DVD Review HTF DVD REVIEW: Saturday Night Live: The Complete Fourth Season (1 Viewer)

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON


Studio: Universal
Original Broadcast: 1978-1979
Length: Approximately 22 hours 33 mins (Each ep roughly 1 hour 8 mins)
Genre: Sketch Comedy

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Full Frame
Color/B&W: Color

Audio:
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono


Subtitles: None (an English SDH track is listed, but, like the 2nd Season, I couldn’t find it!)
Rating: Unrated (Some adult humor, even by today’s standards!)






Release Date: December 2, 2008

Rating:

shhhhh it's a spoiler

Sorry, Paul. I'll go back into it again.

The problem is that my review is formatted based on the normal appearance of the site - with black text, and the Dark Knight promotion changes the body badkground to black. I had set it to white for the interim, but that appears to have gone off somehow. I'll reset it. And when the promo period is done, I'll reset it again. Honestly not trying to make it a challenge to read the review. I prefer to challenge you in what you read, not in how you read...

I appologize sincerely, I wasn't trying to be an asshole. I thought I was being funny, I could tell what happened, I know it wasnt your fault, I wasnt mocking your skills just making light of they way things worked out with the dark knight promo. It is actually a very informative review of another great SNL set (except those missing bumpers lol)

Kevin,

Thanks for the great review. I just finished watching season four this weekend and I have to agree with you. The fourth season was starting to show a bit of mileage. While not as solid a season as seasons two and three, season four still had many, many great moments for me. I kind of have a soft spot for seasons four and five as those were the seasons where my mother considered me 'old enough' to finally be able to watch the show. She almost put that to an end when she stayed up one Saturday Night and happened to cacth the Bad News Bees sketch. However, the damage (or so she believed) was all ready done. Besides, what she didn't know was that my older brother had been watching the show since it began and everytime I was over at his place on Saturday Nights, we watched the show. So, I had pretty much been introduced to the show a year or so before I actually started to watch it on a regular basis.

I'm anxious for season five to be released even though I kow the show will not be the same without Belushi and Aykroyd. While I was never a big fan of Belushi, I do happen to really like Aykroyd but I know that I will miss them both terribly when I finally get to see the fifth season again. At the time, I really didn't pay much attention to their departure. Now, having seen the show from the beginning I know that season five is going to be a spotty season at best. But I still want to get it. Plus it wil be my very last full season purchase of Saturday Night Live. I'm hanging it up with the purchase of season five.

Once again, great review. Pretty much summed up how I felt when I finished watching the season myself.

Wow. With the thoroughness of this review, I'm surprised you didn't mention this was the first season the cast was no longer referred to as the "not ready for prime time players."

Overall, I agree with the main point that the fourth season is a step back from the third, but there are several episodes that are remarkably solid top to bottom, particularly the Eric Idle, the first Michael Palin, and the Richard Benjamin shows. There hasn't always been filler after 12:30.

But man, is NBC Universal missing the boat with the lack of extras. Such a shame.

I hadn't even noticed the dropping of the "not ready for prime time players". I just noticed that the opening portrait shots were finally put in play this season, and that the show's opening was the same throughout the year.

I still enjoy the show's cold opening ending with Mr. Bill squealing "IT'S SATURDAY NOOOO!!!" followed by Jane Curtin throwing a fit in the control room about how she never gets to say it, but they gave the line to Mr. Bill!

I guess there was never a musical guest on the Walter Mathau episode. The 5th year (final year with original cast) of SNL kind of reminds me of the last year of SCTV (Cinemax) in that everybody already has their foot out the door and don't seem to care very much and there is little or no attempt to replace departing cast members. Comparing the original SNL to the current SNL is nuts. Is anybody going to be talking about this cast in 30 years? Is anybody talking about them now?

The only musical guest of a sort on the Matthau ep was Garrett Morris and his excellent performance of the Mozart piece. (Based on what I saw in the ep, I think that this was at Matthau's request, and that it shows the major talent in Morris that SNL rarely utilized.)

I dunno, Garrett got to sing quite a bit over the years. He did opera a few times; and keep in mind that he was the lead singer in the season 4 opener. Was he underutilized on the show in general? Probably; but he also came into the show as a writer, couldn't cut it, and wound up as a cast member as a sort of consolation prize because Lorne was loathe to firing him (and they did need a token black anyway). Garrett wasn't very political behind the scenes, which is why he never stood out as a performer. He just wouldn't push himself into getting better parts or recurring characters. Plus he had a bitter drug problem which alienated him even further from the writers and others who could help him. (Almost everyone on the show was on drugs, but boy, that Garrett was probably the most fried of all of them, even Belushi).

The comparison between SNL fifth season and SCTV Channel is a very good one. I would argue that SCTV was lucky enough to retain three "essential" cast members (sorry, Andrea Martin) and SNL was only lucky enough to retain two (although Jane Curtin stepped it up that final year).

Also, tens of millions of people were watching SNL in that fifth season. I think about ten people saw SCTV Channel.

Ethan, you're correct that Morris did get to sing here and there on the show (about one to three times a season, from what I saw), and that he likely could have done much more had he pushed it more. But I still regret that his singing talent saw so little use either on SNL or elsewhere, and that there were too many times where Morris was solely used to do a bit in drag. But in honesty, SNL has never been that much of a showcase for opera. At least not GOOD opera...

I honestly think the only reason NBC ever picked up SCTV and stuck it on at 2:00 A.M. was they didn't want CBS or ABC picking it up and putting it up against the early 80's version of SNL. SCTV had a small audience, but an intelligent one. They were the Velvet Underground and Ramones of Comedy, while SNL were the Rolling Stones. Neither the Stones or SNL knew when to call it quits.

Just went back into the review and restored the font colors, now that the Batman has gone...