MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Anthony Perkins, Bruce Dern, and Karen B...

Anthony Perkins, Bruce Dern, and Karen Black -- Hosting SNL in the 70s and 80s

posted 22 days ago by roger1 (2493)
20 replies | jump to latest

I got the Peacock streaming service. I heard Hitchcock movies were there. But they are not(at least not right now.) All of the Hitchcock TV shows are....

...and so are ALL the Saturday Night Live episodes from its first 1975-1976 season to ...last week's episode(Ryan Gosling host).

This is on topic about Anthony Perkins and Psycho, but a little bit OFF topic about Bruce Dern, Karen Black and Family Plot. Hitchcock players all and -- I believe -- the only three Hitchcock performers to host Saturday Night Live.

Perkins rather famously got to host Saturday Night Live("SNL") in its very first season and hence his stint got talked about a lot when I was in college and that one aired (March of 1976 , I think, just ahead of the April 1976 opening of Family Plot -- I always like to note that Saturday Night Live entered the culture just around the time that Alfred Hitchcock left it.)

Anyway, Perkins' show had his famous sketch "The Norman Bates School of Motel Management" where Norman(in a nice "motel office" set, complete with stuff birds), offers these two questions:

"Your female guest has lost her room key. Do you":

a. Give her another key.
b. Let her in with your passkey.
c. Hack her to death with a kitchen knife.
(Audience laughs.)

"What is the most important part of running a motel?":

a. Providing a pleasant welcoming atmosphere.
b. Providing courteous service.
c. Hack her to death with a kitchen knife.
(Audience laughs HARDER.)

Perkins plays off his "Psycho" image well in that episode...Psycho was STILL a big thing in the 70's thanks to all its TV and revival showings, and thus Perkins merited an SNL gig. The sequels were still 7 years away(to start) but...and this is weird...hosting SNL in 1976, Perkins ALREADY had that weird, stilted sing song vocal pattern that had nothing to do with his great 1960 performance and which rather cheapened Norman in the 80s, IMHO.

I scanned the list of episodes (almost 50 years worth now) and found that Karen Black hosted (once) and Bruce Dern(twice.) Both Black and Dern were in Family Plot, and Dern was in Marnie. I have not watched any of the Black episode, and I only had time to watch Dern 's opening monologue for his second appearance(in 1983..the year of Psycho II, hey.)

Dern's monologue touched on a few movies discussed here. He sat on a stool on stage and spoke quietly and earnestly(this is all paraphrased):

"I was thinking, since I hosted last year, that when I came back I would talk about how hard it is when you get pigeonholed in one kind of role.

Consider me. I"ve been in a lot of good, serious films..often playing a nice guy..movies like Silent Running, Smile, Middle Aged Crazy...Family Plot (pause then with edge)...but you DIDN'T GO SEE THOSE movies!! (Angrily) DID YA?

(He continues in the more sneering raging Dern voice.) NO...you liked to see me in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , where they cut off my head and hand with a meat cleaver, and Marnie, where I got bludgeoned to death with a fireplace poker..and The Thing With Two Heads, and my Hell's Angels movies and...and...and..BLACK SUNDAY, where I hijacked the Goodyear blimp and tried to kill 85,000 fans at the SUPER BOWL!! THAT's what you went to see!!"

Ha. A nice tour of some unsung movies. Dern conspicuously LEFT OUT The Cowboys , where he famously killed John Wayne by shooting him in the back! I think even in 1983, that outrage(to some) was too sensitive a topic.

I'll have to see what Bruce Dern did and said in his other SNL episode, and how Karen Black handled hers. I guess its good enough to know that Hitchcock at least cast two people at the end of his career who were deemed hot enough to host SNL.

And Anthony Perkins remains hot forever...in legend.

PS. I got no time to watch all of them, but as one scrolls the decades of SNL episodes listed -- and some of the more offbeat hosts (George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Desi Arnaz, Broderick Crawford, Lily Tomlin, Jill Clayburgh Ralph Nader, Madeleine Kahn...Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis..Sydney Sweeney, Dakota Johnson) -- the entire last 50 years of American movie, TV and political culture rather passes through one's brain. Its sobering. Like watching your life pass before your eyes...I can only GUESS. Ha.

