Here's some stuff that happened in the past
A good rule of thumb for Saturday Night Live is that if a host comes to play and have fun, the ensuing show will reflect that. If a host treats their time at 30 Rock as a chore or a professional obligation, however, it will be just as obvious and the show will suffer as a result.
In that respect Desi Arnaz is the anti-Milton Berle. Where Berle infamously acted like Saturday Night Live was lucky to have a legend like himself and felt free to ad-lib and improvise to his heart’s content Arnaz proves gracious, game and enthusiastic.
The bandleader turned sitcom legend seems up for whatever the show’s writers have to sling his way, including an opening monologue where he talks about how the cast, knowing of his love for cigars, got him a whole box of a brand he’d never heard of before: Acapulco Gold.
It’s one of the many gratuitous drug references that litter the show’s first season. One of the ways that Saturday Night Live brought the countercultural rebelliousness of rock and roll to sketch comedy was through its winking familiarity with drugs.
Saturday Night Live treated drugs casually, as a ho-hum everyday reality for much of its audience, cast and crew, not something to be lectured on or preached about. John Belushi and Chris Farley’s early deaths from drug overdoses cast a dark pall over the show’s drug humor but it is worth noting that the show played a crucial role in demystifying drug use.
Speaking of drugs, the show has Arnaz perform part of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky in his deeply imitable cadences. It’s a bit that makes you ask, “Is this funny or is it just racist?”
Are we laughing because Arnaz is an immigrant with a thick accent or because he has such a unique and entertaining way of talking? I would argue that the second is true, and that it’s the rhythms we’re responding to rather than the bigotry.
A late sketch similarly twists and contorts and distorts the English language until it’s unrecognizable. It begins with Laraine Newman’s unhappy girlfriend telling Chevy Chase’s cad that she feels like she doesn’t understand him, that he’s speaking a whole different language.
The metaphor becomes literal when he starts ranting at her with words that are made-up but sound real:“Cromzoids, blon-snark, roofkies, gazornoplats! (hushed) And people wonder why I’m going crazy with you!”
It might seem unpossible for a sketch like that to work but I found it perfectly cromulent.
The host gives Gilda Radner an opportunity to trot out a dead-on Lucille Ball impersonation that looks and sounds more like the late comedienne than Ball herself.
Other sublime silliness includes Arnaz as a Cuban acupuncturist who puts Cuban cigars inside John Belushi’s orifices instead of using needless and a look at abandoned pilots for I Love Lucy that include “I Love Asparagus,” a goofy bit of anti-humor that casts Ricky opposite a plate of the unpopular vegetable.
This episode closes strong with the perfect ending: the host performing a riotous version of his signature song “Babalu” alongside his son and namesake and then leading the crowd in a conga line around the studio.
It’s an explosion of pure joy that illustrates what made Arnaz such an unexpected but inspired host.
neat, eh? Man, I LOVE this silly newsletter.
Always found the "I Loathe Lucy" mini-sketch fascinating, seeing as it's got Desi Arnaz, Jr. playing his actual father smacking around a woman made up to look like his actual mom. Real Freudian/Gordian slipknot there.
I only saw this episode once, and even as a kid I knew that it had a mystique about it, even though I had barely watched any I Love Lucy because my dad was not a fan. (I have rectified that in my adult life.) I really want to watch this episode again, because it seems like Desi completely withdrew from performing after I Love Lucy ended and they got divorced (Lucy filed the day after the final episode aired).
Desi even withdrew from producing television, even though he had proved to be quite good at it. Before long, he sold his share of Desilu to Lucy, and from what I can tell he dropped out of the public consciousness until this episode of SNL.
For some reason, this episode was never part of the abridged syndication package, so I don't think I've ever seen any of it. Were all the drug and Freudian cigar references a bit much for standards and practices?