At one time, Saturday Night Live was considered edgy. It stormed onto television sets in 1975, giving the middle-finger to Johnny Carson and the golden age of television.
It aired at a time reserved for late night movies, and on a night when people had more important things to do than watch 90 minutes of comedy. Yet, it somehow gathered an audience and by the end of the decade was a national phenomenon. Its cast members were in movies, and movie stars wanted to host.
Sadly, SNL hasn’t been edgy for a long time. Tina Fey referred to Norm Macdonald as “the last dangerous cast member” in an interview for Saturday Night Live Backstage. As “Weekend Update” anchor, Macdonald routinely bashed O.J. Simpson much to the chagrin of NBC executive and friend of Simpson, Don Ohlmeyer. Ohlmeyer famously fired Macdonald during the middle of the 23rd season in 1998.
Well before Macdonald was fired, the edginess of SNL was waning. By the late 1980’s, the foundation built by the original cast and bred in the counterculture movement of the 1960’s had all but vanished. With the success of cast members like Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy, the show became a stepping stone to a bigger career. It became watered down comedy geared toward the everyman, instead of the weirdos watching late night television on Saturday.
As SNL became less and less innovative, other sketch comedy shows began filling the void from In Living Color to Mr. Show to Chappelle’s Show to Tim & Eric. While these shows were picking up accolades and younger fans, SNL seemed to be OK with going about its routine. This routine led to many awards and a lot of money for people involved with the show, but it slowly eroded the fan base built during SNL‘s first 15 seasons and made them seek out those other programs.
This need for “safe” comedy from SNL to appease the regular Joes out there led to cast members like Will Forte routinely writing hilarious and weird sketches that aired at 10-to-1, or the hiring of five white guys between seasons. Somewhere long ago, possibly when he returned in 1985, creator Lorne Michaels decided he would do whatever it takes to keep executives happy, and executives don’t like controversy.
What Michaels possibly hasn’t realized yet is that SNL is now Carson. It is the old guard of sketch comedy television: out of date, and in need of change to stay relevant. The hirings of Pete Davidson and Michael Che might be a start, but we’re only five episodes into their careers as cast members.
Last week, Adult Swim aired an 11-minute title sequence for a non-existent 1980’s sitcom titled Too Many Cooks. It aired Too Many Cooks at 4 A.M. during a block of infomercials and as of Sunday, the short had been viewed over 900,000 times on YouTube.
Better shows have been aired on Adult Swim, but the boldness — or stupidity — of airing something as well produced as Too Many Cooks at 4 A.M. shouldn’t be lost in the hype. It would be like SNL shooting the first “What Up With That?,” never airing it, and then casually putting it into the VH1 rerun. SNL hasn’t aired anything nearly as weird or absurd as Too Many Cooks since maybe “Potato Chip” or “Darrell’s House,” both of which aired during the last half hour.
SNL still has funny moments, and can still be edgy in its own way from time to time, but the show has become too predictable. There’s no incentive to actually watch when the show is airing, and shouldn’t live television be unpredictable?
Viewers should be expecting to laugh nervously or gasp occasionally, but both rarely happen anymore. When is the last time you said, “I can’t believe they let that on,” in regards to something strange or odd while watching SNL? The feeling of entering the unpredictable world of Saturday Night Live is seemingly gone, but it needs to return if SNL wants to stop losing ground to the new kids.
