SNL Season 38: End of an era

Last year, Saturday Night Live said goodbye to Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg, two of the major performers on the show's past couple of seasons.  Samberg and his cohorts from The Lonely Island brought the show into the viral media age with their Digital Shorts, and for better or worse, Wiig was the show's dominant performer.  The loss of the show's most recognizable stars seemed to portend an uncertain time in SNL's history, but despite the hiring of a few new faces and the dismissal of another player (Abby Elliott), the 2012-13 season didn't seem to have a feeling that there was a void the show was desperately trying to fill.  A lot of the credit for this belongs to the new performers hired as featured players, particularly Cecily Strong; she established her place on the show quickly and firmly, in a way not seen since Amy Poehler.  Kate McKinnon (a late-season addition for 2011-12), was also fairly prominent, owing to having similar strengths as the departed Wiig.  While Aidy Bryant and Tim Robinson are still waiting for their breakouts, both show promise and distinct sensibilities that the show could mine to its benefit.

I do feel the long tenures of some players like Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen and Kenan Thompson tend to hold the show from effectively developing some of the new cast, but in three seasons alone, Taran Killam seems ready to take over as SNL's alpha male next season.  Jason Sudeikis and Bill Hader provided a solid backbone for this season.  Bobby Moynihan had the best year of his tenure, Vanessa Bayer rebounded from a confidence drop that plagued her throughout 2011-12, and Jay Pharoah taking over the Obama impression helped establish his place in the cast.  Only Nasim Pedrad feels particularly misused, mainly stuck with "little kid" and "old lady" roles.

The writing staff was mostly stable this year.  There were a few departures: Christine Nangle and Weekend Update writer Jessica Conrad did not come back this season, and John Mulaney joined Paula Pell as a part-time contributor.  One writer returned to the show after a seven-year absence (Joe Kelly, most recently a writer/producer for How I Met Your Mother).  Neil Casey and Josh Patten joined the staff, and, beginning in February, a slew of guest writers were brought aboard for brief stints, including Chelsea Peretti, Cora Frazier, Michael Che, Edi Patterson, Monica Padrick and Kids In The Hall alum Kevin McDonald (Che was later added to the regular roster for the May shows).

The season was fairly uneven, though, with more pronounced highs and lows than SNL's experienced in a few years.  There were a greater number of outright duds this year (the Mountain Pass sketch from Louis CK comes to mind), yet the stumbles felt more like the show was losing its fear of failure that made the last couple of seasons a little too safe and antiseptic.  In a way, this actually came off as promising.  There were also enough flashes of inspiration, including the Mike O'Brien-penned short film "Sad Mouse" and two-part sketches like Tim Robinson's "Z Shirts" and Seth Meyers' "Darrell's House" that imbued this season with a freshness not seen in a while.

The show has always had castmembers come and go to varying levels of fanfare, but it seems that the big emotional farewell for a departing player has become de rigeur in recent years.  Phil Hartman's 1994 send-off featured the show's recurring characters performing a variant of "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound Of Music.  Will Ferrell's 2002 departure was marked by the cast (except for Tracy Morgan) speaking out-of-character about how he'll be missed.  What turned out to be Darrell Hammond's final show didn't have an explicit tribute, but the cameo-filled full-cast "Goodnight Saigon" performance felt uncharacteristically emotional to be just a random Will Ferrell sketch.  The Kristen Wiig "graduation ceremony" at the end of Mick Jagger's show last season seemed to outdo all these earlier goodbyes; despite Wiig being such a divisive castmember for a lot of fans, the emotional displays of from her colleagues made her swan song all the more moving.

I touched on the news of Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Seth Meyers' departures from SNL in my last post.  Hader and Armisen both got their goodbyes last night; unlike Wiig, both performers chose to say their goodbyes in character.  Hader's farewell was one last Stefon appearance on Weekend Update, culminating in a pre-taped segment of Seth Meyers racing through New York to stop the club promoter's wedding to Anderson Cooper a la The Graduate.  Armisen used the show's 10-to-1 to perform an understated farewell tune as his Thatcherite punk character Ian Rubbish, with Hader, Killam and Sudeikis as the Bizarros, and cameos by Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, J. Mascis, Kim Gordon, Sex Pistol Steve Jones, and Armisen's Portlandia collaborator Carrie Brownstein.   SNL is not a show that often features genuine emotion very often: when it does, such as last night, the results are amazing and devastating.

