The New Show

and SNL was HORRIBLE all season, fumbling, bumbling, badly written. When Lorne was shown the door, they handed producing duties to the woman who had arranged for the bands that performed on the show. I feel sorry for the cast members who replaced the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. I'm sure they were very talented. What happened, as I understand it, was that Al Franken played a little prank on the president of NBC, something involving a limousine. In the telling, it's funny, until you realize how many lives it messed up (including mine--I had to sit through a year of SNL without Lorne). Al was let go, Lorne was let go. Word to the wise: Don't mess with the limo of the president of NBC. So Lorne did this little thing (he's done a lot of little things--like Kids in the Hall) that was occasionally hilarious, but seemed to have no budget and lacked the thrust of SNL (it was too short, for one thing). I loved it when it was on, missed it when it went away. Some people though it was a waste, but really there was nothing like it on television at the time. Anyone who thinks it's easy to make skit comedy funny should sit through the entire run of FRIDAYS on ABC and Kelsey Grammar Presents the Sketch Show.

I recall they had one episode where Dave Thomas' evil twin brother tried to take over as host, then pulled a gun on the audience demanding everyone's wallet. Dozens of wallets are thrown onto the stage, when the villain turns his gun toward one audience member in particular: "Hey, you didn't throw your wallet!"

I seem to remember in the ailing Andropov skit that Carrie Fisher comes in as a bikini-clad waitress trying to tell the premier something but she gets conked on the head, knocked out. I saw a similar sketch at a later time without this happening, wondering if this was a running gag in different episodes. I believe Carrie at least appeared in two episodes with then husband Paul Simon, who was musical guest. He also had a music video on one show I believe featuring his then wife.

I remember loving this show. The Jetson blooper reel was very funny.

John Candy played a owner of a food repair shop. A guy comes in with a pretzel that lost its salt. Candy tells him the man hours to replace each salt grain would make it cost to much to fix.

Carrie Fisher plays a woman frighten by phone calls asking who is watching the baby? The police call back and say the calls are coming from in the house. She scrambles to the baby's room to find the baby making the threatening calls.

The Quaid brothers did a bit playing two rednecks getting excited to talk to the "Dirty Lady" on phone. It was very funny.

I would like to see this on DVD. Or comedy central.

Though it popped up in other places and other shows, 1 sketch from this show is the famous Steve Martin "Billie Jean" video parody of Michael Jackson's big hit. Beyond that, I recall a skit that mocked Orwell's 1984 (an old book that appropriately was getting renewed media attention that year) torture chamber scene where people were asked what they were afraid of and they were tortured with it. The example I remember was when the shackled actors said "spiders," and people dressed in huge muppet-like spider outfits attacked them. Contrary to other reviews, these 2 skits were funny at the time. Of course, I was 10 years old.

I remember watching "The New Show" when I was in high school. It seemed mildly funny then. The only sketches I remember are one in which guest star John Candy played a Russian visiting ailing Yuri Andropov (he was the head Soviet honcho at the time) in the hospital, and another one in which a couple sees a doctor/therapist about the strange things they do every day, such as becoming unconscious for 8 hours at a stretch (sleeping) and sitting on a chair in a little room several times a day (going to the bathroom).

Was it funny? Probably not. With talent mostly drawn from SCTV, it might have gotten better if it had a chance, but the network (I don't remember which one) pulled the plug after one season.