So, if you are new here, please check out the following posts, including my review of the Elliott Gould episode.
My goal is to review each of the 12 episodes of SNL that were produced by Jean Doumanian and have been the source of much intrigue and apathy for the last 40+ years.
After a much-maligned premiere episode, it seemed like the cast and staff had a lot to prove in order to regain the trust of the critics and audiences alike...
Well...
So much for that.
If you read the Saturday Night book by Hill/Weingrad, they will state how many people feel the Malcolm McDowell episode is the single worst episode in SNL's history.
Considering that book was written between 1983-1985, that claim is probably valid.
I would argue that other episodes in the years since have made a strong claim to this title (particularly a few episodes from seasons 20 and 30...and maybe season 11), but that isn't to deny that this episode is still one to brush off as not being rough.
Quite the contrary.
I still think this episode contains what is easily the worst sketch ever to appear on SNL. Any SNL aficionado out there already knows which sketch I am talking about...and I will make sure to go into when we get there.
On top of that, there are a few sketches here that suffer from horrendous execution and an all-around laziness that seems to rely too much on cheap puns.
It is also an episode that FEELS dark and LOOKS dark.
(Andrew Dick on That Week in SNL: "This whole episode needs a light")
I will address this more as we go along, but I will go ahead and state now that I am prepared to have a lot of fun talking about an episode that is truly baffling and even flat out disgusting at times. It is one of those trainwrecks that you just have to see to believe.
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COLD OPENING: The Execution
If you read my last post, you will recall I did like to point out that a lot of what makes an idea work is simply how it is executed.
Here, we just get to watch an execution that has been executed in a truly bizarre way.
We are literally watching a man (Gilbert Gottfried) being led to the electric chair while being read his last rites by a priest (Charles Rocket) until he solemnly repeats over and over "I'm sorry Father" as he is getting strapped into the chair.
Just before he is about to be executed, his overly Jewish mother (Denny Dillon) comes forward to see him one last time and to tell him to "sit up straight!"
As Gottfried is electrocuted, he yells "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!".
And that's it. That's the bit.
It is so quick and presented in such a stark and matter-of-fact way that you would think I would praise it for the approach...but instead, it just leads to a quick cheap gag about a stereotypical overbearing Jewish mother telling her son to sit up straight before he is killed.
If this cold opening does anything, it sets you up exactly for the kind of material you are going to get tonight. While the last episode was mired in raunchy material aimed at shock value, this one seems more geared toward shock value that is surprisingly cold and dark.
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MALCOLM MCDOWELL'S MONOLOGUE:
After Gould's monologue embarrassingly made him handle dirty undergarments, McDowell gets spared by just having to deliver a boring story about trying to obtain a permit to remain in the US as he is a citizen of the UK.
A lot has been said by McDowell himself how much he loathed doing this episode of SNL as he found the material to be truly awful. He hated it so much that over a decade later, he told Gary Oldman to run away from the show when he was offered to host even though this was well after Doumanian was fired and the show was arguably still in the midst of its highest creative peak.
McDowell, aside from a couple of strange roles, does do fine in this episode but instead, a lot of the worst aspects fall onto the writers and the true early signs that Doumanian was about to shove Charles Rocket down all of our throats.
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SHOW SKETCH: MUTUALLY OMAHA'S WILD KINGDOM - IN SEARCH OF THE NEGRO REPUBLICAN
I find it interesting that Hill/Weingrad consider this to be "the one genuinely witty moment" of the McDowell episode as I actually find that not to be the case.
I do think the premise of this sketch is interesting, but that it all comes down to the...
Say it with me...
...EXECUTION!
This sketch was written by Barry Blaustein & David Sheffield, the writing duo who would go on to serve as headwriters for season 8 and would be the driving force for pushing Eddie Murphy on air.
In fact, this sketch is the first to feature Eddie Murphy, even though he is an uncredited extra sitting on the sofa while they hired a middle-aged day player (whom no one seems to know his name) to play the "lead" of the sketch.
First off, we get Charles Rocket doing a horrendous impression of Marlin Perkins as he tells us that a lot of people of color are abandoning the liberal wasteland to be a part of the GOP. Therefore, they are going "In Search of the Negro Republican".
We then cut to a swanky party set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan (which, at that time, was arguably the closest thing to a safe neighborhood that the city had) where Joe Piscopo as Jim Fowler stalks the crowd as a waiter while Rocket annoyingly keeps chiming in with his nasal voice saying such fraught lines like "Oh he's a Negro all right, and maybe a Republican!"
This is just the beginning though because later in this episode, Rocket will get to say a truly horrendous line that will put saying "Negro" to shame.
When Piscopo does find the "Negro Republican", the sketch really drags as the actor just doesn't seem to be gelling with anything happening...and when you know about the story of Eddie Murphy and how Doumanian would not put him on the air in a prominent role, that makes this sketch seem even more ridiculous.
I don't think this sketch is bad necessarily...and it is probably a step up from some of the weaker material in the previous episode, but in short, I just think it is another prime example of material that could've used another rewrite or two...and some recasting.
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COMMERCIAL: TOBACCO GROWERS ASSOCIATION
In one of the few truly good showcases that Gilbert Gottfried got during his brief tenure, we get to see a glimpse of how well he handles the slow-burn anger used for comedic effect.
Out of all of the performers, it does seem apparent that Gottfried is one of two (along with Risley) that seems a lot greener on camera compared to the others. However, the thing about Gottfried is that when he would find a hook, he would often do well with it.
In this sketch, he starts off in a very proper and serious tone, but it isn't until he starts to turn into an irate delivery that he comes alive.
His whole editorial is that tobacco gets a bad rap and that it isn't the true cause of lung cancer, but rather...plot twist...the lung itself.
When he pulls out the big and ugly lung prop, that is when the sketch truly takes off.
He proceeds to practically speak at a sustained shout by the time he makes the claim that the lung traps the smoke and therefore causes its own demise.
Not until Aaron Eckhart in Thank You For Smoking has their been as staunch an advocate for smoking as this guy.
I would say this sketch works and is one of the better live-sketches of the night quite easily.
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SKETCH: SERF CITY
And now for a sketch that is not one of the better live-sketches of the night.
I find this sketch to be completely and utterly stupid...and with the way it is structured, you can clearly tell that they were trying to give Rocket all the glory while using McDowell as his straight man.
Set during medieval times, Lord Jack (Rocket) is showing one of the Earls (McDowell) his new idea for a fun game: Serfing...in which you lay a Serf on the ground, stand on their back, and then a wench tickles you with a feather.
In case I haven't made it clear, they are trying to mimic surfing.
Rocket and McDowell act out the "Serfing" while two wenches played Matthius and Risley (named Bingo and Moondoggy...and also, only of the two roles they each play tonight) tickle them...all the while, McDowell inquires about some of the rules and logistics of the game while Rocket rattles off a lot of surf lingo.
Perhaps one of the worst "jokes" in this sketch which absolutely DIES with the audience is when Rocket proclaims his name is Jack Lord, to which McDowell proclaims "It isn't. It's Lord Jack".
Now...I suppose this is supposed to somehow tie into the fact that Jack Lord had been on Hawaii Five-0 and that was enough to justify a joke in a sketch about surfing.
Rocket is annoying in this one as he truly plays the snobbish Lord too well...and then you have McDowell basically gasping with glee in falsetto as if he is playing a woman in a Monty Python sketch (and don't worry, we will actually get to see THAT later.....brace yourself now....)
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SKETCH: THE REAGANS ADOPT AMY CARTER
I am not sure who wrote this, but I wouldn't be surprised if Terry Sweeney had a hand in it.
It is certainly a premise that stretches believability a little bit and tries too hard at times to dig at the Carter family...but it does have some good moments and is basically carried by Denny Dillon's manic take on the quiet young Amy Carter.
As the Reagans, Matthius and Rocket are not particularly strong.
