday Night Sports, this time predicting the outcome of Super Bowl XV with an electric football game.  The audience liked his dismissal of the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles as mediocre teams.
-Eddie Murphy gets the strongest segment, discussing how he was out both reefer and heating oil money thanks to frozen Iranian assets.  Murphy actually tells a few audience members that applaud at the beginning of his commentary to “hold it”.  Good payoff.
**

COMMERCIAL: DISCO MELTDOWN
-Dena Disco (Denny Dillon) invites dancers to watch her change colors from “disco radiation” at her nightclub inside a nuclear reactor.
-Not good.  My main problem with this was that it was a thin premise to begin with, but it didn’t really seem to build on the main joke or have any payoff.  It was also a little too dependent on the greenscreen.  Disco was already on the decline by that point so it dated pretty horribly.  Dillon tried, though.
-The song was written by Dillon, with Kenny Vance and Philip Namanworth.
-Vance is actually one of the dancers, as is Wendie Malick.  I think I see Liz Welch in there, and in the promotional photos for this sketch, you can see Yvonne Hudson and Neil Levy in the crowd.
*

FILM: THE ROCKET REPORT – REAGAN
-From Washington, DC, Charles Rocket tries to show us what a day in the life of the President is like.
-Not one of Rocket’s stronger reports: Rocket is at his best when he’s interacting with other people and this was sorely missed.  It had a few funny moments (Rocket saying the cop in riot gear was Reagan atop his horse “Darky”…though, what’s with the racial jokes tonight?)
**1/2

COMMERCIAL: THE PACESETTER
-Liven up plays killed with slow pacing by administering electric shocks to the actors.
-Once again this was an idea milked a little too long.  I found the button noise a bit irritating as well.  Compared to some of the other material tonight it was merely OK.
**

COMMERCIAL: RAVI SINGS
-Master sitar player Ravi Shankar (Patrick Weathers) has a new album of romantic American ballads.
-I guess the joke is from the juxtaposition of Indian sitar music with American love songs but it really just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, with the brownface makeup and bug-eyes.  The audience seemed to be laughing more at the cartoonish impression than the concept.  It might have played a little better as a photo montage.
-Weathers is lipsyncing to a recorded track here (like Gilda Radner in Stretch Marks).
*

SKETCH: CUT ‘N CURL
-Roweena (Gail Matthius) and Nadine (Denny Dillon) don’t see eye-to-eye on the Reagan inauguration,
-They probably could have used The Pacesetter for this as it felt pretty leaden.   This ended up being weaker than the other Cut ‘N Curl sketch; the asides to the audience just seemed to derail the bit.  Both Matthius and Dillon seem to be having trouble with a few of their lines.
-One thing I didn’t pick up on until someone pointed it out was that Dillon’s wearing the exact same outfit (well, a cheap copy of it) that Nancy Reagan wore to her inauguration a few days before, right down to the hat (which was the subject of a photo joke on tonight’s Weekend Update).
*

MISCELLANEOUS: PROMOTION
-Eddie Murphy announces that he has been promoted to the full cast of “Saturday Night Live”
-Not a rateable segment, but the audience seemed to think Murphy deserved his promotion.  Funny visual gag with the rings, sunglasses and mirror too.

COMMERCIAL: DREAM DATE
-A chance at a $40,000 dream date with your ideal partner and location has just one particular step…
-The only joke is the $40,000 in cash that Rocket goes on about being a part of the dream date is supplied by the contestants themselves.
*

COMMERCIAL: ORDINARY ELEPHANT PEOPLE
-The new movie with a family as disfigured internally as they are on the outside.
-My recording is missing this sketch (damn Comedy Network didn’t run short station break segments), but the transcript makes it sound like one of the more worthwhile bits tonight.  I can’t actually rate it until I see it, though (Canadian Netflix only has seasons 20-35, and I can’t access Hulu).

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “I WISH THAT WE WERE MARRIED”, “THIS TIME IT’S FOR REAL” – 14 KARAT SOUL
-After the last group of segments, this was more than welcome.  An excellent a capella performance; the audience response was so huge that it actually delayed the start of the second number (you can see Glenny T. Wright start to snap his fingers for a few beats before stopping).  The second song had the audience clapping along.
-I wonder why they had both musical guests scheduled so late in the show (after the 12:30 station break)

SKETCH: NATIONAL ENQUIRER
-Editors of the tabloid work on compiling stories for the latest issue.
-Another mostly laugh-free sketch that dragged on for  a little too long.  It felt a little like they were going for going for shock/bad taste jokes (cartoon of a man throwing his wife into a treeshredder, “cripples are big now”, romantically linking Desi Arnaz Sr. with Jr.).
-Rocket was doing a character voice for his role but it took me out of the sketch.
*

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “DONT BUG ME BABY” – JOE “KING” CARRASCO & THE CROWN
-For the longest time, I thought this was terrible, but now I’m actually starting to enjoy it.  Most if it is from how entertaining the performance is: Carrasco goes wild here, jumping off amps and diving into the audience.  Music-wise it was pretty raw: I thought the guitar was the weak link, but the main things driving the song were Kris Cummings’ organ and Brad Kizer’s drumming.  This brought the energy up in a show that really needed it.

GOODNIGHTS
-Robert Hays almost accidentally exposes Gail Matthius’ left breast.
-Don Pardo does not announce an upcoming host but continues to show off his singing ability.

Final Thoughts:
I actually was a little taken aback at how weak the show was when I rewatched it.  After last week’s strong episode, this one started off as somewhat of a step down to “business as usual” before crashing after weekend Weekend Update.  I wonder if it was they were exhausted from pulling off three live shows in a row or if there was another factor.  What’s unmistakable is how much dreck comes in the second half of the show, and how much it makes the musical performances seem like a relief.   Hays really didn’t distinguish himself either way.  Even the usually reliable “Rocket Report” was sub par.  I think the biggest disappointment about this episode is that the cast and writers already proved themselves as capable as last week: it felt almost like this is the point where the bad press is starting to seep in.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
-Eddie Murphy’s segments in his sketches.  I know it’s a lazy way to list highlights, but this week it really felt like he was the only thing in the show that was really standing out (aside from the music performances), and he managed to do more to make the audience laugh in three short appearances than everyone else who had more airtime tonight.

EPISODE LOWLIGHTS:
-Ravi Sings
-Disco Meltdown
-Dream Date
-National Enquirer
-Cut ‘N Curl
-Pre-Super Bowl Pre-Game Preview
-The Pacesetter
-Dazola
-Monologue
-The Foreign Film

MVP:
Eddie Murphy, 14 Karat Soul

CAST & GUEST BREAKDOWN
cast
Denny Dillon: 4 appearances [Dazola, Funeral, Disco Meltdown, Cut 'N Curl]
Gilbert Gottfried: 5 appearances [Dazola, Save-A-Network Telethon,  Funeral, Ordinary Elephant People, National Enquirer]
Gail Matthius: 4 appearances [Monologue, Save-A-Network Telethon, Weekend Update, Cut 'N Curl], 1 voiceover [Love American Style]
Joe Piscopo: 6 appearances [America Not Held Hostage Anymore, Saturday Night Live Sports Central, Save-A-Network Telethon, Weekend Update, The Pacesetter, National Enquirer], 2 voice-overs [Ravi Sings, Ordinary Elephant People]
Ann Risley: 6 appearances [America Not Held Hostage Anymore, Save-A-Network Telethon, Pre-Superbowl Pre-Game Preview, Weekend Update, The Pacesetter, Ordinary Elephant People]
Charles Rocket: 8 appearances [Reaganco, Pre-Superbowl Pre-Game Preview, Funeral, Weekend Update, Rocket Report, The Pacesetter, Dream Date, Ordinary Elephant People, National Enquirer], 2 voiceovers [America Not Held Hostage Anymore, Save-A-Network Telethon]

featured players
Yvonne Hudson (uncredited): 2 appearances [Dazola, Disco Meltdown]
Matthew Laurance: 4 appearances [Dazola, Saturday Night Live Sports Central, Funeral, National Enquirer]
Eddie Murphy: 3 appearances [Saturday Night Live Sports Central, Weekend Update, Promotion]
Patrick Weathers: 2 appearances [Ravi Sings, National Enquirer]

confirmed non-cast
Al Camoin: 1 appearance [Save-A-Network Telethon]
David Hurwitz: 1 appearance [Weekend Update]
Neil Levy: 2 appearances [Save-A-Network Telethon, Disco Meltdown]
Wendie Malick: 1 appearance [Disco Meltown]
Andy Murphy: 1 appearance [Funeral]
Don Pardo: 1 appearance [Save-A-Network Telethon]
Kenny Vance: 1 appearance [Disco Meltdown]
(any confirmation that’s Liz Welch?)

guests
Robert Hays: 5 appearances [Monologue, Love American Style, Pre-Superbowl Pre-Game Preview, The Pacesetter, National Enquirer]
14 Karat Soul: 1 appearance ["I Wish That We Were Married/This Time It's For Real"]
Joe “King” Carrasco & The Crown: 1 appearance ["Don't Bug Me Baby"]
Michael Nesmith: 1 appearance [The Foreign Film]
Harry Osborne: 1 appearance [Funeral]

REBROADCAST HISTORY:
Not rebroadcast on NBC.

