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

Brief thoughts on #SNL40

Other people are probably going to write more extensively about tonight's SNL 40th Anniversary special, so I'll leave it to them, but I'll say my piece about a few things:

Most of the show was entertaining; the clip montages were well-chosen and edited, and it was good to see the lesser-celebrated Doumanian and Ebersol years get more "deep cuts" covered in the highlight reels, as opposed to the same Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo clips they normally rely on.  

The music performances weren't bad; nothing on par with Prince doing "Electric Chair" at the 15th anniversary or the Eurythmics and Al Green medleys at the 25th. Miley Cyrus doing "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" was surprisingly good, though.  

Jane Curtin doing Weekend Update with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler was a highlight, and she killed it with her Fox News joke. She was always the secret weapon of the original years, or at least the one hidden in plain sight.  

The biggest misstep of the night was the Californians sketch, which didn't seem to play too well in studio. Despite the participation of Laraine Newman and cameos from Bradley Cooper, Kerry Washington, Taylor Swift and Betty White, the sketch dragged.  David Spade posted a close-up of the script on Instagram earlier, which revealed this was the handiwork of James Anderson and Kent Sublette; for all I know they may be wonderful people, but this was all too typical of their other work on the show*.  The same could be said for Garth and Kat, which ground the pacing of the "salute to musical sketches" segment to a halt.

The "In Memoriam" montage was well-done, but I noticed a few glaring omissions:

• Joe Bodolai (writer, 1981-82)
• Nelson Lyon (writer, 1981-82)
• Mark O'Donnell (writer, 1981-82)
• Terry Southern (writer, 1981-82)
• Alan P. Rubin (band, 1975-83)
• Drake Sather (writer, 1994-95)
• Mauricio Smith (band, 1975-79)

They may have kept to a "more than one season" rule for writers, but I found it odd they didn't count the other band members who have passed.  I believe there were also a few other crew and staff members that had been memorialized beforehand but not here.  That said, it was nice to see some others get their due.  I was most concerned that Charles Rocket, Danitra Vance, Michael O'Donoghue and Tom Davis would get short shrift, and was pleased to see they were counted.  The same goes for Don Pardo, Dave Wilson and Audrey Peart Dickman (from many accounts, she was the engine that kept the show running, production-wise). 

Other than those issues, the special served its purpose: it reminded the audience why this show (and it's history) is special, and it was good to see a lot of familiar faces again.  I hope everyone there had a good time (even Anderson and Sublette).

*A partial list of other Anderlette sketches this season: "Forgotten Television Gems", "Women In The Workplace", "Campfire Song", "Nest-presso", "Amy Adams Monologue", "Singing Sisters", "Soap Opera Reunion", "The Journey", "Casablanca".

SNL Reviews to resume!

I've decided to resume the 1982-83 reviews this month; any episode where I have an edited repeat version will be done with my existing copy of the show, and will be altered/corrected accordingly if I get a more complete airing of the show, and will continue on through the rest of the Ebersol in order after the "season in review" posts.

I'm still planning to only do one SNL-related post a week (review or otherwise), but you can expect the review of Howard Hesseman / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers to go online around January 24.

Content generation

I'm trying to decide when I'll come back to posting SNL reviews. They're my "bread and butter" when it comes to generating traffic for this site, but at the same time I hate pigeonholing myself into one-trick-ponydom by only writing about the show, and I worry that I can't appreciate anything else on the level I've devoted to SNL. Then there's the concern that I've exhausted my supply of things to write about the show itself, or that I should save the time and effort I've put into getting my opinion on the show into something that pays me money or advances my career.

The process of writing each review is fairly intensive: I watch each episode two times, one to take notes, and one to do screen captures and fill in gaps from my first note-taking procedure. I also do a little research regarding pertinent information for each show.  If I know there's an alteration in the rerun, I try to confirm what's different. Then there's the whole issue of translating rough notes into sentences that accurately convey what I felt worked and didn't work in each show, with enough evidence to back up my viewpoint. I also have to worry about the stats for the back half of the review. The whole thing is time consuming, a little tedious, and frustrating at times, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some validation from everyone who has told me they enjoy my perspective.

I want to wait until I have access to the original airings of the Bruce Dern and Susan Saint James shows before I post those reviews, but I might as well try to get the Howard Hesseman and Jeff & Beau Bridges episodes posted as soon as possible. I've been keeping this blog inactive too long, so I need to come up with something else to post regularly in the interim, but do I just pick another season of SNL? Should I give my thoughts on the current season, which aren't especially favorable to the cast and writers? Try writing about a new TV show, or attempt to write about music, literature or film?

We'll have to see what eventually posts here.