The "problem" with SNL

[GBNF]

I just watched the Wahlberg/Samberg sketch on Hulu, and I think I know why I can't watch SNL anymore.

Everything was going great, I was cracking up and then bam, it hit a wall. The skit ran an extra 15 seconds longer than i needed to, complete with that douchebag Samberg running away like an idiot, and it completely ruined it.

When the show was funny, every skit was tight, every second of the sketch was needed. Sure, there were some duds, as there are bound to be, bu I never remember scenes going long for the sake of going long. It's like a writer who knows how to use words just right compared to the one who won't STFU.

Kind of like me right now. So I'll stop.
Now.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

You just had to go and throw that 'Now" in there, didn't ya?

 

[heyabbott]

The problem with SNL is that it is 20 minutes of very good material, 20 minutes of good material and 10 minutes of music in a 90 minute show. defintely about 30 minutes too long.

 

[mustangj17]

Sandberg is better than that no talent ass clown Fred Armisan.

 

[txsportsscribe]

The problem with SNL is that it is 20 minutes of very good material, 20 minutes of good material and 10 minutes of music in a 90 minute show. defintely about 30 minutes too long.

didn't snl drop from 90 minutes to 60 minutes a long time ago? like a couple of decades?

 

[CentralIllinoisan]

The skits were well-timed, not too many that dragged on ... that's key. You really can't go wrong when you err on the side of short. If it fails, you move on. If you kill, you leave 'em wanting more ... and you can always provide it in future episodes.

My post from the Oct. 4 SNL, which I feel is by far the best of the season.

 

[Trey Beamon]

It's not that funny anymore.

 

[txsportsscribe]

hmmm, i could've sworn snl went to 60 minutes a long time ago but apparently not. maybe at my age i just fall asleep before the show ends.

 

[crimsonace]

The reruns are usually 60 minutes long (usually omit the musical guest and some of the last 30-minutes skits), but SNL has always been 90 minutes.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

They don't do nearly enough timely sketches. In the past, especially in election years, they would do 45 minutes of timely stuff, have Update and then fill in with the non-timely stuff after Update.

I saw an interview with David Spade where he said the problem is that the cast doesn't write stuff for each other anymore. They're too obsessed with creating starring vehicles for themselves in the hopes of getting a spinoff movie. MacGruber is the perfect example of this.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

You also see this in second-generation Family Guy episodes. Jokes and flashbacks were concise and snappy. The current crop, most of them go anywhere from 10-60 seconds too long; no small accomplishment for a 22-minute show. You can almost see where the writers would have stopped the scene had this been an original-era episode.

 

[ArnoldBabar]

SNL bits have ALWAYS gone on longer than they should. Always. We just tend to remember our favorite specific moments and we see the classics in brief clips.

I think if you went back and watched the skits you remember as your all-time favorites in their entirety, you'd find they petered out at the end. It's kind of like a hallmark of the show.

 

[Double Down]

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 ****.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

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 ****.

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

 

[DanOregon]

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."

 

[playthrough]

The reruns are usually 60 minutes long (usually omit the musical guest and some of the last 30-minutes skits), but SNL has always been 90 minutes.

Actually the reruns usually don't omit the musical guest, which has always puzzled me. Who watches an SNL rerun for the music?

 

[BYH]

You also see this in second-generation Family Guy episodes. Jokes and flashbacks were concise and snappy. The current crop, most of them go anywhere from 10-60 seconds too long; no small accomplishment for a 22-minute show. You can almost see where the writers would have stopped the scene had this been an original-era episode.

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.

 

[crusoes]

The problem with SNL is that it is 20 minutes of very good material, 20 minutes of good material and 10 minutes of music in a 90 minute show. defintely about 30 minutes too long.

didn't snl drop from 90 minutes to 60 minutes a long time ago? like a couple of decades?

Only in reruns.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

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.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

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 ****.

Word for word.