Ongoing Saturday Night Live discussion thread

[The Borgified Corpse]

I'm surprised no one else has started one of these yet.

I don't follow too many current TV shows these days (really only 4 or 5 at this point) but SNL is certainly always one in my rotation. I make sure to catch most of it over the course of the year, although not always during its original airing. And since it's constantly in a state of evolution, I think it's nearly always worth checking out just to see what they're going to do next.

I really liked last night's episode with Sarah Silverman. The standout part for me was during her opening monologue when she reminded us that she used to be a cast member on the show for a short time in the early 1990s. Then she answered "audience" questions that her younger self asked the hosts back then. The really freaky thing: I remember those episodes from back when they originally aired! I remember her asking Jeff Goldblum about the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park because the entire audience was convinced that they were real. And I remember her asking Nancy Kerrigan about how the knee bends. (Bonus points: I remember that Nancy Kerrigan got the answer wrong on that one. She said it was a ball-and-socket joint when the knee is actually a hinge joint.)
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sarah-silverman-monologue/2816865

There were a lot of other fun bits in the episode. I loved the blender ad and the "Everything Is a Woman" song. And Colin Jost is getting better as a Weekend Update anchor. But I still miss Cecily Strong! Cecily Strong was my favorite Weekend Update anchor since Colin Quinn.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I agree that the second episode was a huge improvement over the first. The first episode was post-Norm-firing level bad. Did they really think a sketch about a veterinary clinic that murders pets would be funny? That was in their first half hour! And when they brought back Cecily as 'The girl you wish you hadn't started a conversation with at a party' it came off more like an Emily Latella bit. That character is supposed to remind us of people who act morally superior about things they don't really understand, but instead of pulling that off it came off as a random mad-lib of misinterpreted news events.

I only saw the first half hour because I had to get to bed early for a half marathon in the morning, so I can't comment on Weekend Update, but I thought it was weak in the first episode. Jost and Che have no chemistry and Jost has the smarm of early Seth Meyers but without the stage presence.

I liked the Joan Rivers sendoff. It reminded me of the Rodney Dangerfield one they did where they had him at the gates of heaven and St Peter was trying to get him to do his act one last time before letting him in. It's fitting to do that with Joan Rivers only to make it a roast of other dead celebrities.

To me the worst stretches of the show are early 80s (Post-original cast) and late 90s (Post-Norm). I'm a little worried the show is slipping again into one of those funks.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Probably my least favorite run of the show was the mid-to-late 1990s. The whole Will Ferrell/Chris Kattan/Norm McDonald/Cheri O'Teri/Molly Shannon era. It was full of overused recurring characters that were never particularly funny in the first place. (Made all the worse by the fact that I was in high school around that time and surrounded by morons who insisted on subjecting me to their half-assed impressions of Mary Catherine Gallagher or the Spartan Cheerleaders. ) The show was still worth watching at the time but only for Weekend Update, political impressions, and Colin Quinn.

IMO, the show got into a funk around that time that it didn't really get out of until 2006 when Tina Fey left and Seth Meyers took over as head writer.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I would agree with that, though I think the show started to turn around early in the last decade. It still had some irritating recurring characters like Amy Pohler's one legged farter but at least Mango was gone. And I definitely think 2006-2013 was the best period of the show since the end of the Hartman era. Though Sandberg's shorts carried a lot of the weaker episodes.

And Colin Quinn leaned way too much on comparing world problems to guys at the bar.

 

[Mr Light]

<<Probably my least favorite run of the show was the mid-to-late 1990s. The whole Will Ferrell/Chris Kattan/Norm McDonald/Cheri O'Teri/Molly Shannon era.>>

That's "my" SNL

I think part of it was I saw the hour long Comedy Central versions, so I never saw the 30 minutes of crap that was also in there

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Eh, that was the era where I really started watching it to, but I remember being a huge apologist for it. At that point in the show, the Bill Clinton opening sketches were funny, Weekend Update was funny, but most of the sketches were just cycling the same annoying recurring characters over and over. Yeah, Celebrity Jeopardy and TV Funhouse were awesome, but that was pretty much it.

 

[Mr Light]

at least they HAD good recurring characters back then. there hasn't been a really good recurring character in the past decade or so outside of Stefan.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'd take ten good original sketches over one good recurring character.

The 1860s reviewer and Drunk Uncle are much better than Stefan ever was. Hader couldn't even keep from laughing during Stefan bit. The Californians and the one-upper girl were funny. And there were only two recurring sketches in that time period that were bad enough to make me want to turn off the TV, the deformed signing sister and the kissing family.

 

[Forbin]

I'm an SNL charter watcher. Saw the very first episode and watched up through sometime in the 80s or 90s - I think the last cast I remember is Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Mike Meyers, Billy Crystal, Dana Carvey - I'm probably conflating eras together there. We stopped watching around then 'cause it just wasn't funny any more. maybe our age and the target-age for the writing diverged. Haven't really bothered to check it out in... wow, decades!

We recently got the first three seasons on DVD, and the wife and I sat down to have some nostalgia trips. The first season was fresh and wonderful, reflecting the political and social issues of the time, and the music we loved in high school. The second season also. The third season started getting stale already. Too much Coneheads, too much Wild and Crazy guys, too much Billy Murray. The show was already showing its propensity for overusing a gag. We actually decided to call it quits, not order season 4 or later, and live off the memories rather than have the reality smack us in the face like a dead fish.

 

[Aldo]

When I got Season 1 on DVD I was surprised at how experimental they were with the format. I mean I know it was still early and they didn't have a formula down yet, but the Paul Simon episode is almost nothing but music punctuated by a few skits and Weekend Update. The original intent it seemed was for the the show to be a showcase for that weeks guest and the NRFPTP would just be there to support them. While it's been that way ever since, some of the performers end up overshadowing the host just becuase of their talent (such as Dana Carvey, among others).

