The Mid-Week Check-In

Classic SNL Recap - Season 17 Episode 1

With a new season cast changes come to SNL, and #17 was no exception. Jan Hooks and Dennis Miller have left. Kevin Nealon is the new Update anchor. Chris Farley, Chris Rock, and Julia Sweeney have all been promoted to the main cast. Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, and David Spade remain as featured players. Ellen Cleghorne and Siobhan Fallon have been added as new featured players. Got all that?

Michael Jordan hosted the season premiere, with Public Enemy as musical guest, and he was like most athletes who have hosted the show. He gave his best effort, but no matter how prolific he is as a commercial pitchman, live sketch comedy is something entirely different. His line readings were a bit stiff. The bit that everyone remembers from this episode is Jordan’s appearance on Daily Affirmation With Stuart Smalley. Or that should be Michael J. as he was called to protect his anonymity. Jordan tried his best to keep a straight face. He did not always succeed.

If the most prominent Chicago athlete is hosting the show, then there would naturally be a sketch with the Super Fans. George Wendt returned to facilitate, and Jordan joined the group to help celebrate Ditka and all things Chicago. The running gag of the frequent heart attacks that Farley’s character suffered was present, and the prediction that Mike Myers’s fan made wasn’t all that far off from reality. He told Jordan that he expected an eight-peat for the Bulls. In reality the Bulls won 6 NBA titles in an 8 year period, but the 2 years in that stretch without a title came in the year that Jordan took a sabbatical to play baseball and the year that he returned to the NBA but was still fighting off rust by the time the playoffs started. An eight-peat wasn’t all that outrageous of a thought.

The season kicked off with a Wayne’s World cold open, in which Wayne & Garth recapped the summer. Jordan’s monologue was brief; he spoke of the number of commercials that he has done, pointing out there have been some that he thought better of releasing. Cue to an ad in which he and Sweeney, portraying a teenage girl, are walking on a beach as she asks him for advice. Then, she tells Jordan “sometimes I get that not so fresh feeling” which leads Jordan to pitch a feminine hygiene product.

This episode included the premiere of one of SNL’s most famous ad parodies, the beer commercial for Schmitts Gay. Instead of the classic beer ad template of models in bikinis this one featured Farley and Sandler ogling over sculpted men wearing banana hammocks.

Wendt wasn’t the only surprise guest this week. This episode aired shortly after Dr. Seuss died, and as a tribute Jesse Jackson appeared on Update to recite Green Eggs & Ham. That clip isn’t on YouTube, but it was a pleasure to see Jackson pound his fist on the desk whilst saying “I do not like green eggs and ham!” Later on, there was an edition of The Dark Side With Nat X. As a sign of the show’s awkward history with race, one of the guests was Latoya Jackson. Rather than have an actual black woman portray Jackson, it was Victoria Jackson playing the role. She didn’t wear blackface makeup, so there was that, but geez. Ellen Cleghorne was in the house. Spike Lee cameoed as Nat X’s second guest, the joke being that he was promoting the Malcolm X movie and Nat X assumed that the X hat Lee was wearing was referring to him.

Two final points. This season premiere took place a couple of months after Paul Reuben’s arrest for pleasuring himself in an adult theatre and there were jokes made at his expense in 3 separate sketches. And as much knowledge as I have retained on SNL history, there are the occasional recurring characters that I have forgotten about. One showed up here in Cleghorne’s debut. She used to portray an NBC page who would attempt to chat with the host as he or she was trying to prepare for the next sketch. She would eventually get angry with the host for not indulging her.

SNL finally returns with a new episode this week so it will be a couple of weeks until I return to season 17. I will recap the midseason episode, hosted by Rob Morrow. (Musical guest was Nirvana!) I remember one wonderfully goofy sketch in that one; we shall see how the remainder of that episode went.

Meet The Nominees - Mariah Carey

By any objective measure Mariah Carey is one of the most successful recording artists in history. She has reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 19 songs, only 1 behind The Beatles. Furthermore, her hits have come during an era with less churn at the time. #1 hits tend to stay there longer, so she has the most total weeks at #1 by a large margin. Just as important, she wrote or co-wrote almost all of those hits, an achievement that she rarely gets enough credit for.

When Carey’s debut album came out she was promoted as the Next Whitney Houston, and there were certain superficial similarities between the two. First off, both were blessed with otherworldly voices. Carey’s voice was powerful, with a vast range, and she could hit notes that mere mortals could not reach. Her early material too often defaulted to a simple showcase of that voice; big ballads that hindsight shows her heart wasn’t really into. As Clive Davis was to Whitney Houston, Tommy Mottola served as Carey’s Svengali, making those creative decisions (demands?) that Carey didn’t like.

The difference was that Mottola went on to marry Carey, and the age difference of more than 20 years between them was creepy, to say the least. Years later we learned that he was controlling every aspect of her life; she was practically held captive in their mansion. When she finally escaped from his control, she was both personally and professionally rejuvenated.

