Without looking it up, can you tell me what’s on CBS, FOX or ABC on Saturday night at 11:30?
That’s why SNL hasn’t been canceled.
Yeah I was going to say that SNL has benefited from everyone having a DVR these days. My parents (retired, late 50’s) record it every weekend now and tell me about it. I’ve never heard them say “most of the sketches are crap.” Instead they just go on and on about the one or two sketches they enjoyed. I think they have each told me about 3 times now about the Obama China visit sketch from last week.
I think Hulu helps them too. I don’t have to watch the show, I can wait for someone to tell me about a funny sketch then go watch it. NBC gets a couple bucks from Dove or whoever, and I don’t have to waste 90 minutes of my time. And then the people who run SNL know exactly which sketches hit and which sketches bomb.
I further note that in my case, the sole now canceled exception here is Mad TV.
Its cool to know something I grew up with is still being watched by grower uppers now.
Back then it was irreverant and at times shocking. Nobody’s shockable anymore!
It will be ‘over’ for me as soon as Don Pardo dies. They’ll probably just try and get Will Ferrell to do it then, he can probably imitate him okay.
As far as I can tell, Pardo’s already called it quits. Unless he came back.
Also, I don’t know if they could get Ferrell back.
I think this is key. TDS takes what was oftern the best part of SNL, makes it more “true” and much funnier, with a much, much higher hit rate. On what I would guess is a much lower budget.
Hopefully NBC is too dumb to try and buy up the writers for the Daily Show.
I don’t think you’ve outgrown the humor. It’s just changed a lot. Catch an old show that you don’t remember watching–it’ll still be funny.
Anyways, the reason I say the show isn’t funny any more is that, all my friends who used to love it say the same thing. I’m not exaggerating, either.
Although I do stay in touch with the younger crowd, the best I’ve heard about SNL is that a clip or sketch or two might have been funny.
I am 24. I don’t consider that old at all. Yet I am finding less and less to laugh about. My 21 yo sister is even less enthused. She’s the one who tells me which clips to fast-forward through.
I said all this to argue that age has little to do with it. The humor is just not as funny to as many people as it used to be.
(Dick in a box was funny. But that was quite a while ago. I’m talking since the current cast.)
I actually think the current cast is very good, and this season has been above average - which means lots of crappy shows, but enough good ones to make it memorable.
Bill Hader is a GREAT SNL cast member. His alien sportscaster is awesome. He can do physical impressions. He’s got great timing, and elevates just about every skit he’s in.
The new female cast members are also pretty good. And yesterday’s show was above average.
Bill Hader’s Vincent Price impersonation is hilarious to me. Which I don’t understand, because I honestly don’t think I’ve ever actually seen the real Vincent Price in anything. But Hader’s impression cracks me up.
By the way, Darrell Hammond is the one who did the Pardo impersonations, not Will Ferrell.
Ironic, then, that the opening host segment featured the cast dressed as muppets… :dubious:
They murdered Weekend Update when they decided to let the newsreaders laugh at the jokes. The whole point of WU was that it was delivered deadpan.
Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Andy Amberg are pretty funny, I barely care about the rest of the cast. But did someone say they were making a McGruber movie? I think there’s been like 1 watchable SNL movie and the rest is just sad and embarassing.
Wayne’s World and Blues Brothers spring to mind. Though I do agree in that Mary Katherine Gallagher did not need her own movie.
The problem with SNL is its inconsistency and cyclic nature of being “good.” It was good during the elections, and its back to sucking now. The problem I’ve always had with it is that it’s so distracting how unrehearsed the skits are. I know the show is live but are these actors not capable of memorizing their lines? Why must everything be read off a cue card? It’s so painfully obvious it makes whatever joke the skit is trying to convey pretty much worthless. The pre-recorded bits are almost always funnier because the actors aren’t obviously reading their lines off a card.
They don’t memorize their lines because often sketches are being re-written until the last minute before air time.
Yeah, which is unfortunate because it’s pretty obvious it doesn’t make them any funnier. And while I’m ranting about SNL, are the writers incapable of writing a decent ending to any sketch? It’s like they never know how or where to end it, or even how to end the sketch with a decent laugh. Without the applause signs I guarantee the audience would have no clue when the sketch was over.
I find many of the sketches to be funny. YM obviously V.
It seems like the endings are the toughest things to write. They’ve even poked fun at their issues with this when Rudy Giuliani was on Weekend Update a couple years back.
I would say that it is possible for SNL to be cancelled but higly unlikely. It’s an institution.
It seems to me that there must be a better way to do the shows than what they do. They work all day and into the night writing the material and they don’t stop until the cameras are rolling on Saturday night. I also think that there’s a bit of “too many cooks” involved. You have 20 people working on one skit and you’d think you would get 20 good jokes out of it, but in the end it may just be watered down.
And how good the show is does seem to ebb and flow through the years. I really got into the show in the late 80’s and I thought the cast with Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Kevin Nealon, Victoria Jackson et al was great. Some people think the cast with Will Ferrell was the best, but some of those early episodes with him were absolute clunkers. Too much funny strange and not enough funny ha ha.
If I were to fix the show, I’d probably start by demoting Seth Meyers. They do have new cast members from the past year or so, so SNL is getting new blood.
What up with that? Actually, I find Keenan funny most of his sketches, he seems to get an attitude of 'just get into it and roll and be wild" which helps some sketches.
Belushi’s Law states that there can be no discussion on SNL without at least one person commenting on the fact that it hasn’t been funny in YEARS. (see also Frink’s Law for the similar Simpson’s rule)
I have been a fan of the show since I was probably 12, in 1982 when I was a true latch key kid staying up late on the weekends. I missed the original cast, entering into the ‘dreadful’ years, but of course have seen many of the best skits. In addition, SNL has recently released the first five complete seasons on DVD and I’ve been watching those on Netflix.
With that in mind, people who think the best years were in the past suffer from EXTREME selective memory. For every Samurai/Cheeburger skit there were the mediocre Albert Brooks films, the inane ads (remember the one for the hippie wallpaper, yeah, you shouldn’t), and skits that go nowhere (new Dad for when old Dad dies).
There have been highs and lows throughout the 35 years, but to disregard some of the classic skits by Guest, Murphy, Carvey, Myers, Ferrel, and Samberg is to suffer extreme tunnel vision.
(And yes, I laughed more than once at the Woods sketch this past week)