Ichiro & Friends

Your Newest Hall Of Famers

The first thing that should be mentioned is that whether or not Ichiro Suzuki was elected unanimously is irrelevant. He would not have received a key to the executive washroom had he received 100% of the vote. That said, it would have been better had he fallen 5 votes short of unanimity rather than the 1 that he did. Now, too much of the discussion has centered around wondering who that single contrarian might be.

As expected, Ichiro will not be alone on the Cooperstown podium in July; CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner will join him along with the previously elected Dick Allen and Dave Parker. On Election Day I always love to see the clips of the inductees receiving the congratulatory phone call. Suzuki did not share a video of his moment, but the other two did. Wagner in particular was very emotional; on his appearance last night on MLB Network he acknowledged that he doubts he will be able to make his acceptance speech without breaking down in tears.

All 3 are worthy inductees; I included each on my fake ballot. I do have mixed emotions about the results; I would have loved to have seen Carlos Beltran make it as well, but he did make a huge leap in support from last year to this one, falling only 19 votes short. He is in strong position to lead the Class of 2026. Andruw Jones still has some ground to make up, but being that there are no likely Hall of Famers among next year’s crop of newcomers there is room on the ballot for Jones to gain the votes he needs.

Looking further down ballot, both Chase Utley and Andy Pettitte had significant increases in their vote totals. Pettitte is quickly running out of time, but Utley’s candidacy is now starting to look interesting. Among this year’s newcomers, both Felix Hernandez and Dustin Pedroia received enough support to remain on the ballot for at least another year.

Also, despite getting knocked off the ballot congratulations are in order for the 10 players who were one and done. To make it to the major leagues in the first place is an amazing feat. To last 10 years is even more impressive. To have a significant enough career to earn a spot on the ballot is something else entirely. There is no shame whatsoever in failing to receive a vote, or to only receive a courtesy vote or two. A Hall of Fame election is a great exercise in Remembering Some Guys. Ben Zobrist was no Ichiro Suzuki, but his was certainly a career worth celebrating.

SNL Recap

As I mentioned last week I approached this week’s episode with some trepidation. Dave Chappelle’s position as a comedic legend is well established, but in recent years he has doubled and tripled down on indefensible transphobia. Will the ugliness that has seeped into his act find its way into the show? Thankfully, he largely stayed away from material that made me want to hurl a metaphorical brick at my television. He dipped his toes into some uncomfortable topics in his lengthy monologue, but nothing that truly offended me.

And it was a loooong monologue. When all was said one done, it was almost a half hour before the show went into its first commercial break. That meant the bills would be due in the last hour. After the monologue, in addition to Update and the 2 songs by musical guest GloRilla, there was a grand total of 3 live sketches plus a pre-taped bit which served as the 12:50 piece. It was a rough night for the rookies - Emil was nowhere to be seen and Ashley & Jane only appeared in that final pre-taped bit with barely any lines. Even Kenan didn’t show up for the first time until after Update.

The stage lighting for the monologue was different than usual; the lights were dimmed to give the stage a nightclub appearance, all the way down to Chappelle’s omnipresent cigarette. The band was sitting in darkness, but whenever Lenny Pickett tilted his head a certain way a red reflection came off of his eyeglasses that made him look like an eavesdropping extraterrestrial. It was eerie. Chappelle covered a lot of topics in the 17 minute long monologue; he had some great lines about Diddy and offered a nice tribute to Jimmy Carter.

Because there were so few sketches this episode, there were not many viable choices for Top Sketch Of the Week. I’ll go with the cold open, which featured Rachel Maddow (Sarah) hosting an MSNBC panel, AKA The Avengers for your aunt. Also included were Marcello as a rap lyric quoting Ari Melber, Ego as Joy-Ann Reid - “it’s just Ann Reid, because I have no more joy,” Chloe as an excessively flirtatious Stephanie Ruhle, and Andrew as “Woke Sheldon” Chris Hayes. The premise was that they were pledging not to be distracted by the inevitable barrage of Trumpian inanity, but they were constantly interrupted by breaking news alerts. And once they cut to a Trump rally, Bowen returned as George Santos, who is apparently the newest Cabinet nominee.

A close second was the evacuation sketch. Ego and her son Devon were all set to evacuate from the wildfires, but husband Chappelle was still gathering the important stuff. Stuff such as hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash that were hidden in the wall, guns to fight off a Bosnian assassin, and a secret French family hiding behind a bookcase. The gunfight with the assassin resulted in buckets of blood, but I think the sketch went too far when he removed a burner phone from the stomach of the family dog - don’t worry, it was a puppet. Two explosions of squirting flood in one sketch was overkill.

Otherwise, the Immigrant Dad Talk Show sketch returned for a second time. This was an instance where Chappelle’s presence diminished the premise for me. I can’t help but think of his regressive vibes while watching a sketch that discusses the ways that the characters’ sons disappoint them. The Update desk pieces were only OK. I still haven’t been sold on Michael’s laid back persona, so I felt his riff on the Tik Tok ban didn’t have much life to it. And as much as I would love to praise Sarah for her take on Nosferatu in full Max Schreck mode, it ultimately played as yet another way for her to mock Jost.

