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Classic SNL Recap - Season 10, Episode 1

Season 10 was one of my favorite years in the show’s existence, even though little of it was emblematic of the show’s standard format. It came following Eddie Murphy’s departure, and if memory serves correctly there was genuine concern that NBC was planning on canceling the show. Dick Ebersol tried something different when building the cast. Rather than bring in the usual batch of unknowns he hired a group of heavy hitters, turning it into an all-star season.

Joining the returnees (Jim Belushi, Mary Gross, Gary Kroeger & Julia Louis-Dreyfus) were Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Martin Short, and Harry Shearer. Shearer was famously unhappy & left before season’s end, but even without him that’s some serious comedy talent. The drawback is that there was less of an ensemble feel than normal; it felt like a jazz band in which the individual members would take their turns playing solos.

There were also 2 other additions. At the time Pamela Stephenson was considered a minor coup for the show. She was a big sketch comedy star in her native New Zealand as well as in the UK, but there just wasn’t enough bandwidth for her to make a splash on SNL, and she is now largely forgotten. Rich Hall made a larger impact. After gaining notice on David Letterman’s old morning show, he was later a regular on both Fridays and Not Necessarily The News before coming to SNL. He mostly specialized in pre-filmed bits, so he didn’t mesh much with the rest of the cast, but I always found the guy really funny.

Peacock did some serious editing on the season premiere; the stream of the episode only runs 27 minutes. Sadly, one of the pieces cut out was arguably the single funniest sketch of that entire year, and on the shortlist of funniest in the show’s long history. It was the piece in which Shearer and Short portrayed male synchronized swimmers. It was almost certainly cut out because specific musical cues were vital to the sketch; it’s not even on YouTube.

There was no host for the episode, so in lieu of a guest monologue Crystal began the show with a monologue of his own. Also, instead of a full Update (still called Saturday Night News in this era) there were a couple of brief segments interspersed in the episode. I enjoyed Hall’s taped piece in which he was a reporter covering a $500 a plate fundraiser for the Mondale campaign. When he asked for seconds he was horrified to learn that it would cost an additional $500.

My favorite sketch (at least among those available on the Peacock stream) involved one of the classic characters. Guest was a man writing a suicide note in which he expressed how unhappy he is in his job, which turns out to be the man who interviews potential Wheel Of Fortune contestants. He is asked to meet one final person, who is none other than Ed Grimley!

Overall I was bummed that so much great stuff was edited out of the episode. (I remember another sketch from this episode - Lifestyles Of the Relatives Of the Rich & Famous. Shearer’s Robin Leach profiles a Central Park hot dog vendor, portrayed by Short, who is a distant cousin of Katharine Hepburn.) But the stuff that remains is consistently funny. If only there were more hours in the day I’d almost be tempted to rewatch the entire season, but I just don’t have that much time. I’ll stick with revisiting the midseason episode, and luckily enough it turns out to be the one in which Eddie Murphy made his triumphant return as host. I’ll tackle that one during the next off week for the current show.

He Is Penske Material

For the second consecutive year a driver from Team Penske has captured the NASCAR crown. Ryan Blaney has succeeded Joey Logano as the Cup champion. It’s somewhat fitting that on the day in which Kevin Harvick drove into retirement, essentially closing the book on his generation of racers, (he was the only remaining full time driver who had raced in the pre-playoffs era) the championship went to one of the drivers in the Young Guns generation.

This title was a huge step forward for Blaney. As talented as he is, he was starting to develop a reputation as a guy unable to close the deal, with plenty of third place finishes but relatively few race victories. He finally broke through at just the right time, winning 2 races in the playoffs before finishing ahead of the other 3 Championship 4 drivers in the season finale to earn the crown. He would not have won the title in a pre-playoff era, but as we well know from watching the MLB playoffs, it comes down to who performs best at the right time.

