Episodes
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Sometimes you get towards the end of a season, you're getting tired and you just say "screw it" and hit the big red button labeled John Goodman. It's the eighth time hosting for the beloved character actor and this go-around gives us a chance to finally cover a perennial SNL favorite that has somehow alluded this podcast: Celebrity Jeopardy. Elsewhere, it's a pretty typical slice of this era: some real diffie takes on current events, recurring sketches aplenty (featuring the debut of Collette Reardon), a Mike Myers cameo and so on and so forth. Grab a glass of your favorite vintage of Will Ferrell vomit and enjoy.
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Pass the podcast 'pon the left hand side, ammirite? Ha ha ha. We have fun. And speaking of fun, here's a wild one from the Ebersol years. Joan Rivers! Y'all know her. Comedienne extraordinaire, red carpet correspondent and world class Liz Taylor hater. She's here to host one of the loudest episodes of the show's history, complete with one of the show's most strangely under-seen moments of joyfully coming off the rails. And then there's poor Musical Youth, exhaustedly performing their early 80s hits late in the night's proceedings. It's a bit of a mess and Update...ooh boy, Update. Are the bits of shocking racism and Joan River's bursting-at-the-seams energy enough to sink Timmy's ship or will the gleeful madness save him in the nick of time? Tune in to find out.
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Missing episodes?
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It's another historical outing for the show, with the first political figure to ever host the show: Ron Nessen, Press Secretary for Gerald Ford! What better way for Ford to gain some momentum in the upcoming election against Jimmy Carter then make it seem like he's in on all the fun going on down at SNL? Just have Ron host the show, Ford can make a few pre-taped appearances, everything will be fine! Except it wasn't. Arriving late in the week, Ron didn't quite realize that the show had quietly written it's raunchiest outing to date, but with no time to do anything about it, well...the show must go on. In the end, Ron and Ford were made to look quite the fools indeed. But what about the show? Well, it lands an early classic (Super Bass-O-Matic), exposes America to some early punk with Patti Smith and keeps it's counter-culture image intact by making a fool of the president. Not bad for a show that was still trying to figure out just what the hell it was.
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I've been meaning to get around to this one forever and so, by god by Gumby, we finally did it. William Ham returns to fold to discuss an episode that I firmly believe might be the most underrated of the entire OG era. Few outings of the show crackle with as much southern chaos as this one and that's not entirely surprising considering, ya know, Gary, a host the show gives way to so completely that he's actually doing a double duty stint here (with Rick Danko & Paul Butterfield in tow). And then you got Eubie Blake and Gregory Hines as well? Man, this one is a fun one. So pull up a chair, fellow slop jockeys, and join us as we try to figure out just what the Hot Bone is.
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The night before the very first Wrestlemania, Mr. T and Hulk Hogan drop by to host the show together...except they mostly don't. It was supposed to be Steve Landesberg but he had to drop out for reasons. I guess? He's still a special guest though, as well as Liberace, Bob Orton Jr. and Rowdy Roddy Piper. I know I say this a lot, but this is an ODD one. It's basically a host-less episode, one of the rare episodes with no Update and the best moments of the show coming from places you would least expect them. And you get The Commodores post Lionel Richie, which is sadly, not great.
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Here's a bit of an oddity selected for us by one of our Patrons. Mostly known these days for having a surprise appearance of Barbra Streisand in Coffee Talk (which already has a sketch-long cameo performance from Madonna), there's also the fascinating and far less talked about case of the Red Hot Chili Peppers basically imploding live on stage, with John Frusciante going completely rogue from the band. And you've also got Roseanne, who's, uh...a lot less fun personality these days than here in 1992. Tom Arnold is there too, i suppose. The whole thing is just a strange gumbo. There's a lot of narratively focused sketches that work out both for the better and for the worse, the tricky balance of having two hosts, and just a strange vibe overall.
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By special request, we're heading back to S38 to cover Christoph's only hosting gig to date. Why this one in particular? I dunno. Mattalamode really wanted us to do it so...here we are! And it's certainly an episode, that much is true. Join us as we discuss a surprisingly stellar cold open, a memorable pre-tape, whether or not Christoph is a decent host and oh! The Alabama Shakes! They're a really good band. And speaking of music, we also get to hear some of the modern SNL band playing during commercial break so that's fun. Timmy might not agree but I certainly think so.
