#LATENIGHTPROBLEMS | the two-pronged struggle of snl

By Brian Kenney
 

Statement: The "Best of Chris Farley" ranks alongside The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as one of the best selling DVD's of all time.

Statement : In March of 1995, Chris Farley, the standout cast-member of SNL and rapidly rising television star, was chosen to be on the cover of New York Magazine to represent that month's centerpiece article written about a week "behind the scenes Saturday Night Live".  The cover of the magazine read "The Inside Story on the Decline and Fall of Saturday NIght Live" and the article was titled "The Death of Comedy".

Water is wet. The sky is blue. Saturday Night Live isn't as funny as it used to be. Some things change, and some don't. 

And it would be a waste of time for me to write, or you to read, something that tries to defend or criticize the quality of the current Saturday Night Live. The common consensus seems to be that the current show 'is pretty funny sometimes' and I think I agree with that.  

The show will always be faced with 'golden age' comparisons (Bill Simmons with Eddie Murphy, my Mom with Bill Murray, me with Will Ferrel) that are a little unfair both because of the way 'Best of' DVD's make these past era's seem more consistently funny than they really were and because of the unfairness of any kind of  'golden age' comparison.  As Owen Wilson said in his character's (self-admitted) minor revelation from Midnight in Paris, it's not helpful to think that the present doesn't compare to some past era because, "That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is a little unsatisfying."

And to try and prove whether something is 'funny' or 'not funny' is...kinda...yeah. Listen, I watched Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie last weekend and that movie wacked me out so thoroughly I don't think I'm going to be able to clearly think about the difference between funny and not-funny for a few months. (Don't ever ask me what Shrim is. Please.)

But there is something that's becoming more apparent every time I watch the show: Saturday Night Live is fundamentally disadvantaged in it's ability to do topical humor.

This is through no fault of the show's writers or cast; it's just a product of having to compete with the world wide superwebs. This won't be news to anyone, but if something happens  on Sunday, the topic will be run through so many times, and you will here dozens of jokes through so many mediums (Twitter, The Onion, Facebook memes, Conan, e-mail's with your friends, any of the pop-culture blogs) that the topic is usually tired and dry by Thursday.  I don't think there is a way to measure how many jokes it takes for  a news piece or topic reach its comedy saturation point, but that point does get reached somewhere.

Then it's Saturday, and Tina Fey is hosting SNL. She runs through her monologue and makes a joke telling her soon-to-be-born daughter to "stay away from that Charlie Sheen".  

And, again, I don't want to try to make a case that the jokes made on SNL are good or bad jokes. Tina Fey might be one of the single funniest people now or ever.  It's just that the 55th and 56th jokes you've heard on about Tim Tebow or Rick Santorum are never likely to get the same reaction as the 2nd and 3rd. 

To sum up: How do we get Kel on this show over Kenan? Am I alone on this?