SNL - first 5 seasons

[Christina]

(and the last 4) are on streaming Netflix.

SNL has always been really uneven but these old ones have been so chopped up and rebundled that I hardly know which was what ... But holy goddamn, the list of musical guests is just stunning. I went and found the one with Bowie, which I saw once. I have a vivid recollection of him having to be carried out to do one of his numbers. I think his lower half was encased in a plastic tube meant to resemble pants. Boy will I be confused if this is in fact not the case.

Edit: Holy Shit! Nomi!

[daveB from Oakland]

I remember viewing that Bowie show when it went out live ... he also did "Boys Keep Swinging" in a one-piece blue dress, and for the final number ("TVC15") he employed some kind of crazy special effect using blue-screen or something. The effect was rendered such that the viewer could see DB's head singing into the microphone ... but his body was transmorgified into some kinda puppet skeleton. And I'm pretty sure the segment wasn't prerecorded.

I was watching the show with my jazzbo uncle, who declared the proceedings to be "atrocious". Admittedly, Bowie was a bit subpar on the music side that evening. But dude gets a whole bunch of bonus points for the visual presentation.

[Christina]

I remember viewing that Bowie show when it went out live ... he also did "Boys Keep Swinging" in a one-piece blue dress, and for the final number ("TVC15") he employed some kind of crazy special effect using blue-screen or something. The effect was rendered such that the viewer could see DB's head singing into the microphone ... but his body was transmorgified into some kinda puppet skeleton. And I'm pretty sure the segment wasn't prerecorded.

I was watching the show with my jazzbo uncle, who declared the proceedings to be "atrocious". Admittedly, Bowie was a bit subpar on the music side that evening. But dude gets a whole bunch of bonus points for the visual presentation.

Since I just finished this a little while ago, I'll just go ahead and split hairs on you, shall I? TVC15 was 2nd where he wore the dress




and Boys Keep Swinging had the weird special effect - it looks a little like David Cross in the Mr Show bit as the kid who tried to off himself by jumping in acid.



I remember sneaking downstairs as a kid to the family tv to watch this ... I thought these were pretty good for a live studio performance.

[daveB from Oakland]

Hair-splitting accepted graciously ... thanks for the screenshots.

Ah yes, the foofy poodle with a mini-TV in it's mouth. Another nice touch.

Who is Nomi's orange clone?

I think I associated the blue dress with "Boys Keep Swinging" because of the dragshow stuff going on in the video for that song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jRODPlfhys

Can you see Elvis Costello's infamous "Radio Radio" performance on Netflix? I believe that was the first SNL I ever saw. I remember feeling very uncomfortable watching the scary, angry nerd with knock-knees.

[buffcoat]

One thing about Bowie, he's never been afraid to take each medium beyond where it presently can go.  A lot of the time it looks like crap, but then 3 years later when it looks slick and everyone's doing it, he can say, "yeah, I was doing that three years ago."

[samir]

I watched the first ever episode (hosted by Carlin), because of the Jim Henson puppets sketch, that was pretty neat. Weird to see Chevy Chase looking so young.

[Christina]

Who is Nomi's orange clone?

I think I associated the blue dress with "Boys Keep Swinging" because of the dragshow stuff going on in the video for that song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jRODPlfhys

Can you see Elvis Costello's infamous "Radio Radio" performance on Netflix? I believe that was the first SNL I ever saw. I remember feeling very uncomfortable watching the scary, angry nerd with knock-knees.

Oh, wow, I remember that video - and yes the Radio Radio performance should be in there-it's season 3 ...

I don't know who the orange clone is, but the dude who had taken those screen shots mentioned his name & I'll try and go back and find it ... it wasn't a name I recognized ...

[Christina]

One thing about Bowie, he's never been afraid to take each medium beyond where it presently can go.  A lot of the time it looks like crap, but then 3 years later when it looks slick and everyone's doing it, he can say, "yeah, I was doing that three years ago."

This is a horrible, overused word but he really is an original ... He's probably one of my all time favorites. Excellent songwriter too.

[PatrickChew]

Who is Nomi's orange clone?

That is Joey Arias, another downtown NYC artsy/drag type
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Arias

[Reeleyes]

I watched the first ever episode (hosted by Carlin), because of the Jim Henson puppets sketch, that was pretty neat. Weird to see Chevy Chase looking so young.

... and funny.

[daveB from Oakland]

So the AV club ran a story a few weeks ago that Netflix will be posting EVERY SINGLE show of season of every single SNL season for instant streaming.

I was under the impression that this was all gonna be available at Netflix by now, but apparently not yet. Anybody know when that's happening?

I'm intrigued by the possibility of checking out the notorious season 6 -- Not so much for the misbegotten comedy, but more for the intriguing selection of musical guests. (Prince ... Cap'n Beefheart ... James Brown ... Jack Bruce (!?) ... Cheap Trick ... Debby Harry, although I'm not sure if she actually sings on this one ...)

[Gilly]

I don't know what's going on either with all the episodes. The only thing I can think of is that only 5-6 seasons have actually been released on DVD so maybe it's taking awhile to format them. Everything else that was listed to be added is there already, actually it came out on the same day. I'm guessing it's the formatting thing, everything on DVD already is there, although they've been there long before the deal was made.

[Christina]

Would it be a music clearance thing that's holding it up?

[snogrog]

Definitely music clearances. It's a ton of artists they have to sign off on.

I remember I got season 1 on DVD and being completely unimpressed. The first ever with Carlin was like, all Carlin (doing terrible stand up) and like 4 sketches.

And Paul Simon his first time was pretty much a Simon & Garfunkel reunion concert with Weekend Update thrown in. Although, it did have the HILARIOUS Paul Simon playing basketball sketch which I will always crack up to.

[Gilly]

It's weird that a deal would be in place without the clearances already there. Maybe they don't foresee issues, but look at how many TV show box sets have come with generic bed music in place of great soundtracks, and how The Wonder Years hasn't seen a release because of song rights. It seems strange that they'd make an announcement of SNL on Netflix without the rights in place.