Saturday Night Live (season 6)

Saturday Night Live
Season 6
No. of episodes	13
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	November 15, 1980 (1980-11-15) – April 11, 1981 (1981-04-11)
Season chronology
← Previous season 5 Next → season 7
List of episodes

The sixth season of Saturday Night Live , an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between November 15, 1980, and April 11, 1981.

This season was alternatively known as Saturday Night Live '80.

Background

Executive Producer Lorne Michaels cited burnout as the reason behind his desire to take a year off, and had been led to believe by NBC executives that the show would go on hiatus with him, and be ready to start fresh upon his return. ^[1]

Jean Doumanian hired Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley and Charles Rocket (who was groomed to be the new breakout star) as repertory players, and Yvonne Hudson, Matthew Laurance and Patrick Weathers as featured players. In doing so, she passed on such then-unknown performers as Jim Carrey, Mercedes Ruehl, Sandra Bernhard, John Goodman and Paul Reubens. ^{[2] [3]} Andy Kaufman offered to contribute a weekly segment but was turned down. ^[4] Jean Doumanian sought a non-white cast member to fill Garrett Morris' previous role. As SNL scholars Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad phrase it,

Jean still needed an ethnic, and a special series of auditions was set up to find one. For two days in mid-September some thirty black actors and comedians filed through the writers' wing on the 17th floor [of Rockefeller Center] to read for Jean and her people. At the end, Jean told her group she was leaning toward hiring a stand-up by the name of Charlie Barnett. But talent coordinator Neil Levy had another black performer he wanted her to see, a kid from Roosevelt, Long Island, named Eddie Murphy. ^[5]

Some accounts state that Jean Doumanian preferred instead Robert Townsend, but Eddie Murphy was added (as a featured player) starting with the fourth episode, after much convincing from her colleagues and staff. ^[1]

Dick Ebersol's first produced episode was on April 11, 1981. After Ebersol's first episode, the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike started, forcing the show into a hiatus during which it was extensively retooled. Before the next season, Ebersol also fired Denny Dillon and Gail Matthius, leaving Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo the only remaining cast members from Jean Doumanian's tenure. ^{[2] [6]}

Cast

(Episodes 1–12)

Repertory players Denny Dillon Gilbert Gottfried Gail Matthius Eddie Murphy (first episode: December 6, 1980/upgraded to repertory status on January 24, 1981) Joe Piscopo Ann Risley Charles Rocket

Featured players Yvonne Hudson (first episode: December 20, 1980) Matthew Laurance (first episode: December 13, 1980) Patrick Weathers (first episode: December 13, 1980/last episode: February 14, 1981)

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

(Episode 13)

Repertory players Denny Dillon Robin Duke Tim Kazurinsky Gail Matthius Eddie Murphy Joe Piscopo Tony Rosato

Featured players Laurie Metcalf Emily Prager (credited, but did not appear)

Writers

Main article: List of Saturday Night Live writers § Season 6

Brian Doyle-Murray returned as the only writer from the previous season. Pamela Norris and Terry Sweeney were also hired; the latter would become a cast member in 1985. Musician and Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour writer Mason Williams was the season's first head writer but left after clashing with Doumanian. ^[7] Jeremy Stevens and Tom Moore joined as head writers for the remaining Doumanian shows. Michael O'Donoghue was rehired after Doumanian's firing.

This season's writers included Larry Arnstein, Barry W. Blaustein, Billy Brown, Ferris Butler, John DeBellis, Jean Doumanian, Nancy Dowd, Brian Doyle-Murray, Leslie Fuller, Mel Green, David Hurwitz, Judy Jacklin, Sean Kelly, Mitchell Kriegman, Patricia Marx, Douglas McGrath, Tom Moore, Matt Neuman, Pamela Norris, Michael O'Donoghue, Mark Reisman, David Sheffield, Jeremy Stevens, Terry Sweeney, Bob Tischler, Mason Williams and Dirk Wittenborn.

