Things that you know will be shit

[Dr. Alan Grant]

There was a show with David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker and I think Lauren Laverne a few years back. I can’t remember if it was a sketch show or a satirical news thing, but it was truly appalling. 

[Chest Rockwell]

12 minutes ago, Vamp said:

I was under the impression that the American version was considered shit nowadays and is mostly still around as an institution. 

It's as good or shit as it has ever been, I think. If you look back you'll find great skits but if you watched the full episodes they were in they would be just as patchy. 

[Carbomb]

48 minutes ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

There was a show with David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker and I think Lauren Laverne a few years back. I can’t remember if it was a sketch show or a satirical news thing, but it was truly appalling. 

That was 10 O'Clock Live that I mentioned earlier. It had some good moments, but in general was not good. It was an attempt to have a UK version of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, which was at its height at the time.

[gmoney]

50 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

It's as good or shit as it has ever been, I think. If you look back you'll find great skits but if you watched the full episodes they were in they would be just as patchy. 

Yes, it's a great myth that there was ever a golden age of SNL. 

The problem with the show is never really the talent available, there's always talented writers and performers. The problem is that fundamentally it's not a good idea to write a sketch show in a week, spend a lot of money on sets and then feel you have to drag out sketches for far too long to justify that outlay. 

[Chili]

18 minutes ago, gmoney said:

Yes, it's a great myth that there was ever a golden age of SNL. 

The problem with the show is never really the talent available, there's always talented writers and performers. The problem is that fundamentally it's not a good idea to write a sketch show in a week, spend a lot of money on sets and then feel you have to drag out sketches for far too long to justify that outlay. 

Yeah, there hasn't been a golden age, more there were times when they really got their shit together with the right balance of cast/writers best examples being the second and third seasons, most of the Phil Hartman cast 80's run and a period in the late 90's personally. I even enjoy seeing stuff that might be funny that doesn't land in that ride or die way, like when you see old Monty Python stuff that's really funny but the studio audience just don't know how to process it. 

Edited April 10, 2025 by Chili

[Devon Malcolm]

3 hours ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Mock The Week has been cancelled for a few years now, sadly.

Sadly indeed. It should have been cancelled after the first episode.

[Fog Dude]

1 hour ago, gmoney said:

Yes, it's a great myth that there was ever a golden age of SNL. 

The problem with the show is never really the talent available, there's always talented writers and performers. The problem is that fundamentally it's not a good idea to write a sketch show in a week, spend a lot of money on sets and then feel you have to drag out sketches for far too long to justify that outlay. 

There's a weekly Catalan satirical show that seems to manage it, but with a few key differences from SNL: it's only half an hour long, there's no focus on celebrity guests or musical performances, and it doesn't go out live (though to remain topical most of it must be filmed a day or two beforehand at the earliest). 

Not that we should be trying to directly copy or buy the rights to a format that works in any other country anyway. The culture of the USA is at least as different from ours as that of Spain, probably more so, and for all its faults stuff like HIGNFY at least emerged here organically.

[gmoney]

HIGNFY did have a golden period, which ended in about 1995. It's been absolute shite for at least 25 years. 

[BomberPat]

Saturday Night Live currently has a team of more than thirty writers. The average British comedy show would be lucky to have three. We don't have the culture of big writers' room working on a weekly show the way that America does, so have never been able to produce the big glitzy SNL-style floor show like them, and nor should we - we can't do SNL or Late Night, they can't do panel shows, it's just how it works.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

7 hours ago, gmoney said:

Yes, it's a great myth that there was ever a golden age of SNL. 

 

 

The first group on SNL had John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin and a little later Bill Murray.  That was and still is considered it's golden age and what got the show started. When all of them left it was really struggling until Eddie Murphy basically took over the show and become a massive star. 

The second great period in the early 90's @Chili mentioned they had Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley and Dana Carvey all at the same time and the show was huge with skits like Waynes World blowing up. 

Its certainly had its weak casts and generally always been all over the shop quality wise but it has had some massive periods of success with casts featuring a bunch of people who went on to be big stars. Especially the first lot.

