Farewell to SNL (Part 1)

 My History with SNL

The Beginning

When I was young, the only exposure I had to sketch comedy was via children’s shows such as The Amanda Show and All That. Looking back at them, a lot of the humor has aged poorly (and is downright pedophilic in some places), but they were a great launching point.

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard about Saturday Night Live, but I do remember the first episode I ever saw. From what I remember, my mom and dad were watching clips from the Taylor Swift episode a day after it aired. My brother and I noticed Kenan in some of the clips, and we marveled at the fact that someone we grew up with on Nickelodeon had made it to the big leagues. I can also remember watching clips from the Jennifer Lopez episode around that time as well, and I remember the hoopla surrounding Betty White’s hosting appearance, but that was about it.

Becoming a Fan

Several years passed before I ever thought about SNL again. My true first steps towards becoming a fan of the show came when we all watched the 40th anniversary special when it first aired. I also taped a rerun of the first episode that aired the night before. 

Then, in 2017, I discovered Stooge and Bronwyn Douwsma’s excellent blogs. These were the final catalyst towards my becoming a huge fan of SNL. I started watching regularly beginning with the Saiorse Ronan episode, and I’ve never looked back. By that time, the show was balls-deep in the Trumpwin era with all of the gratuitous cameos and shit. This was a very different show from what I had witnessed just a couple years earlier, but that didn’t matter. I was able to find copies of older episodes to watch.

This brings us to the matter of my own blog. When I started it back in 2016, I just posted whatever the fuck I thought was interesting. But I thought it needed something of more substance, so, after getting inspired by all of the SNL review blogs I was by now very familiar with, I decided to write my own! 

History of My Reviews

Looking back at my oldest reviews, all I can do is cringe. They were written at a time when I had just graduated from high school, and it shows. While I’ve gone back and touched up some of my reviews after posting them to fix things, I’ve mostly left those ones alone to show how far I’ve come.

As the Trump era continued to get worse, so did my sanity while watching it. A lot of my reviews from Season 45 (the first one I watched in full) are full of me getting overdramatic for little to no reason. Example: the J.J. Watt episode, where I spent a large amount of time whining about the numerous sex jokes. This was also when COVID hit, and that also put a damper on my ability to focus on the show.

I nearly contemplated ending my reviews after Season 46, because it was just so awful. I had reached my breaking point with Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, who still rank among my least favorite cast members of all time. But then, something happened to the show that made me want to stick around…

When I first read about the new additions to the cast for Season 47, I didn’t think much of it initially. We had just come off of Lauren Holt getting fired after a single season of underuse, so what was stopping the show from doing that again with these guys? And then I saw the season premiere…and a certain big-nosed impressionist from Tennessee started to win me over with his solid performances. You know who I’m talking about, right? The one, the only, James Austin Johnson. 

Thanks to him and fellow newbie Sarah Sherman, as well as the new shorts from Please Don’t Destroy, this season had a much fresher atmosphere than the previous few. I can honestly say that Season 47 was the most fun I’ve had reviewing a season.

Alas, it didn’t stay that way for long. Season 48 was looking promising with the arrival of FOUR newbies. Unfortunately, a lot of the material came off as half-assed, and formerly reliable cast members like Kenan and Heidi started getting on my nerves. We’ll never know for sure if it could have gotten better as it went along, because it ended early due to a writer’s strike.

In Season 49, things only got worse. After the Christmas break, it just…fell apart for whatever reason. We saw an increase in the amount of rehashed sketches, pointless cameos, and an odd focus on trashy Internet culture (courtesy of everyone’s “favorite” writer Jimmy Fowlie). It was during this season that I began having thoughts about ending my reviews, but I wanted to give the show another chance for its fiftieth anniversary…boy, was I stupid…

Season 50

I made the decision before starting Season 50 that it would be the end for me, but that my opinion might change if the season turned out to be good. These hopes were quickly dashed when I saw the endless parade of cameos in the first few episodes, all culminating in a pathetic, last-minute appearance from Kamala Harris in the John Mulaney episode that may have cost her the election. 

The actual sketches didn't help much, either. We've gone back to the Season 29/30 route of basing a lot of them on trashy pop culture. I'm talking about shit like the Charli XCX talk show sketch in the premiere or that one where Trisha Paytas showed up for no reason. Oh, and I can't forget about all of the pathetic simping towards the TikTok audience when they brought back Domingo only FOUR episodes after he first debuted.

The Martin Short episode was when it truly set in for me that this season was never going to get better. So many baffling decisions here, including the decision to sideline most of the cast in favor of pointless cameos. 

There was a brief rise in quality around the time of the anniversary special, but this was short lived, and we quickly went back to everything sucking. That’s when I decided once and for all that this season would be my last.