# Was the '22 SNL season opener as awful as it appeared? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** talk-variety-show\ **Created:** [October 2, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590 "2022-10-02T19:49:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/41 "2022-10-04T00:41:17Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > _I didn’t recognize Miles Teller as Peyton Manning in the cold open._ Not only did I not recognize Mr. Teller, I don’t follow football **at all** , and have only a vague idea who Peyton Manning is. I couldn’t tell you what team he plays for or what he’s accomplished in his gridiron career. I know he plays football, and that’s it. I’d have a hard time picking him out in a crowd of **two**. However, I do realize I’m in a non-football oriented minority. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/42 "2022-10-04T00:55:02Z")
I didn’t hate it. I actually really enjoyed the “men can’t DM without messing up” gameshow skit. I do want a lot more weekend update with just Colin and Michael. They always make me laugh. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/43 "2022-10-04T01:44:53Z")
They have done send-ups on Netflix mini-series. I’ve got to say when I saw this, I wondered, “Why is SNL doing a piece on an event that happened almost 40 years ago?” and then heard about the miniseries “Wild Wild Country.” [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/5Ge9cebaVNg/maxresdefault.jpg "Wild Wild Country - SNL") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge9cebaVNg) 99% of the population would have been largely clueless about this, but as a retired pharmacist, I found it hilarious. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/UPx_X3DjXy8/maxresdefault.jpg "Drug Company Hearing - SNL") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPx_X3DjXy8) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/44 "2022-10-04T02:12:32Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Some of the segments get posted on YouTube (as noted by @Acsenray). Here, for example, is the cold open Huh. I liked it. It was something completely different, which made it more interesting. Meta humor is fun. And I don’t think I needed to know who anyone actually was to get the jokes: clearly the host must’ve been some co-star in a recent movie for Jon Hamm’s joke to work. And they explained up front who Peyton and Eli Manning were. Instead of it just being yet another boring Trump opening sketch, they mocked the idea of the Trump opening sketch. I didn’t exactly laugh at it, but it was smile-level funny. I’ve seen a WHOLE lot worse on SNL. And I appreciate them trying something different to shake things up. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/45 "2022-10-04T21:34:50Z")
Wife and I finally got around to watching it. It wasn’t great, but wasn’t nearly as bad as you guys had me fearing. Thought the cold open was good enough. And yeah, the host really threw himself into ANYTHING. I dislike the characters they introduce to do bits in the weekend update. Bowen Yang as a bug this time. Or previously Baby Yoda, guy with a yacht, etc. I just never find those funny at all. I believe Che and Colin are the head writers. I had no frame of reference for the AMC send up, so that was lost on me. Wouldn’t have known it was Kidman. And I thought the Charmin Bears pretty weak. And the 2 women on Carribbean vacation. I often think of Tom Hank’s intro to the first Covid “at home” ep. He said something like, “This week will be like most weeks. A few good laugh and a couple of stinkers.” Pretty much sums up most weeks. INCLUDING the classic ones that I remember so fondly, but which never hold up as well on reviewing. Finally, everyone keeps telling me to listen to more rap/hiphop to appreciate it, but I just don’t get it. Well, I’m sure Kendrick Lamar willl make plenty of millions w/o Dinsdale’s contribution. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/46 "2022-10-05T00:29:41Z")
I enjoyed the cold-open. I really liked the self-aware critique of a bad Mar-a-Lago sketch, with comments like, “Bowen was supposed to step it up this season. . .” making me laugh out loud. I spent the off-season in the SNL subReddit which was full of comments such as this. A great premise to start a new season which has seen a sizable cast change, which will have some fans doing this at home anyway. I liked Michael Longfellow’s Weekend Update piece - thought it was a nice first appearance (not counting the cold-open, “deer-in-headlights” cameo.) The rest was just friggin’ horrible. Just painful. It wasn’t the host’s fault. I have no love for Miles Teller, but he did a solid job. It was the writing that failed, and it failed badly. [Folks are talking about the dreadful “Charmin Bears” skit being a ripoff of Joel Haver’s Youtube video from just two months back.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNWbI8T42II) Jesus, if they’re gonna steal, at least make it funny. Weekend Update suffers as they stuff it full of cast members doing bad characters with bad writing. Yost and Che are great together, but their time is cut too short because of this. I’m continually surprised that the first episode back isn’t the best of the season. With all the time away from the show, I’d think every single writer and cast member would have banked two or three solid premises just by accident as they live their lives and watch the news. I hated Kendrick Lamarr. Doesn’t matter. I’m not his target audience, and I know that. I often dislike the musical guest. I just saw an opportunity to complain about it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/47 "2022-10-05T00:55:49Z")
I like some Kendrick, but I didn’t care for what he played on SNL. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/48 "2022-10-05T01:17:01Z")
That rooftop bar sketch, I feel like SNL has done that one multiple times before. Starting with the Czech brothers. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/49 "2022-10-05T01:37:21Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > I’m continually surprised that the first episode back isn’t the best of the season. With all the time away from the show, I’d think every single writer and cast member would have banked two or three solid premises just by accident as they live their lives and watch the news. You’d think so, but that isn’t the way it works out. Brand new writers taking that killer idea and boiling it down to a 6-7 minute sketch, learning what can or can’t be staged during a live performance, trying to mesh characters in your head with brand new cast members whose work you’re probably not familiar time, limited rehearsal time, etc. Plus, in the early episodes, you want to make sure all the newbies at least get a little face time while they’re sorting out their eat-or-be-eaten struggle to break out. I remember in Tina Fey’s book _Bossy Pants_, she described the continuing struggle between the writers - who wanted to take five minutes to set up the perfect punch line, and the performers - who would break out in a cold sweat if they didn’t get a big laugh in their first ten seconds on screen. All that stuff takes time to work out, and in the case of SNL, if you get two funny sketches, one good pretaped bit and a couple of great lines on Weekend Update, you’ve done a good job. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/50 "2022-10-05T01:48:52Z")
Plus the fact that they do all their writing in one or two all-nighter sessions, like students cramming for exams. It’s not conducive to doing your best work, especially if you’re doing it for the first time at all or for the first time since the beginning of summer. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/51 "2022-10-05T12:31:23Z")
Michael Longfellow comes off as kind of creepy and intense. Is he intended to be the “new Pete Davidson”? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/52 "2022-10-05T12:47:46Z")
I’m sure I have blind spots as to who is famous. I can recognize that I might not know some people that are inarguably famous. Miles Teller is famous. He co-starred in _Top Gun_ because he is a famous actor. He didn’t become famous because of _Top Gun._ _Whiplash_ was in 2014. It was up for multiple Oscars. J.K. Simmons got more press for his win but Teller was the star. He’s been the star of multiple movies. He was the star of _The Offer_ which is one of the most enjoyable limited TV series I’ve seen in a long time. He’s been a famous actor for about a decade now. ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/53 "2022-10-05T19:26:31Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Miles Teller is famous. … _Whiplash_ was in 2014. Ohhh, now I get the piano-lessons joke in the opening monologue. (I recognized it as a _Whiplash_ joke, but I didn’t realize that Teller was in _Whiplash_.) Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/54 "2022-10-05T19:54:16Z")
As others have said, the first show of the season always sucks. (Always — I worked there 40 years ago, and it was true then.) I thought this one was less sucky than usual. The meta-humor of the cold open worked. We chuckled. The host did a decent monologue. (Hosts who aren’t comedians usually just tell one joke and then slide into a mini-sketch with one or more of the cast members at home base. Teller isn’t AFAIK a comedian, but he did a commendable job.) And the old home video was delightful. The BeReal (or whatever it is) sketch was funny. The Charmin Bears sketch was not. My wife liked the dorks-in-a-bar sketch; I didn’t. As for Women of a Certain Age at a Resort … well … it existed. But as my wife said, “If you’re expecting laughs from the 12:55 sketch, there’s something wrong with you.” As usual, the best part was Update, but even that was below par. The new kid’s bit about his parents (which I’m sure was simply part of his stand-up act reformatted to include questions/prompts from Jost) was good, but his delivery wasn’t great. I can’t blame him for being nervous in his first solo bit in his first episode, and hopefully he’ll settle in. Yang’s bit was hilarious, but only because of the over-the-top way he threw himself into it. The material was meh, but he killed it. ETA: Forgot the texting game show. We both groaned, “Not another game show,” but it turned out to be good. Except for the inexplicable slandering of NdGT, which made no sense. We, too, are not the audience for some of these things. Neither my wife nor I knew that the Mannings _MST3K_ live football games (although that didn’t affect our appreciation of the sketch). Neither of us have seen the AMC video. I’d heard of BeReal, but she hadn’t. And whatever the dance that Yang and Teller did at the end of the bears sketch was, it got a huge reaction from the audience, so I assume it’s some new TikTok thing or something. Summing up: not great but not terrible, and above-average for a season opener. ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/55 "2022-10-05T19:58:31Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > Did anyone else notice the new font? That was the first sign that it wasn’t going to be good. Please tell me this was a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2022, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/56 "2022-10-05T20:11:16Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > That rooftop bar sketch, I feel like SNL has done that one multiple times before. Starting with the Czech brothers. Yeah - my wife asked if that reminded me of th eWild and Crazy Guys. (Which is MUCH funnier in recollection than upon rewatching.) ---
**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:** [October 5, 2022, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/57 "2022-10-05T23:28:50Z")
> [@Cayuga](#): > > I’d heard of BeReal, but she hadn’t. That’s a real thing? ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2022, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/58 "2022-10-06T00:46:23Z")
It was PAPYRUS! I KNOW WHAT YOU DID! ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2022, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/59 "2022-10-06T01:38:01Z")
I wasn’t the only one that noticed the new font: [Washington Post: SNL Opens 48th season](https://wapo.st/3C4tIfm) mentioned it in the review I gifted here. I thought something was off when I saw it. Here’s the new font [Deadline: Saturday Night Live Shakes Up](https://deadline.com/2022/10/how-saturday-night-live-season-48-handled-biggest-cast-turnover-in-years-1235132988/) > [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > It was PAPYRUS! I KNOW WHAT YOU DID! and no, it’s not Papyrus, though that would have been great. Some rich guy probably bought the rights to use Papyrus exclusively for his new movie. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2022, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/60 "2022-10-06T04:54:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Weekend Update has been doing these sorts of bits forever (Adam Sandler, for instance, did quite a few of them). But you may be right that they’ve been spending more time on them lately. Adam Sandler? How about Roseanne Rosannadana? They’ve been doing that since the beginning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590.md?page=4)