Are We Not Men?

Robert Christgau once dismissed Devo as "Meat Loaf for college kids." Millions of college kids replied, "What's wrong with that?"

Imagine it's October 1978 and you're settling in to watch Saturday Night Live. Fred Willard introduces the musical guest, and here's what happens:



With SNL getting huge ratings at the time (a 39 share), there had to be a lot of people watching who'd never heard of Devo and, I'm guessing, couldn't believe what they were hearing or seeing. Seriously, had middle America ever seen the like?

I used to work at a nuclear power plant, and I wanted so badly to smuggle one of their yellow jumpsuits out of the place and write DEVO on it, but I couldn't figure out a way to get it past the supersensetive radiation detectors. Oh well.