Saturday Night Live TV Show • Page 463

Double update:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/rl4huz/heres_why_you_dont_trust_deuxmoi/

 

So what's wrong with SNL now, and how can it improve? (serious question)

Is it funny? Some sketches are. Some are not.

Would new writers help? Some apparently are leaving now. Hopefully, not the ones that wrote the better things.

Would a new cast help? Who should leave?

Who is the target audience now? Would better musical guests help? Less Springsteen/Neil Young, and more Phoebe Bridgers/Dua Lipa...?

Yes, all serious questions. I Mean, the show is ok right now, but to me, its not as good as when I watched it with Sandler/Spade/Nealon/Farley etc.... Where to me, 90% of the skits had me laughing, wanting more...

I dont feel that way now. :/

 

SNL has multiple identities right now (and sorta always has, but it is very apparent right now). A much smaller cast would help with the cohesiveness. Part of the reason no one breaks out Will Ferrell-style anymore is because they have to fight for airtime with 20 other people.

We need different head writers as well. Jost and Che have been doing it long enough and we know their viewpoints.

I often think about when SNL's original head writer was brought back in '81: "According to the book Live from New York, O'Donoghue tried to shake things up on that first day by saying "this is what the show lacks" and spray-painting the word "DANGER" on the wall of his office."

The show definitely does lack danger right now and has for a very long time. But a greater sense of urgency would not be a bad thing.

 

I can almost guarantee that if you watch the old Sandler era episodes, the hit rate is not as high as you remember.

 

It needs so many things. Yes it needs a smaller cast. Yes it needs new head writers. But it also desperately needs someone younger and more willing to take risks than Lorne Michaels steering the ship. This issue goes all the way up to the top. Nothing will fundamentally change at SNL until he steps down.

And yeah the hit rate was never that high on this show, and that's again because Lorne has been the captain for nearly its entire run. It needs someone new at the top who is willing to make the show into what it always had the potential to be. And that mentality will then trickle down to everyone else.

 

I don’t believe that Kyle is leaving mid season unless he had something pre arranged going into the year with Lorne. I do hope he does leave though because I’m much more interested in what’s next for him outside the show. I also hope that everyone who hinted at leaving last year do actually leave when the season is over.

 

part of it is I know people say this mostly jokingly but staying up until 4 am writing sketches doesn't make sense anymore now that everyone isn't coked out of their mind, I wonder if there's a way to do the show more healthily

 

10/10 were all hits?

https://screenrant.com/adam-sandlers-top-snl-sketches-ranked/

 

When you're on the show for 107 episodes, you're going to have at least 10 hits. I'm saying the full episodes probably have around the same hit rate as they do today.

 

That's something that absolutely needs to change if SNL sticks around post-Lorne. The antiquated time schedules, less inclusiveness and Lorne making people wait an incredibly long time to interview - all should go.

 

I also think the show was "appointment viewing" for more people back then, which automatically gave each episode/sketch a little more cultural weight.

 

Yeah it's to have an episode every two weeks instead of doing, like, four weeks in a row and then taking a couple weeks off lol

 

At this point I almost wouldn't expect any of those people to leave until the 50th season

 

It was. We made sure we were home at that time to watch it. Back then, we talked and discussed the next day and not 'immediately'.

And yeah, the top 10 was the top 10... But I just do not remember a lot of misses back then - its almost like, when you had to go to the bathroom, you waited til the commercials, and ran as fast as you can....

Id admit to the 'bad sketches' if I google them, to see them, and remembered them as bad....

But for now, it just seemed like they were few and far between.

 

I don't necessarily disagree with you, the writing staff was a powerhouse back then too. Smigel, Odenkirk, Conan, etc.

In my own experience, I look back so fondly on the Wiig/Hader era, but I always forget how miserable it was to see Target Lady or Sue 9 times a season haha

 

Sure. I stopped watching faithfully when 'my favourite era' ended, Smigel, Odenkirk, Conan... what a line up for sure.

Going back to wiki - season 12 was when Carvey, Dunn, Hartman, Lovitz were there.... that was 86/87 my senior year of high school.

Season 13 had this: New hires this season were Greg Daniels, Conan O'Brien and Bob Odenkirk.

Season 14 had Mike Myers (And Ben Stiller)

Season 16 had this: He promoted writers Rob Schneider and David Spade to the cast and hired Chris Farley, Chris Rock and Julia Sweeney. He later hired Tim Meadows and Adam Sandler to the cast mid-season.

And I was hooked.

 

I've been watching pretty faithfully since the mid '90s, so I definitely get the rose-colored memories. The Sandler and Ferrell eras of the show pretty much established my sense of humor and what was funny as a kid. I think the old episodes not being widely available in a way where they're not hacked to bits because they don't want to pay for the music or movie rights in their sketches lends more to that (At least in the 2000s, Comedy Central was playing them like they do "The Office" now).

But I promise there were tons of sketches that have not aged well or were never good in the first place. Like I remember an episode where John Travolta hosted where he was Dracula and the only joke was everyone thought he was gay - and that's all there was to it. They ran stuff like Coffee Talk and Mary Catherine Gallagher into the ground. It's always been half great and half bad because it's incredibly tough to do a consistently funny, weekly sketch show.

 

I think it being a weekly show (when they aren't taking breaks) is definitely a major reason why it's so inconsistent. It doesn't have to be weekly. It just has to start on Saturday night and be live. Those are the only requirements.

Make every episode of the show always have at least one weekend off in between, remove Lorne and replace him with someone young and exciting, clean out a good chunk of the writing staff and replace them with weird/unique/interesting up-and-comers, reduce the size of the cast to a more manageable number by allowing a lot of the longtime members to leave the show, and SNL could really improve by a lot.

 

So far, I think this season has been fairly strong. I think the Please Don't Destroy guys and all of the new additions have been pretty positive. But they absolutely need to clean house of the SNL vets. It is wild that current cast members have had full runs of television shows while they've been on the show.

 

Except Kenan! He stays forever.

 

So if the cast is too big, who should go? Who <is> the weakest link?

We've discussed Cicely, Pete, and Kyle leaving (rumours), but who brings nothing to the show?

Everyone brings something, don't they? Except Che. He can leave.

 

I knew kenan has been on forever but didn’t realize he’s been on since 2003. Fucking crazy.

 

Che, Jost, and Pete need to go immediately. Cecily, Kate, Aidy, and Kenan, while they would obviously be missed, should also probably go. That removes 7 people from the cast right there. If Kyle wants to go to, then it would be 8.

 

Yeah, I can't argue with any of those. Even if there's still gas in the tank for any or all of them, it's time to see the exit.

 

While I don't really dislike anyone, I would like to see the following head out: Aidy, Che, Jost, Kate, Kyle, Cecily, Kenan, Pete.

With them gone, let these veterans stay around for another 2-3 years: Mikey, Alex, Heidi, Ego, Melissa

The young guard who are more than capable than they've been let be so far: Chloe, Chris, Bowen, Aristotle, Andrew, JAJ, Punkie, Sarah