From the iconic to the absolute depths of comedic hell, the Betty Thomas episode has it all. We've got an episode long runner, one of Eddie Murphy's most famous and iconic sketches, a whole lot of Jim Belushi trying to establish himself on the show and one of the most problematic sketches we've seen in quite some time. Oh, and one of us watched the…

Ah, yes. Another infamous outing from a rather infamous season. We return to S30 to explore what is probably it's most notable episode and sadly, it's notoriety has nothing to do with the comedy or the host or anything like that. It's all about Ashlee Simpson and her second (botched) musical performance. But there's still an episode that happens on…

Eddie Ham and Mattalamode join us for another odd little outing of the show. A still mostly unknown Fred Willard hosts one of the mellower episodes of the original era, with Devo, still at their most abrasive, making their national television debut. It's slice of life heavy, including the debut of Don Novello's Mall sketches, while also being incre…

WE'RE BACK AT IT ONCE AGAIN, kicking off the premiere of the eighth season of the podcast with the episode that began one of SNL's more successful and celebrated transitional years. We've got some late period bangers from Bill Hader, some late period slop from Fred Armisen, attempts at capitalizing on the summertime explosions of Gangnam Style and …

While the Fonz was out jumping sharks on ABC, Richard Pryor was giving one hell of a bizarre history lesson on NBC. Ancient Japan, Mississippi in the 20s, finding the Book of Life in Egypt. It's all in a days work for a man who keeps another man's head in a bird cage.Door That Week In SNL

Our long preamble journey is finally over; it's time to finally dig into The Richard Pryor Show proper and my lord, does this show come out swinging. We discuss the events the transpired over the summer between Richard's TV special in May and the debut of the show, attempt (and fail) to uncover the mystery of Al Alen Peterson, and generally marvel …

As a companion piece to both last month's Richard Pryor special and last week's S5 coverage, we're digging into Chevy's first special for NBC. Basically the first thing of note that he did after leaving SNL, this one contains some interesting correlations to his earlier Groove Tube/Radio Hour days but the question remains: is it funny?…

It's the last stop before we get to the Richard Pryor Show: Richard's NBC special that precedes the show by just a few months! It's a cameo-filled journey through the back stages of NBC and beyond, including an earth shattering performance by Maya Angelou and the first televised appearance of Sandra Bernhard!…

It's that time of year again! Time to check back into MADtv with season four's Christmas special from 1998! There's been a few scattered changes from last year (some of better, some for the worst) but we're definitely in the era of peak popularity for the show and you know the show is gonna ring all the bells it's got to ring. Spishak, Ms. Swan, St…

We begin our Richard Pryor Show journey here, in 1974, with a Flip Wilson special. Produced by Lorne Michaels a full year before SNL started and only a few months after Flip's show had ended, it acts as a sort of passing of the torch moment from the old guard to the new guard. Too bad it never really comes together in any cohesive way...and too bad…

We're again returning the Cannon Group well for this year's October Off Week and coming up with Tobe Hopper's Invaders From Mars remake from 1986, featuring Laraine Newman! It's got Hooper in the directors chair, Dan O'Bannon on script and Stan Winston on effects. Can such pedigree produce a fun, sci-fi romp? Tune in to find out!…

(Original Patreon air date: Sept 9, 2022) It's the 30th anniversary of the first Wayne's World movie and so, here we are...trying our best to break it down but instead finding a surprisingly convoluted script for such a simple premise. Does the most successful SNL movie of all time still hold up all these years later? The answer...is somewhere in t…

Here we are! We're closing out the seventh season of That Week with the season finale of S24 and we've once again brought Jon Schneider along for the ride. Join us we cover one of the horniest episodes of sketch comedy ever produced and battle over the musical legitimacy of the Backstreet Boys!Door That Week In SNL

It's another classic Ebersol era Weird One as we wind down one era of the show and build up the next (and beyond) with a record five people showing up in this one before they became cast members. You got Fernando on Update. You've got a mini-epic with the Turkey Lady. Spinal Tap! Soupy Sales! Lets go!…

It's time for Fridays once again and this time, we've got William in tow! To get the full scope of this one, we needed two separate versions of the episode but it's all worth it just to see that magical moment when Rich Hall bombs harder than anyone has ever bombed in sketch comedy history. Elsewhere, we really run the gamut with this one: some cla…

No, this isn't a rerun. This is just the tenth time John Goodman is hosting the show in as many years but thankfully, it just may be his finest outing ever. Join us as we explore this intensely dark outing from the last few months of Adam McKay's reign over the show and maybe, just maybe, learn a little something about family.…

