50 years on, can ‘Saturday Night Live’ ever return to its glory days?
nypost.comLorne Michaels’ weekly show has given us Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Conan O’Brien, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers and countless other comedic powerhouses.
And its decades of sketches — Wayne’s World, Roseanne Roseannadanna, the Love-ahs, James Brown, the Coneheads, Jeopardy!, the Lawrence Welk Show (“And I’m Dooneese!”) — are seared into our cultural consciousness, whether you were alive for them or not.With the joy of nostalgia, however, comes pangs of sadness.“SNL” ain’t what she used to be.
And I doubt the legendary show can ever return to its unassailable perch atop the comedy mountain.The NBC sketch series that once set the curve for boundary-breaking humor (as the incredible alumni list attests) is now well behind it, as the program struggles to keep up with TikTok, social media memes and resurgent stand-up specials as a provider of American laughs.In 2024, a topical joke barely lasts a few hours, let alone a week.Once or twice a season the show manages to cut through the noise with exceptional creativity.
Everybody watched Bowen Yang’s hilarious “Weekend Update” Titanic iceberg interview, for example, and you can’t unsee Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day’s terrifying transformation into Beavis and Butt-Head.But these are the rare exceptions.
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