To celebrate the 40th season of Saturday Night Live, NBC will be airing classic episodes they have dubbed, SNL Vintage. Airing during the 10 P.M. time slot on Saturday nights, these condensed episodes will replace reruns from the current season of SNL. SNL Vintage‘s first offering is the seventh episode from season one starring Richard Pryor. So, why should you watch?
The Classic Sketch: “Word Association”
One of the conditions of Pryor hosting was that his long-time writer, Paul Mooney, was also brought on to write sketches for Pryor. According to Mooney, Chevy Chase hounded him all week to write a sketch for him and Pryor. Mooney wrote “Word Association” after dealing with an “interrogation” by NBC executives, and because Pryor hated Chase.
Other Notable Sketches: “The Exorcist Loves His Momma” featuring Blaxploitation star Thalmus Rasulala, and a re-airing of the “New Dad Insurance” ad parody from the first episode featuring Jacqueline Carlin, the future ex-wife of Chevy Chase.
Famous Firsts:
John Belushi’s Samurai Futaba made his first of 16 appearances, and this episode also features the first time Chevy Chase uttered the catchphrase, “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead,” on “Weekend Update.”
Executive Producer Lorne Michaels fought the executives at NBC hard to have Pryor as a host. He even “resigned” at one point before NBC approved Pryor on the condition the show had a ten-second delay. Michaels eventually argued that delay down to seven seconds, but this was the first episode of SNL to feature a delay of any kind.
Because the structure of SNL at this time was more of a variety show, Pryor ends up having two separate stand-up sets. Also, The Muppets appear in another installment of “The Land of Gorch,” Pryor’s ex-wife, Shelley, tells a story about carousels, musical guest Gil Scott-Heron performs two songs, and Albert Brooks premieres another short film.
SNL Vintage starring Richard Pryor with musical guest Gil Scott-Heron airs Sept. 27th at 10 p.m.
