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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 2/25/2025: Early SNL [1]
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Date: 2025-02-25
Anna Syberg: Cactus from the Botanic Garden's Greenhouse (1908)
Good evening, Kibitzers!
Well, my friends! Last Thursday I unwisely fell down the basement stairs. I had a lump on my head that I put ice on, but apart from that, my worst pain was where I must have clocked myself in the jaw-hinge and dislocated it. With some ice, though, that actually calmed down pretty quickly.
My torso was feeling generally beat-up, but I figured that would get better over time. Mostly true, as it turned out! It’s just that all the pain that was leaving everywhere else was settling around my rib cage.
So on Monday afternoon, I shift to the narrative present and go to the ER. I tell them I fell down the stairs and think I might have broken some ribs. They do x-rays and tell me a) I have three broken ribs and b) there’s nothing they actually do for that. Okay, fine. I knew that was generally true, but I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t broken them so egregiously that they DID need to do something. I figure I can go home. So then they say, oh wait, you fell down the stairs? And you hit your head? So we need to CAT scan your head. Okay fine.
So they CAT scan my head, and now they say, okay, there was a tiny little bleed but it’s been over 48 hours and it’s probably fine, follow this light with your eyes.
They go away and come back, and THEN they say, actually, we need to transfer you to the regional trauma center in Boston and the neurology team needs to evaluate you. They pack me in an ambulance and send me over there, where I get to tell the same story to a bunch of other people, one by one.
THEN they say, okay, the head thing looks like it’s nothing to worry about, but now we have to CAT scan the rest of your body to make sure there’s nothing else wrong. And there’s a long waiting line for that.
What happened next is not anyone’s fault — well, probably Republicans’. There’ve been some hospital closures in Boston lately, and now they don’t really have enough overall capacity, but they are still determined to give everyone proper care. As my brother, who sat with me most of the time, pointed out, if they had been able to evaluate each thing and add the next one in a timely manner, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But they weren’t, and so I ended up, end to end, spending more than 24 hours in the hospital in a liminal state, sitting on a hard bed in my clothes and shoes, having nothing to eat or drink, and getting about two hours of sleep in the bright, noisy ER space, because I was always just on the verge of being released but, Columbo-like, there was always just one more thing.
So: in the end, nothing ELSE was wrong with me, but the whole-body scan showed them I did not break three ribs — they’d just missed the other seven with the x-rays. Hey, all that energy from the fall had to go somewhere. I regret I could not generate electricity with it. I also regret there was no video. Nope, still nothing they could actually do for me except tell me to take Tylenol. They gave me one Oxycodone for the overnight (how I got the two hours of sleep), but they don’t want to prescribe it because, you know, I wouldn't want to take that! Why, it makes you constipated! smdh at US attitudes toward pain management.
But all that is not the topic of this diary! It’s just about why I won’t be hosting as actively as I normally try to do. No, this is about Saturday Night Live.
Since this is the big golden anniversary year for Saturday Night Live, I rummaged around and found some classic clips from the first season or two. (I found some later than that, too, but there’s no room for them so that has to be another diary.) The early seasons when I was in college have stuck with me the most, because then, anyone who didn’t have anything better to do on Saturday night went down to the TV room (no TVs in dorm rooms!) and watched together. There were still only three major networks, so there wasn’t any argument about what we should all see.
There will surely be favorites of yours that I had to omit because of space, or because I forgot about them or whatever, and the comments are where you can add them!
The Bass-O-Matic: if you’re not old enough to remember the crazy junk that used to be sold in low-budget TV commercials during off-hours, generally by the fast-talking guy who owned the company, well then this ad will seem even weirder to you. Trust me, it was a thing. [1:47]
Little Chocolate Donuts: As long as we’re doing ads, can’t forget this Wheaties parody. The cig makes it. [1:29]
Coneheads Family Feud: They are from France. [8:00]
Landshark: Luckily, Jaws is such a famous movie, people today can still get this sketch (although they might be puzzled by “Candygram!”) [8:16]
Father Guido Sarducci: ”Don Novello created the Father Guido Sarducci character in 1973 after finding a monsignor's outfit for $7.50 at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop.” [5:22]
Emily Litella on “Violins on Television”: Gilda. I wish she were still here. She’d be nearly 80, but she’d still be funny. [1:21]
Roseanne Rosannadanna on Smoking: Same comment. [4:53]
Dancing in the Dark: Two masters doing silent physical comedy. [3:25]
Samurai Night Fever: There are shorter Samurai sketches, but the added parody of the movie… [8:53]
The Olympia Restaurant: Iconic. [4:56]
The Blues Brothers: Soul Man. [4:29]
Ask President Carter: This is certainly the most favorable treatment of a Democratic (or any!) president I’ve ever seen on this show, and I’ve always enjoyed it for that reason. [5:07]
Two Wild and Crazy Guys: Notwithstanding the title on the video, this has nothing to do with computer dating and everything to do with the Statue of Liberty. [8:26]
[END]
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