Saturday Night Live Season 1 Episode 4

After the previous Rob Reiner hosted episode, it was good to see the main cast finally get to show there personalities. For this episode I am hoping for them to build on the great of the previous episode. Tonight's host - Candice Bergen

• Chevy Chase is out as Gerald Ford in the cold opening, I say Gerald Ford - he looks and sounds a lot like Chevy Chase - he keeps doing forgettable things and bangs his head. He ends the bit tripping over some chairs.
• Host is Candice Bergen with musical guest Esther Phillips. We are also going to be treated to Jim Henson's Muppets and a film by Albert Brooks.
• Andy Kaufman is also here. The Not Ready For Prime Time Players is oddly missing half the cast.
• Candice Bergen is happy to be the first woman host, John Belushi, who apparently is in the cast tonight, comes out with Chevy Chase - Belushi is in bee clothing and just sat next to Bergen. Chase hits him with a script and Bergen feels sorry for Belushi. Belushi goes away but comes back to end the segment. Likeable sketch.
• Dan Aykroyd and Laraine Newman are in advert for becoming an ambassador but are only in the beginning. Parts of this advert are funny, which is more then can be sad for some adverts
• Aykroyd is in a messy CIA office (Department of Records). Garrett Morris comes in a citizen asking by law that he could see the file they keep on him. Aykroyd is good in the sketch playing the stressed bureaucrat. Aykroyd can't find a file even though Morris keeps listing all the criminal stuff he's done.
• Gilda Radner is home at home - wait, this is an awesome LAND SHARK sketch - this is one of the funny stuff, love how the shark tries to gets victims. Belushi looks awesome as the Hooper character. Laraine Newman up as the next victim... flowers? plumber? candy gram?... "I'm only a dolphin ma'am", Jane Curtin is the next victim, she is easily tricked, she think's it's her husband Walter, next scene Aykroyd and Belushi ring Walter in a funny bit. Candice Bergen is up next listening to a radio report, she as a mallet, she accidentally hits a JeohavsWitness with it... EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT sketch.
• Candice Bergen introduces Esther Phillips... Phillips sings "What A Difference A Day Makes" not sure I like it, she sounds like a dolphin (ironic considering the sketch that came before it).
• Chevy Chase doing Shakespeare? The jokes appears to be he as written in the words on the skull, which is ends up dropping and breaking, then just reading random bits from the bits he finds before he makes stuff up. 
• He goes straight into a Polaroid commercial (done on stage) with Candice Bergen dressed as a bee. Is this a legit advert I think so? Ends with a bad punchline that actually works.
• Advert now about ringing long distance, not sure of the joke here actually.
• Chevy Chase is on the phone at the beginning of Weekend Update, worrying a random girl is two weeks later, Chase does "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not" for the very first time. More Gerald Ford jokes, and more jokes to do with Ford's White House staff. Good thing about live is when jokes don't hit the spot, there is a bit of silence, shows there still working out kinks. Most of the jokes hit the spot though.
• Advert with hands, I knew this was going to be "Triopenin", I'm not sure this is just a repeat of the advert from a previous episode, I think it is... but if it isn't it doesn't try anything new.
• Jane Curtin on Weekend Update to do an editorial on funds for New York City, Curtin is being really serious while Chase does faces mimicking her all the way through. Chase is very funny in this bit.
• News for The Hard of Hearing is back, just like any other Hard of Hearing bit, it's the same schtick anytime.
• Channel No. 5 with Candice Bergen playing Catherine Deneueve with a funny french actress. It ends with the Channel No. 5 being stuck to her head.
• Bergen introduces Andy Kaufman and uses the word genius. Andy Kaufman is doing the foreign man bit (so he speaks on SNL for the first time, obviously not with his real voice), he is talking about carrying a canon up the highest mountain, he cracks himself up (in character) telling this lame story, the story goes no where which is brilliant. Kaufman is doing imitations - Archie Bunker - which is bad, he has an awkward pose after Bunker forgetting who is doing next, so he does an bad dance then sings terribly, he asks to stop the tape then says I think we should turn off the TV asking I don't know if your laughing at me or with me, he says he's trying to do his best. He goes into crying which goes into playing bongos, this bit was EXCELLENT.
• Gilda is sat with Candice, Gilda talks to her about been pretty, Gilda wants to look at her face and find something wrong, Bergen says nobody likes the way they look. Gilda likes hearing when stuff goes wrong for Bergen to do with guys, it makes her feel like she's not strange. Cool interaction between the pair - like this bit like the previous episode, it's easy to fall in love with Gilda.
• Albert Brooks film, with fake trailers for new TV shows - MEDICAL SEASON set as you guessed it  an hospital, nails melodramatic soap opera drama pretty well - THE THREE OF US,  a man and wife  and her best friend live together and it makes for an whole lot fun, it's a sit-com, kind of funny it predicated Three's Company, a couple of years before it came out, except Three's Company was not about getting a threesome. BLACK VET - is about a black veteran from the Vietnam War becoming a vet (animal sort), and encounters racism in a small town, the jokes actually work better in this then the other. There is also bits on a Tuesday Night Club and Death of a Salesman entirely cast with children. Not bad, one of the better Albert Brooks bits.
• Midnight Probe talk show with Bergen playing the host, with Belushi and Aykroyd as Vietnam vets  (whats with two bits having Vietnam vets with them in a row), who are now Kiwi hunters. Not the most memorable of sketches but the performances make it work.
• Michael O'Donoghue is using a payphone to ring Laraine Newman at Trans American Airlines, he says he'd like to stick tacks in her, throw garbage at her face etc, all sorts of threatening stuff, she remains polite. Dark and funny.
• Those fucking Muppets in the land of Gort are back. It's do with an animal nearly going extinct, the main Muppet (I'm not going to bother trying to remember his name by this point), he seems to be having a bit on the side. The audience are barely reacting to any of this which I can't stay I blame them. Flat, worst part of the show by far.
• Belushi playing a king of foreign country (they don't actually name the country, it's not me not been bothered to try and name the place) and Bergen is interviewing him. Bergen seems to be bullying this nice King as soon as the camera is rolling. She cuts his tie, draws a beard on his face, ends up pouring coffee on his lap, stamps on his foot and even burns him.  She did it to get him angry so she threatens him with death so she got a good story. Good skit.
• Black Perspective with the only black cast member Garrett Morris who is interviewing soul sister Jane Curtin. I guess the joke here she is white and he doesn't seem to realize, he asks her which she prefers black etc and she gives a racist answer which makes Morris laugh. I liked their performances in this, good sketch.
• Pong sketch, with voice over, treating it like they are playing real tennis. Not a bad sketch.
• Dolphin Esther Phillips is back, better song then earlier, not sure what it's called.
• Candice Bergen is on stage with the cast been given roses off of all of them. Lots of hugs and kisses between them all.

Overall Thoughts - The best episode so far, Candice Bergen was the first host to go full throttle appearing in a number of sketches with the cast, there was also the brilliant Land Shark sketch as well as Andy Kaufman just been awesome. Albert Brooks film was not too bad, but I'm kind of waiting for him and The Muppets (who where a waste of time) to be out of the show.