SNL Season 2 (1 Viewer)

[chas speed]

I was thinking a cool bonus to stick on one of these sets would be that weird John Belushi Godzilla special. I think it aired in prime time around 1977. Does anybody remember it?

 

[SilverWook]

Actually, it was Belushi hosting the NBC showing of Godzilla Vs. Megalon while wearing a Godzilla costume.
I remembered it the first time I saw the MST3K version of the movie.

 

[chas speed]

I know, but I don't think NBC would have shown an old Godzilla movie if Belushi hadn't hosted it. I'm guessing it was probably produced by the SNL production company, but I'm no sure.

 

[Kevin EK]

Well, in the Broderick Crawford episode, we get to see Baba Wawa interview Belushi's Godzilla, including a demonstration of how he walks around Tokyo.

And in the Jack Burns episode, you get one of the best Coneheads sketches, which features one of the only times I have ever seen both Belushi and Radner completely lose their composure during a sketch.

 

[Brian Himes]

I'd love to see the sales figures for these sets. Obviously there were enough sales of season 1 to get us season 2. However, as well all know, many series on DVD tend to have sales drop offs after the first season. I just hope that there is enough sales to get us to seasons 3-5. I'm just kind of worried that we may get the first three seasons and then nothing more. If we do get the first five seasons, I think that season 6 is really going to be a hard sell. Everyone considers that to be a really bad season.

Maybe all of this speculation is for nothing. Maybe SNL has almost as large a fan base as say Star Trek, who are just as loyal and will keep the sales up enough to get more than just three or four seasons.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Well I'm pretty sure we'll see at least the first five (classic) seasons, then on to better times in the 80s and 90s...

 

[Kevin EK]

I personally think that this current set, along with the hopefully coming 3rd and 4th seasons are pretty much the high point of the show.

Once Belushi and Ayckroyd left in 79, the wind really started to come out of the sails. There's still a few good things in the 5th season, but not nearly at the level of what had been going on for the prior 4 years.

I agree that the 6th season by itself would be a really hard sell. It would also be a really small set, since the season was stopped by the strike at that time, in addition to the firing of the new Exec Producer. I think a better plan would be to release the 6th and 7th seasons together as a package deal - basically getting the consumer to put up with the really bad eps of SNL '80 in order to see the breakout of Eddie Murphy, which starts during the worst of the 1980 season but then picks up a lot of steam until the 81 season where Ebersol basically focused the show on him and Piscopo.

On the other hand, they could always release up to the 5th season and then skip ahead to the 12th season when Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and the others joined. But there would be plenty of people wanting to see the Eddie Murphy years, and plenty of others who want to see the full 84-85 All Star year with Billy Crystal, Martin Short and Christopher Guest...

 

[chas speed]

I agree with you on the 5th season. It was like everybody couldn't wait to get out of there and making Harry Shearer wait 2 months into the season before replacing both Belushi and Ackroyd was insane.

 

[Jon Martin]

I'd also like to see as an extra "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video", originally shot as a TV special, to play in the SNL timeslot (but the censors didn't allow it so it got a theatrical release), it is Michael O'Donoghue (along with cameos by most of the SNL cast) in a very odd and very funny mondo style movie.

Broadway Video still owns it, it was very briefly released to VHS in the 80's. It is long out of print though

 

[streeter]

I loved Mr. Mike's Mondo Video and hope it will make it to DVD sometime. There was also another special, I believe between the 3rd and 4th season, called "Things We Did Last Summer". It consisted of segments that explained what the cast members did over the summer. Bill Murray became a baseball player, Aykroyd and Belushi toured as the Blues Brothers, and Gilda Radner gave tours of her home. I don't remember what the others did, but the program was available on VHS in the 80s.

By the way, am I still the only one who did not get a scrapbook with the season 2 set??

 

[Brian Himes]

Of course it will all depend on sales. I suspect that if season 4 sales are strong enough, we will get season 5.

As for season 6...well...again if sales for season 5 are strong they just might chance season 6. After season 6 I'm sure there would be a big drop off in sales. That could even happen after the release of season 5.

I remember watching season 5 when it originally aired. So I have fond memories of season 5 but yeah, without Aykroyd and Belushi it lost some of its steam. I was never a big fan of Belushi, but I do love Aykroyd. During season 2-4 it's pretty hard for me to choose between Murray and Aykroyd. They both were really good. Nothing against Belushi, I just never paid much attention to him.

Either way, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with these sets. For me personally, season 5 will be the last set that I'm going to get. I'm not interested in the rest of the series.

I watched it off an on throughout the 80s but I never really got over the loss of the original cast. The other casts just seemed to lack something. For me, after the original cast left the show really lost something and never recovered. That's just my opinion.

 

[Corey3rd]

If season 5 sells well - you shall see them skip season 6 and probably go to one the better seasons with Eddie Murphy & Crew. Or a Sandler season.

 

[Gary Seven]

Having watched the first episode last night, this set is identical in structure to the first season... only one bumper before the credits. Other than that they seem intact. While I would have liked the episodes exactly as aired, this is not a show stopper for me and find it to be a great set so far.

 

[bjdwsm]

I noticed in the first set there were a few audience shots cut out as well in the really early episodes (including a particularly unamused older woman being captioned as a roadie for Vanilla Fudge). I was watching my live broadcast recording of Reiner and there's also a Pardo voiceover after Droolers that's taken out (I don't know if that was in the rerun or an edit made to the disc- he mentions that "The Don Pardo Show" will continue after the filmed message, and Droolers originally aired right before a commercial parody). By the later shows in the set though, they were leaving more audience shots in though and overall the shows were more or less intact and from live recordings. Looks like the trend's continuing with the second set according to what I've seen here.

 

[Corey3rd]

after what happened with MST3K and Godzilla Vs. Megalon, I don't think anyone wants to touch that film.

 

[David Rain]

I hate that the bumpers are cut yet again Apparantly they didn't learn their lesson last time but it's not a deal-breaker for me by any means.

I'm not overly interested to get the 5th season as I've seen most of those eps and they're inconsistent at best despite the ladies having more to do. Perhaps a "Best Of" might suffice for the 6th season (80-81) focusing mostly on Eddie & Joe. Or the season set being double-pumped at the same time with the 5th or 7th season.

If the 6th season does indeed get released I can't imagine them going to the trouble and expense of clearing all the music for a season that can't possibly do as well as the others. Even casual SNL fans know that 80-81 was a lackluster season.

 

[bjdwsm]

The music was often the highlight of the 1980-81 eps, though.

 

[chas speed]

I agree. The only reason to release the 6th season would be for the music. Prince was a musical guest that season (I think). I would really be more interested in seeing the 6th season then the 5th season. I thought the 5th season was dull, but the 6th season was an amazing train wreck.

 

[Andrew Radke]

I agree. The highlight of season 6 would definitely be the music. That season contained performances by Prince (as previously mentioned), Linda Ronstadt, Cheap Trick, Delbert McClinton, Jimmy Cliff, James Brown and Aretha Franklin to name a few.

 

[AnthonyC]

Season 6 is only 13(?) episodes I believe...so it would probably have a reduced price and there would be less music to be negotiated. It'd make for a perfect 'test' release to see how the less popular years would sell.

I'll buy every full season release (how awesome would it be to have every episode of America's greatest comedy institution on your shelf?) but the ones I really want are the late 80s (my personal favorite era) and the early 90s (where most of my top musical guests would come from).