Zappa.com

When I read the Saturday Night Live book, the author was saying that when FZ hosted the show he hammed it up so much that the cast did not want to stand anywhere near him at the end of the program. Whenever the episode is aired I can see what they were talking about. FZ was a genius of a musician but I can imagine like some geniuses he had a difficult side.

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Sleeping. Mom and dad are sleeping. Sleeping in a jar. The jar is under the bed.

There is a thread about this elsewhere in here. I read the crew thought he was the worst host ever. I doubt that. Good old Lorraine Newman was the only one who kidded around with him onstage at the end of the show.....

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One two, buckle my shoe!

Bill Murray made a negative comment about Frank on a talk show once. I think it was either Leno or Charlie Rose. I can't remember exactly what he said, it was only one sentence and he didn't elaborate, but it was used in the context of some of the shit someone has to deal with during their career. He wasn't smiling when he said it. It stuck with me because I wondered what the deal was. :-/

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“The person who stands up and says, 'This is stupid,' either is asked to behave or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful 'Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!" -Frank Zappa

<br> id like to see bill murray's  cd/record collection.<br>   i bet it is awful.

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I'm not Antisocial,Society is Anti me !

I remember when that show originally aired. I was in high school and at a house party. I knew it was going to be on so I gathered a few of my friends around a tv in this house as it came on. Shortly then after the people who owned the house said we had to leave (I don't remember what the deal was). So we hightailed it over to my house (my parent's house) which was about 10 minutes away (there was maybe five of us) and continued to watch the show. I thought it was great. The part where the SNL cast thought Zappa was fucking up during the Conehead sketch I thought was great. I thought it was just Zappa being Zappa. Having that on dvd now is a treasure.

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I'm not Antisocial,Society is Anti me !

This should be in the fan faqs section!

Word is Frank played it one way during dress rehearsel but threw everyone for a loop for the live show. That's why they were pissed at him.

Based on his favorite team (the Cubs) BM wouldn't know a good baseball team - or in this case - good music if it bit him on the ass!

I have always thought Miss Newman was the hottest gal on the show - now I can say she was also the smartest one.

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Bobby

Frank was the host and in being that one would think he would be at liberty to act using a bit of his own creative flair.
As Frank had stated those skits are setup for the regular comedians to solidify their weekly ongoing characters and personality.
It's their meal ticket to Hollywood and they want everything to go smoothly where they are the stars not the guest host.
They should call the Guest Host spot Guest Puppet if they want to be so sensitive about acting directives and production.

One can look at Saturday Night Live skit characters and the odd off center personality of many characters NBC and viewers accept as being funny is because it is fed to millions of people week in and week out. Sometimes it would be 2 weeks between shows and how America missed their "Jane You Ignorant Slut" Dan Akroyd Point Counterpoint adventure. You see that is all OK It's all part of the producers plan but when a host like Frank Zappa shows up being his normal self I can see where the comedians and network did not want to be showed up by an individual that naturally has more flair than all the writers and comedians combined. Now I am not knocking the abilities of any comedian on that show, Season 4 which began in Fall 1978 is one if finest all around SNL seasons. Rollo with John Belushi as the Samurai Be Bop Musician is the finest live musical performance I have ever witnessed on a major TV network. Clearly put Frank was the guest and deserved to have some liberties in being Frank without these mamby pamby SNL stars giving him flack for being himself.

Look at the context the writers chose in the opening skit Season 4 Episode 3. When it came time for Frank to immediately follow the opening skit where Belushi played the president of NBC that signed Frank Zappa to a Long term contract because every gathered statistic pointed to the number 1 person wanted on TV was Frank Zappa it was Frank Zappa that followed using the God I Hope I Am Good. That God I Hope I Am Good line was seemingly written but the I am reading from these cue cards was the perfect add lib Zappa response. Genius. Zappa exposed the idiotic expectations of what goes on behind the scenes. Just as I exposed Letterman I followed FZs model whereby pointedly using self direction of exposing the phooey reality of TV. Why do you think FZ laughed so hard at my self direction acting on Letterman. He was seeing what he had done on NBC 5 years earlier.

