It's one of those shows that's really never good, if you're lucky there's two decent skits a night. Once in a while you get a one that goes for a while, and spawns off a mediocre movie.
I know the thing to do is say "oh it was good when x and y were still on there", but going back and re-watching episodes with my favorites, they are still full of duds.
Sure, there are a handful of classic skits and characters but I just don't see how it lasted this long. Is it the timeslot? Is it incredibly cheap to produce? Is it just a tool for NBC to push whichever stars have a new movie or what not out?
It's been said before but I do believe that most people generally believe the 'best era' was the time around when they started watching - likely high school or around then.
I've watched for 20 years, every era is the same and it's exactly as you describe. A couple decent skits and many that don't hit. The one difference I've found lately is many of the sketches are for a terminally online generation - Bowen Yang in particular leading the charge. As someone with no social media, those sketches go over my head but I can't really hate on it, as I just recognize that I'm getting old haha.
They seem to be struggling more to retain their quality actors and writers (nothing against Yang, he's not who I'm referring to). I can't say I can put my finger on why I've come to this belief. Either that or there are fewer funny people to hire, which strikes me as dubious.
Granted, I didn't even start watching clips of it until after college a couple decades ago, but the show seems a lot more guest celebrity driven recently rather than driven by favorite actors.
Oddly tiktok seems to have the strongest sketch game these days. I'm sure youtube is ok too but it's a depressing place to stay for more than a few minutes.
It's like watching a transmission from an alien civilization: zero point of reference, zero shared language … and at the end, I'm left puzzling about what I even saw.
> I've watched for 20 years, every era is the same and it's exactly as you describe.
Virtually the entire time you've watched it has been the bad era. You're making generalizations about a show whose cultural relevance ended when you started watching. That show used to generate hit movies (and awful movies.) Of course, one has to consider that SNL suffered a loss of cultural ubiquity partially because of the internet breaking up the audience for all traditional outlets, but that show generated once generated culture. I never hear a reference to anything on it any more.
Last thing I remember that had juice was the Lonely Island songs like 15-20 years ago.
Respectfully, I never thought Lonely Island or Andy Samberg were funny. But consider them more “academic” humor because of the cultural significance. E.g. “Happy birthday to the ground” is a good/relevant line to know even if it’s not something that makes me laugh. Suppose I feel the same about SNL
in general too
Interesting opinions as someone from Europe who a) never watched a full episode b) never got the stuff when it was actually recent (1-2w) c) has been bombarded with, debatably really good, best-of/classic skits on youtube.
I'm just gonna leave this here: At least there still are some quotable or good skits, if I compare this to anything on German TV the last 20 years.. there's still so much better stuff in it.
People love consistency, traditions, being in the loop, having their internal monologues reflected back to them … and most importantly, the possibility that things go sideways on live TV.
Nah, I can watch skits from the 70s and 80s, before I was born, and find them humorous. Hell, Steve Martin and Martin Short also just starred in a wildly popular Hulu series as senior citizens. While it was funny when I was 15 too, it has been absolute garbage for 10+ years. This is just some pathetic line he’s trotted out to gloss over the fact that he’s lost his knack for producing good work.
There is plenty of great sketch comedy being made (just look at the popularity and memes from Tim Robinson’s work), just not anywhere in Lorne Michaels’ orbit.
There have been plenty of great sketches in the last 15 years, like many of Adam Driver's, and Weekend Update with Colin and Michael is really good, especially when they swap jokes.
The 15 year olds of today are going to say the same thing in 10 years though. I don't think it really was that great when we were 15, we only think it was.
It's not true, though. No 15 year olds find 2024 SNL funny, at all. Almost everybody found it funny up until 15-20 years ago. After that point every sketch was like "normal stuff, but black people doing it!" or "somebody acting gay, and everybody is uncomfortable!" Once Trump came along, it was almost a revitalization for about 30 seconds, because Trump himself is funny. Until it became Trump! fascist! Putin!, end of the world! over and over like all late night comedy.
No 15 year old is enjoying that. I'd bet the average age is approaching the same average age as the cable news audience. Retirees might even be getting sick of it. The truth might be that Lorne Michaels is the real audience of Saturday Night Live.
The 15 year olds today aren’t watching network television and you missed the part where I mentioned the lasting celebrity and comedic appeal of stars that predated my teenage years. “Actually, it’s the children who are wrong, things can’t ever decline in quality” is not the argument you, nor Lorne, think it is.
Back in the day they had some tremendous comedy talent such as Jim Belushi, Gilda Radner, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy.... Most of the shows were pretty good.
Not just back in the day, but tremendous talent has passed through SNL throughout its existence.
90s: Dana Carvey, Chris Rock, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, Robert Smigel, Sarah Silverman, Norm Macdonald, Will Ferrel
00s: Tina Fey, Kenan Thompson, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader
10s: Jay Pharoah, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, ...
20s: ?
OK, I was intending to point out that it has maintained its cast member quality, but I'm struggling to name more people from recent decades.
But then again, I haven't watched SNL in years, so I'm certainly out of the loop.
That said, I think Kate McKinnon is one of the funniest people alive, and her alone makes up for it. The Close Encounters sketches bring me to tears every time.
SNL seemed like sophisticated adult humour back when I still had a bedtime. I can rewatch old Kids in the Hall and SCTV sketches and laugh my ass off. Most classic SNL sketches from the 80s and 90s however seem juvenile to me now.
They didn't until very recently, at least if you don't live in the US or use a VPN. Always had to go to some alternative where they hadn't been DMCAd yet to get my celebrity jeopardy fix.
Small correction: SNL is scripted, not improv. The skits can feel "unpolished" in a similar way to improv, but I think that's usually because they only have a week to produce each one from scratch.
Sorry, I guess I meant "sketch comedy". But a lot of it is written the week before/of the show. So what I meant to say was something like "it's all pretty off the cuff" vs a movie or other show I guess, and that unpolished quality is what makes some things super funny to me or just not hit at all. Again, feels hit or miss.
> going back and re-watching episodes with my favorites, they are still full of duds.
Sure, but the hits were massive. You had everybody doing Steve Martin or Billy Crystal catchphrases back in the day, for example.
SNL has the same problem as everything--there are simply way more options in entertainment. Consequently, a modern "hit" has nowhere near the ubiquity of a "hit" from days of yore.
> Michaels compares the show to a Snickers bar: people expect a certain amount of peanuts, a certain amount of caramel, and a certain amount of chocolate.
Sketch comedy is broad by necessity. There isn't much time to set the scene, so characters have to be easily-digestible. The SNL formula is something like:
- a race sketch
- an office power dynamics sketch
- a "couple learning about each other" sketch
- and one off-the-wall absurd sketch
I think it lost its way a few years ago, best shown by Bowen Yang's haughty affectations. Comedy works when the performers are victims of fate, underdogs trying to flip the script. If you're above it all to begin with, there's no room for the funny.
By watching the show on YouTube for the last two seasons I find Bowen Yang the most consistently funny member of the cast. I always laugh with him. Then how much I laugh depends more on the sketch
I think he's funny but overused. Just like Kate McKinnon before him. I like them both, but it makes me feel like they know they've picked a dud cast so stick with their favorite.
That said, I also think the last season has been better about diversifying the cast, and has generally improved over what it was a few years back.
The Celebrity Jeopardy sketch started in the mid 90s and was done by 2005 other than a couple reunion special occasions. It’s not from the last 20 years anymore, you may be getting old.
I'm not sure how intentional I was, but I didn't actually say it was one of the most popular sketches performed in the last 20 years. People love the Connery.
SNL is more like an improv/skit talent show where a successful outcome is becoming a household name movie star. Lorne is more of the person running the talent show, selecting people, and then reaping rewards with the spin offs rather than the star. If you think of SNL like that, then there are others that could likely take the helm and keep it going once he’s gone.
I agree with this entirely, and I think if you've watched some of his other shows you'll understand why. Some of the most consistently funny, well cast comedy on TV has had him behind it. Kids In The Hall, 30 Rock, A.P. Bio, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, Documentary Now!, Portlandia and so on and so on.
I'm sure he's quite a handful to deal with, but whatever that entails the end result of his presence on a project is that the project is often a good idea and well run. Don't get me wrong, he's had his money grabs and failed concepts, but the sheer number of hits he's involved with boggles the mind. He's willing to put money behind concepts few others even consider.
I think it was in an interview on Norm MacDonald Has A Show that Lorne was asked what the best era of SNL was, and he said the best era for SNL is just whatever one you grew up with. I think he's right about that.
Fair point. I'm mostly just making a reference to the Lonely Island + Seth Meyers podcast. Every few episodes they joke about being in "an Golden Era" of SNL :). But they also do point out that people tend to idolize the folks from the era they grew up in for sure as well!
I was recently watching a short history piece about some of the attitudes/egos Lorne had to deal with (e.g. Chevy Chase) and it struck me how similar some of them are to certain "rockstar engineers" I've worked with.
I find it amazing it's been on for 50 years.
It's one of those shows that's really never good, if you're lucky there's two decent skits a night. Once in a while you get a one that goes for a while, and spawns off a mediocre movie.
I know the thing to do is say "oh it was good when x and y were still on there", but going back and re-watching episodes with my favorites, they are still full of duds.
Sure, there are a handful of classic skits and characters but I just don't see how it lasted this long. Is it the timeslot? Is it incredibly cheap to produce? Is it just a tool for NBC to push whichever stars have a new movie or what not out?
It's been said before but I do believe that most people generally believe the 'best era' was the time around when they started watching - likely high school or around then.
I've watched for 20 years, every era is the same and it's exactly as you describe. A couple decent skits and many that don't hit. The one difference I've found lately is many of the sketches are for a terminally online generation - Bowen Yang in particular leading the charge. As someone with no social media, those sketches go over my head but I can't really hate on it, as I just recognize that I'm getting old haha.
They seem to be struggling more to retain their quality actors and writers (nothing against Yang, he's not who I'm referring to). I can't say I can put my finger on why I've come to this belief. Either that or there are fewer funny people to hire, which strikes me as dubious.
Granted, I didn't even start watching clips of it until after college a couple decades ago, but the show seems a lot more guest celebrity driven recently rather than driven by favorite actors.
Oddly tiktok seems to have the strongest sketch game these days. I'm sure youtube is ok too but it's a depressing place to stay for more than a few minutes.
It's like watching a transmission from an alien civilization: zero point of reference, zero shared language … and at the end, I'm left puzzling about what I even saw.
> I've watched for 20 years, every era is the same and it's exactly as you describe.
Virtually the entire time you've watched it has been the bad era. You're making generalizations about a show whose cultural relevance ended when you started watching. That show used to generate hit movies (and awful movies.) Of course, one has to consider that SNL suffered a loss of cultural ubiquity partially because of the internet breaking up the audience for all traditional outlets, but that show generated once generated culture. I never hear a reference to anything on it any more.
Last thing I remember that had juice was the Lonely Island songs like 15-20 years ago.
Respectfully, I never thought Lonely Island or Andy Samberg were funny. But consider them more “academic” humor because of the cultural significance. E.g. “Happy birthday to the ground” is a good/relevant line to know even if it’s not something that makes me laugh. Suppose I feel the same about SNL in general too
Interesting opinions as someone from Europe who a) never watched a full episode b) never got the stuff when it was actually recent (1-2w) c) has been bombarded with, debatably really good, best-of/classic skits on youtube.
I'm just gonna leave this here: At least there still are some quotable or good skits, if I compare this to anything on German TV the last 20 years.. there's still so much better stuff in it.
People love consistency, traditions, being in the loop, having their internal monologues reflected back to them … and most importantly, the possibility that things go sideways on live TV.
SNL has all of these things.
"The product is never the product."
> I know the thing to do is say "oh it was good when x and y were still on there"
And almost always that golden period was when you were 15 years old
Nah, I can watch skits from the 70s and 80s, before I was born, and find them humorous. Hell, Steve Martin and Martin Short also just starred in a wildly popular Hulu series as senior citizens. While it was funny when I was 15 too, it has been absolute garbage for 10+ years. This is just some pathetic line he’s trotted out to gloss over the fact that he’s lost his knack for producing good work.
There is plenty of great sketch comedy being made (just look at the popularity and memes from Tim Robinson’s work), just not anywhere in Lorne Michaels’ orbit.
There have been plenty of great sketches in the last 15 years, like many of Adam Driver's, and Weekend Update with Colin and Michael is really good, especially when they swap jokes.
> it has been absolute garbage for 10+ years
The 15 year olds of today are going to say the same thing in 10 years though. I don't think it really was that great when we were 15, we only think it was.
It's not true, though. No 15 year olds find 2024 SNL funny, at all. Almost everybody found it funny up until 15-20 years ago. After that point every sketch was like "normal stuff, but black people doing it!" or "somebody acting gay, and everybody is uncomfortable!" Once Trump came along, it was almost a revitalization for about 30 seconds, because Trump himself is funny. Until it became Trump! fascist! Putin!, end of the world! over and over like all late night comedy.
No 15 year old is enjoying that. I'd bet the average age is approaching the same average age as the cable news audience. Retirees might even be getting sick of it. The truth might be that Lorne Michaels is the real audience of Saturday Night Live.
One of the highlights of my 15 year old daughter's week is a new SNL episode.. Your thesis has been refuted.
The 15 year olds today aren’t watching network television and you missed the part where I mentioned the lasting celebrity and comedic appeal of stars that predated my teenage years. “Actually, it’s the children who are wrong, things can’t ever decline in quality” is not the argument you, nor Lorne, think it is.
Back in the day they had some tremendous comedy talent such as Jim Belushi, Gilda Radner, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy.... Most of the shows were pretty good.
Not just back in the day, but tremendous talent has passed through SNL throughout its existence.
90s: Dana Carvey, Chris Rock, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, Robert Smigel, Sarah Silverman, Norm Macdonald, Will Ferrel
00s: Tina Fey, Kenan Thompson, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader
10s: Jay Pharoah, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, ...
20s: ?
OK, I was intending to point out that it has maintained its cast member quality, but I'm struggling to name more people from recent decades.
But then again, I haven't watched SNL in years, so I'm certainly out of the loop.
That said, I think Kate McKinnon is one of the funniest people alive, and her alone makes up for it. The Close Encounters sketches bring me to tears every time.
Maya Rudoplh? Kristen Wiig? Fred Armisen? Jason Sudekis? Darrel Hammond? Will Forte?
SNL seemed like sophisticated adult humour back when I still had a bedtime. I can rewatch old Kids in the Hall and SCTV sketches and laugh my ass off. Most classic SNL sketches from the 80s and 90s however seem juvenile to me now.
exactly - and this is why YouTube clips of each skit exist
They didn't until very recently, at least if you don't live in the US or use a VPN. Always had to go to some alternative where they hadn't been DMCAd yet to get my celebrity jeopardy fix.
This is improv comedy, it's hit or miss sometimes. Things you don't find funny other people might find hilarious :)
Small correction: SNL is scripted, not improv. The skits can feel "unpolished" in a similar way to improv, but I think that's usually because they only have a week to produce each one from scratch.
Sorry, I guess I meant "sketch comedy". But a lot of it is written the week before/of the show. So what I meant to say was something like "it's all pretty off the cuff" vs a movie or other show I guess, and that unpolished quality is what makes some things super funny to me or just not hit at all. Again, feels hit or miss.
> going back and re-watching episodes with my favorites, they are still full of duds.
Sure, but the hits were massive. You had everybody doing Steve Martin or Billy Crystal catchphrases back in the day, for example.
SNL has the same problem as everything--there are simply way more options in entertainment. Consequently, a modern "hit" has nowhere near the ubiquity of a "hit" from days of yore.
