SNL 2x10: Candice Bergen/Frank Zappa
The SNL immediately following Jodie Foster was another Candice Bergen, which I watched because I really enjoyed Candice's first hosting gig in the first season, where I noted her gravitas and calming influence on the show. This time, there was an altogether different energy.
Onion AV Club gives this episode an A, claiming it's by far the best of the rough patch after Chevy Chase and before Bill Murray; but I found it awkward and hard to watch. Candice no longer seems in control. It doesn't help that in the opening monologue she portrays herself as hopelessly devoted to an uncaring John Belushi in a lengthy Casablanca sketch ("You're part of the show, the thing that keeps it going. And, if that show starts and you're not on it, you'll regret it. Maybe not today...") There's no showcase for her trademark confident assertive seriousness in this episode, and it's not just the writing. Through the whole show, she seems nervous, giggly, self-conscious. She has to fill an absurd amount of dead air at the end of the show, and she laughs, a little angrily, "This is so unfair, to do this to me!" It seems to me she's talking about everything.
I'm admittedly influenced by my metaknowledge from the same AV Club review that Candice "cites the third show she hosted Saturday Night Live as the moment she grew bitterly disillusioned with the show and vowed never to host again." By all accounts, this was the height of SNL's drug-addled backstage insanity. Watching it does give the feeling that Candice is both exasperated with the cast and scared for them: she left a smoothly-running machine, and now it's out of control. She's being asked to hold it together, and they're asking too much.
In one sketch which seems particularly drawn from life, Candice urges viewers to write in and offer to adopt wayward John Belushi for Christmas. (John hopes you'll provide "a roast turkey stuffed with drugs.") The jokes are sharp, and Candice's protective affection to the point of handsiness feel genuine.
At the end, when Candice is finally rescued from her endless hell of ad-libbing and skates around Rockefeller Center hand-in-hand with John Belushi, I'm left, not so much sated with laughter, as awash with the intense emotions of a young woman returned to her hometown to find the handsome, charming boy she used to have a hopeless crush on is now all fucked up and damaged goods, and where she once idolized him, she now regards him with a mix of sadness and fear and pity, yet in those moments when he shines his light just on her (so much more than he ever did at the height of his power!), she still feels just as flattered and giggly and schoolgirlish as she ever did back in the day, only now she sort of hates herself for it. I'm not sure if the boy in this metaphor is Belushi or SNL generally. I'm just saying, it's a very specific sort of bittersweet emotional ringer that is not entirely conducive to lots o' laffs.
Highlights:
Onion AV Club gives this episode an A, claiming it's by far the best of the rough patch after Chevy Chase and before Bill Murray; but I found it awkward and hard to watch. Candice no longer seems in control. It doesn't help that in the opening monologue she portrays herself as hopelessly devoted to an uncaring John Belushi in a lengthy Casablanca sketch ("You're part of the show, the thing that keeps it going. And, if that show starts and you're not on it, you'll regret it. Maybe not today...") There's no showcase for her trademark confident assertive seriousness in this episode, and it's not just the writing. Through the whole show, she seems nervous, giggly, self-conscious. She has to fill an absurd amount of dead air at the end of the show, and she laughs, a little angrily, "This is so unfair, to do this to me!" It seems to me she's talking about everything.
I'm admittedly influenced by my metaknowledge from the same AV Club review that Candice "cites the third show she hosted Saturday Night Live as the moment she grew bitterly disillusioned with the show and vowed never to host again." By all accounts, this was the height of SNL's drug-addled backstage insanity. Watching it does give the feeling that Candice is both exasperated with the cast and scared for them: she left a smoothly-running machine, and now it's out of control. She's being asked to hold it together, and they're asking too much.
In one sketch which seems particularly drawn from life, Candice urges viewers to write in and offer to adopt wayward John Belushi for Christmas. (John hopes you'll provide "a roast turkey stuffed with drugs.") The jokes are sharp, and Candice's protective affection to the point of handsiness feel genuine.
At the end, when Candice is finally rescued from her endless hell of ad-libbing and skates around Rockefeller Center hand-in-hand with John Belushi, I'm left, not so much sated with laughter, as awash with the intense emotions of a young woman returned to her hometown to find the handsome, charming boy she used to have a hopeless crush on is now all fucked up and damaged goods, and where she once idolized him, she now regards him with a mix of sadness and fear and pity, yet in those moments when he shines his light just on her (so much more than he ever did at the height of his power!), she still feels just as flattered and giggly and schoolgirlish as she ever did back in the day, only now she sort of hates herself for it. I'm not sure if the boy in this metaphor is Belushi or SNL generally. I'm just saying, it's a very specific sort of bittersweet emotional ringer that is not entirely conducive to lots o' laffs.
Highlights:
- Candice's epic break and Gilda's adorable performance save the world's most mediocre sketch.
- Frank Zappa as musical guest is amazing--his performers are virtuosic and, unlike most music guests, he really tries to weave himself into the fabric of the show, incorporating humor and visuals into his numbers. He gets Don Pardo to perform part of one song, and John Belushi does a bit in the middle of another. He sings about slime and slime oozes out of the monitors. But this very integration with the rest of the show, combined with his creepy, wild-eyed, low-voiced, psychedelic, xylophony style, does nothing to alleviate my general unnervedness.
- Frank Zappa's cameo as the only human in a police lineup of "killer trees" is probably actually my favorite moment of the night: he even stands around amusingly, like a cartoon character, and he obligingly responds to the officer's instructions to "wave your branches" and "shake your ornaments."
- I'm weirdly amused by the topical-to-a-time-other-than-my-own Christmas carol about executing a murderer.