Introduction:Who I am and why I'm reviewing classic episodes of Saturday Night Live.

Saturday Night Live's cast for seasons 3 and 4.

“TV has not yet had a show for people who grew up with TV.  Carol Burnett’s skits are very funny, but they’re written by people 45–50 and they’re about those problems — life in the suburbs, infidelity, alcoholism, divorce.”
-Lorne Michaels, producer of SNL, interviewed by New York Magazine in their October 27, 1975 issue.

I first heard of Saturday Night Live sometime in the mid-to-late 1970s when I heard my parents talking about it.  The show was the sort of thing adults always seemed to laugh about whenever it was discussed.

One Saturday in 1978, I fell asleep on the couch and woke up in the middle of the night when my parents were watching SNL.  It was an episode hosted by Jill Clayburgh and I happened to wake up in the middle of an Olympia Diner sketch (chee-burger, chee-burger!).  I heard this exchange:

Jane Curtin:Can somebody get her a glass of water?

John Belushi:No water, Petsi!

I thought it was hilarious.  A few months later (November 4, 1978, to be exact) I was allowed to stay up late to watch an episode hosted by Steve Martin, with Van Morrison as musical guest.  My parents told me I had to go to bed as soon as Morrison's first song was over.  

I went to bed willingly, after getting to watch Dan Aykroyd's brilliant impression of Jimmy Carter, Martin's monologue and a sketch that pondered the question "What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?"

Jane Curtin as Eleanor Roosevelt, in flight!

In the days before cable and R-rated movies on TV every night, watching SNL was one of the first examples of "adult" entertainment I was allowed to partake in.  It became an occasional "treat" for me, and whenever I was allowed to stay up and watch it, I remember being glued to every second (even the musical guests, some of whom made a lasting impression).

I treasured any chance I got to watch SNL.  I enjoyed the work of all the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, but my favorite cast members were Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd.  "Mr. Bill" films were another early favorite.  I was something of a "news junkie," so I was able to appreciate jokes that were featured on Weekend Update that may have gone over the heads of some kids my age.

The show and its cast became something of a phenomenon, which prompted NBC to create a series of prime time specials called The Best Of Saturday Night Live.  These collections of sketches from earlier episodes gave me a chance to see classic material like The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise.

I remember like yesterday watching the final episode that featured what was left of the original cast.  I felt a real sense of loss.  The season that followed was terrible.  By season 7, Eddie Murphy made the show enjoyable once more and in the next few years, SNL entered a new "golden age" with a cast that included Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks and Mike Myers.  By the end of the decade, the show had become an institution.  In 1988, Nickelodeon began showing 30-minute edits of every episode of the first five seasons, which meant I got to enjoy current and classic shows at the same time.  

But it's the early years that will always mean the most to me.

With this blog, I will review every episode of the first five seasons of Saturday Night Live.  I will post brief summaries of each sketch, monologue, musical performance and film. I will then break up the particularly good and bad parts of the episodes into the the following categories:

Classic moments-Such moments include signature sketches, great musical performances, debuts of recurring characters or the first time a cast member makes a strong impression.
What stands out-Stuff that I particularly enjoyed in the episode that doesn't quite rise to the level of "classic."
What doesn't work-Segments that either fell flat or just bored me, for one reason or another.  I love this series, but I won't push a mythology here that everything from the first five seasons were perfect.

Whenever possible, I will document which writer wrote which sketch.  And I'll also share vintage reviews and articles about the show. I will do my best to put 1970s pop cultural or political references into context. 

Something I don't plan on covering is private lives of the cast and writers, unless something in their personal lives was mined for jokes or sketches that appeared on the show.

I will use a 4-star rating system for reviews.  During SNL's third season, this star, which was projected on Times Square's jumbotron, was featured during the opening montage, right before the camera cut to the host:

I'll use this star as my ratings icon.  For example, a great episode will get 4 stars.

A slightly-less great episode will get 3 or 3 and a half, and so on.

Here's a list of SNL-related books that inspired this blog, I'll probably be quoting them here on a regular basis:

Saturday Night Live (1977), edited by Anne Beatts and John Head.
Saturday Night:A Backstage History (1985) by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad.
Mr. Mike:The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue (1998) by Dennis Perrin.
Live From New York:The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (2002) by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. 

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for my review of episode #1!

J.A.