Playboy Party Jokes – A model (Newman) poses about a large
plastic martini glass in front of a faux Playboy text layout and botches a few
dirty limericks. Gee, and I thought last weeks’ cold open was quick! Laraine
was wearing very form fitting flesh colored leotard with black gloves and tall
boots. Of course, this was a nice touch, but it looks like the put fake breasts
on her. If not, well then…more power to her. Anyway, this open was nice enough
just for setting up the running theme of tonight’s show. C-
Montage – This appears to be the same as last week, but the
guest announcements were clearly shot at night.
Monologue – Hef comes out in his traditional silk pajamas ad
pipe with the “bunny” logo laid out on the floor for him and confesses to not
being much of a performer (he is a magazine publisher after all). Then, he goes
into a rendition of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” as text scrawls under him
explaining how he thanks heaven for various other things (particularly, girls
of larger sizes) because he happens to be a very religious man. This wasn’t
what I was really expecting out of a monologue, but it was at least interesting.
So far, I really don’t have a strong impression of how Hef is going to perform
as a host. C+
Angora Bouquet – Curtin advertises a soap her husband
recommended to her that happens to be heavy on pH formula 23 and tranquilizing
agents. These are meant to silence the “complex human emotions” that clash with
great looks. This was another funny ad, but not as well remembered as some of
the others from this season. I especially liked the references to Jane finding
the same tranquilizers in Bill Jr.’s pants pockets during laundry as well as
Bill showing her how to rake correctly. Of course, the Simpsons fan in me
appreciated the final rake gag at the end. B-
Planet of Men vs. Planet of Women – This sketch takes place
in the year 3000 where a solar mirror divides the universe into two sides: one
ruled by men and the other ruled by women. An asteroid from the planet
“Lubricax” has shattered this solar mirror and thus both sides must face each
other in battle. The females fire a ray that makes the men’s space suits
tighter. In response, the men fire the “mouse ray” to scare the women off. The
ships lose control and collide. Given the shape of the female ship, the male
ship easily passes right through it without any damage. The females take a
cigarette break while the men get some sleep and call it a night. I did like
the “mouse ray” sight gag with a real live mouse trapped in a plastic tube.
That was strangely funny on its own, but the rest of the sketch was comprised
of cheap derivative sex gags which, again, I’m sure must’ve felt bold and
daring and even yet tasteless for 70s TV, seem stale and hacky roughly 34 years
later. C-
Anyone Can Host – Garrett, from Lorne’s desk, reminds
everyone to send in their postcards. Don Pardo assists him, of course. Nothing
to see here as Garrett pretty much restated everything Lorne announced the
previous week.
X-Police – In the first installment of this much maligned
sketch, the Kleins (Belushi, Curtin) are two upstanding med students who decide
to stop studying for the night, smoke a joint and call it a night. Suddenly,
two former police officers (Murray, Aykroyd) who were kicked off the force
recently bust in and rough them up unnecessarily. If you’ve seen one of the
three versions of this sketch they did, you’ve seen them all. I’m not going to
go into more detail here since it follows the exact same formula as the two
sketches that followed it. Still, it is less in bad taste than the others, but
it still ages horribly. D+
Circular Bed Sex Research – Hef is assisting a young coed
(Curtin) with her thesis on how geometry affects male sexual performance.
Suddenly, he gets a phone call and a visit from President Carter (Aykroyd) who
asks what kind of headphones he should buy and asks to use the Jacuzzi with the
secret service. This was a rather ambitious sketch. Despite the dialogue
feeling a little forced and labored, I think it worked and it led to an
enjoyable sketch. B-
Listening to Great Music – Belushi plays a recording of
“Ride of the Valkyries” and examines how it evokes a certain setting. He shouts
out what he appears to be imagining with the song. This eventually turns into
descriptions of attending a concert, fathers disapproving of marriages and of
course aerial warfare as Belushi smashes the hi-fi set. I didn’t quite know
where he was going with this, but given Belushi’s manic performance style we’ve
come to be familiar with, I knew it must have been building up to some big
pay-off. This wasn’t laugh out loud funny or anything, but it was entertaining.
