This isn't Saturday Night Live! - a look back at November 15, 1980

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge Saturday Night Live enthusiast, and I take pride in being somewhat of an SNL historian. More specifically, I'm known to turn my attention towards a period of the show that most people aren't familiar with - the 1980-81 season, which NBC deemed such a failure that they refused to re-air any episodes from it. But, we are soon coming up on the 28th anniversary of the 1980 season premiere... a night when millions of viewers tuned in at 11:30 PM to see that their favorite show, which over the past five years offered a weekly dose of comedians such as Gilda Radner and John Belushi as well as legendary characters like the Coneheads, was no longer the "Saturday Night Live" they knew. In fact, they were greeted by a group of complete strangers, none of which had been in the cast before.

From 1975 to 1980, the public became familiar with this group of individuals who would forever change the face of comedy.

(clockwise from lower left) - Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, and Garrett Morris.

However, in 1980, producer Lorne Michaels and his cast decided that the show had run its course. NBC was determined not to let it die, so they recruited inexperienced producer Jean Doumanian, who in turn selected a fresh cast of six new individuals:

Like it or not, your old friends have been replaced by (from left) Denny Dillon, Charles Rocket, Ann Risley, Joe Piscopo, Gail Matthius, and Gilbert Gottfried. Yes, I said Gilbert Gottfried. God help us all.

To soften the impact of an almost totally unrecognizable show, Jean enlisted the help of frequent SNL host Elliott Gould, who arrived to Rockefeller Center, unaware that all writers and cast members had been replaced. On top of his unfamiliar surroundings, the press had already started viciously cutting into the new version of SNL, damning Jean and her new talents for having the audacity to call their brand new, inexperienced show "Saturday Night Live." However, the public had yet to form their opinion; and their chance came on the night of November 15, 1980, when the audience for NBC's smash hit late night show tuned in in anticipation of what the sixth season would have to offer. Let's take a look at this episode piece by piece...

From the opening second of this episode, a fan of Seventies SNL is in for a shock. Right in front of their face is a familiar host alongside a cast of six unknown actors. The opening sketch of this episode is said to have brought feelings of isolation among SNL fans, as one by one, each player introduces themselves, and tells which old SNL cast members they are supposedly similar to. In retrospect, this was a bold and extremely risky move, as from that point on, the audience would actually *expect* the cast members to act like the old gang. (Unfortunately, as the season continued, these comparisons turned out to be false; for example, Ann Risley compared herself to Gilda Radner, yet carried a completely different sense of humor and personality.) The sketch carries an air of innocence about it, as Elliott wakes up to find himself in bed with the entire cast, who take turns childishly asking questions about the old show and NBC in general. The five cast members in view suddenly realize that one of their own is missing, and overturn the blanket to reveal a lifeless Denny Dillon, who springs to life and yells the first "Live from New York..." of the season.

From this point until Weekend Update, it is clear that within forty-five minutes, the writers were trying to recapture all of the edginess and raunchiness of the first five years. Thus, the viewers are presented a long string of sex-related sketches - Elliott Gould shares his childhood underwear with the audience, Jimmy Carter (Joe Piscopo) laments over his lack of a sex life, Ann Risley is musically berated for "living in sin," Gail Matthius humorously demonstrates how to give yourself a breast examination, and a clever short film by "Grease" director Randal Kleiser depicts two shoes having sex on a beach. The only real rest the audience is given is in the form of the first 'What's It All About?' sketch, which presents a public access talk show hosted by an old Jewish couple, Pinky and Leo Waxman (Denny Dillon and Gilbert Gottfried). It is worth noting that these characters, with their New York accents and love of Barbra Streisand, were an extremely obvious inspiration on Mike Myers' Coffee Talk sketches.

After the first musical performance (by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, a comical group consisting of men dressed as witch doctors and three scantily clad women), Don Pardo introduces the first installment of Weekend Update hosted by Charles Rocket. Right away, Charles displays a very apparent air of professionalism that was notably absent in the previous versions hosted by Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, as if to erase the self-comparison he made to them in the opening sketch. The reaction of the audience is interesting to pay attention to, because they seem as if they are extremely put off that someone new is reading their fake news. Charlie is greeted with no applause whatsoever, and his humor is met with only scattered laughter. After a handful of jokes, the action moves to the White House, where Piscopo gets to perform his second political sketch of the evening as failed presidential candidate John Anderson. Field reporter Gail Matthius describes the ongoing events as Anderson wanders in a state of confusion around the White House gate, unaware that he lost the election. The piece isn't an enormous laugh riot by any standards, but is very charming, compared to the sleazy Carter sketch from earlier in the evening. However, with this sketch, it seems apparent that Gail was destined to become the next Laraine Newman, a factor that remained throughout the rest of the season.

