Mid-Week Musings
Classic SNL Recap - Season 4 Episode 10
The midseason episode of SNL from season 4, hosted by Michael Palin with the Doobie Brothers as the musical guest, was an important one for me. I was only 9 years old when the show debuted, so I was not allowed to stay up late enough to watch it. There were a couple of times that I snuck in an episode if my parents had gone out on a Saturday, but otherwise it was a show that I was aware of, and knew that it was a big deal, but actually seeing it? Not yet. It was with this episode that my parents finally allowed me to watch up until Update. At last, I had something to talk about with my classmates in the schoolyard on Monday mornings.
Having said that, this was a good, but not great, episode to start off with. Shows hosted by members of Monty Python tended to feel Pythonesque, and this one was no exception. It introduced the character of Miles Kowperthwaite, a Charles Dickens parody which would return the next time Palin hosted. There was also a game show parody called Name the Bats, which involved locking contestants in a barn filled with bats and asking them to literally give names to each bat. All we could hear were the blood curdling screams of John Belushi and Gilda Radner from behind closed doors as the bats attacked them. It ended with Palin telling them there is no home version of the game to serve as a going away prize; instead they get to spend two more minutes with the bats.
As is often the case with episodes this old (January 1979) there is a timeliness to some of the jokes that loses a bit of its meaning over the years. The cold open parodied the recent State Of the Union Address. I had forgotten that at this time Jimmy Carter had a case of hemorrhoids, therefore the gags in the speech were filled with references to that affliction. Carter spoke of the need to shrink the swelling of inflation, and he called his program to fight inflation Preparation I.
The episode was heavy on recurring bits. This week featured another Nerds sketch, this one with Palin portraying Lisa’s piano teacher who had amorous feelings toward Mrs. Loopner. Update included correspondent pieces from Chico Escuela and Father Guido Sarducci. One of the repeat sketches from these years that has been largely forgotten is one called What If? This was a program that would recreate hypothetical alternate scenarios of historical (or in this episode’s instance, fictional) events, all of which were suggested by letters from the same viewer, a middle school child. This week’s request asked what if Superman’s rocket had landed in Nazi Germany instead of the American heartland. In addition to giving Belushi an opportunity to do his Brando impersonation, we also saw Dan Aykroyd’s Klaus Kent change into the identity of Uberman. Your mileage may vary on this one; there are a lot of good lines but it straddles that line which separates edgy from offensive. (Uberman uses his X-ray vision to reveal the religion of Al Franken’s Jimmy Olstein character. Jimmy’s insistence that he was actually Dutch and his surname was spelled Olsteyn did not convince anyone.)
This is another early episode with none of the sketches uploaded to the official SNL YouTube channel, but I did want to share this one which a random fan uploaded. It is an Update segment in which Bill Murray interviews recently fired Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes as he enjoys a comfortable retirement with his wife. It brings to mind a famous quote that Gilda Radner had once made about John Belushi. She said that Belushi was “the only man who could hit me without hurting me and hurt me without hitting me.” That’s a great way to describe the stark dichotomy in Belushi’s personality. BTW, in these writeups I’m not sure if I’ve given Gilda Radner her proper due. She was such a delightful performer; it’s so sad that she died as young as she did. Can you imagine how she would have thrived today with so many younger comediennes whom she had inspired eager to create characters specifically with her in mind?
The episode ended with a lame edition of the Franken & Davis Show (talk about being edgy instead of funny) and another appearance from the hapless Mr. Bill. Maybe I’m just a sadist who loves to see Play-Doh destroyed, but Mr. Bill never fails to make me laugh. Next week I’ll look at the season 4 finale, with the by now firmly established tradition of seeing Buck Henry host the season’s last episode continuing. None of us knew it at the time, but it would also prove to be the farewell episode for both Aykroyd & Belushi.
Paris 2024 Is Getting Closer
The Olympics are only around 50 days or so away, which means that people are preparing for one of the Games’ oldest traditions - criticism of NBC’s coverage. I would urge those that already have their #NBCFail hashtags ready to take a chill pill. The network is bound to make a batch of unforced errors, but it’s such a massive undertaking that I’m fairly tolerant as long as the fumbles are not too frequent or too egregious. After all, pobody’s nerfect.
Depending upon one’s age, the instinct to put NBC on blast comes from different places. I’ll address people within my general age range or older, because we tend to compare NBC’s approach to the Games to that of ABC. In short, I believe we tend to overromanticize ABC’s coverage. Virtually every one of the standard NBC criticisms has its roots in the way that ABC used to present the Olympics.
I have vague memories of watching portions of the 1972 Munich Olympics, but the first one that I watched closely was the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck, followed by Montreal a few months later. I’ll focus on the Summer Olympics since that is the closest comparison to Paris 2024. The TV infrastructure was vastly different back then; ABC was limited to showing the events on the broadcast network & there was no cable annex at the time. As a result, NBC already has a built in advantage. Even without taking Peacock into account, NBC has the capability to present a much wider range of sports. There were a significant number of sports that ABC wouldn’t even bother to hire a broadcast team for, whereas NBC airs each sport to some extent. That’s already a huge plus that NBC has.
