The Wednesday 4/23 Newsletter

Classic SNL Recap - Season 18, Episode 1

The makeup of the season 18 cast speaks volumes about the state of SNL at the time. Victoria Jackson left after season 17, Beth Cahill and Siobhan Fallon were not asked back. There were no additions made. Read that again. 3 women left the show, and they were not replaced. Lorne & team felt that they could get by with Julia Sweeney as the sole woman in the main cast. Ellen Cleghorne & Melanie Hutsell were featured players, but being that SNL’s early history with race has been as shaky as its history with gender, Cleghorne had few opportunities to shine. (A significant SNL alum returned to make intermittent appearances, including this week.) As for the rest, Rob Schneider was promoted to the main cast; along with the 2 women I mentioned, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, and David Spade remained as featured players.

Nicolas Cage served as host for the season premiere. Bobby Brown was musical guest; when it comes to him & SNL I can’t help but think of the way that Maya Rudolph pronounced the name “Bobby Brown” while doing her Whitney Houston impression. This show aired in September 1992; by this date Cage had already earned a reputation as a committed Method actor, but the Con Air/Face-Off action movie portion of his career was still in the future, as was the He Will Star In Anything phase. The anticipation of this episode came with the thought that placing someone so often unhinged on live TV could come with a bit of danger. He did not disappoint, the most accurate way that I could describe this is as the most Nicolas Cage episode of SNL that there had ever been.

I was looking forward to rewatching this episode; I fondly remember 2 sketches, and in addition this had a wonderful cold open that I had forgotten was in this particular episode. Things got off to a great start with the monologue, which also made a joke about a famous piece of SNL lore. Cage spoke of Honeymoon In Vegas, more specifically how much he enjoyed acting with Sarah Jessica Parker and spending the film shoot in proximity to her perfect breasts. Cut to 2 audience members with looks of revulsion on their faces. Next, he speaks of filming Moonstruck & Cher’s perfect ass. More shots of horrified audience members. As he begins to speak of Kathleen Turner, director Dave Wilson announces over the PA that Lorne wishes to speak with him backstage. Once Lorne makes Cage realize how offensive the monologue has been and how much the audience hates him, the following exchange takes place. “They must think I’m the biggest jerk who’s ever been on the show.” “No, that would be Steven Seagal.” I wonder where Seagal ranks in the Most Hated Host rankings all these years later. Have either or both of the current co-Presidents surpassed him?

The cold open was a good one. This episode aired shortly after the revelation that Woody Allen was in a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, a story which closely paralleled one of the plots in his then current movie, Husbands and Wives. In the sketch Allen (Dana Carvey) and Soon-Yi had just left a screening of the film and had awkward encounters with several people in their lives. The lack of women in the cast was an issue with the very first sketch of the season - Rob Schneider portrayed Soon-Yi. To be fair, Schneider is part Filipino, so it’s not a total outrage to have him play an Asian character. In addition, he only used a mild accent, so it’s not completely offensive.

Among Allen’s encounters were with Mia Farrow (welcome back home, Jan Hooks) Alan Dershowitz (Robert Smigel) and Frank Sinatra (Phil Hartman.) My favorite was Adam Sandler as Tony Roberts, whom Allen was embarrassed to run into because he hadn’t used him in a movie since Hannah & Her Sisters. Carvey was brilliant as Woody Allen. I have long considered Rick Moranis’s to have been the very best Woody impression; after seeing Carvey’s take I’m not so sure about that.

This was a great Carvey episode. He also starred in a sketch as Ross Perot. This was during the period when Perot had briefly withdrawn from the Presidential race; here he and his aide (Kevin Nealon) asserted power by entering a random office building lobby and handing passersby cash for performing humiliating tasks. It’s a pretty straight line from Ross Perot to Logan Roy.