Episodes

Main article: List of Saturday Night Live episodes

No. overall	No. in season	Host	Musical guest(s)	Original air date
107	1	Elliott Gould	Kid Creole & the Coconuts	November 15, 1980 (1980-11-15)
Kid Creole & the Coconuts performs "Mister Softee" and "There But for the Grace of God Go I". [8] The cold opening has Elliott Gould (sixth time hosting) in bed with many of the cast members (a play on Gould's 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice ), who tries to allay their anxieties, and tells Gail Matthius she is "kind of a cross between Jane [Curtin] and Gilda [Radner]." Charles Rocket announces that he is a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, Ann Risley says she is "a cross between Gilda and Laraine [Newman]" and Gilbert Gottfried calls himself a cross between John Belushi and "that guy from last year" who did a Rod Serling impression (Harry Shearer). [9] The first sketch, set in the Oval Office, showed Rosalynn Carter (Ann Risley) trying to seduce Jimmy Carter (Joe Piscopo) who is still depressed over his defeat in the 1980 presidential election, with Amy played by Dillon. In the debut of the "Rocket Report" segment, Charles Rocket pesters people around The Dakota for information about John Lennon's upcoming album. A short film by Blue Lagoon director Randal Kleiser titled "Foot Fetish" is shown. A music video directed by Jonathan Demme for the song "Gidget Goes To Hell" by the post-punk band Suburban Lawns also appears. [10] Wendie Malick appears in the background of the Nose Wrestling sketch. Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley and Charles Rocket's first episode as cast members. Jean Doumanian's first episode as executive producer.
108	2	Malcolm McDowell	Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band	November 22, 1980 (1980-11-22)
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band performs "Hot Head" and "Ashtray Heart" [8] Charles Rocket interviews John Lennon (played by Malcolm McDowell) during Weekend Update. [11] Joe Piscopo's Saturday Night Sports segment during Weekend Update debuts on this episode. Eddie Murphy makes his first SNL appearance in this episode in an uncredited cameo, in a sketch called "In Search of the Negro Republican," written by David Sheffield. Also present in the sketch are future featured players Yvonne Hudson and Matthew Laurance. NOTE: Many SNL veterans (as of 1985) considers this episode as the single worst night in the program's history. [12]
109	3	Ellen Burstyn	Aretha Franklin Keith Sykes	December 6, 1980 (1980-12-06)
Aretha Franklin performs "United Together" and "Can't Turn You Loose". [8] Keith Sykes performs "B.I.G. T.I.M.E.". [8] A short film entitled "Fish Heads" for the Barnes & Barnes song of the same title appears, directed by and starring Bill Mumy and Bill Paxton. Dr. Demento also appears in the short. Eddie Murphy debuts as a "Weekend Update" commentator with a successful diatribe about basketball players.
110	4	Jamie Lee Curtis	James Brown Ellen Shipley	December 13, 1980 (1980-12-13)
James Brown performs "Rapp Payback (Where Iz Moses)" and an extended medley of his early hits "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", "I Got You (I Feel Good)", "Small Man" and "Please, Please, Please". [8] Ellen Shipley performs "Fotogenic". [8] Danny DeVito appeared in a black and white film short Hot Dogs for Gauguin . Matthew Laurance, Eddie Murphy and Patrick Weathers' first episode as cast members. During the goodnights Jamie Lee Curtis reminded the audience that a 10 minute vigil would be held for John Lennon the next day, as he had been assassinated 5 days prior to the show. [13]
111	5	David Carradine	Linda Ronstadt The Cast of The Pirates of Penzance	December 20, 1980 (1980-12-20)
Linda Ronstadt and the cast of The Pirates of Penzance performs a medley of tunes from The Pirates of Penzance production ("I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General", "Oh, Is There Not One Maiden Breast", "Poor Wandering One" and "Go Ye, Heroes"), Mr. Bill, Miss Sally, and Spot talks about Mr. Bill's Christmas holiday for the past years and how things ended up turned bad for him against his enemies, Sluggo and Mr. Hands, and a medley of Christmas carols ("O come, O come, Emmanuel", "Joy to the World" and "The First Noel"). [8] Yvonne Hudson's first episode as a cast member. Writer Mitchell Kriegman was fired by Jean Doumanian during Weekend Update, backstage. [14]
112	6	Ray Sharkey	Jack Bruce & Friends	January 10, 1981 (1981-01-10)
Jack Bruce & Friends performs "Dancing On Air" and "Living Without Ja". [8] Eddie Murphy delivered the line Live from New York, it's Saturday Night! Gail Matthius' first episode as Weekend Update co-anchor. Eddie Murphy impersonates Bill Cosby and Stevie Wonder, mocked Garrett Morris and performs a stand-up monologue when the show was in danger of running five minutes short.
