The "problem" with SNL

The problem is Lorne Michaels, and it blows me away that he gets so little of the blame and the cast gets so much. I really believe that the reason 30 Rock is funny and SNL is not is that Lorne doesn't have as much day-to-day control over 30 Rock.

There is no reason why the writing staffs for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report can churn out eight funny half hour shows a week between them, but SNL can't come up with 40 minutes of funny material. Lorne, or NBC, could have thrown a bunch of money at Ben Karlin (former head writer of TDS) after he left Comedy Central, and really shook things up, but instead they went from Tina Fey to Seth Meyers. I would argue that the show was even less funny when Fey was the head writer.

There is way too much emphasis on recurring characters instead of creating funny, relavent shit.

 

30 Rock also has a better cast, a singular focus instead of a series of skits and it's taped.

 

SNL is the Notre Dame football of the television world. Great tradition, they don't pay, they win one high-profile game and suddenly "they're back."

 

This is a great call. I might have posted this before, but Family Guy is better-suited for a 15-minute show, a la Robot Chicken. It almost always runs out of steam in the final third.

As for SNL, it should just go half an hour every week. The Thursday night episodes have been really good.

 

Only in reruns.

 

GBNF, SNL hasn't been consistently great since before you were born.

The late 1980s/early 1990s crew of Carvey, Hartman, Nealon, etc. had some really funny moments. But then In Living Color's first season (spring 1990) blew it out of the water. Only 30 minutes long (with much of that devoted to the cheesy Fly Girls), and with a lot of stuff more "edgy and hip" than SNL, which has always relied way too much on the popularity of a few skits, and run them into the ground.

I didn't watch MAD TV much, but it also was wise in that it was only an hour long.

ILC never recaptured that first season. But I'd say that was the moment when the spotlight shone on just how staid SNL had become. It has never recovered. And hell yes, it has trouble finishing skits. Good ideas go on for too long and become horrendous ideas.

But hey, keep those hip-hop music skits coming, SNL. You're only about 20 years late for that particular trend.

 

Word for word.

 

I think they only show one of the songs.

 

Mr Down,

When in doubt, blame a Canadian.

YD&OHS, etc

 

I remember watching the very first Saturday Night Live show. I turned to my roommate and said, "Ya know, they used to be a lot funnier."

 

So, you mean the one on ABC with Howard Cosell, right?

Because what became what we now call "Saturday Night Live" on NBC was first called "NBC's Saturday Night." Hence, the opening: "Live from New York, it's 'Saturday Night.' "

And yes, I know what you meant. Just educating the young kids out there.

;D