Matthius mostly just speaks in a drawn-out voice, while Rocket gives us possibly the worst Reagan impersonation ever which is mostly just a gravelly voice that has just a hint of the Reagan cadence.
Technically set in the near future at that point, we learn that Amy was taken in as "an act of mercy" by the Reagans after the pitiful election loss of her father.
However, as much as the sketch does show the calculating and cold nature of the Reagans (mainly Nancy), it really takes a frying pan to the Carter family and even members of his administration.
Perhaps one of the best bits of the sketch is when Amy's parents call her and she hides under the table out of fear for being made to go back to Georgia.
She yells out "I don't want to talk to them! They're losers! Tell them I took the bus!"
Then she proceeds to call her grandmother Lillian a dope, her uncle Billy a drunk...but then the sketch overplays this by also trying to tie in Bert Lance's indictment and the cocaine usage of Hamilton Jordan to the bashing.
In the end though, one of the best jokes of the season and also one of the best audience reactions comes at the end of the sketch when Amy tells Nancy she wants to be a Republican like everybody else, that she wants to be beautiful like her, and then she turns to Ronald: "And I wanna wear makeup...like YOU!"
Such a great slam at all of the talk that Reagan wore makeup to appear more youthful at a time when he was the oldest man to be elected president...something that has sadly since been beaten by both Trump and Biden.
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COMMERCIAL: AMERICAN MILK ASSOCIATION
In the Hill/Weingrad book, it is said that NBC VP of Programming Brandon Tartikoff strongly opposed the idea of Malcolm McDowell as host because he was not exactly a household name.
Even if he was in Caligula which had recently come out, his most famous role was Alex in A Clockwork Orange which had been released 9 years prior.
As expected, it doesn't seem too shocking that they would bring out this character for a parody...and it does remain the only time McDowell ever reprised the character in any capacity.
The sad thing is that it is for such a throwaway gag that ties into the milk that the Droogs would drink in the film...but as I learned while reading Bronwyn Douwsma's page, this was actually inspired by McDowell getting an offer to do a milk commercial in Japan.
And much like how he turned that down, I am sure he wishes this hosting appearance hadn't happened either.
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SHORT SHOT: SHOWDOWN - KEN FRIEDMAN
Not particularly memorable, but mostly just a similar homage to something like The Dirty Dozen or The Wild Bunch.
When it comes to the short films for this season, they are often highlights or they are relatively unmemorable. There is never really much of an in-between.
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MUSICAL PERFORMANCE: Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band performs "Hot Head"
I have to say...I am not exactly someone who would actively listen to the music of Captain Beefheart, but I still have to commend Jean Doumanian of all people for letting this music on the air. It is easily one of the most, if not THE most, transgressive musical acts to ever appear on the show.
And it is obvious that the audience is unsure of how to take them.
A lot of people have compared Beefheart to Tom Waits...but Beefheart would very much be a more abstract version of Waits.
In the case of Waits, I would argue he would have songs that would have something of a melody whereas Beefheart's material is almost a repetitive monotone that almost sounds demonic.
It isn't my thing, but I still love the fact it got on air.
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WEEKEND UPDATE with good old Charlie Rocket....
And now for something that should probably have not been let on air, we get the sophomore installment of Charles Rocket's Weekend Update tenure and man oh man is he trying hard to put us to sleep.
His delivery is very sloppy with frequent line flubs and his very first joke (about the Mirage Hotel fire in Las Vegas) is met with complete silence from the audience.
Another joke that was met with quiet apathy was his Mary Crosby joke as this episode aired the night following the reveal that Mary Crosby's character Kristin was the one who shot J.R. on Dallas. In response, Bob Hope supposedly commented considering he was close friends with Mary's father Bing and that Bing couldn't relate because "he only shot an occasional birdie".
If you are waiting for a good joke...you may be waiting for a while.
Perhaps the most memorable segment of this installment (though not my favorite) is when Rocket interviews John Lennon and Yoko Ono as played by McDowell and...gulp...Denny Dillon.