[–] roger1 (2493) 16 days ago

I return to note that I caught the SECOND Bruce Dern episode of SNL and the Karen Black episode(she might have made two, too, I'd have to check.)

Interesting to me: in the second episode of SNL with Dern, his cold opening AGAIN referenced Black Sunday and his psycho -flying-the-blimp performance.

I've noted that Black Sunday is my favorite movie of 1977 -- and I thought it was a rather unsung one -- but here's Bruce Dern playing it up(and his psycho role in it -- somewhat of a sympathetic psycho, I might add , in the Norman Bates tradition) to the point where I wondered: "In the early 80's, did Bruce Dern and the SNL writers consider Black Sunday to be his biggest claim to fame.?"

Well, maybe it was. Recall that producer/studio chief Robert Evans produced Black Sunday and was told that "this is going to be as big as Jaws." (Wrote Evans in his autobio: "It didn't gross as much as MY jaw" -- whatever that means.) And it got history high ratings in a pre-screening. And it was producer Evans third "big budget thriller" after Chinatown and Marathon Man. And the star WAS from Jaws -- Robert Shaw.

So Bruce Dern was within his rights to push Black Sunday as his legacy on SNL.

I watched Karen Black's SNL monologue and -- terrible. I had to turn that one off.

Meanwhile, Dern DID get to act in a sketch with Eddie Murphy -- both of them dressed like Gumby. Murphy got a great regular character playing Gumby as an old Jewish type complete with heavy accent and attitude.

Which reminds me: in 1982, Nick Nolte was supposed to host SNL to help Eddie Murphy promote Murphy's debut in the buddy movie 48 HRS(co-starring Nolte). But Nolte dropped out and so cast member Murphy HOSTED SNL and it helped further launch him. There was hilarious "Gumby Christmas Special" sketch that night but -- it was cut OUT of this Peacock re-run. Too bad, it was funny.

[–] swanstep (2631) 15 days ago

This is on topic about Anthony Perkins and Psycho, but a little bit OFF topic about Bruce Dern, Karen Black and Family Plot. Hitchcock players all and -- I believe -- the only three Hitchcock performers to host Saturday Night Live.

Whether his small part in Psycho (cop at the end) really makes him a Hitchcock player is perhaps doubtful, but Ted Knight (hot off the MTM show) hosted SNL.

Of course, if you include people who were on AH's tv shows then a whole bunch have hosted: Ed Asner, Angie Dickinson, James Coburn, Burt Reynolds, William Shatner, Harry Dean Stanton, and probably a few more I've missed.

BTW, I think it sounds like a good monologue gag for Dern to have him effectively chastise the audience for not going to see his good, serious films where he's often a good guy. It's funny to think of films as well-thought-of now as Silent Running and Kings of Marvin Garden not being seen by many people on release.

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

This is on topic about Anthony Perkins and Psycho, but a little bit OFF topic about Bruce Dern, Karen Black and Family Plot. Hitchcock players all and -- I believe -- the only three Hitchcock performers to host Saturday Night Live.

---

Whether his small part in Psycho (cop at the end) really makes him a Hitchcock player is perhaps doubtful, but Ted Knight (hot off the MTM show) hosted SNL.

--

I say...that COUNTS. And Psycho, yet.

I suppose one thing I am trying to express here is how -- even as he got a lot of press in his last years of life and even as the 80s would see "the five Lost Hitchcocks" come back -- Hittchcock's world actually rather FADED AWAY pretty fast came the 70's in a contemporary way. His MOVIE stars were largely "old people" -- Grant, Bergman, Stewart -- who weren't going to be hosting SNL , Grace Kelly was long decamped to Monaco (and shockingly, would die only two years after Hitchcock, in 1982 thanks to a car crash). A new generation of directors and stars were taking over FAST.

---

Of course, if you include people who were on AH's tv shows then a whole bunch have hosted: Ed Asner, Angie Dickinson, James Coburn, Burt Reynolds, William Shatner, Harry Dean Stanton, and probably a few more I've missed.

