Here's an archive for the first 39 seasons at least:
https://dn720202.ca.archive.org/0/items/saturday-night-live/
Perkins' March 13, 1976 ep. is S01E16 and, like most eps, it's available in both .mp4 and .avi formats. Resolution is around 480x360, so ok for viewing on a computer screen, but not good enough for projection on a modern tv.
Thanks for the link! I'll have fun watching these.
shareArgh, Perkins comes across as quite agonized by his hosting of SNL. Almost every sketch plays with his post-Psycho 'creepy guy' persona albeit often with some sort of meta-commentary on how such stunted typecasting diminishes him/is killing him, 'here I am on a comedy show eating flies', etc.. It's an uncomfortable watch, particularly if the viewer has some sense of Perkins' pre-Psycho leading man career, so one is aware of what Psycho swept away for Perkins. Of course, Perkins had quite a few prestigious films after Psycho (and before 1976) from The Trial to Pretty Poison to Catch-22 to Play It As It Lays to Murder on the Orient Express, but Perkins here explicitly plays along with the idea that since Psycho he's mainly done cheapie horror and exploitation films. Not much to write home about in this episode from the main cast either although Laraine Newman revealed herself as having a terrific scream in the 'Terror Lunch' trailer skit.
Thank you for the link as well, swanstep.
We are about to commence the 50th season of Saturday Night Live and we can expect a fair amount of hype. A movie about the first episode(host: George Carlin) in October of 1975 will be coming out in October of 2024 (with actors playing Chase and Belushi and Ackroyd and Lorne Michaels...)
And they will do a 50th season special. THOSE are quite star studded. All the past and present SNL players and all those famous hosts in the audience. Dakota Johnson showed a photo last season of the 40th Anniversary in which Donald Trump could be seen sitting near Taylor Swift. (Johnson made note that ONE of them "was the most powerful person in the country.") Funnier still at the 40th: Jerry Seinfeld reminding Larry David that he was once "fired as writer on SNL but was now superrich thanks to Seinfeld."
Anyway, I figure that these "historical caches" of 50 years of SNL episodes will remind us at once that (1) it was an incredibly successful show(if not terribly influential -- Fridays bombed and MAD TV never landed the hip hosts) and (2) many of the episodes...across ALL decades...weren't that great.
The Anthony Perkins episode is from the first season, which really didn't have the success formula down. First of all there were MUPPETS on the show(and Perkins dutifully acts with them). Second, the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" weren't given much time or respect at all (The handsome Chevy Chase broke out, it was said, by doing the news, giving his real name, and playing to the camera every week.) Third, the focus was really ON the host...so Perkins had to carry a lot of the show on his own persona.
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Argh, Perkins comes across as quite agonized by his hosting of SNL. Almost every sketch plays with his post-Psycho 'creepy guy' persona albeit often with some sort of meta-commentary on how such stunted typecasting diminishes him/is killing him, 'here I am on a comedy show eating flies', etc..
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Yes, that opening monologue with him saying "I'm just a regular guy, it was just a role" and then..he eats a buzzing fly(never shown, just a sound effect.) I WILL say that that felt like a knowing nod to Mother's final line IN Psycho ("Why she wouldn't harm a fly...") but, yeah.
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It's an uncomfortable watch, particularly if the viewer has some sense of Perkins' pre-Psycho leading man career, so one is aware of what Psycho swept away for Perkins. Of course, Perkins had quite a few prestigious films after Psycho (and before 1976) from The Trial to Pretty Poison to Catch-22 to Play It As It Lays to Murder on the Orient Express,
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I've read not one, but two, biographies of Anthony Perkins and they both point out that Perkins ACTIVELY tried to avoid horror movies after Psycho, for the longest time. Goodbye Again(with Ingrid Bergman) and Phaedra(with Melina Mecouri) are "love dramas." The Fool Killer(barely released) is a Civil War set drama. Perkins cameo'ed in th ewar movie "Is Paris Burning?"
