TV: Saturday night live to end at 50 years? Michaels to retire?

[BigBadBruins7708]

the best era of SNL was the one with Celebrity Jeopardy and it's intellectually dishonest to argue otherwise

nah, Norm MacDonald's time on Weekend Update

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

Show has been absolutely terrible for a long time now.

I'd argue the Kristen Wiig/Hader/Samberg/Sudekis/Armisen/Forte years, with John Mulaney and Seth Myers as the head writers, were as good as any in the show's history. So much talent. Then again, we're several years removed from that era.

 

[NyQuil]

I'd argue the Kristen Wiig/Hader/Samberg/Sudekis/Armisen/Forte years, with John Mulaney and Seth Myers as the head writers, were as good as any in the show's history. So much talent. Then again, we're several years removed from that era.

Sometimes they end up with more respect retroactively.

 

[Stylizer1]

I'd argue the Kristen Wiig/Hader/Samberg/Sudekis/Armisen/Forte years, with John Mulaney and Seth Myers as the head writers, were as good as any in the show's history. So much talent. Then again, we're several years removed from that era.

It was the bunch that came after them which killed the show. None of them reached that level of good with the exception of Mckinnon.

 

[Guylovethebuds]

IMO they went woke and broke, reality is woke comedy just isn't funny

 

[Jumptheshark]

IMO they went woke and broke, reality is woke comedy just isn't funny

I can not respond to this as you would hit the report button


But

Describe and define WOKE Please

 

[Guylovethebuds]

I can not respond to this as you would hit the report button


But

Describe and define WOKE Please

by woke I mean SNL turned into a soap box for a certain political based narrative, do you think skits like Who is pat would fly today?
Also its not SNL's fault, its the owner of NBC

 

[Mrfenn92]

Still record every episode and fast forward when the skits suck.

 

[Jumptheshark]

by woke I mean SNL turned into a soap box for a certain political based narrative, do you think skits like Who is pat would fly today?
Also its not SNL's fault, its the owner of NBC

Politically based narrative you mean making fun of the Conservative right?

 

[Guylovethebuds]

Politically based narrative you mean making fun of the Conservative right?

thats a massive oversimplification but in a way yes, once the show stopped even trying to maintain the image of political neutrality it lost all its appeal to me, I wanted comedy not veiled propaganda.

 

[NyQuil]

thats a massive oversimplification but in a way yes, once the show stopped even trying to maintain the image of political neutrality it lost all its appeal to me, I wanted comedy not veiled propaganda.

 

[Guylovethebuds]

that was 1of the worst skits ever,
Hell I just came up with a better skit, Have Depp singing she dutied over there to Bruno mars's Versace on the floor lol

 

[Jumptheshark]

thats a massive oversimplification but in a way yes, once the show stopped even trying to maintain the image of political neutrality it lost all its appeal to me, I wanted comedy not veiled propaganda.

No it is not an over simplification. If you want that watch foxnews

 

[Guylovethebuds]

No it is not an over simplification. If you want that watch foxnews

to be clear on what you are saying, neutral is no longer OK?
I am confused, I said I stopped watching because it became political propaganda and you told me to watch fox news. What is a guy supposed to watch? or does their TV choices have to be political?

 

[Jumptheshark]

to be clear on what you are saying, neutral is no longer OK?
I am confused, I said I stopped watching because it became political propaganda and you told me to watch fox news. What is a guy supposed to watch? or does their TV choices have to be political?

Someone is always the brunt of a joke. Neutral is not a funny position.

Also, SNL has always taken shots at the left but the right ignores that.

 

[NyQuil]

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

do you think skits like Who is pat would fly today?

If wokeness is preventing crap like Pat from airing, then thank god for wokeness. What a wild example for "quality" lost.

 

[archangel2]

People should not use the word WOKE. Because so far, only one tribe uses that word and it is never in a good way

 

[Voight]

Show has been absolutely terrible for a long time now.

Yup. Couldn't agree more.

Their cast members aren't even getting the big roles they used to (i.e. everyone from Chase to Sandler to Ferrell ended up becoming major A Listers, haven't seen much of that lately).

I really stopped giving a shit when every skit featured Kate McKinnon and was about politics. It was low hanging fruit all day every day.

Yea it was excessive. They try way too hard a lot of the time. I get NBC is left leaning but still, get some new material for once.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

SNL usually jokes most about whatever current party occupies the white house. Shit has just gotten so extreme lately though that low-hanging fruit like Marjorie Taylor Green and Trump is just too hard to ignore.

Setting aside the thought that entertainment in any form is obligated to present a fair and balanced view ...

I'm laughing pretty hard at anyone who perceives SNL as being suddenly political. That's been baked into the show since its earliest episodes. George Carlin was the first ever guest host FFS. Anyone using this as a cudgel against the show is either a) 10 years old or b) probably never really paid attention to the show and is just advancing their agenda.

The fact that it's often liberal leaning also ain't exactly news. If "woke" is code for liberal (which it is), then it's been woke since Chevy Chase was playing Gerald Ford as a pratfalling buffoon. But even saying that, Biscuits is right on that it's caricatured whomever is in power regardless of party pretty consistently (horndog Bill Clinton, a bumbling VP Biden, Jesse Jackson across decades, to name a few more prominent examples).

