# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/81 "2022-10-09T22:07:31Z")
I didn’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/82 "2022-10-10T03:00:33Z")
Lorne Michaels appeared on Dana Carvey and David Spade’s podcast and talked a bit about the (then) upcoming new season. He acknowledged that for the COVID years he kept adding people to the cast - but nobody left. He didn’t say that it was a terrible and destructive management decision on his part though everybody (i.e. the audience) noticed. Looks like he’s doing something about it now. Giving the newcomers some decent time onscreen is a big change, and doing it by admitting that they’re new and will need time to become familiar seems to work well. Now if somebody will tell the writers that giving a game host terrible material is also destructive, maybe the season will improve by May. I liked the Try Guys sketch, if only because I had no idea what any of it was about and once I looked it up I had a revelation. This is the pop culture that SNL always gets accused of not living up to? SNL maybe has ten million things wrong with it, but it’s never hit Try Guys level. (Didn’t it used to be called _Jackass_ or is my mind time-fluttering again?) ---
**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:** [October 10, 2022, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/83 "2022-10-10T03:30:46Z")
No, it was originally on Buzzfeed. Then their show Squid Wars was on YouTube Red. Then they named themselves Try Guys and got their own channel on YouTube. They host a show on the Food Network too: > **[The Try Guys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Try_Guys)** > > The Try Guys is an American online entertainment group and media production company which produces content for their YouTube channel. The group was founded by Keith Habersberger, Ned Fulmer, Zach Kornfeld, and Eugene Lee Yang. The Try Guys are known for testing a wide range of activities, such as testing their sperm count, raising toddlers, shaving their legs, and wearing women's underwear. The four men created The Try Guys while working for BuzzFeed, before forming their own company, 2nd Try ... ---
**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 10, 2022, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/84 "2022-10-10T06:17:26Z")
I honestly thought it was about the same as the opener - like 2 really good sketches, and the rest, crap. SNL was never 100% gold, it’s just that the gulf between the good and the bad seems quite large to me in these two episodes. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/85 "2022-10-10T16:23:45Z")
> [@Mortimus](#): > > I think SNL redeemed themselves tonight. I was ROFLMAO with the eyeball sketch. That’s gonna be a classic, right up there with the Coneheads. I am also very stoned so my perception might be skewed. I love Sarah Sherman’s stuff and I think her weirdo, gross humor is a great changeup from the gameshow-talkshow-Keenan Thompson mugging norm (which are all fine, but well used, imo). She should get that last sketch of the night spot every week. The only thing that really didn’t click in the eyeballs sketch was Brendan Gleeson. His timing was just a bit off in his sketches and I thought it hurt the amping up zaniness of the concept. ---
**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:** [October 10, 2022, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/86 "2022-10-10T16:31:26Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > I honestly thought it was about the same as the opener - like 2 really good sketches, and the rest, crap. SNL was never 100% gold, it’s just that the gulf between the good and the bad seems quite large to me in these two episodes. I think that’s true of the vast majority of the episodes throughout the years. Sure we remember the really good stuff from the early cast or the 1990s cast or whatever, but ninety percent was crap. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/87 "2022-10-10T16:43:56Z")
The “advice for new cast members” sketch was funny. Molly Kearney was really great, they had me laughing out loud! Of course, they’re from Cleveland (like Molly Shannon and Vanessa Bayer, who also slay) so maybe I get GET IT but they did really well. Marcello Hernandez’s bit about baseball players on Weekend Update was really funny. I really wish he’d found a way to highlight Cleveland’s actual Dominican player who hit a walkoff home run with a fantastic showboating bat flip to win the wild card game in the 15th inning, earlier that Saturday. The player did a fantastic post-game interview too. Maybe Hernandez was prescient! Anyway, I hope to see more from him he seems fun. ---
**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 10, 2022, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/88 "2022-10-10T22:23:43Z")
> [@Mortimus](#): > > I was ROFLMAO with the eyeball sketch. That’s gonna be a classic, right up there with the Coneheads. I laughed, my wife didn’t. > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Molly Kearney was really great, they had me laughing out loud! “It’s actually ‘they,’ not ‘she,’ but it didn’t seem the right moment for the pronoun talk” was a perfect moment. ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/89 "2022-10-10T22:30:39Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > I laughed, my wife didn’t. Same reaction here. My wife doesn’t like Adam Sandler, she didn’t like John Belushi, and she’s never been a fan of SNL. She must have something wrong with her. To further prove that point, remember she married me. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/90 "2022-10-10T22:31:08Z")
Has anyone mentioned the new “SNL” logo? My designer friends cannot stop talking about how it’s only three letters, but they do NOT fit together. . > [@Acsenray](#): > > …just good enough to keep going. The rare flash of brilliance ensures its cultural caché. I finally went back and watched some entire shows from the “classic” first few seasons. Wow, was there a lot of dreck in between the great stuff. Sure, you’d have a **Bass** - **O** - **Matic** ™, but it’d be followed by a truly forgettable fake sitcom and an awkward movie parody. So now when I sit through two mediocre sketches, a funny one, then a terrible one, I think “Ahh, just like the good ol’ days…” ---
