Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Why 'SNL' could be ending, according to Kenan Thompson amid dwindling views and slashed 2022 cast
Fox News ^ | August 3, 2022 6:42pm EDT | Caroline Thayer

Posted on 08/03/2022 10:04:24 PM PDT by conservative98

Rumors continue to swirl around the demise of one of the few sketch-comedy shows remaining, "Saturday Night Live."

With tanking ratings, a dwindling all-star cast and creator Lorne Michaels' contract expiring imminently, the show might not be "live from New York" for much longer.

In a recent interview with Charlamagne Tha God, the longest tenured cast member of "SNL," Kenan Thompson, alluded to the end being near.

When asked about the rumors the show would be ending, he said, "There could be a lot of validity to that rumor because 50's a good year to stop at."

Thompson is referring to three seasons from now, when Michaels' contract with NBC expires.

The reason for the potential ending of "SNL" could be related to the rating's debacle, with the season 47 premiere recording only 4.9 million total viewers. The season 46 premiere in 2020 raked in over 8.2 million viewers, per a Nielsen report, meaning loss in viewership was just below 50 percent.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: alecbaldwin; halynahutchins; harveyweinstein; joelsouza; lornemichaels; mediawingofthednc; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; ronklain; rust; saturdaynightlive; saturdaynightvile; snl; thankgod; thewhatnow; thewhonow; woke
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-95 next last
To: dfwgator
SNL died years ago.

The last truly funny people on that show were Phil Hartman (RIP), Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz. After that, not so much.

They went woke and did this to themselves. That's what happens to woke comics/comedy shows.

If you remember "In Living Color" they went after EVERYONE, none of that woke B.S. That show was also the last time Jim Carrey was funny too. After that he became some woke libtard a-hole and full on commie bastard.

41 posted on 08/04/2022 4:43:54 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: usconservative

oops, sorry!


42 posted on 08/04/2022 4:44:10 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator
I think the SNL of the 1990s was very good as well. Probably even better than the 1970s as many of the early shows were uneven.

Dennis Miller, Jon Lovitz, Mike Myers, Victoria Jackson, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider to name a few from the 1990s era. Many of those were conservatives by the way, as you pointed out.

Over the past 20 years, SNL became less edgy and increasingly politically correct, which is toxic to good comedy. Then when Trump became president, it became just mean and unfunny all around. The nadir of the show during the Trump era was the cringe-worthy "Mueller Christmas" skit in which the women of SNL sang about their hopes of criminal indictments for Trump in time for Christmas to the tune of "All I Want For Christmas." It was totally awful. Of course, as we all know now, Mueller came up with nada and the skanky girls of SNL got coal in their stockings.

43 posted on 08/04/2022 4:44:15 AM PDT by SamAdams76 (3,643,600 users on Truth Social)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

No introspection done as to why the ratings suck.

SNL was funny in the 80s with Eddie Murphy and later with Phil Hartman. That was when everyone was fair game. I remember the Bush-Dukakis debates and they had a lectern floor elevator raise Dukakis to the same height as Bush. Of course they made fun of Bush too. It was good laugh at the expense of both politicians.

That skit would never fly today. It made fun of a Democrat. Amd in today’s environment, they must be protected by the media.


44 posted on 08/04/2022 5:06:18 AM PDT by stratboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

SNL sketch Translator (Trump dog)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yfCCwEf_J5A


45 posted on 08/04/2022 5:12:17 AM PDT by lowbridge ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SamAdams76

I really think the SNL writers send their scripts to the DNC for approval.


46 posted on 08/04/2022 5:13:14 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

The original cast was a piece of comedy history. The second generation was 60% of that. Then it ended, about 1995.


47 posted on 08/04/2022 5:25:07 AM PDT by lurk (u)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

Hartman was freakin’ brilliant...read some where that Reagan actually loved this skit.


48 posted on 08/04/2022 5:30:20 AM PDT by major_gaff (University of Parris Island, Class of '84)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

SNL has been “Weekend at Bernie’s” for DECADES…

Bury that carcass, already!


49 posted on 08/04/2022 5:31:17 AM PDT by joethedrummer (We can't vote our way out of this, folks..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

With all the material out there they could legitimately be a top rated show. But they refuse to go back to funny stuff and insist on being Leftwing political activists poorly disguised as comedians.


50 posted on 08/04/2022 5:34:55 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

I loved SNL when it first started. They were merciless in their humor. They ridiculed both left and right and celebrities with wild abandon. They were funny.

They then WENT WOKE and now the GO BROKE.


51 posted on 08/04/2022 5:52:38 AM PDT by cpdiii (CANE CUTTER-DECKHAND-ROUGHNECK-OILFIELD CONSULTANT-GEOLOGIST-PILOT-PHARMACIST)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

Too bad there was nothing to joke about in the White House now. Poor little libs.


