Am I alone in finding SNL to be just awful?

wait, you mean you watch Televison?

No i don’t find anything on tv to be funny.

1) SNL isn’t funny.

2) Malcom inthe Middle isn’t funny, either.

3) Gawker basically mocks SNL.

I’m watching SNL right now. They’re making terrible jokes about weiners. Har har har. Regina Spektor’s song was kind of cool though. Great vocal range.

I loved older SNL. But in recent years, it just hasn’t been my kind of humor. Same has happened to Simpsons and Family Guy

No, you’re not alone in that aspect.

Luckily, where I live, I don’t have a TV of my own so I don’t have to deal with that.

How can you say SNL isn’t funny when you’ve got a cast like Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtain, and Garrett Morris?

@AstroChuck I knew you were 6. I didn’t know you were also living in the mid-seventies

I think SNL goes through waves. There have been some very funny casts. It’s definitely in a lull at the moment.

This is why I think television is a vast wasteland. I stopped watching around the time everything became Reality TV. I hate court shows, I hate celebrities doing ANYTHING shows, and the last time I watched TV was the year that LOST went in the toilet.

I use my TV for two things, to play video games and to check the weather when I don’t have the computer on. Sometimes I’ll watch DVDs on it, but only stuff my wife suggests that we watch together.

The last time SNL was funny was when John Belushi was alive. After that, it just sucked.

SNL was funny during the election period, i think it serves a political purposes for liberals to mock the republicans more than anythiing, same with Jon stewart and other liberal type tv shows who use political humors to undermines neo conservativsm. I think it also serves as a tool for comic relief during periods of depression, terrorism, and what not. SNL exists for the sake of nostalgia, like many things. Its the whole New York New York thing.

SNL blows now, but I lovvvvvvve the old ones.

OK, I’ve been watching since about ‘79 when I was 8 years old. And pretty much every year I hear how SNL has gone down hill, how it sucks, how it’s awful, how it’s not as good as it used to be. And MOST years I’ve found the show to be hit and miss, I can’t think of a single season, including the legendary original cast seasons where every single skit was good, or even in fact one where more than half the skits were good. It’s a live show which they completely write and produce in a week, and that usually means they have a couple killer ideas, add the musical talent and the Weekend Update, that’s half the show, the other half is filler, usually not very good. That’s what the recurring skits are about. And I’ve noticed that particularly since about the mid 80s, they seem to rely too heavily on these, which is probably because they know something familiar that sucks is still going to resonate more with the audience than something unfamiliar that sucks equally as bad. So every year I hear the question about whether SNL is not funny anymore, and I think it usually ends up being a pretty marginal thing. By that I mean, maybe some seasons 50% of the show was good…these are the ones people remember fondly, then the worst ones maybe 35% is good, those are the ones that everyone says suck. And really, it’s probably the difference between having one, maybe two more funny skits per episode in the good years than during the bad.

But this year, for the first time in 35 years, I wholeheartedly agree. It is GODAWFUL. I’ve seen all 3 episodes this season, and tonight’s episode, which I’d say was about 5 to 10% funny, was by FAR the best of the 3. The digital shorts haven’t even been funny, nor has most of the news. In fact, about the only thing that made me laugh at all tonight was Bill Hader’s dead on James Carville imitation. The opening sketch where they made fun of Drew Barrymore’s cadence was funny for about 15 seconds, but they dragged it on for 5 minutes. And as much as I like Kristen Wiig, the Gilly skit got old the first time they aired it. The sketch where the cooking show got attacked by birds who ate Guy Fietti? WTF? About the only other time I even chuckled was during the “commercial” for the online university.

It seems this season they’ve been having ideas that they could have done SO much more with. Last week, my mind went SO many places when they showed a “rerun” of Celebrity Family Feud with The Osmonds and The Phillips’, but they botched it, not a single laugh in the whole episode. And I’m sorry, but Abby Elliot is abysmally bad. I’m a huge Chris Elliot fan, and HIS father Bob is amazing as well, but apparently talent doesn’t trickle down quite that far. And this new Jenny Slate who couldn’t even survive her first skit without saying fuck…I mean they fired Norm MacDonald for that, and he’s actually funny. But it’s really insulting that they had two women last year who were great…Casey Wilson maybe wasn’t a standout, but she was a million times better than Slate and Elliot put together. And Michaela Watkins was fucking hilarious, and did some great dead on impressions. Now they’ve got all these talented men, and only one of the 4 women has anything to offer, the rest are dead weight. Yet, they waste the talent they DO have.

I have NEVER been this disappointed with a season of SNL, it is just the worst. I just keep watching, HOPING it gets better. I mean, the cast and the writing staff haven’t changed THAT much in the past 2 or 3 years, so I would expect the quality to be on par with recent seasons, but it just isn’t. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess Lorne Michaels is trying to get canceled.

I last enjoyed SNL when Will Ferrell was on it, and even his performances weren’t too funny after a while.

I have recently enjoyed the Weekend Update: Thursday Edition and found it to be very funny. However, I would have to agree that SNL is just horrible.

Maybe it just needs to be over.

Or a lot shorter—maybe condensing the material, heavy editing, etc. That’s why I think the Thursday Ed. is so funny: concise and heavily edited (i.e. few things make it onto the show).

