SNL Season 38: End of an era

Last year, Saturday Night Live said goodbye to Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg, two of the major performers on the show over the past couple of seasons.  Samberg and his cohorts from The Lonely Island brought the show into the viral media age with their Digital Shorts, and for better or worse, Wiig was the show’s dominant performer.  The loss of the show’s most recognizable stars seemed to portend an uncertain time in SNL’s history, but despite the hires of a few new faces and the dismissal of another player (Abby Elliott), the 2012-13 season didn’t seem to have a feeling that there was a void the show was desperately trying to fill.

A lot of the credit belongs to the new performers hired as featured players, particularly Cecily Strong; she established her place on the show quickly and firmly, in a way not seen since Amy Poehler.  Kate McKinnon (a late-season addition for 2011-12), was also fairly prominent, owing to having similar strengths as the departed Wiig.  While Aidy Bryant and Tim Robinson are still waiting for their breakouts, both show promise and distinct sensibilities that the show could mine to its benefit.  I do feel the long tenures of some players like Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen and Kenan Thompson tend to hold the show from developing some of the new cast, but in three seasons alone,  Taran Killam seems ready to take over as SNL’s alpha male next season.  Jason Sudeikis and Bill Hader provided a solid backbone for this season.  Bobby Moynihan had his best year ever.  Vanessa Bayer rebounded from a confidence drop that plagued her in 2011-12, and Jay Pharoah taking over the Obama impression helped establish his place in the cast.  Only Nasim Pedrad feels particularly misused, mainly getting stuck with “little kid” and “old lady” roles.

The writing staff was mostly stable this year.  There were a few departures: Christine Nangle and Weekend Update writer Jessica Conrad did not come back this season, and John Mulaney joined Paula Pell as a part-time contributor.  One writer returned to the show after a seven-year absence (Joe Kelly, most recently a writer/producer for How I Met Your Mother).  Neil Casey and Josh Patten joined the staff, and, beginning in February, a slew of guest writers were brought aboard for brief stints, including Chelsea Peretti, Cora Frazier, Michael Che, Edi Patterson, Monica Padrick and Kids In The Hall alum Kevin McDonald (Che was later added to the regular roster for the May shows).

The season was fairly uneven, though, with more pronounced highs and lows than SNL’s experienced in a few years.  There were a greater number of outright duds this year (the Mountain Pass sketch from Louis CK comes to mind), yet the stumbles felt more like the show was losing its fear of failure that made the last couple of seasons a little too safe and antiseptic.  In a way, this actually came off as promising.   There were also enough flashes of inspiration (“Sad Mouse”, two-part sketches like “Z Shirts” and “Darrell’s House”) that imbued this season with a freshness not seen in a while.

The show has always had castmembers come and go to varying levels of fanfare, but it seems that the big emotional farewell has become de rigeur for a departing castmember in recent years.  Phil Hartman’s 1994 send-off featured the show’s recurring characters performing a variant of “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound Of Music.  Will Ferrell’s 2002 departure was marked by the cast (except for Tracy Morgan) speaking out-of-character about how he’ll be missed.  What turned out to be Darrell Hammond’s final show didn’t have an explicit tribute, but the cameo-filled full-cast “Goodnight Saigon” performance felt uncharacteristically emotional to be just a random Will Ferrell sketch.  The Kristen Wiig “graduation ceremony” at the end of Mick Jagger’s show last season seemed to outdo all these earlier goodbyes; despite Wiig being such a divisive castmember for a lot of fans, the emotional displays of from her colleagues made her swan song all the more moving.

I touched on the news of Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Seth Meyers’ departures from SNL in my last post.  Hader and Armisen both got their goodbyes last night; unlike Wiig, both performers chose to say their goodbyes in character.  Hader’s farewell was one last Stefon appearance on Weekend Update, culminating in a pre-taped segment of Seth Meyers racing through New York to stop the club promoter’s wedding to Anderson Cooper a la The Graduate.  Armisen used the show’s 10-to-1 to perform an understated farewell tune as his Thatcherite punk character Ian Rubbish, with Hader, Killam and Sudeikis as the Bizarros, and cameos by Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, J. Mascis, Kim Gordon, Sex Pistol Steve Jones, and Armisen’s Portlandia collaborator Carrie Brownstein.   SNL is not a show that often features genuine emotion very often: when it does, such as last night, the results are amazing and devastating.

With the departures of Hader and Armisen, Meyers’ impending move to the Late Night desk, and the rumored exit of Jason Sudiekis, last night’s show truly felt like the end of an era for Saturday Night Live.  Even if Meyers sticks around to ease the transition to the next Weekend Update anchor and head writer, he will seem more a vestige of a prior version of SNL than a full-fledged member of the new guard.

SNL’s cast change news

The next season I’m going to be reviewing on the blog is…1982-83!  I’m going to start my reviews after the current season wraps up; I’ll be giving my thoughts on 2012-13 as a whole before doing my intro post for the season, then the first review will be of the Chevy Chase / Queen show.

It’s been quite an eventful week in Saturday Night Live related news: it hasn’t been a full week since the last live show with host Kristen Wiig (which was, by most accounts, underwhelming) but with the word that this week’s season finale will be Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s last show, and the announcment that Seth Meyers will depart mid-season to take over Late Night, SNL’s next season is already shaping up to be very different.

Bill Hader’s departure is going to be a huge loss for the show; I consider him to be the “glue” of the current cast, and many fans on the message boards have already mentioned he belongs in the ranks of the top ten SNLers of all time.  He impressed me even in his rookie season: there was one sketch in the Jason Lee episode that was a commercial parody for tasers, and Hader walked away with the whole thing with his delivery on one line: “Is that man a criminal? Well, he sure looked like one.”  There was a time when Andy Samberg overshadowed him, especially immediately after “Lazy Sunday” hit big, but Hader has been consistently solid in sketches, even if sometimes he begins to break character (like in Scared Straight, The Californians, or Stefon).  Despite sticking around the show for a year longer than Kristen Wiig, it never really felt like he overstayed his welcome: even his big recurring character Stefon is still capable of providing the highlight of a particular show.

I’m a little more mixed on losing Fred Armisen.  Early in his tenure, he brought such a different sensibility to the show, and was a relief from the antics of Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz, which were starting to run their course (sidenote: I’ve since grown to appreciate both a bit more).   Unfortunately, Armisen’s last few years haven’t held up to the standard set by his early SNL work.  Part of the blame goes to his being cast as Barack Obama: at the time, it made a bit of sense, since Armisen had the closest resemblance to the candidate, but he never really got the voice down or found a real hook for the impression.  It didn’t help that the most frequent use of his Obama was in these lengthy, lecture-like “in one” segments.  Toward the end of the run, his other roles started to run together: there was a string of middle-eastern dictators making outdated pop-culture references.  I never cared much for Garth and Kat or The Californians either.  His work on Portlandia seems to be him at his best, though, even if his later SNL work comes off as him goofing off and participating in private jokes.     He still had a knack for knowing parodies of certain types of people and affectionate tributes to musical genres, though.  Eleven years is a long time to stay on the show, though, and Armisen’s departure is something that opens up a lot of possibilities.

The biggest change will be Seth Meyers’ promotion to late-night talk show host.  Meyers has been the show’s head writer and Weekend Update anchor since 2006; he is currently the longest-tenured WU anchor of all time.  While the show has taken a bit of a dip in quality around 2009, a lot of the sketches with Meyers’ name attached have been some of the strongest of the past few seasons: he wrote Coach Bert (Steve Buscemi episode) and Darrell’s House (Zach Galifianakis episode).  He’s staying an extra half-season, but I’m curious whether his exit will also mean that he’s going to poach the ranks of the current SNL writing staff for his new show.  Despite all the new players that have been introduced since Meyers became head writer, the writing feels stale at times, with the writers’ room dominated by veterans and new writers only lasting a short period of time (particularly the 2008, 2009 and 2010 hires).  If anything is going to shift the show significantly, it’s going to be Meyers leaving.

I think the remaining cast (particularly Taran Killam and Cecily Strong) has proven they are more than capable of carrying the show, even if these three veterans are gone.  Some expect Jason Sudeikis and Kenan Thompson to leave with them, but until either say the word, they could still be heading up the next year’s cast.  Despite some issues with the writing, this year’s cast is one of the best in a long time.

But I’ll get back to that after the finale.

