I've been ripping "Saturday Night Live" for decades for its godawful in-house live sketches that go nowhere, and it's insufferable 3-minute long "Here to comment on..." buzz kills during the otherwise often funny "Weekend Update".
Saturday Oct. 12th, they NAILED it. Their off-site, more professionally produced sketches and spoofs sometimes score pretty well, and this one really aced the test, featuring last night's host Ariana Grande nostalgically revisiting her childhood best friend's home; it runs 3:18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zejK1XHIDcI
OOOPS....copyright violation? Do I have to film my own pantomime and singing of the sketch, and post that instead?
SNL is always better when you see it in a couple of years...
Though this year... I'm doing more ff then watching. Not a fan of the funny songs.... One or two .. sure.
But when the show basically turns into a musical... Too much.
For me it's the spoofs on other tv/people or the political stuff.
Both are all but gone from the last couple of years.... Replaced by singing comedians.
The formula is such a routine now. Cold opening. Will be all Trump, Harris and the election until at least January. Monologue. Skit. Pre taped skit (music video or the goofy writers). Skit. Music 1. Weekend update. Skit. Another skit or music 2 depending on time. Skit. Roll credits.
Depending on the host it can absolutely seem like an evening at a musical. Like last weekend. When Nate Bargatze types host there is very little silly music. When the show hits, which it still does on occasion, it’s very funny. Does not happen often enough.
I have not been overly impressed with this season. Like anything, the first time the politicians appeared it was unique and funny. Gaffigan, Carvey, Samberg, good jobs. The Rudolph Kamala thing is old hat. But it's already stale and there isn't anything overly clever going on. I suppose the Family Feud bit was decent. I'm thankful the show is taking a break this week.
Rest of the skits have been hit and miss, mostly miss to me. Nothing new. I still watch and I still laugh quite a bit. And hoping for lots of surprises in S50. Guess we will see.
I've always been bugged by how they latch onto the Tik Tok flavor of the week freak show and make them a national figure; to wit, next weekend's musical guest Chappell Roan. Good god, save us.
I will never understand the appeal of Kenan Thompson, the cast's senior member. Even when he does an alleged impersonation of some celeb, he still uses the same voice, cadence, and expressions.
And why the show takes 2:20 to introduce its entire cast and obscure "featured" players before every show, whether they appear that night or not, always made me shake my head.
Lorne Michaels is clearly the most powerful man in network television. He kept SNL on the air for 50 years. He turned Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and Dennis Miller into late-night show hosts, despite Fallon being pretty much forgotten, reduced to doing bad movies like "Taxi" before being inexplicably handed the reins of the iconic "Tonight Show"....which Michaels pulled out of Burbank, returning it to the same building in Manhattan as SNL.
And his role in turning so many SNL alums into movie stars, mostly in awful films, is one of the great mysteries of pop culture history.
Good god, save us.