As for some of the other stuff, it was always Roone Arledge’s theory that the Olympics did not attract the standard viewing audience for a sporting event, so the storytelling was just as crucial as the actual competition. So, if you don’t like the constant sappy profiles - ABC pioneered that with the old Up Close & Personal Features. You don’t like the Americentricism? ABC’s broadcasters tended to use the word “we” much more frequently than NBC’s ever did, although I have noticed that has changed since Dick Ebersol’s retirement.
It’s true that NBC focuses heavily on American athletes and American storylines, but so did ABC. Think back to the international athletes that got a lot of screentime on ABC’s Olympics coverage. There was the occasional name such as Nadia Comenici, who was so dominant and historically great in a sport that they were covering anyway - not unlike Usain Bolt years later. Otherwise, coverage would depend upon how easily the network could tie the competitor to the proxy Cold War battle that the Olympics were a part of. Think of gymnast Olga Korbut, whose emotions broke the stereotype of the stoic Soviet. Or heavyweight boxer Teofilo Stevenson, who dominated the amateur ranks for a decade, but was unable to turn pro due to his Cuban citizenship. ABC would lament about how sad it was that he never had the opportunity to compete against the great professional heavyweights of the time. Or weightlifter Vasily Alekseyev, who was a walking stereotype of the silent strongman.
This is not to say that NBC should be beyond criticism where it’s warranted. It’s just that we need not pretend that ABC was flawless in their approach. They were notorious for spoiling results for example.
The Saga Has Ended
Following up on an earlier story, the Birmingham-Southern baseball team did in fact advance to the D-III College World Series, which meant that the team was still playing even after the actual school permanently shut its doors as of May 31. The team honorably represented a defunct college, but they fell short of winning the title, having been eliminated Sunday evening.
Speaking of zombie organizations, with spring season sports holding their championships, each day brings us closer to the formal end of the Pac-12 conference. Stanford was the last team standing in the Women’s College World Series, but they were eliminated Monday evening. That leaves it up to the schools in the men’s tournament to keep that flag flying a little longer. The super-regional round takes place this weekend, and Oregon and Oregon State are both still alive. I can’t honestly say that I usually have much rooting interest in the CWS, but I’d love to see a Pac-12 team win the whole thing so that the Conference of Champions can go out in a blaze of glory. Go Ducks & Beavers!
TV Of the 21st Century - New Girl
This is the show that introduced us to the term “adorkable,” one that was both accurate and regrettable. Accurate because when you have Zooey Deschanel as the star of your show - someone who gives off the vibe of what would happen if a ukulele were magically brought to life - it’s unavoidable that it will come with quirkiness. Regrettable because I’m sure there were a lot of people who saw that word and immediately decided “nope, not for me.”
In the earliest episodes that quirk factor was turned way up to 11, and it’s fortunate that the writers soon dialed back on that. Deschanel’s character would have quickly grown exhausting otherwise. She starred as Jess, a yes, quirky schoolteacher who discovers her boyfriend had been cheating on her and goes on to answer a Craigslist ad searching for a new roommate in a 4 bedroom loft. Even though she would be living with 3 male roommates, she is accepted. (Guys being guys, the fact that Jess’s BFF Cece was an aspiring model helped seal the deal.)
Any comedy ensemble is dependent on how well the characters/actors meld, and this was a premier example of the form. The original 3 roomies were nihilistic Nick, uber alpha male Schmidt, and type A Coach. (Coach was replaced after the pilot, as Damon Wayans Jr. was also a regular on Happy Endings, which received an unexpected renewal. Wayans did briefly return a few times over the course of the series, so he was not Chuck Cunningham-ed into oblivion.) Coach’s replacement was Winston, a brilliant oddball in his own right, devoted to his often talked about, but rarely seen, pet cat Furguson.
New Girl was one many shows from this era which fell into the Young Adult Friends Hanging Out trope, complete with a series of inside jokes among the characters. In lieu of a swear jar, the roomies had a douchebag jar, in which any display of d-bag behavior would require a contribution to the pot. (Schmidt had to throw in a LOT a of cash over the years.) They also created their own game, True American, the rules of which were more convoluted with each occurrence.
To its credit, the show did not completely follow the Friends model. The cast was refreshingly diverse; both Coach and Winston were African-American, Cece was of Indian descent, and Winston’s girlfriend in later seasons was portrayed by Nasim Pedrad. The show also did not drag out the will they or won’t they drama between Jess & Nick too badly, as they got together in season 2. They did have ups & downs, and it wasn’t until the very end of the series SPOILER ALERT that they finally got together for good.
As wonderful as the cast was, Schmidt was the #1 standout, largely because he was so perfectly cast. Max Greenfield brought the same Smackable Face But You Can’t Help But Like Him persona that he had already cultivated when he was on Veronica Mars. I also so enjoyed Lamorne Morris’s portrayal of Winston. He had this tricky way of being completely uncool, understanding that, yet at the same time deluding himself into thinking he’s cool after all. That’s a very fine needle to thread, but somehow he did it.
All this, plus guest starring roles from Taylor Swift and Prince! New Girl was a delightfully odd show, and it ran for 7 seasons. It has gone on to become one of those shows that it is even more popular in the streaming era. Adorkability be damned, sometimes all you need is to give likable characters funny things to say. This one was a gem.
Originally aired on: Fox
Currently streaming on: Hulu & Peacock
Closing Laughs
Bartender just yelled for “last call” so that will be all for today. See you all again on Casual Friday; there will be no enforcement of dress codes. Have a great day everyone.
