Saturday Night Live/Desi Arnaz

Desi Arnaz
Season 1, Episode 14
Airdate	February 21, 1976
Production Number	015
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)
← 1x13 Peter Boyle/Al Jarreau	1x15 → Jill Clayburgh
Saturday Night Live — Season One

Desi Arnaz is the fourteenth episode of the first season of Saturday Night Live, and the fourteenth episode overall. It is the first appearance by its host, who also serves as musical guest, in either role.

Guest Stars: Desi Arnaz (Host/Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Desi Arnaz Jr. (Ricky Ricardo/Himself/Special Musical Guest)

Short Film Cast: Taylor Mead (Himself)

Episode Breakdown

• President Ford's Psychiatrist: President Gerald Ford (Chase) has a session with his psychiatrist, Dr. Speck (Aykroyd). When Speck asks Ford to lie down, Ford lies on the floor, but then at Speck's suggestion, he moves to the couch, although at first he lies face-down, sprawled across the couch's width. Speck encourages Ford to discuss his dreams and tells him to "describe what you see." Ford starts off by describing the ceiling, so Speck moves on. He tries to do word association, but in his first two attempts, Ford merely repeats the words Speck says. At last, Ford gets the idea, and all his word associations suggest his clumsiness and the possibility that he will lose the primary. Ford says he "got out of bed on the wrong side" and asks to end the session there. As he stands up, Ford gets off the couch on the side near the wall, and he bumps his head and crashes through the plywood wall.
• Desi Arnaz's Monologue: Arnaz Sr. says he likes the show and has had a great experience working with the show. He also says the cast has been very kind to him, and knowing his love of cigars, presented him with a box of "Acapulco Gold" cigars, which are so good that he can no longer smoke anything else.
• National Express: Wrongly imprisoned boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (Morris) does a commercial for the National Express credit card, which he says he will use all over the world if ever he gets out of prison.
• Birthday Surprise: After trying but failing to have sex on his fortieth birthday, a husband (Chase) and his wife (Curtin) sit in the dark and discuss what went wrong. The wife says he may have had too much to drink or may not have had the right moment for her. She says she had other plans involving friends coming over. As he suggests they try again, the lights suddenly come on, and his friends (Belushi, Radner, O'Donoghue, et al.) jump out and shout, "Surprise!"
• Luciana Vermicelli's Beauty Regime: Italian model Luciana Vermicelli (Newman) rises from a coffin and says she is now beautiful, although she grew up ugly. She promotes her beauty regimen, which she says involves drinking blood, eating virgins and other secrets she learned from a 5000-year-old Egyptian priest.
• Jabberwocky Recital: A proper English host (Aykroyd) introduces a poetry reading of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" by Professor Desmond Arnaz (Arnaz Sr.). Professor Arnaz stumbles over the gibberish of the poem and eventually quits while muttering in Spanish about the nonsense.
• Very White: Musician Very White (Chase) sings a long, rambling Barry White-esque song about how he has no soul and how much he loves himself.
• Failed I Love Lucy Pilots: Arnaz Sr. says it took several attempts to create his classic show I Love Lucy, and he presents early attempts at a pilot. In the first, I Saw Lucy, Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz Jr.) spots Lucy out his window, but Arnaz Sr. says that pilot was rejected because it did not feature enough Lucille Ball. The next pilot, I Loathe Lucy, portrays a typical I Love Lucy-style exchange between Ricky and Lucy (Radner), but Ricky randomly abuses Lucy physically and verbally without provocation. Arnaz Sr. says Ball rejected this concept, so he shows other pilots—I Love Louie, I Love Asparagus and I Love Desi—which feature Ricky interacting with Louis Armstrong (Morris), a plate of asparagus and another version of himself (Tom Schiller), respectively. At last, Arnaz Sr. says they settled on the version which became famous. Arnaz Sr. ends the sketch by introducing his old friend Willie Ney, who is now propmaster for NBC's Saturday Night, and the two old friends embrace.
• Weekend Update.
  • Chase throws to "Horst Buchholz," a correspondent at the Patty Hearst trial, who discusses the trial as the screen shows an "artist's rendering," which is really footage from the 1934 Betty Boop cartoon Betty Boop's Trial. As the camera returns to Chase, it is revealed he is plugging his nose and reading Buchholz's "correspondence" himself.
• Speed: In a commercial which airs during WU, a busy housewife and career woman talks about all her jobs and hobbies, but she keeps talking and doesn't stop. The announcer says her secret is a diet pill, Speed.
• The Untouchables: Arnaz Jr. prefaces the sketch by saying his parents' production company, Desilu Productions, was responsible for several classic television shows. He says Arnaz Sr. was personally involved with many of those shows, but he never guest starred on The Untouchables, "until tonight." In the sketch, Arnaz Sr. plays Raoul Nitti, an amphetamines dealer in 1920s Chicago. He does not know he is being watched by Eliot Ness (Aykroyd) and his partners Rico (Belushi) and Youngblood (Arnaz Jr.). They trail Nitti to a restaurant, where he and his henchmen rough up the owner (Morris). When the owner says he cannot pay, Nitti's man Andrew (Chase) asks a patron (Newman) if she likes her meal. When she complains, he shoots and kills her. As Nitti leaves to make a phone call, the other patrons (O'Donoghue, et al.) say they're satisfied. On the phone, Nitti talks to "Lucy" and asks her to bring his gun. Ness watches the restaurant from a "kitchen of the future," a modern-day kitchen set. Back at the warehouse, Lucy Ricardo (Radner) brings the gun, but she whines and complains, "They knocked off Fred and Ethel." At the stakeout, Ness and the Untouchables prepare to raid Nitti's operation, but first they synchronize their watches, and as they do, they hear the announcer, Walter Winchell (Coe) tell them what time it is. Inside the warehouse, Nitti shows Lucy how he hides the drugs inside his drums. Ness enters in disguise, but Nitti and his henchmen recognize him. Nitti tries to shoot Ness, but Lucy has brought him the gun loaded with blanks. Ness calls for the other Untouchables, but Winchell says they are coming up the back way, and Nitti and his men hear this. Nonetheless, the Untouchables raid the place before Nitti's crew can escape, although Rico guns down Lucy. Winchell starts to say how Nitti will escape prison, so the Untouchables pull aside crates to find Winchell, and they kill him.
• Lucy and Ethel: Lucy Ricardo (Radner) schemes with Ethel Mertz (Curtin) to get into Ricky's club undetected by wearing a costume. Lucy tries a Mexican fruit dancer, professional painter and even a bass violin costume, but Ethel says none of those costumes will do the trick. At last, Lucy leaves with the reluctant Ethel for one last try.
• Cuban Pete: Desi Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. song, featuring Laraine Newman. The song is framed as a musical number from I Love Lucy. After the song is over, a costumed horse enters, but Arnaz Sr./Ricky Ricardo recognizes it immediately as Lucy and Ethel.
• Taylor's Cat: Gary Weis introduces his own short film, which features Mead talking about his cat, which he rescued as a stray. Mead discusses the cat's sleeping and eating habits, how he talks to the cat, spraying, catnip and the difference between cats and dogs.
• Cuban Acupuncture: A patient (Belushi) with migraine headaches visits an acupuncturist (Arnaz Sr.), whom he is at first surprised to learn is Cuban, not Chinese. The acupuncturist says Cuban acupuncture uses cigars, not pins. In the treatment, the acupuncturist at first tries sticking cigars in the patient's ears and nostrils, but that does no good. While the patient stands up, the acupuncturist drops a cigar on his chair which burns the patient in the derriere when he sits back down. The acupuncturist says the pain has moved down from the patient's head to his backside, and he moves the pain further down by burning the patient's leg and foot. He says the pain will eventually fall down from the patient's foot through the floor within two days and sends the patient on his way.
• Double Talk: Couple Matt (Chase) and Judy (Newman) have a fancy dinner, but Judy complains she doesn't understand Matt when he talks. Matt angrily replies Judy doesn't think of his needs, but he slips in gibberish words and phrases in his berating of her. He leaves the confused Judy while he goes to the restroom. She confesses to the waiter, Adolfo (Belushi), she "will never understand men," but he comforts her with more gibberish. O'Donoghue and Morris are also visible as patrons at the restaurant.
• Bisexual Minute: Curtin tells the story of Hester Catchpull, who on this day in 1776 forced her husband at gunpoint to let her run away. Hester then ran off with her girlfriend, with whom she lived for the rest of her life.
• Desi's Book: Lucille Ball (Radner) plugs Arnaz Sr.'s new book, A Book, but she cries when she says how much of the book is about her.
• Babalu: Desi Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. song.

Notes

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

• Chevy Chase as President Gerald Ford after crashing through the set wall into backstage.

Music

Desi Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. perform "Babalu" and lead the cast and crew in a conga line.

• Cuban Pete, performed by Desi Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., featuring Laraine Newman: This rumba standard was first recorded and made famous by Arnaz Sr. in the 1946 film of the same name. The film was many Americans' first introduction to the sound and flavor of such traditional Cuban music styles as the rumba, the mambo and learn how to play congos. In this performance, Arnaz Jr. joins his father by playing conga drums, the instrument for which Arnaz Sr. had been most famous for playing in his younger days.

• Babalu, performed by Desi Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.: Arnaz Sr.'s signature song since he first recorded it in 1946. For this performance, both father and son play percussion, although it is Arnaz Sr. on the conga drum. This performance is quite possibly the most spirited (and arguably the most fun) musical performance in series history. It was, in fact, so spirited that crew members feared for the aging Arnaz Sr.'s life, but he seems fit enough as he leads the cast and crew on a conga line (which he himself popularized with this song in the 1940s and '50s) all the way through the goodnights and closing credits and for nearly a full minute after the credits have finished, perhaps even long past the end of the production company logos.

Trivia

The Show

• En Vivo Desde New York, Esta Saturday Night!: With this episode, Desi Arnaz becomes both the show's first Latin host and its first Latin musical guest. He is also technically the first host to double as musical guest, although the format of one host and one musical guest had not quite yet been standardized. Paul Simon had performed several musical numbers in the episode he hosted, but the episode had specific, set-aside musical performances by Randy Newman and Phoebe Snow. Later, host Rob Reiner had sung a few songs when he hosted, but always in character. Host Lily Tomlin had also sung, but she appeared with a musical guest, although that "musical guest" was, in fact, the house band. Even here, Arnaz Sr. appears with his son, Desi Arnaz Jr., who performs both musical numbers with his father, but who is credited as a "Special Guest." Nonetheless, the host performs two musical numbers, and no musician nor group is credited immediately after his name, which makes this episode significant.

• Hip Old Man: Desi Arnaz is the first of four influential icons from the Golden Age of Television to host the show. In the 1970s, most masterminds of television's past expressed confusion and bewilderment—even outrage—at the then-groundbreaking show, but Arnaz Sr. claims to be a fan in his opening monologue, and the zeal with which he fully commits to the sketches and musical numbers, even with the show's irreverent and subversive style of comedy, suggest the sentiment is probably genuine. Arnas Sr. even makes a drug joke in his monologue (something considered outrageous on network TV in the mid-1970s) and plays along with sketches which portray his beloved ex-wife Lucille Ball being abused or murdered. Given Arnaz Sr.'s history of being an extraordinarily influential and cutting-edge TV producer well into the 1960s, it may very well be true that he remained a TV visionary into the early SNL era, at least moreso than others of his generation, and as a result may have been better equipped than others to understand Lorne Michaels' vision. A future episode would be hosted by Milton Berle, who would prove to be a problematic host who expressly ignored directions given to him by the crew, and it is perhaps partially for this reason that no other Golden Age icons hosted in the 1970s. (Rick Nelson hosted an episode prior to Berle, but he was a child star in the 1950s who had no involvement in the creation of his show The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, and he appeared on SNL in regard to his adult occupation as rock star.) Only after the show had changed hands and begun to become a variety show like any other did Sid Caesar and Jerry Lewis each take turns in the hosting spot.

• Uncredited Appearances: Sometime-cast members George Coe and Michael O'Donoghue are not credited this episode, although both appear. O'Donoghue has appearances only as background characters, but Coe has a speaking role as Walter Winchell in the sketch "The Untouchables."

• Running Theme: After her appearance as a background character in the sketch "Birthday Surprise," Gilda Radner appears throughout the rest of this episode, up to and including the goodnights and closing credits, in costume and make-up as Lucy Ricardo/Lucille Ball.

• Repeat Sketch: The sketch "Speed" was first used for episode 1x06 - Lily Tomlin/Howard Shore and His All Nurse Band.

• First Appearance: The sketch "The Untouchables" sees the first portrayal by Dan Aykroyd as Eliot Ness as portrayed by Robert Stack on the classic TV series The Untouchables (1959).

Allusions and References

• Horst Buchholz: The name Chase gives his fictitious Patty Hearst trial correspondent is "Horst Buchholz," an actual actor from the 1950s and 60s. Studio execs of the era were grooming Buchholz to be a hot young star in the vein of James Dean or Montgomery Clift, but Buchholz never quite took off. He is best remembered as Chico, the enthusiastic young gunslinger who loses his life while defending a town in the 1960 Western classic The Magnificent Seven.

Memorable Moments

• Arnaz and son perform "Babalu."