SNL: S08E16... HOST: ROBERT GUILLAUME... DATE: MARCH 19, 1983

or...

The Night The Man Who Shot Buckwheat

Was Also Shot And Killed

If you've read enough of my reviews then you already know that I love when an episode of SNL takes a joke and weaves it in and out throughout the evening. Well, this episode not only did this, but they did it by carrying over the Buckwheat assassination from the last episode. So right out the gate, I was excited by the running gag potential.

Not only was I excited for the above-mentioned reason, but I recently spent about a month editing together all of the intros and outros of the TV show Soap which features Robert Guillaume so I was looking forward to seeing him as someone other than Benson.

Right out the gate, I was excited by the opening sketch because they jumped right into a follow up on Buckwheat's assassination with typical news hype coverage of the assassin heading to jail where he too is shot and killed. This sketch did seem to run really long but the way the sketch was structured, I noticed but didn't mind.

Then, following this fun sketch, Robert Guillaume took to the stage where his monolog was about how he was a moderate who hated both political parties making him my hero who was ahead of his time.

After that, it was a pretty average show but I still had fun watching it.

Now that the intro is out of the way, it's time to move on and share what I saw as I give you...

The Wicker Breakdown:

1. This week's show starts with "Ted Koppel" recapping last week's "news story" about Buckwheat's assassination. We then get a profile of the assassin, who is also played by Eddie Murphy and is your typical hard working loner who everyone thought would snap one day because he openly discussed killing Buckwheat as his dream. The sketch ends with the assassin also getting shot to death followed by an endless news loop of the event.  
2. Robert Guillaume then officially opens the show with a monolog about why he thinks he was chosen to host and has determined that it's because he's a moderate black who is fed up with both sides in politics and demands a moderate revolt. 
3. We then got a repeat of the racist titled Clysler-Prymouth ad that's more of an attack on corporate lies than actually making fun of anyone of a certain race.
4. The next sketch took place in the slave days where Robert Guillaume plays a house servant who is happy with his role while Eddie plays a slave from the field who wants to escape and head north to start a music career to sing modern Motown songs that he acts like he's making up on the spot.
5. Heil Hits is a fake ad for a musical album filled with the best pop hits from the Nazi reign with Nazi-themed lyrics to otherwise poppy songs. 
6. The Mr. T Birthday Special is a sketch where Robin Duke is dressed like Mr. T and plays his wife as she hosts the "star-studded" tribute for Mr. T's birthday. Like most of these sketches that parody "sketches" there were a lot of impressions of contemporary "celebrities" with a lot of cheesy song and dance. Eddie, as Mr. T eventually does show up with the T kids as a special surprise. 
7. We then got another installment of I Married A Monkey where the monkey wife plays a Jane Doe in the hospital suffering from amnesia until Sweetchuck tracks her down and tries to trigger some memories of the family.
8. Once again, Brad Hall gives us the news. This week, Sweetchuck drops by to discuss the best-selling books from the time which was mainly dominated by Garfield and celebrity books with nothing that could be considered as literature, Juliet Louis-Dreyfus drops in to talk like a teen as she picks apart Gone With The Wind, and Brad pitches the SNL News Play Set.
9. Duran Duran then take to the stage to perform Hungry Like The Wolf.
10. Oil Is Us is a fake ad for oil where several "Middle Eastern Rules" play pitchmen who fight amongst one another as they each claim to have the lowest prices while making jabs at each other's countries geopolitical issues from the past.
11. We then got another installment of Solomon and Pudge where it's pretty much the same ramblings between two characters that I love only this time Robert Guillaume plays Solomon's nephew who is also a gynecologist and wants Solomon to move in with the family instead of an old folk's home.
12. Duran Duran then return to the stage to perform Girls On Film.
13. Brad Hall then picks up a pay phone and dials and breaks up with Julia Louis-Dreyfus the moment she picks up the phone. The two instantly start to fight but we eventually found out that it was a wrong number when Julia asks about returning the engagement ring and Brad has no idea what she's talking about.
14. Finally, Robert Guillaume closes the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

If it wasn't for the fact that I try not to count the opening monolog as a favorite moment because I don't want to recycle the thumbnail image, it would definitely be up there this week but with that noted, these are my left over favorite moments.

First, I loved the opening news coverage of Buckwheat's assassin being shot because as I said in the intro above, I'm a fan of reoccurring jokes and I loved how they carried this over from last week. Next, I was a fan of the Wrong Number Breakup sketch simply because the concept was funny. Finally, I was a fan of the Oil Is Us sketch because I'm disturbingly fascinated by these sketches that show how our world problems never change.