On Trump

The Flip Wilson / Stevie Nicks review will be posted next week, but I thought I'd weigh in on the controversy over Donald Trump hosting the show. I'd be lying if I said that it didn't bother me that the show booked him: he did the show in 2004 and was adequate for a non-actor, but this was before he made racist comments about Mexicans and misogynistic retorts to Megyn Kelly for calling him on his sexism, actions which have only endeared him to a frightening group of the American electorate. I remember being upset that the show allowed Chris Brown to appear as musical guest in 2011, but this seems much worse.

I realize that the first duty of the show is ratings and advertising revenue for NBC, with comedy as the byproduct that hooks the audience in, but this move just seems so incredibly crass on Lorne Michaels' part. It's not just a political disagreement that fuels my discomfort: by booking Trump, the show is legitimizing a political candidate that incites hatred towards an ethnic group. This controversy, so far, is at least giving the show extra attention: it's drawing protesters, and a group is offering money to anyone who heckles Trump in tonight's show, an act that has some precedence on the show (Andrew Dice Clay and Sharon Stone were heckled during their monologues, but security were quick to act and both segments were replaced with dress rehearsal takes in reruns). Various media outlets, from the A.V. Club to Rolling Stone, have also weighed in and said that to give Trump this platform is a bad idea. 

I'm more concerned about the quality of the show. I get the impression Trump's sense of humor about himself has only decreased as his presidential ambitions come closer to fulfillment, and there are reports that he's vetoing "more risque" sketches to avoid alienating Iowa primary voters. SNL usually does better when the hosts surrender themselves fully to the process, but whatever the writers come up with this week has to serve the extra agenda of having Donald Trump look good.

The backstage atmosphere at SNL must be interesting this week. I'm sure there are people on the show that see Trump as just another politician or celebrity they have the opportunity to meet while doing their dream job (which I don't fault them for), but I wonder how many writers, performers and crew members have to bite their tongues so hard that a combination of blood and spit will be seeping out of their mouths tonight.

I can't tell anybody what to do, and I'm sure that the NBC, Lorne Michaels, and Donald Trump will get their ratings no matter how many people they've angered by this arrangement. I likely won't be watching the show myself, but Trump has nothing to do with it: I'm going to a party.

Reviews to begin again later this month

Things have stabilized around here, but I'm still a little behind schedule, and have to ease myself back into "reviewer mode". 

I will post the Jerry Lewis review on October 24, and attempt to keep to a weekly schedule thereafter for the remainder of the 1983-84 season's reviews.

Thank you for your continued support for this blog. I'm still trying to figure out what this is all leading towards, but it's nice to know other people are as interested in finding out about a neglected chapter of SNL history as I am about writing and researching it.

As well, if there's any additional background information I may have missed, please get in contact with me at bjdwsm@gmail.com or leave a comment. I'm always interested in finding out sketch writing credits, notable show personnel appearing on-camera, and other background information.

This is unlikely, but I would also love to get my hands on the paperwork that lists the show rundowns with any dress rehearsal cuts, or any additional details about the editing done to the repeat versions. Most of this information I put in my reviews is original research comparing different copies of shows I have access to, but the amount of editing done to the post-1985 shows will make this a lot more difficult, if I decide to continue on with the reviews for that era of the show.

Hiatus

I had originally planned to post the Jerry Lewis review last week, but some real life stuff made me decide that posting reviews about thirty-year-old episodes of SNL episodes wasn't as big a priority that week. I was intending to post my review today, and was actually working on it this afternoon, but the power flickered at my apartment for a few seconds; it didn't go out, but when I tried to save what I had already written, Squarespace froze at the "saving" screen for a few minutes. I ended up closing the browser to see if the save took. It didn't. With a potential thunderstorm on the way and the general hotness and mugginess of my apartment, I decided to not stress myself out with trying to get this done tonight or this weekend.

I'll have the review posted for next week, but after that I'm taking a break from the SNL reviews until the new season starts. I was originally considering going to a bi-weekly schedule, but the effort it takes to write these reviews needs to be diverted somewhere else for the time being. I appreciate your visits to the site as well as your comments and feedback, and thank you for your continued patience.

The review for Jerry Lewis / Loverboy will be up August 29, while Smothers Brothers / Big Country will be posted on October 3.

UPDATE (9/5/15): The Lewis review will come when it comes, but Smothers / Big Country will be posted as scheduled.

