Cool News
Andy Samberg
Leaving SNL Also??
Andy Samberg, an SNL cast member since 2005, may be leaving the show at the end of this season, according to an Us Magazine source.
Samberg has a central role as the Adam Sandler character’s son in “That’s My Boy,” which hits the big screen June 15.
Samberg’s longtime writing partners Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer departed SNL in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
It’s long been rumored that Kristen Wiig, a “Saturday Night Live” cast member since 2005, and Jason Sudeikis, who joined in 2003, may leave the show after it concludes its current season next month.
Paul Brittain, who joined SNL Sept. 25, 2010, left the show in January.
UCB veteran Kate McKinnon (Logo’s “The Big Gay Sketch Show”) joins the SNL cast this weekend.
Find all of Us’ exclusive on the matter here.
Readers Talkback
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What would they have left? A bunch of poor sketches with the 3rd tier members. Ugh.
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they dont even do "digital shorts" anymore... sure, they tape shorts but its not the same i think he and his two buddies from lonely island just need their own tv show... or musical... or something
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Was it a comedy?
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Pay attention.
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Why? The guy's harmless, as is his schtick. Yet full-on dickheads like Dancingforever and Natalieportmansyummyafterbirth maliciously post spoilers for the sole purpose of pissing people off, and do so with complete impunity. Doesn't make sense.
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Haven't watched this train wreck show since the early 1980s.
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Then how do you know it's still a train wreck? Are you psychic ... or do you let other people do your thinking for you?
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Wiig and Sudeikis are going to be some huge voids to fill. Sandberg? Not so much. Sure he's had some big viral hits, but if you pay attention to how many digital shorts he actually did compared to how many actually caught on, his batting average is quite short. And outside of those videos he never seemed like a huge part of the show to me. By the way, when you idiots post your "THIS SHOW IS STILL ON???" garbage do you really think you're the first person to say that?
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I only watch when my fiance makes me, which is thankfully not a lot. Every episode I see is laughless and just awful. Scrap the whole cast. Time to start over.
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They've had their chance....they suck.
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Everything they write has to be screened by company lawyers to make sure it doesn't offend anyone. That's why you get 3,000 sketches based on bad puns.
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April 5, 2012, 5:34 p.m. CST
Damn, he's my favourite but Digital Short quality has dropped drastically this year
by Al
Why the heck haven't just adapted "Turtleneck & chain", track by track for this season is beyond me.
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April 5, 2012, 5:51 p.m. CST
Samberg isn't funny and SNL has stunk for years
by BIG_BAD_WOLF_IN_CAPS
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Hopefully then find some talented people to replace these guys/girl.
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Somehow watched parts of 4-5 episodes this season and the show is kind of terrible. It seems like everyone thinks cracking up in a sketch is the funniest thing ever...but if the sketch itself isn't funny, you just look stupid.
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is a stupid, knee-jerk comment by people who don't follow the television industry, or understand how it works. Hilarious people like Larry David could write for SNL and never get a sketch on the air. Oh wait.
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SNL bringing in new writers all the time. Every year they bring in some of the best people doing improv, stand-up and etc, from all over the country.
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April 5, 2012, 6:24 p.m. CST
I'd quit just to go home and spend more time with Joanna Newsom's ass...
by Jaka
...tronomical talent. Man that woman can play the harp.
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Sudeikis, Wiig, Samberg, Meyers, Armisen, Thompson, and even Hader have been there too long. Time for a mostly new cast, like when Will Farrell came in.
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The low-brow, crowd pleasing rapping/singing about dicks or fucking would get loads of attention, but... what else does he do that people love to see more & more of? His "Cathy" impression? "
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of King Has-Been Unfunny Fucktard from Eddie Murphy officially with the release of Jack and Jill, now he's just cementing his legacy. Bitch lost his mind.
