'Wasn't That Special' Season Eight Bonus Material
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As the Wasn’t That Special co-hosts watch each season of Saturday Night Live, they compare notes on each episode, chatting back and forth about both popular and long-forgotten sketches. Some of the topics they discuss make it to the final podcast; others are left on the cutting-room floor.
But for those of you who join at the Executive Producer level, you will have access to Christian and Scot’s behind-the-scenes notes, as well as bonus materials the co-hosts used to prepare for the episode.
Below is the Season Eight bonus notes section, with the clips coming next week.
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Episode One: Chevy Chase
Scot: Wow. Easily the best episode since Season 5. Can they come close to matching in future weeks?
Art Opening with Tyrone Green - Green shows off his pieces - Smart Ass White Boy Blues - refuses to recite Cill My Landlord, instead reads I Hate White People
Christian: I called it! This is exactly what I was talking about last episode when I compared “Prose and Cons” to Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic.
Scot: Yeah, I liked this even better than the first one.
Saturday Night News with Brad Hall
Christian: Just what America was calling for - an unfunny tirade against the Secretary of the Interior. So lame.
Alan: Video Junkie- by Claude Kerven- children addicted to video games - inside rehab center, shock treatment when touching controller
Christian: Exactly what people are saying now about smartphones - great Juice Newton reference.
Episode Two: Louis Gossett Jr.
Scot: Started hot but the back half just didn't cook at all.
Gossett as drill sergeant puts cast through comedy boot camp
Christian: Gossett's big role that year was as a drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman. I think he won an Oscar. If only there was some way to look it up.
Scot: Solid all-cast moment - Kroeger seems like a solid addition here.
A sex therapist (Gossett) puts his patients through play therapy - Kaz and Mary are first-timers, his gun fires early.
Christian: Gossett's "uh huh" thing is distracting and doesn't add anything.
Scot: Brad might not be very good at this sketch comedy thing - Gossett has this weird laugh thing throughout.
Mr. and Ms. T Bloody Mary Mix commercial
Christian: See, Robin Duke is good!
Singing in the Stalls - a quartet of bathroom-goers sing “Under The Boardwalk” from their stalls - toe-tapping - Tim enters looking for an empty stall while singing “The Message.”
Christian: Wasn't there a pre-filmed bit on people singing at urinals a few seasons ago?
Saturday Night News
Christian: Brad, what is it you say you do here?
The Interesting Four - superheroes with uneeded skills (stapling, 4-second time travel, raise/lower temp 9 degrees) - Dr. Inconsiderate on the loose.
Christian: This is pointless. (I did laugh at the bad guy being named "Doctor Inconsiderate.) But man, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (JLD) is a vision. Even when making faces.
Scot: Writing really doesn't know what to do with these characters.
Episode Three: Ron Howard
Christian: Howard was a good host. Most male hosts they have are geriatrics. Episode collapsed at the end.
Scot: Pretty average stuff all around. Howard was happy to be there!
Opie's Back - adult Opie Taylor returns to a dirty, kinky Mayberry; Eddie as Floyd, really good; Andy Griffith cameo
Christian: Solid whole-cast bit. Good ad-lib by Howard when he gets Murphy's name wrong.
Velvet Jones romance novels, including Kicked In The Butt By Love
Christian: Velvet back from the dead! Resurrected!
Scot: Mel Brandt does the V/O here which leads me to believe it's a S7 leftover.
Harry Anderson shoves a hat pin through his forearm
Christian: Gross
Scot: A little slower-paced than others.
Focus on Film - Raheem Abdul Muhammed talks with Ron, asks Andy Griffith & Happy Days questions
Christian: "I have a daughter" - Bryce Dallas Howard had just been born.
Scot: "Wow, Opie Cunningham, a sex machine."
Saturday Night News
Christian: MORE LIKE BAD HALL AMIRITE?
Hail to the Chief - Jimmy Carter (Piscopo) recalls Ronald Reagan’s White House visit
Christian: Is Piscopo going to do every impression of every white man all season?
Scot: What happened to Piscopo's Carter impression?? This is terrible.
Sylvester School of Speech Therapy - an IRS agent (Kaz) visits the Sylvester School of Speech Therapy - Tim gets spit all over his face
Scot: Eddie breaks with all the spitting. Four Stars.
