SNL Up Close: 1984-85

Saturday Night Live executive producer Dick Ebersol and producer Bob Tischler had more or less righted the ship by 1984, but Eddie Murphy’s departure that February meant the show had lost its biggest star and a crucial factor in the show’s survival to that point. Despite this loss, the show made it to the end of the season, but SNL’s future was uncertain; the season finale featuring five hosts could have wound up being the last show, but was successful enough to earn the show another season and its first Emmy nomination since 1980.

Breaking with the show’s tradition of breaking undiscovered talent, Ebersol and Tischler signed a number of established comedy performers, many to higher-priced one-season contracts: Billy Crystal, already a two-time host the previous season; Martin Short from the just-ended SCTV; Christopher Guest and one-time SNL regular Harry Shearer, fresh off acclaim (and an SNL musical guest gig) for This Is Spinal Tap; Rich Hall from Fridays and Not Necessarily The News, and Pamela Stephenson from NNTN’s British progenitor Not The Nine O’Clock News. All but Stephenson were also credited as writers.  

To make room for the new group, Ebersol and Tischler cleaned house: Joe Piscopo, whose impact on the show slowly waned over the course of the previous season, was out, as were Tim Kazurinsky, Robin Duke and Brad Hall.  In the writers’ room, rookies Adam Green and Michael McCarthy were gone; Pam Norris, Margaret Oberman and head writer Andrew Smith had also departed as full-time writers, though the latter two would still occasionally contribute to SNL on a freelance basis over the coming year. Joining the writing staff that year were Fridays regular Larry David, Second City alum Rob Riley, and returning SNL writer Jim Downey, as well as a number of guest writers over the course of the season.

Despite these big changes, returning players Jim Belushi, Mary Gross, Gary Kroeger and Julia Louis-Dreyfus helped lend the show some continuity. Many key writers from the previous seasons also remained: Andy Breckman and Kevin Kelton returned for their second year, Andrew Kurtzman his third, Bob Tischler, Eliot Wald and Nate Herman their fourth; original SNL writer Herb Sargent also remained on board. Like in previous years, Ebersol and Tischler prioritized sketches featuring the bigger stars, leaving the remaining cast and writers to compete for the remaining airtime; beside the new group of writer-performers, Breckman and the team of Kelton, Kurtzman and Wald contributed a lot of this year’s scripts.

SNL in 1984-85 featured a growing reliance on pre-taped sketches (most directed by Guest, Breckman, Claude Kerven or John Fox), and an even stronger reliance on recurring characters: on any given show, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest and Martin Short usually dominated the first half hour with immediately recognizable characters. Crystal in particular thrived this year, owing much to his professionalism and willingness to collaborate with the other writers, while Harry Shearer’s relationship with the show soured almost immediately. A talented but exacting writer and performer, Shearer’s strengths were less compatible with Dick Ebersol’s more commercial direction for the show, and backstage tensions grew so toxic that Ebersol cut him loose mid-season.

Saturday Night News continued to limp along with guest anchors until Christopher Guest was installed as permanent anchor in December, with mixed results; Guest’s versatility made him a valuable addition to sketches, but on-camera as himself, his aloof demeanor tended to cross over into outright dullness. An SNL staple since the first show, the news parody had de-emphasized political satire in favor of guest commentary pieces by this point, and several shows this season dispensed with the news segment altogether.

A writers’ strike briefly interrupted the season in March, but the show returned for a final three-episode stretch, ending the year a month earlier than normal on April 13. By that point, Ebersol had grown tired of SNL’s grueling production schedule, and opted to focus his energies on Friday Night Videos and Saturday Night’s Main Event, a series of wrestling specials that ran in the SNL timeslot.

As usual, I will be posting sketch-by-sketch reviews, with new posts uploaded every weekend. Any information regarding the sketches (such as sketch authorship) and shows is certainly welcome, and will be incorporated into my reviews with acknowledgement

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

• October 6, 1984: (no host) / Thompson Twins

• October 13, 1984: Bob Uecker / Peter Wolf

• October 20, 1984: Rev. Jesse Jackson / Andrae Crouch, Wintley Phipps

• November 3, 1984: Michael McKean / Chaka Khan

• November 10, 1984: George Carlin / Frankie Goes To Hollywood

• November 17, 1984: Ed Asner / The Kinks

• December 1, 1984: Ed Begley Jr. / Billy Squier

• December 8, 1984: Ringo Starr / Herbie Hancock

• December 15, 1984: Eddie Murphy / Robert Plant & The Honeydrippers

• January 12, 1985: Kathleen Turner / John Waite

• January 19, 1985: Roy Scheider / Billy Ocean

• February 2, 1985: Alex Karras / Tina Turner

• February 9, 1985: Harry Anderson / Bryan Adams

• February 16, 1985: Pamela Sue Martin / The Power Station

• March 2, 1985: SNL Film Festival with Siskel & Ebert

• March 30, 1985: Mr. T & Hulk Hogan / The Commodores

• April 6, 1985: Christopher Reeve / Santana

• April 13, 1985: Howard Cosell / Greg Kihn

S.O.S.N.L.

