TTH 7/15/26

Classic SNL Recap - Season 31 Finale

Season 31 ended with Kevin Spacey hosting for the 2nd and final time. I know the initial reaction upon seeing his name is to shudder in revulsion, but he was a strong host. He is a talented enough impressionist that one can almost imagine an Earth 2 situation in which he became an SNL cast member. This second go-around was not as consistently strong as his first one was, but it does contain an all-timer of a great sketch.

The end of a season also comes with cast changes, and this year resulted in a blood bath. This year was one of the occasions in which NBC demanded budget cuts, so as a result 3 cast members were fired - Finesse Mitchell, Chris Parnell for a second time, and Horatio Sanz. In addition, Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey left so that could star in 30 Rock in the upcoming September. Remember, Dratch was originally cast as Jenna Maroney. Finally, director Beth McCarthy-Miller departed after 11 years at the helm. Peacock did not include the closing goodbyes, so I am not sure if her departure was acknowledged.

A large number of departures means that I’ve got a lot of exit interviews this week. Rachel Dratch was never the show’s #1 star, but she was exactly the sort of valuable asset who automatically raises the quality of whichever sketch she appears in. She drew my attention in one of her earliest appearances, in which she portrayed Calista Flockhart’s. She had 2 specialities. She was great at playing crazy-eyed oddballs, a precursor to Kate McKinnon. She was equally great at portraying sad yet sympathetic doormats, a precursor to Vanessa Bayer. She is best remembered for Debbie Downer, but my personal favorite recurring character of hers was Virginia, one half of The Lovers. The way Virginia would enunciate certain words was priceless.

Tina Fey is of course an inner circle SNL legend, so much so that it is easy to forget that she wasn’t a huge on-air presence during her time on the show. She spent several years as head writer and as Update co-anchor, but in any episode it wasn’t unusual for her to appear solely on Update and not in any sketches. That is surprising, because as a Second City alum she was clearly a skilled sketch comedienne. Her reputation actually comes more from her post-SNL career - the Sarah Palin impression, the entrance into the Five Timers club, her 30 Rock Emmy Awards, etc.

Finesse Mitchell was one of many cast members who came from the field of standup comedy rather than from improv. Standup comics have been very hit or miss on SNL; Mitchell always seemed most comfortable when he was able to incorporate a character from his standup act into a sketch or if he had a desk piece on Update. He was OK on the show, but there was nothing special about his tenure.

I have praised Chris Parnell in this forum A LOT. He was, quite simply, one of the most reliable rocks the show has ever had. He could play everything from a centaur to James Bond to Andy Samberg’s cohort in the game changing Lazy Sunday video. He has continued to show the same versatility; there is quite a range which separates Dr. Leo Spaceman and Cyril Figgis. Similar to Rachel Dratch, he was never the show’s biggest star, but SNL can not succeed without contributions from the Dratches and Parnells of the world.

Horatio Sanz has an unusual SNL legacy. He has inevitably been associated with Jimmy Fallon as partners in ruining sketches by constantly breaking. I can recall few great sketches he appeared in, but I remember his futile struggles to maintain a straight face. For a guy who spent 8 seasons as a regular, he left a surprisingly small footprint. Then, once he was hit with sexual assault allegations he became persona non grata.

The great sketch which I spoke of above was The Falconer. This recurring sketch was Will Forte at his most deranged; he is Ken Mortimer, a businessman who leaves the rat race to pursue his passion for falconry. This time he is visited by Spacey as his future self; having built a time machine: “the mystery of time travel has become the reality of time travel!” He has gone back in time to prevent a hunter from shooting Donald the falcon. He fails to prevent it, so present and future Ken hop back in the machine. This time Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis are the falconers, once again they are too late. The actors reenter the machine time and again; by the end almost every cast member is dressed up as the falconer.

2 A-Holes were the first big recurring characters for Sudeikis and Kristin Wiig. Quite possibly the two biggest narcissists on the planet, they would drive people crazy with their utter cluelessness. It was usually funnier than the edition shown in this week’s episode was, but it was a decent example of the rhythms of the sketches.

This was a solid piece; a parody of one of Kevin Spacey’s most legendary roles. In this one he is berating Andy Samberg backstage for showing up late. Samberg offers up his excuse by telling a long, heavily detailed story explaining the reason for his tardiness. Spacey accepts the alibi, that is, until he looks around at all of the items in his office and realizes that Samberg had made everything up on the spot. In Usual Suspects homage, Spacey’s dropped coffee mug falls to the floor in slow motion.