It's time for another infamous episode and thus we'll need the combined forces of both Arthur Meyer AND Jon Schneider to help us get through this one. Despite being a huge ratings boost for the show at the time, this one has long been since viewed as one of the worst episodes of SNL...but is it ALL bad? Join us as we see if there's anything to salv…

For the first time in a long time, we're jumping to the next episode in chronological order from our last one and why not? It's Willie Nelson doing double-duty with some backup from special guest Danny DeVito! Join us as we untangle this mellow, laid back entry into the annals of sketch comedy history.…

It's Valentine's Day over at the ol' SNL factory and that means we gotta break out the big guns. Not only do we get a host way out of his depth with Bronson Pinchot and the middling musical stylings of a one Paul Young but we've also got model Paulina Porizkova in tow and of course, because it's S12, a little smattering of Buster Poindexter as well…

What's this? William Ham and Eddie Ham appearing on the show to discuss an episode hosted by Jon Hamm?! That certainly sounds whimsical indeed! Join us as we struggle to sort the present from the past with an episode that is good but is also kinda bad and misses a few key moments and we rant and rave. It's fun!…

We're back for the first episode of 2024 and finally getting around to one that we've had on the back burner for awhile now. Yes, we did slightly cover this one all the way back at the birth of the show on an early Off Week but now we're digging full bore into one of our favorite modern SNL outings! Get ready for fun, adventure and bracing Tim Cica…

It's time to go deeper, weirder and more esoteric than we've ever gone before: we're going local. Charlotte, NC to be specific. Join us as we uncover the sweaty, disturbing mysteries of public access perennial, Z-Axis and Wild Wild South, the birthplace of Charlotte's own disgraced local legend, Unknown Hinson.…

As the wise Beach Boys once said, "Christmas comes this time each year" and following those sage words, we've decided this would be the best time to drop our Christmas episode! Jon Schneider is back aboard the ship to discuss Martin Short's cameo packed S38 outing as we hack it up about canonical vs. non-canonical moments, tearing ass, fateful bus …

It's the Smother Brothers! Hosting SNL during the Ebersol era! Now that's some cozy, down-home holiday fun if I do say so myself. William Ham joins us as we break down the history of the mighty Brothers and how it runs up against a cancelled SNL special, live commercials tell the tale of the pre-crash video game market, more Airplane 2 discussion t…

We've got a true oddity on our hands this time around: one of the few episodes to hosted by someone completely in character. We're talking dominant hands, audience cameos, fluctuating ages, Swartzwelder, Father Guido Sarducci AGAIN, and more!Door That Week In SNL

We don't visit season 28 of the show much, mostly for good reason, but this one has so much going on that we just had to do it. You've got Brittany arguably at the height of her popularity post-8 Mile, cameos from beloved alum like Adam Sandler and Garrett Morris (also, Rob Schneider shows up), and your usual smattering of SNL sketch offerings, mos…

What a match made in heaven this should have been. You've got one of rock's greatest satirists hosting America's premiere late night sketch show (a show that he's already been on and crushed it, mind you) for the HALLOWEEN episode and yet, nearly the whole damn thing is just rotten. Frank tries to torpedo already questionable material, no one seems…

Ah, now here's a real oddity. You've got technical difficulties, feverish non-endings to sketches, a brutal runner about family strife, and a host giving scenes more honest realism than may have even been on the page. It's just our kind of show. Let's dig in (digging in may not be recommended if you're a My Chemical Romance fan)!…

Hot damn, we're BACK, baby! It's the premiere of the seventh season of That Week and this time we're hitting up the first episode of the second season of SNL for what turns out to be an important episode in a number of fashions. You get the final Land of Gorch sketch, a greasy Dan Aykroyd, the origins of the Antler Dance, three, count 'em, THREE Ja…

We rejoin our podcast already in progress as we break down the last half of The Groove Tube, discuss the final part of Ken's Hollywood career and how it intersects with SNL and William lays down an explanation for one of the strangest moments in the show's first season.Door That Week In SNL

Join us for part one of two scholarly deep dives into the man that was Ken Shapiro and what he meant to the early 70s underground sketch comedy movement. Here we discuss Ken's earliest showbiz days, the Channel One Theater and the first half of the film it was all leading up to: 1974's The Groove Tube.…

When you've got something as strange as two syndicated episodes of SCTV that aired in Pittsburgh, PA that pull together two-thirds of the S5 premiere from NBC, you know you gotta call in the big guns. That's why William Ham is back again to explore this wild night of sketch comedy, which includes some of SCTV's finest work and also some of the most…

Today we're chatting with Jason Klamm, author of the new upcoming book (Sept. 12th to be exact) all about sketch comedy in the 90s, We're Not Worthy! We discuss the hardships of putting the book together, various bombshells dropped during the making of it and more!Door That Week In SNL

