A Night On Freak Mountain
A Night On Freak Mountain is a 9:45 min. long Saturday Night Live sketch, performed on Dec. 12th, 1978. The title is a pun on Modest Mussorgsky's composition A Night On Bald Mountain.
The Night on Freak Mountain sketch involves Frank Zappa getting lost on Freak Mountain, when his car is stuck in a mud slide. He then meets a bunch of hippies (played by Dan Aykroyd and Laraine Newman) who want him to get stoned with him. Paul Schaffer also turns up, playing the character Don Kirshner. [1]
Joel Hodgson credited the "homemade aesthetic" of the deliberately low-budget special effects of his own co-created show Mystery Science Theater 3000 partially to the Night On Freak Mountain sketch:"The example that comes to mind is an SNL sketch from the seventies, when Frank Zappa was the musical guest. It was called “Night on Freak Mountain” and at a certain point they cut to a pretty crude model – which was supposed to be an exterior shot of Freak Mountain – and right away everyone in the studio audience laughed. I found it so charming, funny and real.". [2]