Two TV-related websites

There’s finally a decent St. Elsewhere site on the internet.  I had caught the show periodically when the Canadian cable channel then known as Prime ran episodes after M*A*S*H reruns, but it was the DVD release back in 2006 that got me hooked.  Unfortunately, the DVD releases stopped with the first season: there are some good episodes in that set, but it’s the least characteristic season of the show.  I eventually managed to get a hold of the rest of the series in some form or another, and season two is where it starts resembling the show it would be for the rest of its run: Dr. Jack Morrison goes through the first of many tragedies and indignities a few episodes in, the “you’re a pig, Ehrlich” running gag, autistic Tommy Westphall, and the obsession with continuity that would pay off greatly as the show goes on.  It’s a shame this show isn’t more readily available.

Viewers with nostalgia for the PBS kids shows they grew up with should also take a look at The Neighborhood Archive, a tribute to Fred Rogers and comprehensive exploration of his biggest TV legacy, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.  There’s a detailed episode guide that’s still in the process of being put together (the webmaster is almost done the 1969 season).  Looking at some of these episode summaries takes me back: when I was watching the show in the late 80s, they were still running many of the older episodes during the spring and summer.  I remember they would run a block of  newer episodes with school-aged Prince Tuesday and Ana Platypus, then suddenly the model neighborhood in the titles would look different, Mister Rogers would have darker hair, and the walls of his “TV house” would be brown instead of blue.  Watch this video of the 1970 opening and closing (pre-PBS, when the show was still called “Misterogers’ Neighborhood); even if you weren’t watching the show the last time that season aired in 1989, the music playing during the art card with the trolley and the episode number will stir some memories.

A redesign

I’ve decided to change the look of this site, and am looking to update this page on a regular basis again.  I’m also doing a little housekeeping on some of the existing posts (and may remove some old announcements that didn’t pan out like I had hoped).  In the meantime, I’m still trying to decide which season of SNL to review next.  I’m torn between five options; help me out by voting for a season below.

I still want to branch out beyond my focus on SNL, but a lot of my traffic comes from the reviews. I honestly missed having an excuse to go through the old shows again.

Next season for SNL reviews (and want list)

I’m still on my hiatus from blogging, but I’m actually getting a few ideas about what I’m going to do once I come back to updating this page on a regular basis.  Yes, this includes more classic SNL episode reviews.

I’m still trying to narrow down which season I’m going to review next: I’m thinking of doing either 1982-83 (the next Ebersol season), 1985-86 (an unusual season, with enough post-production work done to the reruns as to make them seem like two different shows), or 1988-89 (a great season all all around).

I have each of these seasons in some form or another.  However, for a number of these episodes I only have edited rerun versions which may be missing sketches.  As well, for the 1985 and later shows, these repeats have some post-production work done, including dress rehearsal substitutions.

If anyone has the following episodes from their original airing, please contact me so we can arrange a trade:

1982-83
Chevy Chase / Queen (September 25, 1982 – there may be a “running late” filler segment that’s cut from reruns)
Robert Blake / Kenny Loggins (November 13, 1982 – rerun is missing “Best Little Whorehouse On The Prairie”, “Blue Lagoon”, “No More Andy Kaufman” and part of Saturday Night News is edited)
Eddie Murphy / Lionel Richie (December 11, 1982 – rerun is missing A Special Christmas Message. I have a Frankenstein-edit from Comedy Central but prefer original broadcast)
Bruce Dern / Leon Redbone (March 12, 1983 -rerun is missing The Buckwheat Story promo)
Susan Saint James / Michael McDonald (April 16, 1983 – rerun has part of Eddie Murphy’s “killing time” segment edited, and “ass” censored out of Magic Fish Negotiation).

1985-86
Chevy Chase / Sheila E (November 16, 1985)
Ron Reagan / The Nelsons (February 8, 1986)
George Wendt & Francis Ford Coppola / Philip Glass (March 22, 1986)
Tony Danza / Laurie Anderson (April 19, 1986 – rerun is missing Cliff Robertson AT&T Commercial parody)
Jimmy Breslin / Level 42, E.G. Daily (May 17, 1986)

1988-89
Wayne Gretzky / Fine Young Cannibals (May 13, 1989)
Steve Martin / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (May 20, 1989)

How to tell if an episode is an original airing:
-No disclaimer in the opening montage (shows before 1986) or before the cold opening (shows after 1986).
-Don Pardo will either have a voiceover announcing the next show over the goodnights, or they are cut off by an NBC promo.
-Most bumpers in the original live shows (after 1985) are silent; in reruns, they have the SNL band’s music.

