I'm Sorry - But Saturday Night Live Just Isn't Funny Anymore......

[global1]

Even Jim Carrey couldn't save it tonight. The funniest cast member of the show is Kenan Thompson and they don't put him in many bits anymore.

SNL needs a do over.

[JI7]

1. wasn't it never that funny, at least not consistently funny

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. it was very funny the first few years. 1979, 1980

[bvf]

14. Agreed. Haven't watched in ages

except for a brief check-in occasionally.

The first couple of seasons were terrific, from the bizarre humor of Michael O'Donohue to the inspired oddness of John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and so many others.

[closeupready]

60. Yes - Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Jane Curtin, Gilda, Dan Ackroyd ...

They were all geniuses of comedy. And they knew how to be risque without going too far, for late night TV. Haven't really enjoyed it since, though occasionally there will be a funny person or skit - for example, Tina Fey and her Sarah Palin imitation, or Amy Poehler.

[joshcryer]

18. Yup, everyone remembers "SNL of yesteryear" being funnier.

But it was never funny to the audience that it was targeted to, only after the fact, nostalgia funny.

[SomethingFishy]

48. +1, my sons love the current SNL.. I haven't liked it since

the Eddie Murphy days... And I still think there was nothing better than the Belushi/Murray days...

[joeglow3]

67. I think you are right

I LOVED the SNL of the late 80's/early 90's, when I was in middle and high school. Haven't liked it too much since then.

[shenmue]

2. I haven't watched it in years

[shanti]

31. me neither

i remember in the 70's (before cable) when it was THE show to watch every week. "two wild and crazy guys"...lol

[Algernon Moncrieff]

3. SNL is phasic

..or perhaps "cyclical" is a better term. It is hilarious, then gets unfunny, then finds new young cast members no one has heard of, who save the show from being cancelled. The cycle then begins anew.

[AgingAmerican]

19. Bingo

nt

[tularetom]

4. You didn't have to include that "anymore"

It hasn't been funny since the late 90's IMO.

[WinkyDink]

5. The cast at least once used to learn their lines.

[Midwestern Democrat]

23. They've always read off the cards - nobody could memorize that much dialogue for a live broadcast

in that short a time - some cast members are just a lot more obvious about it than others.

[Ampersand Unicode]

40. It was funnier when they broke character

Best of this set: Gilda Radner (RIP) ad-libbing when Candice Bergen calls Gilda the wrong character name.

They even did a whole "meta" episode in the '70s where Charles Grodin basically broke the fourth wall all the way through.

Again, can't find on YouTube because NBC is a PITA with copyright.

[WinkyDink]

82. I've never been a fan of such lazy self-indulgence.

[Iggo]

7. ...isn't funny again.

Comes and goes.

[Initech]

8. I completely agree.

SNL the last few weeks has been completely unwatchable. Keenan Thompson is definitely the best member of the cast and he's incredibly under used. I miss the Will Ferrell and Mike Myers eras.

[nashville_brook]

9. the billionaire piece was pretty spot-on.

the Lincoln ads were pretty amazing. but the opener was super weak, factually incorrect and not funny.

god, what has become of my life that i actually know what was on SNL on saturday night?

[MFM008]

10. when it first started

it was must see TV you didn't miss it.

[southerncrone]

11. In my opinion, it's much improved since last year. But,

the writing is terrible. I actually feel the cast is quite good, they just don't have good material with which to work. All of the women are good, IMO they are holding it together. Michael Che is a welcome addition, too.

[Crunchy Frog]

12. Hasn't been funny since 1980.

[johnp3907]

45. Yep.

It went from being the coolest TV we could do on this side of the pond to hold it's own against the likes of Monty Python to being a spawning ground for Jim Carrey wannabes. The real Jim Carrey is painfully unfunny enough--do we really need an army of Sammy Petrillos of him???

(For the uninitiated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Petrillo)

[WhiteAndNerdy]

13. I've never been a regular viewer.

But it seems to me that the quality has always been spotty. Some seasons have been better than others, but it's never been reliably funny every time. One of the biggest weaknesses, in my opinion, is letting sketches get too long. There's a point where you've delivered the punchline or made the point and it's done, but often the sketches continue beyond that point, and then it's just frustrating to watch.

[hifiguy]

15. SNL has not been consistently funny

since the original cast and Michael O'Donoghue left.

