Fresh off of the worldwide phenomenon that was E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, that movie’s 7-year-old costar Drew Barrymore turned, and stays, the youngest individual ever to host the stay and decidedly late-night comedy present Saturday Night Live. For Barrymore, who has gone on to host SNL a number of extra instances since her preliminary look, Saturday Night Live has develop into a welcoming place — even when her first foray into the late-night comedy collection was usual as one thing of a full-on solid revolt.
With the Dick Ebersol years absolutely underway, the chilly open sees solid members Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger, Robin Duke, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy, Tim Kazurinsky, Mary Gross and Joe Piscopo all gathered resentfully within the host’s empty dressing room, reworked for the events right into a dolly and stuffed animal-strewn little woman’s playroom. “It’s disgusting! Ebersol’s gotta be crazy to book her,” complains Hall, with Piscopo piling on their boss by noting how, on the episode earlier than, the producer had dumped on comic Andy Kaufman stay on-air.
With everybody (besides the sympathetic Kazurinsky) hurling abuse in regards to the absent 7-year-old’s presence on the present, the sketch introduces the still-questionable prospect of a literal little one anchoring a present that doesn’t even start till 11:30 p.m. (Barrymore’s supposed dressing room is kitted out with a comfortable little one’s mattress.) “If I see another stuffed animal, I’m gonna throw up,” notes Louis-Dreyfus (a fresh-faced 22 on the time), whereas Mary Gross scoffs that Studio 8H is “crawling with social workers and union guys checking child labor laws,” and Duke reviews that the NBC censors have determined to chop all intercourse and violence from the episode, in deference to the host’s age. “You mean they cut the frontier gynecologist sketch?” blurts an outraged Kroeger, peeling off the rubber gloves and cowboy hat he’d worn into the room. Murphy complains that he’d tried to get Ebersol to guide Michael Jackson quite than “this white-bread kid,” whereas Gross explodes, “This show’s gonna be a nightmare!”
It’s then {that a} sheepish and startlingly tiny Barrymore makes her entrance and plunks down on the mattress subsequent to Louis-Dreyfus, ready patiently for the group applause to die down earlier than apologizing. “I’m sorry guys,” the younger Barrymore explains by way of her still-snaggly child enamel. “I just got the word. No bad stuff or violence on this show.” The solid, switching into protecting trouper mode, all guarantee Barrymore that it’s no drawback in any respect, with Barrymore brushing them off by saying, “Ebersol’s gotta be nuts to book a 7-year-old to host this show!” (She additionally mocks the Andy Kaufman factor.) After expressing her distaste for all of the toys festooning her dressing room, Barrymore lastly rebuffs the solicitous Kazurinsky’s provide of a glass of milk, touchdown the sketch with an enthusiastic, “Milk? I’m a Barrymore! Get me a drink, and make it a double.”
Rather a lot goes on right here. Barrymore, after charming audiences as E.T.’s precocious Gertie, was, certainly, a 7-year-old internet hosting Saturday Night Live. Gross’ joke about social employees being on guard to guard the pursuits of the kid star has a distinct echo after Barrymore, in her first autobiography, the aptly titled Little Girl Lost (written with Todd Gold when the actress was simply 14), detailed how she started abusing medicine and alcohol just some quick years after internet hosting SNL. As for her line in regards to the Barrymores and arduous ingesting, a peek again by way of the illustrious names of her appearing dynasty household is to look at a whole clan’s legacy of alcoholism and psychological sickness, each of which might plague Barrymore herself till she emerged as a bankable grownup star and movie government. But not earlier than a number of stints in rehab and a suicide try earlier than the age of 18.
Watch Drew Barrymore’s ‘SNL’ Monologue From 1982
But watching the 1982 SNL episode immediately is to see the refreshingly pure and nonetheless harmless Barrymore within the fingers of a solid much more delighted to have her in the home than the chilly open advised. Throughout the episode (which, to be honest, is lighter on Barrymore than on the show-long call-in stunt that ultimately noticed Kaufman banned from the present), Barrymore is consistently being held, cuddled, and protectively roughhoused with by a lot of the solid. Kazurinsky seems to have been the designated enjoyable uncle of the bunch, popping out to lob softball viewers questions for Barrymore to reply within the monologue, the pair bantering playfully by way of Barrymore’s halting and authentically childlike solutions. (Barrymore notes that she initially discovered the E.T. creature “gooshy,” however that he’s now a good friend, and that she’d marry godfather Steven Spielberg if she had to decide on somebody.)
Earlier, Murphy had mocked Kazurinsky’s softheartedness towards the evening’s host, noting how he favored working with “kids and animals,” and Kazurinksy capped off the monologue by stunning the delighted Barrymore with certainly one of the child chimp costars from his well-liked “I Married a Monkey” sketches. (As with all the things in regards to the Barrymore Saturday Night Live experiment, there’s a much less rosy tint to the gesture, contemplating how Kazurinsky has associated his fraught and sometimes harmful time sharing a stage with supposedly educated primates.)
In her restricted number of subsequent sketches, Barrymore’s bratty orphan is fortunately adopted by Piscopo and Duke’s recurring Doug and Wendy Whiner; she additionally finds herself sharing the stage with Kazurinsky as soon as extra (dressing the obliging solid member in E.T.’s old-lady disguise and make-up) and telling Duke that she’d quite be watching Eddie Murphy.
In the goodnights (by which Kaufman’s viewer-mandated banishment is dutifully learn out), Barrymore is as soon as extra crowded by the solid, exclaiming, “I had an absolutely wonderful time, and I love you all! Goodbye!” whereas Kroeger and Kazurinsky choose her up and rock her to the sounds of the closing theme.
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