# On the baffling cultural relevance of SNL (Saturday Night Live) TV SHOW **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [May 25, 2021, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845 "2021-05-25T00:48:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/21 "2021-05-25T12:50:28Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > And this is why the earlier years shine so bright in the memory: because we pretty much just remember the good stuff and not the stuff that tanked (I mean, Bill Murray’s “Nick the Lounge Singer” was _painfully_ bad). I feel the same way about Monty Python’s Flying Circus. We remember the good sketches but there were a lot of sketches that just weren’t funny. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/22 "2021-05-25T12:56:31Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > Replacing Hammond’s careful, multifaceted Trump impression with Alec Baldwin making a duckface is emblematic of the sort of thing they do in the time-filler sketches - why should I be excited about seeing Alec Baldwin on TV? Hammond and Baldwin were impersonating two different men from two different situations. Each emphasizes different things, as one would expect. As president, the last guy was nothing more than a rubber-faced cartoon sideshow so Baldwin played him that way and it resonated. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/23 "2021-05-25T13:57:20Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > For every good skit that you can remember all these years, there were three that completely fell flat and we no longer remember. (yes I know there are people that liked the Muppets. They were probably stoned. 🙂 ) > > But we watched it every week waiting for those gems. Nowadays, people just wait for the clips that go viral, and they think the whole show is funny. It’s just as tedious as it always was, it’s just easier to skip the bad parts. That’s a good point. The sketches we all remember fondly are only a fraction of the overall content of the 909 episodes that have aired since 1975. And I’m not fifteen years old but I still watch the show, although usually I can’t stay awake to watch it live at 11:30pm, so I usually watch it the next day on my DVR. And I often skip the musical segments. It still has moments of being funny or relevant or both. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/24 "2021-05-25T13:59:55Z")
So what comedy sketch shows do you consider to be worth the time to watch? Here are some possibilities: > **[40 Greatest Sketch-Comedy TV Shows of All Time](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/40-greatest-sketch-comedy-tv-shows-of-all-time-142581/)** > > From Caesar to Schumer, 70 years of the Land Shark, the Chicken Lady, and a bunch of Muppets [https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/40-best-sketch-comedy-shows-of-all-time/](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/40-best-sketch-comedy-shows-of-all-time/) > **[The 25 best sketch comedy shows of all time](https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_25_best_sketch_comedy_shows_of_all_time/s1__30164237)** > > With YouTube, along with various streaming services, it's never been easier to watch sketches from any era. It’s possible to rank them two ways, one according to which had the most good sketches and the other according to which had the most good sketches per time on the air. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/25 "2021-05-25T14:16:29Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > For every good skit that you can remember all these years, there were three that completely fell flat and we no longer remember. This was reinforced in the early Eighties when the original cast shows were edited down to a solid 30 minutes for syndication. I think the fond memories people have of those early episodes owes a lot to 2/3 of the shows being cut out of the reruns. ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/26 "2021-05-25T14:23:20Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > McKinnon is great, Kenan Thompson is great, they’ve had a good number of other talented performers in their recent decade who can almost save a bad sketch, but boy is the writing awful over that time. When they write their own stuff, the writers are terrible. Even when they steal stuff ( and they do all the time from Reddit, Twitter, and a half dozen other social media outlets. A thousand ripped-off comedians can’t be wrong) they screw that up by throwing in production numbers that seem to be designed to get as many people on stage as possible more than comedy. The end result is confused nonsense, because the writer just stole the comedy. Because he didn’t create it, he has no clue how to implement or use it. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/27 "2021-05-25T14:37:52Z")
> [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](#): > > Even when they steal stuff ( and they do all the time from Reddit, Twitter, and a half dozen other social media outlets Are you sure this isn’t just the same inevitable jokes and comedic ideas occuring to more than one person? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/28 "2021-05-25T14:44:06Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I think the fond memories people have of those early episodes owes a lot to 2/3 of the shows being cut out of the reruns. One thing I noticed back in the early seasons is, they put a weak sketch at 12:50, 11:50 central. It could be one they could pull if the show runs long, but I think it was just filler, one that wasn’t good enough to put any effort into. By then a lot of viewers were asleep, or having sex, or both. Here’s a sample from season 2: **Cufflinks Of The Gods?** : Erica Viedonagen (Laraine Newman) explores the possibility of an alien comic existence. **Pong** : While playing Pong, Al Franken and Tom Davis relay the answers to a tough Math problem **Puppet Affair** : A viewer film features a man’s wife having an affair with a toy clown. **Save Great Britain Telethon** : To help raise more money, Bill Murray attempts to chug a full bottle of grape juice. Yep, people are still talking about those, 45 years later! . (I watched those eps live, and I can’t remember seeing even one of these sketches.) eta: I remember the Hugh Hefner episode: I don’t think there was a single funny sketch in the entire 90 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/29 "2021-05-25T14:52:24Z")
