I watched this episode quite some time ago, and all I have to remember it are a few scribbled notes. I can already feel the no readers melting away. Negative numbers of readers! This blog will strip information from your mind.
Anyway, first up is the host, Candice Bergen. Well, it’s not first up – there’s a cold open featuring Gerald Ford. Casting my mind back through the decades, I discover he was famous for falling over a lot, and thankfully Chevy Chase, while not attempting in any way to do an impression of the then-President, at least falls over a lot. Apparently, he claimed his painkiller addiction was down to him doing pratfalls on TV. I think it might have had something to do with him liking drugs as well.
Anyway, Candice Bergen. She seemed really, really nervous, in a way most hosts these days wouldn’t be allowed to be. Or something. But, this just adds to the charm of the early shows. Onwards! There’s a brilliantly silly sketch advertising for jobs as ambassadors for the USA. I like stuff like this, where there’s no real reason for a sketch, and it’s...damn, already used silly. Some other similar word.
Next up is a terrible, too-long sketch about the CIA and how rubbish they are. Dan Aykroyd has a pile of paper, Garrett Morris (to be known to us comedy fans of the 21st century reprising his “deaf school” character on “Chappelle’s Show”) asks for information about himself, blah blah blah. You, the future viewer, can fast-forward through this sketch without worrying too much. But then we have “Jaws 2”, which is actually the first appearance of the Land Shark. Well, Wikipedia says it’s the first appearance. It would be an unusual thing for them to say if the Land Shark only ever appeared on the show once. It’s another lovely silly sketch.
Musical guest time. Now, I like a nice tune as much as the next man. Well, not as much as some people, but I can appreciate a decent singer. Esther Phillips was not that singer. She apparently had a long and glittering career, but judging by this performance everyone was just too kind to tell her she was really bad. Awful wavering voice, tone deaf...I forgot to skip past it, it was so bad.
Next up is the Albert Brooks segment, where he shows clips from some shows which will be apparent mid-season replacements for NBC. I’ve said it before, but Brooks’ bits are by far the funniest things about this first season. It’s such a shame they either didn’t go down well with the audience or Lorne Michaels or whoever, because they’re clever and sharp and worth watching. The standout of the three shows he showed was “Black Vet”. Now, an experiment to see if I can put images in this damn thing:
Okay, here’s where my notes get a little patchy. I have “Michael O’Donoghue- phone call”. I learn from Wikipedia that his name was in the main cast but was removed the episode before this, although he continued to make appearances. What’s that, I hear you say? Why don’t you just go there and read all this stuff without my editorialising? Er...anyway, Michael O’Donoghue was on this episode, and he made a phone call of some sort. As was Al Franken, future US Senator. He was mainly a scriptwriter but did some acting as and when required. There was a game of computer pong on screen, with a humourous conversation of some sort between Franken and another person. Neither of these segments made much of an impression on me, evidently.
Another horrific musical performance, and that’s your lot!
FIRST: host picture, I think.
FIRST: host picture I remember seeing.
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