Original Air Date: February 16, 1980
Starring: Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Elliot Gould
Directed by: Dave Wilson, James Signorelli
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this skit!
Synopsis: One of the sketches from this episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Elliot Gould with musical guest Gary Numan.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): This particular sketch is intended to be a Canadian television special sponsored by McKenzie Paper Towels which is a Canadian rip off of The Wizard of Oz. Jennifer (Gilda Radner) is the Dorothy character and instead of a dog named Toto she carries around a white Persian cat named Tinky.
Jennifer hits her head on the headboard of her bed after singing about someplace over the clouds to Tinky the cat.
When she wakes up the scene has switched to color and she meets the good munchkin fairy (Jane Curtain) who tells her to see The Incredible Man to get home. To do this she must follow the yellow line in the snow.
As Jennifer travels along she meets a lonely Mountie (Bill Murray), a non-famous hockey player (Peter Aykroyd) and a sleepy bear (Elliot Gould). The Mountie asks Jennifer to marry him and when she says no he asks if he can marry her cat.
In the scenes in which they are following the yellow line and singing about going to see The Incredible Man, poor Tinky is jostled as Jennifer skips along.
Eventually they find The Incredible Man (Harry Shearer) who lives in a mobile home.
The Incredible Man is able to offer help to the hockey player, who wants fame, the sleepy bear, who wants sleep, and the mountie, who wants a wife, but Jennifer doesn’t believe he can help her get home to Saskatchewan.
But The Incredible Man does help her (by clubbing her on the head with a two by four) and she wakes up in her room, happy to say there is no place like Saskatchewan.
Tinky is present throughout the entire sketch which is almost twelve minutes long! Remember that this was live television and the cat actor was being carried the entire time, so obviously a very docile cat needed to be found. It’s possible Tinky was sedated to keep him calm but the cat doesn’t show any obvious signs of having been drugged. At the most Tinky the cat just looks somewhat annoyed at the strange proceedings.
Final Mewsings: Tinky wins the prize as the most patient live cat actor ever!
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