Apparently, this episode has no cold open whatsoever.
Neither the SNL Archives or Frank Serpa’s guide list one. This may be the first
instance I’ve seen of this.
Monologue – The former “Dynasty” star states that she left
the show to seek more creative outlets (read: do commercials) and tells us she
has bought “candid’ snapshots of former costar Joan Collins to show the
audience how “beautiful” she is in real life. She decides not to show them at
the last minute because Collins herself (Belushi in drag) is actually in the
audience tonight. This was a pretty unremarkable monologue and it really didn’t
seem to have much of a point to it. Still, I have to give the audience some
credit for playing along. C+
Willie and Frankie V – The much maligned pair are glad to be
messengers again and meeeting people (like a certain secretary from Shedleman
Suits that Willie finally got lucky with). As they encounter each other in the
building and wait for the elevator, they regale each other with more tales of
pointless self inflicted pain. I did like Guest mentioning a kid taking the
fish hook out of his lip and Crystal’s aversion to Johnny Carson’s beard (and
the fact that he willingly climbed into a trash compacter and slammed his car
trunk on his own tounge) but otherwise…meh. Did Johnny actually have a beard at
one point? I don’t ever remember seeing him with one. D+
That White Guy and His Wife – Obviously, this was the same
bit from the Alex Karras episode but instead Belushi’s character raps with his
wife (Martin in a stuffy accent and tennis dress). I did like the drunk wife
swapping bit and the line “I got my money the old fashion way/My grand daddy
dropped dead one day” but otherwise, I didn’t really care for it. C+
Joe Franklin III – In this installment, Franklin’s (Crystal)
guests are Alan Alda impressionist Phil Carpin, (Kroeger) astrologer to the
stars Angelica Pern (Martin) Jackie Rogers Jr. (Short) and old comedian Red
Skelton (Guest). Carpin promotes his one man show “Give ‘em Hell, Hawkeye”
which just seems to be a random collection of Alda’s various lines from
M*A*S*H. Much to Joe’s disappointement, Angelica Pern only does numerology.
This was one of the better Joe Franklin sketches. Guest dida pretty good Red
Skelton (as far as I could tell) and I liked how he would tell rambling,
pointless jokes and limericks that he wouldn’t even finish, but Short still
laughed anyway. I also liked the “chubby” bit when Martin was reading Short’s
lifeline. B-
Night Of 100 Stars/Plexiglass – Fernando (Crystal)
interviews various stars around Radio City Music Hall for the titular event in
this taped remote segment including Teri Garr, Susan Lucci, Morgan Fairchild
(yeah, that’s the ticket) Lynn Swan and Ann Margaret. The taped part was
probably the most meandering segment of the night, but I did like when Crystal
confused Garr for Dustin Hoffman and thought she dressed like a man in
“Tootsie”. I also liked when he and Swan discussed Terry Bradshaw. Crystal
wraps up the segmant in the studio as Fernando and introduced Rich Hall who did
impressions using pieces of plexiglass. This bit was pretty funny and clever
and a nice step up in quality from the last segment. The audience also really
enjoyed this. I particularly liked the airplane and traffic bits. B+
Called Shot – Some old guy with a mustache introduces this
stroll down memory lane pointing out spots in the studio where Chevy took his
first fall and Dan first called Jane an “ignorant slut” which he would alter
use on the show. The sketch flashes back to a time when Jim Belushi visited a
girl in the hospital and encourages her to call him for a secretary position. A
nurse (Stephenson) says a sick boy would like to see him before he goes. He
tells the boy he plans to do a character named “Aunt Willoughby” on the show
tonight and tells him that scene will get the biggest laugh of the night (even
though the boy and everyone else insists that drag queens never get laughs.)
These hospital scenes are taped, by the way. Unfortunately, the show was facing
their toughest crowd ever that night. A nervous Belushi prepares to enter a
funeral scene as the rest of the cast and crew gives him some last minute
encouragement. His concern over his feminine appearance and whether his breasts
were straight was funny. Belushi walks on and does the jitterbug for no
apparent reason which breaks up the crowd and gets a big reaction. Leon, the
sick boy, recovers. The moral of the story seems to be that if you don’t laugh
at something on this show, you may have killed some dying kid. This was a
decent conceptual piece. Belushi’s unexpected anticlimactic dancing made me
laugh because it was somewhat unexpected and I liked how the kid aggravated
Belushi by confusing him with Eddie Murphy. B-
Saturday Night News – Best jokes: Orson Wells, Stamps. Guest
answers a letter (from David Letterman, oddly enough) asking how they get those
pictures on the screen and explains how chromakey technology works even
removing his screen to demonstrate where he finds film reel narrator Dwight
McNamara (Kroeger) who tells Guest he is wrong and that he has been projecting
the pictures behind the screen this entire time. McNamara explains how his reel
works in his typical muffled fashion. This was a great bit and I always liked
this character from Kroeger. It was a creative setting for him. This was
probably the shortest News update of this season and it wasn’t exactly
cluttered with commentaries. This was a refereshing change of pace for Update
this season and a good chance for Guest to work on his delivery.
First Draft Theater III – This appeared to be a parody of
The Ten Commandments with Crystal as Moses. Un fortunately, this was missing
from both the ioffer/myspleen set and the netflix version. No big loss. It looked
pretty bad anyway. It couldn’t have been as good as the first two if Shearer
hadn’t written it. This lookslike Crystal probably wrote it. N/A.
Tom, Dick and Horny – This appeared to be a short mock spot
for an ‘80s teen sexploitation flick with Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise.
Unfortunately, this is also missing from both versions. It looked like a quick
photo bit, so again no big loss. I just wished they hadn’t replaced these with
that god awful Crystal/Guest “negro baseball” film and the much worse “Massacre
on 34th Street”. N/A.
Dynasty’s Greatest Fights – Joan Collins (Stephenson) and
Linda Evans (Martin) are recording a spot for a charity album they are
recording . Collins keeps speaking over Evans to the point where they can’t
stop bitching at each other and break out in a catfight. This was okay. I can’t
say much about either impression except that something seemed different about
Stephenson’s Joan Collins (probably because this was the first time she has
done it live). B-
Shootout at the Zeppelin Corral – This was a short cartoon
piece where we apparently we see a little party going on inside a cowboy’s
bullet. I think this can be seen on the Netflix version. On the other set, it
is replaced with the NORAD Contraceptive commercial. I didn’t really think that
much of this, but it was pretty well animated. B-
Well, this was another average episode from what I could
see. Martin proved to be a rather forgettable host, but then again she wasn’t
in all that much. Next up, I will be reviewing the SNL Film Festival.
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