Відео

Since I was watching in 1979, I was well aware of Silverman's failing at NBC. Not just SNL, but Johnny Carson did plenty of jokes about it (to be fair, Johnny had a bit of a vendetta, and that year he almost left Tonight over salary - and got a huge pay hike to stay eventually). Any entertainment news (pre-Entertainment Tonight) mentioned it (TV critics in the paper, for example). And the poor quality of NBC programming was self evident. Though SNL - and many others - went too hard on "Hello, Larry", a OK/mediocre show at best. I liked those, though the 3rd one was petering out considerably. They just had to get to Kate liking the cast too much to sabotage them. As far as anti-Silverman goes, the 1981, Michael O'Donoghue-penned, unaired "Silverman's Bunker" sketch - which I've not even read - would really not pass muster with you guys! Plus, the mention of a limo in the Kate Jackson ep turned out to be some bigtime real-life foreshadowing to another controversial anti-Silverman piece done by Franken on Update in 1980. Sketch of the night: We have a quorum! Mine's also the child psychiatrist one. Great work by Laraine! My worst sketch: The Coneheads. Turning their swan song into just another pot joke was a disappointment, even in 1979 for me. In retrospect, they could've made it more about the space creatures in the movie vs. the "real life" ones, even predicting Mystery Science Theater 3000 a bit.

The Twilight Zone sketch was hilarious for those familiar with the shows they spoofed. Especially 38 year old Rick Nelson, with his hair slicked back, portraying himself as 16 year old Ricky Nelson. Yes, he was definitely known as Rick Nelson in 1979. "Dream Lover" was his current single. Muhammad Ali had been booked to host this show, but had to cancel, so they called Rick. Al Franken had wanted to do an "Ozzie's Dead" sketch, which of course was terribly offensive to Rick.

Matt may not have liked the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrott Orchestra, but the young audience sure did. Great perfomance! Keith is certainly right on about George Schmidt, not only an excellent singer and banjo player, but also great artist. I had the pleasure of visiting his gallery during a recent visit to New Orleans.

And here we are, one of my all-time favorite sketches. The Twilight Zone ranks up there with Chevy's opening falls, the Ford sketches, Buckwheat is Dead series, Cowbell, Colonel Angus, Singing in the Stalls, etc. with me. Loved your take, Keith, and appreciated the dissent from the other 2 in context. Knowing the parodied shows is helpful to enjoy it. My context, as someone born in 1961, is as a late-Boomer seeing a sketch made by earlier-era Boomers. I watched Beaver in reruns as a younger kid, and Lucy quite a lot. I knew of Father Knows Best, which I really only "got" with Bill Murray constantly holding on to his coffee, since that was an iconic thing - plus the history of "Father" actor Robert Young doing coffee commercials, including at the time this SNL aired. I'd seen Make Room for Danny a bit. The showbiz motif in the sketch helped me there. The Twilight Zone itself: seeing this sketch made me really want to see the actual show. It was somewhere around 1979-81 when I finally saw it (with the lady and the hitchhiker). I'd seen Burns & Allen on PBS before early '79. The meta of it was perfect for me. The change-up in the sketch was a great surprise, even if the story told was, indeed, boring. Thankfully the Lucy part perked up the audience again. And I must've caught a bit of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as a kid, since Hitch walking into his side portrait was already iconic to me. Naturally, he had to needle the sponsor like the real-life director did that all the time. I esp. love the sketch as a satirical piece, a comment on the sameness of the shows (besides Lucy, the inclusion allowing more recognition applause and the brilliant "Ricky" bait-and-switch making that part perfect)... as well as, of course, convenient reuse of the same set.

One of my favorite renditions of this great story. Waiting for more!!

Nice send-off for Emily. I agree the ending of the midwife sketch was horrible - though I did like the meta aspect of it. Ex-police: lazy re-re-redo. Bad taste, very! Though the point of those was criticizing the far-right hate attitudes of the ex-cops. You'll notice the victims are portrayed very sympathetically before the social vigilantes bust in. Heavy-handed just the same. Widettes: Matt's right that there is social commentary in the jokes. Easy, cheap comedy becomes judgmental about consumption. Of course, I have more reason to resent it in modern times than in 1979. My favorite part of the show may be the monologue. It was refreshing to see Ms. Tyson call out Garrett on the show. The indeed Pythonesque Walker Brigade was great, silly fun. Given the old-seeming film footage, I suspect this was a Tom Schiller sketch. Musical guest: I find the Talking Heads okay overall, but the 1st song is my favorite of theirs (I'm less familiar with the original) Overall, I rated it lower than usual. A 4.5 (.5 for a few good sketches elevating the darkness).

