Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 2: Episode 21
76u: Shelley Duvall / Joan Armatrading
Van Arguments
Written by: Marilyn Suzanne Miller
Wife…..Shelley Duvall
Husband…..Dan Aykroyd
[ open on Husband and Wife making their way down the cafeteria food line ]
Wife: Does it look like I’ve been cryin’, or does it look like an eye irritation?
Husband: I don’t know, man.
Wife: I hope to God it looks like an eye irritation! The whole world don’t have to know I just bin cryin’ in the K-mart!
Husband: Knock it off, man!
Wife: Standin’ in the checkout line, with tears runnin’ down my cheeks because my husband will not allow me to buy the original soundtrack album of “A Star is Born”! With Barbra Streisand, my world’s most meaningful actress!
Husband: You know what? I HATE Barbra Streisand! She’s got the hair of a lunatic!
Wife: Can’t buy the album ’cause certain people need the $6.49 plus tax they are saving for a bubble window for their van, which they must have in time for Van-o-Rama!
Husband: [ points his finger in her face ] You lay off ME! But, first, you lay off my VAN! Okay?!
Wife: The van! The van! Huh. Custom paint job, orange nylon pile of carpet on the floor, the walls, the ceiling, hot pink crushed velvet curtains, the CB panel all covered in pinkand orange shag carpet, and a fake fur bedspread! You got better stuff in that van than we got in our house! That van look like the King of the World’s home, that’s what!
Husband: Don’t give me none of that King of the World stuff! The King of the World don’t install his own air-conditioning! Now that van was a Chevy, and it came WITHOUT air-conditioning factory air, so I installed it myself! Remember?! I installed it myself!
Wife: I remember. ‘Til six o’clock in the morning, the night “Earthquake, part 1” was on TV! I’m watching the WORKD shake apart, you’re installin’ AIR! I’m asleep, you’re installin’ air! I’m fryin’ up breakfast strips, you’re installin’ air!
Husband: Well, who wouldn’t like to install air? Okay? Who wouldn’t like it? I LIKE installing air! I LOVE it! You get to use TWELVE different wrenches!
Wife: Twelve different wrenches. Isn’t that some big news! Like findin’ out in the Enquirer how different movie stars like their steak!
Husband: Alright, just lay off, okay? Let’s just eat here — I gotta go home, I gotta nail some more, uh, studs into the plush chamber!
Wife: I hate that name!
Husband: It’s not something you can hate, or like, or agree, or disagree with! It’s just the name of a certain area in the van! You know? I mean, like, it’s the name of the area except for the BED area, that’s it! It’s a plush chamber! And it’s called a plush chamber because it IS a plush… chamber!
[ they stand silently for a moment, ignoring each other’s gaze to stare toward the food server ]
Husband: A rare and a rare.
Wife: You know, that was the best movie I’ve seen in six months? It was very tender. You know, the kind where you’re in the audience but you keep wishing you were the one… in love with the girl, uh — the man on the screen, you know? I get off on tenderness.
Husband: [ ignoring her ] It’s decided. I’m gonna do the exterior, custom painting, in red-white pearl eyes, and, uh, red, white, and blue — I’m gonna call the whole thing “New Glory”. Like, you know, like, the flag is “Old Glory”, I’m gonna call this “New Glory”. Because, like, it’s a ’76 Chevy, you know, and it’s new, it’s gonna be called “New Glory”. And, if I have the right paint, I’m gonna put, like, grain, you know? Like a wheat field, you know, with purple mountains in the background on the side. Yeah! It’ll be really nice. What do you think?
Wife: I don’t think I’ll be expressin’ opinions, so nobody can say I was… gettin’ on ’em!
Husband: [ disgusted ] Nobody’s gonna say anything! I’m just asking for an opinion; I just want an attitude, that’s all!
Wife: Huh? Alright. Well, I think it STINKS!
Husband: GET OFF ME, WILLYA?!!
Wife: And here’s what else stinks: the simulated wood plaque with a simulated carving of a naked girl with your astrological sign branded on her belly, that you got hid behind the sun visor above th left windshield!