> Michaels compares the show to a Snickers bar: people expect a certain amount of peanuts, a certain amount of caramel, and a certain amount of chocolate.
Sketch comedy is broad by necessity. There isn't much time to set the scene, so characters have to be easily-digestible. The SNL formula is something like:
- a race sketch
- an office power dynamics sketch
- a "couple learning about each other" sketch
- and one off-the-wall absurd sketch
I think it lost its way a few years ago, best shown by Bowen Yang's haughty affectations. Comedy works when the performers are victims of fate, underdogs trying to flip the script. If you're above it all to begin with, there's no room for the funny.
By watching the show on YouTube for the last two seasons I find Bowen Yang the most consistently funny member of the cast. I always laugh with him. Then how much I laugh depends more on the sketch
I think he's funny but overused. Just like Kate McKinnon before him. I like them both, but it makes me feel like they know they've picked a dud cast so stick with their favorite.
That said, I also think the last season has been better about diversifying the cast, and has generally improved over what it was a few years back.
Don't forget:
- sketch with some animals (usually dogs or cats, they're cute)
- sketch with some fluid sprayed over a cast member
and
-- the punch repeated three times
-- the pulled punch
-- the actors age inappropriate punch
> best shown by Bowen Yang's haughty affectations.
Straight Male Friend is a dope sketch though
Celebrity jeopardy is one of their more popular sketches over the last 20 years and is exactly above it all affectation.
The Celebrity Jeopardy sketch started in the mid 90s and was done by 2005 other than a couple reunion special occasions. It’s not from the last 20 years anymore, you may be getting old.
Yeah my skin gets really dry in the winter.
I'm not sure how intentional I was, but I didn't actually say it was one of the most popular sketches performed in the last 20 years. People love the Connery.
https://archive.ph/j4Oi5
I can't wait to see what the show looks like without him.
Pete knew - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BgvxLd7G0Y
i try to watch SNL,but its just not funny 99% of the time, weekend update is the only thing that could get a half chuckle anymore most of the times
Norm’s monologue after he was fired from Update will go down as an all timer
Yeah, honestly, even when I was a teenager I wasn't a huge fan. Sometimes it'll have a funny bit but the bit goes on way too long.
SNL is more like an improv/skit talent show where a successful outcome is becoming a household name movie star. Lorne is more of the person running the talent show, selecting people, and then reaping rewards with the spin offs rather than the star. If you think of SNL like that, then there are others that could likely take the helm and keep it going once he’s gone.
Given the state of comedy on SNL, I’m not sure that’s a mantle I’d want to claim.
I agree with this entirely, and I think if you've watched some of his other shows you'll understand why. Some of the most consistently funny, well cast comedy on TV has had him behind it. Kids In The Hall, 30 Rock, A.P. Bio, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, Documentary Now!, Portlandia and so on and so on.
I'm sure he's quite a handful to deal with, but whatever that entails the end result of his presence on a project is that the project is often a good idea and well run. Don't get me wrong, he's had his money grabs and failed concepts, but the sheer number of hits he's involved with boggles the mind. He's willing to put money behind concepts few others even consider.
what his involvement with comedians in cars ?
I cannot find any evidence on IMDB or Wikipedia that he had involvement.
My mistake, please disregard that.
Lorne is great and the heart of the show. I also think The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers were part of an Golden Era, for the record.
I think it was in an interview on Norm MacDonald Has A Show that Lorne was asked what the best era of SNL was, and he said the best era for SNL is just whatever one you grew up with. I think he's right about that.
Fair point. I'm mostly just making a reference to the Lonely Island + Seth Meyers podcast. Every few episodes they joke about being in "an Golden Era" of SNL :). But they also do point out that people tend to idolize the folks from the era they grew up in for sure as well!
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I was recently watching a short history piece about some of the attitudes/egos Lorne had to deal with (e.g. Chevy Chase) and it struck me how similar some of them are to certain "rockstar engineers" I've worked with.