SNL's really good right now!
It's still worth watching, and not just the clips on TikTok
I KNOW it’s not Parks and Rec, but as I was sitting down to work on this week’s Park It, I couldn’t stop thinking about SNL. Which is fine! I’ve broken the Park It framework to write about SNL character breaks before and I’ll do it again. I can write about whatever the hell I want here.
BUT we have been on a break from our usual episode format for a few weeks, so I wanted to give you all a true Park It episode for the main post this week. So here we are. Surprise! A bonus post!
I have so many random thoughts about SNL right now that I want to share:
The first being: SNL is really good right now!! Before this one, I’d usually catch about 50% of each season. I religiously watch whenever I love the host (Emma Stone, lookin’ at you) and then catch clips of the important sketches / Update bits on TikTok (…….ok, Instagram Reels), but this season I haven’t missed a single episode. Best one so far? Easily Ariana Grande’s from last week.
That’s partially because I absolutely love SNL in an election year. They’re crushing this one. Maya Rudolph as Kamala is *chef’s kiss*, James Austin Johnson’s Trump is wayyyyyy better than Alec Baldwin’s Trump, Andy Samberg is nailing Doug’s vocal inflections, and whoever that guy is who keeps playing Biden truly has me rolling around laughing ever Sunday when I turn it on. (Editor’s note: since writing this, I have learned it is indeed Dana Carvey. I’m leaving this here for public flogging).
This Biden moment especially is my favorite:
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserBut election aside, the sketches have been really, really good!! Can we talk about Domingo? Or Best Friend’s House? The Jennifer Coolidge Maybelline Sketch? The Lonely Island song “Sushi Glory Hole”? And let’s not forget last season’s Beavis and Butt-Head, or the one where Emma Stone can’t stop winning a tortoise at an award show, or Lisa from Temecula. Or JUMANJI?? C’mon!
Look — maybe I’m feeling a little SNL-sentimental right now, because I’m in the middle of reading Live from New York (the comedy nerd’s essential oral history of SNL. It’s a THICK ole tome) and just saw Saturday Night, that new movie about the making of the first season of SNL. And it’s so easy to look back and be like “the show will never be what it was when you know who was around.” Which is true! It’s not the way it was when Wiig, Poehler, Rudolph, Hader, Ferrell, Forte, Fey, etc etc etc were all around. But that doesn’t give the current cast enough credit! They’re still really fucking good!
Iconic musical moments are still happening on SNL, the way Lorne apparently wanted when he first conceptualized the show (shoutout the movie for this knowledge). Taylor singing ATW 10 minute version, anyone? Taylor singing False God? Taylor’s monologue song?
Reading the above, maybe it’s evident that it’s Taylor who’s still having iconic SNL musical moments …
No no, it’s not just her. Stevie Nicks was amazing last week. Billie Eillish CRUSHED “Birds of a Feather” this week. Noah Kahan singing Dial Drunk last year made me tear up a little bit. We have Chappell soon!
THAT SAID, not every sketch is perfect, and it’s important to know that going in. It’s not an hour-long highlight reel of comedy. Currently, SNL’s doing this weird thing where every single ensemble sketch is a family meeting the other’s partner, or a family sitting down for dinner, or a family having game night. Michael Keaton hosted this week and was not my fave, maybe because almost every single sketch was one of these formats.
Colin Jost and Michael Che are SERIOUSLY hilarious as Weekend Update hosts. I love them, and the episodes where they write each other jokes they haven’t seen before absolutely kill.
There are some serious, serious stars in the mix right now. My personal faves: Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Chloe Feinman, Marcello Hernández, Andrew Dismukes, Mikey Day, Bowen Yang
I can’t for the life of me remember where this was, BUT last year I was reading about how tough of a hand SNL’s been dealt with the social media age. By that I mean — the show was invented in 1975. Phones were on hooks in the walls, not something some of us rack up 8+ hours of scroll time on per day. There was no internet. In many cases, SNL had the luxury of being the first satirical reaction to news events or memes. The Weekend Update hosts could be the first tracks in the snow in a joke about Clinton’s affair. But as social media has taken over and become the first place we go for memes or reactions to the news, SNL runs the risk of being stale and jaded by the time Saturday night rolls around. Bowen Yang’s Moo Deng, while amazingly executed, was about 3-4 days too late, after the hippo had already reached the peak of her online hype cycle.
SNL has to be original and funny without being cringe, which is like navigating the creaky rope bridge above lava in Shrek. They’ve had to evolve out of their usual tricks, where they initially only were competing with 1) physical newspapers and 2) word of mouth. Now they have to compete with 1) Twitter, 2) TikTok, 3) Instagram, 4) reddit, 5) Substack, 6) word of mouth, 7) the news, 8) your friends who are more online than you, and 9) misc sources.
So I don’t know — sue me for thinking it’s so impressive that these funny funny people get up there every single Saturday and have for 50 years, just to make me chuckle. And they definitely do make me chuckle.
A few months ago after I wrote about my favorite SNL character breaks, one of my coworkers stopped me in the kitchen and said “I feel like you’re the only person under 30 who watches SNL at all anymore.” I cannot remember who this was so I unfortunately can’t expose them, but I’m just here to say: that’s not true!
My friends absolutely watch SNL (oooorrr at least see the clips on TikTok). We’re talking about being the Domingo girls for Halloween. I can’t stop hearing Sarah Sherman saying “legend” in my head from this sketch a few weeks ago:
It’s still relevant, baby. And it’s absolutely worth the weekly watch.
Your usual Park It post is coming in the next few days, now that I’ve emptied my brain of all this SNL nonsense to write it. Stay tuned and tell your friends!
Ok, one more SNL thing: I have a very extensive note in my phone for all of my favorite sketches, sorted into categories like “crowd pleasers” or “niche humor” or “Kristen Wiig highlight reel” or “character breaks.” I’m absolutely always that friend who’s hogging the remote when it’s “wanna see a funny video?” time. But I’m pretty proud of my encyclopedic knowledge of many sketches, and there is absolutely no joy like picking the right video at the right time and watching your friends lose their shit.
Soooo do people want me to share my cheat sheet sometime soon? Lmk:
Bye!
Pleeeeeease be the Domingo girls!
The combination of phenomenal new cast members and returning legends in the cold opens has me so fired up too!