---

One I would add was Walter Matthau, who hosted SNL in 1978 as he was enjoying the final throes of his stardom(The Bad News Bears and House Calls were recent hits.) Matthau did at least two of the Hitchcock half hours.

Which crosses things over:

In the 60s, Hitchcock worked with a FEW new young stars in his movies: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Sean Connery.

But a lot MORE soon-to-be stars of the 60s(AND 70s) appeared not in HItchcock's MOVIES, but on his TV show:

I count Steve McQueen(in two half hours), Burt Reynolds, Walter Matthau, Charles Bronson, James Coburn.

And yet: Hitchcock PERSONALLY didn't direct any of those actors in their episodes.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

Hitch directed a handful of the half hour shows and only one of the hour shows (after Psycho and then The Birds, he was just too big to do it, I guess.)

From the top of my head, I can only think of Vincent Price as a noteable star(and perhaps more B level) -- who had not already done a Hitchcock movie -- PERSONALLY directed by Hitchcock in a TV episode.

Meanwhile, in his half hours directed by himself personally, Hitchcock used some of his movie people including Vera Miles, Joseph Cotten, Barbara Bel Geddes., Claude Rains...

I just flashed on David Wayne, Keenan Wynn, and Tom Ewell as "non-Hitchocck movie actors" he directed on TV. Big enough, I guess.

About that hour show:

Well, Robert Redford was in the first broadcast hour, so we can add HIM (years later, Hitchcock pitched Family Plot to Redford, I think for the Dern role, but maybe for the Devane villain role?)

I mentioned this in another thread but I was very surprised to see ...JAMES MASON in a lead in one of the Hitchcock hours. I thought he was a MOVIE STAR then -- over the title in NXNW, and that very year in Kubrick's Lolita. I guess the Hitchocck Hour was simply a prestige place to work. (And Angie Dickenson was in this episode.)

As for the one Hitchcock Hour directed by Hitchcock himself, it was from the first season: "I Saw the Whole Thing." The lead actor was reliable John Forsythe -- in some ways "the perfect Hitchcock actor" -- suave, handsome with a great smooth VOICE(remember my comments on The Voices of Hitchcock -- Forsythe had one of the best), but never really a star. Forsythe got the lead in The Trouble With Harry after William Holden turned it down, and though he was the only recognizable American "name" in Topaz...he wasn't much of a name at that time(1969.) Sadly, John Forsythe is often trotted out in the "anti-Hitchcock criticisms" of the kind of low-wattage journeyman actor that Hitchcock used too often.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

But OTHERS in "I Saw the Whole Thing" were interesting. Its about Forsythe defending himself in court against hit and run charges(the victim was a motorcycle cop and he died.) The opening is a "mini-Hitchcock tour de force" as each of five witnesses at a city intersection see the off-screen crash and Hitch "zooms and freeze frames" on each witness turning to look.

In the courtroom, we meet the witnesses: one of them is Phlilp Ober -- the UN victim in NXNW. One of them is mousy milquetoast John Fiedler(the voice of Piglet). One is a drunk. And two are women of note:

Claire Griswold -- quite pretty, on "personal contract" to Hitchcock -- but she would quit show biz to marry director Sydney Pollack (They Shoot Horses, Don't They and The Way We Were, etc) all the way to his death.

Evans Evans -- THERE's a name. Not quite as pretty as Claire Griswold and in this tale more of a Southern accented comedy relief character. But SHE also married a famous director _- John Frankenheimer(The Manchurian Candidate, Black Sunday). I don't think that marriage lasted, I'm not sure.

Speaking of Sydney Pollack, he STARTED as an actor, and he has the lead in a Hitchcock half hour and...well one can see why he switched to directing. He was thin and wiry but not terribly good looking in youth -- it would take some years to age himself into a handsome and interesting middle aged actor in such movies as Tootsie, Husbands and Wives, and A Civil Action.

