No SNL season debut thread?

You truly found that funny? It made me want to put my foot through the TV. I like Kristen Wiig, but that character is like a fork on a chalkboard.

Meyers is too smug on update.

The Live Links at the end of the show was one of the funnier bits. The "Your mom talks to Megan Fox" was actually mildly amusing as well. Everything up to Update and Update was dreadful. How can you not come up with a better opener than Ghadafi (sp?).

I disagree that the show has sucked since 1996. I would agree that pretty much since Sandler/Spade/Farley left, there's been only a few reasons to watch. Tina Fey was one. Will Ferrell was one. To a slightly lesser extent, Darrell Hammond was one.

Amy Poehler is one of the most overrated cast members ever. Since Ferrell left (and this isn't counting Fey, because she was never in sketches other than Weekend Update regularly) there hasn't been a single person where you watch and think, "This guy is really talented."

Samberg and Hader are the best they have and they really don't know how to use them properly.

 

The only funny part of the show was Samburg's short with the exhibitionist "Optimius Prime." Ridiculous, but funny.

I thought the Thursday night show was better, especially the bit with Clinton.

 

I didn't watch the Thursday show, but if they're taking material away from Meyers, it should be no surprise that the Saturday show was such horseshit.

During an election year, they might have the material. This year, they do not.

It's funny, so many people said last year that SNL was better than ever. People neglected to mention that the reason the show was funny was because of non-castmembers like Tina Fey, Justin Timberlake, Will Ferrell and Alec Baldwin.

 

Writing rules, and SNL is not getting any decent writers (or, Michaels is shit-canning the funny). I guaran-fucking-tee there are at least 10 of us here could write funnier shit than what's airing.

 

I would definitely agree with that. You can turn on You Tube and find a better Obama impression (not that there was one this week). You can read the talkback comments on the Huffington Post and find funnier comments than anything that aired this week.

 

An aside: That story quotes NBC spokeswoman Sharon Pannozzo. Is that the same Sharon Pannozzo who used to work for the Cubs, and was so popular among the baseball beat writers on this board?

 

Piggybacking on someone's earlier remarks about how there is no real top dog on SNL now, a la Ferrell, Myers, Hartman or Sandler, I totally agree. I think Samburg has that potential, but he seems to be in fewer skits now then when he started on the show.

In fact, a lot of their personnel decisions are confusing to me as a viewer. Kristen Wiig is in every skit now, except that the only kind of character she can play is the either the wacky lady or the neurotic lady; do people really have a fever, and the only prescription is more Kristen Wiig? I thought Casey Wilson added some funny to the show last year, but they shitcanned her, and the same with Mikaela Watson, who did some funny things, like the "bitch please!" blog.

The thing is, I'm normally a SNL apologist. I've seen episodes from every season, and I don't think the show has fallen off nearly as much as others say. By the end of last year, I thought it was on its way to returning to its mini-peaks of the mid-1990s and 2000s. But this first episode was such a clunker that it surprised me. I can't even blame Fox; she wasn't in that godawful opening skit that went on forever.

 

Update was the only thing worth a crap. The Ghadafi skit was pretty funny.

The rest ... blah. And I couldn't even listen to U2. I tend to like them, but that was some shit.

I'm not an SNL hater. I thought they had a really good season last season. But the premiere ... not funny.

 

Maybe it's not as good as it used to be, but apparently it's good enough that everyone still watches it.

I can't comment on this episode because I missed it but there always are going to be at least half of the skits any one person thinks are not funny. People have different tastes in comedy. Not every skit is for every person.

 

It gets watched because every once in a while, they strike gold ("Dick in a box") and because the other choices (at least here in Cincy) are reruns of CSI: Miami and Desperate Houewives, or whatever the hell a Spike Fierstein is.

Here's another striking thought on the lack of writers. I've read so much over the years about how tough the writers' room at SNL used to be. Newbies hardly ever saw airtime, and NEVER got their stuff on air right away. Well, the chick who dropped the f-bomb? There she was, starring in the sketch that she wrote. That she wrote. First show.

Jay Mohr, Dave Spade, Kevin Nealon, and several others have written that their first years were killers because they just kept getting denied after the dress rehearsal. Now, she may be a better writer - a funnier comedian, who knows? - but I think it just points to the bar being set much lower.

 

Got to be the same person. I'm never watching NBC again.