S01E01: George Carlin/Janis Ian/Billy Preston
So it begins.
Highlights:
- Chevy Chase delivers the first iconic “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
- I’m a huge Carlin fan so to see him do his stand up, some bits that I hadn’t seen before was great.
- Andy Kaufman’s classic Mighty Mouse bit (which just gets funnier the more I watch it. I don’t remember the first time I saw it but it feels like something I always just knew about, you know?)
- Chevy Chase having no idea which camera to look into during the first ever Weekend Update.
- The penultimate sketch featuring Dan Aykroyd and Garrett Morris as security system salesmen whose selling tactic is breaking into an unsuspecting couple’s home (John Belushi and Gilda Radner).
It was kind of jarring to see the show in this format. Instead of how it is now, where the guest host is kind of propped up by the sketch players it’s the opposite. The “Not Ready For Prime Time” players, as they were called then, seemed only to serve to fill time between the musical guests and George Carlin. The sketches were all really short, and almost surrealist. It kind of reminded me of some of the more conceptual skits from The State.
A very interesting beginning.