---

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

I watched the final episode of the Hitchcock Hour -- "Off Season," with John Gavin co-starring one more time with "the original Bates Motel" -- dressed up and made fancier than it had been in 1960. This final episode of the Hitchcock Hour ran in the spring of 1965, and ended a ten-year run(mainly of half hours) of an incredibly successfully series that spawned well over 300 episodes. I"ve always found it interesting that the next movie after the TV show went off the air was Torn Curtain. Its as if once Hitchcock relinquished his TV throne, he was also depleted as a MOVIE director. Maybe he just felt too tired to do all of it anymore.

"Off Season" was directed by William Friedkin ...en route to his 70s triumphs(The French Connection, The Exorcist), Friedkin had to start SOMEWHERE. And John Gavin had to approve him to direct. They had lunch, Gavin approved him -- and Friedkin and Gavin remained lifelong friends. Gavin died first.

"Off Season" is certainly an interesting way for Hitchocck's series to bow out -- with a star of Psycho and the star motel FROM Psycho(the even more famous Psycho house appeared in the truly scary "An Unlocked Window" in that same final hour season.

Though set in a wooded mountain community, Off Season conjures up Psycho not only in the presence of Gavin and the motel, but in the Universal backlot "small town sets" that rather remind one of Fairvale. And here's the REAL twist: in this one, the psycho is..John Gavin. He's a trigger happy cop who has been fired from a big city job for shooting a wino and who runs on a short fuse in his new "backwater job." As was often allowed on the Hitchcock Hour, a cheating spouse is part of the story, too. And Friedkin shows off a few "Hitchcock tricks' of his own.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

One last thing on Hitchcock directing his hour episode "I Saw the Whole Thing." One scene is set at "the malt shop" and has some overaged teens(or "young people?") all dancing the Twist to the usual "fake canned rock and roll" of series TV.

Its kind of "Hitchcock does Dick Clark" and there's nothing "Hitchcock" about the camera angles or moves. One pictures Hitchcock sighing and saying "Oh, alright, I'm going to try to get this rock and roll scene filmed" and then telling the young actors to start dancing and then just pointing the camera and DOING it.

He had saved his "big Hitchcock techniques" for things like the Vertigo dizzying stairwell effect, or the crop duster chasing Cary Grant, or the camera following Anthony Perkins up the stairs. This "little TV hour" would get none of his creative focus in a scene about teens dancing the twist.

But its a very, very strange "Hitchcock scene" nonetheless. One expects the Fonz to walk into it...

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

Oh, yeah, wait:

Hitchcock wasn't all that famous for encouraging other people to direct, like, say Spielberg or Scorsese later on.

But he should have been.

That TV show was the training ground(along with other shows) for William Friedkin(The Exorcist), Robert Altman(MASH, Nashville), Sydney Pollack, and James Bridges (The Paper Chase, Urban Cowboy.) Plus for any number of young working directors who stuck to TV.

And Hitchcock seems to have had to meet and interview and oversee them all. He chided Friedkin for not wearing a necktie. Sounds like Inspector Oxford.

And years later when he was super successful, Friedkin saw Hitchcock at a black tie event -- Freidkin was wearing one -- snapped the tie and said "how do you like the tie?"

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

BTW, I think it sounds like a good monologue gag for Dern to have him effectively chastise the audience for not going to see his good, serious films where he's often a good guy. It's funny to think of films as well-thought-of now as Silent Running and Kings of Marvin Garden not being seen by many people on release.

---

Yes. I think whoever wrote that for Bruce Dern "got him." He worked hard to position himself for some solid dramas(The King of Marvin Gardens) and he played genuinely nice guys in Smile and MIddle Aged Crazy(where he was given Ann-Margret as his wife! That's coming up in the world.) He's argumentative with girlfriend Barbara Harris in Family Plot, but in key scenes he shows love for her and he rescues her in the end.

But the REST of the time: bad guys. psychos. Certain sneering personality traits that fought against his stardom chances.

I recall reading of estalbished star Kirk Douglas directing Dern in a Western called "Posse." Kirk had the lead AND directed. Dern emerged from a building to walk out onto a street and Douglas yelled "Cut!" and then said, "Bruce, you're a leading man now. You need to walk out that door onto the street with your head held high! Project your authority!"