With the departures of Hader and Armisen, Meyers' impending move to the Late Night desk, and the rumored exit of Jason Sudiekis, last night's show truly felt like the end of an era for Saturday Night Live.  Even if Meyers sticks around to ease the transition to the next Weekend Update anchor and head writer, he will seem more like a vestige of a prior version of SNL than a full-fledged member of the new guard.

SNL's cast change news

The next season I'm going to be reviewing on the blog is...1982-83!  I'm going to start my reviews after the current season wraps up; I'll be giving my thoughts on 2012-13 as a whole before doing my intro post for the season, then the first review will be of the Chevy Chase / Queen show.

It's been quite an eventful week in Saturday Night Live related news: it hasn't been a full week since the last live show with host Kristen Wiig (which was, by most accounts, underwhelming) but with word that this week's season finale will be Bill Hader and Fred Armisen's last show, and the announcement that Seth Meyers will depart mid-season to take over Late Night, SNL's next season is already shaping up to be very different.

Bill Hader's departure is going to be a huge loss for the show; I consider him to be the "glue" of the current cast, and many fans on the message boards have already mentioned he belongs in the ranks of the top ten SNLers of all time.  He impressed me even as far back as his rookie season: there was one sketch in the Jason Lee episode that was a commercial parody for tasers, and Hader walked away with the whole thing with his delivery on one line: "Is that man a criminal? Well, he sure looked like one."  There was a time when Andy Samberg overshadowed him, especially immediately after "Lazy Sunday" hit big, but Hader has been consistently solid in sketches, even if sometimes he begins to break character, as he does in Scared Straight, The Californians, or Stefon.  Despite sticking around the show for a year longer than Kristen Wiig, it never really felt like he overstayed his welcome: even his big recurring character Stefon is still capable of providing the highlight of a particular show.

I'm a little more mixed on losing Fred Armisen.  Early in his tenure, he brought such a different sensibility to the show, and was a relief from the antics of Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz, which were starting to run their course (side note: I've since grown to appreciate both a bit more).   Unfortunately, Armisen's last few years haven't held up to the standard set by his early SNL work.  Part of the blame goes to his being cast as Barack Obama: at the time, it made a bit of sense, since Armisen had the closest resemblance to the candidate, but he never really got the voice down or found a real hook for the impression.  It didn't help that the most frequent use of his Obama was in these lengthy, lecture-like "in one" segments.  Toward the end of the run, his other roles started to run together: in the Arab Spring, he had a string of appearances as middle-eastern dictators making outdated pop-culture references in the same identical accent.  I never cared much for Garth and Kat or The Californians either.  His work on Portlandia seems to be where he's at his best, though, even if his later SNL work comes off as him goofing off and participating in private jokes.  Even so, he still had a knack for knowing parodies of certain types of people and affectionate tributes to musical genres.  Eleven years is a long time to stay on the show, though, and Armisen's departure is something that opens up a lot of possibilities for SNL.

The biggest change will be Seth Meyers' promotion to late-night talk show host.  Meyers has been the show's head writer and Weekend Update anchor since 2006; he is currently the longest-tenured WU anchor of all time.  While the show has taken a bit of a dip in quality around 2009, a lot of the sketches with Meyers' name attached have been some of the strongest of the past few seasons: he wrote Coach Bert (Steve Buscemi episode) and Darrell's House (Zach Galifianakis episode).  He's staying an extra half-season, but I'm curious whether his exit will also mean that he's going to poach the ranks of the current SNL writing staff for his new show.  Despite all the new players that have been introduced since Meyers became head writer, the writing feels stale at times, with the writers' room dominated by veterans and new writers only lasting a short period of time (particularly the 2008, 2009 and 2010 hires).  If anything is going to shift the show significantly, it's going to be Meyers leaving.

