Line, please

Dennis Perrin has a great post up about the fourth season, 1978-1979, of Saturday Night Live, recently made available as a 7-DVD set.

Perrin observes that much of the energy and attitude of that season's humor was fueled by cocaine, which was commonly used by most of the performers and writers on the show during that time. Truth be told, back then even many of the people watching the show at home were doing so with a mirror, a vial, and a rolled-up $20 bill on the coffee table in front of them. Of course what seems funny to coked-up writers and performers, and to a coked-up audience, probably seems less so to a straight person:

Some of the humor is cheap. Much of it is inspired, though a certain meanness comes through. When you watch these shows in bulk, comic aggression is immediate.

I have fond memories of watching some of the shows from that season, especially the one featuring Devo as the musical act. When it first aired in the fall of 1978, I watched it with my then-girlfriend and my best friend. As the spudboys launched into their spastic take on "Satisfaction," my buddy and I were transfixed.

"These guys are great!" we said to one another.

"These guys suck," said the then-GF. Right then I knew, for the first time, that she and I might not make it as a couple, which was borne out a few weeks later when she dumped me for a professor at the local college. He probably liked Rupert Holmes.