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I'm not an SNL fan finding it hacky from the get-go (John Belushi? not funny) and not as fresh and edgy as it positioned itself to be (nor inventive...shows like SCTV blew them out of the water). Lorne Michaels just poached the cast from the right places to make something that wasn't far off from the broad yuks of Laugh-In or Rich Little. But I needed to buy this particular 1976 episode for 1.99 from YouTube because the host was Louise Lasser who was then starring in my favourite television show Mary Hartman Mary Hartman. There's never been anything quite like Mary Hartman with its deadpan sensibilities. I'd call it skewed but it was right on target with the issues of the day (and it was also a rather feminist show). It was more than mere soap opera parody dealing with the curious denizens of the town of Fernwood, USA. It lasted just two years and over 300 episodes at five nights a week (which must have utterly been exhausting for Lasser) and was a culutural phenomenon.
Louise Lasser's character Mary Hartman had a total nervous breakdown on the show and Lasser did similarly during her opening monologue on SNL. It's fascinating to watch as an exercise in awkward comedy out of step with the rest of SNL. What is real and what isn't here? When she rubs her gums is she really high on cocaine? She discusses her personal problems. How planned is this? This is true comedic risk-taking that doesn't always work but is fascinating to watch. She mostly performs solo (or, as in one sketch, across from a dog) leaving the rest of the cast to fill the rest of the show with their by-the-numbers work -the sole exception being a bizarre song sketch about television technology featuring SNL's two stand-out talents: the no-holds-barred Dan Aykroyd and the very under-rated Laraine Newman. It was said (perhaps falsely) that Lasser was the first host to be banned from SNL but with SNL later having guest hosts like Trump and Musk, today being banned from SNL reads like a badge of honor.
Jul 19, 2025
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worth a watch it’s unfortunately still very accurate about how the us is run lol
on the “ban”/removal: “Yes, it was pulled after its initial airing & it's easy to see why. BUT what always amazed me was that NBC let it on in the first place.
It did go through an extensive note process, beyond the Standards dept & up the executive ladder. I remember adding the "voices in my head" line per their request to make the narrator seem crazier, not that it made a big difference. But, to their credit, there was a real willingness not to censor the piece. It helped that Lorne Michaels supported it & that my cartoons were, at the time, one of the more popular things on the show (this was loooong ago). It went all the way to "NBC West Coast" honcho Don Ohlmeyer, who okay'd it even with the Norm/OJ reference. (Google it if you don't know)
I remember the cartoon aired much later than the usual TV Funhouse, because Lorne said Bob Wright, the President of NBC (who had NOT seen it) usually turned the show off after Weekend Update. On this night, however, Bob Wright got home late, and saw what he saw.
Months passed and all was calm until Adam McKay approached me. A pissed off crew member had let Adam know the sketch was being cut from the rerun, replaced by a second Backstreet Boys song, which had no mentions of GE polluting the environment. I wasn't especially surprised but Adam was fired up. He leaked the story to a few TV journalists who'd written about the cartoons, NBC claimed it wasn’t funny (not that it was)and that's why people know & still talk about it today.”
Feb 15, 2025
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😃Embodies the chaos of real-time comedy. Hard to believe Lorne Michaels has been part of it for fifty years.
Nov 10, 2024
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SNL shaped me to be the weirdo that I am. So I made a compilation of spm of my favorite moments from the show. Enjoy!
May 8, 2025
Top Recs from @robertdayton
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🎵I just joined a few days ago as my friend Chloe recommended it (she also wants a mug). I find it neat like early Tumblr -or MySpace which I loved until it stopped loading and felt forced to join the cold and creepy Facebook which kept on getting creepier and creepier and then made Instagram creepy too. I have been finding the internet really nasty lately what with AI, Twitter, Spotify, and all these techie supervillains running about. This does feel nicer.
Jul 9, 2025
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Hi, self promo time! "Cold Glitter" is my new book from Feral House. It has lots of wild stories and fabulousness on a dime so no, you definitely do not have to be Canadian or a Glam head to enjoy it. Over 400 pages of PIZZAZZAMATAZZ and ten years in the making. Get it from Feral House or ask for it at your favourite shop or library.
"Dayton's deep plunge into the crystalline depths of Canadian Glam is a strange swim indeed, something only an author this obsessive could provide -- a mirror ball's worth of wild reflections on an ice-cracked world long gone. No need to know anything beforehand about Canada or its music to be thoroughly dazzled by this scintillant dip! C'mon, shoot the boots!"
Guy Maddin, director of Rumours (2024), My Winnipeg (2007), and The Saddest Music in the World (2003) among many.
“The always-entertaining Robert Dayton details a mysterious, undocumented scene that was hiding in plain sight up North. Written with the enthusiasm of a renegade entomologist who just uncovered a rare, precious, and peculiar bee, the book is loaded with colorful characters and alternate-universe tales.”
Gregg Turkington, actor, writer, and comedian best known for his character, Neil Hamburger.
"Cold Glitter is a province-by-province walking tour of the soft sequined underbelly I never knew I had, as a so-called Canadian. It is enlightening and hilarious and in the end inspiring. Cold Glitter creates a home for the perverse and the ecstatic, in a nation vehemently down on both.” Dan Bejar, musician (DestroyerCold Glitter is a province-by-province walking tour of the soft sequined underbelly I never knew I had, as a so-called Canadian. It is enlightening and hilarious and in the end inspiring. Cold Glitter creates a home for the perverse and the ecstatic, in a nation vehemently down on both.” Dan Bejar, musician (Destroyer
Jul 4, 2025
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Be sure to enjoy their hairy, sexy version of Good Vibrations in the middle somewhere...
Jul 8, 2025