As a lifelong insomniac, my obsession with Saturday Night Live began early, fourth grade to be exact. Since then, I've watched the program slowly decline year after year until it has reached its pitiful state today.
This year, as in the past few years, the show's stock is beginning to slip even further. Saturday Night Live's sketches are less engaging, the talent is no longer the cream of the comedic crop and the writing is stale.
In year's past SNL produced such memorable skits as Wayne's World, the Coneheads, the Blues Brothers and more recently the Ladies Man. Those skits were not only memorable, but the characters were marketable. Each of those sketches evolved into a full-length feature film.
Look at the crummy reoccurring sketches they have today, mainly Brian Fellows' Safari Planet, Mr. Peepers and Wake up Wakefield.
The only reoccurring sketches that seems half-way decent are the Bostonian Teen skit with Jimmy Fallon and Rachel Dratch and Mango featuring Chris Kattan. Brian Fellow is perhaps the most imbecilic sketch in the show's proud history. It consists of Tracy Morgan playing Brian Fellow, a mentally disturbed man who hosts a program where guests appear with animals.
Well, instead of interacting with the animals, Fellow just recites dimwitted observations. Honestly, can you imagine making a movie out of this?
Mr. Peepers, where Chris Kattan acts like a simian, gets old after the third time.
The cast has clearly diminished in recent years. After losing Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Tim Meadows and Molly Shannon in the past two years, the show seems like a skeleton of its old self.
The loss of Ferrell impacted the show the most. Ferrell was in nearly every sketch the show produced. His ability to play both the straightman and the funnyman will be sorely missed. Still around are funnyman Jimmy Fallon, wild man Chris Kattan and impersonation specialist Darryl Hammond.
The rest of the cast, with the exception of the women, are yet to make an impact.
In fact, one of SNL's few strengths are the female castmembers. Long overlooked, women like Cheri Oteri jump started the revitalization of the female cast members.
Now compare todays thin cast to the cast from the late 80's and early 90's. Here's just a few: Ben Stiller, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Phil Hartman. With the exception of Ferrell, no new castmember from the past eight years will have nearly the same success as these guys.
Even further, compare this year's dismal cast to the show's original cast consisting of comedians John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner, just to name a few. I'm not saying that the cast's quality has dropped. I'm saying that it took a nose-dive off of a cliff and into a deep abyss.
What the show needs is new writers with better ideas. The skits are as bland as shredded wheat. The episode two weeks ago with Eric McCormick hosting was absolutely terrible. The worst I have ever seen.
The show needs to become hip again. The big bands still show up, the hosts are still big names, but the cast and writers need to improve.
I've noticed that Saturday Night Live's quality has been cyclical. Good years have been followed by bad years. Even the wonder-cast of the early 90's had some bad years.
The new cast that moved in eight years ago had a small renaissance a few years ago. But the past few seasons have been hard times. Until Lorne Michaels takes drastic actions to change the show, its not going to improve.
Saturday Night Live is a fixture in American culture. It will improve, and then it will digress once again. Is it fair to criticize them in an off year? Yeah, of course, it'll give them an incentive to do better.
However, I still do not beleive the show will ever reach the heights it achieved in the late 70's through early 90's before the days of competing programming.
I don't think the show will ever again land an established headliner to join the cast, like they did with Billy Crystal in the mid-80's. However, they can nab a few up and coming comedians.
Now the show isn't all bad. Weekend update has its moments. Hammond's dead-on impersonations, specifically Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Sean Connery and Chris Matthews are tops in SNL's history.
Are the glory days of comedy over? Will Saturday Night Live never regain the prestige that it used to have? I would have to sadly say yes.
