Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 2: Episode 18
76r: Julian Bond / Tom Waits, Brick
Great Moments in Motown
Club Owner…..Julian Bond
Clement…..Garrett Morris
Singer 1…..Dan Aykroyd
Fontaine Park…..John Belushi
Singer 2…..Bill Murray
[ open on art card: “Great Moments in Motown” ]
[ dissolve to club interior, Club Owner’s back to the camera as a Motown quartet, comprised of a Black lead singer with three white backing vocalists, perform on stage ]
[ SUPER: “The Lilac Club, Detroit 1968” ]
Clement: [ singing ]
“Girl!
You’ve given me everything, that money, can’t bu-u-uyy!
And!
It’s only on your account, that my interest, has stayed so hi-i-ighh!”
Group: [ singing ]
“You!
Are my per-son-al sav-ings and loan!
I want to with-draw, your, de-vo-tion!
And de-pos-it, my e-mo-tion!
Say, I feel like a rich man
With only you, baby, to si-i-i-i-ignn!
YES!!
I’m driving on the way to the Love Bank!
Love Bank…!”
Club Owner: Stop! Stop, stop, stop! Stop!
[ cut to Club Owner, as the group continues their harmony ]
Club Owner: Come on, stop! Stop, stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! There’s something wrong here! There’s something wrong here!
[ the group stops completely ]
Clement: What’s wrong, man?
Club Owner: There’s something seriously wrong here! I’m giving you kids a break, I’m letting you work in my club, I’m paying you good money… I’m giving you my professional opinion, and I know what I’m talking about!
Clement: Y-yeah… so?
Club Owner: So I’m telling you you’re opening here tonight, and there’s something wrong! You just don’t look like you belong in a night club!
Singer 1: Well, I want to tell YOU something, Mr. Night Club Manager! You know what’s wrong?! You know what the problem is?! The problem is… we should all be wearing VESTS!
Club Owner: Oh, man! I’m talking about — I’m talking about your performance! That’s what I’m talking about, is your performance! For one thing — Fontaine?
Fontaine Park: What?
Club Owner: I can hear you breathe! You’re breathing in ALL the wrong places! You have to sing when everyone else sings! Breathe when everyone else breathes!
Fontaine Park: Hey, man! Don’t you be tellin’ me how to BREATHE, man! No one’s gonna be telling Fontaine Park how to BREATHE… because he is a self-breather! You dig?
Singer 2: I’m with you, man! When I was with Fontaine, and he was breathing, I was saying, “Hey, Fontaine! You’re breathing all wrong! You gotta change! You can’t breathe like that, you gotta change, you’re breathing the wrong way!” And he wouldn’t!
Fontaine Park: And I want you to remember something else… alright? Fontaine Park… almost KILLED a man!
Singer 2: Ah, he would’ve, too… only… he didn’t! [ he laughs ]
Club Owner: Look here! Fontaine, outside this room — when you’re outside this room, you can breathe any way you want.
Fontaine Park: Yeah.
Club Owner: But when you’re in MY club, and you’re breathing MY air, I want you to breathe it MY way! Or you can forget ALL of those free Whiskey Sours to go! Yuo understand?
Fontaine Park: Yeah, yeah…
Club Owner: Okay, let’s hear the next verse.
Clement: Right!
[ singing ]
“All, of my fri-i-i-iends, they say that I am really du-u-u-umbbb…”
Club Owner: Hold it! Hold it, hold it, hold it! Hold it, that’s it! I know it, that’s what’s missing, it’s the gestures! The hand gestures! That night when I signed you, when you were singing in front of Coball Hall before the concert? You were using all kinds of hand gestures! Now why’d you cut ’em out?
Singer 1: Like… the night you signed us up in front of Coball Hall… we were singing, but, like, mainly we was working for the parking lot, parking cars, directing traffic. Like, THAT’S what you saw.
Club Owner: Well… whatever it was, it looked really slick. Let me see ’em again.
Clement: Okay, okay, okay…
[ singing ]
But, I heard a blind man say that he, just, could not see-ee-ee.
That don’t have nothin’ to do, with you, or me-ee-ee.
Club Owner: Okay, that’s great! That’s just great! We’re gonna leave the moves in!
Clement: Hey, like, wait a minute, man! You know, like, I am the lead singer, okay, man? And, like, the audience won’t be looking at me, man, you know? But how’s anybody gonna pay any attention to one guy singing, man, when these guys are jiggling? Yuo know what I mean?
Club Owner: Be practical, Clemont!
Clement: Clemont?
Club Owner: The jiggling is part of the act! It’s like the old —
Clement: Clement, man!
Club Owner: [ still not correcting himself ] Clemont. It’s like the old three-ring circus philosophy. If they don’t like the elephant on his hind legs in the MAIN ring, maybe they’ll go for the three little monkeys riding bicycles next door.
Clement: The little monkeys, huh? [ the other members start dancing ] Well, listen, listen, monkeys! Listen, monkeys! Now, you do what you want, monkeys, but you KNOW what dancing in a line on stage makes you look like — especially to the female element of the audience?
Fontaine Park: Like what?!
Clement: Sweet boys. That’s what. Sweet boys! Chocolate on the inside, marshmallow on the outside — ha ha ha!! Sweet boooooyyys!
Singer 1: Now, you dig THIS, sucker!! Don’t you call ME no sweet boy!! I got FIVE girls pregnant!! February 1st, February 10th, February 11th, February 15th, and February 30th!
Clement: February 30th, man? What you…?
Singer 1: Don’t you go penalizing me on no TRICK month!!
Fontaine Park: Oh, I, Fontaine Park, I have been around! You hear me? I ain’t no sweetboy! Why, for six whole months, I’ve been totally satisfying a dee-vorced… exotic dancer!
Singer 2: Oh, I, too, either! You know, I been around, too! For the last six whole months, I’ve been listening to HIM talk about satisfying a divorced exotic dancer! You know what I’m saying?
Club Owner: Okay, then in that case, there’s nothing in the whole world that can make ANY of you look like sweetboys, does it?
Group: No! No!
Club Owner: Have those conk jobs [?] sunk in through your brains? Look — right now, you’re doing four shows a night, plus six shows a night on weekends, and Sundays all you have to do is come in and clean up around the club a little bit. And for ALL that, I’m giving the group $100 to split among all of you, a week. Right?
Group: Right. Right. Right.
Club Owner: Okay. now, if you add the hand gestures, I’ll make it $150.
[ the group reacts with great surprise ]
Clement: $150..?
Club Owner: Now, keeping that in mind — keeping that in mind, what am I going to see on that stage tonight?
[ the backing singer perofrm their gestures as Clement sings ]
Clement: [ singing ]
“So, fiddlely-fi, fiddlely-fum
You made a man out of what was once a bum!”
Group: [ singing ]
“I want to with-draw, your de-vo-tion
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
And de-pos-it, my e-mo-tion!
Say, I feel like a rich man
With only you, baby, to si-i-i-i-ignn!
YES!!
I’m driving on the way to the Love Bank!
Love Bank!
Baby, baby, to the Love Bank!
Love Bank!
Yeah, yeah, to the Love Bank…!”
[ fade ]
