Live, 800 Miles from New York...

This weekend, Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th anniversary with a prime time spectacular. I’ve been watching SNL since grade school, and by my estimate I’ve seen 80% of the show’s nearly 1,000 episodes. By circumstance, however I’ll likely have to watch the Sunday event on streaming, a day or two after the live broadcast.

As some of my longtime readers know, I was the editor and forum moderator for SNL at TV.com from the site’s inception in mid-2005 to the bitter end in 2019. Before that, I was a regular commentor and contributor for SNL on TV.com’s precursor, TV Tome. My notoriety in SNL fandom still lingers two decades on, as I’m part of Facebook and Twitter/X message groups pertaining to the show. 

I can’t stand it when people complain that the show hasn’t been funny in such-and-such how many years, or since some cast member they liked left. Baby Boomers are especially vocal about this sort of thing; heck, my mother would all but pretend to forget that SNL post-1980 existed. In fact, the vaulted first five years aren’t as airtight as my parents’ generation would have you think; there’s several reasons why syndicated repeats are an hour long, not 90 minutes, but trimming out the fat is just one of them. The Aykroyd/Belushi/Radner years were more of a variety show, and some of the segments were flagrant time filler. 

In reality, SNL’s overall quality tends to go in cycles. For the first 25 years or so, the show would recycle itself almost in perfect five-year blocks. As the average cast has grown and individual cast members have opted to stay on the show longer, the cycle has slowed down. I’ve seen my fellow fans declare Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon (just two examples) as a breath of fresh air before gradually deeming them annoying, over-utilized, and predictable. When I interact in said FB and X groups, I tend to get jokey if only to contrast the negativity.  

I have friends and acquaintances that have worked on the show. My grade school classmate Megan Callahan-Shah is an eight-time Emmy nominee and two-time WGA winner for her work on Weekend Update. Two other writers, Gary Richardson and Claire Mullaney, were Chicago improv friends. I twice booked Molly Kearney in a variety show I produced. My improv duo was once introduced by Luke Null. I have made the acquaintance of several early 80s writers and cast members on social media, and Nate Herman is an old writing teacher.  

As of this writing, I have been to New York City just once, in July 2018. The 30 Rock tour was too irresistible to turn down; when the group landed on the 8th floor, I marveled at how cozy Studio 8H really is. The fish lens preceding the monologue really do boost the party atmosphere of a typical live show. Little wonder they almost moved the entire 50th anniversary to Radio City Music Hall.  

From 2003 to 2009 (and in truncated form until 2017) I wrote SNL reviews for TV Tome/TV.com; I stopped because of burnout. When I do get around to watching the live gala, I will kick back and enjoy as a fan. Some sketches will fly and others will crash, but that’s the nature of the beast.  

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