Sunday, November 18, 2012

Rockin' Funnies: You Look Marvelous (1985)

After Soap ended its run in the early 80's, Billy Crystal gravitated over to Saturday Night Live, and while he was only there maybe a year or two, the impression he left behind was an indelible one.

One of his most popular characters was Fernando, the self-absorbed pseudo-talk show host who seemed to be more concerned with himself than his guests most of the time. In 1985, Crystal cut a comedy-music album, following the lead of SNL alums Joe Piscopo & Eddie Murphy, who'd also released records that year. In case you wonder, Piscopo finished a pretty poor 3rd in terms of sales. Unlike the others, Crystal recorded for A & M (Piscopo & Murphy were on Columbia), and like Murphy, scored a huge hit with the Fernando-centric "You Look Marvelous". Crystal also appears dressed as Sammy Davis, Jr., Tina Turner, & Prince, among others. Grace Jones appears as herself, having co-starred in the James Bond adventure, "A View To a Kill", around the same time.

Crystal would follow up with a cover of the holiday classic, "The Christmas Song", utilizing Fernando and mimics of not only Davis, but also Howard Cosell & Muhammad Ali. I'm going to see if I can find a video for that one. In the meantime, Classic80'svideos uploaded "You Look Marvelous":

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