College Hoops Season Is Underway

The opening of the college basketball season really snuck up on me this year, likely another sign of how I’ve begun to consciously uncouple from that sport. I mentioned this a few months ago, but the radical conference realignment has been a huge turnoff for me. We won’t start to see the effects of that until next season - for example, the PAC-12 is still intact right now - but it’s still disconcerting to see so many classic regional rivalries fade away and to see so many conference lineups that no longer make any geographical sense. It’s bad enough that football players will spend so much of their time flying cross country; it’s much worse to have to see athletes in non-revenue sports in airports instead of in classrooms or in dorms. It’s a naive thought, but these kids are all ostensibly college students after all.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love March Madness and intend to watch as many of those games as I can. And my alma mater Fordham just had its best season in ages. I’m very hopeful that they can build on that. But I have to say I have little interest in watching much regular season play anymore.

Wemby Update

Victor Wembanyama is easily the most heavily hyped NBA rookie since LeBron James 21 years ago. We only have a sample size of a few games, but the early returns are very promising. James turned out to be even better than anticipated; I don’t want to jump the gun but Wembanyama is well on his way to doing the same.

I watched last week’s game against Phoenix which in a lot of ways served as his coming out party. He possesses a level of athleticism that has to be seen to be believed, coupled with a strong feel for the game. That’s a combo that should be very tough to beat. There will of course be growing pains along the way. He still needs to fill out a bit more, so he is likely to hit the rookie wall sometime in the second half of the season. And he’s still learning how to play NBA level defense, which could lead to frequent foul trouble. He’s already a dominant shot blocker so he’s got a good head start in that aspect of his game.

Giannis Antetokounmpo has played like the next step in evolution; less than a decade after Giannis’s debut, we are already on the verge of seeing the next great step forward in the range of skills that an NBA player can possess.

Free Agency Is Underway… Eventually

If this was the NBA or the NFL, Shohei Ohtanti would have already reached agreement with a new team along with virtually every other major free agent. Because MLB does not have a salary cap, there’s no real incentive for anyone to try to set the market too early. That leaves us all playing the waiting game. It’s possible that some second tier names could sign contracts, but otherwise it’s a longshot that there will be any major action taking place before next month’s Winter Meetings.

Managers, On The Other Hand…

Player movement may be quiet for now, but not so much when it comes to filling managerial vacancies. Imagine your David Ross, waking up on Monday morning believing it was going to be a normal day. Perhaps you’re sitting down to enjoy a nice turkey club, and then suddenly managerial silly season exploded.

Monday began with the consensus that this would be the day in which Craig Counsell would make his decision, which would then cause the dominoes to tumble. The first bit of news came with the announcement that the Cleveland Guardians were hiring Stephen Vogt. Cleveland was considered a Counsell finalist, but I’m not sure how realistic that was as it seemed very unlikely that Cleveland could meet his asking price. Which meant it came town to the original assumption that it was between Counsell going to the Mets or remaining with the Brewers. Shortly afterwards reports came that the Mets had in fact hired a manager, but it was not Craig Counsell. Instead it was…

The Mets quickly grabbed Carlos Mendoza once it became clear they were not going to get Counsell. Naturally everyone believed that Counsell decided to return to Milwaukee, but instead Ken Rosenthal quickly reported that he would be going to a team that already had a manager in place. For about an hour every manager not named Bruce Bochy was nervously looking at his phone until the official announcement came out that the Cubs had swooped in to hire Counsell whilst pushing Ross aside.

It’s not the first time a manager has been kneecapped once a bright shiny object was available, nor was it the first time it’s happened on the North Side of Chicago. (Hello, Rick Renteria.) It still came as a shock. He has set a new salary standard for a manager, so Cubs fans must feel good that ownership is finally opening the faucet on that Ricketts money, but you have to feel bad for David Ross. He steered the ship during an austerity phase, and even though the club faded down the stretch this past season, you would think he felt he earned the chance to see things through as the rebuilding process started to approach fruition.

Ohio! Virginia! Kentucky!

I’ll have more to say next time, but my initial reaction to last night’s Election Day results is wow! This was about as good of a day as the Democrats could hope to have, and it may serve to lessen some of the anxiety that was felt when the NYT/Siena poll came out earlier this week. Outstanding results all over the board. Note to the GOP, transphobia and restrictions on reproductive rights are losing issues, even in red states.

Closing Laughs

That’s all for now, thanks for reading, and thanks for voting. (At least I hope you voted.) See you on Friday.