SNL :Saturday Night Live (Dead?)
 

I use to think SNL was worth watching.....maybe 5
or 6 years ago. The skits seemed funny,the guys &
gals had talent and the writers were turning out some
pretty good stuff. It seems that everything has hit
bottom in these recent years and I am wondering
if anyone watches the unfunny show to the end ? I
turn it off about half way. I'm also wondering why
NBC has not cancelled it. Any comments?:confused:

I can't find more current ones, but SNL still gets decent Nielsens. It also is an incubator for Lorne Michael's movie productions. In other words, it still makes money.

People lamented that SNL was dead and unfunny when they fired all the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players...

I actually think SNL has become more culturally relevant in the last year than it was in previous years; their Barack/Hillary stuff is great, and has garnered them a lot of attention in other media: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/ar...prod=permalink for instance.

I enjoy it much more now than I used to--Amy Poehler is hilarious.

Last time SNL was funny was in the early-mid 90's. Come to think of it, those were the days when Comedy Central was brand new, and they were about the only things shown on the channel.

Um, Jimmy Fallon left. We can stop asking that SNL be cancelled now.

They lost my interest after Farley/Hartman/Carvey/all of those people left in various fashions in the 90's. The only thing that I found consistently funny on the more recent reruns that I have seen is the Celebrity Jeopardy bit with Will Farrell.

Andy Samburg and Bill Hader are Hilarious. I used to watch the show just for weekend update but lately, not so much.

SNL is cyclical.

They have a brilliant cast

They have an average cast

The have a brilliant cast

They have an average cast.

It's the rythem of the show.

The most irritating bandwagon jumping I've ever seen is when people say "SNL hasn't been funny since - insert year- " Now... I know it's not always gold, but I think there are a lot of diamonds in the rough. It's rare when a whole episode is garbage these days and the current cast is excellent.

The Digital Shorts are at least 80% amazing. I think the show could be a lot funnier if they weren't limited by Lorne Michaels' tyrannical sketch selection process.

I fully agree with that. It is the writing and not the cast that ultimately determines how good it is.
and for my share I am not on that bandwagon as I have no idea at all how funny it is now personally; I just stopped watching involuntarily in the mid-late 90's because of the military shipboard life and have never made an attempt or been unable to watch a full episode since then.
Unfortunately the few select isolated newer clips I have seen were mostly stinkers and no doubt have dampened any admittedly low desire in the first place to watch the current version. No idea who the current cast is even (is Tim Meadows still on there?).

edit: to put my opinion simply on the 'best years' - first seasons best, early-mid 90's good overall, anything else around those years ???????

Anyways, enough rambling...........wanders off elsewhere

I thought the writers were the cast. Or is it some of the cast are writers and some of the writers aren't cast?

there are a lot of non-actors writing sketches, but the general unwritten rule of SNL has always been that you need to write sketches if you want to stay on as an actor. most repeating characters (Wayne's World, Hans and Frans, etc., etc.) were written by the actors to try to give themselves more air time

The last time that they said SNL isn't what it used to be was right before the Farley/Carvey/Hartman years...
I'm hoping for a another revival of SNL soon!

Personally I liked the beginning Chase/Radner/Belushi years best!

Were the first few seasons all written by the cast? I know that was a great group of actors with a rich improv background.

I really liked the string of guests when the show came back post-strike: Tina Fey, Ellen Page, Amy Adams. I suppose them all being cute yet intelligent and underrated actresses may have had something to do with it. I haven't watched it since.

I still think the people now are NOT FUNNY! All of the Funny
people are all dead now. Some were shot,some took too
much dope and died,some were too fat and their hearts had
too big of a job to do. Too bad but they are not worth watching!
As for the movies that are produced: Only funny one was the
first Mike Myers film.

SNL's problem is it peaked in the late 70's.

Not every skit from then was good, not every skit after was horrible, and their fake adds have always been very good, but that group of actors/comedians was the best over all group they had at any single moment.