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.

The show has motored over rough road - most memorably in 1980 and 1995, when the show underwent wholesale cast changes and which, by no coincidence, were the two worst-received seasons ever.

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

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