Saturday Night Live season 6. Will it be released? (1 Viewer)

[Executive]

 

Fortunately, the next year you had people like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (and future husband Brad Hall) joining Murphy and Joe Piscopo, who were among the few survivors of the sixth season.

 

Julia & Brad didn't join SNL until the 8th Season. She and Mary Gross also got to stay with the show one year longer than Brad did.

 

I too as a longtime fan of this show would love to see the 6th Season again, despite the frequently bad sketches. However, when Lorne Michaels' former Associate Producer Jean Doumanian was picked by NBC (much to a lot of people's dismay) to be Executive Producer of the 1980-1981 season (a.k.a. Season 6) of SNL it wasn't all bad. The late Charles Rocket was wonderful as the Weekend Update news anchor and host of the pre-filmed "Rocket Report". Originally he co-anchored Update with regular Gail Matthius, until Rocket got to do it solo.

 

That January Eddie Murphy was promoted from featured player (which he has been since the season began) to full-fledged cast member. Jean made that decision after giving him the chance to do his stand-up to fill time the week before. Eddie first did "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" during that period.

 

Then in February when Bill Murray came back to host the week after Rocket got in trouble for using profanity at the end of Charlene Tilton's show, in Bill's cold opening "pep talk" to the new cast he jokingly told Charles to watch his mouth....and that he didn't like being imitated!

 

That was also the season to feature such musical guests as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Delbert McClinton, and even Debbie Harry (during a temporary hiatus from working with Blondie, she was also one of the worst hosts ever......but both of her songs were great).

 

It should be noted that the Writer's Guild went on strike early in 1981. That caused a lot of shows' seasons to be cut short. As if Doumanian's bad ratings weren't enough, she was fired by Brandon Tartikoff after 12 episodes. There was one more before the strike though, and the 13th and last show of the 6th Season was hosted by ex-SNL regular Chevy Chase, back for the third time since he left the show in November 1976. Chevy appeared in the opening with props from the original SNL including the Coneheads and he even got to anchor Weekend Update with his old set. That helped to reconnect with the first Michaels era. He did not do a monolog, however, which is probably why Chevy isn't credited as Host for that show.

 

That episode was when Dick Ebersol came back as well, only as Executive Producer his second time around. It was in April 1981 -- actually two months after Jean's last show, and once again the writing was funny and on target. Murphy & Piscopo were made the center of attention from that point on. It featured the debut appearances of Tim Kazurinsky, Robin Duke, and Mary Gross, but still had leftover performers from Jean's cast Gail Matthius, Denny Dillon, and Gilbert Gottfried -- all of whom were fired before the 7th Season started. The Writers' Strike gave Ebersol extra time to rebuild the sets in Studio 8-H before returning in the fall.

 

[Jakerman1988]

Murray actually hosted March 7th. If you watched the goodnights segment on that episode, look closely as Bill Murray shakes ONLY Eddie's hand and avoids contact with all the the other cast members. As the credits rolled, he apologized to his old castmates by saying "I'm sorry for what I've done". Also Patrick Weathers can be seen with everyone onstage, though he left two episdoes ago. Another talented erson on the show that season was writer/uncredited bit player Mitchell Kriegman, who had made a number of amusing short films for the show unyil his depature after the season's fifth episode.

 

[Executive]

Yes, it was March 7, 1981. Bill was just kidding at the end for saying he was sorry what he did. He couldn't even remember all of his former cast members' names (that was part of the joke).


Patrick Weathers didn't make much of an impact from what I remember of him from watching the reruns. He was less effective than Yvonne Hudson, who often played Eddie's girlfriend or neighbor.

That was also the season where Bill's brother Brian Doyle-Murray was getting more to do than in the previous year when Bill was still a regular.


Brian himself became a regular in the 7th year, during which he was co-anchor with Mary Gross of the retitled "SNL Newsbreak".

 

[Jakerman1988]

Unfortunately, I heard that NBC Universal will not be releasing the rest of the seasons for a while because of music rights to the musical performances. I heard that's they're still releasing the "Best of" volumes for the time being.

 

[goteam007]

This isn't really DVD news, but apparently Netflix is streaming every episode of SNL now.