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April 5, 2012, 9:15 p.m. CST
I guess being in Sandler's stable of semi-talented bitches pays more
by mdk
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Lorne Michaels needs to retire and they need a new head writer. SNL is supposed to be cutting edge comedy and the guy running the show is pushing 70. As we have seen with many great comedians (many from SNL roots), they lose their edge and humor as they get older. As for Seth Meyers, never got his humor. I think he is the weak link of the show. Lastly, you look at the best years of SNL and a number of the cast member wrote their own sketches either by themselves or with writers and got writers' credits. The original cast did. The All Star Cast season did. Eddie Murphy did. Guys like Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, and others did. In recent years, the only on air cast member to also be a writer other than Meyers was Adam Sandberg who only wrote Digital Shorts. I don't think it is a coincidence that guys like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Christopher Guest, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Adam Sander, and Adam Sandberg all had memorable characters or sketches that they wrote themselves.
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April 5, 2012, 11:23 p.m. CST
He thinks being in an Adam Sandler movie will launch his film career?
by Mel
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April 6, 2012, 12:54 a.m. CST
Paul Brittain left? Well that was a monumentally stupid move
by D.Vader
He had the chance to be the next Will Ferrell. Too bad for him.
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April 6, 2012, 1:08 a.m. CST
May he have great success sucking Sandler's tiny cock.
by BadMrWonkaSucksCock
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Even though it airs in late night, SNL gets higher ratings than any NBC scripted show in primetime. And it's easily the highest-rated late-night show on any channel. If it's not your cup of tea, you can always watch Tim & Eric or Key & Peele, or Funny or Die.
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Hey Herc, who do you think will retire first, Jay Leno or Lorne Michaels?
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Why do so many use "also" awkwardly these days like in the title of this article where "too" would be more appropriate? I see this a lot lately.
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his skeleton will bring home what everyone else has left behind. and then, he will finally win.
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April 6, 2012, 4:30 a.m. CST
And it's easily the highest-rated late-night show on any channel.
by higgledyhiggles
Hitler was popular too... for a while.
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Bring in Tina Fey to replace Lorne Michaels.
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when golden age comedians like Bob Hope, George Burns, & Milton Berle just weren't funny anymore & refused to retire. Lorne Michaels kinda reminds me of that. The show needs to get back to it's roots...The "Not-Ready-For-Primetime-Players"! Eight performers who can ALL create original characters & do impersonations too. A producer & head writer who answer to no one. Fearless, unapologetic, edgy comedy that takes chances & refuses to be silenced. Just not gonna happen w/Lorne Michaels & Seth Meyers @ the helm. It's sooo much easier to hit cruise-control & rest on your iconic laurels. Sad.
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Remember when people said that SNL sucked after Will Ferrell left. It's so much worse now. I heard someone say that SNL use to be about the cast and now it's about the writers, but the writers suck. I don't understand who finds SNL funny now. All the new people they've brought in, in the last two seasons have been horrible.
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There's nothing else up against it. You have a repeat of New Girl and Fringe. I don't even know what else is on. Nothing's on Saturday nights, so it had a monopoly. If HBO put a quality show (doesn't have to be a sketch show) on Saturday nights at around 11, I bet it would take viewers away from SNL. People just watch it out of habit and lack of anything else on at that time. I stopped watching SNL like 5 years ago. But if someone was smart they would put a show up against it. Fox tried with Mad TV, but the problem with Mad TV was that they didn't have a breakout star that would draw viewers in. You can't have a sketch comedy show today without a big name or at least someone well known. If Fox was smart, they should bring back In Living Color, get a few names for the cast and put it up against SNL. If they can catch lightning in the bottle twice, it would give SNL a run for its money.
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Can you list your ages? I'm just curious. Only answer if you like sketch/live comedy, but don't find SNL funny because clearly that type of comedy isn't for everyone.
