In my mind, The Holidays don’t TRULY begin until SNL has their annual Christmas episode. For all but one December in their history (Thanks, 2007 Writer’s Strike!), SNL ended the calendar year by pulling out whatever stops necessary to get you to watch the show. This has resulted in some of the most iconic sketches of all time; and in turn, some very memorable television…but those are just select moments. How do the rest of the episodes stack up against each other? How much holiday spirit is necessary to make an episode truly memorable; and more importantly, are they still memorable to this day? To figure that out, we are (of course) going to take a Non-Seth Meyers Closer Look at SNL’s Christmas Past by breaking down just how full of Holiday Spirit these shows were………All of them…
ALL.
OF.
THEM.
…I’ve got a Lot of spare time on my hands.
But knowing how eager we are to open presents and spend time with loved ones, I’m going to try my best to keep things simple. Since these are Entire Episodes I’ll be covering instead of individual sketches, the way we judge things is going to be a little different than usual.
CRITERIA:
*First thing’s first, the shows in question HAVE to be a “Christmas Episode” (read: The last show in a calendar year) in order for it to count—I’m also NOT going to include the one that just aired with Kevin Hart, it’s just Way too soon. The episodes will then be scored based on the following factors:
Humor (obviously). Two fair warnings; This part is highly subjective, and just because there was one great moment in a certain episode, doesn’t mean the rest of the show was worth watching.
Holiday Content; or rather, how much of it fills up the episode—surprisingly, while looking through the shows, a LOT of them have an amazing lack of it, so if one or more of your favorite episodes doesn’t make the top of the list, it probably suffers from a Holiday Deficiency. Also, I will consider giving extra points if sketches from these episodes ever made it to one of their annual Clip shows.
Were there any Historic/Buzzworthy moments in that episode?
What I call the “Wild Card” category—this includes (but is not limited to) use of recurring characters, guest stars, great MG performances or other factors that help enhance the episode.
Those numbers get added up (Minimum of 5 points in each category, Maximum of 25), and that’s what the overall score of the episode will be.
We’ll cover the Top 8 first, then show the rest of the list afterward. With that said, here’s what I think of ALL the SNL Christmas shows…
CANDACE BERGEN/MARTHA REEVES & THE STYLISTICS (12/20/1975) – By sheer coincidence, we begin with the show’s first ever Christmas show. A show that—to my knowledge had the most pieces in a single show (27 of them, including Musical performances). Thankfully, the quality of that quantity was good enough so that some memorable moments could be mined from it—such as Chevy’s epic Christmas Tree fall, the Bee Capades, the patently Non-Holiday Mel’s Char Palace, Gary Weis’ touching “Homeward Bound” film, and probably one of my favorite “Happy” moments in show history, the cast alongside Howard Shore and his Band of Angels bringing the house down with “Winter Wonderland”. Some parts of the show were a little dated—I had to look up who Margaret Kuhn was in order to understand why having her on was a big deal. Otherwise, in spite of the fact that they were still testing the waters when it came to what worked and what didn’t, this set the pace for the ghosts of Christmases yet to come.
EDDIE MURPHY/THE HONEY DRIPPERS (12/15/1984) – In spite of Murphy’s historic hosting in 1982 and Steve Martin’s epic cameo at the end of it, there was a Major lack of Christmas cheer in that one—there was Gumby, there were the blind nutcracker dancers. A re-run of a sketch from the previous season…and that’s it. Murphy’s appearance 2 years later is the stronger of the two—partly because of it being the middle of the “Steinbrenner Season”, but also because it gave Murphy a chance for his most popular characters to take a bow one last time. But more important than Buckwheat, Gumby, Mr. Robinson and a little bit of James Brown appearing, what Really made this the stronger Murphy show was “White Like Me” (Something I’ve already gone at great lengths about in the Summer of Starmaker). Add Robert Plant’s all-star band “The Honeydrippers” and a sendoff to longtime NBC propmaster Willie Day, and the holidays are properly rung in.