[Politicalboi]

16. I'm liking it tonight

But this girl band SUCKS!!!!!!! WTF is this shit. I gave up on music a long time ago. Just about the time MTV came out. The song could be shit, but if you had a bitchin video, you made it. Most of these "singers" would be lost without electronics that change their voice and bands that appear from nowhere. Jim Carrey is great tonight, especially those Lincoln commercials.

[EX500rider]

73. "But this girl band SUCKS!!!!"

Certainly not iggy's best material....she's an Australian who moved to Miami when she was growing up....worked at strip clubs for awhile.. (my gf loves her)

What does Australian rapper Iggy Azalea have in common with the Beatles? As her tune “Fancy,” featuring Charli XCX, ascends to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and Ariana Grande’s “Problem,” featuring Azalea, rises 3-2, she becomes the only artist other than the Fab Four in the 56-year history of the chart to have her first two Hot 100 singles reach No. 1 and 2 concurrently.

Here's some of her better stuff:

?list=FLKmbj3XF1ryOYtieVrQey4g

[mucifer]

17. I did enjoy the show when they had Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin

Damn time flies.

[blm]

25. Tina's writing skills made the difference, too. Bigtime.

It always comes down to the writers.

[Le Taz Hot]

20. And to think, they started out with 7 cast members who were FUNNY.

Now they need 20 cast members to achieve the level of snooze. The show needs to be put out of it's misery.

[deutsey]

21. I remember watching the original cast in the '70s

The first two or three seasons were consistently funny (with some clunkers, of course).

I seem to recall that 1978 was their best year (Blues Brothers, the Julia Child skit, Olympia "Cheezbugah" Cafe, etc.), but it became very erratic in '79).

The new cast that followed them was incredibly awful. If Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo (sp?) hadn't come along, I think the show would've gone off the air.

It's been up and down ever since, although I haven't seen an episode in a decade or so, so I can't say what the show is like now. Aside from Tina Fey and some others, I haven't been impressed by what I've seen.

[Ampersand Unicode]

38. What about the middle-1980s and 1990s casts?

Not the abysmal "Brat Pack" season from '84-'85 where Lorne Michaels attempted to be late-night's John Hughes... by literally poaching young actors (Robert Downey, Joan Cusack, Anthony Michael Hall) from John Hughes movies. I mean the span lasting roughly from '86 to '96 with Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman (RIP), Jan Hooks (RIP), Nora Dunn, Mike Myers, and closeted wingnuts Dennis Miller and Victoria Jackson. Later to add Rob Schneider, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Tim Meadows, Norm MacDonald, and Darrell Hammond.

I loved the Jeopardy skits with Ferrell as Trebek and Hammond as Connery. Hammond remains one of the great impressionists to come out of that show, along with Carvey (eat it, Fallon). Norm was great as Burt Reynolds. Sandler wasn't that great IMHO and is really only remembered for his movies and the "Hanukkah Song." But the eighties cast had a bunch of hits, like Church Lady, Mephistopheles, Subliminal Message Guy, Coffee Talk, Wayne's World (and the movie), Pathological Liar, The Sweeney Sisters, Making Copies, Sprockets, Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts, Lothar of the Hill People, and David Spade's "And you are...?".

The '80s cast remains one of the best ensembles in my opinion, on par with the original Not Ready group.

Agree with you too that Joe and Eddie were about the only thing saving the early '80s years. Kenan could be a new Eddie if only they'd let him. I can totally see him doing something similar to "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" only nowadays it probably might not be considered P.C.

[deutsey]

50. Yeah, it's been up and down over the years

Last edited Sun Oct 26, 2014, 07:05 PM - Edit history (1)

I loved the early '90s with Wayne's World, Caveman Lawyer, etc. I even liked Dennis Miller in small doses. I never understood how Victoria Jackson found herself on the cast. The only thing I remember her in that was tolerable was Toonces, and that's because Steve Martin and a cat puppet stole the scene from her.

[d_r]

52. Eddie Murphy

[blm]

22. Thankful to see that Michael O'Donoghue is getting some credit here.

Many familiar with SNL have noted that when O'Donoghue left, the show's integrity was left diminished. There have been occasional bright spots, but, the last consistent writing influence since was Tina Fey.

Many people may be unaware that O'Donoghue's precise wording style was a great influence on some of today's sharpest humorists and personalities posted quite often here at DU, like Borowitz and Colbert. O'Donoghue's manager took on a young talent in the early 90s and helped set his path......a guy named Jon Stewart.

