Saturday Night Live ends tradition of POLITICAL HUMOR

[BlueEyedSon]

in favor of skewering celebs.

The All Too Ready for Prime Time Players

ON the Nov. 20 broadcast of "Saturday Night Live," the cast members Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler, playing the 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 "S.N.L." cast members performed dead-on impersonations of scandal-plagued figures like Tara Reid and Mickey Rourke, reading off the names of nominees like 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 Ms. 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 "S.N.L.," as well as longtime fans, wonder whether a show that once built skits around Chevy Chase's impression of 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 "S.N.L." 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, Mr. McKay said, "S.N.L." had ceded considerable ground to popular rivals like Comedy Central's "Daily Show With Jon Stewart."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/arts/television/02dave.html?oref=login

[ixion]

1. SNL jumps the shark

this will certainly mark the beginning of the end for a once cutting-edge comedy troupe.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. They said that once before.

It will have another renaissance once a better cast comes along.

[ixion]

16. I hope that's true

but before they sucked because the cast sucked. Removing political commentary from the show will change the entire dynamic. We'll have to see.

[KurtNYC]

Jimmy Falon CAN'T be the funniest guy they auditioned

He just can't be. Worthless. And I think Tina Fay is a Bush supporter. The show hasn't been this bad since the Piscopo days.

[Skittles]

27. Tina a Bush supporter?

I've never seen any evidence of that; what sayeth you? :o

[FiveGoodMen]

31. Tina's taken lots of shots at Bush

No way is she one of his supporters.

[Supormom]

2. Saturday Night Lame

As it was referred to on Salon.com

[joeybee12]

3. They skewered Bush quite a bit when Jude Law was the host, as I

recall...also Tony Blair.

But the hosts and musical guests seem very lowest common denominator.

[tx_dem41]

4. The title of your thread doesn't match the story...

there is no mention of ENDING political humor.

[chelsea0011]

5. It was an interesting piece on a show that's running scared

I was dismayed by comments by a former writer that Lorne Michaels doesn't want much Bush bashing. I've seen this show since it's beginnings and the article was right on about how one week they poke fun at the very celebs who will be guests shortly. When Chevy Chase was reporting from a ski site and each time a skier fell, Chase reported that Claudine Longet just shot down another skier. I didn't expect Longet would be a guest host in a few weeks. I'm not prudish at all but having a show where the Olsen twins announce at the end of the show, "remember, we are legal in two weeks" is neither funny nor respectful of women. A local sports show some years ago would say some really outrageous comments towards Anna Kornakova. Problem is she was only 15 or 16 at the time. This celebrity gone nuts society has filtered throughout our culture. SNL is just along for the ride. As the article pointed out, it is the easy laugh that won't really offend anyone that they have settled for. No more Nixon and Kissinger getting down on their knees to pray humor.

[deutsey]

7. Kissenger and Nixon praying

Didn't Franken write that skit while on LSD? It was one of the Nixon's Last Days skits, I know.

[bunkerbuster1]

11. And nixon was safely out of the White House and no longer a threat

c'mon, people, it's just a show, you should really just relax.

though yeah, Nixon and Kissinger praying, that was out there at the time. I actually felt kinda sorry for Nixon as I was laughing.

[htuttle]

12. "Get down on your knees and pray with me, Henry!"

That's still the funniest Nixon moment I've ever seen.

Not sure about Franken being on LSD when he wrote it -- he seems like kind of a straight-edge. I think his former partner, Tom Davis, is the one who did all the drugs. Now, Davis might have been on LSD when they wrote that...

[deutsey]

14. I'm pretty sure Franken and Davis wrote one of those sketches on acid

It was in the book that came out in the '80s...I think it's called "Saturday Night." I believe it was the sketch where Ackroyd as Nixon talked about visiting a soldier in the hospital who had been struck in the eye with a surface-to-air missile. Or something like that.

I also remember watching Franken and Davis go on SNL in the '70s and call for the violent overthrow of the US government. It was obviously a joke, but could you imagine anyone doing anything like that now on SNL or any show except for maybe the Daily Show?

And as far as chilling out over SNL, I haven't watched that piece of crap show since the mid-90s. I stopped watching regularly after the original cast finally left, and occassionaly when Eddie Murphy was on.

[American Tragedy]

30. I remember when I first read about that in Nixon's autobiography

I couldn't believe it. The mental image is absolutely hysterical.

Unfortunately, I'm too young to remember early SNL - dammit, why don't they ever show them?

[bobbobbins]

9. hehe, i think that olsen twins jokes pretty funny

[bobbobbins]

8. Its my dream to be on SNL...i wonder how one gets cast these days...

i guess you just have to be as unfunny as possible...and they'll find you

[HamdenRice]

10. "Saturday Night Live ends tradition of HUMOR" of any kind ...

I haven't laughed at anything on SNL in about 15 years.

[BlueEyedSon]

13. Oh yeah, that's what I meant!

[TragicHipster]

15. SNL is stagnant

There's nothing left at that place anymore. They lost it years ago.

[velvel]

17. "SNL is stagnant"

Each "cast" seems to get weaker and weaker with each actor leaving...

[newyawker99]

24. Hi velvel!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[newyawker99]

23. Hi TragicHipster!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[RoeBear]

18. Does anyone here posting negative comments

even watch the show? There is still lots of politcal humor.

[Ms_Mary]

19. I wish there were more. I intend to watch but fall asleep anyway.

[kypper]

21. Very little

Not half of what they used to have. And now it's interrupted with parodies of the most retarded elements in society, like 'dance-off's'. It's not worth watching anymore.

[newyawker99]

25. Hi kypper!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[kypper]

20. That's part of why they aren't funny

SNL's cast is selected... many comedians audition for it, few are chosen. The current cast is, for the most part, devoid of political thought when compared to previous generations. The constant political humour (see Dana Carvey doing Bush Sr) was what kept many people watching it.

[Rose Siding]

22. Popular rivalS like Daily Show? What are the others!?

Tell me! I'll watch.

[otohara]

26. Last Night SNL Political Stuff Was Very Funny

the guy who does Bush cracks me up. When they were doing the joint press conference w/ Poppy, W, and Clinton. Clinton had to explain to press corp what Bush really meant.

[Sgent]

28. Tina Fey

Is the current head writer for this season and last.

Personally, I think their "attack society" comedy has gotten overboard -- they used to have a good mix, but not recently.

[American Tragedy]

29. I used to love SNL. I even liked SNL's take on the 96 Republican primaries

like when they showed Buchanan, Forbes, and Dole going door to door on Halloween giving campaign speeches, or Bob Dole on Real World. They managed to make something genuinely funny out of what appeared to be very limited material.

Now, there's enough political material on a weekly basis to fill entire shows, yet they eschew almost all of it. Unbelievable.