It's March 13th, 1976 the Host is Anthony Perkins and the Musical Guest is Betty Carter

Here's some stuff that happened in the past

One of the stranger aspects of Saturday Night Live's first season is that Jim Henson and Frank Oz, two of the greatest entertainers of the twentieth century, contributed regularly to the endlessly mythologized beginning of Lorne Michaels' deathless comedy institution in such a regrettable and forgettable fashion that the Muppets are little more than a footnote in the show's history.

That's sort of like Jimi Hendrix playing lead guitar on a Rolling Stones album, then never collaborating with them again due to a lack of chemistry and nobody talking about that auspicious collaboration as anything other than a mistake.

Jim Henson's Muppets and Saturday Night Live were a poor fit from the start.The ugly buggers initially occupied the fantastical Land of Gorch, which was a universe away from the rest of the show tonally and thematically.

These off-brand Muppets' appearances improved immeasurably when the writers began integrating the characters with the rest of the show.

Having female cast-members and guests interact with the puppety oddballs brought the characters into the show's world in a fun and playful way.

The breakout Muppet was Scred, who was hideous physically yet strangely lovable when playing off human beings.

By the time Anthony Perkins hosted deep into the first season the backstage drama bled into the onscreen action. A subplot has Henson's King Ploobis and Scred desperately trying to hold onto a place on the show.

Being a savvy soul, Scred understands that the key to making it on Saturday Night Live is a recurring characters so he borrows Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner's catch-phrases in a crowd-pleasing bit of pandering that plays like gangbusters but wasn't enough to keep them in the mix.

Sometimes the most obvious bits are the ones that get the best reaction. So it's unsurprising that Perkins gets the biggest laughs of the night by reprising his most famous character in a fake commercial for The Norman Bates School of Motel Management.

"Are you motel material?" Perkins asks potential students though the Bates School of Motel Management deviates from other schools involving the hospitality industry in its focus on hacking people to death with a large knife.

This was the first episode to list the Not Ready For Primetime players individually instead of as a group.

The move makes sense because the cast has spent all seasons carving out niches for themselves.

Chevy Chase became famous for his cold opens and falls as well as the falls in his cold open. In a deliciously meta bit here he replies indignantly to complaints that the NINETY MINUTE LONG WEEKLY LIVE COMEDY SHOW is not terribly tight and pads out sketches just to fill time.

Chase defends the show by doing nothing but waste time. At his best Chase could be funny doing nothing.

I do not, for the life of me, understand why Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman did not inspire Beatlemania-level excitement beyond the abhorrent sexism of society and also the show itself.

Curtin is scorchingly sexy as well as funny as a dominatrix with an Emma Peele flair who helps a clueless housewife played by Gilda Radner with an approach heavy on S&M. It's funny but it's also unexpectedly hot, even kinky.

The world might have been fixated on Chevy Chase and his dazzling smile but the women of Saturday Night Live were doing extraordinary work and, as is generally the case, not getting anywhere enough recognition because they were not dudes.

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