Sadly Dave, your assessment is keen: we want to like the show, we try to like the show, but the writing has been at a low for most of thelast two years.

My favortie part of the show was the saftey sketch when Armisen showed how to fend off the burglur by a series of moving their bodie pars up and down adn then a gentle push. And the blinding the burglur one was cool.

But i totaly agree, the show isnt so good, with tons of potential.

Back home in the UK there's a comic called VIZ that has, for most of its life, carried the slogan "Not as funny as it used to be" (or something like that).

My outsider view? The sketches are too long and just meander, relying on the cast members' schtick rather than sharp writing. And they just end rather than build up to something. Maybe it's the "live" part that's the problem -- you can't have punchy 30 second sketches if it has to be done live. The show is too long and even with 900 writers or however many they have everything has to be padded out. It's a relic of another age. Cut it down to 30 minutes, do it on video, dump the band and don't let any sketch go on after the big laugh. Of course it wouldn't be Saturday Night Live anymore but it might be more watchable....

Did anyone else feel like Parnell's impersonation of Bush was more of an impersonation of Will Ferrell doing an impersonation of Bush?

Come, come. You're hardly being fair. These first two shows are not up to the greatest SNL of a quarter century, but there have been numerous good moments.

For starters, Matt Damon as college freshman Hannibal was damned funny- best thing so far this season. (Forgive the paraphrasing from memory)"No, I'm not gay. I just want to taste your sweet flesh... OK, I'll admit, that does sound a little gay." Hannibal in the mirror singing the WKRP theme song was SO wrong.

The segments of people damning Saddam Hussein for costing them their jobs and the tanking of their retirement accounts made one of the best bits of political comedy out of this whole situation.

The Christina Aguillera video sketch was a beautifully VICIOUS take on the excesses of MTV. "Not skanky enough."

It's not as consistent as I'd like, but they've got some good material going.

The part of the show that has been far into suckitude this season has been the music. Goddam, but Springsteen has devolved into the suckingest of suckitude. The fake emoting of his big performance, the exaggerated physical movement that is supposed to convince us that at least HE thinks this record is good can just STOP. He was giving up the fake hystrionics of a $20 whore.

Which brings us to Faith Hill. It's hard to criticize her songs because they are so bland and so PRECISELY middle of the road that they're hard to even describe. They're such a big bunch of NOTHING. They're not rock, they're not pop, certainly not country. Not uptempo, not ballads. Her crap stinks so bad that she doesn't even inspire me to lust. Do you have any idea how bad a physical specimen as hot as her has to SUCK musically for me not to even want to bone her? That's getting pretty far into the suckingness of suckitude.

Surely to god they could find some REAL singers. Hey, Elvis Costello has TWO albums out this year- there's a start. Even some half-assed rapper that's actually REAL would be a substantial improvement. How about Beck, Norah Jones, India.Arie, Coldplay, even James Taylor? They might be surprised what a draw could be had from some of the O Brother crowd. Ralph Stanley DOES stand at the center of one of the couple of biggest selling albums of the last several years. That would be something different. Just a thought.

You are right. I really did start watching to show in 1975. I think that was its first year: Belushi, Akyroyd, Radner, Morris, Chase. I loved the Eddie Murphy cast, the Billy Crystal cast, the Dana Carvey/Lovitz/Mike Meyers cast.

The writing does suck. I've mistakenly thought that in recent years it was the cast, but you are probably right. It's the writing. What the frick is wrong with NBC? Don't they know the writing sucks?

Maybe the young folks who watch the show actually like it, sucky writing or not? If I watch tv at that time on Saturday, I'll usually watch Mad TV. The cast is at least as good, ok, way better!!, and sometimes the writing is great too. Example, the "depressed Persian Tow Truck Driver." What the f*ck is that? Anyway, Mad TV does bring a smile to my face.

Maybe just let go of the attachment to the institution of SNL, and maybe if enough folks do that, NBC will get a clue that suckiness just don't cut no mo'.

Ok, bye now.

I got her randomly, and will most likely never return...but you people have the most pathetic grasp of humor ever. I find it especially ammusing that you site Tina Fey as the hope for Weekend Update as you bash the writting. She's the head writer, halfwit. And cast members oftentimes write themselves - Fred wrote the Mpls cop skit, its from his old stand up. Of course Parnell's Bush isn't great, who could compare to Will Ferrel? Darrell Hammond is a fabulous impressionist, his Chris Matthews is right on - see him live and you'll know. Maya Rudolph is stuck on her own versatility? Way to completely make stuff up. She's the most innovative cast member on the show. The only writing problem is the sketches that are written when certain cast members (TRACY MORGAN) are too stoned to write anything decent.

The show is blatantly terrible. Don't make excuses for this piece of shit cast. You make me sick fawning over Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon. You're fucking wrong. The ACting and the WRiting sucks because Lorne Michaels is an idiot. And you're wrong. PS Wrong

I agree with your assessment of the current state of SNL. About the same time you wrote this, I also wrote about SNL.

The article is on my site here.

And yes, Amy Poehler creeps me out.

And has anyone noticed that she seems to have had that gap in her teeth filled in?

I don't think the show is as funny as it used to be. I'll still watch it every once in a while though.

You HTNOTH. This show has sucked for a while and it is mostly the writing. Don't you just love the way Tina Fey smirks when she says something thats supposed to be witty on WE update. Her writing and acting is just plain AWFUL and these yoyo's just gave her a 4 mil deal to keep ruining the show.

I am proud of myself for figuring out what "HTNOTH" stands for...

peace.

Me, too.

OTOH, I like Tina Fey. I think she's funny.

Me, too.

OTOH, I like Tina Fey. I think she's funny.

I don't think it's the writers.
It's the cast! Hammond and Kattan are the only good cast members.
And now that Ferrell's gone...


...The show has become almost unwatchable.

SNL has been awful for over 8 years now, the only thing funny was Wil Ferral and now he is gone. Writing is terrible and so is the cast. The only person who finds this shit funny is Jimmy Fallon who can't make it through a skit without out a stupid giggle.

HTNOTH. Isn't that one of the Elders that H.P. Lovecraft made up to be Cthulhu's girlfriend in The Necronomicon ?

"I am HYNOTH, bow before me."

"But keep your hammer away from my head"

I've laughed along the way a few times at SNL shows the last 8 years. They are sort of missing the big name draws since Farley and Sandler aren't there any longer, IMHO.

Speaking of Ferrell, anybody else seen the trailer for Elf? That looks pretty wild.

Get rid of Tina Fey. She is not funny, the show has been horrible since she began as head writer, and the writers could not come up with a clever sketch even if stoned.

Come on people, get rid of Tina!

"I am proud of myself for figuring out what "HTNOTH" stands for..."

Well I haven't, so clue me in.

Speaking of Lovecraftian horrors from beyond time and space that can obliterate a man's sanity at a glance, can someone explain the appeal of Rachel Dratch?
DRATCH. DDDDDRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAATTTTTTCH!
She looks like she comes from Innsmouth, MA, and her name sounds like the noises I'd hear coming from the bathrooms during my fraternity's keg parties.

Maya rudolph is awesome... one of the best on the show. Will ferrel was great and i loved molly shannon. Amy Poehler cracks me up and i actually start laughing with jimmy fallon when he starts laughing in the middle of a skit. The show need better skits!!!! the cast is great, but the writing is the things that are keeping everyone from laughing.

Rachel Dratch is hilarious when she does skits with the right people!

I think Eric Olsen's comment put it best. We like to like the show. But with shows this bad (I'm refering to the Oct 4, 2004 disaster) You just can't. It makes you wonder if SNL is gonna have another low stint like back in the 80's, when it was almost canned. We'll just have to wait and see.

I only saw the first half of the Oct 4 '04 show and I thought it was pretty good. I liked the opening sketch about the debate. I thought the Bush imitation was particularly devastating, although I get tired of the obvious jokes about Kerry being a flipflopper and Clinton being a letch. Too easy.

Amy Pohler may be a problem as a weekend updater, although she may settle into it.

The opening gag commercial about erectile disfunction I found to be crude but not funny.

I generally liked the James Carville-Kerry skit. The Carville spoof was funny, I thought.

And I happen to think Ben Affleck is funny.

So, I'm not rating it as a disaster. At least not yet. It's a good cast, which hasn't always been the case.

