Is SNL Even Funny?

today's video was sponsored by Squarespace click the link in the description to get 10% off your first purchase Saturday Night Live has been on television since 1975 they've won Emmy Awards they've been a jumping off point for dozens of now world famous comedians and whether you like the show or not this year production of it writing a 90-minute show on a Tuesday and then performing it live on television that Saturday is impressive but is the show actually funny the short answer is yeah of course it is sometimes pretty much every episode of SNL ever has had good sketches and it's had bad sketches because of that it's a show that's almost impossible to define you know in the quality of an episode can range from hysterical something you quote for the rest of your life to hole arising or just downright cringy is it funny or is it not funny in this case I think the only logical answer is both but that's not ever how you hear people describe it something I've always noticed about SNL that makes it different than most other shows it's not only does almost everybody have an opinion on it but the opinions that people do have are much more matter-of-fact than they are with other shows like you often hear people say something like Oh Breaking Bad yeah I tried watching it but it just wasn't really for me you're like yeah I've seen two Broke Girls but I just don't really think it's funny right I don't think it's funny but with that so now it's almost always like yeah that's not funny that show that's been on for 44 years and it's had literally thousands of sketches none of them are funny it's never been funny or even more commonly than that will you always hear people say SNL hasn't been funny since the 90s or the 80s or for God's sake the 70s really yeah man those first six episodes of Saturday Night Live a thing of beauty but I tell you the roughly 1000 episode since then have all been crap it would be one thing if you said my favorite era of SNL was the 70s that's fine if you want to say that but just because your favorite part of the show was in 1978 doesn't mean the show hasn't been funny in 40 years now I will say the past four or five years the show has been in probably the worst state it's ever been in and I don't know if that's just a lack of talent which is something that could be overcome by bringing in the right talent but I will take to my grave that the mid to late 2000s era of SNL is as good as any other period of the show and it's not just because I grew up watching that and I'm very biased but it is probably mostly bad but no look at the names you're dismissing people often associate the death of SNL with a departure of big-name celebrities like Eddie Murphy Adam Sandler Will Ferrell's a big one Will Ferrell left the show in 2001 you want to know who's been on the show since then Amy Poehler Tina Fey Kristen Wiig Fred Armisen Maya Rudolph Bill Hader Will Forte Andy Samberg Crispin Elle Rachel Dratch Jason Sudeikis and that's just up until 2009 most of those people were on the show at the same time that's so much talent and it wasn't just the cast they had great well respected writers Tina Fey was an amazing head writer John Mulaney wrote on the show for several years I know I have a bit of nostalgia and bias for this period but it just is so frustrating to me when people completely write off this entire era of the show just because Will Ferrell wasn't on it anymore I will also be the first to admit even as a fan of the show that there have been entire seasons that have been borderline unwatchable typically these are the transition seasons after big stars leave and either the cast that's replacing them isn't as good or they're just underdeveloped and the writers haven't figured out how to write to their strengths yet you know when you've spent six years writing sketches for Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig and now you have to figure out how to write sketches for Noel wells and John Milhiser those are two real human beings who were both on the show by the way but things are gonna be a bit weird for a while it's gonna be a learning experience but that's just part of the show and it always has been and to me it's something that I think makes SNL more respectable as an institution is how how many times Lorne Michaels has had to retool the SNL roster to find success again after some of the strongest cast members have left something that's always made me gravitate towards SNL as a fan is I think the same thing that's made me gravitate towards sports over the years and I know I will probably lose a few of you here but this is just how it makes perfect sense in my weird um break I know I rarely ever bring this up but I am a massive football fan and to me managing the cast of SNL isn't that much different than like an NFL general manager having to build and maintain a successful football team you got to scout the players you draft them decide if they're good enough to stay on the team if they are then you have to decide how much money you're going to pay them to stay on the team otherwise you might lose them to another team and the big one is no matter what no matter how good someone is on the show they will eventually retire and you have to find someone else to replace them unless it's Kenan Thompson because he'll be on the show forever just like in sports there are herbs and flows to this there are times where the team is doing good and kick it ass and then there's down years when they're in between good players and they're trying to figure out an identity in 2011 when Peyton Manning missed an entire season the Colts were historically laughably bad and then they drafted Andrew Luck and they've been mostly pretty good ever since as a fan those down years are never as fun to watch but it's all a natural and necessary part of the process and the fact that SNL always