Review: Saturday Night Live, Episode One

Last night, NBC re-aired the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live or, as they called it back then, NBC's Saturday Night. It was hosted by George Carlin, who passed away last week, hence the re-airing.

So how was it? A mess! In a good way. The producers, writers, and actors clearly didn't know what they were doing and were making it up as they went along (except for the written bits). Instead of the comedy sketch-centric format we have today, NBC's Saturday Night seemed a hodge-podge of entertainment. A stand-up bit here, a fake commercial there, and sketches featuring the original SNL cast in between.

One thing hasn't changed - the concept of a host. Slightly different (George didn't appear in any sketches), yet familiar. George did his thing from the middle of the set, not on a fancy stage like they do today. He opened with the "football and baseball" bit, and performed a few other bits throughout the night. One of those concerned religion and the nature of God, which I'm sure was very edgy material back then.

Of course, there was music. There was not one but two performers that evening: Billy Preston and Janis Ian. I think it was a good pairing - one high energy, the other acoustic and confessional. Of course, most young people today have no clue who either Preston or Ian are. They performed two songs each, making this episode packed full of music.

What can I say about Andy Kaufman? I guess you had to be there. If you watch his bit closely though (if you don't know, he put the "Mighty Mouse" theme on a record player and lip-synced only the "here I come to save the day" parts), you'll notice subtle funny parts - Andy not knowing when to come in, and getting a glass of water, etc. Of course, this bit is so familiar and talked about that it loses its impact. Audiences watching for the first time were probably laughing at the bizarre nature of Andy's "performance."

Of course, there were also fake commercials. Quaint-looking today, but I'm sure they were done in the style of the era. The humor in these is very subtle. They don't bang you over the head with the joke. I'm sure 1975 audiences were very confused, thinking they were seeing a real commercial but slowly realizing it wasn't. If SNL tried to introduce fake commercials today, they'd flop immediately due to Tivo and channel-flipping. I wasn't alive back then, but I can imagine you didn't just get up and change the channel because of a commercial.

There were a few other odd things (a very strange Muppet sketch and a short film by Albert Brooks that I didn't bother watching), and a performance by a female stand-up comic. I didn't bother paying attention to that, either (I'm not familiar with her and I was getting bored).

Now, the sketches. Everyone knows the "Wolverine" sketch. The best part of that one - John Belushi's slight pause to think before keeling over just like the teacher. The other funniest sketches were the "shark bite victim" sketch and the "home invasion" sketch. Today, SNL gets criticism for the sketches going too far. On the first episode, some of the sketches didn't go far enough! They were shorter than the sketches on today's SNL, for the most part. This was clearly in the era before a joke gets repeated too many times. They were doing something completely new.

Weekend Update was a shorter, early version of what we have today. It was mostly Chevy Chase making funny comments about the news (this was the episode with his famous "10-cent stamp" joke, still funny today). There was a small segment with Laraine Newman on location somewhere, which wasn't all that funny.

And that was the first ever SNL episode. It was very cool to compare the first one to what SNL eventually became. Just like today's SNL, some sketches were funny and some were not. It's a different experience for today's audience, but I think we can still appreciate the groundbreaking that happened on this episode. There's only one first, and this was it. It wasn't a bad way to start.