None of those ring a bell for me, either. Watching on the West Coast on a three hour tape delay, I believe a lot of stuff was “fixed” before 11:30 PST. For example, we didn’t get to see Sinéad O’Connor rip up a picture of the Pope. Also some of the live sketches were swapped out with the dress rehearsal versions if they flopped on the East Coast. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/30 "2021-05-25T14:58:30Z")
There was one fascinating thing about watching in The Early Years. We weren’t actually sure what we were seeing was scripted. Frank Zappa almost vomiting on stage (and the dirty looks he got from the cast), Lilly Tomlin (was it?) walking off stage and not coming back for the rest of the show, Franken and Davis “coming out” on live TV, and whatever it was that Andy Kaufman did. The cynic in me figured it was all scripted, no matter how outrageous, but there was that element of doubt. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/31 "2021-05-25T15:18:20Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > There was one fascinating thing about watching in The Early Years. We weren’t actually sure what we were seeing was scripted. Not the very early years, but I remember watching when Sinead O’Connor ripped up the photo of the Pope. I knew there was no way that was scripted, though it didn’t seem like _ **that** _ big a deal to me at the time, just seemed like a Punk Rock thing to do. I was a little surprised at the backlash she got afterward-- “what’s wrong with a harmless display of anger at the Pope, or of Catholicism in general?”, I thought. She certainly had a good reason for it, as was borne out much later, however inappropriate people thought her method of expression to be. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/32 "2021-05-25T15:22:54Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Hammond and Baldwin were impersonating two different men from two different situations. Each emphasizes different things, as one would expect. As president, the last guy was nothing more than a rubber-faced cartoon sideshow so Baldwin played him that way and it resonated. Resonated with who? It wasn’t funny and it made no political point. They would spend a full five minutes having Trump dance around and sing Queen songs or point to a sign that said “hamberders.” It’s political “comedy” for people who still thought saying “Drumpf” was some sort of subversive act in 2019. SNL is not only afraid to take any sort of stance outside of the most mainstream, elected-Democrat safe zone, it also doesn’t trust its audience to understand satire. Many of the political “jokes” in the monologue and Update amount to little more than announcing that some candidate is bad or that some racist policy is racist and waiting for the obligatory applause. Jost and Che clearly are not willing and able to write political humor that takes risks of any kind (either by challenging the beliefs of the audience or by doing something satirical that might require some thought to understand). Their oversight of the writing is the problem and has been for some time. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/33 "2021-05-25T15:23:54Z")
There were other unscripted moments, like when Elvis Costello started performing [Radio Radio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Radio#Saturday_Night_Live_performance) even though they were scheduled to perform something else. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/34 "2021-05-25T15:28:31Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > One thing I noticed back in the early seasons is, they put a weak sketch at 12:50, 11:50 central. It could be one they could pull if the show runs long, but I think it was just filler, one that wasn’t good enough to put any effort into. By then a lot of viewers were asleep, or having sex, or both. The “12:50 slot” in recent seasons is again for more experimental stuff and is quite often where sketches that are either genuinely funny or, at least, have the feeling of actual sketch comedians trying something new rather than remaining in their safe zone, will air if they don’t cut it for time based on how long the rest of the show runs. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/35 "2021-05-25T15:30:05Z")
In college, our rule of thumb was that you could go to bed after Weekend Update and not miss much. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/36 "2021-05-25T15:30:31Z")
I mean, Andy Kaufman was clearly scripted, he was just doing bits of his standup act after auditioning for the show. And it was delightful. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/37 "2021-05-25T15:50:26Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > SNL is not only afraid to take any sort of stance outside of the most mainstream SNL has to appeal to a reasonably large segment of the viewing public. It wants to be able to afford expensive guest hosts and musical guests. It wants to be the show that most of the best comedians and comedy writers grow up wanting to spend at least a while working for. It can’t be too far left or right and do that. It’s managed to find a middle position well enough that it’s lasted for 46 years. Again, I want to know what sketch comedy series you think is better. Why do you think it’s better? How long did that show last? ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/38 "2021-05-25T17:39:27Z")
\< sent too soon / deleted \> ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/39 "2021-05-25T17:41:07Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Are you sure this isn’t just the same inevitable jokes and comedic ideas occuring to more than one person? To quote myself: > [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](#): > > A thousand ripped-off comedians can’t be wrong What makes the corporate budget better? Great thieves or great writers? Only their files know for sure. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845/40 "2021-05-25T20:13:36Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > (yes I know there are people that liked the Muppets. They were probably stoned. 🙂 ) I wasn’t stoned! I was eleven. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-baffling-cultural-relevance-of-snl-saturday-night-live-tv-show/942845.md?page=3)