(Steve Martin is a comedic legend. If this idea is something you can get behind, let's be best friends and get matching tramp stamps.)
I say the above to make clear that I'm not attached to any particular cast the way a lot of other SNL fans are. Everyone loves the Original Cast. Some people swear by Eddie Murphy; others are all about Christopher Guest. Adam Sandler gets a fair share of love. Molly Shannon, Will Ferrell, Chris Farley, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph - all have their superfans. And rightfully so. When they leave and a new cast comes in, loyal fans have trouble giving the new kids a chance.
Sketch comedy, especially sketch comedy that's been on the air this long, is by nature hit or miss. And people are by nature nostalgic for shows or movies they watched when they were younger. So we remember the best sketches from our favorite comedians and skate over the less memorable, less funny ones.
But some sketches from the past totally blow, and some sketches from last seasons are among the funniest the show's ever done. Yet when I ask fellow television fans (people who watch a similar level of TV as I do) if they watch SNL, more than half the time they not only tell me they haven't been watching, they also throw in some derisive line about how the show isn't funny anymore.
People literally have been saying this show isn't good anymore since the Original Cast left in 1980. That particular critique of the show is nine years older than I am. Are we seriously still trotting it out? And you know that means your particular Golden Era of SNL was considered beneath an older generation's definition of Golden Era of SNL?
Or put another way: when's the last time you went back and revisited some of the older clips of your favorite Saturday Night Live era? It's fun to pick a random episode (Netflix unfortunately cuts out a lot from old broadcasts, but it still works for comparison purposes - I tend to go for Steve Martin or Alec Baldwin as host) and compare it to the episode that, say, Maya Rudolph or Jimmy Fallon hosted. Some sketches are Gilda Radnor kidnapped and held in a log cabin while they make jokes about women and anorexia; some sketches are Jesus (Jason Sudeikis) talking to a manically excited Taram Killam as Tim Tebow.
Maybe you can make the argument that funny talent, such as the performers seen in the later years, doesn't always make for comedy gold. This is true. Case in point: The Festrunk Brothers.
This sketch was funny the first time. You forget it wasn't funny after that because your childhood memories are warped.
In this day and age, a good 7 years after the birth of youtube, it's not necessary to watch the broadcast live. You can skip the bad sketches and watch the good ones over and over again. I don't know what that means for the future of the show - especially concerning the length (90 minutes of sketch comedy every week for almost 40 years? How is possible it's ever decent?) - but when it's so easy to skip the bad stuff, you might as well give it a shot.
SNL has a track record of picking some damn good comedians. It'd be a shame to let personal prejudices and old-school loyalty - not to mention the most clichéd criticism of the past thirty years - get in the way of some solid comedic entertainment.
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