Additional screen captures of this episode can be found here.

Classic SNL Review: January 10, 1981: Ray Sharkey / Jack Bruce & Friends (S06E06)

RATINGS SYSTEM:
***** – Classic
****   – Great
***     – Good/Average
**       – Meh
*         – Bad

OPENING: TO TELL THE TRUTH
-One of three people (Matthew Laurance, Charles Rocket, Eddie Murphy) is the real mob informant Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno.
-A topical blackout written by Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield.  This was merely OK, with the humor value diminished a bit if you weren’t aware this was a then-current news story although I did laugh a little at the different characterizations (Laurance doing a straight impression, Rocket doing a raspy-voice 20′s gangster and Murphy getting a big laugh being more or less himself).
-This would be a forgettable cold opening if it weren’t for the fact that this is the first time Eddie Murphy opens the show with “LFNY”, before full cast member Ann Risley even gets the chance.   I like Murphy’s delivery choice here too, delivering the line in a panicked, frightened tone as Rocket holds the gun to his head.
**1/2

MONTAGE
-With this episode, the SNL logo is altered to remove the “’80″ that was added for the previous five shows.

MONOLOGUE
-Ray Sharkey discusses how he loves being back home in New York and talks about the red-eye flight he took from Los Angeles.
-Sharkey is energetic and glad to be here, and gets the crowd going by saying “New York is the greatest (mouths “fucking”) city in the world!” but this wasn’t quite as entertaining as even a regular “talk” monologue.  The liberal use of “fuhgeddaboutit” seemed like it was intended to be funny but its overuse just made the segment drag on.
-I think Sharkey was wearing a hairpiece here: I’ve seen him in a few Barney Miller episodes from about five years earlier and he had noticeably less hair.
*1/2

COMMERCIAL: WORK TIME
-Manual laborers do the more logical thing when they start their day by getting sloshed.
-A spoof of Miller Beer “Miller Time” commercials.  Overall it was amusing (particularly the guy grinning as the individual bricks fell on his head) but I couldn’t help but find it tried a little too hard at times (the “vomiting noise”).  The punchline was strong.
-This was an outside production with its own set of credits: the piece was written and directed by the late Patrick Kelly, who was the co-writer of the well-known Federal Express commercials featuring John Moschitta Jr.
***

SKETCH: INTERPRETER
-Marcello Bellini (Ray Sharkey) interprets the repressed emotions of a WASP couple (Charles Rocket and Ann Risley).
-This sketch had a decent enough concept, a few good lines, and Sharkey put a lot of effort into his performance, but I thought the whole thing was too repetitive (neutral statement, then passionate “translation”).  The ending with Risley unleashing a bit of emotion of her own wasn’t bad.
-Charles Rocket and Ann Risley were playing characters with the same first names.  There was also a bit of “hot mic” at the beginning.
**

SKETCH: TOMMY TORTURE
-Underage Vickie (Gail Matthius) and Debbie (Denny Dillon) sneak into a punk club where Tommy Torture (Ray Sharkey) performs ”Abuse Somebody”.
-The audience is completely silent for the first few minutes, although I thought I did detect a little reaction to the “urinating into a saxophone” line.  When Matthius and Dillon do their “Another One Bites The Dust” and get no reaction from the audience, it is a little chilling.  Sharkey’s slurry voice reminds me a little of Mike Myers’ Ron Wood.
-Tommy Torture’s song was co-written by Barry Blaustein, David Sheffield, Kenny Vance and Chris Palmaro.  The latter two are actually in Tommy Torture’s band, on guitar and keyboards, respectively.  The other band members are Tom Malone (bass), Elliott Randall (guitar solo) and Buddy Williams (drums).  I don’t know if Blaustein and Sheffield wrote the whole thing or if they just did the song.  It actually feels a little like they combined a separate sketch idea with a Vickie and Debbie sketch.
-I have to give Sharkey and the band credit for the song (the extra half-star), but overall, the sketch really did not work.
*1/2