I suppose its good they didn't try to put any kind of extensive yellowface makeup on Dillon, but it is such a major miscast. Then again, not sure Matthius or Risley would've been any better. The whole bit with Lennon being a house husband is overly cheesy, right down to the infamous line: "Yoko is just loco about my cocoa".
This episode aired only 16 days before Lennon was killed...and for a while, McDowell felt horrible to have done this bit so close to the tragedy but it was actually discovered that both Lennon and Ono loved this bit. I suppose that's nice, at least for McDowell's sake but this was not a good segment at all.
If you would like to see that bit, here you go:
Joe Piscopo makes his first Update appearance as his sportscaster and while he is still not fully in his staccato mode yet, you can tell he is slowly getting there, and the audience is already responding well to him. I think what often works so well about these early bits he will do is he often relies on silly gimmicks and he never outstays his welcome. His confidence shines through which only makes Rocket's performances as anchor seem a hell of a lot worse.
This Update ends once again with a commentary by a Gottfried character.
Gottfried was known for doing characters in his standup prior to adopting the iconic voice he used in such films as Beverly Hills Cop II and Aladdin. One of these characters was a psychologist named Murray Abramovitz, an agressively Jewish character with big glasses and a thick accent. The accent does sound a lot like Jerry Seinfeld if you gave him more of an older Yiddish tilt.
The audience doesn't respond as strongly to the character, but I find it interesting that they allowed Gottfried do this as he actually comments on the negative response to the first show, particularly the crass jokes towards homosexuals and Jewish people, which leads him to saying the immortal line:
"I counted four Jewish jokes and at least two of them were funny. Who writes this show? HITLER?!"
He ends with saying that the entire SNL staff needs analysis...and then Update comes to a close with Rocket's boring sign-off: "Good night and...watch out".
The dreary lifeless nature and horrible writing and Rocket's lethargy still make Update a chore to watch.
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SKETCH: GOTHIC NOVEL SHOP
I'll just go ahead and say it. This was my favorite sketch of the night.
It wasn't particularly hilarious, but it had a lot of charm and I felt it utilized McDowell in the best way (it is also the first time he seems to truly be enjoying being in a sketch). It is also the first real role to be given to Ann Risley, who does well with it but as we will soon learn, a repressed spinster is basically one of the only roles that Risley seems born to play.
Risley enters a gothic novel shop that is run by McDowell, and she is seeking a very particular kind of novel with a specific kind of romantic leading man.
McDowell does his best to service her requests, which strangely seems to be that she wants his leading man to have some kind of speech impediment.
McDowell suggests leading men with cleft palates or harelips, but Risley really wants "a handsome bastard who stutters".
The end result is that McDowell basically does what kids today would call a "cosplay" and becomes the leading man she is looking for and they passionately embrace.
It is a little cutesy, but it works so well. Many have said this sketch is "Pythonesque" and I do agree that it shares a similarity to some of their more genteel bits...and McDowell seems to be channeling Eric Idle quite strongly in this role.
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SHORT FILM: THE 100 YEARS WAR
I feel like this quick film, which is basically just images with narration by McDowell, is simply if some slacker kid tried to write a history report about the 100 Years War and they got a British actor to read it.
All it does is take up some time in the show, but frankly dead air would've been about the same quality as this...or they could've given us an extra 30 seconds to the next sketch.
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SKETCH: LEATHER WEATHER REPORT
Okay, no...scratch that request for 30 seconds more of this.
Thanks to Bronwyn Douwsma's extensive blog, we often get treated to writing credits, which is something that isn't normally public knowledge for most sketches as SNL only shows the full writing staff in the end credits of each episode. So in theory, you could be on the writing staff for a full year, get zero sketches on the air, and end up winning an Emmy.
Ferris Butler took credit for the sketch (along with rewrites by Billy Brown and Mel Green), and I have to admit that while I am not overly fond of this sketch, I do think Butler was among one of the more interesting writers that season...and I also admire that that he took the time to help Bronwyn in their research.
I still find this to be a bit of rough sketch both in terms of content, but also for the unfortunate performance it got on the show.