52 posted on 08/04/2022 5:59:28 AM PDT by bray (The Vax is fake and deadly)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

There is nothing funny anymore.


53 posted on 08/04/2022 6:08:27 AM PDT by yldstrk (Bingo! We have a winner!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: usconservative

If you remember “In Living Color” they went after EVERYONE, none of that woke B.S. That show was also the last time Jim Carrey was funny too. After that he became some woke libtard a-hole and full on commie bastard

This one was a classic...

Hour of Power
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRHBPa25odE


54 posted on 08/04/2022 6:12:42 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

YES!!!


55 posted on 08/04/2022 7:14:12 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: usconservative

In Living Color wouldn’t get away with most of that stuff today. Especially the Oswald Bates character.


56 posted on 08/04/2022 7:16:17 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

From what we have learned about Reagan’s deep and personal knowledge was revealed in a large discovery of handwritten notes, that skit is accurate.

The Secret Service also says that after the genial Reagan was finished with his public day he would spend much of his private time studying and reading work-related materials.

Looking at Reagan’s life and career there was much going on behind his public charm, his degree in economics, his hidden years as a Cavalry officer, 6 years as a union leader during the communist investigations, his adoption of carrying a pistol, 2 terms as California Governor during its wild 1960s era, and his ability to confound his critics by pulling victory out of negotiations with foreign leaders while the media would always portray him as outclassed.


57 posted on 08/04/2022 7:34:30 AM PDT by ansel12 ( Kill a Commie for Mommy, proud NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

Also Hartman nailed Clinton.

“Jim, let me tell you somethin’: there’s gonna be a whole bunch of things we don’t tell Mrs. Clinton.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYt0khR_ej0


58 posted on 08/04/2022 7:38:00 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

CNN) — Chevy Chase didn’t look like Gerald Ford and didn’t sound like Gerald Ford. But in the mid-1970s, when “Saturday Night Live” first went on the air, Chase — then a writer and cast member of the show — made his impression of the president, rife with pratfalls and slapstick, the talk of the country.

He also made the president a butt of jokes, which was intentional, Chase told CNN in an interview.

“[Ford] was a sweet man, a terrific man — [we] became good friends after, but ... he just tripped over things a lot,” he said. “It’s not that I can imitate him so much that I can do a lot of physical comedy and I just made it, I just went after him. And ... obviously my leanings were Democratic and I wanted [Jimmy] Carter in and I wanted [Ford] out, and I figured look, we’re reaching millions of people every weekend, why not do it.”

Over the years, “Saturday Night Live’s” political satires have become a mainstay of the show, sometimes to startling effect.

Al Franken — now the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota — and his then writing partner, Tom Davis, wrote a wicked takeoff of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s book, “The Final Days,” which included Dan Aykroyd as a bitter Richard Nixon and John Belushi as a toadying Henry Kissinger. In the mid-’80s, a sketch starring Phil Hartman as Ronald Reagan showed the president, often lampooned as forgetful, with a razor-sharp command of the Iran-Contra situation, cutting deals in Arabic and barking orders at his staff.

More recently, Dana Carvey’s malaprop-laden impression of George H.W. Bush, Hartman’s puppy-dog Bill Clinton, Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush and Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin have embedded themselves in the culture.

Though Chase believes the show leans left, and Fey’s Palin is an attempt to hurt the Republicans, Marc Liepis, NBC Universal senior director of late night publicity, had no comment.

CNN: You mean to tell me in the back of your mind you were thinking, hey I want Carter ...

Chase: Oh, yeah.

CNN: And I’m going to make him look bad.

Chase: Oh yeah. What do you think they’re doing now, you think they’re just doing this because Sarah’s funny? No, I think that the show is very much more Democratic and liberal-oriented, that they are obviously more for Barack Obama. [In the ‘70s], out of the Nixon era, and it was not unlikely that I might go that direction.

CNN: I talked to one political pundit who said, I think Chevy Chase cost Ford the presidency.

Chase: When you have that kind of a venue and power where you can reach so many millions of people and you’ve become a show that people watch, you know, you can affect a lot of people, and humor does it beautifully, because humor is perspective and has a way of making judgment calls. ... So I think there was no question that it had major effect and in fact, in speaking with his family and then later him, and even reading some of his books ... he felt so, too.


59 posted on 08/04/2022 7:40:22 AM PDT by ansel12 ( Kill a Commie for Mommy, proud NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: conservative98

The Time is right for it to do so. They’ve lost their
ability to make us laugh. Raunchy, gross, skits and petty remarks are certainly no substitutions for neither ‘The Church
Lady’ nor Roseanne Rosanna Anna Danna’.


60 posted on 08/04/2022 7:53:34 AM PDT by V K Lee (Our CONSTITUTION. Written with DIVINE assistance by very wise men. A document unlike any other.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-95 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson