TVSquad

I think they need to lay off the political comedy while their writing is this weak, because it makes them look bad in comparison to Jon Stewart.

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Your comments about Weekend Update are funny... Because I TiVo SNL just to watch Tina and Amy... I think its the best segment they have week to week

WU's worst parts, IMHO, are when other actors come to help out. Finesse's bit this week could have been funny, but his delivery lacked any sense of timing.

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Crack Whore!
(wild cheers and applause)

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The show has just become so predictable. Always opening with a political sketch... the "question and answer" "monologue" - WU has been bad all season even after Tina came back. Fallon wasn't great at Update but he and Tina had some chemistry, for sure.

I don't know - I've only been watching religiously for about 10 years... I wonder if it's time to give up.

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The number one flaw, in my opinion? Horatio Sanz. Also, many of the sketches are set up as TV programs, and there aren't enough "situational" sketches that aren't recurring. We need to see more things like the "Push-up Contest" sketch with Ashton Kutcher from last season. That was great.

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My top five would include something your previous point about theme songs referenced:

Too many one-joke scenes. The "Will Ferrell as doctor" skit, "Cowbell," or even "Church Lady" -- they all had multiple jokes, and various kinds of humor in one skit. Church Lady was like an episode of Home Improvement: Formulaic (here's where Tim misunderstands Wilson's advice/here's where the Church Lady pronounces something wrong intentionally) -- but always delivering. There's a reason Church Lady is more beloved than the Rich-meister -- her skits weren't interchangeable. Cowbell had the hilarity of Will freaking out physically with the instrument, but also with Christopher Walken being his crazy self, etc.

And if I can throw in one more -- NO MORE QUESTION AND ANSWER MONOLOGUES. They are never funny. You're killing me.

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I think they need to be a bit more choosy on their hosts. Not too many atheletes perform well infront of the camera - it's usually more painful than that. Musical guests as hosts SOMETIMES work (ex: Justin Timberlake) but that's a danger zone as well.

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while christina is absolutely correct above, a giant weakness for them right now is the just unbelievably inadequate W. impressions. i mean, here's a president who's a gift to comedy writers everywhere, and they have yet to get a laugh out of it.

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I actually think the Tom Brady episode was one of the funnier ones I've seen in a while. That's not saying much though. I can't get through the show. It is very painful.

I think a lot of your top 5 hits the nail on the head, but the bottom line, for me is: They beat everything to death. Even the stuff that isn't funny.

Get to the funny and end it. Don't make me wish I'd never seen it in the first place by dragging it out.

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Does it really need to be 1 1/2 hours long? They could cut out a lot of the lousy writing that way, and polish up the better bits.

Last year's changes to Weekend Update set that portion on the upswing. Colin whathisname was just lousy at that.

Always seems that whatever cast was around during any person's teenage years are "when the show was really funny".

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I agree about the theme song thing. Horribly overused. "It's Pat" was one thing, but now everyone has a song. Enough already!

Talent? If there's much talent left we can't find it. Yes, it is misused.

Characters? Damn, I don't call those characters. I call them bad ideas that really shouldn't have made it out of the storyboarding room. If those are the best ideas, I really don't want to see the worst.

But WeekEnd Update,it used to be my favorite sketch even when the rest of the show stunk. Then Jimmy left it, now ugh. Horrible. For the record, I liked norm, but not as much as Colin and Kevin was great.

Doesn't matter anyway. Mad TV is still as funny as ever. I used to switch over to SNL after MTV, but now every time I do, I regret it.

Give it up, Lorne. It's over. It's been over. It ended the day Will Ferrell and Sheri O'terri left. And Keenan should have stayed with All That. The day he left that show and took Kel with him the show pretty much died. Amanda Bynes, shut the hell up. Sorry, now I'm off topic. My bad.

So anyway, cancel SNL. That is all.

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0. It seems no one on the cast is stoned. The original SNL was great because no one realized what a hit it would be and they just went fraternal. Ever since then, every cast member has first and foremost thought about how critical this part of their career is and is soberly working their ass off for another season/recurring character/movie deal/slurpee promotion. Not funny. Jim Belushi getting stoned out of his mind and dressing like a Mexican Bee was funny.

1. Lack of interest in the 'general skit' - seems like everyone wants to adopt a signature character or skit and no one cares about the ones where they dont stand out.

2. Bad writing - I felt very embarrassed for CZJ when she had to do the skit as the war-torn reporter. It wasnt funny, just embarrasing, especially as the opening guest skit. Not all of the writing is bad, but some is horriffic and I cannot beleive the skit got from rehearsal to production.

3. Worn-out format. This is for certain and unavoidable: SNL has a worn-out format and simply wasnt born to live forever. The problem is that it is a saturday-night safety blanket ala carson and no one wants to see it go (including me). It would probably be much better if it took 2 years off, replaced with some totally new format, or switched venues to Los Angeles for a couple years (heresy!).

