or...

Then, The No Show Showed!!!

Unlike many of the last few hosts, I've been aware of Elliot Gould by both name and face for many years. That said, I didn't really know much about him other than him being that one guy from the one movie or show. I probably know him more for his late night talk show appearances or handing out awards, but now that I've seen him host the show three times he's really growing on me as a Saturday Night fixture.

It's always nice to seem a name that you know after viewing a list of mostly unentertaining strangers. I wasn't sure about this appearance though since Gould had to back out of an earlier episode in the season. He could have come back big headed and a bit boring like a couple guests and members of the cast from their successes found between seasons.

Even though said head swollen guest and cast members extra ego was written in, it's not a style of comedy that I'm a fan of especially now living in modern times where people can genuinely diva out after barely getting internet-famous.

Nothing that obnoxious happened this go around, they didn't even mention his prior absence. This felt like the start of the part in the second half where they get past the slump and get back to the big names in order to be picked up the next season.

This episode was a little better than average but compared to the last show it felt brilliant. Now it is time to share what I saw as I give you...

The Wicker Breakdown:

The opening sketch was with NBC executive making a deal with the Russians to give them the rights to air the Olympics. This must have been a scandal at the time because this was when both the summer and winter Olympics were on the same four-year cycle and the 76 games just ended making it four years off from being significant to either upcoming event. That said, it was still a pretty funny sketch where the ruler of Russia's list of demands included a visit on Carson.
Elliot Gould then opens the show with a song and dance called The Castration Walk with Belushi and Murray as background singers and dancers.
The Coneheads then returned to deal with the phone company to get 35 lines installed in their house. Of course, Gould as the phone guy gets to witness the bizarro lives of these aliens.
The McGarrigle Sisters perform the song Kiss and Say Goodbye.
You've Come a Long Way, Buddy was a sketch about a men's show talking about men's rights much the way the worried man of today would satire the feminist movement.
Once again, Jane Curtin does the news. I like it much better when she jumps right in over her trying the Chevy Chase technique of starting in the middle of a separate off-camera conversation. Bill Murray then does a segment on a porn shop, strongly laced with sexual innuendo. By the time he's done with his story, he can't stand because of his boner. He then joins Jane to read a few other stories which felt like they were testing him out for the role since he still seems to be struggling to find his fit in the show being that he's only been there half the season. Belushi then came in as the weatherman who started out doing a weather report aimed at shut-ins that built to a huge rant about people from India not eating cows before falling to the ground in the funnies pratfall of the season.
Bill Murray then plays his crappy lounge singer who works his ass off to entertain only to annoy the audience of drunks that just want to be left alone with their beverages.
The next sketch starts with a boy born without a face then turns into an ad hosted by Joan Crawford for the United Face Bank asking for donations. Garrett Morris plays a football player whose face was replaced with a seven-year-old girl's face. This was done with some pretty funny make-up that I felt was the star of the sketch.
This week's short film was a sports fight reel that you would now find on YouTube.
The McGarrigle Sisters return to sing Heart Like a Wheel.
The next sketch was hilarious as it was making fun of the NEW ATM technology and all the security measures you had to go through to get your cash. In the end, there was a pretty interesting point where the machine notifies the user that the government is no longer recognizing cash currency and that head cheese was our new form of money.
Next was a sketch for a Natural Causes restaurant run by very dippy hippies who only serve food that died from natural causes. The sketch started to run long because it felt like they were just repeating the same joke but then the sketch killing cow dropped from the ceiling ending the sketch on a laugh.
Rosalyn Kind then sang I'm Not Anyone.
The Home Movie of the week was a guy coming home to catch his wife fooling around with a stuffed clown. The man and the clown then get into a fight where the man kills the clown leaving a happy couple as if killing a guy who just looks at a girl will win her heart over forever.
Next was a replay of the ad for the human feed bag that is so old Chevy Chase was the star of it.
Finally, we ended on good nights with time to kill, so Dan Aykroyd made a serious call to the audience for motorcycle parts that he was looking for.

As I said, this episode was slightly above average and hear are my favorite sketches. First, I'm still in love with the Coneheads and now watching them through adult eyes it much more fun to see the story that they are building. Next, is another character that I like every time that he's on and that's Belushi, the meteorologist who builds in rage as he discusses the weather. Finally, I was a fan of the ATM sketch because of how obvious it was that this was new technology that not everyone had access to at the time, making their over-explaining of how it works pretty funny through my modern eyes.