I'm going to be resuming my reviews starting this weekend, but in the meantime, I thought I would let you know about series of individual sketch reviews being posted this summer.

It's called S.O.S.N.L., short for Summer of Saturday Night Live, and it's being posted by Justin of Usefully Useless Information. Every day from June 21st to September 21st, he will highlight a random Saturday Night Live sketch from throughout the show's 41 year history and offer his take on it. It looks like there will be a good mix of sketches over the next 90 days, from the greatest hits to the deep cuts, from the greats to the infamously bad. I hope you check it out along with me.

SNL season 41: End of the slump?

When SNL started their 41st season last October, I wasn't particularly excited by the lineup for the season premiere; Miley Cyrus doing double-duty as host and musical guest wasn't exactly the worst way to start the year, but her previous show was only two years before, and not a particularly strong one, at least writing-wise. What was more ominous was that there were no cast changes aside from the addition of another white male stand-up as a featured player, and the writing staff turnover fit the same pattern as in previous years (the long-tenured writers stay, the newbies are the first on the chopping block).

I'm not going to pretend this season of SNL was one of the series' greatest years, but what the last twenty-one shows have demonstrated is that the current group of writers and performers is capable of getting the balance right. Letting Donald Trump host the show in November was a mistake (and I suspect there are many at the show who feel the same), but the shows hosted by Tracy Morgan and Larry David were SNL's strongest efforts in years, and even weaker outings by Russell Crowe and Drake felt more like the writing was affected by the host's weaknesses (the former) or that the material just didn't connect (the latter), as opposed to the pandering I criticized the show for doing in seasons 39 and 40.

I won't go too far into detail about the elements that worked and didn't work this season, but I will definitely single out Kate McKinnon, Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider for their continued excellent take on Hillary Clinton (McKinnon's is now the definitive impression). Vanessa Bayer made an incredible comeback this year ("Santa Baby" unleashed one of her most unsettling performances), and Cecily Strong returned to her full power as a member of the ensemble. There were still a few questionable sketches throughout the year ("Good Morning Song" marred the otherwise excellent Tracy Morgan show with a questionable gay predator punchline), but there seems to be more meat in the writing this year.

Colin Jost and Michael Che continued their turnaround of Weekend Update; it is now the most consistently funny and surprising part of the show, thanks in no small part to increased collaboration between the anchors and writers, and the efforts of segment producer Dennis McNicholas. Jost also stepped down as head writer prior to the start of the season, which allows him to put his focus on Update; while it is unclear as to what extent Jost's influence affected the quality of the show over the previous seasons, but this year's writing seems less beholden to recurring characters or attempts at new ones.

I used to think the show needed a huge shake-up to get it out of the holding pattern of mediocrity it was in for the past few seasons. I'm beginning to think that all it needs is a slight bit of work over the summer to trim some of the bloat.

The Saturday Night Hall of Fame Readers' Poll: The Results

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Saturday Night Live Hall of Fame Reader's Poll. The votes are in and have been tabulated, and the lineup for the hypothetical hall of fame show has been confirmed. Your choices are (ordered from highest to lowest total points):

Cast

• Dana Carvey
• Will Ferrell
• Bill Hader
• Eddie Murphy
• Dan Aykroyd
• Bill Murray
• Amy Poehler
• Norm Macdonald (Weekend Update anchor)
• Jon Lovitz
• Tina Fey

Writers

• Robert Smigel (head writer)
• Al Franken
• James Downey
• Adam McKay
• Tina Fey
• Bob Odenkirk
• Jack Handey
• Conan O'Brien
• Rosie Shuster
• Terry Turner
• Bonnie Turner
• Andy Breckman
• Steve Higgins
• Sarah Schneider
• Chris Kelly

Utility

• G.E. Smith
• Darrell Hammond
• Conan O'Brien
• Dennis Miller
• Paul Shaffer

Memorial Category

• Phil Hartman
• Michael O'Donoghue
• Chris Farley
• John Belushi
• Jan Hooks

Musical Guests

• Paul Simon
• Paul McCartney
• Arcade Fire

Special Guest

• (tied) Justin Timberlake, Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin

Host

• Steve Martin