I’m going to post a Sketch of the Week here each Monday (or maybe Tuesday or Thursday or whenever I remember to post one). It might be something that I found particularly intriguing that week, or sometimes I’ll try to tie them in with current events.
The most important current event in the entertainment business is the SAG-AFTRA and WGA labor strikes. As a reminder that entertainment execs have always seemed myopic and don’t truly know what people want to see, check out this 1979 sketch in which Larry Karaszewski plays BOC’s real network boss, NBC president (and previous CBS and ABC programming chief) Fred Silverman.
Silverman got on the cover of Time magazine in 1977 with a profile headlined “The Man With the Golden Gut,” but his gut apparently soured by the time he got to NBC in 1978, where he had a number of high-profile failures (including a few with McLean Stevenson). Even kids know TV execs are full of it!
Fun facts: Karaszewski previously played a spinoff-obsessed Silverman at the end of “Son of Jed”, a future Sketch of the Week candidate. Also, let it be noted that BOC took on Silverman well before Saturday Night Live did in this blistering Weekend Update bit from Al Franken.
Segment info: “The NBC Programming Game,” aired in 1979, starring Mark Wilson (host), Larry Karaszewski (Fred Silverman), Juliet Davis (Alice Thorndike from Scranton, Pennsylvania).