a) Who was the person on SNL who used to take words, like “herpes” and transform them into other words with funny definitions, like snigglets, such as “berpes”…what you get from the medicine to control herpies.
b) How would you define what cast members belonged to what generation of SNL casts? I would say that the original cast + a few variations would all be 1st generation - including Jim Belushi (for John Belushi). 2nd generation would be Billy Crystal, and as IIRC, John Luvitz, Martin Short, and the man I mention above were 2nd generation. (Did this cast include Dennis Miller? He was (relatively) good, considering.)
After that, I can’t recall anything as SNL went downhill fast. That Ferrel guy might be the best of the worst, if he’s even on SNL anymore.
Bonus: Will SNL ever be canned by the suits? Who watches it anymore?
Are you thinking of Tim Kazurinsky? He was the short nerdy guy who would do segments on the news that made up new words which he held up on signs. I think he did one about different names for suicide. Like killing yourself in the town of Bedrock would be called ‘yabba-dabba-doo-acide’.
Yes, even though the show has been hit or miss for a long time (mostly miss) I think production costs are cheap for skits done in a studio. I heard cast members are paid poorly since they do it pretty much as a launch pad for a hopefully better career. I can’t imagine they pay their guest hosts very much nor their musical guests. There is pretty much zero competition for the Saturday night time slot. Add also that they still draw ratings somehow and advertisers still advertise and the show remains.
SNL still gets very good ratings. It has for years. It’s a piece of culture, and a very sizeable audience tunes in every week, even if they do bitch about how much it sucks afterwards. And, this audience is primarily the 18-54 demographic, which is very valuable. SNL’s not going anywhere. Besides, what else are you going to put on TV that could come close to gaining that kind of audience? A remake of Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert?
And every generation of SNL cast is always the ‘worst’. Go back in the SDMB archives and see how many threads there are complaining that Will Ferrel is the least funny cast member in history.
Hard to say when each “generation” begins or ends, but looking at the show in 5-year blocks is reasonable And accept that a few members are part of more than one generation, i.e. Phil Hartman and Tim Meadows.
I’d put David Spade with the Class of 90-95 (even though he hung around a bit after that) and Molly Shannon with the Class of 95-00 (even though she came in a year before the Clean Sweep of '95). Prior to 1995, the average tenure on the show was three years. These days, it looks more like six or seven years is the norm.
The show has had a rough patch recently, but since around November, it looks like they’ve been addressing some of the lingering problems, like stale repeat characters and the like. I think they’re on a good path now.
Couldn’t this be the most pregnant generation of SNL? Tina and Mya this year, Ana Gasteyer a couple years ago, and I noticed in the rerun of the Eva Langora epi that someone (Tina, maybe?) is rubbing Rachel’s belly in the goodnights, which would seem to indicate she’s knocked up, too. Will Arnett better get busy after Arrested Development is gone -Amy’s gonna feel left out!
I do think the much-lauded “Lazy Sunday” sketch (the “Chronicles of Narnia” rap) is a signal of good things to come – new blood among the writers (the Lonely Island crew) and more faith in the better cast members to carry sketches. I still think Chris Parnell and Amy Poehler belong in the all-time greats of SNL, Kenan Thompson always entertains, and I don’t remember such a talented crop of Featured Players: Jason Sudeikis, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, and Kristen Wiig.