I was just in the middle of commenting here and the whole thing just vanished when I was looking down on the keyboard. My computer (battery?) does get twitchy at times - maybe I hit "cancel"? And when that happens, I lose the will to start over. I'll try reduced versions of what was lost after I make sure *this* makes it through...

Did the unknown intruder stick around and help lizzie burn that bloody dress?.

I find these so interesting and the voice actors do a wonderful job. I enjoy hearing about this trial and hope to see more!

Thank you! Love these enactments. Hope they keep coming!

Many thanks, I was so looking forward to this!

Very exciting to wake up to this! Thank you!

Yay! Happy Saturday. Thank you :)

Thank you!

This video is the most theater kid thing I’ve ever seen and it’s amazing. I’m having trouble focusing and wanted to read the trial transcripts this is a perfect substitute

An episode that aired on New Year’s Eve. 😮 Obviously because it was a new show. SPEAKING OF- as you did- YES, they need to bring back shows like Dick Cavett and Tom Snyder. 👍👍

For those of us that subscribed for the Lizzie Borden videos, are they over? Not interested in all the SNL AND SCTV.

Hi. I'm jumping in at this time to say I recently found your videos and it coincided with my rewatch of SNL. I was searching for the Mardi Gras episode & you popped up so I found you in my rewatch in the middle of season 2. ( I did finally find the Mardi Gras episode online.) I was 16 years old in 1975 when the show started, and remember watching it and loving it in the 70's. I just wrapped up Season 3 and just wanted to tell you how much I love your content. I just wish you were on season 40 or so and I could continue with watching the episode and then your reviews. 😊So thanks so much for this. You all do fine work and are very professional. Love your shows.

Respect, but y'all wrong about how great Play Misty For Me is.

9 from me as well. Opening: Cheap humor, indeed. Won't unseat "Schweddy Balls" or "Colonel Angus" for me anytime soon. Still liked the earlier State of the Union better with the meta-like humor better. Monologue was pretty weak. The socks part should've been the whole thing. What if...? was a favorite in that series. Palin's Hitler was great (excellent observation on the similarity to his Pontius Pilate), though John Cleese's in Monty Python's Flying Circus (Mr. Hilter) is still one of the best (along with Moe's from the 3 Stooges) ever. Love how Aykroyd made up for not finishing the disrobing by the sudden pants pulldown. Gets its own laugh. I always remember "What a Fool Believes" from this SNL appearance 1st and foremost, even though the Doobie Brothers' songs are usually remembered through top 40 radio, like the 2nd song that night. Myles Cowperthwaite: The Dickensian-Pythonesque absurdity was funny. But not liking the gross-out stuff, esp. the bucket-draining scene. Agreed that the Mr. Bill Show was great. Extending past the usual set, but staying in the demented kiddie show universe was perfect (later extending into more live action scenery, etc., was a sort-of Jump-the-Shark period for me). Loved the lit-up facial reaction of Mr. Bill at the end! Name the Bats was a funny from the set problems as from the written humor. And, by this long as an SNL fan, I already have to assume that the only-first-names name of "Steve", Belushi's character, was meant to be John's old pal Steve Beshakas, so often name-checked throughout John's tenure on SNL. I have to split my (unofficial) vote for best sketch between "Uberman" and "Name the Bats".

Melonville. There"s a word I haven't heard in many a year.

A mellow time at Melon-ville A few years ago, I discovered why SCTV's laugh track is like it is. The show's people didn't want one, but had no choice. So, as an act of rebellion, they deliberately placed it off-kilter throughout the episodes. To me, the effect of that, even before I knew about it, was to give the show an even more offbeat charm.

Love this series!

If I were rating cast member of the night for the podcast instead of the SNL, mine would be Matt. Most of his critiques here, both positive and negative, I agreed with. My worst sketch is Alcoholic's Christmas (agree with the sweep), and best is Mommie Dearest (though I love Dubb's Trees - really, Jane's so good at playing a little girl, and she could've done more of that). Probably a 6.5 for the overall show. The "Bob & Ray, Jane, Laraine & Gilda" show has been on UA-cam and is probably still there. The Rod Stewart song cover is my highlight of that broadcast. And I always think of Chris Elliott mostly from Late Night with David Letterman, his SNL cast stint (most relevant here) being the wrong idea since him being a recurrent host like Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, etc. would've been great instead. If I haven't already said it, your outros on these podcasts are a highlight. Love the clever references to on-SNL bits there.

Keep going 🤙🏻🤙🏻

Ah, the French Chef sketch episode. That was a memorable night. During prime time, I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail on a small TV (don't remember if B&W or color) while my sister watched the Kiss movie on the big color set.. Almost like a theme, Kiss was known for Gene Simmons spitting out fake blood at concerts, and I enjoyed stuff like the knight fight scene in Holy Grail, only seeing the cartooniness of it on the small TV. But I knew Python did stuff with fake blood. Once I had the big TV for SNL, it got to the French Chef sketch. The TV reception so far during the show was not great. But there was Aykroyd doing his Julia Child. That was hysterically funny. I was laughing hard, begging my sister to come to the living room, not to miss this! Then, the "sharp knife" and the blood, and my mood changed to angry that my favorite show went that far, since I'm squeamish about that stuff. I will admit, the "it's only a prop, it doesn't work" was funny. Still unhappy, though. I definitely agree with your 3rd chair on the comedic hemorrhaging. The TV reception? It cleared up JUST in time for the fake bloodletting! Figures. A couple things further from 1978... It's one of the few of that kind of sketch that I can watch (still look away at the "cutting" part, even though I don't think anything gross can be seen then). I've noticed before that part, Aykroyd seems to be vamping a bit, repeating some lines haltingly. It looks to me like the liquid maybe wasn't quite ready to go just yet. Another thing is that Julia Child herself has said she saw the sketch and laughed and enjoyed it. I actually like that, making her really cool for her attitude. Rating the sketch: 1st half - A+. second half - D (the smartness of it you mentioned about the writing elevates it from an F) The overall show was mostly good: 8 out of 10.

Thinking the Meters are bargain bin music? Oh dear.

I hate to be a pest because I know you're really busy. But I am REALLY looking forward to the next installment of the LBT! Would be very much appreciated! 🙂

The Silverman stuff: At the time, his failures were pretty well-known. Certainly Johnny Carson was biting the hand that fed him (no surprise given Johnny's near departure the following year). There was enough in those days for the general public to have an idea. I sure did. Olympia Diner: The changeover from Pepsi to Coke WAS a sea change in the series. Update: Yeah, very O'Donoghuesque segment in his absence. Joking about Jonestown in '78 was in bad taste, even for them. Something somewhat similar (minus the scale) this now-past weekend with the bit about the boat-bridge crash story. Host: Matthau's iconic. My favorite movie of his is The Odd Couple (with Jack Lemon, of course). On SNL, he was cantankerous, but maybe not in the Broderick Crawford way that charmed the cast. Most likely he summed it up in his outro to Garrett's *musical guest* segment. Staying at 8

Solid 8 from me, SNL wise. Podcast wise, I identified most with Keith's opinions. The Beach movie sketch. I loved the metacommentary of the characters about rebellion, Vietnam, etc. The "Love singing to white kids on the beach" part reminded me of Little Richard in "Catalina Caper" on MST3K. I think the choice of a Beach movie was due to satirizing something from the time the SNL crew grew up. Making fun of the nostalgia. I can't help but think ahead to the Twilight Zone parody later this 4th season, also satirizing the pop culture of the late '50s-early '60s, albeit more sharply. It's one of my all-time favorite SNL sketches (I like the Beach movie one OK). Lots of old references, even the studio audience didn't get all of them. Well, still a while till the Rick Nelson episode comes up. Inside stuff: I don't know when it actually started (maybe that week), but somewhere around that time, Carrie was dating Dan Aykroyd. Interesting if they started up the week she hosted SNL, especially since Bill Murray got the fringe benefits in the mutual funds sketch!

Maggie was playing dumb in her testimony, she loves saying , i dont know anything bout it she loves saying that. 😅 playing dumb.she made a deal with the devil and she wearing a dress.

I'm guessing the reason Ry Cooder performed his 1974 recording, "The Tattler," is because Linda Ronstadt had covered it on her most recent album, "Hasten Down the Wind." I do remember the song gaining new life in 1990, when it was included on the soundtrack of the Robin Williams film, "Cadillac Man," where it memorably played during the closing credits.

I saw The Mothers many times, including the Fillmore East shows, officially released on LP. As John Belushi said in the SNL opening, I, too, stopped listening to Zappa after that record. [Because Zappa became a vaudeville clown, self-parody after that]

Listened to this a short while after it came out. Yeah, the Uncle Roy sketch(es). Back in '78, I did laugh, knowing SNL loved to be raunchy, knowing the title character was a creep. Indeed, Buck's glee in playing him worked in the sketch's favor. I knew, later on, who the writers' were, but truly informed about the background from here (if I read it in one of the SNL history books, I'd forgotten). Really glad they didn't encounter an Uncle Roy, or worse, in their childhoods. Really glad you referenced the ending of the last one from 1980. With that one Buck 4th-wall break, the series became a sort-of warning about that sort of thing way before any national discussion. It was chilling, and Buck really sold it.

I loved the death sketch and would love to see it again.