COMMERCIAL: CITIZENS FOR A BETTER AMERICA
-Dissatisfied with a shoddy enema, Dr. Swen Gazzarra (Gilbert Gottfried) bemoans the lack of pride people take in their work and that people resent doing “hum jobs”.
-Written by Ferris Butler with Gilbert Gottfried
-Some may think this was pretty sophomoric, but this is one of the more memorable segments of tonight, and one that holds up better than their attempts at topicality.  It strikes me as a spiritual forerunner to Alec Baldwin’s Schweddy Balls “Delicious Dish” sketch, although not quite as intricate or elaborate, or the sophisticated level of the lines being said over radio.   The audience responded decently once the “hum jobs” lines came, and it didn’t stretch past its welcome.
-I still thought Gottfried’s delivery was off, with him visibly reading the lines off of cue cards.  It didn’t seem like he was putting enough effort into the lines.
***

SKETCH: BOBBIE’S BAR / JANUARY 11th

-Jimmy Carter (Joe Piscopo) commiserates with a fellow member of the unemployed (Ray Sharkey).  Charles Rocket cuts in from the corner of 5th and 50th with coverage of the lead-up to January 11th.
-This felt like two good ideas that weren’t fully fleshed out slapped together. I wonder if they would have been more effective as separate segments, but I’m grading them together.
-The bar scene is promising enough as Piscopo does Carter, one of his stronger impressions and Ray Sharkey gives a good performance, but the scene just sort of peters out with a joke about Carter being indecisive, and there’s no resolution to the scene after the January 11th celebration.
-As for the celebration, while the idea could have been set up a bit better, it is pretty inventive, it is a good use of Rocket playing to his strengths, and it was nice to get some out-of-the studio stuff in the show.  Some unintentional humor comes from the one person going on obsessively about Barbra Streisand.
**1/2

WEEKEND UPDATE WITH CHARLES ROCKET & GAIL MATTHIUS
-Best jokes: Instant justice, Martina Navratilova/John McEnroe.
-This is the debut of the show’s return to a dual-anchor format, with Charles Rocket joined by Gail Matthius.  This pays mixed dividends: while being able to switch between anchors gives the segment an added energy, Matthius seems almost apologetic for some of the weaker jokes and has a few stumbles, fumbling through her notes right after returning to her chair following Piscopo’s segment.  She also reacts in a similar manner to Colin Quinn when a joke dies, usually just making a comment.  Rocket’s delivery is more exaggeratedly pronounced by this point as well.
-Gilbert Gottfried as morning show weatherman-like Marv Peters gives the crime forecast.  A little different from his previous Weekend Update characters, and while a decent idea, it was fairly forgettable.  The audience gives a scattered applause when New York is mentioned in the murder map.
-Joe Piscopo is now completely into his Saturday Night News character, and the audience is quite glad to see him this time.  They react pretty enthusiastically when he brings out the toy bowling game with the wind-up bowling ball, and there’s a good ad-lib about getting two chances when the ball hops off the game.  Piscopo also manages to upstage Rocket during his next joke (Reagan in “The Al Jolson Story”) by having the ball hop across Rocket’s side of the set as he tells the joke.
-As much as Piscopo steals Rocket’s thunder, Eddie Murphy walks away with the whole Weekend Update.  His segment about not wanting to be drafted, makes fun of the whole notion of a “token black” in the cast.  It’s a chance for Murphy to debut his Stevie Wonder and Bill Cosby routines, as well as get a somewhat nasty dig in at Garrett Morris, who “has a lot of time on his hands”.
**1/2

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “DANCING ON AIR”
-The  ”friends” are Clem Clempson (Humble Pie, Colosseum) on guitar, David Sancious (Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Tone) on keyboards and guitar, and drummer Billy Cobham (Mahavishnu Orchestra).  Sancious would actually appear on SNL exactly ten years and nine days after this appearance when he plays as a sideman with Sting.  Cobham was actually a fill-in on drums for the SNL band before (I think it’s the Eric Idle 1978 show he sits in with the band).
-This is another song I’ve been able to compare to the studio recording, and I prefer this one: the studio version’s a little cooler and less passionate.  This song has some pretty interesting dynamics and some soloing from Sancious and Clempson, as well as a lot of interesting drum fills from Cobham, an especially good drummer.

