"Land of Gorch" Revisited

[Princeton]

Feel free to move this thread if needed. Anyway, I'm speaking of course of the 'Land of Gorch" sketches on the early seasons of Saturday Night Live. I saw my very first Gorch sketch last night and was pretty disappointed. The writing and treatment of the characters were very negative and I think this is due to the audience they were playing to. It's a different case than, say, "Dinosaurs" where yes, it's playing mainly to an adult audience but you get sucked in by the brilliant satire of the writing. Plus, much love and respect to Jerry Nelson, but Scred has to have one of the most annoying voices I've heard in my life. So tell me all your thoughts on Gorch.

 

[minor muppetz]

Which sketch did you see?

I like the ones that I saw, but I've read that the problem was that the SNL writers usually wrote them, but didn't want to write them (to the point that they actually drew straws to determine who wrote that week's sketch). Jim Henson did end up writing one of the last ones, though.

And it seems the sketches got better halfway through the season, when the characters had been fired but still made appearances, outside of their usual set and interacting with the guest stars (and sometimes cast members).

 

[Princeton]

Which sketch did you see?

Richard Pryor was the guest host. Here's the summary from Muppet Wiki: "Ploobis and Scred "hit the sauce" and go see the Mighty Favog."

 

[Drtooth]

You gotta love, however, that the Mighty Favog, given his performer, had the line of dialogue "The Mighty Oz has spoken."

 

[minor muppetz]

Something I just realized: In one segment, Scred comes on stage dressed as a bee, only for that week's bee sketch to be cut from the show. He says it was going to be an all-bee version of The Andry Griffin Show, with Scred playing the role of Aunt Bee. And yet that's really the only bee-related pun an all-bee parody of The Andy Griffin Show could have (well, maybe Opie could be called O-bee), and how wonderful that they'd let a Muppet have that role. Hmm, maybe that's why the sketch was "canceled".*

*Yes, I realize that was just a joke and that an all-Bees Andy Griffin parody featuring Scred was most likely never even considered in the first place, but it would make for a great "in-universe" example.