There are few television programs that could be classified as certifiable institutions. With 160 cast members, 930 episodes, 231 Emmy Award nominations (including 86 wins), and three Peabody Awards across 47 years, Saturday Night Live is certainly one of the few. The iconic New York sketch comedy show has been beating alongside the heart of Hollywood since 1975, pumping some funny blood into the cultural zeitgeist by featuring (and parodying) many of the greatest actors, politicians, and musicians of the past half century, all while marking up the sociopolitical map with a winking smiley face.
However, the series has experienced a kind of midlife crisis over the past decade, appropriate for its age, with many considering the show to be the worst it’s ever been. A cursory glance at the headlines might provide a weekend update — “Pete Davidson says he’s never felt ‘less funny’ than when he’s on Saturday Night Live,” writes Entertainment Weekly; “Saturday Night Live Helped Create the Age of Memes. Now It Can’t Keep Up,” according to Wired; “The sad, painful death of Saturday Night Live,” writes Spiked. Of course, like almost everything else, comedy is subjective, but with the recent news of creator Lorne Michaels’ retirement and long-time cast member Kenan Thompson’s endorsement of the show ending at 50 seasons, is it time to put this late-night behemoth to bed?
Lorne Michaels is Leaving Saturday Night Live
Lorne Michaels created Saturday Night Live with development from Dick Ebersol back in 1975 before he was even 30, and the show had the anarchic unpredictability of youth and the ’70s. Now, Michaels is eyeing his retirement as he turns 78 this year, hoping to stick it out a few more years until his octogenarian twilight. Many consider this to be the death knell for SNL, including the longest-tenured member of its cast, Kenan Thompson. Thompson recently told Charlamagne tha God:
50 is a good number to stop at. That’s an incredible package. He will be, probably, close to 80 years old at that point, and, you know, he’s the one who’s had his touch on the whole thing. So, if somebody tries to come into his shoes, you know, it’s a good opportunity for NBC to save money as well, you know what I’m saying? [NBC] might slash the budget and then at that point, you can’t really do the same kind of show. So that’s unfair to watch it just really go down kind of in flames for real because of those restrictions … Capping it at 50 might not be a bad idea.
There’s certainly some logic to this, though the assertion that an SNL sans Lorne would be like a Seinfeld without Jerry is just plain nonsense. It’s almost an objective fact that Michaels is not the most important part of whether SNL sinks or swims, considering the surfeit of performers, writers, producers, directors, designers, musicians, and crew that goes into the show.
SNL Needs a Cast More Than Lorne Michaels
Michaels’ absence doesn’t necessarily mean Saturday Night Live should end. After all, Lorne left for half a decade in the ’80s, and the show survived just fine with the talents of myriad performers who did great during his time away, including the late great Gilbert Gottfried, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy, Harry Shearer, Martin Short, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, and Brian Doyle-Murray, along with Jim Belushi. Some might say that these were comparatively weaker years for the show, and yet it’s more than arguable that this period was far greater than what SNL has wheezed out the past five years. Therefore, it’s more than possible for SNL to continue without Michaels. In fact, it’s probably the only way it can — a rich, white 80-year-old man should hardly be the gatekeeper of television’s biggest comedy institution.
The last great generation of Saturday Night Live alums may have been the time of Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, and so on (roughly a decade ago). Then again, ‘every generation thinks it’s the end of the world,’ as one Wilco song goes. Since then, SNL has shifted through a roster of not-ready-for-primetime-players at a rapid rate, with many cast members lasting between one and three seasons; it would honestly be a challenge for 99% of the population to name two current cast members who aren’t Kenan Thompson (and no, Pete Davidson and Kate McKinnon have left).
Trump Killed SNL Like Everything Else
In addition to the restlessness of its casting, SNL fell into a trap back in 2015 that it’s never really been able to crawl out from. See, there was a time when comedians and writers were thrilled at the prospect of a political Donald Trump. They luxuriated in the notion of candidate Trump and the bounty of rich comic material he’d deliver with his idiocy and foolishness. During the run-up to the 2012 election, for instance, Jon Stewart joked onThe Daily Show, “In my despair over not having good election material, have the comedy gods delivered onto me a Trump-O-Gram?”
When the Trump administration finally came, ‘the comedy gods’ reigned down a veritable litany of biblical plagues; it was too much to keep up with, and it was too ridiculous to mock. The things that came out of Trump and his goons’ mouths were more wackadoodle than anything Saturday Night Live could come up with on their own, so they resorted to essentially the same thing every other late-night show did — merely repeating the news. The show’s sketches basically became reenactments of the week’s events, because the things which actually happened were already so downright bonkers or offensive. SNL simply threw a wig on Alec Baldwin and rolled him onstage with an applause sign, and the writing continued its slippery slope downhill.
SNL is Dead. Long Live SNL.
What actually is Saturday Night Live? When all is said and done, how can one really define it? The series is just an assemblage of sketch comedy bits performed live; sometimes it’s explicitly political material, sometimes wistfully silly, sometimes dark and satirical, and sometimes just irreverently absurd. Yes, they’ve had recurring sketches and templates, but SNL shouldn’t have rules it needs to follow; it’s less of a show than a guideline for a show — throw some funny people together, plan out some comedy sketches, and then perform them live.
In this sense, Saturday Night Live is not a series like The Simpsons or any average scripted program, but instead more like the news, or The Tonight Show, or The Price is Right. It’s a concept and a blueprint with different faces and talent, and SNL is treated extremely differently as a result of this and its sheer longevity. For example, any other show (sitcom or otherwise) that featured the miserable paucity of humor and originality currently plaguing SNL would be canceled immediately, or never even make it to air.
If Saturday Night Live was a normal television show, it should undoubtedly be canceled; NBC shouldn’t even wait for Lorne Michaels’ 80th birthday bash to break the news. But because SNL is more of a concept than a show, that means it could drastically improve with new blood, and definitely has a chance to, at least the further Trump gets in the show’s rearview and, ironically, the less Michaels is involved. The 80-year-old Canadian made magnificent contributions to culture and comedy, but it’s no longer his time to be the arbiter of American humor.
Outside sports, chat shows, and news, there really are no live television programs anymore. It’s a neat concept for a comedy show, but even after 50 years, it’s one they’re obviously still working on. SNL is kind of like that old joke from O. Henry about New York — “It’ll be a great place if they ever finish it.” There’s a fine argument to be made that SNL still has some time before they finish it.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism