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Saturday Night Live/Elliott Gould/Leon Redbone, Harlan Collins & Joyce Everson

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Elliott Gould/Leon Redbone, Harlan Collins & Joyce Everson
Snl-122.jpg
Season 1, Episode 22
Airdate May 29, 1976
Production Number 025
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
← 1x21
Buck Henry/Gordon Lightfoot
1x23 →
Louise Lasser/Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Saturday Night LiveSeason One

Elliott Gould/Leon Redbone, Harlan Collins & Joyce Everson is the twenty-second episode of the first season of Saturday Night Live, and the twenty-second episode overall. It is the second appearance of its host, Elliott Gould, the second appearance overall but first appearance as musical guest of Leon Redbone (who had previously appeared as a special musical guest) and first appearance of musical guest Harlan Collins & Joyce Everson.

Guest Stars: Elliott Gould (Host), Leon Redbone (Musical Guest), Harlan Collins (Musical Guest), Joyce Everson (Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Jonathan Dorn (Special Musical Guest), Cary Barnes (Ghanan Soldier), Doris Powell (Lt. Uhura), Ronald Rayford (Ghanan Soldier), Akira Yoshimura (Student/Mr. Sulu)

Contents

Episode Breakdown

  • Wax Museum: A flasher (Chase) enters a wax museum, where he sneers at a Joan of Arc statue (Newman). He flashes a statue of Marie Antoinette (Curtin) while blowing a whistle and removes her husband Louis XVI's handkerchief. When he tries to fondle a statue of Sarah Bernhardt (Radner), the statue slaps him. He slaps the statue back, so she slaps him off his feet.
  • Elliott Gould's Monologue: Gould sings a variation "Anything Goes."
  • Academy of Better Careers: A housewife (Radner) receives a call from an announcer who says she can make money just by having answered the phone. He says the TV-advertised career training industry has created a need for phone answerers and promotes the Academy of Better Careers, or ABC (not affiliated with the network), where a teacher (Curtin) shows a classful of students (Chase, Newman, Aykroyd, Morris, Yoshimura, et al.) how to answer the phone. Another student (Newman) reads about the history of phones, and an instructor (Coe) lists the area codes of different countries. Radner hangs up on the announcer to call ABC and become a stand-by operator.
  • Poker: New Orleans gentleman Mr. Russo (Aykroyd) and his servant Johnny Sagpants (Morris) welcome the European gentleman Ramone Diarga (Chase), who speaks in gibberish, and his interpreter Moe Greenstein (Gould) for a game of draw poker. As a point of honor, Russo gives Diarga the first deal. Diarga gives Russo only five cards but takes the rest of the cards for himself, but after Greenstein explains the European custom to Russo, Russo calls it a misdeal and accepts Diarga's custom of taking part of his stakes. In the next hand, Diarga is confused by Russo's inability to comprehend his custom of looking at the other player's hands, but to correct the problem, he takes more of Russo's stakes. He toasts Russo's honor and takes more stakes. Despite Johnny's objections, Russo orders more stakes and toasts Diarga as he changes the game to blackjack. To honor Russo, Diarga gives some of Russo's stakes to Greenstein. During the blackjack game, Diarga misdeals, drinks Russo's drink and takes the pot. In the second hand, Diarga calls Russo a loser after he declares "blackjack," which he says is European for "hit me." Greenstein calms the agitated Russo and expresses Diarga's desire to meet Russo's wife, but when Russo says his wife is deceased, Diarga begins to cry and says he must leave. Russo is touched by Diarga's "gesture of honor," and he is further touched when Diarga and Greenstein leave with his candlesticks, and when Diarga speaks perfect English.
  • National Uvula Association: Babs (Radner) tells her sister (Newman) she feels sick, and her sister suggests the problem may be with Babs' uvula. Her sister calls a doctor (Chase), who makes a house call. After the doctor makes a knock-knock joke with no punchline, he tells Babs to take better care of her uvula. Babs vows to care for her uvula, and she claims to feel better already.
  • Shine on Harvest Moon: Leon Redbone song.

Notes

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

  • Chevy Chase as a flasher who has been slapped to floor by a wax sculpture.

Music

  • Anything Goes, performed by Elliott Gould: The title song from the 1934 Broadway musical by composer Cole Porter. The play is about the adventures of passengers aboard a luxury cruise liner from London to New York in the 1920s. In the play, the song, about the difference in social mores between the Roaring 20s and decades past, is performed by Reno Sweeney.
  • Shine on Harvest Moon, performed by Leon Redbone: This Tin Pan Alley song was written by Jack Norworth and Nora Bayes in the early 1900s, at a time when songs about the moon were very popular. The black ethnic sound of the song made it a stand-out of such songs of the era. Redbone released a studio version of this song on his 1977 album Double Time, and a live version on his 1999 album Live & Kickin' .

Trivia

The Show

  • MIA: Cast member Michael O'Donoghue is not credited and does not appear this episode. Cast member George Coe is also not credited, but he appears briefly in the sketch "Academy of Better Careers."
  • Repeat Sketches: The sketches "Academy of Better Careers" and "Show Us Your Guns" first appeared in episode 1x01 - George Carlin/Billy Preston, Janis Ian. Also, the sketch "National Uvula Association" is a variation on the "National Pancreas Association" sketch from episode 1x03 - Rob Reiner. It is possible the sketch was rewritten because, while the concept was deemed strong, the sketch becomes more ludicrous when a less useful organ is the subject. While the pancreas is an essential organ in metabolism, and problems with it often lead to the serious illness of diabetes, the uvula is an organ with not only a funnier sounding name, but whose purpose is mild in comparison and for which severe disorders result in little more than speech impediments.

Behind the Scenes

Allusions and References

Memorable Moments

Quotes