 

[Bryan^H]

Originally Posted by goteam007

This isn't really DVD news, but apparently Netflix is streaming every episode of SNL now.

I've been watching seasons 6, and 7. It is good to see the bulk of the episodes again, but they are HEAVILY EDITED! Some eps clock in at around 30 minutes meaning there is practically 50 minutes missing. Music acts are also absent on the majority of the episodes. Still hoping for an official uncut dvd set of season 6.

 

[David Bixenspan]

Originally Posted by Bryan^H

This isn't really DVD news, but apparently Netflix is streaming every episode of SNL now.

I've been watching seasons 6, and 7. It is good to see the bulk of the episodes again, but they are HEAVILY EDITED! Some eps clock in at around 30 minutes meaning there is practically 50 minutes missing. Music acts are also absent on the majority of the episodes. Still hoping for an official uncut dvd set of season 6.

[/QUOTE]
The editing is really maddening (especially since, as far as I know, there's been no explanation provided and some all-time classic sketches and moments are gone). At least we got what's there (Nude Beach! Charles Rocket getting everyone fired!), but I'm annoyed by the lack of stuff like "The Crosby Show" and Fernando's Hideaway w/ Hulk Hogan and Mr. T.


Which post-S5 (since S1-S5 are using the complete versions, presumably because the DVDs made licensing easier) episodes have the musical guests?

 

[Bryan^H]

Originally Posted by David Bixenspan



Which post-S5 (since S1-S5 are using the complete versions, presumably because the DVDs made licensing easier) episodes have the musical guests?

I haven't been watching the season 6, and 7 episodes in order(as I have no real desire to watch them in the severely lacking form all the way through).

From the handful of episodes I have seen, James Brown, and a Broadway musical guest Rex Smith in 1980. I have probably watched a total of 8 of the butchered episodes from the 2 seasons.


I did a little research on Charles Rocket(wanted to find out who this guy was) and was sad to see that he committed suicide in 2005. He had quite an extensive acting career after the 80' season of SNL.

 

[Stephen Wight]

Too bad the minions at Broadway Video had to make up a bogus reason why there won't be any more season sets released,instead of telling us the truth. But,then again, I never expected them to. They're not going to say,something like, "We're not releasing any more season sets because Eddie Murphy emerged as a huge star during a time period when Lorne was no longer producer of the show. And because Lorne's ego can't handle this, he doesn't want any of those seasons released".

 

[David Rain]

What's with the paranoid conspiracy theories ? No one at SNL or Broadway Video is secretly plotting against the unwitting consumer. If they say that future season sets are being discontinued because of expensive music rights then that might actually the the reason why. Imagine that. SNL seasons contain a lot of music. That means a lot of trouble and a lot of expense to clear those songs, even if it's possible to clear all of them.


It's called reality, folks. Some of you should look into it.

 

[Stephen Wight]

Paranoid conspiracy theories? Not really. Anybody worth their SNL salt knows that Lorne has a thing against season 6 - 10 of SNL,and wants to bury those seasons as much as possbile. I'm well aware there's a lot of music on SNL, and that it's expensive to clear, but how did they go from "Surprisingly,getting the music cleared was easier and cheaper than we had originally thought" for the first five seasons to "The cost of the music is too high to clear" for season 6, especially when that season had seven less episdes than the earlier seaons,and thus a lot less music?

 

[David Bixenspan]

If it's Lorne's ego, then why didn't they just jump to Season 11 or 12?

 

[Stephen Wight]

I don't know. Season 11 was Lorne's first season,returning,as producer,and one of the cast members was Robert Downey Jr,who's currently the bee's knees, with the younger generation,having been in the hit Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes movies.Perhaps,he didn't want to take heat for skipping over seasons.

 

[DeWilson]

Originally Posted by Stephen Wight
"The cost of the music is too high to clear" for season 6,

Simple answer is a change in how NBC handled contracts and future clearances with music guests.


After NBC had a couple of years worth of financial and programing disaster filled seasons in the later 1970's-Early 1980's, they may have made a cost cutting measure by changing contracts for music guests on SNL (and perhaps elsewhere,maybe with the exception of THE TONIGHT SHOW which Johnny got full ownership in 1980). That changed the terms for future use and clearances with less money up front, and more when cleared in the future.