I KNEW IT

Parallel universe. In some parallel universe Oct. 4,2004 is a Saturday.

I can't watch anymore. it's haard to wait for the two funny bits in the whole show - when there'a a whole big bad world out there.

On a related topic - anyone been watching,the top 100 SNL most memorable moments? And is anyone else wondering why they show maybe two seconds of each moment, not enough to make anyone laugh. I don't remember more than about a third of their moments.

SNL TiVos real good. You can watch the whole thing in 25 minutes.

I agree wih Dave that the political humor was the best, especially the opening and hte Carville thing, and I also like Affleck on the show - he has a ton of characters he portrays very well.

Amy wasn't in the groove on the news, but it may take a few times to find the right persona.

Another interesting thing is that with Kattan, Morgan, Ferrell and now Fallon gone, there is no "star" male on the show, hence the two women on Update. It will be interesting to see who does and doest not assert themselves this season - it's up for grabs.

Temple Stark: Yes, I did watch the funniest SNL moments. It was a joke. In my opinion, they should have cut it back to something like the top 25 moments and then shown the clips in full.

Maybe copyright prevented them from doing that. I don't know.

I also noticed that Wayne's World was the number one skit. That skit is funny, but not THAT funny. Oh well.

SNL does not suck, the author is just stuck somewhere between when he started watching SNL and the present. His appreciation of contemporary humor was lost somewhere also. SNL still rocks if you have kept up with the contemporary scene and I think I have and I am 64 years old so man like get hip or quit!

SNL hasn't been funny for the past 3 years, sure it has it's moments but those are few and far between. It can be summed up like this: Great cast, bad material.

I myself have since went to the dark side and starting watching Mad TV. Mad TV sketches may not be as "dry" or "mature" as SNL, but at least Mad TV has the balls to go further and knows when a sketch needs to die rather than let it drag on like SNL.

I think SNL lost me when they went overboard with their political Kerry/Bush sketches. They weren't funny, they dragged on too long, and The Daily Show with John Stewart is much superior in the political humor department than SNL is.

SNL has been so awful for so long now, but the past year and a half has hit lows so bad that some are even looking back on the Will Ferrell years as being funny in comparison (they weren't).

Virtually every cast member comes across with a smug attitude that screams "I am hilarious", when in fact there's nothing funny about any of them. Just as well that the writing is terrible, because none of these performers could pull it off if it were.

This show is ripe for cancellation, and I don't buy the idea that the show goes through up and down cycles; this show has been devoid of laughter for years. The Daily Show and MadTV have surpassed SNL. At the very least, chuck Lorne and the cast out, trim down the length of the show, restrict the musical guest to one song, lay off getting untalented young flavor-of-the-week actors and musicians to guest on the thing and get some quality control focused on that program. Anyone at NBC Studios who still thinks this show is putting out decent sketches is deluding themselves.

Outside of the odd funny sketch now and
again, S.N.L has been in the toilet for
more years than I care to remember.

It seems to function mainly as bullpen
for up and coming comedians.Most of whom
turn out to be of very limited comedic
ability once they are removed from the
realm of three minute skits.

Ever since Tina Fey took charge in the writting process, it all went to hell from that point on.

What does she think with those stupid jokes? They're not funny!

Take Tina out of SNL! She's tearing it apart!

The writing does suck. It's also adolescent and misogynist. The problem is producer/creator Lorne Michaels. I gather that he's gynophobic gay male with some missing pieces. It's time for him to be fired. Females have had a hard time on the show. In the past he explained a preponderance of male performers (which they had then) by saying that there just weren't talented females around. Right. The scripts about female guest hosts are usually degrading and juvenile. There's often a connection between this kind of mindset and a lack of talent. This type of climate can repell talent, or, in the case of SNL, I'm guessing they actively exclude people who have better things to offer, like intelligent female writers and the more politically outspoken female performers. Nora Dunn quit in disgust years ago over the appearance of a particularly misogynist comic. The employment of more than their share of ditzy, non-political, non-threatening female performers over the years is designed to provide an appearance of inclusion while insuring innocuous content from women and the isolation of the perpetrators from any real feedback. Think about it. How many seminal male comedians came through SNL but what about females? Anyone like Roseanne, Margaret Cho?