CANDACE BERGEN/FRANK ZAPPA (12/11/1976) – If Bergen’s show in the previous year was them still testing the waters, this one was the show charting them. Fresh off a slew of Emmys in their first season, the show suddenly had a little bit of proving to do. Prove it they did by giving us such classics as Santi-Wrap, the Debut of Irwin Mainway, and probably one of the greatest bloopers the show has EVER had. We also had one of the more avant-garde musical performances from Frank Zappa, who somehow convinced Don Pardo to participate in “I’m the Slime”. But what makes this episode stronger than the previous one was the debut of a time-honored (though surprisingly infrequent) tradition; that of the cast skating the Rockefeller Center Ice Skating rink over the end credits—an episode which, BTW, might mark the ONLY time we’ve ever heard the closing theme song from Beginning to End, only for it to start up again before fade out—the recent Christmas show with Kevin Hart came Pretty close to doing the same. The previous season was them test driving Christmas; This episode actually FELT like Christmas—and it also remains one of the many things I watch on Christmas day to avoid the “Christmas Story” marathon on TBS.
MARTIN SHORT/PAUL McCARTNEY (12/15/2012) – If SNL is consistent in at least One thing; it’s that in the right moments, the show often acts as televised Comfort food when we need comfort the most. Just 36 hours earlier, the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school took place—the country was devastated, shocked, angered, and pretty much jaded from all that happened. How would the show respond? Would the show respond? Would it be in Good or Bad taste to make a response at all? The answer to all three of those questions could be best explained by Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain, “Dignity…Always Dignity.” So accordingly, they open the show with the New York Children’s Choir performing a haunting rendition of “Silent Night”; it’s poignant, it’s touching, it addressed pretty much how the country was feeling at that moment, it was exactly what was needed to be said…Of course, it’s hard to transition from something so profound to 85 more minutes of comedy, but “The Show Must Go On”—and go on it did with Martin Short giving us all a much needed reason to laugh after something so heavy (“You’re a Rat Bastard, Charlie Brown” remains a personal favorite, and who could forget Samuel L. Jackson’s Christmas present for the FCC?). As though that wasn’t enough, famed lead singer of “Wings” Sir Paul McCartney gives us a “Wonderful Christmas Time”…and I will Fight anybody to the death who doesn’t like that song—I would rather listen to that than the God Damned “Christmas Shoes” any day of the week. Point is, we needed a laugh, and this show delivered in Spades.
JACK BLACK/NEIL YOUNG (12/17/2005) – The show that put Youtube on the map…but since I’ve already mentioned “Lazy Sunday” elsewhere, I don’t want to be too redundant. Instead, I want to mention just how solid the rest of the show was in addition to groundbreaking material. There was Darlene Love singing the joys of Christmas Time for the Jews (In Rankin-Bass style Claymation, no less), there was Black’s High-energy opening Kong Song, the Debut of the Two A-Holes; and of course, you Can’t Spell “Business” without adding about 40 additional letters. Add Neil Young to the mix, and compared to the previous season featuring one of the Worst Xmas shows of all time, this was certainly a 180 in the other direction…it also makes me wonder why Jack Black hasn’t come back to host since then.
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE (12/16/2006) – If the previous year’s Christmas show put Youtube on the map; this was The Show that turned the Digital Shorts themselves into a precious commodity; one that would further catapult SNL back into relevance again—and would continue to do so while Andy Samberg (among other people) was getting a paycheck there. But again, not unlike “Lazy Sunday” being the thing everybody was talking about, it was just one piece of the puzzle. You have Timberlake himself returning a 2nd time after a boatload of skepticism during his first time as a host—a skepticism that was thrown out the window once we saw how good he was that first time. This episode pretty much took whatever doubts people had left and destroyed them handily, because Timberlake managed to cement his status as not just a Top-Flite showman, but also one of SNL’s most durable and reliable guests. Did they use a lot of things Timberlake did previously? Sure! But because they were still fresh in everybody’s mind from the first time, it made the 2nd time all the more enjoyable…something Timberlake should’ve remembered/stopped doing when he kept on doing them in his subsequent hosting/MG gigs, but this was his 2nd show–he didn’t know better back then.
