Existentialist Weightlifting
Classic SNL Review: December 12, 1981: Bill Murray / The Spinners, Yale Whiffenpoofs of 1982 (S07E08)
Sketches include: "The Phone Company", "Tales Of The Unlikely", "No Tomorrow", "MX-5 Tampons", "SNL Newsbreak", "Fairytale", "Sarducci's Predictions", "At Home With The Psychos", and "Supply Side Christmas". The Spinners perform a medley of "Then Came You", "I'll Be Around", "Working My Way Back To You". The Yale Whiffenpoofs of 1982 perform a medley of "The Whiffenpoof Song", "Boar's Head Carol", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman", "Jingle Bells". Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) and Juggler Michael Davis make guest appearances.
Classic SNL Review: December 5, 1981: Tim Curry / Meat Loaf & The Neverland Express (S07E07)
Sketches include: "Texxon", "Mick!", "Poppa I Love You", "The Trouble With Fred", "Father and Son", "SNL Newsbreak", "Tim and Meat's One Stop Rocky Horror Shop" "The Zucchini Song" and "A CBS Special Report: If Reagan Had Survive The Assassination". Meat Loaf and The Neverland Express perform "Promised Land" and "Bat Out Of Hell". Frank Nelson cameos.
Classic SNL Review: November 14, 1981: Bernadette Peters / The Go-Gos, Billy Joel (S07E06)
Sketches include "Texxon", "Johnny Keep Your Gun Clean", "Escape From Escape From New York", "I Married A Monkey", "A Message From Eddie Murphy", "Hidden Photo", "Bedtime Story", "Man Ray And Mic", "Sketch In The Dark", "42nd Street", "Nick The Knock", and "Rock 'N Roll Heaven, Incorporated". The Go-Gos perform "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "We Got The Beat". Billy Joel performs "Miami 2017" and "She's Got A Way". Bernadette Peters performs "Making Love Alone".
Classic SNL Review: November 7, 1981: Lauren Hutton / Rick James & The Stone City Band (S07E05)
Sketches include "Exxico", "Here's Cos", "Dressing Room", "Hail To The Chief", "Transeastern Airlines", "Whisper", "The Khaddaffi Look", "Cheap Laffs: Macho Wipe", "Harlequin Romance Novels For Men", "Reach Out", "Velvet Jones School Of Technology", "Reality '81", "Blowing Up A Building", Bitter People" and "Art Is Ficial". Rick James & The Stone City Band perform "Give It To Me Baby" and "Super Freak". William S. Burroughs also appears.
Classic SNL Review: October 31, 1981: Donald Pleasence / Fear (S07E04)
Sketches include "Eddie's Preparation Techniques", "Profiles In British Courage", "Jogger Motel", "Two Faces of Jerry", "I'm So Miserable", "Pumpkin", "Guardian Angel", "Tales From The Hip", "The Clams", "Intermission", "Sugar Breakfast", "Andy Warhol's TV: Costumes", "Home Movie Critique", "The Vic Salukin Show" and "Prose and Cons". Fear performs "I Don't Care About You", "Beef Balogna", "New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones" and "Let's Have A War". Juggler Michael Davis also appears.
Classic SNL Review: October 17, 1981: George Kennedy / Miles Davis (S07E03)
Sketches include "Control Room '81", "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood","53 At Studio 54", "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney", "Velvet Jones School of Technology", "Mr. Bill in L.A.", "Spray On Laetril", "La Cage Aux Folles '81", "Up And At 'Em", "Rubik's Teeth", "An Editorial Reply", "Jake The Hired Hand", and "Tuna Melts and Typing". Miles Davis performs "Jean Pierre'. Harry Anderson also appears.
Classic SNL Review: October 10, 1981: Susan Saint James / The Kinks (S07E02)
Sketches include "Exxico", "McDonald and Wife", "Buh-Weet Sings", "The Bizarro World", "Blowing Up A Building", "Lifeboat", "She's A Pig", "Let's See What's Bothering Bob", "Single Women", "Honeymoon", "Cheap Laffs" "Andy Warhol's TV", "Alan Alda's Sensitivity Training For Men" and "Assassination Aftermath". The Kinks perform "Destroyer" and "Art Lover".
Classic SNL Review: Oct 3, 1981: (no host) / Rod Stewart (S07E01)
Sketches include "NBC", "The Little Richard Simmons Show", "The Clams", "Naughty Nuns on the Beach", "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", "Prose and Cons", "Strangers in the Night", "Strangers in the Funeral Parlor", "Andy Warhol's TV", and "Season of Glass". Rod Stewart performs "She Won't Dance With Me", "Hot Legs" (with Tina Turner), and "Young Turks". Juggler Michael Davis also appears.
SNL Up Close: 1981-82
The 1981-82 season, while not considered a great year for the show, is SNL's most unique season.
SNL Season 35: Final cast and episode summary
This is my last part in my series of posts about the 2009-2010 season of SNL.If I blog about SNL any more during the summer hiatus I'm going to focus on earlier seasons and episodes.I plan on doing reviews of an earlier season during the summer, but I wanted to give some final thoughts on the castmembers and the shows this year.I've said before that the writing was the big problem on the show, but I wanted to get in depth on the individual castmembers' performances this year.I also wanted to highlight a few of the standout moments of this year, both good and bad.
SNL 35.22 Alec Baldwin (and season 35) post-mortem
Last week, I presented the possibility that the SNL cast and writers would have used up all their energy on the Betty White show.This week seems to have confirmed that theory, with an episode not only underwhelming by Alec Baldwin's usually high standards but for a season finale in general.I don't know if they were expecting that Baldwin's presence alone could elevate mediocre material (to be fair, he did help somewhat) or if it was just exhaustion on everyone's part, but either way the finale was another letdown in a season full of them.
SNL 35.21 Betty White- Post-mortem
The Betty White show has to be one of the most hyped episodes in the series' 35 year history.But how was it?
SNL Season 35: What's Wrong?
The current SNL season is almost finished, and by and large it's been a dissapointment.It's not quite at the point it was in the infamously bad seasons (1980-81, 1994-95), but after coming off a particularly strong 2008-09 season (buoyed in part by Tina Fey's cameo appearances as Sarah Palin), the drop in quality is still noticable and that if things don't get fixed soon, it's going to get worse.For the most part this year has actually had at least one funny sketch per show.But the cracks are visible and unless something changes over the summer, next year could have the makings of another bad year on the level of 1994-95, when the show could no longer successfully navigate the line that divides the uninspired and the terrible.
SNL 34.18 - Tracy Morgan / Kelly Clarkson
Live review of the March 14, 2009 broadcast of Saturday Night Live