[nolabear]

44. Brilliant, brilliant man.

Writing was mean as a snake. I love that.

[blm]

54. and, yet, he could also be the sweetest thing on earth....

and I was fortunate enough to have known that side, as well.

[nolabear]

71. I don't doubt it for a minute. It was art.

For some reason it's hard to find truly edgy stuff now. Maybe the edge is too far out.

[blm]

72. heheh...well....it would be hard to find a new edge that hadn't been

discovered after MO'D. Or delivered with the elegance and precision.

[kwassa]

63. I hated Michael O'Donoghue. He was the worst thing about early SNL.

His humor was sick, not funny.

[blm]

69. PJ O'Rourke (R-Jealous) is that you?

yes....a continuing joke.

BTW - some of the world's greatest and most influential humorists were considered 'sick' or 'mean' or 'dark' at the time. Actually - they were honest observers of humanity.

[Logical]

24. As people get older they find it less funny. nt

[Art_from_Ark]

74. I found it marginally funny even as a teenager

It was all the rage for a while at my high school, but I never really got into it. Then, during one particularly dreary episode, I started channel surfing and came across a program with the most bizarre name-- "Monty Python's Flying Circus". After that, I could never go back to SNL.

[Logical]

75. I like that also. nt

[underpants]

26. I highly recommend Tom Davis"s autobiography

No real dirt on SNL but he stuck around on the writing staff for a long time. Some really funny stories about Aykroyd, Franken, and others. Davis was painfully honest in the book. Davis is the reason the Grateful Dead got on SNL and that almost got really ugly between the union NBC crew and the Deads' crew.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Thirty_Nine_Years_of_Short_Term_Memory_L.html?id=iiL93SnIyAMC

[procon]

27. What happened to the edgy, biting satire on the bleeding edge of a lawsuit?

Besides the occasion video clip, I haven't watched it for many years. When SNL was ripping good fun, it was also in your face and holding some idiot public figure up for public mockery and humiliation, much in the same vein as Jon Stewart's clever wit and tongue in cheek humor. Now, its more like peeking into the teenage boy's locker room... too much barf, beer and boobies.

[Ampersand Unicode]

39. The presidential impressions were the best

...up until Will Ferrell as Dubya. Ferrell plays an idiot in all of his movies anyway, so it only seemed natural for him to play our functionally retarded White House occupant. All of the Obama ones have been lousy.

I submit that Aykroyd's Nixon remains the best. Can't find it on YouTube because NBC is a copyright troll.

[bigwillq]

28. Saw through the News last night, and I agree

Just wasn't funny. Tuned in because I love Jim Carrey, but his material was pretty bad. It really has gone downhill in a big way.

[RadicalGeek]

29. When Was It Ever?

Or maybe it's that I don't like my comedy with a heaping helping of stupid!

[B Calm]

30. I find it funny, but only after smoking my one hitter.

[AndreaCG]

32. SCTV and Mad TV were far superior

And it's not due to the fact that they were taped and SNL is live. It's because they had better writing, better characters and knew two things: when to end sketches and how to keep recurring characters fresh. Even in SNL's better years it frequently let its sketches go on too long. Mad TV would occasionally mock this tendency by having a performer break character and call the skit out.

I did watch part of last night's SNL because weekend update is usually funny. I found the sketches I watched, about Jim Carrey's family and the graveyard sketch, to be well conceived and not badly performed, but nevertheless I laughed maybe once. So something was off in the actual creation of jokes. Weekend update didn't make me laugh this week either, and I found the same situation with the romance movie lover parody - good concept, not badly performed, didn't laugh.

While better writers might help, ultimately Lorne Michaels needs to step down and let someone with a fresh outlook take over.

Oh yes, is the heavy woman gone this year? If so, too bad. She was good and it only took about 38 years for SNL to cast a fat woman rather than have the numerous fat men wear drag in sketches.

[Ampersand Unicode]

35. Aidy Bryant is her name

I'm too young to have seen SNL in all its glory and only catch occasional reruns on the comedy channel or online. Very difficult to find clips on YouTube because of NBC's anal-retentive copyright.

I only know her name because she was on Seth Meyers one night. I don't watch the show and can't say if she's still on. NBC has basically become the all-SNL, all-the-time channel as Michaels' proteges have taken over the late-night acts, and the majority of anything remotely watchable in primetime comes from Tina/Amy. I can't abide Pee Wee Fallon, though, and find Meyers insufferably boring.

I've seen a few reruns of "SCTV," though. Makes me miss John Candy all the more. And I wasn't even alive yet when he died.

Regarding Thompson, though, had you ever seen Nickelodeon's "All That," considered the "teen's SNL"? He has obviously come a lot further in his career than Amanda Bynes. Did you like Carrey on "In Living Color"?

[closeupready]

61. I don't remember Mad TV but SCTV will hands down the funniest

show ever, or one of, that I recall. Even now, Catherine O'Hara needs merely show up, and I'll laugh. I really miss that era.

[a kennedy]

79. Shoot, I'm sorry, I just posted another thread about SCTV....

Last edited Tue Feb 16, 2021, 01:13 AM - Edit history (1)

No comparison in my humble opinion, SCTV is just soooooooooo much better and funnier then any SNL show.

[Lex]

33. Jim Carrey isn't funny

and SNL can be off and on funny, depending on the skits.

[Ampersand Unicode]

36. Carrey was funny doing a Vanilla Ice impression

...that kind of tells you how far back we're going, though.

Saw this on the National Geographic 1990s special that Rob Lowe narrated. (Sequel to the '80s one.)

Apologies for quality of video.

[Lex]

41. Okay, true. And "In Living Color" the Wayans show

probably Jim Carrey's first show---on that show he was funny.

[d_r]

53. first lead role

was "The Duck Factory" on NBC in 1984.

[AndreaCG]

57. Yeah that was a good show too.

The Wayans brothers pretty much peaked there unfortunately. Key and Peele is a good contemporary sketch show, which isn't surprising cause they're Mad TV alumni.

[6000eliot]

34. The opening sketch could have been written from Fox News talking points.

In fact, it probably was. It's worst offense, however, was that it didn't have a single remotely funny thing to say until Kenan Thompson showed up as Al Sharpton, and that was the end of the sketch.

[CBGLuthier]

37. I have not watched it since Phil Hartman left. So i sure as hell agree.

[otohara]

42. I Thought The Matthew McConaughey Ads

were hysterical.

Bill Hader was awesome last week.

Next week Prince and Chris Rock - YEAH baby

[maced666]

46. OMG did they do those?! I missed it!

Yahoo screen has been republishing, will check -
Just that I was telling a friend last week that those specific commercials were BEGGING for SNL skit - they don't do many, can't wait to see them!

[AndreaCG]

58. That may have been the one time I laughed.

[kwassa]

66. I thought they were very funny, too.

I also enjoyed the skit with the Carrey impersonations by the rest of the cast.

[Hatchling]

43. It would have been a lot funnier if Sarah Palin became VP

But we would be a whole lot sadder than we are now.

[maced666]

47. Probably had a skit poking fun at progressives or dems.

Some hate it when this is done though laughing at yourself can be good medicine.
Still, whenver SNL or South Park does this - or, Bill Maher, they are all three shit until they get back to exposing repubs -
Then all three are heroes again.
It's a cycle, often repeated.

[Aerows]

49. Kenan Thompson and Kate McKinnon

are the only ones that are funny anymore, and you never see them.

[Purveyor]

51. I couldn't agree more and have often thought of starting a thread on the subject

just as you did.

[valerief]

55. Hasn't been funny for several decades. nt

[stevenleser]

56. It's always funny for current twenty-somethings. That's its target audience. nt

[AndreaCG]

59. That's unfortunate, Steve.

Cause good comedy appeals to pretty much all ages. Even kids, though they miss some of the references and innuendos.

[SoCalDem]

62. It hasn't been funny for decades

The sketches go on and on and on and on..
I can almost smell the flop-sweat

[Mira]

64. I gave up on it when Bush left the White House

and until then, I only watched the opening sketch for many years.
SNL has been a hasbeen forever in my book.

[kwassa]

65. SNL is exactly as funny as it ever has been. It has been good and bad forever.

There are flashes of brilliance, and lots of stupid, or just weird.

People sentimentalize their era when they watched the show most, but all the way back in the 70s they had routines that just plain sucked.

[Judi Lynn]

68. People who saw it originally, enjoyed it enormously, and who have attempted to look in each season,

just in case they've turned a page and started improving, only to see it continually gets worse, and worse, and that those in charge have absolutely no pride, and that the writing itself leans strongly right-wing in political situations are disgusted beyond words, and CAN'T watch.

Unbelievable long-term deterioration of what was an outstanding program.

[City Lights]

76. IMO, it hasn't been funny in decades.

I don't even bother watching anymore.

[Warpy]

77. I'm utterly hopeless, I thought it was juvenile in the 1970s when it first came on

and I'm afraid the years have not improved it much. There have been some high spots, I'll admit, and it has been a great launching pad for some of our best comedians and comedic actors. However, it was just never for me.

[a kennedy]

78. Hope this wasn't mentioned.....but SCTV was soooooooo much funnier then SNL even back in the day....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075578/ These sketches were just very, very funny.


......... "As a previous poster has said, SNL and SCTV were both comedy sketch shows, but that's where the resemblance ends. SNL far too often descended into juvenile, and sometimes even infantile, humor and its casts were way too uneven. It had the brilliant and manic John Belushi, but it also had the mediocre Garrett Morris, who really didn't do much of anything. It had the gifted Gilda Radner, who could do damn near anything, but it also had Laraine Newman, who didn't do all that much, either, and many of the cast members in its later shows really had no business being there. SNL's cast did various running characters, but, with few exceptions, each person's character wasn't really distinguishable from the actor himself. SCTV had no such problems. John Candy's Johnny LaRue, Josh Shmenge and Gil Fisher ("The Fishin' Musician&quot were about as different from each other and Candy himself as you could possibly get, as were Rick Moranis' Doug McKenzie and Rabbi Yitzhak Karlov, Andrea Martin's Edith Prickley and Mrs. Falbo, etc. Another big difference between the two shows was the writing. Virtually every episode of SCTV was as sharp, incisive and devastatingly funny as anything that ever came out of television; SNL on the other hand could go for weeks without having a decent show, and in fact went for several YEARS in the '80s without having any even HALFWAY decent shows. SCTV integrated all of its guest stars into the actual storyline of the episode itself, with often surprising results (musicians Dr. John, Tony Bennett and Fee Waybill of the Tubes, for example, turned out to be quite good). SNL put its guest hosts into some of the sketches--with many of them obviously reading their lines off of cue cards--and most didn't acquit themselves particularly well.

One of SCTV's main strengths was that it gave its audience credit for having the intelligence to understand what it was trying to say and do, which was something that SNL often lost sight of, especially in its later years. And how could anyone forget such brilliant pieces as "Abbott and Costello in a Turkish Prison"; "Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses"; the side-splitting parody of "Ocean's 11" with the monumentally untalented Vegas schlock comic Bobby Bittman and his even less talented idiot son Skip; the hapless Count Floyd of "Monster Chiller Horror Theater", who--no matter how pathetic the movie ("Tonight's film: 'Bloodsucking Monkeys from West Mifflin, Pennsylvania'!&quot he was showing--always stubbornly claimed, "Oooh, wasn't that scary, kids?"; "The Sammy Maudlin Show"; "Farm Film Report" ("They blowed up real good!&quot ; the list goes on and on. Most of the sketches are so sharp, witty and clever that they don't date at all, even though they're almost 30 years old. SCTV set a high standard for sketch comedy, and so far no other show has measured up."

Just loved this show.....

[Bettie]

80. Funny is so subjective

That it is hard to make a mass market product that makes everyone laugh.

That said, I skip past most of it (DVR), but periodically, there is something on there that makes me and the husband laugh our butts off.

Plus, we like the fake news. And always laughed at Stefon on said fake news.

[WinkyDink]

81. "Anymore"?!

[B Calm]

83. Watching The Voice and 90% of the songs SUCK. Maybe we're just getting old

and not as easily entertained as when we were younger?

[JonLP24]

84. I loved that show Kenan & Kel

Even though it was designed and marketed towards teens & kids and re-watching old episodes there was certainly a lot of humor used that would have went over my head when I was in their targeted demographic and they still make me laugh which is what matters. I thought Kel was funnier so I think maybe they should have given him a shot but Kenan was always better at 'spoken' comedy where Kel was better at the 'action' comedy but both were great.

On edit - It is so hard to come up with new material which I think the key is writers. A lot of the cast mentioned were also writers but these days I think Seth Meyers is the head writer and Lorne Michaels is still with them which are the only 2 I recognize from any of their glory years. They always seemed to be more funny than not when Tina Fey was with them so I cut them off their as far as their glory years imo.