ALEC BALDWIN/LUCIANO PAVOROTTI & VANESSA WILLIAMS (12/12/1998) – Two Words: Schweddy Balls. Two more words: Luciano Pavarotti (To this date the ONLY “Classical” performer ever to take the stage on the show). Want more? How about the single-most prophetic moment the show had since the “Triple-Trac” commercial parody in 1975; how all the way back in 1998, a young Jimmy Fallon was already pegged to not only be a big star, but also Host the Christmas show…in 2011—and a friendly reminder that, yes, we’re ALL getting older these days. But even if you strip away such obvious classic moments, there’s still a lot of solid material that’s left to be seen. The Clinton Impeachment reached a fever pitch, Baldwin plays an 8-year old boy who HAPPENS to look like an adult, the forgotten “Chanukah Hymns”, the brief phenomenon that was “10-10” phone numbers, even Update—helmed by Colin Quinn, no less—had a few things worth smiling about. Maybe because the country was uncertain who the leader of the free world would be at that point, we all needed a welcome distraction from everything…and in the clutch, that’s what SNL does best most of the time.
1.MISKEL SPILLMAN/ELVIS COSTELLO (12/17/1977) – Early in season 3, the show put together a contest that would never be attempted again…the idea that “Anyone could Host” the show. Over the first few months of the ’77 season, entries were accepted from all over the country from ordinary Americans wanting to be the host of that year’s Christmas show; not appear in a quick cameo like they would probably do as a prize on Omaze, I mean honest to god HOST the show—monologue, sketches, introduce the band, the real deal—whether someone had acting experience or not. Five finalists were picked when Buck Henry hosted that November, but only one—a (then) 80 year old grandmother got the country’s attention. Now, you would think this would have the earmarks of a “What could POSSIBLY go Wrong” situation, and you wouldn’t be alone in assuming that. But watching the DVD of this episode again, I’ve completely forgotten just how professional Mrs. Spillman was—granted, most of the show she was just being “Herself” with other cast members; but for the one or two moments where she actually had to act, she honest to God took to it like a duck to water. She was certainly no Laurence Oliver by any means, but she was a Hell of a lot better than even the average SNL viewer at the time would EVER expect…while sober. Wherever Mrs. Spillman is in the great beyond (Presuming she’s still alive at the age of 120…I doubt it), she did the one thing that millions of us can only dream about, and I am both happy and jealous that she did it; it was a true once in a lifetime opportunity, and probably the greatest Christmas present the show could give one of its viewers.
Of course, if I’m being honest, that’s not the ONLY reason why this episode takes the top spot. I’ll get to “Radio, Radio” in a second, but the story of how Elvis Costello wound up MG is a story in itself. Apparently, the MG for this episode were supposed to be the Sex Pistols…Yes, The Sex Pistols being paired up with an 80 year old…just let that alternate timeline sink in for a second. However, because of a wide variety of circumstances—including, but not limited to lack of Work Visas, band manager Malcolm McLaren’s inability to nail the scheduling down, and probably because they didn’t want to do it anyway, they didn’t. Through a stroke of luck, Costello wound up taking the spot. OK, so a more clean cut performer takes the stage, and all systems go, right? Well, the “What could possibly go wrong” feelings for Spillman hosting were a little mis-placed. As the story goes (at least on Wikipedia), Costello’s record label wanted him to play “Less Than Zero” from the “This Year’s Model” album, and for at least 10 seconds, he did…then Costello ground everything to a halt, told the audience “There’s no reason to do this song here”, and let ‘er rip with “Radio, Radio”…Which also brings me to the fact that he was “Banned” for 12 years for pulling the stunt (CAUTION: I’m being HIGHLY facetious here; to my knowledge, and thanks to an avid reader’s comments, I’m reminded that no one has ever truly been “Banned” from the show, hence the quotes I use around the word “Banned”). I dunno, call me an optimist, but I think there’s a difference between getting “banned” and Not being asked to come back. Just to name a few examples; Andy Kaufman was “Banned” by home audience vote, Frank Zappa was “Banned” for not playing by the rules when he hosted in ‘78, Sinead O’Connor was “Banned” for ripping up the Pope, and Andrew Dice Clay & Martin Lawrence were “Banned” pretty much because they were being themselves. In Costello’s case, he was too young, too brash (for ’77), and was trying to make a statement for himself because he was new on the scene—he mellowed out significantly in the 12 years and beyond since that moment, he became a marketable performer while not sacrificing his artistic integrity, so the show welcomed him back with open arms not once, but Twice (three times if you count his appearance with the Beastie Boys on the 25th Anniversary Special). He was a rising star back then, but “Not Ready for Primetime” so to speak.