This is always right around the time MIDNIGHT SPECIAL started adding more comedy and music videos.

Regardless of Lorne's feeling for those years (was his "Broadway Video" still the production company?) I don't believe that NBC would let him stand in the way of revenue.

 

[Stephen Wight]

Originally Posted by DeWilson
"The cost of the music is too high to clear" for season 6,

Regardless of Lorne's feeling for those years (was his "Broadway Video" still the production company?) I don't believe that NBC would let him stand in the way of revenue.
[/QUOTE]

I guess it would depend on who releases the season sets. The way I heard it, Boradway Video releases them. If that's true, then Lorne would stand in the way of revenue,as Broadway Video IS Lorne Michaels. Back in the early 90s,a company called Starmaker released a ton of SNL best ofs,and the Broadway Video logo was on all the boxes,including the seasons that Lorne never produced.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by Stephen Wight

Paranoid conspiracy theories? Not really. Anybody worth their SNL salt knows that Lorne has a thing against season 6 - 10 of SNL,and wants to bury those seasons as much as possbile. I'm well aware there's a lot of music on SNL, and that it's expensive to clear, but how did they go from "Surprisingly,getting the music cleared was easier and cheaper than we had originally thought" for the first five seasons to "The cost of the music is too high to clear" for season 6, especially when that season had seven less episdes than the earlier seaons,and thus a lot less music?

Ally McBeal was another show that people said would never see the light of day because of music rights. Few shows made better use of popular music than Ally, and yet--it came out. As for why music clearance is suddenly out of control for SNL 6, it makes no sense to me; sounds like someone's putting a spin on things in lieu of the fact that Lorne Michaels would sooner drop dead than see Season 6 get the royal treatment on dvd. And I don't blame him anyway--I saw every single episode first run and let me tell you--it's a train wreck, and an embarrasing one at that.


As to why we're not skipping along to better days, I can't tell you that either!

 

[Executive]

[COLOR= rgb(0, 0, 0)]Somehow I don't see music clearances for the 6th Season being an issue. How much can Aretha Franklin, host Deborah Harry (who performed 2 songs not on any of her solo album releases), Delbert McClinton, Junior Walker & the All-Stars, Captain Beefheart (!!!), or the estates of James Brown and Frank Zappa charge for that??[/COLOR]


[COLOR= rgb(0, 0, 0)]As for Lorne's 5 years away from his creation, his company Broadway Video has not only released complete episodes of SNL on Starmaker VHS tapes but also Best Of compilations from the Eddie Murphy / Joe Piscopo years on both tapes and DVDs. What's more a lot of Eddie Murphy was featured in the 15th Anniversary special in the fall of 1989....in spite of that fact that Eddie refused to appear live that evening. The producers got former host Mary Tyler Moore (!!) to lead Eddie's actual entourage on stage. Joe Piscopo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and husband Brad Hall, and other Dick Ebersol-era cast members were present that night too.[/COLOR]

 

[David Lambert]

Originally Posted by Jakerman1988

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/articles/holdup.cfm#SNL


And that's what the situation is. There's no block on it because of who was or wasn't in charge during those seasons, or anything like that. Someone mention heavily-edited episodes streaming from NetFlix? That's because what was edited out is what's costing them extra money to include...too much to expect to make it back with DVD sales, given the drop-off in purchases with the latest season set releases. And they don't want to put such heavily-edited versions of each episode onto DVD. So the poster immediately above is correct; there's no conspiracy. NBC-Universal would love to do it, and to my knowledge so would Broadway. Just not in the cards, it seems. Too bad.

 

[David Bixenspan]

So, has anyone figured out what's causing the ridiculous amount of edits on the Netflix versions? Incidental music? Likeness rights somehow? Something else?

 

[Bryan^H]

As much as I hate to say it, I'd be willing to buy all remaining seasons without the musical performances included.

That being said, I'm thrilled to own the complete seasons 1-5 on dvd and expect no more. In a perfect world you can have everything you want, but I'm happy with what I got.


Finished on this thread.