The Host is Steve Martin and the Musical Guest is The Kinks

Here's some stuff that happened in the past

Steve Martin’s second episode as host, like a previous Elliott Gould-hosted episode, begins with Gilda Radner nervously approaching a host she presumably has recently slept with. 

In both instances, Radner is the vulnerable one seeking to turn a one-night stand with a handsome, famous man into a relationship, or in Gould’s case, a marriage.

Radner sleeping with hosts wasn’t quite a running joke, but it wasn’t a one-off either. Radner’s character on the show was charming and big-hearted yet open enough to risk getting hurt. 

In that respect, her onscreen persona wasn’t too different from her offscreen personality. She was famously lovable and greatly mourned when she died young. 

In 1977, Radner’s potential seemed limitless. I know that the studio wanted Radner and Dustin Hoffman to play Olive Oyl and Popeye for Robert Evans and Robert Altman. Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall did excellent work in those roles, but it would have been nice if Radner could have been the female lead in a big-budgeted Robert Altman comic strip musical that also has the benefit of being exceedingly strange. 

There’s a lovely moment early in the show when special guest and returning champion Lily Tomlin celebrates her big Broadway debut with an elaborate, old-school production number set to “Broadway Baby” worthy of the Arthur Freed Unit at MGM. 

Watching first Gilda, and then Laraine, and finally Jane (that’s right: we’re on a first-name basis now; deal with it) join in on the musical merriment in waitress uniforms as they sashay about a diner set is charming and irresistible 

But what really makes the segment special is the knowledge that Gilda didn’t just dream about making it to Broadway. Just a few years later, the comedy icon made it to the Great White Way with the one-woman show Gilda Radner Live on Broadway.

It was a success, but a film version directed by Mike Nichols (who has had some success in both theater and film) and its accompanying album both flopped. 

As you are hopefully well aware, I love Gilda Radner. Who doesn’t? She was only the most lovable person and performer ever. But I’ve never seen Gilda Live because it’s supposed to be primarily her doing her many popular recurring characters, and those tend to be the segments I enjoy the least, in part because Michaels has never known a popular idea he could not run into the ground or ruin through excessive repetition. 

So, I am going to come off as a hypocrite when I single out the second Coneheads sketch as a highlight. The first time we met these kooks from another planet, it was an origin story tucked late into the episode, where the stakes are much lower, and they can experiment with wackier and more conceptual ideas. 

The Coneheads did well in their first sketch so they were bumped up to the first half hour. If they scored before, they absolutely kill here. 

Since discovering that I am autistic, I have developed a new appreciation for the Coneheads. One of the things that I love about the sketches that Aykroyd wrote and performed on Saturday Night Live is that they are often clearly expressions of his autism. 

Aykroyd and Belushi are listed as a team in the writing credits. They were certainly a duo, on the show and off it, but I can’t imagine Belushi contributing much to incredibly intricate, meticulously constructed, and flawlessly executed sketches about technical and obscure subject matter. 

On some level, Aykroyd IS Beldar, a freakishly intelligent, extremely technical, and literal-minded outsider who looks at the sum of humanity like it’s from another planet.

The same is not true of Jane Curtin, but she more than matches Aykroyd’s oddball intensity. She disappears inside roles and characters like Prymatt. Curtin and Aykroyd are in such perfect harmony that it’s almost as if they’re two parts of one whole. 

Steve Martin makes for a terrific straight man as an IRS agent investigating these foreigners’ curious existence. The segment is unexpectedly ribald, dealing with the couple’s active sex life, and full of delightful verbal and physical comedy. 

The slapstick excess of consuming mass quantities and drinking beer for breakfast in six-pack form with stern, even glowering is hilarious. It’s no surprise the show would go on to bring back the characters again and again. 

Speaking of excess, there is an inspired parody of Hollywood Squares with Steve Martin as the perfectly smarmy host and a roster of celebrity and semi-celebrity panelists that never seems to end. 

It’s a segment that involves so many characters that seemingly the entire writing and secretarial staff have cameos. The host spends so much time introducing seemingly every celebrity in the world that there’s no time to play the actual game. 

On the deficit side of the ledger, there is a Roots parody that goes on and on in an unsuccessful search for laughter. Race has long been one of the show’s greatest weaknesses. If the sketch has anything to say about race, I could not discern it. 

Otherwise, the episode leaps from high to high and boasts a killer musical guests in The Kinks, who perform three songs, including “Lola” and “All Day and All of the Night.”

Martin's second episode is a big step up from his first and a lovely illustration of what made him the perfect host.  

Grade: A-

Best Sketch: The Coneheads at Home 

Worst Sketch: Roots II 

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