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

It's the first of Buck's two hosting gigs in S5 (his 9th overall) and he's here to get this season back on track after a shaky start. We've got some real interesting ones in here, including Yvonne Hudson's first big sketch (Bad Clams), a rather notorious epic (The Mystery of Toad Island) and one of the naughtier outings of the Nerds we've seen yet. Oh, and Tom Petty is here to play some pretty undeniable classics. Dig it!

From the iconic to the absolute depths of comedic hell, the Betty Thomas episode has it all. We've got an episode long runner, one of Eddie Murphy's most famous and iconic sketches, a whole lot of Jim Belushi trying to establish himself on the show and one of the most problematic sketches we've seen in quite some time. Oh, and one of us watched the live version and the other watched the rerun and thus, chaos ensues. 

Ah, yes. Another infamous outing from a rather infamous season. We return to S30 to explore what is probably it's most notable episode and sadly, it's notoriety has nothing to do with the comedy or the host or anything like that. It's all about Ashlee Simpson and her second (botched) musical performance. But there's still an episode that happens on either side of that. Kinda. Mostly, it's Oops! All Cold Opens! Uh oh!

Eddie Ham and Mattalamode join us for another odd little outing of the show. A still mostly unknown Fred Willard hosts one of the mellower episodes of the original era, with Devo, still at their most abrasive, making their national television debut. It's slice of life heavy, including the debut of Don Novello's Mall sketches, while also being incredibly broad, with the official debut of Bill Murray's Honker character and a big, physical sketch for John Belushi. Does it work? Tune in to find out!    

WE'RE BACK AT IT ONCE AGAIN, kicking off the premiere of the eighth season of the podcast with the episode that began one of SNL's more successful and celebrated transitional years. We've got some late period bangers from Bill Hader, some late period slop from Fred Armisen, attempts at capitalizing on the summertime explosions of Gangnam Style and Honey Boo Boo and, at the center of it all, the rather divisive figure that is Seth MacFarlane.

While the Fonz was out jumping sharks on ABC, Richard Pryor was giving one hell of a bizarre history lesson on NBC. Ancient Japan, Mississippi in the 20s, finding the Book of Life in Egypt. It's all in a days work for a man who keeps another man's head in a bird cage.

Our long preamble journey is finally over; it's time to finally dig into The Richard Pryor Show proper and my lord, does this show come out swinging. We discuss the events the transpired over the summer between Richard's TV special in May and the debut of the show, attempt (and fail) to uncover the mystery of Al Alen Peterson, and generally marvel at how this damn thing even ended up on air. 

As a companion piece to both last month's Richard Pryor special and last week's S5 coverage, we're digging into Chevy's first special for NBC. Basically the first thing of note that he did after leaving SNL, this one contains some interesting correlations to his earlier Groove Tube/Radio Hour days but the question remains: is it funny?  

It's the last stop before we get to the Richard Pryor Show: Richard's NBC special that precedes the show by just a few months! It's a cameo-filled journey through the back stages of NBC and beyond, including an earth shattering performance by Maya Angelou and the first televised appearance of Sandra Bernhard! 

It's that time of year again! Time to check back into MADtv with season four's Christmas special from 1998! There's been a few scattered changes from last year (some of better, some for the worst) but we're definitely in the era of peak popularity for the show and you know the show is gonna ring all the bells it's got to ring. Spishak, Ms. Swan, Stuart, Rusty, the Vancome Lady; they're all here! And by gum, we discuss them all.