I’m watching the NBC special on the first five years of Saturday Night Live, and it makes me grieve for what’s happened to the show.
In those days, an SNL skit was situational – you put some goofy characters in a situation and they would build jokes around that. “The Coneheads,” “The Nerds,” “The Wild and Crazy Guys” – the situation might repeat from one skit to the next, there might have been some annoyingly overused catchphrases, but the jokes were not predictable or repetitive. It was rooted in the imrpov-comedy tradition. Some of the skits were not even “comedy” skits in the laff-a-minute sense, they were poignant, mildly humorous little mini-plays that might have been written by by Neil Simon.
Now – an SNL skit follows a simpler formula: Pick one joke and wring every possible variation out of it until you run out the clock. E.g., “Pat” or “Massive Headwound Harry” or “The Richmeister” or “Debby Downer.” When are they going to get back to some real comedy?
Funny, I was thinking the same thing this Saturday. They had some dumb skit based on the idea that plates can be hot at restaurants. Which could’ve been funny for 20 seconds in some bigger skit. But it dragged on and on with things catching on fire and waiters wearing welding helmets. Of course, that one will die at one episode, but I agree about Debby Downer especially.
The only funny situational one I can think of now-a-days is that Show Biz Grande Explosion! That and the news, but that doesn’t really count, and besides that second chick could not be more unfunny.
Don’t forget the “Somebody Talks Funnee” formula, where all of the humor is supposed to flow from the fact that one of the characters has a strange accent.
What stuns me is that shows like Kids in the Hall and Upright Citizens Brigade get axed after a few years, but SNL has been around since Christ was a corporal. What gives, I ask you?
I enjoyed the hot plates skit. Really. The production values was higher than most of the other inexplicable unfunny SNL skits. They did a great job on the props. The actors had fun with it. Horatio Sanz did a nice job with the phrase “hot plate!” instead of just reading it off the cue cards like most of the actors. And I was surprised they bothered to make an actual punchline. It reminded me of the Will Farrell skit where the morning news crew goes nuts and become cannibals after the teleprompter goes blank.
That said, most of the other lame skits are phoned in efforts without any real writing and intended for non-sober viewers who are not watching intently. Also, I suppose another big demographic for them are kids who need to learn the next “hip” phrase. How long before all the kiddies in school are saying “hot plate”?
As for Rachel Dratch, the only logical explanation is that she must have some very compromising photos of Loren Michaels.
SNL has gone from good to bad to good to bad to good to bad over and over again. I’ve been watching since almost the beginning and when it gets to a lean time (like now) I’ll just watch an occasional episode. Usually it gets some new cast or new writers and starts getting better again.
It seems that some of the comedians are good at only certain roles, unfortunately when they’re required to be something other than that said role (Horatio as stoner or Elton John), they suck big time.
My question is whether they change skits too soon to airtime for people to actually learn their lines. For once would I like to see a guest star or cast member look at each other rather than the teleprompter.
Good post, BrainGlutton. I think the show also totally over-relies on recurring sketches now, and comes up with characters that aren’t funny, just annoying. Annoying /= funny.
But there’s talent on SNL, really. Personally, I like Amy, Tina, Maya, Chris, Seth, Fred, Darrell, Will, Kenan, and even Horatio (not big on Rachel Dratch, sorry), and they have all entertained me–WITH THE RIGHT MATERIAL. I hated the cast that came before them (with Chris Kattan, Molly Shannon, etc.), and I even think the early '90s (Wayne’s World-era) cast was way overrated, but I like these kids. When they’re on, I think they’re really on. But on a sketch comedy show, they’re going to seem off more often than not.
Maya is versatile as hell, though - a terrific voice, and she can fit into just about any role. She isn’t cast to her potential, though.
Rachel Dratch - short girl with a goofy yet cute appearance and … uhh, back problems, most likely. Can be funny, but performs too many of those one-joke characters.
I’ve been watching the special, too, and SNL sucks now, in comparison. I don’t think it’s the cast, though (I think Dratch is funny, too): I think it’s the writing. I agree that they need to get past the “one-joke skit phase.” And I miss the improv. Now, the skits are so stilted, like Horatio’s line delivery in the “hot plate” skit: He had to keep looking at the teleprompter, something only the guest used to do.
Horatio Sanz not only looks at the TelePrompTer, he makes these inexplicable pauses before his lines that just throw the tempo of the sketch off by a beat. It looks like he missed rehearsal.
I like Rachel Dratch! She always has her lines memorized, and her timing is on cue. But a favorite Dratch scene of mine didn’t rely on dialogue at all. It was a sketch in a business meeting, where Will Ferrell is making a presentation wearing only a thong. He’s standing next to Rachel Dratch, whose face goes through a dozen different shades of distress and embarrassment as Ferrell talks on.
I agree that the one-joke sketches generally suck. But sue me - I liked the “hot plate” sketch. I hadn’t even thought about it before, but it IS unbelievably annoying to have the waiter harangue you about how hot the plates are every time you eat out. And the way they just kept escalating it, until the last plate is glowing red, and disintegrates anyone who looks at it, and the waiter is wearing a welding mask - well, it just cracked me up. It’s the best sketch I’ve seen on SNL in a long time. (Of course, that’s not saying much.)
And actually, my favorite sketch of all time, the cowbell sketch, was also a one-joker. So they’re not always bad.