maybe this has been posted already. a long read but worth it.


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource...elebs.html

Some 'SNL' fans aren't wild and crazy about shift to celeb parodies

Monday, January 31, 2005

By DAVE ITZKOFF
THE NEW YORK TIMES

NEW YORK -- On the Nov. 20 broadcast of "Saturday Night Live," cast members Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler, playing troubled celebrities Diana Ross and Anna Nicole Smith, lurched across the stage, sporting gala attire and looks of bewildered inebriation. The two actresses were appearing in a skit called "The American Trainwreck Awards," honoring the "most embarrassing moments in American entertainment."

In groups of two, other "SNL" cast members performed dead-on impersonations of scandal-plagued figures such as Tara Reid and Mickey Rourke, reading off the names of nominees such as Courtney Love, Nick Nolte and Janet Jackson.

The skit perfectly summarized what has become the dominant form of humor on "Saturday Night Live": parodies of the foibles of hapless celebrities. In recent months, both Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan have appeared on "Weekend Update," which is generally devoted to political humor, to poke fun at their party-girl reputations. When Reid, the buxom B-list starlet, popped out of her peek-a-boo party dress at a birthday party for Sean Combs in November, the slip-up was parodied in not one but two separate skits that were seen on successive weeks. Meanwhile, the show's highly coveted guest-host slots now frequently go to the kind of performers -- Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, Janet Jackson -- who seem to have arrived straight out of the pages of Us Weekly.

Veterans of "SNL," as well as longtime fans, wonder whether a show that once built skits around Chevy Chase's impression of President Gerald Ford or sui generis characters like Gilda Radner's Emily Litella can still be regarded as dangerous or inventive when it now takes aim at sitting ducks like Britney Spears.

"It's such a safe, wishy-washy target, as opposed to going after the powers that be," said Adam McKay, an "SNL" writer from 1995 to 2001, and its head writer from 1996 to 1999. "We always knew that the No. 1 reason the show exists is to do impersonations of the president, our leaders, the Donald Trumps of the world -- the people who need to be made fun of. And the show works when you do that, and it doesn't work when you don't do that." By emphasizing broad comedy about celebrity culture, McKay said, "SNL" had ceded considerable ground to popular rivals, such as Comedy Central's "Daily Show With Jon Stewart."

Some of the show's most devoted viewers agree. "With all the tabloids and 'Access Hollywood' entertainment shows, we're already pounded on with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan," said Heather O'Neill, co-author of a weekly critique of "SNL" for the pop-culture blog whatevs.org. "When that starts being brought into a show that's supposed to be controversial, it makes me lose interest in it." Whereas "SNL" writers of previous eras could generate "an entire sketch out of nothing," said her writing partner, Jason Nummer, "now they're based on whoever the paparazzi are targeting."

Of course, "Saturday Night Live" is a franchise that viewers love to disparage even as they organize their weekend plans around it. Now in its 30th season on NBC, the late-night variety series has been criticized for being sophomoric and uneven for roughly 29 and a half of them, even as it continues to deliver high ratings and mint new comedic stars.

Lorne Michaels, the creator of "SNL" and its executive producer for 25 of its 30 years, warned against wallowing too deeply in nostalgia for the show's formative years, when giants such as Lily Tomlin and Dick Cavett served as hosts.

"If it was the same group of people as when it started in 1975," he said, "we'd all just be sitting in a room, staring at each other." Without specifically citing competitors such as "The Daily Show," he said that, as a network series, "SNL" had a larger mission to fulfill. "We're a big-tent show," Michaels said. "We bring a coalition of tastes. A cable show can do a 1 rating and be enormously popular. We're not that show. People who are staying to watch 'Update,' or the people who want to see the music, or the people hoping we do a political sketch, all those audiences have to coexist." (Ratings for "SNL" are as strong as ever, with this season's live broadcasts drawing from 6 million to 9 million viewers each.)

But there is one group in particular that Michaels considers to be the show's core audience. "I used to say that the longest four years of your life are high school," he said, "and that's when people generally form an attachment to 'Saturday Night Live.' " He said the show did not look for hosts to reach specific viewers, but rather stars "who we think we could do a good show around -- that when they come out that door, there's a real excitement in the studio."

Tina Fey, one of two head writers for "SNL" and the author of "The American Trainwreck Awards" sketch, said that the show's sensibility was simply too immediate and its production schedule too chaotic for a formula to dictate its contents. Writers may draw their material from celebrity tabloids scattered around their offices. ("They're like pornography," she joked. "That's how disgusting you feel.") But more than anything, they are inspired by a fundamental, Darwinian desire to get their material onto the air. "Everyone's trying to figure out their road to job security," Fey said. "It's almost like one of those experiments with pigeons pecking at things to get food, and if you peck at something and get food, you're going to keep pecking at it."

In a given week, Fey said, about 20 writers (for many of whom "SNL" represents their first television job) gather on Monday morning to pitch ideas for that Saturday's show. Sketches are written late into Tuesday night, and at a Wednesday read-through, some 40 skits are presented for about 10 available slots. "Thirty sketches a week fall into oblivion," she said. If more topical material tends to survive this process, Fey said, it's because audiences tend to react more strongly to it. "Responding to the events of the week is part of what keeps the show interesting," she said. "People know that it's live and can respond to that."

The show's embrace of celebrity travails may have been speeded by the May 2002 departure of Will Ferrell, who took an entourage of recurring characters with him. "He was a huge alpha male," said James Andrew Miller, the author, with Tom Shales, of the book "Live From New York," an oral history of "SNL." "You just stick him in the middle of a sketch and you can't take your eyes off him." When Fey started at "SNL" in 1997, the show was dominated by its recurring characters -- say, the high-school cheerleaders played by Ferrell and Molly Shannon, or Mango, the male stripper portrayed by Chris Kattan.

As co-anchor of "Weekend Update," Fey said that the inherent disposability of celebrity gossip made it a perfect fit for the show's fake-news segment. "You don't want to spend the time and effort on a whole sketch about that," she said, "but on 'Update' you can try it and cut it if it's not funny." To the extent that celebrity culture has taken up more airtime on "SNL," Fey said that the show was simply reflecting celebrity's domination of the national consciousness. "We're becoming like Spanish-language television," she said. "Everyone is a movie star, and has a record album, and has a scandal."

Paradoxically, the surge of safe, celebrity-oriented material may also be the result of serious political and social concerns on the part of "SNL" writers. Hugh Fink, who wrote for the show from 1995 to 2002, said that the events of Sept. 11 had a significant impact on the program. "For the first time, there was discussion in the writers' room about, 'We can't do this sketch, because it could be perceived as racist or anti-Arab,' " Fink recalled. "And I'd never heard those discussions in an 'SNL' writing room before."

McKay added that post-9/11 patriotism, along with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had made "SNL" reluctant to take hard shots at President Bush, an unwillingness that he feels persists at the show today. "In the name of political fairness or some odd sense of patriotism, Lorne has laid off the president for the last couple of years, and I don't agree with that move," he said. Instead, both writers said, "SNL" has relied on pop-culture skits, which, while occasionally caustic, never really run the risk of offending anyone.

The show's comedy also may be driven by its guest hosts. In between perennial guest hosts such as Steve Martin and John Goodman, "SNL" has always relied on hosts whose fame belonged to a specific moment in time -- 2004's Jessica Simpson is 1987's Angie Dickinson is 1979's Kate Jackson. While these sorts of hosts may draw high ratings, they may not be deft at live comedy. "It's the one place where you have to be really, really careful, because you could get the teenage bimbette du jour," Miller said.

The inevitable results, say the former "SNL" staffers, are lackluster shows that can't be salvaged even by a couple of memorable skits. "You can have all these ostensibly great, writerly pieces," Fink said. "They're not got to make a dent if the people performing them aren't more than mediocre."

© 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The problem and fact is that SNL is now a corporation, where back in the 70's The Not Ready for Prime Time Players were still very young and new and finding their footing.

