SNL Breaks My Heart

This weekend Donald Trump will be hosting Saturday Night Live. A 40 year old institution Americans turn to for its take on the issues, SNL is known for its impact on elections. But in this case instead of going after the political agenda they're inviting one of the candidates to do it themselves. The reason they're doing this is hardly a questionable matter, ratings baby. People are going to watch Donald Trump on SNL. A trick that might be expected from any other show but from SNL? An institution that prides itself on its content and voice above cheap tricks, well so a seasoned comedy fan like myself would like to believe. But what's more upsetting is the lack of outrage surrounding his appearance. Donald Trump is known for his famous remarks, where he called illegal Mexican immigrants "rapists". Imagine instead of Mexican immigrants it was replaced with Jews or black people? Would NBC so quick to allow him onto one of their shows? Of course not. Because advertisers would be fleeing left and right. However because Trump's remarks were towards a group of people our country deems fitting to criticize without limit, there he will be on Saturday night, being as welcomed into our homes as Alec Baldwin or Steve Martin.




 

That's not to say there aren't some people taking a stand against his appearance. According to a report on the Huffington Post "Several dozen activists gathered Wednesday in front of NBC’s headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center demanding the network rescind an invitation to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump to host “Saturday Night Live" on Nov. 7 and vowing to pressure the network's advertisers to join their cause." The activists have gained over 500,000 signatures on their petition to get him off the network but to no avail. SNL has never been one to bow to pressure and with the network and the anticipated ratings on their side they're not likely to start now. As SNL fan myself, I just hope they have a few tricks up their sleeves, and knowing SNL they're likely to as well.

Saturday Night Live: Comedy Daycare

I like to think of Saturday Night Live as a daycare for comedians with Lorne Michaels as the overruling nanny for all the little kids who don't know any better. After 40 years on air, it's a proven staple on our television line up. It's popularity has only risen in recent years because of Internet video sharing, and sites like YouTube, in which 4-6 minute videos are all anyone's attention can handle. Not only that, but we've seen the success of past SNL comedians and the all the brilliant work they've done after leaving the show. With people like Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy and countless more, the potential for success after leaving the show is very high. So like I said, it's a daycare. Young, talented comedians come in and play around with their funny and creative ideas. They grow and step into their comedic talent, mastering impressions and nailing their punchline timing. It's very obvious which cast members are brand new and which are the veterans. All the while, Lorne Michaels watches over with an insightful eye and approves or disapproves of whatever skit is being pitched. He turns these no name youngsters into show runners and head writers. It's a given that some skits will work and others will completely miss the mark, but that's part of the growing process for all these comedians.
 After leaving daycare, many of these talented jokesters have gone on to write and/or star in our favorite television shows. Most recently, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have finished their long running shows, 30 Rock and Parks and Rec. In addition, many of SNL's recent departures are now putting their footprint on the industry. Fred Armisen, who was on SNL for 13 years, is now in his 6th season of Portlandia, which he created. Last Man on Earth, Fox's new hit comedy, stars Will Forte who spent 10 years at SNL. Andy Samberg, digital short genius and 8 year cast member, is now the star of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and recently hosted the Emmys. Kristen Wiig gifted the world with Bridesmaids, and Seth Meyers is the host of Late Night. These recent SNL grads are only at the beginning of their post-SNL career and have a lot of room to grow. 

All in all, we should thank Lorne Michaels for creating such a program to help these comedians grow. Who knows if Tina Fey would have ever written Mean Girls or if Will Ferrell would have starred in dozens of hilarious comedies. Maybe? Probably not. So for all those new cast members who are awkward and mess up their lines, you may have your own show in 5-10 years. Hell, you may even host The Tonight Show.

Saturday Night Live: The Alligator

I love Saturday Night Live. Ask anyone I know and they'll tell you I'm the ultimate SNL nerd. I collect the merchandise, I've camped out to get standby tickets and I've absorbed every bit of knowledge and trivia I could about the show. I often encounter people who tell me that the show isn't funny or that "it used to be really funny but now it sorta sucks". I try to take these comments in stride and to squish my normally argumentative disposition down into my gut. Truth be told most of the people who make these comments often don't or rarely watch the show and are parroting things they've heard from their parents or the endless amounts of op-eds you can find online. However this is as good a medium as any to finally tell them they are wrong and why (one of my favorite things to do).

