Bring Back SNL: a Multi-Part Plan

Maybe you know this about me:  I have always been a die-hard SNL fan.   I grew up watching it, was proud of myself when I could actually “get” the humor when I was a kid, and it was a huge part of my life throughout high school and after.  I always, ALWAYS watched it, and it’s making me sad now that it seems to have lost its connection to what was so funny and essential about it previously.

Over the weekend, while watching the “Miley Cyrus” episode (don’t even get me started, she is so defensive and almost angry about everything that is going on with her life, this attitude pervaded almost every performance.  Did anybody else think this?) I tweeted the following:

I am like Saturday Night Live's apologist girlfriend. It's not funny anymore, and yet I keep showing up anyway.

For some reason this totally resonated with people, and right there began a discussion of how Saturday Night Live should be better, and some ways it can be, which I have summarized in this multi-part proposal.  This being 2011, and social media being what it is, I have actual hope that Lorne Michaels or at least someone who writes or produces SNL will read this and actually put some of these ideas into place.   

I would like to propose a multi-part plan for fixing SNL, which I think could still be a totally relevant show but which is (I feel) lagging behind a culture so saturated in social media and short attention spans that People Magazine cannot even put out an accurate story on Charlie Sheen, because in the time it takes to actually print the magazine and get it to newsstands, all the facts of the story are different.  I get that it’s a challenge, but I don’t think SNL is evolving in the right direction, and since I would hate to see it keep going on the way it has been for the past couple of years, I will propose several changes that I think might help.   

–Stop with all the repitition.  You are beating the jokes to death.  This, I think, is a misinterpretation on the part of the producers/ writers.  The fact that funny things “go viral” and get 2 million YouTube videos should NOT logically mean that one sketch should contain the same joke five or six times.  Once we get it, we’ve got it, and to keep harping on it insults our intelligence.   One solution for this would be to cut the length of sketches down.  Another would be to develop some more jokes for the last 60 seconds of each sketch so the cast isn’t just coasting on the funny.   Examples of this include:  “Gilly,” “French Kissing Family,” and “What’s Up With That?”.  Same joke, over and over again:  not funny. Here is an example: this sketch is over five minutes long, and is based on the idea that "no one knows the other members of the Black Eyed Peas."  We get the joke as soon as we see them and figure out who they are, but then they still have five minutes to fill.  This kind of thing is what is bogging down the show.

–Cut the time of the show.   Maybe SNL doesn’t have to occupy the entire 90 minute slot that it has traditionally held.  Can the show be cut down to 60 minutes, with each sketch being under three minutes?   Almost all of the Digital Shorts are three minutes and under, and this might be why they consistently work so much better than the regular sketches.   Cutting the fat out of the show like this would force the writers to pack more funny into the sketches.

–Let Seth Meyers do “Weekend Update” by himself.    The interstitial sketches inside “Update” are bogging it down, and they almost always break Seth Meyers’ stride with the topical one-liners.  If he needs a co-host, get him one, but the second sketch is almost always a stinker (Second-Hand News,  Angela Dixon, weather-woman), making it blatantly obvious that the second slot is just a time-filler.  Cut the show down!  Less show with more funny is better!

–Ask Andy Samberg what he thinks.  You know whose stuff is consistently innovative and funny?  That’s right—Andy Samberg, the digital short guy, who keeps totally knocking it out of the park with the viral videos (Lazy Sunday, D*ck in a Box, Like a Boss, even The Creep).   Clearly he is tapped in to what people want, and even though the digital shorts can fall flat if he tries to pack too many ideas into them or if they run too long, they are consistently much funnier than the regular sketches.  Maybe if he started being a producer, SNL would get its edge back, no?    Side note:  yes, the “Blizzard Man” sketch is written in a super repetitive way, but I still feel like Andy Samberg is creative and funny WITHIN that structure.   Here is an example of what he can do with 2 1/2 minutes:

–Use the players more.  This is a callback to the first point. For instance, let Kristen Wiig do some actual comedy instead of just making her mug in every single sketch just because it gets an easy laugh.   I saw Kristen Wiig perform in L.A. when she was in The Groundlings, and I promise you she is much funnier when not being forced into making funny faces for easy laughs.  In fact, this goes for the entire cast.  Let them be more funny!   One easy joke repeated over and over again leads to the bloated, unfunny, disappointing mess that Saturday Night Live has become.  It’s not fair to the amazing comic history of that show, it’s not fair to the players themselves, and it’s not fair to the people watching it.

In closing, Saturday Night Live needs help.  If you have ideas, please leave them here!

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