B-
Weekend Update w/Curtin and Aykroyd – Best jokes: Pardo’s
typos, Lillian Carter/Howard Cosell, An NBC tour guide (Tom Schiller) takes a
tour group through the right past the Update desk. Curtin announces that Nadia
Comaneci (Radner) is going on a 60+ city US tour and shows brief footage of her
gymnastic performances. The highlight was Radner encouraging people to come see
her because “she won’t be cute forever” and describing how she will grow up to
be “a big fat Romanian woman”. I also liked the reaction Jane’s parallel bar
joke got. The NBC “Dancing N” returns with a bulletin warning viewers not to
mix cocaine and heroin. Jane announces that this is the first SNL episode to be
broadcast on the Armed Forces network and welcomes those overseas who are
watching. She then jokingly announces “we’re at war”. This Update was light on
guests and felt like the shortest one this season. Even if most of the jokes
were forgettable, this was one of the better Curtin/Aykroyd Updates. B-
Sex In Cinema – Hef hosts this historical retrospective on
how far film has come from the Hayes code of the 30s/40s. The final scene from
“The First Mrs. Kimball” is shown with Cary Grant (Murray) and Katherine
Hepburn (Newman) to illustrate a violation of the intent of a rule that if a
couple is in the same bed; one of four feet must remain on the floor. Murray’s
one foot indicates wild sexual activity. Bill and Laraine turned in great
performances, but they didn’t make up for the weak material they were given.
However, I did like the “penis/please stand by” gag and the line about next
week’s show featuring outtakes from “The Miracle Worker” stood out as being in
somewhat questionable taste given the context. C-
3 R’s – Curtin hosts this talk show funded by the New York
board of regetns which focuses on the educational system. Her guests are
Micheal Mykonos (Belushi) and daughter Colleen Fernman (Radner). Mykonos is
suing the board of education for $10,000 because Colleen graduate and got a
high school diploma, but can’t get into college because tests show her as
illiterate. Mykonos is portrayed as a rather abusive father and even claims her
daughter even wrote a book. Colleen confesses that her father is a crook and
the whole thing is a scam because his restaurant is losing money. Jane doesn’t believe
her and chastises her for disrespecting her father. I believe this is one of
only two times when Gilda’s “Colleen” character wasn’t portrayed as completely
mute. Anyway, this felt like a rather one-joke middle of the road sketch but it
had a decent pay-off. C-
The Story of H – This was a short autobiographical film
about Hugh Hefner. He narrated it himself and talked about how being thrust
into the national spotlight at the height of a sexual revolution conflicted
with his upbringing, his personal beliefs and his sense of right and wrong.
This was intriguing. The quick cutting and music choices really draw in the
viewer. It felt a little out of place on SNL, but I’d still take it over any
Weis film. B+
Playboy Philosophy – Socrates (Belushi), Plato (Morris) and
Hef debate each other for an audience of students in a marketplace on what
makes a man. This sketch is set in ancient Rome, and yet Hugh Hefner appears to
be playing himself and smoking his pipe. This sketch gradually turns into a
Playboy advice column. This sketch simply doesn’t work. It only got a minimal
reaction from the audience. Thankfully, they kept it from running on too long.
D+
Funeral Magician – Funeral director John Hulce (Aykroyd) introduces
magician Hartley Raymond (Murray) who performs his act to a crowd of people
that barely knew the deceased Jonathan Gilsrack (Zweibel). He performs a card
trick in order to prove to the crowd that the spirits can indeed talk but to no
avail and then does the old “sawing a body in half trick.” This felt like a
really tired premise and not even Bill Murray could save it. The only thing
that I found even remotely funny was the goofy sound of Paul Schaffer’s
synthesizer. It was like listening to a kid’s toy or an ice cream truck or
something. C-
Guest Performance – Hef introduces Andy Kaufman who merely
does his rendition of “Oklahoma!” with a little soft shoe. Then he encourages
the audience to sing along with his piano number song about what noises animals
make. Of course, he finishes with his Elvis routine. One of the more
forgettable Kaufman segments, but still enjoyable nonetheless if not for
Kaufman’s legitimate musical talent. C+
Farbers at the Playboy Club – Reg Schaffer (Aykroyd) brings
Larry Farber (Belushi) to the Playboy Club on a business deal and Larry brings
his wife Bobbi (Radner) along. Bobbi wonders why she doesn’t just want to have
sex with him and goes on about how she doesn’t see the appeal of the place
while Larry and Reg talk about the amazing legends of the Playboy franchises.
The Farbers keep bickering as Hef himself enters encouraging them to leave as
they are closing. Larry and Reg react in shock as Bobbi reveals that she reads
Playboy for the witty articles. This was more interesting than funny and it
seemed to be saying something about established gender roles in our society as
Aykroyd and Belushi let themselves believe such ridiculous things about Playboy
while Radner seemed to unexpectedly know exactly what she was talking about.
Maybe that just speaks more to Hef’s ideal Playboy girl or what kind of
audience he was hoping to attract. B-
Well, that episode was certainly something different. Hef
proved to be a decent yet forgettable host. He wasn’t terrible, yet he didn’t
stand out much and all he really did was play himself in every sketch. For the
most part, they had the writing to back this up. Next episode would be the
infamous Charles Grodin outing.
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