I'm disappointed Lorne doesn't intend to release the years where he wasn't part of the show, because I am interested in those episodes the most. Not necessarily from a comedy standpoint, but just because I've read so much about them in interview books and SNL retrospectives that I'd love to see some of the infamous moments myself (such as Charles Rocket saying "fuck" during the good-byes).

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think that also might have to do with Lorne Michaels knowing what the most popular runs of the show are. The original cast and the Carvey/Hartman cast. I'm sure him not being involved has something to do with it, but I'm sure a lot more of it has to do with him wanting to jump to the faces that move product. The early 80s were pretty much a blur of blah-ness punctuated by brief moments of Eddie Murphy doing something funny.

@Aldo

Let's bear in mind that not all hosts can carry a comedy show.

 

[gblews]

I think that also might have to do with Lorne Michaels knowing what the most popular runs of the show are. The original cast and the Carvey/Hartman cast.

I would add the Eddie Murphy/Billy Crystal years and the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler years as among the show's best.

BTW, I thought Colin Quinn was the worst of the Week-end Update hosts. He just was not funny to me.

 

[Masiral]

I'd take ten good original sketches over one good recurring character.

The 1860s reviewer and Drunk Uncle are much better than Stefan ever was. Hader couldn't even keep from laughing during Stefan bit.

That's because the writer (John Mulaney) would always put in a new joke that Hader had never seen, just to make him crack. Hader laughing was intentional.

ETA: And it's Stefon.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Oh God, I just remembered Goatboy.

An entire recurring character around making jarring noises.

I don't think SNL will ever get that bad again.

 

[Aldo]

Meh, I enjoyed Goatboy. I enjoyed all of Jim Breuer's characters and loved him on the show. That was a weird era though, and has already been pointed out above, involved a lot of recurring characters that weren't all that great but were definitely memorable if for all the wrong reasons (the Cheerleaders anyone?).

 

[Forbin]

Yeah. Nobody could make a 3-minute sketch last 8 minutes like SNL.

 

[gblews]

Oh God, I just remembered Goatboy.

An entire recurring character around making jarring noises.

.

I NEVER understood this character. He was half human and half goat, but was that the extent of the joke? Was I missing something?

Loved Stefon (and Hader too, for that matter).

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I would agree with that, though I think the show started to turn around early in the last decade. It still had some irritating recurring characters like Amy Pohler's one legged farter but at least Mango was gone.

"One legged farter"? God, every time I hear about a sketch from the Tina Fey era, it sounds like one of those intentionally awful fake sketches that they were always mentioning on 30 Rock.

And Colin Quinn leaned way too much on comparing world problems to guys at the bar.

I dunno. He just had this casual demeanor that allowed him to slip under a punchline and just flip it on top of me when I least expected it. Although my favorite Colin Quinn bit was on Weekend Update before he became the anchor, when he played a lion who was telling his life story. "I did a nickel at the Central Park Zoo for eating a zebra."

I'd take ten good original sketches over one good recurring character.

The 1860s reviewer and Drunk Uncle are much better than Stefan ever was. Hader couldn't even keep from laughing during Stefan bit. The Californians and the one-upper girl were funny. And there were only two recurring sketches in that time period that were bad enough to make me want to turn off the TV, the deformed signing sister and the kissing family.

Pretty much every recurring character that they've come up with adheres to the law of diminishing returns. Drunk Uncle, Stefon, and Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy were all funny the first time but not really after that.

I wouldn't have understood the Californians at all except that I have a friend who used to live in LA and he starts talking like that whenever he tells a story from back then. Complete with unnecessarily specific driving directions.

I kinda like the deformed singing sister, but Kristen Wiig could pretty much sell me on anything. (Plus, whenever she's around, Fred Armisen's Lawrence Welk impression is never far behind. It just makes me smile. Even though, technically, I'm too young to officially know who Lawrence Welk is. )

I just really hope we've seen the last of that kissing family. These days, I usually keep the show on for the entire thing. But whenever that kissing family shows up, I quickly switch to Svengoolie or whatever's on PBS at the moment.

I would say that the only frequently recurring sketch they've done in recent years that I've really loved is those Porn Stars infomercials with Vanessa Bayer & Cecily Strong. "One time, I thought I banged Seal Team Six. But it was actually sixteen seals. I was like, 'Thanks, America. Arf arf.'"

And while I'm not sure it's funny, I kinda like the concept of "Girlfriends Talk Show." I can only imagine that whoever is writing those skits is exorcising tons of personal demons.

Oh God, I just remembered Goatboy.

An entire recurring character around making jarring noises.

I don't think SNL will ever get that bad again.

Yeah. Then there were the Night at the Roxbury guys. Will Ferrell & Chris Kattan bop their heads to the side and dry-hump some uninterested woman on the dance floor. Over and over again. After skits that bad, even Molly Shannon seemed (almost) tolerable.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The Night at the Roxbury guys are another example of a sketch that was hilarious the first time and awful the tenth time. Then again the first time Jim Carrey was the third guy.

But I think the J-Pop sketch was funny every time. And I think Drunk Uncle and Jebediah Aktinson have been funny every time. Then again, we've seen Jebediah Atkinson three times, and we saw Mango twenty times a year. They seem to have learned to be more careful about overusing characters lately.

 

[Mr Light]

I hate, hate, hate Drunk Uncle. I do like the sarcastic 1800s film critic though. I also think the porn star informercial is painfully unfunny.