Zappa.com

Just announced.

SHOULD include FZ's Dancing Fool, The Mek Shall Inherit Nothing and Rollo.

It will. They usually don't announce it until they've gotten everything secured, rights-wise.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

As well as the skits!!!! Night at Freak Mountain (or whatever its title was - I forgot, but it is quite fun!)

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"Everybody in this room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself" - FZ
http://www.myspace.com/kirnehness

The skit with the Coneheads and the skit about NBC signing FZ...this makes season 4 a must.

And, most of the cast thought Frank sucked as a host. But loved the music.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

That Coneheads sketch actually really bugged me, because that's not exactly typical Frank behavior. I read up on it... apparently it was a mix of the fact that everyone there was against his hosting and wouldn't give him any creative control whatsoever, and he was nervous about reading the cue cards. Unfortunately, he was never asked back after that episode.

BUT...

Those who want more craziness might get lucky - assuming NBC is brave enough to release a season that they refused to re-air, we should be getting "The Complete Sixth Season" in December 2009, complete with the episode with Captain Beefheart sellin' hot roots 'n' hot soots to a bewildered audience. (That's the one that ended with a heckler in the crowd yelling "THAT'S SHIT!")

That would be one Radames Pera aka GRASSHOPPER from the Kung Fu tv show. He later redeemed himself. Read all about it here: http://www.beefheart.com/filtered/snl.htm

That would probably be the only reason to get the sixth season, if you're a Beefheart fan. Pretty abysmal year.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

4th season is not only noteworthy for frank's hosting stint, but because it includes one milton berle as host. he was apparently so offensive or awful as host, with the cast complaining about his behaviour, etc., that the show was never rerun. the snl cast had decided frank was the worst host after louise lasser---i disagree, i think she might have been a shade worse. i suppose they had bad memories about this year, since they forgot how bad milton berle was....wouldn't he make a better choice as the worst? i shall find out when i finally get my hands on it. i guess you should never work with your comedy heroes, they'll only let you down....

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One two, buckle my shoe!

Did you get the Saturday Night Live book Dove? If not, I demand you do so right away. The oral history, with Shales as a writer, and not the earlier one (which is still okay). It includes a funny story about Milton Berle's legendary, um, well, you know.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Man, that Beefheart performance took me completely by surprise. I just happened to catch it one afternoon back when Comedy Central still showed old SNL episodes, and I had no idea he'd ever been on there. Malcolm McDowell was the host too, and since it was in 1980, I can only imagine that he was there to promote Caligula, which makes it even stranger.

Nah, he was actually booked because he was performing in a play in NYC at the time. NBC actually demanded that they find a new host, as Malcolm McDowell was deemed to unfamiliar to SNL's typical audience - but Jean Doumanian (SNL's short-lived new executive producer) wasn't exactly the brightest star in the sky and insisted on booking him anyway. It says something that, when Jean was the talent director, she booked Milton Berle.

Anyway, the McDowell episode was horrendous (with or without Malcolm) and SNL lost many of their viewers. Shame, really - the next episode (with Ellen Burstyn) was actually really good.

I am falling behind - I still haven't gotten the third season yet. Maybe I'll get 3 and 4 at the same time.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

I wonder if Lorne is going to keep 'em coming in order (SNL season sets, that is) or if they are going to bypass some of the weaker seasons.

who knows, but it only makes sense to go in order. as much as i love the series m*a*s*h, there are later seasons that i've skipped entirely...and they did release every show. i know a lot of people will wait until the shows with farley/sandler/spade/hartman, etc. i have the first three seasons (yes, buy 3&4, cal), and have to buy 4 as soon as i can find one, or through amazon. i did buy an snl book, and i'm not sure if it was by shales or not, cal. it's boxed up somewhere....

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One two, buckle my shoe!

Gosh darnit, dig it out and do nothing else but read!

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Well, the general fan consensus is that NBC will chicken out and skip Season Six (despite the generally high demand for it); it's also speculated that Lorne will want to skip the four Dick Ebersol seasons as well. Which is a shame... if they pass on seasons 6-10, they pretty much wiped out all of Eddie Murphy's career.

Is that the one where they talk about Farley bursting into Lorne Michael's office naked and with a broomstick up his butt? I started taking him seriously as a comic after I read that.

Yeah, I remember the 1980-81 season being pretty painful. However, it was still kind of interesting to watch since I'd never seen anything from that season before. I'm not sure which is more hated: that season or the 1985-86 season with Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr.

Neither of those seasons was particularly godawful, despite how people seem to remember them - the only season that really deserved its bad reputation was 1994-95. Just episode after episode of tasteless, bloody, offensive sketches, usually resulting in a silent audience. That was the season where a sketch included the cast dressing up in KKK gear and torching a cross. (No, I'm not making that up.)

Since it's fairly hard to come by, I've noticed that most opinions of 1980-81 seem to come from people who just remember it from when it first aired; during the time when the new cast was being publicly slaughtered (even before the season premiere) for daring to replace the departing bunch. Literature hasn't helped either - the unauthorized "Saturday Night" tends to make it sound like twelve excruciatingly painful episodes where no one laughs once. That's not true at all; the audience is generally pretty vocal (especially compared to 1994!), and no episode has more than one or two sketches that completely tank.

In fact, the McDowell show is the only truly awful episode out of the bunch (though Sally Kellerman's comes pretty close); the Bill Murray episode was actually voted as one of the best SNL's ever at one point. I personally don't think it's the best of the twelve, but I think it showed positive signs of a future that never came. The infamous Charlene Tilton episode (the one where Charlie slipped up on air) was pretty decent as well; that had the first appearance of Eddie's Mr. Robinson, as well as Stevie Wonder in 'Fiddler On The Roof', which probably got the most uproarious reaction out of ANYTHING Eddie ever did.

I've only watched 4 or 5 episodes in season 4, but I've already got my money's worth out of them. I've seen Zappa's episode (which has good moments and bad), The Rolling Stones episode features their mini concert where Mick tries to grab Ron Wood's crotch after licking him on the lips, a 1979 version of DEVO that I love and Carrie Fisher in another gold bikini!!

As for the early 80's seasons, I'm excited to see all of the skits with Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Anthony Micheal Hall, Robert Downy Jr and Joan Cusak. Hopefully they keep releasing them in order and at this same pace.

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Yep, same one.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Just to clarify. My understanding is that there were two Zappa episodes, dec 1976 and oct 1978. Were there others? I didn't think so.

My local music dealer is talking about the seasons being broken up into volumes. Does anybody know which volumes Zappa is on?

What's the picture quality like? I have them both on a bootleg DVD which is heavily compressed.

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Yes, only two Zappa shows.

I don't know about volumes. When you order a season, you get 8 DVDs with every show in that season.

The picture quality is very very good.

(I was just wondering - is Frank the only artist to be both the host and the musical act on the same show?)

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Just checked....the answer is no, Garth Brooks has done it also, there may be others.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday