"Live From New York, It's Friday Night Fights!"

When a modest late-night sketch comedy show named NBC Saturday Night made its debut on October 11th, 1975, nobody had the slightest idea it would become one of the longest-lived programs in television history.

Retitled Saturday Night Live in 1976, the irreverent series quickly became a pop cultural phenomenon by appealing to the uniquely twisted sense of humor of young adults. By 1978, many of its cast members (and their characters) had become household names, inspiring fellow New York institution Marvel Comics to create one of the strangest comic books ever published.

Marvel Team-Up #74 (1978) paired Marvel figureheads Spider-Man and Stan (The Man) Lee with NBC's Not Ready For Prime Time Players*, who together battled the menace of The Silver Samurai and his gang.  As Spidey and the SNL cast cleaned up the goons, the Silver Samurai pitted his sword against....who else?  John Belushi as the Samurai!

As you can see from the panels (click to enlarge), Belushi held his own against the Silver Samurai until Spider-Man took over.  A few panels later, the Silver Samurai used the magic ring to disappear from Studio 8H, escaping to fight Spider-Man another day.

With that, Stan and the crime-fighting SNL crew
gathered for the traditional end-of-the-show curtain call...

From left to right (click for a front row view):  John Belushi, producer Lorne Michaels, Laraine Newman, Stan Lee, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris (in a Thor costume), and Bill Murray.

* When the '78-'79 season of SNL began just a few months later, the cast
members were no longer referred to as the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players".

Craving more Friday fisticuffs?  Bahlactus is your fix!

Comments

[cinephile]

Who were the writers/artists on this book? I'd be really curious to know. I never read this comic (too young when it came out to know what saturday night live was), but I remember JIm Shooter's follow-up in Bullpen Bulletins a few years later, when Belushi died, about Belushi coming to the marvel offices to thank them for making him a comic book hero-- I guess he was a big fan. Cool find, mark!

[Mark Engblom]

Thanks, cinephile. Glad you enjoyed it.

The creative team on that issue was Chris Claremont, long known for his comedic writing chops (ahem), Dave Cockrum on pencils, and Marie Severin on inks.

The likenesses of the actors really varies throughout the story. Some look accurate (Newman and Aykroyd seemed the most consistently accurate), while others....well, not so much. Of all the cast members, the drawings of Bill Murray never looked like the actor.

Nonetheless, it was still a fun little story that I'm happy to have in my collection.

[John Wall]

Holy crap, that's hilarious.

[Mark Engblom]

Glad you liked it, John. It's definitely not your average comic book fight scene.

[Hube]

Great memories here, Mark! Ever see that 80s AVENGERS issue where they appeared on the Letterman show?

[Mark Engblom]

Not yet, but that issue's on my "To Do" list to see some day.

[Matt]

This is kind of weird - not only did a buddy of mine find this particular issue hidden in a box in his basement a couple of years back, I experienced the first two episodes of NBC's Saturday Night, starring George Carlin and Paul Simon respectively, just last night.

I'd honestly never sat and watched one of the "old" episodes, before, and upon watching I found myself a bit suprised at the slightly different format that the show started out with - the host performed individually as opposed to taking part in sketches, the sketches were short enough that they were barely more than single jokes performed on stage, and there were multiple musical guests, giving the show a decidedly "variety show" feel that I imagine it hasn't had since it moved it's focus to full sketches.

-M

[Mark Engblom]

I don't recall seeing any of the original season, and by the second or third season I think the guest stars were fully participating in the show. Interesting coincidence on your end there, Matt.

[Hube]

The original cast once did a great hat tip to Marvel in one memorable skit. There was a superhero party of some sort in NYC and Belushi played the Hulk. He came out of the bathroom and all the adjacent heroes held their noses and were like "AWW, HULK! COME ON! PHEWW!!" But for me, the funniest character was Al Franken's old partner Tom Davis who played Mr. Fantastic. All he did was stand there with a drink in one hand, and his other arm (about five feet long) just dragging along the floor!

[Mark Engblom]

Lol! That's one of my favorite sketches from the original cast. One of the funniest parts is when Ant-Man (Garrett Morris) is talking to the Flash (Dan Aykroyd):

The Flash: What are your super powers again? You - you - you talk to the ants, is that it?

Ant-Man: Well, partly. But, mainly, I shrink myself down to the size of an ant while retaining my full human strength.

The Flash: Really?

Ant-Man: Yeah.

The Flash: [sarcastic] Oooh, that's really impressive. Size of an ant with human strength. You must be able to clean house on those other ants, huh? [chuckles] Hey! Hey, Hulk! Hey, check this guy out.

[The Hulk (John Belushi) joins them. He and the Flash can barely keep from laughing at poor Antman and can't help chortling in-between their heavily sarcastic remarks:]

The Hulk: Ooooh!

The Flash: He's got the strength of a human!

The Hulk: Antman, huh?! Where are your ants?

Ant-Man: They're - they're at home, uh, in the ant farm.

The Hulk: Oh, better stay out of this guy's way.

The Flash: Oooh! Every molecule's quiverin' now!

Click here if you want to check out the entire transcript of the skit.

Funny stuff...though the visuals are easily half the humor.

Thanks for the reminder, Hube!