This Season of SNL

[MikeyPatriot]

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Mikey,
All of those shows have a much easier task. Shorter seasons, shorter episodes, more time to create episodes.

There is also a massive selection bias when looking at older seasons. BTW I recently watched the first season of Mr. Show and has pretty underwhelmed, does it get better?

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I agree that those shows have it easier. There aren't many shows that you can compare SNL to (at least not many that I've watched). I think SNL is one of those things that's either going to be really good or really really bad.

re: Mr. Show

I was very underwhelmed by all 4 seasons of Mr. Show my first time through. But it gets better and better and better every time I watch it. The show is a lot like Anchorman in that way. Listening to the commentaries on all the shows really helped me appreciate the show as well.

I recommend watching it, putting it away for awhile, and then coming back to it and rewatching it.

[Badger]

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Heder, Samberg, and Wiig are fantastic

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Absolutely. I can't remember the last time they brought three players (in same year, I think) who were all so strong. In addition to Samberg they brought in two of his comedy troupe buddies as writers. The digital shorts are just an extension of what they were doing pre-SNL. You can find their old shorts on YouTube (at least you used to be able to).

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I first heard about these guys when I saw their Awesome Town skit. I really like Just 2 Guyz as well.

The site used to have more digital shorts on it. My guess is they are getting rid of stuff on youtube and elsewhere as they ramp up hulu.com

[Nonfiction]

Imo By far the best was the ridiculous cast of the early 90s with at one time Spade/Farley/Sandler/Chris Rock/Hartman/Myers/Carvey/MacDonald/Schneider/Breuer/Nealon, and its all been downhill since then.

[gumpzilla]

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Sketch shows that got it right almost all the time (IMO of course):

Mr. Show
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Chappelle Show

Chappelle Show is obviously different because all the sketches were taped, but whatevs.

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I haven't watched much Mr. Show, but I don't think the other two were models of consistency, either. Chappelle's Show was genius when done well - and he is unquestionably a very funny guy - but I think he had his fair number of unfunny stinkers as well. If you look at the actual number of minutes of quality that all of these shows produced per week, I think it's about the same. SNL's problem is that it is 90 minutes long and so there's a lot more dreck.

[MikeyPatriot]

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I haven't watched much Mr. Show, but I don't think the other two were models of consistency, either. Chappelle's Show was genius when done well - and he is unquestionably a very funny guy - but I think he had his fair number of unfunny stinkers as well. If you look at the actual number of minutes of quality that all of these shows produced per week, I think it's about the same. SNL's problem is that it is 90 minutes long and so there's a lot more dreck.

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Now we're getting into a subjective area that depends highly on your sense of humor, your standards to laugh, etc. etc. I know that with any of those 3 shows, I can pop in any disc, click on any episode, and not feel the need to press the skip chapter button at any point.

One thing I'd like to say about Flying Circus (and this will probably end up going for Mr. Show in 10 years because it's similar in the fact that it doesn't revolve around topical humor) is that the show has aged so well. There are certain bits that are probably funnier if you were watching it during its first-run (mostly involving BBC personalities), but those sketches still end up being hilarious for other reasons. Every time I watch anything Python, I'm always amazed at how intelligent the humor is while still being extremely absurd and silly. And outside of the two Terry's (who provide most of their value in the art and direction side), all of they Python's are extremely good performers.

[wasalladream]

This season has been ok. The digital shorts are again the highlight of most episodes that have them. Theres been some skits i really liked ( douchebag of the year, high school musical 3, kanye ) but I'm still not a fan of meyers doing weekend update and hope he gets replaced.

[kem]

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I agree with the other poster that this cast is very strong. There are no duds.

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Am I the only person out there who has never, ever, even once come anywhere close to even thinking about laughing at anything that Maya Rudolph has done? She is so horribly un-funny. Any skit she's in is an auto-FF on my Tivo at this point for me.

[wadea]

I agree. Since the addition of Samberg, the show has been getting better. I agree with others that Samberg, Hader and Wiig are the cream of the cast. Fred Armisen is also good and can do many characters very well. I TiVO SNL every week and watch it Sunday morning with breakfast. The commercial right after the monologue is usually the best skit, imo.

The two players I am tired of seeing are Maya and Kenan. Maya basically has only one character that she adapts to different sketches. Unfortunately, this usually involves her corny singing bit. The only funny thing Kenan ever does is poke fun at himself for being the token black guy on the cast.

BTW, I kind of miss Amy Poeler's sketch where she is Rick's (Horatio Sanz) eight-year-old neice and ends up running around the couch yelling, "Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick!"

[Pudge714]

Maya Rudolph has two charcters Oprah Winfrey and Whitney Houston. The Amy Poehler Rick skit is so [censored] annoying.

[ligastar]

Kenan Thompson adds nothing to the current line-up.