User Reviews

In the cold opening of the January 30, 1982 edition of Saturday Night Live, John Madden presides in the Cincinati Bengals locker room after their loss in the Super Bowl. As one of the players, Eddie Murphy blames the mob and gets shot as fellow player Joe Piscopo plants the gun in Murphy's hand. Coach Tim Kazurinsky tells his players he's not ashamed of them. He's embarrassed! Drunk player Brian Doyle-Murray had prayed for a win when he addressed the lord. Now he only speaks to the devil! As the sketch ends, Madden says, "Take it, New York." Then Mel Brandt says, "And now, from New York, the most dangerous city in America! It's Saturday Night Live!" As the last image of a person walking a dog freezes, Madden jumps through the still and says "We'll have a great show!" First sketch is Betty Beer, The (B-word) Brew with Christine Ebersole, Robin Duke, and Mary Gross touting the feminine pleasures of beer drinking. Cameo by a then Miller Lite spokesman. Next, we have The Uncle Tom Show with Piscopo as former Tomorrow Show host Tom Snyder hosting a children's show with guests Captain Kangaroo (Tony Rosato) who was himself fired from CBS, and Buckwheat (Murphy) singing "Noe, Noe, Noe the Boat" and "Dis Ole Man". Snyder mentions the following week's guest, Gumby and Pokey (Murphy's Gumby actually debuted on the following Uncle Tom Show when Blythe Danner hosted) and then ends with, "Don't pooty in your pants!" On Poetry Corner, Madden recites some poems like he's threatening some of his former football players! I especially liked it when he recited the first line of "There once was a lady from Nantucket..." We then visit The Lou Grant Show where Grant (Rosato) gets a surprise visit from Mary Richards (Gross) and Ted Baxter (Piscopo)! Jennifer Holliday performs the first of two songs she did in "Dreamgirls", "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going". On SNL Newsbreak, Doyle-Murray mentions the recent CBS Super Bowl as the third highest rated program in history, higher than the entire NBC programming in 1981! Next is a lame Godfather sketch with Rosato and Kazurinsky seeing pictures of various Dons (Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci, Don Knotts, Don Rickles). "What about Don Pardo?" asks Kazurinsky. "He's not with us anymore!" says Rosato. Murphy plays the elder Don trying to pick nicknames for Rosato's character. Madden tells a pretty amusing joke involving a bathroom stall, money, and one of his players then Holliday sings, "One Night Only". Then Murphy and Piscopo become Solomon and Pudge as Solomon talks about his late wife. Next, commercial parody The Jogger Motel, "Joggers jog in...but they don't jog OUT!" (a joke of the Roach Motel's "Roach's check in...but they don't check OUT!"). Piscopo portrays Art Fern as he plugs The Carson School of Acting and mentions how similar Fern is to Regginald Van Gleason as Ebersole wears a padded bra as Carol Wayne! Andy Kaufman returns as Elvis singing "Trouble", then lip-syncs the chicken number from "Mickey's Benefit", then asks two female audience members to come to his dressing room and wrestle with just panties! Then Kaufman, out of character, mentions Albert Goldman's book Elvis and how he was reenacting one of its passages and how he is ashamed of what he just did (ironic, considering the last time he appeared he challenged a female audience member to a wrestling match and won!). Finally, we end with a boring film of Madden's trip to New York from the Super Bowl. Highlights were Betty Beer, The Uncle Tom Show, The Lou Grant Show, Art Fern's Tea Time, Poetry Corner, The Jogger Motel, Solomon and Pudge, and Holliday's singing. The rest, eh. Still worth seeing for SNL buffs.