For me, it's less of a commonality of styles than it is "Lorne finds this
funny." That's fine on its own, but I don't think mass entertainment should
depend on the tastes of one person, no matter who that is. Sure, there are
variations between these performers' styles, but I don't find "comedy" as
varied as it was in the years before SNL.
I deliberately left off the likes of Hader and Fey because I think their voices
would have evidenced themselves even without the SNL boost. (And, as you note,
David and JLD certainly traveled that route.)
--Dave Sikula
On Friday, August 2, 2024 at 08:30:55 PM PDT, PGage <[email protected]>
wrote:
So, I can agree with part of this. I mostly like Murray’s comedy, but not
Sandler or Farley, about half of Farrell, and McKinnon but not Wiig. I see
these and so many other SNL performers to have real differences, and am often
puzzled by the broad brush you use to dismiss almost all of them (except,
inexplicably like the French with Jerry Lewis, Keenan Thompson).
Can you put your finger on some of the common elements you see in this brand of
comedy that you dislike? Sandler/Farley is kind of low brow, but I don’t really
see Murray or Fey or Hartman that way. I’m thinking what it is you don’t like
about the Lorne Michaels comedy culture (maybe because you have said this
before?) is it’s kind of smart alecky, sarcastic, disparaging tone - is that
part of it? That maybe could be a kind of common thread in SNL style comedy,
though it hardly seems unique to Lorne Michaels, and is a criticism that could
be made of groups like the Pythons as well.
I agree with the criticism of LM for running a simultaneously indulgent and
abusive shop over the years. And he seems to have realized early on that
putting on a new live 90 min show every night was just too hard, and so he has
relied on a relatively small set of pre fabbed set ups and stock, repeatable
characters that stifle creativity and innovation as much as they allowed strung
out, overworked, exhausted and often traumatized writers and performers get a
show on in a week.
But I think he has also identified and attracted an unusually high level of
comic talent to work for him over the years. While early on most of that talent
went on to make broad, mass appeal comic films of questionable quality, his
alumni have also gone on to produce some of the highest quality work in
television after leaving him, or if not leaving him, at least SNL (Chris Rock,
Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis). Even without giving him any
credit for folks like Julia Louis Dreyfus or Larry David, who he whiffed on,
it’s a pretty impressive record.
Sent from Gmail Mobile
On Thu, 1 Aug 2024 at 11:02 PM 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV
<[email protected]> wrote:
For me, the biggest problem with SNL isn't that it's not funny (and, of course,
it isn't), it's that Lorne's questionable sense of humor has come to be the
mainstream model for American comedy by inflicting people like Murray, Sandler,
Farley, Farrell, Wiig, and McKinnon on the American and world public and making
them the standard.
When he goes -- and that day can't come soon enough -- that model will
hopefully fade away.
I'm reminded of what Stella Adler said to her class the day Lee Strasberg died:
"A great man of the theatre died today: Lee Strasberg. (Pause.) It will take
the American theatre fifty years to recover from what he did to it."
--Dave Sikula
On Wednesday, July 31, 2024 at 11:51:07 AM UTC-7 Tom Wolper wrote:
There was a narrative about rock music that went music was stupid and boring
and was played by square people for square people. Then one day some white boys
plugged their electric guitars into amps and brought forth rock and roll, which
was and is awesome music, and freed everybody’s minds, and then Woodstock and
so on and so on.
As time passed and the artists and audience matured, a much more introspective
and complex narrative emerged. It’s a lot more satisfying to read and watch and
it really points out the shallowness of the previous narrative.
There is a parallel narrative for comedy where comedy was square until SNL came
along and made it awesome. There has been a smaller amount of introspection and
those of us who are dreading the SNL movie feel that as long as Lorne is in
charge the shallow narrative is the only story that will be allowed to air.
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