The New Show

1984
7.4| 0h30m| en
Synopsis

The New Show is a NBC sketch comedy show produced by Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, which ran for only one season from January 6 to March 23, 1984. Apart from being 60 minutes in length and entirely pre-recorded, the show is similar in format to SNL. It was the lowest rated of 94 programs that aired during the 1983-84 television season, averaging a dismal 7.81 household rating. It was opposite 20/20 & Falcon Crest.

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Reviews

Diagonaldi Very well executed
GazerRise Fantastic!
Supelice Dreadfully Boring
Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
gabbbbyhayes and SNL was HORRIBLE all season, fumbling, bumbling, badly written. When Lorne was shown the door, they handed producing duties to the woman who had arranged for the bands that performed on the show. I feel sorry for the cast members who replaced the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. I'm sure they were very talented. What happened, as I understand it, was that Al Franken played a little prank on the president of NBC, something involving a limousine. In the telling, it's funny, until you realize how many lives it messed up (including mine--I had to sit through a year of SNL without Lorne). Al was let go, Lorne was let go. Word to the wise: Don't mess with the limo of the president of NBC. So Lorne did this little thing (he's done a lot of little things--like Kids in the Hall) that was occasionally hilarious, but seemed to have no budget and lacked the thrust of SNL (it was too short, for one thing). I loved it when it was on, missed it when it went away. Some people though it was a waste, but really there was nothing like it on television at the time. Anyone who thinks it's easy to make skit comedy funny should sit through the entire run of FRIDAYS on ABC and Kelsey Grammar Presents the Sketch Show.
johnmaxmena I remember loving this show. The Jetson blooper reel was very funny.John Candy played a owner of a food repair shop. A guy comes in with a pretzel that lost its salt. Candy tells him the man hours to replace each salt grain would make it cost to much to fix.Carrie Fisher plays a woman frighten by phone calls asking who is watching the baby? The police call back and say the calls are coming from in the house. She scrambles to the baby's room to find the baby making the threatening calls.The Quaid brothers did a bit playing two rednecks getting excited to talk to the "Dirty Lady" on phone. It was very funny.I would like to see this on DVD. Or comedy central.
ellafresh Though it popped up in other places and other shows, 1 sketch from this show is the famous Steve Martin "Billie Jean" video parody of Michael Jackson's big hit. Beyond that, I recall a skit that mocked Orwell's 1984 (an old book that appropriately was getting renewed media attention that year) torture chamber scene where people were asked what they were afraid of and they were tortured with it. The example I remember was when the shackled actors said "spiders," and people dressed in huge muppet-like spider outfits attacked them. Contrary to other reviews, these 2 skits were funny at the time. Of course, I was 10 years old.
Randi-5 I remember watching "The New Show" when I was in high school. It seemed mildly funny then. The only sketches I remember are one in which guest star John Candy played a Russian visiting ailing Yuri Andropov (he was the head Soviet honcho at the time) in the hospital, and another one in which a couple sees a doctor/therapist about the strange things they do every day, such as becoming unconscious for 8 hours at a stretch (sleeping) and sitting on a chair in a little room several times a day (going to the bathroom).Was it funny? Probably not. With talent mostly drawn from SCTV, it might have gotten better if it had a chance, but the network (I don't remember which one) pulled the plug after one season.