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This week, we've got what is quietly one of the most important episodes of SNL ever. Not only do we get Ralph Nader, who would go on to cameo on the show up until 2000, but it's also the debut of one Mr. Bill Murray on the cast side of things, Jim Downey on the writing side of things and the very first appearance of both the Coneheads AND Rhoda Weiss. Even Andy Kaufman gets in one of his most celebrated bits. It's a big one. Join us as we dig in.
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It's the first episode of 2025 and we're kicking it off in style with two of America's most beloved performers still to this day: DAG and Snoop Dogg. It's the first time going back to S22 in quite some time for us and we've landed on a pretty fascinating one. Can the show correctly navigate yet another Jesse Jackson sketch? What does Snoop Dogg have in store for his first album in three years, sans Dr. Dre? Where the hell did that ten-to-one come from? These are only some of the questions we attempt to hash out in this Hugh Fink dominated episode.
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Our old pal Jon Schneider is back once again to discuss one of the most integral episodes of the first season: it's Christmas episode. Not only is it the first time a host would return to the show but it manages to include a number of iconic moments while somehow also managing to seem incredibly loose and nearly incomplete at times. But that's just the magic of S1 SNL. Lots of weirdness abounds: live Polaroid commercials, Mel's Char Palace...done three times with almost no change, the fastest the show would ever get to a musical guest that wasn't pulling double duty, and, most importantly, Maggie Kuhn.
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Hey, look. It's that guy. The guy from Party of Five and Lost. Good ol' what's his face. He's hosting SNL! Join us as we explore a surprisingly grim outing of the show (Car Bombs! The Michael Richards Incident!) and take in some super fun Tenacious D performances just as it's become infinitely less fun to think about Tenacious D!
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It's the first of Buck's two hosting gigs in S5 (his 9th overall) and he's here to get this season back on track after a shaky start. We've got some real interesting ones in here, including Yvonne Hudson's first big sketch (Bad Clams), a rather notorious epic (The Mystery of Toad Island) and one of the naughtier outings of the Nerds we've seen yet. Oh, and Tom Petty is here to play some pretty undeniable classics. Dig it!
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From the iconic to the absolute depths of comedic hell, the Betty Thomas episode has it all. We've got an episode long runner, one of Eddie Murphy's most famous and iconic sketches, a whole lot of Jim Belushi trying to establish himself on the show and one of the most problematic sketches we've seen in quite some time. Oh, and one of us watched the live version and the other watched the rerun and thus, chaos ensues.
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Ah, yes. Another infamous outing from a rather infamous season. We return to S30 to explore what is probably it's most notable episode and sadly, it's notoriety has nothing to do with the comedy or the host or anything like that. It's all about Ashlee Simpson and her second (botched) musical performance. But there's still an episode that happens on either side of that. Kinda. Mostly, it's Oops! All Cold Opens! Uh oh!
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Eddie Ham and Mattalamode join us for another odd little outing of the show. A still mostly unknown Fred Willard hosts one of the mellower episodes of the original era, with Devo, still at their most abrasive, making their national television debut. It's slice of life heavy, including the debut of Don Novello's Mall sketches, while also being incredibly broad, with the official debut of Bill Murray's Honker character and a big, physical sketch for John Belushi. Does it work? Tune in to find out!
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WE'RE BACK AT IT ONCE AGAIN, kicking off the premiere of the eighth season of the podcast with the episode that began one of SNL's more successful and celebrated transitional years. We've got some late period bangers from Bill Hader, some late period slop from Fred Armisen, attempts at capitalizing on the summertime explosions of Gangnam Style and Honey Boo Boo and, at the center of it all, the rather divisive figure that is Seth MacFarlane.
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Our long preamble journey is finally over; it's time to finally dig into The Richard Pryor Show proper and my lord, does this show come out swinging. We discuss the events the transpired over the summer between Richard's TV special in May and the debut of the show, attempt (and fail) to uncover the mystery of Al Alen Peterson, and generally marvel at how this damn thing even ended up on air.
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As a companion piece to both last month's Richard Pryor special and last week's S5 coverage, we're digging into Chevy's first special for NBC. Basically the first thing of note that he did after leaving SNL, this one contains some interesting correlations to his earlier Groove Tube/Radio Hour days but the question remains: is it funny?
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It's the last stop before we get to the Richard Pryor Show: Richard's NBC special that precedes the show by just a few months! It's a cameo-filled journey through the back stages of NBC and beyond, including an earth shattering performance by Maya Angelou and the first televised appearance of Sandra Bernhard!
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