SNL General Discussion Thread
 

There seems to be a fair amount of chatter in the current season thread regarding the best cast, speculation on who is out etc so in the interest of keeping the episode threads more episode-specific I figured I would create this thread for speculation and such.

I think last season was really uneven with only a handful of good episodes and a smattering of good skits. Won't mind seeing a big shakeup for the 2021 season but I suspect we will get a lot of people returning. What are your thoughts? It seems like Melissa Villaseñor may be out based on something she posted on her social but it's odd that that has not been picked up by the 'news'.

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The early 90's cast was loaded with a All Star cast of comedians and that was the best and I would say better than the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players.

The other great cast was the early to mid 2000's with Poehler, Forte, Armisen, Fey, Fallon, Hader, Samberg, Maya, and Sudekis.


I remember people on this forum bashed those shows but they did not know how good it was back then.

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I’m really old because I thought the best seasons were in the 80’s and 90’s. Nothing in the past 20 years is even remotely worth entertaining. But we’re talking different generations now. I watch the occasional sketch every now and then when people post them, but even those are dull to me.

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I think one issue is that the cast in the late 80s and 90s (Farley, Hartman, Sandler, Nealon, Spade, etc.) for the most part were successful ON SNL. They had funny skits, a lot of memorable skits. But aside from a few glimmers here and there, never really surpassed their SNL success. Later cast members (Ferrell, Wiig, Hader, Fallon, Poehler, Fey, Sudeikis, etc.) seemed to be talented comedians who found their success OFF of SNL. I think Wiig, Sudeikis, Poehler and Hader are some truly hilarious people but I don’t think I could name a single character any of them played on SNL.

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Hader had Stefon and Poehler was famous for her impressions and that hyperactive kid in the Minnie Mouse shirt

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There was an article in Vulture (I think) listing the best sketches of the 2020-21 season, and I don't think any of them are going to make the SNL All Time Best collection.

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Here’s the article

I think it’s a good list. The few standouts I remember form this season (Christmas Morning, Muppet Show, The Last Dance) are pretty much all there. And as I said at the time, I think the Beyoncé Hot Ones sketch was a classic. That one I will remember.

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Stefon is the only one I could actually name. I recall the others in skits, I can’t remember what they looked like, but couldn’t tell you any of their names.

My point is, the later cast of SNL hasn’t really had characters that rose to to the top of pop culture like the older cast. If I mentioned Matt Foley, Pat, Hans and Franz, the Church Lady, Opera Man, etc. most fans of SNL would instantly remember them. I don’t think that’s so much the case for the later cast characters.

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Of the current cast, I think Cecily Strong's "Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation with at a Party" and Kat McKinnon's Colleen Rafferty (aka the frequent UFO/paranormal abductee) will be remembered.

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I feel like Kenan excels as a gameshow host but that's usually as the straight man. I still love "What's up with that" though.

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There's also Pete Davidson's "Chad," (who has had eleven appearances), the "Action News" segment, and John Mulaney's musical numbers.

I was looking through the recurring sketches on wikipedia, and was sort of surprised how many of the sketches/characters are actually recurring like Debette Goldry (Kate McKinnon's elderly golden age actress) and "The War in Words."

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Recently watched a YouTube video that I'm too lazy to re-find and link, but it was a 20-something kid who watched one episode from every season. Most of the comments you could expect, but he also bashed the early 90s eps that many of us here have praised. His reasoning? He didn't think Adam Sandler was that good on the show. That's when I put two and two together and realized that from his age, he'd know Adam Sandler as a popular movie star and assumed he was the breakout performer of 90s SNL just like Eddie Murphy was ten years prior. But SNL Adam Sandler was just one of many; it wasn't any one person that made 90s SNL so classic, it was just across-the-board talent. You could be getting physical comedy from Farley, racial comedy from Rock, deadpan characters played by Hartman, snark from Spade, it was just one thing after another and not a showcase for one person's talent.

Although I'll agree that Sandler wasn't particularly amazing on SNL, but I'm not a fan of his movies much either. He's not who I'd imagined would have the best post SNL career, that's for sure.

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I'd also think a ton of sketches are very specific to the time period, whether it's politics or pop culture. Of course the best sketches transcend that, and we only really remember the best sketches. Which is why actually watching it "live" makes it seem like it's all utter crap.

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There's that one great episode where almost every sketch was about Amy Fisher. They had the Fox version, the BET version, even an infomercial.

But yeah, you're gonna be lost if you don't know who Amy Fisher was.

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My thought is most people also don't know who Joey Buttafuoco is despite recognizing his name :lol:

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I suppose if you're thirty or under, you would have no idea who Joey Buttafuco was, and anything with him or Amy Fisher would go right over your head. :lol:

I remember the "Long Island Lolita" saga completely dominating pop culture and the news cycles back when I was younger. I also suspect that Joey and Amy are the patient zeros for a lot of the current slate of reality tv like the Kardashians and Real Housewives, where the studio heads learned that people have a huge appetite for every day drama being played out on their tv screens.

And "Buttafuoco" looks and sounds like "butt fuck," though nobody dared to point that out, which I think accounts for about half of the fascination with their story. :lol:

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There were also a rush of made-for-TV movies that cashed in, which was what SNL was poking fun at. One had Alyssa Milano as Amy, another had Drew Barrymore. Hence each SNL parody being a different network's take on the story. The Fox version had Melanie Hutsell as Tori Spelling play the character, and the BET version had Tim Meadows as Joey Buttfuoco.

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I treat SNL like sports, You will watch some clunkers but you will get some good stuff too you don't want to miss.

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I saw that video from Drew Gooden and I somewhat agree with his point. Despite the amount of people who became household names,the post Carvey era in the early 90's had a lot of recurring sketches that shouldn't have existed but they were looking for the next WW/Coneheads,plus you suprisingly had a lot of topical amy fisher/tonya harding topical tabloid sketches that kind of age badly. People like that era because of best of farley/hartman/sandler/rock etc dvd's that cherry pick the era to make it look better then it was. Although I think that overuse of the recurring sketches thing also hurt the late 90's,as great as Will Ferrell is they really ran those stupid roxbury guys and cheerleader thing into the ground.

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The ones that come to my mind, Wiig, Taget lady (which I hated), and the old Broadway actress who couldn't play $1,000 Pyramid, Poehler's adolescent girl (already mentioned), Sudekis' Joe Biden, and Hader's Vincent Price.

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Let's not forget John Lovitz with the hypnotist (it's the best thing I've seen since Cats, I want to see it again and again) and the pathological liar. My wife Morgan Fairchild... who I've seen naked.

It's sad Victoria Jacksons' career pretty much shit the bed after the show.

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https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...fa1e45051a.gif............Hader's best character


But seriously, I don't hold by the idea that you judge a cast member by their memorable characters. Julia Sweeney did Pat (what seems like) a thousand times and even did a Pat movie.

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She probably would have been more successful pursuing a career shitting on guys in bed.

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And then did a show on Showtime playing herself as a supporting character basically apologizing for Pat.