Site news

As I’ve posted elsewhere, I’ve hit a period of “blog fatigue” and decided to take a break from blogging for at least the next few months.  I don’t know for sure how long this will be: I’m planning on it being at least a six-month break.

I don’t know if I’ll use this space again; it was nice to have a specialized blog for my pop culture commentary and SNL meditations, but I don’t know what direction my writing will take in the future, and since this site has so many false starts at different post series, it really makes it obvious that I was blogging without a strong direction or focus.  I’m currently debating what to do with the SNL reviews and essays I’ve posted here; they’ve been my most popular blog posts.  I’m considering either moving them or leaving them here.  SNL reviews take a lot of work as well, and I feel like the break will allow me to focus on other areas of writing.  I may resume them again, but I don’t want to tackle 1982-83 until I can land a copy of the original live broadcast of the Robert Blake / Kenny Loggins show, and I wish to wait until I have copies of all the original airings from 1985-86 to track the extensive post-production work.

If you wish to get in contact with me in the meantime, I’m active on social media, and you can also contact me directly through e-mail.

Thank you for the past four years of readership.

Another thought on SNL rerun edits

I had written before about how the repeats of Saturday Night Live are different from the live shows before (in an earlier blog post as well as a piece for Splitsider.com about segments cut from reruns), but one thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how there really isn’t any detailed information in the major SNL episode guides about the repeat-only segments, although sometimes there would be information added to the trivia section of the TV.com listings.  Part of it is that some of these bits are so rare and unaccounted for (such as Gilda Radner’s segment in Aviva Slesin’s “First Love” series), and part of it is that if you’re going to compile a list of those segments, you might as well compile a list of the segments that have major changes between live broadcast and rerun, including dress rehearsal substitutions and fixed errors.  The amount of effort that would go into it wouldn’t really be worth it, unless I were actually getting paid to do this (and you know Broadway Video / SNL Studios must have all this information on a private file somewhere).  It still seems like an interesting project, though.

I leave you with two examples of dress rehearsal changes that have become the “official” version of segments in reruns, syndication or streaming.  Both come from the heavily edited 1985-86 season, which is notable in itself for the amount of tech issues fixed and canned laughter added in the rebroadcast versions.

“You Can Call Me Al” (Catherine Oxenberg, Paul Simon / Ladysmith Black Mambazo, 05/10/86)
The dress rehearsal take can be quickly differentiated from the live version by the color of Paul’s shirt (pink in dress, blue in live), but the performances themselves turned out quite different.  The dress rehearsal version is pretty straightforward: Paul sings the song, then introduces himself before delivering the “Live from New York” (a slight variant this time around).  The live show version is somewhat of a disaster: part of the problem is that the audience gives Paul an extended burst of applause at the very beginning, which delays his cue to start singing.  All through the first verse, Paul struggles to keep up with the music (a backing track that the musicians are miming to) and gives up part of the lyric so he can sing the chorus in time.  He seems a little thrown all through the song, but another big gaffe happens later when the director cuts to the SNL band after the “palindromic bass solo”: the horn line begins but Lenny Pickett doesn’t have his saxophone reed in his mouth.

The Cliffhanger (Anjelica Huston, Billy Martin / George Clinton & the Parliament-Funkadelic, 05/24/86)
The season finale of the troubled 1985-86 season had a runner where the devil (Jon Lovitz in a cheap Halloween costume) gets Billy Martin to fall off the wagon during the show, which leads to his inevitable “firing” as host.  This plotline culminates in the final segment of the show: instead of going straight to home base with the hosts, guests and cast waving goodbye, the cast congregates in the locker room to congratulate themselves on the season, before it cuts to Billy pouring gasoline just outside to light the whole place on fire.  The green-screened fire effect is marred somewhat in the live show by a visible folding chair in the flames, and Lorne Michaels doesn’t look at the camera when he delivers the “they won’t be able to do the show next year line”.  The biggest difference is in the part where Martin joins Anjelica Huston and George Clinton at home base for the goodnights: when Anjelica asks where Billy is, her question is interrupted by a still mic’d Billy’s very loud footsteps running; Anjelica laughs and does a slashy “cut” motion with her hand, and they don’t do their dialogue for the closing.  The rerun also has a visible edit during the end sequence with the cast in the smoke-filled locker room (removing Anthony Michael Hall yelling for help in an exaggerated way).