Saturday Night Live, the Complete First Season DVD Set
When TV shows began to make their debuts onto DVD in full-season box sets, many viewers wondered if "Saturday Night Live" could ever be one of them. For years, SNL's own producer, Lorne Michaels, has speculated that securing the musical rights alone would likely render such a gargantuan release impossible for years to come. Imagine the surprise of fans everywhere, then, when Universal Studios Home Entertainment announced the upcoming release of Saturday Night Live: The Complete First Season for December 5th, 2006, about a gazillion years, give or take, ahead of schedule.
Still, skeptics abound. It's not really complete, is it? After all, isn't there that little matter of securing musical rights? Incredibly, they're all there - from Billy Preston and Janis Ian, all the way to Rita Coolidge, along with every host, special guest, and viewer home film along the way. 24 complete shows on 8 discs, with a few unexpected bonus features to boot.
The collection is housed in a sturdy cardboard box with a 1975-76 cast photo on the front. An additional cast photo lines the inside cover of the box. The discs themselves are encased in a separate box, which opens like a book to reveal four columns listing the three episodes that appear on each disc. The two columns on the left reveal the first four discs underneath, while the two columns on the right reveal the final four discs underneath. Each pair of discs overlap one another in their individual casing. The discs themselves feature the familiar Edie Baskin artwork seen during the opening montage. Each disc holds three full-length episodes; Disc 8 also contains the set's bonus features: the cast's original screen tests (featuring early performances of many of their best-known bits), and a brief interview with Lorne Michaels and his repertory cast on the "Tomorrow" show with Tom Snyder, fifteen days prior to the season premiere. The final bonus item is a 32-page collectible booklet featuring rare photos of the cast and Lorne Michaels.
Of course, more important that any level of bonus features is the main attraction - all 24 full-length episodes of Season 1. I've heard from some fans of the show who have expressed concern that suddenly having full access to the complete season may threaten the legendary status of the original broadcasts that have remained elusive from the viewing eye in recent years. Specifically, fingers have pointed to such segments as Jim Henson's Muppets and films by Albert Brooks. In fairness, The Muppets segments never gelled with the SNL format (they were hated by the cast and writers), and the Albert Brooks films were a mixed bag; some were deservingly funny, others were just long and unresponsive. While The Muppets limped through the entire season with their adult-themed segments, Brooks would move on by mid-season to be replaced with films by Gary Weis or home viewers. Neither Brooks or The Muppets should affect the enjoyment of "Saturday Night Live" itself, as what was originally conceived as a variety-show format quickly focused itself on the performances of the repertory cast members. It's more than likely the sketches with Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner you're going to want to watch over and over again, not the films by Albert Brooks or the segments with The Muppets. And, let's face it, it's much more satisfying to have access to all the comedy segments, not just the ones granted inclusion in the "Best Of" video and DVD compilations that, until now, have been the mainstay of SNL home video collections. Sure, 32 years later many jokes will seem dated (a ten-cent stamp?!), notorious subjects may be long forgotten (Squeaky Fromme), but the episodes succeed in representing what was going on in the world in 1975 and bringing the viewer back to that point in time. It's a refreshing change from the predominantly orderly fashion in which the show currently exists, and it's always a thrill to watch a smaller cast as they run between sketches and various characters with only scant seconds to make the transition. Still, like any season of "Saturday Night Live", not every episode, or every sketch within an episode, is going to satisfy every viewer, but, finally, we can all decide this for ourselves. After all, in the grand scheme of things, Saturday Night Live: The Complete First Season is about more than repeated viewings of its over 26 hours of feature material; it's about having an essential resource of television history right at your fingertips.
Following the company credits, each disc opens to the familiar SNL theme playing over animated montage photos of each cast member, before landing on a static menu screen that gives the viewer the option of playing the entire episode or opening a list menu of the sketches within each episode. This second option may seem a little tricky at first, as the sketches are listed between two descending columns often divided between two or three complete screens.
