Why ‘Saturday Night’ Is Bad News for ‘SNL’s’ 50th Season
Flashback to show's earliest days sure to shame current corporate version
“Live from New York … it’s Saturday Night!”
It wasn’t just a tag line but a battle cry. The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players were about to change the face of comedy in 1975.
That’s the focus of “Saturday Night,” the comedic re-telling of “Saturday Night Live’s” wild and wooly first episode. The film, directed by Jason Reitman, just snagged an Oct. 11 release date.
That’s smack dab in the middle of awards season as well as days after “SNL’s” season debut Sept. 28.
And that’s where the trouble begins for the venerable show.
Reitman’s film covers the 90 minutes before the very first “SNL” episode hosted by George Carlin. The trailer teases the show’s anarchic spirit, rule-breaking founder (Lorne Michaels, played by Gabriel LaBelle) and counter-culture zen.
“SNL” shook up the era’s staid sense of humor and set the template for decades of cutting-edge comedy. The show also launched too many careers to count.
Today? “SNL” is prepping for its 50th season, a stunning achievement. Except it’s hardly recognizable from its earliest days.
The show now leans aggressively to the Left, supports the status quo and refuses to mock the elites. It prefers to defend them. It takes no stand on the attacks on free speech, can’t find the funny in the woke mind virus and ignores rich comic material that doesn’t fit its worldview.
That leaves The Babylon Bee to routinely clean the show’s clock.
So seeing the original Not Ready for Prime-Time Players again, brimming with irreverence and spine, may be startling to the show’s current fans.
Reitman is a fascinating choice to direct and co-write the feature. His father, Ivan Reitman, famously worked with some of the show’s most infamous alums. Consider his 1984 comedy classic “Ghostbusters” featuring Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.
The movie might be worth the wait, but is anyone eager for “SNL’s” September return? The show recently announced that former cast member Maya Rudolph will return to play Vice President Kamala Harris.
Why bother?
Maya Rudolph is officially returning as Kamala Harris on SNL this fall
What’s your favorite moment from America’s FUNT? pic.twitter.com/H3pWuMJg5C
— WatchMojo (@WatchMojo) July 31, 2024
The show won’t poke fun at Harris in any meaningful way. It ignored Harris for three-plus years, and over that time pretended as if President Joe Biden wasn’t suffering from cognitive decline.
Except for the one hint that they knew.
The modern “SNL” is toothless, predictable and safe. That’s everything the 1975 model wasn’t.
Everything is politically charged today. That’s the culture, the people who work at SNL are living and breathing in that culture, just like the rest of us.
I’m glad I’m old enough to remember times where everything wasn’t politically charged, and even if they told political jokes, everyone could laugh at them and appreciate the humor. And that humor was usually good-natured ribbing, not calling people Hitler.
We’re too tribal to do that today.
I wonder if SNL isn’t a time and place sort of thing, at least before they went hard left. What I mean is it seems when you’re in your teens or 20s is when you think SNL was at its peak. For me, that was 90-95. After that, I only found some sketches intermittently funny, and I hated myself if I stayed up late to give SNL a chance because I just didn’t find it funny anymore.
There have been some – SOME – funny MOMENTS of SNL in the last FORTY YEARS, but all of them together would not make ONE SHOW of the FIRST TEN YEARS! Times change – people change – but FUNNY is FUNNY. What SNL devolved into was not funny – unless you are a die hard leftist! I’ve seen a few sketches in the last thirty or so years, but haven’t bothered with the LIVE part – I value my time and intelligence!
Jane, you ignorant slut.