Samberg also offered another digital short from The Lonely Island this week. This was a parody of the old Jay Walking segment on The Tonight Show. In Andy Walking, he attempts to prove the stupidity of the average American by asking random passers-by man on the street questions and then mocking them when they get the answers wrong. The joke is that all of the provided answers were correct, and Samberg was the one who looked like an idiot.

There is one other mildly amusing piece this week, a docudrama series called Legends Of History. This one tells the story of Phillip Sarc, a man from medieval times who invented the concept of sarcasm. Perhaps it was funnier at the time, but this is one instance of Spacey’s presence making this a bit of a turn-off. That brings season 31 to a close. Next week I will recap the first episode of season 32, a year with a leaner, meaner cast as well as a new Update co-anchor. Dane Cook was the host.

RIP

Time to catch up on a few recent passings, beginning with Bonnie Tyler. Her 1983 worldwide #1 hit Total Eclipse Of the Heart was one of the signature hits of the era. A dramatic and over the top record, its equally dramatic and over the top video was a staple of early MTV. Tyler remains the only native of Wales to have hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Her later hit, Holding Out For a Hero from the Footloose soundtrack, was nowhere near as big of a hit but it has spent the subsequent decades as much of a needle drop as Total Eclipse was.

For me, the best Tyler record was the one which was her first American hit, It’s a Heartache. A country-ish pop song, it effectively showcased her raspy voice, a voice which immediately drew comparisons to Rod Stewart. If you squint hard enough, she even vaguely looked like a female Rod Stewart. A unique talent with a distinctive voice, Tyler was 75.

A true baseball lifer with one of the great nicknames in the game’s history, Phil Regan pitched in the majors for 13 seasons, mostly as a reliever. In the years before the save was an official statistic, he led the NL in saves twice. He is best remembered for having tallied double digit numbers of wins while pitching out of the bullpen. Sandy Koufax gave him the nickname of The Vulture for that, playfully accusing him of vulturing victories from the starting pitchers who actually deserved the W. After retirement he was a highly respected pitching coach for multiple teams, and briefly managed the Baltimore Orioles. Regan was 89.

Louise Lasser was Woody Allen’s first wife/muse/co-star before she gained major fame as the title character in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. The show was a brief phenomenon, and she rose to a level of stardom for which she was unprepared. She infamously hosted SNL in its first season when she was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Following Mary Hartman’s cancellation, she would pop up in roles here and there, such as portraying Alex’s ex-wife in a few episodes of Taxi. Her final visible role was her appearance in a couple of episodes of Girls. Lasser was 87.

Randolph Mantooth had the classic career arc of a 1970’s TV actor. After picking up a series of guest starring roles on his rise to fame, he burst into prominence as one of the paramedics on Emergency! Afterwards he appeared in a couple of unsuccessful series and was in that game show/Love Boat/Fantasy Island roulette wheel. He was a prolific soap opera actor in the latter half of his career. Soaps are one area of pop culture which generally falls outside of my radar. I can’t tell you how many times I have thought of an actor and wondered whatever happened to him or her only to learn that they have starred in a particular soap for more than a dozen years. Mantooth was a guy like that. He died at the age of 80.

Finally, the great actor Sam Neill died this week. Best known for portraying Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, I first learned who he was when he starred as the adult Damian in The Final Conflict, the last film in The Omen trilogy. That movie was pure crap, but even then his most distinctive characteristic was evident. He had very expressive eyes, and he always gave the impression that he had something going on in his mind.

There were several highlights to his career, from heavy dramas to more popcorn fare: The Hunt For Red October and The Piano and Dead Calm and A Cry In the Dark to name only a few. His most memorable role for me was his portrayal of Cardinal Wolsey in the first season of The Tudors. His realization that Henry VIII had turned against him was gut wrenching. Above all else, everyone immediately pictured him in Jurassic Park. In the scene in which the dinosaurs were first seen, Dr. Grant saw them before the audience did, and his look of awe (and that of Laura Dern) prepared us for the fact that we were about to see something spectacular. I give him the greatest compliment that I can give to an actor. When you saw him on screen, you knew that regardless of the quality of the project, you were about to see a guy give 100%. I was struck by the outpouring of warm stories about the man that I saw from fellow actors and fans alike. I think I have developed enough of a radar to recognize when such remembrances are sincere or not. The Neill obits make it clear that he was a wonderful guy who was much admired. Let that be a lesson for any public figure, whether you are an actor or, I don’t know, a United States Senator. If you want to be warmly remembered in death, treat people with respect when you are alive. Neill was 78.