They just happened to stumble upon brilliance, and because of that freedom it's inevitable that the money making SNL of now is compared to it.

There's a definite reason why that seems so fresh compared to now, because then you could get away with a lot more and they weren't afraid of anything-in their minds I don't think they thought anyone was really watching the first year.

It's always been about making the guest look good, but you notice how they took so many more chances in the 70's and even 80's and now it just seems to be the rehash of the same characters that got at least a chuckle.

Other than Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler, I can't really see any reason why SNL really has to continue other than it's such a huge part of our culture.

you know, as a second city student who sees tons of just grotesquely brilliant and funny people all the time, i find it absolutely CRIMINAL that SNL has sunk to the state it's in today, especially considering they've encountered this kind of creative morass in the past, and they managed to find a way to pull their morass out of the fire, so to speak, by - *GASP!* - hiring funny, fresh, uniquely talented writers and performers! in the early/mid '90s, when will ferrell, cheri oteri, and molly shannon were at their peak on the show, it had come damn close to repeating the glory days of the show - it was irreverent again, and weird, and they could create offbeat, silly humor without having to rely solely on pop culture and current events. the show as it stands now is like a third-rate senior talent show, with little imagination, charm, or desire to take risks. it's really too bad, though i do have hope against hope that it'll reconnect with itself again someday and make with the funny.

They still do Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld. (Anyone see that Apprentice skit with Bush and Co.? LMAO!) They have had McCain on as a host etc.

They also have some very talented people on the show.

It's beats the hell out of those Wayne World's years...

Also the Hardball guy is great.

for me, the show officially jumped the shark for the 23,683rd time when they let tracy morgan go, unannounced, on the same end-of-season show that they made a huge deal about chris kattan leaving. that was cold - especially considering how much funnier morgan was than kattan that season. not only was that unfair, but i haven't found the show a fraction as funny since he left the show.










and brian fellows is pissed about it too!!!

Anxiety said:

Exactly.

Hopefully Second City will play a big part in it and some of those folks will have a chance to change things.

Even though unfortunately I think the corporate side of SNL is now larger than the creative many times.

Anxiety said:

I was thinking that too-Tracy was so underused in his years on the shows.

It's a shame-he always had some really inventive things that woke the show up.

Other than Brian Fellows there wasn't a built in catchphrase, so I guess that's why he was out.

what's wrong with SNL...is the lack of this...


WHat's this I hear about Endangered Feces...I have never heard of such a thing!


oh nevermind!

Anxiety said:

I have to say that when Adam Sandler was on...that era was funny.

To me it was the beginning (of course) and then The "eddie Murphy" era. And little after...maybe with Dana Carvey (Church Lady) and Mike Myers...but that was about it.

subhuman09 said:

sometimes i wonder if they didn't give him the boot because his talent and sense of humor challenged the 'middle of the road' easy-laughs formula the show was starting to sink toward. i mean, at least in my opinion, the guy could make any stupid sketch on that show instantly funnier...and not just by breaking character and giggling, which horatio sanz seems to do so well (and i have to admit, i think the guy is funny in a guilty-pleasure, class-clown kinda way).

superspaceboy said:

Gilda!

Gilda in any form-Emily Litella or otherwise is definitely missed.

They went soft on politics after 9/11. "The Daily Show", and ohters, played up catch up nicely but it seems like SNL just doesn't want to offend Bush. After Will Ferrell left, it took them way too long to find a good replacement. The one guy that had in between Ferrell and the guy on now was just terrrible and sadly, poked fun at Bush. They showed their bias there, big time! BTW, "The Simpsons", which seems to be super liberal, has NEVER featured Bush in a parody but featured Clinton very often, and Bush 1.0 a fair amount of time.