I found this 'cast while googling Esther Phillips and trying to find out why the hell she was so popular. That vibrato ... holy CRAP she sounds like a cat being shaken violently. Amazing voice, but that other crap she did ... I'm glad you guys reacted the same way. I actually looked up her studio work and it sounds a lot better; the vibrato sounds normal. Not sure why she went different for SNL, but you're right ... it was a very bad move. True ear vomit.

Much more Lizzie trial, please..

Where was this recorded, Atlantic Canada? Gotta be Nova Scotian accents.

Someone finally had full SNLs taken off the Internet Archive site (many expletives deleted), so no more complete 40-year SNL viewing tonight. I did find football themed sketches on YT for Superbowl weekend. Finally checking out this SN Hell seemed right. Not a football fan, either, but the theme on this one worked for me. Yeah, Tarkenton was flat as a performer, though, as you guys pointed out, very likable. And while sports hosts are often like that, I'm sure you'll love it once you (hopefully!) get to the Payton Manning one. Best sports host ever, and one of their best SNLs, right to the very end!

8 Rating here. The monologue segment was a great follow-up to Steve's last one, both with the Bill Murray parts. Love how Steve says "pla-seeeee-bo", and how Bill finally gets his treat, chewing it slowly and with attitude. Also loved Jane and the green screen in the "What If". The fact that some little boy keeps giving them scenarios for the "show" is perfect. Elvis's Coat: favorite part is the otherwise motionless coat shakin' to "I'm all shook up". Mini-masterpiece. Nerds: 1st two-character live sketch performances with Garrett. I had to laugh, given one of my all-time favorites from this season (around this time in 1979), and all time, blows that out of the water, cast-wide!* Another notable example in the distant future: Jan Hooks in the "Twin Peaks" sketch. Thought the same thing as you guys about "Colonel Lingus"... "Colonel Angus". Agreed Tina improved upon the pun greatly, delivering a masterpiece sketch with that. *(Hint: only host Rick Nelson plays only one person throughout... though, ironically, Garrett may've only been one character in that as well)

You had me at no nudity that you’ll know of😂

Couldn't agree less with what you had to say about Betty Carter's performance. I caught that show the night it aired, and she and her group totally blew me away

I just listened to his autobiography again the other day. Well worth a read/listen.

:{- FZ FREAK MOUNTAIN 👍

Here it is... that one. ;) Haven't watched it probably since its 40th anniversary (I've been watching old SNLs that way since 2016). Memory and an SNL review site helped me remember it overall. I, too, think a 4 rating fits (for the sketches that did work). Since my main music at the time was disco with a touch of top 40, but not a fan of the disco scene, I appreciated "Dancin' Fool", enjoying it on the radio in '79. in my classic rock era (1981-present), I like Zappa songs here and there. Not a favorite, but respecting his genius. But, man, not a good guy on SNL! I do side with him over the SNLers over drug use. Even as a teen in the 1970s. Certainly Zappa has more credibility there than the "moral" types. The prisoners sketch was, indeed, a unique sketch. First on SNL for the writer (as an aside, he also wrote a piece for National Lampoon, a comic book parody that more-or-less predicted "Itchy & Scratchy"). The aforementioned review site mentioned that the sketch was based on something in the news at the time. I've always thought the Franken & Davis Show could've worked better as a regular sketch - though the way Franken said "Tagliani" was really funny. Near the end, maybe the ending itself, Zappa referenced Chevy Chase. I liked that in 1978, but that probably didn't help Zappa any. While they often wrote in quips at Chevy's expense since he left, I have to assume mentioning him randomly like he did rubbed most there the wrong way. Next one: season 4 really gets going for me. Especially with Steve Martin, then Buck Henry!

Listening to the transcripts of Lizzie's trial I am in awe at hearing the English language spoken with such eloquence and precision.

This was a real treat. As it happened, I decided to watch an old SCTV show on UA-cam after the live SNL last weekend, and this was the one I saw! At the peak of late night weekend TV I'd tune in to the local PBS station at 11 PM to watch Monty Python episodes, then switch to local NBC for SNL, after which I'd go to the next most local NBC, which followed up the SNLs with an SCTV. They were the ones with Harold Ramis in the cast. This was possible by early 1979. Python was introduced to me by a new friend in 1976. It wasn't long before they stopped airing the show, and it finally came back in late 1978. Meanwhile, I'd been seeing listings in TV Guide for something called Second City Television, but we couldn't get the station in our area. I thought it might be more or less what it was, but I was curious. Finally, it showed up on the NBC station and made for a great night of TV. I've come to collectively call the shows "The Big 3".

Nice one, guys. More please.

Great episode! Love the recap of all time favourite series of mine. (Also Stripes is 100% underrated!)

thanks for the video.