Saturday Night Live/Anthony Perkins/Betty Carter

Anthony Perkins/Betty Carter
Season 1, Episode 16
Airdate	March 13, 1976
Production Number	017
Written by	Anne Beatts Chevy Chase Al Franken & Tom Davis Lorne Michaels Marilyn Suzanne Miller Michael O'Donoghue Herb Sargent Tom Schiller Rosie Shuster Alan Zweibel
Directed by	Dave Wilson Gary Weis (film) Philip Vanderkarn (home movie)
← 1x15 Jill Clayburgh	1x17 → Ron Nessen/Patti Smith Group
Saturday Night Live — Season One

Anthony Perkins/Betty Carter is the sixteenth episode of the first season of Saturday Night Live, and the sixteenth episode overall. It is the first appearance of either its host or its musical guest.

Guest Stars: Anthony Perkins (Host), Betty Carter (Musical Guest)

Film Cameos: Jackie Curtis (Himself), Constance Abernathy (Herself), Dan Greenberg (Himself), Taylor Mead (Himself), Elaine Kaufman (Herself) Bill Wegman (Himself)

Episode Breakdown

• Fan Concerns: Chase sits at his desk and responds to letters complaining about improvising parts of the show to pad the 90 minutes. Chase denies these charges, but he speaks as though he is talking unscripted off the top of his head. He also wastes several seconds lighting a cigar and pouring himself a glass of water. He claims to be finished and rises to do the opening, but changes his mind and starts a long story about an incident which happened to him on another show. As he talks, he leans back in his chair until it tips over, and he flips the desk with it.
• Anthony Perkins' Monologue: Perkins says he has performed live before on Broadway, but this is the first time he has performed as himself, which he says is exciting because "it gives you the opportunity to see me as I really am." As he talks, a fly buzzes around his head, so he catches it with his hand and eats it. He also peels off a Band-Aid slowly so as to feel each hair pulling out. He claims to be superstitious, but he has a lucky charm. However, he realizes he cannot find his "lucky panties," and he freaks out until someone tosses the panties at him from off-stage.
• President Ford on Marijuana: The hands of President Gerald Ford (Chase) are seen as he tries to roll a joint for the first time, because "if they're gonna legalize it, might as well learn how to do this." He pours out a small pile of marijuana and rolls the paper, but he cannot figure out how to get the marijuana into the rolled-up paper. He tries pouring it into the crack and throwing it at one of the opened ends.
• Musical Therapy: A patient (Curtin) comes to a new kind of psychiatrist (Perkins) to come to grips with her poor relationships with men. As she talks, the psychiatrist pays little attention to her problems, but he starts singing "Hello, Dolly!" The patient gradually begins to sing along with him, until at last she and her psychiatrist are doing a song-and-dance routine. The psychiatrist says they will sing "Brigadoon" next week.
  

  

  "You're looking swell, Dolly. I can tell, Dolly." Perkins demonstrates his unorthodox psychotherapeutic method.

• Dominatrix Wife: Sue Rosen (Radner), a housewife who worries she may not be doing a good enough job, tells her friend on the phone she has just hired a maid from an ad she saw in The Village Voice. The maid, Mrs. Zimmerman (Curtin), arrives, but when she takes off her coat, she is wearing a dominatrix outfit and sporting a riding crop. Rosen tells her friend she thinks "S&M" means "scrubbing and mopping." Mrs. Zimmerman begins her "lesson" by offering to remove her outfit and chastising Rosen for the waxy build-up on the floor. She forces Rosen to her hands and knees to examine the floor. She also finds "ring around the collar" on the laundry and says she can't see her face in Rosen's good china. To punish Rosen, she breaks the good china over her head and throws the rest of it on her floor. She says Rosen's breath "smells mediciny" and smacks her in the leg with her crop for having wrinkly panty hose. Rosen admits she is not a good housewife, but Rosen elbows her in the stomach and verbally abuses her. Rosen begs Zimmerman to help her and asks about her windows, but Zimmerman leaves, saying, "I don't do windows."
• The Norman Bates School of Hotel Management: Norman Bates (Perkins) promotes his school, which teaches students how to run a motel as he does. He says one of the tricks is to give guests a newspaper, and he holds up one with the headline, "Slasher Strikes Again." He also gives a multiple choice test for which all choices "C" are, "Hack her to death with a kitchen knife." He holds a newspaper in front of his face and yells in his mother's voice that he has an important phone call. Before he leaves, he nervously refers to his passkeys.
• The Muppets - Tony and the Muppets: Perkins prepares to introduce the musical guest, but he is interrupted by King Ploobis and Scred, who complain that their set has been burned while they were gone. They also say their dressing room has been commandeered by the Bees. They ask Perkins for help, but he says he is just the host, and he is doing the show. He sends them to his dressing room to wait for their big scene.
• Music, Maestro, Please and Swing Brother Swing: Betty Carter song.
• President Ford on Marijuana II: Once again, President Gerald Ford (Chase) tries to roll a joint, this time with the help of a rolling machine based on instructions from "Ron." Ford gets the rolling paper stuck on his fingers, and he rolls the marijuana in the roller before he tries adding the paper to the top. He tries lighting the rolling machine, but nothing happens. Frustrated, he says, "I'll veto it. I don't care."
• Weekend Update.
  • Correspondent "David Felson" reports on the Patty Hearst trial with an old stop-motion comedy film of toy dolls watching a parade as the "artist's rendering." Chase himself provides Felson's voice by stretching the corners of his mouth.
  • Chase provides a commentary on the importance of impartiality in the upcoming presidential election on the part of news reporters. As he talks, a picture of Gov. Jerry Brown is shown throughout his editorial.
  • Meteorologist Belushi refers to the proverb, "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." Belushi says in other countries, March comes in like other animals and goes out like other animals. His examples grow increasingly bizarre until Chase tries to cut him off, but Belushi hits Chase and becomes agitated. At last, he gets so frantic that he grabs his chest, moans and collapses.
  • Emily Litella phones in with an editorial reply against conserving natural race horses. Chase interrupts and says an editorial reply has been done this episode. She asks if she is talking to Cheddar Cheese, but Chase says his name is "Chevy Chase," so she apologizes for calling the wrong number.
• Land Scarcity: In the WU commercial, a man in a bald cap coughs and points to a part of his face which has been marked with a line to indicate the "cough center." He then sneezes and points to a part marked as a "sinus center." He sniffles and puts his finger in his nose, his "nasal center." As his head turns, the opposite side of his face has a small model on it of a "shopping center," complete with parking, Woolworths and a key grinding place. He continues to rotate to show a model of the Lincoln Center over his ear. The back of his head advertises, "Space Available." As he finishes rotating, the announcer (Aykroyd) says, "Land is scarce. Use your head."
  

  

  Chase takes the fall in a scripted moment.

• Pickup/Muppets: A married man (Perkins) meets his co-worker (Radner) in a restaurant and says he has come to know her relatively well, although all they have said is "hi." He asks her if she wants to have a love affair with him, and she asks if he is married, but he says an affair will help his marriage. He also assures her he will both have sex with her and make love with her. He further says he has never done this. As they leave to have sex, she says, "Who would ever think that just saying 'hi' would lead to a romance?" As they leave, the waitress (Curtin) says hi to the man, as does another patron (Newman) and another. (Morris is also visible as another patron.) At the foot of the stairs, Scred appears to say "hi," also. Perkins breaks character to tell Scred he is doing a show, but Scred tries to show he can do more in the show than just the Muppets segments. He offers to be on WU playing Emily Litella and does an editorial against ordering a cup of coffee and a toasted English Muppet. Scred also tries singing, but he is interrupted by King Ploobis, who also asks to get his big moment in the episode. Perkins sends the Muppets back to his dressing room, but Scred asks Perkins why all his seats "have holes in them."
• President Ford on Marijuana III: President Gerald Ford (Chase) is just finishing up rolling a perfect joint, but he slips and breaks it in half. He tries rolling another one, but he rolls it down the width, which results in a messy pile he can't light. At last, he gives up.
• New Yorkers and Their Pets: Gary Weis introduces his film about New Yorkers and their pets. The New Yorkers are actor Jackie Curtis, who has a heart-to-heart conversation about how New York is better than Los Angeles with his dog JoJo while going for a walk. Designer Constance Abernathy discusses the one time her dog Sylvia mated with a champion dog. Writer Dan Greenberg feeds his three live cats and his one ceramic one. Earlier film subject, poet Taylor Mead, talks about his cat's television-watching habits. Restaurateur Elaine Kaufman talks about her cat Baby and her dog Demetha. The film closes with a farewell from the previous episode's film's star, artist Bill Wegman, and his dog.
• The Bees - Sherry's Bee: Student Sherry (Newman) comes to Professor Trellis' (Perkins) office to complain about her having gotten a "B" (Belushi) for her term paper. As Trellis spells out the problems with her paper, the Bee stands aside and looks bored. Sherry says she will be embarrassed to bring a Bee home to her parents, so Trellis gives her a "Bee Plus," and he pulls out a crying toddler dressed in a bee costume.
• Low-Budget Horror Films: Perkins says he was typecast into a variety of bad horror movies after he became famous through Psycho. He introduces three trailers for such horror movies, including Terror Lunch, in which two restaurant patrons (Curtin and Newman) are horrified by all the ordinary food their waiter (Perkins) brings them. In Dressed to Kill, socialite Felicia (Radner) buys a new dress which is covered in sharp spikes and knives, so when she hugs her husband James (Perkins), she accidentally kills him. In the final film, Perkins plays both a boy and his mother by ducking behind a door and putting on and taking off a wig as he argues over whether or not he can walk to school in Driven to School.
• Home Movies - P-Nut Fever: A man eats a bunch of shelled peanuts and leaves the shells in a pile on the table. After he goes to bed, the remaining peanuts climb out of the bag and are horrified to see the remains of their comrades. They climb down the table on an extension cord and drag a meat cleaver to where the man is sleeping on the sofa. They try to murder him, but they drop the knife, which wakes him up. He falls back asleep, and the peanuts perch the cleaver over him on the couch. They drop the cleaver, but it misses his neck. He walks into the kitchen to see the peanuts have spelled out "Eat Fruit" on the table.
• I Can't Help It: Betty Carter song.
• Butt County Dance Party: Butt County Highway Patrol hosts a dance party for young people emceed by Sheriff Rick Phillips (Perkins). Deputy Larry Rontz (Aykroyd) presents prizes to the Spot Dance winners, Dennis Timplitt (Belushi) and Queenie Lusk (Newman). Although they are only a few feet away, Deputy Rontz and Sheriff Phillips talk over walkie talkie. They identify Lusk's car, and a teletyper on the bottom of the screen shows outstanding warrants for Timplitt and Lusk. Before Deputy Rontz can charge them with anything, he and Sheriff Phillips are called away by a prison break, so they leave quickly. (Curtin and Radner are also visible as other dancers, and Morris has a brief role as Sheriff Phillips' assistant.) After they are gone, the screen shows footage of a car crash.

