Because at least one of my friends was unaware of it, I thought I'd mention that NBC is still rerunning old episodes of Saturday Night Live on its Up All Night weekend broadcast. Each week, a "classic" episode is offered. In some cities, it immediately follows the regular SNL broadcast. Other cities insert a show or two between them or don't run it at all.
Assuming yours does, you may want to note that they run the full 90-minute versions. The reruns on Comedy Central and E! are chopped down to an hour by omitting what someone feels are the weaker segments — with some qualifications. To retain the flow of a program, they always include the host's monologue, which is often the worst part of an episode, and unless it's really dreadful, they include the cold opening. But beyond that, whoever makes these decisions is free to dump what didn't work, and they usually pick well. Most of those shows are better without the weakest material but every so often though, a good piece gets dropped for the hour versions and it's nice to see it again, if only because it's fresh.
The episode scheduled for this coming Saturday night is from May 12, 1989 and it featured Andrew Dice Clay as host. The booking of Clay prompted long-time cast member Nora Dunn to walk off what at least a couple of histories of the show recall it as the last show of that season. In fact, it was the next-to-last (Candice Bergen hosted the following week) and Ms. Dunn was not in either of them. A friend of mine who worked on the show at the time recently sent me the following e-mail about it…
It was a very bad show and a bad week. Everyone was really burned out from the season and on the last few shows, everyone's always wondering "Should I come back? Will they even want me back?" Lorne [Michaels] hates it when people decide to leave before he's decided that he wants them to leave. Protocol is to wait until he decides and sends some sort of signal that this would be a good time for you to quit and say you're leaving to pursue other areas. Sometimes, this is true. I always assume that if someone leaves the show and goes straight to a big movie, another series or rehab, they left voluntarily. If they left to explore other avenues, they were fired.
Nora had been with the show for years. She was very good but everyone felt that they'd seen every character she could do. I don't know if that's true but that was the feeling. I don't know for sure if Lorne would have sent a signal but he was pissed that she didn't give him that chance and also that she quit the way she did. Without telling anyone, she suddenly put out this press release saying she wasn't doing show because she thought Dice Clay was a misogynist or something. She didn't call Lorne first. I don't think she ever even spoke to him again. She just put out this press release and she was gone. Everyone just assumed she knew she might not be asked back and didn't want to give Lorne the chance. So Lorne was pissed about that and the rest of the cast members were pissed because they were put in the position of seeming to endorse Clay because they didn't walk out. Well, it wasn't the same thing for the rest of them. Nora was probably leaving anyway so it just meant she did two less shows. The other people wanted to stay.
So they were all stuck with seeming to endorse Clay, whom none of them liked. It was a terrible show the way the last shows of the season can be when everyone's tired and they're trying to get in sketches that hadn't gotten into earlier shows. Clay wasn't very good but it wasn't all his fault. However if Nora cared about hurting Clay, she got the opposite of what she wanted. He got a lot of publicity and it was one of the highest rated shows of the season. Someone even accused Lorne of setting the thing up with Nora as a publicity stunt but I assure you it was not that.
Here's the rundown of the entire episode which is scheduled to run this coming Saturday night/Sunday morning. The pieces marked with an asterisk (*) are the ones that are omitted in the hour-version which turns up on Comedy Central…
- Cold Opening: Parody of It's A Wonderful Life with Andrew "Dice" Clay
- Opening Monologue by Andrew "Dice" Clay
- Sketch: Clay runs employment agency
- Sketch: "The Anal-Retentive Chef"
- Song: Spanic Boys perform "Keep On Walking"*
- Weekend Update with Dennis Miller: Includes Jon Lovitz as Annoying Man and David Spade as Michael J. Fox*
- Sketch: Clay gives sex lecture to his son, played by Mike Myers
- Sketch: Tony Trailer, Disc Jockey*
- Sketch: Jan Hooks announces she's been giving a poor performance in the show in protest of Clay
- Sketch: Clay as "Cool Mite"*
- Song: Julee Cruise performs "Falling"*
- Sketch: "Ridiculous Bull" with Clay as Jake LaMotta
- Sketch: Kevin Nealon explains his light role in show is in protest of Clay*
- Goodnights
Anyway, I'm not recommending the episode because, like the person quoted above said, it wasn't very good. But I like the fact that NBC is running these uncut versions, and I wish they'd run some of the ones that Lorne Michaels didn't produce. Some of those episodes haven't aired anywhere in an awfully long time.