Monday, May 27, 2013

Ringo Starr/Herbie Hancock (12.8.1984)

Beatles Memorabilia Auction – Short hosts this auction of Fab Four collector’s items such as Lennon’s guitar pick used to record “Eight Days a Week”, a toothbrush McCartney used while recording “Rubber Soul” and Ringo Starr himself (who receives much audience applause upon his entrance). The toothbrush goes for $110,000 but no one bids on Ringo. Kroeger asks if his jacket was ever worn by Paul McCartney. Stephenson asks if he does anything and his handler (Gross) states that he plays the drums and has an interesting ring collection. She also asks if he can talk and in response, he opens the show with LFNY. This was a decent open. They kept it short enough so they didn’t run the joke into the ground. I particularly liked Ringo being carried out on a loading dolly ala Hannibal Lecter (seven years before “Silence of the Lambs”) as well as Short’s line “Good Lord! We’re dealing with a human being here!” Ringo had a pretty good sense of humor to participate in this. B-

Monologue – Ringo states how he is still a “legend” for not changing his nose and how life at the “legends clinic” is very secluded. One of his advisors convince him to host SNL in order to get out and “meet some real people” and this show is the best way to meet 35 million real people all at once. Ringo then states that one of his “legendary friends” just flew in from London for a “last minute reunion”. His “friend” turns out to be Sammy Davis Jr (Crystal). Ringo tells the audience about how Sammy worked with the Beatles on Abby Road. Sammy claims he worked on McCartney’s vocals as Paul had trouble with his pitch (essentially laying down his vocals for him) and advised Paul to go barefoot on the album’s cover. They both do a medley including “With A Little Help from My Friends”, “I Gotta Be Me”, “Octopus’s Garden” and “Yellow Submarine” among others. I didn’t really care much for this monologue and it wasn’t all that funny. The singing was all right though, but the rest of it really made little sense. C+

Willie and Frankie III – The pair has new jobs as construction workers. They complain about how the job is dangerous and they aren’t meeting new people and how they miss being night watchmen before starting the same routine all over again. Guest was actually pretty funny, but otherwise there was nothing worth mentioning. His story about shoving knitting needles through his nipples got a pretty good reaction from the audience. Thankfully, they seem to have kept this shorter than the previous two installments. C+

Texxon – This fake ad is a repeat from a few 82-84 episodes I’ve seen, and since nobody reviewed the particular shows this was in, I’ll tackle this one. The narrator explains that grants from the Texxon foundation fund hospitals and free job training programs and urges citizens to support deregulated oil and not to protest “price fixing” and “windfall profits” or else the unemployed, children and the elderly may suffer life threatening consequences. The tagline is “Do what we say, and no one gets hurt.” This wasn’t too bad. The dark, ominous tone made it feel like something out of the 81-82 season. I liked the black extra’s line into the camera stating “If these dudes don’t get some offshore oil leases, I’ll be back on the streets…and I’ll be mad.” C+

Strictly From Blackwell – Fashion critic Mr. Blackwell (Shearer) interviews guests Rajeev Vindaloo (Guest) an effete Indian wine connoisseur and shirtless Chippendale Eric DeMonet (Kroeger) who Blackwell states is there to introduce a new line of cosmetics and fragrances for men. Blackwell spends the entire show interviewing Vindaloo and barely talks to DeMonet at all. This was your typical dry Shearer humor here, nothing really memorable. I did think it was kind of funny the way Kroeger just sat there the whole time looking dumb and then said he was wearing a body stocking. I’ve been meaning to search for some clips of the real Mr. Blackwell to compare with Shearer’s impression, but I’ve never gotten around to it. B-

Unlucky Man – Ed Grimley (Short) makes his fourth appearance this season (in eight episodes). Ed is late for his triangle lesson, waiting at the bus stop in the thundering rain. He sits next to a mysterious guy in a hat and trench coat (Ringo) who is very unlucky. Ringo gets hit by lightning repeatedly. This shocks Grimley, but he is so used to it now, that it doesn’t even faze him. Grimley decides to give this stranger his lucky coin that he’s carried with him all his life. Suddenly, the sky clears up and they decide to go for a walk. Ringo gets hit by a car and decides to give Grimley his coin back as he is so unlucky it doesn’t really do anything for him. This was definitely the weakest of the Grimley sketches so far. They really just ran one joke into the ground and Short just rambled on to disguise how thin this premise was. C-

