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September 15, 2008

‘Saturday Night Live’ still sux

Fortunately, especially with Obama not being there, I forgot all about watching this year’s season opener. Apparently, behind the teasing hype, I once again missed nothing. (I can’t recall watching more than five minutes of a single show in at least seven years.)

I don’t think the earliest years of SNL were necessarily the glory years, although they were good, even very good, and, I’m old enough to remember, if not the first season, not too long afterward. The mid-80s would rank in the same range, though I never was that much of a Joe Piscopo fan, either on SNL or elsewhere.

But, I thought the late 1980s had the best cast ever.

Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman were just spot-on. The show had possibly its best-ever set of female leads at that time. Franken and other full-time or part-time old-timers were still there. Dennis Miller was surely the best news anchorperson since Aykroyd and Curtin as a team, and not yet being a right-wing nutball. Jon Lovitz was great. A. Whitney Brown was a good ensemble player.

And, with talent like that, you could hide Kevin Nealon’s limitations, then try to nurture Rob Schneider (modest success), Mike Myers (great success), and Adam Sandler (moderate-good success).

A good, brief summary of SNL’s casts and history is here.

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