TCM, 1:15 p.m. ET
The TCM Classic Film Festival 2020 Special Home Edition continues this weekend, which means, just about any time you tune to TCM, you’ll be seeing something wonderful – now more than ever. Check in any time of the day or night, and you’re likely to be pleased, and solidly entertained, by what you see. Today, I’m highlighting just two of the featured offerings on this particular Saturday schedule, because I can imagine their enjoyment being enhanced if watched by multiple generations under one roof – as many of you now are, by edict or common sense. At 1:15 p.m. ET, TCM’s at-home film festival presents 1923’s Safety Last, the smash silent hit starring Harold Lloyd. You’ve seen the famous still shot showing Lloyd dangling from the hands of a giant clock – but how many people in your house right now have ever seen the entire film, or any full-length silent movie at all? Here’s your chance… and the setting, at your end, will make it a very, very memorable one.
Various Networks, 8:00 p.m. ET
SPECIAL: This new special, simulcast by CBS, NBC and ABC, is a collaboration between the World Health Organization and Global Citizen. A more expanded version, a sort of massive pre-show, will be streamed on several platforms from 2-8 p.m. ET, including Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Facebook, Apple, and Instagram. The idea – and potentially, it’s a brilliant one – is to present a multi-hour “socially distanced” entertainment event in which musical acts, and appearances by celebrities, are intercut with actual facts and helpful information about how to deal with the current international pandemic. The late-night hosts presiding over this prime-time special – one from each major network – are Jimmy Kimmel at ABC, Stephen Colbert at CBS, and Jimmy Fallon at NBC. (If the 1990s were the era of “The Late-Night Wars,” this date can be proclaimed as the official end of that war. All I am saying, is give peace a chance…) And the guests scheduled for tonight’s show? The program is curated by Lady Gaga, and she’s gone positively Gaga corralling people to take part. During the six-hour streaming “pre-show,” guests include Annie Lennox, Leslie Odom, Sheryl Crow, Connie Britton, Lady Antebellum, Jack Black, and Kesha. So who does that leave for the main event in prime time, apart from Lady Gaga herself? Try this, for starters: Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Celine Dion, Lizzo, Billie Joe Armstrong, Kacey Musgraves, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Billie Eilish, Chris Martin, and Jennifer Lopez. Oprah Winfrey will be there, too, and Ellen DeGeneres, and Amy Poehler. Oh, and The Rolling Stones have joined the bill, and so has Paul McCartney – the first time a Rolling Stone and a Beatle have appeared on the same TV show, I believe, since The Rutles: All You Need is Cash. But I digress. Anyway, make sure to watch. As charity events and TV events go, One World: Together at Home is the biggest entertainment fundraising idea since Live Aid.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
And if you’re not into massive virtual concert fundraisers: For this Saturday night portion of TCM’s home version of its 2020 Classic Film Festival, the network presents one of the most classic movie ever made: 1942’s Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as former lovers caught up in the deadly espionage plots involving World War II. Remember that this was filmed and released during that war, making its defiant portrayals of patriotism, and resistance to the Nazis, even more potent. And again, if you’ve got multiple generations in your house tonight, especially ones who have yet to see this classic of classics, sit them down and enjoy as a group. You’ll be making memories – and after tonight, no matter what happens, you’ll always have Casablanca.
getTV, 11:00 p.m. ET
This week’s ultra-rare rerun of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour is a presentation of the program’s third-season premiere in September 1968. Tom and Dick Smothers were reeling from, and reacting to, the police brutality that flared outside the Democratic National Convention that summer, as well as the June assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. To start the new season, and acknowledge all the national unrest, the brothers worked with guest star Harry Belafonte to adapt the lyrics of several calypso songs, led by “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” which he would sing in front of a backdrop of film of police clubbing protesters on the streets of Chicago, and similar protests inside the convention itself (“Let it be known,” Belafonte would sing, “freedom’s gone, and the country’s not our own.”) Powerful stuff – so powerful that the CBS censors removed the segment in its entirety. (If it’s reinserted and shown here tonight, as I suspect it will be, you’ll be seeing something that CBS audiences never saw 52 years ago.) The CBS censors also objected to several lines in a comedy sketch in which Belafonte and another guest, Mama Cass Elliot, helped Tom and Dick poke fun at their NBC competition, Bonanza, with a lengthy “Bonanzarosa” spoof. Deadpan series regular Pat Paulsen played patriarch “Ben Cartwrong,” Belafonte was youngest sibling “Little Jerk,” and Mama Cass played “Hass,” her version of behemoth Cartwright brother Hoss. The CBS censors were kept very busy cutting out or bleeping such lines as dialogue as “grab Hass” and “wise Hass” – but what remains is a very funny sketch indeed.
NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET
Last week’s “At Home” edition of SNL was important, and very welcome. I loved seeing Tom Hanks as host, especially as he began by poking fun at two durable show-biz institutions: Saturday Night Live and himself. Tonight’s show is a rerun, but is worth watching because it’s the most recent episode performed and televised live before the pandemic shutdown. Daniel Craig was the guest host, making jokes about the fact that he was there to promote the new James Bond filmed, even though the studio had just pushed it back to the fall because of newly suggested social distancing concerns. That was on Saturday, March 7 – and to look at the audience and the show, five weeks later, is like looking at another world. Two days later, on March 9, I attended a preview performance of Company in New York, my last stupid move before taking the coronavirus ultra-seriously (but hey: the tickets were expensive, and the production was to die for. Luckily, I didn’t.) And two days after that, on March 11, they closed down Broadway until further notice (cue Billy Joel singing about the night the lights went out on Broadway…). So watch this SNL recent repeat, as a trapped-in-amber look at a world it might take us years to experience in the same way again. Live, from New York…