I think the remaining cast (particularly Taran Killam and Cecily Strong) has proven they are more than capable of carrying the show, even if these three veterans are gone.  Some expect Jason Sudeikis and Kenan Thompson to leave with them, but until either say the word, they could still be heading up the next year's cast.  Despite some issues with the writing, this year's cast is one of the best in a long time.

But I'll get back to that after the finale.

Another thought on SNL rerun edits

I had written before about how the repeats of Saturday Night Live are different from the live shows before (in an earlier blog post as well as a piece for Splitsider.com about segments cut from reruns), but one thing I've been thinking about lately is how there really isn't any detailed information in the major SNL episode guides about the repeat-only segments, although sometimes there would be information added to the trivia section of the TV.com listings.  

Part of it is that some of these bits are so rare and unaccounted for (such as Gilda Radner's segment in Aviva Slesin's "First Love" series), and part of it is that if you're going to compile a list of those segments, you might as well compile a list of the segments that have major changes between live broadcast and rerun, including dress rehearsal substitutions and fixed errors.  The amount of effort that would go into it wouldn't really be worth it, unless I were actually getting paid to do this (and you know Broadway Video / SNL Studios must have all this information on a private file somewhere).  It still seems like an interesting project, though.

Here are but two examples of the many dress rehearsal changes that have become the "official" version of segments in reruns, syndication or streaming.  Both come from the heavily edited 1985-86 season, which is notable in itself for the amount of technical issues fixed and canned laughter added in the rebroadcast versions.

"You Can Call Me Al" (Catherine Oxenberg, Paul Simon / Ladysmith Black Mambazo, 05/10/86)
The dress rehearsal take can be quickly differentiated from the live version by the color of Paul's shirt (pink in dress, blue in live), but the performances themselves turned out quite different.  The dress rehearsal version is pretty straightforward: Paul sings the song, then introduces himself before delivering the "Live from New York" (which is a slight variant on the usual line this time around).  The live show version is somewhat of a disaster: part of the problem is that the audience gives Paul an extended burst of applause at the very beginning, which delays his cue to start singing.  All through the first verse, Paul struggles to keep up with the music (a backing track that the musicians are miming to) and gives up part of the lyric so he can sing the chorus in time.  He seems a little thrown all through the song, but another big gaffe happens later when the director cuts to the SNL band after the "palindromic bass solo": the horn line begins but one of the players obviously doesn't have his instrument at his mouth.

The Cliffhanger (Anjelica Huston, Billy Martin / George Clinton & the Parliament-Funkadelic, 05/24/86)
The season finale of the troubled 1985-86 season had a runner where the devil (Jon Lovitz in a cheap Halloween costume) gets Billy Martin to fall off the wagon during the show, which leads to his inevitable "firing" as host.  This plotline culminates in the final segment of the show: instead of going straight to home base with the hosts, guests and cast waving goodbye, the cast congregates in the locker room to congratulate themselves on the season, before it cuts to Billy pouring gasoline just outside to light the whole place on fire.  The green-screened fire effect is marred somewhat in the live show by a visible folding chair in the flames, and Lorne Michaels doesn't look at the camera when he delivers the "they won't be able to do the show next year line".  The biggest difference is in the part where Martin joins Anjelica Huston and George Clinton at home base for the goodnights: when Anjelica asks where Billy is, her question is interrupted by a still mic'd Billy's very loud footsteps running; Anjelica laughs and does a slashy "cut" motion with her hand, and they don't do their dialogue for the closing.  The rerun also has a visible edit during the end sequence with the cast in the smoke-filled locker room (removing Anthony Michael Hall yelling for help in an exaggerated way).

Name the SNL extras (and guests) #3

 As part of my research for the SNL Archives, I go through old episodes to see if I can identify writers, crew, and various other production staff, especially if they are used prominently in sketches.  I've posted a few times before to see if I can get some help identifying them (so far I was able to get IDs for writers Paul Barrosse, costume designer Karen Roston, and talent executive Laurie Zaks; there are still a few I haven't identified yet.  Check out out the first and second posts).  I was wondering if anyone reading can confirm the identities of some of these staffers (and guests):

Dark-haired female staffer: She can be seen wishing Michael Keaton luck at the beginning of the October 30, 1982 show.  It looks a tiny bit like Laurie Zaks going by the picture from the Casablanca sketch later that season (she's the one playing Julia Louis-Dreyfus' lesbian skier girlfriend); not entirely sure though.