Christian: This is TERRIBLE! (But Eddie laughing is funny.)
Episode Four: Howard Hesseman
Cold Open - Duke stalls for time because host hasn't arrived, 8H in use for election coverage - Gumby wants better lines - Hesseman arrives drunk on motorcycle
Christian: The "walk and talk" openings would become a standard monologue bit in the future.
Scot: Creative use of hallway space with no 8H available. (It was being used for election coverage.)
Howard Hesseman monologue - people told him not to do it- "OK, I'm a whore" - Says he is doing the show for Belushi - Hesseman leans on old argument about Reagan pro-life until babies are born, happy to throw them in prison later - ends up being long-frm tribute to Belushi bit - clearly emotional and tearing up at the end as he looks up and talks to Belushi
Christian: Hesseman keeps trying to draft off Belushi - take it down a notch.
Playboy profiles The Girls of Saturday Night Live - lots of skin shots and suggestive poses.
Christian: Has a very National Lampoon Magazine feel to it, when the magazine was run by horny recent college graduates.
Scot: It's not quite sexy and it's not quite funny and it's weird the women all agreed to do it. If it were funnier, sure. But as-is it's just odd.
Kroeger returns home from college & tells his father he’s straight - Dad fixed him up with a guy - turns out Dad is gay.
Christian: This turn is a lot less shocking in 2023 than it was in 1982. Although it seems like it resurfaced as a bit just a few years ago - super progressive parents.
Scot: Set-up makes you think he's going to come out as gay - it's not anything special, but it is well-done and well-acted.
Naked Wake - An open casket features a naked corpse, as he requested in his last wishes. Family did not know.
Christian: I liked it - "was he a nudist?" "No, he was a CPA." Gross and Murphy's bits were solid.
Scot: "Yeah, she's really going to miss him." (after seeing the size of the corpse’s penis) - Just went on too long for what's really a one-joke premise.
Uncle Teddy's Little Theater - family members dump on kid (Kroeger) - spineless, stupid, disobedient - "You don't think I'm a girl, do you grandpa?" - Grandpa hinting parents are right
Christian: A half hour ago, Hesseman and Kroeger were on this same set, on the same couch, making gay jokes.
Scot: Hesseman in some of the deepest makeup of any host ever.
Episode Five: Michael Keaton
Christian: Did JLD just Wally Pipp Robin Duke?
The Interesting Four - on Halloween night, looking for Espresso
Christian: Completely inoffensive.
Scot: Lead-off sketch is a bad position for this.
Film: Thank You, Ron Reagan - privileged citizens say “Thank You, Ron Reagan” while others suffer
Christian: Seniors are eating dog food because of Reagan?
Scot: Maybe it's not a "political" era on the show, but every political sketch is Reagan-related.
Snookie - after a first date, Kaz gets mixed signals from JLD & her teddy bear
Christian: Really felt this one. JLD's best sketch so far.
Bill Smith Cares - what really goes on in a political campaign - back and forth from rally to hotel room - Love Brothers perform (Eddie & Clint Smith)
Christian: "The Love Brothers" have absolutely no business being in this sketch, but they are the only thing worth watching.
Topol the Idiot (Michael Palin) - translation from another language
Christian: I enjoyed just how stupid it was.
Episode Six: Robert Blake
Scot: Blake hardly on the show. Maybe for the best.
Cold Open - The Merv Griffin Show - Real Merv hosts "New York is America's G Spot" - Blake is his guest - JLD & Piscopo discuss Blake's phoniness
Christian: Blake makes the bit a Public Service Announcement about battered women, was arrested for killing his wife in 2002. Aquitted, but found liable for her death in civil court.
Scot: I did laugh as he punched JLD instead of Piscopo.
PBS Promo - “We’re not stuffy anymore”
Christian: Milton Friedman doing Super Bowl commentary!
Scot: Feels like it could have been lots better.
Kenny Loggins - “Heart to Heart”
Christian: Is that Kenny Loggins or Ellis from Die Hard?
Masterful Theatre - the characters of Airheads Revisited wax idiotic
Scot: As awful as anything this season so far - at least Robin gets to make an appearance.
Christian: I...sort of liked it? Just the tone and silliness. The ITV version of “Brideshead Revisited” had aired in the states earlier that year.