Husband: How’d you know about that?
Wife: I seen it last week when you went to get yuor sunglasses. And I’ll tellyou one mroe thing: I don’t think the leopard headdress on the driver’s seat makes it look ANYTHING a throne!
Husband: [ glumly ] You said you did…
Wife: Well, I was lyin’! Oh… and one more thing, in case you’re interested: I’m the one who wrote “WASH ME!” with their finger in the dust on the back door.
Husband: You know you’re crazy?! You’re TURNIN’ on me right now! Here, we go out to see the Barbra Streisand movie, we go to K-Mart to pick up cottonballs in between, we come out for a STEAK dinner, and then NOW, when it’s too late, when the movie’s bought, paid for, and seen, you TURN on me!!
Wife: Because I’m tired of our life! And, between us, bleieve me, we only got one life left — YOURS! And I am TIRED of watchin’ you bolt beverage caddies to the front console… tired of waitin’ up for you, ’til you’re done installin’ color bars that pulsate in time with the music over the bed… tired of watchin’ you jewel the steerin’ wheel… not leavin’ time to see any but ONE movie in six months, or money to buy the original soundtrack album! In the name of my life, movies and original soundtrack albums, I am FINALLY speakin’ out!
Husband: Well, you just remember ONE… THING! Okay? [ he pats her belly ] I got you that way IN the plush chamber!
Wife: I know.
Husband: And, to tell you the truth — we were watching Lawrence Welk, you know, in the TV plugged in on the car port? Well, while I was PUTTING IT to you, I imagined I was PUTTING IT to ALL FOUR of the Lennon Sisters at once!
Wife: Ohhh, alright. Well, let me tell YOU: if this baby’s a girl, I would like its FIRST name to be Barbra, and its MIDDLE name to be Streisand. And I am gonna see that it IS, because I am gonna tell them, in the hospital, in the delivery room, before you can get to them, while thye are writin’ out the birth certificate: Barbra… Streisand… JOHNSON!! [ he sighs ] Huh! And they will be NOTHIN’ you can do about it but live with a daughter named for a person with lunatic hair!
Husband: Okay. Look, man… YOU… and Barbra Streisand… and ALL your friends put together don’t understand ONE thing!! A VAN is a HOUSE on WHEELS!! Okay?! And it’s got a lot more FURthan any HOUSE we’ve ever HAD, okay?! And it GOES where you want!! You get a FUR-COVERED HOUSE!! It may not be REAL fur, but, let’s face it, the only person that can buy REAL fur is a MILLIONAIRE! Okay?! It’s a fur house! It goes without saying it’s not real fur, BUT… that plush chamber is the closest THING… that I’m gonna have, in this or any other lifetime, to a moveable FUR HOUSE!! Do you get that?! Do you understand that?!
Wife: Yeah, I understand! [ a beat ] You gonna eat your salad?
Husband: Yeah, yeah. Here. [ he hands it to her ] You can have it, I don’t want it.
Wife: Thanks. [ they continue down the line ] It’s from your father. You won’t admit it is, but it is. The man who said salad was invented by Communists, and you’re the one who told me he said it. So don’t try to get out of it now! He said it in the ’50’s, when people only ate salad in the summer, and it wasn’t a hot meal, and your father always WANTED a hot meal, so he told your mother salad was invented by the Communists and you believed him until this very day!
Husband: Wrong!
Wife: You can turn into your father any time now, if you don’t watch out. Already, every night, you sit in your chair with a joint instead of a beer can. Already, you got a yellow mechanical pencil you don’t never lose. And already, you’re ignorin’ your wife.
Husband: [ giving in ] I’ll buy you that album. Okay? [ he sighs heavily ]
Wife: Alright. And, if it’s a girl, it’s Tammy.
Husband: And that time with the Lennon Sisters? It might have been another night. [ they finally approach the cashier ] A rare and a rare… two juices… a salad… two coffees. And a pudding.
[ camera pans upward into the audience, zoom slowly upon a woman with SUPER: “Hyperpassive” ]
[ fade ]