Norm McDonald and Dennis Miller on Weekend Update were my favorites, but I grew to love Amy Poehler and whatshisname (sean?). There are skits that stick with me through the years, some come from way back, some several years later, some a couple of years ago, some more recently.

I loved Mary Katherine Gallagher. I loved her so much that my daughter’s knickname is Mary Katherine or Supastar based on her natural way of doing things. We see it, good friend see it. I feel guilty for it because maybe I should have avoided watching that while pregnant. Mostly I find it funny, though

The Beyonce and Justin Timberlake skit to “All the single ladies” made laugh until I cried. I cannot hear that song without thinking of that skit now. It only takes a few spectacular or crazy wild skits to get people talking, watching You Tube clips, to get people coming back. They want to be one of the “Did you see….??.... on SNL? OMG, it was funny/dumb and hell.”

Some parts are funny. Some are not. I liked this week, but maybe my love for Regina made me prejudiced.

Andy Sandberg(?) and Kirsten Wiig are awesome, the rest are . . . ok.

it is now. but SNL with Farley, david spade, will ferrel, or adam sandler was usually pretty awesome. but lately, I’ve liked Mad TV a lot more.

You watched just for Lady Gaga?

sigh

and you didn’t like last weeks SNL short? It was a good one.

It was a dreadful sign that they couldn’t find anyone better than Megan Fox to host the premiere. At least Kenan Thompson’s Jean K. Jean saved the show for me, in fact it’s the only performance I can remember. Zut alors!

Now I was only down watching last week’s and yesterday’s episodes and they weren’t awful by any stretch. More entertaining than funny, sure, but the franchise hasn’t floundered tragically like MadTV did after its 12th season. WE update was funny. Fred Armesen’s fountain/chandelier sales guy, Bill Hader’s Italian TV host, Andy Samberg’s Billy Bob Thornton, Kenan Thompson’s Ray Parker Jr, Dominic Monahan’s Guy Fieri, the references to the Phillips family’s incest scandal, Jason Sudeikis’s short but hilarious appearance on the CourtTV/SYTYCD skit, these were a lot of bright spots that gave me chuckles. I hate to admit it but even Dru Barrymore’s intro piece was mildly amusing.

I just hope they choose less sucky musical guests in the future but I’m not holding my breath.

It’s always been hit or miss, even during the vaunted Eddie Murphy years. I stopped watching the show a long time ago. I will look at a video of a clip or two if someone tells me about it, the common element being that Andy Samberg and/or Justin Timberlake are usually in it. That Timberlake’s a funny kid. I could see him being like Alec Baldwin was for SNL as he gets older.

Here is what I know for sure about Saturday Night Live:

1. The Gilly skits freak me right out. I have to change the channel.
2. Andy Samburg’s digital shorts are consistently funny.
3. From the very beginning this show has had more crap than funny, but sometimes the funny has been hilarious enough to offset the crap. This season not so much.

the only time i find it funny is when they can’t stay in character and they bust up.

I say everyone just bite the bullet and put the old UK sketch show Big Train in their Netflix queue. It’s available in the US/Canada. And it’s got Simon Pegg before he was on Spaced…! Here’s a sample.

Ok, two.

I actually thought this episode was the funniest this season. The Tampax stuff was hilarious, and so was James Carville. Maybe I just appreciate low-brow humor.

I like Gilly…sorry.

SNL is going to be hit and miss. When you think back on previous seasons, you only remember the funny sketches. By definition, boring sketches do not make an impression on you and you do not remember them months or years later.

I do prefer some of the older cast members. Consider what previous cast members have gone on to do.

SNL is going to be on the air for a long time. It isn’t up against any original programming. It might not be great, but there isn’t anything to challenge it in the time slot.

You could probably make a good argument for SNL being the worst show on TV. I know it would get my vote.

I haven’t watched it regularly for over 20 years. After the original cast – Belushi, Aykroyd, Radner, et. al, were all gone, the show just got progressively worse.

I personally feel SNL peaked in the mid-90’s and never bounced back.

@SuperMouse I just watched those two clips, thanks for reinforcing my opinion that television sucks like the front side of a supersonic jet engine.

SNL is very hit and miss like others have said. I still watch because there are always a few gems. My favorite are the Vincent Price’s holiday specials.

or maybe I just appreciate low-brow humor like @tinyfaery

@jonsblond If you would have told me 2 months ago that I’d be going out of my way to see Lady Gaga, I would have called you a liar. To be fair, I think I’m in it more for the eye candy than the music.

OK, refer to what I was talking about above, that even the seasons people universally say were horrible were generally just not outstanding, had a few good sketches maybe just a few less than other years. Last night was a good example of how even this season, which as of the first 3 episodes was about the worse I’d ever seen, can redeem itself and become overall decent, but inconsistent, with some bright spots.

Last night’s show was fantastic, the entire first ¾ of the show was laugh out loud funny….no small feat since I didn’t find a single sketch in the entire first 3 episodes to be LOLworthy. And perhaps most interesting, between the commercials they’d put old clips of dress rehearsal footage where the actors were cracking up…some of that was funnier than anything actually ON the show, and funny thing is, most of what they showed was from that mid 1990s period when people say the show wasn’t funny. So, maybe that’s the key to making the show funny again…show clips from shows that were funny in retrospect, but which were overlooked at the time, interspersed with current material.

SNL hasn’t been funny for years now.
I have no idea what Gawker is.