Boy, that was long and self-congratulatory.
Gee, some people haven't aged well, either in terms of age or comedic ability. I was pleased that Laraine Newman looked so good because she's the same age I am. (Well, actually I'm about twenty minutes older.)
I think there were more technical errors in this special than they have in an entire season. It must have been a nightmare to service all those celebs, rehearse the ones who did things that needed rehearsal, get the ones who needed hair and makeup through hair and makeup, etc…
I'm not sure why they felt they needed musical numbers from Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and a few others. I hope the Pauls were just having a bad night and that's not what their voices are like these days.
Shelly Goldstein messaged me that if anyone needs proof that Sarah Palin is focused on celebrity (as opposed to holding public office), you needed only to look at her participation and especially her gown.
You get the feeling Eddie Murphy had the limo double-parked outside with the engine running?
They gave about as little attention as possible to the period when Jean Doumanian produced the show…and Eddie Murphy aside, to the Dick Ebersol years. I think they missed a bet: Bring Gilbert Gottfried out and let him spend three minutes yelling about the period he was on the show. He would have stolen the evening.
I'll bet a lot of the folks who've written for this program weren't amused at the joke about not devoting any time to the writers. The inattention to them was really a slap in the puss.
Some of the clip packages remind you how highly SNL has always valued catch phrases. To some extent, the measure of a cast member is how many they manage to accumulate.
I kept waiting for them to bring Jon Lovitz out as his liar character and introduce himself as Brian Williams. But Seinfeld got to do the Brian Williams joke.
Some odd picks as to who got camera time and who didn't. There are folks who did 5+ seasons who got less attention than Jerry Seinfeld, Betty White, Louis C.K. and a dozen other stars who haven't been a particularly important part of the show.
I actually kept thinking about this: They reportedly invited everyone who was ever a cast member to be in the audience. For some, that was an invite to spend their own money for travel and lodging, plus expenses for dressing up and grooming, to sit in the back, be mostly ignored and maybe experience the awkwardness of being asked, "So, what are you doing these days?" Some of them had to be sitting there during the obit reel thinking, "I would have gotten mentioned if I'd died." (Which reminds me: Uh, Jim Henson?)
A friend of mine who was a regular on Laugh-In once told me (Oh, hell, I'll tell you who it was. It was Larry Hovis.) that those reunions were uncomfortable in the same way high school reunions can be uncomfy but ten times as much. Once upon a time, you were all more or less equal and making the same money. Now, one of you is getting a million bucks a movie and one of you is auditioning for laxative commercials.
Careers in show business can be capricious things having a lot to do with management and timing and factors that have little to do with how good you are. After Larry was off Laugh-In and Hogan's Heroes, he actually made a very good living for himself as a producer and writer and was in many ways happier…but he said there were folks who treated him like he was a derelict because he was no longer on a series. That must be the case with many former cast members of SNL. I'm sure some didn't show up for the special because they didn't want to subject themselves to an evening that made it clear the show didn't rate them as worthy of a mention, especially if they did their best work during the years Lorne Michaels wasn't in charge.
I understand why the special did that. Show Business does involve a kind of Natural Selection. When those folks were on SNL, they had to battle for screen time against peers who seemed to be eclipsing them in heat, if not in talent.
Still, I just have to wonder. Some former cast members weren't there because they're working. (Hey, did you know Tim Kazurinsky is playing The Wizard in the national touring company of Wicked that's still at the Pantages in Hollywood?) I wonder how many who weren't there weren't there because they're actively employed or happily retired…and how many weren't there because they didn't need the reminder that they're no longer a part of the most important comedy show ever on television?