The Wayne's World film is given its proper credit for renewed interest in Saturday Night Live during the early 1990s. While it would have been nice for Kenneth Bowser to talk about subsequent SNL films spun off from other recurring characters (see Coneheads, The Ladies Man, It's Pat!, A Night at the Roxbury), Wayne's World could have been ignored and I'm glad it wasn't.
What amazes me about the 1994-95 season is that the documentary couches that season as quite heavily attacked by the critics (which it was - sample headline: "Dear Saturday Night Live, It's Over. Please Die.") but appealing more to the baby boomers' kids as opposed to the boomers themselves. Unlike with SNL in the 1980s, where the 1980-81 and 1985-86 seasons were given fairer assessments, 1994-95 is cast as a decent season weighed down by bad press.
I'm amazed SNL in the 1990s focuses on this and skims over its own internal turmoil during 1993-95. Janeane Garofalo left after half a season, considering SNL a "boys' club." Mike Myers left before the end of the 1994-95 season. People like Garofalo, Morwenna Banks, Chris Elliott, Mark McKinney, and Michael McKean were drafted to fill Hartman- and Carvey-sized gaps in the cast. When Al Franken is using his Stuart Smalley character to complain about people preferring what he called "Dumb and Dumber... and dumber ...and DUMBER" over Stuart Saves His Family, that's not a good sign. The assessment of 1994-95 isn't all bad, though - the New York magazine article is lambasted as a smear job, and the press did have a field day tearing SNL new ones from 1994-96.
The post-1995 run of SNL is treated respectfully. Proper credit is given to Ferrell, Cheri Oteri, Molly Shannon, Ana Gasteyer, and the show's late-1990s reliance on Monica Lewinsky jokes. Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin, and John Goodman are mentioned as favoured guest stars during the 1990s. The deaths of Chris Farley and Phil Hartman are properly treated.
Norm MacDonald's "Weekend Update" run is given fair treatment - there's an assessment by NBC executives Don Ohlmeyer and Rick Ludwin that MacDonald's last year at "Weekend Update" was subpar, and their opinions are not unfounded. MacDonald didn't seem to want to be at SNL his final season as he ended a lot of later "Weekend Updates" abruptly and his role on the show was drastically reduced. Considering it's easier to say "Norm MacDonald was fired for too many jokes at Ohlmeyer's friend O.J. Simpson," Bowser escapes coming across as a "fake news" fanboy. No mention of "Conspiracy Theory Rock" or MacDonald's F-bomb, though?
![Snl: The Best of 96-97 [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZKM65NQKL._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - TV and Film Guy
Congratulations! This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States.
2 - Rodney Welch
I liked what I saw of it, but I disagree that the whole Norm MacDonald/Don Ohlmeyer fiasco was given "fair treatment," and I don't understand why you say it would have been "easier to say 'Norm MacDonald was fired for too many jokes at Ohlmeyer's friend O.J. Simpson'."
How would that have been easier, considering Ohlmeyer is participating in the show? Actually, I think the opposite is true, which is why that segment of the show was a bit of a whitewash.
Tom Shales in The Washington Post: Don Ohlmeyer, the former NBC executive who demanded that Michaels fire Norm MacDonald as anchor of the "Weekend Update" segment, shows guts in agreeing to be interviewed and attempting again to defend his action. But one of the alleged reasons for Ohlmeyer's rancor isn't really discussed: that the executive, a close friend of O.J. "If I Did It" Simpson, didn't like MacDonald's devastating Simpson jokes.
3 - Cameron A.
I don't think it was just the OJ jokes that led to MacDonald's firing, though - I mean, one of the clips on the special is of MacDonald telling an OJ joke. MacDonald has a blunt sense of humour, and he's offended the audience on a few occasions.
The "easier" comment referred to Bowser not having to allow Ohlmeyer and Ludwin their opinions on the firing. The pro-MacDonald side could have been more specific than "damn suits," but I think it was the deadpan, sarcastic way MacDonald told his jokes that eventually got him fired.
4 - lono
To Bill Brasky! I once saw him date 13 women at the same time, all the while fighting a skyscraper on fire while he was still drunk!