He played a "straight villain" (not a Psycho) opposite Sophia Loren in Twelve Miles to Midnight and Welles' "The Trial" feels somewhat like a thriller , but not a horror movie, and it is an art film at heart(from a classic allegorical novel.)
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Perkins turned down horror and slasher pictures for a long time. One such named was "Shock Treatment" (1964) which opens with Roddy McDowall(Perkin's replacement), clipping hedges with huge clippers and lowering the clippers so as to chop off the head of an old woman seated in front of him. (Its not shown, but I saw that in a trailer for the film at the drive-in in 1964 and had some sleepless nights over it.)
Perkins "kind of, sort of" came back to psycho horror with "Pretty Poison" in 1968, but in that one he is a unbalanced
ACCOMPLICE to a TRUE psycho played by Tuesday Weld. Then came the 70's -- as you note, swanstep -- Perkins took a lot of roles that were pretty much "regular people" (if nervous ones.)
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but Perkins here explicitly plays along with the idea that since Psycho he's mainly done cheapie horror and exploitation films.
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Yes. He was acceding to something that was not reality. BUT..he was also acceding to the fact that of all his movies, it WAS Psycho that truly gave him an iconic character and truly kept his career alive. I am confident that without Psycho, Perkins' ingenue star would have dimmed fast; he was already resigned(pre-Psycho) he said to a stage actor career.
Keep in mind that while Psycho rather haunted the 60s (1960 blockbuster release, 1965 re-release, 1966 aborted CBS showing; 1967 local showings, 1969 re-release)..came the 70's, Psycho was in a TV syndication package and playing ALL THE TIME on TV..THE great horror movie of its time(The Exorcist and Jaws came out in the 70's and outdistanced it...but got no TV play in that decade.)
So the Anthony Perkins who took the SNL stage in 1976 was probably a VERY exciting "living legend" -- Norman Bates made flesh -- and pretty exciting to see for Psycho buffs like me.
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Not much to write home about in this episode from the main cast either although Laraine Newman revealed herself as having a terrific scream in the 'Terror Lunch' trailer skit.
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As I mentioned, it seems that only Chevy Chase "sold himself" as a star in this first season. Maybe Dan Ackroyd too(he did the famous "Basso-matic" sketch in that first season and showed off his superfast high tech voice.) And Gilda Radner off in her own world. (She did the "Never Mind" woman in that season.. the better "Roseanne Roseannadanna" came later.)
I think Belushi needed his "Samurai" character to sell HIS talent. Lorne Michaels has recently opined that that character probably couldn't be done today. Hmm.
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One thing that bothered me about SNL Perkins hosting job : he wore eyeglasses throughout. Those can change a face and change a personality. With those glasses on all the time(even during the "Norman Bates School of Motel Management" sketch), he never REALLY felt like Norman Bates. Norman didn't wear glasses. (In the book, fat Norman DID.)
Newman sure had a great scream in "Terror Lunch." THAT sketch demonstrates how "early SNL" rather bugged old-timers. The show was very self-congratulatory about "getting rid of" "vaudeville on TV" comedy such as that practiced by Bob Hope, Red Skelton and Milton Berle(who hosted a diastrous SNL episode). But instead we got a lot of counter-cultural avant garde material ("I Want to Feed Your Fingertips to the Wolverines") that wasn't necessarily THAT funny...just young and different.
Still, the show GOT funny and fast. Great catch-phrases , great sketches (Samarai, Wild and Crazy Guys), and a "first crew" of SNL MEN who got instant movie star careers: Belushi, Chase, Ackroyd and Bill Murray.
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I must admit that I DO like how Anthony Perkins and Psycho -- and indirectly Hitchocck himself -- were part of SNL's first season. Perkins hosted that episode on March 13, 1976. Later in March, I personally attended the premiere of what would be Hitchocck's final film -- Family Plot -- at the now-defunct FILMEX film exhibition in Los Angeles(Hitch was there; Tony Perkins was not.) And in April of 1976, Family Plot debuted at theaters.
You might say that Tony Perkins helped usher the Era of Hitchocck out...and the Era of SNL (and Spielberg and Lucas) IN.