The character of a magazine or a TV show can come down to the preferences and limitations of one person. In this case it's Lorne Michaels. He sucks. Time to fire Lorne Michaels.

The show would be funnier if the cast would learn their lines instead of reading the teleprompter all the time. It kills the comic timing and it's lazy.

Roseanne did host SNL.

Tina Fey, with the backing of Michaels, was one of the main creative people behind Mean Girls

That being said, there is much proof that SNL is unfair to the female talent.

SNL will never be the same and I always enjoyed the past better than the present. I'm very open to today's SNL, but I don't think you'll see many stars out of the current cast like some of those in the past.

Yeah -- where are the Garrett Morrises, the Laraine Newmans, the Tony Rosatos and Joe Piscopos of tomorrow?

nice to be seen

Yeah, the show sucks. Tina Fey's smart, but she's writing the show for 13 year old girls.

Does it really annoy anyone else that Will Ferrell made more than anyone in Hollywood this year? $40 million freaking dollars and the guy has never proven he's a box office hit. I think "Old School" might have made him a hot commodity to try and get the mythical 14-year old boy moviegoer who will see a movie 8 times, but Will's never proven he's worth the $20 million a year he's getting now. And he's just not very funny.

I have a lot of the same problems with Jimmy Fallon, but he's not making $40 million a year.

That is all.

The show needs to go off the air. SNL is TERRIBLE this year, not funny at all. There are no laughs. And the cast--including Fallon, Poehler, etc. are lame.

The entire cast, all of them, need to be fired and a real producer, not an "executive producer" needs to find 12 people and put them on one-season contracts. The same goes with the writing, which is abysmal.

Either do that or pull SNL and give us all a rest. Belushi & co. must be turning over in their graves.

Replace "AGAIN" with "STILL" and you have the right idea.

Stephen, I see that your comment is dated for today, but you don't seem to be responding to the actual show. For starters, Fallon has not been on the cast for awhile now, and there's only been one show so far this season.

It doesn't sound like you even watched it. You're just looking for an excuse for nay saying. In fact, this season opener was outstanding, and sketch for sketch would go up against most of the stuff from the classic 70s cast. For starters, the characterizations of President Bush are much more funnier and more nuanced than Chevy Chase doing Ford.

Earth to TV critics and magazine writers:
Tina Fey sucks. Jimmy Fallon sucks. Will Farrell sucks. They collectively have the comic caliber of someone that should be booed off the stage in Branson, MO. Please please please stop keeping their careers afloat with bad movies and shows.

Will ferrel is a talentless screen filler (I will not call him actor out of respect for real actors). Same old stupid crap every movie, this guy has as much depth as a piece of tissue paper. I find that people who like his requrgitated "humor" are either 1) children or 2) adults who are as mature as children. Come on people you going to stand in front of me and say elf was funny? talladega nights? Blades of Boredom? Save yourself the embarassment that he wont himself.

Okay, so this article was posted originally seven years ago from 2008, and just to inform you all

The SHOW SUCKS, still

Yes, I had it good and remember the golden age of SNL and all the great Skits of the 90's, but please -- FIRE TINA FEY. She is NOT funny. If she is the head writer and responsible for the crap, fire her. Also, Lorn Michaels may once have been a genius, but he seems to be losing touch -- FIRE HIM. He has lost his edge in his old age.

I just watched the Obama Sketch 2008, and it was terrible. These writers have no clue how to make funny sketch scene, and instead let scenes drag on. I'm not comedian, but I know when a scene should end, and this crap that have and are trying to pass off as comedy is just -- CRAP.

I think one of the main reasons this pile of junk is still on the air is because people still have respect for the Institution of SNL, not the show itself. "Oh, wow, it's SNL," some pundit says. "Yes, they are so cutting edge."

Yeah maybe in 1995 or 1985.

Will Ferrel may be disliked, and I even find him annoying from time to time, and over rated, but he jumped ship at the right time, because this pile of turkey has been sucking since the beginning of the 21st century, and as long as FEY is the head writer, it's should keep sucking for another decade or so.

I hate Mad TV, too, but they are a lot better at sketch comedy, NOW, than SNL has been in years, and I think Mad TV is pretty much crap, too.

1947 eh? Where did you come up with that? The show started on October 11, 1975.

Jimmy Fallon sucks!