113	7	Karen Black	Cheap Trick Stanley Clarke Trio	January 17, 1981 (1981-01-17)
Cheap Trick performs "Baby Loves to Rock" and "Can't Stop It But I'm Gonna Try". [8] Stanley Clarke Trio performs "Deep in the Night". [8] NOTE: SNL historians Hill and Weingrad wrote that this show "was actually funny all the way through." [15]
114	8	Robert Hays	Joe "King" Carrasco & the Crowns 14 Karat Soul	January 24, 1981 (1981-01-24)
Joe "King" Carrasco & the Crowns performs "Don't Bug Me Baby" [8] 14 Karat Soul performs "I Wish That We Were Married" and "This Time It's for Real". [8] Eddie Murphy announces that he has been promoted from featured player to repertory player in this episode.
115	9	Sally Kellerman	Jimmy Cliff	February 7, 1981 (1981-02-07)
Jimmy Cliff performs "I Am the Living" and "Gone Clear". [8] Sally Kellerman performs "Starting Over Again".
116	10	Deborah Harry	Deborah Harry Funky Four Plus One	February 14, 1981 (1981-02-14)
Deborah Harry performs "Love T.K.O." and "Come Back Jonee". [8] With this show, Funky Four Plus One become the first hip-hop act to perform on SNL, as well as the first to appear on national television. They performed "That's the Joint". [8] Patrick Weathers' final episode as a cast member.
117	11	Charlene Tilton	Todd Rundgren Prince	February 21, 1981 (1981-02-21)
Todd Rundgren performs "Healer" and "Time Heals" [8] Prince performs "Partyup" [8] Guest appearance by Don King. The debut of Eddie Murphy's "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" sketch. [16] Gail Matthius' final episode as Weekend Update co-anchor. Larry Hagman was originally chosen to host, but he refused so the show went for his co-star Charlene Tilton. During the goodnights, Charles Rocket (in a wheelchair after "getting shot" during the last sketch, in a parody of the Who shot J.R.? promotion for Dallas , on which Charlene Tilton had played Lucy Ewing) grumbles, "I'd like to know who the fuck did it" in response to Tilton's query on how Rocket felt after being gunned down [17]
118	12	Bill Murray	Delbert McClinton	March 7, 1981 (1981-03-07)
Delbert McClinton performs "Givin' It Up for Your Love" and "Shotgun Rider" [8] with Bonnie Bramlett joining him on vocals. In the cold opening, Bill Murray encouraged the cast members not to worry about ratings or reviews. This was the first time that show openly acknowledged the ratings and reviews. Mark King appeared as Dr. Jonathan Lear during Weekend Update, now called Saturday Night Newsline. The news section appears in three segments (King's science portion, an Oscar predictions segment with Bill Murray and a newscast with Charles Rocket). Bill Murray reprised his Nick the Lounge Singer character from his 1977–1980 stint on the show. Paul Shaffer made a cameo as Nick's pianist. Bill Murray announced that the next episode would be hosted by Robert Guillaume with musical guest Ian Dury and the Blockheads, [18] but this episode was cancelled when Dick Ebersol replaced Jean Doumanian. Despite being mentioned by Bill Murray in the opening sketch and making appearances throughout the episode, Hudson, Laurance, and Weathers don't receive onscreen credit. Gilbert Gottfried, Yvonne Hudson, Matthew Laurance, Ann Risley, and Charles Rocket's final episode as cast members (although Yvonne Hudson would continue to make uncredited appearances until 1984). Jean Doumanian's final episode as executive producer. [2]
119	13	None	Jr. Walker & the All-Stars	April 11, 1981 (1981-04-11)
Jr. Walker & the All-Stars performs "(I'm a) Road Runner", "Shotgun", "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" and "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)". [8] Chevy Chase appeared in the cold open along with Mr. Bill, reminiscing about the good old days, then stumbles and crushes Mr. Bill; Chase returned to anchor Weekend Update. Al Franken joined Chase on "Weekend Update" to discuss season 6, frequently using the phrase "me, Al Franken", as he had done in previous seasons when arguing that the 1980s be known as "The Al Franken Decade". [19] Al Franken announced that he and Tom Davis would host the next episode with musical guest The Grateful Dead, [20] but this episode was cancelled due to the writers' strike. Prior to introducing Jr. Walker & the All-Stars' second musical number, Chevy Chase appeared with Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams to tell the audience the show was improving. Dick Ebersol's first episode as executive producer. Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky and Tony Rosato's first episode as cast members. Laurie Metcalf and Emily Prager's only episode as cast members (Laurie Metcalf appeared only in a pre-taped segment during "Weekend Update"; Emily Prager, despite her billing in the credits, did not appear in the show at all; both hold the record for shortest stint as an SNL cast member). Denny Dillon and Gail Matthius' final episode as cast members. Don Pardo's last episode as announcer (until season 8).