Anyway, I’ve gotten off track (surprise!), The unpredictable nature of this show pretty much made whatever Holiday related material almost an after-thought…Which is unfortunate, because this show was loaded with great material; the Meat Wagon Action Track set, a skewed view of “Gift of the Magi”, the fabled tale of the “Soiled Kimono” set to Madam Butterfly; and yes, even Spillman pretending to be Belushi’s college sweetheart was charming. If the circumstances were such that a regular celebrity and a regular musical guest appeared on this show, it would probably still be an OK show, This, on the other hand, was Special. Something that can only happen once in a lifetime; and is not only my pick for best SNL Christmas episode, but probably also a Top 10 pick for Best episode of All Time. Happy Holidays, Mrs. Spillman…wherever you are.
AND THE REST (and if you disagree on any of these positions; feel free to tell me why, and I’ll tell you why in return—but PLEASE keep it civil)…
GEORGE FOREMAN/HOLE (1994)
40. TERI GARR/DREAM ACADEMY & THE CULT (1985)
39. SALLY FIELD/TONI TONY TONE (1993)
38. ELIJAH WOOD/JET (2003)
37. JAMES FRANCO/MUSE (2009)
36. ROBERT DeNIRO/DESTINY’S CHILD (2004)
35. DAVID CARRIDINE/LINDA RONDSTADT & PIRATES OF PENZANCE (1980)
34. MADELINE KAHN/BUSH (1995)
33. FLIP WILSON/STEVIE NICKS (1983)
32. HUGH LAURE/KANYE WEST (2008)
31. DENNIS QUAID/THE NEVILLE BROTHERS (1990)
30. MELANIE GRIFFITH/LITTLE FEAT (1988)
29. CASEY AFFLECK/CHANCE THE RAPPER (2016)
28. STEVE MARTIN/JAMES TAYLOR (1991)
27. GLENN CLOSE/THE BLACK CROWES (1992)
26. JEFF BRIDGES/EMINEM & LIL WAYNE (2010)
25. ELLEN DeGENERES/NO DOUBT (2001)
24. BILL MURRAY/THE SPINNERS & THE YALE WIFFENPOOFS (1981)
23. AMY ADAMS/ONE DIRECTION (2014)
22. WILLIAM SHATNER/LONE JUSTICE (1986)
21. ANDIE McDOWELL/TRACY CHAPMAN (1989)
20. TINA FEY & AMY POEHLER/BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & E STREET BAND (2015)
19. PAUL SIMON/LINDA RONDSTADT (1987)
18. LUCY LIU/JAY-Z (2000)
17. TED KNIGHT/DESMOND CHILD & ROUGE (1979)
16. DANNY DeVITO/R.E.M. (1999)
15. JIMMY FALLON/JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE (2013)
14. HELEN HUNT/HANSON (1997))
13. AL GORE/PHISH (2002)
12. ELLIOTT GOULD/PETER TOSH (1978)
11. ROSIE O’DONNELL/PENNY MARSHALL/WHITNEY HOUSTON (1996)
10. EDDIE MURPHY/LIONEL RITCHIE (1982)
9. JIMMY FALLON/MICHAEL BUBLE (2011)
…and on That note, Happy Giving Month (and 100th Blog Post) Everybody! We’re gonna take a few weeks off for some Holiday R&R, and we’ll be back in Mid-January (Let’s say the week of the 20th). I don’t know what the next month will include, but I DO know One thing……when we return we will be covering The Hidden Gems of……….(*DRUMROLL PLEASE*)…………
Here’s Hoping we don’t screw up 2018 either!
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