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82 out of 107 people found the following review useful: It sucks now! It's great again!, 1 February 2002 Author: Jay Stuler (stuler.1@osu.edu) from Ohio
Every once in awhile I read reviews of SNL. Almost never do the reviews say "it was OK". Unless it is a review by a frequent viewer, they always say something like "SNL is great again!" or "SNL sucks now". Usually these reviews are from people who never or rarely watch the show, and only remember it from 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. These types of reviews have been the same for as long as I can remember. The periods that people now call "classic" frequently met with poor reviews at the time. One thing to remember is that the show is an hour and a half, longer than most any other TV show. It is hard to fill such a long show with consistently funny material. It is also hard to make every episode funny. Therefore the show (like most shows) wavers between great and awful, depending on the sketch or episode you are watching at the moment. To judge an entire series on one episode (or part of one) is a mischaracterization. I've watched SNL for most of its life, and although it has ranged from hilarious to horrible, I would say the average show is "pretty funny". The bottom line: there's nothing better to watch on Saturday night, so until there is, I will always watch SNL!
34 out of 51 people found the following review useful: Your TV's on and off relationship!, 13 July 2002 Author: Pimpin` Critic 69 from Your Critic of Critics
I like to describe this show like a on and off relationship because one year this show is funny and the next it sucks and it's like that year after year. Still it always manages to make you laugh and it has been the breakthrough show for some of the greatest comedians of all-time.
40 out of 64 people found the following review useful: The First Five Years Will Always the Classic Years, 11 October 2003 Author: Brian Washington (Sargebri@att.net) from Los Angeles, California
The first five years of S.N.L. will always be the "golden era" of this show. Belushi, Akroyd, Chase, Curtain, Newman, Morris, Radner and Radner will always represent an era when some of the best comedic talent of the 1970's were all on one show and as a springboard for greatness. However, once the original cast was gone the show went in decline for me. Even though talents like Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscapo, Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, Martin Short and Billy Crystal became big stars as a result of being on the show, the magic that the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players will never be duplicated. They made Saturday nights worth staying at home.
24 out of 42 people found the following review useful: Impossible to rate!, 22 September 2007 Author: troyuselius from Canada
This show is impossible to rate. We all know Saturday Night Live started great in 1975 with Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and so many others. Then when they started leaving, the show got to suck. There are even a couple of seasons in there that were so bad they refuse to air the reruns in syndication. The show was good with Eddie Murphy. Then it got really good again, during the Hartman/Myers/Farley/Spade (again, so many others) years. Then they left, and the show has really sucked since, with the possible exception of Will Ferrell (if you like Will Ferrell, which I don't). I keep trying to give the show another chance, and it continues to disappoint. I was so happy when they apparently turned the whole show's cast over, but so far the new no-names aren't impressing at all. Amy Poehler's not bad. I think the main problem is the writing. SNL please get some new blood. Or bring back the old blood. Whatever, do something! The show is just lame and unfunny now. Hopefully things turn around and we end up with a great period of SNL again. If not, hopefully it gets canceled. It's pretty bad when Mad TV typically gets more laughs out of us that SNL.
43 out of 80 people found the following review useful: And the big debate is...?, 21 August 2000 Author: sngbrd39 from US
I started watching SNL about when the current cast (Ferrell, Hammond, etc.) came in, and I don't see why everyone says it sucks. Yes, there are slow sketches, and yes, some performers are sub-par. Every cast can't be the first (Belushi, Aykroyd, etc.), can it? There is almost always at least one sketch in each show that will make me laugh. Usually, there are more than that. On a good night, I'm crying laughing. And for those of you who say the current cast sucks, there are going to be a whole bunch of new people in the 2000-01 season, so maybe you can tune back in and give the new ones a chance. What I really don't get, though, is why everyone has to be an SNL or Mad TV loyalist. Why isn't there room to like both? I know I do. Most Saturday nights, I'll watch the first half-hour of Mad TV, then flip back and forth between it and SNL for the next half-hour. Call me wishy-washy if you want, but that's just what I think.