Who knows? Sounds like effective direction to make someone a star. Douglas had shot down Bruce Dern in a walk on(for Dern) in The War Wagon (with John Wayne) back in 1967. Dern's star had risen on a long hard climb.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 15 days ago

Dern's in his 80's now and highly respected. He was great -- and Oscar nominatd -- in Alexander Payne's "Nebraska." And QT used him to fine effect in "The Hateful Eight" and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." I hope he's got one a few more performances left.

And there is this irony: Dern's daughter with Diane Ladd -- LAURA Dern -- would seem to be the most famous and highly paid of the Dern/Ladd acting family now. Jurassic Park helped put her on the map. And she has won an Oscar. Just like Jamie Lee Curtis has. It is the "Hitchcock star babies" who have succeeded after their parents paved the way.

[–] swanstep (2631) 13 days ago

BTW, checking who's been a guest or in a cameo on SNL, at least Suzanne Pleshette and Veronica Cartwight get in as true Hitchcock film players.

But, yes, also to our original list of Hitchcock SNL Hosts we have to add John Forsythe. I was a little surprised to see that his Trouble With Harry co-star Shirley MacLaine has *never* appeared on SNL. I was pretty sure she'd done some cameos at least, e.g., on the molly shannon/cheri oteri playing Ann
Miller and Debbie Reynolds recurring sketch 'Leg Up', but I can't find any record of them now. Harrumph.

[–] roger1 (2493) 8 days ago

BTW, checking who's been a guest or in a cameo on SNL, at least Suzanne Pleshette and Veronica Cartwight get in as true Hitchcock film players.

--
swanstep, I guess there's a place where one can look up ALL the actors who EITHER hosted OR cameoed on the show? For instance, I'm intrigued that Veronica Cartwright CAMEOed -- I would think that only her role in Alien(1979) was famous enough to merit a cameo.

Suzanne Pleshette was welcome everywhere. Was she doing something with Bob Newhart on SNL?(HE hosted.)

--

But, yes, also to our original list of Hitchcock SNL Hosts we have to add John Forsythe.

---

I gotta find this list. Forsythe HOSTED? I suppose he was big enough when Dynasty came along in the 80's but then...in the 80's(especially the 5 years that Lorne Michaels didn't run the show), they really could get "hip movie star hosts." They had to use "good" TV stars like Robert Conrad(The Wild Wild West) and Robert Culp(I Spy.) Of course, both Conrad and Culp also played Columbo killers so they were popular hires at the time.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 8 days ago

I remember seeing John Forsythe in something sad in the 70's. I was home at spinning the TV dial in boredom and "Beat the Clock " came on, and here was suave John Forsythe in slacks and a "silly sweatshirt" to perform a stunt for the game: diving into a giant bowl of Jello. He did it and I thought "What an actor in TV has to do to keep food on the table."

But a happy ending was enroute. First, Forsythe became the unseen voice of Charlie on Charlie's Angels. Second, he got to play a truly villainous role opposite young Al Pacino in And Justice for All -- Forysthe was an evil judge who raped and beat a woman (and a photo was displayed of Forsythe half naked in S and M attire. BRAVE!) Anyway, the evil judge forced Pacino to be his defense attorney and...well, good movie.

Forsythe''s heel turn as the evil judge gave him the bona fides to take over the lead in Dynasty when George Peppard "parted company" on the pilot.

And as I've noted before. when The Trouble With Harry got its "Lost Five HItchcock's" re-release in 1984 -- to theaters - it now starred "John Forsythe, star of Dynasty and Shirley MacLaine, Best Actress Oscar winner for Terms of Endearment." Both were unknowns in 1955.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 8 days ago

I was a little surprised to see that his Trouble With Harry co-star Shirley MacLaine has *never* appeared on SNL. I was pretty sure she'd done some cameos at least, e.g., on the molly shannon/cheri oteri playing Ann
Miller and Debbie Reynolds recurring sketch 'Leg Up', but I can't find any record of them now. Harrumph.