 

Edited April 10, 2025 by Cousin Jim Bob

[wordsfromlee]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

Saturday Night Live currently has a team of more than thirty writers. The average British comedy show would be lucky to have three. We don't have the culture of big writers' room working on a weekly show the way that America does, so have never been able to produce the big glitzy SNL-style floor show like them, and nor should we - we can't do SNL or Late Night, they can't do panel shows, it's just how it works.

It's quite similar to a panel show though. Something like Mock The Week would have about 3 or 4 writers on each episode, plus the comics themselves. So about ten people in total writing each show. But then again they're all writing one-liners and quips rather than full sketches - they very different disciplines. 

[hallicks]

5 hours ago, gmoney said:

HIGNFY did have a golden period, which ended in about 1995. It's been absolute shite for at least 25 years. 

I dunno, the Shatner episode was probably worth any of the preceding shite. Generally, it was the decline from “somewhat clever segue/pithy comment about topical news clip” to “look at this funny thing from the internet” - it’s laziness. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

3 hours ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

 

The first group on SNL had John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin and a little later Bill Murray.  That was and still is considered it's golden age and what got the show started. When all of them left it was really struggling until Eddie Murphy basically took over the show and become a massive star. 

The second great period in the early 90's @Chili mentioned they had Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley and Dana Carvey all at the same time and the show was huge with skits like Waynes World blowing up. 

Its certainly had its weak casts and generally always been all over the shop quality wise but it has had some massive periods of success with casts featuring a bunch of people who went on to be big stars. Especially the first lot.

 

I think you’re missing the point. Most episodes of Saturday Night Live would have some good skits and mostly shit that didn’t work. Even with the best casts the show was patchy. If you go back and watch a whole episode you’ll see what I mean. I borrowed a season 1 dvd from a friend, mainly because I was really into Andy Kaufman and knew he’d done some shows very early on. And they were a hard watch, I only managed a few episodes before giving up because they were so inconsistent. The SNL YouTube usually uploads all the skits in separate YouTube clips, I just watch those.

there have been some great character bits in even the last decade or so. Stefan, the Californians, What’s up with that? David S Pumpkins, Regular and Black Jeopardy and even recently, Fernando. It’s just overall a really patchy show with ocassional gold nuggets.

While on the subject, I really enjoyed Saturday Night with is a dramatised version of the first episode. It’s very entertaining.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

4 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I think you’re missing the point. Most episodes of Saturday Night Live would have some good skits and mostly shit that didn’t work. Even with the best casts the show was patchy. If you go back and watch a whole episode you’ll see what I mean. I borrowed a season 1 dvd from a friend, mainly because I was really into Andy Kaufman and knew he’d done some shows very early on. And they were a hard watch, I only managed a few episodes before giving up because they were so inconsistent. The SNL YouTube usually uploads all the skits in separate YouTube clips, I just watch those.

there have been some great character bits in even the last decade or so. Stefan, the Californians, What’s up with that? David S Pumpkins, Regular and Black Jeopardy and even recently, Fernando. It’s just overall a really patchy show with ocassional gold nuggets.

While on the subject, I really enjoyed Saturday Night with is a dramatised version of the first episode. It’s very entertaining.

No I understand that, I meant and should have said the golden age of SNL is considered the first few years for how groundbreaking it was and the careers it launched more than consistency.

A live ensemble comedy sketch show written week to week, doing a try and see what works approach was never going to be able to hit it out the park non stop. You do have periods though where the talent is stronger to balance things out more.

Similar to weekly wrestling TV now the quality can be all over the place but like wrestling when they land on something that really works it can be loads of fun or they find someone like Dan Ackroyd or Eddie Murphy who are so talented they can seemingly make any daft idea thrown at them funny.

[Chest Rockwell]

If the measure of success is how many of the cast went on to do big things then surely by definition it's too soon to tell about the current crop? 

And the 2000s cast with Wiig, Heder, Sudeikis, Armisen, Samberg must count as a golden age by your measures too, @Cousin Jim Bob