If there was an SNL Golden Age, when was it?
I know that’s a bit of a cliche thing to say. People have been saying it for decades now, and it’s often been untrue, or at least misleading. The standard form is to say that these skits and actors today are a pale shadow compared to that first group — Belushi, Akroyd, etc.
In fact, even though I was the perfect age for the first-cast’s demographic, and enjoyed it very much at the time, I think the height of the show may been about 10-15 years later, with a stream of such bright lights as Eddie Murphy, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, Martin Short, Billy Crystal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and on and on. I think the slide started sometime after that.
By the turn of the century, most of the magic was gone. Most, but not all, by any means. When Tina Fey came back to do Sarah Palin (especially in the skit with Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden) in 2008, we saw comic commentary reach the show’s highest peak ever. There were a few other funny bits in those couple of decades, but you had to wait for them, and the waits were long and sad.
Very sad.
I was reminded of this a couple of times today. I sort of forgot it after the first instance, but then a few minutes ago I saw this headline:
Canadian Prime Minister Carney rebuffs Trump’s push to make Canada the 51st state
… which of course brings up the main problem with doing political comedy in the age of Trump. How do you parody a guy who exceeds the comic sense of the absurd with everything he says and does.
Which took me back to the first thing, which I saw this morning on YouTube while working out:
My first thought when the still image appeared on my screen was, That guy again! The same guy who was such an awful Joe Biden!
I had to Google him to find out that he is James Austin Johnson. He might be acceptable in the role if I’d never seen anyone else do Biden or Trump, and actually be funny doing it — such as Sudeikis, or even Alec Baldwin.
Sudeikis was brilliant, and while his performance was chock full of flaws (and, if you’re a Trump admirer, unfair), it was still funny. And he didn’t even need the wig or makeup — if he started doing it on the street without such embellishments, you’d get it, and you’d laugh (unless you were one of those poor Trump admirers).
The thing is, the material in the skit embedded above wasn’t bad — some pretty good gags there. But the delivery was just so distractingly awful. It wasn’t the wig or the makeup. Think about Chevy Chase doing Gerald Ford — there was no wig or makeup, and he didn’t even try to sound like him. But it was funny. Which, I think, should be the point on a comedy show.
Maybe Mr. Johnson wrote some of those decent gags. If so, he should probably stick to that, and leave the funny to funny people.
And he’s not the only one that this could be said about, but I’ll stop with the meanness now…
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I read your post on SNL and I had to write back — not just because I agree or disagree (though I do think Sudeikis nailed it in ways James Austin Johnson never quite will), but because your words stirred something deeper in me. You’re right — it’s hard to parody the absurd when we’re living inside of it. The tragedy is that both our countries — yours and the one I’m trying to call home — have let their people down by turning politics into personality cults. The Philippines has Bongbong Marcos, son of a dictator. The U.S. is still wrestling with Donald Trump, son of… well, something else. And both are somehow celebrated. How do you parody that? What’s left to mock when the circus has become the main stage?
Right now, I’m alone in rural New York State — surrounded by trees and silence, but feeling very far from my Filipina wife and our children, especially little Hope Abbey Grace. Immigration delays, legal messes, financial strain… don’t get me started. But this morning, I remembered her laugh. That wild, fearless, 7-year-old laugh that cuts through distance and sadness. And I remembered what her name reminds me every day — Hope. Always, even now.
And Brad, I smiled.
Probably like your father, the Captain, used to smile — in that steady, quiet way a man does when he’s seen war and still believes in peace. Or maybe just knows that in the face of darkness, a smile is a kind of resistance. Thank you for writing. Even when you’re grumbling about SNL, it reminds me I’m not alone in this fight to stay human in a world full of noise.
Oh, by the way, I meant to add… as I always say, no human endeavor is perfectly good or bad — and that goes for SNL casts.
Kenan Thompson remains awesome.
I was about to say the same about Kate McKinnon, but then I remembered that she left a couple of years back.
But even if she were still there, two great cast members do not a great ensemble make…
I was about to suggest that maybe the problem isn’t the team, and more the writing.
But I just said above that the skit that prompted this had some good gags. Johnson just didn’t sell it, although I’m sure he tried.
I especially liked the one about the NYT’s Connections game, which was dead-on. Unlike Wordle and Spelling Bee, that game drives me crazy, and this joke clearly explained what’s wrong with it — or as well as you can do in a quick gag…
Actually, the problem may be just that we live in a less-funny world now. That’s as good an explanation as any… among other things, all across the political spectrum, people can’t take a joke anymore.
That’s rather obvious when you think of the Trump fans who got so furious at Alec Baldwin. Of course, if you’re on the other end of the spectrum, you’re blind if you haven’t noticed that gags that worked on “30 Rock” and “The IT Crowd” in the first decade of this century tend to get people canceled today.
I’ll close with my favorite lightbulb joke:
Q. How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. THAT’S NOT FUNNY!
Actually, that’s an oldie. Nowadays, nobody can take a joke.
And I’m not entirely sure that’s my fave, anyway. As I think I’ve also mentioned, I also love:
Q. How many Charlestonians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. Ten. One to change it, the other nine to sit around talking about how grand the OLD bulb was…
Alec Baldwin was my favorite Trump impersonator.
I enjoy the Weekend Update.