Saturday Night Live is often referred to as a dinosaur. It relies on more old fashioned ways of producing, especially those popular when live television was a more consistent form of broadcast, and it costs a million dollars an episode because of it. Because of these methods, some of which many deem archaic, it is called a dinosaur, a beacon of the "old ways of doing it". But SNL isn't a dinosaur. Dinosaurs go extinct because they can't face new environments or refuse to evolve. SNL instead is an alligator. Sure it existed in the time of the dinosaurs, or as I like to call it, the 70s, but they learned to adapt and were unafraid to do so, they became ready to enter dangerous situations and tread unforseen territory. While many networks have seen a steep decline since the dawn of the streaming age, SNL was already built for the internet, especially making digital shorts their mark on the web. In addition they have consistently called for innovation, circulating in new players to keep the show fresh and capture a new younger audience. Yes each episode cost a million dollars to make but it doesn't matter because SNL, because of it's nature, almost always captures their time slot in terms of ratings. In a television landscape that calls for the survival of the fittest, SNL has proved to be the head of the foodchain.

Saturday Night Live's 40th Anniversary Special

As many people know, this year marks the 40th season of Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live, better known by its abbreviated title, SNL, was created by Lorne Michaels, and first aired on October 11, 1975. Each show is fronted by a celebrity host, and a musical guest, along with a handful of permanent cast members. Each week they produce a 90-minute show consisting of comedy sketches that parody anything from pop culture to politics.  

To celebrate the fact that the show has been on the air for 40 years, SNL produced a special anniversary episode on Sunday, February 15, 2015. Studio 8H was filled to the brim with former cast members and hosts, who were each given time to announce segments, or even appear in a sketch. Not surprisingly, the program opened up with an intro by everyone’s favorite pair, Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake. The rest of the show consisted of former cast members reprising their roles in timeless sketches, and even featured celebrity hosts taking on some well known characters. Former Weekend Update hosts, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Jane Curtin came back to the news desk to provide current events and introduce a few characters. The show also featured musical guests including Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus and Kanye West. One of the most memorable moments in my opinion was when the program featured short clips from the audition tapes of multiple former cast members. This served as a nostalgic point that worked to tie the whole show together, and reflect on where many of the now successful comedians got their start. All in all, this special was a pretty solid representation of 40 years of late night comedy.

Colin Jost, Cecily Strong, and the Weekend Update Desk

This week, Saturday Night Live announced that Michael Che, currently a correspondent for The Daily Show, would be replacing cast member Cecily Strong and joining head-writer Colin Jost at the Weekend Update anchor desk. This comes just half a year after Jost took Seth Meyers' seat at the desk. I think that Lorne Michaels and the show's other creative staff made a serious misstep in this decision.

The history of the Weekend Update segment in the 21st century is dominated by names that went on to achieve even greater success elsewhere. Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Seth Meyers have all gone on to anchor their own shows: Poehler and Fey found second lives on the NBC sitcoms Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock, respectively, and Fallon and Meyers occupy back-to-back time-slots in the network's late-night schedule. However, when Meyers announced his plans to depart at Christmas 2013 posed a unique problem for the show, with no truly strong contenders in the cast available to take his place. Lorne Michaels decided to pair Meyers with Cecily Strong for the first half of the show's 39th season last fall:

Meyers and Strong

After strong reviews of the pair, hopes were high when Jost, the show's head-writer and Meyers' best friend, replaced the male half of the pair. However, Jost gave a less than memorable performance in his first couple of shows, and although he began to improve by the end of the season, he had already lost the trust of much of the SNL audience. It was clear that the show was going to make changes at the desk going into the 40th season. However, this week's announcement seems like a step in the wrong direction to myself and many other fans. 

Michael Che's work on The Daily Show has admittedly been strong. His correspondent segments often dealt with race and the experience of being a modern black American in interesting ways. 

The Daily Show
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However, Lorne Michaels' decision to go with Jost instead of Strong shows a bit of bias towards the longer-tenured writer, who may have payed his dues on the show more. That's all well and good, but I     believe that the stronger performer should have won out. Many fans are speculating that the decision was based on giving Cecily Strong more time to write and perform sketches and characters. I hope that that's the case.