NEWS: Saturday Night Living Dead

CULTURE: Saturday Night Living Dead

It’s hard not to be happy reading that six Saturday Night Live cast members are slated to be axed. Comedy-wise, pretty much the whole group is deadweight. The problem is apparently they’re not bringing in any new blood to revive the show; evidently, the most bloated comedy spectacle on American television is getting its budget cut.

SNL producer Lorne Michaels told the Post he thinks “everything that was strong last season is back.” Great. That means the “Lazy Sunday” guy’s job is safe. And how pathetic is it that what was essentially a glorified You Tube clip was the undisputed season highlight?

The show is apparently never going to die; thanks to lack of competition (Mad TV, I’m looking at you for a reason) its ratings have been steady even though it’s been embarrassing for years.

It’s largely been supplanted by The Daily Show as the go-to source for current events satire. When the show has done political commentary in recent years, it seems like they do so out of obligation – it’s like they feel they have to and would much rather be making fun of safe pop culture topics like The View or MTV’s Video Music Awards.

In Jay Mohr’s self serving memoir about his early 90s stint on the show, Mohr painted the creative process on the show as a soul-deadening exercise in desperation. According to the hack comic, the writing process was driven by the kind of fear that permeates corporate boardrooms. It’s depressing, especially when compared with the riotous gonzo spirit that fueled the show’s early days.

I interviewed Gilbert Gottfried after the suicide of his fellow cast member Charles Rocket last year. The Aflac pitchman (who talked like a normal guy over the phone) was on the show in 1980, when an entirely new cast replaced the original heavy hitters. Gottfried wrote off his time on the show, during a season considered to be one of the worst ever.

“As far as bad seasons of Saturday Night Live, it’s not like that’s a rarity,” Gottfried said.

In the Post article, Michaels expressed optimism that the show would have a creative resurgence similar to the one it underwent in 1981 when Eddie Murphy was the break-out star.

Maybe the show can motor over this. Or maybe we’re looking at the death of an American institution. Wouldn’t that be nice?

CRAP, Darrell Hammond ISN'T one of the ones going??? wtf. guy's been there for like 12 years now, and he's still not funny. really, no one needs Clinton impersonations anymore, dude.

every time i hear that the cast sucks i get really pissed. i LOVE a lot of the cast (Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Mya Rudolph, Seth Meyers, Horatio Sanz, Fred Armisen, Will Forte is pretty good, Tina is all right, i do like Kenan and YES i like Andy, anyone who's seen the Lonely Island videos would). the writing just blows. so. HARD. sooo i guess it's ok that Tina is leaving. she's funny on her own (her improv is really decent) but gah. they just need to stop going with the recurring characters thing. IT'S NOT FUNNY. IT'S NEVER FUNNY. IT WASN'T FUNNY THE FIRST TIME YOU SHOWED THAT CHARACTER AND GAVE THEM A GODAWFUL STUPID THEME SONG THAT REPRISES AT THE END AND IT SURE AS HELL ISN'T FUNNY THE SECOND OR FIFTH OR TWENTIETH TIME. seriously, when did those theme songs start????

ugh.

i take my comedy seriously.

I agree. There's always an occasional period of a few years where the program is subpar before going back on the upswing. They just need to make the most of it and bring in some good talent.

I never cared for Mad TV myself.

-TM

Let the patient die already.

Bring back Kevin Fuckin' Nealon!

Mad TV was funniest when doing movie parodies and lamest when doing scenario after scenario after scenario with single-joke characters. Since that's pretty much the whole show after the first season or two, I stopped watching quickly. I suppose they might have recovered.

SNL I never really got into. When I was still watching comedy TV, it was on too late at night for me to watch it, and more recently I stopped bothering with comedy TV, then TV altogether. All I can really say about it is this: The first SNL episode I ever saw had a hysterical commercial for an electronic Jesus doll. I just about died laughing. It was by far the funniest bit of the show. The second SNL episode I saw, years later...was a rerun of the same episode. Only, this time no Jesus commercial.

(Another interpretation now occurs to me, which is that, and I seriously hope I'm wrong about this....the Jesus commercial was a real commercial.)

What's Dana Carvey doing nowadays? Get him back on the show.

I haven't watched a new SNL since Will Farrell left. I really wasn't sure if it was even still on the air...