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SNL dominates against ShamWow informercials, reruns of Golden Girls, etc. Big friggin whoop. SNL will get dominant ratings if I was the executive producer. SNL is lucky that neither ABC or CBS can convince their affiliates to give back the Saturday night between 11:30-1 slot so that they can launch a competitor. That is part of the reason the Howard Stern CBS late night show failed is because they had to sell it market to market and many CBS stations refused to carry it and others dumped it because they got too much negative backlash from his content (probably wouldn't have happened if Stern was released nationally). Stern did either beat or competed very well against SNL in most markets he was shown in. Also, SNL's ratings are very much guest driven. It doesn't even matter if the quality of the show sucks. If someone big or people think will be funny, the ratings are big. I'm sorry, but although I give Michaels a ton of credit for creating this show and making it a monster it became, I don't think the SNL ratings today are much of an accomplishment considering the competition. Besides, ratings does not equal quality. Two and a Half Men is still one of the highest rated comedies on TV (I think only Big Bang Theory is #1). Does that mean that show is one of the best shows on TV and Ashton Kutcher is one of the best comedic actors on TV. As a person who grew up on SNL, I am disappointed that the show has become mediocre over the last decade or 15 years. This cast is better than ones in the late 90s and early 2000s, but it is still mediocre comedy. I think Michaels has a big responsibility for that. I think if you think that they replace Michaels that the show will tank, you are crazy. Yes, it almost did when they did in 1980, but that was because they replaced him with someone with zero comedy experience and they replaced the entire original cast. Plus SNL hadn't become the institution it is today. Different situation.
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I think that's the most shocking news here.
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April 6, 2012, 8:02 a.m. CST
SNL gets higher ratings than any NBC scripted show in primetime...Well
by Samuel Fulmer
I'm not going to knock SNL, but doesn't this seem to indicate that NBC is a sinking ship that will soon reach rock bottom? When your top rated show is something that airs new episodes maybe what 16 times a season, that's an indication that something is terribly wrong.
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Is because everything is based on stupid puns that are funny for the first ten seconds but then get dragged out for five minutes. Call me old fashioned, but I think a comedy skit should develop and not shoot its wad at the beginning.
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April 6, 2012, 8:27 a.m. CST
Really Herc....You're defending crap by saying it's better than competing crap.
by cookylamoo
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The movie cracks me up.
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Geez, I feel old. I still think of him as one of the new cast. I only just learned his name!
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Yeah, I agree. The fact that SNL is the highest rated scripted series is an indictment on the NBC primetime line up and the poor mismangement of NBC over the years rather than SNL's success. In the 2010-2011 season, the second highest rated NBC scripted series (L&O:SVU) was 55th in the rankings. It was behind shows that were canceled by other networks for low ratings (Mr. Sunshine and Shit My Dad Says along with once canceled and then renewed Breakin In). So other networks would cancel virtually every single NBC scripted shows for low ratings. Only The Office was in the top 50 shows in terms of ratings (13th) and that show has taken a nose dive in the ratings since Steve Carrell left. SNL at its best ratings doesn't crack the top 40 in the primetime ratings. For a show that is on at 11:30 on a Saturday night, that is good although it has very little competition. But let's not pretend that if it was on a real network that those numbers are as good as Herc suggested.
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April 6, 2012, 8:54 a.m. CST
Those of you who praise the fist five seasons as the best are missing a BIG point.