SKETCH: TAPED CONFESSION
-Interrogator (Ray Sharkey) plays director to lowlife Vic Lazlo’s (Gilbert Gottfried) actor when taping a confession.
-This is carried by another good performance from Sharkey, and helped by a stronger concept, especially when Lazlo starts to disagree with his interrogator’s directions.  Gottfried puts more energy into this as well.
-This was another Ferris Butler piece with Gilbert Gottfried helping on the dialogue.
-If anyone has the name of the younger extra in the uniform with Andy Murphy, please let me know.
***1/2

COMMERCIAL: HAVE A NICE DAY
-A new horror movie ad featuress the ubiquitous yellow smiley faces in bloody scenes of carnage.
-This is an excerpt from Michael Nesmith and William Dear’s “Elephant Parts”.   I actually saw it in proper context and it seems to work better surrounded by pieces with the same sensibility, but on its own as an SNL piece it did leave me a little cold.  It didn’t help that the audience didn’t really react to it.
-Is that Nesmith as the Norman Bates style psycho in the first segment?
-Seeing it as an “Elephant Parts” segment also made me realize just how bad the telecine was at SNL until about halfway through the next season.
**1/2

SKETCH: BLACK MARKET BABY
-In the park, a childless couple (Ann Risley and Joe Piscopo) considers buying a baby from a black market salesman (Eddie Murphy).
-Eddie Murphy fares best here and carries the piece, although Denny Dillon and Ray Sharkey do alright.  Although overall this was a middling sketch, it is helped by some good lines, especially about the other couple buying a white baby that turned out to be a bowling pin, and a strong ending.
-The audience didn’t react to this very much (although Dillon calling the baby “Splotchy” got laughs).
-The end of this segment also has SNL’s first audience caption in years.  Unfortunately, “This man has a lot of cole slaw in his underwear” is particularly inept for an audience caption.  The original captions weren’t as wordy, and this one sounds desperate for a joke.
**1/2

SKETCH: SURROGATE MOTHERS
-Unruly surrogate mothers (Denny Dillon and Yvonne Hudson) use their unborn babies’ welfare as leverage against their employers (Ann Risley and Gail Matthius).
-This really dragged at first, but picked up a little when Dillon’s character started with her blackmail about halfway through.  I had to laugh at “When I get bored, I take LSD!”
-They could have given Matthius and Risley some funnier material, and poor Yvonne Hudson seemed to only be there so they could use the Butterfly McQueen “Gone With The Wind” line at the end (“I don’t know nothing about birthing no babies”).
**

FILM: “THE MAN IN THE BLACK HAT” – MICHAEL NESMITH & WILLIAM DEAR
-Townspeople don’t comment on a nice man’s dropped pants.
-I didn’t see this segment in “Elephant Parts” but it was shot around the same time.  Was “Elephant Parts” compiled/released after the SNL airings of Nesmith and Dear’s short films?
-This only got mild titters from the audience.  Harmless piece, but again kind of at odds with the SNL style.
**

COMMERCIAL: STOP-A-NUT
-Guard yourself from unstable attackers and annoying boomboxes by wearing full body armor that also lets you fight back.
-One of the better segments of the night, with Rocket doing his manic pitchman again, and a good idea for a product.  The audience seemed to enjoy this one as well.
-When Rocket asks “Too good to be true”, the suit makes another blast interrupting him and forcing him to start again, with a little bit of a chuckle.  Definitely seems unscripted.
-The audience loved the suit making short work of the boombox with “Rapper’s Delight” blasting.
***1/2

SKETCH: THE WAITER-MAKER
-Vinnie (Ray Sharkey) Svengalis hapless busboy Domingo Santiago Guadalupe Hidalgo (Gilbert Gottfried) into replacing service industry superstar Joey Dee (Charles Rocket).
-This is the “host sketch” of the night, which is supposed to be a spoof of The Idolmaker, the movie Sharkey would win a Golden Globe for at the end of the month.  Knowing this is supposed to be a spoof of the plot of the movie (with Gilbert Gottfried in the Peter Gallagher role) helps, but even being aware of the plot of the movie doesn’t help this sketch very much.
-I did like the “he was a slow learner” intertitle as Gottfried changed wardrobe and the set was being redressed to put the new picture up.
*1/2

COMMERCIAL: COMMERCIAL FOR NOTHING
-Spokesman (Joe Piscopo) has the pitch style but not an actual product to sell.
-This seems like filler and a sign that the show was desperate to fill airtime.
*