My big complaint of recent years is that they've gone full bore into stunt casting and it seems like they rarely want to let their actual cast do anything. It's the sports team that quit developing its prospects because it keeps getting distracted by big free agents.

Alec Baldwin's continued presence as Trump (which I've never found that funny to be honest in part because Trump himself is such an idiotic cartoon in real life that he's hard to make fun of in an intelligent or thoughtful way) plus whatever surprise star of the week they could drop in for skit just suck the air out of the whole show IMO.

It's been years since I watched religiously but I still dip in from time to time. I genuinely enjoyed the Covid episodes because I thought it forced them out of the low-hanging-fruit rut (Trump stuff) and made them more creative. Also forced them to actually use the cast.

SNL could rebound. This has got to be about the 5th or 6th time its gone through the good-great-sucks-good again cycle. But I'm not sure I'd be sad if they just let it go away with Michaels' retirement. It feels like it may be a relic — not because of its politics — but just like many other things, we have so much other entertainment to turn to now. Feels less relevant by the sheer mass of things to watch.

 

[Brodeur]

Funnily enough that's pretty much everyone's opinion no matter what age they are.

They had an SNL retrospective in the late 2000's and this was a comment from several performers/writers. Paraphrasing they said it's tough for people to accept that the show might be written for their kids and not them now. I grew up with the early 90's cast which was stacked, but going back and watching some of those episodes can be jarring. They definitely weren't batting 1.000 every week.

I always found SNL to be more easily digestible nowadays. Could either fast forward on my DVR or hear about the good bits the next day.

Would be interesting if any of the other networks would try to develop their own sketch shows if SNL was ending. I enjoyed explaining to my younger coworker how SNL looked to be on the ropes in 1995. Fox premiered MadTV and also had a shortlived Roseanne Barr sketch show. ABC had the Dana Carvey Show which featured young versions of Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. CBS borrowed The State from MTV for one poorly promoted episode (I was a huge State fan and had no idea).

 

[Doshell Propivo]

SNL is a relic, but a comfortable one. Kinda like reading an actual paper newspaper. I dig watching SNL every now and then, live. Other than sporting events, it's really the only "live" TV out there.

I'd miss it for sure. Even purely from nostalgia...

 

[hoglund]

Funnily enough that's pretty much everyone's opinion no matter what age they are.

SNL is a show meant for teenagers and 20 somethings, that's why most say the show was best when they were that age no matter what years they're talking about.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

They'd be better off repacking some SNL show where all the skits are pre-taped. The amount that they have to bend over just so it's live every Saturday night is crazy and no doubt hurts the product.

The funny thing is, I don't think there's too much of a dip in quality due to the time constraints. Any pre-taped sketch show, from now ranging back to the 60s, is hit-or-miss. That's just the nature of sketch comedy. I've done a lot of local sketch comedy writing, including a show where we wrote and did it in a week, and the quality of the material wasn't too different from shows where you have a ton of time to write and revise (too much of which can almost be a bad thing).

Alec Baldwin's continued presence as Trump (which I've never found that funny to be honest in part because Trump himself is such an idiotic cartoon in real life that he's hard to make fun of in an intelligent or thoughtful way) plus whatever surprise star of the week they could drop in for skit just suck the air out of the whole show IMO.

Yes, it's not enough to merely mimic someone's voice and physicality (unless you want to win an oscar, that is). The best comedic impressions take an element of the target and exaggerate it. Trump himself is already an exaggeration, so what are you gonna do? Gotta get more creative than just mirroring him.

Their cast members aren't even getting the big roles they used to (i.e. everyone from Chase to Sandler to Ferrell ended up becoming major A Listers, haven't seen much of that lately).

It feels like it may be a relic — not because of its politics — but just like many other things, we have so much other entertainment to turn to now. Feels less relevant by the sheer mass of things to watch.

Yeah, I think that has a bit more to do with the current comedic landscape than it does the talent of the cast. Up until several years ago, comedies were in-demand by every studio, since they had the potential to bring in a big profit at the box office relative to their production costs. You had actual stars in the genre. Nowadays, even from a streaming standpoint, studios and streaming services aren't holding the same interest in developing feature-length comedy films, and I don't think that's due to a shallow talent pool. Sandler nabbed his Netflix deal, but what else is there, really?

Plenty of cast members from, say, the last 6 years or so, are getting solid work. It's just in the TV realm, which, all things considered, is about as good as you can get these days.

I grew up with the early 90's cast which was stacked, but going back and watching some of those episodes can be jarring. They definitely weren't batting 1.000 every week.

I've been going back through the early 90s as well (Farley's run, specifically), and this is spot on. Two things I do miss though are 1) the % of cold opens that are overtly political was down (and they're shorter on the whole), and 2) there is often a concentrated effort to work in "live from New York" into the open itself, whereas now it's just "Sketch over. And live from New York..." I'm not saying you gotta shoehorn a slick transition in every time, but if it's there, why not take it. It's clear that it's a directive currently that "this is how it must be done."

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

Sometimes they end up with more respect retroactively.

For me it's more common that the casts/skits don't age well. That era is an expection.