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5 Ways to Whip SNL Back into Shape in 2018 - After a disappointing run during the first year of President Trump, here are a few things "Saturday Night Live" can do to turn things around.
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Ubiquitous
Jan 1, 2018, 12:53:05 PM1/1/18
to
Saturday Night Live has some problems. As we examined last month, the
show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
of Donald Trump.
But instead of just complaining about the show’s faults, we decided New
Year’s Day 2018 was the perfect time to look toward the future and give
some (hopefully) helpful suggestions on what SNL can do to restore some
of its former glory. Elevating “Weekend Update” anchors Colin Jost and
Michael Che to co-head writers was a big step in the right direction,
but there is a lot more to be done.
It is perhaps important to note that these prescriptions come not from
an SNL-hater but from a lifelong fan who never misses an episode and
truly wants the show to be great. After more than four decades on the
air, with Lorne Michaels at the helm for 38 out of the 43 seasons, the
show has proven again and again that it is capable of clawing back from
the brink of failure. Heading into yet another election year, now is
the time to prove it once more.
Replace Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump.
It’s not going to be easy, but it’s time to rip off the band-aid. When
Alec Baldwin signed on to play Trump in the fall of 2016, he thought he
would be doing it for three episodes. Then Hillary Clinton lost.
Fifteen months later, Baldwin has played Trump on SNL 19 times by my
count. As much as some viewers seem to still love his cartoonish
impression, it has more than overstayed its welcome.
SNL painted itself into a corner by casting a big star like Baldwin as
Trump, replacing first Taran Killam and then Darrell Hammond. To turn
the outsized role over to a mere cast member would feel like a
demotion, maybe even a victory for the president, who has always
despised Baldwin’s portrayal. But in order to move on, SNL has to cut
Baldwin loose, especially since the actor seems fairly miserable in the
role these days.
There frankly are not a lot of good options for a replacement, but
there is one Trump impersonator out there who is more than ready to
step into the role. We are desperately hoping that Comedy Central gives
The President Show another season. But if for some crazy reason it
doesn’t, SNL should jump at the chance to bring Anthony Atamanuik and
his far superior Trump impression into the mix.
If it happens, expect a less than smooth transfer of power as Atamanuik
and Baldwin have had their differences in the past.
Find new targets in the Trump administration.
For a White House with so much turnover, it often feels like SNL is far
too focused on only a handful of players. One way to move past its
reliance on Baldwin’s Trump would be to broaden the field and start
taking on more figures who deserve a critical eye.
For instance, since Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have only been
played by guest stars — Jimmy Fallon in the case of Kushner and a slew
of young female hosts for the first daughter, including a particularly
memorable commercial parody starring Scarlett Johansson — they have
only popped up occasionally on the show. Surely, newbie Heidi Gardner
has a great Ivanka impression in her back pocket. And who wouldn’t love
to see what someone like Pete Davidson does with a portrayal of the
adolescent-seeming Kushner, especially if his role in the Russia
investigation heats up in the new year?
Then there’s another parody-ripe pair: Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
and his wife Louise Linton. Instead of spending so much energy on her
bizarre portrayal of Jeff Sessions, who may be on his way out of the
White House soon, McKinnon could be having a field day with Linton and
her tone-deaf spending habits. As for Mnuchin, doppelgänger John Oliver
is already doing a solid impression on his show Last Week Tonight and
probably wouldn’t mind dropping by 30 Rockefeller Plaza every once in a
while.
https://youtu.be/RCJDn-vkAi4
Finally, Betsy DeVos. Our current Secretary of Education is ripe for
more mockery than she has received. At the very least it would be a
great excuse to cast Tonight Show writer and comedian Jo Firestone, who
has been killing as DeVos on that show this past year.
Too bad SNL finally realized they should have Leslie Jones playing
Omarosa just as she was on her way out the White House door.
Let the women take charge.
