Saturday Night Live

I watched the very first episode of SNL when it aired in 1975. I laughed till my sides ached and never missed a show. We had no VCRs then so we watched it live, and I never missed a show. Every single one of the original cast were funny in their own way. Eventually they all went on to other projects.

John Belushi was a comedic genius and he was in some of the funniest skits of all time with Danny Aykroyd. Gilda Radner was also hysterically funny.

The funniest, most memorable skits of all time were in the first 20 years.

Many of cast n the 80s were very funny and so were the cast in the 90s.. After that I stopped watching and I stopped watching about 20 years ago since it wasn't funny to me anymore.

Anyone still watching for only the last 10 years may not be old enough to remember the original cast Occasionally i turn it on for a few minutes and I don't even crack a smile.

They had some great guest hosts like Steve Martin, Buck Henry, Chris Walken, Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, and Eddie Murphy to name a few. They all added to the show's quality.

The show became political, and sometimes offensive at times eventually. Poking at politicians is fine, but IMO they sometimes went too far.

Now, they ought to pack it in because it stinks.

SNL is better than ever. After a bit of a slump in the early 2000's, 20 years later and it couldn't be funnier. Anyone that says any different just says so because they make fun of the president. They have made fun of every president during the entire 45 years of its existence. So people who don't like the show now will like it again when the opposition regains office. Always good for a laugh

Every once in awhile I read reviews of SNL. Almost never do the reviews say "it was OK". Unless it is a review by a frequent viewer, they always say something like "SNL is great again!" or "SNL sucks now". Usually these reviews are from people who never or rarely watch the show, and only remember it from 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. These types of reviews have been the same for as long as I can remember. The periods that people now call "classic" frequently met with poor reviews at the time.

One thing to remember is that the show is an hour and a half, longer than most any other TV show. It is hard to fill such a long show with consistently funny material. It is also hard to make every episode funny. Therefore the show (like most shows) wavers between great and awful, depending on the sketch or episode you are watching at the moment. To judge an entire series on one episode (or part of one) is a mischaracterization.

I've watched SNL for most of its life, and although it has ranged from hilarious to horrible, I would say the average show is "pretty funny". The bottom line: there's nothing better to watch on Saturday night, so until there is, I will always watch SNL!

It was good, then it was great, then it was good again and now it stinks.

As of 2018 The edginess is gone. There are no risks in the jokes. They all consist of two things, 1. Trump is bad. and 2. This was a thing, remember it?

Neither of those really work for me. Make fun of Trump all you want, but do it with a punch line. Most of the time they forget the punchline. Simply not liking him is NOT a punchline. You have to exaggerate something, make it satire, mock it in some way. I don't even care if it's a cruel mockery...so long as it doesn't seem like they are just stating an opinion.

Opinions are NOT jokes.

The same thing goes with their "remember this, this was a thing" jokes...

They leave you sitting there waiting for them to say something funny about it. You're with them for a little while, "Yeah I remember it, go on..." then you realize that, no, that was the joke.

That's not a joke, that's just asking me to remember something.

Again, if they had a punch line, if they said something about what they were asking me to remember, then it might be funny...but they don't. The jokes are literally "this was a thing, laugh at it." and that's not funny. It has to be followed up with something.

Like with Trump, an opinion is NOT a joke unless it is followed by something. The same thing with a memory, a memory is NOT a joke in and of itself. They both have to be followed by something

Saturday night live have been around for a good while now. The fact that the show have fostered many of the greatest comedians and writers should be recognized and celebrated. But due to the amount of episodes the show is very uneven. It spawned some of the best and most quotable comedy sketches but the bad ones outnumber them by a wide margin. The average grade is around 4/10 but you can't grade it without taking the contribution to comedy into account that raises the grade. But the show is not worth seeing every week. It's better to just see the good sketches on their YouTube page.