Critical reception

Responses to Doumanian's SNL were negative. The Associated Press, mocking the Carters-in-the-Oval-Office sketch, wrote, "The new Saturday Night Live is essentially crude, sophomoric and most of all self-consciously 'cool.' It is occasionally funny ... Under producer Jean Doumanian, Saturday Night Live will define 'risk-taking' as a little naughtier, perhaps a little raunchier; it won't wander too far off the beaten path ... They're all clones. This is television. If they can be funny once in a while, that's all we can ask." ^[21]

The New York Times said the season "looked almost exactly as it did in previous years, but actually only the shell remained". The review went on to state that the "missing ingredient was the very quality that made the old show so special: an innovative vision", and that the new show was "nothing so much as an unfunny parody of its predecessor". ^[22]

Hill and Weingrad summarized other reviews:

The Washington Star said the show "strained and groaned" while the humor was "almost completely lost, despite desperate attempts to wring it out of raunch." Newsday's Marvin Kitman, as expected, ravaged the show gleefully, calling it "offensive and raunchy," and worse, not funny. "This new edition is terrible," he wrote. "Call it 'Saturday Night Dead on Arrival'." ^[23]

Tom Shales had always been Saturday Night's strongest and most prestigious booster, and thus his reaction to the new show was more important than most. The headline on his review read FROM YUK TO YECCCH. The first sentence was: "Vile from New York—It's Saturday Night." The show, Shales said, was a "snide and sordid embarrassment". It imitated the "ribaldry and willingness to prod sacred cows" of the Lorne Michaels years without having the least "compensating satirical edge". It was, he wrote, "just haplessly pointless tastelessness". Shales concluded that despite one or two imaginative moments from the show's filmmakers, "from the six new performers and 13 new writers hired for the show, viewers got virtually no good news." ... Jean made it clear that she thought the writing was primarily at fault. "It's just got to be funnier," she said. Then she put a tape of the show on her videocassette machine to begin a sketch-by-sketch critique. According to writer Billy Brown, as she did she said, "Watch this. And I hope you hate it, because you wrote it." ^[24]

In his book What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede included this season as one of 25 runners-up to the list. ^[25]

References

1. Shales, Tom (2003). Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. Back Bay. ISBN   0-316-73565-5.
2. Fennessey, Sean (October 13, 2010). "SNL and The Curse of the Transitional Season". SplitSider.
3. Handy, Bruce (September 1999). "The Pee-wee Herman Story". Vanity Fair. Retrieved February 6, 2007.
4. Hoglund, Andy (April 14, 2022). "MITCHELL KRIEGMAN APR. 14, 2022 Mitchell Kriegman Looks Back on His Brief Stint As an SNL Cast Member". Vulture. Retrieved April 15, 2022.
5. Hill and Weingrad, p. 391.
6. Saturday Night Live in the '80s: Lost & Found (2005) at IMDb
7. Sowa, Tom (April 5, 1981). "Guild plays name game". The Spokesman-Review. p. D10.
8. Saturday Night Live: The First Twenty Years. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1994. pp.  124–127. ISBN   0-395-70895-8.
9. "SNL Transcripts". October 8, 2018.
10. "41 Years Ago: Saturday Night Live air SUBURBAN LAWNS Gidget Goes to Hell". Todestrieb Records. November 15, 1980. Retrieved February 23, 2022.
11. Lennon, a big fan of SNL, would be assassinated just two weeks later.
12. Hill and Weingrad, ibid.
13. "Jamie Lee Curtis Remembers the Day John Lennon Was Killed and Pays Tribute the Late Star on His 40th Death Anniversary - the Red Carpet". Archived from the original on January 23, 2021.
14. Hoglund, Andy (April 14, 2022). "Mitchell Kriegman Looks Back on His Brief Stint As an SNL Cast Member". Vulture. Retrieved April 15, 2022.
15. Hill and Weingrad, p. 423.
16. Saturday Night Live: The First Twenty Years. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1994. pp.  134–137. ISBN   0-395-70895-8.
17. Hill and Weingrad, p. 431.
18. "SNL Transcripts".
19. Hill and Weingrad, p. 446.
20. "SNL Transcripts".
21. Boyer, Peter J. (December 13, 1980). "Saturday Night Live is working trend tired". The Virgin Islands Daily News . Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
22. Schwartz, Tony (January 11, 1981). "Whatever happened to TV's 'Saturday Night Live'?". The New York Times. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
23. Hill and Weingrad, p. 412.
24. Hill and Weingrad, pp. 412-413.
25. Hofstede, David (2004). What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History. Back Stage Books. pp. 207–209. ISBN   0-8230-8441-8.