---

Hard to say why. In some ways, SNL was MAKING FUN of "old school" dancer-actresses like MacLaine and Reynolds (and Ann Miller -- who REMEMBERED Ann Miller?). MacLaine PLAYED Debbie Reynolds (under another name) in Postcards from the Edge, even as Reynolds wanted to play herself in that movie (under another name.)

A reminder that MacLaine was quite the star -- almost a superstar -- in the 50s and 60s. Hitch made her the Most Famous Non-Blonde Hitchcock Lead in "The Trouble With Harry" and she established her "kooky-sexy" credentials.
Then came Oscar noms for Some Came Running and The Apartment.

Come the sixties and seventies, MacLaine got some roles that Liz Taylor backed out of (What a Way to Go and Two Mules for Sister Sara) and -- like Faye Dunaway in the 70s -- was the "go-to actress to act with just about every male star in Hollywood. "What a Way to Go" had MacLaine wedding these guys(after losing each previous husband to death):

Dick Van Dyke
Paul Newman(!)
Robert Mitchum
Gene Kelly
Dean Martin

..she also worked with Sinatra and James Garner and Michael Caine and Clint Eastwood and of course "her two Jacks" -- Lemmon and Nicholson.

..MacLaine also showed off her dancer's body to near-nude effect (and body movement) in a lot of sexy roles in the 60s. She was somewhat of a sex star aside from being the kooky gamin.

But I guess by the 70's, Shirley MacLaine just wasn't considered hip enough for SNL.

MacLaine "came back' twice -- a little bit in 1977's The Turning Point(with Anne Bancroft) and a LOT in 1983's Terms of Endearment.

---

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 8 days ago

Side-bar:

"Alfred Hitchcock" got played by a coupla of SNL guys ON SNL, in skits.

In the 70's, Dan Aykroyd played Hitch in a spoof of his "Alfred Hitchcock Presents' show.

In 1998, Vince Vaughn hosted to promote Van Sant's Psycho. VV said "this is a shot by shot remake of Alred Hitchcock's Psycho" and Hitchcock's Ghost appeared (played by Darrell Hammond) to exclaim: "The what by what remake of WHAT?!!"

And in the early 80's, after his death, Alfred Hitchcock was referenced in a trailer for a movie called "Brian DePalma's The Clams" in which the narrator says: "Once a year , Brian DePalma picks the bones of a dead great director and gives his own wife a job."

[–] swanstep (2631) 8 days ago

I gotta find this list. Forsythe HOSTED?

It's on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Saturday_Night_Live_guests
with sub-pages for each alphabetical sub-group, e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Saturday_Night_Live_guests_(E%E2%80%93H)

Unfortunately I now see that this page *doesn't* list Forsythe as hosting or even as a cameo player. I must have read that somewhere else, presumably less reliable than wiki, and been misled.

Clarification about Veronica Cartwright. She didn't play herself, rather she was a dying old lady in a sketch when OJ Simpson hosted back in 1978.And it was a minor enough appearance that it sin;t listed on Cartwright's IMDb page. That's working actor stuff not a 'cameo' in my books. Sorry that my info on all this is proving somewhat unreliable. *This* (of course) is a cameo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiJkANps0Qw

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 days ago

It's on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Saturday_Night_Live_guests
with sub-pages for each alphabetical sub-group, e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Saturday_Night_Live_guests_(E%E2%80%93H)

---

Well, that's a treasure trove of trivia and a tour of just how central to culture(no, really) SNL has been for its almost five decades. (The 50th Anniversary special has been announced for February of 2025 and I'll watch - the 40th Anniversary was a hoot and filled with famous people.)

Notes in passing:

In the first season, along with the 7(?) "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" SNL had a "legitimate actor" -- a handsome middle aged man named George Coe -- to play "straight parts" in sketches...like judges and bosses and such. (As a legit movie actor, Coe would in 1979 be the boss who fires Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs Kramer.) It is a sign of how uncertain the first season of SNL was that they actually HIRED a man to do straight parts(later, they'd give the straight parts to cast members.) Plus, they had the Muppets. (Not my thing.)