Notes

"Live from New York, It's Saturday Night!"

• Chevy Chase as himself, having just tipped over in his chair and knocked over his desk.

Music

• Hello, Dolly!, performed by Anthony Perkins and Jane Curtin: The title song for the 1964 Broadway musical of the same name. It was written by Jerry Herman and first performed by Carol Channing as the title character Dolly and the original cast. The most famous version other than Channing's was recorded later that year by Louis Armstrong, for whom it became a #1 hit single.
  

  

  Betty Carter performs "Music, Maestro, Please/Swing Brother Swing."

• Music, Maestro, Please/Swing Brother Swing, performed by Betty Carter: This medley which combined a soft Tommy Dorsey jazz song ("Music, Maestro, Please") and a more up-tempo Billie Holliday jazz song ("Swing Brother Swing") was the first track on Carter's 1976 album Now It's My Turn. Despite the album's title, it would be more than a decade before the husky-voiced jazz singer had her first commercial success.

• I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire, performed by Scred: To show off his singing skills in the sketch "Pickup/Muppets," Scred chooses this song, first written and performed by the vocal group the Ink Spots in 1941.

• I Can't Help It, performed by Betty Carter: The first track on Carter's 1958 album Out There with Betty Carter. Carter herself composed and wrote this jazz song.

Trivia

The Show

• New Credits: This is the first episode to display the title Saturday Night in the show's main logo as opposed to NBC's Saturday Night, although announcer Don Pardo says the latter title. (Producer Lorne Michaels had wanted to call the show Saturday Night Live, but it was originally entitled NBC's Saturday Night to distinguish it from ABC's Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. By the time of this episode, Cosell's show had been cancelled, so it was no longer necessary to distinguish this show from its competitor, but it would not be until the following season that this show would be renamed with the title it would bear for 30 years or more to come.) Also, this is the first episode in which cast members are listed individually next to pictures of themselves. This would become a tradition for the remainder of the show's run.

• M.I.A.: Sometime-cast members George Coe and Michael O'Donoghue are not credited and do not appear in this episode.

• The Growth of Puppets: This is the first episode in which the Muppets appear in more than one sketch, and the first time they appear in the good nights. The running theme of their appearances involves them complaining about backstage in-fighting and being treated as second-class stars, so they ask host Anthony Perkins to intercede. These types of running plotlines would be very common on The Muppet Show, which debuted a few months after this episode aired.

• In Our Audience Tonight: In these early seasons, for an extra gag, the cameras would show a usually random audience member as they cut to commercial. Under the audience member's face, they would post a funny title card. In this episode, the audience member thus identified as one who "roomed with Wendy Yoshimura" is none other than noted journalist and author George Plimpton.