As has happened a few times in the show’s four-decade run, the most
experienced and talented cast members right now are almost all women
(15-year veteran Kenan Thompson is a major exception). Cecily Strong,
Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Leslie Jones — along with newer faces
Melissa Villaseñor and Heidi Gardner — are all rock solid performers,
yet somehow often feel underrepresented in male-dominated sketches.
That needs to change.
The handful of times when the show has aired all-female sketches over
the past few years have been major highlights. Think of pieces like
Aidy Bryant’s “A Girl’s Halloween” or, more recently, the “Welcome to
Hell” music video, which examined what it has always been like to be a
woman long before the #MeToo movement. More sketches from this
perspective can only be a good thing for the future of SNL.
https://youtu.be/1l26UFQ06eQ
Don’t worry so much about the “live” part of Saturday Night Live.
One more thing those two women-led sketches have in common? They
weren’t live.
It was more true this past year than in most eras of SNL’s history: the
pre-taped sketches were just better. Week after week, live sketches
flopped while filmed ones soared. From commercial parodies to music
videos to pretty much anything written by Julio Torres, these more
polished pieces lend themselves to the type of social media sharing
that can make or break an SNL sketch.
Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island guys first figured this out more
than a decade ago, but it is even more true today. Some performers
still thrive in the chaos of the live setting — Melissa McCarthy as
Sean Spicer comes to mind — but the current cast seems to really excel
when they are allowed to take their time in a controlled setting.
Stop cutting hilarious sketches for time.
Speaking of pre-taped sketches, when is SNL going to stop messing with
Kyle Mooney?
This one has been a personal gripe of mine for the majority of Mooney’s
four and a half seasons on the show. The way SNL works is that they
show an audience more sketches in the weekly dress rehearsal than can
fit in the 90-minute show. Anything that doesn’t garner enough laughs
gets pulled from the broadcast. Those sketches often end up on the
show’s YouTube channel as “cut for time” videos.
It seems they almost always come from the eccentric and ambitious mind
of Mooney, along with fellow cast member Beck Bennett and segment
director Dave McCary, who formed the Good Neighbor comedy group after
graduating from USC together. By design, their videos are meant to be
consumed online, so is laughter from a live audience even the best way
to judge their merit?
In an interview with The Daily Beast to promote his wonderfully bizarre
film Brigsby Bear last summer, Mooney admitted that it can be
“frustrating” when his sketches are removed from the show’s lineup at
the last minute. But, he added, “it is nice that there is that outlet,
that these things can live somewhere.”
On those too-rare occasions when they do make it onto the show itself,
often in the experimental 12:50 a.m. time slot, SNL is better for it.
--
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.
show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
of Donald Trump.
But instead of just complaining about the show’s faults, we decided New
Year’s Day 2018 was the perfect time to look toward the future and give
some (hopefully) helpful suggestions on what SNL can do to restore some
of its former glory. Elevating “Weekend Update” anchors Colin Jost and
Michael Che to co-head writers was a big step in the right direction,
but there is a lot more to be done.
It is perhaps important to note that these prescriptions come not from
an SNL-hater but from a lifelong fan who never misses an episode and
truly wants the show to be great. After more than four decades on the
air, with Lorne Michaels at the helm for 38 out of the 43 seasons, the
show has proven again and again that it is capable of clawing back from
the brink of failure. Heading into yet another election year, now is
the time to prove it once more.
Replace Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump.
It’s not going to be easy, but it’s time to rip off the band-aid. When
Alec Baldwin signed on to play Trump in the fall of 2016, he thought he
would be doing it for three episodes. Then Hillary Clinton lost.
Fifteen months later, Baldwin has played Trump on SNL 19 times by my
count. As much as some viewers seem to still love his cartoonish
impression, it has more than overstayed its welcome.