by jawsfan
Much of the first five seasons was hit-or-miss too. The show had the novelty of being the first of its kind, or at least somewhat unusual for its time. It was essentially "counterculture". Now the show IS the culture. It can't possibly be the same kind of show it was in the Seventies because times have changed, the taste of the culture has changed, etc. There were some very innovative, creative, and funny sketches with the original cast, but there were just as many (if not more) misfires and flat sketches. Their batting average then was about the same as SNL's is now. But we tend to only remember the funny ones, and so in our collective memories "everything the original cast did was funny". But you have to remember --- by looking back at the original cast you are looking at FIVE YEARS worth of sketches spread out over about 110 episodes. ANYONE can cherry-pick about thirty or forty funny sketches from 110 shows and build them up in their mind to be "representative" of the overall period. I have the first two seasons of SNL on DVD and I can tell you without reservation that much of what was in those episodes was mediocre at best. In some of those episodes, especially in the first season, there were only a handful of actual sketches AT ALL -- a LOT of time was devoted to the Muppets and extra host monologues and the musical guests, some of whom did three songs instead of the usual two. Contrary to popular memory, every sketch or "bit" on SNL in the early days was not memorable. But the one (or maybe two) every couple of weeks added up over time. Pick any consecutive years of the show starting in, say, 1985 or 1986 and you can find just as many memorable and hysterical segments as you could with the 1975-1980 cast.
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The last sentence should have read "Pick any FIVE consecutive years of the show...."
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I don't know if he will make it as a headliner of a movie, but he should be able to be a supporting actor in movies for years to come. There are enough SNL alumni in Hollywood that most SNLers with any talent can linger on in Hollywood for years. If Sandler likes him, he will have a movie/TV career for life no matter how often you fail (see David Spade, Rob Schneider, Kevin James, Nick Swardson, etc.).
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Especially in the first years, sasso, debra, aries spears, nicole sullivan,phil lamarr, pat killbane, the original cast, when it gelled together it was fucking hilarious. They pulled no punches. and im sure they could have gone more over the top.
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Hot Rod is one of the best comedies out there.
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to a post about Saturday Night Live? You have to be a special kind of Fucktard for that.
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The pop culture skits outweigh anything else, especially in the past ten years. SNL always did pop culture jokes, but it's just gotten tedious by this point. And they have no clue how to handle politics post Palin. The Obama stuff isn't even funny and feels like it's added just because it has to be. I wish they were more biting with the political humor like they used to be and could get past the gay jokes.
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Which is what Samberg has done his best work in. He'll be missed for that I guess.
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Look at the early "golden years", watch a full episode from any of those seasons. Their hit to flop ratio wasn't that much different. The show isn't it's best right now, but if it has one or two decent sketches a show, it's on par with most seasons.
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April 6, 2012, 10:15 a.m. CST
There was a period when I watched SNL just for digital shorts
by happybunni
But those days are long gone. I did watch the recent Lohan episode to see how bad she messes up
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you're right. People watch too many of the Best ofs and think every show and skit was like those. Not even close. In fact, 1986 might be the worst year for SNL and that was years ago.
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I was in high school when SNL debuted and remember it well. As much as people love that original cast, it was absolutely hit and miss. The great sketches and characters are remembered and shown in clip shows. But for every great bit was one that fell flat. Even John Belushi, Bill Murray and Chevy Chase could be unfunny in badly conceived and poorly written sketches. To be fair, it can't be easy to write all new bits, some tailored for a new host ,week after week.
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I'd say it was 1988-1992. Perfect mix of original skits, political skits, pop culture skits, and music performances. The only somewhat weak link was weekend update, but it's been that way forever.
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April 6, 2012, 11:35 a.m. CST
Bottom line: SNL is a highly profitable corporate product regardless of quality
by OutsideChance
The show is cheap to produce, has little competition and serves as an effective marketing vehicle for movies and other TV shows. It is no longer edgy and will never again be edgy because that is not what the network wants. It is late night comfort food, sometimes amusing and sometimes not. It's basically no different than Leno at this point.
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Just because I consider the peak years 1988-1992 doesn't mean I think the show is at it's worst now and needs to be canceled.
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You can't beat that cast or the writing from that period. That is when my friends and I would actually look forward to watching the show.
