Saturday Night Live: 15th Anniversary

Saturday Night Live: 15th Anniversary [fragments]
NBC
September 24, 1989
Variety
VHS
C+

Jumping the gun by over a year (but not as badly as Sisbert with their "500th anniversary"), this is a self-back-patting salute that I was so enthralled by that I taped two of the Timothy Dalton Jane Eyre episodes over part of it.  I've got the first couple minutes and then the last half hour or so.  None of it, even Robin Williams teasing the celeb-filled audience, is particularly funny.  Also, I'm not thrilled that I have to tag, blech, Bruce Willis.  But Paul Simon sings "Still Crazy After All These Years," and that's always good.  This is the 2000th show of mine I've reviewed, and no, we will not hit 3000.

Who's the Boss?: Sam's Car

Who's the Boss?: Sam's Car
ABC
October 18, 1988
Sitcom
DVD
B

Meanwhile, in the U.S., a writer's strike delayed the beginning of the 1988-89 season.  In this Braunstein & Perlow Season Five kick-off, 16-year-old Sam gets her driver's license, so her dad buys her the title object, which is embarrassingly large and yellow.  (The reveal of the car, set to the 2001 theme, is nicely done.)  When the kids at school make fun of her, she doesn't want to tell her father and hurt his feelings.  Everyone's perspective, including Angela's as mediator, makes sense.  And it's a pretty funny episode, Garrett Morris's cameo as Officer Audette included, although we can see the beginning of the dumbing down of Bonnie.

Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: Worst of 1987

Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: Worst of 1987
Syndicated
January 9, 1988
Movie Review
VHS
B-

Yes, Ishtar is at the bottom of heap, with Leonard Part 6.  I'm tagging Morris for the clip from the Richard Pryor movie Critical Condition, and Fox for The Secret of My Succe$s.  (I may have to retroactively tag others later.)

Saturday Night Live: Elliott Gould & Gary Numan [Condensed]

Saturday Night Live: Elliott Gould & Gary Numan [Condensed]
NBC
February 16, 1980
Variety
VHS
B-

This is one of the hour-long (I think they were called Best of Saturday Night Live) editions that were syndicated later in the '80s, in this case '87.  The highlights here are Kramer vs. Godzilla and the Wizard of Oz parody, although the latter does have regrettably racist casting of Morris as a flying monkey.  (Poor Garrett was in tears a few days afterwards, after five years of mistreatment.)  Numan sings "Cars."  The running joke of Father Guido Sarducci waiting to interview Nixon live outside his new apartment building gets tedious, until there's an unexpected pay-off right at the end.

And, yes, the jokes about candidates Carter and Reagan are pretty ironic of course, especially the one about Reagan being senile.  (He had recently turned 69, which is right between the ages of current candidates Clinton and Trump, although at the time he was definitely the oldest American presidential candidate ever.)

Saturday Night Live: Julian Bond & Tom Waits

I'd have been happier watching an hour of this.

Saturday Night Live: Julian Bond & Tom Waits
NBC
April 9, 1977
Variety
VHS
D+

This is the hour-long (counting commercials) version that aired on Nickelodeon in the late '80s, but honestly I've mostly kept it for the Bad Cinema sequence.  The rest ranges from mildly amusing to dull and unfunny, with the Dr. X sequence not working at all.  This is a good example of how the idea of the "golden age" of the early days of SNL seems false to me, although I haven't watched any recent episodes in years (just segments on the Internet), so hypothetically it may be worse now.