This gave her the power to record the type of music that she wanted to all along. Fewer of those bland MOR ballads, a lot more R&B and most crucially the ability to lean more towards the hip-hop that was her first love. Better yet, she modified her vocal tendencies much more effectively. She still belted out big notes with the best of them, but her stronger skill is the way that she is able to ride over the beat and serve the song well.

With the exception of the brief period when she suffered a public mental breakdown, she has been a major star for more than 3 decades. And of course she dominates the month of December every year with All I Want For Christmas Is You. Carey’s path to the Hall is likely the same one that Dolly, Willie, and Cher have taken the last 3 cycles. A multi-generational, multi-generational icon, she has broad appeal. I like her chances of making it in this year. I did say the same thing when she was on the ballot last year, so what do I know?

Biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit: By now it’s annual chart return might make it her Christmas song, but I’ll set that aside and go with what was her biggest hit in its initial chart run, We Belong Together.

My Personal Favorite: Breakdown

If elected, will she perform at the ceremony? : Hmm, tough to say. I could see either option: Sit in the front row to soak in the accolades, or sing a couple of songs with a younger singer who idolizes her. I believe the latter is more likely, but neither would surprise me.

2 Great Soul Singers

Two wonderful R&B singers have passed away within the last week, beginning with Jerry Butler. Butler was the original lead singer for The Impressions, fronting their first major hit For Your Precious Love before departing to begin a solo career. He found immediate success with the soul classic He Will Break Your Heart and his smooth vocal style earned him the nickname The Iceman. His greatest achievement for me was the sublime Only the Strong Survive, one of the earliest major productions from the team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. A member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame from his stint with The Impressions, Butler was 85.

Roberta Flack passed away as well. A talented pianist and vocalist who was versatile enough to snugly fit into both the R&B and jazz realms, she broke through into mainstream fame when her 2 year old recording of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was effectively used in the film Play Misty For Me. That kicked off a reign of consistent chart success that lasted almost a decade. She was the first artist to win consecutive Grammy awards for Record Of the Year with The First Time and Killing Me Softly With His Song, and also had a string of hit duets with Donny Hathaway. Flack was 88.

A GOAT Steps Away

As expected, basketball legend Diana Taurasi officially announced her retirement yesterday. Her list of accomplishments is impressive: 3 national titles at UConn, 2 Final Four Most Outstanding Player Awards, 3 WNBA championships, 6 Olympic gold medals, all-time WNBA career leader in points and 3 pointers.

As for her GOAT credentials, she is undoubtedly in the conversation. I’m not sure how high I would personally rank her, but on this point I have no doubt. When it comes to sheer ruthlessness, there have been few athletes who match her. I would go as far as to say that she might rank below only Michael Jordan in that regard. She didn’t just want to beat you, she wanted to completely humiliate you in doing so. That’s one of the chief reasons why she was able to find the motivation to play top level basketball even into her forties. Take a bow Diana Taurasi, you were a credit to your sport.

A Requiem For MLB On ESPN

There was a time when WPLJ was, along with rival WNEW, the preeminent album rock radio station in New York. It switched to a top 40 format in 1983 and then eventually adult contemporary. In 2019 the station was sold and the new owners made another format change to contemporary Christian music. This led to a wave of lamentation over the demise of a beloved radio station. To which I said, huh? You’re waxing nostalgic over a radio station that hadn’t existed for more than 35 years. I get that such a drastic format shift really signaled the end of an era, but the WPLJ that everyone was reminiscing over was already long gone.

The MLB/ESPN situation is a lot similar. As odd as it will be to realize that barring an unlikely new deal 2025 will be the final year of Major League Baseball on ESPN, the sport’s presence on ESPN is a mere shadow of what it was. It’s hard to remember what a huge deal it was when ESPN obtained a portion of MLB’s TV contract in 1990. Nationally televised games as frequently as 3 times a week? In a time when we had no internet, never mind smartphones, the increase in access to baseball was a game changer.

Not to mention Baseball Tonight. A SportsCenter focused entirely on baseball, it featured highlights and analysis of every single game, even a meaningless August game between two cellar dwellers. If you love baseball, it was an abundance of riches.

Over time, however, ESPN seemed to care less and less about baseball. They reduced the inventory of games, and even cut Baseball Tonight from a nightly to a weekly show. Now, with the exception of Opening Day and the Wild Card round of games, all that they have is Sunday Night Baseball - the presentation of which most baseball fans hate - and the Home Run Derby. Moving that content to a different provider doesn’t sound like it should be a traumatic experience.