Allusions and References

• 1970s TV Commercials: While the joke may be lost on those born after the 1970s, the sketch "Dominatrix Wife" is a biting satire of a peculiar social phenomenon of the era. While the decade is today remembered for the rise of the women's liberation movement, the birth of Ms. Magazine and the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment, much of the pop culture of the day (and arguably still today) seemed to play upon an older notion of women as submissive housekeepers and wives—images now more closely associated with the 1950s. This was perhaps most evident in TV commercials, in which it seemed the issue most important to the average American woman was how sparkling her counter tops were. These images were not limited to advertisements for cleaning supplies—food, cold medication, even dietary supplements were sold with images of "Supermoms" whose sole occupation was housewife/mother and who took all aspects of that job very seriously. Generally, these commercials fell into one of three basic structures. In the first, a husband or child heaped praise upon his wife or mother for her housekeeping and cooking skills. A variation on this first theme portrayed a housewife describing all her duties and praising the product which made her success possible. The third category followed a format known amongst ad executives of the era as "2 C's in a K" ("Two Cunts in a Kitchen"). While the phrase could refer to any commercial featuring two women at home discussing the merits of a product, 1970s "2 C's in a K" spots frequently featured one wiser, more successful housewife chiding a foolish, less successful housewife for failing to properly perform one or more of her "wifely duties," then cluing her into a product with which she could improve her housework or cooking. It is this last category of commercials which the sketch "Dominatrix Wife" skewers by pushing it to the extreme—the best housewife is literally dominant while the lesser housewife is literally submissive. To underscore its satire, the sketch culls much of its dialogue from catchphrases and slogans of commercials of the time. These include:
  

  

  "Ring around the collar! Ring around the collar!" Mrs. Zimmerman uses discipline to make a better housewife of Sue Rosen.
  • Folger's Crystals Instant Coffee: Ads featuring a husband at a restaurant ordering another cup of coffee to the surprise of his wife, because, "He never asks for a second cup at home!"
    Sue Rosen: But Penny, I mean, he doesn't like my coffee. I mean, he never asks for a second cup.
  • Wisk Detergent: A very popular and long-running campaign featured a series of ads in which someone would be taunted by others for having "Ring around the collar"—uncleaned dirt across the top of the collar crease.
    Mrs. Zimmerman: Ring around the collar! (Smacks crop.) Ring around the collar!
  • Palmolive Dish Soap: A 2 C's in a K spot from the time period has one of the two women looking at a dish washed in Palmolive and exclaiming, "I can see myself in it!"
    Sue Rosen: You see, th-that's my every day china, and this is my good china, and I haven't... I don't know....
    Mrs. Zimmerman: I can't see myself in it. You must be punished for this.
  • Scope Mouthwash: A slogan at the time claimed Scope made breath smell fresh, not "mediciney" like other brands (by which they were presumably referring to leading competitor Listerine).
    Mrs. Zimmerman: Oh, Sue, your breath!
    Sue Rosen: But I used a mouthwash.
    Mrs. Zimmerman: That's why it smells mediciney.
  • L'Eggs Pantyhose: A memorable spot sees a mother—played by Linda Gray—embarrassed publicly at the zoo when her daughter says, "Mommy, the elephant's got wrinkly pantyhose just like yours!" The humiliation leads Gray to switch to L'Eggs, the "memory yarn" of which makes for a better fit.
    Mrs. Zimmerman: Look at your pantyhose. They're all wrinkly, just like the elephant's.
  • Campbell's Soup: In one ad, a little boy peers into a pot of soup his mother is stirring and asks, "Is it soup yet?"
    Sue Rosen: Mrs. Zimmerman, you're right. I'm a failure as a housewife. I mean, my children never run in from the yard yelling, "Mommy, is it soup yet?"
  • Geritol: Perhaps the most controversial ad campaign of the era was for this iron and vitamin supplement. The ads featured a husband describing all the various tasks his wife performs during the day and ending with the tagline, "My wife, I think I'll keep her." Although criticized even at the time as patronizing and offensive, the campaign was apparently successful, as it ran for several years. Nonetheless, it is possibly the most egregiously misogynistic of the commercials parodied in this sketch. Incidentally, SNL had parodied the commercial twice before this episode with the filmed sketches "Jamitol" (aka "Jamitol Gay") and "Jamitol Straight."
    Sue Rosen: And not once has my husband taken me in his arms and said, "My wife, I think I'll keep her."

Memorable Moments

• Fan Concerns.

• Musical Therapy.