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It is impossible to hit it out of the park on every sketch week in and week out even in their best years. The difference was that the original cast and some of the other casts (the All Star Cast or the Carvey/Hartman/etc. cast) had a far better batting average than any cast over the last decade or two. Seriously, when Belushi or Murphy or Carvey or Crystal etc. hit it out of the park, they were pure comedy gold. Stuff of legend. Other than a select few sketch which are mostly Digital Shorts (Dick in the Box, Lazy Sunday, etc.), there have not been many legendary sketches over the last decade. One thing past casts were able to do that recent casts haven't been able to do is be able to do re-occuring characters than are not just the same sketch different circumstances. Has there ever been a Gillie or MacGruber sketch (for example)that wasn't just the same sketch with a different set up?
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SNL last great era was when Will Ferrell, Chris Katan, and a few others was on. The only thing worth watching was the Digital Shorts, now that's done I won't be tuning in. Except during election season.
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April 6, 2012, 2 p.m. CST
But in the first few years they didn't have lawyers crawling down their necks.
by cookylamoo
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In fact when 30 Rock parodies the sketches on SNL their satire is dead on.
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It shows that NBC really is the life-sucker out of it. I'm sure during Fey's reign as head writer she could have taken the show to some different places, but NBC is resistant to anything too far out. Thus the repetitive pop culture sections that date the show.
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I'm 28 years old, am active in sketch comedy around Chicago, with no desire to ever make a career out of it. I love the original cast of SNL, I lament most of the 80's cast of SNL, and I enjoyed the early 90's and some of the stuff up until just after Ferrell left. Even then it was on a downward spiral. It's not that sketch comedy isn't my humor. It's that SNL just isn't funny.
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April 7, 2012, 8:58 a.m. CST
Lorne is retiring after Season 40 and Fey is taking over...
by ShelbKis
A little birdie told me so. And SNL is usually still funny. As mentioned in a previous talkback, watch full episodes from the original cast years and it's just as hit and miss and some times entire episodes are unwatchable. There was an entire episode with musical performances and other episodes that were nearly 50% musical performances. Some skits went had NO laughs in them at all. The production was a mess half the time. It's the same then as it is now in terms of quality.
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Yeah, you know the rest.
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April 7, 2012, 4:43 p.m. CST
Paul Brittain gone? No more Lord Cecil Wyndemere?!?
by The_guy_in_the_rated_R_movie
Sad...I WANT SWEETS!!
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Someone asked about using "also" in the title, instead of "too". They are identical in meaning (they both mean "in addition"). It is a common usage of the word also. Writers avoid using the same word every time. The 70s were the best of SNL. That level of talent has only been approached since then.
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It seems to me that when other casts had a hit, it was one of those shots to left field that clear the stadium. Nowadays, it seems that when SNL has a hit, it's a blooper that manages to dribble out of the infield under the glove of the second baseman. So, for me, it's not even so much about the number of hits that other casts had in the past, it's the legendary status of those skits versus the "well, that was better than most of the crap they do now" status of their current hits.
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Is that too controversial?
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Because there aren't and have really never been THAT many Jews on the cast. Comedy has more Jews in front of the camera than most of the rest of Hollywood so Jews will naturally be on SNL. And again, there aren't that many. And it's not like the content is overtly Jewish. How about asking for more non-whites? Don't be a Hitler, dude.
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The hit/miss ratio has always been pretty wonky, and certainly tastes in humor will always be both generational and personal. My perception is that SNL has become for its participants part of a journey rather than a destination. The cast in '75 wasn't walking in assuming they could parlay their success on SNL to a more lucrative career elsewhere. Now, the show often feels like an audition instead of a fully-realized program.
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when Samberg and the Lonely Island were first brought on. The worst episodes are still the ones without a Digital Short. (Or, yes, when the Digital Short is lame, which certainly does happen.) Don't know where else they could inject their madness in little bursts, and not sure they could sustain anything long-form. Maybe they can replace the Robert Smigel cartoon outright, and keep running Lonely Island-produced Digital Shorts even if Andy isn't "on the show" anymore?
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