SNL hasn't been funny in like 10 years at least. When that type of drought happens on a sitcom, the sitcom is canceled. hint.

i still love it but i definitely dont like all of the sketches

The early 80s, after the real "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" left, you had Joe Piscapo (however the fuck you spell it) and Eddie Murphy with a lot of dead weight. They were overburdened to carry the show. In fact, the entire 80's were a slump. Then came Carvey, Hartman... hell, I'll even mention Sandler and Farley (and I hated them). SNL hasn't had two good comedians on the show for years. God, I remember looking forward to Saturday Night. Weekend Update was hilarious... how the fuck do you ruin reporting fake news (to answer that question, ask Colin Quinn, I blame him for killing Weekend Update)?! I did it in high school and it was funny!

So SNL can win if it makes like that Night Ranger song?

Every year I hear how it's the worst SNL cast ever, and then the next year I hear people say how the show isn't being appreciated for how funny it actually is, and how much people enjoy it.

Honestly, the handful of times I've watched it in the past decade I haven't seen nearly a single thing that was even mildly amusing. The show hasn't been funny in a very, very long time. My guess is that it has a lot to do with Lorne Michaels, the produced. Just an insight into the man's pscyhe: apparently he thought the old "bastard airways" bit with flight attendants cutting off passengers making comments with "buh-bye" was like the funniest sketch of all time. Yeah, that one, the one that you stopped thinking was funny about 11 seconds into it, but it dragged on for another 9 excrutiating minutes of the same crap.

Um, you actually just described EVERY saturday night live sketch in the last decade or two. Every single sketch is one single joke stretched out to fill the space between commercials and then concluded with a lukewarm punchline.

They could learn a lot from some real sketch comedy, like Mr. Show or the UCB.

I've watched for more years than I care to remember. Who's getting cut? The 4 new people from last year are really hilarious and any new cast should be built around them. SNL is, sadly, an institution. It will always be treated as a church of sorts, constantly revered, even if everyone knows the kind of bullshit they're peddling.

The way I see it, name another sketch comedy show that has existed since SNL that is nearly as good overall.

Upright Citizens Brigade
Stella (though that's not really in the same category)

So UCB, in my opinion, is about it.

*shrugs* I guess it's a matter of personal taste.

-TM

"someone get norm macdonald on the phone..."

-some dude in el cajon

The biggest problem with SNL is Lorne Michaels. The guy has been at the helm for far too long. Let someone like Robert Smigel put on the big-wig pants for awhile, and I'd be willing to bet that the show would improve vastly. They also need better musical guests.

And please please shit-can Horatio Sanz. That bastard can't keep a straight face during a skit. Laughing and breaking character every once in a while can be quite funny, but its excrutiating when the same guy does it during every freakin' show. And they need to murder whoever thought that "Techno Hour" MTV4 skit was funny enough to deserve new installments. Every time Kenan Thompson says "ooooh-weee Tiara", I want to stab my brain with a rusty spork.

They should just replace the entire cast with Alec Baldwin, and have Christopher Walken host every episode.

SNL sketches have always always gone on too long, since 1975

i have faithfully watched snl since the first show aired. i was like 6 or something. i grew up watching and rarely miss sat. nite...it's a ritual.

some seasons have stunk beyond belief. no laughs. i agree.

ive never given up on the concepts of organized humor and lornes attempts to keep it all together. comedy is one of the hardest things to accomplish as well as one of the most important things to our society.

i wish the best to the new season. tough business, yo.

hope it never ends no matter how BAD, "some seasons" can get.

i still luv you snl. gnn

Every so often, some other show or movie will have something that would be a perfect SNL skit.

Like when I saw Napoleon Dynamite. I laughed at a lot of the jokes, but I thought as a whole movie, it wasn't very good. Now as a series of SNL skits, I thought it would be brilliant.

Maybe they're relying to heavily on recruiting from improv troupes like the Groundlings and Second City. I suspect that in the last couple years, that pool has gotten a bit diluted. Maybe they should be looking at independent filmmakers, playwrights coming out of places like the Humana Festival, and me.

Being painfully un-funny as always.

I havent watched SNL in years. I caught the Oprah Winfrey parody with Maya Rudolph and Kenan. They need to keep Kenan because the guy is pretty funny. He was great in Snakes on a plane.

I wish they would axe melenie huxtall and gary kroger!