NBC Re-Airs ‘Saturday Night Live’ Hosted By George Carlin
It’s both a very cool and a very sad thing that “Saturday Night Live” this week will re-air its first episode ever because it was hosted by George Carlin.
The sad part, of course, is that Carlin died June 22 of heart failure. NBC is bringing out the 1975 show that started it all (at 11:30 p.m. EDT Saturday) as both a tribute and a bid for ratings.
You have to believe that Carlin, student of irony that he was, would have appreciated the move, for all its reasons. He was also the perfect guy to join the “SNL” bunch 33 years ago when he, NBC and the Not Ready For Prime Time Players took a leap of faith to try something then startlingly new for TV.
“He was gracious, fearless and, most important of all, funny,”"SNL” creator, Lorne Michaels, said in a press statement.
The late-night comedy show was a very different, and a much higher octane, vehicle back then. Carlin performed three separate monologues that night, and helped introduce John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Larraine Newman and Gilda Radner.
The show also included a performance from comedian Andy Kaufman and featured musical guests Janis Ian and Billy Preston. That, folks, is big-time television.
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Another kind of big time TV _ “The Sopranos” _ will reappear, in a way, in November. HBO Video announced this week that the entire seven seasons of the landmark show is coming out in a box set on Nov. 11.
This thing will have 30 discs, weigh nearly 10 pounds, and cost only $399.99. (Insert your own ironic tone on “only.”) Of course, Tony Soprano’s crew could get you a truckload of the sets for half the price, if you don’t mind meeting at midnight in an alley.
The box set has CDs of the show-ending songs, two bonus discs with additions that include a recent seminar on characters who were whacked, and an interview with creator David Chase by Alec Baldwin, who was a huge fan and tried to get Chase to cast him in an episode.
The only disappointment is that the big guy, James Gandolfini, didn’t participate in any of the extras. Always tough to get even a fake mob boss to do what you want.
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This week, the regular feature What Have They Done to My Shows moves to Friday.
Here’s what we’ve got today:
_HBO is picking up a second season of the drama “In Treatment,” that followed one psychotherapist (played with terrific nuance by Gabriel Byrne) and a handful of his patients he saw through the week.
According to the Hollywood trades, Byrne will be back and so will Dianne Wiest, who was his therapist, but there will be a new pack of patients. No date yet.
_CBS is adding six more episodes to the run of “Million Dollar Password,” which by summer network standards is a big success, averaging more than 9 million viewers.
The show, which started in 1961 and aired in various forms in the 1970s and ’80s, is now hosted by Regis Philbin and is on its fourth name. Besides just plain “Password,” it’s also been “Password Plus” and “Super Password.”
_In a move that surprised absolutely no one, Disney Channel announced this week it’s planning a sequel to the Jonas Brothers movie “Camp Rock.”
The TV film drew 8.9 million viewers when it premiered a week ago, including 3.4 million tweens aged 9 to 14. That makes it the second biggest cable movie ever after “High School Musical 2,” but ahead of the original “HSM.”
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Rick Kushman: rkushman@sacbee.com
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