Is it me, or are SNL sketches 95% not funny?

[FidelCashflow]

I'm amazed how SNL has managed to be so long running, it seems like the current sketches are at least 90% not funny, just weird. I love comedy, and I think MadTV is 1000x better. Am I just missing something?

 

[ratboycom]

I think both MadTV and SNL pretty much have sucked the last couple years.
The first few seasons of MadTV were gold, though.

 

[DocHolliday]

I think SNL has always been a mixed bag, even in its best years, but folks remember the good and forget the bad. The current incarnation strikes me as a big improvement over the Will Ferrell era. Weekend Update is pretty consistently good these days.

 

[cpmac7]

I know that SNL just did this, but i think that they should fire their whole cast and go get like 12 of the top up and coming comedians and hire talented writers like they had in the 80's and early 90's... but maybe its just me. I mean you re right, i would say that its really not funny anymore, like at all.

 

[FidelCashflow]

Originally Posted by DocHolliday

Weekend Update is pretty consistently good these days.

I'll concede that's the one consistently and moderately funny part of the show, Seth and Amy have a few good lines every week. But most of the "guests" strike me as marsupialed rather than funny. I'll make an exception for the french def comedy jam guy, just because its an exact copy of an old Bernie Mac routine which I love.

 

[matadorpoeta]

if you don't watch television for a long time, and then watch snl, you'll notice that 99% of their jokes are dependent on you having seen something on t.v.

 

[j]

SNL has generally sucked for years, with certain outliers that rule. They have almost always been especially awful at ending a sketch. They really need to subscribe to the British school of quick-cut endings. It's a frustrating show because I can usually see what they're going for, and I feel like the execution is just usually off enough that it doesn't quite work.

 

[lithium180]

Terrible cast, terrible guests, terrible musical acts.

Historically, this show seems to go through good and bad periods every 5 or so years while a cast and writing staff matures, though at this point the subject matter is usually so pop-culture oriented and low brow that its hard to imagine it ever recovering from the hole its dug itself in to. I suspect the down grade in standards is due to re-targeting for a younger and less educated audience then, say, my parent's generation, which watched the show in the mid 70s. That and the fact that every host and musical act seems to there primarily to hawk some other type of product.


On a happier note, my dad just bought the complete second season of the show, with such hosts as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Buck Henry and with musical guests like Simon and Garfunkel, Bill Withers, Jimmy Cliff, John Sebastian and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band!

 

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by lithium180

I suspect the down grade in standards is due to re-targeting for a younger and less educated audience then, say, my parent's generation, which watched the show in the mid 70s.

Was the drug humor of the '70s really that sophisticated? Paul Simon in a turkey outfit? Or the Bee sketches, which Belushi hated with a passion? Again, I think nostalgia makes the show look better in retrospect. Well, nostalgia and the greatest hits compilations that get trotted out regularly.

 

[lithium180]

Originally Posted by DocHolliday

Was the drug humor of the '70s really that sophisticated? Paul Simon in a turkey outfit? Or the Bee sketches, which Belushi hated with a passion? Again, I think nostalgia makes the show look better in retrospect. Well, nostalgia and the greatest hits compilations that get trotted out regularly.

Well I suppose you're right, I can't really defend Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute's intellectual value... But the Bass-O-Matic, now that's a different story.

 

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by lithium180

Well I suppose you're right, I can't really defend Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute's intellectual value... But the Bass-O-Matic, now that's a different story.

The Julia Child sketch is up there too. Who cares if it's sophisticated when it's that funny.

 

[Gus]

It wasn't that there was anything special about 70's humor, it was simply that there was nothing else on. Prior to SNL the only thing to watch was "Rock Concert" or old B&W movies. There weren't even that many channels! But, you have to give it credit for being unique, wacky and a lot more fun than anything else on a Saturday night if you came home alone.

 

[kakemono]

It goes in cycles.

New crop of crappy actors comes in.
Everyone remembers the last group as being better.
The new crop spends a few years sucking
New Crops get progressively get better
They get good - make a lot of good skits
Goto Hollywood.
New crop of crappy actors comes in.
.
.
.

 

[lithium180]

Originally Posted by kakemono

It goes in cycles.

New crop of crappy actors comes in.
Everyone remembers the last group as being better.
The new crop spends a few years sucking
New Crops get progressively get better
They get good - make a lot of good skits
Goto Hollywood.
New crop of crappy actors comes in.
.
.
.

You forgot the step where their movies flop and where Lorne buys a new yacht.

 

[hi-val]

Part of it is the format they've stuck to. Making 1.5 hours of funny a week is hard, especially when you have skits to make, possibly not-funny hosts to help out, etc. Leno, Letterman etc. can do it every night because a lot of their show is just interviews and performances. If SNL cut down to an hour, then I bet it would be a lot better. The mindset would change from "how do we stretch this sketch out for eight minutes" to "how do we get all these good sketches in with the time we have?".


Then again, if you go back and watch original Monty Python, a good 85% of it sucks. The good stuff (the larch!) is the only thing that we remember though. For every Samurai Tailor bit, there was 40 minutes of crap in that same show.