Gary and Eddie's Hookers: From "Why?" sketch in the Ron Howard episode (October 9, 1982).  They used up the full female cast on three roles.  I'm assuming they're either writers or PAs that got roped into appearing on camera.

Dr. Robert Levine: Joel from the SNL Archives is quicker to include a non-cast if they end up portraying a real person on the show, and this commercial parody made fun of Mary Tyler Moore's recent marriage to a much-younger man.

Clamdigger #1: From "A Roy Orbison Christmas" sketch (December 21, 1985).  The other three are (left to right) Terry Sweeney, Lanier Laney and Robert Downey Jr.  I'm trying to figure out who the guy on the far left is.

Older man onstage during goodnights: Same show as above.

Final thoughts on SNL season 6 (1980-81)

A lot has already been written about this season of Saturday Night Live, and a fan is more likely to read extensively about this season before actually watching a single episode.  The first time I actually saw these shows was in late 1998, when they ran on the Comedy Network; I was surprised that they weren't anywhere as terrible as their reputation made them out to be.  The shows were still weak, but I had already seen worse first-run shows by that point.  When watching the show again for these reviews, I have to admit it was a little more draining this time around, but that could have been because I was in a more analytical frame of mind, and trying to identify specific strengths and weaknesses in sketches.

What I saw was a decent group of actors without a strong group dynamic.  It usually helps a new SNL cast when some of the members have worked together in the past, the most notable examples being the original 1975 ensemble and the 1986 "second golden age" group.  Ferris Butler confirmed that the entire creative staff had not worked together before.  Several of the writers were also very young or inexperienced.  Twelve episodes would not have been enough time for such a cobbled-together team of cast and writers to find their collective voice (for comparison's sake, the original cast's 12th show was Dick Cavett / Jimmy Cliff).  There definitely was no lack of talent in either group, but they would have benefited from a little more time, a little less pressure and better leadership at the top.

A lot of the blame for the season's woes rightly falls on Jean Doumanian's head.  Most accounts I've read indicate that she was not suited to a creative role, yet wouldn't cede authority on that particular front.  One of the most widely-circulated stories about Doumanian's creative input was her written advice on one 1980-81 sketch: "Make it funnier".  For all the criticism Doumanian deserves, though, NBC should get its share for selecting her for the role of producer.  Once the network's buyer's remorse about Doumanian set in, their increased meddling with the show probably didn't help matters much either.

That said, I'm not entirely convinced that the show would have been received better under anyone besides Jean Doumanian.  One such scenario would be if Al Franken hadn't done the "Limo for a Lamo" bit in May 1980 and succeeded Lorne Michaels as producer as intended.  Franken may have been able to retain some key creative staff, and that likely would quell the cries of "pretender" from the viewers and critics, yet that may not have been enough.  Franken (and the late Tom Davis) did actually produce the first season after Lorne Michaels returned to SNL in '85, which had similar negative response to the Doumanian year. (Michaels has served as executive producer for every season since except 1986-87 and 1995-96: he had a more hands-on role during these "retooling years" that followed very poorly received seasons).  Continuity in creative personnel from season 5 may not have helped the show either, since the season before often had a tired and burnt-out aura.

I sometimes think Doumanian's failures ensured SNL's survival in the long-term, by necessitating the hiring of a network suit (Dick Ebersol) who served as a buffer between the show and NBC.  His show wasn't quite as edgy as the Michaels or even Doumanian versions, but Ebersol kept the show going long enough so that by the time he stepped down in 1985, Lorne Michaels was ready to return to the show.

I'm always interested in hearing the different takes on life at the show; I want to thank 1980-81 writer Ferris Butler for his valuable information regarding that season and his identification of show staff in bit parts as well.  Special thanks also goes to Raj for his information on the extras.  If anyone has more information regarding sketch writing credits, people doing background work, or are just interested in telling their side of their story, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly.