Episode Seven: Drew Barrymore
Scot: JLD kinda complains about her time on the show, but it seems they 're using her more than Mary and Robin so far.
Cold Open - Cast upset Barrymore is host, bitching in her dressing room - Eddie rips Tim for working with kids and monkeys, Tim warns,"Careful, who do you think is buying your albums?" - Drew misses cue for LFNY
Christian: "I'm a Barrymore - get me a drink and on the double." Kind of foretells the problems she would have with drugs and alcohol as a teen.
ET - after Gertie (host) kills E.T. ("I killed the little sucker"), Mr. T (Eddie) comes looking for his boy (I've come here to fetch my boy, E."
Scot: "He was weird. He wore my clothes constantly!" - A couple awkward timing issues, but Drew is largely good and some creative writing here.
Doug & Wendy Whiner continue adoption plans - pick always-complaining Barrymore as the kid they want
Christian: Gross getting her nun habit stuck in the door and ad-lipping was fun, I guess.
Scot: Shortish sketch with more set-up than whining.
Biological Clock - Robin says host makes her biological clock tick louder, chose career over family
Christian: A Gilda-style personal confessional.
Episode Eight: Smothers Brothers
Monologue - Smothers Bros sing “Impossible Dream” - Dick asks Tom what it means to him, how it relates to Moses
Christian: Both Steve Martin and Chevy Chase wrote for the Smothers Brothers in their pre-SNL years.
Scot: Classic Smothers Bros set-up and execution.
Eddie threatens to jump off ledge. Wife, boss, clergyman all jump after trying to talk him out of it. Piscopo plays Oklahoma director from last episode.
Christian: The whole time I watched this, I thought "man, jumping off that ledge looks fun." And then the whole cast does it in the goodnights.
Truck Driving Women - JLD, Mary, Robin star in a musical set in a diner
Christian: How many hours were murdered in the writing of this and its songs?
Scot: Sample lyric: "People think that they are dykey but they are so feminine" - No, no. Not for me. Not even a great women sketch spotlight.
Handsome Men with Big Noses - Brad and Gary
Christian: Some weed dealer made a killing this week during writer’s meetings.
Scot: Good duo sketch. By the end I could see why it worked.
TV goes out and family doesn't know what to do
Christian: Very meta - this is me after banging out three straight episodes of SNL.
Scot: Slow developing. The point is clear but it doesn't take off.
Pudge & Solomon - Solomon lost his job, Pudge tries to help
Christian: Today's outrage: Piscopo is ranked 66th on the Rolling Stone list of greatest cast members.
Scot: These are art. It's an elegant dance of a sketch.
The Inside Story - Robin dislikes the TV movie about her killer boyfriend
Christian: Not going on the Robin Duke highlight reel.
Scot: Woof.
Episode Nine: Eddie Murphy
Scot: Nick Nolte is unavailable. Cast was asked if they were OK with Eddie hosting. All said, "yes," though most actually had some hard feelings. Shows seem pretty front-loaded these days with the good stuff. SNN right at the end, musical performances also later and later.
Rubik's Grenade “Maybe the last puzzle you’ll never solve”
Scot: Seems like this actually would be very easy to solve.
Christian: Yes, the levels only twist one way.
Joe & JLD see the Kensington Dance Theater For The Blind - bad dancers, Joe assumes they are blind & stops the show.
Christian: I guessed the twist at the beginning?
Scot: Someone in the crowd shouts "Never mind!" Emily Litella-style - I really, really, liked the execution here and how about Piscopo in a normal role.
Saturday Night News - terrible jokes with long set-ups, no laughs
Christian: Reagan used to sit at his desk at night and write one-liners. I guarantee they were all funnier than the jokes SNL uses to mock him. Mary Gross rails against black Santas?
Scot: I 100% did not realize the depths from which Dennis Miller raised WU. Another reason he's the best ever to do it.
Goodnights - Steve Martin crashes, mad he wasn't asked to host
Scot: We don't grade goodnights, but that was outstanding.
Episode Ten: Lily Tomlin
Cold Open - Lily warns Eddie he's getting a big head - other cast members copy Eddie's characters to become successful - Mary is Gumby, Kaz is Velvet Jones, Gary in bad blackface to be Buckwheat - Lily wants them to be themselves.
Christian: Not going on Kroeger's highlight reel.
Scot: "Live from New York, it's the Lily Tomlin Show!"
Ernestine stops by a house to repossesses a phone, blackmails family with phone call recordings
Christian: It's "Let Lily Cook" once again.
Purvis Hawkins (Tomlin in drag and blackface) sings
Christian: For the love of God, no.
Edith Ann & Friends - little girls Edith Ann & Darlene (JLD) tell stories from a huge rocking chair.
Christian: Bad but not appalling.
Scot: I just dislike this character so much. This is not my type of humor.
Bag lady Tess (host) sits in the SNL audience & expounds on her theories
Christian: Lily Tomlin riffing for five minutes is not my jam.
Scot: Look, this might as well be a Lily Tomlin primetime special at this point.
Episode Eleven: Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis
Scot: Professional effort and execution from Rick & Dave, but man I was hoping this would be much better.
Christian: Numerically not great, but how much better would SNL be with Rick and Dave as regular cast members?
Bob Hope (Dave) and Woody Allen (Rick) at Bob's house, Sinatra joins them - scheming to help Reagan in '84 - Sinatra affects Super Bowl
Christian: Moranis did Woody Allen a lot on SCTV. Also, admitting you're putting together a nonsense sketch so people can do impressions doesn't make it a good sketch.
Scot: "What could I possibly have in common with Frank Sinatra? How 'bout Mia Farrow?" - cheap excuse to throw same lame impressions together.
Bob & Doug McKenzie are mad at Don Pardo for giving their hotel address, give out his address; taped piece of the McKenzies visiting NYC landmarks
Christian: When I was 11, Strange Brew was my Citizen Kane. Also, you can pretty much see the first Wayne's World sketch being written during this.
Porta-Dish - Gerry Todd (Rick) recommends a portable satellite dish made of fine china - The Humidity Channel, Trampoline Channel, Census Channel
Christian: Prime candidate for our “prescience” award - now you can get channels wherever you go.
Scot: This music is the same as what Dennis Prager uses for his "Happiness Hour" every week.
Saturday Night News - crowd cheers possible plane crash killing Reagan and his cabinet
Christian: Piscopo Sports number 26 - this has to be the longest-running bit in the show's history, right? Mary Gross' fingers are freakishly long.
Scot: Crowd still really seems into Piscopo's sports. I've long tired of these - Eddie's piece seems unscripted or at least maybe just outlined.
Episode Twelve: Sid Caesar
Scot: So much of SNL is based on Your Show of Shows and Ceasar was treated with the reverence he deserved. Plus he was good!
Christian: Best episode of the season so far. (Maybe tied with E1). Caesar is a master.
Cold Open - cast ideas about how to prove show’s live, Caesar explains the concept of “now”
Christian: Is this the first ever standing ovation for a guest host when they appear in a sketch?
Whiners in hospital room with Ceasar
Christian: Piscopo breaks - might have been funnier if Caesar tried several ways of killing himself.
Scot: Non-stop whining, no straight person to react.
Harry Anderson does a trick involving red rubber balls & handcuffs
Christian: All the people they call on to stage for these things are too perfect. Surely, someone would crap themselves when they realize 30 million people are watching them.
Scot: Faster-paced, stuff happening all over.
Crime & Self-Punishment - troubled inventor’s (Sid) black-and-white silent film biography
Scot: It's 15-minute silent movie, length and lack of speaking mean it demands your attention more than other sketches and I'm just not sure it deserved that benefit.
Christian: Loved this - the visual style and acting were dead-on. Yes, it's a bit long, but I thought it was worth it.
A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney - reading from current books, comparing vagina to apartment
Christian: I currently have a couple Andy Rooney books on my shelf.
Scot: Good length, doesn't overstay welcome. Crowd enjoys it.
Episode Thirteen: Howard Hesseman
Christian: Tired of Hesseman. We get it, you knew Belushi. Stop reminding us.
Scot: I literally can't tell you the last sketch Robin Duke has been in.
Monologue - Howard says “Join me- take photo of yourself mooning Reagan, send it in”
Christian: Calm down, Howard, you're Johnny Fever, not Lenny Bruce.
Scot: How many call in/mail in bits this year? - In 19 months, Reagan would win 49 states - But an example of an explicit anti-Reagan thing that succeeds through creativity and energy.