SNL painted itself into a corner by casting a big star like Baldwin as
Trump, replacing first Taran Killam and then Darrell Hammond. To turn
the outsized role over to a mere cast member would feel like a
demotion, maybe even a victory for the president, who has always
despised Baldwin’s portrayal. But in order to move on, SNL has to cut
Baldwin loose, especially since the actor seems fairly miserable in the
role these days.
There frankly are not a lot of good options for a replacement, but
there is one Trump impersonator out there who is more than ready to
step into the role. We are desperately hoping that Comedy Central gives
The President Show another season. But if for some crazy reason it
doesn’t, SNL should jump at the chance to bring Anthony Atamanuik and
his far superior Trump impression into the mix.
If it happens, expect a less than smooth transfer of power as Atamanuik
and Baldwin have had their differences in the past.
Find new targets in the Trump administration.
For a White House with so much turnover, it often feels like SNL is far
too focused on only a handful of players. One way to move past its
reliance on Baldwin’s Trump would be to broaden the field and start
taking on more figures who deserve a critical eye.
For instance, since Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have only been
played by guest stars — Jimmy Fallon in the case of Kushner and a slew
of young female hosts for the first daughter, including a particularly
memorable commercial parody starring Scarlett Johansson — they have
only popped up occasionally on the show. Surely, newbie Heidi Gardner
has a great Ivanka impression in her back pocket. And who wouldn’t love
to see what someone like Pete Davidson does with a portrayal of the
adolescent-seeming Kushner, especially if his role in the Russia
investigation heats up in the new year?
Then there’s another parody-ripe pair: Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
and his wife Louise Linton. Instead of spending so much energy on her
bizarre portrayal of Jeff Sessions, who may be on his way out of the
White House soon, McKinnon could be having a field day with Linton and
her tone-deaf spending habits. As for Mnuchin, doppelgänger John Oliver
is already doing a solid impression on his show Last Week Tonight and
probably wouldn’t mind dropping by 30 Rockefeller Plaza every once in a
while.
https://youtu.be/RCJDn-vkAi4
Finally, Betsy DeVos. Our current Secretary of Education is ripe for
more mockery than she has received. At the very least it would be a
great excuse to cast Tonight Show writer and comedian Jo Firestone, who
has been killing as DeVos on that show this past year.
Too bad SNL finally realized they should have Leslie Jones playing
Omarosa just as she was on her way out the White House door.
Let the women take charge.
As has happened a few times in the show’s four-decade run, the most
experienced and talented cast members right now are almost all women
(15-year veteran Kenan Thompson is a major exception). Cecily Strong,
Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Leslie Jones — along with newer faces
Melissa Villaseñor and Heidi Gardner — are all rock solid performers,
yet somehow often feel underrepresented in male-dominated sketches.
That needs to change.
The handful of times when the show has aired all-female sketches over
the past few years have been major highlights. Think of pieces like
Aidy Bryant’s “A Girl’s Halloween” or, more recently, the “Welcome to
Hell” music video, which examined what it has always been like to be a
woman long before the #MeToo movement. More sketches from this
perspective can only be a good thing for the future of SNL.
https://youtu.be/1l26UFQ06eQ
Don’t worry so much about the “live” part of Saturday Night Live.
One more thing those two women-led sketches have in common? They
weren’t live.
It was more true this past year than in most eras of SNL’s history: the
pre-taped sketches were just better. Week after week, live sketches
flopped while filmed ones soared. From commercial parodies to music
videos to pretty much anything written by Julio Torres, these more
polished pieces lend themselves to the type of social media sharing
that can make or break an SNL sketch.
Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island guys first figured this out more
than a decade ago, but it is even more true today. Some performers
still thrive in the chaos of the live setting — Melissa McCarthy as
Sean Spicer comes to mind — but the current cast seems to really excel
when they are allowed to take their time in a controlled setting.
Stop cutting hilarious sketches for time.
Speaking of pre-taped sketches, when is SNL going to stop messing with
Kyle Mooney?