I do not think Frank is easily amused by people carbon copying him but somehow in the live recorded TV medium he was all for it.
Frank was a master genius of expected unexpected no mater how unorthodox his acting behavior. I'll take Zappa. He took chances. Brings you back to Ernie Kovacs. FZ had balls.

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Trendmonger's Moment Of Clarity

FZ "Read It And Weep"
April 17,1981

Frank Zappa left the ZFT in Control of his Vaults and Artistic rights.
We the fans are not in control. We have a choice to use our eyes and ears or read it and weep.

Classic stuff

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Solipsism
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That 'Transmission's SNL' was the first album i bought and became completely hooked for life. My first taste was 'Cheap Thrills' back in 98 a CD my dad got, but man i remember watchin' 'Im the Slime' and been blown away


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See the Mammy now, See the Mammy now!!!

Those assholes on SNL thought they were so cool and hip BUT they treated Zappa the same way the mainstream media did -
as a total freak. Look at the opening bit with Belushi playing the head of NBC. SNL booked guests based on notoriety as opposed to real talent.
They had no clue why Zappa was an important guest to have on their show. Look at how his musical spots were filmed. They didn't
have a clue. Lorne Michaels is an incredible pompous asshole with no taste in music or comedy. Look at who they book now!

If they were really as cool as they thought they were - they would have found more interesting things for Frank to do on the show!
Belushi on the Purple Lagoon was a start - but what a waste of a musical genius as both a host and musical guest.

While watching the episode from December 13, 1975 with Richard Pryor as host, I heard Peaches in the background for the commercial transition music. I'm thinking it was the Fillmore version. At approximately 27:10.

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

I just got the DVD out, and you sir are correct.

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

What of value did Andy Kaufman learn from Frank's performance on that SNL episode, I wonder...

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"The Frank Zappa show was like one of the worst. And I looked at that recently and I really liked seeing how awkward he was in that. Zappa's a genius, but he doesn't trust people, he does everything by himself. A lot of performers after dress are shaken; it doesn't go well and all of a sudden, "Oh god, in two hours I'm going on live." With Zappa what happened was we had a terrible dress and what was he going to do? What he did, not telling anybody, was he turned into Dean Martin. The approach he took was, he read the cards like he was reading the cards - he made a point of it. He was obviously reading the cards. That was his approach to the humor. No one else in the sketches knew it. It was real bad, because I always liked Zappa. I think everybody did, but it was just a terrible show. Lorne was really upset."

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

Yeah Cal, I've seen that show so many times. Sometimes I laugh because of his terrible attitude, like it was a statement or something. Other times, I cringe because he was really, really terrible. By skit standards anyway. Having said that, my favorite part is always when he spits out the beer during the "consume mass quantities" section of the Coneheads sketch.

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Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

You wouldn't notice it that much these days, his "making a point of reading the cue cards" because today they are obviously reading everything off the cue cards. Back then there seemed to be a lot more memorization and stage acting to it. Since it's live TV I can possibly understand why the crew was pissed off.

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

Retarded Kanye West just played on SNL with samples of 21st Century Schizoid Man dropping in here and there... ugh

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

It can be terrible. I saw Jimmy Page playing with P Diddy, something from the Godzilla soundtrack that was set to Kashmir.

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

While going through the rest of the 1st Season, I found that they played Peaches in the transitions, I believe, 3 more times. I wrote down the times, but then lost the sheet I wrote it on. I'm thinkin that it was the shows with Desi Arnaz, Ron Nessen and Buck Henry. Anyway, SNL sure loved FZ before he pissed them off!

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

Intresting tidbit, a former SNL crew member (set designer) teaches at the College I went to and Apparently Jane Curtin would memorize NOTHING. SHe was completely dependant at cards but was a amzing at not giving away her reading.

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They booked lots of acts back then that they wouldn't today. There seemed to be more of an effort to be trendy and cool then as opposed to now, which is more ratings driven.

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