More Cowbell and More “Saturday Night Live”

Repeats of vintage shows from 40 seasons opens a time capsule of classic comedy.

The first edition of "SNL Vintage," a new compilation of old "Saturday Night Live" episodes from each of the program's landmark 40 seasons, opened at 10 p.m. on Sept. 27 with the perfunctory "viewer discretion is advised" warning.

Then there was a second, more informal note before the 1975 show, hosted by Richard Pryor, rolled: "Remember, it was the 70s and a lot of stuff that was shocking then may be considered offensive now." That almost certainly was an attempt to brace viewers for the segment in which Chevy Chase plays a job interviewer who engages prospective employee Pryor in a word-association exercise that grows increasingly racially charged before exploding with the N-word.

The scene from the program's seventh episode became perhaps the most talked about sketch that first season, setting "SNL" apart as a brazen comedy force, willing to shock to make a point.

The bold choice to air the one-hour version of the Pryor episode (which contained two blunt and brilliant monologues from the comic, if not, inexplicably, a classic spoof of “The Exorcist”) kicked open a time capsule of late-night TV humor. Inside are plenty of laughs, along with signs of how comedy has changed over the last four decades and how “SNL” changed comedy.

The NBC show’s history — which includes many glory days and some forgettable periods — tends to get defined by performers: Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Will Ferrell, Adam Sander, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, to name a mere few standouts.

But the show, guided for most of its run by Lorne Michaels, is best defined by its ability to juggle change and constants. There’s been a move from counterculture social commentary (as seen in the word-association sketch) to pop-culture social media-friendly humor (take Saturday’s film trailer spoof of the Marvel movie machine). Still, political satire has been a mainstay, from Belushi as Henry Kissinger to Fey as Sarah Palin to Jay Pharoah as President Obama.

“Weekend Update,” a staple since the first show, marks both a constant and a vacillating sign of the times. In the Pryor episode, Chase’s Season 1 running gag — “Francisco Franco is still dead” — may have spurred some Googling among younger viewers.

This week’s “SNL Vintage” includes perhaps the show’s most popular bit, one that probably doesn’t require Googling: the “More Cowbell” sketch, which is a quarter-century and light years away from the Pryor segment that helped set the program’s course. The sketches mark very different, but important points in the ongoing journey of a show with much to celebrate. Check out the "Cowbell" sketch above, and check it out again on Saturday, because, like Christopher Walken, we can never get enough cowbell.

Jere Hester is founding director of the award-winning, multimedia NYCity News Service at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is also the author of "Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped us Come Together as a Family." Follow him on Twitter.

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us