It's January 24th, 1977 Ruth Gordon is the host and Chuck Berry is the musical guest

Here's some stuff that happened in the past

Part of what makes my epic journey through the entirety of Saturday Night Live so fascinating as well as melancholy and bittersweet is knowing the tragic end some of its most distinguished alum would suffer. 

John Belushi and Chris Farley were both cursed to die young and hungry, with the talent and promise in the world. 

Chevy Chase, meanwhile, tragically did not die young. That was the worst thing that could have happened to him in terms of his reputation. 

Chase was the first breakout star in part because he was the first cast member to have a clearly defined persona that he brought with him to the movies he would soon be starring in. 

The future Foul Play star was an arrogant narcissist with the talent and good looks to back up his enormous ego. Belushi, in sharp contrast, was a mess. 

Even on a show where pretty much every cast member except Jane Curtin was an enthusiastic drug user (some squares might even say abuser), Belushi stood out as the drugs guy. 

Belushi was an agent of chaos, a hurricane of destruction let loose in the heart of New York City. He was known for his addictions, compulsions, and bad habits because they were written into the show. 

Lorne Michaels wisely and unwisely set up Belushi as the show’s next breakout star by positing him as an exceedingly lovable teddy bear of a man who really loved drugs. 

In the “Adopt John Belushi for Christmas” sketch Belushi specifies that he’s looking for a turkey stuffed with drugs for Christmas. In the eleventh episode of the show’s second season, he enters the studio in a wheelchair, having missed the previous week’s show. 

Michaels tells an actor portraying Belushi’s doctor that the wheelchair-bound actor is in no shape to perform. The fake doctor insists that Belushi must perform because if he doesn’t, the doctor will not get paid and will be forced to cut off his drug supply. 

This gets Belushi and Michaels’ attention, and the future comedy martyr snaps to attention and shouts, “Live from New York: it’s Saturday Night."

Though she was astonishingly only sixty-one at the time Gordon had established a persona as Hollywood’s favorite wacky old lady. So it was inevitable that she would be paired with the show’s other wacky old lady, Gilda Radner's hearing-impaired and confusion-prone correspondent Emily Littela. 

This is perhaps the first instance of what would become a staple: the “new” character who acts just like the popular recurring character they’re paired with. This is a lazy and hack conceit, as well as inherently derivative because it features multiple characters behaving the same way. 

In this case, that means that Emily’s sister, played, of course, by Gordon, mishears everything her sister says, and, in a big old switcheroo, now it’s HER turn to correct constant misconceptions. 

Emily Littela is amusing in small doses. So Saturday Night Live decided to cram the character down the audience’s throats. Litella was already wearing out her welcome before, in a particularly dated, misguided joke, she mistakenly thinks she’s supposed to deliver a commentary about air-fags instead of airbags. 

Hearing Radner, arguably the most adorable and lovable human being in history, spout a homophobic slur in character as a nice old lady if eternally confused, old lady is jarring and dispiriting. 

Belushi may have been temporarily wheelchair-bound, but he still managed to make an impression, literally and figuratively, as Italian schlock-meister Dino DeLaurentis promoting King Kong on The Tomorrow Show opposite Aykroyd’s Tom Snyder. 

Belushi’s zesty super-producer keeps insisting that when Jaws died, no one cried, but that when King Kong died, EVERYONE cried. It’s a sketch based on a famous bit of show-business lore that’s funny because it actually happened. 

Gordon may have been a senior citizen but she was not averse to getting down and dirty with a cast young enough to be her poorly-behaved children. In "Little Old Ladies of the Night," she plays an old woman who falls for a pimp's spiel (played by Garrett Morris, of course, as the show never encountered a racist stereotype it didn’t like), while in “Sex Questions,” she’s a grandmother giving a granddaughter played by Gilda Radner wildly inaccurate information about sex and procreation. It wasn’t easy for women to score roles on the show. It helped if a female-centered sketch revolved around sex.

This episode feels more random than most to three classic hits from musical guest Chuck Berry, who even trots out his famous Duckwalk, an appearance from Ricky Jay, who was that rarest of anomalies—a hip magician—and another Mr. Bill sketch. 

Vance DeGeneres, Ellen’s brother and longtime contributor to The Daily Show, is credited as one of Mr. Bill's creators. DeGeneres sued for that credit once the character took off and became a fixture of the show and a marketing bonanza. 

Gary Weis’ short film is an erotic exploration of a gorgeous black woman in slinky lingerie set to Bob Seger’s “Night Moves.” It’s an effective exercise in sexual objectification with a visual cameo from Garrett Morris as the woman’s boyfriend. 

Like many of Weis’ short films, it does not attempt to be funny. It settles for being arty and sensual, although from the perspective of 2024, it looks more than a little like a fan-made music video. 

Professional pervert E. Buzz Miller, who would go on to become one of Dan Aykroyd’s signature characters, debuts here as a man who gets way too excited about seeing documentary footage of topless African women, but his appearance barely qualifies as a cameo. 

This episode was a letdown, particularly compared to Ralph Nader’s shockingly assured tone as host. 

Oh well. They can’t all be winners. 

Grade: C 

Best sketch: “Tomorrow”

Worst sketch: “The Litella Sisters At Home”

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