While Dillon holds herself well enough as the Dina the Leather Weather Girl, she starts off instantly with a line flub "Welcome to the Leather Report....Leather Weather Report" and then has to contend with the awkward and quiet line deliveries of Charles Rocket strapped to the weather map.
Oh...and how can one forget when the aerosol can just doesn't work?
Even if she had a better "Johnny" on the weather map and the props worked more smoothly, I really don't think this would be a good sketch.
I do have to agree that it isn't one of the worst offenders of this season like many make it about to be...especially considering the sketch we are about to discuss.
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SKETCH: COMMIE HUNTING SEASON
In November 1979, members of the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan shot and killed 5 members of the Communist Workers Party during a march in Greensboro, NC.
One year later, a grand jury (all of whom were white) acquitted those from this radical right-wing groups, but in a statement that feels eerily similar to the infamous Trump comments following the 2017 Charlottesville protests, it was said that "both sides" exchanged in inflammatory rhetoric.
This was a truly heinous and horrific event.
So obviously, you need to do a sketch about it.
Let's give a shout-out to Larry Arnstein & David Hurwitz, the two writers who earn the title of writing the worst sketch to ever appear on SNL.
Feeling renewed and rejuvenated for the first time in two decades, a group of racist Nazi rednecks want to go shoot some commies.
Of the group, we get Joe Piscopo who has yet to be on one of the hunts. He gets advice from Charles Rocket as to what he needs to do to succeed, such as how to spot a commie.
Now...I have already made the hyperbolic statement that this is the worst sketch to have ever been on SNL but I think one of the major factors of that claim stems from one line uttered by Rocket.
"Well hell Jim-Bob, alls you got to do is shoot yourself a Jew or a n*gger. Chances are better than even you'll be shooting a commie, anywho."
This line is followed by a deadly silence as it seems as if they were waiting for the character played by McDowell to enter, but it is also clear...they were expecting this to get a laugh from the audience.
Instead...it is nothing but pure awkward tension.
And then...Piscopo's character accidentally shoots and kills McDowell, who was basically the leader of the group. They disband and the sketch ends.
On one hand, a Nazi dying is always a delight...but...WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE POINT IN THIS?!
I keep going on and on about the importance of execution with writing, but I am not even sure you could truly take something from this subject matter and make it work.
I am not saying that every sketch on SNL necessarily has to be a laugh riot. Great character pieces filled with charm and pathos can often be some of the best sketches that show has ever offered...but this one is something else entirely.
It is so dark and dreary and offers no kind of value. It seems like it wants to come off as some kind of profound political satire, and instead just becomes this dark void of nothing.
There are times where I almost wish I could see a sketch being developed behind the scenes to see how people responded to it. I would absolutely LOVE to hear about how people reacted to this text and what made them think it was actually viable to put on air.
I suppose you are in luck...because due to the powers of YouTube and the rather brazen nature of whomever is running SNL's social media these days, this sketch was uploaded to their channel.
Take a look at the link above if you want to see SNL at its worst.
SHORT FILM: Someone is in My Apartment - Mitchell Kriegman
Kriegman is back again. While this one isn't as effective as his piece in the previous episode, I do feel like this genteel and cerebral style is much welcomed after the content we got all evening.
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COMMERCIAL: THE WINE CELLAR
Much like last week, we end on yet another solo Denny Dillon piece...and considering she dominated tonight, I am not sure needed the extra screentime.
Years ago, Comedy Central would air full length SNL episodes and these were often the only time that the 6th season were seen in repeated viewings on TV. I do recall seeing some of these episodes way back in the 90s, but I also remember watching reruns of SCTV. On that show, they did a bit called Dom Perignon: The Beer of Imported Champagnes.
I almost feel like what Dillon is trying to go for here is something similar but it doesn't quite take off.
Although, as someone who grew up outside of Pittsburgh, I do love the idea of The Iron City having a wine...or as she calls it "Football wine".
A silly idea about learning to adapt to cheap wine, but I guess it is fine for what it is.
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