This one has been a personal gripe of mine for the majority of Mooney’s
four and a half seasons on the show. The way SNL works is that they
show an audience more sketches in the weekly dress rehearsal than can
fit in the 90-minute show. Anything that doesn’t garner enough laughs
gets pulled from the broadcast. Those sketches often end up on the
show’s YouTube channel as “cut for time” videos.
It seems they almost always come from the eccentric and ambitious mind
of Mooney, along with fellow cast member Beck Bennett and segment
director Dave McCary, who formed the Good Neighbor comedy group after
graduating from USC together. By design, their videos are meant to be
consumed online, so is laughter from a live audience even the best way
to judge their merit?
In an interview with The Daily Beast to promote his wonderfully bizarre
film Brigsby Bear last summer, Mooney admitted that it can be
“frustrating” when his sketches are removed from the show’s lineup at
the last minute. But, he added, “it is nice that there is that outlet,
that these things can live somewhere.”
On those too-rare occasions when they do make it onto the show itself,
often in the experimental 12:50 a.m. time slot, SNL is better for it.
--
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.
FPP
Jan 1, 2018, 6:59:51 PM1/1/18
to
On 1/1/18 12:53 PM, Ubiquitous wrote:
> Saturday Night Live has some problems.
Yeah, their ratings are through the roof!
> Saturday Night Live has some problems.
> Decades from now, TV critics will probably still be debating where Saturday Night Live’s 42nd season ranks in the show’s pantheon. But whatever the judgement of future small-screen historians, Nielsen’s verdict is already pretty clear.
>
> Defying the forces of gravity that have sent audience numbers tumbling for almost everything else on TV — including NFL games — viewership for NBC’s iconic sketch comedy series surged by more than 30 percent against last season, reaching levels it hasn’t seen since the early days of the Clinton White House.
>
> But more stunning than the raw numbers is this: Among adults under 50, SNL’s ratings during the 2016–17 Nielsen campaign were strong enough to land it among the season’s top-ten regularly scheduled entertainment series...
http://www.vulture.com/2017/05/saturday-night-live-ratings-this-season-are-unprecedented.html
Aren't YOU the same clown who kept telling us how GRATE Trump TV was
because of their high ratings? Change that little mind, have you now?
--
Trump: If I win, you go to jail, if I lose, I will not accept the
results of the election.
Make America Great Again? -Warren Leight
Rhino
Jan 1, 2018, 11:46:17 PM1/1/18
to
opinion. (I stopped watching long ago when other things started to
occupy my time and then decided to drop it permanently when I saw a few
episodes featuring Lothar of the Hill People, the Church Lady, and Pat
and didn't even come CLOSE to smiling. Seriously, what the heck was
supposed to be funny about Lothar of the Hill People?)
--
Rhino
Ubiquitous
Jan 2, 2018, 4:54:57 AM1/2/18
to
Rhino <no_offlin...@example.com> wrote:
>Or they could just cancel SNL, a move which is *decades* overdue in my
>opinion. (I stopped watching long ago when other things started to
>occupy my time and then decided to drop it permanently when I saw a
>few episodes featuring Lothar of the Hill People, the Church Lady, and
>Pat and didn't even come CLOSE to smiling. Seriously, what the heck
>was supposed to be funny about Lothar of the Hill People?)
Yeah, that option crossed my mind as well. I think the Church Lady era
>Or they could just cancel SNL, a move which is *decades* overdue in my
>opinion. (I stopped watching long ago when other things started to
>occupy my time and then decided to drop it permanently when I saw a
>few episodes featuring Lothar of the Hill People, the Church Lady, and
>Pat and didn't even come CLOSE to smiling. Seriously, what the heck
>was supposed to be funny about Lothar of the Hill People?)
was about the end of it being funny for me.
