A lot of notable things came out of SNL between 1995 and 2000, loved and hated - Darrell Hammond's Bill Clinton (with requisite thumbs-up), "TV Funhouse," "Delicious Dish," "Dog Show," Mango and Mr. Peepers, Ana Gasteyer's Martha Stewart impression, Mary Katharine Gallagher, "Celebrity Jeopardy!" and Bill Brasky. It prepped writers like Robert Smigel and Adam McKay for future success with essentially offbeat shit. The Ferrell run was also critically lambasted at one time - cue a possibly-tongue-in-cheek Time article putting over Norm MacDonald while bashing both the rest of SNL and MADtv - but time seems to have been kind to Saturday Night Live during those years.
The documentary ends with some SNL ass-patting. I don't see Kenneth Bowser doing an SNL in the 2000s - at least for another two-and-a-half years, anyway. It'd be untoward for an official SNL documentary to call the current show crap, but the heavy pro-Lorne slant frankly comes across like a WWE documentary talking about how Vince McMahon is a genius. It's distracting and gives objectivity to what is essentially subjective opinion.
The current version of Saturday Night Live has its share of problems like every other version. No show can last in perpetuity, but time will tell if SNL regains critical praise and popularity like it has in the past. Time always has.
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Article comments
1 - TV and Film Guy
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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!