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Hmm... I always thought Nealon was the worst WU anchor, mainly because nothing that came out of his mouth that didn't have a "Hans and Franz" accent was remotely funny. Fey and Fallon were good, but laughed at their jokes far too much, something that's only gotten worse with Fey and Poehler.

The sad thing about this cast and crew is that they are immensely talented, even the much-maligned Horatio Sanz; go see ASSSCAT at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York and you'll agree with me. The writers are among the best and brightest comedy writers in NYC, too.

I think they're all just hamstrung by the format and the intense competition for air time. That's why you see so many recurring characters; if you create a recurring character, you have more of a chance of getting on the air from week to week. I can't imagine that even the writers consider the "avant garde artists" sketches to be all that funny. But they get on the air, which encourages the writers to crank out more of them.

Jeez. I used to think the rejected sketches were probably not as funny as what got on the air. Now I'm starting to think differently. One of these days, the UCB should put on a "Rejected from SNL" show. I'm sure it would be a riot.

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How many writers does SNL have? Maybe 20? And they can't produce a 10-minute WU with one good joke? The Daily Show does it four nights a week with half the writers. And will Amy and Tina please stop laughing at the jokes?

Though most would disagree, the best WU anchor since Dennis Miller was Norm MacDonald.

Any good recurring skits left with Will Ferrell.

Darrell Hammond is a great impressionist, but except for Chris Matthews he never has anything funny to say when he does them. (His Bill Clinton doesn't need jokes when he does it. It's in a class of its own and he could read the dictionary and it would be funny.)

Amy Poehler is the female Will Ferrell and she elevates the bad writing she gets with her incredible range.

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Unfortunately, I wouldn't know because I stopped watching it years ago.

Wherever the funny is, it left SNL long ago :(

Perhaps sometime after Will Ferrell left.

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Sometimes I wonder if they should just abandon skits in mid-stream. There are skits that are just SO bad, where you can just see how awkward the actors feel when the jokes fall flat and nobody's laughing. Maybe they should be allowed to just face the cameras and say, "Well, that was a huge failure. Now here's a cartoon from Robert Smigel!"

And as for Horatio Sanz, I think he thinks we find it funny when he breaks out a smirk or laughs in the middle of a sketch. Yeah, it's funny when the person doesn't mean it, but we're onto you, Sanz. It's just not funny when you do it anymore. Same went for Jimmy Fallon. He used to break up all the time. It was funny at first, but to break up every time? Come on now. It'd be funny to see Darrel Hammond crack up because he never does.

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Agree on the general "I laugh with my friends in front of millions of viewers" thing. WU is particuarily painful to watch with this "you're great... no, YOU're great" attitude. We get it, your job is great, now focus and do it correctly.
I always hated those who reminded us the stage factor: WE KNOW IT'S IN A STUDIO: the fact that they have to use so much of the backstage life means they need new creative juice pumped in.
In a general way, the cast has to stop declaring they are afunny bunch and actually deliver, while writers need to get out of the fake shelter of recurring sketches that fade with time.
They need a new will ferrel: a guy/gal who is shameless, reckless and for who making people laugh is more important than his/her pride, and his/her own satisfaction.

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They should have stopped after Year 5. There is very little funny after that, mostly filler around a few Eddie Murphy moments and the such.

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You could almost predict to the date the years that the show will be funny and suck from graphing it's history. It comes in waves. It started out great, then we had the early 80's. Granted we had Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo(back when he was funny), but then we had crap years that had Anthony Michael Hall and other non comedians or people who just sucked.

Things got better when Billy Crystal and Martin Short came on board, but then had a couple of bad years after. The Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman and Dennis Miller Years, which were the best since the beginning, and got better when Mike Meyers joined. Then pattern continued to where we are today.

I think they would greatly improve the show by making just one move and that is to bring back Norm Macdonald to Weekend update. The only reason we got stuck with Colin Qinn doing it is because the NBC chief at the time was a golfing buddy of OJ and did not like all the OJ jokes Norm was doing.

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I started watching SNL full time a few years ago. I thought it was pretty good when Jimmy Fallon was still on there-even after Will Ferrell left. Jimmy Fallon was really good on Update and had some pretty hilarious impressions (i.e. Barry Gibb)-the show definitely went WAY down hill last season after he left. I agree that all of the characters shouldn't have theme songs like that. I don't like Seth Meyers much, and I think Amy Poehler is good in sketches..but not on Update. I hate those characters the couple that should be divorced-they're not funny. And you're right Fericito was a WHOLE lot better when he was just on Update. The sketches aren't all that good. The only thing that makes that worth watching is Horatio's hilarious Manuel character. The first Debbie Downer was really good, but only because everybody broke character. The ones that followed it were boring. Merv the Perv was okay the first time or so, but now it's getting old. I actually like Horatio's Carol ("CAROL!!!") character...but I have the feeling it'll be overused as well. A sketch I would like to see more of is Appalachain Emergency room.

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