I watched when it was Belushi, Aykroyd, Chase, Radner, Tomlin. i.e. when it was good. This show hasn't been good, ooooooh, for more than a decade. The fact that people still watch that crap is astonishing. Nothing personal, but if having no taste were illegal, you'd be looking at a life sentence (you have to watch game shows to get the chair). I'd be embarassed to admit that I still watch that crap.
"We're the media. We don't care because we don't have to."
It's been longer than that -- the period you recall was in the mid-Seventies.
I think the quality of Saturday Night Live's brand of humor is simply indicative not only of the degradation of morality in the United States but of the fruit of public education as well. Where is the demand for excellence that was once the norm? Is it just me or has the television industry completely run out of innovative ideas and talent or is it that offensiveness now passes for innovation? Maybe it's just that in light of the demand networks have for youthful writers, there is just nothing in their experience that serves as a point of comparison.