This weekend, when “Saturday Night Live” kicks off its 50th season, the momentous event will surely stir up nostalgic memories for generations of fans.
Since 1975, Lorne Michaels’ weekly show has given us Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Conan O’Brien, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers and countless other comedic powerhouses.
And its decades of sketches — Wayne’s World, Roseanne Roseannadanna, the Love-ahs, James Brown, the Coneheads, Jeopardy!, the Lawrence Welk Show (“And I’m Dooneese!”) — are seared into our cultural consciousness, whether you were alive for them or not.
With the joy of nostalgia, however, comes pangs of sadness.
“SNL” ain’t what she used to be. And I doubt the legendary show can ever return to its unassailable perch atop the comedy mountain.
The NBC sketch series that once set the curve for boundary-breaking humor (as the incredible alumni list attests) is now well behind it, as the program struggles to keep up with TikTok, social media memes and resurgent stand-up specials as a provider of American laughs.
In 2024, a topical joke barely lasts a few hours, let alone a week.
Once or twice a season the show manages to cut through the noise with exceptional creativity. Everybody watched Bowen Yang’s hilarious “Weekend Update” Titanic iceberg interview, for example, and you can’t unsee Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day’s terrifying transformation into Beavis and Butt-Head.
But these are the rare exceptions.
Far from edgy, now “SNL” is mostly pleasant and niche.
What ever happened to strong, recurring characters? Think Carvey’s Church Lady, Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer’s Music Teachers, Rachel Dratch’s Debbie Downer, Tracy Morgan’s Brian Fellow, Chris Farley’s Matt Foley, motivational speaker, and Wiig’s Gilly.
It’s hard to name a current staple other than maybe Ego Nwodim’s Dionne Warwick.
The era of cherished “SNL” creations getting instant entrance giggles is all but over. Perhaps that’s because Americans move on too quickly. But I suspect it’s not only that, considering I have now sat through 34 Marvel movies and “Grey’s Anatomy” is entering its 21st season.
Another glaring issue is the politics.
“SNL” has gone through slumps of irrelevance before, and lampooning our foolish leaders is what, generally, has dug them out. Fey’s Sarah Palin was, I reckon, “SNL’s” last must-watch feature. From 2008 to 2017, NBC even occasionally broadcast “Weekend Update: Summer Edition” on Thursdays in prime time to capitalize on election fever or other newsworthy stories.
The problem now isn’t so much the perennial complaint that “SNL” is kinder to Democrats than Republicans — that’s been true for a very long time — but that it’s lost sight of how to make any of them funny.
Lately, the sketches are hung up on so-so impersonations rather than wittily pointing out how doltish and self-absorbed all these elected officials are. Donald Trump impressions are old hat (everybody in the world does one at parties).
Michaels has said this year the show will “reinvent” the 45th president, who’s played by James Austin Johnson. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Rudolph does a spot-on Kamala Harris, and she’s bringing it back this season. But her performance is rooted in cute quirks and kindness, which is the exact opposite of satire. A sharp show won’t pull its punches with any presidential candidate.
Who can forget Jon Lovitz’s diminutive Michael Dukakis responding to Carvey’s George H.W. Bush (“Stay the course!”) with “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.”
But my all-time favorite election cold open on “SNL” was the 2000 debate between Ferrell’s George W. Bush and Darrell Hammond’s Al Gore. Please, please watch it.
All Hammond, a genius, had to say to get a wave of laughter was, “Well, Jim, Gov. Bush and I have two very different plans.” That’s all it took. His cadence and voice were perfect, yes, but more vitally Hammond cut to the bone of how Americans viewed Gore — as the Eeyore of the donkey party.
Comedians often say Democrats are hard to send up. How lazy is that? Gore wasn’t oversize or obviously cartoonish, but Hammond seized his NPR-ness and made him hysterical.
You’ll hear the great Hammond on Saturday when, as the announcer, he reads off the names of the current cast.
Many of them will be unfamiliar. A long list of “SNL” vets have departed the show over the past couple of seasons, and there is a hopeful vibe of, as Michaels put it, reinvention.
And, also, terror of the unknown.
I am a massive fan of some of the “SNL” players who are gaining momentum: Yang, Heidi Gardner, Day and Marcello Hernandez. And, with all their freshness, there is an opportunity to dust off the old show and rediscover its edgy essence.
In the new movie “Saturday Night,” a madcap comedy about the premiere episode in 1975, actor Gabriel LaBelle plays a 30-year-old Michaels.
When a doubting studio exec interrogates him about what “SNL” actually is, he responds with a rousing speech.
“It’s everything you think is going to happen when you move to the city,” he says. “That’s ‘Saturday Night.’”
And that’s the energy “SNL” must rediscover to stick around — being young, carefree and risk-taking with nothing to lose (including elections).
Not living in the same rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side for 50 years.
