It's Garry Shandling's Show: Mr. Smith Goes to Nam

It's Garry Shandling's Show: Mr. Smith Goes to Nam
Showtime
March 18, 1988
Sitcom
VHS
B-

This Season-Two closer was the last TV appearance of Gilda Radner, who'd die in May of the next year.  The title thread has to do with Leonard recognizing Gilda's nurse, Blake Cumbers (Blake Clark, who was 2nd MP on M*A*S*H and had actually played a couple earlier roles on IGSS).  Leonard feels guilty for not defending Blake and the rest of the squad against the Viet Cong twenty years earlier.  As Garry notices early on, the episode is meandering, and we never do find out what happens with his Sea Monkeys.

David Greenlee, who plays Young Leonard Smith, would be a Checkout Clerk on Roseanne.  This is the second of two IGSS stories written by Richard Day, who would do seven for Ellen.   

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.)

The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash

The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash
NBC
March 22, 1978
Comedy, Musical
VHS
B+

This movie is roughly equivalent to the big-screen Spinal Tap movie of six years later, although it's a more band-specific parody.  Much of the Beatles history-- including their looks and sounds-- is captured and lovingly but not gently satirized.  The Yellow Submarine Sandwich segment is up there with the top scenes ever made for television.  However, with the exception of Mick Jagger, I don't think the cameos are on the same level as the Lads from Rutland.

This first aired on the same network as Saturday Night Live (Lorne Michaels and much of his cast were involved) and was the worst-rated show of the week!  It did better on BBC2 a few days later and has since become something of a cult show.  Both Idle's corny McCartney and Innes's "nasty" Lennon are even funnier than they would've been at the time.  (I taped this off Comedy Central around '93.)

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.

Saturday Night Live: Episode 19 [excerpts]

Saturday Night Live: Episode 19 [excerpts]
NBC
May 8, 1976
Variety
VHS
B

SNL was originally one of those shows that the high school and college students watched when I was a little kid, and it wasn't till 1980 (at age 12) that I started to catch up with it, watching the mostly rotten first post-Lorne-Michaels season as it aired, as well as the earlier episodes in edited down form.  When I revisited it as an adult, including the original "classic" years, I felt like it was over-rated, but still with good moments.  This episode has not only the "slumber party" sketch written by Marilyn Suzanne Miller (who voices the offscreen Mother), with guest host Madeline Kahn and the female regulars doing a nice job of playing preteens trying to figure out sex (Gilda is not surprisingly the most believable as a little girl), but also Chevy playing the "you" of "You're So Vain," in apricot scarf and accompanying Carly Simon on the cowbell.  There was originally a lot of other stuff of course (it was an hour and a half after all), but this is what I recorded off Nickelodeon in the late '80s.