seems to figure it out in the long run is impressive turnover happens all the time on us and I'll rarely do they ever enter a season with the same exact cast as in the previous season it hasn't happened since 2006 but every eight or ten years there's a big transition as you can see on this table that I made myself not cuz anyone asked me to I did it because I wanted to I did this for fun but as you can see on this table the last big turnover on the show was mainly in 2013 but started the year before and continued into season four in 2013 Bill Hader Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis all left the show at the same time and this was just a year after Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg left the show at the same time so as you can imagine 2013 was a pretty difficult year for SNL they had five shoes - would it be ten shoes to fill right because they'd each up to 10 big shoes to fill and to do so Lorne Michaels hired six new cast members all at once but out of those six only two of them lasted more than one season which in hindsight makes a lot of sense it very much was just a case of Lorne Michaels throwing everything at the wall and seeing what would stick a lot of it didn't but what did stick was Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett they were hired in 2013 and they're still on the show now sort of I would love to see more of them but I'll get to that later if you're wondering what just happened there my camera died in the middle of my sentence and then in this next part it's out of focus for like 40 seconds I'm a professional youtuber so that's great nah but like I mentioned before it's pretty obvious that SNL is in a weird state right now and there's several reasons for that I'll start with the smaller ones before getting to the big obvious one number one the writing has been pretty weak for a few years now I think going from John Mulaney and Seth Meyers to Colin Jost it's a pretty big step down I mean Colin's alright but he's not as funny I also think the tone of the show as a whole has shifted to a worse place and it's not a coincidence that every time John Mulaney comes back to host the whole show feels different it like comes a lot and I think it's his influence on the concepts and ideas of the show that bolster everything else within it and that's what the show is usually missing is those like silly weird ideas that work because they're rooted in really solid jokes number two the cast is severely misused not bad they're just not used properly there's some incredible people on the show right now Kate McKinnon is a legend Cecily strong as an angel actually I'm pretty sure I'm in love with every single woman on the show Keenan's a legend Beck and Kyle are probably my two favorite human beings on the planet so then what's wrong with the cast well most nights it doesn't feel like I'm watching SNL it feels like I'm watching the Alex and Mikey show featuring Leslie Jones and Pete David's and they're all fine but like where's Kyle Oh his sketch got cut for time for the 40th time in a row you know he's the funniest person on the show right he's the closest thing the show has right now to a Fred Armisen and he's never on it but you know what even having said all that there's a reason I still watch the show every week and it's because there have been some incredible sketches the past few years the office party was hysterical the house sketches those are great the first impression sched with Jason Momoa from this path Christmas was like an instant classic so there absolutely has been some good sketches on the show it just feels like maybe now more than ever before it's few and far between but of course the biggest reason the show seems to be suffering right now and I feel like we would all agree on this is that it is - god damn Poland or is it yeah it is but is it more political than it used to be it seems like it right it seems like ever since a very specific date here in 2016 the tone of the show has shifted drastically right well I wanted to check that so I made another Excel spreadsheet look you guys gotta understand is a youtuber I don't get the chance to work with Excel nearly as much as I'd like to but I made another Excel spreadsheet and this time I went through every episode from the past five seasons and counted first the number of sketches in every episode not including Weekend Update or the hosts monologues and then I counted how many of these sketches were centered around politics if you're wondering what this green area means what's so special about season 42 episode six well that was the show that aired on November 10th 2016 the first Saturday after Trump got elected president now what you'd probably think is that since that day there have been more political sketches per episode as well as a higher percentage of the show being devoted to politics and that is true in the 47 episodes before Trump got elected there was an average of one and a half political sketches per episode but ever since then that number has jumped up to two so yes there is a difference but not a crazy difference it's not like it's doubled or tripled that number just means that there's one extra political sketch every two weeks and that's not enough to make the whole show feel drastically different so what happened then why does it feel so different now and I think the big thing is just tone SNL has always been political that's not new I remember Will Forte and Will Ferrell playing George W Bush Darrell Hammond playing out Gore Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin they've never shied away from politics it's very much been their brand the difference now when alec baldwin comes on the show to play trump for the 300th time it no longer seems to be for the sake of comedy it seems like they're just trying to make him angry they seem to have a personal vendetta