Some might call it sacrilegious but I've long thought that the classic "first five years" of Saturday Night Live weren't the only time that show was good. The years when the show was dominated by Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey were pretty good, too. So I found it interesting that near the close of last evening's special — Saturday Night Live in the 80's: Lost and Found — Lorne Michaels, who presided over both versions, came close to saying the same thing. It was almost like he was trying to say it without saying it, if you follow me.
Actually, the two-hour overview NBC aired Sunday evening was unsatisfying because it tried to cover so much. That meant only brief fragments of sketches and frustratingly short interviews with cast and crew members. So much went unsaid about the intervening years and little was included that hasn't been covered in past histories of the show.
It would have been nice to hear more than the standard line about how the show plunged to embarrassing lows when Jean Doumanian took over from Michaels as producer in 1980. I don't know Ms. Doumanian and can't defend the show she put on the air…but it always seemed to me like NBC stuck an unqualified person in an impossible job and then she somehow got all the blame for the resulting failure. No one could have delivered what they were expecting of her, which was a show that would debut, with a very short lead time, with something approximating the magic that everyone imagined the first regime had displayed. Plus, at the same time, she had to discover "The Next Chevy," "The Next Gilda" and other stars with spin-off potential. Others might have done a better job but I doubt anyone could have succeeded. Still, it's a compelling tale to note how others built back after that catastrophe.
Among other things missing from the two-hour special was any mention of the many variety acts and stand-ups that appeared on the show. Come to think of it, some pretty impressive hosts went unmentioned and I don't recall any reference to the show's political humor which got rather potent in some of those years. I seem to recall that when a similar special on the first five years aired some time ago, it was reported that there would be a DVD release of an expanded version letting many of the sketches and "talking heads" run longer. As far as I know, no such DVD ever materialized but it should have. And they really should do a longer version of the cursory overview that ran last night. There's a lot more of that story.