9 out of 15 people found the following review useful: whenever i'm down, 13 September 2007 Author: grkamerican1984 from United States
whenever i'm down or depressed, the one thing i watch to cheer me up? Saturday Night Live. every Saturday night, i'd have some pizza for dinner, wash it down with a good soda or beer, lay back on the couch and watch SNL all night long. SNL is the best show i've ever seen, very funny, creative, and it's a wonder that's as big a success now as it was 32 years ago. tina fey is really funny, as is amy poehler, seth myers and kenan thomson. kenan was one of my favorite childhood actors when he was in nickelodeon's "kenan and kel". sometimes i go on youtube and look for clips of the old SNL, and it's just as funny. so thank u SNL. thank you for making me look at the bright, comedic and slightly inappropriate side of life.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Template for the irreverent comedy show genre., 15 September 2008 Author: sonya90028 from United States
Saturday Night Live premiered in the fall of 1975. At that time, the show broke new ground in the otherwise stale, late-night TV landscape. It was fresh, cutting-edge, and boiling-over with it's unprecedented brand of risqué humor. It's target audience, was mainly the teen and twenty-something 70s baby-boomers. These viewers finally had a comedy show, that they could instantly relate to. It poked fun at everything their parent's generation tended to take too seriously; religion, politics, social proprieties, etc.It goes without saying, that the splendidly talented Not Ready For Prime Time Players, were the centerpiece of the show. They included Chevy Chase, Dan Akroid, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Jane Kurtin, Garrett Morris, and Lorraine Newman. When they left the show after the first few seasons, it never quite regained it's comedic edge, that it had when they were regulars.Saturday Night Live also had the hippest guest hosts every week. These various hosts, always seemed to mesh marvelously with the overall comedic hi-jinx of the show. During it's early years, and even today, Saturday Night Live has featured some of the most cutting-edge musical performers; Patti Smith (the 'godmother' of Punk), Run DMC, Queen Latifah, The Talking Heads, Nirvana, etc. So the musical performance segment of the show, was always as much of a treat as the comedic sketches were.In summation, Saturday Night Live was the original template, for all of the irreverent comedy sketch shows that came later; SCTV, The Kids In The Hall, Mad TV, etc. And though the first few seasons of the show were the best, it still holds its own, even after being on the air nearly 33 years now.
3 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Good and Bad are all here., 14 August 2001 Author: Eurisko from United States
I read the previous comments on SNL and I agreed for a while that the show was very disappointing after not having seen it in several years. I learned that the show has some good days and some bad days. If you watch some of the very first SNL episodes, you will probably agree that it is not very funny, even boring and obtuse. But over the next decade, the talents of the writers and the combination of players made a sort of comedic alchemy that pleased almost everyone. I stopped watching in about 1988 and only started watching again in march of 2001. The differences were gigantic and I lost faith in the show for a while, but like I said, I kept watching and I started to see a new kind of chemistry at work. The show isn't any better or worse from when I stopped watching it, it's just different and some people might not like the new differences from the shows earlier days, and not all of the shows are brilliant. But just like any show that is very entertaining, all of the episodes are not going to be great, but most of them are great.
4 out of 7 people found the following review useful: A love/hate relationship with a classic, 22 November 2000 Author: 23skidoo-4 from Calgary, Canada
An earlier reviewer said this show sucks and that the "new cast" is terrible. What is interesting about SNL is how whenever there is a changeover of cast, it has become almost a tradition to hate the newcomers. In truth, however, many of the episodes that have aired in recent years -- even since the 1998 review I refer to -- have now come to be considered classics. And the cast members so many of us hated at first are now often seen in a favorable light alongside the "classic" cast of the late 1970s. And what cannot be denied is no TV program in history has been such a fertile breeding ground for future stars. Just look at the cast list and be amazed.
5 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Giving new life to a classic show, 18 November 2001 Author: Natalie Spellman from Houston, Texas
Okay, I'll admit, this show was not as funny a few years ago. That's why some critics called "Saturday Night Live" "Saturday Night Dead" though I might add that's not really funny either. But if you didn't like the show a few years ago, you might want to check it out now. New faces like Maya Rudolph and Rachel Dratch give new life and comedy to a changing generation. Sure for some of us it's bittersweet to watch the show without the personalities of Cheri Oteri and Tim Meadows, but there are still some classics like Will Ferrell, Ana Gastyer, and Darrell Hammond. You're bound to laugh if you watch this show, especially when you see Weekend Update with Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon. No matter what politics or our government is doing, "Saturday Night Live" can make any bad situation into a better one. With great impressions of George W. Bush, Al Gore, Tom Daschle, and many more, SNL has made politics fun again. "Saturday Night Live" goes places you didn't think you would enjoy going with class and style, not including the Robert Smigel cartoons.
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