Season 8, Episode 5
March 26, 2023
Theme: Cults
Playlist

I remember Weird Al once saying that his best album is whichever one the listener first heard. The idea being that, for many people, there is nothing that can replace whatever they initially encountered. It becomes the definition of that artist; everything else falls short. The same is true of another comedic institution: Saturday Night Live. A significant amount of people will claim that the show just isn’t as good as it used to be. This can be summarized as an algebraic expression: x > y, where x = the cast members from the season the fan first watched and y = the cast members from the season currently airing. It’s an expression simultaneously bold and nebulous, impossible to fully prove.

I wont make that claim. Not only do I like the current cast, I also have two casts that defined the show for me as a kid. There’s the one featuring Hartman, Sandler, Farley, Sweeney and Cleghorne from the early ’90s, which I encountered airing in syndication on Comedy Central. Then there’s the second one from circa 2000, which is when I first started watching the show live. This cast included Will Ferrell, likely in the top 10 list for many SNL viewers. He was a particular favorite of mine. Burned into my brain are Craig, the Spartan Cheerleader, Jacob Zilch, and Petchow Rat Poison.

Will also portrayed real-life figures, a number of which were pretty twisted. Ted Kaczynski, Marshall Applewhite, George Bush. You may know Applewhite by another name, Do (pronounced like the song) – but more likely, you have no idea who he is. Applewhite was the leader of Heaven’s Gate, alternatively described as a new religious movement and as a cult. The group’s beliefs included the idea that believers could become immortal by leaving their bodies – which they called ‘vehicles’ – and abandoning all attachments to the human world: family, friends, any distinguishing characteristics of their identity. When Comet Hale–Bopp appeared in late 1996, Applewhite told his followers that there was a UFO trailing the comet. In March 1997, Applewhite and 28 other people committed mass suicide, believing that they would be transported to the spaceship.

The bodies were discovered on March 26. On the Saturday after the discovery, Ferrell appeared in the SNL cold open as Applewhite, speaking with Ted Koppell from aboard the spaceship. This sketch has stuck with me since I first saw it. It’s compelling for so many reasons. One, as a time capsule, like a yellowed scrap of newsprint capturing a story. Two, it’s an exploration of a tragedy from the lens of comedy. It’s playing on the idea of surprise: we expect that these people are all dead. But what if, the sketch supposes, they actually survived? What if they were right about everything? Which leads to the sobering reality: 39 people had died, convinced that something greater awaited them – but they were wrong. There was never a UFO waiting to take their spirits to another realm. Instead, their consciousness was gone forever, suffocated and left to rot in the California spring.

These days, there are seemingly multiple new documentaries and podcasts about cults that are released each month. So many of us are fascinated by these groups. I think it’s because they allow us to view from a safe distance the destruction of a psyche. We are voyeurs, untouched by the pain and torment, able to explore these concepts from a theoretical perspective.

In the opening moments of today’s show, I offered a mathematical equation. Here’s another one: religion = cult + time. Groups like Heaven’s Gate are called New Religious Movements because they have the trappings of religion: the exploration of everlasting life; finding an answer to the mysteries of the universe; receiving a simplistic concept of our existence. They’re written off because they aren’t as popular and don’t have a track record. But they started somewhere. Consider The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose primary religious text was published 167 years to the day prior to the discovery of the Heaven’s Gate bodies.

The Book of Mormon is the foundation for a religion that has near-total control of one of our states, Utah. That religion also has some troubling history: racism, patriarchal and sexual violence, financial chicanery. But the stories and beliefs compel people, because they provide an answer to the often overwhelming uncertainty of being alive. It’s hard to reckon with the complexity of life and death; with balancing suffering and celebration; with the idea that the world does not revolve around you, your precious moments or your favorite song. Wouldn’t it be nice to clear all that away with some nice words and a captivating leader?

I’m not sure what this theme will yield, but I am grateful for your commitment to the process. Our theme for episode 5 of Community Radio, season 8 is Cults.

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