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Does anyone feel the SNL parodies have gone beyond comedy, and is now on an agenda? And if it is an agenda, is SNL the place for it?

I'm posting this in the Network TV forum because SNL is network tv. If the thought crosses your mind it should be in the Political Forum, does that kind of affirm what I'm getting at?

Chevy Chase doing Gerald Ford. Phil Hartman doing Reagan. Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton. Dana Carvey doing G. H. W. Bush.
Will Ferrell as Dubya. Jay Pharoah as Obama. Tina Fey doing Palin. Since when did Alec Baldwin doing Trump become a "thing"?
Lighten up, kid.

[quote="Mark Coney"]Chevy Chase doing Gerald Ford. Phil Hartman doing Reagan. Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton. Dana Carvey doing G. H. W. Bush.
Will Ferrell as Dubya. Jay Pharoah as Obama. Tina Fey doing Palin. Since when did Alec Baldwin doing Trump become a "thing"?
Lighten up, kid.[/quote]


You left out Dan Ackroyd as Jimmy Carter, (remember The Pepsi Syndrome, here's Rodney Dangerfield to tell you how large the President is.)

Before Phil Hartman Reagan was done by Harry Shearer, Charles Rocket, (don't ask what happened to him), Joe Piscopo, and a couple of other people I can't remember.

It is getting just a little out of hand, Circle.
Parts of Saturdays "Cold Open" made me chuckle, though.

Mark Coney wrote:Chevy Chase doing Gerald Ford. Phil Hartman doing Reagan. Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton. Dana Carvey doing G. H. W. Bush.
Will Ferrell as Dubya. Jay Pharoah as Obama. Tina Fey doing Palin. Since when did Alec Baldwin doing Trump become a "thing"?
Lighten up, kid.

sfpcc wrote:You left out Dan Ackroyd as Jimmy Carter...

Dan also did Richard Nixon in quite a few episodes during the early SNL seasons.

rugratsonline wrote:

sfpcc wrote:You left out Dan Ackroyd as Jimmy Carter...

Dan also did Richard Nixon in quite a few episodes during the early SNL seasons.

His Tom Snyder was the best!

Dan Ackroyd is the probably the most under-rated of the SNL gang. His Jimmy Carter talking the guy down on drugs, ole Tricky Dick, but his Tom Snyder was dead-on with the smokes and the cackle chuckle. I liked his 3rd-person-Bob Dole routine too - "I'll fight you with one arm..."

off topic: the two best late-late night show hosts were Tom Snyder and Craig Ferguson - because they pretty much did whatever the heck they wanted on their shows and their monologues were also interesting.

SNL has always made fun of the president and they always will. Trump is guaranteed to say and do lots of stupid things, so the late night shows will have a field day with him. They made fun of Obama some, but not that much since he didn't do that much that was stupid. Obama was confident, but not an over-the-top cocky jackass. It's a good thing that Trump is thick skinned. Oh, wait...

I stopped watching SNL. Sure they always poke fun at political figures. But now that's pretty much all it is now...an agenda driven program. There is definitely more than comedy going on here. I think it's just fanning the flames making the political scene worse. I just don't find them funny anymore. It's really tough getting away from politics as the media is saturated with it. I think SNL has lost its edge and creativeness with NO new ideas...pretty much basing their show on politics. If I wanted that much politics I'd watch some freaking C-Span!

I stopped watching SNL years ago myself, though mainly due to the quality of the comedy -- nothing to do with politics.

TheForce wrote:I stopped watching SNL. Sure they always poke fun at political figures. But now that's pretty much all it is now...an agenda driven program. There is definitely more than comedy going on here. I think it's just fanning the flames making the political scene worse. I just don't find them funny anymore. It's really tough getting away from politics as the media is saturated with it. I think SNL has lost its edge and creativeness with NO new ideas...pretty much basing their show on politics. If I wanted that much politics I'd watch some freaking C-Span!

Likewise me, and also for me, similarly to stand-up comedy.

I used to be a major comedy club visitor, and listened all the time to the XM comedy channels. However, the 'comedy' has just become a lot of left-wing whining and pseudo-intellectual liberal viewpoints on how more Obama-phones and welfare can be handed out, and more illegals can be allowed in to bolster the votes for the next 'liberal' candidate.

I will be damned if I will pay money to watch some lounge-lizard doing so....and, also, the millennial's overuse of "like" and "yannow" and "actually" is irritating as they begin to take the stages.

I stopped watching years ago because I stopped staying up so late once I had kids. Thanks to the miracle of the internet I can watch individual skits any time I want.

SNL stopped being relevant in the late '70's

Heard on the radio today that the ratings for the SNL episode on 2/11 with Alec Baldwin as the host were the highest in 22 years. Only three of the skits were political (so like 20% of the show)...

The show open with Kate McKinnon (as Hillary) playing the piano and singing I Will Remember You the week after the election had me scratching my head. It was a serious skit that wasn't played for laughs, and I saw it purely as a political statements. Nothing against political statements, but I watch SNL for the humor. That bit seemed really out-of-place.

I haven't seen the SNL that Donald hosted in November 2015 (although I'm sure most of it is on YouTube when I get around to it). My guess is that Lorne Michaels invited him to host not so much as part of a political agenda, but because he was a hot ticket at the time. It was also early enough in the election cycle that nobody thought he would get the GOP nomination, much less win the presidency.

As I said in another thread, I try to see comedy for what it is and try not to read too much into it. Even social comics like George Carlin and Lewis Black have stated that they try never to take themselves too seriously (although some of Carlin's material did teeter on the dark side of social issues during his later years). There are times when I can appreciate the intellectual challenges of comic material, and other times when I just want to enjoy a mindless laugh.