SNL Season 6: Final cast and episode summary

The cast:

Denny Dillon and Gilbert Gottfried

Denny Dillon: Dillon made a strong impression fairly early by carrying a lot of the sketches in the first two shows of the season, having the first recurring character of the new cast, and bringing needed energy to weaker sketches.  There was a little bit of a sameness to her performances that became more evident over the season, but she was a consistent, dependable performer.  She gave a lot of her castmates a boost whenever she shared sketches with them (Gail Matthius' Vickie was better once she had Dillon's Debbie to play off), and just seemed to exhibit a willingness and commitment in whatever she appeared in.  [MVP: Gould, McDowell]

Gilbert Gottfried: It's a little disarming to see Gofffried in these shows, especially since he was so young, with his eyes wide open and not speaking in that famous stilted squawk.  Where Dillon jumped in, Gottfried had a tendency to hold back: the legend goes that he didn't want to use his A-material on the show because he was concerned the network would claim ownership.  Gottfried's performances would end up being the clearest barometer of the Jean Doumanian era: early on, he's more lively and animated, if a little green, but toward the end of the season, he is a little more sullen and withdrawn.  His decrease in spark could have been because he got some of the most thankless jobs on the show that didn't go to featured players (having to wear the Master Po makeup all night in Carradine, playing a vegetable along the featureds in Dazola, and his nadir: being the corpse in a funeral sketch).  Like most of the cast, though, he was not without his moments: he worked well with Dillon as the Waxmans, and I thought his collaborations with writer Ferris Butler were particularly fruitful.  [MVP: Kellerman]

Gail Matthius

Gail Matthius: Matthius definitely had potential to be a great cast member, and hit the highest highs out of all three female leads, but she also had a few really frustrating moments on the show.  Impressions were her weakest point, and despite her efforts, she didn't really have the ability to rise above some of the material she was given.  She had a rough time on Weekend Update as well; fumbling a bit in her early shows at the desk and getting saddled with some of the worst jokes ever written.  These missteps seem even more disappointing because when she was actually given good material, she did quite well: I especially liked Francis Lively and the little girl character she played in "Lonely Old Lady", and thought she ended up going out on a strong note with "Same".  I can only wonder how she would have fared on a different incarnation of the show.  [MVP: Carradine, Harry]

Joe Piscopo

Joe Piscopo: Piscopo ended up being one of the two castmembers that stole Charles Rocket's thunder by demonstrating he was a better fit for the characters and celebrity impressions that the show built its name on in the first five seasons.  Piscopo was consistent, well-rounded, and seemed to feel more natural in the prominent roles that Rocket was being schooled for.  I'd draw the line at calling Piscopo an MVP of the season: I believe the key to his relative success this year were clear and repeated hooks in his signature bits (SNL Sports and Paulie Herman; Sinatra developed more fully after Ebersol took over), but he was always more of a "safe" performer and didn't have the kind of charisma that demanded attention like what Eddie Murphy provided, a quality that was desperately needed this season. [MVP: Gould]

Charles Rocket and Ann Risley

Ann Risley: I actually thought Risley handled the straighter roles fairly well.  Risley never managed to have a recurring character, and there were a few performances of hers that were pretty dodgy (mainly as the hosts of "Dying To Be Heard" and "Was I Ever Red"), but I wonder how much of it was actually her acting style (she's more of a straight actress) and how much of it was the writers not finding a breakout role for her (she did come close with the Toni Tenille sketch).  Some say that she was a poor fit for SNL, but I saw a few small glimpses of a potential Kristen Wiig-style performer whose true gift was understatement, although Wiig had the added benefit of being able to write for herself.  A key part of success on the show is either writing for yourself or finding the right writer to collaborate with; I don't know whether Risley had that support for herself.

