Episodes
See also: List of Saturday Night Live episodes| # | Host(s) | Musical guest(s) | Original airdate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 107 | 1 | Elliott Gould | Kid Creole & the Coconuts | November 15, 1980 |
| Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley, Charles Rocket, Denny Dillon, and Patrick Weathers' first episode as cast members. The cold opening showed many cast members in bed with Gould, who tries to allay their anxieties. He tells Matthius she is "kind of a cross between Jane and Gilda ," that Risley is "a cross between Gilda and Laraine ," and that Rocket is a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray. In his monologue, Gould waxed nostalgic about his old underwear. The first sketch, set in the Oval Office, showed Rosalyn Carter (Risley) trying to seduce Jimmy Carter (Piscopo), with Amy played by Dillon. In a later sketch, Matthius demonstrates how to give a breast self-examination. Wendie Malick appears in the background of the Nose Wrestling sketch. | ||||
| 108 | 2 | Malcolm McDowell | Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band | November 22, 1980 |
| Charles Rocket interviews John Lennon (played by Malcolm McDowell) during Weekend Update. Eddie Murphy makes his first appearance in this episode in an uncredited cameo, in a sketch called "In Search of the Negro Republican," written by David Sheffield. Malcolm does a parody of a Got Milk? commercial as Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Matthew Laurance, previously an assistant director on the show during seasons 3-5, makes an appearance. Dillon, in dominatrix leather gear, abused Rocket, who was chained, spread-eagle, to a weather map. "Jack the Stripper" "had something to do with Prince Charles being a royal flasher—exactly what it was about was impossible to decipher." Another sketch made light of the 1979 Greensboro massacre. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band performs "Hot Head" and "Ashtray Heart." Many SNL veterans consider the McDowell show the single worst night in the program's history. | ||||
| 109 | 3 | Ellen Burstyn | Aretha Franklin Keith Sykes |
December 6, 1980 |
| The episode features a short film entitled "Fish Heads"; this music video for a song of the same title starred Bill Paxton and Bill Mumy. Eddie Murphy's and Patrick Weathers's first episode as cast members. Doumanian wanted to run three sketches ("one about planned parenthood, another about a nun who was not a virgin, the third about a junkie selling potholders door to door to support his drug habit"), all of which were cut by NBC's Standards and Practices department. | ||||
| 110 | 4 | Jamie Lee Curtis | James Brown Ellen Shipley |
December 13, 1980 |
| Danny DeVito appears in a black and white film short. Eddie Murphy begins a run as a "Weekend Update" commentator with a successful diatribe about basketball players. | ||||
| 111 | 5 | David Carradine | Linda Ronstadt The Cast of The Pirates of Penzance |
December 20, 1980 |
| This is Matthew Laurance and Yvonne Hudson's first episode as credited cast members. Hudson had appeared as an uncredited background player since the fourth season. | ||||
| 112 | 6 | Ray Sharkey | Jack Bruce & Friends | January 10, 1981 |
| Eddie Murphy delivers the line Live from New York, it's Saturday Night! Gail Matthius's first episode as Weekend Update co-anchor. Murphy impersonates Stevie Wonder and Bill Cosby, mocks Garrett Morris, and does his stand-up act when the show threatens to run five minutes short. | ||||
| 113 | 7 | Karen Black | Cheap Trick Stanley Clarke Trio |
January 17, 1981 |
| SNL historians Hill and Weingrad write that this show "was actually funny all the way through." | ||||
| 114 | 8 | Robert Hays | Joe "King" Carrasco & the Crowns 14 Karat Soul |
January 24, 1981 |
| Eddie Murphy is promoted featured player to repertory player in this episode. | ||||
| 115 | 9 | Sally Kellerman | Jimmy Cliff | February 7, 1981 |
| A sketch "Lean Acres" features a sadistic fat camp counselor (Sally Kellerman) who punishes two women (Denny Dillon and Ann Risley) for cheating on their diets. The sketch is interrupted by an audience member (portrayed by an unnamed writer) who hates the sketch and vocally speaks out against the sketch's cruel take on plus-sized women. The protester is forcibly removed from the studio after a commercial break. | ||||
| 116 | 10 | Deborah Harry | Funky Four Plus One | February 14, 1981 |
| Patrick Weathers' final episode as a cast member. | ||||
| 117 | 11 | Charlene Tilton | Todd Rundgren Prince |
February 21, 1981 |
| The debut of Eddie Murphy's "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" sketch. 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 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. | ||||
| 118 | 12 | Bill Murray | Delbert McClinton | March 7, 1981 |
| In the cold opening, Murray encourages the cast members not to worry about ratings or reviews. Mark King appears as Dr. Jonathan Lear in the "Saturday Night Newsline" sketch. Ann Risley, Gilbert Gottfried, Charles Rocket, and Matthew Laurance's final episode as cast members. Jean Doumanian's final episode as executive producer. | ||||
| 119 | 13 | Chevy Chase, Al Franken, Christopher Reeve, and Robin Williams | Jr. Walker & the All-Stars | April 11, 1981 |
|
Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky and Tony Rosato's first episode as cast members. Laurie Metcalf and Emily Prager are credited as cast members. Chevy Chase appears in the cold open along with Mr. Bill, reminisces about the good old days, then stumbles and crushes Mr. Bill. Chase also returns to anchor Weekend Update. Al Franken joins him 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." Prior to introducing Jr. Walker & the All-Stars' second musical number, Chase appears with Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve to tell the audience that the show was improving. Denny Dillon, Gail Matthius, and Yvonne Hudson's final episode as cast members. 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)." Dick Ebersol's first episode as executive producer. |
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Famous quotes containing the word episodes:
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)