It's December 11th, 1976, the host is Candice Bergen and the musical guest is Frank Zappa

Here's some stuff that happened in the past

In a recent blog post that proved shockingly popular—it’s been read three times as often as any other Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place yet somehow did not attract any new subscribers—I wrote about how Saturday Night Live has been ending a few minutes short for nearly FIFTY years now. Yet in all of that time, no one seems to have figured out what to do in those awkward in-between moments when the show has ended, but the time to run end credits has not yet arrived, and they’re called upon to fill that dead air with words.

I was inspired by the famously clever and quick-witted Dick Cavett nearly having a panic-induced heart attack when called upon to improvise a minute or two on live television. 

Cavett was scared and nervous, but he was nowhere near as terrified as poor Candice Bergen. Her third episode as host ended a good four minutes early, and it fell upon her to fill that time with words. 

This seems particularly unfair since, unlike many of Saturday Night Live’s most popular and frequent hosts, Bergen was not a comedian or someone who made their living being funny. Bergen was an actress who made a good living delivering words that other people wrote for her.

To make things even more awkward, because it was nearly Christmas, the show ended with Bergen and the cast ice skating. This meant that the people who could theoretically save Bergen were literally skating away from her. 

Bergen said the quiet part loud when she concedes nervously, “It’s not really fair to do this to me.” Words come sputtering out of Bergen’s mouth artlessly but they’re barely coherent and understandably reek of desperation. 

At one point she yells, “John, come say words!” But he’s not much better at filling that time than the host. Bergen eventually gives up and the final minutes of the show are devoted to the cast skating. 

Bergen was right in that it was unfair to make her fill up all of that time with improvisation and ad-libbing. It’s crazy that improvisaton is pretty much forbidden on Saturday Night Live except for the end, when the host is sometimes forced to make shit up to fill the space before the end credits. 

On an unforgettable Christmas episode, the future star of Murphy Brown confronts every other host’s worst fear when she’s so amused by Gilda Radner's portrayal of an impressively idiotic human being representing the Right to Extreme Stupidity League that she breaks character and starts laughing. 

When I say that Bergen laughs I do not mean a titter or chuckle. No, when Bergen laughs inappropriately during the sketch she LAUGHS. She keeps laughing, and Radner is so amused that she starts improvising smartly in the moment, which, of course, only causes Bergen to laugh even longer and even harder. 

In show business lingo, Bergen is corpsing. She’s not the first host or castmember to corpse, but I’ve seldom seen someone laugh as long, hard, or repeatedly as Bergen does here. 

Adam Sandler was notorious for corpsing. If I remember correctly (and why wouldn’t I remember every bit of SNL lore?) Chris Farley’s goal in sketches with Sandler was to be so funny that he made Sandler laugh. 

Corpsing is ostensibly unprofessional and undisciplined, but I find it charming because I have developed a crush on the young Candice Bergen and every female cast member: Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, and Jane Curtin. 

Bergen’s episodes rank among the show’s very best so far. This is no exception. The tenth episode of the show’s third season introduced the world to an irresistible scumbag named Irving Mainway (Dan Aykroyd), whose company sells toys to children all but guaranteed to maim and/or kill them. Mainway’s toys include the Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set, Mr. Skin-Grafter, General Tron’s Secret Police Confession Kit, Doggie Dentist, and Johnny Switchblade, an action whose arm turns into knives when you press his head. 

Then there’s Bag of Glass and the who Bag line: Bag O’ Glass, Bag O’ Nails, Bag O’ Bugs, Bag O’ Vipers and of course, Bag O’ Sulfuric Acid.

Irving Mainway is the funny character, but Bergen, as the apoplectic host of Consumer Probe, gets most of the laughs by rattling off names and descriptions of some of the deadliest toys ever created. 

In an even darker piece, the show satirizes murderer Gary Gilmore’s request to be killed by firing squad with the infectious Christmas ditty “Let’s Kill Gary Gilmore For Christmas” 

It’s a Michael O’Donaughue special, co-written with Mary Suzanne Miller and musical director Howard Shore that combines an upbeat, Christmasy melody with the bleakest, darkest lyrics imaginable. 

In that respect, it resembles Weird Al” Yankovic’s contributions to the Christmas canon, particularly “Christmas at Ground Zero,” which similarly fuses pitch-black comedy about death, nuclear war, and a looming apocalypse with an infectious ditty you can’t help but hum. 

Frank Zappa is the musical guest, and he makes a much better impression here than he did as host. Considering the contempt he exhibited on his next trip, it’s amazing how game he is here. 

Zappa even collaborates with two of the show’s staples. Don Pardo delivers the spoken word part of the creepy and menacing “I’m the Slime” while John Belushi scats in character as The Samurai for “The Purple Lagoon.”

In a segment that’s heartbreaking given what was to come, Bergen advertises an “Adopt John Belushi for Christmas” contest. The lucky winner gets to host Belushi, who asks only for a girl around the age of 15 and a turkey stuffed with drugs. 

With Chase gone Belushi was coming into his own as a performer but also as a personality. 

That’s always been one of the show’s strengths, the sense that we know the Not Ready For Prime Time Players as people as well as performers. 

That made Belushi’s early death all the more shattering if also sadly predictable, even inevitable.   

Grade: A

Best Sketch:

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