against the guy and they indulge in making him so mad that he angrily tweets about and don't be wrong i am absolutely not defending him I don't like Trump I want to make that clear I don't like him I usually agree with SNL's point of view I agree with what they're trying to say in a sketch but that doesn't mean it's fun to watch Tina Fey as Sarah Palin that was fun to watch you know how I know that was fun to watch because Sarah Palin came on the show John McCain Hillary Clinton Barack Obama they all came on the show after the show had done impressions of them because the impressions weren't meant to piss them off now of course part of that is Trump doesn't seem to have a sense of humor about himself he seems like the most defensive person in the history of humanity but it is also definitely a testament to the overall tone of the impression and how mean-spirited it has become to the point that even if you agree with what they're saying it just isn't that fun to watch sorry about that I hate talking about politics on this channel I have literally never do it because it feels like I'm walking through a field of landmines and no matter where I step I'm gonna piss someone off so I'm only gonna say one last thing on the subject comedy with an agenda is not comedy because it's not meant to make people laugh it's meant to make people agree and I just want to laugh well I've talked for about 14 and a half minutes now so I should have enough information to definitively answer the question is SNL funny let's check the numbers I don't know man if you've seen all my comedy analysis videos like this one then you know that I pretty much have the same lukewarm conclusion every time that comedy is subjective and I'm not in charge of what's good and what's bad all I can do is provide my opinion and that's what I try to do in this video I think you could take the information provided in this video and make an argument for Snell is good or why it is bad but at the end of the day it's up to you the only thing I think I can say is objectively good and consistently impressive about Saturday Night Live is their set production whenever they have a sketch that's very relevant like it's covering something that just happened a couple days prior I think people tend to be impressed by the writers and performers that they were able to turn it around in such a short amount of time but think about all of the sets they use all of the props and costumes and makeup that they wear production-wise the show is top notch and they consistently impress me with what they're able to do with the time limit that they have but as far as the quality of the show goes I think because of the format because of the time crunch they're always on for as long as it show exists it will always be hit or miss and even the things that I think are a hit and I think are amiss I don't know other people have different opinions a lot of people seem to like Alec Baldwin's Trump I don't like it but clearly other people do those videos seem to get the most views on their YouTube channel those political episodes tend to get the highest ratings on TV and then there's times where I'll see a sketch like the Jason Momoa becbennett hide and seek one that's just so funny right from the beginning and then it has this weird turn like halfway through it's just this perfect piece of art in my opinion and I'll go to the video on YouTube and see that it has almost 2,000 dislikes and all these hate comments and I'm like oh yeah no one will ever agree on anything I'd like to trust it with the credibility that I feel SNL has earned over the years that they have the capability of getting over the hump that they're in right now and returning to their glory days of old but I guess if that never happens and they eventually disband maybe that'll be good to at the very least that means Kyle Mooney can get back to making dank as sick as YouTube videos and we can all agree that that is good all right maybe not all I want to get a huge shout out to these sponsors Squarespace they're one of my favorite companies to work with and their product is absolutely phenomenal every time I've had to make a website in the past two years whether it was my own personal merged website or just a joke website that I made 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that Squarespace icon size drew deeply thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring today's video and helping support my channel for over two years now and thank you to everybody who uses the products that I tend to plug on this channel it's because of you guys that the brand's keep coming back and supporting me and so you're also supporting me by supporting them and everyone supported and that's great hope you all enjoyed this video as you know I like to make videos like this every few months and I'm always pleasantly surprised by the positive response if you didn't like this video that's ok too I'm not gonna take it personally or anything katelyn most of you are gonna watch that and be like what my name's not Caitlin but for the one Caitlyn out there who was just thinking about how much she didn't like this video you're gonna think twice about not liking a video next time but anyway that's it for now guy home to see you tune in for next week's video which will just be a montage of my silver medal gymnastics run in the 2004 Olympics I was 11 good bye [Music]

Channel: Drew Gooden

Views: 3,415,238

Rating: 4.9247823 out of 5

Keywords: drew gooden, comedy, funny, lol, commentary, reaction, vine, drew gooden vine, road work ahead guy, parody, rant, snl, saturday night live, stefon, lorne michaels, is snl funny, snl isn't funny anymore, alec baldwin snl, stefon snl, kyle mooney, kyle mooney snl

Id: XvVASCnsal8

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 31 2019

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