Fernando’s Hideaway II – Fernando (Crystal) makes his third appearance this season. In this “Hideaway” installment, Fernando interviews his close friends Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach (real). This was the typical repetitive Fernando shtick here, not much to see here. This was quite odd as I never knew before that the drummer for the Beatles was married to Television’s Daisy Duke. I mean…WTF? I did like when Crystal asked Ringo how to program a VCR and said “that Beatle thing really took off, didn’t it?” but otherwise nothing really stand out. C+

Massacre on 34th Street – This was the first taped piece of the night that wasn’t a repeat from a previous episode. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Belushi) plays “Santa the Terminator” He breaks through the chimney and just shoots up some random living room and at the end says “I’ll be back! Ho ho ho!” This was pretty pointless. Belushi did not look or sound like Arnold at all. Maybe this was a commentary on the excessive violence in films of the time, but otherwise I see no reason for this piece to exist anywhere ever. F

Ringo’s Buyers – Stan and Kathy Richards (Belushi and Stephenson) are Ringo’s new owners. They paid $800 for him at the auction and Stan regrets the purchase. Since he moved there, all he ever does is sitting on the couch popping bubble wrap and watching reruns of “The Jeffersons.” They are trying to contact the couple who bought Ringo at their garage sale because he apparently ran away. Ringo comes back home explaining that he followed Stan’s scent home. Rebecca Sturgeon (Dreyfus) curator of Atlantic City’s “Golden Nugget Beatles Museum” who is offering them $1700 dollars to put him on display. Stan is the only one to take him up on the offer, but acts like he realizes you can’t put a price on a person and tells the curator to call him back tomorrow to talk about it. This was a nice almost Pythonesque continuation of the cold open (ala “Closet Organizer”) and even though there were some more complex bits to it, I enjoyed it. It was funnier than the cold open as a whole thanks to some of Belushi’s lines like how they could’ve used McCartney’s toothbrush around the house. I also liked how Dreyfus stated that $1700 would be enough to make them “comfortable for the rest of their lives” because it’s the cost of two La-Z-Boy lounge chairs. Ringo was pretty funny and he seemed to be on board with the sheer silliness of the sketch. It was a good way to poke fun at his image a little. The Netflix edit doesn’t include this episode because they couldn’t clear “Movin’ On Up.” A-

Reverse Psychology – This sketch takes place in WWII. Japanese Colonel Asaka (Crystal) is trying to get captured prisoner British Major Hunter (Guest) and his sergeant (Ringo) to agree to build a bridge over his river, but he refuses. In response, the Japanese colonel announces that he is going to throw a party and send them off to the Bordello. He tells his soldier (Kroeger) that he is using reverse psychology. The British Major also attempts to use reverse psychology, but Asaka refuses to let them build the bridge just to play along and kicks them out of his camp. This wasn’t all that funny, but at least it was well acted. You’d think Crystal and Kroeger doing hackneyed Asian accents would be incredibly irritating, but they pulled it off well enough. I think maybe it had something to do with Crystal playing a typical villainous portrayal of a Japanese soldier from an early WWII movie. C+

Job Interview – Burns (Belushi) must prove to Nelson (Guest) that he is mentally insane because he was exempted from service in Vietnam or else Nelson can’t hire him. He tries to show that he is a compulsive liar and goes on rambling. Burns tries to prove that he is a desperate man who will do anything and obeys all of Nelson’s ridiculous commands. Nelson tells Burns that he isn’t insane, but he is an idiot and his company doesn’t hire idiots. When Burns is gone, Nelson removes his pants and calls in his secretary. This sketch can only be seen in the Netflix version of this episode. It was no big loss really. The premise was a little thin and only got laughs sparingly, but at least it was building to something decent. The only other sketches available in the Netflix version are the Auction Open, Willie and Frankie, Blackwell, Fernando and Massacre on 34th Street. C+


Well, this episode turned out to be more mediocre as a whole than I remembered but it still had its moments. Ringo wasn’t really in that many sketches, but he proved himself to be a capable comedy performer and he really seemed in his element. Oddly enough, this may very well be the only episode in recorded history to not have a Weekend Update/SNL News segment. Strange, I could’ve sworn I remembered seeing Ringo anchor the news. Why would it be erased from history? It certainly would’ve been more entertaining than sitting through Guest anchoring the news again. Next episode is Eddie Murphy/Robert Plant and the Honey Drippers.

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