The final piece gave Chappelle another opportunity to resurrect Chappelle’s Show characters in the form of a dating show sketch in which the female contestants pop balloons to signal if they are uninterested in their potential suitors. Among the prospective bachelors were Chappelle as his old Silky Johnson character, and he brought Donnell Rawlings to join him.

As with Top Sketch of the Week, there was not a lot to go by in choosing Employee Of the Week. I’ll go with Sarah. As a sign of how important she has been to the show, performing as both Rachel Maddow and Nosferatu shows some pretty impressive range.

Dave Chappelle is now only one episode away from becoming a Five Timer. When will that 5th appearance come, at the next midterm? Next week another repeat host returns to 30 Rock. We will get a double dose of Chalamet; Timothee Chalamet hosts for his third time, and the star of A Complete Unknown will serve as both host and musical guest.

Garth

Organist, and the last surviving member of the classic lineup of The Band, Garth Hudson has died at the age of 87. Calling him the group’s organist is actually limiting. Like all of the other Band members he was a talented multi instrumentalist, and throughout the group’s brilliant discography he can be heard playing everything from the accordion to the saxophone.

He was the most enigmatic member of the quintet; he is only heard speaking briefly in The Last Waltz and he comes off as a true eccentric. He went off on a mini soliloquy about jazz musicians which only made a certain amount of sense. (On a personal note, I have heard second hand stories about Hudson from close friends of mine who knew him. They are not my stories to share; suffice it to say that his reputation as an enigma was accurate.)

I didn’t start to become a huge fan of The Band until my later high school years, so my initial intro to Hudson was when he was briefly a member of The Call and his appearances in their videos puzzled me. What’s that old guy doing there? He was much more than an “old guy” in a current band. He was not only a crucial element in The Band’s impeccable alchemy, but as was discussed in The Last Waltz he almost served as their older paternal figure. He was a few years older than the other 4 and as part of deal when he joined they paid him a nominal fee to provide them with music lessons.

When done right the organ makes for an awesome instrument in rock music. His best showcase was arguably Chest Fever, which had an instantly iconic riff. But that was only one song of many; listen closely to virtually any Band record and you can hear how much the organ adds to the mix. Hudson was a true original, and even though he was actually Canadian - as were 4 of the 5 members - a vital cog in one of most quintessentially American bands of all time.

Non-Peak TV - The Syndicated Dramas Part 1

The streaming era has made this type of programming archaic, but there was a time when weekend television schedules were filled with a vast array of syndicated action series. The actual air time of each show varied from market to market; for example New York has so many local stations that there was enough real estate for late Saturday afternoons and early Saturday evenings to be filled with programming, usually inexpensively produced in Canada.

A close cousin of the syndicated shows was the old CBS Crimetime After Primetime programming strip. In the early 90’s the 11:30 hour which followed late local news contained the likes of Sweating Bullets, Dark Justice, Dangerous Curves, and other shows lost to history which were populated with actors cast out of a modeling catalog. The one that stood out was Silk Stalkings, for two reasons. First, whoever came up with that title is an absolute genius, worthy of a Pulitzer, a Nobel, and the coveted Silver Sow Award. Second, once this block of programs got the ax as David Letterman moved to CBS, Silk Stalkings was the one which had an afterlife. It was picked up by the USA Network where it had an extended run. It ran for a total of 176 episodes across 8 seasons! Who knew?

For the most part, the underlying premises of any of these syndicated programs were derived from earlier, more successful shows. The 3 chief inspirations were Star Trek: The Next Generation, Hercules/Xena, and Baywatch. I’ll examine the Baywatch inspired series separately; for today I’ll look at the other two branches.

Shows that swam in the Star Trek wake generally had a strong track record. Sure, there was such schlock as Lexx or Cleopatra 2525, but series set in outer space tended to come with a little bit of ambition to them, with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a prime example. Long regarded as The Serious Star Trek Show, it often dealt with serious topics with a somber tone. I would also place Babylon 5 in that same category. It had a complicated mythology; I made the mistake of not watching it until it was well into its run and after I had heard good things about it. It was the equivalent of someone starting a watch of Lost beginning with season 3. How could anyone make heads or tails out of it? I don’t doubt that Babylon 5 was a well-made science fiction show, but it didn’t make any sense to me.

The syndicated space shows might have been strong, but that was not the case with the shows inspired by Hercules & Xena. A key to a successful syndicated action show is to have as many scenes as possible with attractive, scantily clad actors. It’s not easy to do that in outer space, but if a show is set in mythological times? Dress your cast in tunics or togas, add some cheap CGI creatures, and voila!

As Hercules proved, half of the work is done if a producer can simply take IP that’s in public domain. There were shows built around such well known characters as Sinbad, Tarzan, Robin Hood, Zorro, and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Things weren’t limited to famous legacy characters. Who remembers the Beastmaster series? Or Queen Of Swords? Or The Lost World? These shows were everywhere in the 1990’s and then it seemed like they all vanished at once.

There was no series that inspired more subsequent shows than Baywatch. Next time I’ll run through that litany of successors, including what was one of the most bizarro premises of any show that ever actually made it to TV.

Closing Laughs

That is all for now. Thanks as always for tuning in and here’s wishing that you all have a great day. See you on Friday.