Jack Nicholson often went to WATCH SNL in the studio, but always refused to host. (As did Tom Cruise.) But Jack was willing to walk on stage and yell "You Can't Handle the Truth!" on one episode. I can't remember the host. Demi Moore?

Leo di Caprio talked more in his "on stage appearance" during the host's monologue -- Jonah Hill. They were both promoting "The Wolf of Wall Street" that time. I expect Scorsese came on stage too? (I'll have to check that wikipedia list.)

Tom Cruise they could NOT get...Tom HANKS they got all the time. He fit right in as a cast member and did a lot of them before he got his double Oscars(Philiadelphia/Forrest Gump) and a few times AFTER that.

I've kind of lost track of SNL in recent years. I switched from cable to streaming and lost it -- though you can get "NEW" clips of episodes the same nights they air now. I'm kind of coming back to watch.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 days ago

I believe this: whereas with most entertainments of this decade(movies, songs, TV shows) my generation is NOT invited as the target group, I think we are "allowed" to follow along with SNL because the series -- much like the main showrunner Lorne Michaels -- go all the way back to the 70's and we've been with it all along.

That said, I must say that in the past season, about five of the hosts were not known to me. I had to learn who they were and why they were there.

I enjoyed the episodes hosted by Dakota Johnson(granddaughter of the still alive Tippi Hedren) and Sydney Sweeney because...hey they are both beautiful women and I'm allowed my gaze. (They both bombed together in that "Madame Web" movie -- part of the hoped-for-in-some-circles demise of Marvel that ain't gonna happen.)

Dakota had Justin Timberlake come out for a cameo during her monologue and they mentioned they did "The Social Network" together and I didn't remember that so I looked up a clip and hey: there they were. She played a college girl pick up of Timberlake's business guru and they tossed back and forth trademark Aaron Sorkin banter (both in post bed attire, or lack thereof) and I remembered that even with that great script I could not STAND that movie based on the people alone: very young , very rich, very smart people. Who were mostly very venal people. Depressing.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 days ago

Unfortunately I now see that this page *doesn't* list Forsythe as hosting or even as a cameo player. I must have read that somewhere else, presumably less reliable than wiki, and been misled.

--

Hmm, well maybe some young 'un mistook some other suave older man for John Forsythe. Note in passing: after Hitchcock used Forsythe on the big screen in The Trouble With Harry, Hitch advised Forsythe: forget movies, become a TV actor. Ouch.

---

Clarification about Veronica Cartwright. She didn't play herself, rather she was a dying old lady in a sketch when OJ Simpson hosted back in 1978.

---

Aha. Rather like the use of George Coe as an "actor in sketches." Maybe she was dating somebody on the show -- cast or writers. (Confirmed: she had an off and on again "affair AND friendship " with Jack Nicholson and got some roles in some of his movies. (Best: the raging church lady of The Witches of Eastwick who keeps throwing up cherries.) And of course, she was in The Birds as a child actress. We got to watch her grow up.

And it was a minor enough appearance that it sin;t listed on Cartwright's IMDb page. That's working actor stuff not a 'cameo' in my books. Sorry that my info on all this is proving somewhat unreliable.

---

Eh, that's alright. Its up to us to sort it all out, and most of it looks ACCURATE to me. I REMEMBER many of those people's appearances.

--

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 7 days ago

*This* (of course) is a cameo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiJkANps0Qw

---

Ah yes. Keep mentioning Barbra Streisand in a sketch -- and she finally shows up(it was a surprise to Michael Myers, I've read.) Plus two pretty big female guest stars "as agreed upon in the credits": Madonna and Roseanne.

After that bad stretch in the eighties when Robert Conrad and Robert Culp hosted SNL, Lorne Michaels came back to produce the show and slowly built the reputation up to the point where major stars wanted to go on the show...and new cast members became surprise major stars themselves: Will Farrell, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler. So Streisand and Nicholson and Leo were willing to at least cameo.

SNL seems to have the power again to attract major stars to the show. I mean, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are pretty big, yes? And Dwayne Johnson did a time or two.

--