SNL Up Close: 1983-84

By the summer of 1983, Saturday Night Live had re-stabilized, and had a genuine movie star in its cast: Eddie Murphy, who reached box office success with 48 Hours and Trading Places. However, the new season would prove to be his last, as it was only a matter of time before Murphy's burgeoning career would push him beyond SNL. To keep their star an extra year, NBC and SNL executive producer Dick Ebersol allowed Murphy to do the show on a part-time basis, with his appearances on his weeks off made possible by a bank of eleven sketches taped with the cast in Studio 8H on September 21, 1983.

Unlike the previous three seasons, there were no cast departures (though Gary Kroeger was fired and quickly rehired over the summer), and while Murphy was on his way out, he and Joe Piscopo still continued to be the focus of many sketches. Newer hires Kroeger and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, already contributing solid work, got a much-deserved boost in airtime, while Mary Gross began to be credited as a writer alongside Murphy, Piscopo, Tim Kazurinsky and Robin Duke. The sole new face in the cast was Jim Belushi, younger brother of John. Despite a commitment to a production of Sam Shephard's  True West forcing Belushi to miss a handful of shows early in the season, he quickly became one of the show's dominant players.

The writing staff had comparatively more turnover: Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield left for Hollywood and rookie writers Paul Barrosse and Ellen L. Fogle were let go. Brought onboard for 1983-84 were Andy Breckman (poached from Late Night with David Letterman), Adam Green, Kevin Kelton (a former writer for SNL's one-time West Coast rival Fridays), and Michael Clayton McCarthy; founding SNL writer Herb Sargent also returned to take charge of the Saturday Night News segment. Of these new hires, Breckman proved to be an especially solid and prolific addition to the staff. Writer-producer Bob Tischler also began to have a stronger influence on what material made it into the show, which allowed for sharper material than what Dick Ebersol, more a "numbers guy" than a comedy writer, normally kept in the show.

Ebersol's control in other areas still remained, though, and the show still shied away from harder-edged political satire, to the dismay of several writers and performers: Tim Kazurinsky and Brad Hall both clashed with Ebersol about the material that made it to air. Hall was also removed from Saturday Night News mid-season, with the segment's anchor duties usually falling to whoever was hosting the show that week. 

The second half of the season brought two more developments: the debut (and quick demise) of Lorne Michaels' new sketch show The New Show, and the show's increased use of pre-filmed sketches. The New Show's poor ratings and reviews only served to vindicate and reinvigorate the SNL staff, while the filmed sketches that appeared over the next year and a half (usually directed by regular film unit directors Claude Kerven and John Fox) would be some of the show's best-remembered work.

As with the previous three seasons, I will be posting sketch-by-sketch reviews; expect the new reviews of each show every weekend (as my schedule allows), with the Tartikoff review coming tonight or tomorrow. If anyone has information to contribute about the episodes, such as who wrote what, writer cameos, etc., I welcome it and will acknowledge my source in the sketch review.

The episodes (with links to episode summaries in the SNL Archives):

• October 8, 1983: Brandon Tartikoff / John Cougar
• October 15, 1983: Danny DeVito & Rhea Perlman / Eddy Grant
• October 22, 1983: John Candy / Men At Work
• November 5, 1983: Betty Thomas / Stray Cats
• November 12, 1983: Teri Garr / Mick Fleetwood's Zoo
• November 19, 1983: Jerry Lewis / Loverboy
• December 3, 1983: The Smothers Brothers / Big Country
• December 10, 1983: Flip Wilson / Stevie Nicks
• January 14, 1984: Father Guido Sarducci / Huey Lewis and the News
• January 21, 1984: Michael Palin & his mother / The Motels
• January 28, 1984: Don Rickles / Billy Idol
• February 11, 1984: Robin Williams / Adam Ant
• February 18, 1984: Jamie Lee Curtis / The Fixx
• February 25, 1984: Edwin Newman / Kool & The Gang
• March 17, 1984: Billy Crystal / Al Jarreau
• April 7, 1984: Michael Douglas / Deniece Williams
• April 14, 1984: George McGovern / Madness
• May 5, 1984: Barry Bostwick / Spinal Tap
• May 12, 1984: Billy Crystal, Mayor Ed Koch, Edwin Newman, Father Guido Sarducci, Betty Thomas / The Cars