Unpopular Entertainment Opinions • Page 85

Kyle’s YouTube channel is one of the funniest things on all the whole website. I don’t really watch SNL but from what I’ve seen he seems really underutilized

the dude is a genius

 

His baseball and guitar videos kill me

 

Most of the cast members are fantastic, but SNL suffers largely from a) the need to contribute to political commentary when they don’t always need to and b) falling back on successful sketches under the misconception that it’ll be a “guaranteed laugh”

 

He was also developing a biopic movie to play Fatty Arbuckle

 

I feel like SNL would just inherently have more misses than hits. Having to deliver good comedy live every week with that much staff/hands in the pot and all the last minute changes they do and with how many years they've been on, I feel like there's no way for the success ratio to work out in their favor. I've never been an SNL watcher. I just watch when my faves hosts and even then it's only their skits. I do like when we get to discover a random celeb guest host is funny and good at comedy thru SNL. Its interesting to see.

 

On Conan's podcast this week Tina Fey said something along the lines of: the schedule for making an episode of SNL was established when everyone was a coke addict and it's stayed the same ever since.

It probably would be 100x better if they even just spent two weeks making an ep instead of one

 

I mean, in fairness they take months off at a time, and even when show is in season they skip like every third week. The quality almost never varies

 

Yeah but they aren’t working on the show during those times. Aside from some pre-recorded material, they basically start from scratch every week. Even if a writer has had a sketch idea forever, it doesn’t get properly workshopped and fleshed out by the whole staff and cast until that week

 

I don’t think they work on the episode on those extra weeks though.

 

Yeah I get that, but it feels like a stretch to assume that a bunch of people that have dedicated their lives to comedy/improv are not regularly crafting little bits or making jokes from ordinary life just because they’re not in a writer’s room. Especially in an environment as notoriously stressful as SNL, seems like it’d be in their best interest to not show up empty handed when it comes time to work again. Just feels like the issue is the content they’re pressured to make, not the time allotted to do so

 

I don’t doubt their ability to make jokes in that time, I just doubt anyone’s ability to make enough *good* jokes in that time to fill the whole hour

 

Tina has said in the past that every episode airs not because it’s ready but because it’s 11:30. Re-writes are done last minute so they rely on cue cards because of the changes. They have also since relied on pre-taped segments but from reading behind the scenes interviews it’s amazing how quickly they go from concept pitch to production/editing in a matter of days. Also it’s fucked up but Lorne is known for promoting competition between writers/performers in order to get sketches to air. SNL is a storied institution with hit/miss comedy but I still tune in.

 

Most of the great classic bits weren't necessarily pulling from the weekly news, so they should spend more time developing those.

 

All of my favorite sketches in the history of the show have been the super out there concepts or insanely niche references.

 

Yeah there’s a lot of shit that goes on behind the scenes that attributed to the poor quality of the show. I’ve heard on several podcasts that just the order in which the sketch pitches are read can determine whether or not it’ll get on a show. Some great sketches never got on because they were always the last sketch of 40 or so to be read at the beginning of the week.

 

this is legit one of my favorite sketches

 

I still watch SNL every week and always enjoy myself, even if it's a bad episode for the most part. I just really am fascinated by the live aspect, and when there's a sketch that really hits it can be an amazing moment to see live


I do agree that most people tend to think the best cast is around when they started watching. For me the best ever was Hader, Samberg, Armisen, Sudeikis, Wiig, Poehler, etc

 

Remember when they had What’s Up With That, a pretty funny one-off absurd sketch idea that has just a single joke, and they completely ran it into the ground by doing it probably 10-15 times over the course of about 3 years

 

Yeah, what was up with that?

 

one of my friends loved that sketch for some reason. I think she just loved anything Kenan did

 

I didn’t know that sketch existed until about two months ago and I ended watching all of them in a row and I actually never got tired of it lol.

 

Kenan is great

 

Giving Kenan a steady job is sometimes the only reason I can think of for SNL to exist. I love him so much. The picture I have with him from the 90s is one of my most treasured possessions.

 

That's awesome! How'd you meet him?

 

EAShearts has been Kel this whole time