**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 12, 2022, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/91 "2022-10-12T05:41:06Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think that’s true of the vast majority of the episodes throughout the years. Sure we remember the really good stuff from the early cast or the 1990s cast or whatever, but ninety percent was crap. Well, it’s not like I just started watching it; I’ve been a regular viewer for years, and started watching in the first season. I even said in my post that no episode is 100% good, but these episodes feel different to me. Maybe they were as bad as I thought they were, or perhaps the new writers/performers are taking it in a direction that does not appeal to me as an older man. ---
**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 12, 2022, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/92 "2022-10-12T05:46:50Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > The only thing that really didn’t click in the eyeballs sketch was Brendan Gleeson. His timing was just a bit off in his sketches and I thought it hurt the amping up zaniness of the concept Yes, yes! I thought his timing was off as well. He was just lagging behind in everything. As experienced as he is, does he not have any time on the stage? As others have said, the, “It’s actually “they”, not “she”, but it didn’t seem the right moment for the pronoun talk.” was a great line from Molly. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2022, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/93 "2022-10-12T06:27:19Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > …the new writers/performers are taking it in a direction that does not appeal to me as an older man. I’m with ya. I never know who the host or the noise, Uh… musical guests are. Didn’t understand 3/4 of the other stuff either. ---
**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:** [October 12, 2022, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/94 "2022-10-12T12:38:49Z")
I usually watch it on Sunday morning and fast-forward through many of the musical guest and more boring sketches (like The Californians, which I never liked). ---
**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 13, 2022, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/95 "2022-10-13T08:40:46Z")
I hated the Californians. I resented that they wasted time that could have been spent on a GOOD sketch. Then, right when they were just about done making new ones, I realized it was nothing more than a ten-minutes-to-one sketch that let them be silly. Once I stopped looking for jokes in the sketch and just started watching to see them clown around and try to make each other break, the sketch became fun. I wish I’d understood that earlier. I’m sometimes dense like that. I enjoy maybe one or two musical guests a season. I just don’t enjoy most of today’s music. Makes me feel a bit old, but like the old man I am, mostly I blame the performers and not my age. It was good enough for my dad, and his dad. . . ---
**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 13, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/96 "2022-10-13T22:01:40Z")
Except that they never held The Californians back to 10 minutes to one. IIRC it was usually the first or second sketch, meaning it aired before Midnight. I always considered it to be an acting class assignment. How long can you stay in character with the insipid Valley Girl accent and exaggerated soap opera dialog and mannerisms (I’m looking at you, every performer who played the maid) while rattling off the names of every highway in SoCal without repeating. Of course, that makes it worth doing once, maybe twice. Looking back in time I see that Kristin Wiig and Jason Sudeikis did “A couple of A-Holes” more than a couple of times, and Joe Piscopo and Robin Dukes’ diverticulitis managed to keep Doug and Wendy Whiner on the air for three seasons. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2022, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/97 "2022-10-13T22:10:38Z")
I assumed that sketch (The Californians) is funnier if you’re used to the way that people from California (at least Southern California) constantly talk about which route they took to get someplace. I’m not from that area, so the whole thing doesn’t entertain me at all. ---
**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:** [October 14, 2022, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/98 "2022-10-14T00:53:55Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > You can always watch all the SNL sketches on YouTube within a day after the show. They don’t show the segment which names all the cast members or the closing segment with the host saying goodbye, but they show all the comedy sketches and the two musical numbers. This is anywhere from 15 to 18 YouTube videos. During weekends when I miss the show on television, I watch those videos on YouTube the next day. Incidentally, do you all know about the promotions for each episode that are on YouTube (and also on broadcast television, perhaps) that are available a couple of days before the episode is first shown? Each of them consists of the guest host, the musical guest, and one cast member saying some clever comments (or at least supposedly clever) about that week’s show. This video is this week’s promotion: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/GttUV5AItRc/maxresdefault.jpg "Megan Thee Stallion and Heidi Gardner Promise a Hot Girl SNL") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GttUV5AItRc) ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/99 "2022-10-23T05:08:09Z")
**A re-run!??? Only three weeks into the season!??? You can’t be serious!** ---
**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:** [October 23, 2022, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590/100 "2022-10-23T06:23:16Z")
So, let’s figure out how many episodes for each season did they have before the first rerun. 48 had 3 episodes before the first rerun. 47 had 4 episodes before the first rerun. 46 had 6 episodes before the first rerun. 45 had 3 episodes before the first rerun. 44 had 3 episodes before the first rerun. 43 had 3 episodes before the first rerun. 42 had 4 episodes before the first rerun. 41 had 3 episodes before the first rerun. You can figure out for all 48 seasons the number of episodes before the first rerun by clicking on the URL below. Go down to the table where there’s a line for each of the 58 seasons. Click on the number in the first column (under “Seasons”). That will get you to a list of all the episodes for that season, giving you the guest host, the musical guest, and the date originally aired for each episode: > **[Lists of Saturday Night Live episodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Saturday_Night_Live_episodes)** > > Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a late-night sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels. It premiered on the NBC Television Network on October 11, 1975, under the title NBC's Saturday Night. The show often satirizes contemporary American popular culture and politics. Saturday Night Live features a two-tiered cast: the repertory members, also known as the "Not Ready for Prime-Time Players," and newer cast members, known as "Featured Players." Each week, the show features a host, oft... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-22-snl-season-opener-as-awful-as-it-appeared/972590.md?page=6)