Not just the politics, but the show's skits are very repitious and lack anything new. You can see the jokes coming from a mile away. Everything is way too safe. The only person that has any real comic potenial is Hartio Sanz, and unfornately, he seems to be under used since Jimmy Fallon left. There are a whole lot of problems with SNL right now.
[Edited 1/31/05 14:37pm]

Anxiety said:

Brain Fellows was pretty funny but it basically showed just how repitious the show is. Chris Kattan, I think in his last season, did this one skit where was a lounge act and it was paint by numbers! Very painful. Yeah, Kattan's last few years sucked big time. What I think happaned was that after his movie tanked, he figured he'd be off the show that year but it didn't work out. He probably thought he was better than SNL (and most of the time he was) so he layed back and was only a bit player in a lot of things.

The real reason is a lack of talent.

Jimmy Fallon et al are totally UNFUNNY and cannot hold the slightest of flames to the glory days of Belushi, Radner and Murray, etc.

I pretty much hate SNL by now.

.
[Edited 1/31/05 15:13pm]

If things were right, SNL would have ended after the 1979 season and SCTV would still be on the air.

What a nice alternate universe.

There must be a nostalgia factor working here.

I just don't get Belushi, Radner, and Chase.

I didn't think they were funny at all.

Maybe because what they were doing was new or different?

Not that I'm praising the new seasons, but hasn't it always been pretty much this level?

It's not like when they did more political stuff it was incredibly cutting edge or biting.

And don't get me started on Dan Ackroyd...

2the9s said:

no it's not just the ancient days....back with will farrel and co even in the 90s the show was MUCH funnier. the latest crew just doesn't cut the cheese at all for me. there's a distinct lack of professionalism to the comedy....it's like Mad TV now....it's cheap laughs and bad acting/comedy if you ask me.

mrdespues said:

actually, madTV has been leaving SNL in the dust over the past few years...and that's not to say that i think madTV is that great - but it at least makes me laugh really hard every now and then.

Anxiety said:

My partner loves MAD tv...doesn't think SNL is funny at all.

???for those P fans out there (there are a few on here right?) Is the Theme song for Mad TV done by Prince?

2the9s said:

Not that I found those you mentioned terribly funny either...but there were others like Jane Curtain and Gildna Radner that could have me in stitches. It was odd humor...not your typical stuff you see now. A parody here and there (anyone recall Samaurai Night fever) but not all parody...and most parody was out there.

Aside form Jane and Gilda and the occasional Jim...I liked the second cast much more. It was less wierd but much more biting and it seemed new and exciting.

superspaceboy said:

it was partly WRITTEN by Prince.

superspaceboy said:

I'm not that much of an aficionado, what do you mean by the second cast? Who was in that?

mrdespues said:

Yes...but the music and the way they sing it is almost the same.

superspaceboy said:

SNL cast members have often mentioned being influence by weird off the wall silly but intelligent comedy like the sketch comedy of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Sadly that kind of influence has completely left the show these days.

.
[Edited 1/31/05 16:02pm]

i don't think the original cast of SNL would have been remembered as half of what it was without the genius of mike "mr. mike" o'donoghue, who in my opinion is one of the funniest writers of anything to have lived in the 20th century. this guy wasn't just funny - he brought a kind of irreverence to mainstream television comedy that just wasn't there before. he was subversive, transgressive, rebellious, risk-taking as hell and he was genius enough to know how to translate "dangerous" humor to network television, while still maintaining a reputation of being a little bit "out there"...

for those who don't know much about mr. mike, there's a great biography of him that you can probably find cheap on half.com or amazon...here's a little bit of info i found on google:

http://www.saturday-night...-mike.html

i'm not saying that over-the-top, bizarro humor should dominate shows like SNL and madTV, but i do think there should be a balance of pop culture stuff, schticky physical humor, gross-out comedy, etc. etc. etc. - and that balance has gone WAY out of whack, due to what translates to me as complacency and laziness.

Anxiety said:

"Gross-out humor is more in vogue these days. It's easy to write one-liners about [the president's sex life], but I wish I could see more dark stuff. Our times demand that."

- that's very, very true. there should be more darkness with light added to SNL...keep it irreverent.

superspaceboy said:

yep. he may have made the basic tracks and had other vocalists take it.