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Saturday Night Live: the emblematic pitstop for pretty much every beloved comedian that’s ever made it big, the birthplace of some of the most quotable comedic sketches to date (“More Cowbell” still lives in the brain of every baby boomer to this day), and the empire of the everso astute Lorne Michaels. It used to live on a pedestal, as the be-all end-all for comic actors and writers alike, and for good reason—it gave some of the most timeless comedians their start, like Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Eddie Murphy, and Dana Carvey, to name a few. So how did SNL lose their status, and is there still time to save it?
One of the struggles that older TV shows are facing nowadays is evolving with new forms of comedy, rather than fighting against the inevitable cultural changes that come with time. There is a certain disdain towards Internet-born material, harbored by the people in power who have been conducting business one way for years. Not to say that this is not a well-founded belief. We all can agree, I think, that the Internet has had both its virtues and its downfalls.
But damn, sometimes it feels like people on the Internet just get funnier every day.
So it would be natural to capitalize on that, right? However, navigating the Internet is a skill most often wielded by young people and less accessed by millennials and above. SNL, rather than exploring this new medium of comedy, instead turned to politicized sketches and selling out to have Elon Musk host. Naturally their ratings took an absolute dive bomb, which was fine with most people after seeing the Gen Z Hospital sketch, which was like watching a live car crash.
Recently though, SNL has been making some very promising changes to its writing staff and sketch cast. Despite Beck Bennett leaving the show after eight years along with Lauren Holt, three new cast members have signed on for the 47th season, including Aristotle Athari of the sketch group “Goatface”, Sarah Sherman (better known as Sarah Squirm) who worked on the Eric Andre Show, and James Austin Johnson, who went viral for a series of Trump impressions.
What might be most exciting however, is the slew of ten new writers added to the SNL writers room! Of these ten new writers, an exciting new addition is Ben Marshall, Martin Herlihy, and John Higgins, a trio that make up the sketch comedy group “Please Don’t Destroy,” who write and perform absurdist and observational style sketches online. A group akin to “The Lonely Island,” these new additions have already shown their prowess at writing comedy that combines the one-liner and and more modern references. They made their SNL debut with a sketch about hard seltzer on Oct. 9 amid Kim Kardashian’s episode, and watchers took to the Internet to express their newfound love of the trio, citing the first real laugh they’ve had watching the show in a long time.
Despite the sketch comedy show’s recent reputation for slowly gaining “sellout” status after allowing Elon Musk to host and becoming a tool for the wealthy to authenticate their public personas, it seems that long time fans are finally seeing a turning point. Whether or not it actually comes to fruition, we’ll just have to stay tuned.
