MetaChat - Humor from the Vault

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29 May 2008

Humor from the Vault We're watching the first season of SNL. Wow.

In the first episode: America, Show Us Your Guns! →[More:]

George Carlin on whether dashboard Jesuses are blasphemic: "It's okay. Jesus has a statue of a middle-aged American hypocrite on his dashboard."

The realization that they apparently started doing the fake commercials because they didn't have any real commercials. IN the first episode, the "Tripe-Track Razor Blade," which goes into a lengthy explanation of how the razor works, winding up with "because you'll believe anything."

Jerry Rubin, himself, doing an infomercial for "Up Against the Wallpaper," which looks like brick but is emblazoned with radical slogans, to bring back that Berkeley '68 feeling.

Tons of music - the 2nd show features a Simon & Garfunkel reunion, a Garfunkel solo, Simon doing "Loves Me Like a Rock" with the Jesse Dixon Singers, Randy Newman doing "Sail Away," and Pheobe Snow on a Billie Holiday number -- plus all the comedy.

Oddly, a regular Jim Henson's Muppets feature called "Dregs and Vestiges."

Anyway - recommended.

post by: Miko at: 22:03 | 11 comments

Ack! More Inside! More Inside! So sorry!

Must've been the contact high.

posted by Miko 29 May | 22:04

Oh yes... that first season set took me back to 8th grade, when we could not BELIEVE something like that was being shown on TV. (Not that we got references liek Jerry Rubin and such, but it was just so... NOT what we were used to on TV.) My parents let us watch at first, then later we had to kind of sneak around them. Heh.

I wish they weren't so pricey. I think the third season just came out.

posted by BoringPostcards 29 May | 22:07

thanks mods!

posted by Miko 29 May | 22:13

This made me laugh harder than anything else I've ever seen on American TV.

Of course, I was up much later than usual and somewhat... altered when I first saw it. Still, I stand by that statement.

posted by bmarkey 29 May | 22:21

...and I just now had my mind blown by realizing that the entire Outkast dance and costume style that they were rocking was a total visual reference to this guy Shabba Doo and his dance group The Lockers - featuring ReRun.

posted by Miko 29 May | 22:47

Steve Martin's reminisces as told in his autobiography.

(at least I hope I got the right chapters. . if I didn't, it's interesting anyway. The SNL stuff starts about 2/3 of the way through the first one.

posted by danf 30 May | 09:46

The first episode of SNL was also where Carlin did his classic bit about oxymorons (though he didn't refer to them as such) "JUMBO shrimp... those two words just don't belong together... like Military Intelligence." I (and maybe a million others) started collecting Oxymorons after that. My first big web project was an Oxymoron 'site' (hosted at Tripod) with 2000+ oxys for the year 2000. OXY2K. Hey, it's still there, complete with eye-killing black-and-white formatting. Anyway, I blame George Carlin and SNL for that.

posted by wendell 30 May | 11:59

WARNING: OVER 310 KB FILEWARNING: OVER 310 KB FILE

Ha!

posted by muddgirl 30 May | 12:06

Muddgirl: I laughed at the same thing- OMG a 310K file!!!1

You bandwidth whore!

posted by Doohickie 31 May | 10:21

bmarkey, while the Bassamatic 76 is certainly classic, manic, and an all-time best, my favorite was Little Chocolate Donuts: The Donuts of Champions! For those of you who have no idea why this is funny, it might help to understand what they were satirizing.

posted by Doohickie 31 May | 10:28

What I love about early SNL:

1. They put everything in it, like a mad soup! Five songs by 3 artists - NO PROBLEM!

2. Muppets? - Sure! Here's ten minutes of Muppet airtime!

3. Three stand-up monologues - why the hell not?

4. Plus all the skits? - We'll work 'em in somehow!

I mean, compared to the thin shark that SNL is now, where you know EXACTLY when each segment comes on, how many commercials will be shown in a "90-minute" show, etc.

Hell, the Lily Tomlin episode, she does 3 monologues!

I mean, granted, most of this largesse must be due to the lack of writing available for a new show of this kind, but DAMN. The sheer length of everything is wonderful - how they assumed the audience at home would sit still enough to watch it all and enjoy it.

I felt like I was being spoiled. It's great.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 31 May | 12:32

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