We're kicking off our Summer Off Week episodes with what we thought would be a mellow, easy way to get into the swing of things. But then the New Show decided we were idiots for not understanding their bizarre cast lineup and delivered us some of the most insipid sketch material we've seen and it was then that we knew...it doesn't get any easier, k…

In celebration of the grand return of the Kids In The Hall to sketch comedy, we're going back to their pilot episode for HBO to see just how the whole empire got off the ground. We discuss our own history with the show and then proceed to dig into one of the best pilot episodes in television history.…

We wrap up our journey through the first season of In Living Color with the fifth episode and the season finale, touching on such classics as Homey D. Clown, Black World, Benita Butrell...and the Buttmans.Door That Week In SNL

It's time. It's finally time to talk about In Living Color! In this first (of two) part, we discuss our own personal history with the show, how it to came to be and break down the very first episode...and also talk about an aborted journey to see The Batman!Door That Week In SNL

As one of the most defining shows of the early years of Nickelodeon, You Can't Do That On Television has a fascinating history behind it and so, we're exploring some episodes from the first two pre-Nick (kinda) seasons and find ourselves in an Ottawan nightmare landscape of insanity, pie, slime and the dastardly Jim Johnson.…

Unbeknownst to most people, there was once a raunchy Showtime Groundlings special featuring the talents of such comedy legends as Phil Hartman, Tress MacNeille, Elvira, Pee-Wee Herman and more! How could such a jam-packed comedy extravaganza be so lost to time? We find out. Oh, we find out.Door That Week In SNL

We're wrapping up the main portion of season six of the show with an episode with some fond memories attached to it...and some new, not-so-fond memories as well. It's your classic end of season cameo clusterfuck with Jason Sudeikis, Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg all stopping by for some shenanigans but ya know what? It doesn't really matter because…

It's been awhile since we've hit up the second season of the show and so, we've got this odd little outing of the show to shift through. It's got some doozies in it, both good and bad, including two of the more confounding sketches we've ever tried (and failed) to parse out but there's a mysterious charm to this one. Plus, we get to hear about Will…

We're again joined by our friend Jon "Schmitty" Schneider to unravel the mysteries of a subtly game changing episode of SNL. Oh sure, we've got some Hunger Games references to comb through, some duds, some boom stamps and some truly insane bombshells from Schmitty...but the REAL focus of the evening is the arrival of Kate McKinnon and a new era of …

You know you've got a special one on your hands when even Lorne Michaels himself considers it to be one of the absolute worst the show has ever done. Unseen for multiple decades after it's initial airing, ol' Uncle Milty comes in to crash the party in so many unique and harrowing ways that there certainly can't be any redeeming qualities to massive…

We again return to the Albert Pyun-iverse for a Cannon Group take on Romancing The Stone starring Charles Rocket and Carey Lowell! Will it have the same subtle, goofball charms as Brain Smasher...or are we in for some more Cyborg manhole-ing?Door That Week In SNL

This week we take aim at a quietly controversial episode of the show, one that spells the end for Damon Wayans as a featured player and is seemingly a sacrifice to the sketch gods while they shore up defenses for what could be the last rodeo. Come for the discussion of Damon going off the grid, stay for the attempts to make anything else out of thi…

Oh hey, look! It's that guy from Late Night who used to write for SNL and The Simpsons! This should be fun! That's right, we're finally digging into the Conan episode, complete with our remembrances of Conan's Late Night tenure, fuzzy memories of early file sharing days and more Don Henley talk than you can shake a stick at! Zibbity Bop!…

We've got one of the weirdest and more experimental Ebersol era episodes at hand today (and honestly, that's really saying something) and so we brought in some new folks to break it all down: Eddie Ham and Mattalamode! We discuss one of Jim Belushi's most recognizable sketches, Turk-182, Christopher Guest VS Brian Doyle Murray and much more!…

It's time. We're finally gonna tackle one of the most infamous episodes of the show's original run. Ol' Chevy Chase drops by for his second hosting gig and...somethings wrong. Even more wrong than season five usually is. William Ham joins us as we unravel one of the sweatiest, most coked out, face-down-in-the-toilet disasters the show has possibly …

We're back with our first mainline episode of 2023 and it's the first of Sarah Michelle Gellar's three hosting gigs! We discuss an unruly Norm, the unbeatable physique Tim Meadows, that gerbil show (??), debate the sleepy charms of Portishead and more! This podcast drives a Dodge Stratus!Door That Week In SNL

As is tradition, we look to MAD's Christmas episode to chart the evolution of the show and what an evolution it's taken since we last covered it. We see the show slowly transitioning into the cast it would be most known for, kicking back with a cozy little Holiday special that is a bunch of fun. And, as an added bonus, we get some primo Karn Facts!…