Eddie receives Elvis’ soul after being hit by a car - as a gas station near Memphis
Scot: Good laugh when Eddie/Elvis sees himsef in a mirror - seemed like there were more that could have been done here.
West Heaven - by Judith Jacklin Belushi- a musical farewell to John
Christian: The most entertaining thing about this is that it would have horrified Belushi and he would have mocked it mercilessly.
Scot: This was, IMO, not all that great. Still pictures seem the worst possible way of capturing Belushi's uniqueness.
Tim & Mary's couple returns - order room service -- Brad and JLD deliver the Fiesta Cheese Platter, someone forgets peppers, later get Bavarian pork surprise.
Christian: In what percentage of his sketches is Brad Hall playing the guitar?
Episode Fourteen: Jeff and Beau Bridges
Christian: This one is a time machine back to Season Six. The Bridges Brothers bits are aggressively awful.
Scot: Well, that was pretty darn bad.
A huge pimple causes problems for JLD on prom night - date cancels, yearbook photographer stops by, Bridges Bros., too
Christian: The use of the formulation of "Very funny - not" is sandwiched in between the nerds and Wayne's World.
Scot: Joe in a normal role; Kroeger's teen voice always is welcome.
Rick's Cafe - it’s Casablanca in a ski lodge & Rick (Eddie) controls the lift tickets
Christian: Murphy seems to love old culture (Buckwheat, Gumby, Elvis, Ed Norton, Jerry Lewis, etc).
Cheap Hunt - Mike Nelson (Jeff Bridges) keeps costs down by staying out of water
Christian: The acting is worse than the jokes.
National Organization For Women members are “Guy Crazy” for Jeff Bridges, who is speaking at their meeting
Christian: Oh no
Scot: Robin lives! In another 5-to-1a sketch! And it's a musical!
Episode Fifteen: Bruce Dern
Scot: Again, I thought Dern was fantastic. Await your dissent. Also just a really really good show overall.
Christian: Dern scares the shit out of me.
Monologue: Dern blames the public for his reputation playing messed-up characters
Christian: Dern rattles off around 20 of his movie names, and I have never heard of a single one.
Scot: Dern is 46 at the time.
Ted Koppel reports - Buckwheat shot; Texxon sponsors - Koppel asking Alfalfa & surgeon if they've seen footage
Scot: OK, we can fight about this a bit. This is probably a “3” from a humor standpoint, bumped up due to flawless execution. But it's not terribly funny and there's no way it's a top-ten best ever sketch.
Christian: Yes, we are going to fight. It's not just this bit, it is the whole series that unfolds over the upcoming episodes.
Home for Disgusting Practices - Dern tries to play a “normal” role - has to explode by the end
Christian: This just feels like an improv exercise? And they're just making fun of handicapped people?
Scot: Man, Robin is getting the worst parts imaginable - Mary eating soup makes Bruce break.
Jerry Lewis School of Manners - Eddie teaches, Joe is principal
Scot: Eddie's impressions of white people (and old Jews) is really something else - the Lewis impressions and over-the-top physical stuff is so good it carries a decent script.
Old Negro Beer/Old Jew Beer
Christian: OK, I kind of liked these.
Old Chinaman Beer
Christian: OK, maybe not this one.
Scot: This one likely is not getting the green light today.
Episode Sixteen: Robert Guillaume
Christian: It truly is just the "Eddie Murphy Variety Hour" now.
Cold Open - Post-Buckwheat death, funeral, moment of silence - Buckwheat killer John David Stutts is profiled, everyone thinks he did it - shot Oswald-style, now replaying that.
Scot: How is there silence as they transition to the profile of the killer? - His classmates caled him "The Loner," named "Most Likely To Kill Buckwheat" - "Ow, I'm shot." - Better than the original, even sharper in its satire.
Monologue - Guillaume says he's a black moderate and that's why he's hosting - repeating the creed of moderation.
Scot: Maybe I'm in a good mood, but I really liked this - it has the feel of a late 80s/early 90s monologue.
The Mrs. T birthday special - Lena Horne stops by, so does Steve Lawrence - Mr. T stops by to work out marital problems - it's a surprise party
Christian: Mrs. T is better in short bursts.