Which brings us back to the question, "It's not really complete, is it?"
Speaking as a fan who was too young to have watched "Saturday Night Live" in 1975 (I was only a year old), I can't say with great accuracy how complete or unedited each episode truly is. Since the late 1980's, my exposure to SNL's original years consisted mostly of abridged 30-minute broadcasts on various cable networks (remnants, actually, of prime-time "Best of Saturday Night Live" presentations from the late 70's), a now out-of-print series of videotapes of individual episodes (sans musical guests), a brief run of abridged 60-minutes broadcasts aired on the E! Network early in their acquisition of syndication rights, and the always-welcomed full 90-minute broadcasts sometimes run on NBC's Classic SNL timeslot late Saturday nights. I chatted with other fans to determine where there might be differences between the televised broadcasts and the episodes featured on the DVDs, based on various online episode guides that have been compiled over the years.
Here are some observations that were noted:
Only one commercial bumper is included for each episode, toward the end to mark the transition between the final sketch and the Goodnights. Minus the bumpers, the sketches tend to blend seamlessly into one another. I take it, since real commercial breaks are obviously excluded, the absence of the bumpers is meant to serve the purpose of allowing each episode to play out as a continuous 66-minute performance. I always enjoy the playfulness of the bumpers, but I'm inclined to view this as a minor complaint. This should not lessen your enjoyment of the episode.
Weekend Update from the first episode (hosted by George Carlin) features Don Pardo making the introduction over Chevy Chase as he makes dirty talk over the telephone.
In its live broadcast, the Rob Reiner episode, which ran over on time, aired with no Goodnights. In later repeats, credits over a bumper montage were edited in. Those edited-in credits appear on the episode featured on Disc 1, so it's likely this is taken directly from the rebroadcast.
Commercial parodies remain in multiple episodes as they were originally repeated throughout the season.
In the first episode on Disc 1, Paul Simon announces that he's hosting next week's show (as he did on the original live broadcast). In the episode hosted by Lily Tomlin, Gilda Radner announces the next episode. In the episode hosted by Raquel Welch, Jane curtin announces that Madeline Kahn will be hosting the next episode. In the episode hosted by Dyan Cannon, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner and Buck Henry announce that he'll be hosting the next episode.
A commercial parody for Wrigley's Gum that originally appeared in the Rob Reiner episode, and re-appeared in the first episode hosted by Buck Henry, is excluded from both episodes in the DVD set.
The first episode hosted by Candice Bergen originally included a pair of commercial parodies that were absent during an NBC Classic rebroadcast in 2005 - one poking fun at long-distance telephone services, the other featuring Chevy Chase and Jacqueline Carlin as an attractive couple. These parodies remain in the episode featured on DVD.
The Hill-Weingrad book, A Backstage History of Saturday Night live, mentions how the cast earned extra money by performing live commercials for Polaroid during the show. The DVD set includes three instances (the book makes it sound like there were many more) of these advertisements, on the first episode hosted by Candice Bergen (Chevy Chase stars in "Alas, Poor Yurik"), the episode hosted by Raquel Welch, and the second episode hosted by Buck Henry.
The second episode hosted by Candice Bergen featured low audio quality in its original broadcast, which appears to be the same broadcast included on the DVD. The sound is somewhat tinny, yet remains audible for home viewing.
Like the episode hosted by Rob Reiner, the episode hosted by Dick Cavett also ran long and ended right at the Goodnights. The repeat included the same makeshift credits roll, which appears in the DVD episode.
In the second episode hosted by Elliot Gould, Gilda Radner reads a postcard from The Muppets.
The box states that the discs are subtitled for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, though this was not the case with my discs. I might need to give Garrett Morris a call for assistance!
I was pleased with the video and audio quality of the DVD set. If you want to authenticate the original viewing experience, you'll need to find an older, smaller television, but the video presentation is even better on newer models. I viewed the discs on my computer, and the video clarity was much better than I'd ever seen on any television broadcast. Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, so the musical performances sound better than ever.
