Michael Arlen
Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
The Cosell Show and NBC's Saturday Night are both mainly live, but there is a crucial difference between the two programs. Cosell's show depends on that strange fantasy language of celebrity public relations which has been concocted by mass entertainment producers and stars.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
It is the language of kisses blown, of God bless yous, of this wonderful human being, of a sensational performer and my very dear personal friend, and of you're just a beautiful audience. In short, the language of celebrity hype. Perhaps a contemporary equivalent of dandyism and powdered wigs. Much of the appeal of Saturday Night lies in its contrast with this ubiquitous show business language.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
Its format, like that of most comedy programs, consists of a familiar assembly of skits, songs, and monologues. But the spirit of the material is in opposition to conventional show business.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
The hosts don't do very much in the way of hosting, in the conventional TV manner of promoting themselves or the guests, but are content mainly to sit around, providing a periodic focus for the loosely tied-together skits, and sometimes telling a story or two. Skit humor usually defies cold description, so I won't try much of it here.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
On the recent Saturday with Candace Bergen as host, the show began with a not very brilliant takeoff of a presidential news conference, which showed the actor impersonating President Ford bumping his head on the lectern, fumbling with his drinking water and repeatedly falling down.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
But then there was a crisply done parody of a TV news program concluding with a lunatic, news for the hard of hearing, which consisted of a newsman yelling items of news very loud.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
Also, a takeoff of a Black Perspective program with the Black host attempting to interview a harebrained white girl on the subject of a book she had just written about Black ghetto life. Also, an amiable but fairly juvenile parody of Jaws. Also a skit by a fine young comedian Andy Kaufman about a TV guest who couldn't manage to perform properly or at all. And so forth.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
For the most part, in the past 20 years, commercial television has largely ignored the important new trends in modern comedy. Whether as a result of the caution of advertisers or of the personal prejudices of network bosses, mass entertainment television comedy has been firmly rooted in the past.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
a synthetic Hollywood-style show business past, despite the fact that the new forms of comedy have demonstrated a considerable popular appeal. It's not a matter of wishing to replace Bob Hope with an elitist, in-group kind of humor. The popular audience continues to adore Bob Hope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
But it is also true that for years, substantial segments of this same popular audience have been sneaking away in droves from its hoopla show business comedy hours, in order to commune with the rising number of lesser-known, more personal, more political, more sexual comedians.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
Thus, what is noteworthy about Saturday Night and why I commend it is not the result of any spectacular, star-studded brilliance on its part. Indeed, it has no real stars, though I hope that the ensemble of actor-comics who perform most of the skits will make individual names for themselves. It is, as the saying goes, an uneven program with ups and downs and too many commercial breaks.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
But it is a direct and funny show which seems to speak out of the real non-show business world that most people inhabit. And it exists. One wonders, without expecting an answer, what took it so long?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
One wonders, too, what simple human pleasures the simple human TV viewer might someday conceivably experience if network television, that grinning, gun-toting, wisecracking, yet just a beautiful audience, still youthful courtesan, should ever start peeling off the rest of the cosmetics.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
This is probably as good a time as any to say a few words about an appealing new comedy program called Saturday Night, which is broadcast at 1130 each Saturday night by NBC and is definitely not to be confused with Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell, which comes on earlier in the evening on ABC.