Classic Saturday Night Live Thread

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by MikaelaArsenault, Jun 20, 2020.

  1. Avenging Robot

    Avenging Robot Senior Member

    I watched that episode and that sketch must not have been so scandalous / epic as I have no recollection of it at all.
     
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  2. DaveySR

    DaveySR Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I'm also a Residents fan and have that single. Devo/Barry Manilow comparison had me LOL.
     
  3. agentalbert

    agentalbert Senior Member

    Location:
    San Antonio, TX
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  4. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    Watched the two Candice Bergen episodes from season 1 today. Gotta love the variety show vibe of the first season or two. I was binging the show from season 6 on this year, and got to 22, but I think I may go through seasons 1-4 or 5, now (or at least heavily sample them).
     
  5. Instant Dharma

    Instant Dharma Dude/man

    Location:
    CoCoCo, Ca
    After Python. SNL would not have been the same without it.
     
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  6. Instant Dharma

    Instant Dharma Dude/man

    Location:
    CoCoCo, Ca
    I have to say that first line. Dog? Tree. Total Micheal O’Donohue.
     
  7. Actually she was almost on SNL. She was hired and happened to show up on a day Michael O'Donoghue threw a massive fit in front of everyone, culminating in spray painting DANGER on the office wall. She had been very reluctant about being on SNL so she watched his performance and then basically decided "to hell with this", walked out the door and went home.
     
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  8. jojopuppyfish

    jojopuppyfish Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    There is a saying that everyone's favorite SNL is when they were 13.
    For me, that means 1981 to 1984 are my favorite years....and I really grew up with the classic member's movies.
    I do like the original SNL but for me the year with Martin Short, Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest is my favorite year....with the highest point being when Eddie Murphy came back to host.
     
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  9. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I was 13 for the entire 1980-81 season, so that saying is wrong!!! :laugh:
     
  10. Marry a Carrot

    Marry a Carrot Interesting blues gets a convincing reading.

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    That seems like a long time to be 13.
     
  11. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Maybe he has a kinda Benjamin Button thing going on! :shrug:
     
  12. jojopuppyfish

    jojopuppyfish Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    Debatedly , the single best skit in SNL history.....part of the episode where Eddie came back to host in 1984.
     
  13. CowboyBill

    CowboyBill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah
    Do people consider the Sandler/Farley/Hartman era classic? That cast had the same magic just as the first fives years did.

    my favorite an SNL Weekend Update..
    [​IMG]
     
  14. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    The first three years of it (seasons 16-18), yes! The final year (season 19), absolutely not. The end of season 19 reaches lower depths even than the infamous season 20.
     
  15. jojopuppyfish

    jojopuppyfish Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    I find the best skits of the Sandler/Farley/Hartman era great. I would consider it below the belushi and murphy eras......
    I'd rank it like this....
    Great eras
    1) Belushi/Murry/Ackroyd, chase
    2) Murphy and that one season with Martin Short and Billy Crystal
    3) Sandler/Harley Hartman
    4) Shannon, Will Ferrell, Oteri -The last great era
    After Fallon and Fey left update, I think SNL is unwatchable.

    That's how I'd rank it.
     
  16. MarkTheShark

    MarkTheShark Senior Member

    I was 13 for the Doumanian year. My favorite SNL is from when I was 11, since that's when I first started watching it (Season 4). However, the way the show worked (with three live shows a month and then a week off) they had a LOT of reruns, plus there was "The Best Of Saturday Night Live" during Season 5, so I got to be pretty fluent in those early seasons and saw Chevy Chase pretty regularly even though he'd been gone for a couple years. And I faithfully watched the one-hour syndicated weeknight reruns in the early 1980s.

    It's interesting that over the first five years, Season 4 (1978-79) was the only year where Chevy Chase didn't appear on the show at all, no guest host spots and no cameos. But they sure liked making jokes at his expense that year!

    I'm a "first five years" fan. Although I was still following it at least through the season with Martin Short and Billy Crystal. But it's been off my radar for a long, long time.
     
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  17. swandown

    swandown Under Assistant West Coast Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    There are classic moments in the Sandler era, but they also had a tendency to beat jokes into the ground. It's sort of like the inverse of the '70s -- instead of long stretches between jokes, it was long stretches of the same joke over and over again.

    I liked Norm McDonald but I never thought that his Update was a comedic masterpiece.
     
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  18. BwanaBob

    BwanaBob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    I dressed up like Fred Garvin one Halloween and people actually figured out who I was supposed to be. I didn't have a truss though.
     
  19. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    I think I was there for the first few seasons, then fell away. One of the early sketches I remember is Lorne Michaels offering The Beatles $3,000 (later upped to $3,200) to reunite. It was simple but funny (I think one line was "divide it anyway you want, if you want give Ringo less that's up to you). Interesting fact is that Paul McCartney and John Lennon were watching SNL that night and considered actually showing up for the show.

    I've returned to it occasionally, mostly via DVDs focusing on the various cast members. It allows me to catch the best sketches, and the best performers. To me, one of the best was Phil Hartman. Proof of this to me is the sketch "Robot Repair" which is so simple, takes a while to build, but the payoff is great...yet it is just him on a static set.

    BTW, a few years ago Rolling Stone did a ranking survey of every cast member on SNL. Robert Downey, Jr. was ranked at the bottom (he ranked below individuals who didn't actually appear on the show but only in the title sequence).
     
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  20. jojopuppyfish

    jojopuppyfish Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    Robert Downey Jr wasn't the worst. Anthony Michael Hall was worse than him.
    Tough to say someone was bad when they were hardly on.
    I think Nora Dunn is my least favorite player on any years of the show. Just incredibly unfunny.
     
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  21. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    Oh, I really love Nora. But she has a kinda cold, distanced, performing style and set of characters, so I can see why people don't love her.
     
  22. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    In the 90s, the show became obsessed with 2 things: characters who could get spun into movies, and catchphrases.

    Of course, that Venn diagram is basically a perfect circle, as the catchphrases existed as a vehicle to launch characters into movies.

    That said, the Roxbury guys got a movie without a catchphrase, so maybe it's not a perfect circle! :D
     
  23. carrick doone

    carrick doone Whhhuuuutttt????

    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
    Wasn't the way they looked and acted the catchphrase?
     
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  24. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA

    Technically, a catchphrase needs to be spoken - like "we're not worthy" or "you look mahvelous".

    The head-bobbing thing with the Roxbury guys was kind of a physical catchphrase, I guess! :)
     
  25. Jay_Z

    Jay_Z Forum Resident

    Hall missed about half the shows that season because he was doing a movie. Downey did the whole season.

    In baseball there is the concept of replacement value. The level at which the player can be replaced by an equal player at no cost. A player can be so bad that he is below replacement value, that a random replacement would actually be likely to be better than the particular player's putrid performance.

    Hall and Downey were equally worthless. Lorne Michaels could have come up with 100 actors that had some bit or shtick that would be funny at least once or twice. So they were both sub replacement. Maybe give them a -1.0 rating in Comedy Above Replacement (CAR) per show. By being in more shows at the same negative CAR value, Downey was worse than Hall.
     
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