After this comes the first of Charlie's pre-filmed man-on-the-street Rocket Report segments, and one of the more memorable. Destined to learn information about John Lennon's upcoming "Double Fantasy" album, Charlie is seen rummaging through the trash behind the Dakota building, and harassing a crew of New York garbage men. Through this outlandish piece, Charlie is distinguished from those before him once again, as he shows that he is not afraid to be outrageous and unique, something that would greatly strengthen his presence on SNL. We then return to Update for an awkward Gottfried commentary on how he can prove that Ronald Reagan is already dead; a confusing concept, but pulled off humorously, if not somewhat forced. (For example, Gottfried shows a picture of a man with his hand on Reagan, because the man is trying to "hold him up.")

At this point, roughly 50 minutes through the show, the cleverness that was lacking in the first half starts to show. Following Update is "At One With...", a talk show hosted by Elliott Gould that studies the taboo aspects of humanity. Gould's guests are Joe Piscopo and Charles Rocket, two members of a gay army brigade that is stationed at Fort Dix. (A great pun, yes, but the audience's groans are louder than anything else this season!) We then see "Heart to Heart," one of the short films created for the show by Mitchell Kriegman. In it, Kriegman expresses to his lover his worries about how she 'just doesn't seem like the same woman anymore.' With each change of the camera angle, the woman is played by a different actress. The effect is very funny, and contains a cleverness missing from many of the other films shown this season. This is followed by 'Nose Wrestling', a bizarre sketch which depicts exactly what you would think - two men wrestling with their noses. Unexpected, silly, and almost worthy of Monty Python.

Next, Gail's Vickie the Valley Girl character makes her debut as she shares a romantic date with an older man (Gould). Right from the start, the audience gets to see all of her usual mannerisms - flipping her hair, smoking, and saying phrases such as "fer shure" and "not too cool." The character seems to be in an undeveloped state, however, and would become a fuller portrayal as the season wore on. At this point, Vickie has very little substance to her, and uses the same mannerisms to an almost "broken record" effect, something that Gail would quickly improve upon.

Following this is the highlight of the evening, and, in my opinion, one of the most brilliant yet underlooked sketches in SNL's history - "The Accordion Killer," a thriller spoof in which Charlie plays a demented killer who drives women to death by squeezing out "Lady Of Spain" on his accordion. The sketch is executed beautifully (with the Accordion Killer being defeated in a very hilarious way - bagpipes!), and elicts a larger audience response than anything else in the episode. As the show winds down, we see two short pieces: the music video for "Gidget Goes to Hell" by the Suburban Lawns, and Denny Dillon as a music enthusiast relating the joys of playing records too fast. Both are typical one-joke bits, but are worth a chuckle upon first viewing.

Overall, not a terrible first episode, though it could have been better. The show seemed to rely a little too heavily on sexual innuendo, but nothing that didn't bring a laugh from the audience. Charlie's Weekend Update segment had a rough start, but he would make it his own after a few episodes, winning over the audience with his almost Dennis Miller-type persona. Undoubtedly, Charlie was the star of the evening, with a number of his sketches (the religious telegram, the gay brigade, the Rocket Report, and the Accordion Killer) being outrageously funny.

However, it is sad to say that despite (the retitled) "Saturday Night Live '80" having a generally funny start, it was already doomed. The press refused to give this new bunch a chance, completely obliterating the episode with every line of their reviews. Despite it being rather tame compared to some of the Seventies material (such as Buck Henry's recurring child molester character), they scorned the show for being overly crude and sophomoric. They claimed the cast was unfunny and unworthy of air time, obviously not noticing the generally positive audience reactions during the episode.

It would not help that with the very next episode, those enthusiastic bursts of laughter would quickly disappear; because when the new cast returned to the air with host Malcolm McDowell, they would find themselves facing a much different reaction: dead silence from the cold opening to the goodnights. Suffice to say, despite what the first week's studio audience thought, America was not willing to welcome the new SNL with open arms; and word had gotten around. Only two episodes into the season, it seemed that "Saturday Night Live" was doomed.