Carvey also appeared as Ted Koppel hosting a town hall in which undecided voters had questions for Bill & Hillary Clinton. The voters were dumb and uninformed, much to Koppel’s exasperation. The majority of Hooks’s return visits to the show were so that she could portray Hillary Clinton. It generally irks me to see these types of appearances at the expense of the current cast, but it’s more defensible in this case. As I said, there were too few women in the cast at this time. Julia Sweeney can’t do everything.

There were 2 desk pieces in this week’s Update. In the first one Chris Rock came on to discuss his personal experience with school busing, but after a couple of tangents he went on an extended riff on the irrelevance of Franklin in Peanuts. Then, Sandler brought out his Opera Man character. This time it was notable because when he received his bravos at the end of the segment, the camera cut to the audience and who was giving him a standing ovation? None other than Nicolas Cage & Cher.

The standout sketch from this episode is one that would not have worked as well as it did with anyone other than Cage. He and Sweeney portrayed expectant parents in the third trimester, who have so far been able to come up with a name for the baby. Cage shot down every one of Sweeney’s suggestions, pointing out how mercilessly their son would be teased by his classmates for having each suggested name. He was in full throttle Nic Cage mode, and even though it was obvious that the sketch would lead to us learning that he had an embarrassing first name, Cage’s performance made it all work.

Cage has never come back to host a second time, although he did make a cameo in one of Andy Samberg’s Get In The Cage pieces. This was one of the better one shot hosting gigs. Nicolas Cage is a one of a kind performer, and he left a strong footprint. Next week I will watch the midseason episode of season 18, hosted by Danny DeVito. If memory serves, this was the week that featured Danny DeVito as Joey Buttafuoco. Can’t wait.

50 Years Ago - The Saturday Morning Cartoons

As something of a connoisseur of Saturday morning cartoons, I was somewhat disappointed to see that the cartoons which premiered in 1975 were a fairly bland batch. Not only were there none of the all-time classics in this bunch, there weren’t even any of the so bad it’s good type of toons.

Hanna-Barbera was a long standing reliable creator of cartoon content. The in-house animation style was primitive to say the least, and the writing wasn’t particularly complex either, but HB had a deep bench in their cast of beloved characters. The one new Hanna-Barbera show in 1975 was The Great Grape Ape Show, and let’s just say that there is a reason that the title character has not been revived countless times like so many others in the HB stable.

I see the name Great Grape Ape and I can picture him in my mind, but that’s it. I can barely remember his central gimmick, his voice, or much of the show’s premise. But I can at least picture him, which is more than I can say about The Secret Lives Of Waldo Kitty. There is a vague recognition of the name, but once again it was a show that came and went so quickly that it made no lasting impression upon me. It was vaguely based on the movie The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, but that reference obviously went way over my head in 1975.

One of the bigger Saturday morning traditions had been to translate existing IP into animated form, and that makes it very surprising that it took until 1975 to see a cartoon version of the Planet Of the Apes franchise. The concept should be ideal for an animated adventure show, but Return To the Planet Of the Apes probably came out a couple of years too late. As of 1975 the original film series had come to an end and the prime time network series fizzled out quickly as well. This show was another one year wonder.

The one 1975 newbie that I remember best was another example of a standard cartoon trope: take an established premise and turn into a talking animal cartoon. Presenting… The Oddball Couple. As the title implies, it was a takeoff on The Odd Couple, which had just completed its network run. Instead of Felix & Oscar, the mismatched roommates were a cat named Spiffy and a dog named Fleabag. Conceptually, it was well thought out. Cats are by nature fastidious neat freaks, and dogs, especially if they are mutts such as Fleabag here, can act slovenly in the same lovable manner as Oscar Madison was. On the other hand, the theme song could barely be bothered to provide the standard exposition found in cartoon theme songs. Very littke thought was put into it; it contains the lyrics “they’re a couple that’s a couple of oddballs,” so perhaps it’s not all that clever after all.

It’s pretty clear that 1975 was not the peak age for Saturday morning kid’s TV. Things would get better in future years, however. Think of 1975 as a temporary speed bump.

Closing Laughs

That’s that for another day. Enjoy your day everyone, and let’s do this again on Friday. Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.