SNL's Continued Downward Spiral Thread

When I was very little and my grandparents were babysitting me, I would sneak out of bed, sit in the hallway and peek around the corner so I could watch what they were watching - Lawrence Welk. My best friend from college and I bonded over the fact that we could sing the Lawrence Welk "Good Night, Sleep Tight" song.

(That paragraph made me seem old and a looser (sic)).

 

My point with Lawrence Welk is not that it's a dated reference or anything. It's that they do it allllll the time - I feel like they've literally done it 20 times in the past two or three years.

 

They haven't.

 

The last couple years of the original cast did have a bit of a downturn. I think the best cast was the Carvey/Hartmann cast. And at some point, just saying the old generation doesn't understand the new generation is a cop-out; plenty of young folks here have been slagging the show the past few years.

 

Yeah, it's not like everything has gone steadily downhill from the first cast -- and the shows back then could be pretty uneven. There were some great seasons during the Carvey/Hartman era. My favorites were probably from the brief Billy Crystal/Christopher Guest/Harry Shearer era. The Will Ferrell era had some good stuff too. To me, the last few years have paled badly next to any of those.

 

I guess SNL is immune to the whole "That Which Is Happening In This Particular Moment Is The Greatest Incarnation Of That Thing That Anyone Has Ever Experienced" idea.

Is it because ESPN doesn't cover SNL?

Food for thought . . .

That was their most consistently good cast. They didn't rely on a small group of cast members (See: Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo), they didn't repeatedly lean on low-hanging political fruit (cough, Tina Fey as Palin, cough) or sheer ridiculousness (Look! Chevy Fell! AGAIN!), and they had so many good characters that they didn't overdo sketches until they got tired (Celebrity Jeopardy! Again! Well, at least it's better than the cheerleaders . . . ).

My two favorite "Best of" DVDs are Belushi and Murphy. Bought the first Will Ferrell one; wondered how they thought there was enough for TWO such DVDs.

But the late 1980s, including guest hosting stints by Wayne Gretzky and Mel Gibson, probably up to that cast's shark jump with all the stupid little speeches during Andrew Dice Clay's episode . . . solid gold most weeks.

The fact I was in my early teens might have affected my judgment, though.

 

(cough, Carvey as Bush 1, cough)
(cough, Carvey as Perot, cough)
(cough, Hartman as Clinton, cough)

 

Some website just put out a list of the 50 greatest sketches in SNL history. No way the author was any older than 26. Probably 35 were from the last 10 or 15 years.

Good rule of thumb: if you are listing the greatest SNL sketches and don't have Richard Pryor's job interview with Chevy Chase on the list, you are woefully ill-equipped to be discussing the topic.

 

Or Belushi dancing through the graveyard of his former Not Ready mates.

 

Also not on the list.

But Debbie Downer was like top 5.

 

DEAD HONKEY!!!!