Charles Rocket: Doumanian was banking too much on Rocket to be the breakout star: usually when something is pushed so heavily, it only helps build a backlash toward the performer.  Rocket was no exception, and he had a few liabilities that probably hurt him on the show: his impressions were weak, and whenever he tried to play big (like his February Updates or even in Billy-Gram), he chewed so much scenery it was distracting.  When he dialed it back, though, he was a decent utility player, and his strengths in those roles presage his respectable career as a character actor.  Rocket's true strength on the show, though, was catching people off-guard during The Rocket Report, where a different type of charm emerged than when he was doing sketches.  Unfortunately, Rocket became the public face for Jean Doumanian's mistakes on the show, and that one moment during the Charlene Tilton goodnights overshadowed pretty much everything he did since, even after he took his own life.  [MVP: Black]

Yvonne Hudson and Charles Rocket

Yvonne Hudson: SNL's first black female featured player was essentially doing the same types of roles she had been doing uncredited for the previous few seasons; aside from some increased prominence in sketches for a few episodes, she was still essentially an extra on the show.  There is actually one episode where she has less lines that SNL's resident "old man" extra, Andy Murphy.  Despite no longer being in the opening credits, she was kept around as an extra the next few seasons.

Matthew Laurance and Eddie Murphy

Matthew Laurance: Aside from Eddie Murphy, Laurance was the most prominent of the featured players.  I thought he was decent as a utility man, and served as a good counterpoint to the more exaggerated performances of Rocket and Piscopo, even if he didn't make a strong impression on his own.  I wonder how he would have done with one of Rocket or Piscopo's pitchman roles.

Eddie Murphy: From his first speaking role, Murphy demonstrated why he was full cast material.  There were a few appearances that betrayed his inexperience (particularly Newsbreak in Harry), but he had a confidence that the others in the cast seemed to lack, and made stronger impressions in less airtime than most of the cast did in more.   [MVP: Burstyn, Sharkey, Hays, Tilton]

Patrick Weathers

Patrick Weathers: His Bob Dylan sketch in Carradine was the main thing that distinguished him; he might have made a bigger impact if he was given more to do.  I won't hold Ravi Sings against him.

Robin Duke

Robin Duke: Out of Dick Ebersol's three full-cast hires, Duke made a smallest impression of the three, getting a band intro, a leftover Jane Curtin role, a decent part in a five-man sketch and a last-minute voice-over in the bag lady film.  None of these roles really showed what she was known for on SCTV, and viewers would get a better glimpse of her capabilities the next season.  Part of this can be attributed to the fact that Duke was a last-minute addition: Catherine O'Hara was originally slated to be on the show in her place (and was listed in news articles as late as five days before airtime), but O'Donoghue's first staff meeting seemed to justify her reticence towards joining the SNL cast.  O'Hara recommended old friend Duke for the show, and a month later, O'Hara was on the same network with the resurrected SCTV.  If the strike hadn't happened, Duke could have made an impact as soon as the next show.

Tim Kazurinksy and Tony Rosato

Tim Kazurinsky: Kazurinsky seemed to fit SNL immediately, and ended up dominating the first Ebersol-produced show.  Part of Kazurisnky's strong first outing comes from his prominence in two of the longer pieces, but being a combination writer/performer, and coming from an improv background certainly helped him hit the ground running.  It was John Belushi's recommendation that got Kazurinsky hired on the show, and Belushi's instincts turned out to be correct.  [MVP: Finale]

Tony Rosato: Like Duke, Rosato came from SCTV, and like Kazurinsky, he was hired as a writer/performer and made a fairly strong impression in his first show.  He and Kazurinsky worked well together in their two main sketches, but he would find a stronger footing the following season.

Laurie Metcalf

Laurie Metcalf: One of the most successful people to have an incredibly brief SNL tenure, Metcalf's sole appearance on the show was a pre-filmed "man on the street" piece.   I can't assess how she would have fared if Ebersol kept her on based on that one segment.

Emily Prager

Emily Prager: Prager didn't even appear on-camera during her only live show.  She has, however, appeared on the show before and after her tenure as a featured player: she was a girlfriend of Tom Davis' and appeared occasionally as an extra around 1977-78; she and Davis also appear in the Button film next season.