MISCELLANEOUS: INSULT CONTEST
-With time to kill, Eddie Murphy does a stand-up routine about black people fighting with “yo mama” insults.
-The story behind this segment is well-known: when the show was short of material, Neil Levy had Eddie Murphy go on-stage and do a cleaned-up version of the stand-up routine from his audition.
-Murphy has the audience fully engaged with this routine.  It is a little rough around the edges, but the audience that would not react for minutes on end would come to life for this, and right away you can see Murphy cementing his place in the show’s history.
****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: “LIVIN’ WITHOUT JA”
-Sancious is now on guitar, and the band is visibly enjoying themselves on this uptempo number.  One of the guitar players gets a “Day Tripper” quote in there as well.

GOODNIGHTS
-Ray Sharkey exclaims “We had a ball!”
-Don Pardo announces that next week’s guests are Karen Black and Cheap Trick, before bemoaning that NBC won’t give him a show of his own because they think of him as an announcer.

Final Summary:
An “off night” for the show, with a deader-than-normal audience in places.  At the same time, this is an important episode in the show’s history because this is where Eddie Murphy says his first LFNY, kills with a Weekend Update bit, and does his solo stand-up on the show.  The show also is using more outside material for film acquisitions, with the departure of in-house filmmaker Mitchell Kriegman.  Backstage there were a few more shakeups over Christmas break, with new head writers Jeremy Stevens and Tom Moore replacing the departed Mason Williams, and Del Close now doing improv coaching with the cast.  The changes would pay off next week, but this show seemed like they were slow getting up and running again after Christmas break (something that still continues on the show to this day).  The weakness of the show is not a reflection on Ray Sharkey, though, who carried much of the show on his back and did a commendable job tonight.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
-Insult Contest
-Stop-A-Nut
-Taped Confession

EPISODE LOWLIGHTS:
-Commercial For Nothing
-Tommy Torture
-The Waiter-Maker
-Monologue
-anchor segments of Weekend Update
-Surrogate Mothers
-Intepreter
-The Man In The Black Hat

MVP:
Eddie Murphy

CAST & GUEST RUNDOWN
cast
Denny Dillon: 4 appearances [Tommy Torture, Black Market, Surrogate Mothers, The Waiter-Maker]
Gilbert Gottfried: 4 appearances [Citizens For A Better America, Weekend Update, Taped Confession, The Waiter-Maker]
Gail Matthius: 4 appearances [Tommy Torture, Weekend Update, Surrogate Mothers, The Waiter-Maker]
Joe Piscopo: 4 appearances [Bobbie's Bar/January 11th, Weekend Update, Black Market Baby, Commercial For Nothing]; 2 voice-overs [To Tell The Truth, Work Time]
Ann Risley: 4 appearances [Interpreter, Black Market Baby, Surrogate Mothers, The Waiter-Maker]
Charles Rocket: 7 appearances [To Tell The Truth, Interpreter, Tommy Torture, Bobbie's Bar/January 11th, Weekend Update, Stop-A-Nut, The Waiter-Maker]
featured players
Yvonne Hudson: 3 appearances: [Interpreter, Bobbie's Bar/January 11th, Surrogate Mothers]
Matthew Laurance: 3 appearances [To Tell The Truth, Tommy Torture, Bobbie's Bar/January 11th]
Eddie Murphy: 6 appearances [To Tell The Truth, Bobbie's Bar/January 11th, Weekend Update, Black Market Baby, Stop-A-Nut, The Waiter-Maker]
non-cast
Tom Malone: 1 appearance [Tommy Torture]
Andy Murphy: 1 appearance [Taped Confession]
Chris Palmaro: 1 appearance [Tommy Torture]
Elliott Randall: 1 appearance [Tommy Torture]
Kenny Vance: 1 appearance [Tommy Torture]
Buddy Williams: 1 appearance [Tommy Toture]
guests
Ray Sharkey: 8 appearances [Monologue, Interpreter, Tommy Torture, Bobbie's Bar/January 11th, Taped Confession, Black Market Baby, Stop-A-Nut, The Waiter Maker]
Jack Bruce & Friends: 2 appearances ["Dancing On Air", "Livin' Without Ja"].

REBROADCAST HISTORY:
Not rebroadcast on NBC.  This was also skipped over by the Comedy Network when they aired 90-minute versions of 1980-81 in the fall of 1998.

Additional screen captures not seen above are available here.