It's April 17th, 1977, the host is Julian Bond and the Musical Guests are Tom Waits and Brick

Here's some stuff that happened in the past

In Living Color successfully branded itself the black Saturday Night Live because Lorne Michaels’ deathless comic institution is so famously white. In Living Color's first big breakout star, Damon Wayans, was a Saturday Night Live reject from one of its worst eras.  

Though Eddie Murphy, a mere teenager when he joined the cast, arguably saved Saturday Night Live when it was at its lowest point in the early 1980s, the show has had very few African-American cast members and writers. 

This puts the show in a dilly of a pickle when it has a black host because it means that the show’s white writing staff is forced to write about a black experience that it can only understand from the outside if it even bothers to try to understand it at all.

That was, unfortunately, the case when black Civil Rights icon Julian Bond stopped by 30 Rock as the host of its Easter show. As you might remember, the previous Easter, the show was hosted by Gerald Ford press secretary Ron Nessen and featured an incendiary performance of “My Generation” and “Gloria.” 

Smith returns in Gary Weis’ short film to discuss how censorship is bad, except if Saturday Night Live asks her to change her lyrics. 

Saturday Night Live embarrassed Nessen and the Ford administration with a prankish explosion of ribaldry, sauciness, double entendres, and all-around naughtiness. 

This led directly to Jimmy Carter defeating Ford in the 1976 presidential election. This episode is nowhere near as memorable. It’s unfortunately but predictably notable for its weird racial politics. 

“Racial or racist?” is the troubling question behind many sketches and lines. For example, Bond spends most of his brief monologue discussing his achievements as an activist and politician, but he ends by saying that he was asked to host the show so that he could be its chocolate Easter bunny. 

It’s a lot of set-up for a pay-off that’s both confusing and overwhelming. 

The same is true of a sketch where Bond plays himself opposite Garret Morris’ Andrew Young and Dan Aykroyd’s Jimmy Carter. The premise is that Georgia state senator Bond is visiting Carter in the White House and trying to hold him accountable for the promises he made on the campaign trail. 

Aykroyd’s Southern-fried man of the people keeps trying to impress his visitors with reminders of his humble origins, most notably in the form of a lean-to made of peanuts where he ostensibly grew up and a shoebox where he spent some of his formative years. Also, his mother once touched a leper. 

That part of the sketch is funny, but a capper referencing Amos & Andy is confusing and underwhelming. 

Bond mostly plays himself, but in one very long sketch, he plays a nightclub owner working with a soul act. The act features Garret Morris as the lead singer and Bill Murray, John Belushi, and Dan Aykyoyd as backup singers. 

The white Not Ready for Prime Time Players speak in an appalling caricature of black vernacular, particularly when they’re accused of being “sweet boys” and have to prove their heterosexual bona fides. 

The best sketches have nothing to do with race. “Dr. X, Family Counselor” typecasts Akyroyd as the title character. With his silver mask and hook for a hand, he looks like a supervillain from a Star Wars knockoff, but he works with troubled families. 

The sight gag of a freaky fantasy figure working a mundane job is inspired. John Belushi and Bill Murray have a very funny dynamic with Belushi as a smart-ass kid who keeps mentioning that their therapist looks like a bad guy from outer space and also that the mother (Gilda Radner) is more or less catatonic and Murray as a father who can barely conceal his rage. 

Belushi resurrects another fan favorite as Lowell Brock, the co-founder of H&L Brock, a company that saves clients money by venturing far beyond the limits of what is legal. The latest mock commercial takes this to its logical endpoint by having Lowell deliver his spiel from beyond bars. 

In “Creeley’s Soup”, meanwhile, a little girl played by Gilda Radner is tormented by an unseen sadist voiced by Bill Murray who keeps asking her to do unwise and self-destructive things. 

This is another episode with two musical guests. Brick brings the funk while Tom Waits rasps his way through “Eggs & Sausage”, an atmospheric exploration of the lost souls and infinite sadness of an all-night diner. 

Bond later said that he regrets appearing in a sketch where he tells a host played by Garrett Morris that light-skinned African-Americans are smarter than dark-skinned African-Americans because he hated being racist, even in jest and for a comedy show. 

Bond probably wouldn’t have been as bothered if he weren’t playing a fictionalized version of himself, but that’s far from the only problematic and questionable element of the episode.  

Grade B-

Best sketch: Dr. X, Family Counselor 

Worst sketch: Great moments in Motown

neat, eh? Man, I LOVE this silly newsletter.