Strongest shows:

1.  Karen Black / Cheap Trick, Stanley Clarke: (Average rating: 3.18/5) The show where everything seemed to go right.  It's not flawless (SNL rarely is) but the combination of an energetic host, more determined writing and a receptive audience worked wonders.  As much as Black and the audience kept things lively, the victory belongs to the cast and writers.
2. Bill Murray / Delbert McClinton: (Average rating: 3.11/5) This is the textbook example of the host bringing a boost to the show.  The previous four shows were dispirited affairs, and the prior show in particular contained the moment that overshadowed the rest of the Doumanian-era.  Murray shows up and infuses what would be the final Doumanian-produced SNL with energy and the sense of fun that had all but vanished in the second half of the season.
3. No Host / Jr. Walker & The All-Stars: (Average rating: 2.88/5) Ebersol takes over, cleans house (as much as the budget would allow), and makes an appeal to nostalgia with his first show.  It's weighed down by Chevy Chase's disappointing Weekend Update return engagement, but this one remains consistently watchable if not an all-out return to form.

Weakest shows:

1. Robert Hays / Joe "King" Carrasco & The Crown, 14 Karat Soul: (Average rating: 2/5) The string of mediocre-to-bad sketches that come after Weekend Update is the air seeping out of the SNL '80 tire that they finally were able to inflate the week before.
2. Jamie Lee Curtis / James Brown: (Average rating: 2.22/5) The first three shows of the season had enough highlights to counteract the weaker material.  Here is where the good to bad ratio finally tips to to the other side; while nothing in this show is as bad as "Commie Hunting Season", a significant number of sketches were underdeveloped and uninspired. 
3. Charlene Tilton / Todd Rundgren, Prince: (Average rating: 2.26/5) A fair amount of OK material here, but the backstage runner that culminates in "Who Shot C.R." is underwhelming, and the highs don't really offset the lows enough.

Best sketches:

1. The Writer (03/07/81) Bill Murray is in front but playing it straight, while the new cast gets the fun of acting out the revisions he makes to his story.  Just a good sketch done well.
2. Hospital Bed (01/17/81) Probably one of the saddest sketches the show has ever done, with Gilbert Gottfried's disembodied voice communicating the thoughts of a stroke victim.  It's punctuated enough with humor to avoid mawkishness, but the writers wisely put the emotion of the scene first.
3. Mister Robinson's Neighborhood (02/21/81) The debut of one of Eddie Murphy's signature sketches, pretty much fully-formed.  The audience is on board by the end of the theme song.

Honorable mention: The Rocket Report - Fifth Avenue Charles Rocket's signature piece remains the place where his talents were best put to use.

Worst sketches:

1. Commie Hunting Season (11/22/80) SNL tries to make a pointed statement about the Greensboro Massacre acquittals; it's uncomfortable and alienating, but without the humor to redeem it.
2. Ravi Sings (01/24/81) The only joke in the sketch: a cartoonish portrayal of an Indian musician singing American love songs.
3. Badgers (12/13/80) A grating, amateurish sketch that hinges on a pun.

Best musical guests:

1. James Brown His sweat-drenched eight-minute medley of classics is a high point of both the season and the series, especially when taking into consideration that the band exceeded their allotted time.
2. 14 Karat Soul Five young singers with no instrumental accompaniment get one of the biggest reactions from the audience this season.
3. Stanley Clarke Trio Instrumental jazz-fusion that rocks as hard as any other musical guest this year.

Worst musical guests:

To be honest, I couldn't really say that there were any truly bad musical guests.  Joe "King" Carrasco may have had a rough and raw sound but it was clear the band was going for energy over technique, and the worst I could really say about Ellen Shipley is that she was decent but a little generic-sounding.  The other musical guests only really pale in comparison to the stellar choices Doumanian (and whoever else was involved in snagging musical guests) made this year.  I wonder how much of the booking strategy was intentional and how much of it was necessity, but this was where the Jean Doumanian show had some of their biggest victories.

Writer tally and turnover:

(*) indicates the writer returned the next season, (~) indicates a previous writer returning to SNL.