A Friend
Jan 2, 2018, 5:24:41 AM1/2/18
to
In article <n002qo$eo8$1...@dont-email.me>, Ubiquitous
Michaels doesn't allow improvisation, so the only things that can
happen spontaneously on the show are bad, like the time they had the
audience riot when the musical act came on.
<web...@polaris.net> wrote:
> Rhino <no_offlin...@example.com> wrote:
>
> >Or they could just cancel SNL, a move which is *decades* overdue in my
> >opinion. (I stopped watching long ago when other things started to
> >occupy my time and then decided to drop it permanently when I saw a
> >few episodes featuring Lothar of the Hill People, the Church Lady, and
> >Pat and didn't even come CLOSE to smiling. Seriously, what the heck
> >was supposed to be funny about Lothar of the Hill People?)
>
> Yeah, that option crossed my mind as well. I think the Church Lady era
> was about the end of it being funny for me.
I don't know why it's done live. Doing it live adds nothing. Lorne
> Rhino <no_offlin...@example.com> wrote:
>
> >Or they could just cancel SNL, a move which is *decades* overdue in my
> >opinion. (I stopped watching long ago when other things started to
> >occupy my time and then decided to drop it permanently when I saw a
> >few episodes featuring Lothar of the Hill People, the Church Lady, and
> >Pat and didn't even come CLOSE to smiling. Seriously, what the heck
> >was supposed to be funny about Lothar of the Hill People?)
>
> Yeah, that option crossed my mind as well. I think the Church Lady era
> was about the end of it being funny for me.
Michaels doesn't allow improvisation, so the only things that can
happen spontaneously on the show are bad, like the time they had the
audience riot when the musical act came on.
P. Cobb
Jan 5, 2018, 1:03:22 PM1/5/18
to
Ubiquitous wrote
> Saturday Night Live has some problems. As we examined last month, the
> show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
> of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
> culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
> by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
> of Donald Trump.
>
It should be obvious that they must stop criticizing dear leader Trump
because it upsets him to the point where he locks himself in his White House
bedroom and puke's hamburgers all over the place as it plays on 3 large
screens. Why can't he round up that Canadian Jew Lorne Michael Lebowitz who
runs the show and lock him up Wolff and all the others who make fun of POTUS
so we can all sit back and praise him uninterrupted so he doesn't have a
stroke like he did on TV recently? Hannity and Mark Levin invited him to a
sausage party over the Christmas Holidays and he didn't respond or show up!
> Saturday Night Live has some problems. As we examined last month, the
> show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
> of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
> culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
> by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
> of Donald Trump.
>
because it upsets him to the point where he locks himself in his White House
bedroom and puke's hamburgers all over the place as it plays on 3 large
screens. Why can't he round up that Canadian Jew Lorne Michael Lebowitz who
runs the show and lock him up Wolff and all the others who make fun of POTUS
so we can all sit back and praise him uninterrupted so he doesn't have a
stroke like he did on TV recently? Hannity and Mark Levin invited him to a
sausage party over the Christmas Holidays and he didn't respond or show up!
P. Cobb
Sep 24, 2019, 7:50:23 PM9/24/19
to
Ubiquitous wrote
> Saturday Night Live has some problems. As we examined last month, the
> show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
> of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
> culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
> by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
> of Donald Trump.
>
> Saturday Night Live has some problems. As we examined last month, the
> show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
> of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
> culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
> by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
> of Donald Trump.
>
P. Cobb
Nov 20, 2019, 11:52:28 PM11/20/19
to
Ubiquitous wrote
> Saturday Night Live has some problems. As we examined last month, the
> show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
> of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
> culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
> by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
> of Donald Trump.
>
> Saturday Night Live has some problems. As we examined last month, the
> show has seriously struggled in its 43rd season to live up to the hype
> of the Emmy-winning season that preceded it. SNL, which felt so
> culturally relevant in 2016, more often than not seemed to be skating
> by in 2017 without the satirical bite so desperately needed in the age
> of Donald Trump.
>
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