Saturday Night Live Season 2 Reviews - Episode 2 - Norman Lear / Boz Scaggs

“How’s your snake, Mom?”

Cold Open: Chevy In The Hospital

4 Stars

Gilda explains Chevy’s absence, he hurt his groin during last week’s debate sketch and is in the hospital.  Gilda has volunteered to do the opening fall but gets a call from Chevy telling her it’s too dangerous.  Instead he has her walk the phone to the edge of the desk and drop it on the floor.  A cute way to start the show and address Chevy’s injury.  It’s a little weird that they’ve already done the “Chevy’s injured and can’t do the fall” cold open last season but this one is for real.  I wonder how many people thought it was a bit.  It’s also weird that this got me excited for the season more than the premiere.  Knowing that we’re near the end of Chevy has got me stoked to see how the show transitions away from him because, in all honesty, I don’t know how much I’ll miss him.  It will probably feel a little different but I’m excited to see some others get more airtime.

Norman Lear Monologue

This acts as an introduction to the next pre-filmed bit.  They do throw in a gag of Norman’s microphone going out which according to the caption is a reference to the recent presidential debates.  I looked it up (because I wasn’t following politics that closely when I was -6 years old) and the sound was out for almost a half hour.  Such a specific reference that will probably be forgotten by the time this episode reran.  Good thing the show doesn’t do that anymore, right?

Norman & Actors

4 Stars

Norman asks the actors of his television shows what they think of him.  Jean Stapleton praises him on the set of All In The Family before making a face behind his back as does Caroll O’Connor.  Then we get a string of the same gag where actors praise Norman and then change their tune when he turns around.  Nancy Walker spits at him, Bea Arthur pours a garbage can of water on his head, Bernadette Peters has to hold back Richard Crenna from attacking Norman on the set of some sitcom that has been completely lost to time (“All’s Fair” which allegedly ran for one season on CBS).  Once you get the joke the setups feel like a drag.  I’m just watching Bea Arthur praise Norman and thinking, “just do the mean thing already”.  But everyone’s bit is fun especially the reveal of George and Weezy Jefferson wearing a ball and chain on set.

Paid Political Announcement

3 Stars

Jimmy Carter promises to follow in the footsteps of his Democratic predecessors and sex it up real good in the White House.  Dan’s winks and sensual “hey baby”s to the crowd were hilarious.

Boz Scaggs

“Lowdown”

So weird to finally put a face to Boz Scaggs.  I’ve heard the name but this wasn’t what I was expecting.  Good song and fun to see Lou Marini playing a little jazz flute.

The Snakehandling O’Sheas

4 Stars

Norman gets pitched a new series by Tom Schiller about a union organizer married to the CEO of a steel mill with a nun daughter and gay son.  Also the family is a bunch of snake handlers.  A very nice touch of having the audience hoot and holler when every character enters just like they do on every sitcom.  It feels out of place here but it reminded me of a modern day cold open when the audience erupts into applause every time the camera cuts to a new person.  I loved the slow buildup to this.  There’s no real jokes as everyone is calmly handed a snake but then it explodes into an insane orgy of snake chants.  Everyone goes full-on cuckoo banana pants for a good 45 seconds and it’s wonderful.

Next Week

Gilda tells us that Eric Idle will be hosting next week while Eric rips up a newspaper behind her.

Weekend Update

Filling in for Chevy is Jane, getting a little trial run before she takes over the gig full time in a few episodes.  I really enjoyed her pre-Update phone call about golden showers but as for her jokes…either I just don’t get them or they ain’t funny.

Laraine Newman reports live from Times Square for New Year’s but it’s empty since it’s not New Year’s Eve but rather the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah.  Fairly reminiscent of her New Year’s Eve but from last season.

Norman Lear

Norman does a pratfall in honor of Chevy and we awkwardly fade to the next sketch.

Chevy’s Girls

4 Stars

Jane, Gilda, and Laraine sing a song for Chevy.  It just struck me that Chevy is the only person you could do this for.  He’s the only one who’s got enough caché for something like this, much less specific bits you could reference like the falls and the news.  The song is cute and the girls are adorable.  It actually feels like it could be a real 50’s teenage love song until you get to the second verse where they’re plotting the murder of Chevy’s girlfriend.

The Metric Leisure Week

4 Stars

The metric guy from last season is a recurring character?  This time he’s introducing the metric week which condenses 7 days into 3.  One of the days consists of 100 hours which leads to a perfectly delivered line from Dan,

“Will this affect my sleeping habits? Yes, it will.”.

I also liked the added touch of the dramatization from Gilda and Norman where they talk about everything they accomplished in their day like donating a lung and starting the day calling Uncle Oscar and ending the day at Uncle Oscar’s funeral.

Sight Gag

4 Stars

Holy crap!  I enjoyed a Gary Weis film!  And it actually had a concept and wasn’t just random shit Gary filmed in a day.  I mean, it is kinda random shit Gary filmed in a day but it’s funny shit and it had focus which his other films lack.  Gary gets a call asking him to sing Yankee Doodle Dandy, which he does and while he does we see the cast doing quick bits of physical comedy.  He asks why they needed him to sing Yankee Doodle Dandy and they explain that they’re going to intercut it with shots of physical comedy, so he does it again so they can record it and we see the bits again.  It’s possible I liked this so much because I shudder when a Gary Weis film starts and this one actually entertained me, but I still liked it.  The bits with the cast go by so fast that it’s hard to catch all of them but John doing a spit take with milk, Garrett taking a pie to the face, and Gilda clumsily walking into a wall stood out as my favorites.

Wife Abuse

4 Stars

John is a lawyer coaching his client, Gilda, on how to act during her trial.  He wants more emotion so he slaps her, pulls her hair, and tosses her around similar to that director sketch  from last season.  I enjoyed Gilda’s performance but it’s a little hard nowadays to laugh at a man just beating the shit out of a lady.  What makes the sketch is when Norman comes out to protest the abuse.  He takes Gilda’s place which leads to John breaking the fourth wall and beating up Norman because he’s sick of all his sitcoms.  The meta ending saved a sketch that was pretty much all woman beating until that point.

Boz Scaggs returns with “What Can I Say”

Peace Talks

2 Stars

I was very bored through most of this but Garrett gives a performance for the ages.  Everything he said made me smile even though I couldn’t be bothered with anything going on in this sketch.  Henry Kissinger moderates peace talks and eventually gets them to reconcile with a sing-a-long.  Norman’s character seemed completely superfluous.

Joke

4 Stars

In hindsight, this is a completely pre-rehearsed bit but I fell for it.  Norman brings up a girl to help him tell a joke.  He tells her the setup so he can deliver the punchline.  She messes up and it feels really genuine.  Then she messes up again and I start to think it’s a bit.  Then finally Norman messes up and introduces the girl as his daughter.  It was a fun, short vaudeville-ish routine that I enjoyed and seeing him with his daughter was a pretty sweet moment.

Spanish Peanuts

3 Stars

Our first Home Movie of the season is a stop motion film about peanuts doing a Spanish flamenco routine.  The work put into this is truly impressive.  Whoever made this should be doing it professionally.  But I got kinda bored, especially since we already had two stop motion movies involving food last season, one with peanuts.

FINAL ANALYSIS

“May I have my snake, please?”

Average

3.6 Stars

MVP

Dan Aykroyd

Paid Political Announcement, The Snakehandling O’Sheas, The Metric Leisure Week, Sight Gag, Peace Talks

Best Sketch

The Snakehandling O’Sheas

Worst Sketch

Peace Talks

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

I got very little complaints about this one.  Just shorten Norman’s monologue before the film.  That’s the only time in the episode I felt worried.  I thought I was in for a real snooze fest but the show quickly picked up after that.

Host Analysis

I was not going into this with high expectations.  I’m not familiar with Norman Lear as a person only as a name on a bunch of sitcoms I watched on Nick At Nite.  I was as excited for this as I was the Brandon Tartikoff episode.  But I really liked him as a master of ceremonies and he fit in the few sketches he was in, mostly playing himself.

Final Thoughts

It felt different but good.  The biggest difference was the absence of Chevy and I hate to say this but I preferred it.  This had a different feel from the premiere and it got me more pumped for the season.  But it’s not like Chevy was the problem, he just got bigger than the show to the point where he felt like a de facto host.  I got to see the cast interacting with each other and I got little to none of that in the first show.  The show needed Chevy but I think it also needed Chevy to leave.  This was a solidly fun show and even my least favorite sketch had something to like in Garrett’s umbwaybways.

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