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SNL used to be awesome.

A

Amaris

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I'm watching Saturday Night Live. The opening skit is Bill & Hillary Clinton dressing up for a party. Aside from Darrell Hammond, whom I adore, I'm not laughing. At All. In fact, I find it annoying that they have to declare who they are every couple of seconds:

"Hey look, it's Bill Richardson!"
"Hello Hillary and Bill Clinton! It's me, Bill Richardson."

I guess they do it for people who are stone dense, because to me, it's just boring. Although as I type this, Barack Obama is making a cameo so it's not all bad! :D

But on the note of SNL, has it completely lost any edge it had? I remember the classic SNL, with Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, etc., even into the 90s there was Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler and later Darrell Hammond, and Will Ferrell. Tina Fey was fun, but once she left I think any remaining new talent was just empty. I do, I think they're very unfunny. I only laugh or chuckle when it's Darrell Hammond or an older cast member. The new ones have to try too hard in my opinion.

I'd also like to discuss whether comedy in SNL and by proxy Mad TV has become so dumbed down that everything has to be explained, and everything stays pretty low brow without really biting into good material.

What do you think?

J.
 
The Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey years started the down fall.

Before her, it was pretty good.

With her , I stopped watching.
 
I haven't been watching regularly and I rarely watch the whole episode but I think that it's actually a lot funnier now than it was a few years ago.
 
SNL has probably spent far more time being painfully unfunny than anything approaching awesome. I say probably because I really don't want to go wade through any more of the awful stuff to come up with an objective score; I just don't think it's worth the distress.

They've had their moments and their good years, but it's been a long time since I even wondered "does Saturday Night Live suck this year?" I just automatically assume that it does.
 
Up through the Phil Hartman era, SNL was appointment TV for me. Even during the Tina Fey era, I at least made sure to catch Weekend Update most weeks, but I have not watched since she left, and am probably done with it as my TV viewing habits have changed to a point that, unless it becomes really relevant again, I probably will not bother.
 
Saturday Night Live hasn't been awesome in over a decade. In fact, there have only been two great eras of Saturday Night Live: The original cast and the Phil Hartman years. There have been a few scattered decent years with Eddie Murphy, Martin Short, Billy Crystal, David Spade, and Chris Farley (the latter two referring to after Hartman left).
 
Colin Quinn and Jimmy Fallon were the worst of the Weekend Update hosts.

Actually, Jimmy Fallon may be the worst SNL cast member in history.
 
I haven't watched this show in awhile for various reasons, but for three decades its demise has always been predicted before the next great cast came along.
 
Eh. The show has never been all that consistently funny- its very format means that a lot of crap is going to get on the air. Even the "golden age" with the original cast has a surprisingly high amount of stuff that's awkward and unfunny in just the way of bad modern sketches- watching the first season DVDs was a revelation.

People remember the great stuff and forget all the painful filler ("best of" tapes and retrospectives make this easier), and this nostalgia leads them to declare that SNL has finally lost its edge. This has been happening intermittently since the early 80s at least. Which is not to say that there haven't been peaks and troughs in the show's quality- of course there have- but that, as with the old joke about the satirical magazine Punch, "SNL isn't as good as it used to be, but then, it never was."
 
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^Indeed, the early seasons have been presented in chopped-up form in syndication for years and years. I was surprised just how different the format was in the early episodes. And that whole thing about shoehorning the bees in might have been good for a laugh if you were high, but I just wasn't feeling it. I couldn't get through some of those shows.
 
Tina Fey was a staff writer years before she became a cast member.


For me, personally, when Norm MacDonald was fired, that's when the show finalyl fell in to a void of crap.

And I watched one full episode when he came back and hosted. His opening monologue said it all:

When the people here asked me to do the show, I've got to say, I felt kind of weird. I don't know if you remember this, but I used to actually be on this show. I used to do the "Weekend Update" news routine, you remember that? That's where I did the make-believe news jokes. That was me, you know? So then, a year and a half ago, I had sort of a disagreement with the management at NBC: I wanted to keep my job. Right? And they felt the exact opposite. They fired me because they said that I wasn't funny. Now, with most jobs, I could have had a hell of a lawsuit on my hands for that, but see, this is a comedy show. So, they got me. But, now, this is the weird part -- it's only a year and a half later, and now they ask me to host the show. So I wondered, how did I go from being not funny enough to be even allowed in the building, to being so funny that I'm now hosting the show? How did I suddenly get so goddamn funny?! It was inexplicable to me, because, let's face it -- a year and a half is not enough time for a dude to learn how to be funny! Then it occurred to me, I haven't gotten funnier, the show has gotten really bad! So, yeah, I'm funny compared to, you know ... what you'll see later.
Okay, so let's recap: the bad news is: I'm still not funny. The good news is: The show blows! Alright, folks, we've got a realy bad show for you tonight! Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggie Dogg and Eminem are here. We'll be right back!
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I thought that Norm was funny--a much better Weekend Update host than Kevin Nealon before him or Colin Quinn after.
 
Crusher Disciple said:
I pretty much stopped watching after the Mike Meyers/ Dana Carvey era ended.

And Phil Hartman- there's one gone too soon. :(
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Good ol' Phil... :( Nothing will every hold a candle (at least for me) to the Anal Retentive Chief sketches.

I also adored the Meyers/Carvey years. The cast was spot on and hilarious. Of course it also produced some of my favorite characters such as the church lady and the ever ambiguous Pat.


Emh said:
A beaker full of death said:
Tina Fey was always insufferable - she was so mistakenly convinced she was clever.
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A-fucking-men. Her attitude was very off putting which lead me to be completely uninterested in 30 Rock despite rave reviews.
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Oh thank goodness there are other people out there that feel this way. I though I was the only one.


As for me, I haven't watched the drek that is SNL in over five years now. This new cast is nothing but a pale tattered copy of the past glory days. I realize that the times and cast will inevitably change but this new group could at least try to be funny. I also concede to the idea that I am asking them to fill some very big shoes. My favorite time was when the super talented comedy genius know as Gilda Radner was on the show. Who could ever forget Roseanna Roseannadanna. Of course this was also the era that Steve Martin and Chevy Chase guested a lot too. Maybe I am asking for to much.
 
I've felt for YEARS that SNL should take a note from Johnny Carson and go from 90 minutes to 60 minutes. Less filler, and even MORE competition for the writers to get Lorne to pick their skits to make it on the air.

As for Tina Fey, whether or not you like her onscreen, as the first female head writer on SNL things actually got a little smarter and funnier for a few years.

--Ted
 
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