Aside from Ferris Butler's contributions (special thanks goes to Butler for providing a lot of insightful information about the season, by the way), knowledge of Blaustein & Sheffield's partnership with Eddie Murphy and a handful of other sketches whose writers have been identified, I don't really know what each specific writers' voices are in the show and whether any shifts in quality were from writers joining or leaving, or being favored or disfavored.  If anyone has more information regarding who was responsible for any sketches, please feel free to drop me a line.

Full season:

• Barry W. Blaustein*
• Billy Brown & Mel Green
• Patricia Marx
• Douglas McGrath
• Pamela Norris*
• David Sheffield*
• Terrence Sweeney

Full Doumanian run:

• Larry Arnstein & David Hurwitz
• Ferris Butler
• John DeBellis
• Jean Doumanian
• Brian Doyle-Murray*~
• Leslie Fuller

Shorter tenure:

• Mason Williams (head writer, Gould through Carradine)
• Jeremy Stevens & Tom Moore (head writers, Sharkey through finale)
• Nancy Dowd (Gould and McDowell only)
• Sean Kelly (Gould and McDowell only)
• Mitchell Kreigman (Gould through Carradine)
• Mark Reisman (Harry through finale)

Post-hiatus hires:

• Mitchell Glazer
• Judy Jacklin
• Tim Kazurinsky*
• Matt Neuman~
• Michael O'Donoghue*~
• Tony Rosato*
• Dirk Wittenborn

An essay regarding the season as a whole will follow in a subsequent post.

Capsule comments on some SNLs I watched

I've been transferring some of my original broadcasts of SNL to DVD format, and I'm using the chance to watch some of these shows for the first time in years.  I thought I'd give some of my thoughts on some of them.

• Elijah Wood / Jet:  OK show, good host. This had Amy Poehler's first Hillary Clinton impression, one of Maya Rudolph's earlier Whitney Houston bits (not quite as exaggerated and mean-spirited as they would get), and Chris Kattan making his second cameo since leaving the show. Not as good as I remembered it, though.

• Jack Black / John Mayer:  Better than I remembered, still Black's weakest outing (2002 was probably his best though 2005 had Lazy Sunday and Spelling Bee). It's a shame they didn't do the Adult Students after this time. Wade Robson Project was kind of odd to have so early in the show (does anyone even remember that show now?) but Black saved a lot of the weaker material. Best sketch was Cat's In The Cradle, with Jack as the singer airing out childhood issues with his father (Horatio Sanz) while on stage, as new step-mom Shelley Long (Amy Poehler) points out she was on Cheers. I heard that was actually Jason Sudeikis' first aired sketch as a writer.

• Jennifer Garner / Beck:  The start of a four-show hot streak for an uneven season. Will Forte and Seth Meyers look like little kids in the monologue that Tracy Morgan steals by dressing as cupid ("You make me feel like the Lion King!"). Good early Fred Armisen stuff with the "Lights Out" sketch. Garner had good energy and presence in her sketches. Debut of Amy Poehler's cartoonish Michael Jackson impression, kind of a slap in the face for Dean Edwards who does a better job as one of the alien Michaels. Saddam and Osama was actually funnier than I remembered it. I used to be sick of Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz cracking each other up but I couldn't help but laugh at this one.

• Paris Hilton / Keane:  At the time I didn't think it was bad as it could be, but yeah, this was one that was even worse than I remembered. I couldn't help but think about Tina Fey referring to Hilton as "a piece of shit" on Howard Stern all through the episode. She always seemed to be doing that damn hand-on-hip pose in sketches combined with this air of doing the show a favor just by being there, which would be annoying enough without blatant gaffes (crossing between Chris Parnell and the camera during the closing of Merv The Perv, not hiding her real arm when holding a fake for a Barbie sketch). Aside from an American Idol sketch and a nerd phone-sex line, the sketches were pretty weak too. Cheapkids.net seemed to be Jim Downey's way of showing disapproval of the host (the audience seemed a little uncomfortable in those, because they veered a little close to dead baby comedy).

It's interesting to see some of these shows and then watch a new show where Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen and Kenan Thompson are still hanging around.  I'm also realizing Horatio Sanz was a much better cast member than I remembered.