50 Years Ago - Charlie’s Angels

Few TV series have left a more lasting pop culture legacy than Charlie’s Angels has. A whole generation of young men fell in love with at least one of the angels. A whole generation of young women looked up to them as aspirational role models. Here was a trio of women who took care of themselves and did not need to be rescued by male heroes. True, it was one of the sillier examples of “jiggle TV,” but it made an impact on people, and the main characters, as well as their silhouettes in the opening credits, are forever iconic.

For all of the ways in which it empowered and inspired women, there was also something patronizing about it. That was evident in the very first lines heard in the expository opening credits. “Once upon a time, there were 3 little girls who went to the police academy.” Little girls? Really? The montage showed the 3 leads in their academy days, with the implication that they were at the tops of their classes. Unfortunately, this was 1976, and they were assigned to degrading jobs in the force. As a result they were recruited by millionaire Charles Townshend to work as undercover private eyes in his detective agency.

The original 3 were Jill (Farrah Fawcett), Kelly (Jaclyn Smith), and Sabrina (Kate Jackson.) The gimmick was that the detectives never actually saw Charlie. There was something vaguely stated about how his anonymity was for personal protection, so Charlie, voiced by John Forsythe, was only heard via speaker phone as he gave the detectives their assignments for the case of the week. Then, our 3 heroines, assisted by right hand man/house eunuch Bosley (David Doyle), who was the only person who actually knew Charlie, would go out and get the bad guys.

This was pure 1970’s titillation, so more often than not their assignments would result in at least one of the women having to wear a scantily clad costume. They once went undercover in a circus. At a beauty pageant. At a massage parlor. And of course, once at a women’s prison. There is a tie for my favorite moment of unintentional comedy in these scenarios. The first was an episode which involved an example of Chekhov’s skateboard. Jill was shown early on showing off her new board, and you’re not gonna be introduced to something like that without it being used later on. Later on her stunt double was riding on the board while holding onto the rear bumper of the bad guy’s getaway car. In the other one Kris was undercover as a Swedish woman for some reason, and her attempt at a Swedish accent was about as realistic as that of the Swedish Chef, and she did not have the excuse of being a Muppet.

About Kris, Farrah Fawcett became a super duper star in the first season and quickly had a desire to pursue a movie career. After a protracted battle to get out of her contract, she left the show and her character was replaced by her sister Kris (Cheryl Ladd.) Jackson, too, would eventually become dissatisfied with the show’s direction and left after season 3. She would be replaced by Shelley Hack in season 4 and then Tanya Roberts in the 5th and final season, but by then the show’s popularity had cratered.

Fun fact about Charlie; it was originally intended that Gig Young was going to voice the character, but he was too drunk to be reliable. I only bring that up because Young was also originally cast as the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles before his heavy drinking knocked him out of that one as well. It’s now impossible to imagine any voice other than John Forsythe coming out of that speaker phone. Charlie clearly led the good life. The few times the audience actually “saw” him he would be shown from behind usually surrounding by women in swimsuits. Talk about a playa.

Actually there were 2 occasions I can remember in which the audience and the angels almost saw him. In a special 2-part episode Charlie was held hostage. The angels rescued him from the yacht on which he was being held; the last scene showed him swimming towards the shore before his employees met him. In another case the framing device for a highlight episode involved Kelly having been shot. While she was in surgery Kris, Bosley, and the Tanya Roberts character reminisced about past cases while awaiting word on her condition. The surgeon told them that she would be OK, and standing among the surgical team was John Forsythe hidden behind a surgical mask. He and Bosley exchanged knowing nods.

Charlie’s Angels has been revived many times, but most of the revivals have been unsuccessful. As nostalgic as many people feel for the show, it is too much of a product of the times to translate well. “3 little girls” working for an unseen boss just doesn’t play as well today as it did back then. The only revival which worked in any way was the first Drew Barrymore/Cameron Diaz/Lucy Liu version. That one did not even pretend to be realistic; it was absurd and preposterous but it was fun.

I must end by answering the question that every viewer is asked. Who was my favorite angel? It’s not an easy choice. As stunning as she was, I found Farrah Fawcett a little too vapid even then. I have to admit that there was something about Tanya Roberts’ vibe which was very appealing to a 14 year old boy. As I grew older I learned to appreciate Kate Jackson a lot more; her Texas twang was so endearing. But in the end I will go with Jaclyn Smith/Kelly.

Closing Laughs

And with that we have reached the bottom of the page for yet another day. Thanks as always for being part of the Tending the Herd family. Have a great day everyone. I will be right back here again on Friday.