That Week In SNL (A Vintage Saturday Night Live Podcast)

(Originally posted on Patreon on February 26, 2024) Oh boy. It's been awhile since we've gone to the New Show well. And hey look! It's just as dry as it usually is! That's why we've brought in Eddie Ham and Mattalamode to help us wrangle something, anything, out of this one. And wrangle we did. Join us as we slowly get more and more unmoored from reality, defending pieces that don't deserve defending and just generally losing our minds.

After crashing out a little bit with the January Jones episode, we thought we'd return to this era for a slightly better outing, this time hosted by Steve Buscemi! Who doesn't love Steve? No one, that's who. And if you don't like Steve Buscemi, keep that to yourself, ya weirdo. So what do we got on deck for this one? Well, we've got a fairly well remembered sketch with Coach Bert, a cameo from Maya Rudolph as Whitney Houston, some fun debuts, some last iterations of a few sketches and The Black Keys playing some songs you may remember and have very little opinion on. Friends, it looks like we got ourselves an episode of SNL.

Gather round, Mad-Mennies because this week, we've got a doozy for ya. For better or worse, the Wiig/Hader/Samberg era was generally consistent enough that it really doesn't have too many notable infamous episodes but this...this sucker right here is definitely one of them. It's a deadly combo at play: a host who simply isn't cut out for the live sketch comedy game, a musical guest at the peak of their obnoxiousness giving three performances and only one single cast member who seems hell bent on carrying the night to the finish line. There's brief moments of glory contained within, sure, but not only do we get another banger SNL Fart Sketch but also What If Gay and other questionable material! SNL. You've done it again.

We return again to the birth of the show's second golden age! This time hosted by a then 16 year old Malcolm-Jamal Warner, with musical guests Run-DMC and a special cameo by Spike Lee in character as Mars Blackmon from She's Gotta Have It...well, it's all a little interesting when you consider the show doesn't really have a single black person in the cast or in the writing room at the moment. Sam Kinison is there too, screamin' and hollerin'. Buster Poindexter is there too and he's, you guessed it, screamin' and hollerin'. We've also got censored jokes, important debuts, one of Dennis Miller's worst jokes yet and crack!

(Originally posted on Patreon on Oct. 16, 2023) What happens when you mix an iconic singing duo from Japan with minimal knowledge of the English language with a comedian of dubious quality and wrap it all up in a dying variety show format? You get Pink Lady! Or...is it Pink Lady and Jeff? Even the show itself doesn't know what to call this glorious mess. We dig into the history of this infamous disaster and cover it's fifth, and last, episode to air on NBC.

(Originally posted on Patreon on September 8th, 2023) We're finally closing up shop on The Richard Pryor Show by looking at the three sketches that were produced but never aired and a smattering of stuff that was written but never produced!

(Originally posted on Patreon on August 11, 2023) On one hand, The Edge is just another semi-forgotten 90s sketch show of little renown. On the other, it's one of the most insane assemblage of talent in front of the camera and behind that the fact that it failed is kinda shocking. This week, we dig up as much history on this bizarre little show show as we can possibly could and dissect it's final episode: a best-of special that is both decidedly not the best of the show and also, at least in the copy that we have, unfinished.