Scot: The variety show template seems a little lazy. I mean, I'm not sure what you do with Mrs. T, I guess, but this isn't quite it. - OK, wait. Mr. T's entrance and plot switch gets this back to average.
Heil Hits Nazi Gold - Tim with Nazi-themed titles of songs
Scot: You tend to like these. Whadya think? - The final sales pitch made me laugh, right or not.
Christian: Seems a little too easy. But "Braunschweiger" as "Brown Sugar" bumps it to a “3” rating.
Motown Upon the Swanee River - in Old South, Chicken Mel (Eddie) thinks Cotton Joe (Robert) is an Uncle Tom
Christian: Guillaume finally in a sketch! Calls the Underground Railroad the "Tubway," Murphy breaks. A premise in search of a joke.
I Married a Monkey - Tim finds Madge in the hospital suffering from amnesia - Brad is Madge's other husband
Christian: At this point, these are just a guy talking to a monkey.
Scot: Monkey was heavily sedated after a dangerous incident in dress.
Pudge and Solomon - Solomon doesn’t want to go live in old folks home - nor with his gynecologist nephew (Robert)
Christian: A top 5 recurring sketch of the first 10 years, but I had never heard of it before we started watching these.
Brad breaking up with JLD over the phone, ends up a wrong number
Christian: Still considering the physics of the "triple nipple."
Scot: I liked the increasingly crazy apologies and the engagement ring being the thing that tips him off.
Episode Seventeen: Joan Rivers
Scot: Eddie in this episode is just magical. It's incredible. He's like the basketball player who can shot the three, beat you off the dribble, take it to the hole, knock down the fadeaway, play great defense, run point forward, rebound, and block shots.
Christian: This is why "greatest cast members" lists should actually be "greatest cast members other than Eddie Murphy."
Cold Open - Whiners attend SNL taping, but they're late and need to be quiet - complaining about loud Stones and loud Joan Rivers
Christian: Is it too meta if I start whining about the Whiners?
Scot: Surprised these guys still pop with the crowd, but it's something familiar, I guess - From a set-up, it's interesting and some good in-jokes.
Monologue - Rivers stand-up, quick-fire jokes
Christian: I'm all-in for this.
Scot: She seems so young here, at least compared to when I have memories of her hosting shows and being in the public eye.
David Susskind Part 2 - Buckwheat impersonators guest (Gary, Eddie, Tim)
Scot: Man, Eddie's voice is a new one - it's Sammy Davis Jr. taken a step down - Gary with nothing to do (I wish we'd see more of him, frankly).
Oscar statuettes talk backstage - Eddie tries to pick up JLD
Christian: This is actually good!
Joan vs Joan - Joe and real Joan Rivers have a contest, Gary hosts - different joke categories
Christian: Basically a stand-up bit with a fun twist. Nothing is funnier than people having fun.
Scot: This is FUN. People are having fun. This is a good thing. - Joe looks a bit like John Goodman playing Linda Tripp - I think Joe's Rivers pretty much stinks but it doesn't really matter - Some of real Joan's jokes are very good, the Liz Taylor stuff cooks (no pun intended).
Musical Youth - “Pass the Dutchie”
Scot: Least consequential SNL musical guest as to this point?
Christian: How dare you. This was a huge hit!
Old Age Home in 2040 - Rivers plays herself with one-liners - Eddie also is there, reciting old lines
Christian: JLD is actually three months older than Eddie. He turned 21 six days before this show.
Scot: Why does Eddie become an old Jewish guy? And why doesn't it matter?
Club Doolittle - Eddie as E. Eppy Doolittle, hosting an ad for his club - chaos as cake is thrown around and Eddie breaks character
Christian: Hey, Robin is still on the show! The cast knew Eddie was so great, they could throw stuff at him and he'd still kill. Goes totally off the rails in the most hilarious way.
Scot: Two, two, two girls for every guy! - Oh, my goodness. Rivaling TALK BACK for perhaps the funniest sketch I had not been aware existed.
Episode Eighteen: Susan Saint James
Scot: Pretty rough episode overall. Gender-bending, sodomy, awful racial humor.
Joe and Tim follow wives into bathroom to find out why they spend so much time there - find a feminist utopia
Scot: Second-straight gender-bending sketch - perfectly average kind of thing.
Saturday Night News - electric toilet seat brings instant death and instant relief - Kaz on for commentary, Salute to NY Post "Headless Body in Topless Bar" - Reads small-town police blotter in paper - one joke then Dr. Ruth - one joke then Eddie on Chicago electing Harold Washington
Christian: "Headless Body in a Topless Bar" is hailed around the country as one of the best headlines ever - is it because Kaz talked about it on a national show? Gross' Dr. Ruth is pretty good, but LOOK AT THOSE TALONS.
Scot: Another Eddie N-word drop.
Gary lies around the house, rejects attempts to motivate him ($$, activities, friends) - leaves only to "diddle with my fiddle."
Christian: Aged poorly: winning a million dollars and never having to work a day in your life again.
Scot: Again, Kroeger is someone I'd like to see more of. He says basically one word all sketch but makes it work.
Steven Wright does stand-up
Christian: When he was on Conan's podcast, O'Brien said the "breakfast anytime" joke is one of his favorites.
(Actual joke: “I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”)
Ronald Reagan (Joe) talks with Deng Xiaoping (Kaz) - Brad affecting cartoonish Chinese accent - lots and lots of Asian stereotype jokes - What do you call a fat Chinaman?
Christian: Every millimeter of this is offensive. Seems like it would be passable to have a cast member do a Chinese accent, but in this, the ridiculous cartoonishness in the whole joke.
Scot: Yikes yikes yikes. Would never ever be done today - JLD plays heavily stereotypical Chinese tennis player Hu Na - Hu Na is best known for defecting from the People's Republic of China to the United States in 1982.
Episode Nineteen: Stevie Wonder
Scot: Stevie worked hard and this show was solid. Couldn't quite keep up early pace to make it an all-time classic, I suppose.
Christian: Happy 10th Birthday to me!
Kannon AE-1 - a camera so simple, even Stevie Wonder can use it
Christian: Good for Stevie for playing along.
Scot: A classic A+ commercial parody.
Stevie Wonder impersonator applies for a job, sings poorly, Eddie tries to help him - "It still sucks, man"
Christian: "I can funk!" is funnier than the audience gives him credit for.
Cotton Land - new theme parks for white to work off their guilt - special programs for kids - Mary voted for Epton and felt bad about it
Scot: Probably 10x funnier today than in 1983. A fantastic premise.
Stevie Wonder - “Overjoyed”
Scot: FIRST TIME EVER PERFORMED LIVE. It wasn't even released until 1985.
Christian: Incredible. Also, I demand to be called the Chairman of the House Committee on Funk.
Stevie Wonder stops in to his salon and Dion Dion (Murphy) freaks out
Christian: Dated? Yes. Watchable? Yes.
Scot: Is this the opposite of Cottonwood Farms? A sketch 10x funnier then but not now?
Tim and JLD out on date at fancy restaurant - Joe plays disfigured busboy making a mess, coughing
Scot: Dammit. I shouldn't laugh at this. And yet …
Christian: Why wouldn't you laugh at this? It's funny.
Episode Twenty: Ed Koch
Koch tries to talk Eddie off of the ledge - Eddie lists NYC problems - Sinatra enters, Eddie does Sammy impression, sings NY, NY
Christian: Couple of funny bits. Perfectly average.
Scot: Pacing is off and a little jumbled.
Dexy's Midnight Runners - “Come On, Eileen”
Christian: This song has been terrorizing women named "Eileen" for 40 years.
Late Night with David Letterman - join Letterman in the men's room, Marv Albert is there - Gumby guests with "Pardon Me, Dammit, I Blew It" blooper special
Christian: Seems like half Eddie's lines aren't even scripted - he is all vibe.
Scot: Honestly, the first part is almost *too* accurate - the tour of the men's room feels completely like a Letterman bit - Not nearly as good as the first one.
The Whiners - Wendy recalls Doug’s experience as a POW in Vietnam (seriously) - more cartoonish Asian stereotypes
Christian: A lot of the stuff that wouldn't fly today can be explained away. But not the Asian stereotypes.
Scot: Are these on just to give Robin something to do? - Just awful, terrible stuff.
Dexy's Midnight Runners “The Celtic Soul Brothers”
Christian: Offer anyone on the street $1 million to name the "other Dexy's Midnight Runners song" and your money will be safe.