The chief concern I share with many is that ESPN tends to devote few resources to covering sports that they don’t have broadcast rights to. The network basically ignored the NHL in the years that they did not have any part of the NHL contract. I never watch any of the debate shows on ESPN, but from what I gather the talking heads on those shows don’t spend much time arguing about baseball as it is. Will they really spend much time or energy firing up the Hot Take Machine to scream at each other about baseball now? Unlikely. Despite cord cutting, ESPN still matters. I hate to think that could very well largely ignore baseball going forward.

So, I’ll still have memories about the days of Dave Marash and Dave Campbell, of Gary Miller and Jeff Brantley, of Rob Dibble and Peter Gammons. Yes, even Chris Berman and the nicknames. In time Berman became more shtick than man, but admittedly several of his earlier nicknames were quite clever. Oddibe Young Again McDowell? Greg Life Is a Cadaret? It’s just that the golden age of MLB and ESPN ended a long time ago. The hope is that whichever network or streaming service picks up the slack will treat MLB with the same level of respect that ESPN showed in 1992, not in 2022. Baseball fans deserve better.

What Are You Doing, MSNBC?

For an allegedly progressive network, MSNBC sure looks like it is as eager to bend the knee as any other large organization has. This week’s announcement of upcoming changes to the lineup illustrate that perfectly. Any one of the decisions could probably be defensible - I suspect they could point to ratings numbers and justify their choices - but taken as a whole the fact that they cancelled the shows of virtually every host of color is an awful look.

The move that everyone is focusing on is the cancellation of Joy Reid’s show; and it also appears that she is the only one who is leaving NBC Universal entirely rather than being reassigned elsewhere, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. As part of the changes the network is also closing its Miami studio, which means that Jose Diaz-Balart’s daily show and Katie Phang’s weekend show are ending as well. The weekend shows hosted by Jonathan Capehart and Ayman Mohyeldin are also getting the ax. And Alex Wagner will no longer host a primetime hour when Rachel Maddow once again cuts back her schedule to once a week.

Coincidentally or not, these announcements were made on the same day that Lester Holt similarly announced that he will soon leave as anchor of NBC Nightly News. To be fair, the network still has prominent voices of color. The weekend morning trio of Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, and Symone Sanders-Townsend is moving into the old Joy Reid time slot, and Ali Velshi’s weekend show will expand an additional hour. Still, their lineup of regular hosts is almost entirely white. The optics are terrible.

This brings back memories of acrimonious breakups that the network has had with black female anchors in the past - Melissa Harris-Perry, Tiffany Cross. The homogeneity of the lineup makes it appear that MSNBC has already surrendered to the whims of the Mad King and his court.

50 Years Ago - The Montefuscos/Fay

It’s a fact of life that television shows get cancelled all the time, and sometimes they are so disastrous that those cancellations happen mere weeks after a show’s debut. There was nothing unusual about the quick demises of The Montefuscos & Fay, a pair of shows that (briefly) aired back to back on NBC’s lineup. I remember this duo more than most other equally obscure shows for one big reason. I’m not sure if they were hyped more heavily than usual, but by sheer coincidence the pair premiered in the same year that John “The Count” Montefusco won the NL Rookie Of the Year award. Therefore, Joe Garigiola liked to have fun with it on Game Of the Week telecasts, assuring viewers that the new sitcom was NOT based on The Count’s family.

I am virtually certain that I never watched an episode of either of these shows. (They received their cancellation notices after only 3 episodes, but NBC did air all of the episodes that were produced.) At least in the case of The Montefuscos I’m confident that I made the correct choice, because the description makes it sound like it was a painful watch. It focused on a multi-generational Italian-American family in Connecticut, and even at the time I remember the show receiving heavy criticism for its stereotyping. If it was so over the top that 1975 audiences took notice I’m afraid to think how offensive it was. I need not wonder, here is the original promo reel.

Oh my lord, that is bad. Fay, on the other hand, has nowhere near the same level of notoriety. In fact, it would be one of many quickly forgotten TV shows were it not for the fact that it was a time slot partners of The Montefuscos. It starred Lee Grant as a recent divorcee of a certain age starting a new life. When doing my research I noticed that the second lead in the show was Audra “Mrs. Roper” Lindley. I don’t believe she wore a muumuu in this one. The show may have flopped, but Lee Grant did go on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar only a few months later so I doubt she was too broken up about that.

I want to briefly mention another show that began and ended in 1975, Karen. No, it was not a sitcom about a privileged white woman demanding to speak to a different manager each week. It was yet another young single woman in the city show, this one a starring vehicle for Karen Valentine. That name may not mean anything to anyone even a couple of years younger than I am, but at the time she had serious America’s Sweetheart vibes following her years as one of the stars of Room 222. Her budding stardom didn’t take. Not the first time that networks worked overtime to unsuccessfully make someone a star - think Tea Leoni - but you gotta feel bad for the person in question.

Closing Laughs

And with that, it is time to bring things to a close for today. To quote Bartyles & Jaymes, thank you for your support. Have a great day, and see you all again on Friday.